Abstract

This book is about what Celsus wrote about Jesus in the Second Century, what Celsus's image of God was like, and especially where Celsus found the ammunition to criticize Jesus so fiercely. Why did Christianity's growth bother a pagan philosopher, who was committed to Roman religion? Why did it bother a Platonic philosopher, although Christianity was never meant to be a philosophy? -- Egge Tijsseling explores the idea that Christians finished the Roman Empire, because they did not want to join the army - Jesus preached nonviolence, and if they did join the army, they only recruited more Christians, and finally because Christianity was 'soft', and therefore attractive for many in the strict and hierarchic Roman world. -- This book investigates Celsus' reasons to write such a versatile book against Jesus, that Origen almost a century later needed eight books to refute him.