The Soul is not Immortal Per Se For God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and therefore He is God, but all other things after Him are created and corruptible. For this reason souls both die and are punished: since, if they were unbegotten, they would neither sin, nor be filled with folly, nor be cowardly, and again ferocious; nor would they willingly transform into swine, and serpents, and dogs; and […]
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Irenaeus: The Nature of Thought
When refuting the Gnostics, who pride themselves on knowledge of the divine, and make a pantheon out of such knowledge, Irenaeus expounds on the relation between a rational being and his knowledge, by way of proving that Christ, the Wisdom of God, is one with the Father, though distinct from the Father. This is the Doctrine of the Trinity, although Irenaeus doesn’t use the term explicitly. The Unfolding of the […]
Read moreIrenaeus: The Deceitful Tactics of Heretics
They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they […]
Read moreJustin Martyr On The Eucharist
The Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our […]
Read moreJustin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho
Circumcision The command of circumcision, bidding always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the […]
Read moreJustin Martyr: Apologetics
Free Choice of Will Unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions, of whatever kind they be. But that it is by free choice they both walk uprightly and stumble, we thus demonstrate. We see the same man making a transition to opposite things. Now, if it had been fated that he were to be […]
Read moreJustin Martyr: The Spirit of Prophecy
When you hear the utterances of the prophets spoken as it were personally, you must not suppose that they are spoken by the inspired themselves, but by the Divine Word who moves them. For sometimes He declares things that are to come to pass, in the manner of one who foretells the future; sometimes He speaks as from the person of God the Lord and Father of all; sometimes as […]
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