Jews, Pagans, and Early Christians in Controversy

The fierce rivalry between Jews and Christians from the time of the early principate gave rise to a large and long-lived polemical literature, much of it in the genre of the dialogue.^[10] The preponderance of this adversus Judaeos material, including the Argument between Simon the Jew and Theophilus the Christian , the Dialogue of Athanasius and Zacchaeus , and the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila , is so one-sidedly in the favor of the Christian position as to suggest that the writers adopted the dialogue form merely to dramatize their anti-Jewish arguments.^[11] Even so, we can catch glimpses of the circumstances surrounding the face-to-face debates.

In the late second or early third century, a public debate took place between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte in a town in Roman North Africa—or so it was reported by one Christian writer.^[12] Under the watch-

[10] See the classic study of the genre, A. L. Williams, Adversus Judaeos: A Bird's-Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1935). For a rhetorical analysis of the pericopes showing debates between Jesus and other Jews in the Gospel of Mark, see J. Dewey, Markan Public Debate , Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, no. 48 (Chico, Calif., 1980).

[11] Texts in A. yon Harnack, ed., Die Altercatio Simonis Iudaei et Theophili Christiani nebst Untersuchungen über die anti-jüdische Polemik in der alten Kirche . TU 1, no. 3 (Leipzig, 1883); and F. C. Conybeare, ed., The Dialogues of Athanasius and Zacchaeus and of Timothy and Aquila (Oxford, 1898).

[12] Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos . See critical text and commentary in H. Tränkle, ed., Q.S.F. Tertulliani Adversus Judaeos (Wiesbaden, 1964).

ful eyes of a group of spectators and partisan supporters (partes ), the disputation dragged on for a full day.^[13] When toward evening the dust finally settled, the Jewish convert emerged victorious: for the time being, Judaism's claim to represent verus Israel , the true Israel, had been tried and found authentic by the ad hoc judges of the debate—its immediate audience—in one corner of the Roman Empire.^[14]

What I have surmised as the historical outcome of this debate was not, however, the end of the story, otherwise we should never have learned of the incident in the first place. The Christian retired to lick his wounds and settled on a rematch: not a repetition of the day's disappointing performance, but the composition of a dialogue between a Jewish and a Christian interlocutor. Tertullian's Adversus Judaeos was the fruit of this labor.

A dialogue written and published after such an unsatisfactory encounter could "set the record straight" and even turn to one's favor an ambiguous or adverse outcome.^[15] By reaching beyond the immediate audience of the disputation, both sides could in effect claim victory by practicing what is known in modern American political parlance as spin-doctoring. Though we are lucky to have Tertullian's side of the story, it would mean that much more if we could also read the account of his apparently triumphant opponent. Such a document was probably never composed, for a winner did not need to labor in writing to immortalize a victory that had already been secured.

The heated controversies between Jews and early Christians involved a proprietary dispute: the authority to attach their own preferred interpretations to biblical scriptures and prophecies. Both groups ac-

[13] Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos 1.1: "Proxime accidit: disputatio habita est Christiano et proselyto Iudaeo. alternis vicibus contentioso rune uterque diem in vesperam traxerunt. obstrepentibus quibusdam ex partibus singulorum nubilo quodam veritas obumbrabatur." The term partes was employed by Tertullian in a technical, forensic sense to refer to litigants in a dispute; see Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem 1.20 (CSEL 47:315): "Huic expeditissimae probationi defensio quoque a nobis necessaria est adversus obstrepitacula diversae partis."

[14] No appointed judges are referred to in this dialogue. Perhaps here the audience performs the function of determining the outcome. In some literary dialogues, such as Plutarch's De sollertia animalium , Methodius' De resurrectione , and Minucius Felix's Octavius , a member from an intimate circle of friends was asked to judge a "school disputation."

[15] Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos 1.1: "Placuit ergo, [ut] quod per concentum disputationis minus plene potuit dilucidari, curiosius inspectis lectionibus stilo questiones retractatas terminare." The motive for writing as stated in the Adversus Judaeos is surprisingly similar to one expressed in Tertullian's preface to De fuga in persecutione 1.1 (CSEL 76:17): "Ibidem ego oblocutus aliquid pro loco ac tempore et quarundam personarum importunitate semitractatam materiam abstuli mecum, plenius in eam de stilo nunc renutiaturus, utpote quam ei tua consultatio commendarat et condicio temporum suo iam nomine iniunxerat."

cepted—though with some notable exceptions, especially in the case of the Christians—the authenticity and authority of the Hebrew bible as holy writ; both embraced the interpretation of sacred texts as a valid method for ascertaining truth. The debates between Jews and Christians became sessions of competitive exegesis in which each side brandished its own catenae, compilations of prooftexts drawn from biblical sources, to advance its religious claims.

