Scripture and canon

The authority, interpretation, and extent of Scripture.

Passages that substantially address this topic, in date order.

Didache 15.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Pray, give, and act as the gospel teaches.
Didache 4.13Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Keep the Lord's commandments without adding or subtracting.
1 Clement 45.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The scriptures are true and given by the Spirit.
1 Clement 45.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Scripture never shows the righteous rejected by the holy.
1 Clement 47.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Reread Paul's letter to you.
1 Clement 53.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · A reminder from the scriptures they know well.
1 Clement 62.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The Corinthians know the scriptures well.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.14Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Israel was abandoned despite great signs: many are called, few chosen.
2 Clement 13.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Outsiders admire God's words but scoff when they see our deeds.
2 Clement 14.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The church, Christ's body and bride, existed from the beginning.
2 Clement 19.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The preacher reads an appeal after the scripture reading: repent with the whole heart.
2 Clement 2.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Isaiah's barren woman is the church, once childless, now fruitful.
2 Clement 2.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Another scripture: Christ came to call sinners.
2 Clement 8.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The gospel: faithful in little, faithful in much.
To the Philadelphians 5.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Ignatius relies on the gospel and the apostles, and asks prayer to be made perfect.
To the Philadelphians 5.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · The prophets proclaimed the gospel beforehand and were saved by faith in Christ.
To the Philadelphians 8.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Against those who demand proof from the old scriptures, Ignatius says Christ's cross and resurrection are his “archives.”
To the Philadelphians 9.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · The prophets pointed to Christ; the gospel completes their message.
To the Smyrnaeans 7.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Avoid the false teachers and attend to the prophets and the gospel.
To the Philippians 12.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Polycarp trusts the Philippians' knowledge of Scripture and reminds them to be angry without sinning and not to let the sun go down on their anger.
To the Philippians 3.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · No one can match the wisdom of Paul, who taught the Philippians in person and then wrote them letters that still build up their faith.
To Diognetus 11.6Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Law, prophets, gospels, and apostles are honored in the church.
To Diognetus 12.5Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Paul: knowledge puffs up, love builds up.
First Apology 31Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The Hebrew prophets foretold Christ's birth, miracles, death, resurrection, and the mission to the Gentiles; the Scriptures were translated into Greek for Ptolemy.
First Apology 32Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Moses' prophecy of Judah's ruler and the foal bound to the vine, and Isaiah's star and flower from Jesse, point to Christ.
First Apology 33Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah foretold the virgin birth; the power of God, the Word, overshadowed the virgin without intercourse.
First Apology 35Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah and the Psalms foretold Christ's crucifixion; Zechariah his entry into Jerusalem.
First Apology 36Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The divine Word speaks through the prophets in different persons: as God, as Christ, or as the people.
First Apology 37Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Examples of prophecy spoken in the person of the Father.
First Apology 38Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Examples of prophecy spoken in the person of Christ, fulfilled in his passion and resurrection.
First Apology 40Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Psalm 19 foretells the apostles' preaching; Psalms 1 and 2 teach how to live and foretell the conspiracy against Christ, God's Son.
First Apology 41Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · A psalm foretells that the Lord will reign from the tree of the cross.
First Apology 42Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Prophecy speaks of certain future events as already past; only Christ, crucified and risen, fulfilled David's words.
First Apology 44Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · God gave humans free choice; the philosophers borrowed from Moses, so there are “seeds of truth” among all.
First Apology 47Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The prophets foretold the desolation of Jerusalem, now forbidden to Jews by Roman law.
First Apology 48Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah foretold Christ's healings and his death along with those who hope in him.
First Apology 49Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The Gentiles, who did not expect Christ, received him; the Jews, who expected him, did not.
First Apology 50Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah's suffering Servant (Isa 52–53) foretold Christ's passion; after his resurrection the apostles understood and preached.
First Apology 53Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Fulfilled prophecies, above all the conversion of the Gentiles, prove Christ's claims.
First Apology 59Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Plato's teaching that God made the world from formless matter was taken from Genesis 1.
First Apology 66Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The Eucharist is for the baptized only; it is not common bread and drink, but the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus, as the Gospels record.
First Apology 67Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Justin describes Sunday worship: Scripture reading, sermon, prayer, the Eucharist, and a collection for the needy, held on the day of creation and of the resurrection.
Dialogue with Trypho 10.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho dismisses the rumors and says he has read the Gospel, whose commands seem impossible to keep.
Dialogue with Trypho 100.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ's resurrection is his “praise”; the Gospel records his words on knowing the Father.
Dialogue with Trypho 100.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Peter confessed Christ; Christ became man through the Virgin to undo the serpent's disobedience by the same way.
Dialogue with Trypho 102.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:9–15 foretold the events of the passion.
Dialogue with Trypho 103.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Gospels record Christ's bloody sweat, proving he truly suffered.
Dialogue with Trypho 106.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:22–23.
Dialogue with Trypho 106.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ's renaming of Peter and the sons of Zebedee shows he is the one who renamed Jacob and Joshua.
Dialogue with Trypho 107.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jonah 4:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 109.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mic 4:1–3.
Dialogue with Trypho 109.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mic 4:4–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 11.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold a new law and a new covenant.
Dialogue with Trypho 112.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Understood as types, the prophets' deeds are blameless.
Dialogue with Trypho 114.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Spirit speaks through types and through future events described as past.
Dialogue with Trypho 114.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Examples of prophecies spoken as already past.
Dialogue with Trypho 114.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jer 2:13 and a free quotation on Zion's divorce.
Dialogue with Trypho 115.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 2:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 115.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 2:12–3:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 115.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zechariah saw Joshua the priest in a vision, in ecstasy.
Dialogue with Trypho 119.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Understanding Scripture is a gift of grace.
Dialogue with Trypho 119.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Deut 32:16–23: God will provoke Israel with a nation that is no nation.
Dialogue with Trypho 12.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah foretells an everlasting covenant to which the nations will come.
Dialogue with Trypho 120.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin notes the variant reading of Gen 49:10.
Dialogue with Trypho 124.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 82 (LXX 81).
Dialogue with Trypho 13.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin quotes Isa 52:10–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 52:14–53:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:2–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:5–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:8–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:10–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 54:1–3.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 54:4–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 130.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Deut 32:43 (LXX): the nations rejoice with his people.
Dialogue with Trypho 131.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Deut 32:7–9, with the LXX variant “angels of God.”
Dialogue with Trypho 133.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 3:9–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 133.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 3:12–15.
Dialogue with Trypho 133.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 5:18–21.
Dialogue with Trypho 133.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 5:22–25.
Dialogue with Trypho 135.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 65:9–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 137.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin had quoted Isa 3:10 two ways to test his hearers.
Dialogue with Trypho 139.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 9:24–27: Japheth (the Romans) now dwells in the tents of Shem.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:3–5.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:6–9.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:12–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:1–2.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:2–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:5–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:7–9.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:9–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 16.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Moses himself called for circumcision of the heart.
Dialogue with Trypho 16.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 57:1–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 17.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah's woes are applied to those who reject Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 18.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin explains why he quotes Jesus' own words.
Dialogue with Trypho 21.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ezek 20:19–21.
Dialogue with Trypho 21.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ezek 20:21–24.
Dialogue with Trypho 21.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ezek 20:25–26: God gave statutes that were not good.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.10Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:18–23.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 5:18–21.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 5:22–26.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 5:27–6:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 6:3–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jer 7:21–22.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:1–6 (LXX 49).
Dialogue with Trypho 22.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:7–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 24.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 65:1–3.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 63:15–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 63:17–64:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 64:3–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 64:7–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:6–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 62:10–63:1.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 63:2–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 27.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah and the Psalms describe the people's sin.
Dialogue with Trypho 28.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mal 1:10–12: a pure sacrifice among the nations.
Dialogue with Trypho 28.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 18:43–44.
Dialogue with Trypho 29.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · These are the words of David, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Moses, which belong to Christians who obey them.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:9–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:11–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:14–18.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:19–22.
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 32.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 110 (LXX 109).
Dialogue with Trypho 34.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:1–6 (LXX 71).
Dialogue with Trypho 34.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:7–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 34.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:13–16.
Dialogue with Trypho 34.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:17–20.
Dialogue with Trypho 36.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 24:1–4 (LXX 23).
Dialogue with Trypho 36.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 24:5–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 37.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 99:1–5 (LXX 98).
Dialogue with Trypho 37.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 99:6–9.
Dialogue with Trypho 38.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:1–5 (LXX 44).
Dialogue with Trypho 38.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:6–11: “Your throne, O God.”
Dialogue with Trypho 38.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 41.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mal 1:10–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 43.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:10–15: the sign of the virgin.
Dialogue with Trypho 43.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:16–17 with 8:4.
Dialogue with Trypho 50.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 39:8; 40:1–5.
Dialogue with Trypho 50.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 40:6–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 50.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 40:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 51.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho calls the prophecies ambiguous; Justin answers that prophecy ceased after John.
Dialogue with Trypho 52.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 49:8–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 53.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 9:9.
Dialogue with Trypho 53.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 13:7.
Dialogue with Trypho 55.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will give unanswerable proofs from Scripture read daily by the Jews.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.16Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho bears with Justin because he argues from the Scriptures and affirms no God above the Creator.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.17Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:13–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.18Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:20–23.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.19Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:33–19:16.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:1–2 and 19:27–28.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.20Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 19:17–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.21Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 19:20–25.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 21:9–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin claims no rhetorical skill, only God's grace to understand Scripture, which he shares freely.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.11Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 28:10–13: Jacob's ladder.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.12Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 28:13–15.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.13Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 28:16–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 31:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 31:11–13: the angel says, “I am the God who appeared to you.”
Dialogue with Trypho 58.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 32:22–26.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 32:26–30: Jacob sees God face to face.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 35:6–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 59.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Exod 2:23–3:16.
Dialogue with Trypho 61.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Prov 8:21–25: Wisdom begotten before all things.
Dialogue with Trypho 61.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Prov 8:26–31.
Dialogue with Trypho 61.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Prov 8:32–36.
Dialogue with Trypho 62.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · “Let us make man” (Gen 1:26–28) shows God speaking to another.
Dialogue with Trypho 62.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Josh 5:13–6:2: the captain of the Lord's host.
Dialogue with Trypho 63.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:6–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 64.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 99:1–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 64.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:1–5, 17–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 64.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 19:1–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will never admit that Scriptures contradict each other; he would rather confess he does not understand.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will read the verses in context.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:5–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:8–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:11–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 66.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:10–15.
Dialogue with Trypho 66.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:16–17 with 8:4.
Dialogue with Trypho 68.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will show that the Septuagint is right and Isa 7:14 refers to Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 68.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Jewish teachers deny inconvenient texts or apply them to other men.
Dialogue with Trypho 69.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 35:1–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 7.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The old man points Justin to the prophets, older than the philosophers, who spoke the truth by the Holy Spirit.
Dialogue with Trypho 7.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The prophets' writings still exist; fulfilled prophecy proves them true.
Dialogue with Trypho 70.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 33:13–16.
Dialogue with Trypho 70.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 33:16–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 71.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin distrusts the Jewish teachers' new translations.
Dialogue with Trypho 71.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin charges that Jewish teachers removed passages; he will argue only from texts they accept.
Dialogue with Trypho 72.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin cites a saying attributed to Ezra about the Passover as a figure of Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 72.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jer 11:19, which Justin says had been removed.
Dialogue with Trypho 73.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin charges that “from the tree” was removed from Ps 96:10.
Dialogue with Trypho 73.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 96:1–8 (LXX 95).
Dialogue with Trypho 73.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 96:8–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 74.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin begins to explain Psalm 96.
Dialogue with Trypho 74.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The text resumes in the middle of Deut 31:16–18.
Dialogue with Trypho 78.11Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 29:13–14.
Dialogue with Trypho 79.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 30:1–5 (LXX): “evil angels” in Tanis.
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.
Dialogue with Trypho 83.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 110:1–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 84.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · A young woman bearing a child is no sign; and God can make even the barren bear.
Dialogue with Trypho 85.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Repeating Scripture is no fault.
Dialogue with Trypho 85.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 66:5–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 85.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 66:8–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 9.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin forgives Trypho's words and offers to prove his faith from the Scriptures.
Dialogue with Trypho 90.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The prophets hid the truth in parables and types.
Dialogue with Trypho 91.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Moses' blessing of Joseph (Deut 33:13–17).
Dialogue with Trypho 92.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Grace is needed to understand the prophets.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:1–5.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:6–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:18–23.
Oration to the Greeks 29Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Tatian's conversion: disgusted by pagan rites, he sought the truth and was won over by the ancient “barbarian” Scriptures.
Oration to the Greeks 31Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Tatian begins his proof that Moses is older than Homer by showing that the Greeks cannot even agree on when Homer lived.
Oration to the Greeks 36Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Even if Homer lived at the time of the Trojan War, Moses is far older; the Babylonian historian Berossus confirms the biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar.
Oration to the Greeks 37Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Phoenician historians place Hiram, Solomon's contemporary, near the Trojan War; Moses is much older.
Oration to the Greeks 38Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Egyptian chronology places the Exodus under King Amosis, a contemporary of Inachus of Argos, twenty generations before the fall of Troy.
Oration to the Greeks 39Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The list of the kings of Argos from Inachus to Agamemnon shows that all the events of Greek legend come after Moses.
Oration to the Greeks 40Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Moses is older than all Greek legend, and Greek sages borrowed from him and distorted what they borrowed.
Oration to the Greeks 41Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Moses is older also than the legendary poets before Homer and than the Greek lawgivers and sages.
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 2.10Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · God made all things from nothing through his Word, whom he had within himself and “uttered” with his Wisdom before creation; this Word spoke through the prophets, and Genesis begins with “In the beginning.”
To Autolycus 2.11Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The whole account of the six days of creation (Gen 1:3–2:3) is quoted from the Septuagint.
To Autolycus 2.12Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · No one can fully explain the six days of creation; the philosophers' imitations mix truth with error; the seventh day, the sabbath, is known to all peoples though they do not know why.
To Autolycus 2.13Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Theophilus explains the first days of creation: God began with heaven, not with foundations as a builder does; the Spirit moved over the waters to give life; the Word shone like a lamp.
To Autolycus 2.19Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Genesis 2 describes how God formed the human being from dust and breathed life into him, and placed him in a garden in the east.
To Autolycus 2.20Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Genesis 2:8–25 is quoted: the garden, its rivers, the command about the tree of knowledge, the creation of the woman, and the first marriage.
To Autolycus 2.21Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Genesis 3:1–19 is quoted: the serpent's temptation, the first sin, and God's judgment on the serpent, the woman, and the man.
To Autolycus 2.22Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · It was the Word, God's Son, who walked in the garden: always within God's heart, “uttered” before creation as the firstborn of all creation, and sent by the Father to appear in a place.
To Autolycus 2.30Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The line of Cain founded the first cities, polygamy, music, and metalwork before the flood; the Scriptures, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are older and truer than the Greek writers.
To Autolycus 2.31Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The history of the first cities, the tower of Babel (confirmed by the Sibyl), the kings of Genesis 14, the first war, and Melchizedek, first priest of God Most High.
