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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XII/Gregory the Great/Register of Epistles/Book VIII/Chapter 4

Epistle V.
To various Metropolitans and Bishops.
Gregory to Eusebius of Thessalonica, Urbitius of Dyracchium, Constantius ofMediolanum (Milan), Andrew of Nicopolis, John of Corinth, John of Prima Justiniana, John Cretensi Scoritano, John of Larissa, Marinianus of Ravenna, Januarius of Caralis (Cagliari) in Sardinia, and all the bishops of Sicily.
I have taken care to transmit to your Fraternity the law which the most pious Emperor has issued, to the effect that such as are bound by engagements of military service or public liabilities, may not in any case, in order to escape risk of being called to account, assume the condition of ecclesiastics, or become monks: and this I especially press upon you, that such as are involved in secular engagements are not to be received hastily among the clergy of the Church, since, while they live in an ecclesiastical condition no otherwise than they had lived before, they are by no means trying to escape secular affairs, but to change them. But, if any such should even seek a monastery, they are by no means to be received unless they have first been absolved from their public liabilities. Further, if any from the military order are in haste to become monks, they are not to be received rashly, or until their life has been fully enquired into. And, according to the regular rule, they ought to undergo a probation of three years, and then, God granting it, assume the monastic habit. And if they have thus been proved and accepted, and are anxious, for the good of their souls, to do penance for the sins they have committed, then, with a view to their heavenly life and gain, monastic profession should not be denied them. With respect to this matter also, believe me, the most serene and most Christian Emperor is in every way pacified, and willingly allows the monastic profession of those whom he knows not to be implicated in public liabilities. The Month of December, first Indiction.

## Footnotes

* ↑ On the subject of this Epistle, see III. 65, 66.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XII/Gregory the Great/Register of Epistles/Book VIII/Chapter 17

Epistle XXIX.
To Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria.
Gregory to Eulogius, &c.
An address from a learned man is always profitable, because the hearer either learns what he had known himself to be ignorant of, or, what is more, comes to know what he did not know he had been ignorant of. A hearer of the latter kind I have now become, your most holy Blessedness having been minded to write to me, asking me to send you the acts of all the martyrs, which were collected in the times of Constantine, of pious memory, by Eusebius of Cæsarea. But before receiving the letter of your Blessedness I did not know of these acts, whether they had been collected, or whether not. I therefore give thanks that, instructed by your most holy teaching, I have begun to know what I was ignorant of.  For beside what is contained about the acts of the holy martyrs in the books of the same Eusebius, I am not aware of any collections in the archives of this our Church, or in the libraries of the city of Rome, unless it be some few things collected in one single volume. We have indeed the names of almost all the martyrs, with their passions assigned to particular days, collected in one volume; and we celebrate the solemnities of mass on such days in commemoration of them.  Yet it is not indicated in this volume who each was, and how he suffered; but only his name, the place, and day, of his passion are put down. Hence it results that many of divers countries and provinces are known to have been crowned with martyrdom, as I have said, through their several days. But these we believe you have. That, however, which you wish to have sent to you we have sought for, but have not found; but, though we have not found it, we will still search, and, if it can be found, will send it.
With regard to what you write about the timber being short in length, the cause was in the kind of ship by which it was sent; for, if a larger ship had come, we could have sent larger pieces of timber. But as to your saying that, if we send larger pieces, you will pay for them, we thank you indeed for your liberality, but we are precluded from accepting a price, since the Gospel forbids it. For we do not buy the timber which we send; and how can we accept a price, when it is written, Freely ye have received, freely give (Matth. x. 8)? We have therefore sent now through the shipmaster timber of short length in accordance with the size of the ship, whereof a notice is subjoined. Next year, however, should it please Almighty God, we will prepare larger pieces.
We have received with the kindliness wherewith it was sent the blessing of Saint Mark the Evangelist, nay, it may be said more truly, of Saint Peter the Apostle; and, greeting you well, we beg your Blessedness to deign to pray for us, that so we may be counted worthy to be soon delivered from present evils, and not to be excluded from future joys.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. VII. 40, for Gregory’s view of the sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, jointly representing the see of St. Peter.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XII/Gregory the Great/Register of Epistles/Book VIII/Chapter 5

Epistle VI.
To Amos, Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Gregory to Amos, Bishop of Jerusalem.
Being confident that your Fraternity pays regard to the ordinances of the canons and the vigour of discipline, lest the falseness of one of your clerics should succeed in imposing on you so as to escape the strictness of ecclesiastical order, we have thought it right to inform you of his fault, that through your solicitude he may be subjected to the discipline from which he has fled. We understand, then, that Peter, an acolyte, whom we had caused to serve under our son the deacon Sabinianus, our ecclesiastical representative in the royal city, has fled, and resorted to your Church. If this is true, let your Fraternity be at pains to secure him, and send him back hither when
an opportunity occurs. But if by chance, fearing this, he shall have departed from your Church, and be lurking in various places to escape detection, order him to be diligently sought for in all your parishes, and, when found, send him back to us, as we have before said. And we desire also to notify through you that he is deprived of communion: nor let him dare to receive the mysteries of the Lord’s body and blood until he shall return to us, unless by chance he should be in imminent peril of death.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume VI/The Harmony of the Gospels/Book I/Chapter 20

