Category: Ante-Nicene Fathers

Quotes from Church Fathers prior to the Council of Nicea in 325

Exhortation to Deacons and Priests

Exercise the mystery of Christ, O deacons, with purity; therefore, O ministers, do the commands of your Master; do not play the person of a righteous judge; strengthen your office by all things, as learned men, looking upwards, always devoted to the Supreme God.  Render the faithful sacred ministries of the altar to God, prepared in divine matters to set an example; yourselves incline your head to the pastors, so shall it come to pass that ye may be approved of Christ.

Commodianus
Instructions of Commodianus
chapter LXVIII

True Christians are known and judged according to their works

Of the seed of the tares, who stand mingled in the Church.  When the times of the harvest are filled up, the tares that have sprung up are separated from the fruit, because God had not sent them.  The husbandman separates all those collected tares.  The law is our field; whoever does good in it, assuredly the Ruler Himself will afford a true repose, for the tares are burned with fire.  If, therefore, you think that under one they are delaying, you are wrong.  I designate you as barren Christians; cursed was the fig-tree without fruit in the word of the Lord, and immediately it withered away.  Ye do not works; ye prepare no gift for the treasury, and yet ye thus vainly think to deserve well of the Lord.

Commodianus
Instructions of Commodianus
Chapter LV

We are martyrs when we die to our own desires

Many are the martyrdoms which are made without shedding of blood.  Not to desire other men’s goods; to wish to have the benefit of martyrdom; to bridle the tongue, thou oughtest to make thyself humble; not willingly to use force, nor to return force used against thee, thou wilt be a patient mind, understand that thou art a martyr.

Commodianus
Instructions of Commodianus
Chapter XLVIII

The fire of God is experienced differently for the wicked than the righteous

In the flame of fire the Lord will judge the wicked.  But the fire shall not touch the just, but shall by all means lick them up.  In one place they delay, but a part has wept at the judgment.  Such will be the heat, that the stones themselves shall melt.  The winds assemble into lightnings, the heavenly wrath rages; and wherever the wicked man fleeth, he is seized upon by this fire.  There will be no succour nor ship of he sea.  Amen, flames on the nations, and the Medes and Parthians burn for a thousand years, as the hidden words of John declare.  For then after a thousand years they are delivered over to Gehenna; and he whose work they were, with them are burnt up.

Commodianus
Instructions of Commodianus
Chapter XLIII