1. Hebrew Bible, Exodus, 3.14 (9th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
| 3.14. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם׃ | 3.14. And God said unto Moses: ‘I AM THAT I AM’; and He said: ‘Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.’" |
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2. Anon., Didache, 2.7 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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3. New Testament, Mark, 7.15 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 7.15. There is nothing from outside of the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. |
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4. New Testament, Matthew, 15.11 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 15.11. That which enters into the mouth doesn't defile the man; but that which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man. |
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5. Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, 14-21, 4, 11 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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6. Justin, First Apology, 65, 61 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 61. I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, Unless you be born again, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. John 3:5 Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into their mothers' wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned and repent shall escape their sins, is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I wrote above; he thus speaks: Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from your souls; learn to do well; judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow: and come and let us reason together, says the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow. But if you refuse and rebel, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Isaiah 1:16-20 And for this [rite] we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed. |
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7. Tertullian, Against Marcion, 2.18 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 2.18. But what parts of the law can I defend as good with a greater confidence than those which heresy has shown such a longing for?- as the statute of retaliation, requiring eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and stripe for stripe. Exodus 21:24 Now there is not here any smack of a permission to mutual injury; but rather, on the whole, a provision for restraining violence. To a people which was very obdurate, and wanting in faith towards God, it might seem tedious, and even incredible, to expect from God that vengeance which was subsequently to be declared by the prophet: Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, in the meanwhile, the commission of wrong was to be checked by the fear of a retribution immediately to happen; and so the permission of this retribution was to be the prohibition of provocation, that a stop might thus be put to all hot-blooded injury, while by the permission of the second the first is prevented by fear, and by this deterring of the first the second fails to be committed. By the same law another result is also obtained, even the more ready kindling of the fear of retaliation by reason of the very savour of passion which is in it. There is no more bitter thing, than to endure the very suffering which you have inflicted upon others. When, again, the law took somewhat away from men's food, by pronouncing unclean certain animals which were once blessed, you should understand this to be a measure for encouraging continence, and recognise in it a bridle imposed on that appetite which, while eating angels' food, craved after the cucumbers and melons of the Egyptians. Recognise also therein a precaution against those companions of the appetite, even lust and luxury, which are usually chilled by the chastening of the appetite. For the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Exodus 32:6 Furthermore, that an eager wish for money might be restrained, so far as it is caused by the need of food, the desire for costly meat and drink was taken out of their power. Lastly, in order that man might be more readily educated by God for fasting, he was accustomed to such articles of food as were neither plentiful nor sumptuous, and not likely to pamper the appetite of the luxurious. of course the Creator deserved all the greater blame, because it was from His own people that He took away food, rather than from the more ungrateful Marcionites. As for the burdensome sacrifices also, and the troublesome scrupulousness of their ceremonies and oblations, no one should blame them, as if God specially required them for Himself: for He plainly asks, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? and, Who has required them at your hand? Isaiah 1:11-12 But he should see herein a careful provision on God's part, which showed His wish to bind to His own religion a people who were prone to idolatry and transgression by that kind of services wherein consisted the superstition of that period; that He might call them away therefrom, while requesting it to be performed to Himself, as if He desired that no sin should be committed in making idols. |
