Pagan Criticisms of Christianity: The Greco-Roman Intellectual Assault

2. 1. Timeline: The Pagan-Christian Intellectual War (c. 64–529 CE)

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3. 2. The Roman Administrative View: Superstitio and Hatred of the Human Race

Before the philosophers engaged, Roman administrators and historians had already formed a view of Christianity. It was not favorable. The key word is superstitio — a deliberate classification that placed Christianity outside the category of legitimate religion (religio) and into the realm of irrational, antisocial fanaticism.

Pliny the Younger (61–113 CE)

As governor of Bithynia-Pontus (c. 112 CE), Pliny wrote to Emperor Trajan asking how to handle accused Christians. He had interrogated believers, including under torture, and discovered nothing but “depraved, excessive superstition” (superstitionem pravam, immodicam). His use of superstitio rather than religio was a deliberate juridical denigration. Pliny’s letter is one of the earliest non-Christian documents about Christian practices — he describes their meetings, hymns to Christ “as if to a god,” and their oath to commit no crimes.

Tacitus (c. 56–120 CE)

“Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome… Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.” — Tacitus, Annals XV.44

“Hatred of the human race” (odium humani generis) — this was the Roman verdict. Christianity was not merely wrong but antisocial. By refusing to participate in civic religion, Christians threatened the pax deorum — the harmony between gods and humans that sustained the empire. They were seen as withdrawing from the bonds of citizenship itself.

Suetonius (c. 69–122 CE)

Labeled Christianity “a new and most mischievous superstition” (superstitio nova et malefica). The word malefica carries overtones of sorcery — suggesting Christians were not merely misguided but actively dangerous.

The Popular Charges: Cannibalism, Incest, and Atheism

At the popular level, three charges circulated against Christians, documented in Minucius Felix’s Octavius (attributed to the rhetorician Fronto, tutor of Marcus Aurelius):

• Cannibalism: A misunderstanding of the Eucharist — “this is my body” and “this is my blood” taken literally.
• Incest: Christians called each other “brother” and “sister” and greeted with a “holy kiss” — interpreted as sexual license within a closed community.
• Atheism: Christians refused to worship any visible gods. A religion without temples, altars, statues, or sacrifices was, by Roman standards, no religion at all.

4. 3. Celsus: The First Systematic Critic (c. 175 CE)

Celsus wrote The True Doctrine (Logos Alethes / Alethes Logos) around 175–180 CE — the first systematic intellectual critique of Christianity. The original is lost, but Origen’s eight-book refutation Contra Celsum (c. 248 CE) quotes so extensively that the work can be substantially reconstructed. Celsus was a philosophical eclectic, blending Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Pythagoreanism. He had clearly read Christian scriptures and was familiar with Jewish objections to Christianity.

The Jew of Celsus

In a brilliant literary device, Celsus introduces a Jewish spokesman who presents Jewish objections to Christianity. This “Jew of Celsus” claims:

• The virgin birth is fabricated. Mary was a poor spinner who committed adultery with a Roman soldier named Panthera and was expelled by her carpenter husband.
• Jesus went to Egypt, learned magic, and returned claiming divine powers.
• Jesus was not the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible.

After ventriloquizing the Jewish critique, Celsus speaks in his own philosophical voice, delivering the more devastating arguments.

Christianity as Distorted Platonism

“Things are stated much better among the Greeks, without all the pompous talk about God sending his Son or coming down from heaven himself. Plato is not guilty of boasting and falsehood.” — Celsus, via Origen, Contra Celsum

Celsus argued that whatever was true in Christianity was plagiarized from Plato — and whatever was original was false. The Logos doctrine? That was Plato. The immortality of the soul? Plato. The idea of a supreme God beyond the visible world? Plato. Christians had taken Greek philosophy and degraded it with crude literalism — turning metaphysical truths into stories about a specific man in a specific province.

Christianity Appeals to the Ignorant

“Let no one come to us who has been instructed, or who is wise or prudent (for such qualifications are deemed evil by us); but if there be any ignorant, or unintelligent, or uninstructed, or foolish persons, let them come with confidence.” — Celsus (characterizing Christian recruitment), via Origen

This was the class argument: Christianity deliberately targeted the uneducated — women, children, slaves, and the illiterate. It was a religion of the wool-workers’ shop and the washerwoman’s hut, not of the academy. Celsus found it contemptible that Christians actively discouraged intellectual inquiry.

