TRV
Marcus Minucius Felix
Ante-Nicene · to AD 325 · 3 passages across 3 books
Commentary
1 Corinthians 15:36
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
The sun sinks down and arises, the stars pass away and return, the flowers die and revive again, after their win-try decay the shrubs resume their leaves, seeds do not flourish again. unless they are rotted:
1 Timothy 4:7
But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
"And, not content with this wild opinion, they add to it and associate with it old women's fables:
Mark 9:18
And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.
These spirits therefore, having lost the simplicity of their created being and the primitive fineness of their nature, are now clogged and laden with iniquity. Utterly undone themselves, they make it their whole business to undo others, for companions in misery. Being depraved themselves, they would infuse the same depravity into others.… When we command them by the one true God, the wretches, bitterly against their will, fall into horrible shiverings, and either spring straightaway from the bodies they possess, or vanish by degrees, according to the faith of the patient or the grace of the physician.