Celsus penned the earliest known detailed attack upon Christianity. While his identity is disputed and his anti-Christian treatise, entitled the True Word, has been exclusively transmitted through the hands of the great Christian scholar Origen, he remains an intriguing figure. In this interdisciplinary volume, which brings together ancient philosophers, specialists in Greek literature, and historians of early Christianity and of ancient Judaism, Celsus is situated within the cultural, philosophical, religious and political world from which he emerged. While his work is ostensibly an attack upon Christianity, it is also the defence of a world in which Celsus passionately believed. It is the unique contribution of this volume to give voice to the many dimensions of that world in a way that will engage a variety of scholars interested in late antiquity and the histories of Christianity, Judaism and Greek thought.

'… one of the best comprehensive volumes on Celsus in recent memory.' Juraj Franek, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

James Carleton Paget is Reader in Early Christianity and Ancient Judaism, University of Cambridge. His interests include the Jewish origins of Christianity and the history of biblical interpretation. He has written a number of books and articles on second-century Judaism and Christianity and is co-editor of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History and Fellow and Tutor at Peterhouse. Simon Gathercole is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Where is Boasting? (Eerdmans, 2003), The Pre-Existent Son (Eerdmans, 2006), The Gospel of Judas (OUP, 2007), The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas (Cambridge, 2012), The Gospel of Thomas (Brill, 2014) and The Apocryphal Gospels (Penguin Classics, 2021). He is the editor of the journal New Testament Studies.