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# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Anatolius and Minor Writers/Theognostus of Alexandria/Translator's Biographical Notice

Theognostus of Alexandria.
Translator’s Biographical Notice.
[a.d. 260. I can add nothing but conjectures to the following:] Of this Theognostus we have no account by either Eusebius or Jerome. Athanasius, however, mentions him more than once with honour. Thus he speaks of him as ἀνὴρ λόγιος, an eloquent or learned man. And again as Θεόγνωστος ὁ θαυμάσιος καὶ σπουδαῖος, the admirable and zealous Theognostus. He seems to have belonged to the Catechetical school of Alexandria, and to have flourished there in the latter half of the third century, probably about a.d. 260. That he was a disciple of Origen, or at least a devoted student of his works, is clear from Photius. He wrote a work in seven books, the title of which is thus given by Photius: The Outlines of the blessed Theognostus, the exegete of Alexandria. Dodwell and others are of opinion that by this term exegete, is meant the presidency of the Catechetical school and the privilege of public teaching; and that the title, Outlines, was taken from Clement, his predecessor in office. According to Photius, the work was on this plan. The first book treated of God the Father, as the maker of the universe; the second, of the necessary existence of the Son; the third, of the Holy Spirit; the fourth, of angels and demons; the fifth and sixth, of the incarnation of God; while the seventh bore the title, On God’s Creation. Photius has much to say in condemnation of Thegnostus, who, however, has been vindicated by Bull and Prudentius Maranus. Gregory of Nyssa has also charged him with holding the same error as Eunomius on the subject of the Son’s relation to the work of creation. He is adduced, however, by Athanasius as a defender of the Homoüsian doctrine.

## Footnotes

* ↑ De Decret. Nic. Syn., 25, Works, vol. i. part i. p. 230.
* ↑ Epist. 4, to Serapion, sec. 9, vol. i. part ii. p. 702.
* ↑ Bibl., cod. 106.
* ↑ τοῦ μακαρίου Θεογνώστου ᾽Αλεξανδρέως καὶ ἐξηγητοῦ ὑποτυπώσες.
* ↑ ἐξηγητοῦ.
* ↑ ὑποτυπώσεις.
* ↑ De Dei Creatione.
* ↑ Defens. fid. Nic., sec. ii. chap. 10. [Bull always vindicates where he can do so, on the principle of justice, for which I have contended on p. v. (prefatory) of vol. iv.]
* ↑ Divinit I. C., iv. 24.
* ↑ Book iii., against Eunomius.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Anatolius and Minor Writers/Theognostus of Alexandria/From His Seven Books of Hypotyposes or Outlines/Part II

II.
Theognostus, moreover, himself adds words to this effect: He who has offended against the first term and the second, may be judged to deserve smaller punishment; but he who has also despised the third, can no longer find pardon.  For by the first term and the second, he says, is meant the teaching concerning the Father and the Son; but by the third is meant the doctrine committed to us with respect to the perfection and the partaking of the Spirit. And with the view of confirming this, he adduces the word spoken by the Saviour to the disciples: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. But when the Holy Spirit is come, He will teach you.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ In Athanasius, Epist. 4, to Serapion, sec. 11, vol. i. part ii. p. 703.
* ↑ ὅρον.
* ↑ τελειώσει. [i.e., making the disciples τέλειοι. James i. 4.]
* ↑ John xvi. 12, 13.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Anatolius and Minor Writers/Theognostus of Alexandria/From His Seven Books of Hypotyposes or Outlines/Part III

III.
Then he says again: As the Saviour converses with those not yet able to receive what is perfect, condescending to their littleness, while the Holy Spirit communes with the perfected, and yet we could never say on that account that the teaching of the Spirit is superior to the teaching of the Son, but only that the Son condescends to the imperfect, while the Spirit is the seal of the perfected; even so it is not on account of the superiority of the Spirit over the Son that the blasphemy against the Spirit is a sin excluding impunity and pardon, but because for the imperfect there is pardon, while for those who have tasted the heavenly gift, and been made perfect, there remains no plea or prayer for pardon.

