Origen decided to write not a general defense of Christianity as others had done, but a detailed refutation of Celsus’s work. It was a fortuitous decision that has had unintended and happy consequences. For in his book Origen cited Celsus’s actual words, paragraph by paragraph, before offering his rebuttal. Though Celsus’s book has been lost, it is possible on the basis of Origen’s citations to reconstruct not only his arguments but the actual words he used. And his excerpts from Celsus’s book give us a very good idea of how the ancient Romans viewed Christianity at an early stage in its
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