Against Celsus 1.27

Anyone examining the facts will see that Jesus attempted things greater than human nature, and having attempted them, accomplished them. For although from the beginning everyone opposed the sowing of his teaching over the whole world—the emperors of each period, the commanders and governors under them, and, so to speak, all who had been entrusted with any authority whatever, and further the rulers in the cities, the soldiers, and the peoples—it conquered, since as the Word of God it could not by nature be hindered. And having become stronger than so many adversaries, it prevailed over all Greece and still more of the barbarian world, and converted countless souls to the worship of God that he taught. And since among the multitude conquered by the teaching the ordinary and more rustic people are many times more numerous than those trained in learning, it was inevitable that the ordinary and rustic should be many times more numerous than the more intelligent. But Celsus, not wishing to consider this, thinks that the love of humanity of the teaching, which reaches every soul "from the rising of the sun," is vulgar, and that because of its vulgarity and its complete lack of power in argument it has prevailed over the uneducated alone. Yet not even he says that only the uneducated have been brought by the teaching to the worship of God according to Jesus; for he admits that there are among them some who are moderate, reasonable, and intelligent, and ready for allegory.