Letter T

Paul Mitchell’s Book of Religious Quotations,
2002 edition

Letter T

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*TEN COMMANDMENTS

*TITHING

*TITLES

*TONGUES, SPEAKING IN

*TRADITION, HUMAN

*TRINITY

*TRUTH

*TRUTH, RESULTS OF MISHANDLING

*TEN COMMANDMENTS

(The tablets of the Ten Commandments were stored in the Ark of the Covenant). Jer 3:15-17: "Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding. "And it shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land," declares the LORD, "they shall say no more, 'The ark of the covenant of the LORD.' And it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor shall it be made again."

*TITHING

ROMAN CATHOLIC: "TITHES - A tenth part of the fruits of one's revenue or income given for the support of the Church. Much importance was attached to tithes in the Old Testament and they became the acceptable form of Church support under the New Law. Charlemagne in 785 prescribed payment of tithes to the Church. At the time of the French Revolution, tithes were abolished by the government, an action shortly followed in other nations. Gradually other forms of Church support arose. However, the Code of Canon Law prescribes that tithes be paid according to local laws and customs. In recent years in the United States, more and more parishes are adopting the system of tithing, usually 5 percent. Tithing provides a fair and equitable way of supporting the Church, dividing the burden according to one's ability to meet it. The system allows the pastor to make better plans for income and expenses, does away with seat and special collections, and avoids the necessity for frequent sermons on the need of money." (The Maryknoll Catholic Dictionary, 1965 Edition, Grosset & Dunlap, NY, NY)

*TITLES, CLERICAL

Billy Graham stated on The NBC Today Show with Katie Couric, 6-7-99, that he does not like people to address him as "Reverend," for that word is only used in the Bible to address God, referring to Ps 111:9: "He sent redemption unto his people: He hath commanded His covenant for ever: holy and reverend is His name."

*TONGUES, SPEAKING IN

SPEAKING IN TONGUES IS LEARNED

CHRYSOSTOM, 345-407 A.D., speaking of Paul's account in Corinthians: "The whole passage is exceedingly obscure and the obscurity is occasioned by our ignorance of the facts and the cessation of the happenings which were common in those days but unexampled in our own." ("Christianity Today," Frank Farrell, Sept. 13, 1963, p.1164; cited by Gareth Reese, "New Testament History - Acts," College Press, Joplin, MO, 1976, p.120)

"[Anti-Christian] Celsus [177 AD] claimed that he had seen preachers who assumed the "motions and gestures of inspired person" and at the end of their preaching "added strange, fanatical and quite unintelligible words, of which no rational person can find the meaning for so dark are they, as to have no meaning at all; but they give occasion to every fool or impostor to apply them to suit his own purposes." [Christian defender] Origen accused Celsus of lying, because there were no prophets in his time. Origen also argued that the words of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the other prophets did make sense.

It is, however, clear that Celsus did not speak about prophets in the Old Testament sense but about preachers of his own day; he even claimed that when he questioned some of these preachers, they admitted to him that their ambiguous words "really meant nothing." ("Pagan Rome and the Early Christians," Stephen Benko, BT Batsford Ltd, London, UK, 1985, p117)

"But the important point is that too often Christian authors talked like magicians; they boasted of their ability to summon powers from another world, and they claimed that by manipulating the correct elements under the correct circumstances they could force the divine to do their will. They may have claimed that this was not magic, but it certainly looked like magic to others. After the patristic period we find that the church increasingly absorbed and sanctified pagan magical practices; the veneration of relics and the use of incense, charms, and bells were integrated into the life of the church. This peculiar Christian brand of magic was not merely tolerated but promoted as long as it was within the ecclesiastical framework." (Stephen Benko, Pagan Rome and the Early Christians, p131)

*TRADITION, HUMAN

RABBI DJ SILVER: "The rabbis were keenly aware that the devil and heretics could quote a text to their own purposes. 'If one interprets a text literally his is a liar. If he adds to the text he is a blasphemer and libeler. What then is meant by interpretation? Our authorized interpretation...'" (b. Kid. 49a, cited by Daniel Jeremy Silver, "Images of Moses," p.201, Basic Books, NY, 1982)

*TRINITY

50 AD The Huleatt Manuscript

50 AD The Huleatt Manuscript "She poured it [the perfume] over his [Jesus'] hair when he sat at the table. But, when the disciples saw it, they were indignant. . . . God, aware of this, said to them: 'Why do you trouble this woman? She has done [a beautiful thing for me.] . . . Then one of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest and said, 'What will you give me for my work?' [Matt. 26:7-15]" (Huleatt fragments 1-3).

