Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers First Series, Volume X

Top Highlights

“‘What then!’ say you: ‘if one commit fornication, may I not say that fornication is a bad thing, nor at all correct him that is playing the wanton?’ Nay, correct him, but not as a foe, nor as an adversary exacting a penalty, but as a physician providing medicines. For neither did Christ say, ‘stay not him that is sinning,’ but ‘judge not;’ that is, be not bitter in pronouncing sentence.” (Page 158)

“For not by laboring and sweating, not by fatigue and suffering, but merely as being beloved of God, we received what we have received.” (Page 2)

“And like as if thou shouldest take any part from the side of an animal, even in that part thou wouldest find all the things out of which the whole is composed;—nerves and veins, bones, arteries, and blood, and a sample, as one might say, of the whole lump;—so likewise with regard to the Scriptures; in each portion of what is there stated, one may see the connexion with the whole clearly appearing.” (Page 4)

“Now if twelve men leavened the whole world, imagine how great our baseness, in that when we being so many are not able to amend them that remain; we, who ought to be enough for ten thousand worlds, and to become leaven to them.” (Page 290)

“But what is the answer to these charges? ‘I am not,’ you will say, ‘one of the monks, but I have both a wife and children, and the care of a household.’ Why, this is what hath ruined all, your supposing that the reading of the divine Scriptures appertains to those only, when ye need it much more than they. For they that dwell in the world,³ and each day receive wounds, these have most need of medicines.” (Page 13)