Eschatology

Last things: resurrection, judgment, the kingdom.

Passages that substantially address this topic, in date order.

Didache 10.5Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · A prayer for the church to be kept, perfected, and gathered into God's kingdom.
Didache 10.6Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · A closing prayer for Christ's coming: “Maranatha.”
Didache 16.1Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Be ready, for the Lord's coming is unknown.
Didache 16.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Meet often; faith must endure to the end.
Didache 16.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · In the last days false prophets will multiply and love will turn to hate.
Didache 16.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The world-deceiver will appear as a son of God, doing signs and wonders.
Didache 16.5Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Many will fall away in the final testing, but those who endure will be saved.
Didache 16.6Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The signs of the end: an opening in heaven, a trumpet, and the resurrection.
Didache 16.7Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The resurrection is of the saints, who come with the Lord.
Didache 16.8Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The world will see the Lord coming on the clouds.
Didache 9.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · A prayer that the church be gathered into one, like grain into bread.
1 Clement 23.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Doubters complain that God's promises have not come true.
1 Clement 23.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Like fruit on a vine, God's promises ripen in their time.
1 Clement 23.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The Lord will come suddenly.
1 Clement 24.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Christ's resurrection is the firstfruit of ours.
1 Clement 24.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Nature shows resurrection.
1 Clement 24.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Day and night picture resurrection.
1 Clement 24.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Sowing pictures resurrection.
1 Clement 24.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Seeds decay and rise to bear fruit.
1 Clement 25.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The sign of the phoenix.
1 Clement 25.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The phoenix dies in a nest of spices.
1 Clement 25.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · A new phoenix carries its parent's bones to Egypt.
1 Clement 25.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · It lays them on the altar of the sun.
1 Clement 25.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The priests confirm its five-hundred-year cycle.
1 Clement 26.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · If God shows resurrection through a bird, he will surely raise the faithful.
1 Clement 26.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The Psalms speak of being raised.
1 Clement 26.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Job looked for the resurrection of the flesh.
1 Clement 27.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Hold fast to God, faithful in his promises.
1 Clement 28.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Fear God and flee evil, since he sees all.
1 Clement 34.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The Lord comes with his reward.
1 Clement 34.8Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · God has prepared unimaginable things for those who wait for him.
1 Clement 35.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Only God knows what he has prepared.
1 Clement 35.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Strive to be among those who wait for God.
1 Clement 50.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Those perfected in love await Christ's kingdom.
1 Clement 50.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · God promises to raise his people from their tombs.
Epistle of Barnabas 15.4Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The six days of creation mean six thousand years of history.
Epistle of Barnabas 15.5Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · God's rest on the seventh day is Christ's coming and judgment.
Epistle of Barnabas 15.7Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · We will keep the true Sabbath when all things are made new.
Epistle of Barnabas 15.8Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · God rejects the present sabbaths; the eighth day begins a new world.
Epistle of Barnabas 19.10Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Remember the judgment; seek the saints; work to save souls or give for your sins.
Epistle of Barnabas 20.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The way of darkness: a list of vices leading to eternal death.
Epistle of Barnabas 21.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Walk in the Lord's decrees; there will be resurrection and recompense.
Epistle of Barnabas 21.3Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The day of the Lord and his reward is near.
Epistle of Barnabas 21.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Be taught by God and ready for the judgment.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Flee lawlessness and hate the error of the present age.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.12Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · God judges without favoritism; each receives according to deeds.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.3Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The final trial is near, as Enoch foretold.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.4Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Daniel's ten kingdoms and the little king.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.5Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Daniel's fourth beast and the little horn.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.9Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · In the last days, resist so that the devil cannot slip in.
Epistle of Barnabas 5.7Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · He fulfilled the promise and prepared a new people.
Epistle of Barnabas 6.13Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · In the last days God makes a new creation like the first.
Epistle of Barnabas 6.19Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · We will rule creation when we are made perfect heirs.
Epistle of Barnabas 7.9Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · At his coming, those who crucified Christ will recognize him.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 10.4.4 (114.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Do good now, before the tower is completed and you are shut out.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 3.3 (52.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · As in winter, dead and living trees look the same.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 4.2 (53.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · In the age to come, summer for the righteous, the servants of God will be revealed.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 4.4 (53.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Sinners and pagans, like withered trees, will be burned.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.5.3 (58.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The fences are angels, the weeds are sins, the food is the commandments, the journey is the time until his coming.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.6.7 (59.7)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · All flesh that keeps the Spirit pure will receive a reward.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 6.2.3 (62.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Those who blaspheme God are given to death, without repentance.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.12.3 (89.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The gate is new because the Son was revealed in the last days.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.16.5 (93.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The apostles, after death, preached to those who had died before and gave them the seal.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.18.2 (95.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Those who knew God and still do evil will be punished doubly.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.18.4 (95.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The cleansed church will be one body, and the Son will rejoice in it.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 1.3.4 (3.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · A hymn to God the Creator, who made the church and will fulfill his promise.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 2.2.7 (6.7)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Blessed are those who endure the coming tribulation.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.4.2 (12.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The stone-bearers are also angels; all will rejoice when the tower is complete.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.7.6 (15.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · They will find a lesser place after a time of punishment, if they repent.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.8.9 (16.9)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The end will come when the tower is finished, and that will be soon.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.5 (17.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Help the hungry now, before it is too late.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 4.1.1 (22.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The fourth vision: a type of the coming tribulation.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 4.2.5 (23.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The beast is a type of the coming great tribulation; repentance and trust will bring escape.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 4.3.3 (24.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Red means the world will perish by blood and fire.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 4.3.5 (24.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · White is the age to come, home of God's elect.
2 Clement 11.7Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The righteous will receive promises beyond imagining.
2 Clement 12.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Wait for God's kingdom hour by hour, for the day is unknown.
2 Clement 12.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · A saying of the Lord: the kingdom comes when the two are one.
2 Clement 12.6Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Doing these things brings the Father's kingdom.
2 Clement 14.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The flesh joined to the Spirit will share in indescribable life.
2 Clement 16.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The day of judgment is coming like a furnace; every deed will be revealed.
2 Clement 17.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The Lord will come to gather all nations and redeem each by his works.
2 Clement 17.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Unbelievers will see Christ's glory and lament; their punishment has no end.
2 Clement 17.6Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The day of judgment will expose those who perverted Christ's commandments.
2 Clement 17.7Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The righteous will glorify God when they see the fate of those who denied Jesus.
2 Clement 19.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The obedient may suffer briefly but will reap the fruit of the resurrection.
2 Clement 19.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The godly who suffer now will live again and rejoice forever.
2 Clement 20.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · This life is training; the crown comes in the life to come.
2 Clement 5.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Jesus: do not fear those who kill the body, but God who judges.
2 Clement 5.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Life here is short; Christ's promise of rest and eternal life is great.
2 Clement 6.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · This age and the age to come are enemies.
2 Clement 6.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · We cannot befriend both ages; renounce this one.
2 Clement 6.7Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Doing Christ's will brings rest; disobedience, eternal punishment.
2 Clement 7.6Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Those who break the seal of baptism face unending punishment.
2 Clement 8.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · After death there is no more repentance.
2 Clement 9.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The flesh will be judged and will rise.
2 Clement 9.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Called in the flesh, we will come to judgment in the flesh.
2 Clement 9.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Christ became flesh; so we will be rewarded in the flesh.
To the Ephesians 11.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · In the last times, respond to God's patience by fear of judgment or love of grace.
To the Ephesians 11.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Ignatius wears his chains as spiritual pearls and hopes to share the Ephesians' lot.
To the Ephesians 16.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Corrupting the faith by false teaching is even worse than bodily sin.
To the Magnesians 5.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Life and death lie before everyone, and each goes to his own place.
To the Magnesians 5.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Like coins, people bear the stamp of either the world or God; Christ's life is in those willing to share his death.
To the Magnesians 9.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · The prophets awaited Christ as their teacher, and he raised them from the dead.
To the Trallians 9.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Christ truly rose, and the Father will raise believers in the same way.
To the Philippians 2.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Serve God faithfully, believing in the God who raised Christ, who now reigns and will come to judge the living and the dead.
To the Philippians 2.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · God will raise us as he raised Christ if we do his will, love what he loved, and refuse to repay evil for evil.
To the Philippians 5.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Deacons must be blameless servants of God, following the Lord who became the servant of all and who promises that the faithful will reign with him.
To the Philippians 6.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Those who ask forgiveness must forgive, since all will stand before Christ's judgment seat.
To the Philippians 7.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Polycarp condemns those who deny that Christ came in the flesh, who deny the witness of the cross, and who twist the Lord's words to deny resurrection and judgment.
To the Philippians 9.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · The martyrs did not run in vain; they are now with the Lord, because they loved Christ rather than this world.
To Diognetus 10.7Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Then you will admire the martyrs and fear the real death.
To Diognetus 6.8Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Sojourners among perishable things, awaiting the imperishable.
To Diognetus 7.6Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · He will send him again as judge.
First Apology 11Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians expect God's kingdom, not a human one; that is why they confess even at the cost of death.
First Apology 12Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians, believing God sees all and judges all, are the best citizens; Christ foretold what is now happening.
First Apology 17Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians pay taxes and pray for the emperors, worshiping God alone; everyone will answer to God.
First Apology 18Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Pagan practices and writers show souls survive death; Christians go further and expect the resurrection of the body.
First Apology 19Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The resurrection of the body is no harder to believe than human birth from a small seed.
First Apology 20Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christian teachings resemble Plato, the Stoics, and the poets; why then are Christians alone hated?
First Apology 28Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Satan and his followers will be punished eternally; God delays judgment so that more may repent; humans are free and responsible.
First Apology 43Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Prophecy does not mean fate; humans have free choice, so reward and punishment are just.
First Apology 45Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Psalm 110 foretells Christ's ascension and the preaching of the apostles from Jerusalem.
First Apology 51Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah foretold that the sufferer's generation is beyond telling; Psalm 24 his ascension; Daniel his coming on the clouds.
First Apology 52Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The prophets foretold two comings of Christ: the first in suffering, the second in glory, with the resurrection and judgment.
First Apology 57Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The demons can only stir up hatred; Christians do not fear death, and if their persecutors think death is the end, killing Christians only frees them from this life's troubles.
First Apology 60Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Plato's “world soul set crosswise” and his threefold order came from Moses' bronze serpent and Genesis; even the unlettered among Christians know these things.
First Apology 68Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Justin closes with a warning of God's judgment and appends Hadrian's letter to Minucius Fundanus requiring proper trials of Christians.
First Apology 8Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians refuse to lie to save themselves; they expect Christ's judgment, with eternal punishment of body and soul.
