Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, Against the Christians: Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix
Plato · en
superstition. By which name also Nero triumphed over it in his trophies
which he set up at Rome, when he had harassed the Christians with a
most severe persecution. He gloried that he had purged the country of
robbers, and those that obtruded and inculcated the new superstition*
upon mankind. By this, there can be no doubt he meant the Christians,
whose religion is called the superstition in other inscriptions of the
like nature. See that of Diocletian cited in Baronius, Ann. 304. from
Occo. "Superstitione Christianorum ubique deleta," &c.
Not much unlike this was that other name which Porphyry** and some
others give it, when they call it the barbarous, new, and strange
religion. In the acts of the famous martyrs of Lyons, who suffered under
Antoninus Pius, the heathens scornfully insult it with this character.
For having burnt the martyrs to ashes, and scattered their remains into
the river Rhone, they said, they did it 'to cut off their hopes of a
resurrection, upon the
* Inscript. Antiq. ad Calcem Sueton. Oxon. NERONI. CLAUD.
CAIS. AUG. PONT. MAX. OB. PROVING. LATRONIB. ET. HIS. QUI.
NOVAM. GENERI. HUM. SUPERSTITION. INCULCAB. PURGAT.
** Ap. Euseb. Hist Eccl, lib* 6, c 19, [--------]
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strength of which they sought to obtrude* the new and strange religion
upon mankind. But now let us see whether they will rise again, and
whether their God can help and deliver them out of our hands.'
Celsus gives them the name of Sibyllists**, because the Christians in
their disputes with the heathens sometimes made use of the authority of
Sibylla their own prophetess against them; whose writing they urged with
so much advantage to the Christian cause, and prejudice to the heathen,
that Justin Martyr*** says, the Roman governors made it death for any
one to read them, or Hystaspes, or the writings of the prophets.
They also reproached them with the appellation of [--------],
'self-murderers,' because they readily offered themselves up to
martyrdom, and cheerfully underwent any violent death, which the
heathens could inflict upon them. With what eagerness they courted
death, we learn not only from the Christian writers**** themselves, but
from the testimonies
* Act. Mart. Lugd. ap. Euseb. lib. 5. c. 1. [--------]
** Origen. c. Cels. lib. 5. p. 272.
*** Just Apol. 2. p. 82.
**** See these collected in Pearson, Vind. Ignat. Par. 2. c.
9. p. 384.
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