Complete Works XVIII: Against Celsus I-IV (Lommatzsch)

But whether because the munificence of Sixtus IV did not answer his hopes, or for some other reason, he cleverly and shrewdly removed this letter from his aforementioned edition and substituted another, inscribed in the name of Giovanni Mocenigo, the Prince of Venice, which begins thus: "To Giovanni Mocenigo, the most illustrious Prince of the Venetians, and to the entire noble and most wise Senate, Christophorus Persona, a Roman. Although we all seem to embark upon distinguished deeds for this reason," etc.

Returning to the interpretation itself, Persona seems not to have consulted his own reputation well for some time when he neglected to commit the Greek of Origen to print, in accordance with the custom of those times. For after it became public domain, it is incredible to say how much the learned found in this translator—whom Theodorus Gaza valued so highly—a lack of knowledge of the Greek language, what little diligence in investigating meanings, what dull acumen, and what a light and shaky reliability. Yet, whatever this translation was, Merlin snatched it up eagerly and saw fit to insert it whole into his edition of the Works of Origen in the year 1512. Finally, in the year 1605, in Augsburg, the eight books Against Celsus were produced in Greek and Latin from the libraries of the Elector Palatine, the Bavarian, and the Augsburg collections, translated by Sigismund Gelenius 1 with notes by David Hoeschelius. The same were again produced in Greek, with the addition of the same Gelenius's Latin translation in Cambridge—

1) Ruaeus’s edition consistently uses: Geslenio, Geslenii, and: Geslenius.