# Early Christian Lives  ## Metadata - Author: [[Caroline White]] - Full Title: Early Christian Lives - Category: #books ## Highlights - 'Answer me: what comes first, mind or letters? And which is the cause of which? Does mind come from letters or letters from the mind?' When they declared that mind was the author and inventor of letters, he said, 'So if anyone's mind is sound, he has no need letters.' (Page 54) - Note: Anthony’s argument against the philosophers who study letters. Interestingly, 2000 years of church history has led a lot of Christians into the same problem of establishing the value of Christianity or their own sect of Christianity in terms of historicity. The same argument can be pitted against them. Who is the ‘one true church’? It’s not a matter of history, but a matter of mind — the mind of Christ. - Is all or nothing to be believed in the Christian books? If nothing, you should not acknowledge the name of the cross which you disparage. If on the other hand it is all to be believed, why do you tear apart the divine passion with your stupid arguments, when in the same books the resurrection is connected to the cross? Why do you not at once add the sight of the blind, the hearing of the deaf, the walking of the lame, the cleansing of the leprous, the sea obeying its God who walked upon it, the putting to flight of demons, the resurrection of the dead and the return from the underworld of those who were dead? All these things are included in the divine Scriptures which you falsify, and these same volumes contain the proclamations of divine power and the disgrace inflicted upon death. For this reason cast off the hatred with which you are imbued and you will immediately discover that Jesus is true God and that He took our weak nature upon Himself for the sake of human salvation. (Page 56) - Note: Same argument as to deny the Gospel due to alleged faults within its contents (such as the cruelty of hell for the unsaved) - For according to the kind of distorted logic you use, the honour due to the architect is transferred to the building, and the doctor's skill is attributed to the cures and the rewards and praises due to all craftsmen are bestowed instead on the products themselves. (Page 56) - Note: Anthony argues against Roman religion