The True Word
Encyclopedia
The True Word (Λόγος Ἀληθής) is a treatise in which Celsus
addressed many principal points of Early Christianity
and refuted or argued against their validity. In The True Word Celsus
attacked Christianity in three ways; by refuting its philosophical claims, by marking it as a phenomenon associated with the uneducated and lower class, and by cautioning his audience that it was a danger to the Roman Empire
.
s that were regularly made to the Emperor and the Roman state, sacrifices that were an integral part of Roman politics, religion, and culture. Most Romans could not understand the Christians' insistence on their own superiority and their insistence upon their apparently exclusive path to salvation
. They could also not understand Christianity’s claims that they were a unique religion with a long history reaching back to antiquity
, when the Roman philosophers knew that Christianity had broken off from Judaism relatively recently and still used ancient Jewish texts
both to formulate their theology and to support their religious claims. These Roman writers, who often professed to be loyal members of the Empire and Roman society, were also “troubled by the seeming incoherence of the Christian position toward society and towards the recognized religion of the state”. All of these factors led to Christians being classified as enemies of society. Roman philosophers also attacked Christian moral and ethical principles because “the Christianity of the first century had yet to develop an assailable system of belief or a fixed canon of writings from which such beliefs could be educed”. Celsus was only one among many, including Lucian
, who wrote against Christianity.
, who used Celsus’ writings as starting points to defend Christianity and respond to Celsus’ arguments. Origen stated that Celsus was from the first half of the 2nd century A.D., although the majority of modern scholars have come to a general consensus that Celsus probably wrote around 170 to 180 A.D. Most modern scholars are in agreement that Celsus did not rely on the “rumor
s and hearsay
evidence” that many other Christian detractors of the time period used, but rather drew upon his own observations and displayed knowledge of both the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible, as well as other Jewish and Christian writings.
hastily tied together. He stated that Christians would “weave together erroneous opinions drawn from ancient sources and trumpet them aloud”.
Celsus gave a point by point critique of Christian doctrine, and why it should not have been believed by anyone. He stated that the “virgin” birth story was ridiculous, and that Mary was an adulteress turned out by her husband. His theory was not new, as even Jews at that time were saying the same. The remainder of Christian stories – what now makes up the Christian Bible
- Celsus found very insipid and unappealing compared to Greek and Roman legends of powerful and colorful gods. Celsus also found Christian philosophy lacking when compared to secular philosophy, and declared that “things are stated much better among the Greeks”. Celsus used Plato
as the representative for Greek philosophers and, according to him, when comparing the two philosophical traditions Christianity appeared far worse, as "Plato is not guilty of boasting and falsehood", a crime which Celsus obviously feels is a trademark of Christian theologians. The only connection Celsus made between Greek philosophy and Christianity was when he asserted that “Jesus perverted the words of the philosopher” (i.e. Plato).
When compared with the gods of Roman and Greek mythology, Celsus found the Christian God sadly lacking, and declared that he could not be a god as he was neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. Celsus could deduce no explanation for the actions of the Christian God, such as the floods, natural disasters, and the introduction of evil
into the world, except that God wanted to draw attention to his greatness because he felt human
ity was giving him “less than his due”. Celsus concluded that Christians used the explanation of God "testing" them to disguise the fact that their God was not powerful enough to successfully fight Satan
, but was instead “helpless”. Celsus wrote that Satan was either a mortal invention used by Christians to frighten others into believing their philosophies and joining them, or if he did indeed exist then he was proof that God was not all-powerful, but rather a weak lesser god and a bad one, for only a vindictive and insecure being would punish mankind for being tricked by an evil that he has been too weak to stop.
The apparent “blind faith” of the Christians was bewildering to Celsus, and he used it to further support his claim that Christianity was a false religion. In his opinion, the main tenet of Christianity was “Do not ask questions, just believe” and “Thy faith will save thee".
and worship of a God that was not their own. Celsus listed many reasons for how his Roman readers could easily deduce that Christianity was endangering their unity and the stability of the Empire. Christianity originated from Judaism, whose adherents, although living within the Empire, had already revolted against Roman rule several times. The Christian community then became further divided amongst themselves, and Celsus complained that “matters are determined in different ways by the various sects”. This dissension between different factions within Christianity proved to the Romans that Christians who could not even draw together under their own shared beliefs were naturally a divisive people and not only caused friction within their own philosophy but would disrupt the unity of the Empire. Finally Celsus and other Roman writers believed that “Christians are dangerous precisely because they put the advancement of their beliefs above the common good and the welfare of the state”.
