The First Apology

But so that some may not, without reason and to distort what we teach, claim that we say Christ was born one hundred and fifty years ago during the time of Cyrenius and later, in the time of Pontius Pilate, taught what we say He taught, and accuse us as if all men born before Him were irresponsible—let us address and resolve this issue. We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have stated earlier that He is the Word shared by every race of men; those who lived reasonably are Christians, even if they have been considered atheists; such as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Mishael, Elias, and many others whose actions and names we will not list now, because we know it would be tedious. Therefore, even those who lived before Christ and lived without reason were wicked and hostile to Christ, and killed those who lived reasonably. But anyone can understand, through the power of the Word, according to the will of God the Father and Lord of all, that He was born of a virgin as a man, was named Jesus, was crucified, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven, based on what has already been said extensively. And we, since proving this point is less necessary now, will move on for the moment to prove those things which are urgent.