To Autolycus 2.32Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · After Babel humanity spread gradually from Arabia and Chaldea over the whole earth, as far as Britain; the Greek writers, ignorant of this history, speculate about the world's shape.
To Autolycus 2.33Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Greek poets and historians came too late to know the truth about the beginnings; only Christians, taught by the Holy Spirit through the prophets, have the truth.
To Autolycus 2.35Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The law forbids the worship of anything created; the prophets, speaking by one Spirit, agree about the one Creator and condemn idolatry.
To Autolycus 2.9Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Hebrew prophets, inspired by the Holy Spirit, spoke in agreement about the past, present, and future; their fulfilled prophecies guarantee the rest.
To Autolycus 3.1Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The third book will prove the antiquity of the Christian Scriptures against Autolycus's view that they are recent.
To Autolycus 3.11Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · God sent the prophets to call Israel to repentance; Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah show that God desires the sinner's return, not his death.
To Autolycus 3.12Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The prophets, speaking by the one Spirit, agree with the law in teaching justice, mercy, and care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow.
To Autolycus 3.16Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Theophilus turns to chronology: the Greek philosophers' vast ages for the world are guesswork, as Plato himself admits.
To Autolycus 3.17Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Since the pagan poets themselves claimed divine teaching, much more should the Christians trust the Spirit-inspired prophets, whose predictions have been fulfilled, also on chronology.
To Autolycus 3.18Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Greek flood stories (Plato's partial flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha) are fables compared with Moses' account.
To Autolycus 3.19Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Moses tells of one universal flood, from which only Noah (the Greeks' Deucalion) and his family, eight in all, were saved in the ark.
To Autolycus 3.20Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · From Manetho's list of Egyptian kings Theophilus shows that the Exodus under “Tethmosis” preceded famous Egyptian cities and the Greek hero Danaus.
To Autolycus 3.21Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Manetho's slanders (that the Hebrews were expelled lepers) are refuted, but he confirms that they were shepherds who left Egypt, long before the Trojan War.
To Autolycus 3.22Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Tyrian archives, as reported by Menander of Ephesus, date Solomon's temple, built with the help of Hiram of Tyre, about 134 years before the founding of Carthage.
To Autolycus 3.23Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Hebrew Scriptures are older than all Greek lawgivers and writers; Theophilus now begins a chronology from creation, based on Moses.
To Autolycus 3.24Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · A chronology from Adam to Samuel, following the Septuagint's genealogies: 2,242 years to the flood, 3,278 to Abraham, 3,938 to the death of Moses.
To Autolycus 3.25Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The chronology continues from Saul through the kings of Judah to the Babylonian exile and the return under Cyrus, fulfilling Jeremiah's seventy years.
To Autolycus 3.26Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Greek historians begin only with Cyrus and Darius; the Scriptures show the true age of the world, against Plato's and Apollonius's vast figures.
To Autolycus 3.28Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The total from creation to the death of Marcus Aurelius comes to 5,695 years.
To Autolycus 3.29Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Pagan historians (Thallus, Berossus) confirm the biblical chronology; Moses is older than Kronos, Belus, and the Trojan War, and any error in Theophilus's reckoning is a matter of decades, not of thousands of years.
To Autolycus 3.9Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Christians confess one God, who governs all things by providence and gave the holy law of the Ten Commandments through Moses to Israel and, through them, to the world.
A Plea for the Christians 7Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · The philosophers reached toward the one God by guesswork; Christians rely on the prophets, who spoke by the Spirit of God.
A Plea for the Christians 9Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · The prophets, speaking by the Spirit like a flute played by a musician, confirm that God is one.
The Instructor 1.13.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Lord's commandments, written down as spiritual precepts, direct both this life and the eternal life; Clement will outline the latter from Scripture.
The Instructor 1.7.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The law was given by the Word through Moses and was temporary; grace and truth came through Jesus, whom Moses foretold as the prophet like himself, prefigured by Joshua.
The Instructor 2.10.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Isaiah went naked and barefoot and Jeremiah wore only a loincloth; trailing robes are pretentious; the Lord's long robe signifies the Scriptures, and he is clothed with light.
The Instructor 3.12.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor now gives a summary of Scripture's commandments, leaving interpretation to the Teacher; he leads the child on the way of salvation to the treasures of wisdom revealed through law, prophets, Christ, and the Spirit.
The Instructor 3.12.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The law of Moses was written on stone, the law of the apostles on hearts; the Instructor now gives the apostolic commands, beginning with Ephesians on truth, anger, and kindness.
The Instructor 3.12.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · These are a few of Scripture's many precepts, including those for presbyters, bishops, deacons, and widows; their deeper interpretation belongs to the Teacher, to whom the Instructor now sends us.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Clement turns to the prophetic writings, simple and unadorned but saving; the Sibyl calls people from darkness to the light of the one God.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Jeremiah and Isaiah show the greatness of God, who fills heaven and earth, and foretell the shameful end of idols.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The prophets proclaim that the world will pass away but the one God, the only savior, remains; idols and their worshipers will howl.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The wisdom of Solomon and the words of Jeremiah and Moses call people back from idols to the one God, whose Wisdom is his Word.
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 9.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Lord keeps calling sleepers to wake; the Scripture's “today” of grace lasts until the end, so no one should harden his heart.
Exhortation to the Greeks 9.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The “today” of the divine call is an image of eternity; those who disbelieve, like the Israelites in the desert, miss the rest, while godliness holds promise for this life and the next.
Exhortation to the Greeks 9.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The inspired Scriptures make one wise for salvation; the Lord and Paul both proclaim that the kingdom is at hand.
Prophetic Extracts 1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The three young men in the furnace call on the heavens and the angels to bless the Lord.
Prophetic Extracts 1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture counts the heavens and the waters among the pure powers, as Genesis also shows.
Prophetic Extracts 1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Since “power” has many senses, the song calls on every power, then the sun and moon, to bless the Lord.
Prophetic Extracts 1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The song calls on the stars and all who worship God to bless him.
Prophetic Extracts 1.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · A note that these words are in Daniel.
Prophetic Extracts 2.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The song's God who looks on the depths agrees with Enoch's vision of all matter.
Prophetic Extracts 2.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The abyss is boundless in itself but limited by
Prophetic Extracts 2.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God's power; the “depths” are the material substances from which all kinds of things arise.
Prophetic Extracts 27.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The earlier elders did not write, so as not to divert their care for teaching the tradition.
Prophetic Extracts 27.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · They thought composing and teaching different gifts and left writing to others.
Prophetic Extracts 27.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Speech flows quickly; writing is tested by readers and preserves teaching for later generations.
Prophetic Extracts 27.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The elders' deposit speaks through the writer for the readers' salvation.
Prophetic Extracts 27.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Like a magnet drawing only iron, books draw only readers who can understand them.
Prophetic Extracts 27.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The word of truth is folly or offense to many, but wisdom and power to a few.
Prophetic Extracts 27.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The mature Christian is not jealous of knowledge; out of love he may even share it with an unworthy but persistent inquirer.
Prophetic Extracts 28.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · As the sea and earth serve different people differently, so Scripture helps readers in different ways.
Prophetic Extracts 3.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Heaven and earth in Gen 1:1 mean heavenly and earthly things.
Prophetic Extracts 3.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Hosea's “the land will commit prostitution” shows that “earth” can mean people.
Prophetic Extracts 3.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Earth” there means earthly-minded people.
Prophetic Extracts 32.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Pythagoras honored the first name-giver as the wisest of men.
Prophetic Extracts 32.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture must be searched carefully, since the Holy Spirit has impressed his meaning on its words, so that hidden senses can be uncovered.
Prophetic Extracts 32.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Knowledge brings out the brightness of things like white lead from black, the divine wisdom that enlightens the pure.
Prophetic Extracts 35.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The mysteries of knowledge are mocked by the many, but the few, first dazzled, grow used to them and rejoice.
Prophetic Extracts 42.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “With the holy you will be holy” means God is glorified through our knowledge of him.
Prophetic Extracts 43.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “A people I did not know served me” means the Gentiles, not known through the covenant.
Prophetic Extracts 43.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Foreign sons” are those who follow what belongs to another.
Prophetic Extracts 44.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · All believers are called kings, called to the kingdom by knowledge and inheritance.
Prophetic Extracts 5.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Through Hosea the Spirit calls himself our instructor and calls for the trumpet.
Prophetic Extracts 51.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “The heavens” in Ps 19 has several senses, including the first-created angels through whom the covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were given.
Prophetic Extracts 51.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The first-created angels, moved by the Lord, declared God's covenants through the angels near the prophets.
Prophetic Extracts 52.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The “heavens” are properly the Lord, then the highest angels, then the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, and the apostles.
Prophetic Extracts 52.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The firmament is God himself, unchangeable, as Ps 18 calls the Lord his firmament.
Prophetic Extracts 52.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The firmament reveals the angels God made; “day to day pours forth speech” is read like “heavens,” in many senses.
Prophetic Extracts 54.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The voices of the heavens are heard through all the earth.
Prophetic Extracts 54.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The psalm refers to the saints, called heavens and days.
Prophetic Extracts 55.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The stars, governed by angels, do not cause events but signify past, present, and future.
Prophetic Extracts 55.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The stars signify but do not cause.
Prophetic Extracts 56.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Hermogenes said Christ laid aside his body in the sun; Clement's teacher Pantaenus taught that prophecy often uses one tense for another, as here.
Prophetic Extracts 57.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Perhaps “in the sun” (ἡλίῳ) conceals the Hebrew El, “God,” as in Christ's cry “Eli, Eli.”
Prophetic Extracts 59.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Lord's testimony makes the simple wise: the apostles and us.
Prophetic Extracts 60.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Justified together” means that unity; such things are more desirable than gold.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The saying about the first and last applies to all believers and is set aside for now.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The camel has a deeper mystical meaning, which Clement reserves for another work.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Peter says they have left everything; Jesus promises a hundredfold now, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The Savior answers prayer; his own words about the rich interpret themselves.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The sayings about wealth trouble us because we have heard them without examining them.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Mark's account of the rich man begins: a man kneels before Jesus.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The man asks how to inherit eternal life; Jesus answers that only God is good.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus lists the commandments; the man says he has kept them from his youth.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus, loving him, tells him to sell all and give to the poor; he goes away grieving.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The man had great wealth; Jesus says how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom, and the disciples are amazed.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus says a camel passes through a needle's eye more easily than a rich man enters the kingdom; what is impossible with men is possible with God.
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? 5.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The story appears in Mark, and the other acknowledged Gospels agree with it in meaning, though their wording differs slightly.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 5.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ's words must not be taken in a fleshly way; their hidden meaning must be searched out carefully.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 5.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Even the sayings Christ explained to his disciples need careful attention, because of their depth.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 5.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Sayings that seem simple but bear on salvation itself, like this one, must be read with the mind fixed on the Savior's spirit and hidden meaning.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 8.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · One must first know the Father, revealed only by the Son, and then the greatness of the Savior, whose grace surpasses the law given through Moses.
Miscellanies 1.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement defends writing down Christian teaching: if pagans write freely, the preacher of truth should leave written benefit to later generations, as a father leaves children.
Miscellanies 1.1.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those whose inner eye is dimmed should turn to the truth in Scripture, which rekindles the soul's spark; as Plato and Pythagoras taught, one should help the needy but not the idle.
Miscellanies 1.1.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement's notes preserve the teaching of the blessed men he heard in Greece, southern Italy, and the East, and last in Egypt, a teacher like a Sicilian bee; they handed on the apostles' tradition.
Miscellanies 1.1.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Writing preserves the tradition, as used wells stay clear and used iron stays bright; wisdom must be shared like a lamp on a stand; teachers learn as they teach, since the one Teacher inspires both.
Miscellanies 1.1.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ shared the mysteries only with those able to receive them; secret things are entrusted to speech, not writing; what is hidden will be revealed to the few who can grasp it; God gave the church apostles, prophets, and teachers.
Miscellanies 1.1.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement's notes are a weak image of his teachers' living word, meant to remind rather than fully explain; he deliberately leaves some things unwritten, since writing cannot answer questions and may mislead the unprepared.
Miscellanies 1.1.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stromata will hint rather than state, refute the heresies, and prepare the ground for the higher knowledge of the tradition; it will use the best of philosophy, becoming Greek to the Greeks, as Paul did.
Miscellanies 1.1.16Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Learning seasons the work like sauce on an athlete's food; familiar sayings are included to win the many, and with time and labor the one pearl of truth will shine out among them.
Miscellanies 1.1.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Like the cook and the shepherd, readers use Greek learning for different ends; Clement uses the Greeks' own writings to water their soil so that it may receive the spiritual seed.
Miscellanies 1.1.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stromata hide the truth among philosophical doctrines like a kernel in its shell; against those who think philosophy useless or evil, Clement will show that it too is a work of providence.
Miscellanies 1.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Teaching gives life when soul meets soul; but since knowledge is not for all, Christ spoke in parables, exposing the ignorance that already existed rather than causing it.
Miscellanies 1.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The parable of the talents shows that teaching must be put to work, not hidden; Paul too commands entrusting the word to faithful teachers.
Miscellanies 1.1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Both writer and preacher proclaim the word; the hearer is responsible for his choice; proclaiming gives the beginnings of faith and salvation, and Paul charges Timothy to teach impartially.
Miscellanies 1.11.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Worldly wisdom is folly with God, and boasting belongs only in knowing the Lord; when Paul warns against “philosophy and empty deceit,” he means not all philosophy but the Epicurean, which denies providence.
Miscellanies 1.11.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul prays for discerning love; philosophers are infants under the elements unless Christ makes them mature; Hagar's son is still Abraham's seed; solid food is for the mature, who test all things.
Miscellanies 1.12.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The tradition is not for all; the wisdom Christ taught in a mystery must be guarded, as Isaiah's lips were cleansed; Clement hesitates to cast pearls before swine.
Miscellanies 1.12.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The natural man cannot receive the Spirit's truths; the secret tradition must be handed on only to the fit; the Stromata scatter the truth so that only a good farmer will make it grow.
Miscellanies 1.13.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Truth is one, but the philosophical schools, like the Bacchants tearing Pentheus, each hold a fragment and claim it is the whole; whoever reassembles the fragments into the one Word will see the whole truth.
Miscellanies 1.13.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ecclesiastes and Proverbs praise abundant wisdom; the one versed in every kind of wisdom, Greek and barbarian, is truly knowing; wisdom is worth more than gold.
Miscellanies 1.14.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greeks' Seven Wise Men are listed; Paul quotes Epimenides of Crete as a prophet and a Greek poet on the resurrection, showing that Greek poets held some truth.
Miscellanies 1.14.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greek sages lived after Moses, and their brief, riddling style resembles the Hebrew; “Know yourself,” variously attributed, urges us to seek knowledge of the whole, including the origin of the world.
Miscellanies 1.14.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The famous sayings of the Seven Sages and their disputed authors are listed; Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosopher.
Miscellanies 1.14.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek philosophy descends in three successions, Italian, Ionian, and Eleatic; Pythagoras and Thales were probably of barbarian origin, and Thales learned from Egyptian priests.
