Contra Celsum
E101586
Contra Celsum is a major apologetic work by the early Christian theologian Origen, written in the 3rd century as a detailed rebuttal of the pagan philosopher Celsus’s criticisms of Christianity.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Contra Celsum canonical | 3 |
| Against Celsus | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T840391 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Contra Celsum Context triple: [Origen, knownFor, Contra Celsum]
-
A.
Against Heresies
Against Heresies is a foundational 2nd-century Christian theological work that systematically refutes Gnostic teachings and defends orthodox doctrine.
-
B.
Four Orations Against the Arians
Four Orations Against the Arians is a series of theological discourses by Athanasius of Alexandria defending Nicene orthodoxy and refuting Arian Christology in the early Christian church.
-
C.
Against Eunomius
Against Eunomius is a major theological treatise by Gregory of Nyssa that systematically refutes the teachings of the Arian theologian Eunomius and defends Nicene Trinitarian doctrine.
-
D.
Anaphora of St. Athanasius
The Anaphora of St. Athanasius is a principal Eucharistic prayer used in the Armenian Rite, traditionally attributed to St. Athanasius and central to the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.
-
E.
Utrinque Paratus
Utrinque Paratus is the Latin motto of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment, meaning “Ready for Anything” or “Ready on Both Sides,” reflecting its airborne readiness and versatility.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Contra Celsum Target entity description: Contra Celsum is a major apologetic work by the early Christian theologian Origen, written in the 3rd century as a detailed rebuttal of the pagan philosopher Celsus’s criticisms of Christianity.
-
A.
Against Heresies
Against Heresies is a foundational 2nd-century Christian theological work that systematically refutes Gnostic teachings and defends orthodox doctrine.
-
B.
Four Orations Against the Arians
Four Orations Against the Arians is a series of theological discourses by Athanasius of Alexandria defending Nicene orthodoxy and refuting Arian Christology in the early Christian church.
-
C.
Against Eunomius
Against Eunomius is a major theological treatise by Gregory of Nyssa that systematically refutes the teachings of the Arian theologian Eunomius and defends Nicene Trinitarian doctrine.
-
D.
Anaphora of St. Athanasius
The Anaphora of St. Athanasius is a principal Eucharistic prayer used in the Armenian Rite, traditionally attributed to St. Athanasius and central to the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.
-
E.
Utrinque Paratus
Utrinque Paratus is the Latin motto of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment, meaning “Ready for Anything” or “Ready on Both Sides,” reflecting its airborne readiness and versatility.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Christian apologetic work
ⓘ
theological treatise ⓘ |
| addressesTopic |
Christian attitudes to the Roman Empire
ⓘ
Christian participation in war and civic life ⓘ demons and spiritual powers ⓘ incarnation of Christ ⓘ interpretation of Scripture ⓘ miracles of Jesus ⓘ nature of God ⓘ philosophical schools of the Greco-Roman world ⓘ problem of evil ⓘ relationship between Christianity and Judaism ⓘ resurrection ⓘ |
| approximateDate | c. 248 CE ⓘ |
| associatedWith | Alexandrian theology ⓘ |
| author | Origen ⓘ |
| cites |
Tanakh
ⓘ
surface form:
Hebrew Bible
New Testament ⓘ
surface form:
New Testament writings
|
| criticizes |
idolatry
ⓘ
pagan polytheism ⓘ |
| dateWritten | 3rd century ⓘ |
| defends |
credibility of the Gospels
ⓘ
divinity of Jesus ⓘ moral character of Christians ⓘ |
| genre | apologetics ⓘ |
| historicalSignificance |
key text in early Christian apologetics
ⓘ
major source for the lost work of Celsus ⓘ |
| includedInSeries |
Patrologia Graeca
ⓘ
Sources Chrétiennes ⓘ |
| influenceOn | later Christian apologists ⓘ |
| language | Ancient Greek ⓘ |
| literaryForm | prose ⓘ |
| manuscriptTradition | transmitted in Greek manuscripts ⓘ |
| modernEditions | published in critical editions ⓘ |
| opponent |
Tatian
ⓘ
surface form:
Celsus
|
| philosophicalContext | Middle Platonism ⓘ |
| placeInCanon | non-canonical Christian literature ⓘ |
| preservationStatus | survives in full ⓘ |
| purpose | refutation of Celsus’s criticisms of Christianity ⓘ |
| regionOfOrigin |
Byzantine Empire
ⓘ
surface form:
Eastern Roman Empire
|
| religiousTradition | Christianity ⓘ |
| respondsToWork | The True Doctrine ⓘ |
| scholarlyUse |
source for 2nd-century pagan criticism of Christianity
ⓘ
source for early Christian-pagan debates ⓘ |
| structure | eight books ⓘ |
| theologicalFocus | defense of Christian doctrine ⓘ |
| titleTranslation |
Contra Celsum
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Against Celsus
|
| writtenBy |
Origen
ⓘ
surface form:
Origen of Alexandria
|
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Contra Celsum Description of subject: Contra Celsum is a major apologetic work by the early Christian theologian Origen, written in the 3rd century as a detailed rebuttal of the pagan philosopher Celsus’s criticisms of Christianity.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Against Celsus