Jews and Christians may have contended for the scriptures by means of the scriptures, but they adhered for the most part to the general rules of disputation.^[16] The rival parties could engage in this kind of verbal and textual contest mainly because they shared certain fundamental assumptions.^[17] Without the common ground of received tradition and shared concerns and interests, they would have had little incentive or opportunity to engage in public disputations.^[18]

Yet the Jews and Christians of the Roman Empire did not project their rival claims in vacuo. These predominantly urban dwellers lived in a diverse Hellenistic world, which they shared with a majority population of polytheists or pagans of all stripes. They could not afford to ignore this considerable third party; in fact, each sought, with varying degrees of success, to gain the respect of the gentiles.^[19]

Solicitude for this population's goodwill may explain the peculiar nature of the narrative proem of Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho (mid-second century).^[20] On the one hand, the philosopher, a convert to Christianity, employs the techniques of exegesis to demonstrate that the followers of Christ were the true Israelites, and that scriptural prophecies foretold the coming of Christ.^[21] On the other hand, Justin directly emulates Platonic dialogues by setting up the exchanges with a dra-

[16] On the prominence of the theme of debate in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, see B. R. Voss, Der Dialog in der früchristlichen Literatur (Munich, 1970), 60-78.

[17] See Evagrius, Altercatio legis inter Simonem ludaeum et Theophilum Christianum 1 (E. Bratke, ed., CSEL 45:2).

[18] See J. G. Gager, Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975), 66-92, on the important causal connection between group identity and social conflict.

[19] H. Remus, "Justin Martyr's Argument with Judaism," in S. G. Wilson, ed., Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity II: Separation and Polemic (Waterloo, Ont., 1986), 59-80, esp. 74-80.

[20] For a discussion of the form of this dialogue, see W. Bousset, Jüdisch-christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria und Rom: Literarische Untersuchungen zu Philo und Clemens yon Alexandria, Justin und Irenäus (Göttingen, 1915), 282ff.; Voss, Dialog , 26-39; and M. Hoffmann, Der Dialog bei den christlichen Schriftstellern der ersten vier Jahrhunderte TU 96 (Berlin, 1966), 10-28.

[21] This question is thoroughly examined by O. Skarsaune, The Proof from Prophecy: A Study in Justin Martyr's Proof-text Tradition (Leiden, 1987).

matic preface in which, along a colonnaded avenue of Roman Ephesus, a philosophically trained Jew named Trypho approaches Justin for a discussion of things religious.^[22] This proem, which places the writing in the genre of literary and philosophical dialogues, was not included solely as a stylistic ornament. In this brief preliminary exchange, Justin sought to show how the ensuing discussion—which is quite extensive and, arguably, quite tedious—could also have relevance for a readership that was neither Jewish nor Christian. When Trypho and his companions ()^[23] requested a discussion with Justin, who was still proudly wearing his philosopher's cloak, the latter responded by asking the proselyte how he expected to profit by a philosophical discourse. After all, Justin exclaimed, Trypho already held in his grasp the wisdom of Moses the lawgiver and the prophets. Trypho's clever response was clearly designed to appeal to a broad, educated audience:

Why not? Do the philosophers not fashion their every discourse with regard to the Deity? . . . And do they not continually entertain questions concerning his Oneness and Providence? Is this not indeed the duty of philosophy: to investigate the Deity?^[24]

The author needed to assert that this ostensibly domestic quarrel between Jews and Christians was of concern to everyone with a philosophical bent because what followed the proem bore little resemblance to Graeco-Roman philosophical discourse. Justin and Trypho engaged in extensive exegetical fencing, drawing on specific passages from the Hebrew bible to support their own positions and to refute their opponent's. Their contentions over the rightful interpretation of biblical prophecies, acceptable to those familiar with Jewish-Christian debate, would have elicited little understanding from outsiders.^[25]