Miscellanies 1.14.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The succession of the Ionian school leads to Socrates, then Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, with their successors.
Miscellanies 1.14.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stoic and Eleatic successions are traced to Epicurus; next Clement will give their dates to prove that Hebrew philosophy is many generations older.
Miscellanies 1.14.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The dates of the early philosophers are fixed by events: Thales' eclipse about the fiftieth Olympiad, Pythagoras about the sixty-second, Solon about the forty-sixth, Heraclitus in the time of Darius.
Miscellanies 1.15.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Most early Greek sages were barbarians or learned from barbarians: Pythagoras from Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Magi; Plato admits he learned from barbarians and visited Egypt.
Miscellanies 1.15.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato, unlike Epicurus, recognizes barbarian philosophers; barbarians honored their lawgivers as gods, believing good souls came down to give laws and philosophy, the greatest gift of the gods.
Miscellanies 1.15.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Many barbarian peoples philosophized about divine things; Plato honored them, knowing that he and Pythagoras learned their best doctrines from them.
Miscellanies 1.15.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagoras, Plato, and Eudoxus studied with Egyptian priests; Plato tells how an Egyptian taught Solon that the Greeks are children; Democritus learned from Babylon, Persia, and Egypt.
Miscellanies 1.15.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagoras is said to have studied with an Assyrian sage and with Galatians and Brahmins; a Jew associated with Aristotle; stories of the Sibyl's origin and continued prophecy are reported.
Miscellanies 1.15.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Numa, taught by Moses, forbade images of God; philosophy flourished first among barbarian peoples, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Druids, Magi, and Indian sages, including the followers of Boutta (the Buddha), before reaching the Greeks.
Miscellanies 1.15.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scythians, Hyperboreans, and German prophetesses had their sages, but the Jews are by far the oldest; Philo, Aristobulus, and Megasthenes show that their philosophy preceded the Greeks'.
Miscellanies 1.15.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Myths make the Idaean Dactyls, Atlas, and Chiron the first sages, all barbarians; their dates should be compared with Moses' age.
Miscellanies 1.16.74Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The barbarians invented nearly every art: astronomy, calendars, geometry, divination, and music.
Miscellanies 1.16.75Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Barbarians invented letters, medicine, ships, iron and bronze working, weapons, sculpture, mining, and instruments.
Miscellanies 1.16.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · More inventions of barbarians: dyes, metallurgy, boxing, musical modes and instruments, furniture, ships, linen, and letters.
Miscellanies 1.16.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists his sources on inventions; the Greeks learned from barbarians; Anacharsis the Scythian shows a philosophy of deeds, not words.
Miscellanies 1.16.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul says that one who does not understand a language is a “barbarian” to its speaker; prose and many poetic forms came late to the Greeks.
Miscellanies 1.16.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek poetic forms, rhetoric, grammar, and lawgiving all came long after Moses.
Miscellanies 1.16.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some say Greek philosophy grasps truth by chance, others that it comes from the devil or lesser powers; Clement holds that, though it cannot grasp the whole truth, it prepares the way for Christ's teaching.
Miscellanies 1.17.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some apply “all who came before me are thieves” to philosophy, saying it was stolen by a fallen angel; the prophets were sent servants; even if philosophy was stolen, God permitted it and providence turned it to good.
Miscellanies 1.17.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The false prophets stole the name of prophet; they served the devil, the father of lies, yet spoke some truths, as Hermas says; God orders all things for good.
Miscellanies 1.17.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy holds a little stolen fire, a trace of wisdom: the Greek philosophers took portions of truth from the Hebrew prophets, distorting some and discovering some; the prophets, by contrast, received from Christ's fullness.
Miscellanies 1.18.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's “wise man” and “debater of this age” are the Greek philosophers; the cross is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Greeks, but Christ's coming made believers wise; those who refused chose unbelief.
Miscellanies 1.19.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul at the Areopagus approved what Greek poets said well, quoting Aratus, and taught that the “unknown god” the Greeks honored is the Creator, who must be known through the Son.
Miscellanies 1.19.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ sent Paul to open the Gentiles' eyes, turning them to God through the Son; Clement accepts not all philosophy, but that of the few true philosophers, as Socrates says in Plato: many are called, few chosen.
Miscellanies 1.19.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato shows the hope of the righteous after death and distinguishes true philosophers, lovers of truth, from the merely learned; the general studies are roads to the good, not the good itself.
Miscellanies 1.19.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · However the Greeks came by some truths, whether by chance, nature, or reflection, all comes from the one God; they saw God dimly as in a mirror, as we do now, but face to face comes after death.
Miscellanies 1.2.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Even if philosophy were useless, showing it so is useful; one must understand the Greeks to refute them; and wide learning commends the truth to hearers and catechumens.
Miscellanies 1.2.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy is not a corrupter of life but a clear image of truth, a divine gift to the Greeks; comparing doctrines strengthens faith and leads to knowledge, and the Stromata hide its seeds in learning.
Miscellanies 1.2.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Truth sought with labor is sweet; the work is arranged obscurely because it is dangerous to divulge secret teaching to contentious people.
Miscellanies 1.20.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's teaching is complete in itself; philosophy adds no power to it but serves as a hedge against sophistry and as dessert to the bread of faith; the Greeks who took from the barbarians as their own are thieves who hold partial truths.
Miscellanies 1.20.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy is a joint cause helping toward the truth, like one of many men hauling a ship; truth is one, with partial truths in each field, but the sovereign, unassailable truth is found through the Son.
Miscellanies 1.20.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As one coin has many names, virtue and truth appear in many forms; Greek truth differs from Christian truth in greatness, proof, and divine power, since Christians are taught by the Son of God.
Miscellanies 1.20.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy is a preliminary training and joint cause, not a necessary condition: most believers received the word of God by faith without it; it justified the Greeks partially, and it helps with clarity and defense against heresies.
Miscellanies 1.21.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement now turns to chronology, to prove that Hebrew philosophy is the oldest; following Tatian and Cassian, he cites Apion and Ptolemy of Mendes, who date the Exodus under Amosis, in the time of Inachus.
Miscellanies 1.21.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek history begins with Inachus of Argos; the Exodus under Amosis falls in Inachus' time, long before the Trojan War and the other Greek genealogies.
Miscellanies 1.21.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato follows Acusilaus in making Phoroneus the first man; the mythical events of Greece are dated by the kings of Argos after Inachus.
Miscellanies 1.21.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The various dates given for the fall of Troy are set out; Theseus and Heracles lived a generation earlier.
Miscellanies 1.21.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses preceded the deification of Dionysus by 604 years and the other Greek heroes and gods by even more.
Miscellanies 1.21.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Cadmus, Isis, Prometheus, and Apis all lived generations after Moses; Sarapis is explained as the deified Apis.
Miscellanies 1.21.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Leto, Apollo, the first musicians, Homer and Hesiod, the lawgivers, and the sages all came after Moses, who is older even than most Greek gods.
Miscellanies 1.21.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Sibyl, of whom there were several, is older than Orpheus.
Miscellanies 1.21.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement begins the chronology of Israel after Moses: Joshua, then the judges Othniel and Ehud.
Miscellanies 1.21.110Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Abimelech, and Tola.
Miscellanies 1.21.111Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Jephthah, the minor judges, Samson, Eli, Samuel, and Saul.
Miscellanies 1.21.112Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Samuel, Saul, and David; from Joshua to David's death Clement counts 523 years and seven months.
Miscellanies 1.21.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Solomon reigned forty years; Nathan and Ahijah prophesied; from Moses to Solomon some count 595 or 576 years, or 610 on another reckoning.
Miscellanies 1.21.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · To Solomon's death Clement counts 683 years and seven months from Moses; Solomon married Hiram's daughter at the time of Menelaus; the kingdom divided under Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
Miscellanies 1.21.115Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Abijam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah, with the prophets Jehu, Elijah, Micaiah, and Elisha.
Miscellanies 1.21.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Athaliah reigned until Joash, saved by Jehosheba, took the throne; from Solomon to Elisha's death Clement counts 181 years.
Miscellanies 1.21.117Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The dates given for Homer vary widely, but on any reckoning he and Hesiod lived after Solomon and Elisha.
Miscellanies 1.21.118Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Under Amaziah, Uzziah, and Jotham, the prophets Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah, Micah, and Joel prophesied.
Miscellanies 1.21.119Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Under Ahaz, Hoshea, and Hezekiah, Israel was deported; God added fifteen years to Hezekiah's life by turning back the sun; the prophets of this time lived about the age of Lycurgus.
Miscellanies 1.21.120Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah reigned; Josiah destroyed the idols and kept the Passover; the book of the law was found; Huldah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah prophesied; Josiah was killed by Neco.
Miscellanies 1.21.121Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The last kings of Judah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, bring the chronology to the exile: from Moses' birth, 1,085 years; from David, 482.
Miscellanies 1.21.122Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, blinded Zedekiah, and began the seventy-year captivity; Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Nahum, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi prophesied.
Miscellanies 1.21.123Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · In the period of the exile and return: Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem; Esther and Mordecai, the three youths in the furnace, Daniel in the lions' den, Jonah, and Tobit belong to this time.
Miscellanies 1.21.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Zerubbabel won the right to restore Jerusalem; with Ezra came the renewal of the Scriptures, the Passover, and the end of foreign marriages; from Moses' birth to the restoration Clement counts 1,155 years.
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 1.21.127Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The captivity began in the forty-eighth Olympiad and lasted seventy years to the second year of Darius, when Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi prophesied and Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple.
Miscellanies 1.21.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists the Persian kings (235 years) and the Macedonian kings of Egypt.
Miscellanies 1.21.129Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Even the latest prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, were older than Pythagoras and Thales, the oldest of the Greek sages.
Miscellanies 1.21.130Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Solomon, contemporary with the Trojan War, was far older than the Greek sages, and Moses older still; letters between Solomon and the kings of Egypt and Tyre are recorded by Alexander Polyhistor.
Miscellanies 1.21.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The poems ascribed to Orpheus and Musaeus are late forgeries; the early Greek poets are all dated centuries after Moses.
Miscellanies 1.21.132Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists many Greek soothsayers and Sibyls, all later than the Hebrew prophets.
Miscellanies 1.21.133Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Many Greeks practiced divination, from Mopsus and Pythagoras to Socrates, who spoke of his divine sign.
Miscellanies 1.21.134Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists more Egyptian and Greek seers, all later than the Hebrew prophets.
Miscellanies 1.21.135Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek seers foretold by observation or demonic influence, but the Hebrew prophets spoke by God's power; Clement lists them from Adam to Malachi.
Miscellanies 1.21.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · There were thirty-five prophets and five prophetesses, and in the New Testament John, Anna, Simeon, and Zechariah; the Greek chronology from Moses is then summarized.
Miscellanies 1.21.137Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology of Greek legend from Perseus to the first Olympiad.
Miscellanies 1.21.138Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Eratosthenes' chronology from Troy to Alexander, and the Roman dates from the founding of Rome.
Miscellanies 1.21.139Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology is brought down to the death of the emperor Commodus (AD 192), with the differing reckonings of the historians.
Miscellanies 1.21.140Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The biblical chronology from Adam to the death of Commodus is summarized by major periods.
Miscellanies 1.21.141Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Jewish chronographers Demetrius and Eupolemus reckon the years of the captivities and from Adam to the Hellenistic kings.
Miscellanies 1.21.142Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some historians count seventy-five nations from Moses' seventy-five descendants of Jacob; Scripture counts seventy-two languages; the Greeks have five dialects.
Miscellanies 1.21.143Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato attributes language to gods and even animals; the original languages are barbarian and name things by nature, as Plato admits of the word “fire.”
Miscellanies 1.21.144Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists the Roman emperors and their reigns from Augustus to Commodus, to fix the date of Christ's birth.
Miscellanies 1.21.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Daniel's 1,290 and 1,335 days are cited; Josephus and others reckon from Moses; Matthew's genealogy has three periods of fourteen generations, six sevens.
Miscellanies 1.22.148Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek under Ptolemy I or II, with Demetrius of Phalerum managing the work, for the library at Alexandria.
Miscellanies 1.22.149Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Seventy elders translated separately, yet their translations agreed word for word by God's will, a kind of Greek prophecy; so too Ezra, inspired, restored the Scriptures lost in the exile.
Miscellanies 1.22.150Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Aristobulus says Plato and Pythagoras learned from an earlier Greek translation of the law; Numenius calls Plato “Moses speaking Attic”; Clement now turns to Moses' life.
Miscellanies 1.23.151Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses, of Chaldean descent and born in Egypt, was hidden three months from Pharaoh's decree and then placed in a papyrus basket by the river, watched by his sister.
Miscellanies 1.23.152Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pharaoh's daughter found Moses, his sister brought his own mother as nurse, and the princess named him Moses, from the Egyptian word for water.
Miscellanies 1.23.153Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses, also called Joachim and in heaven Melchi, was educated by Egyptians and Greeks in every science; Eupolemus says he taught letters to the Jews, from whom they passed to the Phoenicians and Greeks; he killed the Egyptian who attacked a Hebrew.
Miscellanies 1.23.154Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A tradition says Moses killed the Egyptian by a word, as Peter did Ananias and Sapphira; Artapanus tells how Moses, freed from prison, spoke God's name into Pharaoh's ear and struck him speechless.
Miscellanies 1.23.155Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ezekiel the tragic poet's drama The Exodus tells Moses' birth and upbringing in verse, in Moses' own words.
Miscellanies 1.23.156Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ezekiel's drama continues with the Hebrew's challenge to Moses; Moses fled and became a shepherd, a training for ruling the human flock.
Miscellanies 1.23.157Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptians ignored God's warnings; the Hebrews' taking of Egyptian goods at the Exodus was not greed but a just wage for years of unpaid slavery.
Miscellanies 1.24.160Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses was the source of Greek strategy: leading Israel out, he avoided the direct road, took the desert route, and traveled by night, and the long journey trained the people in faith.
Miscellanies 1.24.161Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' foresight was proved when the pursuing Egyptians drowned; the pillar of fire led Israel through the desert, training them in courage and endurance before the promised land.
Miscellanies 1.24.162Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' tactic of attacking from the desert was imitated by Miltiades at Marathon, who led the Athenians by night along a trackless way to surprise the Persians.
Miscellanies 1.24.163Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A guiding fire led Thrasybulus by night, making the pillar of fire credible to Greeks; the pillar signifies that God cannot be imaged and that his light is unchanging.
Miscellanies 1.25.165Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato learned legislation from Moses: he preferred a constitution with one aim, looking to one God and justice; the true statesman is the Creator, and good government unites fitting rulers and obedient subjects, as Moses sought.
Miscellanies 1.25.166Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato made contemplation the goal of both statesman and law-abiding citizen; law is true opinion that finds what truly is, as God is “He who is”; some call it right reason commanding and forbidding.
Miscellanies 1.26.167Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law given through Moses is a rule of justice leading to God; Paul says it was a schoolmaster guarding us until Christ; Moses was a living law.
Miscellanies 1.26.168Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' constitution and judgments corrected souls; the philosophers call only the wise man king, lawgiver, general, just, and holy, and Scripture shows all this in Moses, who was truly wise.
