Send me your ignorant, and unwise!
From ancient sources, we can deduce that the early Christians were recruited for their ignorance. We know this from the ancient church-father, Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – c. 253), also known as Origen Adamantius. Who wrote a rebuttal of the work of Celsus, the True Discourse, as a polemic against the Christians c. 175. Origen, is probably the only ancient author that we can find the works of Celsus, which were banned/destroyed by the then Christian church. Celsus was not alone in his criticism of Christianity. Several prominent pagan intellectuals, including Porphyry of Tyre (232-305 CE), wrote critical works against Christianity during its early centuries. Porphyry’s most notable anti-Christian treatise is “Against the Christians” (Kata Christianon), which survives only in fragments. Against the Christians was mostly concerned with particular, non-philosophical claims made in the Bible and by Christians that Porphyry finds incredible and objectionable. Like Celsus, Porphyry’s works were banned by Christianity.
Chapter XLIV.
After these points Celsus quotes some objections against the doctrine of Jesus, made by a very few individuals who are considered Christians, not of the more intelligent, as he supposes, but of the more ignorant class, and asserts that “the following are the rules laid down by them. Let no one come to us who has been instructed, or who is wise or prudent (for such qualifications are deemed evil by us); but if there be any ignorant, or unintelligent, or uninstructed, or foolish persons, let them come with confidence. By which words, acknowledging that such individuals are worthy of their God, they manifestly show that they desire and are able to gain over only the silly, and the mean, and the stupid, with women and children…”
[The sarcastic raillery of Celsus in regard to the ignorance and low social scale of the early converts to Christianity is in keeping with his whole tone and manner. On the special value of the evidence of early Christian writers, such as Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, etc., to the truth and power, among men of all classes, of the Gospel of our Lord. See Rawlinson’s Bampton Lectures, The Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records, Lect. viii. pp. 207, 420, et seqq. (Amer. ed. 1860). S.] —Contra Celsum BK III, Ch. XLIV.
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Even the early Christian preachers, claimed the ignorance and low social scale of the early converts to Christianity. The record showed: This objection claims to base itself on certain admissions of the earliest Christian preachers themselves, who remark that “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, were called.”—Bampton Lectures VIII, The Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records, page 268. THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PULPIT, AT THE BAMPTON LECTURE FOR 1859.
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Jeanne, J.E., pp. Jero Jones.
Approved ~ Primus Pilus
Jero Jones
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