74 AD The Letter of Barnabas

74 AD The Letter of Barnabas "And further, my brethren, if the Lord [Jesus] endured to suffer for our soul, he being the Lord of all the world, to whom God said at the foundation of the world, 'Let us make man after our image, and after our likeness,' understand how it was that he endured to suffer at the hand of men" (Letter of Barnabas 5).

80 AD Hermas

80 AD Hermas "The Son of God is older than all his creation, so that he became the Father's adviser in his creation. Therefore also he is ancient" (The Shepherd 12).

100 AD Ignatius of Antioch

100 AD Ignatius of Antioch "Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, unto her that hath found mercy in the bountifulness of the Father Most High and of Jesus Christ His only Son; to the church that is beloved and enlightened through the will of Him who willed all things that are, by faith and love towards Jesus Christ our God; even unto her that hath the presidency in the country of the region of the Romans..." (Letter to the Romans 1)

100 AD Ignatius of Antioch "Nothing visible is good. For our God Jesus Christ, being in the Father, is the more plainly visible. The Work is not of persuasiveness, but Christianity is a thing of might, whensoever it is hated by the world." (Letter to the Romans)

140 AD Aristides

140 AD Aristides "[Christians] are they who, above every people of the Earth, have found the truth, for they acknowledge God, the creator and maker of all things, in the only-begotten Son and in the Holy Spirit" (Apology 16).

150 AD Justin Martyr

150 AD Justin Martyr "The Father of the universe has a Son, who also being the first begotten Word of God, is even God." (Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch 63)

150 AD Justin Martyr "Therefore these words testify explicitly that He [Christ] is witnessed to by Him who established these things, as deserving to be worshipped, as God and as Christ." - Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 63.

150 AD Polycarp of Smyrna

150 AD Polycarp of Smyrna "I praise you for all things, I bless you, I glorify you, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, with whom, to you and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen" (Martyrdom of Polycarp 14).

160 AD Mathetes

160 AD Mathetes "[The Father] sent the Word that he might be manifested to the world . . . This is he who was from the beginning, who appeared as if new, and was found old . . . This is he who, being from everlasting, is today called the Son" (Letter to Diognetus 11).

170 AD Tatian the Syrian

170 AD Tatian the Syrian "We are not playing the fool, you Greeks, nor do we talk nonsense, when we report that God was born in the form of a man" (Address to the Greeks 21).

177 AD Athenagoras

177 AD Athenagoras "The Son of God is the Word of the Father in thought and actuality. By him and through him all things were made, the Father and the Son being one. Since the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son by the unity and power of the Spirit, the Mind and Word of the Father is the Son of God. And if, in your exceedingly great wisdom, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by `the Son,' I will tell you briefly: He is the first- begotten of the Father, not as having been produced, for from the beginning God had the Word in himself, God being eternal mind and eternally rational, but as coming forth to be the model and energizing force of all material things" (Plea for the Christians 10:2-4).

177 AD Melito of Sardis

177 AD Melito of Sardis "It is no way necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to adduce the actions of Christ after his baptism as proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and likewise perfect man, he gave positive indications of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, of his humanity, in the thirty years which came before his baptism, during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages" (Fragment in Anastasius of Sinai's The Guide 13).

