ome of the reasons.
In the earlier portion of his first book (i. 8), Origen has heard that
his Celsus is the Epicurean of the reign of Hadrian and later, but a
little further on (i. 68), he confesses his ignorance as to whether he
is the same Celsus who wrote against magic, which Celsus the Epicurean
actually did. In the fourth book (iv. 36) he expresses uncertainty as to
whether the Epicurean Celsus had composed the work against Christians
which he is refuting, and at the close of his treatise he treats him as
a contemporary, for, as I again mention, Volkmar and others assert,
on the strength of the passage in the eighth book and from other
considerations, that Celsus really was a contemporary of Origen. I
proceed to argue that, even if Celsus were the Epicurean friend of
Lucian, there could be no ground for assigning to him an early date;
but, on the contrary, that so far from being an Epicurean, the Celsus
attacked by Origen evidently was a Neo-Platonist. This, and the
circumstance that his work indicates a period of persecution against
Christians, leads to the conclusion, I point out, that he must be dated
about the beginning of the third century. My argument, in short,
scarcely turns upon the passage in Origen at all, and that which renders
it incapable of being wrecked is the fact that Celsus never mentions the
Gospels, and much less adds anything to our knowledge of their authors,
which can entitle them to greater credit as witnesses for the reality of
Divine Revelation.

I do not intend to bandy many words with Canon Lightfoot regarding
translations. Nothing is so easy as to find fault with the rendering of
passages from another language, or to point out variations in tenses and
expressions, not in themselves of the slightest importance to the main
issue, in freely transferring the spirit of sentences from their natural
context to an isolated position in quotation. Such a personal matter as
Dr. Lightfoot's general strictures, in this respect, I feel cannot
interest the readers of this Review. I am quite ready to accept
correction even from an opponent where I am wrong, but I am quite
content to leave to the judgment of all who will examine them in a fair
spirit the voluminous quotations in my work. The 'higher criticism,' in
which Dr. Lightfoot seems to have indulged in this article, scarcely
rises above the correction of an exercise or the conjugation of a verb.
[13:1]

I am extremely obliged to Dr. Lightfoot