Tatian — Address to the Greeks 11

How then am I to accept a birth under fate, when I see such “managers” of it? I do not want to be king. I do not want to be rich. I have refused generalship. I have hated fornication. I do not sail for greed. I do not compete for crowns. I am free of glory-madness. I despise death. I rise above every kind of sickness. Grief does not consume my soul.

If I am a slave, I endure slavery; if I am free, I do not boast of noble birth. I see one sun for all, and one death for all through pleasure and lack. We were not made in order to die — we die through ourselves. Self-determining power (τὸ αὐτεξούσιον) ruined us; we who were free became slaves; we were sold through sin. God made nothing base; we displayed the wickedness — and those who displayed it are also able to refuse it again.