The First Apology
Chapter VI.—Charge of atheism...: Chapter VI.—Charge of atheism refuted.
Chapter VI.—Charge of atheism refuted.
Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught.
Edition and rights
ANF01. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1885.
Marcus Dods and George Reith
Ancient work and historical English translation: public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Copyright rules vary by country. This is a historical source transcription, not an official Church edition. Modern website material is not reproduced.
Historical footnotes and publisher introductions are omitted. Author-written openings are retained. Paragraph whitespace is normalized. Transcriptions can contain errors; this is not a critical edition. Attribution follows the historical edition, not universal scholarly agreement.
Digitization provenance (not an external reading link): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml
Source section: viii.ii.vi · Text SHA-256: b0425f2921e9a42432fbc5f0b7398f2056cd023246f8156bcc85b46cf5812530