180 AD Theophilus of Antioch

180 AD Theophilus of Antioch Chapter XV. - Of the Fourth Day. "On the fourth day the luminaries were made; because God, who possesses foreknowledge, knew the follies of the vain philosophers, that they were going to say, that the things which grow on the earth are produced from the heavenly bodies, so as to exclude God. In order, therefore, that the truth might be obvious, the plants and seeds were produced prior to the heavenly bodies, for what is posterior cannot produce that which is prior. And these contain the pattern and type of a great mystery. For the sun is a type of God, and the moon of man. And as the sun far surpasses the moon in power and glory, so far does God surpass man. And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming less, so does God always abide perfect, being full of all power, and understanding, and wisdom, and immortality, and all good. But the moon wanes monthly, and in a manner dies, being a type of man; then it is born again, and is crescent, for a pattern of the future resurrection. In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity,. of God, and His Word, and His wisdom." [Triavdo" The earliest use of this word "Trinity." It seems to have been used by this writer in his lost works, also; and, as a learned friends suggests, the use he makes of it is familiar. He does not lug it in as something novel: "types of the Trinity," he says, illustrating an accepted word, not introducing a new one.] "And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man. Wherefore also on the fourth day the lights were made. The disposition of the stars, too, contains a type of the arrangement and order of the righteous and pious, and of those who keep the law and commandments of God. For the brilliant and bright stars are an imitation of the prophets, and therefore they remain fixed, not declining, nor passing from place to place. And those which hold the second place in brightness, are types of the people of the righteous. And those, again, which change their position, and flee from place to place, which also are cared planets, they too are a type of the men who have wandered from God, abandoning His law and commandments." (180 AD, Theophilus of Antioch Chapter XV. - Of the Fourth Day, To Autolycus 2:15)

180 AD Irenaeus

180 AD Irenaeus "But the Son, eternally co-existing with the Father, from of old, yea, from the beginning, always reveals the Father to Angels, Archangels, Powers, Virtues..." (Against Heresies, Book II, ch. 30, section 9)

180 AD Irenaeus "Christ Jesus is our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King." (Against Heresies, Book I, ch. 10, section 1)

190 AD Clement Of Alexandria

190 AD Clement Of Alexandria [note: Clement NEVER calls Jesus a creature.] "There was then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as also the Word itself, that is, the Son of God, who being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreated." (Fragments, Part I, section III)

190 AD Clement Of Alexandria "I understand nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were made according to the will of the Father." (Stromata, Book V, ch. 14)

200 AD Tertullian

200 AD Tertullian "Never did any angel descend for the purpose of being crucified, of tasting death, and of rising again from the dead." (The Flesh of Christ, ch 6)

200 AD Tertullian "The origins of both his substances display him as man and as God: from the one, born, and from the other, not born" (The Flesh of Christ, 5:6-7).

200 AD Tertullian "[God speaks in the plural ‘Let us make man in our image’] because already there was attached to Him his Son, a second person, his own Word, and a third, the Spirit in the Word....one substance in three coherent persons. He was at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit." (Against Praxeas, ch 12)

200 AD Hippolytus

200 AD Hippolytus "For who will not say that there is one God? Yet he will not on that account deny the economy (i.e., the number and disposition of persons in the Trinity)." (Against The Heresy Of One Noetus)

200 AD Hippolytus "As far as regards the power, therefore, God is one. But as far as regards the economy there is a threefold manifestation, as shall be proved afterwards when we give account of the true doctrine" (Against The Heresy Of One Noetus)

200 AD Hippolytus "For Christ is the God above all, and He has arranged to wash away sin from human beings,(7) rendering regenerate the old man. And God called man His likeness from the beginning, and has evinced in a figure His love towards thee. And provided thou obeyest His solemn injunctions, and becomest a faithful follower of Him who is good, thou shall resemble Him, inasmuch as thou shall have honour conferred upon thee by Him. For the Deity, (by condescension,) does not diminish ought of the divinity of His divine(8) perfection; having made thee even God unto His glory" (Elucidations, Ch. 30, Author's Concluding Address)

225 AD Origen

225 AD Origen "And that you may understand that the omnipotence of Father and Son is one and the same, as God and the Lord are one and the same with the Father, listen to the manner in which John speaks in the Apocalypse: "Thus saith the Lord God, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."(3) For who else was "He which is to come" than Christ? And as no one ought to be offended, seeing God is the Father, that the Saviour is also God; so also, since the Father is called omnipotent, no one ought to be offended that the Son of God is also cared omnipotent." (De Principis, On Christ, Book 1, Ch 2)

225 AD Origen "The holy Apostles, in preaching the faith of Christ, treated with the utmost clarity of certain matters which they believed to be of absolute necessity to all believers...The specific points which are clearly handed down through the Apostolic preaching [are] these: First, that there is one God who created and arranged all things...Secondly, that Jesus Christ himself was born of the Father before all creatures...Although He was God, He took flesh, and having been made man, He remained what He was, God" (De Principis, Preface, sections 3 - 4)

