Tertullian

“ If, however, a thing had never existed previous to its becoming near, it could never have been said to have approached, because it had never existed at a distance. Everything which is new and unknown is also sudden. ”

“ Happily the Creator has promised by Isaiah to give this power even to little children, of putting their hand in the cockatrice den and on the hole of the young asps without at all receiving hurt. [42] And, indeed, we are aware (without doing violence to the literal sense of the passage, since even these noxious animals have actually been unable to do hurt where there has been faith) that under the figure of scorpions and serpents are portended evil spirits, whose very prince is described [43] by the name of serpent, dragon, and every other most conspicuous beast in the power of the Creator. ”

“ Such will be rather our Antitheses; they compare Christ with, instead of sundering Him from, the Creator. “The labourer is worthy of his hire.” [19] Who could better pronounce such a sentence than the Judge? For to decide that the workman deserves his wages, is in itself a judicial act. There is no award which consists not in a process of judgment. The law of the Creator on this point also presents us with a corroboration, for He judges that labouring oxen are as labourers worthy of their hire: “Thou shalt not muzzle,” says He, “the ox when he treadeth out the corn.” ”

“ So also Isaiah: “In that day the Lord God shall draw His sacred, great, and strong sword” (even His Christ) “against that dragon, that great and tortuous serpent; and He shall slay him in that day.” [46] But when the same prophet says, “The way shall be called a clean and holy way; over it the unclean thing shall not pass, nor shall be there any unclean way; but the dispersed shall pass over it, and they shall not err therein; no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon; it shall not be found there,” [47] he points out the way of faith, by which we shall reach to God ”

“ Now, who is so good to man [21] as He who is also merciful to cattle? Now, when Christ pronounced labourers to be worthy of their hire, He, in fact, exonerated from blame that precept of the Creator about depriving the Egyptians of their gold and silver vessels. [22] For they who had built for the Egyptians their houses and cities, were surely workmen worthy of their hire, and were not instructed in a fraudulent act, but only set to claim compensation for their hire, which they were unable in any other way to exact from their masters. ”