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Such were the Gnostics; and to external and prejudiced spectators, whether philosophers, as Celsus and Porphyry, or the multitude, they wore an appearance sufficiently like the Church to be mistaken for her in the latter part of the ante-Nicene period, as she was confused with the pagan mysteries in the earlier.
CELSUS was a physician in the time of Tiberius, and has written eight books, De Medicina, in which he has collected and digested into order all that is valuable on the subject, in the Greek and Roman authors.
The work of Celsus of the end of the first century B. C. is a Latin treatise, probably translated from Greek, and is the surviving medical volume of a complete cyclopaedia of knowledge. In spite of its unpromising origin it is an excellent compendium of its subject and shows a good deal of advance in many respects beyond the Hippocratic position.
Marius Celsus was of Paulinus's opinion; Annius Gallus, being absent and under the surgeon's hands through a fall from his horse, was consulted by letter, and advised Otho to stay for those legions that were marching from Moesia. But after all he did not follow the advice; and the opinion of those that declared for a battle prevailed.
After Celsus comes Dioscorides in the first century A. D. He was a Greek military surgeon of Cilician origin who served under Nero, and in him the Greek intellect is obviously beginning to flag. His work is prodigiously important for the history of botany, yet so far as rational medicine is concerned he is almost negligible.
He therefore sent his brother Titianus, with Proculus, the prefect of the guards, to the army, where the latter was general in reality, and the former in appearance. Celsus and Paulinus had the title of friends and counselors, but not the least authority or power.
This argument is neither more nor less than that of the Pagan Celsus, who said in the second century, that, if the rest of the Roman empire were Christians, it would be overrun by the Barbarians. Independently of the protection, which such a nation might count upon from the moral Governor of the world, let us enquire, upon rational principles, what would be likely to be its fate.
But Celsus is ignorant that the Simonians in no way confess that Jesus is the Son of God, but they say that Simon is the Power of God, telling some marvellous stories about the fellow, who thought that if he laid claim to like powers as those which he thought Jesus laid claim to, he also would be as powerful among men as Jesus is with many. vi. ii.
Tertullian's controversy with Marcion, Augustine's sharp issue with Pelasgius, Ambrose's bold and uncompromising resistance to Arianism, Origen's able reply to Celsus, all show that the great leaders of the Church were not men of weak opinions.
In a word, though Celsus a hundred years before had pronounced “a man weak who should hope to unite the three portions of the earth in a common religion,” that common Catholic faith had been found, and a principle of empire was created which had never before existed. The phenomenon could not be mistaken; and the Roman statesman saw he had to deal with a rival.
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