Miscellanies 1.26.170Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greeks disbelieve that God gave the law through Moses, yet claim their own lawgivers received laws from gods, imitating Moses without acknowledging him.
Miscellanies 1.27.174Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul shows the law's benefit to the Jews; wisdom bears law and mercy; the law and the gospel are the work of one Lord, Christ, God's power and wisdom.
Miscellanies 1.27.175Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The prophets and Paul reproach those who do not understand the law; the law is good if used rightly, and its aim is love from a pure heart.
Miscellanies 1.28.176Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' philosophy has four parts: history, law, priestly ritual, and theology; true dialectic, as Plato says, aims to speak and act in a way pleasing to God.
Miscellanies 1.28.177Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · True dialectic, joined to true philosophy, rises to God and guides right action; Scripture calls us to be approved money-changers, testing all things and keeping what is good.
Miscellanies 1.28.179Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul knew the mystery by revelation and spoke to those able to receive it; the law must be read in three ways, as sign, as commandment, and as prophecy; Scripture must be studied carefully, not all lumped together.
Miscellanies 1.29.180Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptian priest in Plato calls the Greeks children without ancient learning; the “old” wisdom is that of the barbarians, the Hebrews, while Greek myths and reasonings are childish.
Miscellanies 1.29.181Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hermas says revelations are given for the double-minded; learning strengthens the wavering; Scripture calls the law a light, and Pindar and Hesiod, guessing, speak of the divine lawgiver who gave justice to humans.
Miscellanies 1.4.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Homer, Hesiod, and Daniel call craftsmen and sages “wise”; Scripture calls every worldly art wisdom and shows that skill comes from God, who filled Bezalel with the spirit of wisdom.
Miscellanies 1.4.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God gives understanding to those who prepare themselves; craftsmen excel in bodily senses, and poets, rhetoricians, dialecticians, and philosophers in a mental perception strengthened by practice.
Miscellanies 1.4.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God's wisdom is manifold, working through art, knowledge, faith, and prophecy; all wisdom comes from the Lord; beyond philosophy's perception lies the divine perception of godliness.
Miscellanies 1.5.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Before Christ, philosophy was given to the Greeks for righteousness, as the law was to the Hebrews: a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ; now it is a useful preparation for faith.
Miscellanies 1.5.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · There is one way of truth fed by many streams; Scripture speaks of many ways of wisdom; the harlot of Proverbs is foolish pleasure, not Greek learning; worldly studies should be used but not dwelt in, as some neglect their mistress philosophy for her maidservants.
Miscellanies 1.5.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As general studies serve philosophy, philosophy serves wisdom, the knowledge of things divine and human; Abraham first took Hagar, worldly learning, and afterward Sarah, true wisdom, bore Isaac.
Miscellanies 1.5.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following Philo, Hagar is “sojourning” and Sarah “my rule”; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob stand for learning, natural gift, and practice, which together make the seal of knowledge.
Miscellanies 1.5.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham's words to Sarah show that worldly learning is a handmaid to true knowledge; philosophy is an inquiry into truth, and Christ is the truth; preliminary training sharpens the mind for rest in him.
Miscellanies 1.7.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek learning and philosophy came from God indirectly, like rain falling everywhere; by philosophy Clement means not any one school but the selection of whatever each has said well about righteousness and piety.
Miscellanies 1.7.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Good deeds without faith do not profit after death; the Scriptures were translated into Greek so the Greeks would have no excuse; many ways lead to the one gate of righteousness, which is Christ, as 1 Clement shows.
Miscellanies 1.9.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some want bare faith without learning, like expecting grapes without tending the vine; but Christ, the vine, must be cultivated; the educated believer gathers what is useful from every study to defend the faith.
Miscellanies 1.9.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Though prophets and apostles lacked technical learning, their hidden meaning needs skilled teaching to be understood; dialectic helps answer questioners; action should come from reason, the Word, not mere habit.
Miscellanies 2.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Book 2 will show that the Greeks stole and falsified the Hebrews' doctrines on faith, wisdom, knowledge, hope, repentance, self-control, and the fear of God, and imitated their symbolic style.
Miscellanies 2.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement will also answer Greek charges against Christians, hoping to convert both Jews and Greeks by a loving refutation, and will examine the general studies, astrology, and magic.
Miscellanies 2.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement cares for meaning, not polished Greek; truth hidden among Greek writings must be sought with effort, like a rose among thorns or a pearl in an oyster.
Miscellanies 2.10.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Christian philosopher holds to three things, contemplation, keeping the commandments, and forming good people; Leviticus 18 commands Israel to keep God's ordinances and live by them.
Miscellanies 2.11.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Worldly knowledge puffs up, but faithful knowledge is a sure demonstration from the Scriptures; faith and demonstration are each twofold, scientific or opinion-based, and faith is a power of God.
Miscellanies 2.11.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith moves mountains and heals; human demonstration uses rhetoric and logic, but the highest demonstration, from the divine Scriptures, produces faith and true knowledge.
Miscellanies 2.11.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham and Moses “stood” before God, as faith keeps the soul steady; false knowledge has discredited true knowledge, as Paul warns Timothy, which is why the heretics reject those letters; the one who knows Christ knows the Father.
Miscellanies 2.12.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge understands prophecy, whose fulfillment in past and present confirms what is still hoped for; faith grasps the past and hope the future; even the philosophers say assent is in our power.
Miscellanies 2.15.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following Barnabas, Clement reads Psalm 1 with the food laws: scaleless fish, the pig, and birds of prey stand for kinds of sinners; a wise teacher read the three phrases as Gentiles, Jewish belief, and the heresies.
Miscellanies 2.16.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Critics say joy and pity are passions; but we err if we read Scripture's language about God in a fleshly way, for the prophets spoke as we could hear, the Lord accommodating himself to human weakness.
Miscellanies 2.18.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The virtues recorded by Moses gave the Greeks the beginning of ethics; the law teaches godliness, justice, and prudence by forbidding idols and binding us to the Maker and Father.
Miscellanies 2.18.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law exempts from war the man with a new house, vineyard, or bride, both so soldiers are undistracted and out of humanity, lest another enjoy his labors.
Miscellanies 2.19.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Noah was saved by devotion to God; of Abraham's many children only Isaac inherited, and of Isaac's twins the younger received the blessing, a prophetic type; all things belong to the wise, who long for the one through whom all things were made.
Miscellanies 2.2.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Christian philosophy is perfect: Wisdom speaks of knowledge of nature and of hidden things; it leads to God, who is far in essence but near in power, seeing all things.
Miscellanies 2.2.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Solomon praises those who seek wisdom and understanding; the inspired search the depths of God, but holy things must not be given to the dogs.
Miscellanies 2.2.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Heraclitus blames those who do not believe; the prophets say the righteous live by faith and that without faith there is no understanding; faith is a voluntary preconception and assent, as Hebrews defines it.
Miscellanies 2.2.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is an intellectual assent and the beginning of action and knowledge; for the believer, God's voice in Scripture is itself an irrefutable demonstration; blessed are those who believe without seeing.
Miscellanies 2.4.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christians, free to choose, rest on faith in God's word as an unshakable criterion; Hebrews 11 shows that faith justified the righteous even before the law.
Miscellanies 2.4.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hebrews lists many heroes of faith; truth is known through sense, mind, knowledge, and opinion; faith passes beyond opinion to truth; first principles cannot be demonstrated.
Miscellanies 2.4.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Only faith reaches the first principle of all things, which the Greek philosophers never knew; knowledge is demonstrative, but faith is a grace that rises to the simple, immaterial God.
Miscellanies 2.4.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Materialists drag everything down to what can be touched, while Platonists defend invisible forms; Christ gives new eyes to see what faith grasps; faith, like a money-changer's skill, is the criterion of knowledge.
Miscellanies 2.4.16Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Conjecture counterfeits faith; virtue is learned by obeying the Word, and to obey him is to believe him; faith and knowledge support each other; even Epicurus called faith a preconception without which no inquiry is possible.
Miscellanies 2.4.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · No one can learn without a preconception, which is faith; so Isaiah's “if you do not believe, you will not understand” is true, and Heraclitus paraphrased it.
Miscellanies 2.5.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greek doctrine that the wise man possesses all things and is dear to God comes from Moses: Abraham was God's friend, Jacob saw God, Isaac was a type of Christ's sacrifice, and God spoke with Moses as with a friend.
Miscellanies 2.5.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wisdom belongs to the faithful; knowledge of the first principle is by faith; if Pythagoreans accept “he himself said it,” how much more should we trust Christ, the only Savior; only the mind truly hears.
Miscellanies 2.6.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith comes from hearing the preached word of God; the word of the Lord is itself a demonstration; as in a ball game, teaching needs hearers who receive it with faith.
Miscellanies 2.6.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is a willing preconception, confidence a firm judgment; we trust God alone, who keeps his promises; Abraham's faith was reckoned as righteousness, and we, his seed by hearing, must believe; the one God gave both covenants.
Miscellanies 2.6.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Gentile church has inherited Israel's covenant; the old and new covenants are one in power, given by one God through the Son; salvation runs “from faith to faith,” from prophecy to gospel.
Miscellanies 2.7.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · To attack fear is to attack the law and the God who gave it; without law, desire rules; the fear the commandments inspire is not irrational but rational, whatever the philosophers call it.
Miscellanies 2.9.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Brotherly love binds those who share the Spirit, as Paul teaches in Romans 12; the Jews had zeal without knowledge, following the letter of the law and not the Christ it prophesied, the end of the law.
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 3.10.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The two or three may also be Jews and Gentiles made one new man in the church, and law, prophets, and gospel united in one knowledge; those who refuse marriage from hatred or misuse the flesh from desire are not among them.
Miscellanies 3.11.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement turns to the Scriptures that refute the heretics: the law's “you shall not covet” anticipated Christ's “you shall not desire”; the law's rule on captive women shows it meant marriage to be used with restraint and for children.
Miscellanies 3.11.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul proclaims the same God in law and gospel, attributing “you shall not covet” to the law; his words that no good dwells in his flesh refer to indwelling sin, not to the Creator's work.
Miscellanies 3.13.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The saying Cassianus cites is not in the four Gospels handed down but in the Gospel of the Egyptians; male and female there mean anger and desire, and when they are overcome the soul becomes one, as Paul says there is neither male nor female.
Miscellanies 3.4.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Opposers misread Malachi's “they opposed God and were saved,” which reports the grumbling of the chastised people, not a command; if any God is “shameless,” it is the devil.
Miscellanies 3.4.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul condemns “let us do evil that good may come”; the heretics twist Scripture by changing accents and punctuation, and Malachi rebukes those who say evildoers please God.
Miscellanies 3.6.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law aims at self-restrained marriage and family life; Christ fulfilled, not abolished it; marriage can be used with self-control, and those who call intercourse polluted, being born of it, condemn themselves.
Miscellanies 4.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement plans to treat the philosophers' first principles, then prophecy and the authority of Scripture, showing against the heresies one God proclaimed by law, prophets, and gospel.
Miscellanies 4.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Only after completing the ethical preparation, like the lesser mysteries before the greater, will Clement treat the knowing tradition's natural philosophy, beginning from the creation account and rising to theology.
Miscellanies 4.17.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement of Rome, whom Clement calls an apostle, praises the Corinthians' faith, godliness, hospitality, and knowledge, and holds up Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Rahab, and the prophets as models.
Miscellanies 4.2.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Miscellanies are deliberately varied and indirect, so that only the right reader finds the gold; like miners, the akin will find much in little.
Miscellanies 4.2.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Miscellanies, rich in seed like every herb of the field, are named fittingly, like the mixed ancient offering Sophocles describes.
Miscellanies 4.2.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Like a farm that yields everything, the Miscellanies offer mixed fruits; the reader must winnow them to pick out the wheat.
Miscellanies 4.21.130Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One may be perfect in particular virtues, but no one save Christ in all; the law's perfection leads to the gospel; even the knowing martyr is called “perfect” only at the completion of life, when his blood, offered through love, sends his spirit on.
Miscellanies 4.21.134Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The apostles' writings show all the virtues; though Paul came later, his writing breathes the Old Testament, since faith in Christ explains and fulfills the law; without faith the old covenant is not understood.
Miscellanies 4.26.169Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isaiah's “hear, heaven, give ear, earth” addresses the knowing soul as heaven and the ignorant as earth; Micah and Abraham also address the earthbound; the unbeliever is already judged.
Miscellanies 5.1.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greek philosophers stole their chief doctrines from Moses and the prophets; also the fallen angels revealed secrets to women; so Greek thought is partly true by conjecture and partly wrong through misreading prophetic allegory.
Miscellanies 5.1.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Unbelievers are foolish, and useless disputes should be avoided; inquiry with faith is best; there are things not to be inquired into, but where God has spoken in Scripture, faith is established beyond dispute.
Miscellanies 5.1.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God makes foolish the wisdom of the world; Jeremiah bids us ask for the good way; Numa founded a temple of Faith; Abraham believed, and his name change from Abram, “elevated father,” signifies his turn from natural philosophy to knowledge of the one God.
Miscellanies 5.10.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul speaks of a mystery hidden for ages and now revealed, and of a fuller knowledge for which he prays that the Colossians may be filled.
Miscellanies 5.10.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul asks for prayer to speak the mystery of Christ, and Hebrews distinguishes milk for infants from solid food for the perfect; some things were handed down unwritten.
Miscellanies 5.10.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Barnabas reads the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey as a hidden teaching about Christ in the flesh; the Lord keeps his mystery for the sons of his house, and knowing the Father is eternal life.
Miscellanies 5.10.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The prophets and David speak of hidden treasures and secret wisdom; Christ the Teacher has opened what was hidden, and Paul reserved the fullness of the tradition for teaching in person.
Miscellanies 5.11.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham's seeing the place “on the third day” means that after sight and desire the mind perceives spiritual things, opened by Christ who rose on the third day; God's place is seen only from afar.
Miscellanies 5.12.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture repeatedly speaks of hidden wisdom: the unleavened cakes hidden in ashes, Paul's hidden wisdom, Christ's mystery of the kingdom, his parables, and the leaven hidden in the meal.
Miscellanies 5.13.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato said we must believe the children of the gods even without proof; Clement applies this to the prophets and to Christ, the true Son, through whom God proclaimed the Scriptures.
Miscellanies 5.14.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Chapter 14 begins Clement's account of how the Greeks borrowed from the Hebrew Scriptures: the Stoic idea of God pervading all things misread Wisdom, and Plato hinted at a single first principle.
Miscellanies 5.3.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The many demand proofs rather than trusting faith; Empedocles says the wicked distrust the truth; Clement will speak to Greeks through their own wisdom, as Paul became all things to all, for God's grace falls on all and God is God of the Gentiles too.
Miscellanies 5.4.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The crowd judges by pleasure, not truth; the unready must stay outside the divine chorus; hence the Egyptians' sanctuaries and the Hebrews' veil symbolize the concealment of sacred truth, which only the purified may approach.