The Absurdity of the Incarnation and Crucifixion

Why would the supreme God become human? The idea was philosophically grotesque. God is immutable, perfect, and beyond the material world. To descend into matter is to degrade oneself. And the crucifixion — the death penalty reserved for the lowest criminals — was not a sign of divinity but of disgrace. A God who dies on a cross is not a God at all.

Jesus as Magician, Not Miracle-Worker

Celsus did not deny that Jesus performed extraordinary feats — he denied their significance. Egyptian magicians could do the same. Should we consider them sons of God too? Jesus learned sorcery in Egypt and used it to attract followers. His “miracles” were common magic tricks, not evidence of divinity.

5. 4. Galen and the Stoics: Faith vs. Reason

Galen (129–216 CE)

The great physician was the first important pagan writer to treat Christianity as a philosophy rather than a mere superstitious sect, placing it alongside Stoicism and Epicureanism. This was backhanded respect: Christianity was worthy of being analyzed, but it failed the analysis.

“If I had in mind people who taught their pupils in the same way as the followers of Moses and Christ teach theirs — for they order them to accept everything on faith — I should not have given you a definition.” — Galen, On the Pulse (fragment)

Galen’s critique was epistemological. Moses and Christ did not offer proofs; they offered commands. “God commanded, God spake” — this was the method of Moses, and it was the opposite of science. Where rational philosophy demonstrates, religion asserts. Where philosophy invites scrutiny, religion demands obedience. Instead of demonstrated logic, Christians relied on parables, myths, and stories about rewards and punishments in the afterlife.

Epictetus (c. 50–135 CE)

The Stoic philosopher referred to “Galileans” in Discourses IV.7, acknowledging that they overcome fear of tyrants through their faith. But his assessment was nuanced and ultimately negative: Christian fearlessness comes from habit or madness, not from reason and demonstration. Their ethics were admirable — their foundations were not. A Stoic conquers death through rational understanding of nature; a Christian conquers death through irrational conviction. The result looks similar; the quality is different.

Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE)

“Readiness for death must spring from a man’s inner judgment, and not be the result of mere opposition [as is the case with the Christians]; it must be associated with deliberation and dignity and, if others too are to be convinced, with nothing like stage-heroics.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations XI.3

The philosopher-emperor’s only direct reference to Christians. The word usually translated as “mere opposition” is parataxis — obstinacy, contrariness. Christian martyrdom was death without the gravitas, serenity, and calm that should accompany the death of a wise person. It was theatrical, exhibitionist, crowd-seeking. Some scholars connect this to the phenomenon of fanatical Christians who actively sought martyrdom by pestering magistrates — a practice the Church itself eventually condemned.

6. 5. Lucian of Samosata: The Satirist’s View

Lucian (c. 125–180 CE), the Syrian Greek satirist, had firsthand familiarity with Christianity from its Syrian cradle. His The Death of Peregrinus is one of the earliest non-Christian evaluations of the religion — and it is devastating.

Lucian tells the story of Peregrinus Proteus, a Cynic philosopher who becomes a leader of the Christians in order to exploit their credulity. He is arrested for his faith and treated as a hero by the community, who bring him food, money, and comfort in prison. Eventually he leaves Christianity and becomes a Cynic.

“The poor wretches have convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody… Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.” — Lucian, The Death of Peregrinus 13

Lucian’s critique is not theological but sociological. Christians are not wicked — they are naive. They are generous, communal, devoted to their “crucified sophist” — and therefore easy marks for any charlatan who presents himself as a spiritual authority. They “accept all their doctrines without accurate demonstration,” and “any charlatan or trickster” who comes to them “quickly becomes rich by imposing on simple people.”

7. 6. Porphyry of Tyre: The Destroyed Masterwork

Porphyry (c. 234–305 CE) wrote Against the Christians (Kata Christianon) in fifteen books — the most substantial ancient pagan critique of Christianity. It was so dangerous that Theodosius II ordered all copies burned in 435 CE and again in 448 CE. The work is lost. What survives are fragments quoted by approximately thirty Christian apologists who wrote responses, including Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, Augustine, and Jerome.

That the Christian empire found it necessary to destroy this work — not once but twice, over a century after Christianity became the state religion — testifies to the power of Porphyry’s arguments. They could not be refuted; they had to be suppressed.