225 AD Origen "For we do not hold that which the heretics imagine: that the Son was procreated by the Father from non-existent substances, that is, from a substance outside Himself, so that there was a time when He did not exist." (De Principis, Book V, Summary, section 28)

235 AD Novatian

235 AD Novatian "For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God Himself as man. It has as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God. Because it does not set forth Him to be the Son of God only, but also the Son of man; nor does it only say, the Son of man, but it has also been accustomed to speak of Him as the Son of God. So that being of both, He is both, lest if He should be one only, He could not be the other. For as nature itself has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so the same nature prescribes also that He must be believed to be God who is of God . . . Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus Christ the Son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God" (Treatise on the Trinity 11).

253 AD Cyprian of Carthage

253 AD Cyprian of Carthage "One who denies that Christ is God cannot become his temple [of the Holy Spirit] . . . " (Letters 73:12)

262 AD Dionysius

262 AD Dionysius "Next, then, I may properly turn to those who divide and cut apart and destroy the Monarchy, the most sacred proclamation of the Church of God, making of it, as it were, three powers, distinct substances, and three godheads. I have heard that some of your catechists and teachers of the divine word take the lead in this tenet. They are, so to speak, diametrically opposed to the opinion of Sabellius. He, in his blasphemy, says that the Son is the Father and vice versa" (Letters of Dionysius to Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria 1:1).

262 AD Dionysius "Therefore, the divine Trinity must be gathered up and brought together in one, a summit, as it were, I mean the omnipotent God of the universe. . . . It is blasphemy, then, and not a common one but the worst, to say that the Son is in any way a handiwork [creature]. . . . But if the Son came into being [was created], there was a time when these attributes did not exist; and, consequently, there was a time when God was without them, which is utterly absurd" (Letter to Dionysius of Alexandria, 1-2)

262 AD Dionysius "Neither, then, may we divide into three godheads the wonderful and divine unity . . . Rather, we must believe in God, the Father almighty; and in Christ Jesus, his Son; and in the Holy Spirit; and that the Word is united to the God of the Universe. `For,' he says, 'The Father and I are one,' and `I am in the Father, and the Father in me'" (Letter to Dionysius of Alexandria, 3).

262 AD Gregory the Wonder-worker

262 AD Gregory the Wonder-worker "But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the idea of) a person devoid of subsistence. Wherefore we clear ourselves of Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same [Person] . . . We forswear this, because we believe that three persons--namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--are declared to possess the one Godhead: for the one divinity showing itself forth according to nature in the Trinity establishes the oneness of the nature" (A Sectional Confession of Faith 8).

262 AD Gregory the Wonder-worker "But if they say, 'How can there be three Persons, and how but one Divinity?' we shall make this reply: That there are indeed three persons, inasmuch as there is one person of God the Father, and one of the Lord the Son, and one of the Holy Spirit; and yet that there is but one divinity, inasmuch as . . . there is one substance in the Trinity" (A Sectional Confession of Faith, 14).

305 AD Methodius

305 AD Methodius "For the kingdom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is one, even as their substance is one and their dominion one. Whence also, with one and the same adoration, we worship the one Deity in three Persons, subsisting without beginning, uncreated, without end, and to which there is no successor. For neither will the Father ever cease to be the Father, nor again the Son to be the Son and King, nor the Holy Ghost to be what in substance and personality He is. For nothing of the Trinity will suffer diminution, either in respect of eternity, or of communion, or of sovereignty" (Oration on the Psalms 5).

305 AD Arnobius

305 AD Arnobius "'Well, then,' some raging, angry, and excited man will say, 'Is that Christ your God?' 'God indeed,' we shall answer, 'and God of the hidden powers'" (Against the Pagans 1:42).

307 AD Lactantius

307 AD Lactantius "He was made both Son of God in the spirit and Son of man in the flesh that is, both God and man" (Divine Institutes 4:13:5).

307 AD Lactantius "When we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate them, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father, since the name of 'Father' cannot be given without the Son, nor can the Son be begotten without the Father. . . . They both have one mind, one spirit, one substance; but the former [the Father] is as it were an overflowing fountain, the latter [the Son] as a stream flowing forth from it. The former as the sun, the latter as it were a ray [of light] extended from the sun" ... "We, on the other hand, are [truly] religious, who make our supplications to the one true God. Some one may perhaps ask how, when we say that we worship one God only, we nevertheless assert that there are two, God the Father and God the Son--which assertion has driven many into the greatest error . . . [thinking] that we confess that there is another God, and that He is mortal. . . . But when we speak of God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of them as different, nor do we separate each, because the Father cannot exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father" (Divine Institutes , 4:28-29).

