CELTES
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CELTES
ness of Christian humility, nor can he reconcile with
the Christian hope of conquering the world to Christ,
the fact that Christian proselytizers shun encounters
with the learned and powerful and seek out the poor
and the sinful, women, children, and slaves, and
preach the Gospel to them. His manner too, in spite
of the probable eirenic scope of his work, is that of a
special pleader for paganism who uses all the re-
sources of dialectic and rhetoric, all the artifices of
wit and sarcasm to make his opponents seem ridicu-
lous. Perhaps the secret of his efforts to render Chris-
tianity ridiculous is betrayed in his open disapproval
of the attitude of aloofness which Christians adopted
towards the interest and welfare of the empire. " You
refuse to serve the state," he says, "in peace or in
war; you wish its downfall; you use all the force of
your magic arts to accomplish the ruin of mankind".
Celsus anticipated in his criticism of the New Testa- ment the objections which have in our own time become identified with the names of Strauss and Renan. Similarly, in the objections which he urged from the point of view of philosophy he anticipated in a striking manner the arguments used by modern rational- ists and evolutionists. Too much stress has, perhaps, been laid on the last point. Nevertheless, it is in- teresting, to say the least, to find a second-century opponent of Christianity off-setting the Christian idea of a direct divine origin of man by the theory that men and animals have a common natural origin, and that the human soul is sprung from the animal soul.
Celsus is generally described as a Platonist in phi- losophy. This is correct, if not understood in a too exclusive sense. Although he antedates Plotinus, the first great neo-Platonist, by almost half a century, he belongs to the age of syncretism in which Greek philosophy, realizing the inadequacy of its own re- sources, developed an eclectic spiritualism which welcomed and strove to assimilate the religious teach- ings of the various Oriental peoples. This syncretic tendency was resorted to as a remedy against the materialism and scepticism in which philosophy had, as it were, run to seed. Thus Celsus draws his phi- losophy not only from the genuine works of Plato, but also from the pseudo-Platonic writings, especially the so-called lettersof Plato, from Heraclitus, Empedocles, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and from the religious sys- tems of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Hindus, etc. The fundamental principles, however, on which he builds this syncretic system, are Platonic. God, he teaches, is the ineffable, unknowable One, the Source of all things, Himself without source, the All-pervading Logos, the World-Soul. God is a spirit, and whatever has come directly from His hands is spirit. Material things He made through the agency of created gods. The substance of material things is eternal matter; all force is spirit (angel or demon) in- dwelling in matter. The human soul is divine in its origin ; it was placed in the body on account of some primordial sin. All change, all growth and decay in the universe, is not the result of chance or violence but part of a plan of development in which spirits minister to the design of an all-seeing, infinitely bene- lirent spirit. Even the vicissitudes of the idea of God, tlir various religions of ancient and modern times, are, says Celsus, part of the divinely appointed scheme of things. For no matter how the religions "f the world may differ among themselves, (hey all hold that there is one God who is supreme. Moreover, the various mythological concepts must be understood to mean the same powers (8vvdp.fis) which arc worshipped in different countries under different names. Those are I he beneficent [lowers which give increase and fruit to the tiller of the soil. Christians arc, therefore, un- grateful for the gifts of nature when they refuse to worship the deities who symbolize the forces of nature. Finally these powers, spirits, or demons, mediate be-
tween God and man, and are the immediate source of
prophecy and wonder-working. This last point is
important. To understand Celsus's criticism of the
Gospel narrative it is necessary to remember that he
was a firm believer in the possibility of cures by magic.
Celsus's treatise is contained in Origen's work ; for the Greek
text cf. Koetschau, Origen.es Werke (Leipzig, 1899). also
Mxgne, P. G. t XI. A German translation of the treatise is
published by Keim, Cdsus* wahres Wort (Zurich, 1873);
Patrick, The Apahniu of Orioen in reply to Celsus (Edinburgh.
1897); Bigg, Neoplatonism (London. 1895); Gem, Christian
I'latioiists „f Alcamlria (Oxford. 1886); Lightfoot. Apostolic
Fathers, Part II, II (London, 1885); Fairweather, Ongen
(New York, 1901); Crutwell, Literary History of Early
Chr, stimuli, I Loud. hi. 1893). II, 498 sqq.; Kayser, La philo-
sophic ,le else (Strasburg, 1813); Pklagadd. Etude sur Celse
(Paris, 18781; Bum,, La pnlcmique ile Celse (Strasburg, 1844);
Khrhard, Altchrisllirhe Litteralur, Part I (Freiburg, 19(101.335
sqq.; Harnack, (,'esch. der altehrislliehen Litteralur (Berlin,
1897), II, pt. 1,314-5; Bardenhewer.oV.vWi. der altkirchlichen
Litteralur (Freiburg. 1S92>. I, 15s sqq ; Fink. K irrhenijesehiehtt.
Abhandl.u. Untersuch. (Paderborn, 1899), II, 152 sqq.
William Turner.
Celtes, Conrad (properly Conrad Pickel, or Meisel; called also in Lat. Protusius), a German Humanist, b. at Wipfeld in Lower Franconia, 1 February, 1459; d. at Vienna, 4 February, 1508. He pursued his studies at Cologne (1477) and Heidel- berg (1484), and
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at the latter uni-
versity received
the stimulating in-
struction of such
men as Dalberg
and Agricola. After
this he wandered
about for a time
as a " travelling
scholar", delivering humanistic lec-
tures at Erfurt ,
Rostock, and Leip-
zig. While atLeip-
zig he issued his
first work, "Ars
versificandi et car-
niinum" (14S(i),as
well as an edition
of Seneca. In 14S6
he went to Rome,
w h e r e he had
friendly relations
with Pomponius
Lsetus; travelling
through Italy he
became acquainted at Florence with Marsilio Ficino,
at Bologna with Beroaldus, and at Venice with Sa-
bellicus and the celebrated printer, Aldus Manutius.
On the return of Celtes to Germany Frederick III,
at the instance of the Elector Frederick of Saxony,
crowned him Poet Laureate. This ceremony took
place with much pomp at Nuremberg, and he received,
- it the same time, a doctor's degree. Soon after this
Celtes made a wandering tour throughout the whole of Germany. In the course of his travels he went to Cracow (c. 1488), where he busied himself with mathematics and the natural sciences, and formed friendships with a number of able Humanists, such
- is Lorenzo Rab and Honacursius. In imitation
of the Roman Academy (see Academies, Roman) he founded at Cracow a learned society called the Sodalitas hUterarum Vistulana, and another, entitled the Sodalitas bitterarum Hungarorum in Hungary, to
which country he proceeded by way of Prague and
( )lmutz. The name of this latter association was after- wards changed to Sodalitas Litterarum Danubiana, and
its seat transferred to Vienna (1494). On the return journey Celtes stopped at Passau, Ratisbon, and Nuremberg, and went as far as Mainz and Heidelberg, where the Sodalitas Litterarum Rhenana was founded.
