Renowned in every way, despite the cross

Who, then, looking into the nature of things with more than passing attention, would not be astonished at him? He conquered, and by his glory he was able to rise above everything that brings disrepute, and above all who were ever renowned. And yet those who have been renowned among men have rarely been able to win glory for several things at once. One was admired and became famous for wisdom, another for generalship; some barbarians for the wonderful powers they worked by incantations; and others for other things, but not for many at once. He, besides everything else, is admired for wisdom, for mighty works, and for his power to lead.

For he won people over not as a tyrant who gets some to join him in revolt against the laws, nor as a brigand who spurs his followers on against other men, nor as a rich man who provides for those who come to him, nor as any of those who are admittedly to be blamed, but as a teacher of the doctrine about the God of the universe, of the worship due to Him, and of a whole way of moral life able to bring whoever lives by it into kinship with the God who is over all.

Nothing ever stood in the way of the glory of Themistocles, or of any other renowned man. But for him, besides the things already mentioned, which were quite enough to hide in obscurity the soul even of a very gifted man, there was also death by crucifixion, which is thought dishonourable. That death was capable of wiping out the glory he had already won, glory that had already taken hold, and of making those who had been deceived before (so those who reject his teaching suppose) abandon the deception and condemn the deceiver.