Second Apology 6Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · God delays the final judgment for the sake of the Christians; humans and angels act by free choice, not by fate, as the Stoics wrongly teach.
Second Apology 7Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · The demons have always stirred up hatred against those who lived by reason, and much more against Christians, who know the whole Word, Christ.
Second Apology 9Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · The threat of eternal punishment is not a scare tactic: without judgment there would be no God who cares, and no virtue or vice.
Dialogue with Trypho 1.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Such views, Justin says, lead to moral license: the Stoics' endless cycles and the Platonists' untouchable immortal soul.
Dialogue with Trypho 105.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ's prayer teaches us to pray at death that no evil angel seize our soul.
Dialogue with Trypho 105.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Samuel's appearance through the medium shows that souls survive.
Dialogue with Trypho 105.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ commended his spirit to the Father at death.
Dialogue with Trypho 110.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Micah's prophecy is fulfilled in Christ's first coming and will be completed at his second, when the Antichrist will persecute Christians.
Dialogue with Trypho 110.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians are the afflicted and driven out, whom God will gather at Christ's return.
Dialogue with Trypho 113.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · As Joshua brought Israel into the land, Jesus will give the good land to his people.
Dialogue with Trypho 113.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Joshua gave a temporary inheritance; Jesus, who appeared to the patriarchs, gives an eternal one.
Dialogue with Trypho 113.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ will renew heaven and earth and shine in Jerusalem; he is king and priest after Melchizedek.
Dialogue with Trypho 116.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians are brands plucked from the fire and promised new garments and an eternal kingdom.
Dialogue with Trypho 117.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Christian thanksgiving over bread and cup remembers Christ's passion; at the resurrection God will vindicate Christians.
Dialogue with Trypho 118.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin urges repentance before the judgment; Christ is judge of living and dead.
Dialogue with Trypho 118.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Nathan's oracle and Ezekiel's prince refer to Christ; at his return the sacrifices will be spiritual praises.
Dialogue with Trypho 119.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · As Abraham was called out of his land, Christians have been called out of their former life.
Dialogue with Trypho 120.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin argues only from acknowledged texts; Isaiah's martyrdom by a wooden saw is a figure of Christ dividing Israel.
Dialogue with Trypho 121.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · If Christ's humble first coming was so powerful, his glorious return will be far more so.
Dialogue with Trypho 130.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The nations rejoice with the righteous of Israel, not with all Israel.
Dialogue with Trypho 138.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Through water, faith, and wood, the repentant escape the coming judgment.
Dialogue with Trypho 139.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ calls all peoples to share the land promised to the saints.
Dialogue with Trypho 139.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Believers, slave or free, will inherit with Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The prophets speak of two comings of Christ: first in humility, then in glory.
Dialogue with Trypho 140.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Descent from Abraham does not guarantee the kingdom.
Dialogue with Trypho 140.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah and Ezekiel show that each is judged by his own righteousness.
Dialogue with Trypho 140.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · No one is evil by God's fault, but by his own.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho asks whether no Jew will inherit God's holy mountain.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin replies that only the unrepentant who persecute Christ are excluded; believing Gentiles will inherit with the patriarchs.
Dialogue with Trypho 28.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin urges them to believe before Christ returns, quoting Jeremiah on circumcising the heart.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · If Christ's passion shows such power, his glorious second coming will show far more, as Daniel foretold.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:23–25.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:26–28.
Dialogue with Trypho 32.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin answers that the Scriptures foretell two comings: one in humiliation and one in glory.
Dialogue with Trypho 32.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Psalm 110 shows the ascension; the Antichrist of Daniel is near.
Dialogue with Trypho 32.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin disputes the Jewish interpretation of Daniel's “time” as a hundred years.
Dialogue with Trypho 35.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians pray for their enemies, that they may be saved at Christ's return.
Dialogue with Trypho 39.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Fear of persecution may keep Jews from confessing Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 44.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 66:24.
Dialogue with Trypho 45.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Will Jews who kept the law of Moses be saved at the resurrection?
Dialogue with Trypho 45.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Those who lived under the law will be saved by their own righteousness.
Dialogue with Trypho 45.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The righteous under the law will be saved through Christ, who existed before creation and became flesh to destroy the serpent and death.
Dialogue with Trypho 46.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians die rather than sacrifice to idols, hoping in the resurrection.
Dialogue with Trypho 47.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Apostates to the law and unbelieving Jews who curse Christians will not be saved without repentance.
Dialogue with Trypho 47.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God judges each as he is found: the repentant as righteous, the apostate as a sinner.
Dialogue with Trypho 49.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Elijah is to precede the second coming, the great and terrible day.
Dialogue with Trypho 5.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Souls do not die at once: the godly and the wicked await judgment in different places.
Dialogue with Trypho 5.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Only God is uncreated and imperishable; everything else exists by his will, as Plato hints in the Timaeus.
Dialogue with Trypho 52.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Since Christ, Israel has had neither prophet nor king; the Gentiles await his return.
Dialogue with Trypho 6.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Life belongs to God; the soul lives only as long as God gives it life.
Dialogue with Trypho 64.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Psalm 19 shows Christ coming from heaven and returning there.
Dialogue with Trypho 69.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Some called Christ a magician; his healings promise bodily wholeness at the resurrection.
Dialogue with Trypho 72.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin cites a saying on Christ's descent to the dead, attributed to Jeremiah.
Dialogue with Trypho 76.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Matt 8:11–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 76.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Matt 7:22–23; 25:41.
Dialogue with Trypho 80.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho asks whether Justin really believes Jerusalem will be rebuilt and the saints gathered with Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 80.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin holds that Jerusalem will be rebuilt, but admits many orthodox Christians do not.
Dialogue with Trypho 80.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Those who deny the resurrection are not Christians, just as some Jewish sects are not true Jews.
Dialogue with Trypho 80.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin expects a resurrection of the flesh and a thousand-year reign in a rebuilt Jerusalem.
Dialogue with Trypho 81.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 65:17–20, read of the thousand years.
Dialogue with Trypho 81.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 65:21–25.
Dialogue with Trypho 81.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · “The days of the tree” mean a thousand years: Adam died within a “day” of a thousand years.
Dialogue with Trypho 81.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · John the apostle, in the Revelation, foretold the thousand years and then the general resurrection and judgment.
Martyrdom of Polycarp 11.2Anonymous · ca. 156–160 · Threatened with fire, Polycarp contrasted it with the eternal fire of the coming judgment.
Martyrdom of Polycarp 14.2Anonymous · ca. 156–160 · Polycarp thanked God for the honor of sharing Christ's suffering and prayed to be received as a sacrifice.
Martyrdom of Polycarp 19.2Anonymous · ca. 156–160 · Polycarp now rejoices with the apostles and praises God and Christ.
Martyrdom of Polycarp 2.3Anonymous · ca. 156–160 · Looking to eternal life and the good things God has prepared, the martyrs counted their tortures as nothing.
Oration to the Greeks 13Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The soul is not immortal by nature; united with the divine Spirit and knowing God it lives, but without the Spirit it dies and is raised only for punishment.
Oration to the Greeks 14Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The demons cannot die, but their immortality will be one of punishment, which those who follow them will share.
Oration to the Greeks 17Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Magic and amulets work only as signals the demons have agreed to answer; God made nothing for evil use.
Oration to the Greeks 25Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The Cynics' claim to self-sufficiency is hollow and the schools contradict each other; Christians hold one consistent teaching, and the charge of cannibalism fits the Greek myths, not them.
Oration to the Greeks 6Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The resurrection of the body will happen once, at the end, for judgment by God; nothing of a person is lost, however the body perishes.
To Autolycus 1.13Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Nature is full of pictures of resurrection: seasons, seeds, trees, the moon, and recovery from illness.
To Autolycus 1.14Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Theophilus himself was converted by reading the prophets; he urges Autolycus to believe and escape the eternal punishment the prophets foretold.
To Autolycus 1.7Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · God, the Creator and Lord of all, can be seen only by a heart healed by him; the believer will see him when raised immortal in body and soul.
To Autolycus 1.8Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Faith comes first in every human undertaking; the God who made each person from nothing can raise them again.
To Autolycus 2.14Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Plants growing from seeds foreshadow the resurrection; the world is like a salt sea kept alive by God's law and prophets, with the churches as safe harbors and the heresies as deadly reefs.
To Autolycus 2.15Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The sun and moon are types of God and humanity; the three days before the lights are types of the “Triad” of God, his Word, and his Wisdom; the stars represent the prophets, the righteous, and the apostate.
To Autolycus 2.17Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The land animals were not blessed, the blessing being reserved for humanity; wild beasts became savage through human sin, and will be restored when humanity is restored.
To Autolycus 2.26Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Expulsion from paradise was a merciful discipline; death breaks the human being like a flawed vessel so that he may be remade whole at the resurrection.
To Autolycus 2.27Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Humanity was created neither mortal nor immortal but free to choose; obedience leads to immortality, which God now gives by grace to those who obey him.
To Autolycus 2.36Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Long quotations from the Sibyl proclaim the one invisible Creator, mock the worship of animals and images, and foretell fire for idolaters and paradise for those who honor the true God.
To Autolycus 2.37Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Greek poets themselves bear witness that wrongdoers will be punished and that God sees all things.
To Autolycus 2.38Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The prophets foretell the fiery judgment, and even the poets confess providence, judgment, and life after death; Theophilus invites Autolycus to further conversation.
A Plea for the Christians 12Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians live pure lives because they expect God's judgment and know the Father, Son, and Spirit; those who deny judgment are called pious, but Christians are not.
A Plea for the Christians 31Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Answering the charges of cannibalism and incest: virtue has always been slandered; Christians, who expect God's judgment and eternal life, would not even think of such sins.