Chapter XX.—Of the Fact that Nothing is Discovered to Have Been Predicted by the Prophets of the Pagans in Opposition to the God of the Hebrews.
28. Or let them aver, if they are able, that some Sibyl of theirs, or any one whatever among their other prophets, announced long ago that it would come to pass that the God of the Hebrews, the God of Israel, would be worshipped by all nations, declaring, at the same time, that the worshippers of other gods before that time had rightly rejected Him; and again, that the compositions of His prophets would be in such exalted authority, that in obedience to them the Roman government itself would command the destruction of images, the said seers at the same time giving warning against acting upon such ordinances;—let them, I say, read out any utterances like these, if they can, from any of the books of their prophets. For I stop not to state that those things which we can read in their books repeat a testimony on behalf of our religion, that is, the Christian religion, which they might have heard from the holy angels and from our prophets themselves; just as the very devils were compelled to confess Christ when He was present in the flesh. But I pass by these matters, regarding which, when we bring them forward, their contention is that they were invented by our party. Most certainly, however, they may themselves be pressed to adduce anything which has been prophesied by the seers of their own gods against the God of the Hebrews; as, on our side, we can point to declarations so remarkable at once for number and for weight recorded in the books of our prophets against their gods, in which also we can both note the command and recite the prediction and demonstrate the event. And over the realization of these things, that comparatively small number of heathens who have remained such are more inclined to grieve than they are ready to acknowledge that God who has had the power to foretell these things as events destined to be made good; whereas in their dealings with their own false gods, who are genuine demons, they prize nothing else so highly as to be informed by their responses of something which is to take place with them.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Reading futuras etiam litteras…in auctoritate ita sublimi. Six mss. give futurum…sublimari, but with substantially the same sense.
* ↑ Nihil aliud pro magno appetant quam cum aliquid eorum responsis sibi futurum esse didicerint.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume VI/The Harmony of the Gospels/Book I/Chapter 19

Chapter XIX.—The Proof that This God is the True God.
27. But that must have been a vain necessity and a ridiculous timidity. We ask now what opinion regarding this God is formed by those men whose pleasure it is that all gods ought to be worshipped. For if He ought not to be worshipped, how are all worshipped when He is not worshipped? And if He ought to be worshipped, it cannot be that all others are to be worshipped along with Him. For unless He is worshipped alone, He is really not worshipped at all. Or may it perhaps be the case, that they will allege Him to be no God at all, while they call those gods who, as we believe, have no power to do anything except so far as permission is given them by His judgment,—have not merely no power to do good to any one, but no power even to do harm to any, except to those who are judged by Him, who possesses all power, to merit so to be harmed? But, as they themselves are compelled to admit, those deities have shown less power than He has done. For if those are held to be gods whose prophets, when consulted by men, have returned responses which, that I may not call them false, were at least most convenient for their private interests, how is not He to be regarded as God whose prophets have not only given the congruous answer on subjects regarding which they were consulted at the special time, but who also, in the case of subjects respecting which they were not consulted, and which related to the universal race of man and all nations, have announced prophetically so long time before the event those very things of which we now read, and which indeed we now behold? If they gave the name of god to that being under whose inspiration the Sibyl sung of the fates of the Romans, how is not He (to be called) God, who, in accordance with the announcement aforetime given, has shown us how the Romans and all nations are coming to believe in Himself through the gospel of Christ, as the one God, and to demolish all the images of their fathers? Finally, if they designate those as gods who have never dared through their prophets to say anything against this God, how is not He (to be designated) God, who not only commanded by the mouth of His prophets the destruction of their images, but who also predicted that among all the Gentiles they would be destroyed by those who should be enjoined to abandon their idols and to worship Him alone, and who, on receiving these injunctions, should be His servants?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Or, Away with that vain necessity and ridiculous timidity—Sed fuerit ista vana necessitas, etc.
* ↑ Reading fata. Seven mss. give facta = deeds.
* ↑ [This reference to the destruction of idols has been used to fix the date of the Harmony; see Introductory Notice of translator. The polemic character of the larger part of Book i. seems due to the circumstances of that particular period in North Africa.—R.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume VI/The Harmony of the Gospels/Book I/Chapter 21

