#celsus

 Library of Celsus, Ephesus, Turkey

This guy's already been garnering attention from other Osvald fans, superficially because he's the designated "old" man among the new cast of Octopath Traveler 0. I'd point out however that he also has some intriguing contradictory traits, in the same way that Osvald is an inexplicable hunky math nerd. Celsus is a thief bodyguard, which in itself is nearly an oxymoron, and we know that one of his skills is a dodgetanking taunt (ignoring that tanking of any sort is rarely worth it in Octopath when multi-hit attacks are so common). He's also a religious thief, to make things even stranger. That actually leaves me wondering what type of magic he'll use since thief has shuffled through different elements before. I very much doubt the self-insert's version of thief gets light magic since scholar and as always cleric have it, but it would be kind of funny if Celsus uses light.

And then comes the question: with whom should we (gay) ship him? I still have low expectations for OT0's traveler interactions when so much seems to revolve around the self-insert, but then it's not like OT2 had to do a ton to get me all-in on Osvitio. Technically there are CotC characters on the table here as well as all the travelers from the first game - so go Olberic/Celsus for an easy almost-middle-aged man yaoi route - but I wanted to consider the possibilities of the other new male travelers.

Ludo's pretty meh to me currently. He essentially sounds like Tressa as a guy, down to being underestimated because he's young. Undoubtedly would be a huge age gap with Celsus, but as I've explored with Osvitio there needs to actually be something to that to interest me. Does Ludo, for example, have any daddy issues?

Viator is looking fairly bland so far in contrast to Olberic and Hikari and even Crick for that matter whom he most physically resembles. More information is needed...but as mentioned if Celsus wants to fuck a warrior Olberic is right there...

(Efes, izmir)

Celsus, as quoted by Origen, accused Christians of impiety by posing an adversary to God - that being The Devil, or rather Satan. Celsus argued that Christianity poses a God that desires to do good but is helpless to do it because he has someone (Satan) counterveiling his will. Then, Celsus discusses ancient mythology concerning war among the gods. He focuses specifically on a myth told by Pherecydes of Syros, in which in the gods Kronos and Ophioneus raise their armies against each other in a battle to determine who will rule the cosmos.

At this point we need to step back a bit. Ophioneus, or Ophion, is the name of a serpent deity who seems to represent the forces of chaos. In some myths, Ophioneus is presented as the first divine ruler of the cosmos, though Pherecydes doesn't agree with that. As for Kronos, it is possible that in Pherecydes' myth this refers to both the Titan Kronos and Chronos the personification of time. The two figures are not traditionally conflated with each other, but it seems that Pherecydes probably did interpret them as being the same deity. In Pherecydes' myth, Kronos and Ophioneus battle each other before the ordering of the cosmos begins, though the full account of this battle is not entirely clear. Celsus believed that the loser of this battle, Ophion, was cast into the ocean (or rather Oceanus).

Some fragments seem to support the notion that it is Oceanus rather than Tartarus that Ophion is cast down into. But Ophioneus seems to also be considered identical or parallel to Typhon, who, in Greek mythology, was cast down into Tartarus or under Etna after his defeat by Zeus. It is possible that Ophion may have been thought to be born in Tartarus, which Pherecydes depicts as a cave below the earth, whereas Typhon was also born in a cave as the son of Gaia (earth) and Tartaros.

One thing to note is that, for Pherecydes, unlike many other ancient cosmogonies, it seems there is no primordial chaos that precedes an act of primeval demiurgy resulting in cosmic order. Instead, the forces of order and chaos existed besides each other forever and in conflict. For Pherecydes there was also no creation out of nothing. Instead, three gods were the first to exist all along: Zas (Zeus), Chthonie (Ge/Gaia), and Kronos/Chronos. He believed that these gods existed eternally, and that Chaos somehow came to be with no explanation.

Anyway, Celsus brings up Pherecydes' myth while discussing the concept of Satan, and then says that the Greek myths concerning the Titans and/or the Giants, and the Egyptian myths concerning Typhon (obviously meaning Set in this context) shared a similar symbolic meaning. He also relates that Hepheastus told Hera that he once felt the might of Zeus and hurled down from Olympus, and that Zeus boasted to Hera of how he bound and hung her in golden chains and hurled all the gods who opposed him from Olympus, as if to relate these to the Fall.

Celsus then does something interesting: he identifies the words of Zeus to Hera with the word of God to matter, arguing that this signifies matter that was originally was in discord before God then took and bound it together and arranged it with law, and then banished disorder. Demons who create disorder in the cosmos are related in Celsus' analogy to Titans and rebelling gods: they are chastised and hurled down. Tartarus, according to both Celsus and Pherecydes, is the place where Zeus banishes disorderly or insolent gods: in a word, prison.

Origen seems to actually agree with this analogy. In fact, in Book 4 of Against Celsus, Origen referred to "earthly demons, who delight in frankincense, and blood, and in the exhalations of sacrificial odours, and who, like the fabled Titans or Giants, drag down men from thoughts of God". Moreover, Origen argued that the writings of Moses mentioned a "wicked one" and his "falling from heaven" before the time of Homer and Pherecydes. Origen believed that Satan was the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve and that this was the original myth behind Ophioneus. If Origen interprets Satan as Ophioneus, then I would argue that he implies this connection for Typhon, and the Titans and Giants in relation to his demonic host. Origen also says that Satan is the "destroying angel" and the scapegoat Azazel.

This is interesting to consider in light of Plutarch and other sources whereby Typhon Seth is represented as a sacrificial animal. For Plutarch, Typhon is destined to never be completely defeated, and his power resides in the sacrificed animals and their slain blood, which, for Plutarch, ultimately nourishes the cosmos at least in the act of sacrifice, which pleases the powers of Osiris and Isis.

In any case, Origen seems to agree with Celsus on the Titanic-Satanic analogy, with the difference being that Celsus thinks the Christians were simply imitating pre-Christian myths while Origen thinks the Christian narrative preceded those same myths.