A Plea for the Christians 36Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Belief in the resurrection of the body and in judgment makes cannibalism unthinkable for Christians; the full argument on the resurrection is postponed.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 1Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The introduction: the resurrection must first be defended against objections before its positive grounds are set out.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 10Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Raising the dead wrongs no one, neither other creatures nor the soul or body of the one raised, and it is not unworthy of God.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 11Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Summary of the first part and plan of the second: the resurrection will be proved from the purpose of human creation, from human nature, and from God's judgment.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 12Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · God made human beings neither in vain nor for his own need, but for their own sake, to live forever; so the whole human being, soul and body, must endure, and the resurrection is the last of the body's changes.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 13Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · God's purpose in creating human beings, to contemplate him forever, guarantees their continuance and therefore the resurrection.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 14Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The proper order of proof: first God's purpose in creation and human nature, then the judgment; the resurrection is not only for judgment, since infants too will rise.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 15Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · A human being is a unity of soul and body with one common end; since the rational human being must endure, the body must rise to rejoin the soul.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 16Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Human continuance is uneven, interrupted by sleep and by death; as waking life after sleep is the same life, so is the life after death and resurrection.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 17Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · No one would believe, without experience, that a whole human body grows from a seed; so reason can be trusted when it shows that the resurrection follows in the natural sequence of human life.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 18Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The argument from judgment: since the whole person, soul and body, acted, the whole person must be judged, which does not happen in this life or in death; so the body must rise.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 19Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · If there were no judgment, the virtuous would be worse off than beasts; but just judgment does not happen in this life, where the wicked prosper and one death cannot repay great crimes.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 2Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Those who deny the resurrection must show that God cannot or will not raise the dead; but God, who knew every element of our bodies before they existed, cannot be ignorant of where they go after death.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 20Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · If death ends everything, there is no judgment; if only the soul survives, a judgment of the soul alone would not be just, since it was the whole person who acted.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 21Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Rewarding or punishing the soul alone would be unjust: the body shared in the labors of virtue, and most sins arise from the body's needs and passions.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 22Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The virtues themselves (courage, self-control, prudence, justice) belong to the whole person, body and soul, and cannot be exercised by a soul alone.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 23Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · God's commandments (honor parents, do not commit adultery, do not steal) were given to embodied human beings, not to souls, so the whole person must be judged.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 24Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The argument from the end: every being has its proper end, and the end of rational human beings cannot be mere freedom from pain or bodily pleasure.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 25Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The end of human life, which belongs to the whole person, is eternal contemplation of God; it requires the resurrection, by which the same souls receive the same bodies.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 3Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The God who made human bodies from nothing has the power to raise them, even if they have been devoured by animals.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 4Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The objection: human bodies eaten by animals, and those animals eaten by other humans, cannot be restored to their owners at the resurrection.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 5Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The answer begins: God has given each creature its proper food, and much of what is eaten is never absorbed into the body at all.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 6Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Only food natural to a creature becomes part of its body; unnatural food is expelled or does harm.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 7Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Even if some unnatural food were absorbed, it would not become a true part of the body, and so would not rise with it.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 8Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Human flesh is not natural food for humans and so is never truly absorbed; God will gather every part of each body, however it perished.
On the Resurrection of the Dead 9Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · Comparing God with human craftsmen, who cannot restore broken works, is an insult to God; what is impossible for humans is possible for God.
The Instructor 1.10.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Counsel looks also to the future judgment; the Lord consoles sinners with the hope of salvation and calls them to wisdom and to the good land.
The Instructor 1.10.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The beatitude is another form of instruction: the blessed are like a fruitful tree, the ungodly like dust; God calls the wanderer back like a dove to its mate.
The Instructor 1.6.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Baptism removes sin like a cataract, freeing the spirit's eye to see God; the believer is already in the light, while the fulfillment of the promise awaits the resurrection.
The Instructor 1.6.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Faith already holds eternal life; what it grasps now as promise it receives after the resurrection as rest, while enlightenment dispels the darkness of ignorance.
The Instructor 1.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Milk, the Word, is the believer's food from beginning to end; the solid food Paul withheld may mean the face-to-face vision in the age to come.
The Instructor 1.6.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The milk of the Lord nourishes the reborn and leads to the heavenly Jerusalem; the Word is both food and drink, one substance serving both.
The Instructor 1.7.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The same Lord instructed Israel through Moses and now guides the new people directly; he is Instructor and Judge, who rebukes sin so that sinners may repent.
The Instructor 1.7.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Prophecy gives the Instructor a rod: persuasion, threat, rod, and finally fire each heal those the previous could not; the Lord's discipline saves from death.
The Instructor 1.8.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God punishes not in anger but for justice, and each sinner chooses his own penalty; the fear of the Lord is the crown of wisdom.
The Instructor 1.8.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God seeks repentance even in his threats; he punishes to correct, but does not seek vengeance, since he teaches us to pray for our enemies.
The Instructor 1.9.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Like a physician using both soothing and bitter medicines, the Savior uses fear to heal; all humanity needs Jesus as physician, guide, light, life, shepherd, and instructor.
The Instructor 1.9.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word, the good Shepherd, binds, heals, and seeks his sheep, feeds them on the holy mountain of the church, and will clothe their flesh with incorruption.
The Instructor 2.10.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The light within us is not overcome by darkness; the fornicator is dead to God; modesty must never be put off, and in the resurrection the pure flesh will put on incorruption like the angels.
The Instructor 2.10.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · If the Lord removes anxiety even about food and clothing, he condemns cosmetics and finery all the more; the “grass” thrown into the oven is the crowd that loves display.
The Instructor 2.10.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The rich man in purple and Lazarus illustrate the fate of the lovers of finery; Sparta allowed ornaments only to courtesans, while effeminate Athenians wore gold.
The Instructor 2.12.119Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The jeweled walls of the heavenly Jerusalem are symbols of the apostles and the Spirit; those who read them literally as an excuse for luxury do not understand God's will.
The Instructor 2.6.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul forbids foul and foolish talk; we will give account for every idle word; keeping company with the righteous guards ears and eyes.
The Instructor 2.9.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians should be like servants awake for their master's return, rising at night to bless God like the watchful angels; the enlightened are awake and alive.
The Instructor 3.12.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word commands the elements and dwells with the humanity he formed; he is both Creator and Instructor, and his children must shine as blameless lights in a crooked generation.
The Instructor 3.12.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor speaks sternly for our salvation, desiring repentance rather than death; earthly goods are named after the true goods that God has prepared for us.
The Instructor 3.8.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The destruction of Sodom for its luxury, adultery, and pederasty is an instruction to us, as Jude teaches with the examples of Israel in the desert and the fallen angels.
The Instructor 3.8.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Jude also names Cain, Balaam, and Korah as warnings; punishments and threats hold back from sin those not yet able to bear the freedom of sons.
Exhortation to the Greeks 10.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Rejecting the Word brings its own reward: the good will be rewarded, the wicked and the devil punished; God gives life, while custom leads to useless regret.
Exhortation to the Greeks 10.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God sets life and death before us; faith in the Good should choose life at once, instead of deliberating only about godliness.
Exhortation to the Greeks 12.123Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God adopts believers as sons and calls them “gods”; the Christian's intentions, words, deeds, and life agree. Clement ends by setting before his hearers the choice between judgment and grace.
Exhortation to the Greeks 4.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Fire has destroyed famous temples, a foretaste of judgment; and the sculptors modeled their gods on their lovers and on courtesans.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Psalms and Paul expose the vanity of worshiping creation instead of the Creator; the prophets foretell that heaven itself will pass away.
Exhortation to the Greeks 9.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God wants to make slaves into sons, but many prefer slavery and death; Paul warns against the darkened mind of the Gentiles.
Prophetic Extracts 11.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The elders were distressed when they did not suffer bodily, fearing that unpunished sins would be punished all at once hereafter.
Prophetic Extracts 12.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · We already have a pledge of eternal goods and hope for the rest; the beatitudes are our provisions for the journey.
Prophetic Extracts 12.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · We groan to be clothed with incorruption.
Prophetic Extracts 17.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God, who made us from nothing, saves us by grace if we are fit; otherwise he lets us go to our end.
Prophetic Extracts 25.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The seeds of life are gathered like wheat; the material perishes when separated; the Spirit separates and the fire consumes.
Prophetic Extracts 25.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Spirit corresponds to the bodiless soul, fire to what is material; this fire is not evil but a good power that cleanses, which is why the prophets call it wise.
Prophetic Extracts 26.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Christ's fire cleanses the holy; the heretics say it destroys the material, but Clement says it disciplines.
Prophetic Extracts 39.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · An elder taught that there are punishments for evil words, and that women who adorn their hair for immorality are punished by the power set over hair, which gave Samson his strength.
Prophetic Extracts 40.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God's judgment is good: it separates believers from unbelievers, prevents worse judgment, and disciplines.
Prophetic Extracts 41.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture says exposed infants are given to a guardian angel to be raised, and will be like the long-faithful.
Prophetic Extracts 41.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says fire leaps from those infants to strike the eyes of the women who exposed them,
Prophetic Extracts 41.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · since the righteous will shine like sparks through stubble and judge nations.
Prophetic Extracts 48.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says aborted infants are given to a guardian angel, to receive knowledge and a better dwelling.
Prophetic Extracts 48.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Others will receive salvation alone, pitied as wronged, without punishment.
Prophetic Extracts 49.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says that the congealed milk of mothers who killed their children breeds beasts that devour them, teaching that punishments arise from sins.
Prophetic Extracts 49.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Punishments are born from sins, as Israel was bitten by snakes for unbelief.
Prophetic Extracts 56.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “In the sun he set his tent” should be read after the verses about the bridegroom's coming, as referring to the second coming.
Prophetic Extracts 56.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “He set” refers to the future: at the end Christ will come to the faithful, who form one body with many members,
Prophetic Extracts 56.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · and they will be set in the sun, shining like the sun, since a ruling angel is in the sun;
Prophetic Extracts 56.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · the sun rules the day, as the moon the night.
Prophetic Extracts 56.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The saved will be ranked with the sun's angels and in time rule the days, as each angel advances to a higher office, rising to the first abode.
Prophetic Extracts 56.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · In the past sense, God set the highest angels in rest and contemplation, and the others advance in rank.
Prophetic Extracts 57.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The first-created angels are the “thrones,” because God rests in them, as he does in believers.
Prophetic Extracts 57.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God rests on each one's knowledge of him, and knowledge makes the knower eternal.
Prophetic Extracts 57.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Those far above every power are the perfected, raised into the nature of the highest angels.
Prophetic Extracts 57.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Those who become angels are taught for a thousand years, then teach others, rising by periods to higher rank.
Prophetic Extracts 60.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God's judgments are firm and just, restoring the righteous to the unity of faith.
Excerpts from Theodotus 11.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · As are the angels who see the Father's face, so will the elect be when perfected; and the pure in heart will see God.
Excerpts from Theodotus 11.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The apostle speaks of heavenly bodies; spiritual beings with different names must have forms.
Excerpts from Theodotus 14.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Demons are called bodiless only by comparison with the spiritual bodies of the saved; they have a shape and can feel punishment.
Excerpts from Theodotus 14.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Angels and souls are bodies of a kind, as Paul speaks of a psychic and a spiritual body.
Excerpts from Theodotus 14.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Souls must be bodies of some kind, since they are punished; Christ speaks of casting soul and body into Gehenna.
Excerpts from Theodotus 14.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The parable of Lazarus and the rich man, with its fingers and tongue, shows the soul has a kind of body.
