1. Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy, 19.19 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
19.19. וַעֲשִׂיתֶם לוֹ כַּאֲשֶׁר זָמַם לַעֲשׂוֹת לְאָחִיו וּבִעַרְתָּ הָרָע מִקִּרְבֶּךָ׃ | 19.19. then shall ye do unto him, as he had purposed to do unto his brother; so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee." |
|
2. Hebrew Bible, Isaiah, 42.8 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
42.8. אֲנִי יְהוָה הוּא שְׁמִי וּכְבוֹדִי לְאַחֵר לֹא־אֶתֵּן וּתְהִלָּתִי לַפְּסִילִים׃ | 42.8. I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory will I not give to another, Neither My praise to graven images." |
|
3. Septuagint, 2 Maccabees, 7.28 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 7.28. I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being.' |
|
4. Septuagint, Wisdom of Solomon, 1.14 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 1.14. For he created all things that they might exist,and the generative forces of the world are wholesome,and there is no destructive poison in them;and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. |
|
5. Clement of Rome, 1 Clement, 46.5-46.6, 59.4 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
46.5. ἱνατί ἔρεις καὶ θυμοὶ καὶ διχοστασίαι καὶ σχίσματα πόλεμός τε Eph. 4, 4-6 ἐν ὑμῖν; 46.6. ἢ οὐχὶ ἕνα θεὸν ἔχομεν καὶ ἔνα Χριστὸν καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα τῆς χάριτος τὸ ἐκχυθὲν ἐφ̓ ἡμᾶς; καὶ μία κλῆσις ἐν Χριστῷ; 59.4. ἀξιοῦμέν σε, δέσποτα, βοηθὸν γενέσθαι καὶ ἀντιλήπτορα ἡμῶν. τοὺς ἐν θλίψει ἡμῶν σῶσον, τοὺς ταπεινοὺς ἐλέησον, τοὺς πεπτωκότας ἔγειρον, τοῖς δεομένοις ἐπιφάνηθι, τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς ἴασαι, τοὺς πλανωμένους τοῦ λαοῦ σου ἐπίστρεψον: χόρτασον τοὺς πεινῶντας, λύτρωσαι τοὺς δεσμίους ἡμῶν, ἐξανάστησον τοὺς ἀσθενοῦντας, παρακάλεσον τοὺς ὀλιγοψυχοῦντας: I Kings 3, 60; II Kings 19, 19; Ezek. 86, 23 Ps. 78, 13; 94, 7; 99, 8 γνώτωσάν σε ἅπαντα τὰ ἔθνη. ὅτι σὺ εἶ ὁ θεὸς μόνος καὶ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ παῖς σου καὶ ἡμεῖς λαός σου καὶ πρόβατα τῆς νομῆς σου. | |
|
6. Ignatius, To Polycarp, 8.3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 8.3. I bid you farewell always in our God Jesus Christ, in whom abide ye in the unity and supervision of God. I salute Alce, a name very dear to me. Fare ye well in the Lord. IGNATIUS to the Smyrnaeans |
|
7. Ignatius, To The Philadelphians, 8.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 8.1. I therefore did my own part, as a man composed unto union. But where there is division and anger, there God abideth not. Now the Lord forgiveth all men when they repent, if repenting they return to the unity of God and to the council of the bishop. I have faith in the grace of Jesus Christ, who shall strike off every fetter from you; |
|
8. Ignatius, To The Ephesians, 15.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 15.1. It is better to keep silence and to be, than to talk and not to be. It is a fine thing to teach, if the speaker practise. Now there is one teacher, who spake and it came to pass: yea and even the things which He hath done in silence are worthy of the Father. |
|
9. Ignatius, To The Magnesians, 7.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 7.2. Hasten to come together all of you, as to one temple, even God; as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from One Father and is with One and departed unto One. |
|
10. Ignatius, To The Philadelphians, 8.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 8.1. I therefore did my own part, as a man composed unto union. But where there is division and anger, there God abideth not. Now the Lord forgiveth all men when they repent, if repenting they return to the unity of God and to the council of the bishop. I have faith in the grace of Jesus Christ, who shall strike off every fetter from you; |
|
11. Ignatius, To The Smyrnaeans, 3.3, 12.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
12. Ignatius, To The Trallians, 11.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
13. New Testament, Acts, 5.27, 5.29-5.32 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 5.27. When they had brought them, they set them before the council. The high priest questioned them 5.29. But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men. 5.30. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed, hanging him on a tree. 5.31. God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. 5.32. We are His witnesses of these things; and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. |
|
14. New Testament, Romans, 4.17 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 4.17. As it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations." This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were. |
|
15. Hermas, Mandates, 1.1, 11.12-11.14 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
16. Justin, First Apology, 12.9-12.10, 23.2, 30.1, 31.7, 59.1 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
17. Justin, Dialogue With Trypho, 1.3-1.4, 2.2-2.6, 5.6, 11.1-11.2, 38.2, 55.3, 62.2, 68.8, 78.10, 80.3, 82.2, 84.3, 140.2 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
18. Tatian, Oration To The Greeks, 32 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
