Origen of Alexandria, Against Celsus 1.31

One would also be astonished to consider the source of the disciples' conviction, given what the critics of Jesus allege. They say the disciples had not seen him risen from the dead, nor had they been persuaded that he was something divine. Yet they did not fear suffering the same fate as their teacher; they embraced the danger, abandoned their homelands, and dedicated themselves to teaching the message he had entrusted to them, in line with his will. I believe that anyone examining these matters fairly would not claim the disciples surrendered themselves to such a precarious existence for the sake of Jesus' teaching without a powerful persuasion at work within them. He instilled this conviction by teaching them not only to order their own lives according to his lessons, but to set others in order as well—to do so even if it meant pressing forward boldly as innovators before all people everywhere, refusing to regard as a friend anyone who clung to the old doctrines and customs.

Did the disciples of Jesus not see clearly? They dared not only to demonstrate to the Jews from the prophetic writings that he was the promised one, but also to proclaim to the other nations that the man crucified just days before had willingly accepted that death for the sake of the human race. Their claim was analogous to those who die for their homelands to extinguish pestilential forces, plagues, or famines. For it is plausible that the nature of things operates according to certain unspeakable and hard-to-grasp principles: that one righteous person, dying voluntarily for the common good, can avert the evil demons who cause plagues, pestilences, famines, or similar disasters.

Let those who refuse to believe that Jesus died for humanity on a cross answer this: will they not also accept the many Greek and barbarian histories that tell of individuals who died for the common good, abolishing the evils that had seized cities and nations? Or will they admit those stories happened, yet insist that the man thought to have died for the abolition of a great demon and the ruler of demons—the one who had subjected all human souls that have come upon the earth—is somehow not credible? The disciples saw these parallels, and many more besides, which they likely learned from Jesus in private. Moreover, they were filled with a power, since he gave them courage and confidence—not from some created maiden, but from the true wisdom and intelligence of God. Thus they hurried to become manifest to all people, not only to the Argives but to all Greeks and barbarians together, and to win an honorable reputation.