Though Justin the Christian philosopher and apologist sternly op-

[22] Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone 1.3. Scholars do accept an underlying historical disputation; see S. Krauss, "The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers," Jewish Quarterly Review 5 (1893), 123-30, at 124-25; L. W. Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (Cambridge, 1967), 23-24: "The best solution to the literary problem of the Dialogue is to postulate an original, historical debate with Trypho which occurred soon after A.D. 132, which Justin subsequently elaborated c . A.D. 160, drawing on oral and written testimony material which was known and used in the Church of his Day." The association of the Dialogus with Ephesus was made by Eusebius in Hist. eccl . 4.18.

[23] For references to Trypho's associates, see, e.g., Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone 1.3.

[25] See Acta Iustini 2 (H. Musurillo, ed., Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford, 1972], 43-45, 48-49) on the abrupt change of subject by the magistrate Q. Junius Rusticus as soon as Justin began to expound his religious beliefs.

posed the unthinking acceptance of traditional beliefs by his polytheist contemporaries,^[26] he knew well that his own arguments in favor of Christianity were unsatisfactory from the standpoint of philosophical demonstration.^[27] It mattered little that he thought Christian truth-claims to be more worthy of trust than philosophical demonstrations or apodeixeis , for by his juxtaposition of the two Justin exhibited the standard expectations of proof among those trained in philosophy. Elsewhere, educated Christians who wished to conduct disputations based solely on the authority of scriptures likewise acknowledged their departure from normal philosophical practice, as did an interlocutor in Adimantus' De recta in deum fide , who said, "If you wish for there to be a wholly truthful investigation, take leave of philosophical arguments and be persuaded by scriptures alone."^[28]

For their part, Greek philosophers ostensibly disapproved of straightforward reliance on authoritative "givens" even as they paid homage to the ancestral wisdom of eminent predecessors. Rational skepticism was by no means practiced by all philosophical polytheists, or even a majority of them. Cicero knew of certain Pythagoreans, for instance, whom he regarded as undesirably dogmatic, because they invoked what "the master said" as their authority in disputation. The orator roundly denounced this practice of justifying one's position sine ratione , without rational argument, solely on the basis of unexamined traditional authority, auctoritas .^[29] Clearly, Cicero was protesting a contemporary trend toward the happy acceptance of dogmatic beliefs.

The same criticisms that Cicero had leveled at the Pythagoreans might be applied in equal measure to Jews and Christians. Christians, in particular, bore the brunt of such polemical assaults because they lacked the protective armor of tradition and antiquity that shielded the Jews from its most grievous blows. According to E. R. Dodds, "Had any

[26] For a fruitful discussion of the relation between Justin's truth-claims and the sociology of knowledge, see Remus, "Justin Martyr's Argument with Judaism," 63-66.

[27] See the explicit contrast between the two in Dialogus cum Tryphone 7.2. On Justin's philosophical background, see N. Hyldahl, Philosophie und Christentum: Eine Interpretation der Einleitung zum Dialogs Justins (Copenhagen, 1966), 272-92, and M. J. Edwards, "On the Platonic Schooling of Justin Martyr," JTS n.s. 42 (1991), 17-34.

[29] Cicero, De natura deorum 1.5.10: "Non enim tam auctoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta quaerenda sunt. Quin etiam obest plerumque iis qui discere volunt auctoritas eorum qui se docere profitentur; desinunt enim suum iudicium adhibere, id habent ratum quod ab eo quem probant iudicatum vident . . . tantum opinio praeiudicata poterat, ut etiam sine ratione valeret auctoritas."

cultivated pagan of the second century been asked to put in a few words the difference between his own view of life and the Christian one, he might reply that it was the difference between logismos and pistis , between reasoned conviction and blind faith."^[30] Christians were considered by many contemporary critics to be incapable of rendering a satisfactory defense of their extraordinary beliefs. Some Christians, unable to prove their claims by scriptures because pagans—who relied on them only in polemics against Christians—would not assent to their authority, even asserted, after the fashion of the apostle Paul, that the wisdom of the world was mere foolishness to the faithful. Tertullian, boasting that credo quia absurdum , self-consciously rejected the standards for demonstrations prescribed by a Hellenistic philosophical koine.^[31]

