Basil of Caesarea : Whence is it that we are Christians? Through our faith, would be the universal answer. And in what way are we saved? Plainly because we were regenerate through the grace given in our baptism. How else could we be? And after recognising that this salvation is established through the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, shall we fling away "that form of doctrine" which we received? Would it not rather be ground for great groaning if we are found now further off from our salvation "than when we first believed," and deny now what we then received? Whether a man have departed this life without baptism, or have received a baptism lacking in some of the requirements of the tradition, his loss is equal. And whoever does not always and everywhere keep to and hold fast as a sure protection the confession which we recorded at our first admission, when, being delivered "from the idols," we came "to the living God," constitutes himself a "stranger" from the "promises" of God, fighting against his own handwriting, which he put on record when he professed the faith. For if to me my baptism was the beginning of life, and that day of regeneration the first of days, it is plain that the utterance uttered in the grace of adoption was the most honourable of all. — On the Spirit 10.26 John Chrysostom : What means, "What manner of entering in we had unto you"? That it was full of dangers, and numberless deaths, but that none of these things troubled you. But as if nothing had happened, so you adhered to us; as if ye had suffered no evil, but had enjoyed infinite good, so you received us after these things. For this was the second entering. They went to Beroea, they were persecuted, and when they came after this they so received them, as though they had been honored by these also, so that they even laid down their lives for them. The expression, "What manner of entering in we had," is complicated, and contains an encomium both of them and of themselves. But he himself has turned this to their advantage. "And how," he says, "ye turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God"; that is, that ye did it readily, that ye did it with much eagerness, that it did not require much labor to make you. "In order to serve," says he, "a living and true God." Here also he introduced an exhortation, which is the part of one who would make his discourse less offensive. — Homily on 1 Thessalonians 2 Tertullian : Whence is proved that they have ever been depicted, out of the volume of the divine Scriptures, as guilty of the crime of idolatry; whereas our "less"-that is, posterior-people, quitting the idols which formerly it used slavishly to serve, has been converted to the same God from whom Israel, as we have above related, had departed. For thus has the "less"-that is, posterior-people overcome the"greater people," while it attains the grace of divine favour, from which Israel has been divorced. — An Answer to the Jews Tertullian : For we read: "How ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus." And again: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord God, Jesus Christ, at His coming? " Likewise: "Before God, even our Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the whole company of His saints. — On the Resurrection of the Flesh