Greek
Celsus was a Greek philosopher of the second century AD who wrote the earliest known full critique of Christianity. His work, The True Word (Alethes Logos), is lost as a separate text. Most of it survives because the Christian theologian Origen quoted it at length, passage by passage, in his reply Contra Celsum, written around 248. From these quotations scholars have reconstructed much of Celsus's argument. He appears to have been a Platonist who defended traditional religion and the idea of a rational order in the world. He attacked Christian claims about Jesus, the resurrection, and the standing of the lowly in the church, and he drew on Jewish objections as well. Almost nothing is known of his life, and his birth and death dates are unknown. His writings matter to historians of religion because they show how an educated pagan saw early Christianity.