At first I thought that I wouldn't have time to read yet another 300 page book, but this isn't. It is quite a manageable little tome and is divided into tasty snack-sized morsels.

Have only read the Celsus section so far though. Quite a coherent fellow. No doubt the original book of his had even more sensible talk about Christianity, considering that Origen, like any apologist, only selected the bits he felt he could attempt to answer.

Much of it is quite familiar in that we still have many of the same arguments today on this very website.

The Christ from Panthera theory can be added to the collection of Jesus origin stories.

It is also interesting to see what Christians were up to in the second century from the viewpoint of an outsider. I gather that this is the earliest known detailed analysis of Christianity. It also confirms that the stories about the Roman gods were not taken literally.

This bit is going to need more research as I'm not familiar with these Egyptian names in this form.

That to the least of things, however, are allotted guardian powers, may be learnt from the Egyptians, who say that the human body is divided into thirty-six parts, and that dæmons* or certain etherial gods who are distributed into the same number of parts, are the guardians of these divisions of the body. Some also assert, that there is a much greater number of these presiding powers; different corporeal parts being under the inspection of different powers. The names of these also in the vernacular tongue of the Egyptians are Chnoumën, Chnachoumën, Knat, Sicat, Biou, Erou, Erebiou, Ramanor, Reianoor.

Some highlights:

"What is said by a few who are considered as Christians, concerning the doctrine of Jesus and the precepts of Christianity, is not designed for the wiser, but for the more unlearned and ignorant part of mankind. For the following are their precepts: 'Let no one who is erudite accede to us, no one who is wise, no one who is prudent (for these things are thought by us to be evil); but let any one who is unlearned, who is stupid, who is an infant in understanding boldly come to us.'
 

Celsus after this, in his usual way deriding both Jews and Christians, compares all of them to a multitude of bats, or to ants coming out of their holes, or to frogs seated about a marsh, or to earthworms that assemble in a corner of some muddy place, and contend with each other which of them are most noxious.

Extending to the multitude these insane and perfectly obscure assertions, the meaning of which no intelligent man is able to discover,—for they are unintelligible and a mere nothing,—they afford an occasion to the stupid and to jugglers of giving to them whatever interpretation they please.

Further still: If God, like Jupiter in the comedy, being roused from a long sleep, wished to liberate the human race from evils, why did he send only into a corner of the earth this spirit of whom you boast? though he ought in a similar manner to have animated many other bodies, and to have sent them to every part of the habitable globe. The comic poet indeed, in order to excite the laughter of the audience in the theatre, says that Jupiter, after he was roused from his sleep, sent Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedæmonsians:—but do not you think that it is a much more ridiculous fiction to assert that God sent his son to the Jews?

For me, briefly reading about Neoplatonism has reinforced the notion that they thought very differently in many areas. Many of the ideas are as strange as Gnosticism and orthodox Christianity, though there is a lot of overlap, especially with the Logos. For that matter, most contemporary religious thought can be described as 'they don't think like us'. Still, this is so thoughout history. Reading Pepys or The Canterbury Tales for example, most of it seems quite normal, but every now and then they stray into strange concepts.

Presumably Irenaeus.

"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, since there are four directions of the world in which we are, and four principal winds...the four living creatures [of Revelation 4.9] symbolize the four Gospels...and there were four principal covenants made with humanity, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ." (Against All Heresies 3.11.8; cf. M 263)

I'm not sure if he was referring to the Diatessaron ("That Which is Through the Four" ), or to the individual components of it, or both.

He also speculated that the four canonical Gospels correspond with visionary depictions of angels, or "cherubim," found in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel and in the New Testament book of Revelation.

It has often struck me how common this mystical looking for signs in texts, divine patterns in entrails, holy numbers, etc. is. Religions these days don't make quite as much fuss about it, but it's there in their roots.

This leads me to the nightmare subject of astrotheology. I can't help but think that if I am right in believing that astrology was taken seriously by most ancients, then astrology is bound to have heavily influenced their religious beliefs. But by how much and where? The subject is too big for now and there is only so much research into mysticism I can bear. It's a form of angel pinhead dancing, but one does have to have to have some understanding of it in order to better interpret the texts.

I've only been seriously dabbling for a couple of years, since I joined this site, but I am finding it to be a very affordable and rewarding addiction and scoring isn't too hard.