Celsus And Porphyry Criticisms Of The Christians

Both Celsus and Porphyry criticisms of the Christians were based on the Christians saviour Jesus and the gospel. Celsus and Porphyry both believed that Jesus was a fraud and goes out of their way to try and prove this to the people by using the Christians own gospel against them. Furthermore, both Celsus and Porphyry suggest that some of the information they received came from the Jews, for example, the Christians claim Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, while the Jews claim she had an affair with a Roman soldier and she became pregnant with Jesus. However, not all the claims they were making came from the Jews.
Many of the claims Celsus and Porphyry were making were from their own logic as they believed that the gospel did not comply with reality. The Christians claim that their faith was to God but in reality they are displaying it to Jesus. Furthermore, they also believed that the Christian teachings were inconsistent and full of contradictions. Hoffman (1994) …show more content…
They believed that if he was truly the son of God, then why did God not rescue him from crucifixion, and why did God allow his son’s blood to be spilt, for if he was truly the son of God, then God would have punished all for harming his son. Furthermore, the Christians allowed Jesus to die and did nothing for him, they did in fact allowed this to happen.
According to Patrick (1892), Origen used philosophers, such as Plato against Celsus. He claims for example, if Plato had found God he would have no need for anything else, and in a way he was also trying to say that if Plato had found God then you would have nothing to say on this matter. Furthermore, in the matter of the Christian stories as being thought of as inconsistent, so too are philosophers’