The Jew of Celsus and Adversus Judaeos Literature
ZAC 2017; 21(2): 201–242 James N. Carleton Paget* The Jew of Celsus and adversus Judaeos literature DOI 10.1515/zac-2017-0015 Abstract: The appearance in Celsus’ work, The True Word, of a Jew who speaks out against Jesus and his followers, has elicited much discussion, not least con- cerning the genuineness of this character. Celsus’ decision to exploit Jewish opinion about Jesus for polemical purposes is a novum in extant pagan litera- ture about Christianity (as is The True Word itself), and that and other observa- tions can be used to support the authenticity of Celsus’ Jew. Interestingly, the ad hominem nature of his attack upon Jesus is not directly reflected in the Christian adversus Judaeos literature, which concerns itself mainly with scripture (in this respect exclusively with what Christians called the Old Testament), a subject only superficially touched upon by Celsus’ Jew, who is concerned mainly to attack aspects of Jesus’ life. Why might this be the case? Various theories are discussed, and a plea made to remember the importance of what might be termed coun- ter-narrative arguments (as opposed to arguments from scripture), and by exten- sion the importance of Celsus’ Jew, in any consideration of the history of ancient Jewish-Christian disputation. Keywords: Celsus, Polemics, Jew 1 Introduction It seems that from not long after it was written, probably some time in the late 240s,1 Origen’s Contra Celsum was popular among a number of Christians. Eusebius of Caesarea, or possibly another Eusebius,2 speaks warmly of it in his response to Hierocles’ anti-Christian work the Philalethes or Lover of Truth as pro- 1 For the date of Contra Celsum see Henry Chadwick, introduction to idem, ed.
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