astonished to hear those called atheists, who speak of God the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, and who proclaim Their power in union and Their
distinction in order?”
33
“Nay, you would find many among us, both men and women, growing old
unmarried, in hope of living in closer communion with God. But if the remaining in
virginity and in the state of an eunuch brings nearer to God, while the indulgence
of carnal thought and desire leads away from Him, in those cases in which we shun
the thoughts, much more do we reject the deeds.”
35
“For when they know that we cannot endure even to see a man put to death,
though justly; who of them can accuse us of murder or cannibalism? Who does not
reckon among the things of greatest interest the contests of gladiators and wild
beasts, especially those which are given by you? But we, deeming that to see a man
put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles. How,
then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can
we put people to death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring
on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the
abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to
the same person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and
therefore an object of God’s care…”
The Resurrection of the Dead (C. 177-180 AD):
12
“Thus the soul exists and continues unchanged in the nature in which it was made,
and performs what is natural to it…And the body is moved to what is proper to it in
accord with its nature, and undergoes the changes allotted to it; and among the
other changes of age, appearance and size, is the resurrection. For the
resurrection is a species of change, the last of all, and a change for the better in
those things which remain at that time.”
15
“For if the whole nature of men in general is composed of an immortal soul and a
body which was fitted to it in the creation, and if neither to the nature of the soul
by itself, nor to the nature of the body separately, has God assigned such a
creation or such a life and entire course of existence as this, but to men
compounded of the two, in order that they may, when they have passed through
their present existence, arrive at one common end…”
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