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8. Tertullian, On Baptism, 19.1-19.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 15. I know not whether any further point is mooted to bring baptism into controversy. Permit me to call to mind what I have omitted above, lest I seem to break off the train of impending thoughts in the middle. There is to us one, and but one, baptism; as well according to the Lord's gospel as according to the apostle's letters, inasmuch as he says, One God, and one baptism, and one church in the heavens. But it must be admitted that the question, What rules are to be observed with regard to heretics? is worthy of being treated. For it is to us that that assertion refers. Heretics, however, have no fellowship in our discipline, whom the mere fact of their excommunication testifies to be outsiders. I am not bound to recognize in them a thing which is enjoined on me, because they and we have not the same God, nor one - that is, the same- Christ. And therefore their baptism is not one with ours either, because it is not the same; a baptism which, since they have it not duly, doubtless they have not at all; nor is that capable of being counted which is not had. Ecclesiastes 1:15 Thus they cannot receive it either, because they have it not. But this point has already received a fuller discussion from us in Greek. We enter, then, the font once: once are sins washed away, because they ought never to be repeated. But the Jewish Israel bathes daily, because he is daily being defiled: and, for fear that defilement should be practised among us also, therefore was the definition touching the one bathing made. Happy water, which once washes away; which does not mock sinners (with vain hopes); which does not, by being infected with the repetition of impurities, again defile them whom it has washed! |
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9. Tertullian, On Idolatry, 16 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 16. Touching the ceremonies, however, of private and social solemnities - as those of the white toga, of espousals, of nuptials, of name-givings - I should think no danger need be guarded against from the breath of the idolatry which is mixed up with them. For the causes are to be considered to which the ceremony is due. Those above-named I take to be clean in themselves, because neither manly garb, nor the marital ring or union, descends from honours done to any idol. In short, I find no dress cursed by God, except a woman's dress on a man: for cursed, says He, is every man who clothes himself in woman's attire. The toga, however, is a dress of manly name as well as of manly use. God no more prohibits nuptials to be celebrated than a name to be given. But there are sacrifices appropriated to these occasions. Let me be invited, and let not the title of the ceremony be assistance at a sacrifice, and the discharge of my good offices is at the service of my friends. Would that it were at their service indeed, and that we could escape seeing what is unlawful for us to do. But since the evil one has so surrounded the world with idolatry, it will be lawful for us to be present at some ceremonies which see us doing service to a man, not to an idol. Clearly, if invited unto priestly function and sacrifice, I will not go, for that is service peculiar to an idol; but neither will I furnish advice, or expense, or any other good office in a matter of that kind. If it is on account of the sacrifice that I be invited, and stand by, I shall be partaker of idolatry; if any other cause conjoins me to the sacrificer, I shall be merely a spectator of the sacrifice. |
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10. Tertullian, On Modesty, 13 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 13. We know plainly at this point, too, the suspicions which they raise. For, in fact, they suspect the Apostle Paul of having, in the second (Epistle) to the Corinthians, granted pardon to the self-same fornicator whom in the first he has publicly sentenced to be surrendered to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, - impious heir as he was to his father's wedlock; as if he subsequently erased his own words, writing: But if any has wholly saddened, he has not wholly saddened me, but in part, lest I burden you all. Sufficient is such a chiding which is given by many; so that, on the contrary, you should prefer to forgive and console, lest, perhaps, by more abundant sadness, such an one be devoured. For which reason, I pray you, confirm toward him affection. For to this end withal have I written, that I may learn a proof of you, that in all (things) you are obedient to me. But if you shall have forgiven any, so (do) I; for I, too, if I have forgiven ought, have forgiven in the person of Christ, lest we be overreached by Satan, since we are not ignorant of his injections. What (reference) is understood here to the fornicator? What to the contaminator of his father's bed? what to the Christian who had overstepped the shamelessness of heathens?