Another of Tertullian's famous dicta was addressed primarily to other Christians: "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"^[32] According to him, Christians ought to desist from attempting to enhance the respectability of their religion by recasting its tenets in Stoic, Platonic, and dialectical terms. For such was what "heretics" attempted when they

introduce Aristotle, who instituted dialectic for them, the skill of joining together and pulling apart, subtle in its opinions, forced in its speculations, harsh in its arguments, a maker of controversies, an annoyance even to itself, investigating everything anew lest there is anything it will not have investigated.^[33]

Tertullian championed a paradoxical and radically inward-looking faith: "No one is wise unless he is a believer; no one is great unless he is a Christian (Nemo est sapiens, nisi fidelis, nemo maior, nisi Christianus)."^[34] One ought, in his view, to cultivate simplicity of soul by im-

[30] E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine (Cambridge, 1965), 120.

[31] The supposition that Christianity and pagan paideia were, in Tertullian's view, mutually exclusive is no longer tenable. For a documentation of the uses of rhetorical techniques and argumentation by Tertullian "the sophist" to support the claims of Christianity, see R. D. Sider, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian (Oxford, 1971).

[32] Tertullian, De praescriptionibus haereticorum 7 (E. Kroyman, ed., CSEL 70 [1942]: 10-11): "Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? quid academiae et ecclesiae? quid haereticis et Christianis? Nostra institutio de porticu Solomonis est, quiet ipse tradiderat dominum in simplicitate cordis esse quaerendum. Viderint qui Stoicum et Platonicum et dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum lesum, nec inquisitione post evangelium. Cum credimus, nihil desideramus ultra credere. Hoc enim prius credimus, non esse quod ultra credere debeamus."

[33] Tertullian, De praescriptionibus haereticorum 7 (CSEL 70:9-10): "Arte inserunt Aristotelen, qui illis dialecticam instituit, artificem struendi et destruendi, versipellem in sententiis, coactam in coniecturis, duram in argumentis, operariam contentionum, molestam etiam sibi ipsam, omnia retractantem, ne quid <re>tractaverit." The translation in the text is mine.

[34] Tertullian, De praescriptionibus haereticorum 3 (CSEL 70:4).

bibing the gnomic wisdom of a Solomon, not the clever mental tricks of a Greek philosopher. But Tertullian proposed this hierarchy of knowledge more to dissuade Christians from the elitism and fissiparousness of competitive claims to gnosis than to confute pagans critical of Christian simplicitas .^[35] The Christian wisdom, the true philosophy, was neither esoteric nor restricted to a privileged few, but was freely accessible to all believers, irrespective of rank or birth. Tertullian's invocation of the ideal of the via universalis , as expressed in his Liber apologeticus (46), was aptly summed up by Edward Gibbon, who infused in it his own signature prejudices:

[Formerly,] a chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which neither convinced the understanding nor agitated the passions of the Platonists themselves, were carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the studious part of mankind. But after the Logos has been revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired to contemplate the economy of Divine Nature: and it is the boast of Tertullian that a Christian mechanic could readily answer such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages.^[36]

We may be tempted to accept this portrayal as a valid social description. It is not inconceivable that certain Christian tradesmen in Tertullian's time, in keeping with the Graeco-Roman tradition of the self-taught man known as autodidaktos or theodidaktos ,^[37] flouted the prevalent conventions of their society, which stipulated gentlemanly otium and social privilege as conditiones sine qua non for attaining true elevated knowledge and the competence to discourse on issues concerning the

[35] See Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos 2 (CSEL 47:178): "Ideoque simplices notamur apud illos, ut hoc tantum, non etiam sapientes; quasi statim deficere cogatur a simplicitate sapientia, domino utramque iungente: estote prudentes ut serpentes et simplices ut columbae. aut si nos propterea insipientes, quia simplices, num ergo et illi propterea non simplices, quia sapientes? et tamen malim meam partem meliori sumi vitio, si forte: praestat minus sapere quam peius, errare quam fallere. porro facies dei spectatur in simplicitate quarendi, ut docet ipse Sophia, non quidem Valentini, sed Solomonis."

[36] E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 21.1 (New York, n.d.), pt. 1, p. 680.

divine. Still, we can hardly expect that many educated pagans paid them heed, or showed much respect for the ideas expressed.

