But how could deceitful and fraudulent men have deemed death on behalf of another something to be embraced -- a death which, more exactly than anyone, they knew to have been, as one might say, the cause of no good to them, but the teacher of every evil? For a man who shares in reason and virtue might, with reason, at some time endure a death accompanied by good repute for the sake of some noble achievement; but the wicked man, being by nature a lover of passion and pleasure, and pursuing only this present, transient life and the pleasures that belong to it, would never choose death in preference to life, nor would he endure punishments even on behalf of his own kin and dearest friends -- still less on behalf of one condemned as worthless.
How then did the disciples of the man in question -- if indeed he was an impostor and a charlatan, and they were not ignorant that he was such, but had themselves their souls possessed by an even worse form of wickedness -- come to endure at the hands of their own countrymen every kind of outrage and every sort of punishment for bearing witness to him, when this is not proper to the nature of base men?
Further, attend to this as well: if they themselves too happened to be deceivers and impostors -- add also that they were uneducated and utterly untrained men, or rather that they were even barbarians, understanding no more than the Syrian tongue -- how did they go forth over the whole inhabited world? By what design did they even imagine that they might dare this? And by what power did they succeed in the undertaking?
For let it be granted that rustic men, wandering about upon their own native soil, might deceive and be deceived, and that the matter might not be thrown into a quiet corner. But that they should proclaim the name of Jesus to all, and teach his extraordinary deeds both in the countryside and in the city; and that some of them should take for their portion the empire of the Romans and that most royal city itself, others the land of the Persians, others that of the Armenians, others the nation of the Parthians, and again others that of the Scythians, and that some should already have come even to the very ends of the inhabited world, reaching as far as the country of the Indians, while others crossed beyond the Ocean to the islands called the Britannic Isles -- this, I for my part no longer consider to be within human capacity, let alone within that of common and unlettered men; far less within that of deceivers and impostors.
But if they had experienced a base and perverse teacher, and had witnessed the outcome of his end, by what words, then, did they use with one another so as to fabricate agreeing accounts about him? For, as if from a single mouth, they all bore witness that cleansings of lepers, expulsions of demons, raisings of the dead, restorations of sight to the blind, and countless other healings of the sick had been performed by him -- and, above all, that his revival after death had been seen by themselves first.
For how, if these things had not happened, and had not even been heard of in their own time, did they with one mouth bear witness that they had happened, confirming their confession even unto death? Or did they perhaps come together and, having made a conspiracy for this very purpose, set up agreements among themselves to fabricate and falsely allege things that had not occurred?
And what plausible words, then, could they have used with one another in making such agreements, if not something like this: 'Friends, as for the man who but yesterday and the day before was an impostor and a teacher of deceit, who has just now, before the eyes of us all, undergone the extreme punishment -- whom we, of all people, know most exactly for who he was, being ourselves initiates into his secrets -- he seemed to the multitude to be a man of dignity, and thought himself to have something more than the many, yet he brought forth nothing great nor worthy of a resurrection, unless one should call his crafty and treacherous character, and the perverse teachings he gave us, and the conceit that came through deceit, worthy of note.'
'In place of this, come, let us give our right hands to one another, and let us all agree together to put forth a consistent deception about him to all mankind; and let us say that we have seen him grant sight, as a favor, to the blind -- a thing none of us ever witnessed; and that he gave hearing to the deaf -- a thing none of us ever heard; that he cleansed lepers and raised the dead. And, to sum it up in a word, let us insist that the things we neither saw done by him nor heard said, truly happened.'
'But since, moreover, his final end had a death that was notorious and manifest, such that he could not conceal it, let us nevertheless resolve even this without flinching, testifying most shamelessly that he was in fact present with all of us after reviving from the dead, and shared with us in the customary hearth and food. Let all of us maintain this shamelessness and steadfastness; let our resolve remain firm even unto death. For what is strange about dying for nothing? And what harm is there, for no reasonable cause, in enduring scourges and torments upon the body, and, if need be, in trying also the experience of prisons, and dishonors and outrages, for nothing that is true? Let this, then, already be our settled resolve.'
'Let us then all together and in agreement lie, and let us fabricate, to no one's benefit -- neither ours, nor that of those deceived, nor indeed that of him himself who is being falsely deified by us.'
'And let us extend the lie not only to our own countrymen, but let us go forth to all mankind, and fill the whole inhabited world with the things we have concocted about him. And from this point let us already legislate for all the nations things contrary to the opinions they have held from eternity concerning their ancestral gods.'