- since, of course, he would have absolved by a special pardon one whom he had condemned by a special anger. He is more obscure in his pity than in his indignation. He is more open in his austerity than in his lenity. And yet, (generally), anger is more readily indirect than indulgence. Things of a sadder are more wont to hesitate than things of a more joyous cast. of course the question in hand concerned some moderate indulgence; which (moderation in the indulgence) was now, if ever, to be divined, when it is usual for all the greatest indulgences not to be granted without public proclamation, so far (are they from being granted) without particularization. Why, do you yourself, when introducing into the church, for the purpose of melting the brotherhood by his prayers, the repentant adulterer, lead into the midst and prostrate him, all in haircloth and ashes, a compound of disgrace and horror, before the widows, before the elders, suing for the tears of all, licking the footprints of all, clasping the knees of all? And do you, good shepherd and blessed father that you are, to bring about the (desired) end of the man, grace your harangue with all the allurements of mercy in your power, and under the parable of the ewe go in quest of your goats? do you, for fear lest your ewe again take a leap out from the flock - as if that were no more lawful for the future which was not even once lawful - fill all the rest likewise full of apprehension at the very moment of granting indulgence? And would the apostle so carelessly have granted indulgence to the atrocious licentiousness of fornication burdened with incest, as not at least to have exacted from the criminal even this legally established garb of repentance which you ought to have learned from him? As to have uttered no commination on the past? No allocution touching the future? Nay, more; he goes further, and beseeches that they would confirm toward him affection, as if he were making satisfaction to him, not as if he were granting an indulgence! And yet I hear (him speak of) affection, not communion; as (he writes) withal to the Thessalonians: But if any obey not our word through the epistle, him mark; and associate not with him, that he may feel awed; not regarding (him) as an enemy, but rebuking as a brother. Accordingly, he could have said that to a fornicator, too, affection only was conceded, not communion as well; to an incestuous man, however, not even affection; whom he would, to be sure, have bidden to be banished from their midst - much more, of course, from their mind. But he was apprehensive lest they should be 'overreached by Satan' with regard to the loss of that person whom himself had cast forth to Satan; or else lest, 'by abundance of mourning, he should be devoured' whom he had sentenced to 'destruction of the flesh.' Here they go so far as to interpret destruction of the flesh of the office of repentance; in that by fasts, and squalor, and every species of neglect and studious ill-treatment devoted to the extermination of the flesh, it seems to make satisfaction to God; so that they argue that that fornicator - that incestuous person rather - having been delivered by the apostle to Satan, not with a view to perdition, but with a view to emendation, on the hypothesis that subsequently he would, on account of the destruction (that is, the general affliction) of the flesh, attain pardon, therefore did actually attain it. Plainly, the selfsame apostle delivered to Satan Hymen us and Alexander, that they might be emended into not blaspheming, as he writes to his Timotheus. But withal himself says that 'a stake was given him, an angel of Satan,' by which he was to be buffeted, lest he should exalt himself. If they touch upon this (instance) withal, in order to lead us to understand that such as were delivered to Satan by him (were so delivered) with a view to emendation, not to perdition; what similarity is there between blasphemy and incest, and a soul entirely free from these - nay, rather elated from no other source than the highest sanctity and all innocence; which (elation of soul) was being restrained in the apostle by buffets, if you will, by means (as they say) of pain in the ear or head? Incest, however, and blasphemy, deserved to have delivered the entire persons of men to Satan himself for a possession, not to an angel of his. And (there is yet another point): for about this it makes a difference, nay, rather withal in regard to this it is of the utmost consequence, that we find those men delivered by the apostle to Satan, but to the apostle himself an angel of Satan given. Lastly, when Paul is praying the Lord for its removal, what does he hear? Hold my grace sufficient; for virtue is perfected in infirmity. This they who are surrendered to Satan cannot hear. Moreover, if the crime of Hymen us and Alexander - blasphemy, to wit - is irremissible in this and in the future age, of course the apostle would not, in opposition to the determinate decision of the Lord, have given to Satan, under a hope of pardon, men already sunken from the faith into blasphemy; whence, too, he pronounced them shipwrecked with regard to faith, having no longer the solace of the ship, the Church. For to those who, after believing, have struck upon (the rock of) blasphemy, pardon is denied; on the other hand, heathens and heretics are daily emerging out of blasphemy. But even if he did say, I delivered them to Satan, that they might receive the discipline of not blaspheming, he said it of the rest, who, by their deliverance to Satan- that is, their projection outside the Church- had to be trained in the knowledge that there must be no blaspheming. So, therefore, the incestuous fornicator, too, he delivered, not with a view to emendation, but with a view to perdition, to Satan, to whom he had already, by sinning above an heathen, gone over; that they might learn there must be no fornicating. Finally, he says, for the destruction of the flesh, not its torture- condemning the actual substance through which he had fallen out (of the faith), which substance had already perished immediately on the loss of baptism- in order that the spirit, he says, may be saved in the day of the Lord. And (here, again, is a difficulty): for let this point be inquired into, whether the man's own spirit will be saved. In that case, a spirit polluted with so great a wickedness will be saved; the object of the perdition of the flesh being, that the spirit may be saved in penalty. In that case, the interpretation which is contrary to ours will recognise a penalty without the flesh, if we lose the resurrection of the flesh. It remains, therefore, that his meaning was, that that spirit which is accounted to exist in the Church must be presented saved, that is, untainted by the contagion of impurities in the day of the Lord, by the ejection of the incestuous fornicator; if, that is, he subjoins: Do you not know, that a little leaven spoils the savour of the whole lump? And yet incestuous fornication was not a little, but a large, leaven. |