Excerpts from Theodotus 15.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Paul's “image of the heavenly” shows that there are spiritual bodies.
Excerpts from Theodotus 15.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Seeing “face to face” implies form and body, since figure is seen by figure.
Excerpts from Theodotus 18.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · After rising, Christ preached to the righteous at rest and transferred them; his coming on earth was a shadow of his glory, a shadow that illuminates.
Excerpts from Theodotus 27.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The high priest's laying aside of the golden plate before entering the Holy of Holies signifies the purified soul laying aside its body, having the Name engraved within.
Excerpts from Theodotus 27.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The soul's body is laid aside in the intelligible world, beside the angels who offer up prayers.
Excerpts from Theodotus 27.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The stripped soul passes into the spiritual realm and becomes high-priestly, animated directly by the Word, as the archangels are high priests of the angels.
Excerpts from Theodotus 27.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The purified soul, seeing God face to face, no longer needs Scripture and study.
Excerpts from Theodotus 27.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The perfected soul passes beyond written teaching to direct knowledge, dwelling with the Bridegroom among the first-created as friend, son, and brother.
Excerpts from Theodotus 27.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Wearing the body and learning belong to the present plan; the final gift is to become God-bearing, the Lord's own body.
Excerpts from Theodotus 37.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Valentinians say the righteous descendants of Adam are held with the Demiurge, the others in darkness feeling the fire.
Excerpts from Theodotus 38.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · A river of fire flows from the Demiurge's throne into Gehenna; the Demiurge himself is fiery.
Excerpts from Theodotus 4.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Clement: at the Transfiguration Christ revealed his glory for the church's sake, to show its future after death.
Excerpts from Theodotus 51.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Christ's warning about destroying soul and body in Gehenna refers to these two.
Excerpts from Theodotus 61.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The psychic are raised; the believing spiritual are saved beyond them, their souls being wedding garments. The psychic Christ sits at the Demiurge's right hand,
Excerpts from Theodotus 63.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The spiritual rest with Wisdom in the Ogdoad; other faithful souls are with the Demiurge until the end, when they too enter the Ogdoad.
Excerpts from Theodotus 63.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Then all the saved share the wedding feast; afterward the spiritual put off their souls,
Excerpts from Theodotus 64.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · and, with Wisdom and their angel bridegrooms, enter the bridal chamber and see the Father, becoming Aeons in eternal union.
Excerpts from Theodotus 86.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The sealed are the children already in bed and the wise virgins who enter the prepared good things, while the others are shut out.
Excerpts from Theodotus 9.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Faith differs in degree: the called may be led astray by the Antichrist, but not the elect.
Excerpts from Theodotus 9.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Some sayings are addressed to the called: the prodigal son, and those called from the roads to the wedding feast.
Excerpts from Theodotus 9.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · All are called equally, but those who believe more are chosen, to whom Christ speaks as his own.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · No one could feed the hungry or clothe the naked, as Christ commands on pain of judgment, if he had nothing himself.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Our final destiny depends on the soul's disposition: obedience and purity, or transgression and vice.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · By exchanging the passions for spiritual wealth, one gains treasure in heaven.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 2.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Some rich people, hearing that a camel passes through a needle's eye more easily, despair of salvation and give themselves entirely to this world.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 23.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ promises rest and the unimaginable good things God has prepared for those who love him.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 24.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whatever causes one to stumble, even an eye or life itself, must be given up for Christ's sake, to be saved in the life to come.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 25.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Visible things are temporary; eternal life belongs to the age to come.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich believer should neither exclude himself from salvation nor expect it without effort.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich believer should train under Christ, with the new covenant as food and the commandments as exercise, so as to win the crown of heaven at the last trumpet.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ blesses those who fed, gave drink to, and welcomed him in the needy.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · they did to him; and those who neglected them are condemned as having neglected him.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The Father gives the kingdom to the little flock.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Giving buys an eternal dwelling: a divine exchange of perishable things for incorruption.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The poor believer, imitating God, gives the heavenly kingdom in return for small gifts.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 33.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · By testing too closely one may neglect God's friends and incur punishment; by giving to all one surely finds some who can intercede with God.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 36.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The world was made for the sake of these saints and will be dissolved when they are gathered in.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 37.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · John says that whoever does not love his brother is a murderer, a child of Cain, cut off from the vine and awaiting the fire.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 38.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Faith and hope end when God is seen and promises are fulfilled, but love grows to fullness.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · God will judge each person as he finds him at the end.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The end is decisive: a good life that ends in vice is wasted, while a bad life can be redeemed by later repentance.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.16Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · At death the repentant one is welcomed by rejoicing angels and by the Savior himself, who leads him to the Father and eternal life.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whoever trusts the Scriptures and lives by them will see their truth proved at death.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whoever repents now will not regret it at death or fear the judgment; whoever refuses forgiveness has only himself to blame.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The heavenly Father will grant true cleansing and unchanging life to those who seek salvation earnestly.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 6.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The question concerns the very purpose of his coming: the gift of eternal life, which is the gospel's theme.
Miscellanies 1.21.125Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks, fulfilled from the Babylonian captivity, is quoted in full.
Miscellanies 1.21.126Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement interprets the seventy weeks: the temple rebuilt in seven weeks, Christ anointed within the sixty-two, and the last week ending with Nero and the destruction of Jerusalem under Vespasian.
Miscellanies 1.21.146Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Basilidians celebrate Christ's baptism on 15 or 11 Tybi and date his passion variously; Clement applies Daniel's 2,300 days to the years from Nero's desecration to the fall of Jerusalem.
Miscellanies 2.22.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato makes the goal twofold, the Good itself and likeness to it in virtuous men; happiness is likeness to God, being just and holy with prudence; so some Christians say the image is given at creation and the likeness at perfection.
Miscellanies 2.22.134Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Christian goal is an endless end: obedience to God, likeness to right reason, and perfect adoption through the Son; Paul calls it eternal life and the fulfillment of hope through the love poured out by the Spirit.
Miscellanies 2.22.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We wait in faith for the hope of righteousness, and Proverbs says the one who hears Wisdom will dwell confident; Paul bids us imitate him as he imitates Christ, and Christ God; the aim is likeness to God, the goal the fulfillment of the promise.
Miscellanies 2.9.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The calling of the Gentiles was foretold because of Israel's disobedience, yet God's goodness seeks Israel's repentance; the Shepherd of Hermas knows righteous people among Gentiles and Jews even before the law.
Miscellanies 2.9.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hermas says the apostles, after death, preached to the righteous dead and gave them the seal of baptism, so that they too were built into the tower; Gentiles who keep the law by nature are a law to themselves.
Miscellanies 3.11.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul attributes his evil deeds to indwelling sin, from which the law of the Spirit sets him free through the Son; the body, dead through sin, becomes a temple when the Spirit who raised Jesus dwells in it.
Miscellanies 3.12.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · “They neither marry nor are given in marriage” does not reject marriage but corrects hopes of fleshly pleasure in the resurrection; “call no one father on earth” means the earthly father is only a servant of birth, God the true Father.
Miscellanies 3.6.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The seed of the sanctified is holy, and spouses sanctify each other; Christ forbade divorce except for sexual immorality, citing “the two shall be one flesh”; that there is no marriage after the resurrection, like the end of food, does not license indulgence now.
Miscellanies 3.6.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · If the ascetics have already received the resurrection, they should stop eating too; abstinence alone proves nothing, since pagans and the Magi practice it; the kingdom is not food and drink, and self-control is a hidden virtue of the soul.
Miscellanies 3.8.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All must appear before Christ's judgment for deeds done in the body; in Christ one is a new creation, washed from the old life; righteousness has no fellowship with lawlessness, so we must cleanse ourselves in holiness.
Miscellanies 3.9.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's answer, “as long as women bear children,” means as long as desires are active, since sin is the soul's death; death follows birth by God's order, and woman, bearing children, is also the source of life.
Miscellanies 3.9.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Eve was called Life as mother of all, righteous and unrighteous; Paul did not despise life in the flesh but saw it as thankful endurance for others, while departure to be with Christ is love's perfection.
Miscellanies 4.16.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wisdom teaches that martyrdom is a glorious purification: God tests the martyrs like gold and accepts them as a burnt offering; they will shine and judge the nations.
Miscellanies 4.18.112Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Confessing Christ for reward, giving to be repaid, or great faith without love count for nothing compared with the knowing martyr; those perfected in love will be revealed at the coming of Christ's kingdom.
Miscellanies 4.18.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Rewards differ: the knower receives what eye has not seen, the simple believer a hundredfold; Clement recalls a self-styled Gnostic who taught that desire alone is not sin unless it is acted out, even in imagination.
Miscellanies 4.18.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Looking with desire is sin even without imagined intercourse, if one admires flesh lustfully; but one who looks with pure love sees the soul's beauty and rises through it to the Creator, bearing the Spirit's anointing to the angels at the ascent.
Miscellanies 4.18.117Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' face shone with a glory the people could not bear; at the soul's ascent the heavenly toll-collectors hold back those laden with worldly passions but send on the one full of knowledge and righteousness, like the tree of Psalm 1.
Miscellanies 4.22.141Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Sleep and death both withdraw the soul, as Heraclitus says; Paul calls us to wake, for salvation is near, and to put on the weapons of light, that is, the Son's precepts; hence washing before prayer.
Miscellanies 4.22.144Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Doing right only for reward is no better than doing it from fear; yet the hope of reward and punishment after death is taught by Scripture and by Pythagoreans, Socrates, and Heraclitus.
Miscellanies 4.25.155Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Euripides blesses the contemplative, and Plato calls the one who contemplates the Ideas a god among men; the soul that rises above becoming becomes like an angel and dwells with Christ, while the rest are shadows and the dead.
Miscellanies 4.25.159Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Perfect purification is faith leading through law and prophets to the gospel, and propitiation is obedient purity until the soul's release; whether the seven are periods or heavens and the eighth the fixed sphere, the knower must rise above becoming and sin.
Miscellanies 4.25.160Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Job's “naked I shall depart” means leaving free of sin, as Christ calls us to become like children, pure as when born of the womb of water in baptism; the lamp of the ungodly will be quenched.
Miscellanies 4.26.166Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower uses bodily and external goods like a traveler uses inns, caring for them without attachment and leaving gladly, thankful for his stay and longing for the heavenly dwelling, as Paul says.
Miscellanies 4.26.167Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul aims to please the one God, creator of all; Epicharmus and a lyric poet also teach that pious souls go to heaven and the ungodly suffer; the soul was not sent down from heaven as punishment, but the righteous soul rises from earth to heaven.