'Let us command the Romans themselves, first of all, not to worship the gods whom their forefathers held sacred; let us pass on also to Greece, and proclaim against her wise men; let us not spare the Egyptians either, but let us make war even on their gods, without brandishing against them the things Moses had formerly done against them.'
'And setting the death of our teacher against them like some object of terror, let us overthrow, not by little words and speeches, but by the power of the crucified teacher, the report concerning the gods that has gone forth from them to all mankind from eternity; let us go forth also to the rest of the barbarian world, and overturn what obtains among them all. Let none of us fall short in zeal.'
'For not small is the contest of what we are daring, since it is not ordinary prizes that await us, but, as is likely, the punishments prescribed by the laws in force among each people -- namely, bonds and tortures and prisons, fire and iron, crosses and wild beasts. For these we must be especially eager, and go to meet these evils face to face, since we possess a teacher who set us the example.'
'For what could be finer than these things -- to become enemies of both gods and men for no reason at all, and never to enjoy anything pleasant, nor to profit from our dearest ones, nor to obtain wealth, nor to acquire any hope whatsoever of any good, but idly and vainly to wander and to lead others astray? For this indeed was the advantageous course -- to be carried along in opposition to all the nations, and to make war on the gods acknowledged by all from eternity, and to proclaim that our teacher, whom we ourselves saw with our own eyes, is God and the Son of God, and to be ready to die for him, though we had learned nothing true or beneficial from him!'
'Therefore, on this very account, we must honor him all the more, seeing that he did nothing for us; and we must do everything for the glorifying of his name, and endure every outrage and punishment, and accept every kind of death, for nothing that is true. For truth, perhaps, is an evil, and falsehood has the opposite of evil.'
'Therefore let us say that he both raised the dead, and cleansed lepers, and drove out demons, and became the doer of other extraordinary works -- knowing nothing of the kind about him ourselves, but fabricating all these things for ourselves, and deceiving whomever we can; and if someone should not be persuaded, let us ourselves at least, for the sake of what we have agreed together, draw down upon ourselves the wages of our deception.'
Now does this seem to you plausible, or does anything of this sort seem to hold to a true account? And could anyone persuade himself that, having fabricated and agreed upon such things with one another, common and unlettered men went forth against the empire of the Romans; or that human nature, possessing love of life as its own property, could ever, for the sake of nothing, endure a self-chosen death; or that the disciples of our Savior were driven to such an excess of derangement that, having seen nothing extraordinary done by him, they nevertheless, by a common agreement, fabricated all such things together, and then, having composed false little sayings about him, were ready to endure death for these? But what will you say? That they neither expected nor hoped to suffer anything terrible from their testimony about Jesus, and therefore went forward fearlessly to the proclamation concerning him? But it was not reasonable to expect that men who introduced the overthrow of the gods to Romans and Greeks and barbarians alike would fail to anticipate that they would suffer everything on his account.
But the history concerning them clearly shows that, after the death of their teacher, certain plotters, having seized them, first delivered them to prison, and then released them, charging them to speak to no one in the name of Jesus; but when they learned afterward that they were publicly discoursing about him before the crowd, they seized them and scourged them, rebuking them for their teaching.
At which time Peter, answering them again, said, 'One must obey God rather than men.' After this, Stephen, having spoken with boldness before the multitude of the Jews, is struck with stones and put to death; and no ordinary persecution arises against those who champion the name of Jesus.
And again, at another time, Herod, the king of the Jews, killed James the brother of John with the sword, and the same man also bound Peter with chains, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles. And when these men had suffered these things, the remaining disciples, clinging fast to Jesus, continued still more to proclaim to all both him and his marvel-working deeds.
After these events, James the brother of the Lord -- whom those who long ago dwelt in Jerusalem called 'the Just' on account of his surpassing virtue -- being asked by the chief priests and teachers of the Jewish nation what opinion he held concerning the Christ, and then answering that he was the Son of God, was himself also stoned by them.
And Peter is crucified head-downward at Rome; and Paul is beheaded; and John is delivered to an island. And when these men had suffered these things, none of the rest departed from their purpose, but, praying that they themselves too might obtain the same lot as those already mentioned for the sake of piety toward the Divine, they bore witness all the more, with boldness, to Jesus and his marvel-working deeds.