Chapter XXI.—An Argument for the Exclusive Worship of This God, Who, While He Prohibits Other Deities from Being Worshipped, is Not Himself Interdicted by Other Divinities from Being Worshipped.
29. Seeing, then, that these things are so, why do not these unhappy men rather apprehend the fact that this God is the true God, whom they perceive to be placed in a position so thoroughly separated from the company of their own deities, that, although they are compelled to acknowledge Him to be God, those very persons who profess that all gods ought to be worshipped are nevertheless not permitted to worship Him along with the rest? Now, since these deities and this God cannot be worshipped together, why is not He selected who forbids those others to be worshipped; and why are not those deities abandoned, who do not interdict Him from being worshipped? Or if they do indeed forbid His worship, let the interdict be read. For what has greater claims to be recited to their people in their temples, in which the sound of no such thing has ever been heard? And, in good sooth, the prohibition directed by so many against one ought to be more notable and more potent than the prohibition launched by one against so many. For if the worship of this God is impious, then those gods are profitless, who do not interdict men from that impiety; but if the worship of this God is pious, then, as in that worship the commandment is given that these others are not to be worshipped, their worship is impious. If, again, those deities forbid His worship, but only so diffidently that they rather fear to be heard than dare to prohibit, who is so unwise as not to draw his own inference from the fact, who fails to perceive that this God ought to be chosen, who in so public a manner prohibits their worship, who commanded that their images should be destroyed, who foretold that demolition, who Himself effected it, in preference to those deities of whom we know not that they ordained abstinence from His worship, of whom we do not read that they foretold such an event, and in whom we do not see power sufficient to have it brought about? I put the question, let them give the answer: Who is this God, who thus harasses all the gods of the Gentiles, who thus betrays all their sacred rites, who thus renders them extinct?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Reading notior; others give potior = preferable. [The text of Migne reads notior et potentior, but five mss. read notior et potior. The argument favours the former reading, and the latter can readily be accounted for.—R.]
* ↑ Some read audere timeant = fear to dare. But the mss. give more correctly audiri timeant = fear to be heard; i.e., the demons were afraid that, if they interdicted His worship, the true God might be made known by their own hand.—Migne.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume VI/The Harmony of the Gospels/Book I/Chapter 22

Chapter XXII.—Of the Opinion Entertained by the Gentiles Regarding Our God.
30. But why do I interrogate men whose native wit has deserted them in answering the question as to who this God is? Some say that He is Saturn. I fancy the reason of that is found in the sanctification of the Sabbath; for those men assign that day to Saturn. But their own Varro, than whom they can point to no man of greater learning among them, thought that the God of the Jews was Jupiter, and he judged that it mattered not what name was employed, provided the same subject was understood under it; in which, I believe, we see how he was subdued by His supremacy. For, inasmuch as the Romans are not accustomed to worship any more exalted object than Jupiter, of which fact their Capitol is the open and sufficient attestation, and deem him to be the king of all gods; when he observed that the Jews worshipped the supreme God, he could not think of any object under that title other than Jupiter himself. But whether men call the God of the Hebrews Saturn, or declare Him to be Jupiter, let them tell us when Saturn dared to prohibit the worship of a second deity. He did not venture to interdict the worship even of this very Jupiter, who is said to have expelled him from his kingdom,—the son thus expelling the father. And if Jupiter, as the more powerful deity and the conqueror, has been accepted by his worshippers, then they ought not to worship Saturn, the conquered and expelled. But neither, on the other hand, did Jove put his worship under the ban. Nay, that deity whom he had power to overcome, he nevertheless suffered to continue a god.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume VI/The Harmony of the Gospels/Book I/Chapter 18

Chapter XVIII.—Of the Fact that the God of the Hebrews is Not Received by the Romans, Because His Will is that He Alone Should Be Worshipped.
26. In fine, they may think of Him as they please. Still, we may ask whether it is the case that the Romans refuse to consider evil deities as also proper objects of worship,—those Romans who have erected fanes to Pallor and Fever, and who enjoin both that the good demons are to been treated, and that the evil demons are to be propitiated. Whatever their opinion, then, of Him may be, the question still is, Why is He the only Deity whom they have judged worthy neither of being called upon for help, nor of being propitiated? What God is this, who is either one so unknown, that He is the only one not discovered as yet among so many gods, or who is one so well known that He is now the only one worshipped by so many men? There remains, then, nothing which they can possibly allege in explanation of their refusal to admit the worship of this God, except that His will was that He alone should be worshipped; and His command was, that those gods of the Gentiles that they were worshipping at the time should cease to be worshipped. But an answer to this other question is rather to be required of them, namely, what or what manner of deity they consider this God to be, who has forbidden the worship of those other gods for whom they erected temples and images,—this God, who has also been possessed of might so vast that His will has prevailed more in effecting the destruction of their images than theirs has availed to secure the non-admittance of His worship. And, indeed, the opinion of that philosopher of theirs is given in plain terms, whom, even on the authority of their own oracle, they have maintained to have been the wisest of all men. For the opinion of Socrates is, that every deity whatsoever ought to be worshipped just in the manner in which he may have ordained that he should be worshipped. Consequently it became a matter of the supremest necessity with them to refuse to worship the God of the Hebrews. For if they were minded to worship Him in a method different from the way in which He had declared that He ought to be worshipped, then assuredly they would have been worshipping not this God as He is, but some figment of their own. And, on the other hand, if they were willing to worship Him in the manner which He had indicated, then they could not but perceive that they were not at liberty to worship those other deities whom He interdicted them from worshipping. Thus was it, therefore, that they rejected the service of the one true God, because they were afraid that they might offend the many false gods. For they thought that the anger of those deities would be more to their injury, than the goodwill of this God would be to their profit.

