When the Church Was Young Quotes

“The first thing to point out is that Tertullian turned the State’s charge of irreligion back upon its own head. By trying to force religious devotion, he wrote, the State was committing a crime against religion by violating its deepest character. True devotion must be a free-will offering, not a compulsory sacrifice: “For see that you do not give a further ground for the charge of irreligion, by taking away religious liberty, and forbidding free choice of deity, so that I may no longer worship according to my inclination, but am compelled to worship against it. Not even a human being would care to have unwilling homage rendered him.”151”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“…In Christ and with Christ the martyrs disarm the principalities and powers and share in his triumph over them, for their share in Christ’s sufferings makes them sharers also in the mighty deeds those sufferings accomplished. What could more appropriately be called the day of salvation than the day of such a glorious departure from this world?148”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“The Christian Scriptures are not like the writings of the Gentiles—beautiful discourses that change nothing. Rather, they are like God himself––they have an efficacious power to change hearts and bring about what they say. This power, declares Origen, is a testimony of their divine origin.147”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“the Spirit that dwells in the words reaches out and assimilates us to himself. God’s word is alive and efficacious.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Origen took his cue from St. Paul when it came to the interpretation of the Bible. “Spiritual things must be understood spiritually” (see 1 Corinthians 2:10–16). If a person wants to penetrate beyond the letter to the Spirit, he needs the help of the same Holy Spirit who inspired the text. So the student of Scripture must be eager not only to study but to pray. Origen puts to work “all the resources of his mind” while simultaneously begging for the assistance of the Spirit.143 It is therefore not enough to be zealous for the study of the sacred Scriptures, but we must beseech the Lord and implore him day and night that the Lamb of the tribe of Judah might come who, taking the sealed scroll, will deign to open it.144”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“When we think of a catechetical school, we naturally assume that it provided Bible and catechism classes since the main goal was to get new converts ready for baptism. And of course, it did. But remember Clement’s vision of the Christian life––the true “gnostic” must understand what he believes and share it with others. That meant he must pray and study like an athlete. And so we find out from Origen that the catechetical institute of Alexandria included study of astronomy, mathematics, physics, and philosophy, everything to help the student not only understand Christian doctrine, but to explain it to their neighbors.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Marriage is truly something sacred. In becoming parents, man and woman have communion with God in his creative work. “Thus man becomes an image of God in so far as man cooperates in the creation of man.”123”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Clement wants both his catechumens and his pagan critics to understand something. The true Christian life does not consist in simply accepting the deposit of the faith, getting baptized, and then attending the required services. On the contrary, this just begins a process of ever-deepening insight and sanctification. For the “knowledge” that Clement is talking about consists not only of intellectual understanding but of an intimate experience of God and his truth that leads to a transforming union. It is a knowledge that assimilates us to God and to the truth that we contemplate. “This, therefore, is the life-work of the perfected gnostic, viz., to hold communion with God through the great High Priest, being made like the Lord, as far as may be…and in being thus assimilated to God, the gnostic is making and fashioning himself and also forming those who hear him.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Clement goes so far to say that Greek philosophy is actually of divine origin. Though philosophy is not on a par with the Old Testament, God, in his Providence, sent it to the Greeks as a preparation for the Gospel in a similar way that God sent the Law and prophets to the Jews to prepare them for his Son.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Clement saw knowledge of philosophy and literature not only as important for outreach to cultured enquirers, but as tools for defense of the faith. “The Hellenic philosophy does not, by its approach, make the truth more powerful; but by rendering powerless the assault of sophistry against it, and frustrating the treacherous plots laid against the truth, is said to be the proper fence and wall of the vineyard.”114 Part of philosophy is logic, and in the face of often irrational and baseless attacks, Christians need to know how to use it.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“If we are to believe anyone when it comes to the truth about Jesus, who more than those who lived with him and later died for him? And if anyone should be trusted to know these shepherds’ true teaching, who more than those to whom they entrusted their sheep, many of whom also died for Christ?”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“For every church must be in harmony with this church because of its outstanding pre-eminence, that is, the faithful from everywhere, since the apostolic tradition is preserved in it by those from everywhere.”100”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“But all the so-called Christian Gnostics had one thing in common: theirs was a “Christianity” without the cross.