The secrecy in which Christians met and practiced was another problem for Celsus. He commented that they “entered into secret associations with each other contrary to law”. Celsus stated that there was nothing wrong with swearing allegiance to a king or emperor, as he provided the stable environment in which all citizens could freely live, and in return it was the duty of each Roman citizen to assist the Emperor and “labor with him in the maintenance of justice”.
Celsus provided only one solution to solve the problems that he believed Christianity would inevitably create within the Empire. He commanded that Christians must both respect the Emperor and perform rituals to the gods of the Roman state. If they could not or would not participate in the Imperial religion they must not “take any share in the affairs of life; but… depart hence with all speed and leave no posterity behind them”.
Celsus
Celsus was a 2nd century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity. He is known for his literary work, The True Word , written about by Origen. This work, c. 177 is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity.According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an...
addressed many principal points of Early Christianity
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
and refuted or argued against their validity. In The True Word Celsus
Celsus
Celsus was a 2nd century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity. He is known for his literary work, The True Word , written about by Origen. This work, c. 177 is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity.According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an...
attacked Christianity in three ways; by refuting its philosophical claims, by marking it as a phenomenon associated with the uneducated and lower class, and by cautioning his audience that it was a danger to the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
.
Criticism of Christianity Before Celsus
Celsus was only one writer in a long tradition of Roman writers and philosophers who wrote and spoke out against Christianity, feeling that their doctrines were either inscrutable or downright foolish. The primary problem that most Roman citizens and the Imperial government had regarding the Christians was their adamant refusal to participate in the required sacrificeSacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
s that were regularly made to the Emperor and the Roman state, sacrifices that were an integral part of Roman politics, religion, and culture. Most Romans could not understand the Christians' insistence on their own superiority and their insistence upon their apparently exclusive path to salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
. They could also not understand Christianity’s claims that they were a unique religion with a long history reaching back to antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, when the Roman philosophers knew that Christianity had broken off from Judaism relatively recently and still used ancient Jewish texts
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
both to formulate their theology and to support their religious claims. These Roman writers, who often professed to be loyal members of the Empire and Roman society, were also “troubled by the seeming incoherence of the Christian position toward society and towards the recognized religion of the state”. All of these factors led to Christians being classified as enemies of society. Roman philosophers also attacked Christian moral and ethical principles because “the Christianity of the first century had yet to develop an assailable system of belief or a fixed canon of writings from which such beliefs could be educed”. Celsus was only one among many, including Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
, who wrote against Christianity.
Celsus and His Work
Celsus was either a Greek or a Roman who wrote during the latter half of the 2nd century AD. Very little is known about his origins or life. The work in its original form has been lost and the True Word survives only as excerpts from a work by the Christian scholar OrigenOrigen
Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...
, who used Celsus’ writings as starting points to defend Christianity and respond to Celsus’ arguments. Origen stated that Celsus was from the first half of the 2nd century A.D., although the majority of modern scholars have come to a general consensus that Celsus probably wrote around 170 to 180 A.D. Most modern scholars are in agreement that Celsus did not rely on the “rumor
Rumor
A rumor or rumour is often viewed as "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern" However, a review of the research on rumor conducted by Pendleton in 1998 found that research across sociology,...
s and hearsay
Hearsay
Hearsay is information gathered by one person from another person concerning some event, condition, or thing of which the first person had no direct experience. When submitted as evidence, such statements are called hearsay evidence. As a legal term, "hearsay" can also have the narrower meaning of...
evidence” that many other Christian detractors of the time period used, but rather drew upon his own observations and displayed knowledge of both the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible, as well as other Jewish and Christian writings.
Philosophical and Theological Arguments
Celsus’ first main point in his True Word was to refute the validity of Christianity. In his opinion Christian theology was based on an amalgamation of false eastern philosophical ideasEastern philosophy
Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies of Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Indian philosophy and Korean philosophy...
hastily tied together. He stated that Christians would “weave together erroneous opinions drawn from ancient sources and trumpet them aloud”.
Celsus gave a point by point critique of Christian doctrine, and why it should not have been believed by anyone. He stated that the “virgin” birth story was ridiculous, and that Mary was an adulteress turned out by her husband. His theory was not new, as even Jews at that time were saying the same. The remainder of Christian stories – what now makes up the Christian Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
- Celsus found very insipid and unappealing compared to Greek and Roman legends of powerful and colorful gods. Celsus also found Christian philosophy lacking when compared to secular philosophy, and declared that “things are stated much better among the Greeks”. Celsus used Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
as the representative for Greek philosophers and, according to him, when comparing the two philosophical traditions Christianity appeared far worse, as "Plato is not guilty of boasting and falsehood", a crime which Celsus obviously feels is a trademark of Christian theologians. The only connection Celsus made between Greek philosophy and Christianity was when he asserted that “Jesus perverted the words of the philosopher” (i.e. Plato).
