Image: Spring Scene, Charlottesville, Virginia, April 2016
I have recently been reading David Laird Dungan’s A History of the Synoptic Problem
(Anchor Bible Reference Library, Doubleday, 1999). In chapter six of that work Dungan offers a summary
of the pagan philosopher Celsus’ critique of Christianity in True Doctrine, a work which is no longer extant
but can be partially reconstructed from quotations in the writings of Origen (c. 185-253). Dungan writes:
We will conclude with one final
insult: “Let no one educated, on one
wise, no one sensible draw near” to the abominable Christians. Their raving make sense “only to the foolish,
dishonorable and stupid (among men), (and to) slaves, women, and little
children” (p. 63).
In my NT class yesterday I was teaching on the book of
Philemon and we had a discussion on the early Christian attitudes toward and
responses to slavery in the Greco-Roman world.
Last week in a session on the Pastoral Epistles we had also discussed
the role of women in early Christianity.
I read my students this quotation from Celsus and pointed out that the Celsus’
disdain for Christianity reflected the very thing that attracted all kinds of people, including women and
slaves, to it—the belief that every person, no matter their external circumstances and status, bore the image of God, had value in his sight, might be
numbered among the elect, and enjoy spiritual liberty and equality in Christ.
JTR
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