Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Apologetical Works.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
(3)
Apologetical Works.
His great apologetical work was the treatise undertaken
at the special request of his friend Ambrosius, in answer to the attack
of the heathen philosopher Celsus on the Christian religion, in a work
which he entitled Λόγος
ἀληθής or A True
Discourse. Origen states that he had heard that there were
two individuals of this name, both of them Epicureans, the earlier of
the two having lived in the time of Nero, and the other in the time of
Adrian, or later.1899
| 1899 Cf. Contra
Celsum, I. c. viii. ad fin. | Redepenning
is of opinion that Celsus must have composed his work in the time of
Marcus Aurelius (161–180 a.d.), on
account of his supposed mention of the Marcionites (whose leader did
not make his appearance at Rome before 142 a.d.), and of the Marcellians (followers of the
Carpocratian Marcellina), a sect which was founded after the year 155
a.d. under Bishop Anicetus.1900
| 1900 Cf. Redepenning, vol.
ii. p. 131, note 2. | Origen believed his opponent to be an
Epicurean, but to have adopted other doctrines than those of Epicurus,
because he thought that by so doing he could assail Christianity to
greater advantage.1901
| 1901 Contra Celsum,
I. ch. viii. | The work
which Origen composed in answer to the so-styled True Discourse
consists of eight books, and belongs to the latest years of his
life. It has always been regarded as the great apologetic work of
antiquity; and no one can peruse it without being struck by the
multifarious reading, wonderful acuteness, and rare subtlety of mind
which it displays. But the rule which Origen prescribed to
himself, of not allowing a single objection of his opponent to remain
unanswered, leads him into a minuteness of detail, and into numerous
repetitions, which fatigue the reader, and detract from the interest
and unity of the work. He himself confesses that he began it on
one plan, and carried it out on another.1902
No doubt, had he lived to re-write and
condense it, it would have been more worthy of his reputation.
But with all its defects, it is a great work, and well deserves the
notice of the students of Apologetics. The table of contents
subjoined to the translation will convey a better idea of its nature
than any description which our limits would permit us to
give.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