## Footnotes

* ↑ From Athanasius, as above, p. 155.
* ↑ τὰ τέλεια.
* ↑ Heb. vi. 4. [Compare Matt. xii. 31.]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Anatolius and Minor Writers/Pierus of Alexandria/A Section on the Writings of Pierius

II.—A Section on the Writings of Pierius.
Different Discourses of the Presbyter Pierius.
There was read a book by Pierius the presbyter, who, they say, endured the conflict for Christ, along with his brother Isidorus. And he is reputed to have been the teacher of the martyr Pamphilus in ecclesiastical studies, and to have been president of the school at Alexandria. The work contained twelve books. And in style he is perspicuous and clear, with the easy flow, as it were, of a spoken address, displaying no signs of laboured art, but bearing us quietly along, smoothly and gently, like off-hand speaking. And in argument he is most fertile, if any one is so. And he expresses his opinion on many things outside what is now established in the Church, perhaps in an antique manner; but with respect to the Father and the Son, he sets forth his sentiments piously, except that he speaks of two substances and two natures; using, however, the terms substance and nature, as is apparent from what follows, and from what precedes this passage, in the sense of person and not in the sense put on it by the adherents of Arius. With respect to the Spirit, however, he lays down his opinion in a very dangerous and far from pious manner. For he affirms that He is inferior to the Father and the Son in glory. He has a passage also in the book entitled, On the Gospel according to Luke, from which it is possible to show that the honour or dishonour of the image is also the honour or dishonour of the original. And, again, he indulges in some obscure speculations, after the manner of the nonsense of Origen, on the subject of the “pre-existence of souls.” And also in the book on the Passover (Easter) and on Hosea, he treats both of the cherubim made by Moses, and of the pillar of Jacob, in which passages he admits the actual construction of those things, but propounds the foolish theory that they were given economically, and that they were in no respect like other things which are made; inasmuch as they bore the likeness of no other form, but had only, as he foolishly says, the appearance of wings.

## Footnotes

* ↑ From the Bibliotheca of Photius, cod. 119, p. 300, ed. Hoeschel.
* ↑ Of martyrdom.
* ↑ λόγους.
* ↑ ἐπιμελὲς ἐνδεικνύμενος.
* ↑ [e.g., his Platonic ideas, as explained in note 3, p. 156, supra.]
* ↑ ὐπόστασις. [See my remarks, vol. iv. p. v., introductory.]
* ↑ [Photos must often be received with a grain of salt.]
* ↑ εἰς τον λόγον. [On images, etc., Photius is no authority.]
* ↑ The text here is evidently corrupt. It runs thus: οἰκονομίας δὲ λόγῳ συγχωρηθῆναι ματαιολογεῖ ὡς οὐδὲν ἦσαν ὡς ἕτερα τὰ γεγενημένα.  ὡς οὐδὲ τυπον ἄλλον ἔφερε μορφῆς, ἀλλὰ μόνον πτερυγων κενολογεῖ φέρειν αὐτὰ σχῆμα. Hoeschelius proposes ὡς οὐδὲν ἦσαν, ὡς ἕτερον ἦσαν, ὡς ἕτερα, &c., and he rejects the ὡς in ὡς οὐδὲν τύπον on the authority of four codices.—Tr.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Anatolius and Minor Writers/Pierus of Alexandria/Translator's Biographical Notice

