On the Christian Religion

...with action, goodness, and the truth of the tongue, with the clarity of the mind as they are able, and with the charity by which they are bound, diligently venerate Him. Such people are, as we shall show, whoever worships God in the way that Christ, the teacher of life, and His disciples have commanded.

The disciples of Christ deceived no one. Chapter V.

If the disciples of Christ had intended to introduce a fabrication for the sake of deceiving the human race, they certainly would have had some method of easier persuasion. On the contrary, however, they did otherwise; for they undertook a matter that was, both in believing and in observing, the most difficult of all things. Add to this that they did so in the most difficult of ways, if you consider the times, places, and persons: namely, in learned times, in cities most ample and full of all doctrines, against the powerful, the princes, the learned, and the many, when they themselves were the weakest, destitute of all things, rude from the beginning, and very few in number. For Christ left behind eleven apostles, and those two and seventy disciples of Christ were governed by the apostles. It is permitted to hear Paul, in a small way, saying this to the Corinthians: “See your calling, brethren, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many are powerful, not many are noble, but God chose the foolish things of the world so that He might confound the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world so that He might confound the strong, and the ignoble and contemptible things of the world God chose, and those things which are not, so that He might destroy those things which are.” Therefore, they are not to be believed to have feigned it, especially because they persisted strongly until the end, in a matter most arduous of all, with the highest concord of good morals and opinions among themselves; otherwise, they would have obtained nothing, nor were they receiving or expecting any reward for such great labor in this life, nor were they promising it to the peoples. And this is what Paul says: “If we hope in this life only...