Celsus the Platonist

An eclectic Platonist and polemical writer against Christianity, who flourished

towards the end of the second century. Very little is known about his personal

history except that he lived during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, that his literary

activity falls between the years 175 and 180, and that he wrote a work entitled

’alethès lógos ("The True Word", or "The True Discourse"), against the Christian

religion. He is one of several writers named Celsus who appeared as opponents

of Christianity in the second century; he is probably the Celsus who was known

as a friend of Lucian, although some doubt this, because Lucian's friend was an

Epicurean, and the author of the "True Discourse" shows himself a Platonist. It is

generally supposed that Celsus was a Roman. His intimate acquaintance,

however, with the Jewish religion and his knowledge, such as it was, of Egyptian

ideas and customs incline some historians to think he belonged to the Eastern

portion of the empire. Those who believe him to have been a Roman explain his

knowledge of Jewish and Egyptian matters by assuming that he acquired that

knowledge either by travelling, or by mingling with the foreign population of Rome.

Celsus owes his prominence in the history of Christian polemics not so much to

the pre-eminent character of his work, as to the circumstance that about the year

240 a copy of the work was sent to Origen by his friend Ambrosius, with a

request to write a refutation of it. This Origen, after some hgesitation, consented

to do, and embodied his answer in the treatise "Against Celsus" (katà Kélsou).

So careful is Origen to cite the very words of his opponent that it is possible to

reconstruct the text of Celsus from Origen's answer, a task which was

accomplished by Jachmann in 1846, and more successfully by Keim in 1873.

The original of Celsus's treatise having perished, the text reconstructed from

Origen (about nine-tenths of the original has in this way been recovered) is our

only primary source.

Celsus's work may be divided as follows: a preface, an attack on Christianity

from the point of view of Judaism, an attack on Christianity from the point of view

of philosophy, a refutation of Christian teachings in detail, and an appeal to

Christians to adopt paganism. In the preface Celsus forecasts the general plan of

his attack by describing in the first place the general character of Christianity and

then proceeding to accuse both Christian and Jew of "separatism", that is to say,

of arrogating to themselves a superior wisdom, while in reality their ideas

concerning the origin of the universe, etc., are common to all peoples and to the

wise men of antiquity. In the second portion, Celsus argues that Christ did not

fulfil the Messianic expectations of the Hebrew people. Christ, he says, claimed

to be of virgin birth; in reality, He was the son of a Jewish village woman, the wife

of a carpenter. The flight into Egypt, the absence of any divine intervention in

favour of the Mother of Jesus, who was driven forth with her husband, and other

arguments are used to show that Christ was not the Messias. During the course

of His public ministry Christ could not convince His countrymen that His mission

was divine. As followers He had ten or twelve "infamous publicans and

fishermen". Such is not the company that befits a god. (This is one out of many

instances in which Celsus suddenly passes from the Jewish to the pagan point

of view.) As to the miracles ascribed to Christ, some, said Celsus, were merely

fictitious narratives, the others, if they did really take place, are not more

wonderful than the deeds of the Egyptians and other adepts in the magic arts. He

next proceeds (cf. Orig., "Contra Celsum", II) to upbraid those Jews who,

"abandoning the law of their fathers", allowed themselves to be deceived by one

whom their nation had condemned, and changed their name from Hebrew to

Christian. Jesus did not fulfil His promises to the Jews; instead of succeeding as

they should have expected the Messias to succeed, He failed even to keep the

confidence and loyalty of His chosen followers. His alleged prediction of His

death is an invention of His Disciples, and the fable of His Resurrection is nothing

new to those who remember the similar stories related of Zamolxis, Pythagoras,

and Rhampsinit. If Christ rose from the dead, why did He appear to His Disciples

only, and not the His persecutors and to those who mocked Him?

In the third portion (cf. Origen, op. cit., III) Celsus inaugurates a general attack on

Christianity from the point of view of philosophy. He upbraids both Jews and

Christians with their ridiculous disagreement in matters of religion, whereas, in

fact, both religions rest on the same principles: the Jews revolted from the

Egyptians and the Christians from the Jews; sedition was in both cases the true

cause of separation. Next, he upbraids the Christians with lack of unity among

themselves; so many sects are there, and so different, that they have nothing

common save the name Christian. Like almost all the pagan opponents of

Christianity he finds fault with Christians because they exclude from their

fellowship the "wise and good", and consort only with the ignorant and sinful. He

misunderstands the Christian teaching regarding the Incarnation, "as if", he says,

"God could not by His own power accomplish the work which He sent Christ on

earth to accomplish". With this misunderstanding is connected Celsus's false

view of the Christian teaching on the subject of Divine Providence and God's

special care of mankind as compared with the plants and animals. The world, he

says, was not "made for man's use and benefit", but for the perfection and

completion of God's plan of the universe. In the fourth part of his "True Discourse"

