Tertullian Quotes
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For it is really better for us not to know a thing, because God has not revealed it to us, than to know it according to man’s wisdom, because he has been bold enough to assume it.
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He who flees will fight again.
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How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause.
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Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame.
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Discipline is an index to doctrine.
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In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier mankilling; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in the seed.
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The Law found more than it lost when Christ said, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven’ (Matthew 5:44-45). This most important commandment summarizes in a word the universal discipline of patience, since it does not allow us to do evil even to people who deserve it.
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I revere the fullness of His Scripture, in which He manifests to me both the Creator and creation. In the gospel moreover, I discover a Minister and Witness of the Creator, even His Word.
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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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It is to believed because it is absurd.
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The blood of Christians is seed.
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What is nobler than to tread under foot the gods of the nations, to exorcise evil spirits, to perform cures, to seek divine revelations, and to live to God? These are the pleasures - these are the spectacles - that befit Christian men.
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And when will there be an end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living.
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What has Athens to do with Jerusalem.
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Enoch predicted that "the demons and the spirits of the angelic apostates would turn into idolatry all the elements, all the adornment of the universe, and all things contained in the heaven, the sea, and the earth, that they might be consecrated as God in opposition to God." All things, therefore, does human error worship, except the Founder of all himself. The images of those things are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry.
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Where our joy is, there should our work be.
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Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy.
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Now then, you dogs, whom the apostle puts outside and who yelp at the God of truth, let us come to your various questions.
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Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?
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Those who fled will fight another time.
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The Christian does not hurt even his enemy.
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Men remain in ignorance as long as they hate, and they hate unjustly as long as they remain in ignorance.
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But now inquiry is being made concerning these issues. First, can any believer enlist in the military? Second, can any soldier, even those of the rank and file or lesser grades who neither engage in pagan sacrifices nor capital punishment, be admitted into the church? No on both counts.
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The Word, then, the Christ, is the cause both of our ancient beginning, for lie was in God, and of our well-being. And now this same Word has appeared as man. He alone is both God and man, and the source of all our good things.