CONTRA FATUM

“Many, however, slide into the very opposite kind of excess, and unconsciously to themselves, in their over-preciseness, laboriously thwart their own design; they let soul fall down the other side from the heights of Divine elevation to the level of dull thoughts and occupations, where their minds are so bent upon regulations which merely affect the body, that they can no longer walk in their heavenly freedom and gaze above; their only inclination is to this tormenting and afflicting of the flesh.” (De Vir., NPNF, p. 367)

"The man who avoid both meanness and prodigality will by this shunning of extremes form the moral habit of liberality ( ἐλευθερίαν) ; for liberality is the thing which is neither inclined to spend at random vast useless sums, nor yet to be closely calculating in necessary expenses." (On Virginity, TLG 7,2,13, NPNF, p. 352)

“In the fruit that Aaron's rod produced it is fitting to perceive the kind of life that must characterize the priesthood – namely, a life self-controlled, tough and dried in appearance, but containing on the inside (hidden and invisible) what can be eaten. It becomes visible when the food ripens and the hard shell is stripped off and the wood-like covering of the meat is removed.” (De Vita Moysis, p. 127)

”You have subjected all things to man, declares the word through the prophecy, and in the text it lists the things subject, cattle and oxen and sheep (Ps 8,7-8). Surely human beings have not been produced from your [the slave-owners] cattle? Surely cows have not conceived human stock? Irrationial beasts are the only slaves of mankind. […] But by dividing the human species in two with 'slavery' and 'ownership' you have caused it to be enslaved to itself, and to be the owner of itself. I got me slave-girls and slaves.’ For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? [...] God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness (Gen. 1,26). If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or, rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable. Go...

”Now liberty [ἐλευθερία] is the coming up to a state which owns no master [ἀδέσποτόν] and is self-regulating [αὐτοκρατὲς]; it is that with which we were gifted by God at the beginning, but which has been obscured by the feeling of shame arising from indebtedness. Liberty too is in all cases one and the same essentially; it has a natural attraction to itself. It follows, then, that as everything that is free will be united with its like, and as virtue is a thing that has no master, that is, is free, everything that is free will be united with virtue. But, further, the Divine Being is the fountain of all virtue. Therefore, those who have parted with evil will be united with Him; and so, as the Apostle says (I Cor. 15.28), God will be "all in all "; for this utterance seems to me plainly to confirm the opinion we have already arrived at, for it means that God will be instead of all other things, and in all.” (De Anima et Resurrectione, PG 46.101-105, NPNF p. 452)