## Footnotes

* ↑ The text gives invitandos; others read imitandos, to be imitated.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume VI/The Harmony of the Gospels/Book I/Chapter 24

Chapter XXIV.—Of the Fact that Those Persons Who Reject the God of Israel, in Consequence Fail to Worship All the Gods; And, on the Other Hand, that Those Who Worship Other Gods, Fail to Worship Him.
37. It is well understood, therefore, what these worshippers of images are convicted in reality of revering, and what they attempt to colour over. But even these new interpreters of Saturn must be required to tell us what they think of the God of the Hebrews. For to them also it seemed right to worship all the gods, as is done by the heathen nations, because their pride made them ashamed to humble themselves under Christ for the remission of their sins. What opinion, therefore, do they entertain regarding the God of Israel? For if they do not worship Him then they do not worship all gods; and if they do worship Him, they do not worship Him in the way that He has ordained for His own worship, because they worship others also whose worship He has interdicted. Against such practices He issued His prohibition by the mouth of those same prophets by whom He also announced beforehand the destined occurrence of those very things which their images are now sustaining at the hands of the Christians. For whatever the explanation may be, whether it be that the angels were sent to those prophets to show them figuratively, and by the congruous forms of visible objects, the one true God, the Creator of all things, to whom the whole universe is made subject, and to indicate the method in which He enjoined His own worship to proceed; or whether it was that the minds of some among them were so mightily elevated by the Holy Spirit, as to enable them to see those things in that kind of vision in which the angels themselves behold objects: in either case it is the incontestable fact, that they did serve that God who has prohibited the worship of other gods; and, moreover, it is equally certain, that with the faithfulness of piety, in the kingly and in the priestly office, they ministered at once for the good of their country, and in the interest of those sacred ordinances which were significant of the coming of Christ as the true King and Priest.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Reading colorare, as in the mss. Some editions give colere = revere.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume V/Apologetic Works
## Contents

* Title Page
* The Great Catechism
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume IX/Title Page/Introduction
## Contents

* The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers
* The Theology of St. Hilary of Poitiers
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume IX/Title Page/Title Page

St. Hilary of Poitiers.
Select Works.
Translated
by
The Rev. E. W. Watson, M.A.
Warden of the Society of St. Andrew, Salisbury,
The Rev. L. Pullan, M.A.
Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford,
and Others.
Edited
by
The Rev. W. Sanday, D.D., LL.D.
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume V

See Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II for details of authorship.

## Contents

* Title Page
* Editor's Preface
* Title Page
* Preface
* Works Consulted
* Dates
* Prolegomena
** A Sketch of the Life of S. Gregory of Nyssa
** His General Character as a Theologian
** His Origenism
** His Teaching on the Holy Trinity
** MSS. And Editions
* Dogmatic Treatises
** Against Eunomius
** Answer to Eunomius' Second Book
** On the Holy Spirit
** On the Holy Trinity, and of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit
** On 'Not Three Gods.'
** On the Faith
* Ascetic and Moral Treatises
** Title Page
** On Virginity
** On Infants' Early Deaths
** On Pilgrimages
* Philosophical Works
** Title Page
** The Making of Man
** On the Soul and the Resurrection
* Apologetic Works
** Title Page
** The Great Catechism
* Oratorical Works
** Title Page
** Funeral Oration on Meletius
** On the Baptism of Christ
* Letters
** Title Page
** To Eusebius
** To the City of Sebasteia
** To Ablabius
** To Cynegius
** A Testimonial
** To Stagirius
** To a Friend
** To a Student of the Classics
** An Invitation
** To Libanius
** To Libanius 2
** On his work against Eunomius
** To the Church at Nicomedia
** To the Bishop of Melitene
** To Adelphius the Lawyer
** To Amphilochius
** To Eustathia, Ambrosia, and Basilissa
** To Flavian
* Indexes [not included]
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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