ORIGEN, CELSUS AND LUCIAN ON THE ‘DÉNOUEMENT OF THE DRAMA’ OF THE GOSPELS Margaret M. Mitchell Robert M. Grant is the master of the six-page seminal essay. 1 I am not. But in his honor I tried for once to emulate both his critical good sense and its formidable formal expression. I thought it might help that I was focusing on a single sentence in Origen’s contra Celsum. I was mistaken. ! "#$%&$ '( )*+ ',+ -../+ )0&"12 $3+45 '$ 647 8"6$9+" :)9+ 8* ';+ 64'4%'<"=;+ '"> 8<?)4'"2 $@%AB)C+/2 ! DE&4+,2 F=$1<G%&4E" ';+ FD7 '"> %6C."D"2 4@'"> =/+H+" I'’ JDKD+$E" 647 'L+ %$E%)L+ 647 'L+ %6C'"+# (c. Cels. 2.55) 2 The manner of the death of Jesus, as narrated in the gospels, especially Matthew, elicited from Celsus (in the name of his “Jew,” and directed toward Jewish-Christians) 3 this head-wagging critique. The statement is part of a longer quotation from Celsus, but Origen thought the wording of this particular sentence important enough to quote again in 2.58. Right before our quotation the anti-Christian polemicist had trotted out the stories of other ancient heroes and gods (4M N</OE647 M%'"<54E [2.56]) who had died and then supposedly risen, as part of the larger argument seeking to falsify Christian claims on the grounds that Jesus had faked both his divine birth and his resurrection. Celsus then names the topic for scrutiny: P..’ F6$9+" %6$D'K"+, $# 'E2 Q2 J.B&,2 JD"&4+R+ J+K%'B D"'* 4@'S %T)4'E (“But the point to be examined is whether anyone who actually died ever rose bodily”). Hence before critiquing the accounts of the resurrection (which he will famously do by attributing them to “hysterical women”) Celsus has a preliminary 1 For just two examples, see “Hellenistic Elements in 1 Corinthians,” Early Christian Origins. Studies in Honor of Harold R. Willoughby, ed. A. Wikgren (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961) 60–66; “ ‘Holy Law’ in Paul and Ignatius,” The Living Text: Essays in Honor of Ernest W. Saunders (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985) 65–71. 2 Text of Marcel Borret, Origène, contre Celse (SC 132, 136, 147, 150, 227; Paris: Cerf, 1967–76; corrected ed. of vols. 1–2, 2005). 3 All of bk. 2 of the contra Celsum is dedicated to “the Jew’s” critique of Christians, bk. 1 to his face-off against Jesus himself (see 1.71; 2.1; 3.1). A"#E%&1()21+)2,-.i0dd 21+ A"#E%&1()21+)2,-.i0dd 21+ 123,32445 -64+6,7 P9 123,32445 -64+6,7 P9