OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume III/Moral Treatises of St. Augustin/On the Good of Widowhood/Section 4

4. Lo, there is your good compared to that good, which the Apostle calls his own, if faith be present: yea, rather, because faith is present. Short is this teaching, yet not on this account to be despised, because it is short; but on this account to be retained the more easily and the more dearly, in that in shortness it is not cheap. For it is not every kind of good soever, which the Apostle would here set forth, which he hath unambiguously placed above the faith of married women. But how great good the faith of married women, that is, of Christian and religious women joined in marriage, hath, may be understood from this, that, when he was giving charge for the avoiding of fornication, wherein assuredly he was addressing married persons also, he saith, “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?” So great then is the good of faithful marriage, that even the very members are (members) of Christ. But, forasmuch as the good of widowed continence is better than this good, the purpose of this profession is, not that a catholic widow be any thing more than a member of Christ, but that she have a better place, than a married woman, among the members of Christ. Forsooth the same Apostle says, “For, as in one body we have many members, but all members have not the same course of action; so being many we are one body in Christ, and each members one of another: having gifts diverse according unto the grace, which hath been given unto us.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ 1 Cor. vi. 15
* ↑ Rom. xii. 4–6
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 19

Chapter 19.—What, Seemingly, We are to Understand by the Words, “God Divided the Light from the Darkness.”
Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the truth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh meaning in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure passage should be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious facts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts. This obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after the discussion of many other interpretations, or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the discussion of the obscurity.  To me it does not seem incongruous with the working of God, if we understand that the angels were created when that first light was made, and that a separation was made between the holy and the unclean angels, when, as is said, “God divided the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.” For He alone could make this discrimination, who was able also before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they would abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as regards the day and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded those luminaries of heaven that are obvious to our senses to divide between the light and the darkness. “Let there be,” He says, “lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night;” and shortly after He says, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.” But between that light, which is the holy company of the angels spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the spiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet it was future, could not be hidden or uncertain.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gen. i. 14–18.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 15

Chapter 15.—How We are to Understand the Words, “The Devil Sinneth from the Beginning.”
As for what John says about the devil, “The devil sinneth from the beginning” they who suppose it is meant hereby that the devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand it; for if sin be natural, it is not sin at all. And how do they answer the prophetic proofs,—either what Isaiah says when he represents the devil under the person of the king of Babylon, “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” or what Ezekiel says, “Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering,” where it is meant that he was some time without sin; for a little after it is still more explicitly said, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways?”  And if these passages cannot well be otherwise interpreted, we must understand by this one also, “He abode not in the truth,” that he was once in the truth, but did not remain in it. And from this passage, “The devil sinneth from the beginning,” it is not to be supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his created existence, but from the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of Job, of which the devil is the subject: “This is the beginning of the
creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His angels,” which agrees with the psalm, where it is said, “There is that dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport therein.” But these passages are not to lead us to suppose that the devil was originally created to be the sport of the angels, but that he was doomed to this punishment after his sin. His beginning, then, is the handiwork of God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and last of the beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing can be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this angelic nature, which surpasses in dignity all else that He has made, the handiwork of the Most High!

## Footnotes

* ↑ 1 John iii. 8.
* ↑ The Manichæans.
* ↑ Isa. xiv. 12.
* ↑ Ezek. xxviii. 13.
* ↑ Job xl. 14 (LXX.).
* ↑ Ps. civ. 26.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 16

Chapter 16.—Of the Ranks and Differences of the Creatures, Estimated by Their Utility, or According to the Natural Gradations of Being.
For, among those beings which exist, and which are not of God the Creator’s essence, those which have life are ranked above those which have none; those that have the power of generation, or even of desiring, above those which want this faculty. And, among things that have life, the sentient are higher than those which have no sensation, as animals are ranked above trees. And, among the sentient, the intelligent are above those that have not intelligence,—men, e.g., above cattle. And, among the intelligent, the immortal such as the angels, above the mortal, such as men. These are the gradations according to the order of nature; but according to the utility each man finds in a thing, there are various standards of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some things that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish the latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the place they hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing them to our own convenience. Who, e.g., would not rather have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas? But there is little to wonder at in this, seeing that even when valued by men themselves (whose nature is certainly of the highest dignity), more is often given for a horse than for a slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the reason of one contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from those dictated by the necessity of the needy, or the desire of the voluptuous; for the former considers what value a thing in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers how it meets its need; reason looks for what the mental light will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly titilates the bodily sense. But of such consequence in rational natures is the weight, so to speak, of will and of love, that though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by the scale of justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 14