(cf. Origen, op. cit., V) Celsus takes up the teachings of the Christians in detail

and refutes them from the point of view of the history of philosophy. Whatever is

true in the doctrines of the Christians was borrowed, he contends, from the

Greeks, the Christians having added nothing except their own perverse

misunderstanding of the tenets of Plato, Heraclitus, Socrates, and other Greek

thinkers. "The Greeks", he says, "tell us plainly what is wisdom and what is

mere appearance, the Christians ask us at the outset to believe what we do not

understand, and invoke the authority of one who was discredited even among his

own followers." In like manner the Christian teaching concerning the Kingdom of

God is merely a corruption of Plato's doctrine; when the Christians tell us that

God is a spirit, they are merely repeating the saying of the Stoics that God is "a

spirit penetrating all and encompassing all". Finally, the Christian idea of a future

life is borrowed from the Greek poets and philosophers; the doctrine of the

resurrection of the body is simply a corruption of the world-old idea of

transmigration of souls. In the fifth, and last portion of his work (cf. Origen, op.

cit., VII, lxii sqq.; VIII) Celsus invites the Christians to abandon their "cult" and

join the religion of the majority. He defends the worship of idols, the invocation of

demons (daímones), the celebration of popular feasts, urging among other

considerations, that the Christian who enjoys the bounties of nature ought, in

common gratitude, to render thanks to the powers of nature. He concludes his

treatise by an appeal to Christians to abandon their "vain hope" of establishing

the rule of Christianity over all the earth; he invites them to give up their "life

apart", and take their place among those who by word and deed and active

service contribute to the welfare of the empire. In an epilogue he promises

another work (whether it was ever written we do not know) in which he is to

explain in detail how those who would and could follow his philosophy of life

should live.

The aim of Celsus's work is different from that of the other opponents of

Christianity in the early centuries. He exhibits comparatively little of the

bitterness which characterized their attacks. He does not descend to the lower

level of pagan polemics. For instance, he omits the customary accusation of

atheism, immorality, "Thyestian feasts and Œdipodean gatherings", accusations

which were very commonly urged against the Christians for the purpose of

rousing popular indignation. His aim was, perhaps, eirenic. His appeal to his

Christian contemporaries to abandon their separatism and make common cause

with the pagan subjects of the empire may have been more than a rhetorical

device. It may have been inspired by a sincere wish to "convert" the Christians to

an appreciation and adoption of the pagan philosophy of life. Indeed, Origen

acknowledges that his opponent is not blind to the unfavourable side of pagan

religion, especially to the abuses of particular cults and the absurdities of popular

mythology. It is only just to Celsus, therefore, to ascribe to him all possible

sincerity in his wish to "help all men", and to bring all men to the ideal of "one

religion". On the other hand, Celsus['s attitude towards the Christian religion was,

it hardly need be said, that of a pagan not well informed on all points and devoid

of that sympathy which alone would enable him to understand the meaning of the

most essential tenets of Christianity. He was remarkably well read in pagan

literature, and, besides, was acquainted with the religious ideas of the

"barbarous" peoples.

His knowledge of Judaism and Christianity was such as could not have been

obtained from books alone. He must have consorted with Jewish and Christian

teachers, and with the representatives of the Gnostic sects. Hence arose the

danger of confounding with the official doctrine of Christianity the tenets of a

particular school of Gnostic interpretations, a danger which Celsus did not

succeed in escaping, as is evident in many passages of his work, and as Origen

was very careful to point out. He was acquainted with the Old Testament only in

part. He used the "books of the Christians", the Gospels and, possibly, some of

the Pauline Epistles, but on the latter point there is room for doubt. Celsus may

have obtained his knowledge of St. Paul's teaching by conversation with

Christians. There can be no doubt, however, that he used the Gospels, not

merely some proto-evangelical documents, but the four narratives substantially

as we have them to-day. Celsus took pains to make himself acquainted with the

beliefs of his Christian contemporaries, and he is unquestionably conscious of

his knowledge of Christianity. Yet, he has no suspicion of the distinction between

the universally accepted teachings of the "great Church" of the Christians and the

doctrines peculiar to Ophites, Marcionites, and other heretical sects. Moreover,

he is, if indeed well-intentioned, yet a partisan; he adopts the current Roman

notion that Christianity is merely an offshoot of Judaism; in regard to the person

of Christ he exhibits none of that respect which the later Platonists manifested

towards the founder of Christianity; towards the miracles ascribed to Christ he

shows a sceptical spirit, at one time describing them as fables invented by the

Disciples, at another paralleling them with the wonders wrought by Egyptian

sorcerers; he looks upon the Resurrection of Christ as either a silly story

invented by the followers of Jesus, or a ghost- apparition such as is narrated of

many of the heroes of antiquity. Above all, he fails to attain a correct

understanding of the doctrine of Incarnation and atonement. When he comes to

speak of the manner of life of his Christian neighbours, he, in common with all his

pagan fellow-writers, cannot see the reasonableness of Christian humility, nor

can he reconcile with the Christian hope of conquering the world to Christ, the

fact that Christian proselytizers shun encounters with the learned and powerful

and seek out the poor and the sinful, women, children, and slaves, and preach

the Gospel to them. His manner too, in spite of the probable eirenic scope of his

work, is that of a special pleader for paganism who uses all the resources of

dialectic and rhetoric, all the artifices of wit and sarcasm to make his opponents

seem ridiculous. Perhaps the secret of his efforts to render Christianity ridiculous

is betrayed in his open disapproval of the attitude of aloofness which Christians

adopted towards the interest and welfare of the empire. "You refuse to serve the

state," he says, "in peace or in war; you wish its downfall; you use all the force

of your magic arts to acomplish the ruin of mankind".