When compared with the gods of Roman and Greek mythology, Celsus found the Christian God sadly lacking, and declared that he could not be a god as he was neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. Celsus could deduce no explanation for the actions of the Christian God, such as the floods, natural disasters, and the introduction of evil
Problem of evil
In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is the question of how to explain evil if there exists a deity that is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient . Some philosophers have claimed that the existences of such a god and of evil are logically incompatible or unlikely...
into the world, except that God wanted to draw attention to his greatness because he felt human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
ity was giving him “less than his due”. Celsus concluded that Christians used the explanation of God "testing" them to disguise the fact that their God was not powerful enough to successfully fight Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, but was instead “helpless”. Celsus wrote that Satan was either a mortal invention used by Christians to frighten others into believing their philosophies and joining them, or if he did indeed exist then he was proof that God was not all-powerful, but rather a weak lesser god and a bad one, for only a vindictive and insecure being would punish mankind for being tricked by an evil that he has been too weak to stop.
The apparent “blind faith” of the Christians was bewildering to Celsus, and he used it to further support his claim that Christianity was a false religion. In his opinion, the main tenet of Christianity was “Do not ask questions, just believe” and “Thy faith will save thee".
Status and the Appeal of Christianity
Celsus complained that Christianity was a phenomenon limited primarily to the lower class. He claimed that Christians actively sought out and converted the ignorant, uneducated, and lower class, as they were the only people who would believe in such a ridiculous theology and blindly follow its doctrines. If an individual was from the upper class, and therefore well educated and naturally of good character, they would not be converted because they could not possibly believe in the absurd assumptions one had to in order to be considered “Christian”. Celsus revealed himself to be a member of the upper class when he makes his statements regarding Jesus; who obviously could not be the son of god as he was born a peasant. The True Word stated that Mary would have been unworthy to be noticed by God “because she was neither rich nor of royal rank”. Celsus also claimed that Christianity was against personal betterment, as that could cause their followers to discover the fallacies within their religion. Celsus declared that Christians convert by “lead[ing] on wicked men by empty hopes, and to persuade them to despise better things, saying that if they refrain from them it will be better…”.Christianity as a Danger to Rome
Celsus’ main argument against Christianity, and why he attacked it with such vigor, was that he considered it a divisive and destructive force that would harm both the Roman Empire and society. Adherence to the state supported Roman religion was compulsory and the Roman authorities felt it was necessary for the effective management of the political system. One of the most integral parts of the Roman state religion was reverence and occasional sacrifices for the Emperor, an act that Christians continually refused to participate in, as in their opinion it came too close to idolatryIdolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
and worship of a God that was not their own. Celsus listed many reasons for how his Roman readers could easily deduce that Christianity was endangering their unity and the stability of the Empire. Christianity originated from Judaism, whose adherents, although living within the Empire, had already revolted against Roman rule several times. The Christian community then became further divided amongst themselves, and Celsus complained that “matters are determined in different ways by the various sects”. This dissension between different factions within Christianity proved to the Romans that Christians who could not even draw together under their own shared beliefs were naturally a divisive people and not only caused friction within their own philosophy but would disrupt the unity of the Empire. Finally Celsus and other Roman writers believed that “Christians are dangerous precisely because they put the advancement of their beliefs above the common good and the welfare of the state”.
The secrecy in which Christians met and practiced was another problem for Celsus. He commented that they “entered into secret associations with each other contrary to law”. Celsus stated that there was nothing wrong with swearing allegiance to a king or emperor, as he provided the stable environment in which all citizens could freely live, and in return it was the duty of each Roman citizen to assist the Emperor and “labor with him in the maintenance of justice”.
Celsus provided only one solution to solve the problems that he believed Christianity would inevitably create within the Empire. He commanded that Christians must both respect the Emperor and perform rituals to the gods of the Roman state. If they could not or would not participate in the Imperial religion they must not “take any share in the affairs of life; but… depart hence with all speed and leave no posterity behind them”.
External links
Fragments from Celsus’ lost True Discourse - University of Saskatchewan Classics Department Website- http://web.archive.org/web/20060427150628/duke.usask.ca/~niallm/252/Celstop.htm