In Syria and Edessa men used to part with their manhood in honor of Tharatha,[27] but when King Abgar became a believer he commanded that every one that did so should have his hand cut off, and from that day until now no one does so in the country of Edessa.
And what shall we say of the new race of us Christians, whom Christ at His advent planted in every country and in every region? For, lo, wherever we are, we are called after the one name of Christ—namely, Christians. On one day, the first day of the week, we assemble ourselves together, and on the days of the readings[28] we abstain from sustenance. The brethren who are in Gaul do not take males for wives, nor those in Parthia two wives; nor do those in Judea circumcise themselves; nor do those of our sisters who are among the Geli consort with strangers; nor do those of our brethren who are in Persia take their daughters for wives; nor do those who are in Media abandon their dead or bury them alive or give them as food to the dogs; nor do those who are in Edessa kill their wives who commit adultery, nor their sisters, but they withdraw from them, and give them over to the judgment of God; nor do those who are in Hatra stone thieves to death; but wherever they are, and in whatever place they are found, the laws of the several countries do not hinder them from obeying the law of their Christ; nor does the Fate of the [pg 055] celestial governors[29] compel them to make use of the things which they regard as impure.
(e) Eusebius, Hist. Ec., V, 10. (MSG, 20:455.)
Missions in the extreme East.
They say that Pantænus displayed such zeal for the divine word that he was appointed a herald of the Gospel of Christ to the nations of the East and was sent as far as India.[30] For indeed there were still many evangelists of the word who sought earnestly to use their inspired zeal, after the example of the Apostles, for the increase and building up of the divine word. Pantænus was one of these, and he is said to have gone to India. The report is that among persons in that country who knew of Christ he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the Apostles, had preached to them and left them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, and they had preserved it till that time.
§ 18. Heathen Religious Feeling and Culture in Relation to Christianity
The Christian religion in the course of the latter part of the second century began to attract the attention of heathen writers; it became an object of literary attack. The principal literary opponent of Christianity was Celsus, who subjected the Christian traditions and customs to a searching criticism to prove that they were absurd, unscientific, and false. Lucian of Samosata, does not seem to have attacked Christianity from any philosophical or religious interest, but treated it as an object of derision, making sport of it. There [pg 056] were also in circulation innumerable heathen calumnies, many of the most abominable character. These have been preserved only by Christian writers. It was chiefly in reference to these calumnies that the Christian apologists wrote. The answer to Celsus made by Origen belongs to a later period, though Celsus represents the best philosophical criticism of Christianity of the latter part of the second century.
(a) Celsus, The True Word, in Origen, Contra Celsum. (MSG, 11:651 ff.)
The work of Celsus against Christianity, or The True Word, written about 178, is lost, but it has been so incorporated in the elaborate reply of Origen that it can be reconstructed without much difficulty. This Theodor Keim has done. The following extracts from Origen's Contra Celsum are quotations from Celsus or references to his criticism of Christianity. For Origen, v. infra, [§ 43, b].