
Celsus wrote his work True Discourse (or, True Reason) as a polemic against the Christians in approximately 178 CE. Celsus divided the work into two sections, the one in which objections are put in the mouth of a Jewish interlocutor and the other in which Celsus speaks as the pagan philosopher that he is. Celsus ridiculed Christians because they advocated blind faith instead of reason. About sixty years after it was first published, the book written by Celsus inspired a massive refutation by Origen in Contra Celsum, which is our source of knowledge for Celsus, who was later condemned along with other critics such as Porphyry on obvious grounds.
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