On the Christian Religion

do it: since I am the first. But I obtained mercy for this reason: that in me first Christ Jesus might show all patience for the instruction of those who are to believe in Him unto life everlasting; to the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.” These things the apostle Paul. John the apostle also, in the Apocalypse, calls himself a witness and participant in the sufferings of Christ, and exhorts certain peoples to patience. He likewise greatly commends many for their patience in his epistles, as do the other apostles and evangelists. Finally, Luke the evangelist writes that the apostles, having been beaten by the Jews, walked away rejoicing because they were counted worthy to suffer insults for the name of Christ. Furthermore, they ordained that nothing should be possessed as private property among themselves and their own, and they desired that the administration of goods be removed from the hands of the apostles. He adds the case of Cornelius, who, when he wished to adore Peter, was rebuked and forbidden by him. Moreover, when the Lycaonians wished to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas as if they were gods on account of their miracles, they were not permitted to do so by them. John also in the Apocalypse forbade himself to be adored. From which it is clear that the apostles did not seek their own profit or honour, but the glory of Christ alone. If anyone, therefore, suspects that the apostles fabricated these things, he either has never read these and similar accounts, or he is raving.

The disciples of Christ were deceived by no one. Chapter 7.

The disciples of Christ and their followers saw far more manifest and greater miracles than we do, who, although we are born and raised in this religion, would not labor as much for a customary thing as they labored for a new and—if I may say so—monstrous one. For the more monstrous it appears, the more it needed clearer signs and portents from the beginning so that it might be believed. For who would easily believe that a certain unlettered youth, the son of a carpenter as they thought, a physician put to death by a shameful public execution, was the divine Mind itself, which is always in God, through which all things are always made and governed? This has never been believed of anyone else; whence, as Luke the evangelist writes, when the apostle Paul was disputing about this matter before King Agrippa and Porcius Festus, the governor of Judea, Festus exclaimed, “Paul, you are mad; much learning is driving you to madness.” To this also points that statement of Tertullian to the Roman judges: “We also once laughed at these things; we are made, not born, Christians.” One must think, therefore, that those who asserted these things, and those who gave faith to the asserters, had seen miracles openly worthy of God. Here is Paul to the Corinthians: “The Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For that which is foolish of God is wiser than men; and that which is weak of God is stronger than men.” Paul, a noble, powerful, most wise, and most brave man, could only be led by miracles—and those most manifest—to suddenly turn from being a most fierce enemy of the Christians into a most fierce defender, and to spontaneously submit himself to as many hardships as no one could enumerate for the sole love of Christ. For indeed, as God predicted in Luke: “He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.” Therefore, in no way is it to be believed that the heralds of Christ were deceived by the prestidigitations of anyone. For the writings and deeds, both of the disciples of Christ and of those who at that time suddenly and with the greatest peril accepted such a discipline, testify to men of sound mind that the first fruits of the Christians were such that they neither wished