Miscellanies 5.4.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Prophecies and mysteries are veiled in riddles; the Egyptians learn three scripts, demotic, hieratic, and hieroglyphic, the last partly literal and partly symbolic, figurative, or enigmatic.
Miscellanies 5.4.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptians used enigmatic hieroglyphs, like the scarab for the sun; all theologians, barbarian and Greek, have veiled first principles in riddles, symbols, and allegories, as the Greek oracles did.
Miscellanies 5.4.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · “Know yourself” has many meanings: that you are mortal, of little account, whose image you bear, and how you are akin to God; Isaiah's hidden treasures are God's wisdom, hard to find.
Miscellanies 5.4.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The poets, taught by the prophets, veiled their theology in poetry, not from envy but to stir inquiry, as Sophocles says the god speaks in riddles to the wise.
Miscellanies 5.4.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All Scripture is spoken in parables, as the psalm says; Paul speaks God's hidden wisdom among the perfect, revealed by the Spirit; the unspiritual man cannot receive it.
Miscellanies 5.4.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul calls the common faith milk and foundation, and knowledge solid food and precious building; the heresies build stubble; fire will test each work; spiritual gifts could not be written openly.
Miscellanies 5.5.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Eurysus the Pythagorean said the Creator made man using himself as model, echoing Genesis; Pythagoras and Plato drew on Moses; Greek philosophy is like lamplight stolen from the sun, useful by night but outshone when the Word dawned.
Miscellanies 5.6.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Almost all Scripture speaks in riddles; the temple's enclosures and the high priest's robe are symbols, and the veil's four colors stand for the four elements that reveal God.
Miscellanies 5.6.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The altar of incense stood between the holy of holies and the court, symbolizing earth or the boundary of the intelligible and sensible worlds; the outer veil with five pillars bars those bound to the five senses, as the five loaves fed the crowd; knowledge of God is beyond the senses.
Miscellanies 5.6.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Son is the Father's face, made flesh; the inner veil with four pillars signifies the four covenants and the four-letter divine Name, pronounced “Iaoue”; Christ alone as high priest enters the unspeakable; the seven-branched lampstand represents the sun among the planets.
Miscellanies 5.6.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The golden lampstand is a sign of Christ, giving light in many ways; the seven lamps are the seven spirits on Jesse's rod; the table of loaves, the ark, and the six-winged cherubim symbolize the churches, the intelligible world, and the heavens.
Miscellanies 5.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A tragic poet describes time and the twin Bears; the ark (Hebrew tēbāh) signifies the intelligible world or God, and rest with the glorifying spirits; the cherubim are not images but symbols of the rational soul, its ministries, and ceaseless praise.
Miscellanies 5.6.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The high priest's robe symbolizes the sensible world: the stones are the planets or ways of salvation, the 360 bells the year of the Lord's favor proclaiming the Savior, and the golden crown Christ's kingship as head of the church.
Miscellanies 5.6.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The high priest's headdress signifies that God is head of Christ; the breastpiece's parts signify work and the Word; its twelve stones the zodiac or the righteous of both covenants; the Name on the gold plate is the Son, image of the invisible God, beginning of all things.
Miscellanies 5.7.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptians, like the Hebrews, kept their mysteries hidden; their symbols include the sun on a ship or crocodile; a temple gate at Diospolis shows a child, an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a crocodile.
Miscellanies 5.7.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Diospolis symbols together say, “You who are born and die, God hates shamelessness”; votive ears and eyes mean God sees and hears all; the lion, ox, horse, sphinx, and man are further Egyptian symbols.
Miscellanies 5.7.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · In Egyptian processions two dogs, a hawk, and an ibis, called “four letters,” symbolize the hemispheres or tropics, the sun or equator, and the moon or ecliptic.
Miscellanies 5.8.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greeks too used symbols: the Ephesian letters, which Androcydes interprets as darkness, light, earth, year, sun, and true voice; the Delphic sayings; the turning wheel and branches, which signify the circling of human affairs and life's brevity.
Miscellanies 5.8.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Symbolic interpretation serves theology, piety, and wisdom; children's primers teach the elements through obscure words like the Phrygian “bedy,” meaning water or air.
Miscellanies 5.8.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek writers explain the obscure words of the old primer: bedy is air or water, zaps the sea, chthōn the earth, plēktron the pole or air.
Miscellanies 5.8.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Cleanthes calls the sun plēktron; sphinx is the ether binding all things, as Empedocles says; Branchus's Milesian hymn used these words, which Thespis applies to offerings, and which Clement reads as the soul's growth from milk to the wine of the Word.
Miscellanies 5.8.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A third primer line hints that salvation is won by toil through understanding the world; Epigenes explains Orpheus's symbolic words for plows, seed, rain, the moon, and the seasons.
Miscellanies 5.8.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Pythagoreans and many philosophers and poets wrote enigmatically; Heraclitus was called “the Obscure,” and difficult poets like Callimachus and Lycophron are exercises for students.
Miscellanies 5.8.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' food laws are symbolic: the pig stands for greedy, unclean desire; as Barnabas explains, clean animals that part the hoof and chew the cud signify those who ponder God's word and live in this world while awaiting the next.
Miscellanies 5.8.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The unclean birds stand for plunderers, the unjust, and the greedy, whom we must avoid; the Psalms, 1 Clement, and Theognis teach that companions shape us; the horse and rider cast into the sea are desire and the soul that gives it rein.
Miscellanies 5.8.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato's fallen charioteer and Phaethon signify the soul overcome by passion; Joseph stripped of his coat and cast into the waterless pit signifies knowledge rejected by those with bare faith; the uncovered pit in the law introduces a lesson about teaching.
Miscellanies 5.8.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law of the uncovered pit teaches teachers to hide the depths of knowledge from those not ready, lest they stumble; the knowing teacher is accountable to God for those harmed by teaching beyond their capacity.
Miscellanies 5.8.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law and prophets were types until John, who, pointing to Christ, confessed himself unworthy to loose his sandal, that is, to baptize with his power, and so loosed the meaning of the prophecies; Roman will ceremonies are also symbolic.
Miscellanies 5.9.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture, the barbarian philosophy, is written symbolically for memory, brevity, and elevation; it is meant for those tested in faith and life, needing a guide; truth seen through a veil appears greater.
Miscellanies 5.9.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Concealed sayings admit several meanings, clear to the knower but not to the ignorant; the Pythagoreans expelled Hipparchus for publishing secrets; Scripture calls apostates dead and bids believers separate from the unclean.
Miscellanies 5.9.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Epicureans, Stoics, and Aristotelians also had secret teachings, and the mysteries hid doctrines in myths; so much more should holy contemplation be veiled; yet Scripture and Plato's myths are not to be allegorized word by word, only in their general meaning.
Miscellanies 6.10.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Learning serves the one who knows as a helper, not a virtue: it teaches him to distinguish words and things, even in Scripture, and to guard the truth, while useless learning is to be avoided.
Miscellanies 6.11.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Geometry is illustrated by the tabernacle and Noah's ark, whose square timbers and pyramid-like proportions point to the holy dwelling places and to those purified by fire.
Miscellanies 6.11.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The ark's proportions are read as the cross (300), Pentecost (50), and the preaching (30 or 12), and the table in the temple as the earth with its four seasons and twelve months.
Miscellanies 6.11.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · David the harpist-prophet is the example of music; the ancient Hebrew psalmody was a model even for Terpander, and the lyre signifies the Lord, his ministers, and the saved people, while the harmony of law, prophets, and gospel is the church's symphony.
Miscellanies 6.11.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Learning serves philosophy and philosophy serves truth; the soul must be prepared like wool for weaving, and for the sake of others the teacher needs both general education and the Scriptures, especially with hearers from Greek schools.
Miscellanies 6.11.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The queen in many-colored robes in Psalm 45 is the church adorned with varied learning, but truth comes from the Lord, who gives wisdom and the Spirit; the knower understands past, future, and riddles.
Miscellanies 6.15.115Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower bears the closer likeness, the Teacher's mind, teaching and living it; a Christian must master his inner passions and exceed the Pharisees, and only the knower understands the hidden sayings of the Spirit, keeping silent before the unworthy.
Miscellanies 6.15.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The dark clouds, hail, and coals of Psalm 18 show that Scripture is hidden, clear to knowers but dark to the many; the knower knows when, how, and to whom to speak.
Miscellanies 6.15.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul circumcised Timothy and Daniel wore the Persian chain out of accommodation; the true liars are those who corrupt the essentials and do not hand on Scripture worthily, whereas the apostolic tradition is proclaimed and explained by the rule of truth.
Miscellanies 6.15.125Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ spoke all things in parables, including the law and prophets, which are understood by the church's rule, the harmony of the two covenants; knowledge leads to prudence and then self-restraint, and the perfect man's righteousness comes from love of God.
Miscellanies 6.15.126Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture hides its meaning so that we may keep searching and so that the unprepared are not harmed; its parabolic character matches the Lord who came as one of the world to lead us to higher realities.
Miscellanies 6.15.127Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The incarnation, virgin birth, passion, and resurrection look like a riddle to outsiders but, when the Scriptures are opened, are God's power and wisdom; prophecy spoke in veiled terms, and prophets, the Lord, and the apostles were all persecuted.
Miscellanies 6.15.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Preaching of Peter says the apostles found Christ's coming, death, cross, resurrection, and ascension in the prophets, spoken in parables, riddles, and plain words, and so believed; they say nothing without Scripture.
Miscellanies 6.15.129Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Each language has its own character; Greek writers use figures of speech deliberately for effect, in imitation of the prophets, but prophecy hides the truth not for beauty but so that only those who seek it in love will find it.
Miscellanies 6.15.130Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Proverbs 1 lists the forms of prophetic speech—proverb, parable, riddle, wisdom, instruction—and the Greek dialects, named from Hellen, are many generations younger than Hebrew.
Miscellanies 6.15.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hermas copied his book letter by letter without grasping the syllables: the plain reading is for faith, the deeper reading for knowledge; Isaiah's new book foretold the unwritten tradition the Savior gave the apostles, now written on new hearts.
Miscellanies 6.15.132Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Joshua and Caleb saw Moses double at his assumption, one with the angels and one buried: some see only the letter of Scripture, others its meaning; as Peter knew Christ as Son of God by the Father's revelation, so truth is seen gradually.
Miscellanies 6.16.133Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Ten Commandments, written by God's finger (his power), picture creation: a heavenly decalogue of sun, moon, stars, and elements and an earthly one of living things; the ark is wisdom, and the two tablets foretell two covenants.
Miscellanies 6.16.137Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The first commandment teaches the one Almighty God who brought Israel out of Egypt; the second forbids applying God's name to idols, for only He Who Is is uncreated; the third teaches creation and the Sabbath rest, which we, not God, need.
Miscellanies 6.16.146Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The fifth commandment's father is God and its mother is divine wisdom, not matter or the church; the commandment against adultery forbids forsaking true knowledge of God for false opinion and idolatry.
Miscellanies 6.16.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Idolatry is spiritual adultery, as the prophet says; murder is violently removing the truth about God's providence and eternity; theft is claiming God's creative work for human art, or counterfeiting true philosophy.
Miscellanies 6.16.148Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The stars and elements do not rule the world but obey God's word; the tenth commandment forbids desiring falsehood, such as the idea that created things act on their own, for they work only as instruments of God's providence, like tools in a craftsman's hand.
Miscellanies 6.18.166Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Human speech cannot express God's power and works, and even those taught by God reach only some knowledge of him by grace and the Spirit; only Christian wisdom is taught by God, and the Lord's coming was foretold by countless forerunners.
Miscellanies 6.18.168Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · If Plato and Democritus call inspired poets holy, how much more should we marvel at God's prophets; Clement closes his portrait of the knower and promises to treat creation later.
Miscellanies 6.3.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Samuel's prayer for rain shows that the one God answers the prayers of the righteous; the Greeks tell similar stories of Aristaeus and of the Delphians' sacrifice to the winds.
Miscellanies 6.3.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Empedocles was said to control the winds and heal, an idea taken from the Scriptures' righteous wonder-workers; but whatever powers move the winds, the one God is their Lord.
Miscellanies 6.3.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Democritus foretold rain from the stars; the Greeks should not then disbelieve the fire and trumpets at Sinai, seen, as Aristobulus says, by the whole assembled people.
Miscellanies 6.3.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God can produce a voice without any physical source to convert unbelievers; at Sinai Israel heard words but saw no form, for the Lord's voice is the formless Word.
Miscellanies 6.5.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The same God gave both covenants and gave philosophy to the Greeks; from both Greeks and Jews believers are gathered into one saved people, and God raised prophets for the Greeks too.
Miscellanies 6.5.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A saying ascribed to Paul points the Greeks to the Sibyl and Hystaspes as witnesses to one God and his Son; the Preaching of Peter tells of the apostles sent to the world after twelve years.
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 6.7.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All good teaching goes back to the Lord; if some choke the seeds of truth, as the Pharisees did the law, the fault is theirs, while those who come to Christ from the law or from philosophy reach full knowledge.
Miscellanies 6.7.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ is wisdom, so knowledge taught by the Son is wisdom embracing past, present, and future; this knowledge came down unwritten from the apostles to a few and must be trained into constant contemplation.
Miscellanies 6.8.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul does not condemn philosophy but warns those who have reached knowledge not to go back to it, for it is only elementary training; and understanding itself is God's gift.
Miscellanies 6.8.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Understanding is God's gift, as the psalms show; God dealt with other nations too, though not as with his people, and in every nation whoever fears him is acceptable.
Miscellanies 6.8.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pleasure-loving Greek wisdom is the “wisdom of this age,” elementary and worldly; perfect knowledge concerns things beyond the world, revealed by Christ to the apostles, true knowers of all things.
Miscellanies 7.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement announces that he will show the Greeks that the true Christian, the one who knows God, is the only truly pious person, sketching the faith first and giving the Scripture proofs later.
Miscellanies 7.15.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The truth can be found by demonstration from the Scriptures, which shows that exact knowledge belongs to the ancient church alone; heretics either deceive themselves or knowingly deceive others, and they head schools, not a church.
Miscellanies 7.16.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As a soldier must hold his post, the believer must keep the place the Word assigns; sudden temptation, bad habit, and conflicting doctrines each have their remedy; the gentiles live in ignorance, the heresies in conceit, and the true church in understanding.
Miscellanies 7.16.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some reject the truth unheard; others twist Scripture from laziness or love of glory, setting human teachings against the apostolic tradition; Marcion and Prodicus added nothing to what the apostles and teachers had handed down.
Miscellanies 7.16.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows grows old in the Scriptures, holds the apostolic and church teaching, and lives by the Lord's tradition; not all who hear receive knowledge, and the knowledge that “puffs up” means either false knowledge or a lofty mind.
Miscellanies 7.16.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wisdom “puffs up” her children in the good sense of making them confident in the truth; heretics commit adultery against the truth and steal the church's rule, whereas love of neighbor means teaching them to hold to the truth.
Miscellanies 7.16.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Seekers of truth must find their proof in the Scriptures and lay aside conceit; whoever has once received the gospel must not look back, like Lot's wife, either to his old life or to the heresies.