The Book of Daniel as Prophecy After the Fact

In Book XII, Porphyry made an argument that would not be equaled in biblical scholarship for over a thousand years. He argued that the Book of Daniel was not written in the 6th century BCE by a prophet named Daniel, but by someone living in Judaea during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (d. 164 BCE). Everything Daniel “prophesied” up to Antiochus’s time was authentic history written retrospectively in prophetic form (vaticinium ex eventu); anything beyond that point was false prediction.

This is now essentially the mainstream scholarly dating of Daniel. Porphyry anticipated modern biblical criticism by fifteen centuries.

The Evangelists as Inventors, Not Historians

“The Evangelists were inventors and not historians of the things concerning Jesus, for each of them wrote an account of the Passion not in agreement but as contradictory as possible.” — Porphyry, fragment (via Jerome)

Porphyry subjected the Gospels to textual analysis, identifying contradictions between the four accounts — particularly in the Passion narratives. He seized on the discord between Peter and Paul at Antioch (Galatians 2:11) as evidence of apostolic disunity: if the founders of the religion could not agree among themselves, what basis was there for trusting their testimony?

Against Allegorical Reading

Porphyry attacked the Christian practice of allegorical interpretation — particularly as practiced by Origen. When the Old Testament contained morally repugnant passages (genocide, slavery, incest), Christian exegetes would “allegorize” them into spiritual meanings. Porphyry argued this was intellectual dishonesty: the texts meant what they said. If they were morally repugnant on their face, the correct conclusion was that they were morally repugnant — not that they contained hidden mysteries. Christians imposed “mystical fabrications” on Mosaic texts to avoid confronting their plain meaning.

Porphyry’s overall assessment: Christianity was “philosophical and theological confusion through worship of a pious man as a god, frequent disagreements amongst themselves, prizing of contradictory and deceptive authoritative writings, and inability to adopt sound interpretive principles.”

8. 7. Emperor Julian: The Last Pagan Emperor

Julian (331–363 CE), called “the Apostate” by Christians, was raised Christian but became a Neoplatonic pagan as a young man. When he became emperor in 361, he attempted to restore paganism: legalizing cult sacrifice, restoring temples, financing pagan cults, revitalizing classical education, reforming the pagan priesthood, and — as a deliberate affront to Christian prophecy — attempting to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. He wrote Against the Galileans (Contra Galilaeos) during his brief reign. The work is lost but substantially preserved in Cyril of Alexandria’s refutation Contra Julianum.

Christianity as Double Apostasy

Julian’s most original argument: Christians were apostates twice over. They first abandoned the superior Hellenic tradition — with its broad, pluralistic mapping of the divine — for the localized, inferior tradition of the Hebrews. Then they abandoned even Jewish law (circumcision, dietary restrictions, Temple worship), making them apostate from both traditions. They kept nothing but “blasphemy of the gods.”

The Provincial God

Julian argued from a Neoplatonic framework in which different gods govern different nations, explaining the diversity of human cultures. The God of Moses exists — but he is merely one inferior member of the divine hierarchy, a local deity with a local people. If the Jewish God were truly the only God, why had the Jews accomplished less than the Greeks, Phoenicians, and Egyptians? Why had they been subjugated by so many races? The evidence of history refuted the claim to exclusive divine favor.

The Neoplatonic Alternative

Julian did not merely criticize Christianity — he offered a rival theology. Pagan gods were offspring and agents of the Supreme One (the Good), mediating between the transcendent source and the material world. Traditional Greco-Roman polytheism, properly understood through Neoplatonic philosophy, was a sophisticated theological system — not primitive superstition. A “once-and-for-all incarnation of God” was impossible to reconcile with Neoplatonic metaphysics. The divine does not become human; it radiates through a hierarchy of intelligences.

Julian died in battle against the Persians in 363, after only two years on the throne. His death ended the last serious political attempt to restore paganism in the Roman Empire.

9. 8. The Neoplatonic Framework: Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Sallustius

Neoplatonism was not merely one school among many — it was the dominant philosophical framework of late antiquity, and it provided the intellectual armature for the most sophisticated pagan criticisms of Christianity.

Plotinus (204–270 CE)

Plotinus did not attack Christianity directly, but his Ennead II.9, “Against the Gnostics,” contains arguments with obvious application to Christianity. He attacked the Gnostic contempt for the visible universe — the idea that the material world is evil, a botched creation by an inferior deity. Plotinus insisted that the cosmos is beautiful, good, and divine — an image of higher realities. To despise the world is to display ignorance of the very realities one claims to understand.

