The Last Things
Where the souls of the dead are between death and the final resurrection.
Some who are thought to have believed rightly nevertheless overstep the order of the just's promotion and ignore the modes of meditation that lead to incorruptibility, because they harbor heretical notions.
If some have tried to allegorize these matters, they will not be found consistent with themselves in every respect, and the very words they discuss will convict them.
God caused every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food to spring from the earth. At the beginning only the vegetation created on the third day existed—plants, seeds, and grasses—yet the growth in Paradise was fashioned with a distinct beauty and loveliness, so that the very planting was called by God a…
Ἐξανατείλας οὖν ὁ θεὸς ἐκ τῆς γῆς ἔτι πᾶν ξύλον, ὡραῖον εἰς ὅρασιν καὶ καλὸν εἰς βρῶσιν. Ἐν γὰρ πρώτοις μόνα ᾖν τὰ ἐν τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ γεγενημένα, φυτὰ καὶ σπέρματα καὶ χλόαι· τὰ δὲ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ ἐγενήθη διαφόρῳ καλλονῇ καὶ ὡραιότητι, ὅκου γε καὶ φυτεία ὠνόμασται ὑπὸ θεοῦ…
We must now restore what follows and demonstrate more clearly the Greek appropriation of barbarian philosophy. The Stoics claim that God is a body and spirit in essence, just as they also claim the soul is. You will find all these points plainly in the Scriptures.
τὰ δ’ ἑξῆς προςαποδοτέον καὶ τὴν ἐκ τῆς βαρβάρου φιλοσοφίας Ελληνικὴν κλοπὴν σαφέστερον ἤδη παραστατέον. Φασὶ γὰρ σῶμα εἶναι τὸν θεὸν οἱ Στωϊκοὶ καὶ πνεῦμα κατ’ οὐσίαν, ὥσπερ ἀμέλει καὶ τὴν ψυχήν. πάντα ταῦτα ἄντικρυς εὑρήσεις ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς.
Let us now move forward and define the heart of the matter with precision. Why should anyone think that God—the Founder of the universe, the Governor of the world, the Shaper of man, the Sower of all nations—gave his law through Moses to a single people and withheld it from the rest?
Since you wanted to learn accurately the topics you proposed to us, my beloved brother Theophilus, I considered it right to set before your eyes the matters you seek, drawing abundantly from the divine Scriptures as from a holy spring, so that you might rejoice not only by hearing with your ears, but also, having been…
Βουληϑέντι σοι zart ἀχρίβειαν ἐχμαϑεῖν τὰ προτεϑέντα ὑπι σοῦ ἡμῖν κεφάλαια, ἀγαπητέ μου ἀδελφὲ Θεόφιλε, εὔλογον ἡγησάμην, ἀφϑόνως ἀρυσάμενος ὡς ἐὲ ἁγίας πηγῆς ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν ϑείων γραφῶν καταστῆσαί σοι κατ᾽ ὀφϑαλμὸν τὰ ζητούμενα" ἵνα μὴ μόνον ταῖς τῶν ὥτων ἀχοαῖς ἐγκαταϑέμενος…
On the other hand, if someone strives to care for or provide for something that benefits everyone, whether by consulting for the state, obeying authorities, or doing something else that seems to be of common benefit, they exercise this inclination.
I ask both the philosophers living today — those I know personally and those I have heard about from others — and everyone else to listen to what I am saying now without bias.
᾿Ἐξαιτοῦμαι δὲ παρά τε φιλοσόφων τῶν νῦν ὄντων, σοὺυς αὐτὸς ἔγνων καὶ ὃσους ἄλλων διηγουμένων ἤκουσα, καὶ παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων δὲ ἀνθρώπων, ἀνεμεσήτως ἔχειν πρὸς τὰ νῦν ἡμῖν λεγόμενα.
I frequently despised you, Demetriane, because you kept opening your sacrilegious mouth and shouting impious words against the one true God. I judged it more proper to scorn the ignorance of the erring in silence than to provoke the madness of a demented man by speaking, and I did not act without the authority of…
From the Discourse on the Resurrection. I. Read the Book on the Resurrection by St.
1. The Word which is ungrudgingly sent down from heaven, is fitted for the irrigation of our hearts, if we have been prepared for His power, not by speaking only, but by listening. For as the rain without the ground does not produce fruit, so neither does the Word fructify without hearing, nor hearing without the Word.
Later, when God saw the earth filled with malice and crimes, He decided to destroy the human race with a flood. Still, to restore the multitude, He chose one man, because among all the corrupted a singular example of justice remained.