And indeed, if these had been falsehoods fabricated among them by agreement, it is a thing worthy of wonder how so great a multitude preserved their agreement upon the fictions even unto death, and how none of them, ever taking fright at what had befallen those slain before him, departed from the fellowship, nor proclaimed the opposite to the rest, bringing to light what had been contrived; but even the one who dared to betray him while he was still living drew down upon himself, by his own hand, immediate justice.
And how is this too not full of astonishment: that men who were impostors and unlettered, who understood neither how to speak nor how to hear anything beyond their native tongue, not only dared to conceive of going forth over the circuit of all the nations, but also, having gone forth, succeeded in the undertaking? Consider also what a thing it is that no one, anywhere, brought forth a discordant account concerning the deeds of Jesus.
For if, in all disputed matters, both in the law-courts and in common controversies, the agreement of witnesses establishes what is disputed, and every word is confirmed on the mouth of two or three witnesses, how should not the truth also be established in this case -- since there were twelve apostles and seventy disciples, and beyond these a countless multitude, all of whom have displayed a wonderful agreement, and have borne witness to the things done by Jesus, not without effort, but through the endurance of torments and every kind of outrage and death -- and, above all, since they were also borne witness to by God himself, who to this very day, and unto the whole age, confirms the word proclaimed by them?
Let this much, then, have been carried out from a starting-point that was, by concession, absurd. For the supposition -- contrary to the written records -- that Jesus had become a teacher not of sound doctrines but of injustice and greed and every licentiousness, and that his disciples, having been taught such things by him, had become the most rapacious and most utterly wicked of all men that ever lived, was granted to us only as a hypothesis; and this was the most absurd thing of all -- just as if, when Moses in the Law says, 'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness,' someone should slander him by falsely accusing him, saying that he spoke these things in irony and with pretense.
[claiming, that is] that he wished his subjects both to murder and to commit adultery and to do the opposite of what he legislates, but only pretended to affect and hypocritically feign a dignified life. For in this same way one might also slander the precepts of the philosophers among the Greeks, and their disciplined way of life and the teachings of them all, by asserting that they had lived and conducted their affairs contrary to what is recorded of them, but had only pretended, in hypocrisy, to choose the philosophic life.
In this way, indeed, one might, simply put, slander all the histories of the ancients as well, setting aside the truth contained in them, and construing what they relate in the opposite sense.
But just as none of those who think rightly would hesitate to declare such a man mad, so too would it be in the case of the words and teachings of the Savior, if someone, perverting the truth, should attempt to invest him with a reputation contrary to what he taught.
Nevertheless, this too was granted, as by hypothesis, so that, even from a position of abundance and by an absurd concession, the incoherence of the opposing argument might be made manifest.
Now that this has indeed been refuted, come, let us run back to the truth of the sacred Scriptures and behold the character of the disciples of Jesus. Right away, then, how would anyone of sound mind not judge them worthy of every acceptance -- men admittedly of humble station and untrained in speech, yet who had come to a passionate love of pious and philosophic teaching, and who had embraced a disciplined and toilsome life, through fasting, abstinence from wine and meat, and much other humbling of the body, through prayers and supplications toward God, and, still more fundamentally, a life brought to perfection through the utmost self-control and purity of body together with soul?
Who, then, would not marvel at them, because, out of an excess of philosophy, they had renounced even their lawfully permitted wives, and were dragged down neither by natural pleasure, nor enslaved by desire for children and descendants -- since it was not for mortal offspring but for immortal ones that they yearned?
And how would one not be amazed at their freedom from love of money? One may draw evidence of this from the fact that they did not flee from, but rather embraced, a teacher who forbade the acquisition of gold and silver, and legislated that they should not even increase their possessions so far as a second tunic -- a command whose weight, on hearing it, someone might perhaps have refused, yet they are shown to have made the word into deed. When, for instance, a certain lame man once asked alms of Peter and his companions -- this man being one of those who, through extreme poverty, begged for their food -- Peter, having nothing to give him, confessed that he was free of all possession of gold and silver, saying, 'Silver and gold I do not possess; but what I have, this I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.'