Pierus of Alexandria.
Translator’s Biographical Notice.
[a.d. 275.] Among the very eminent men who flourished near his own time, Eusebius mentions Pierius, a presbyter of Alexandria, and speaks of him as greatly renowned for his voluntary poverty, his philosophical erudition and his skill in the exposition of Scripture and in discoursing to the public assemblies of the Church. He lived in the latter part of the third century, and seems to have been for a considerable period president of the Catechetical school at Alexandria. Jerome says that he was called Origenes, junior; and according to Photius, he shared in some of the errors of Origen, on such subjects especially as the doctrine of the Holy Ghost and the pre-existence of souls. In his manner of life he was an ascetic. After the persecution under Galerius or Maximus he lived at Rome. He appears to have devoted himself largely to sacred criticism and the study of the text of Scripture; and among several treatises written by him, and extant in the time of Photius, we find mention made of one on the prophet Hosea. And, in addition to the Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Photius notices twelve books of his, and praises both their composition and their matter.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [See Introductory Note, p. 143, supra; also p. 99, note 8, supra.]
* ↑ Hist. Eccl., vii. 32.
* ↑ Perhaps only speculatively (see Frag. II. infra), not dogmatically. Compare Wordsworth’s Platonic Ode on Immortality.]
* ↑ Lardner (part ii. book i. chap. xxiv.) does not think that there was a commentary written by Pierius on this epistle, but only that the word of Paul, mentioned below, was expounded at length in some work or other by Pierius. Fabricius holds the opposite opinion.—Tr.
* ↑ See Eusebius as above, Jerome in the preface to Hosea, Photius, cod. 118, 119; Epiphanius, 69, 2; Lardner, part ii. book i. chap. 24; &c.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Anatolius and Minor Writers/Theonas of Alexandria
## Contents

* Translator's Biographical Notice
* Epistle of Theonas
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Anatolius and Minor Writers/Theonas of Alexandria/Epistle of Theonas
## Contents

* Chapter I
* Chapter II
* Chapter III
* Chapter IV
* Chapter V
* Chapter VI
* Chapter VII
* Chapter VIII
* Chapter IX
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XLVIII

48. But some one will perhaps say that the care of such a god has been denied to later and following ages, because the ways in which men now live are impious and objectionable; that it brought help to our ancestors, on the contrary, because they were blameless and guiltless. Now this might perhaps have been listened to, and said with some reasonableness, either if in ancient times all were good without exception, or if later times produced only wicked people, and no others. But since this is the case that in great peoples, in nations, nay, in all cities even, men have been of mixed natures, wishes, manners, and the good and bad have been able to exist at the same time in former ages, as well as in modern times, it is rather stupid to say that mortals of a later day have not obtained the aid of the deities on account of their wickedness. For if on account of the wicked of later generations the good men of modern times have not been protected, on account of the ancient evil-doers also the good of former times should in like manner not have gained the favour of the deities. But if on account of the good of ancient times the wicked of ancient times were preserved also, the following age, too, should have been protected, although it was faulty, on account of the good of later times. So, then, either that snake gained the reputation of being a deliverer while he had been of no service at all, through his being brought to the city when the violence of the disease was already weakened and impaired, or the hymns of the fates must be said to have been far from giving true indications, since the remedy given by them is found to have been useful, not to all in succession, but to one age only.

## Footnotes

* ↑ 45 in Orelli.
* ↑ Lit., “wanting.”
* ↑ The ms., 1st ed., Hild., and Oehler read gener-ent, corrected in the rest, as above, -arent.
* ↑ Lit., “all wicked and distinguished by no diversity.”
* ↑ Lit., “the human race has been mixed in,” etc.
* ↑ So all edd., reading vi morbi, except Hild., who retains the ms. vi urbi, in which case the italics should denote “of the disease,” instead of “to the city.” The construction, however, seems to make it impossible to adhere to the ms..
* ↑ Lit., “to have erred much from.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XV