Miscellanies 7.16.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As Mary gave birth and remained a virgin, so the Scriptures give birth to the truth yet keep its mysteries hidden; those who know receive their offspring, while heretics, lacking the rule of truth, twist Scripture to suit their desires.
Miscellanies 7.16.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Whoever rejects the church's tradition for heresy becomes like Circe's beasts, while whoever returns to the Scriptures is made godlike; the Lord speaking in Scripture is the first principle, grasped by faith, and his voice is the surest proof.
Miscellanies 7.16.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Heretics use Scripture selectively, taking isolated ambiguous phrases and changing their meaning; the truth is found by reading Scripture as a whole and interpreting Scripture by Scripture in a way worthy of God.
Miscellanies 7.16.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · When refuted from Scripture, heretical leaders prefer their own opinions to the prophets, gospel, and apostles; despising the common faith and reading Scripture superficially, they fell away from the truth.
Miscellanies 7.16.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Muddied by false doctrines, heretics cannot see the truth; like naughty children shutting out their tutor, they exclude the prophets from their churches, and like bad almonds they are empty of God's purposes and Christ's traditions.
Miscellanies 7.18.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement closes with an allegory of the food laws: clean animals both divide the hoof (faith in the Father and the Son) and chew the cud (meditating on Scripture); animals with only one sign stand for most Jews and for the heretics.
Miscellanies 8.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christians should not be quarrelsome disputers like the later Greek philosophers but should inquire as Scripture bids, “Seek and you will find,” since inquiry by question and answer opens the door to true knowledge.
On Idolatry 4Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · The law forbids making idols as well as worshipping them, and Enoch, Isaiah, and David all condemn those who make idols together with those who worship them.
Octavius 34.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The philosophers' ideas echo the prophets, from whom they borrowed a distorted shadow of truth.
To the Nations 2.2Tertullian · 197 · Philosophers, lacking the fear of God that is the beginning of wisdom, disagree endlessly about the gods, borrowing scraps of Scripture and distorting them.
On the Shows 3Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Though Scripture does not forbid the shows by name, the first psalm's blessing on the man who does not sit in the council of the ungodly applies to the crowds of the theatre and circus.
The Testimony of the Soul 5Tertullian · ca. 197–198 · The soul's testimony is natural and therefore divine, older than literature; and if it was learned from books at all, it came from the Scriptures, which are older than pagan writings.
Prescription against Heretics 14Tertullian · ca. 203 · Within the rule of faith one may inquire freely, but faith, not skill in Scripture, saves; heretics who claim still to be seeking are not yet believers, and conferring with them only leads the blind into the pit.
Prescription against Heretics 15Tertullian · ca. 203 · Since heretics appeal to Scripture, the first question must be to whom the Scriptures belong; those who have no right to them are not to be admitted to argue from them.
Prescription against Heretics 16Tertullian · ca. 203 · Paul forbids disputing with heretics and allows only a single rebuke, and arguing over Scripture with them achieves nothing.
Prescription against Heretics 17Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heretics reject, mutilate, or misinterpret Scripture, so arguing from it with them gains nothing.
Prescription against Heretics 18Tertullian · ca. 203 · A doubter who watches such a dispute leaves more uncertain, since each side accuses the other of corrupting Scripture.
Prescription against Heretics 19Tertullian · ca. 203 · The first question is not what Scripture says but to whom the faith and the Scriptures belong; where the true faith is, there are the true Scriptures and interpretation.
Prescription against Heretics 22Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heretics say the apostles did not know everything, or did not teach everything to all; but Christ taught them fully and promised the Spirit would lead them into all truth, as Acts shows he did.
Prescription against Heretics 23Tertullian · ca. 203 · Paul's rebuke of Peter shows no new gospel: Paul was received by the apostles, shared their preaching, and rebuked Peter only for a fault of conduct.
Prescription against Heretics 25Tertullian · ca. 203 · Paul's charge to Timothy to guard the deposit refers to the teaching he had given openly before many witnesses, not to a secret doctrine.
Prescription against Heretics 30Tertullian · ca. 203 · Marcion, Valentinus, and Apelles were recent, expelled from the church at Rome, and their own innovations prove them later than the truth; they cannot show apostolic authority or apostolic miracles.
Prescription against Heretics 36Tertullian · ca. 203 · Anyone may visit the apostolic churches, such as Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, and Rome, where the apostles taught and died; Rome's faith, shared with Africa, is the one from which the heresies broke away.
Prescription against Heretics 37Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heretics, not being Christians, have no right to Christian Scripture; the church, as heir of the apostles, holds it by lawful title.
Prescription against Heretics 38Tertullian · ca. 203 · Corrupt doctrine requires corrupted Scriptures: Marcion cut the text with a knife, Valentinus kept the text but twisted its meaning; the church's Scriptures are unaltered because its doctrine is original.
Prescription against Heretics 39Tertullian · ca. 203 · Just as poets patch new works out of Virgil and Homer, heretics can build their doctrines out of Scripture; God so arranged the Scriptures that heresies might be possible.
Prescription against Heretics 7Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heresies draw their questions and doctrines from philosophy; Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem, and after Christ and the gospel no further inquiry is needed.
Prescription against Heretics 8Tertullian · ca. 203 · “Seek and you will find” was spoken early in Christ's ministry chiefly to the Jews, who had the law and prophets to seek him in; Christians receive the teaching through the apostles.
Against Marcion 1.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion's god appeared only in the reign of Antoninus Pius, over a century after Christ, and was born of Marcion's own Antitheses, which set the gospel against the law; so Christ did not reveal him.
Against Marcion 1.20Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Paul's rebuke of Peter concerned conduct, not doctrine; the apostles agreed on one gospel, and Paul's attack on Jewish ceremonies in Galatians only carries out what the Creator himself had foretold through the prophets.
Against Marcion 1.21Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The apostolic churches argued about conduct, never about which God to worship; their unbroken tradition confesses only the Creator, so Marcion's god is his own invention.
Against Marcion 2.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The law kept Israel mindful of God in every part of life, and the prophets taught justice, mercy, and care for the poor, while the Psalms promise blessing to the righteous: proof of a supremely good God.
Against Marcion 2.20Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcionites accuse the Creator of theft for telling the Hebrews to take the Egyptians' gold and silver, but it was modest back pay for generations of unpaid slave labour and murdered children.
Against Marcion 3.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Isaiah's warlike words about the infant Christ are figurative: the magi's gold was the power of Damascus, the converted magi the spoils of idolatrous Samaria, and Herod the king of Assyria.
Against Marcion 3.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The sword of Psalm 45 is the Word of God, as John and Paul show; Christ's weapons and spoils are figurative, so the prophecies do not describe a literal warrior.
Against Marcion 3.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's lowly appearance, his fullness of the Spirit, his meekness, and his work of preaching and healing all match Isaiah's prophecies of the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 3.18Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The cross was foretold in figures: Isaac carrying the wood, the horns of Joseph's bull, the hamstrung bull of Genesis 49, Moses' outstretched arms, and the bronze serpent.
Against Marcion 3.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Further prophecies of the cross: the Lord reigning from the tree, government on his shoulder, wood cast into his bread, pierced hands and feet, and Isaiah's words on his death, burial, and resurrection.
Against Marcion 3.20Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The conversion of the nations, foretold in the Psalms, Isaiah, and Nathan's oracle, is fulfilled in Christ, the son of David through Mary, not in David or Solomon.
Against Marcion 3.21Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The calling of all nations, not merely of proselytes, was foretold for the last days, when the law would go out from Zion and swords be beaten into ploughshares; this is fulfilled in Christ.
Against Marcion 3.22Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The apostles' mission, their break with the synagogue, their persecution, the sign of the cross on believers' foreheads, and the church's pure sacrifice of praise were all foretold by the Creator's prophets.
Against Marcion 3.23Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The ruin of Judea, the scattering of the Jews, and the end of prophecy among them were foretold as punishment for rejecting the Creator's Christ, so he must be the one who came.
Against Marcion 3.5Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Before arguing from the Old Testament, Tertullian sets two rules: prophecy often speaks of the future as past, and often speaks figuratively, as Paul himself shows.
Against Marcion 3.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Jews' rejection of Jesus does not prove he was a stranger to their God, for the Creator's prophets foretold that they would fail to recognize their own Christ.
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 4.1Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Opening his examination of Marcion's gospel, Tertullian turns Marcion's Antitheses against him: the Creator himself foretold a new law and covenant, and contrasts in his works point to one God, not two.
Against Marcion 4.10Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Healing the paralytic and forgiving sins fulfills Isaiah; the title Son of Man, from Daniel, means Christ was born of a human mother, a virgin, and so had a real body.
Against Marcion 4.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's preaching on the mountain, his night of prayer, the choice of twelve apostles, the renaming of Peter, and the crowds from Tyre all correspond to the Creator's prophecies and figures.
Against Marcion 4.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Beatitudes on the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the persecuted echo the Creator's constant care for the lowly in the Psalms and Isaiah, and fulfill Isaiah 61, so they belong to the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 4.2Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The gospels rest on apostles (Matthew, John) and apostolic men (Mark, Luke); Marcion's gospel, a cut-down Luke with no author's name, lacks the apostolic authority even Paul sought.
Against Marcion 4.25Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's thanksgiving that things hidden from the wise are revealed to little ones, his claim that all things were delivered to him, and his answer to the lawyer about eternal life all point to the Creator, who hid and promised to reveal through his Christ.
Against Marcion 4.3Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Paul's rebuke of Peter concerned conduct, not doctrine; if the apostolic gospel was wholly corrupted, Marcion has no true gospel either, and if his agrees with ours, ours is apostolic too.
Against Marcion 4.33Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's sayings on God and mammon, on the Pharisees' self-justification, and on the law and the prophets lasting until John show one God, the Creator, whose law is fulfilled rather than destroyed.
Against Marcion 4.4Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Truth comes before its corruption; Marcion once held the church's gospel and wrote the Antitheses against it, which proves the church's Luke is older than his altered version.
Against Marcion 4.5Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The apostolic churches have held Luke's gospel, with Matthew, Mark, and John, from the beginning; Marcion's version is known only in his own late churches, so it is the altered one.
Against Marcion 4.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian sets his test: whatever in Marcion's own gospel shows Christ fulfilling the Creator's law, prophecies, and character proves Christ is the Creator's.
Against Marcion 4.7Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion's Christ begins at Capernaum, in the Galilee Isaiah foretold; he teaches in the synagogue without opposing the law, and the demon who names him Holy One recognizes the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 5.1Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian demands that Marcion show where his apostle Paul comes from, argues that Paul was foretold in the Creator's Scriptures and attested by Acts, and promises to prove from Paul's own letters that he preached no other god.
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 5.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In Romans 1–7 the God whose wrath and judgment are revealed, who judges by the gospel through Christ, whose law is holy and spiritual, and with whom sinners are reconciled, is the Creator, not Marcion's god.
Against Marcion 5.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Ephesians, which Marcion called Laodiceans, speaks of summing up all things in Christ, of the Spirit promised by Joel, of the nations brought near to Israel's God, and of Christ's real flesh and the prophets' foundation, all of which belong to the Creator.
Against Marcion 5.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In Colossians the gospel's spread through the world, Christ as image and firstborn of creation, the reconciliation of all things, the warning against philosophy, and the law as a shadow of Christ all point to the Creator, and Marcion's doctrines come from the philosophers.
Against Marcion 5.2Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Galatians attacks the old law, not the Creator: the dispute there was only whether the Creator's law still bound believers, and Paul's “no other gospel” and his agreement with Acts show he preached no new god.
Against Marcion 5.21Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Philemon survived Marcion's editing because of its brevity, though he rejected the Pastoral Letters; Tertullian closes the work by defending its repetitions and postponements.
Against Marcion 5.3Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Paul's visit to Jerusalem, his yielding for a time to Jewish scruples, and his rebuke of Peter concerned only the law, and his teaching on faith, curse, and blessing belongs to the Creator, Abraham's God.
Against Marcion 5.4Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Working through Galatians 3–6, Tertullian argues that the promise to Abraham, the fullness of time, the end of the old observances, the allegory of the two sons, and the law of love all belong to the Creator, and that Paul's scars show Christ's flesh was real.
Against Marcion 5.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The hidden wisdom Paul speaks of was the Creator's, veiled in figures and revealed in Christ; the rulers who crucified the Lord of glory, the one foundation, the temple of God, and the folly of worldly wisdom all point to the Creator.
Against Praxeas 11Tertullian · ca. 213 or later · Praxeas must show from Scripture that God is his own Son; instead Scripture everywhere distinguishes the one who speaks, the one spoken to, and the one spoken of, showing the three persons.
Against Praxeas 20Tertullian · ca. 213 or later · Monarchians rely on three sayings of Jesus against the whole of Scripture; but the few must be read in the light of the many and the earlier.
Refutation of All Heresies, Book 1, preface 8Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus will first set out Greek philosophy, to show that the heresies come from it rather than from Scripture.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.20.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Apelles followed Philumene's Revelations, said Christ's flesh came from the world's elements, attacked the Law and Prophets, and denied the resurrection of the flesh.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.10Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The giving of the law proves human free will; God gave it through righteous men and finally through Moses.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.11Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Word, the Father's first-born, governs all things; righteous friends of God became prophets foretelling the future.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.12Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The prophets spoke to all generations, recalling the past, rousing the present, and foretelling the future.
Refutation of All Heresies 4.46.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Some heretics allegorize Aratus's star-lore as images of Scripture.
Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Naassenes treat Homer as their prophet and teach that all things come from three.
Refutation of All Heresies 6.35.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Valentinians say the law and prophets came from the foolish Demiurge, citing John 10:8.
Refutation of All Heresies 6.55.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus will not repeat their allegorical number-readings of Scripture, which Irenaeus already refuted, and says they took them from Pythagoreans and astrologers.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.38.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Apelles rejected the Law and Prophets, picked from the Gospels and Paul, and followed the prophetess Philumene.
Refutation of All Heresies 8.14.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · All knowledge is the ten plagues and ten commandments; even the five books of the Law come from the number five in the iota.
Refutation of All Heresies 8.19.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Phrygians (Montanists) follow Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla as prophets of the Paraclete and claim to learn more from their books than from Scripture.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.22.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · They study the Law, the Prophets, and other writings, and are keen on the healing powers of herbs and stones.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.29.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Sadducees, strong around Samaria, keep only the law of Moses without interpretation and reject the prophets.
On Prayer 13.4Origen · ca. 233–234 · The deliverances in Scripture are types of spiritual gifts; Christians should pray not for earthly things but for fruitfulness of soul and deliverance from spiritual enemies.
On Prayer 14.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The unwritten saying “ask for great and heavenly things, and small and earthly ones will be added” means we should pray for the spiritual realities of which Scripture's stories are types.
On Prayer 14.4Origen · ca. 233–234 · Examples of prayer in the strict sense, offered with glorification: Azarias, Tobit, Hannah, Habakkuk, and Jonah.
On Prayer 16.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · The answered prayers of Hannah, Hezekiah, Esther, Judith, the three youths, Daniel, and Jonah were more spiritual than bodily deliverances.
On Prayer 18.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen suggests that the prayers in Matthew and Luke, given on different occasions, may be two different prayers with parts in common; Mark has none.
