Contra Celsum

Against Celsus, preserved complete in Greek, was Origen’s last treatise. Ambrose had requested that Origen provide an answer to a book entitled The True Doctrine which attacked Christianity, and which had been written some time in the second century by an unknown Middle Platonic philosopher named Celsus. Celsus was relatively well informed about Christianity and had read parts of the Bible and some Christian literature. He attacked the Church’s basic doctrines concerning Christ, God, and man, ridiculed the low status of the people the Church attracted, and complained of the detrimental effect of Christianity on the state because Christians would neither participate in the common political affairs, nor serve in the military.

Ronald E. Heine, “The Alexandrians,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 127.