15. What then! some one will say, do you think that no honour should be given to the gods at all? If you propose to us gods such as they should be if they do exist, and such as we feel that we all mean when we mention that name, how can we but give them even the greatest honour, since we have been taught by the commands which have especial power over us, to pay honour to all men even, of whatever rank, of whatever condition they may be? What, pray, you ask, is this very great honour? One much more in accordance with duty than is paid by you, and directed to a more powerful race, we reply. Tell, us, you say, in the first place, what is an opinion worthy of the gods, right and honourable, and not blameworthy from its being made unseemly by something infamous? We reply, one such that you believe that they neither have any likeness to man, nor look for anything which is outside of them and comes from without; then—and this has been said pretty frequently—that they do not burn with the fires of anger, that they do not give themselves up passionately to sensual pleasure, that they are not bribed to be of service, that they are not tempted to injure our enemies, that they do not sell their kindness and favour, that they do not rejoice in having honour heaped on them, that they are not indignant and vexed if it is not given; but—and this belongs to the divine—that by their own power they know themselves, and that they do not rate themselves by the obsequiousness of others. And yet, that we may see the nature of what is said, what kind of honour is this, to bind a wether, a ram, a bull before the face of a god, and slay them in his sight? What kind of honour is it to invite a god to a banquet of blood, which you see him take and share in with dogs? What kind of honour is it, having set on fire piles of wood, to hide the heavens with smoke, and darken with gloomy blackness the images of the gods? But if it seems good to you that these actions should be considered in themselves, not judged of according to your prejudices, you will find that those altars of which you speak, and even those beautiful ones which you dedicate to the superior gods, are places for burning the unhappy race of animals, funeral pyres, and mounds built for a most unseemly office, and formed to be filled with corruption.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “whom.”
* ↑ Lit., “say in the proclamation of.”
* ↑ Lit., “more powerful commands,” i.e., by Christ’s injunctions. It seems hardly possible that any one should suppose that there is here any reference to Christ’s command to His disciples not to exercise lordship over each other, yet Orelli thinks that there is perhaps a reference to Mark x. 42, 43. If a particular reference were intended, we might with more reason find it in 1 Pet. ii. 17, “Honour all men.”
* ↑ Lit., “established in.”
* ↑ Lit., “weighed by their own force,” vi.
* ↑ i.e., altariaque hæc pulchra.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XLII

42. And what pollution or abomination could have flowed from this, either to make the circus less pure, or to defile Jupiter, seeing that in a few moments, in a few seconds, he beheld so many thousands throughout the world perish by different kinds of death, and with various forms of torture? He was led across, says my opponent, before the games began to be celebrated. If from a sacrilegious spirit and contempt for religion, we have reason to excuse Jupiter for being indignant that he was contemned, and that more anxious care was not given to his games. But if from mistake or accident that secret fault was not observed and known, would it not have beer right and befitting Jupiter to pardon human failings, and grant forgiveness to the blindness of ignorance? But it was necessary that it should be punished. And after this, will any one believe that he was a god who avenged and punished neglect of a childish show by the destruction of a state? that he had any seriousness and dignity, or any steady constancy, who, that he might speedily enjoy pleasure afresh, turned the air men breathed into a baneful poison, and ordered the destruction of mortals by plague and pestilence? If the magistrate who presided over the games was too careless in learning who on that day had been led across the circus, and blame was therefore contracted, what had the unhappy people done that they should in their own persons suffer the penalty of another’s offences, and should be forced to hurry out of life by contagious pestilences? Nay, what had the women, whose weakness did not allow them to take part in public business, the grown-up maidens, the little boys, finally the young children, yet dependent for food on their nurses,—what had these done that they should be assailed with equal, with the same severity, and that before they tasted the joy of life they should feel the bitterness of death?

## Footnotes

* ↑ 39 in Orelli.
* ↑ So all edd., rejecting s from ms. contemptu-s.
* ↑ Lit., “draughts of air.”
* ↑ So, by omitting two letters, all edd. except 1st and Ursinus, which retain ms. adult-er-ae—“adulterous.”
* ↑ Lit., “light.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XLIX

49. But the Great Mother, also, says my opponent, being summoned from Phrygian Pessinus in precisely the same way by command of the seers, was a cause of safety and great joy to the people. For, on the one hand, a long-powerful enemy was thrust out from the position he had gained in Italy; and, on the other, its ancient glory was restored to the city by glorious and illustrious victories, and the boundaries of the empire were extended far and wide, and their rights as freemen were torn from races, states, peoples without number, and the yoke of slavery imposed on them, and many other things accomplished at home and abroad established the renown and dignity of the race with irresistible power. If the histories tell the truth, and do not insert what is false in their accounts of events, nothing else truly is said to have been brought from Phrygia, sent by King Attalus, than a stone, not large, which could be carried in a man’s hand without any pressure—of a dusky and black colour—not smooth, but having little corners standing out, and which to-day we all see put in that image instead of a face, rough and unhewn, giving to the figure a countenance by no means lifelike.