Chapter 14.—An Explanation of What is Said of the Devil, that He Did Not Abide in the Truth, Because the Truth Was Not in Him.
Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did not abide in the truth, our Lord subjoins the reason, saying, “because the truth is not in him.” Now, it would be in him had he abode in it. But the phraseology is unusual. For, as the words stand, “He abode not in the truth, because the truth is not in him,” it seems as if the truth’s not being in him were the cause of his not abiding in it; whereas his not abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in him. The same form of speech is found in the psalm: “I have called upon Thee, for Thou hast heard me, O God,” where we should expect it to be said, Thou hast heard me, O God, for I have called upon Thee. But when he had said, “I have called,” then, as if some one were seeking proof of this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of his prayer by the effect of God’s hearing it; as if he had said, The proof that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ps. xvii. 6.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 18

Chapter 18.—Of the Beauty of the Universe, Which Becomes, by God’s Ordinance, More Brilliant by the Opposition of Contraries.
For God would never have created any, I do not say angel, but even man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the
good He could turn him, thus embellishing, the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses.  For what are called antitheses are among the most elegant of the ornaments of speech. They might be called in Latin “oppositions,” or, to speak more accurately, “contrapositions;” but this word is not in common use among us, though the Latin, and indeed the languages of all nations, avail themselves of the same ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use of antithesis, in that place where he says, “By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” As, then, these oppositions of contraries lend beauty to the language, so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things. This is quite plainly stated in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way: “Good is set against evil, and life against death: so is the sinner against the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are two and two, one against another.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Quintilian uses it commonly in the sense of antithesis.
* ↑ 2 Cor. vi. 7–10.
* ↑ Ecclus. xxxiii. 15.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 2

Chapter 2.—Of the Knowledge of God, to Which No Man Can Attain Save Through the Mediator Between God and Men, the Man Christ Jesus.
It is a great and very rare thing for a man,
after he has contemplated the whole creation, corporeal and incorporeal, and has discerned its mutability, to pass beyond it, and, by the continued soaring of his mind, to attain to the unchangeable substance of God, and, in that height of contemplation, to learn from God Himself that none but He has made all that is not of the divine essence. For God speaks with a man not by means of some audible creature dinning in his ears, so that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with him that hears the sound, nor even by means of a spiritual being with the semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams or similar states; for even in this case He speaks as if to the ears of the body, because it is by means of the semblance of a body He speaks, and with the appearance of a real interval of space,—for visions are exact representations of bodily objects. Not by these, then, does God speak, but by the truth itself, if any one is prepared to hear with the mind rather than with the body. For He speaks to that part of man which is better than all else that is in him, and than which God Himself alone is better. For since man is most properly understood (or, if that cannot be, then, at least, believed) to be made in God’s image, no doubt it is that part of him by which he rises above those lower parts he has in common with the beasts, which brings him nearer to the Supreme. But since the mind itself, though naturally capable of reason and intelligence is disabled by besotting and inveterate vices not merely from delighting and abiding in, but even from tolerating His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually healed, and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in the first place, to be impregnated with faith, and so purified. And that in this faith it might advance the more confidently towards the truth, the truth itself, God, God’s Son, assuming humanity without destroying His divinity, established and founded this faith, that there might be a way for man to man’s God through a God-man. For this is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For it is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the way lieth between him who goes, and the place whither he goes, there is hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not where it is, what boots it to know whither he should go? Now the only way that is infallibly secured against all mistakes, is when the very same person is at once God and man, God our end, man our way.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Homine assumto, non Deo consumto.
* ↑ Quo itur Deus, qua itur homo.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 20