And when their teacher foretold to them grievous things, and they paid heed to what he said to them -- 'In the world you shall have tribulation'; and again, 'You shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice' -- how is it not plain from their character that they were, indeed, men of a certain firmness and depth, who did not flee the exercises of the soul, nor pursue what tends to pleasure? And is it not also plain concerning the teacher, that he was not charming them by deceit and drawing them to himself under false pretenses of self-interest, but that, foretelling by a free and true word the things that would come to pass, he implanted in them the choice of the manner of life proper to him? Such, too, were the things concerning what was destined to befall them because of his name, in which, foretelling, he bore witness that they would be led before governors, and would come even before kings, and would endure punishments of every kind -- not for anything base, nor for any other reasonable cause, but for this very thing entirely: because of his name.
This is indeed a thing which those who observe it in operation even to this day may well be astonished at as a fulfilled prediction; for the confession of the name of Jesus is wont to kindle the wrath of rulers.
For even if nothing base has been done by one who confesses Christ, they punish him nonetheless, tormenting him because of his name, as though he were more grievous than every impious wrongdoer; but if someone should renounce the name upon oath, and deny that he is of Christ's disciples, he is released at once, free, even if he be caught guilty of countless offenses.
And why must I gather together countless further instances, attempting to depict the character of the apostles of our Savior, when what has already been said suffices for the demonstration of the matter before us? Having added these further points to what has been said, I shall pass on to the other band of slanderers.
Matthew the apostle had his former life set in motion not from a dignified pursuit, but from among those occupied with tax-collecting and greed. This no evangelist disclosed -- not John, his fellow apostle, nor Luke, nor Mark -- but Matthew himself, exposing his own former life to public shame, and becoming his own accuser.
Listen, then, to how he explicitly makes mention of himself by name in the Gospel written by him, speaking in this manner: 'And as Jesus passed by from there, he saw a man sitting at the tax office, named Matthew, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he rose up and followed him. And it came to pass, as he reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax-collectors and sinners came and reclined with Jesus and his disciples' -- and again, proceeding further, when enumerating the list of the disciples, he attaches to himself, of his own accord, the name 'the tax-collector.'
He says, then: 'Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector...'
Thus Matthew, out of an excess of modesty, revealing the love of truth proper to his own character, even called himself 'the tax-collector,' not concealing his former life, and listed himself second to his yoke-fellow.
Being paired, then, with Thomas -- just as Peter is paired with Andrew, and James with John, and Philip with Bartholomew -- Matthew places Thomas before himself, honoring his fellow apostle as the greater, whereas the rest of the evangelists have done the opposite. Listen, then, to Luke: how, when he makes mention of Matthew, he does not call him 'the tax-collector,' nor does he subordinate him to Thomas, but, knowing him to be the greater, lists him first, bringing in Thomas second.
Just as Mark also has done; and his words run thus: 'And when day came, he called his disciples, and having chosen twelve from among them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he also called Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas...'
Thus, then, did Luke honor Matthew, in accordance with what those who from the beginning had been eyewitnesses and ministers of the word handed down to him. And you would find John, too, to be similar to Matthew.
For in his epistles he makes no mention at all of his own name, or calls himself 'the elder,' but nowhere 'apostle' or 'evangelist'; and in the Gospel, though he indicates the one whom Jesus loved, he did not disclose himself by name. Peter, indeed, did not even condescend to the writing of a Gospel, out of an excess of reverence.
Mark, having become his acquaintance and disciple, is said to have recorded from memory the discourses of Peter concerning the deeds of Jesus; and he, coming to that point of the narrative in which Jesus asked whom men said him to be, and what opinion his own disciples themselves held concerning him -- Peter answering that he was the Christ -- writes nothing of Jesus answering him or saying anything to him in return, but only that he charged them to tell no one about him.
For Mark was not present at the things spoken by Jesus; but neither did Peter himself deem it right to bring forward, by his own testimony, the things spoken to him and about him by Jesus. Now Matthew shows what the things spoken to him were, through these words: 'But who do you say that I am?' And Simon Peter, answering, said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus, answering, said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in the heavens; and I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it; and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in the heavens.'
Although so many things were said to Peter by Jesus, Mark makes mention of none of them -- since presumably Peter himself, in his own teaching, did not disclose these things either. See what he says: when Jesus had asked, Peter, answering, says, 'You are [the Christ].' 'And he charged them that they should tell no one about him.'
These things, then, Peter reasonably deemed fit to pass over in silence; wherefore Mark also omitted them. But the things concerning his own denial he proclaimed to all mankind, since he also wept bitterly over it.
