The True Doctrine

Traditions

Greek and Roman mysteries

Role in the tradition

Secondary source A study of the tradition from outside it: history, scholarship, anthropology or reference.

Public attention

Major Wikipedia has an article about it in 11 languages.

• Read at newadvent.org ↗ newadvent.org

The True Word is a now-fragmentary treatise in which the ancient Greek philosopher Celsus addressed many principal points of early Christianity and argued against their validity. In The True Word, Celsus attacked Christianity in three ways: by attacking its philosophical claims, by marking it as a phenomenon associated with the uneducated and lower class, and by cautioning his audience that it was a danger to the Roman Empire. Information concerning the work exists only in the extensive quotations from it in the Contra Celsum, written some seventy years later by the Christian Origen. These are believed to be accurate, but may not give a fully comprehensive picture of the original work.

From the Wikipedia article The True Word, revision 1366178426, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata Q1269763: “treatise by Celsus criticising Christianity”.