The implications for Christianity were clear: the Christian doctrine of the Fall, the devaluation of the body, the yearning to escape the material world — all of this was, from a Plotinian perspective, a symptom of philosophical immaturity.

Iamblichus (c. 245–325 CE)

Iamblichus synthesized Platonism with Pythagoreanism and theurgy — the practice of ritually invoking divine powers. His defense of traditional ritual implicitly challenged Christianity’s claim to exclusive access to the divine. The pagan tradition had its own sacraments, its own liturgy, its own means of connecting humanity with the gods — and they were older, deeper, and philosophically grounded.

Proclus (410–485 CE)

The most accomplished Neoplatonist after Plotinus. Proclus’s systematic metaphysics — particularly his Elements of Theology and commentaries on Plato — provided the late pagan intellectual framework that competed with Christian theology on equal terms. His work on the eternity of the world directly contradicted the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo.

Sallustius (fl. c. 360 CE)

On the Gods and the World, written during Julian’s reign, was a Neoplatonic catechism of 4th-century Hellenic paganism — a short, elegant summary designed to “parry the usual onslaughts of Christian polemic” and “meet theology with theology.” It never mentions Christianity explicitly but is entirely constructed as an alternative: here is our theology, here is our explanation of evil, here is our account of providence, here is our understanding of sacrifice. It drew on Iamblichus and Julian’s own writings, presenting paganism as a coherent philosophical system rather than a collection of superstitions.

10. 9. Philosophy and Persecution: The Political Dimension

The philosophical critique of Christianity was not merely academic — it provided intellectual justification for political persecution. The relationship between philosopher and emperor was symbiotic: the philosopher supplied the arguments; the emperor supplied the power.

The Decian Persecution (250–251 CE)

Emperor Decius issued an edict requiring empire-wide sacrifice to the Roman gods. It was not specifically anti-Christian but functioned as a loyalty oath sanctified through religion. Those who refused — overwhelmingly Christians — were imprisoned, tortured, or executed. Decius interpreted the empire’s military and economic crises as the result of neglecting the traditional gods. Restoring the pax deorum required restoring universal worship.

The Great Persecution of Diocletian (303–311 CE)

The most severe and systematic Roman persecution of Christians was shaped by intellectual anti-Christian propaganda. The key figure was Sossianus Hierocles, governor of Bithynia (c. 303 CE), who wrote Lover of Truth (Philalethes), a two-volume anti-Christian treatise. Hierocles was the first to compare Apollonius of Tyana favorably to Jesus: Apollonius performed miracles at least as impressive as Jesus’s, yet no one deified him. If Apollonius did not warrant divine worship, why should Jesus? Eusebius responded with Contra Hieroclem (c. 311–313 CE).

Hierocles drew on Porphyry’s Against the Christians for his arguments. Diocletian’s broader program — reconstructing coinage, taxation, law, and imperial ideology along authoritarian traditionalist lines — treated the elimination of religious dissent as one component of imperial restoration. Philosophy provided the rationale; the state provided the force.

11. 10. Symmachus and the Altar of Victory: The Last Stand (384 CE)

The final great public pagan argument against Christianity was not a philosophical treatise but a political petition. In 382 CE, Emperor Gratian removed the Altar of Victory from the Roman Senate house — an altar established by Augustus in 29 BCE — and stripped funding from the state pagan priesthoods. In 384, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, Prefect of Rome, wrote an eloquent relatio (petition) to Emperor Valentinian II requesting their restoration.

“We gaze up at the same stars; the sky covers us all; the same universe encompasses us. Does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the Truth? The heart of so great a mystery cannot be reached by following one road only.” — Symmachus, Relatio III

This is the pagan argument at its most noble: theological pluralism as a first principle. The divine is too vast, too mysterious, to be captured by a single tradition. Many roads lead to truth. The old cults were Rome’s divinely appointed defense — the bond between Senate and gods that had sustained the empire for a thousand years. Symmachus also noted, practically, that the altar’s removal had coincided with a famine.

Bishop Ambrose of Milan countered with a different kind of argument: not philosophical but political. He threatened Emperor Valentinian with ecclesiastical censure if the petition were granted. Valentinian denied the request. The episode encapsulates the transition: pagan philosophy appealed to reason and tradition; Christian bishops appealed to institutional power. The bishops won.