Miscellanies 4.26.172Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Euripides longs for golden wings to reach Zeus; Clement prays for the Spirit of Christ to lift him to his Jerusalem; the Stoics call heaven the true city, and the church, governed by the Word, is God's city on earth, of which the poets' and Plato's ideal cities are images.
Miscellanies 4.3.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The fear produced by the law is not a passion, for the law is holy and spiritual; death is not an evil; the end of sin is death, but God's gift is eternal life in Christ.
Miscellanies 4.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The meek are those who have ended the war of anger and desire within; there are many rewards and dwelling places according to one's life; the laborers in the vineyard show both differing merit and equal salvation.
Miscellanies 4.6.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The saved will serve in dwelling places proportioned to their merit; Plato describes the purified dwelling above; “blessed are those who mourn” refers to repentance, whether from fear or from conscience, here or hereafter.
Miscellanies 4.7.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Unbelievers think martyrdom the most violent death, not knowing it is the gate of true life; even their own writers, Theano and Plato, teach rewards and punishments after death.
Miscellanies 5.1.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We are saved by grace, but not without good works and a sound will; we need grace, right teaching, and the Father's drawing; God cannot be seen clearly in this life, as Paul, Plato, and Moses say, but the pure in heart will see him; so the Savior was sent as divine teacher.
Miscellanies 5.1.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Empedocles praises faith; Paul wants faith to rest on God's power, not human wisdom; Heraclitus, taught by barbarian (biblical) philosophy, knew of judgment by fire, which the Stoics made the conflagration; Plato speaks of cleansings by fire and flood.
Miscellanies 5.14.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement reads Plato's “king of all” with a second and a third as a hint of the Trinity, and Plato's tale of Er, whom he identifies with Zoroaster, as a hint of the resurrection or the soul's ascent; Empedocles speaks of a final change of all things into fire.
Miscellanies 5.14.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Heraclitus taught both an everlasting world of fire and a world that comes to be and is dissolved again into fire.
Miscellanies 5.14.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stoics follow Heraclitus on the world's conflagration; Plato calls our daylight night and the soul's entry into the body sleep, and David's “I slept and awoke” foretells Christ's incarnation and resurrection.
Miscellanies 5.14.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's command to watch means separating the soul from the body; Plato's souls who rise on the eighth day from the meadow point to the Lord's day and the soul's ascent beyond the planets to heaven.
Miscellanies 5.14.121Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Verses ascribed to Diphilus teach that there is judgment after death with two paths for the righteous and the ungodly, and a tragic poet foretells the burning of the world by fire.
Miscellanies 5.14.122Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Tragic and Orphic verses speak of the world's destruction and restoration, and Empedocles of the blessed life with the immortals; no one is too great or too small to escape justice.
Miscellanies 5.14.138Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · True learning leads to knowledge of the heavens, as Parmenides and Metrodorus promise, and finally to the blessed vision of which Plato speaks, free from the body.
Miscellanies 5.14.139Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Pythagorean “counter-earth” is the promised land of the heavenly inheritance; Clement now stops citing examples so as not to turn a side-issue into his main work.
Miscellanies 5.14.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek ideas of formless matter, chance, and providence reaching only to the moon came from misreading Scripture, and the Greek pictures of punishment by fire after death, as in Plato's Republic, came from the same source.
Miscellanies 5.14.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Punishment after death implies that the soul is immortal; Plato knew of rivers of fire and Tartarus, which Scripture calls Gehenna, and of guardian spirits, as Scripture speaks of the angels of the little ones.
Miscellanies 5.2.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato's Socrates, in the Crito and Phaedrus, speaks of hope of another life after death and of the soul winged by love reaching the goal of hope and eternal life.
Miscellanies 5.6.40Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The perfected knower, purified in word and life, receives the unseen inheritance, becomes son and friend, and sees God face to face; the high priest's changing of robes signifies both Christ's incarnation and the believer's putting on the holy garment.
Miscellanies 6.13.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Anyone who lives the gospel perfectly can be counted among the apostles; he is a true presbyter and deacon, made so by righteousness rather than ordination, and will sit on the twenty-four thrones; there is one saving covenant for Jews and Greeks.
Miscellanies 6.13.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Jews and Greeks form one elect people, and the most perfect among them are the twenty-four elders; the church's bishops, presbyters, and deacons imitate the angelic order, and the perfected advance in glory from deacons to presbyters.
Miscellanies 6.14.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The perfect will rest on God's holy mountain, the highest church, passing beyond the Sabbath rest to the eighth day; the Lord's other sheep have other folds, and “Your faith has saved you” does not mean salvation without works.
Miscellanies 6.14.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The believer must put off the passions; knowing is more than believing, and the one who sinned after baptism bears the pain of seeing others receive what he lacks, a grief that remains even when purifying punishments end.
Miscellanies 6.14.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Dwelling places differ by merit, as the thirty, sixty, and hundredfold show; likeness to God is not bodily shape nor an equal virtue with God, but the disciple's likeness to the Teacher in adoption and friendship with God.
Miscellanies 6.6.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law was given to the Hebrews and philosophy to the Greeks as preparation for the gospel; the righteous of both lacked faith, and so the Lord preached also to those in Hades.
Miscellanies 6.6.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The dead in Hades heard the Lord's voice; the Lord and then the apostles preached there to Hebrews and Gentiles who had lived righteously but imperfectly, so that they too might be saved.
Miscellanies 6.6.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ went to Hades to preach; if to all, believing Gentiles are saved, since God's punishments are meant to correct; if only to the Jews, the apostles preached to the Gentiles there, as the Shepherd says.
Miscellanies 6.6.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The righteous under the law and the righteous among the Greeks do not differ as righteous; those who lived rightly outside the law heard the Lord in Hades and believed, for God's saving power works everywhere.
Miscellanies 6.6.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As the apostles were sent to all the living, so the preaching reached the dead in Hades, since it would be unjust to condemn those who never heard; God sets life and death before all to choose.
Miscellanies 6.6.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God offers a choice through Isaiah, and the psalm spoken for every believer of every age promises that the soul will not be left in Hades.
Miscellanies 6.6.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The psalms show God's help to the afflicted nations; since he preached to the living so that none be condemned unjustly, he must also have preached to those who died before his coming.
Miscellanies 6.6.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The flood was a corrective punishment that could not harm souls; even Valentinus admits that much of what is in public books is found in the church.
Miscellanies 6.9.75Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One perfected by love and feasting on contemplation cannot return to petty pleasures; though still in the body, he has departed to the Lord, not by ending his life but by withdrawing his soul from the passions.
Miscellanies 7.10.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge, given to those prepared for it, leads beyond the discipline that purifies us of sin to a final restoration in which the pure in heart contemplate God forever and are called gods, enthroned beneath the Savior.
Miscellanies 7.10.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge leads the pure in heart to see God face to face; the two saving changes are from paganism to faith and from faith to knowledge, which ends in friendship with God and, after this life, an unchanging dwelling in the Father's house.
Miscellanies 7.11.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Love makes the one who knows a friend and son of God, grown to full maturity; the pure soul will see God face to face forever and rest in the spiritual church.
Miscellanies 7.12.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows shares others' sufferings, gives even from his own need, lives as a stranger on earth ready for death, does everything in holiness whether eating, drinking, or marrying, and prays together with the angels and saints.
Miscellanies 7.13.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows is troubled by nothing, unafraid of death, and uses the world with thanksgiving; those who receive the Word loftily will stand like the towers of Zion in faith and knowledge.
Miscellanies 7.16.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ignorance is cured by knowledge from Scripture, weakness by disciplined practice; Clement hopes the heretics will repent, and if not, that God's fatherly chastisements, which are corrective, not vengeful, will bring them to repentance before the final judgment.
Miscellanies 7.2.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God's commandments reward those who choose the good, and the soul advances step by step through ever better places until it reaches the eternal contemplation nearest to the Lord.
Miscellanies 7.2.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God arranges everything for salvation without forcing free choice and is never the cause of evil; virtuous souls rise to better dwellings, while disciplines and judgments press the hardened to repent.
Miscellanies 7.3.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The souls of those who know rise beyond every heavenly rank to see God face to face forever; on earth the one who knows converses with God through Christ, shapes himself into God's likeness, and serves others.
Octavius 11.1Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Caecilius ridicules the Christian belief that the world will end in fire.
Octavius 11.2Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians believe the dead will rise from their ashes.
Octavius 11.3Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · They predict the end of the stars but eternity for themselves.
Octavius 11.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians reject cremation, though every body decays anyway.
Octavius 11.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians promise heaven to themselves and hell to others, yet they themselves believe everything is determined.
Octavius 11.7Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Caecilius asks what kind of body could rise again.
Octavius 11.8Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · No one has ever come back from the dead.
Octavius 11.9Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The resurrection is a poets' fable that Christians have borrowed.
Octavius 34.1Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Octavius turns to the end of the world by fire.
Octavius 34.10Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · God who made man from nothing can remake him; no body is lost to God, whatever happens to it.
Octavius 34.11Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Nature's cycles of death and renewal point to the resurrection.
Octavius 34.12Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Many wish there were no afterlife because they fear judgment; God's patience is not indifference.
Octavius 34.2Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The Stoics too teach that the world will end in fire.
Octavius 34.3Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The Epicureans agree that the world will perish.
Octavius 34.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Plato says the world is indestructible only by God's will.
Octavius 34.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The philosophers' ideas echo the prophets, from whom they borrowed a distorted shadow of truth.
Octavius 34.6Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Pythagoras and Plato taught a garbled version of the resurrection.
Octavius 34.7Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · They taught that only souls survive and move into new bodies.
Octavius 34.8Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Transmigration into animals is a ridiculous idea.
Octavius 35.1Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Pagan poets and writers too speak of fiery punishment after death.
Octavius 35.2Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Even Jupiter swears by the river of hell, fearing its punishment.
Octavius 35.3Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The fire of punishment torments without end and without consuming.
Octavius 35.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Ignorance of God, the Father of all, deserves punishment as much as offending him.
Octavius 38.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians await an unfading crown from God and live in hope of the resurrection.
Octavius 8.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians scorn present tortures out of fear of future punishment and hope of resurrection.
To the Nations 1.19Tertullian · 197 · Christian courage rests on hope of resurrection and judgment, beliefs that pagans mock though their own poets and philosophers teach the return of souls and a judgment after death.
To the Nations 1.7Tertullian · 197 · The charges of ritual murder and incest rest only on rumor, which has never been proved in all the years Christians have been watched and arrested; no one would buy eternal life at such a price.
On the Shows 28Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The Christian's feast is still to come; for now believers mourn while the world rejoices, and their true pleasure is to depart and be with the Lord.
