Spreading The Faith

Adde quod ante resurrectionem Christi, notus tantum in Judaea erat Deus: in Israel magnum nomen eius. Et ipsi qui noverant cum, tamen ad inferos trahebantur. Ubi tunc totius orbis homines, ab India usque ad Britanniam, a rigida Septentrionis plaga, usque ad fervores Atlantici Oceani, tam innumerabiles populi, et tantarum gentium multitudines? Quam variae linguis, habitu tam vestis, et armis. Piscium ritu ac locustarum et velut muscae et culices conterebantur: absque notitia etenim Creatoris sui, omnis homo pecus est, Nunc vero passionem Christi, et resurrectionem eius, cunctarem gentium et voces et litterae sonant. Taceo Hebraeis, Graecis, et Latinis, quas nationes fidei suae in Crucis titulo Dominus dedicavit. Immortalem animam et Pythagoras somniavit, Democritus non credidit, in consolationem damnationis suae Socrates disputavit in carcere, Indus, Persa, Gothus, Aegyptius philosophantur. Bessorum ferita, et pellitorum turba populorum, qui mortuorum quondam inferiis homines immolabant, stridorem summ in dulce Crucis fregerunt melos, et totius mundi una vox Christus est.  Sanctus Hieronymus, Epistola LX, Ad Heliodorum Source: Migne PL 22 591-592

Moreover, before the resurrection of Christ only in Judah was God known, only in Israel was His name great. And even they who knew Him were dragged down to hell. Where in those days were the men of the globe from India to Britain, from the freezing blasts of the North to the warmth of the Atlantic ocean? Where were the innumerable peoples of the world, where those multitudes 'So unlike in tongue, in style of dress and arms' ?1 Like fishes and locusts, like flies and gnats they were crushed. For apart from knowledge of his Creator every man is but a beast. Now, in truth, the voices and letters of all nations proclaim the passion and the resurrection of Christ. I am silent about the Jews, the Greeks, and the Latins, peoples the Lord dedicated to His faith in the title written on the Cross. Pythagoras dreamed of the immortality of the soul, Democritus would not credit it, Socrates disputed over it in prison to console himself for his condemnation, but now the Indian, Persian, Goth and Egyptian philosophise. Even the wild Bessians and crowds of skinclad savages who once sacrificed men in honour of the dead have broken out of their howling into the sweet music of the Cross, and Christ is the one voice of all the world. St Jerome, from Letter 60, To Heliodorus 1 Virgil, Aeneid, 8.723