“O greatest, O Supreme Creator of things invisible! O You who are Yourself unseen, and who are incomprehensible! You are worthy, You are verily worthy — if only mortal tongue may speak of You — that all breathing and intelligent nature should never cease to feel and to return thanks; that it should throughout the whole of life fall on bended knee, and offer supplication with never-ceasing prayers. For You are the first cause; in You created things exist, and You are the space in which rest the foundations of all things, whatever they be. You are illimitable, unbegotten, immortal, enduring for aye, God Yourself alone, whom no bodily shape may represent, no outline delineate; of virtues inexpressible, of greatness indefinable; unrestricted as to locality, movement, and condition, concerning whom nothing can be clearly expressed by the significance of man’s words. That You may he understood, we must be silent; and that erring conjecture may track You through the shady cloud, no word must be uttered. Grant pardon, O King Supreme, to those who persecute Your servants; and in virtue of Your benign nature, forgive those who fly from the worship of Your name and the observance of Your religion. It is not to be wondered at if You are unknown; it is a cause of greater astonishment if You are clearly comprehended.  But perchance some one dares — for this remains for frantic madness to do — to be uncertain, and to express doubt whether that God exists or not; whether He is believed in on the proved truth of reliable evidence, or on the imaginings of empty rumour. For of those who have given themselves to philosophizing, we have heard that some deny the existence of any divine power, that others inquire daily whether there be or not; that others construct the whole fabric of the universe by chance accidents and by random collision, and fashion it by the concourse of atoms of different shapes; with whom we by no means intend to enter at this time on a discussion of such perverse convictions. For those who think wisely say, that to argue against things palpably foolish, is a mark of greater folly.”

-Against the Heathen 1:31.  (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6.  Translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell.  Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.)

“But He died nailed to the cross. What is that to the argument? For neither does the kind and disgrace of the death change His words or deeds, nor will the weight of His teaching appear less; because He freed Himself from the shackles of the body, not by a natural separation, but departed by reason of violence offered to Him. Pythagoras of Samos was burned to death in a temple, under an unjust suspicion of aiming at sovereign power. Did his doctrines lose their peculiar influence, because he breathed forth his life not willingly, but in consequence of a savage assault? In like manner Socrates, condemned by the decision of his fellow citizens, suffered capital punishment: have his discussions on morals, on virtues, and on duties been rendered vain, because he was unjustly hurried from life? Others without number, conspicuous by their renown, their merit, and their public character, have experienced the most cruel forums of death, as Aquilius, Trebonius, and Regulus: were they on that account adjudged base after death, because they perished not by the common law of the fates, but after being mangled and tortured in the most cruel kind of death? No innocent person foully slain is ever disgraced thereby; nor is he stained by the mark of any baseness, who suffers severe punishment, not from his own deserts, but by reason of the savage nature of his persecutor.”

-Against the Heathen 1:40.  (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6.  Translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell.  Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.)

“For it is known that Christ, either by applying His hand to the parts affected, or by the command of His voice only, opened the ears of the deaf, drove away blindness from the eyes, gave speech to the dumb, loosened the rigidity of the joints, gave the power of walking to the shrivelled — was wont to heal by a word and by an order, leprosies, agues, dropsies, and all other kinds of ailments, which some fell power has willed that the bodies of men should endure. What act like these have all these gods done, by whom you allege that help has been brought to the sick and the imperilled?”

-Against the Heathen 1:48.  (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6.  Translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell.  Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.)

“You bring forward arguments against us, and speculative quibblings, which — may I say this without displeasing Him — if Christ Himself were to use in the gatherings of the nations, who would assent? Who would listen? Who would say that He decided anything clearly? Or who, though he were rash and utterly credulous, would follow Him when pouring forth vain and baseless statements? His virtues have been made manifest to you, and that unheard-of power over things, whether that which was openly exercised by Him or that which was used over the whole world by those who proclaimed Him: it has subdued the fires of passion, and caused races, and peoples, and nations most diverse in character to hasten with one accord to accept the same faith. For the deeds can be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India, among the Seres, Persians, and Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria; among the Galatians, Parthians, Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus; in all islands and provinces on which the rising and setting sun shines; in Rome herself, finally, the mistress of the world, in which, although men are busied with the practices introduced by king Numa, and the superstitious observances of antiquity, they have nevertheless hastened to give up their fathers’ mode of life, and attach themselves to Christian truth. For they had seen the chariot of Simon Magus, and his fiery car, blown into pieces by the mouth of Peter, and vanish when Christ was named.”

 -Against the Heathen 2:12.  (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6.  Translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell.  Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.)

“But if souls were, as is said, the Lord’s children, and begotten by the Supreme Power, nothing would have been wanting to make them perfect, as they would have been born with the most perfect excellence: they would all have had one mind, and been of one accord; they would always dwell in the royal palace. . .”

-Against the Heathen 2:37.  (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6.  Translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell.  Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.)