On the Shows 29Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Christians have their own better shows: forgiveness, freedom, victory over demons, the race toward the end, and the contests of virtue, in which they are crowned.
On the Shows 30Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The greatest show is still to come: Christ's return, the new Jerusalem, and the judgment, when persecutors, philosophers, and performers will burn and those who mocked Christ will see him.
The Testimony of the Soul 4Tertullian · ca. 197–198 · The soul's habits of pitying, cursing, or blessing the dead, fearing death, and seeking posthumous fame show that it knows it survives death and faces judgment, and even hints at resurrection.
The Testimony of the Soul 6Tertullian · ca. 197–198 · The soul's testimony is the same in every nation, so every soul will stand at the judgment both as witness to the truth and as defendant for rejecting it.
On Prayer 5Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Praying for God's kingdom to come means longing for the end of the world and the final vindication of the martyrs, not asking for the world to be prolonged.
On Repentance 12Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The fires of volcanoes foreshadow Gehenna; since exomologesis is the second remedy after baptism, the sinner should use it, like Nebuchadnezzar, and not reject it, like Pharaoh.
On Repentance 3Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Sins are both bodily and spiritual, of deed and of will; body and soul share guilt and need repentance alike, and Christ taught that sinful desire is itself sin.
On Patience 16Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Pagan “patience” in pursuit of money and pleasure is a devilish counterfeit; Christians should repay Christ's patience with patience of spirit and body, believing in the resurrection of both.
On Patience 9Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Christians should not grieve impatiently for the dead, since, believing in the resurrection, they know that death is only a departure to Christ, whom they too will soon follow.
Prescription against Heretics 13Tertullian · ca. 203 · Tertullian states the rule of faith: one Creator God, his Word and Son born of the virgin Mary, crucified, risen, ascended, sending the Spirit, and coming to judge, with the resurrection of the flesh.
Prescription against Heretics 33Tertullian · ca. 203 · Many heresies were already present or foreshadowed in the apostles' day and condemned by them: denial of the resurrection, Judaizing, forbidding marriage, endless genealogies, the Nicolaitans, docetism, and Simon's magic.
Prescription against Heretics 44Tertullian · ca. 203 · At the judgment heretics will have no excuse, since Christ warned against false teachers; Tertullian ironically imagines Christ recanting his teaching, and closes by promising treatises against particular heresies.
Against Marcion 1.24Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion's god saves only a few, and saves only their souls, abandoning the flesh that bears baptism, celibacy, and martyrdom; and he leaves his followers suffering under the Creator's hand, so his goodness is not perfect.
Against Marcion 1.27Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · A god who forbids sin but never punishes it invites every vice; the Marcionites themselves still fear sin, and their teaching that sinners are “cast away” implies a judgment after all.
Against Marcion 1.28Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion's god hands sinners over to the Creator's fire, and his baptism makes no sense: he forgives sins he never charged, frees from a death he never imposed, and washes flesh he will not save.
Against Marcion 2.10Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The devil was created a good angel and became evil by his own free choice, as Ezekiel's lament over the prince of Tyre shows; God delays his destruction so that man, by the same free will, may defeat him and return to paradise.
Against Marcion 3.24Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian describes the thousand-year kingdom in a heavenly Jerusalem after the resurrection, then the heavenly kingdom, and shows that the Creator promised both earthly and heavenly blessings.
Against Marcion 3.7Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The prophets foretold two comings of Christ, one in humility and one in glory; the Jews looked only for the glorious one and so missed the first.
Against Marcion 3.8Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · If Christ's flesh was a phantom, as Marcion holds, then his works, sufferings, death, and resurrection were unreal, and our faith and resurrection are empty.
Against Marcion 4.29Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's teaching on anxiety, watchfulness, the faithful steward, the fire he came to cast, and just judgment all point to the Creator who provides, judges, and repays.
Against Marcion 4.30Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's defense of healing on the sabbath, the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, and the shut door of judgment all belong to the Creator, who both rules the kingdom and judges.
Against Marcion 4.31Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's command to invite the poor and his parable of the great dinner follow the Creator's long history of inviting Israel through the fathers and prophets and then calling the gentiles in their place.
Against Marcion 4.34Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian argues that Christ's saying on divorce and remarriage forbids putting away a wife in order to marry another, allows divorce for adultery as Moses did, and was aimed at Herod's unlawful marriage; the parable of the rich man and Lazarus likewise upholds Moses and the prophets.
Against Marcion 4.35Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's warnings about causing stumbling, his teaching on rebuke and forgiveness, the healing of the ten lepers, and his sayings on the kingdom and the days of Noah and Lot all follow the Creator's law and prophets.
Against Marcion 4.38Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's questions about John's baptism, his answer about Caesar's coin, his reply to the Sadducees on marriage and the resurrection, and his words on David's son and Lord all belong to the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 4.39Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The false Christs, the signs of the end, the persecutions of the disciples, and the coming of the Son of Man in Luke 21 all follow the prophets, so that both the troubles before his coming and the blessings after it belong to the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 5.10Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Paul's arguments against those who denied the resurrection, his analogies of seed and body, the first and last Adam, and the change of the flesh at the end all assume the resurrection of the body, which Marcion denies.
Against Marcion 5.11Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 2 Corinthians 1–4 the Father of mercies, the new covenant of the Spirit, the veil of Moses, the “god of this age,” and the treasure in earthen vessels all point to the Creator and to the resurrection of the body.
Against Marcion 5.12Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 2 Corinthians 5–13 Paul's hope of being clothed over, the judgment seat of Christ, the new creation, and his thorn in the flesh and threats of discipline point to the Creator and to the resurrection of the body.
Against Marcion 5.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, not in a phantom body; God will raise mortal bodies as he raised Christ; and Paul's lament over Israel's ignorance, his praise of God's riches, and his moral precepts in Romans 8–14 all come from the Creator's Scriptures.
Against Marcion 5.15Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 1 Thessalonians the Jews' guilt for killing both the prophets and the Lord, the call to holiness in marriage, the rapture to meet the Lord, the command not to quench the Spirit, and the prayer for spirit, soul, and body all fit only the Creator.
Against Marcion 5.16Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 2 Thessalonians the Lord who comes in flaming fire to punish, even those who do not know God, and who sends deceit through the man of sin on those who rejected the truth, is the Creator; so the gospel and salvation are his too.
Against Marcion 5.20Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In Philippians the differing motives of preachers show no difference of doctrine; Christ, found in the form of a servant, truly became man and truly died; and the promised transformation of our lowly body means the body will rise.
Against Marcion 5.9Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Those who denied the resurrection denied the resurrection of the body, which the very words “dead” and “rise again” require; and Christ, who reigns until his enemies are subdued, is the Christ of Psalms 110 and 72, not Hezekiah or Solomon.
Against Praxeas 30Tertullian · ca. 213 or later · Christ's cry “My God, why have you forsaken me?” shows that the Son, not the Father, suffered and died; the Son rose, ascended, sits at the Father's right hand, and poured out the Holy Spirit, the third person.
Against Praxeas 4Tertullian · ca. 213 or later · Because the Son comes from the Father's substance and will hand the kingdom back to the Father, as Paul says, the Trinity preserves the monarchy; the same passage shows that Father and Son are two.
To Scapula 3Tertullian · 212 · Tertullian points to disasters and to the miserable deaths of persecuting governors as signs of God's wrath and warns Scapula that judgment is coming.
Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.11Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Those who hold Plato's soul immortal point to his teaching on judgment after death.
Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.13Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Others say Plato taught that souls receive places by desert, some with the gods and some in eternal punishment.
Refutation of All Heresies 1.22.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Epicurus taught that the soul dies with the body and denied judgment after death.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.10.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The two higher parts will be saved through Christ; the third, the particular world, will perish.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.13.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Valentinians deny the salvation of the flesh, calling it a “garment of skin.”
Refutation of All Heresies 10.14.10Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Basilides' followers claim to be the sons who purify souls and will rise with the Sonship; the world lasts until all souls ascend.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.19.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Marcion denies the resurrection of the flesh and calls marriage corruption, to spite the Creator.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.17Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Christ endured weariness, hunger, thirst, sleep, suffering, and death, and rose as the first fruits, so that suffering humans may hope for the same resurrection.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · God made the human being from all the elements to rule creation; he made a man, not a god, but one who obeys him may become a god and be entrusted with greater things.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.34.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Knowing the true God, the hearers will escape the fire of judgment, dark Tartarus, the lake of Gehenna, the punishing angels, and the undying worm.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.34.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Those who know God will receive an immortal body and soul, the kingdom of heaven, and a share as co-heirs with Christ.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.34.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus says the believer will be made divine, born immortal; truly knowing oneself means knowing one's Maker and being known by him.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.34.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus closes: Christ, the God over all, washes away sin and renews humanity; whoever obeys and imitates him will be made like him, a god by grace for his glory.
Refutation of All Heresies 4.48.12Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · As the Dog Star shows which plants live, the Word judges the living and the dead.
Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.23Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · They read "whitewashed tombs" and the dead leaving the tombs as bodies without and with the spiritual Man.
Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.24Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Resurrection for them is entry through the heavenly gate, by which one becomes a god.
Refutation of All Heresies 6.42.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The restoration of all things comes when all letters sound as one, pictured in the common “Amen”; the sounds are the angels who see the Father's face.
Refutation of All Heresies 6.54.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Because truth escaped the Demiurge, they say, his work is false and will be dissolved when its times are complete.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.26.10Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The world lasts until the whole third Sonship follows Jesus, is purified, and rises like the first.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.27.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · When the whole Sonship has ascended, God will bring a great ignorance on the world, so that nothing desires what is beyond its nature.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.27.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Souls below will know nothing higher, so that they are not tormented by impossible longings, like a fish wanting to graze with sheep.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.27.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Things stay incorruptible in their own place; ignorance will spare the lower Archon grief and sighing.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.27.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Ignorance will also seize the great Archon, and all things will be restored to their natural places in their own seasons.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.32.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Carpocratians teach reincarnation until a soul has committed every sin, after which all souls are freed and saved.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.6Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Heraclitus calls mortals and immortals one, and Hippolytus reads him as speaking of a bodily resurrection caused by God.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Heraclitus teaches that an intelligent fire steers all things and will judge the world in a conflagration.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.27.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus says the Essenes believe in the resurrection of the flesh and a bright resting place for souls until the judgment.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.27.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Pythagoras and the Stoics learned from them; the Essenes expect judgment, a world-burning, and eternal punishment, and practice prophecy.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.28.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Pharisees hold both fate and free will under God's will, and believe in bodily resurrection, judgment, and eternal punishment.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.29.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Sadducees deny resurrection and the survival of the soul, saying one lives on only in one's children.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.30.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · They expect a Messiah of David's line born naturally, a warrior-king who will gather Israel and restore Jerusalem.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.30.8Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · They expect this Messiah to fall in battle, followed by the end of the world, the resurrection, and judgment according to deeds.
On Prayer 11.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · The departed saints, perfected in love of neighbor, care for those still struggling on earth even more than they did in this life, as Christ counts believers' sufferings as his own.
On Prayer 25.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The kingdom of God is within us; to pray “your kingdom come” is to ask that God's rule may grow and be perfected in our souls, displacing the rule of sin.
On Prayer 25.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · We keep praying “hallowed be your name” and “your kingdom come” because we grow toward perfection only by degrees, until God is all in all.
On Prayer 25.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · God's kingdom cannot coexist with sin's; if we put sin to death and bear the Spirit's fruit, Christ reigns in us until every enemy, even death, is defeated.
On Prayer 26.6Origen · ca. 233–234 · Whoever sins is “earth” and whoever does God's will is “heaven”; the petition asks that God's will transform all that is earthly until everything becomes heaven.
On Prayer 27.13Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen prefers his derivation of “daily” from “being” to one from “the coming day,” and explains that in Scripture “today” can mean this whole age and “yesterday” the past age.
On Prayer 27.14Origen · ca. 233–234 · The feasts, sabbaths, and jubilees of the law may be shadows of the ordering of whole ages, known fully only to God.
On Prayer 27.15Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen conjectures that the present age is the end of one “year” of ages, after which further ages will come in which God will show the riches of his grace.
On Prayer 27.16Origen · ca. 233–234 · Whoever glimpses God's vast ordering of the ages will not be petty about the present, but will prepare to receive the daily bread “today” and “each day,” and more than he can ask or imagine.
On Prayer 28.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · Every unpaid debt of duty is written on the soul as a bond against us, to be read at the judgment seat of Christ.
On Prayer 29.14Origen · ca. 233–234 · God gave Israel meat until they were sick of it, so that they would be cured of their craving; so he may let sinners be sated with sin until they hate it and return to heavenly food.
On Prayer 29.15Origen · ca. 233–234 · Idolaters given up to shameful passions receive the penalty of their error; but the purifying fire and prison of God's judgment are a benefit, cleansing sinners so that they may freely turn from evil.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 13Origen · 235 · Martyrs will pass through the heavens behind Christ and know face to face things greater than Paul heard in paradise and greater than the angels have seen.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 14Origen · 235 · Addressing the wealthy Ambrose, Origen says those who leave the most for Christ in martyrdom receive a hundredfold, even becoming fathers of holier children in heaven.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 16Origen · 235 · Christ's promise of a hundredfold reward does not include a wife, because in the resurrection there is no marriage.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 2Origen · 235 · The sufferings of the present are light compared with the eternal glory God generously gives those who compete lawfully and love him with their whole soul.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 24Origen · 235 · The second brother was flayed and, refusing to eat idol sacrifices, told the tyrant that God would raise them to eternal life.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 25Origen · 235 · The third to sixth brothers endured their tortures in hope of the resurrection and warned Antiochus that he was fighting against God.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 3Origen · 235 · Those who love God with their whole soul long to be freed from the body, like Paul's cry in Romans 7 and the psalmist's thirst for God in Psalm 42.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 31Origen · 235 · The martyrs' blessedness begins with a wintry trial; only those who endure it will hear the words of the Song of Songs, “the winter is past.”
Exhortation to Martyrdom 36Origen · 235 · Ambrose and Protoctetus, carrying Christ's cross before rulers, will pass the cherubim and flaming sword into paradise, which hold back only those who have built with denial.
Exhortation to Martyrdom 47Origen · 235 · The soul, akin to God, naturally longs for him; so we should not hesitate to lay aside the body in martyrdom and rest with Christ, contemplating the Word.
On the Trinity 1Novatian · ca. 240–250 · The rule of truth begins with faith in God the Father, the Creator of heaven, earth, sea, and man, whom he made free and gave a command, and of unseen realms above and below.
Against Celsus 1.56Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets foretold two comings of Christ, one humble and one glorious; Psalm 45 calls the anointed one God, anointed by his God.
Against Celsus 1.67Origen · ca. 248 · The sons of gods in Greek myth did nothing to compare with the work of Jesus, whose churches fill the world and whose name still heals and transforms.
Against Celsus 1.7Origen · ca. 248 · Christian preaching is known everywhere, not secret; like philosophy and the mysteries it has deeper teachings for the prepared, which is no fault.
Against Celsus 2.29Origen · ca. 248 · Since Christ's two comings have been explained, Origen answers only the insult that Jesus was a “pest”: no pest turns so many people from vice to virtue.
Against Celsus 2.42Origen · ca. 248 · Origen says no witness records anything blameworthy in Jesus, his fulfilled predictions confirm faith, and his sufferings are a noble example, not a disgrace, except to one who thinks pain the greatest evil.
Against Celsus 2.43Origen · ca. 248 · Origen affirms that Jesus persuaded many during his life and that after death, as a soul without a body, he preached to the souls of the dead.
Against Celsus 2.49Origen · ca. 248 · Origen shows that Jesus warned not against wonder-workers in general but against false christs, and that his warning, far from reducing his own miracles to sorcery, presupposes their divine character.
Against Celsus 2.5Origen · ca. 248 · The Jew says the resurrection and judgment are nothing new, but Jesus taught that the kingdom would pass to the nations, and Christians read the prophets as pointing to a heavenly citizenship.
Against Celsus 2.50Origen · ca. 248 · Origen shows from 2 Thessalonians that the deceptive signs foretold belong to the Antichrist, and that Christ's miracles, like Moses' against Egypt's magicians, are proven divine by their fruit in changed lives.
Against Celsus 2.60Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies to Celsus's claim that the resurrection appearances were waking dreams: even appearances of the dead imply that the soul survives, and nothing in the Gospel suggests the witnesses were deranged.
Against Celsus 2.65Origen · ca. 248 · Origen explains that even the apostles could not always behold the risen Christ, whose appearances were given to those able to see them, and that Christ died and rose to be Lord of both dead and living.
Against Celsus 2.77Origen · ca. 248 · Origen notes that the Jew in Celsus himself believes in bodily resurrection, yet ignores that Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead,” and answers his demand to see Jesus by asking where the God of the prophets can now be seen.
Against Celsus 3.16Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers that the only “terrors” Christians teach are the doctrine of God's judgment, which Celsus himself admits must not be rejected, and that it is not a misunderstanding of ancient teaching.
Against Celsus 3.22Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus contrasts the deified Greek heroes with the risen Jesus; Origen asks whether Celsus thinks those heroes exist at all, and argues from their own stories that they could not have become gods.
Against Celsus 3.31Origen · ca. 248 · Origen contrasts the purposeless marvel of Abaris riding an arrow with Jesus' ascension in glory, which served to commend his teaching and turn people to God.
Against Celsus 3.75Origen · ca. 248 · The only “physicians” Christians turn people from are philosophers with harmful doctrines, such as Epicureans, Peripatetics, Stoics, and believers in transmigration; Christians never despise knowledge and point pupils to God and Jesus, not to themselves.
Against Celsus 3.78Origen · ca. 248 · Christianity attracts mainly simple people, not the wicked; moved by fear of punishment, they practice self-control, generosity, and even endure torture and death, which no wicked will could produce.
Against Celsus 3.79Origen · ca. 248 · Like a wise lawgiver, God gave the many the best teaching they could receive, including real, corrective punishments whose purpose is partly concealed from them.
Against Celsus 3.80Origen · ca. 248 · If Christian hope of blessed life is empty, so are the hopes of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle about the soul; only an Epicurean, who expects the soul to perish, could say so, and his own hope rests on pleasure of the flesh.
Against Celsus 3.81Origen · ca. 248 · The blessed life belongs to those who worship God through Jesus, and nothing is better than to entrust oneself to God through his living Word; so ends the third book.
Against Celsus 4.10Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not frighten people with bogeymen like the Bacchic mysteries; they seek to correct humanity by warning of real punishments and promising the kingdom of God to the good.
Against Celsus 4.11Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Jews and Christians borrowed the idea of world floods and conflagrations from the Greeks; Origen answers that Moses is far older than the Greek sources, as Josephus showed.
Against Celsus 4.12Origen · ca. 248 · The flood and the coming conflagration are caused by overflowing wickedness, not by star cycles; and when Scripture says God “comes down,” it speaks figuratively of his condescension to human affairs.
Against Celsus 4.13Origen · ca. 248 · God is a “consuming fire” that burns up wickedness, the “wood, hay, and straw” built by the wicked, and refines the soul like gold and silver.
Against Celsus 4.20Origen · ca. 248 · There is nothing absurd in God sending one to purify a world overflowing with wickedness; the Greeks too, like Plato, speak of periodic purification by flood.
Against Celsus 4.21Origen · ca. 248 · Moses' account of the tower of Babel and of Sodom is far older than the Greek myths of the Aloadae and Phaethon that Celsus says he copied; the prophets, proved true about the past, are to be trusted about the purifying fire to come.
Against Celsus 4.23Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks Jews and Christians as bats, ants, frogs, and worms arguing in the mud, each claiming that God cares for them alone and made the world for their sake.
Against Celsus 4.29Origen · ca. 248 · Christians know that angels and heavenly powers surpass humans, though the righteous hope to become like angels and like God; if anyone says “after God come we,” it can only mean rational and virtuous beings.
Against Celsus 4.30Origen · ca. 248 · Humanity was made in God's image but not yet in his likeness, so Christians do not claim to be wholly like God; and Origen refuses to mock the philosophers as Celsus mocks Christians, while noting that they knew God yet fell into idolatry.
Against Celsus 4.57Origen · ca. 248 · Paul teaches that bodies differ in glory and that the resurrection body is raised in incorruption and power; God can change the qualities of matter, and even the popular belief that animals arise from corpses does not prove that bodies are not God's work.
Against Celsus 4.64Origen · ca. 248 · Though the nature of the universe is one, its states vary, as a man's moral state varies, so evils increase and decrease, and providence cleanses the world by flood and fire.
Against Celsus 4.69Origen · ca. 248 · God does not repair the world like a clumsy craftsman, but like a farmer through the seasons he heals vice in each age as it requires.
Against Celsus 4.9Origen · ca. 248 · Christ came after the prophets to correct the whole world by teaching rather than punishment; the learned must prove the doctrine of the end and judgment, while simpler believers may trust the Savior's word.
Against Celsus 4.99Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus, Origen holds that the world was made chiefly for rational beings, whom God cares for, warns, and corrects so that he may turn the whole creation back to himself; Book 4 ends with a prayer.
