Patristics

“Now is it not confessedly the greatest impiety, nay, the greatest insults, to place the honor of the Deity at the will and pleasure of human judgment, so that there cannot be a God except the senate permit him?” Tertullian, To the Nations, 10, ANF 3:119

Patristics

“If the Tiber has overflows its banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been still, or the earth has been in commotion, if death has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your cry immediately is, 'This is the fault of the Christians!'” Tertullian, To the Nations, 9, ANF 3:117

Patristics

“You are accustomed in conversation yourselves to say, in disparagement of us, 'Why is so-and-so deceitful, when the Christians are so self-denying? why merciless, when they are so merciful?' You thus bear your testimony to the fact that this is not the character of Christians, when you ask, in the way of a retort, how men who are reputed to be Christians can be of such and such a disposition.” Tertullian, To the Nations, 5, ANF 3:113

Patristics

“Day after day, indeed, you groan over the increasing number of the Christians. Your constant cry is, that the state is beset (by us); that Christians are in your fields, in your camps, in your islands. You grieve over it as a calamity, that each sex, every age – in short, every rank – is passing over from you to us; yet you do not even after this set your minds upon reflecting whether there be not here some latent good.” Tertullian, To the Nations, 1, ANF 3:109

Patristics

“We who are without fear ourselves are not seeking to frighten you, but we would save all men if possible by warning them not to fight with God.” Tertullian, To Scapula, 4, ANF 3:06

Patrisitics

“...; since, though our numbers are so great – constituting all but the majority in every city – we conduct ourselves so quietly immodestly; I might perhaps say, known rather as individuals than as organized communities, and remarkable only for the reformation of our former vices.” Tertullian, To Scapula, 2, ANF 3:106

Patristics

“You think that others, too, are gods, whom we know to be devils. However, it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, then every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion – to which free will and not force should lead us – the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind. You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice.” Tertullian, To Scapula, 2, ANF 3:105

Patristics

“For our religion commands us to love even our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us, aiming at a perfection all its own, and seeking in its disciples something of a higher type than the commonplace goodness of the world. For all of those who love them; it is peculiar to Christians alone to love those who hate them.” Tertullian, To Scapula, 1, ANF 3:105

Patristics

“For such is the power of earthly pleasures, that, to retain the opportunity of still partaking in them, it contrives to prolong a willing ignorance, and bribes knowledge into playing a dishonest part.” Tertullian, The Shows, 1, ANF 3:79

Patristics

“For although the fault be done by others, it makes no difference if it be by my means. In no case ought I to be necessary to another, while he is doing what to me is unlawful.” Tertullian, On Idolatry, 11, ANF 3:67

Patristics

“All things, therefore, does human error worship, except the Founder of all Himself.” Tertullian, On Idolatry, 4, ANF 3:63

Patristics

“Therefore God suffers that we thus suffer; for but very lately, in condemning a Christian woman to the leno [brothel] rather than to the leo [lion] you made confession that a taint on our purity is considered among us as something more terrible than any punishment and any death. Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.” Tertullian, Apology, 50, ANF 3:55

Patristics

“The truth is, the human race has always deserved ill at God's hand. First of all, as undutiful to Him, because when it knew Him in part, is not only did not seek after Him, but even invented other gods of its own to worship;....” Tertullian, Apology, 41, ANF 3:48

Patristics

“We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications.” Tertullian, Apology, 39, ANF 3:46

Patristics

“We never do good with respect of persons; for in our own interest we conduct ourselves as those who take no payment either praise or premium from man, but from God, who both requires and remunerates an impartial benevolence. We are the same to emperors as to our ordinary neighbors. For we are equally forbidden to wish ill, to do ill, to speak ill, to think ill of all men.” Tertullian, Apology, 36, ANF 3:45

Patristics

“For see that you do not give a further ground for the charge of irreligion, by taking away religious liberty, and forbidding free choice of deity, so that I may no longer worship according to my inclination, but am compelled to worship against it. Not even a human being would care to have unwilling homage rendered him; and so the very Egyptians have been permitted the legal use of their ridiculous superstition, liberty to make gods of birds and beasts, nay, to condemn to death anyone who kills a god of their sort.” Tertullian, Apology, 24, ANF 3:39

Patristics

“Thereafter, having given them commission to preach the gospel through the world, He was encompassed with the cloud and taken up to heaven, – a fact more certain far than the assertions of your Proculi concerning Romulus. All of these things Pilate did to Christ; and now in fact a Christian in his own convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Caesar, who was at the time Tiberius.” Tertullian, Apology, 21, ANF 3:35

Patristics

“And yet, nailed upon the cross, He exhibited many notable signs, by which His death was distinguished from all others. At His own free will, He with a word dismissed from Him His spirit, anticipating the executioner's work. In the same hour, too, the light of day was withdrawn, when the sun at the very time was in his meridian blaze. Those who are not aware that this had been predicted about Christ, no doubt thought it was an eclipse. You yourselves have the account of the world-portent in your archives.” Tertullian, Apology, 21, ANF 3:35

Patristics

“No one of your gods is earlier than Saturn: from him you trace all your deities, even those of higher rank and better-known. What, then, can be proved of the first, will apply to those that follow. So far, then, as books give us information, neither the Greek Diodorus or Thallus, neither Cassius Severus or Cornelius Nepos, nor any writer upon sacred antiquities, have ventured to say that Saturn was any but a man: ….” Tertullian, Apology, 10, ANF 3:26

Patristics

“In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed.” Tertullian, Apology, 9, ANF 3:25