Against Celsus (248)
Against Celsus (248)
Translated by Frederick Crombie
Contra Celsum is considered to be one of the most important works of early Christian apologetics and is regarded by many as the first treatise in which a Christian philosopher is able to hold his own against an educated pagan. The church historian Eusebius lauded the treatise as an adequate rebuttal to all criticisms the church would ever face and the treatise continued to be cited throughout late antiquity. Preserved entirely in Greek, the text counters the writings of Celsus, a second-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity, who had written a scathing attack on Christianity in his lost treatise The True Word. Among a variety of other charges, Celsus had denounced many Christian doctrines as irrational and criticised Christians themselves as uneducated, deluded, unpatriotic, close-minded towards reason and far too accepting of sinners. Celsus had gone on to accuse Jesus of performing his miracles using black magic rather than actual divine powers and of plagiarising his teachings from Plato. Celsus had warned that Christianity itself was drawing people away from traditional religion, claiming that its growth would lead to a collapse of traditional and conservative values.
Origen composed his Contra Celsum at the request of his patron, a wealthy Christian named Ambrose, who insisted that a Christian needed to write a response. In the treatise itself, which was aimed at an audience of readers interested in Christianity, but had not yet made the decision to convert, Origen responds to Celsus’ arguments point-by-point from the perspective of a Platonic philosopher. After having questioned Celsus’ credibility, Origen analyses Celsus’ criticism with regard to the role of faith in Christianity, the identity of Jesus Christ, the allegorical interpretation of the Bible and the relation between Christianity and traditional Greek religion.
Interestingly, modern scholars note that Origen and Celsus actually agree on many points of doctrine, with both authors emphatically rejecting conventional notions of anthropomorphic deities, idolatry and religious literalism.