inst Christianity. To this treatise
Origen, who came about fifty years after him, published an answer, in
which he frequently recites his adversary's words and arguments. The
work of Celsus is lost; but that of Origen remains. Origen appears to
have given us the words of Celsus, where he professes to give them, very
faithfully; and amongst other reasons for thinking so, this is one, that
the objection, as stated by him from Celsus, is sometimes stronger than
his own answer. I think it also probable that Origen, in his answer, has
retailed a large portion of the work of Celsus:

"That it may not be suspected," he says, "that we pass by any chapters
because we have no answers at hand, I have thought it best, according to
my ability, to confute everything proposed by him, not so much
observing the natural order of things, as the order which he has taken
himself." (Orig. cont. Cels. I. i. sect. 41.)

Celsus wrote about one hundred years after the Gospels were published;
and therefore any notices of these books from him are extremely
important for their antiquity. They are, however, rendered more so by
the character of the author; for the reception, credit, and notoriety of
these books must have been well established amongst Christians, to have
made them subjects of animadversion and opposition by strangers and by
enemies. It evinces the truth of what Chrysostom, two centuries
afterwards, observed, that "the Gospels, when written, were not hidden
in a corner or buried in obscurity, but they were made known to all the
world, before enemies as well as others, even as they are now." (In
Matt. Hom. I. 7.)

1. Celsus, or the Jew whom he personates, uses these words:--"I could
say many things concerning the affairs of Jesus, and those, too,
different from those written by the disciples of Jesus; but I purposely
omit them." (Lardner, Jewish and Heathen Test. vol. ii. p. 274.) Upon
this passage it has been rightly observed, that it is not easy to
believe, that if Celsus could have contradicted the disciples upon good
evidence in any material point, he would have omitted to do so, and that
the assertion is, what Origen calls it, a mere oratorical flourish.

It is sufficient, however, to prove that, in the time of Celsus, there
were books well known, and allowed to be written by the disciples of
Jesus, which books contained a history of him. By the term disciples,
Celsus does not mean the followers of Jesus in general; for them he