Note 157 — Chapter II
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 157:
(return)
Celsus (Orig. c. Celsum, V. 59) after referring to the many Christian parties mutually provoking and fighting with each other, remarks (V. 64) that though they differ much from each other, and quarrel with each other, you can yet hear from them all the protestation, "The world is crucified to me and I to the world." In the earliest Gentile Christian communities brotherly love for reflective thought falls into the background behind ascetic exercises of virtue, in unquestionable deviation from the sayings of Christ, but in fact it was powerful. See the testimony of Pliny and Lucian, Aristides, Apol. 15, Tertull Apol. 39.