As far as we know, public disputation with a pars melior trained in philosophy was not the most common means by which early Christians attracted adherents to their faith. The literary record abounds with exceptions that prove the rule. It is unlikely that St. Paul debated publicly in the Athenian agora with philosophers and passersby, or delivered a discourse before the council of Areopagus Concerning the "unknown God" (Acts 17:16-34), yet the author of Luke-Acts thought it useful to depict the Apostle to the Gentiles in such a light.^[38] And the genteel and cultivated discussion in Minucius Felix's Octavius , in which Christian and pagan interlocutors engaged in a give-and-take school disputation over the validity of Christian beliefs, was almost certainly entirely fictive, yet its author used the genre of Latin literary dialogue to fashion an apologetic construct to suggest that such discussions might have taken place.^[39]

Early Christians mainly relied on less exalted and rigorous means, including the use of "inartistic proofs," to defend their faith and persuade potential converts. This emphasis may be due to demography: during this period, Christians and their potential converts hailed from the humbler segments of society, which traditionally had no training in philosophy.^[40] As one alert pagan observed:

Most people are unable to follow any demonstrative argument ( ?) consecutively . . . just as now we see the people called the Christians drawing their faith from parables [and miracles], and yet sometimes acting in the same way [as those who philosophize]. For their contempt of death [and of its sequel] is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation. For they include not only men but also women who refrain from cohabiting all through their lives; and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-

[38] See J. Dupont, "Le discours à l'Aréopage (Ac 17, 22-31), lieu de rencontre entre christianisme et hellénisme," Nouvelles études sur les Actes des Apôtres (Paris, 1984), 380-423. Other grand preaching scenes can be found in Acts 13:16-41, 20:18-35, 22:1-21, and 24:10-21, on which generally see U. Wilcken, Die Missionsreden der Apostelgeschichte (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1961; 2d ed., 1963), esp. 87ff. For a more humble (and more plausible) Sitz im Leben of Pauline missionary activities, see E. A. Judge, "St. Paul and Classical Society," JAC 15 (1972), 19-36, and R. F. Hock, "The Workshop as a Social Setting for Paul's Missionary Teaching," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 41 (1979): 438-50.

[40] See R. MacMullen, "Two Types of Conversion to Early Christianity," VChr 37 (1983): 174-92.

control in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of genuine philosophers.^[41]

This rendition, by Richard Walzer, from the Arabic of a statement attributed to Galen (in an epitome of Plato's Republic ) suggests how, despite the lack of logical demonstration of their claims, Roman Christians were admired by as demanding a judge as the illustrious Pergamene physician-philosopher. Though Stephen Gero has shown convincingly that the Arabic passage reflects later emendations by Christian apologists, he concedes that the first part of the statement—concerning the Christians' use of irrational forms of demonstration—may well be original.^[42] This strikes me as a fair guess, for an apologetic comment phrased in this concessive fashion would not normally have arisen unless to refute an authentic and widely held criticism. Further, the passage's emphasis on the rationality of religious and philosophical beliefs harmonizes well with the views expressed in many of Galen's undisputed writings, in which he evinces a sincere preoccupation with philosophical demonstration as a necessary guide to important choices in life.

Galen followed the advice of his father, whom he greatly admired, by avoiding attachment to any of the contemporary philosophical and medical sectae without thorough and lengthy investigation of their teachings.^[43] Galen set great store by the philosophical methods of establishing episteme , or certain knowledge, by which what was true could be distinguished from what merely appeared to be so; his extremely high standard of proof was outlined in his De optima secta .^[44] The central question was how to arrive at incontrovertible knowledge ().^[45] The Pergamene eventually opted—as did many of his contemporaries—for a deliberate eclecticism, because the certainty he sought ever eluded him.^[46]

[41] R. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians (London, 1949), 15-16; his full and helpful discussion appears on 18-74. See also R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Sara Them (New Haven, Conn., 1984), 68-93.

[42] S. Gero, "Galen on the Christians: A Reappraisal of the Arabic Evidence," Orientalia Christiana Periodica 56 (1990): 371-411, at 404: "The introductory statement, which criticizes the exclusive reliance on non-rational motivations . . . bears the stamp of originality." See also Gero's textual comments on this passage, which draw on other Arabic sources, on 404-11.