On Prayer 2.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · Spiritual prayers written in Scripture, such as Hannah's and the psalms titled “prayer,” are full of the doctrines of God's wisdom.
On Prayer 23.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · To think God is in a bodily place implies he is a body, divisible and corruptible; so passages like God walking in paradise must not be taken literally.
On Prayer 23.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · “In heaven” sets God's being apart from all creatures, though they receive his glory and power; Scripture's language of place must be read spiritually.
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 27.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · As Paul says, milk is for spiritual infants and solid food for the mature; even Romans 14 on eating everything or only vegetables refers mainly to spiritual teaching.
On Prayer 29.10Origen · ca. 233–234 · Even reading Scripture is a temptation: many have misread it and invented a false Father or Son, worshiping a figment instead of the true God.
On the Trinity 17Novatian · ca. 240–250 · Moses agrees with John: the Word through whom God created all things, and who made man in God's image and came down at Babel, is the Son, Christ, who is therefore God.
On the Trinity 19Novatian · ca. 240–250 · Scripture calls the one who spoke to Jacob both Angel and God, and the man who wrestled with Jacob both man and God; these figures point to Christ, who is God and not only man or angel.
On the Trinity 6Novatian · ca. 240–250 · Scripture speaks of God's eyes, hands, and feet to suit the people's understanding; these describe his workings, for God is Spirit, simple, everywhere, and needs no members.
On the Trinity 9Novatian · ca. 240–250 · The rule of truth also requires faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Creator, whom the Old Testament promised in many prophecies of his birth, miracles, passion, resurrection, and reign.
Against Celsus 1.12Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus boasts "I know everything" about Christianity, but he has learned only from ordinary believers, like a traveler who judges Egyptian religion by its common people rather than its priests.
Against Celsus 1.17Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus attacks allegorical reading of Moses though Greek myths about the gods are far more shameful; like Plato's Thrasymachus, he forbids his opponents their true answer.
Against Celsus 1.18Origen · ca. 248 · Compared book with book, Moses' laws help ordinary readers and reward deeper study, and they have spread through the world, while the Greek poets are forgotten.
Against Celsus 1.19Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus implies the world is eternal with repeated floods and fires, but gives no proof; Moses, inspired by God's Spirit, deserves more trust than Plato.
Against Celsus 1.2Origen · ca. 248 · Christianity's Jewish origins are "barbarian," but its truth rests on a divine demonstration of the Spirit (prophecy) and of power (miracles still seen).
Against Celsus 1.34Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus ignored Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin would bear Emmanuel; Origen quotes it and defends the translation "virgin" against the rendering "young woman."
Against Celsus 1.35Origen · ca. 248 · From Isaiah's own words: a birth to a young wife would be no sign; the sign fits a virgin birth, given to the house of David and fulfilled in Christ, who descended and ascended.
Against Celsus 1.36Origen · ca. 248 · God gave Israel prophets, even for small matters, so that they would not turn to pagan divination, which the law forbade.
Against Celsus 1.4Origen · ca. 248 · Christian ethics resembles philosophy's because God wrote the moral law on every heart; the broken and rewritten tablets symbolize sin and renewal.
Against Celsus 1.42Origen · ca. 248 · Almost no history can be strictly proved, and even true stories may contain things to be read figuratively; the Gospels must be read with care and discernment.
Against Celsus 1.43Origen · ca. 248 · A Jew who believes the visions of Ezekiel and Isaiah cannot reject the dove at Jesus' baptism; Jesus' power, still at work in the churches, makes him more credible than the prophets.
Against Celsus 1.44Origen · ca. 248 · The same Spirit that taught Moses about events before his time taught the evangelists about Jesus' baptism; the deeper meaning of the dove is left for another occasion.
Against Celsus 1.45Origen · ca. 248 · Origen recalls telling Jewish scholars that they cannot believe Moses' miracles while rejecting Jesus'; indeed the prophecies of Jesus prove Moses a true prophet.
Against Celsus 1.48Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets' visions and Jesus' opened heavens are perceived by a spiritual "divine sense," not the bodily senses; and Jesus did not boast of his own baptismal vision, which John witnessed.
Against Celsus 1.49Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus ignores the many prophecies of Christ and has his Jew speak of one prophet in Jerusalem announcing a "son of God," which no Jew would say.
Against Celsus 1.50Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets foretold Christ's birthplace, sufferings, resurrection, and miracles, not merely that a judge would come; Origen will cite some of these prophecies.
Against Celsus 1.51Origen · ca. 248 · Micah foretold Bethlehem as the Messiah's birthplace, the cave of the nativity is still shown there, and the Jewish teachers knew the prophecy until they suppressed it after Christ came.
Against Celsus 1.53Origen · ca. 248 · Jacob's prophecy that rule would not leave Judah until the one came who is the nations' expectation is fulfilled in Christ, in whom the nations now hope.
Against Celsus 1.54Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's mockery of Christ's suffering, Origen quotes Isaiah's prophecy of the Servant who would suffer and die for others' sins.
Against Celsus 1.55Origen · ca. 248 · In debate with Jewish scholars who applied Isaiah's Servant to the people of Israel, Origen argued that the Servant who dies for "my people" must be someone else—Jesus Christ.
Against Celsus 2.2Origen · ca. 248 · The "many things" Jesus could not yet tell his Jewish disciples were the spiritual meaning of the law, which the Spirit later taught, as in Peter's vision.
Against Celsus 2.20Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's charge that a foreknowing God made his disciples traitors, Origen argues that foreknowledge does not cause what it foresees, using Judas, the oracle to Laius, and the Stoic “idle argument.”
Against Celsus 2.24Origen · ca. 248 · Origen accuses Celsus of quoting Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane selectively, omitting his submission to the Father's will, as the impious quote “I will kill” without “I will make alive.”
Against Celsus 2.26Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that the disciples could easily have hidden Jesus' distress by not recording it, and that they cannot have been both sincere believers and conscious liars.
Against Celsus 2.27Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers Celsus's charge that Christians rewrote the Gospels: only heretics such as the followers of Marcion and Valentinus did so, and they no more discredit Christianity than bad philosophers discredit philosophy.
Against Celsus 2.28Origen · ca. 248 · Origen criticizes Celsus for dismissing the argument from prophecy without examining a single prophecy, and for putting into a Jew's mouth what no Jew would say.
Against Celsus 2.3Origen · ca. 248 · Jewish Christians like Paul constantly appeal to the law, reading it spiritually; Celsus, writing as an enemy, did not trouble to distinguish the different groups.
Against Celsus 2.32Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers Celsus's objection to Jesus' royal genealogy: poor people can descend from kings, and Celsus ignores the real difficulties about the genealogies that Christians themselves discuss.
Against Celsus 2.37Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers Celsus's mockery of the vinegar and gall by pointing to Psalm 69, which foretold them.
Against Celsus 2.4Origen · ca. 248 · Christians begin from the Jewish Scriptures and honor them more by uncovering their deeper meaning; the gospel's roots in the law, as Jesus and Mark say, do not bind believers to its letter.
Against Celsus 2.53Origen · ca. 248 · Origen shows that every objection Celsus's Jew raises against Jesus' warning about false wonder-workers can be turned against Moses, who gave a similar warning in Deuteronomy.
Against Celsus 2.54Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Celsus's Jew mocks Jesus' foretelling of his resurrection, yet Moses too wrote of his own mysterious, unknown burial.
Against Celsus 2.58Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Christians count the Greek tales as myths but the shared Scriptures as true, and that Jesus' resurrection, worked by the Father himself, has had far greater effects than those worked by Elijah and Elisha.
Against Celsus 2.6Origen · ca. 248 · Even if Jesus kept the Jewish customs, he is still the Son of the God who gave the law, which the prophets themselves teach has a hidden meaning.
Against Celsus 2.69Origen · ca. 248 · Origen explains that Jesus' death and burial carry symbolic meaning for believers, who die and are buried with him in baptism, that his new rock-hewn tomb signifies his purity, and that vanishing from the cross would only have drawn other objections.
Against Celsus 2.74Origen · ca. 248 · Answering the claim that no god present among people is disbelieved, Origen points out that Israel disbelieved God's own manifest presence in the Exodus and made the golden calf, so their unbelief toward Jesus is in character.
Against Celsus 2.75Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Jews' rejection of Jesus matches their ancestors' unbelief in the wilderness, fulfilling Jesus' words and the prophecy of Deuteronomy about “your life hanging before your eyes.”
Against Celsus 2.76Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers that Jesus' “woes” are no different from God's in the prophets and the curses of the Law, spoken to bring people to repentance, and that even Greek sages could not persuade everyone.
Against Celsus 2.78Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Jesus did not come to cause the Jews' unbelief but foresaw it, and that God's providence used it to call the Gentiles, as the prophets and Paul foretold.
Against Celsus 3.11Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Christians disagreed from the beginning, as the apostolic dispute over Gentile believers and Paul's letters show, so divisions are not a later corruption caused by numbers.
Against Celsus 3.18Origen · ca. 248 · Origen says Celsus credits Egyptian animal worship with hidden meaning but knows nothing of the wisdom and knowledge given by the Spirit to learned Christians.
Against Celsus 3.19Origen · ca. 248 · Origen objects that Celsus allows hidden meanings in Egyptian animal cults but denies any in Christian teaching, though Paul speaks of hidden wisdom taught to the mature.
Against Celsus 3.2Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Jewish prophecies of Christ are no trifle, and that a nation taught to reject pagan oracles must have had genuine prophets to keep it from turning to them.
Against Celsus 3.20Origen · ca. 248 · Origen challenges Celsus to read Paul's letters attentively, confident that he would either admire Paul's profound thought in plain language or make himself ridiculous.
Against Celsus 3.21Origen · ca. 248 · Origen points to the depth of the Gospels, with parables explained only to those “in the house” and Jesus' ascents of the mountain, as proof that Christianity's inner teaching is nothing like Egyptian animal worship.
Against Celsus 3.3Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that Israel's faithfulness under persecution shows it had genuine signs and prophecies from God, since otherwise it would have turned to the pagan oracles and healing gods.
Against Celsus 3.33Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the tale of Cleomedes vanishing from a chest, even if true, served no purpose, whereas Jesus' divinity is shown by the churches, the prophecies, the healings, and the wisdom found in Scripture.
Against Celsus 3.39Origen · ca. 248 · Origen agrees that faith produces Christian assent, but argues that the plain, guileless Gospel writers could not have invented such a teaching, and that Jesus chose them so that their power would clearly be divine, not rhetorical.
Against Celsus 3.4Origen · ca. 248 · Origen insists that the debate over the meaning of the prophecies is serious, since both Jews and Christians rightly accept that the prophets spoke from God.
Against Celsus 3.45Origen · ca. 248 · Origen shows from the Old Testament, from David, Solomon, Hosea, Daniel, and Ezekiel, that God's word wants believers to be wise.
Against Celsus 3.46Origen · ca. 248 · The New Testament too values wisdom: Jesus explained the parables privately to his disciples, promised to send wise men, and Paul ranked the word of wisdom first among the gifts, while Stephen praised Moses' learning.
Against Celsus 3.47Origen · ca. 248 · Paul's criticism of the “wisdom of the world” targets materialist doctrines, not wisdom itself; he even admits that Greek sages knew God from the created world.
Against Celsus 3.5Origen · ca. 248 · Origen rejects Celsus's claim that the Jews were rebel Egyptians, replying that the Egyptians oppressed the Hebrew guests, were punished by God, and slandered Moses, who was a pious lawgiver and truthful historian.
Against Celsus 3.50Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus likens Christian teachers to marketplace showmen who avoid the wise; Origen replies that Christians exhort people to piety and virtue, as Cynic philosophers also preached publicly without blame.
Against Celsus 3.52Origen · ca. 248 · Origen denies Celsus's comparison: Christians seek intelligent hearers and share their deeper teaching with them, while giving only “milk” to the simpler.
Against Celsus 3.53Origen · ca. 248 · Paul distinguished milk for beginners from solid food for the mature, which shows that Christians do not parade their highest teachings before the ignorant.
Against Celsus 3.58Origen · ca. 248 · Christians speak freely before good fathers and teachers; they turn youths away only from immoral teachers, and they build on a good philosophical education to lead students to the deeper wisdom of the prophets and apostles.
Against Celsus 3.6Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Hebrews cannot have been rebel Egyptians, since they had their own language and script before going to Egypt, in which Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
Against Celsus 3.72Origen · ca. 248 · True wisdom, defined as knowledge of divine and human things or as the radiance of God's glory, never leads people away from Christ; only sophistry falsely called wisdom does.
Against Celsus 3.73Origen · ca. 248 · Like lawgivers who legislated for ordinary people too, God through Jesus leads even the unintelligent to better lives, while the “wise” who fell into idolatry are put to shame.
Against Celsus 3.74Origen · ca. 248 · Every philosopher, like Christians, seeks to win “fools” in the sense of the morally bad, as a doctor seeks the sick; but Christians especially seek sharp minds able to grasp the hidden meanings of Scripture.
Against Celsus 4.1Origen · ca. 248 · Origen opens Book 4 with a prayer, asking for words like Jeremiah's to uproot Celsus's errors and to build up the truth, and turns to Celsus's attack on the prophecies of Christ.
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 4.2Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks both Christians and Jews for expecting a divine judge to come to earth, but he never engages the actual prophecies about Christ; and Jews do not say the coming Messiah is God.
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 4.30Origen · 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 4.31Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's claim that the Jews were insignificant runaways, Origen praises ancient Israel as a shadow of heavenly life: worshiping one God, banning images, prostitutes, and effeminacy, with just judges and Sabbaths devoted to hearing God's law.
Against Celsus 4.34Origen · ca. 248 · The power of the patriarchs' names in exorcism can only be explained from Genesis, and their Hebrew names prove that the Jewish nation truly descends from them.
Against Celsus 4.35Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus should have argued properly against the Jewish genealogy instead of hinting; no one can prove the patriarchs contemptible or claim their Hebrew names for another people.
Against Celsus 4.36Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus ridicules Genesis's creation of man and woman as tasteless compared with Hesiod, but Moses is far older than Hesiod, and even Plato banished such poets from his ideal state.
Against Celsus 4.37Origen · ca. 248 · Genesis never speaks of God's “hands” in creating man; such expressions, like God's wings, are figurative, and God's “breathing” into Adam means sharing his incorruptible Spirit.
Against Celsus 4.38Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks the creation of Eve from Adam's rib but admires Hesiod's myth of Pandora as allegory; Origen quotes Hesiod at length to show which story is more laughable read literally, and asks why only the Jews may not speak in allegory.
Against Celsus 4.39Origen · ca. 248 · Origen sets the story of paradise and the serpent beside Plato's myth of Eros born of Poros and Penia in the garden of Zeus, arguing that both must be read for their hidden meaning, and suggests Plato may have learned from Jewish teaching in Egypt.
Against Celsus 4.40Origen · ca. 248 · The story of Adam concerns human nature as a whole: “Adam” means “man,” and in him all die; the garments of skin carry a mystical meaning deeper than Plato's image of the soul losing its wings.
