Celsus

thumb|If [the risen] Jesus really wanted to show forth divine power, he ought to have appeared to the very men who treated him despitefully and to the man [Pilate] who condemned him and to everyone everywhere. Celsus (Greek: Κέλσος, Kélsos; fl. AD 175–177) was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of early Christianity. His literary work The True Word (also Account, Doctrine or Discourse; Greek: Λόγος Ἀληθής) survives exclusively via quotations in Contra Celsum, a refutation written in 248 by Origen of Alexandria. The True Word is the earliest known comprehensive criticism of Christianity and Judaism. Quotes ἐχρῆν, εἴπερ ὄντως θείαν δύναμιν ἐκφῆναι ἤθελεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἐπηρεάσασι καὶ τῷ καταδικάσαντι καὶ ὅλως πᾶσιν ὀφθῆναι. If [the risen] Jesus really wanted to show forth divine power, he ought to have appeared to the very men who treated him despitefully and to the man [Pilate] who condemned him and to everyone everywhere. Contra Celsum 2.63. From Celsus, True Discourse, cited by Origen in Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick, Origen Contra Celsum, rev. edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 114; as quoted and reported by Gerald O'Collins in Saint Augustine on the Resurrection of Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 99 Compare: If only he had manifested himself one single time after his resurrection in the temple, before the people and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, visibly, audibly, tangibly, then it could not fail that the entire Jewish nation would have believed in him; thus many thousands of souls plus millions of souls of their descendants would have been saved from destruction, who are now so hardened and stubborn. Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Reimarus: Fragments, ed. Charles H. Talbert, trans. Ralph S. Fraser (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), II/32, pp. 199–200 External links Full text of The Arguments of Celsus Against the Christians in Google Books Category:Philosophers from Greece Category:Criticism of Christianity