“The Eucharist is our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food makes
it a bond of union. Its effect is then understood as unity, so that, gathered into his
Body and made members of him, we may become what we receive...This also is our
daily bread: the readings you hear each day in church and the hymns you hear and
sing. All these are necessities for our pilgrimage.”
Hymn Against the Donatists (393 AD):
18
“Run through the list of those priests who have occupied the See of Peter Himself;
and in that list of Fathers, see who succeeded to whom. This is the Rock which the
proud Gates of Hell do not overcome.”
Against the Letter of Mani (397 AD):
5, 6
“If you should find someone who does not yet believe in the Gospel, what would
you answer him when he says: ‘I do not believe?’ Indeed, I would not believe in the
Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do
so.”
Baptism (400 AD):
3, 10, 13
“It is one thing not to have something, and another to have it not by right or to
usurp it illicitly. It is not that they are not the Sacraments of Christ and of the
Church because they are used illicitly, and this not by heretics only, but by all the
wicked and impious. Such persons ought to be corrected and punished, but the
Sacraments should be acknowledged and revered.”
Confessions (400 AD):
Bk. 3, 8
“Those foul offenses that are against nature should be everywhere and at all times
detested and punished, such as were those of the people of Sodom, which should all
nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the law of God,
which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one another. For even that
very intercourse which should be between God and us is violated, when that same
nature, of which He is the Author, is polluted by the perversity of lust.”
Bk. 9, 2
 |
 |
 |