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11. Tertullian, On The Games, 8 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 8. To follow out my plan in regard to places: the circus is chiefly consecrated to the Sun, whose temple stands in the middle of it, and whose image shines forth from its temple summit; for they have not thought it proper to pay sacred honours underneath a roof to an object they have itself in open space. Those who assert that the first spectacle was exhibited by Circe, and in honour of the Sun her father, as they will have it, maintain also the name of circus was derived from her. Plainly, then, the enchantress did this in the name of the parties whose priestess she was - I mean the demons and spirits of evil. What an aggregation of idolatries you see, accordingly, in the decoration of the place! Every ornament of the circus is a temple by itself. The eggs are regarded as sacred to the Castors, by men who are not ashamed to profess faith in their production from the egg of a swan, which was no other than Jupiter himself. The Dolphins vomit forth in honour of Neptune. Images of Sessia, so called as the goddess of sowing; of Messia, so called as the goddess of reaping; of Tutulina, so called as the fruit-protecting deity - load the pillars. In front of these you have three altars to these three gods - Great, Mighty, Victorious. They reckon these of Samo-Thrace. The huge Obelisk, as Hermeteles affirms, is set up in public to the Sun; its inscription, like its origin, belongs to Egyptian superstition. Cheerless were the demon-gathering without their Mater Magna; and so she presides there over the Euripus. Consus, as we have mentioned, lies hidden under ground at the Murcian Goals. These two sprang from an idol. For they will have it that Murcia is the goddess of love; and to her, at that spot, they have consecrated a temple. See, Christian, how many impure names have taken possession of the circus! You have nothing to do with a sacred place which is teted by such multitudes of diabolic spirits. And speaking of places, this is the suitable occasion for some remarks in anticipation of a point that some will raise. What, then, you say; shall I be in danger of pollution if I go to the circus when the games are not being celebrated? There is no law forbidding the mere places to us. For not only the places for show-gatherings, but even the temples, may be entered without any peril of his religion by the servant of God, if he has only some honest reason for it, unconnected with their proper business and official duties. Why, even the streets and the market-place, and the baths, and the taverns, and our very dwelling-places, are not altogether free from idols. Satan and his angels have filled the whole world. It is not by merely being in the world, however, that we lapse from God, but by touching and tainting ourselves with the world's sins. I shall break with my Maker, that is, by going to the Capitol or the temple of Serapis to sacrifice or adore, as I shall also do by going as a spectator to the circus and the theatre. The places in themselves do not contaminate, but what is done in them; from this even the places themselves, we maintain, become defiled. The polluted things pollute us. It is on this account that we set before you to whom places of the kind are dedicated, that we may prove the things which are done in them to belong to the idol-patrons to whom the very places are sacred. |
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12. Tertullian, On The Veiling of Virgins, 7 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 7. Turn we next to the examination of the reasons themselves which lead the apostle to teach that the female ought to be veiled, (to see) whether the self-same (reasons) apply to virgins likewise; so that hence also the community of the name between virgins and not-virgins may be established, while the self-same causes which necessitate the veil are found to exist in each case. If the man is head of the woman, of course (he is) of the virgin too, from whom comes the woman who has married; unless the virgin is a third generic class, some monstrosity with a head of its own. If it is shameful for a woman to be shaven or shorn, of course it is so for a virgin. (Hence let the world, the rival of God, see to it, if it asserts that close-cut hair is graceful to a virgin in like manner as that flowing hair is to a boy.) To her, then, to whom it is equally unbecoming to be shaven or shorn, it is equally becoming to be covered. If the woman is the glory of the man, how much more the virgin, who is a glory withal to herself! If the woman is of the man, and for the sake of the man, that rib of Adam was first a virgin. If the woman ought to have power upon the head, all the more justly ought the virgin, to whom pertains the essence of the cause (assigned for this assertion). For if (it is) on account of the angels- those, to wit, whom we read of as having fallen from God