God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power. … The Word, and Reason, and Power, by which God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which the Word has in being to give forth utterances, and reason abides to dispose and arrange, and power is over all to execute. He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession […]
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Tertullian: Apology
The Persecution of Christians 1. Christians were deprived of the right to defend themselves before their accusers and the court. They were also denied the due process of law, for they were prosecuted differently from criminals, though condemned likewise, for “the crime of murder, or sacrilege, or incest, or treason”. And then, too, you do not in that case deal with us in the ordinary way of judicial proceedings against offenders; […]
Read moreClement of Alexandria: Commentary Fragments
Nakedness of Man Man alone is born in all respects naked, without a weapon or clothing born with him; not as being inferior to the other animals, but that nakedness and your bringing nothing with you may produce thought; and that thought may bring out dexterity, expel sloth, introduce the arts for the supply of our needs, and beget variety of contrivances. For, naked, man is full of contrivances, being […]
Read moreOn the Authorship of the New Testament
Mark, the follower of Peter, while Peter publicly preached the Gospel at Rome before some of Cæsar’s equites, and adduced many testimonies to Christ, in order that thereby they might be able to commit to memory what was spoken, of what was spoken by Peter, wrote entirely what is called the Gospel according to Mark. As Luke also may be recognised by the style, both to have composed the Acts […]
Read moreClement of Alexandria: The Word as Pearl
Matthew A pearl, and that pellucid and of purest ray, is Jesus, whom of the lightning flash of Divinity the Virgin bore. For as the pearl, produced in flesh and the oyster-shell and moisture, appears to be a body moist and transparent, full of light and spirit; so also God the Word, incarnate, is intellectual light, sending His rays, through a body luminous and moist.
Read moreClement Of Alexandria: Trinity
The Word and the Immortality of the Soul Before the foundation of the world were we, who, because destined to be in Him, pre-existed in the eye of God before,—we the rational creatures of the Word of God, on whose account we date from the beginning; for “in the beginning was the Word.” Well, inasmuch as the Word was from the first, He was and is the divine source of […]
Read moreGregory of Nyssa: Envy is the Father of Death
Envy is the passion which causes evil, the father of death, the first entrance of sin, the root of wickedness, the birth of sorrow, the mother of misfortune, the basis of disobedience, the beginning of shame. Envy banished us from Paradise, having become a serpent to oppose Eve. Envy walled us off from the tree of life, divested us of holy garments, and in shame led us away clothed with […]
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