Origen

“ He appears to me, indeed, to have acted like those Jews who, when Christianity began to be first preached, scattered abroad false reports of the Gospel, such as that “Christians offered up an infant in sacrifice, and partook of its flesh;” and again, “that the professors of Christianity, wishing to do the ‘works of darkness,’ used to extinguish the lights (in their meetings) , and each one to have sexual intercourse with any woman whom he chanced to meet.” ”

“ These calumnies have long exercised, although unreasonably, an influence over the minds of very many, leading those who are aliens to the Gospel to believe that Christians are men of such a character; and even at the present day they mislead some, and prevent them from entering even into the simple intercourse of conversation with those who are Christians. ”

“ Celsus, however, appears to have had in view in employing these expressions, not a rational [3] object, but one of a most irrational kind, arising out of his hatred towards us, which is so unlike a philosopher. ”