Tertullian Quotes
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Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die.
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If we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead originals, with which hawks, and mice, and spiders are so well acquainted, does it not merit praise instead of penalty Christians were punished for not worshiping Roman gods that we have rejected what we have come to see is error? We cannot surely be made out to injure those whom we are certain are nonentities. What does not exist is in its nonexistence secure from suffering.
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Whatever is born is the work of God. So whatever is plastered on, is the devil's work.... How unworthy of the Christian name it is to wear a fictitious face - you on whom simplicity in every form is enjoined! You, to whom lying with the tongue is not lawful, are lying in appearance.
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We worship unity in trinity, and trinity in unity; neither confounding the person nor dividing the substance. There is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.
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Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money.
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The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the soul may be fattened on God.
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It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of those who oppose us.
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The Lord's Prayer "is truly the summary of the whole gospel." "Since the Lord...after handling over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, 'Ask and you will receive,' and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer (the Lord's Prayer) is said first, as the foundation of further desires.
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It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.
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Patience ornaments the woman and proves the man.
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The soul whose bosom lust did never touch Is God's fair bride; and maiden's souls are such.
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The whole fruit is already present in the seed.
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He has inhibited discussion by designating admonition as the method of dealing with a heretic- and the first method, too, because he is not a Christian. This is so that he would not seem to require correction again and again and before two or three witnesses as though he were a Christian. He ought to be corrected for the very reason that he is not to be disputed with. In addition, this is said because a controversy over the Scriptures can, clearly, produce no other effect than help to upset either the stomach or the brain.
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Indeed it is better to postpone, lest either we complete too little by hurrying, or wander too long in completing it.
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Custom without truth is error grown old.
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The usual complaint is, 'I have no other way of earning a living.' The harsh reply can be, 'Do you have to live?'
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The nature of rumor is well known to all. It was your own poet who said: 'Rumor, an evil surpassing all evils in speed.'
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The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three ... not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
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It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions.
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For what war should we not be fit and eager, even though unequal in numbers, we who are so willing to be slaughtered-if, according to that discipline of ours, it was not more lawful to be slain than to slay?
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Christ, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.
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The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
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Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.