Romanos 1
Cosmas Indicopleustes
Romanos 1:20
For the invisible things of him, saith the divine Apostle, are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and godhead; so that they may be without excuse; as if he said: The invisible things of God, namely, His power and wisdom and providence and goodness and His eternal godhead, we apprehend and see from things existent and visible, and through all His works we, in our measure, perceive the Creator, so that we cannot offer any excuse of ignorance (for this is what without excuse signifies) since we have it in our own hands to know from all these things in our measure the Creator of ourselves and of the universe. — The Christian Topography, Book 7
Romanos 1:21
Although they have received a copious language and an elegant mode of speech from the bounty of God, yet, being unthankful to God the Giver, they are disobedient to His words; and while they have received everything from God and their predecessors, they set them aside, and with swaggering insolence ascribe everything to themselves. — The Christian Topography, Book 12
Romanos 1:22
They say that the heaven which they call a body contains the whole world, and stoutly maintain that outside of it nothing whatever exists; and yet they define angels and demons and souls, which are parts of the world as uncircumscribed, neither containing the heaven, nor contained by the heaven, not understanding what they say, since that which neither contains nor is contained is never by any possibility seen among things that are. If then these things be as they say, let them tell us with respect to their own soul whether it is, or is not. And if they say it is not, then to their own shame and disgrace they assume themselves to be soulless. But if they say that it exists, let them tell us whether it is in them or is not in them. If they reply that it is not in them, they answer not less shamelessly and foolishly than they did before. But if they reply that the soul is in them, we must ask them a further question: As the body is circumscribed by the heaven, why is not the soul also circumscribed? And if, as they say, it illuminates the body without being circumscribed along with it, the question arises, where is it when it illuminates the body? since it is impossible that, being a created thing, it should not exist with things created. And if they say it exists somewhere within the heaven, then it is again circumscribed by the body itself of the heaven, although it was represented by them as uncircumscribed. But if they make it exist outside the heaven, they, in the first place, confute themselves; in the next place, it will either be in a part of the heaven and occupy but a small part of it, or it will be in the whole of it, in which case it will circumscribe the heaven and will be found having form like a bodily substance; and this a spherical form embracing and limiting the sphere. But if, again, they say that as being uncircumscribed it pervades all things both within and without, let them not blind themselves to the fact that they are both introducing polytheism and imagining an equality with God. For this property pertains to none except the uncreated Deity who created and fashioned the universe. So then, professing themselves to be wise, they become fools, as says the blessed Paul the Apostle, having changed the glory of the uncircumscribed Deity to their own created souls, thus appropriating to themselves the glory due to God. — The Christian Topography, Book 1
Romanos 1:23
the Apostle, knowing well what pertains to man and how he is figured, in his Epistle to the Romans has placed man, as destined in the future for heaven, superior to all, for he says: And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts and creeping things; mentioning man as superior to all, then the birds as inferior to him, then again the four-footed beasts as inferior to the birds, and as inferior to these again the creeping things which lurk underneath the earth, mentioning them according to their rank in the scale of being. — The Christian Topography, Book 3