On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians

Written in 175 (or so) CE, Celsus reads a lot like modern day critics of Christianity such as Dennett, Harris, Dawkins, or Hitchens. Anti-Christianity arguments haven't changed significantly - just refined over the centuries. Celsus is the most accessible early Christian critic because of one of his opponents. Origen of Alexandria, a Christian apologist from the 3rd century has provided us with maybe 70% of the text of Celsus's "On the True Doctrine." Some of the criticisms offered by Celsus: *Jesus was born, not of a virgin, but as a result of Mary's tryst with a Roman soldier named Panthera. *Since a religion had to be old to have any credence, Christians stole their legacy from the Jews. *All the stories of the Jewish writings either originated from earlier mythology or were made up to prove a theological point or otherwise enhance the religious heirarchy. *The same goes for early Christian writings, but with heavy reliance on any Jewish writings that could possibly be interpreted as a prophesy about Jesus. *Rome had inherited its savior myths from far and wide, including resurrections from death - its re-enactment by the Christians in their gospels was transparent. *All of the numerous early sects of Christianity fought over dogma and accused each other of heresy, frequently altering scripture to suit their local beliefs. *The development of complicated theologies in Christianity happened because of the persistent embarrassing problem that Jesus never came again. Celsus ridicules 2nd century Christians for being credulous enough to buy the story - rather than being a critic of Christian creeds. At times, he does it with quite a flair. The story of Noah and the flood is cast as a re-cycling of the Greek myth of Deuclion and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. When he comes to the part about the dove coming back with a fig leaf, Celsus sarcastically adds, "or was it a crow." This is a uniquely fascinating study from a very literate philosopher from the 2nd century, well versed in the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, and the religions of the time. Any student of this time period should find it of immense interest and I recommend it highly.

The only serious criticism that can be levelled at Hoffmann is that we do not, in fact, know for sure what Celsus wrote. But that is only because all of Celsus' writings were destroyed by those he criticized, the Christians. However, if one compares Hoffmann's reconstruction of Celsus with surviving fragments of Julian's "Against the Galileans" (which Hoffmann has also reconstructed), and other writings by other Pagan philosophers - then certainly Hoffmann's reconstruction holds up. Paganism was not monolithic, but it was a coherent religious phenomenon. We can see this going back as far as the writings of Herodotus, whose "History" provides a fascinating view of the ancient Pagan approach to "comparative religion". According to Herodotus, most Pagans worshipped more or less the same Gods, just using different names, and, of course, different rites and so forth. The same perspective is echoed in Plutarch's "Isis and Osiris". In addition to being coherent and "universal", Paganism was a "natural" religion. In fact, it's "naturalism" was the source of its coherence and universalism. It is the Gods who teach religion to humans, and what They teach tends to be consistent from place to place, with the differences lying in the details, not the fundamentals. As Julian says in his "Against the Galileans" human beings are born with an innate sense of the Gods "without having it taught us." The same idea is echoed in Iamblichus' "On the Mysteries of the Egyptians". Indeed, the idea that we "know" about the Gods innately is at least as old as the Stoic and Epicureans schools of philosophy. This is an excellent book to read in conjunction with, for example, Linda Johnsen's "Lost Masters".

There are few critiques of the religions of both Moses and Jesus better, than that offered by Celsus almost two millenia ago. This translation by Hoffman provides the modern reader with sage wisdom on the inherent flaws of not only Christianity and Judaism, but so-called "monotheism" in general. No religions are responsible for more bloodshed and suffering than those springing from the religion of Moses. Mankind has been on the receiving end of about two millenia of "monotheistic" tyranny, mass murder, and brainwashing, all in the name of "God". Fortunately, Celsus's ancient dissection of a relatively new Christianity, and a then ancient Judaism, exposes them to be based upon falsehood and zealotry. Celsus's critique does much to explain why the world, especially the west, has become so messed up under the sway of these two revolutionary faiths. The ascendency of Christianity and Judaism, ushered in a "Dark Age" for the West. We've been led to believe that this dark age ended with the European Renaissance. Like so much surrounding Christianity and Judaism, the truth is quite another story. The fact is, the dark ages actually continued unabated through the renaissance culminating in the hellish twentieth century! Both religions have given birth to a society based primarily upon lies and ignorance, where the ability to think independently, is under relentless attack. Under these religions, each generation of westerners has effectively become more corrupt than their predecessors. Zealously building upon their evil deeds of the last century, Christianity and Judaism are now poised to deliver humanity to a bleak Orwellian future!

.................all of Celsus' work was destroyed by Christian emperors, but "On the True Doctrine" is "preserved" only because it was contained, in pieces, within polemic against the work that was written by Origen of Alexandria. This book is a reconstruction and translation of Celsus' writing found within the 13th century work, Contra Celsum. There is also a forty page or so introduction to Celsus' work, that sets the stage for better understanding the world in which Celsus wrote "On the True Doctrine".My impression when reading this book was "Wow, the same arguments are still being made against Christianity (particularly Fundamentalism) today!", i.e., that Jesus was a charlatan that mislead the gullible and uneducated, that Christianity is, overall, not very original in its beliefs, that Jesus could not really have risen from the dead, that the beliefs about the Christian god don't make him seem very god-like, among others.The book reads relatively easily and quickly. We can never know, of course, if we are really reading words that are close to the original "On the True Doctrine" as was written by Celsus some eighteen hundreds years ago. The manuscripts were destroyed so we must rely on Origen to have given us an accurate representation of Celsus' ideas. Additionally, we are relying on a reconstruction, which has its own added challenges. Luckily, it is easy to believe that Celsus' work is similar to what we read in Hoffman's translation and reconstruction. Why wouldn't a thinking man such as Celsus challenge the new religion of Christianity just as we are lead to believe he did? As I have said, many of the same challenges exist today.In short, I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about early Christianity.

I was delighted with this book. It is short, easily read, andcontains a very good summary of the major complaints againstChristianity that I have always had. And this book was originally written 1800 and something years ago!Also, because of the complaints Celsus makes about Christianliterature of his time, you can see that some potential criticisms against Christianity are _not_ valid. Those whoclaim that the gospels did not exist until the 4'th centuryare proven wrong by Celsus quoting them in the 2n'd -- of coursethis doesn't mean that the full extent of the gospels existedin their current form. In fact Celsus claims that Christianswere constantly rewriting the gospels in order to counter criticisms made against them.Finally, and importantly, Celsus opens up the world of thePlatonic definition of God in a way I had heard of but couldnot really imagine. Platonic theology (although I don't believeit) certainly puts all Christian theology to shame -- in anintellectual sort of way.This book is really worth reading.