19. Tertullian, Apology, 28, 35, 10 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 10. You do not worship the gods, you say; and you do not offer sacrifices for the emperors. Well, we do not offer sacrifice for others, for the same reason that we do not for ourselves - namely, that your gods are not at all the objects of our worship. So we are accused of sacrilege and treason. This is the chief ground of charge against us - nay, it is the sum-total of our offending; and it is worthy then of being inquired into, if neither prejudice nor injustice be the judge, the one of which has no idea of discovering the truth, and the other simply and at once rejects it. We do not worship your gods, because we know that there are no such beings. This, therefore, is what you should do: you should call on us to demonstrate their non-existence, and thereby prove that they have no claim to adoration; for only if your gods were truly so, would there be any obligation to render divine homage to them. And punishment even were due to Christians, if it were made plain that those to whom they refused all worship were indeed divine. But you say, They are gods. We protest and appeal from yourselves to your knowledge; let that judge us; let that condemn us, if it can deny that all these gods of yours were but men. If even it venture to deny that, it will be confuted by its own books of antiquities, from which it has got its information about them, bearing witness to this day, as they plainly do, both of the cities in which they were born, and the countries in which they have left traces of their exploits, as well as where also they are proved to have been buried. Shall I now, therefore, go over them one by one, so numerous and so various, new and old, barbarian, Grecian, Roman, foreign, captive and adopted, private and common, male and female, rural and urban, naval and military? It were useless even to hunt out all their names: so I may content myself with a compend; and this not for your information, but that you may have what you know brought to your recollection, for undoubtedly you act as if you had forgotten all about them. 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: so far as the question depends on facts, I find none more trustworthy than those- that in Italy itself we have the country in which, after many expeditions, and after having partaken of Attic hospitalities, Saturn settled, obtaining cordial welcome from Janus, or, as the Salii will have it, Janis. The mountain on which he dwelt was called Saturnius; the city he founded is called Saturnia to this day; last of all, the whole of Italy, after having borne the name of Oenotria, was called Saturnia from him. He first gave you the art of writing, and a stamped coinage, and thence it is he presides over the public treasury. But if Saturn were a man, he had undoubtedly a human origin; and having a human origin, he was not the offspring of heaven and earth. As his parents were unknown, it was not unnatural that he should be spoken of as the son of those elements from which we might all seem to spring. For who does not speak of heaven and earth as father and mother, in a sort of way of veneration and honour? Or from the custom which prevails among us of saying that persons of whom we have no knowledge, or who make a sudden appearance, have fallen from the skies? In this way it came about that Saturn, everywhere a sudden and unlooked-for, got everywhere the name of the Heaven-born. For even the common folk call persons whose stock is unknown, sons of earth. I say nothing of how men in these rude times were wont to act, when they were impressed by the look of any stranger happening to appear among them, as though it were divine, since even at this day men of culture make gods of those whom, a day or two before, they acknowledged to be dead men by their public mourning for them. Let these notices of Saturn, brief as they are, suffice. It will thus also be proved that Jupiter is as certainly a man, as from a man he sprung; and that one after another the whole swarm is mortal like the primal stock. |
|
20. Tertullian, On The Pallium, 5 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 5. Still, say you, must we thus change from gown to Mantle? Why, what if from diadem and sceptre? Did Anacharsis change otherwise, when to the royalty of Scythia he preferred philosophy? Grant that there be no (miraculous) signs in proof of your transformation for the better: there is somewhat which this your garb can do. For, to begin with the simplicity of its uptaking: it needs no tedious arrangement. Accordingly, there is no necessity for any artist formally to dispose its wrinkled folds from the beginning a day beforehand, and then to reduce them to a more finished elegance, and to assign to the guardianship of the stretchers the whole figment of the massed boss; subsequently, at daybreak, first gathering up by the aid of a girdle the tunic which it were better to have woven of more moderate length (in the first instance), and, again scrutinizing the boss, and rearranging any disarrangement, to make one part prominent on the left, but (making now an end of the folds) to draw backwards from the shoulders the circuit of it whence the hollow is formed, and, leaving the right shoulder free, heap it still upon the left, with another similar set of folds reserved for the back, and thus clothe the man with a burden! In short, I will persistently ask your own conscience, What is your first sensation in wearing your gown? Do you feel yourself clad, or laded? Wearing a