You would find, then, Mark relating these things about him: 'And while Peter was in the courtyard, one of the maidservants of the high priest comes to him, and seeing him warming himself, she looks at him and says, "You too were with Jesus the Nazarene." But he denied it, saying, "I neither know nor understand what you are saying." And he went out into the outer forecourt, and a cock crowed. And again the maidservant, seeing him, began to say to the bystanders, "This man is one of them."'
But he denied it again. And after a little while, again the bystanders said to Peter, 'Truly you are one of them, for you are also a Galilean.' But he began to curse and to swear, 'I do not know this man of whom you speak.' And immediately the cock crowed a second time.
These things Mark writes, and these things Peter himself testifies concerning himself; for everything in Mark is said to be a record from memory of Peter's discourses. Those, then, who declined the things that seemed to them to bring a good reputation, but committed to writing, unto unforgettable ages, the accusations against themselves, and the charges of their own transgressions -- which none of those who came after would have known, had they not learned it from their own voice -- publicly exposing themselves to shame: how would they not justly be acknowledged to have been free from all self-love and false speech, and to have furnished clear and manifest proofs of a truth-loving disposition?
But those who suppose that men such as these were fabricated and lied, and who attempt to blaspheme them as impostors -- how would they not become laughable, being caught as friends of envy and malice, yet enemies of truth itself? For they suppose that men who, through their own words, have displayed a character so utterly guileless, so truly unfeigned, and upright, were in fact cunning and clever sophists -- as though they had fabricated things that did not exist, and had graciously attributed to their own teacher things not done by him. As it seems to me well said: one must either believe everything told by the disciples of Jesus, or nothing at all; and if these men alone are to be disbelieved, then so must all who, among either Greeks or barbarians, have composed accounts of the lives, sayings, and memoirs of men who, throughout the ages, assisted others by certain good achievements -- or else it is reasonable to believe the others, and to disbelieve these men alone.
And how is envy not manifest here? What then? Did those who lied about the teacher, and handed down to their own writing things that did not happen, also lie about his sufferings? I mean the betrayal by one disciple, and the accusation of the slanderers, the mockeries and jeers of the judges, the outrages and blows upon his face, the scourgings upon his back, and the crown of thorns placed upon him in dishonor, and his being clothed in a purple tunic in the fashion of a cloak, and, at the last, his himself carrying the very trophy of the cross, and being fixed upon it, his hands and feet pierced through, and being given vinegar to drink, and being struck upon the cheek with a reed, and being reviled by those who saw him?
But indeed, either these things too, and whatever else agrees with and resembles them, must be supposed to have been fabricated by his own disciples, or else one must believe them in these matters as being most true, while disbelieving them in the more glorious and more dignified matters.
And whence, then, shall the opposite judgment concerning them be established? For to say that the same men both speak truly and, in the same matter, speak falsely, is nothing other than to say contrary things about the same subjects in the same respect.
What, then, is the refutation of these things? For if their aim had truly been to fabricate, and to adorn the teacher with false words, they would never have written down what has been said above, nor would they have made known to those who came after them that he was grieved, and distressed, and troubled in soul, or that they themselves, having forsaken him, went away; or that Peter, the apostle and disciple preferred above them all, three times renounced him under oath, apart from torture or any threat from a ruler. For these things -- even had others said them -- surely those whose sole aim was to grace their teacher with more dignified accounts ought to have denied.
But if they show themselves truth-loving in the sorrowful accounts concerning him, much more would they be such in the more glorious ones. For those who had once chosen to lie ought rather to have escaped the painful matters, either through silence, or through denial concerning them, since those who came afterward could have no other way of exposing what had been passed over in silence.
For why did they not lie, and say that Judas, who betrayed him with a kiss, having dared to give the sign of his betrayal, was immediately turned to stone; or that the man who dared to strike him with his hand was made instantly withered in his right hand; or that Caiaphas the high priest, as one who ran together with the slanderers against him, was blinded in his eyes?
And why did they not all lie together, and say that nothing sorrowful truly befell him at all, but that he had made himself invisible, mocking their tribunal, while his plotters, deceived by a divinely sent apparition, only seemed to be acting against him though he was not even present? What then? Would it not have been more dignified -- rather than merely fabricating that he had been the doer of such extraordinary works -- to write that nothing human or mortal befell him at all, but that, having arranged everything by a divine power, he made his return to the heavens with a still more divine glory? For surely those who had believed their other narratives would not have refused to believe these as well.