Twenty lines apologists actually reach for — from the Didache to Augustine. Each one carries its source, its translator, and how far it can be relied on, so you can go and read the rest for yourself.
Showing the 20 highlighted quotes.
“There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways. The way of life is this. First of all, you shall love the God that made you; secondly, your neighbour as yourself. And all things whatsoever you would not have befall yourself, neither do to another.”
“The works of our Saviour were always present, for they were genuine.”
“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.”
“…we who formerly delighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity alone… we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need; we who hated and destroyed one another… now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies.”
“Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians.”
“What the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world.”
“Eighty and six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”
“He truly suffered, even as he also truly raised himself — not, as some unbelievers say, that he suffered in semblance.”
“For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God.”
“He became what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”
“He who hung the earth is hanging, he who fixed the heavens has been fixed.”
“If, therefore, the world is an instrument in tune, and moving in well-measured time, I adore the Being who gave its harmony, and strikes its notes, and sings the accordant strain, and not the instrument. For at the musical contests the adjudicators do not pass by the lute-players and crown the lutes.”
“The very beauty of our own figure especially confesses God to be its artificer: our upright stature, our uplooking countenance, our eyes placed at the top, as it were, for outlook; and all the rest of our senses as if arranged in a citadel.”
“We become more numerous every time we are hewn down by you: the blood of Christians is seed.”
“What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic?”
“The Son of God was crucified. There is no shame [in believing this], because it is indeed shameful. And the Son of God died. It is surely to be believed, because it is absurd. And having been buried, he rose again. It is certain, because it is impossible.”
“For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice.”
“For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.”
“Belatedly I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved you. For see, you were within and I was without, and I sought you out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things you have made. You were with me, but I was not with you.”
In-game quotations are drawn from the game’s data and refresh whenever it does. Most are public-domain translations — Lightfoot, the Ante-Nicene and Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Pusey — which you may quote freely. The 17 marked in-copyright are short excerpts of modern translations used under fair use; quote those sparingly and cite the translator. The 56 researched quotations are drawn from the game’s own research notes and are all public domain;55 were read directly in a full primary text and 1 were found quoted in a named secondary work.