Arthur Drews

“ Who can say what evidences against Christianity did not perish in it? Even the work of Celsus, the one attack on Christianity of which we have much knowledge, is known to us only from Origen's reply to it. ”

“ There is therefore nothing in the objection that no one at that time questioned the existence of such a person. Those who attach importance to such doubts simply assume the correctness of the liberal-theological view of the origin of Christianity. If this view is false, if the transformation of Jesus into an historical person only occurred at a relatively late stage (the first half of the second century) , the absence of any doubt about the historical existence of Jesus before that time is quite intelligible. ”

“ The earlier Christian literature is acquainted with a Jesus-god, a god-man, a heavenly high-priest and saviour Jesus, a metaphysical spirit, descending from heaven to earth, assuming human form, dying, and rising again ”