[43] See texts on Galen's life conveniently collected by P. Moraux in Galen de Pergame: Souvenirs d'un médecin (Paris, 1985), 15-16, 42-48. See also R. B. Edlow, Galen on Language and Ambiguity: An English Translation of Galen's 'De captionibus (On Fallacies )' (Leiden, 1977), 5.

[44] Text in J. Marquardt, ed., Galen: Scripta Minora 1 (Leipzig, 1884).

[45] Galen, De optima secta 2.42 (Marquardt, ed., 1:84). On Galen's theory of knowledge, see M. Frede, "On Galen's Epistemology," in V. Nutton, ed., Galen: Problems and Prospects (London, 1981), 65-86.

[46] See Wilken, As the Romans Sara Them , 73-77.

The question of how others discerned the veracity of their claims had concerned Greek physicians at least since the Hippocratic writings, for they often had to appeal beyond their professional circle for recognition.^[47] This concern was in part a reaction against the traditional temple medicines practiced by those who could not, or would not, articulate a rational scientific theory for their praxeis .^[48] For Galen, appeals to customary usage and established textual authority did not suffice as foundations of true knowledge, whether in the practice of medicine or in other areas of life. Galen, who enjoyed access to libraries and the leisure to cultivate broad-based knowledge, understandably scorned the dogmatism of others, whose positions stemmed partly from the realities of their limited choices. He generally deprecated blind trust in the dictates of an authority or in the accepted wisdom of authoritative texts, including the Jews' reliance on the Laws of Moses, which he otherwise admired.^[49]

The charge that Christians were unusually obstinate and unyielding to rational persuasion in matters of faith echoed widely in antiquity. Such a criticism could arguably be applied with justice to the pagans of Galen's time as well,^[50] yet to outsiders at least, Christians appeared especially unresponsive to pleas for philosophical demonstration.^[51] To sturdy souls convinced that divine revelation was their exclusive birthright, amelioration of their views—the epistemological principle upon which a dialectic of inquiry is predicated—was unnecessary, even undesirable. The proof of their belief rested in their supreme conviction, which they displayed before the world by becoming martyrs in Roman

[47] See G. E. R. Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (Berkeley, Calif., 1987), 88-102. See especially his nuanced discussion of the implications various kinds of audiences had for the cast of the practitioners' rival truth-claims.

[48] See the fruitful discussion of these issues as they surfaced in the preclassical period by G. E. R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origins and Development of Greek Sciences (Cambridge, 1979), esp. 37-49.

[49] Walzer, Galen , 10-11: "They compare those who practice medicine without scientific knowledge to Moses, who framed laws for the tribe of the Jews, since it is his method in his books to write without offering proofs, saying 'God commanded, God spake.'" And on 14-15: "If I had in mind people who taught their pupils in the same way as the followers of Moses and Christ teach theirs—for they order them to accept everything on faith—I should not have given you a definition." On the reception of Moses by pagans, see J. G. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism , Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series no. 16 (Nashville, Tenn., 1972).

[50] Galen, De optima secta 2.43-44 (Marquardt, ed., 1:84-85). On Galen's commentaries on the Aristotelian logical corpus, see Walzer, Galen , 78-79.

[51] See Porphyry's charge in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 1.2. Generally, see S. Benko, "Pagan Criticism of Christianity during the First Two Centuries, A.D.," ANRW 2.23.2 (Berlin, 1980), 1055-1118.

arenas. This histrionic bravado, a Christian brand of demonstration, disturbed even the philosophical temper of Marcus Aurelius.^[52]

Certain Christians, eager for recognition outside of their own religious community, proposed a more intellectually defensible Christianity, but more often than not their attempts to respond to pagan critiques were regarded by their fellow believers as heretical.^[53] Others, such as Clement of Alexandria, proposed the use of philosophical dialectic as a means of differentiating proper from improper Christians.^[54]

Another educated pagan found absolutely nothing to commend in Christianity. Unlike Galen, whose rationalist outlook promised at least a degree of openmindedness, Celsus was a resolute traditionalist and apologist for the pagan heritage who based his arguments for polytheism on its greater antiquity and on the sanctity of customary usage. This determined foe of the Christian religion underscored what he regarded as the disturbingly unphilosophical modes of persuasion on which Christians relied to advance their faith:

