Celsus

According to the Christian father Origen, Celsus (/ˈsɛlsəs/; Greek: Κέλσος) was a 2nd-century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity. He is known for his literary work, The True Word (also Account, Doctrine or Discourse; Greek: Λόγος Ἀληθής), which survives exclusively in Origen's quotations from it in Contra Celsum. This work, c. 177 is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity.

Work

According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an anti-Christian work titled The True Word (Alēthēs logos). This work was lost, but we have Origen's account of it in his writings. It was during the reign of Philip the Arab that Origen received this work for rebuttal. Origen's refutation of The True Word contained its text, interwoven with Origen's replies. Origen's work has survived and thereby preserved Celsus' work with it.

Celsus seems to have been interested in Ancient Egyptian religion, and he seemed to know of Jewish logos-theology, both of which suggest The True Word was composed in Alexandria. Celsus wrote at a time when Christianity was being persecuted and when there seems to have been more than one emperor.

Celsus (usurper)

Titus Cornelius Celsus, was a fictionalRoman usurper, who supposedly rebelled against Gallienus. He was one of the so-called Thirty Tyrants enumerated by Trebellius Pollio.

According to the Historia Augusta, in the twelfth year of Gallienus' reign (265), when usurpers were springing up in every quarter of the Roman world, a certain Celsus, who had never risen higher in the service of the state than the rank of a military tribune, living quietly on his lands in Africa, in no way remarkable except as a man of upright life and commanding person, was suddenly proclaimed emperor by Vibius Passienus, proconsul of the province, and Fabius Pomponianus, general of the Libyan frontier. So sudden was the movement, that the appropriate trappings of dignity had not been provided, and the hands of Galliena, a cousin it is said of the lawful monarch, invested the new prince with a robe snatched from the statue of a goddess.

The downfall of Celsus was not less rapid than his elevation: he was slain on the seventh day, his body was devoured by dogs, and the loyal inhabitants of Sicca testified their devotion to the reigning sovereign by devising an insult to the memory of his rival unheard-of before that time. The effigy of the traitor was raised high upon a cross, round which the rabble danced in triumph.

Celsus (disambiguation)

Celsus may refer to:

See also