Chapter 20.—Of the Words Which Follow the Separation of Light and Darkness, “And God Saw the Light that It Was Good.”
Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture without noticing that when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” it was immediately added, “And God saw the light that it was good.” No such expression followed the statement that He separated the light from the darkness, and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the seal of His approval might seem to be set on such darkness, as well as on the light. For when the darkness was not subject of disapprobation, as when it was divided by the heavenly bodies from this light which our eyes discern, the statement that God saw that it was good is inserted, not before, but after the division is recorded. “And God set them,” so runs the passage, “in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.” For He approved of both, because both were sinless. But where God said, “Let there be light, and there was light; and God saw the
light that it was good;” and the narrative goes on, “and God divided the light from the darkness! and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night,” there was not in this place subjoined the statement, “And God saw that it was good,” lest both should be designated good, while one of them was evil, not by nature, but by its own fault. And therefore, in this case, the light alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not approved.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XI/Chapter 17

Chapter 17.—That the Flaw of Wickedness is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature, and Has Its Origin, Not in the Creator, But in the Will.
It is with reference to the nature, then, and not to the wickedness of the devil, that we are to understand these words, “This is the beginning of God’s handiwork;” for, without doubt, wickedness can be a flaw or vice only where the nature previously was not vitiated. Vice, too, is so contrary to nature, that it cannot but damage it. And therefore departure from God would be no vice, unless in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature. But God, as He is the supremely good Creator of good natures, so is He of evil wills the most just Ruler; so that, while they make an ill use of good natures, He makes a good use even of evil wills. Accordingly, He caused the devil (good by God’s creation, wicked by his own will) to be cast down from his high position, and to become the mockery of His angels,—that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those whom he wishes to injure by them. And because God, when He created him, was certainly not ignorant of his future malignity, and foresaw the good which He Himself would bring out of his evil, therefore says the psalm, “This leviathan whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein,” that we may see that, even while God in His goodness created him good, He yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make use of him when he became wicked.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Job. xl. 14 (LXX.).
* ↑ It must be kept in view that “vice” has, in this passage, the meaning of sinful blemish.
* ↑ Ps. civ. 26.
# National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/For a Picture of St. Cecilia attended by Angels

FOR A PICTURE OF ST. CECILIA ATTENDED BY ANGELS.
How rich that forehead's calm expanse! How bright that heaven-directed glance! —Waft her to glory, winged powers.  Ere sorrow be renewed, And intercourse with mortal hours Bring back a humbler mood! Wordsworth.
How can that eye, with inspiration beaming,  Wear yet so deep a calm?—Oh, child of song! Is not the music-land a world of dreaming,  Where forms of sad, bewildering beauty throng?
Hath it not sounds from voices long departed?  Echoes of tones that rung in childhood's ear? Low haunting whispers, which the weary hearted,  Stealing midst crowds away, have wept to hear?
No, not to thee!—thy spirit, meek, yet queenly,  On its own starry height, beyond all this, Floating triumphantly and yet serenely,  Breathes no faint under-tone through songs of bliss!
Say by what strain, through cloudless ether swelling,  Thou hast drawn down those wanderers from the skies? Bright guests! even such as left of yore their dwelling,  For the deep cedar shades of Paradise!
What strain?—oh! not the Nightingale's when showering  Her own heart's life drops on the burning lay, She stirs the young woods in the days of flowering,  And pours her strength, but not her grief away:
And not the Exile's—when midst lonely billows  He wakes the alpine notes his mother sung, Or blends them with the sigh of alien willows,  Where murmuring to the wind, his harp is hung.
And not the Pilgrim's—though his thoughts be holy,  And sweet his Ave song, when day grows dim, Yet as he journeys, pensively and slowly,  Something of sadness floats through that low hymn.
But thou!—the spirit which at eve is filling  All the hushed air and reverential sky, Founts, leaves, and flowers, with solemn rapture thrilling,  This is the soul of thy rich harmony.
This bears up high those breathings of devotion  Wherein the currents of thy heart gush free; Therefore no world of sad and vain emotion  Is the dream-haunted music land for thee.
# National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/If thou hast crushed a flower

