If Peter had seen Jesus descend directly from heaven already adult, then he would have had a good reason to follow him: after all, only divine beings descend from heaven!
Hence the original witness of the earliest apparition of Jesus on earth was Peter, not John the Baptist.
This definitely explains why, according to Celsus's Jew, the first witnesses of the deity of Jesus were the first persecuted Christians: Peter, James and John were the earliest persecuted Christians.
What credible witness beheld this appearance? Or who heard a voice from heaven declaring you to be the Son of God? What proof is there of it, save your own assertion, and the statement of another of those individuals who have been punished along with you?
To confute the Celsus's accusation that the only witnesses of the earliest apparition of Jesus on earth were the Pillars, Origen explains the utility of John the Baptist in the story: he works as an impartial and unbiased witness, not being a Christian and having zero connections a priori with Jesus.
And as it is a Jew who, in the work of Celsus, uses the language to Jesus regarding the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, This is your own testimony, unsupported save by one of those who were sharers of your punishment, whom you adduce, it is necessary for us to show him that such a statement is not appropriately placed in the mouth of a Jew. For the Jews do not connect John with Jesus, nor the punishment of John with that of Christ. And by this instance, this man who boasts of universal knowledge is convicted of not knowing what words he ought to ascribe to a Jew engaged in a disputation with Jesus.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
