Meddling with the Gospel: Celsus, Early Christian Textuality, and the politics of reading

Journal article

The second-century philosopher Celsus disparaged Christians who ‘alter the original text of the Gospel three or four or many times’ (Cels. 2.27). Modern scholars have understood this passage as criticism of multiple distinct Gospels, but Celsus’ invective is better explained by elite secondcentury polemics (e.g., Galen, Lucian, Gellius) against readers who lack discernment and arbitrarily alter manuscripts. For Celsus, Christians’ irresponsible textual practices reveal their cultural inferiority. The complaint is about varying copies of what Celsus thinks to be the same work: ‘the Gospel’. Christian thinkers in the second and third centuries—including Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen—also participate in this discourse about good and bad readers. This article thus offers a window into the wider ancient Mediterranean politics of reading in which early Christian textuality emerged.

Authors: Coogan, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Journal: Novum Testamentum: An International Quarterly for New Testament and Related Studies
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 400-422
• Publication date: 2023-06-09
• Acceptance date: 2022-10-22
• DOI: 10.1163/15685365-bja10044
• EISSN: 1568-5365
• ISSN: 0048-1009
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR