Jesus in the Talmud

Notes to Chapter 9 177tianity) with “those Jews who, when Christianity began to be first preached, scatteredabroad false reports of the Gospel, such as that ‘Christians offered up aninfant in sacrifice, and partook of its flesh’; and again, ‘that the professors ofChristianity, wishing to do the works of darkness, used to extinguish the lights(in their meetings), and each one to have sexual intercourse with any womanwhom he chanced to meet’ ” (Origen, Contra Celsum, 6:27; transl. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, ed. AlexanderRoberts and James Donaldson, vol. 4, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989,p. 585).20. Tertullian, Apology, 7:1 (Tertullian Apology—De spectaculis, transl. T. R.Glover, London: William Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1953, pp. 36f.). Tertullian most likely reflects pagan charges against Christianity.21. Ibid., 8:2–7. A very similar story is reported by the Latin apologist MinuciusFelix in his Octavius, a dialogue between a pagan and a Christian (Octavius,9:1–7, in The Octavius of Marcus Minucius Felix, trans. Gerald H. Rendall, London:William Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953, pp.336–339; and cf. also Octavius, 31): “They recognize one another by secret signsand marks; they fall in love almost before they are acquainted; everywhere theyintroduce a kind of religion of lust (quaedam libidinum religio), a promiscuous‘brotherhood’ and ‘sisterhood’ by which ordinary fornication, under cover of ahallowed name, is converted to incest. ... Details of the initiation of neophytesare as revolting as they are notorious. An infant, cased in dough to deceive theunsuspecting, is placed beside the person to be initiated. The novice is thereuponinduced to inflict what seem to be harmless blows upon the dough, andunintentionally the infant is killed by his unsuspecting blows; the blood—oh,horrible—they lap up greedily; the limbs they tear to pieces eagerly; and over thevictim they make league and covenant, and by complicity in guilt pledge themselvesto mutual silence. ... On the day appointed they gather at a banquet withall their children, sisters, and mothers, people of either sex and every age. There,after full feasting, when the blood is heated and drink has inflamed the passionsof incestuous lust, a dog which has been tied to a lamp is tempted by a morselthrown beyond the range of his tether to bound forward with a rush. The taletellinglight is upset and extinguished, and in the shameless dark lustful embracesare indiscriminately exchanged; and all alike, if not in act, yet by complicity,are involved in incest, as anything that occurs by the act of individuals results