CHAP. I.--DEFENCE OF THE TRUTH SHOULD PRECEDE DISCUSSIONS REGARDING IT.[1] BY the side of every opinion and doctrine which agrees with the truth of things, there springs up some falsehood; and it does so, not because it takes its rise naturally from some fundamental principle, or from some cause peculiar to the matter in hand, but because it is invented on purpose by men who set a value on the spurious seed, for its tendency to corrupt the truth. This is apparent, in the first place, from those...
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A PLEA[1] FOR THE CHRISTIANS BY ATHENAGORAS THE ATHENIAN: PHILOSOPHER AND CHRISTIAN INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE WRITINGS OF ATHENAGORAS [TRANSLATED BY THE REV. B. P. PRATTEN.] [A.D. 177.] In placing Athenagoras here, somewhat out of the order usually accepted, I commit no appreciable violence against chronology, and I gain a great advantage for the reader. To some extent we must recognise, in collocation, the principles of affinity and historic growth. Closing up the bright succession of the ear...
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This ancient document is generally considered spurious...that is, it was likely not written by Antoninus. The Emperor Caesar Titus AElius Adrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, Supreme Pontiff, in the fifteenth year of his tribuneship, Consul for the third time, Father of the fatherland, to the Common Assembly of Asia, greeting: I should have thought that the gods themselves would see to it that such offenders should not escape. For if they had the power, they themselves would much rather punish tho...
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Sextus Julius Africanus was a Christian historian who lived in the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He's best known for influencing Eusebius, and his history of the world, Chronographiai, was used by many at that time. This letter, written to Origen, addresses The History of Susanna, an apocryphal addition to the book of Daniel. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches consider it canonical, making it the 13th chapter of Daniel. Protestants generally do not recognize this addition as inspi...
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I have received the letter addressed to me by your predecessor Serenius Granianus, a most illustrious man; and this communication I am unwilling to pass over in silence, lest innocent persons be disturbed, and occasion be given to the informers for practising villany. Accordingly, if the inhabitants of your province will so far sustain this petition of theirs as to accuse the Christians in some court of law, I do not prohibit them from doing so. But I will not suffer them to make use of mere ent...
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