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Now this God who cares is a God who cares enough to respect human freedom. The Letter to Diognetus is very clear that God does not force himself upon human beings. Our author follows his ode to the incarnation with a very forceful assertion: “He willed to save man by persuasion, not by compulsion, for compulsion is not God’s way of working.”73 This pithy statement was evidently a common Christian saying in the second century since it is echoed nearly verbatim in several other documents from this era. So it must be recognized that the practice which we find much later whereby Christian kings and Church leaders compelled Christian orthodoxy by force was a clear departure from not only Scripture but ancient apostolic tradition. Vatican’s II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom is no more than a recovery of that apostolic tradition. If compulsion is not God’s way of working, neither should it be ours.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“They may not say so publicly, but most no longer believe in the Greek and Roman gods. And they, even Caesar himself, don’t actually believe that Caesar is divine. For them, burning incense to the emperor is a civic duty, something akin to the pledge of allegiance to the flag. In fact, many are not sure what they really believe. Many are agnostic. And they’re rather tired, bored, and jaded.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Martyrdom is a charism, a grace (the Greek word being charis), a gift of supernatural love powered by the Holy Spirit. It cannot be something one presumptuously volunteers for, since it is impossible to accomplish by the power of natural zeal. The crowds at Roman games saw people die every day before their eyes. But not like this. The death of a martyr was not an ordinary execution or even like the courageous death of a fallen gladiator. It was a visible testimony to something most people had never witnessed before––the flame of divine love. This is why public martyrdoms like Polycarp’s, far from stamping out Christianity, stimulated its growth through all sectors of Roman society.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Jesus is the incarnation of the one who is “above time, the Timeless (achronos), the Unseen (aoratos), the one who became visible for our sakes, who was beyond touch and passion, yet who for our sakes became subject to suffering, and endured everything for us.”41”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Ignatius and his fellow martyrs died for a person, not an ideology.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“In his condemnation, he saw the greatest opportunity of his life to give witness to Jesus Christ. That’s actually what the word martyr means. It comes from the Greek word for “witness.” So Ignatius gave witness to Christ with the written words of his letters but even more poignantly with his blood. He saw as his final destiny the laying down of his life as a sacrifice, a sacrifice of love for Christ Jesus.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“So the first part of the Didache provides some interpretation of these two commandments: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not corrupt boys; do not fornicate; do not steal; do not practice magic; do not go in for sorcery [farmakeusein]; do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.16”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“The Church Fathers are those great Christian writers who passed on and clarified the teaching of the apostles from approximately the second through the eighth centuries.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“He kept calling them to what was primary by means of what was secondary, that is, through foreshadowings to the reality, through things of time to the things of eternity, through things of the flesh to the things of the spirit, through earthly things to the heavenly things….”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“The true Christian life does not consist in simply accepting the deposit of the faith, getting baptized, and then attending the required services.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“what you understand can’t possibly be God.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“All Christians, whether they are aware of it or not, depend on apostolic tradition, preserved by the early Church Fathers, every time they pick up their Bibles.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“In the Bible, there is a very important page that was not inspired by the Holy Spirit. And that is the table of contents.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Do not hesitate to give and do not give with bad grace; for you will discover who He is that pays you back a reward with a good grace. Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have what is transient!17”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers

“Rome herself was no longer new. She had grown old and decrepit. The republic of Cicero had degenerated into the despotism of Caesar. Tyrant after tyrant had seized power at the price of much bloodshed. Devotion to family, hard work, and frugality had been replaced by an addiction to pleasure and power. A welfare state based on conquest and slave labor bought the loyalty of the mob with free bread and gladiator games. The people were all too ready to trade their liberty for creature comforts.”
― Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers