Prayer
Prayer

Author: Origen

Publisher:

Published: 1954

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13:

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Composed c. 233, the treatise on Prayer is not merely a treatise, but a prayer itself. The Exhortation was composed c. 235 to provide solace for Origen's great friend and patron, Ambrose, and the presbyter, Protoctetus, both of whom had been imprisoned.

Patrology
Patrology

Author: Otto Bardenhewer

Publisher:

Published: 1908

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13:

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Otto Bardenhewer's Patrology is certainly not the most recent work in the field. But sound judgment is never obsolete - Bardenhewer's concise, pellucid analysis of the church fathers is still valuable today, over a century after it was published. For generations, his work has been treasured by experts and novices alike for its penetrating insight and easy accessibility. Many fathers are given fuller treatment here than in any modern handbook. And today, every work cited in Bardenhewer's copious bibliographies has entered the public domain - what a boon to researchers of the information age!

On Monogamy
On Monogamy

Author: Tertullian

Publisher: OrthodoxEbooks

Published: 2018-08-19

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13: 9781643730950

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As for what pertains to antiquity, what more ancient formal type can be brought forward, than the very original fount of the human race? One female did God fashion for the male, culling one rib of his, and (of course) (one) out of a plurality. But, moreover, in the introductory speech which preceded the work itself, He said, "It is not good for the man that he be alone; let us make a help-meet for him." For He would have said "helpers" if He had destined him to have more wives (than one). He added, too, a law concerning the future; if, that is, (the words) "And two shall be (made) into one flesh"--not three, nor more; else they would be no more "two" if (there were) more--were prophetically uttered. The law stood (firm). In short, the unity of marriage lasted to the very end in the case of the authors of our race; not because there were no other women, but because the reason why there were none was that the first-fruits of the race might not be contaminated by a double marriage. Otherwise, had God (so) willed, there could withal have been (others); at all events, he might have taken from the abundance of his own daughters--having no less an Eve (taken) out of his own bones and flesh--if piety had allowed it to be done. But where the first crime (is found) homicide, inaugurated in fratricide--no crime was so worthy of the second place as a double marriage. For it makes no difference whether a man have had two wives singly, or whether individuals (taken) at the same time have made two. The number of (the individuals) conjoined and separate is the same. Still, God's institution, after once for all suffering violence through Lamech, remained firm to the very end of that race. Second Lamech there arose none, in the way of being husband to two wives. What Scripture does not note, it denies. Other iniquities provoke the deluge: (iniquities) once for all avenged, whatever was their nature; not, however, "seventy-seven times," which (is the vengeance which) double marriages have deserved.

On Modesty
On Modesty

Author: Tertullian

Publisher: OrthodoxEbooks

Published: 2018-08-10

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 9781643730806

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Modesty, the flower of manners, the honor of our bodies, the grace of the sexes, the integrity of the blood, the guarantee of our race, the basis of sanctity, the pre-indication of every good disposition; rare though it is, and not easily perfected, and scarce ever retained in perpetuity, will yet up to a certain point linger in the world, if nature shall have laid the preliminary groundwork of it, discipline persuaded to it, censorial rigor curbed its excesses--on the hypothesis, that is, that every mental good quality is the result either of birth, or else of training, or else of external compulsion. But as the conquering power of things evil is on the increase--which is the characteristic of the last times--things good are now not allowed either to be born, so corrupted are the seminal principles; or to be trained, so deserted are studies; nor to be enforced, so disarmed are the laws. In fact, (the modesty) of which we are now beginning (to treat) is by this time grown so obsolete, that it is not the abjuration but the moderation of the appetites which modesty is believed to be; and he is held to be chaste enough who has not been too chaste. But let the world's modesty see to itself, together with the world itself: together with its inherent nature, if it was wont to originate in birth; its study, if in training; its servitude, if in compulsion: except that it had been even more unhappy if it had remained only to prove fruitless, in that it had not been in God's household that its activities had been exercised.

On Baptism Against the Donatists
On Baptism Against the Donatists

Author: Saint Augustine of Hippo

Publisher: Aeterna Press

Published:

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13:

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This treatise was written about 400 A.D. Concerning it Aug. in Retract. Book II. c. xviii., says: I have written seven books on Baptism against the Donatists, who strive to defend themselves by the authority of the most blessed bishop and martyr Cyprian; in which I show that nothing is so effectual for the refutation of the Donatists, and for shutting their mouths directly from upholding their schism against the Catholic Church, as the letters and act of Cyprian. Aeterna Press

On the Making of Man
On the Making of Man

Author: Saint Gregory of Nyssa

Publisher: Aeterna Press

Published:

Total Pages: 107

ISBN-13:

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“This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth ,” saith the Scripture, when all that is seen was finished, and each of the things that are betook itself to its own separate place, when the body of heaven compassed all things round, and those bodies which are heavy and of downward tendency, the earth and the water, holding each other in, took the middle place of the universe; while, as a sort of bond and stability for the things that were made, the Divine power and skill was implanted in the growth of things, guiding all things with the reins of a double operation (for it was by rest and motion that it devised the genesis of the things that were not, and the continuance of the things that are), driving around, about the heavy and changeless element contributed by the creation that does not move, as about some fixed path, the exceedingly rapid motion of the sphere, like a wheel, and preserving the indissolubility of both by their mutual action, as the circling substance by its rapid motion compresses the compact body of the earth round about, while that which is firm and unyielding, by reason of its unchanging fixedness, continually augments the whirling motion of those things which revolve round it, and intensity is produced in equal measure in each of the natures which thus differ in their operation, in the stationary nature, I mean, and in the mobile revolution; for neither is the earth shifted from its own base, nor does the heaven ever relax in its vehemence, or slacken its motion.