{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p class=\"c006\">After this Celsus continues: “If these (meaning the Christians)\r\nbring forward this person, and others, again, a different\r\nindividual [as the Christ], while the common and ready cry<a id=\"r1086\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1086\"><sup>[1086]</sup></a> of\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_348\">348</span>all parties is, ‘Believe, if thou wilt be saved, or else begone,’\r\nwhat shall those do who are in earnest about their salvation?\r\nShall they cast the dice, in order to divine whither they may\r\nbetake themselves, and whom they shall join?” Now we shall\r\nanswer this objection in the following manner, as the clearness\r\nof the case impels us to do. If it had been recorded that\r\nseveral individuals had appeared in human life as sons of God\r\nin the manner in which Jesus did, and if each of them had\r\ndrawn a party of adherents to his side, so that, on account of\r\nthe similarity of the profession [in the case of each individual]\r\nthat he was the Son of God, he to whom his followers bore\r\ntestimony to that effect was an object of dispute, there would\r\nhave been ground for his saying, “If these bring forward this\r\nperson, and others a different individual, while the common and\r\nready cry of all parties is, ‘Believe, if thou wilt be saved, or\r\nelse begone,’” and so on; whereas it has been proclaimed to\r\nthe entire world that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God who\r\nvisited the human race: for those who, like Celsus, have supposed\r\nthat [the acts of Jesus] were a series of prodigies,<a id=\"r1087\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1087\"><sup>[1087]</sup></a> and\r\nwho for that reason wished to perform acts of the same kind,<a id=\"r1088\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1088\"><sup>[1088]</sup></a>\r\nthat they, too, might gain a similar mastery over the minds of\r\nmen, were convicted of being utter nonentities.<a id=\"r1089\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1089\"><sup>[1089]</sup></a> Such were\r\nSimon, the Magus of Samaria, and Dositheus, who was a\r\nnative of the same place; since the former gave out that he\r\nwas the power of God that is called great,<a id=\"r1090\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1090\"><sup>[1090]</sup></a> and the latter that\r\nhe was the Son of God. Now Simonians are found nowhere\r\nthroughout the world; and yet, in order to gain over to himself\r\nmany followers, Simon freed his disciples from the danger of\r\ndeath, which the Christians were taught to prefer, by teaching\r\nthem to regard idolatry as a matter of indifference. But\r\neven at the beginning of their existence the followers of Simon\r\nwere not exposed to persecution. For that wicked demon who\r\nwas conspiring against the doctrine of Jesus, was well aware\r\nthat none of his own maxims would be weakened by the teaching\r\n<span class=\"pageno\" id=\"Page_349\">349</span>of Simon. The Dositheans, again, even in former times,\r\ndid not rise to any eminence, and now they are completely\r\nextinguished, so that it is said their whole number does not\r\namount to thirty. Judas of Galilee also, as Luke relates in\r\nthe Acts of the Apostles,<a id=\"r1091\"></a><a class=\"c008 pginternal\" href=\"#f1091\"><sup>[1091]</sup></a> wished to call himself some great\r\npersonage, as did Theudas before him; but as their doctrine was\r\nnot of God, they were destroyed, and all who obeyed them were\r\nimmediately dispersed. We do not, then, “cast the dice in\r\norder to divine whither we shall betake ourselves, and whom\r\nwe shall join,” as if there were many claimants able to draw us\r\nafter them by the profession of their having come down from\r\nGod to visit the human race. On these points, however, we\r\nhave said enough.</p>","headings":["The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2","BOOK VI.","Chapter XI."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg70693-paragraph-404"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"055702686cf3d44b323dab5ecaa2137c449c843b081ae1d8cf09d1af53797e82","edition_title":"The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 (of 2)","edition_translators":["Frederick Crombie","W. H. Cairns"],"edition_year":1872,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"ACT","chapter":5,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Acts v. 36","verse":36,"verse_end":36}],"headings":[],"id":"pg70693-f1091","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Project Gutenberg metadata: Public domain in the USA. Existing 1872 English edition; listed translators died 1889 and 1872. Electronic transcription subject to Project Gutenberg reuse terms.","source_anchor":"f1091","source_ebook":70693,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\" id=\"f1091\">\n<p class=\"c007\"><span class=\"label\"><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#r1091\">1091</a>. </span><abbr class=\"spell\">Cf.</abbr> Acts <abbr title=\"five\">v.</abbr> 36, 37.</p>\n</div>","source_sha256":"76ed9a9fd752c1d5095189e38fe3dcbbea0fd23d6be719db17360e4da14552fa","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70693/pg70693-images.html#f1091","text_sha256":"47ca8a96737ceb91f4c8f9eee6d9faa98b0a4305fb7067d09e92afcbd3840cb3","verified":false,"work_id":null}