Against Celsus 5.10Origen · ca. 248 · God allotted the heavenly bodies to the nations but chose Israel for himself; his people, promised to shine like stars in the resurrection and possessing the true light of Christ, have no reason to worship sun, moon, or stars.
Against Celsus 5.13Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not regard the heavenly bodies as nothing: Scripture calls them to praise God and says they too await creation's liberation, but they are not to be worshipped.
Against Celsus 5.14Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus ridicules the Christian hope of bodily resurrection as 'the hope of worms,' calling it impossible and unworthy of God, who cannot act against reason.
Against Celsus 5.15Origen · ca. 248 · The final fire is not God cooking the world but a purifying and healing fire that burns away only the 'wood, hay, and straw' of sin, as Paul, Malachi, Ezekiel, and Isaiah indicate.
Against Celsus 5.16Origen · ca. 248 · Simple believers take the fire of judgment literally, which suits them as fear suits children; in truth only the fully purified escape the fire, and the rest pass through it toward an end fitting creatures made in God's image.
Against Celsus 5.17Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus misunderstood the Christian teaching on the last day; Paul's words in 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians about the dead raised and the living changed carry a hidden meaning.
Against Celsus 5.18Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not teach that the dead rise in the same unchanged flesh; Paul compares the resurrection to a seed that dies and is given a new body by God.
Against Celsus 5.19Origen · ca. 248 · Paul teaches that the resurrection body is spiritual, incorruptible, and glorious, not the rotted flesh, and speaks of it as a 'mystery'; Christians hope that the mortal will be clothed with immortality and death's sting destroyed.
Against Celsus 5.20Origen · ca. 248 · The Stoic doctrine of endlessly repeated world-cycles, in which Socrates is born, tried, and condemned again and again, is far more absurd than the Christian resurrection, yet Celsus does not mock it.
Against Celsus 5.22Origen · ca. 248 · Origen distances himself from Christians who deny the resurrection: following Paul's seed image, he holds that God raises a transformed, incorruptible body, and that the 'words' of things, rooted in the divine Word, never pass away.
Against Celsus 5.23Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not claim the decayed body returns as it was, as the Stoics do; like wheat from a grain, a new incorruptible body rises from a principle in the old; and God's power, though limitless, never acts shamefully or against reason.
Against Celsus 5.24Origen · ca. 248 · Origen agrees that God does nothing shameful and gives the soul eternal life; human corpses deserve honorable burial because of the soul that lived in them, and what God makes eternal is the new body raised from the seed.
Against Celsus 5.42Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus, Origen praises the ancient Jewish commonwealth: no games or prostitution, children taught to seek God beyond the material world and to believe in the soul's immortality and judgment, and prophecy instead of divination.
Against Celsus 6.19Origen · ca. 248 · Christians did not borrow the idea of a realm above the heavens from Plato; David, Paul, and the prophets spoke of it first, and Plato may even have learned it from the Hebrews.
Against Celsus 6.20Origen · ca. 248 · Paul, longing for unseen eternal things, found all affliction light, and Christians hope through Jesus, the high priest who passed through the heavens, to contemplate God face to face.
Against Celsus 6.25Origen · ca. 248 · Origen describes the Ophite diagram, with its world-soul called Leviathan, and explains the biblical meaning of Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, as pointing to purifying punishment.
Against Celsus 6.26Origen · ca. 248 · Origen says the deeper teaching on punishment is not for everyone, since most people need the simple fear of eternal punishment, and he refuses to defend the Ophite diagram, which no Christian holds.
Against Celsus 6.29Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus accuses Christians of both honouring and cursing the Creator; Origen answers that Christians always worship the one God of the Jews, and that the resurrection body is not the same flesh and blood that was sown.
Against Celsus 6.36Origen · ca. 248 · Origen gives biblical meanings for some of Celsus's phrases, such as death being destroyed and the gates of righteousness, and points out that the tree of life comes from Genesis, not from Jesus' trade.
Against Celsus 6.45Origen · ca. 248 · Just as Jesus is the height of goodness, the Antichrist will be the height of evil, working false wonders with the devil's help, as the prophets and Paul foretold.
Against Celsus 6.46Origen · ca. 248 · Origen quotes Paul on the “man of sin” and Daniel's prophecy of a fierce king and the abomination of desolation as the Scripture's teaching on the Antichrist.
Against Celsus 6.51Origen · ca. 248 · Origen declines to repeat his earlier commentary on the six days and dismisses Celsus's jibes about the Creator borrowing light as attacks on heretical sects that Christians themselves reject.
Against Celsus 6.55Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture sometimes calls hardships “evils” sent by God, but God does not make moral evil; at most, some evils follow incidentally from his good works, as shavings fall from a carpenter's work.
Against Celsus 6.59Origen · ca. 248 · Those who died in the flood were taken not out of the universe but out of earthly life, for Scripture often calls the earth “the world.”
Against Celsus 6.61Origen · ca. 248 · God's “rest” on the seventh day does not mean he was tired; it points to the eternal sabbath of the blessed, and God's “hands” and “commands” are figurative expressions.
Against Celsus 6.72Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus attacks views Christians do not hold, such as that the Son's spirit would be defiled by a body; God is a “consuming fire” only in that he burns away sin.
Against Celsus 6.80Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus praises Chaldeans, Magi, Egyptians, Persians, and Indians as inspired nations while predicting the Jews' ruin, not seeing God's plan by which Israel's stumbling brought salvation to the Gentiles until all Israel is saved.
Against Celsus 7.28Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Christians borrowed their hope of a better land from Homer's Elysian plain and Plato's pure earth, but Origen answers that Moses, older than all Greek writing, promised a good land that is not earthly Judaea.
Against Celsus 7.29Origen · ca. 248 · The good land promised by Moses is not earthly Judaea, which shares in the curse on the earth, but the heavenly Jerusalem that the Psalms promise to the meek and righteous.
Against Celsus 7.30Origen · ca. 248 · Plato's picture of precious stones in the higher earth probably came from Isaiah's description of God's jewelled city; Christians did not borrow from Plato, and Haggai distinguishes “the earth” from the “dry land” we live on.
Against Celsus 7.31Origen · ca. 248 · Like Celsus with Plato's myth, Origen defers the full explanation of the holy land to his commentaries, noting that Scripture uses the same names for true, heavenly realities as for their earthly counterparts.
Against Celsus 7.32Origen · ca. 248 · The resurrection is not a borrowing from reincarnation: the incorporeal soul receives a body suited to each place, and at the resurrection the mortal “puts on” incorruption and immortality like a garment.
Against Celsus 7.5Origen · ca. 248 · The spirits behind the oracles resemble evil souls that haunt tombs and feed on sacrifices; a true god at Delphi would have chosen a wise man, not an ordinary woman, as his prophet.
Against Celsus 7.9Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims to have heard wandering prophets in Phoenicia and Palestine who called themselves God or God's son, threatened fire, promised salvation, and then babbled nonsense.
Against Celsus 8.19Origen · ca. 248 · Christians' temples are their bodies, and above all Christ's body, which he raised; believers are living precious stones in God's temple, as Peter, Paul, and Isaiah teach.
Against Celsus 8.30Origen · ca. 248 · The apostles forbade idol offerings and blood because they feed demons; Christians may abstain from meat for self-control, not because of Pythagorean transmigration, and they honour the bodies of the dead with burial because of the resurrection.
Against Celsus 8.39Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus retorts that Christ's persecutors go unpunished; Origen says the retort fails, since Christians do not mock statues, Christ is God's Word and not a demon, and judgment will come on the incurably wicked in due time.
Against Celsus 8.40Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's pagan priests threaten that the gods punish descendants late; Scripture teaches better, through Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, that each person dies for his own sin.
Against Celsus 8.48Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says the mystery priests threaten eternal punishment just as Christians do; Origen replies that the true teaching is the one that actually leads people to live righteously, and that the prophets' foreknowledge proves God's Spirit was in them.
Against Celsus 8.49Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks Christians for both longing for the body's resurrection and consigning bodies to punishment, but agrees that the righteous will be happy and the wicked punished for ever; Origen answers that Christians value the rational soul above the body, and God is not a body as the Stoics say.
Against Celsus 8.5Origen · ca. 248 · Christians rise above the gods of the nations and even the “gods” of Scripture, serving the one Lord Jesus Christ; separating from those outside God's covenants to belong to the heavenly Jerusalem is not sedition.
Against Celsus 8.50Origen · ca. 248 · Christians long only for what God promises the righteous, including the resurrection; the body is honoured when it suffers for virtue and dishonoured by vice, and a true lover of mankind would reason even with the simple rather than despise them.
Against Celsus 8.51Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus agrees that the righteous will be happy and the wicked punished for ever, yet his attack on Christianity would destroy that belief in Christians; Chrysippus more wisely healed people using even doctrines he rejected.
Against Celsus 8.52Origen · ca. 248 · Christians try to win everyone to their whole teaching, but at least try to persuade outsiders of reward and punishment, since all can see the Creator's order in the world and all share common notions of right and wrong.
Against Celsus 8.68Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus quotes Homer that kings are given by Zeus and warns that if all behaved like Christians the empire would fall to barbarians; Origen replies that kings are set up by God, Christians honour the king, and if all believed, even barbarians would become peaceable.
Against Celsus 8.72Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus thinks it impossible for all peoples to agree under one law; Origen answers that the Word will one day heal every rational soul and destroy wickedness, as Zephaniah foretells one tongue and one yoke, perhaps after this bodily life.
Against Celsus 8.74Origen · ca. 248 · Christians serve their country as commanders of prayer, offered in secret, and benefit it more than others by teaching piety and preparing citizens for the heavenly city.
To Donatus 15Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · Donatus should pray and read Scripture, adorning his soul, the temple of the Holy Spirit, which will last into the resurrection.
On the Lord's Prayer 13Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Your kingdom come' asks for the heavenly kingdom promised to believers; Christ himself can be understood as that kingdom.
On the Lord's Prayer 36Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Christians, living in Christ's light, should pray at night too, anticipating the endless day of the kingdom.
On the Lapsed 17Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Only Christ can forgive sins against God; the martyrs' merits will count with the Judge, but only at the last judgment, not as a present substitute for penance.
On the Lapsed 23Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · If the lapsed do not fear future judgment, let them fear the present punishments that have already struck some who denied Christ.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 16Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · The spread of heresy and schism fulfils Paul's prophecy of the last days.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 26Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Christians now give less than the first believers, showing that faith has weakened, as Christ foretold.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 27Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Cyprian urges believers to stay awake and ready for the Lord's sudden return.