The second-century Christian movement faced a number of poignant challenges, not the least of which was the rise of anti-Christian polemics from both the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds. Such polemics are exemplified in the second-century philosopher Celsus. Known through the excerpts available in Origen's Contra Celsum, Celsus's attacks are not only predicated on his understanding (and commitment to) middle Platonism, but also dependent upon earlier Jewish criticisms, drawn from the figure he calls “the Jew.” Thus, in Celsus, we have both Greco-Roman and Jewish polemics mixed together in the same individual.
For generations, scholars have been particularly interested in the source of Celsus's critiques (and thereby the source of his knowledge of the Gospels). This new volume by Egge Tijsseling—apparently a version of his PhD thesis under Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte at de Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam—seeks to address precisely this question.
Tijsseling states his purpose: “The main subject of this study is to find an answer to the question of what were the sources Celsus used to collect his knowledge about Jesus, and to a lesser extent Christianity, and Judaism” (19). His answer, which he collectively argues for throughout the volume, is that Celsus's source is a written text composed by an unknown Jew “between 105 and 130 as a response to gospel stories he had heard or maybe seen” (246). Celsus himself likely did not know or read the Gospels, argues Tijsseling, but simply used this written Jewish source. This source, in turn, was utilized and expanded by later authors to form the Jewish polemical text known as the Toledot Yeshu (“Life of Jesus”)—largely known to us through medieval manuscripts.
Before exploring Celsus's views of Jesus, and the possible Jewish source behind them, Tijsseling offers a number of preliminary chapters on subjects like methodology, the status quaestionis of Celsus's research, and the influence of Platonic thought on Celsus. This latter chapter is particularly insightful as it takes a deep dive into how Celsus's philosophical commitments are clearly derived from Plato and how those commitments are, in turn, the reasons he rejects many aspects of the teachings of (and about) Jesus. For instance, Tijsseling observes, Celsus rejects the incarnation not so much for historical reasons but for philosophical ones: “God cannot come down, and he would not want to either” (48).
In chapter 5, the volume's longest chapter, Tijsseling provides an extensive analysis of Celsus's testimony about Jesus, covering nine different topics: (1) Jesus's parentage and birth; (2) the baptism of Jesus; (3) Jesus as a magician; (4) the teachings of Jesus; (5) Jesus and his disciples; (6) Jesus and the Jewish law; (7) Jesus and the prophecies; (8) Jesus's appearance and character; and (9) Jesus's passion, death, and resurrection.
Here we see the severity of Celsus's critique (and therefore the severity of the Jewish source behind it) as he makes a number of provocative claims: for example, Jesus was a bastard child born of an adulterous relationship; Mary was a poor Jewish spinster with no significant lineage; Jesus was a magician/sorcerer (due to his time in Egypt) who tricked and deceived people; Jesus's disciples were a band of depraved, uneducated robbers; Jesus was a poor teacher who stole material from Plato.
After a brief chapter on Celsus's Christology, Tijsseling closes out the book with a comparison between Celsus's teachings on Jesus (covering a number of the aforementioned areas) and the later Toledot Yeshu. He concludes that the document Celsus used—created by the anonymous “Jew”—was effectively the “first edition of the Toledot Yeshu” (249). Elsewhere he refers to this document as a “precursor of Toledot Yeshu” (237).
However, while such a conclusion is certainly possible, it is not a necessary one. It seems there are other equally plausible solutions. Tijsseling's comparison shows the two documents shared common ideas, but does not demonstrate a textual relationship. The author of the later Toledot Yeshu may have received his content not from the text used by Celsus, but instead from the anti-Christian polemics that were well-known and widespread in the Jewish community.
As a whole, Tijsseling has offered a helpful and intriguing volume on Celsus's critiques of the Gospels and Jesus. Its fundamental contribution is not so much in solving the relationship between the text used by Celsus and the later Toledot Yeshu (I think that problem remains unresolved), but in highlighting the nature of early Jewish polemics against Christianity and how that illumines the relationship between Jews and Christians in the second century. Particularly useful in this regard is the appendix, which highlights 177 testimonials of Celsus, including the Greek text (with text-critical notes) and an English translation. Scholars of second-century Christianity will benefit from simply reading through these testimonials, conveniently gathered into one volume.