In private houses also we see wool-workers, cobblers, laundry-workers, and the most illiterate and bucolic yokels, who would not dare to say anything at all in front of their elders and more intelligent masters. But whenever they get hold of children in private and some stupid women with them, they let out some astounding statements as, for example, that they must not pay any attention to their father and school-teachers, but must obey them; they [the Christians] say that these talk nonsense and have no understanding, and that in reality they neither know nor are able to do anything good, but are taken up with mere empty chatter. But they [the Christians] alone, they say, know the right way to live, and if the children would believe them, they would become happy and make their home happy as well. And if just as they [the Christians] are speaking they see one of the school-teachers coming, or some intel-

[52] Marcus Aurelius, Meditationes 11.3. Generally, see P. A. Brunt, "Marcus Aurelius and the Christians," in C. Deroux, ed., Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History (Brussels, 1979), 1:483-519.

[54] See the discussion of Clement of Alexandria's Stromateis in A. Le Boulluec, La notion d'hérésie dans la littérature grecque, I-III siècles (Paris, 1985), 2:276-88. See also E. F. Osborn, "Reason and the Rule of Faith in the Second Century AD," in R. Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, 1989), 40-61.

ligent person, or even the father himself, the more cautious of them flee in all directions; but the more reckless urge the children on to rebel. They whisper to them that in the presence of their father and their schoolmasters they [the Christians] do not feel able to explain anything to the children, since they do not want to have anything to do with the silly and obtuse teachers who are totally corrupted and far gone in wickedness and who inflict punishment on the children. But, if they like, they [the children] should leave father and their schoolmasters, and go along with the women and little children who are their playfellows to the wooldresser's shop, or to the cobblers or the washerwoman's shop, that they may learn perfection. And by saying this they [the Christians] persuade [the children].^[55]

Celsus characterized Christians as subversive infiltrators who targeted their efforts at women, children, and old men—people whose powers of judgment were customarily considered deficient—and who won them over by specious arguments and "old wives' tales."^[56] In his view, Christians had wrongfully bypassed the dominant authority of the adult males, in particular the patresfamilias , by appealing directly to the more gullible segments of Roman society. Christians employed this disgraceful tactic of taking advantage of the legally acknowledged weaknesses (to asthenes, levitas , and infirmitas ) of those compromised by their gender and age because, according to Celsus, they were unable to defend their views before cognoscenti Such as himself who possessed paideia , good education and moral character, and sound judgment. Since he could not otherwise come to grips with his elusive but seemingly successful adversaries, Celsus composed Alethes Logos (The true doctrine, c. 178-80), an exposé of Christian fraud using numerous established Jewish arguments, and in so doing threw down a gauntlet. The challenge waited three generations for the Christian intellectual Origen to take it up by composing his famous Contra Celsum to refute Celsus' denunciations seriatim .

One of Celsus' attacks turned on the plebeian character of Christian literature, unfavorably comparing the Altercatio Jasonis et Papisci —an early Christian anti-Jewish dialogue composed by Ariston of Pella following the Bar Kochba Revolt—with pagan literary dialogues.^[57] Celsus especially objected to its use of allegory to "explain away" difficult points.^[58]

[55] Origen, Contra Celsum 2.55 (H. Chadwick, ed., Contra Celsum [Cambridge, 1953], 165-66).

[56] See Origen, Contra Celsum 1.9.

[57] See Hoffmann, Dialog , 9-10.

[58] Origen, Contra Celsum 4.38, 4.52. On the pagan polemic against Christians' use of allegory on the Hebrew bible, see Eusebius, Hist. eccl . 6.19.4 and G. Binder, "Eine Polemik des Porphyrios gegen die allegorische Auslegung des Alten Testaments durch die Christen," ZPE 3 (1968): 81-95. For a fairly simpleminded, "do-it-yourself" handbook to Christian allegories, see A. Henrichs and E. M. Husselman, "Christian Allegorizations (P. Mich. Inv. 3718)," ZPE 3 (1968), 175-89.

Origen admitted Celsus' criticism of the "lowbrow" nature of the Altercatio , but argued that the work was directed at simple Christians to bolster their faith.^[59] To speak to the simplices , a sermo humilis was in order,^[60] though Origen himself was anything but a simple Christian.^[61]