Origen of Alexandria, On First Principles

Since we are examining matters of such magnitude, we are not guided by common opinions or by the obviousness of what is seen. Instead, we bring in as additional support for the apparent proof of what we are saying the testimonies drawn from the writings we believe to be divine — both the so-called Old Covenant and the one called the New — and we attempt to reinforce our faith by means of reason. We have not yet spoken of these writings as divine; come then, let us take up a few points about them in summary, setting forth the considerations that move us concerning divine Scripture.

First of all, before we draw on the writings themselves and the statements they contain, we must understand the figures of Moses and Jesus Christ: Moses, the lawgiver of the Hebrews, and Jesus Christ, the expounder of the saving doctrines of Christianity. For among the many lawgivers who have arisen among Greeks and barbarians, and among the many teachers who have proclaimed doctrines promising truth, we find no lawgiver who was able to kindle zeal in other nations to accept his words. Many have brought forward an elaborate preparation accompanied by what seems to be logical proof, promising to philosophize about truth; yet not one has succeeded in planting the truth he himself believed among diverse nations, or even among significant multitudes of a single nation.

And indeed the lawgivers would have wished, if it were possible, to make the laws that appeared good prevail among the whole human race, and the teachers would have wished — or at least imagined — their truth to spread everywhere in the inhabited world. But because they were unable to summon people of other languages and many nations to the observance of their laws and the acceptance of their teachings, they did not even attempt such a thing from the outset, having shrewdly recognized the impossibility of it for themselves.

Yet the whole of Greece and the barbarian world throughout our inhabited world now possess countless zealots who have abandoned their ancestral laws and the gods they once revered, devoting themselves to the observance of the laws of Jesus Christ and to discipleship to his words — even though they are hated by those who venerate idols and by those who adhere to the law of Moses, and even though they face the danger of death because of the hatred directed at those who have received the word of Jesus Christ.