IF THOU HAST CRUSHED A FLOWER.
Oh cast thou not Affection from thee! In this bitter world Hold to thy heart that only treasure fast; Watch—guard it—suffer not a breath to dim The bright gem's purity!
If thou hast crushed a flower,  The root may not be blighted; If thou hast quenched a lamp,  Once more it may be lighted : But on thy harp or on thy lute,  The string which thou hast broken, Shall never in sweet sound again  Give to thy touch a token!
If thou hast loosed a bird,  Whose voice of song could cheer thee, Still, still he may be won  From the skies to warble near thee: But if upon the troubled sea  Thou hast thrown a gem unheeded, Hope not that wind or wave will bring  The treasure back when needed.
If thou hast bruised a vine,  The summer's breath is healing, And its clusters yet may glow,  Through the leaves their bloom revealing: But if thou hast a cup o'erthrown  With a bright draught filled—oh! never Shall earth give back that lavished wealth  To cool thy parched lip's fever!
The heart is like that cup,  If thou waste the love it bore thee; And like that jewel gone,  Which the deep will not restore thee; And like that strain of harp or lute  Whence the sweet sound is scattered:— Gently, oh! gently touch the chords,  So soon for ever shattered!
# National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/Introduction

SONGS OF CAPTIVITY.
INTRODUCTION.
One hour for distant homes to weep  'Midst Afric's burning sands, One silent sunset hour was given  To the slaves of many lands.
They sat beneath a lonely palm,  In the gardens of their lord; And mingling with the fountain's tune,  Their songs of exile poured.
And strangely, sadly, did those lays  Of Alp and Ocean sound, With Afric's wild red skies above,  And solemn wastes around.
Broken with tears were oft their tones,  And most when most they tried To breathe of hope and liberty,  From hearts that inly died.
So met the sons of many lands,  Parted by mount and main; So did they sing in brotherhood,  Made kindred by the chain.
# National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/Far over the Sea

V.
FAR O'ER THE SEA.
Where are the vintage songs  Wandering in glee? Where dance the peasant bands  Joyous and free? Under a kind blue sky, Where doth my birth-place lie?  —Far o'er the sea!
Where floats the myrtle-scent  O'er vale and lea, When evening calls the dove  Homewards to flee? Where doth the orange gleam Soft on my native stream?  —Far o'er the sea!
Where are sweet eyes of love  Watching for me? Where o'er the cabin roof  Waves the green tree? Where speaks the vesper-chime  Still of a holy time?  —Far o'er the sea!
Dance on, ye vintage bands,  Fearless and free! Still fresh and greenly wave,  My father's tree! Still smile, ye kind blue skies! Though your son pines and dies  Far o'er the sea!
# National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/Good night

GOOD NIGHT.*
Day is past! Stars have set their watch at last, Founts that thro' the deep woods flow Make sweet sounds, unheard till now, Flowers have shut with fading light— Good night!
Go to rest! Sleep sit dove-like on thy breast! If within that secret cell One dark form of memory dwell, Be it mantled from thy sight— Good night!
Joy be thine! Kind looks o'er thy slumbers shine! Go, and in the spirit-land Meet thy home's long parted band, Be their eyes all love and light— Good night!
Peace to all! Dreams of heaven on mourners fall! Exile! o'er thy couch may gleams Pass from thine own mountain streams; Bard! away to worlds more bright— Good night!
* ↑   * For a melody of Eisenhofer's.
* ↑ errata
# National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/I would we had not met again

‡ I WOULD WE HAD NOT MET AGAIN.
I would we had not met again!  —I had a dream of thee, Lovely, tho' sad, on desert plain,  Mournful on midnight sea.
What tho' it haunted me by night,  And troubled thro' the day? It touched all earth with spirit-light,  It glorified my way!
Oh! what shall now my faith restore  In holy things and fair? We met—I saw thy soul once more—  —The world's breath had been there!
Yes! it was sad on desert-plain,  Mournful on midnight sea, Yet would I buy with life again  That one deep dream of thee!