*TRUTH

"When words lose their meaning, people will lose their liberty." ---Confucius

DISSONANCE: Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony, discord.

THEORY OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

As computers go, the human brain is without parallel or parity, when compared to even the most sophisticated manmade computer. Nevertheless, it is a computer and like all computers, it can be programmed.

There is a theory known as the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (TDC) which holds that the mind involuntarily rejects information not in line with previous thoughts and/or actions.

Leon Festinger may have been the first person to document the law of cognitive dissonance, but he was certainly not the first to observe it. Since the most ancient times, mind-controllers have been enticing free people into servitude (piping them on board, so to speak) by taking advantage of man's tendency to generate cognitive dissonance.

In his book, A THEORY OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, (Stanford University Press, 1957), Festinger says that new events or new information create an unpleasantness, a dissonance with existing knowledge, opinion, or cognition concerning behavior. When this happens, pressures naturally arise within the person to reduce the dissonance. Not reconciling the new information with the old, but reducing the dissonance.

Festinger further stated that strength of the pressures to reduce the dissonance is a function of the magnitude of the dissonance. Dissonance acts in the same way as a state of drive, need or tension. The greater the dissonance, the greater will be the intensity of the action to reduce the dissonance and the greater the avoidance of situations that would increase the dissonance.

A person can deal with the pressure generated by the dissonance by changing the old behavior to harmonize with information. But if the person is too committed to the old behavior and way of thinking, he simply rejects the new information. A simple "I don't believe it" thought or word is the easy cop out. For if you are unaware, you are unaware of being unaware.

*TRUTH, RESULTS OF MISHANDLING

Ronald Reagan, in a 1987 interview, said, "I turn back to your ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if -- if we're the generation that's going to see that come about. . . . There have been times in the past when we thought the world was coming to an end, but never anything like this."

--The View Toward Armageddon, Ira Meistrich, Military History Quarterly, Spring 1991, 29 W 38th St, NY, NY 10018

(Can you imagine a person who believes in a literal "Final Battle" with the forces of evil, and who also happens to have his thumb on a nuclear trigger?)

SLAUGHTERHOUSE: "In June 1916, on the eve of the Somme offensive, British General Sir Douglas Haig [commander in chief British Army] received a "letter" from his dead brother George. The message, which came through a medium, claimed that Haig was "the instrument Almight God uses to crush the German invaders in France and Belgium." God had sent "a great soldier," namely Napoleon, to be "always near Douglas...to advise him in his task." In case his brother should feel this a mixed blessing, George promised that Britain's old nemesis Napoleon had "improved for the better in the spirit world..."

" ...Haig was receptive to the message because it reinforced his firmly held belief that God was constantly by his side and that he was an instrument of Divine Providence - a faith that had a profound effect on the way Haig commanded his army..."

"...[Haig] believed that the price of victory was ultimately worth paying. After a particularly disastrous action, Haig recorded a surprisingly positive rationale: "Anything worth having has always to be paid for fully. In this war, our object is something very great. The future of the world depends on our success. So we must fully spend all we have, energy, life, money, everything, in fact, without counting the cost." As for the dead, their sacrifice was their reward. Duncan believed that "a process of selection was going on by which the best were being picked out for some special service beyond the grave..." (Sound like Iran's mullahs? -Ed.)

"...What effect did Haig's religious beliefs have upon the fate of the British army? There is plenty of evidence that his tactical decisions were sometimes based upon nothing more than mere faith...or wishful thinking...To Haig, faith was at least as important as facts. When the War Office produced a less optimistic report on the state of the German army than that provided by his own staff, he commented: "I cannot think why the War Office Intellignece Department gives such a wrong picture of the situation except that General McDonough [director of military intelligence] is a Roman Catholic and is (perhaps unconsciously) influenced by information which reached him from tainted [i.e., Catholic] sources." ("Military History" (magazine), August 1994, p. 74, 602 S. King, Leesburg VA 22075)

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