garment, or carrying it? If you shall answer negatively, I will follow you home; I win see what you hasten to do immediately after crossing your threshold. There is really no garment the doffing whereof congratulates a man more than the gown's does. of shoes we say nothing - implements as they are of torture proper to the gown, most uncleanly protection to the feet, yes, and false too. For who would not find it expedient, in cold and heat, to stiffen with feet bare rather than in a shoe with feet bound? A mighty munition for the tread have the Venetian shoe-factories provided in the shape of effeminate boots! Well, but, than the Mantle nothing is more expedite, even if it be double, like that of Crates. Nowhere is there a compulsory waste of time in dressing yourself (in it), seeing that its whole art consists in loosely covering. That can be effected by a single circumjection, and one in no case inelegant: thus it wholly covers every part of the man at once. The shoulder it either exposes or encloses: in other respects it adheres to the shoulder; it has no surrounding support; it has no surrounding tie; it has no anxiety as to the fidelity with which its folds keep their place; easily it manages, easily readjusts itself: even in the doffing it is consigned to no cross until the morrow. If any shirt is worn beneath it, the torment of a girdle is superfluous: if anything in the way of shoeing is worn, it is a most cleanly work; or else the feet are rather bare - more manly, at all events, (if bare,) than in shoes. These (pleas I advance) for the Mantle in the meantime, in so far as you have defamed it by name. Now, however, it challenges you on the score of its function withal. I, it says, owe no duty to the forum, the election-ground, or the senate-house; I keep no obsequious vigil, preoccupy no platforms, hover about no pr torian residences; I am not odorant of the canals, am not odorant of the lattices, am no constant wearer out of benches, no wholesale router of laws, no barking pleader, no judge, no soldier, no king: I have withdrawn from the populace. My only business is with myself: except that other care I have none, save not to care. The better life you would more enjoy in seclusion than in publicity. But you will decry me as indolent. Forsooth, 'we are to live for our country, and empire, and estate.' Such used, of old, to be the sentiment. None is born for another, being destined to die for himself. At all events, when we come to the Epicuri and Zenones, you give the epithet of 'sages' to the whole teacherhood of Quietude, who have consecrated that Quietude with the name of 'supreme' and 'unique' pleasure. Still, to some extent it will be allowed, even to me, to confer benefit on the public. From any and every boundary-stone or altar it is my wont to prescribe medicines to morals - medicines which will be more felicitous in conferring good health upon public affairs, and states, and empires, than your works are. Indeed, if I proceed to encounter you with naked foils, gowns have done the commonwealth more hurt than cuirasses. Moreover, I flatter no vices; I give quarter to no lethargy, no slothful encrustation. I apply the cauterizing iron to the ambition which led M. Tullius to buy a circular table of citron-wood for more than £4000, and Asinius Gallus to pay twice as much for an ordinary table of the same Moorish wood (Hem! At what fortunes did they value woody dapplings!), or, again, Sulla to frame dishes of an hundred pounds' weight. I fear lest that balance be small, when a Drusillanus (and he withal a slave of Claudius!) constructs a tray of the weight of 500 lbs.!- a tray indispensable, perchance, to the aforesaid tables, for which, if a workshop was erected, there ought to have been erected a dining-room too. Equally do I plunge the scalpel into the inhumanity which led Vedius Pollio to expose slaves to fill the bellies of sea-eels. Delighted, forsooth, with his novel savagery, he kept land-monsters, toothless, clawless, hornless: it was his pleasure to turn perforce into wild beasts his fish, which (of course) were to be immediately cooked, that in their entrails he himself withal might taste some savour of the bodies of his own slaves. I will forelop the gluttony which led Hortensius the orator to be the first to have the heart to slay a peacock for the sake of food; which led Aufidius Lurco to be the first to vitiate meat with stuffing, and by the aid of forcemeats to raise them to an adulterous flavour; which led Asinius Celer to purchase the viand of a single mullet at nearly £50; which led Æsopus the actor to preserve in his pantry a dish of the value of nearly £800, made up of birds of the selfsame costliness (as the mullet aforesaid), consisting of all the songsters and talkers; which led his son, after such a titbit, to have the hardihood to hunger after somewhat yet more sumptuous: for he swallowed down pearls - costly even on the ground of their name - I suppose for fear he should have supped more beggarly than his father. I am silent as to the Neros and Apicii and Rufi. I will give a cathartic to the impurity of a Scaurus, and the gambling of a Curius, and the intemperance of an Antony. And remember that these, out of the many (whom I have named), were men of the toga - such as among the men of the pallium you would not easily find. These purulencies of a state who will eliminate and exsuppurate, save a bemantled speech? |
|