## Footnotes

* ↑ 46 In Orelli.
* ↑ Lit., “from the possession of Italy.”
* ↑ So all edd. to Orelli, adding -em to the ms. quid. [See, concerning Pessinus, p. 492, supra.]
* ↑ Lit., “a face too little expressed with imitation.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XVI

16. What say you, O you—! is that foul smell, then, which is given forth and emitted by burning hides, by bones, by bristles, by the fleeces of lambs, and the feathers of fowls,—is that a favour and an honour to the deity? and are the deities honoured by this, to whose temples, when you arrange to go, you come cleansed from all pollution, washed, and perfectly pure? And what can be more polluted than these, more unhappy, more debased, than if their senses are naturally such that they are fond of what is so cruel, and take delight in foul smells which, when inhaled with the breath, even those who sacrifice cannot bear, and certainly not a delicate nose? But if you think that the gods of heaven are honoured by the blood of living creatures being offered to them, why do you not sacrifice to them both mules, and elephants, and asses? why not dogs also, bears, and foxes, camels, and hyænas, and lions? And as birds also are counted victims by you, why do you not sacrifice vultures, eagles, storks, falcons, hawks, ravens, sparrow-hawks, owls, and, along with them, salamanders, water-snakes, vipers, tarantulæ? For indeed there is both blood in these, and they are in like manner moved by the breath of life. What is there more artistic in the former kind of sacrifices, or less ingenious in the latter, that these do not add to and increase the grandeur of the gods? Because, says my opponent, it is right to honour the gods of heaven with those things by which we are ourselves nourished and sustained, and live; which also they have, in their divine benevolence, deigned to give to us for food. But the same gods have given to you both cumin, cress, turnips, onions, parsley, esculent thistles, radishes, gourds, rue, mint, basil, flea-bane, and chives, and commanded them to be used by you as part of your food; why, then, do you not put these too upon the altars, and scatter wild-marjoram, with which oxen are fed, over them all, and mix amongst them onions with their pungent flavour?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “you show yourselves,” præstatis.
* ↑ Lit., “most.” So Tibullus (Eleg., ii. 1, 13): “Pure things please the gods. Come (i.e., to the sacrifice) with clean garments, and with clean hands take water from the fountain,”—perfect cleanliness being scrupulously insisted on.
* ↑ This Heraldus explains as “of worse omen,” and Oehler as “more unclean.”
* ↑ Ingenuæ, i.e., such as any respectable person has.
* ↑ To this the commentators have replied, that mules, asses, and dogs were sacrificed to certain deities. We must either admit that Arnobius has here fallen into error, or suppose that he refers merely to the animals which were usually slain, or find a reason for his neglecting it in the circumstances of each sacrifice.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XLVII

47. But if that snake was not a present deity, says my opponent, why, after its arrival, was the violence of the plague overcome, and health restored to the Roman people? We, too, on the other hand, bring forward the question, If, according to the books of the fates and the responses of the seers, the god Æsculapius was ordered to be invited to the city, that he might cause it to be safe and sound from the contagion of the plague and of pestilential diseases, and came without spurning the proposal contemptuously, as you say, changed into the form of serpents,—why has the Roman state been so often afflicted with such disasters, so often at one time and another torn, harassed, and diminished by thousands, through the destruction of its citizens times without number? For since the god is said to have been summoned for this purpose, that he might drive away utterly all the causes by which pestilence was excited, it followed that the state should be safe, and should be always maintained free from pestilential blasts, and unharmed. But yet we see, as was said before, that it has over and over again had seasons made mournful by these diseases, and that the manly vigour of its people has been shattered and weakened by no slight losses. Where, then, was Æsculapius? where that deliverer promised by venerable oracles? Why, after temples were built, and shrines reared to him, did he allow a state deserving his favour to be any longer plague-stricken, when he had been summoned for this purpose, that he should cure the diseases which were raging, and not allow anything of the sort which might be dreaded to steal on them afterwards?

## Footnotes

* ↑ 44 in Orelli.