and heaven on account of concupiscence after females- who can presume that it was bodies already defiled, and relics of human lust, which such angels yearned after, so as not rather to have been inflamed for virgins, whose bloom pleads an excuse for human lust likewise? For thus does Scripture withal suggest: And it came to pass, it says, when men had begun to grow more numerous upon the earth, there were withal daughters born them; but the sons of God, having descried the daughters of men, that they were fair, took to themselves wives of all whom they elected. For here the Greek name of women does seem to have the sense wives, inasmuch as mention is made of marriage. When, then, it says the daughters of men, it manifestly purports virgins, who would be still reckoned as belonging to their parents- for wedded women are called their husbands'- whereas it could have said the wives of men: in like manner not naming the angels adulterers, but husbands, while they take unwedded daughters of men, who it has above said were born, thus also signifying their virginity: first, born; but here, wedded to angels. Anything else I know not that they were except born and subsequently wedded. So perilous a face, then, ought to be shaded, which has cast stumbling-stones even so far as heaven: that, when standing in the presence of God, at whose bar it stands accused of the driving of the angels from their (native) confines, it may blush before the other angels as well; and may repress that former evil liberty of its head -(a liberty) now to be exhibited not even before human eyes. But even if they were females already contaminated whom those angels had desired, so much the more on account of the angels would it have been the duty of virgins to be veiled, as it would have been the more possible for virgins to have been the cause of the angels' sinning. If, moreover, the apostle further adds the prejudgment of nature, that redundancy of locks is an honour to a woman, because hair serves for a covering, of course it is most of all to a virgin that this is a distinction; for their very adornment properly consists in this, that, by being massed together upon the crown, it wholly covers the very citadel of the head with an encirclement of hair. |
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13. Cyprian, The Dress of Virgins, 2 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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14. Cyprian, The Lapsed, 15-17, 23, 25, 10 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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15. Nag Hammadi, The Gospel of The Egyptians, 66.8-66.9 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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16. Nag Hammadi, The Gospel of Thomas, 27, 14 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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17. Origen, Homilies On Leviticus, 10.2 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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18. Epiphanius, Panarion, 49.1.1 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
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19. Philastrius of Brescia, Diversarum Hereseon Liber, 49 (4th cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
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20. Pseudo Clementine Literature, Recognitions, 7.37 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
| 7.37. Then said Peter: Let not the wicked one prevail against us, taking occasion from a mother's love; but let you, and me with you, fast this day along with her, and tomorrow she shall be baptized: for it is not right that the precepts of truth be relaxed and weakened in favour of any person or friendship. Let us not shrink, then, from suffering along with her, for it is a sin to transgress any commandment. But let us teach our bodily senses, which are without us, to be in subjection to our inner senses; and not compel our inner senses, which savour the things that be of God, to follow the outer senses, which savour the things that be of the flesh. For to this end also the Lord commanded, saying: 'Whosoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart.' And to this He added: 'If your right eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members perish, rather than your whole body be cast into hell-fire.' Matthew 5:28-29 He does not say, has offended you, that you should then cast away the cause of sin after you have sinned; but if it offend you, that is, that before you sin you should cut off the cause of the sin that provokes and irritates you. But let none of you think, brethren, that the Lord commended the cutting off of the members. His meaning is, that the purpose should be cut off, not the members, and the causes which allure to sin, in order that our thought, borne up on the chariot of sight, may push towards the love of God, supported by the bodily senses; and not give loose reins to the eyes of the flesh as to wanton horses, eager to turn their running outside the way of the commandments, but may subject the bodily sight to the judgment of the mind, and not suffer those eyes of ours, which God intended to be viewers and witnesses of His work, to become panders of evil desire. And therefore let the bodily senses as well as the internal thought be subject to the law of God, and let them serve His will, whose work they acknowledge themselves to be. |
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21. Anon., Gospel of Thomas, 27
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