Against Celsus 4.41Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls Noah's ark monstrous but does not even know its true objection; Origen describes the ark as a marvel, built over a hundred years, tapering to a single cubit, vast in area, and preserving the seeds of all animals.
Against Celsus 4.42Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus garbles the raven of Genesis into a crow and claims the flood story was copied from Deucalion's, yet the Jewish Scriptures were meant to come to light, as Jesus himself foretold.
Against Celsus 4.43Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus sneers at Genesis's family stories and at Jacob's flocks, but these events happened as types written for Christians; Jacob's marked flocks signify believers from the nations.
Against Celsus 4.44Origen · ca. 248 · The patriarchs' wells, marriages, and unions with maidservants carry spiritual meaning, as Paul himself allegorized Sarah and Hagar in Galatians, though the wells were also real.
Against Celsus 4.45Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls Lot and his daughters worse than Thyestes; Origen, noting that Scripture neither praises nor blames them, observes that the Stoics defend such an act in a hypothetical end of the world, which Lot's daughters believed had come.
Against Celsus 4.47Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus lists the story of Joseph, his dreams, his kindness to his brothers, and the settlement in Goshen as if they were shameful, but gives no argument against any of it.
Against Celsus 4.48Origen · ca. 248 · If any stories deserve shame, it is the Greek myths of gods castrating and devouring one another, which even Chrysippus allegorized obscenely; Christians therefore refuse to call God “Zeus” or give the sun and moon divine names.
Against Celsus 4.49Origen · ca. 248 · The biblical writers themselves read their histories figuratively: Paul allegorizes the ox, marriage, the Red Sea, the manna, and the rock, and the psalmist calls Israel's history parables and riddles.
Against Celsus 4.50Origen · ca. 248 · The psalmist's prayer to see the wonders of God's law and the strange images of the prophets, like Ezekiel's dragon of Egypt, show that Scripture has hidden meanings; the Greek myths, by contrast, are silly and impious.
Against Celsus 4.51Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus evidently never read the Jewish allegorists Philo and Aristobulus, whose work would impress Greek philosophers; even the Pythagorean Numenius quoted and allegorized Moses, the prophets, and a story about Jesus.
Against Celsus 4.52Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus singles out the simple Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus as contemptible, and offers his own view that God made only immortal things and that human bodies do not differ from those of bats or frogs; Origen invites readers to judge the dialogue themselves.
Against Celsus 4.53Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus contradicts himself in calling the dialogue worthy of both pity and hatred; Scripture's writers were sincere witnesses, and no teaching improves people as effectively as faith that God sees every word, deed, and thought.
Against Celsus 4.54Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus borrows from Plato's Timaeus the claim that God made only souls and lesser gods made bodies, but he gives no argument, whereas the Stoics and reason point to one God who made all things for a purpose.
Against Celsus 4.55Origen · ca. 248 · Had Celsus read Genesis carefully, he would have noticed that “God made” is used for some creatures and not others, and asked to whom God's creative commands were addressed, rather than dismissing the account as meaningless.
Against Celsus 4.56Origen · ca. 248 · If all bodies are the same because they share one matter, then human bodies are no different from the sun and stars, which the Greeks call gods; unless Celsus adopts Aristotle's fifth element, which Platonists and Stoics reject and which Scripture's perishing heavens contradict.
Against Celsus 4.58Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus does not say whether every soul or only the rational soul is God's work; either way, since each body corresponds to its soul, a human body must differ from that of a bat or frog.
Against Celsus 4.60Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's claim that all bodies share one changing nature applies equally to the heavenly bodies; whether matter itself endures depends on whether it is unbegotten or created, a question of natural philosophy Origen leaves aside.
Against Celsus 4.61Origen · ca. 248 · If nothing born of matter is immortal, then the world is either not born of matter or not immortal; either way Celsus's position leads to contradictions he cannot resolve.
Against Celsus 4.7Origen · ca. 248 · God did not neglect humanity before Christ: in every generation his wisdom entered holy souls and made them friends of God and prophets.
Against Celsus 4.71Origen · ca. 248 · As we speak simply to small children, God's Word in Scripture speaks of God in human terms for the weak, while the spiritual find a deeper sense in the same words.
Against Celsus 4.72Origen · ca. 248 · God's 'wrath' is not a passion but a figure for his stern discipline of sinners, as comparison of Scripture shows, just as his 'sleep' is not literal.
Against Celsus 4.8Origen · ca. 248 · Why Christ came at a particular time is a deep mystery, tied to God's allotment of the nations to angels and of Israel to himself, and to his later gift of all nations to the Son.
Against Celsus 4.87Origen · ca. 248 · Animals' fixed instincts show nature, not reason, at work; even Solomon's praise of the wise ants in Proverbs is a riddle with a hidden sense, as Jesus spoke in 'proverbs.'
Against Celsus 4.95Origen · ca. 248 · True foreknowledge comes through God inspiring pure human prophets, not through animals; Moses forbade augury, and Christians guard their hearts so that only God's Spirit shapes their imagination.
Against Celsus 5.29Origen · ca. 248 · The allotting of lands to gods, half-remembered in Greek and Egyptian lore, is taught truly by Moses: God divided the nations among his angels at Babel but kept Israel as his own portion; the deeper meaning is a mystery not to be exposed.
Against Celsus 5.30Origen · ca. 248 · Origen reads Babel as a hidden account of souls that leave the 'east' of divine light, build pridefully with material things, and are handed over, according to their guilt, to angels who assign them languages and lands.
Against Celsus 5.31Origen · ca. 248 · Continuing the allegory, Israel is the people that stayed in the 'east' under the Lord's own care; their growing sins led to exile among other nations, after which their Lord in turn drew people from the nations to himself.
Against Celsus 5.54Origen · ca. 248 · Only heretics like Apelles, Marcion's pupil, say Jesus alone came from God; Celsus garbled his story of the fallen angels from the Book of Enoch, which the churches do not accept as divine Scripture.
Against Celsus 5.55Origen · ca. 248 · Origen mentions an earlier interpreter who read the 'sons of God' and 'daughters of men' of Genesis 6 as souls desiring bodies, and mocks Celsus's claim that hot springs are fallen angels' tears, since tears are salty.
Against Celsus 5.56Origen · ca. 248 · The Gospels' one angel and two angels at Jesus' tomb do not contradict each other, since they describe different moments; their deeper meaning belongs to commentary on the Gospels.
Against Celsus 5.59Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus notes that the 'great church' shares the Jews' God and Genesis; Origen agrees, corrects Celsus's reading of God's 'rest' on the seventh day, and notes his silence about the plagues of Egypt.
Against Celsus 5.60Origen · ca. 248 · Christians and Jews agree the Scriptures are inspired but differ in interpretation: for Christians the literal law is veiled until one turns to the Lord, who is the Spirit, and sees its hidden glory.
Against Celsus 6.16Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Jesus garbled Plato's saying about the rich, but Origen finds it absurd that the unlettered Jesus read Plato, and hints at the deeper meaning of the camel and the needle.
Against Celsus 6.18Origen · ca. 248 · Origen says the prophets hold loftier thoughts about God than the passage from Plato Celsus quotes, but declines to expound the mysteries of the seraphim and cherubim here.
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 6.2Origen · ca. 248 · Plain Scripture has helped far more people than Plato's polished prose, because God gives power to those who preach, as Paul and the Psalms say.
Against Celsus 6.21Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture speaks of “heavens” but never of seven; for the soul's passage between earth and heaven Origen points to Jacob's ladder rather than to the planetary path of Plato and Celsus.
Against Celsus 6.23Origen · ca. 248 · For a deeper teaching on the soul's ascent Origen points to Ezekiel's temple gates, the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation, and Israel's camps in Numbers, and insists Scripture never mentions seven heavens.
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 6.37Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's jibe about a “cliff of life” fits only the inventors of the Ophite myths, not the Church, whose teachings are understood by those who give their lives to studying Scripture.
Against Celsus 6.43Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that the Bible, older than all the Greek writers, already taught about the fallen evil one: the serpent of Genesis, the destroyer of Exodus, Azazel, Belial, Satan in Job, and the figures lamented in Ezekiel and Isaiah.
Against Celsus 6.44Origen · ca. 248 · Only God is good by nature; creatures who neglect the bread of life fall, and Satan, the “adversary,” is the first being who fell from blessedness, as Ezekiel describes.
Against Celsus 6.49Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus dismisses the Genesis creation story as silly without argument; Origen points to his own commentaries on Genesis and insists that Moses wrote with deep meaning, not as a comic poet.
Against Celsus 6.5Origen · ca. 248 · The Bible spoke of God's light kindled in the soul long before Plato, and unlike Plato's words its plain speech has actually made readers devout.
Against Celsus 6.50Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls the creation account nonsense without argument; Origen notes that Moses himself shows the six “days” are not ordinary days, since light and the sun came after the first day.
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 6.58Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus misrepresents the flood story as God repenting and hating his work; Origen says the threat was meant to convert and the flood purified the earth, as even Plato said.
Against Celsus 6.6Origen · ca. 248 · Like Plato, who said the deepest truths cannot be written for the many, the prophets, Paul, and Jesus himself knew things they deliberately did not write down.
Against Celsus 6.60Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus again mocks the six days of creation, and Origen again answers that the Father made the world through the Word and that the “days” are not literal periods of time.
Against Celsus 6.62Origen · ca. 248 · God has no literal mouth or voice; his “voice” is perceived spiritually, and none of our categories fit him, for, as the prophets say, God does not change.
Against Celsus 6.7Origen · ca. 248 · Moses and the prophets could not have borrowed from Plato, who lived later, and Scripture itself commends searching inquiry and argument.
Against Celsus 6.70Origen · ca. 248 · God's Spirit is not a body but is shared with the worthy; Scripture calls God fire and spirit figuratively, and Jesus taught worship in spirit and truth rather than through bodily rites.
Against Celsus 6.75Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says a divine being would have looked impressive, whereas Jesus was said to be small and ugly; Origen notes Isaiah says he had no beauty, but a Psalm speaks of his beauty too.
Against Celsus 6.76Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus accepts Isaiah's prophecy of Jesus' plain appearance but ignores the Transfiguration and the Psalm on his beauty, and in accepting the prophecy he concedes that Jesus fulfilled it.
Against Celsus 6.77Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus appeared differently to different people according to what they could bear, and this points to the Word of God and the Scriptures, which seem plain to the many but are transfigured in glory for those who climb higher.
Against Celsus 7.10Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets spoke plainly what was needed for moral reform, and veiled their deeper teaching in riddles and parables for diligent seekers; Celsus calls them madmen because he did not understand them.
Against Celsus 7.11Origen · ca. 248 · Origen has explained the obscure prophecies in his commentaries; the prophets can be understood by those wise in Christ, and Celsus's claim to have heard and exposed such prophets himself is unsupported.
Against Celsus 7.12Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not merely appeal to fulfilled prophecy but also explain apparent difficulties in Scripture; Celsus charges the prophets with shameful things without quoting a single example.
Against Celsus 7.14Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says fulfilled prophecy proves nothing if what is foretold is unworthy of God; Origen replies that he should instead have tried to show that the prophecies were not in fact fulfilled in Jesus.
Against Celsus 7.18Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus sets Moses' promises of wealth and conquest against Jesus' teaching on poverty and non-retaliation, but Origen replies that the law's promises were never meant literally, since the righteous prophets lived in poverty.
Against Celsus 7.19Origen · ca. 248 · The law's promises of rule and the slaughter of enemies cannot be meant literally, as a Psalm about killing all sinners every morning shows.
Against Celsus 7.2Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims that Christians who keep the God of the Jews can only fall back on prophecy, and Origen turns to defend the prophets.
Against Celsus 7.20Origen · ca. 248 · The law is twofold, the letter and the spiritual meaning; as Ezekiel and Paul show, the letter kills but the spiritual sense gives life, and so the law is both “not good” and “holy.”
Against Celsus 7.21Origen · ca. 248 · The law's promise of wealth and rule is fulfilled spiritually in people like Paul, rich in knowledge, who “lent” the gospel to many nations and ruled them by the Word.
Against Celsus 7.22Origen · ca. 248 · The commands to kill enemies are to be read spiritually: the righteous destroy sinful thoughts, and the “infants of Babylon” dashed on the rock are the first stirrings of sin crushed against Christ.
Against Celsus 7.3Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus prefers the Greek oracles to the Hebrew prophets, but Origen argues that even if the oracles are genuine they come from evil spirits, since the Pythian priestess received her spirit in a shameful way and prophesied in frenzy.
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 7.34Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not expect to see, hear, or touch God with bodily senses; Scripture speaks of spiritual eyes, ears, and hands, and of a “divine sense.”
Against Celsus 7.39Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus insults martyrs as cowards and body-lovers, and thinks the idea of the soul's eye is Greek; Origen shows it already in Genesis and in Jesus' words about the blind seeing and the seeing becoming blind.
Against Celsus 7.4Origen · ca. 248 · The Hebrew prophets were made clearer in mind and soul by the Holy Spirit, whereas the Pythia's frenzy shows a demonic spirit, the kind that even simple Christians drive out by prayer.
Against Celsus 7.50Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture teaches more clearly than Celsus that becoming involves error: newborns need a sin offering, creation is subject to vanity, and the soul's life here is lowly compared with life with the Lord.
Against Celsus 7.59Origen · ca. 248 · A true doctrine is not discredited because Greeks also said it; as a wholesome food prepared for the many does more good than a delicacy for the few, so plain teaching for all is better than refined teaching for a few.
Against Celsus 7.60Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets and apostles, like Plato learning a foreign tongue to help foreigners, spoke plainly so as to reach the multitudes, while their words still hold deeper meanings for those who study them.
Against Celsus 7.7Origen · ca. 248 · The Hebrew prophets were chosen for their courageous, self-denying lives, suffering for the truth, and their prophecies of Christ come from God's Spirit, unlike the demonic oracles.
Against Celsus 7.8Origen · ca. 248 · The Hebrew prophets spoke long before Christ, no true prophets have arisen among the Jews since, and the Holy Spirit's signs, abundant in the apostolic age, remain now among a few purified Christians.
Against Celsus 8.3Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus' saying that no one can serve two masters is sound; Scripture speaks of an assembly of gods, not the demons of the nations, over whom the one God rules as God of gods.
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 8.45Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus lists the benefits and punishments said to come from pagan oracles and shrines; Origen asks why these should be believed and the biblical miracles called myths, when even Greek philosophers doubted the oracles.
Against Celsus 8.46Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture records better-attested versions of everything Celsus claims for oracles: the Exodus led by prophecy, children given to Abraham and Sarah, Hezekiah, and the Shunammite, healings by Jesus, and punishment of those who profaned the temple.
Against Celsus 8.47Origen · ca. 248 · If one weighs the wonders of Greeks, Jews, and Christians by their purpose and results, the Christian ones stand out: unlettered apostles could not have converted people from ancestral customs without real divine power and miracles.
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 1Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · The gospel's teachings, spoken by the Son himself, guide believers to heaven.
On the Lord's Prayer 28Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · As Isaiah foretold, Christ gave a short word: brief summaries of eternal life, the law, and prayer.