According to Epicurus, the atoms and the void are indestructible, and it is by a definite arrangement and adjustment of the atoms as they come together that all other formations are produced, including the body itself. Justin Martyr (c. 160, E), 1.173.
Those who deny that this arrangement of the whole world was perfected by the divine Reason, but assert that it was heaped together by certain fragments casually adhering to each other, seem to me to have neither mind, nor sense, nor even sight itself. For what can possibly be so obvious, so confessed, and so evident, when you lift your eyes up to heaven and look into the things that are below and around us, than that there is some Deity of most excellent intelligence. Mark Minucius Felix (c. 200, W), 4.182.
For there are those who, giving the name of atoms to certain imperishable and most minute bodies that are supposed to be infinite in number, . . . allege that these atoms, as they were carried along by chance in the void, all clashed fortuitously against each other in an unregulated whirl. They thereby commingled with one another in a multitude of forms. Entering into combination with each other, they gradually formed this world and all objects in it. . . . This was the opinion of Epicurus and Democritus. Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 262, E), 6.85.
Who can bear to hear it said that this mighty habitation, which is composed of heaven and earth and is called the “cosmos,” . . . was established in all its order and beauty by those atoms that hold their course devoid of order and beauty? Or, that this same state of disorder has grown into this true cosmos of order? Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 262, E), 6.86.
Truly we have here a most marvelous democracy of atoms, where friends welcome and embrace friends! Where all are eager to journey together in one habitation! By their own determination, some have rounded themselves off into that mighty luminary the sun! Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 262, E), 6.87; extended discussion: 6.84–6.89, 7.87–7.88.