Salvation

Reward and Judgment

91 passages, 5 quoted here · Broad agreement in this library · Against: Stoic Fate

God will judge each person by what they have done, which only makes sense if their choices are real.

Where they stood

Each row is one claim. Each name is a writer, placed at the date of the passage. Select a name to read what they said.

4 of the 6 writers here teach: “Acts, not fate or status, are judged.” They answer a rival view: “After death we are nothing, so virtue is foolish.”

teaches it partly rejects it later writer, summary only

Acts, not fate or status, are judged4 teach

Didache Justin Minucius Arnobius

After death we are nothing, so virtue is foolish1 reject

Lactantius

The living and the dead face a final judgment1 teach

Athenagoras

What each writer said, earliest first

The Didache Teaches: Acts, not fate or status, are judged

c. 100 AD · Didache 16

Stay awake for the sake of your lives. Do not let your lamps go out, and do not let your loins be loosened. Be ready, because you do not know the hour when our Lord is coming (Matthew 24:42).

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Greek

Γρηγορεῖτε ὑπὲρ τῆς ζωῆς ὑμῶν: οἱ λύχνοι ὑμῶν μὴ σβεσθήτωσαν, καὶ αἱ ὀσφύες ὑμῶν μὴ ἐκλυέσθωσαν, ἀλλὰ γίνεσθε ἕτοιμοι: οὐ γὰρ οἴδατε τὴν ὤραν, ἐν ᾗ ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν ἔρχεται.

Justin Martyr Teaches: Acts, not fate or status, are judged

c. 100–c. 165 AD · First Apology 28

Among us the prince of the wicked demons is called the serpent and Satan and the devil, as you can learn by looking into our writings. Christ foretold that he would be sent into the fire with his host and the people who follow him, to be punished without end.

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Athenagoras Teaches: The living and the dead face a final judgment

fl. c. 177 AD · Embassy (Legatio) 12

Would we, then, cleanse ourselves like this if we did not think God stands over the human race? It is impossible to say so. But since we are persuaded that we will render an account of this whole life here to the God who made both us and the world, we choose a measured, humane, and easily scorned life, thinking we will…

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Greek

Ἆρα τοίνυν, εἰ μὴ ἐφεστηκέναι θεὸν τῷ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένει ἐνομίζομεν, οὕτως ἂν ἑαυτοὺς ἐξεκαθαίρομεν; Οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν. Ἀλλ᾽ ἐπεὶ πεπείσμεθα ὑφέξειν παντὸς τοῦ ἐνταῦθα βίου λόγον τῷ πεποιηκότι καὶ ἡμᾶς καὶ τὸν κόσμον θεῷ, τὸν μέτριον καὶ φιλάνθρωπον καὶ εὐκαταφρόνητον βίον…

Minucius Felix Teaches: Acts, not fate or status, are judged

fl. c. 200 AD · Octavius 36

No one should seek comfort or excuse for his conduct in fate. Let a person's lot be whatever fortune wills, but the mind remains free, and so it is a man's action that is judged, not his station. For what else is fate than what God has spoken concerning each one of us?

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Lactantius Rejects: After death we are nothing, so virtue is foolish

c. 250–c. 325 AD · Divine Institutes 5.18

This is why someone who would rather go without or die than harm another or snatch something seems foolish — people think a human being is destroyed by death. From that persuasion come the errors of the crowd and of the philosophers.

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Other passages filed here (86)