First Apology 46

But lest some, reasoning absurdly to turn people away from what we teach, should say that we say that Christ was born one hundred and fifty years ago under Quirinius, and taught what we say he taught later, under Pontius Pilate, and should accuse us as though all people who were born before were not accountable, we will resolve the difficulty beforehand. We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that he is the Word, of whom the whole race of people partakes. And those who lived with the Word are Christians, even if they were thought atheists, such as among the Greeks Socrates and Heraclitus and those like them, and among the barbarians Abraham and Ananias and Azarias and Misael and Elijah and many others, whose deeds or names we now decline to list, knowing that it would be long. So also those who lived before without the Word were useless and enemies to Christ and murderers of those who lived with the Word; but those who lived and live with the Word are Christians, and fearless and untroubled. For what reason, by the power of the Word according to the will of God the Father and Master of all, he was born a man through a virgin and was named Jesus, and was crucified and died and rose again and has ascended into heaven, a sensible person can understand from what has been said at such length. But since the proof of this is not necessary now, we will go on to the more urgent proofs for the present.