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

ADMONITION CONCERNING THE EIGHT BOOKS OF ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS

1. Spencer teaches, in these words, at what time Celsus—with whom Origen has business—flourished, what he wrote, and to which sect of philosophers he attached himself: "It is known to anyone even moderately studious of history that many of the same name lived under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Spartianus mentions a Celsus in the life of Hadrian, a jurist whom the emperor had as an assessor among others: 'When he was judging,' he says, 'he had in his council not only his friends or companions, but jurists, and especially Julius Celsus.' The aforementioned author reports to us that another Celsus, a man of consular rank, lived at that time: 'Palma and Celsus, always his enemies, came into the wager of adoption,' the same work, in the same place. And elsewhere: 'Wherefore Palma was killed at Terracina, Celsus at Baiae, Nigrinus at Faenza, and Lusius on the road, by order of the senate, against the will of Hadrian, as he himself says in his life.' We have received the memory of a third and fourth from Origen, who in the first book against Celsus, number 8, provided us with some knowledge of both: 'We have received that there were two Epicurean Celsi: the former in the time of Nero, and the latter in the time of Hadrian,' and further on." To this man, Lucian, who was—if anyone—the most addicted to the Epicurean sect,