Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter IV. The Christians Worship God Alone.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
For what reason, men of Greece, do you wish to bring
the civil powers, as in a pugilistic encounter, into collision with
us? And, if I am not disposed to comply with the usages of some of them,
why am I to be abhorred as a vile miscreant?426
Does the sovereign order the payment
of tribute, I am ready to render it. Does my master command me to act
as a bondsman and to serve, I acknowledge the serfdom. Man is to be
honoured as a fellow-man;427
| 427
[1 Pet. ii. 17. This claim for man as man is the inspiration of
Christianity. Terence breathes it from his wounded soul in slavery; and
his immortal line, “Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto”
(Hæuntontimor., act. i. sc. 1, verse 25), looks as if it
had been written in the second century of illumination.] |
God alone is to be feared,—He who is not visible to human eyes,
nor comes within the compass of human art. Only when I am commanded to
deny Him, will I not obey, but will rather die than show myself false and
ungrateful. Our God did not begin to be in time:428
| 428 [Kaye’s Justin, pp. 56, 158.] |
He alone is without beginning, and He Himself is the beginning of all
things. God is a Spirit,429
not pervading matter, but the Maker of material
spirits,430
| 430 [Over again Tatian
asserts spirits to be material, though not fleshly;
and I think with reference to 1 Cor. xv. 44.] | and of the
forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being Himself
the Father of both sensible and invisible things. Him we know from
His creation, and apprehend His invisible power by His works.431
I refuse
to adore that workmanship which He has made for our sakes. The sun
and moon were made for us: how, then, can I adore my own servants? How
can I speak of stocks and stones as gods? For the Spirit that pervades
matter432
| 432 [Over again Tatian
asserts spirits to be material, though not fleshly; and
I think with reference to 1 Cor. xv. 44.] | is inferior to the
more divine spirit; and this, even when assimilated to the soul, is not
to be honoured equally with the perfect God. Nor even ought the ineffable
God to be presented with gifts; for He who is in want of nothing is not
to be misrepresented by us as though He were indigent. But I will set
forth our views more distinctly.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
