"He that believeth not is, according to the utterance of the
Saviour, condemned already." (Miscellanies, iv. 16.)
"Enslaved as you are to evil custom, and clinging to it voluntarily till your last breath, you are hurried to destruction; because light has come into the world, and men have loved the darkness rather than the light." (Exhortation to Heathen, 10.)
"'I must decrease,' said the prophet John." (Miscellanies, vi. II.)
TERTULLIAN.
Matthew, i.
"There is, first of all, Matthew, that most faithful chronicler of the Gospel, because the companion of the Lord; for no other reason in the world than to show us clearly the fleshy original of Christ, he thus begins, 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David the son of Abraham.'" (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. xxii.)
"It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down the Lord's descent from Abraham to Mary, says, 'Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus." (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. xx.)
"You [the heretic] say that He was born through a virgin, not of a virgin, and in a womb, not of a womb; because the angel in the dream said to Joseph, 'That which is born in her is of the Holy Ghost.'" (Ibid. ch. xx.)
Matthew, ii.
"For they therefore offered to the then infant Lord that frankincense, and myrrh, and gold, to be, as it were, the close of worldly sacrifice and glory, which Christ was about to do away." (On Idolatry, ch. ix.)