Celsus' view: Jesus and Moses as jugglers

[arnoldo]

We must also remember that, because paganism and superstition were omnipresent in ancient society, the magician could be someone not very different to a travelling priest of an unfamiliar god; or to a down-at-heels sophist. Indeed even the best known philosophers could be sold as vagrants (as Plato was), and in Diogenes Laertius we get a very clear picture of how even a philosopher could be regarded as a conman. At the edges, all these roles tend to merge together in a way that would not be true today.

The writings attributed to the Emperor Julian in Against the Galileans appears to echo this sentiment.

However of this I shall speak a little later. Now I will only point out that Moses himself and the prophets who came after him and Jesus the Nazarene, yes and Paul also, who surpassed all the magicians and charlatans of every place and every time, assert that he is the God of Israel alone and of Judaea, and that the Jews are his chosen people. . . You observe, then, how ancient among the Jews was this work of witchcraft, namely, sleeping among tombs for the sake of dream visions. And indeed it is likely that your apostles, after their teacher's death, practised this and handed it down to you from the beginning, I mean to those who first adopted your faith, and that they themselves performed their spells more skilfully than you do, and displayed openly to those who came after them the places in which they performed this witchcraft and abomination.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julia ... 1_text.htm

[DCHindley]

We must also remember that, because paganism and superstition were omnipresent in ancient society, the magician could be someone not very different to a travelling priest of an unfamiliar god; or to a down-at-heels sophist. Indeed even the best known philosophers could be sold as vagrants (as Plato was), and in Diogenes Laertius we get a very clear picture of how even a philosopher could be regarded as a conman. At the edges, all these roles tend to merge together in a way that would not be true today.

In Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, Demetrius says to Apollonius, "Domitian intends to implicate you in the charges for which Nerva and his associates were banished."

"But for what crime," said Apollonius, "are they banished?"

"For what is reckoned by the persecutor to be the greatest of latter-day crimes. He says that he has caught these persons in the act of trying to usurp his throne, and accuses you of instigating their attempt by mutilating, I think, a boy."

"What, as if it were by an eunuch, that I want his empire overthrown?"

"It is not that," he replied, "of which we are falsely accused; but they declare that you sacrificed a boy to divine the secrets of futurity which are to be learned from an inspection of youthful entrails; and in the indictment your dress and manner of life are also impugned, and the fact of your being an object of worship to some. This then is what I have heard from our Telesinus, no less your intimate than mine."

http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius ... _7_11.html

DCH