[11:2]
Whatever disregard of tenses and "free handling" of Origen there
may be here, therefore, are due to Tischendorf, who may be considered
as good a scholar as Dr. Lightfoot, and not a less zealous apologist.
Instead of depending on the "strength of the passage so translated,"
however, as Canon Lightfoot represents, my argument is independent of
this or any other version of Origen's words; and, in fact, the point
is only incidentally introduced, and more as the view of others than
my own. I point out [12:1] that Origen evidently knows nothing of his
adversary: and I add that "it is almost impossible to avoid the
conviction that, during the time he was composing his work, his
impressions concerning the date and identity of his opponent became
considerably modified." I then proceed to enumerate some of the reasons.
In the earlier portion of his first book (i. 8), Origen has heard that
his Celsus is the Epicurean of the reign of Hadrian and later, but a
little further on (i. 68), he confesses his ignorance as to whether he
is the same Celsus who wrote against magic, which Celsus the Epicurean
actually did. In the fourth book (iv. 36) he expresses uncertainty as to
whether the Epicurean Celsus had composed the work against Christians
which he is refuting, and at the close of his treatise he treats him as
a contemporary, for, as I again mention, Volkmar and others assert,
on the strength of the passage in the eighth book and from other
considerations, that Celsus really was a contemporary of Origen.
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