Celsus anticipated in his criticism of the New Testament the objections which

have in our own time become identified with the names of Strauss and Renan.

Similarly, in the objections which he urged from the point of view of philosophy he

anticipated in a striking manner the arguments used by modern rationalists and

evolutionists. Too much stress has, perhaps, been laid on the last point.

Nevertheless, it is interesting, to say the least, to find a second-century

opponent of Christianity off-setting the Christian idea of a direct divine origin of

man by the theory that men and animals have a common natural origin, and that

the human soul is sprung from the animal soul.

Celsus is generally described as a Platonist in philosophy. This is correct, if not

understood in a too exclusive sense. Although he antedates Plotinus, the first

great neo-Platonist, by almost half a century, he belongs to the age of

syncretism in which Greek philosophy, realizing the inadequacy of its own

resources, developed an eclectic spiritualism which welcomed and strove to

assimilate the religious teachings of the various Oriental peoples. This syncretic

tendency was resorted to as a remedy against the materialism and scepticism in

which philosophy had, as it were, run to seed. Thus Celsus draws his philosophy

not only from the genuine works of Plato, but also from the pseudo-Platonic

writings, especially the so-called letters of Plato, from Heraclitus, Empedocles,

the Stoics, the Epicureans, and from the religious systems of the Egyptians,

Assyrians, Persians, Hindus, etc. The fundamental principles, however, on which

he builds this syncretic system, are Platonic. God, he teaches, is the ineffable,

unknowable One, the Source of all things, Himself without source, the

All-pervading Logos, the World-Soul. God is a spirit, and whatever has come

directly from His hands is spirit. Material things He made through the agency of

created gods. The substance of material things is eternal matter; all force is spirit

(angel or demon) indwelling in matter. The human soul is divine in its origin; it

was placed in the body on account of some primordial sin. All change, all growth

and decay in the universe, is not the result of chance or violence but part of a

plan of development in which spirits minister to the design of an all-seeing,

infinitely beneficent spirit. Even the vicissitudes of the idea of God, the various

religions of ancient and modern times, are, says Celsus, part of the divinely

appointed scheme of things. For no matter how the religions of the world may

differ among themselves, they all hold that there is one God who is supreme.

Moreover, the various mythological concepts must be understood to mean the

same powers (dunámeis) which are worshipped in different countries under

different names. Those are the beneficent powers which give increase and fruit to

the tiller of the soil. Christians are, therefore, ungrateful for the gifts of nature

when the refuse to worship the deities who symbolize the forces of nature.

Finally these powers, spirits, or demons, mediate between God and man, and

are the immediate source of prophecy and wonder-working. This last point is

important. To understand Celsus's criticism of the Gospel narrative it is

necessary to remember that he was a firm believer in the possibility of cures by

magic.

Celtus's treatise is contained in Origen's work; for the Greek text cf. KOETSCHAU, Origenes Werke

(Leipzig, 1899), also MIGNE, P. G., XI. A German translation of the treatise is published by KEIM,

Celsus' wahres Wort (Zurich, 1873); PATRICK, The Apology of Origen in reply to Celsus

(Edinburgh, 1897); BIGG, Neoplatonism (London, 1895); GEM, Christian Platonists of Alexandria

(Oxford, 1886); LIGHTFOOT, Apostolic Fathers, Part II, II (London, 1885); FAIRWEATHER, Origen

(New York, 1901); CRUTWELL, Library History of Early Christianity (London, 1893), II, 498 sqq.;

KAYSER, Le philosophie de Celse (Strasburg, 1843); PÉLAGAUD, Etude sur Celse (Paris, 1878);

BUHL, La polémique de Celse (Strasburg, 1844); EHRHARD, Altchristliche Litteratur, Part I

(Freiburg, 1900), 335 sqq.; HARNACK, Gesch. der altchristlichen Litteratur (Berlin, 1897), II, pt. I,

314-5; BARDENHEWER, Gesch. der altkirchlichen Litteratur (Freiburg, 1892), I, 158 sqq.; FUNK,

Kirchengeschichtl. Abhandl. u. Untersuch. (Paderborn, 1899), II, 152 sqq.

William Turner

Transcribed by WGKofron

With thanks to Fr. John Hilkert, Akron, Ohio

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III

Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org