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I am not now speaking of the apostles, whom I have considered honest men; yet I should suppose that even these men might have much good at heart, although they should conduct exactly in the way which I have suggested. And how little time would it require to put this matter beyond all possible refutation? Not so long, I conceive, as did elapse before that work was attempted by Celsus.
It cannot sound to them very much like the good news of Jesus. Culture is a precious thing, but no culture, without the help of divine grace and the responsive affection on our part which that grace induces, will ever knit men together in a kingdom of God, a spiritual society. As long ago as the second century Celsus understood that.
On the contrary, as Celsus, whatever he may have been except a Jew, could not with a good conscience have undertaken an actual defence of Judaism, it was quite natural that he should choose a Jew as an advocate of the Jewish religion, and put into his mouth, like a second Philo, ideas which at all events sound more Platonic than Epicurean.
Of this we possess considerable fragments, especially the account of the grammarians, and the lives of Terence, Horace, and Pliny. peri episaemon pornon, an account of those courtesans who had become renowned through their wit, beauty, or genius. De Vitiis Corporalibus, a list of bodily defects, written perhaps to supplement the medical works of Celsus and Scribonius Largus.
I think there are of these among the old Latin writers but two, Pliny and Celsus if these ever fall into your hands, you will find that they speak much more rudely of their art than I do; I but pinch it, they cut its throat.
But this Logos had become at that time to such an extent the common property of Greek philosophy, that the Jew, under whose mask Celsus at the outset attacked the Christians, could quite naturally express his willingness to acknowledge the Logos as the Son of God.
He makes good use of the Jewish prophecies; but he brings forward no proofs in support of the truth of the gospel history; they were not wanted, as Celsus and the pagans had not considered it necessary to call it into question.
In his time, which the reader will remember was about one hundred and fifty years after the Scriptures were published, many dissensions subsisted amongst Christians, with which they were reproached by Celsus; yet Origen, who has recorded this accusation without contradicting it, nevertheless testifies, that the four Gospels were received without dispute, by the whole church of God under heaven.
Origen indeed speaks of the Celsus to whom he is replying as an Epicurean, and here and there Epicurean opinions are expressed in the fragments of the original work that Origen has preserved. But Origen himself was somewhat puzzled to find that the main principles of the author were rather Platonic or Neo-platonic than Epicurean, and this observation has been confirmed by modern enquiry.
As for Origen himself, the aged, laborious, gifted, zealous teacher of his time, he was just then engaged in answering the works of an Epicurean called Celsus, and on him too the persecution was likely to fall; and Cæcilius prayed earnestly that so great a soul might be kept from such high untrue speculations as were threatening evil at Antioch, and from every deceit and snare which might endanger his inheriting that bright crown which ought to be his portion in heaven.
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