The Apologetic Task

"Our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was silent when false witnesses spoke against him, and answered nothing when he was accused; he was convinced that all his life and actions among the Jews were better than any speech in refutation of the false witness and superior to any words that he might say in reply to the accusations.…Whereas it is our task, since we try to confirm men's faith by arguments and treatises, to do all in our power that we may be called 'workmen who need not to be ashamed, handling rightly the word of truth'. One of all these tasks seems to us to be that of demolishing Celsus' plausible arguments to the best of our ability, and to perform faithfully the work which you have enjoined upon us." (Origen, Against Celsus, Preface:1, 5:1, in Henry Chadwick, ed., Origen: Contra Celsum [New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003], 3, 264)