1. Philo of Alexandria, On The Creation of The World, 101-122, 29-32, 89-100 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 100. But seven alone, as I said before, neither produces nor is produced, on which account other philosophers liken this number to Victory, who had no mother, and to the virgin goddess, whom the fable asserts to have sprung from the head of Jupiter: and the Pythagoreans compare it to the Ruler of all things. For that which neither produces, nor is produced, remains immovable. For generation consists in motion, since that which is generated, cannot be so without motion, both to cause production, and to be produced. And the only thing which neither moves nor is moved, is the Elder, Ruler, and Lord of the universe, of whom the number seven may reasonably be called a likeness. And Philolaus gives his testimony to this doctrine of mine in the following Words:ù"for God," says he "is the ruler and Lord of all things, being one, eternal, lasting, immovable, himself like to himself, and different from all other beings." XXXIV. |
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2. Philo of Alexandria, On The Special Laws, 1.54 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 1.54. And there are some of the Gentiles, who, not attending to the honour due to the one God alone, deserve to be punished with extreme severity of punishment, as having forsaken the most important classification of piety and holiness, and as having chosen darkness in preference to the most brilliant light, and having rendered their own intellect blind when it might have seen clearly. |
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3. Philo of Alexandria, That God Is Unchangeable, 69 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 69. and therefore it is that it appears to me that with these two principal assertions above mentioned, namely, that God is as a man and that God is not as a man, are connected two other principles consequent upon and connected with them, namely, that of fear and that of love; for I see that all the exhortations of the laws to piety, are referred either to the love or to the fear of the living God. To those, therefore, who do not attribute either the parts or the passions of men to the living God, but who, as becomes the majesty of God, honour him in himself, and by himself alone, to love him is most natural; but to the others, it is most appropriate to fear him. XV. |
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4. Strabo, Geography, 1.2.2 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 1.2.2. Let us first examine Eratosthenes, reviewing at the same time what Hipparchus has advanced against him. Eratosthenes is much too creditable an historian for us to believe what Polemon endeavours to charge against him, that he had not even seen Athens. At the same time he does not merit that unbounded confidence which some seem to repose in him, although, as he himself tells us, he passed much of his time with first-rate [characters]. Never, says he, at one period, and in one city, were there so many philosophers flourishing together as in my time. In their number was Ariston and Arcesilaus. This, however, it seems is not sufficient, but you must also be able to choose who are the real guides whom it is your interest to follow. He considers Arcesilaus and Ariston to be the coryphaei of the philosophers who flourished in his time, and is ceaseless in his eulogies of Apelles and Bion, the latter of whom, says he, was the first to deck himself in the flowers of philosophy, but concerning whom one is often likewise tempted to exclaim, How great is Bion in spite of his rags! It is in such instances as the following that the mediocrity of his genius shows itself. Although at Athens he became a disciple of Zeno of Citium, he makes no mention of his followers; while those who opposed that philosopher, and of whose sect not a trace remains, he thinks fit to set down amongst the [great characters] who flourished in his time. His real character appears in his Treatise on Moral Philosophy, his Meditations, and some similar productions. He seems to have held a middle course between the man who devotes himself to philosophy, and the man who cannot make up his mind to dedicate himself to it: and to have studied the science merely as a relief from his other pursuits, or as a pleasing and instructive recreation. In his other writings he is just the same; but let these things pass. We will now proceed as well as we can to the task of rectifying his geography. First, then, let us return to the point which we lately deferred. |
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5. Epictetus, Discourses, 1.18.4, 2.20.37, 2.24.19, 4.6.18 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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6. New Testament, Hebrews, 3.16-3.18 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 3.16. For who, when they heard, rebelled? No, didn't all those who came out of Egypt by Moses? 3.17. With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn't it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 3.18. To whom did he swear that they wouldn't enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? |
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7. New Testament, John, 3.3-3.5, 8.39-8.44, 17.23 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 3.3. Jesus answered him, "Most assuredly, I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can't see the Kingdom of God. 3.4. Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 3.5. Jesus answered, "Most assuredly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can't enter into the Kingdom of God! 8.39. They answered him, "Our father is Abraham."Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. 8.40. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham didn't do this. 8.41. You do the works of your father."They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God. 8.42. Therefore Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven't come of myself, but he sent me. 8.43. Why don't you understand my speech? Because you can't hear my word. 8.44. You are of your Father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn't stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it. 17.23. I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me. |
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8. Plutarch, Oracles At Delphi No Longer Given In Verse, 396 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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9. Seneca The Younger, De Beneficiis, 5.25.5-5.25.6 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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10. Seneca The Younger, Letters, 50.3 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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11. Marcus Aurelius Emperor of Rome, Meditations, 2.1, 2.11, 3.4, 8.49 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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12. Tertullian, Apology, 12 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 12. But I pass from these remarks, for I know and I am going to show what your gods are not, by showing what they are. In reference, then, to these, I see only names of dead men of ancient times; I hear fabulous stories; I recognize sacred rites founded on mere myths. As to the actual images, I regard them as simply pieces of matter akin to the vessels and utensils in common use among us, or even undergoing in their consecration a hapless change from these useful articles at the hands of reckless art, which in the transforming process treats them with utter contempt, nay, in the very act commits sacrilege; so that it might be no slight solace to us in all our punishments, suffering as we do because of these same gods, that in their making they suffer as we do themselves. You put Christians on crosses and stakes: what image is not formed from the clay in the first instance, set on cross and stake? The body of your god is first consecrated on the gibbet. You tear the sides of Christians with your claws; but in the case of your own gods, axes, and planes, and rasps are put to work more vigorously on every member of the body. We lay our heads upon the block; before the lead, and the glue, and the nails are put in requisition, your deities are headless. We are cast to the wild beasts, while you attach them to Bacchus, and Cybele, and C lestis. We are burned in the flames; so, too, are they in their original lump. We are condemned to the mines; from these your gods originate. We are banished to islands; in islands it is a common thing for your gods to have their birth or die. If it is in this way a deity is made, it will follow that as many as are punished are deified, and tortures will have to be declared divinities. But plain it is these objects of your worship have no sense of the injuries and disgraces of their consecrating, as they are equally unconscious of the honours paid to them. O impious words! O blasphemous reproaches! Gnash your teeth upon us - foam with maddened rage against us - you are the persons, no doubt, who censured a certain Seneca speaking of your superstition at much greater length and far more sharply! In a word, if we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead originals, with which hawks, and mice, and spiders are so well acquainted, does it not merit praise instead of penalty, that we have rejected what we have come to see is error? We cannot surely be made out to injure those who we are certain are nonentities. What does not exist, is in its nonexistence secure from suffering. |
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13. Anon., Letter of Aristeas, 5
| 5. you this story, too, since I am convinced that you, with your disposition towards holiness and your sympathy with men who are living in accordance with the holy law, will all the more readily listen to the account which I purpose to set forth, since you yourself have lately come to us from the island and are anxious to hear everything that tends to build up the soul. |
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14. Stoic School, Stoicor. Veter. Fragm., 1.159
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