The School of Athens — the last institutional center of pagan philosophy — was closed by Emperor Justinian in 529 CE. The pagan intellectual tradition, as an organized force, was over.

12. 11. The Core Arguments: A Systematic Reconstruction

Across four centuries and a dozen major thinkers, the pagan critique of Christianity crystalized into a coherent set of objections. They can be organized into four categories: philosophical, scriptural, social, and aesthetic.

Philosophical Objections

Scriptural Objections

Social and Political Objections

Aesthetic and Cultural Objections

13. 12. Legacy: How Pagan Criticism Shaped Christian Theology

The pagan critique was not merely an obstacle Christianity overcame — it was a crucible in which Christian theology was forged. Many of the doctrines we recognize as “orthodox” were developed in direct response to pagan objections.

• The Logos theology of the Prologue of John (“In the beginning was the Logos”) is partly a response to the pagan charge that Christianity was philosophically crude. By identifying Christ with the Platonic Logos, Christian thinkers claimed philosophical respectability.
• Origen’s allegorical method was developed in direct response to Celsus (and was then attacked by Porphyry for being illegitimate).
• Augustine’s City of God was written in response to the pagan charge that the sack of Rome (410 CE) proved the Christian God could not protect the empire.
• The theology of bodily resurrection was refined in response to the Neoplatonic insistence that the soul’s destiny is to escape the body, not return to it.
• Christological definitions (the two-natures formula of Chalcedon, 451 CE) were partly shaped by the need to respond to pagan charges that the Incarnation was logically incoherent.

Pierre de Labriolle’s magisterial study La Réaction Païenne (1934) demonstrates that “Christian apologetics and Church Fathers gradually constructed doctrine in response to pagan objections.” The pagan critics lost the political battle; they won the intellectual one, in the sense that Christianity was permanently transformed by the encounter.

The Enlightenment revived many pagan arguments almost verbatim. Voltaire, Gibbon, Hume, and Nietzsche would have recognized Celsus and Porphyry as kindred spirits. Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity as a “slave morality” directly echoes Celsus’s charge that it was a religion of slaves and the uneducated. The pagan critique never truly ended — it was suppressed for a millennium and then returned.

14. 13. Master Table: Key Critics and Their Arguments

Search by name, work, or argument.

15. 14. Sources and Further Reading

Primary Sources (in translation)

Origen, Contra Celsum (c. 248 CE), trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, 1953)

The principal source for reconstructing Celsus’s True Doctrine. Origen quotes Celsus extensively before refuting him.

R. Joseph Hoffmann, Celsus: On the True Doctrine (Oxford, 1987)

Reconstruction of Celsus’s work from Origen’s quotations.

R. Joseph Hoffmann, Porphyry’s Against the Christians (Amherst, 1994)

Reconstruction of Porphyry’s destroyed masterwork from surviving fragments.

Julian, Against the Galileans, in Works, Loeb Classical Library

The emperor’s anti-Christian treatise, surviving in fragments via Cyril of Alexandria.

Sallustius, On the Gods and the World, trans. Thomas Taylor (1793)

The Neoplatonic catechism of 4th-century paganism.

Symmachus, Relatio III (384 CE)

The last great public pagan petition; the Altar of Victory debate.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, XI.3

The philosopher-emperor’s sole direct reference to Christians.

Modern Scholarship

Robert Louis Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Yale, 1984; 2nd ed. 2003)

The pioneering study of Roman impressions of Christians during the first four centuries. Chapters on Pliny, Galen, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. Essential reading.

Pierre de Labriolle, La Réaction Païenne: Étude sur la polémique antichrétienne du Ier au VIe siècle (1934)

The most complete study of the intellectual confrontation between pagans and Christians from the 1st to 6th century. Demonstrates that Christian doctrine was constructed in response to pagan objections.

Michael Bland Simmons, Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity: Porphyry of Tyre and the Pagan-Christian Debate (Oxford, 2015)

Porphyry’s philosophical framework and its implications for the debate.

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution (Cornell, 2012)

The relationship between philosophical anti-Christian polemic and political persecution under Diocletian.

Jeremy Schott, Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity (Penn, 2008)

How the category of “religion” was constructed through the pagan-Christian encounter.

Polymnia Athanassiadi & Michael Frede (eds.), Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1999)

The philosophical monotheism of late paganism — a more sophisticated tradition than Christians acknowledged.