OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Theodoret/Ecclesiastical History/Book V/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.—Of famous leaders of the Arian faction.
The Eastern section of the empire had received the infection from many quarters. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria in Egypt, there begat the blasphemy. Eusebius, Patrophilus, and Aetius of Palestine, Paulinus and Gregorius of Phœnicia, Theodotus of Laodicea and his successor Georgius, and after him Athanasius and Narcissus of Cilicia, had nurtured the seeds so foully sown. Eusebius and Theognis of Bithynia; Menophantus of Ephesus; Theodorus of Perinthus and Maris of Chalcedon, and some others of Thrace famous only for their vices, had for a long time gone on watering and tending the crop of tares. These bad husbandmen were aided by the indifference of Constantius and the malignity of Valens.
For these reasons only the bishops of his own empire were summoned by the emperor to meet at Constantinople. They arrived, being in all one hundred and fifty in number, and Theodosius forbade any one to tell him which was the great Meletius, for he wished the bishop to be recognized by his dream. The whole company of the bishops entered the imperial palace, and then without any notice of all the rest, Theodosius ran up to the great Meletius, and, like a boy who loves his father, stood for a long space gazing on him with filial joy, then flung his arms around him, and covered eyes and lips and breast and head and the hand that had given him the crown, with kisses. Then he told him of his dream. All the rest of the bishops were then courteously welcomed, and all were bidden to deliberate as became fathers on the subjects laid before them.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 17

Chapter 17 [VII.]—The Pelagians are Not Ashamed to Eulogize Concupiscence, Although They are Ashamed to Mention Its Name.
But among so many names of good things, such as bodies, sexes, unions, he never once mentions the lust or concupiscence of the flesh. He is silent, because he is ashamed; and yet with a strange shamelessness of shame (if the expression may be used), he is not ashamed to praise what he is ashamed to mention. Now just observe how he prefers to point to his object by circumlocution rather than by direct mention of it. “After that the man,” says he, “by natural appetite knew his wife.” See again, he refused to say, He knew his wife by carnal concupiscence; but he used the phrase, “by natural appetite,” by which it is open to us to understand that holy and honourable will which wills the procreation of children, and not that lust, of which even he is so much ashamed, forsooth, that he prefers to use ambiguous language to us, to expressing his mind in unmistakeable words. “Now what is the meaning of his phrase—“by natural appetite”? Is not both the wish to be saved and the wish to beget, nourish, and educate children, natural appetite? and is it not likewise of reason, and not of lust? Since, however, we can ascertain his intention, we are pretty sure that he meant by these words to indicate the lust of the organs of generation. Do not the words in question appear to you to be the fig-leaves, under cover of which is hidden nothing else but that which he feels ashamed of? For just as they of old sewed the leaves together as a girdle of concealment, so has this man woven a web of circumlocution to hide his meaning. Let him weave out his statement: “But when the man knew his wife by natural appetite, the divine Scripture says, Eve conceived, and bare a son, and called his name Cain. But what,” he adds, “does Adam say? Let us hear: I have obtained a man from God. So that it is evident that he was God’s work, and the divine Scripture testifies to his having been received from God.” Well, who can entertain a doubt on this point? Who can deny this statement, especially if he be a catholic Christian? A man is God’s work; but carnal concupiscence (without which, if sin had not preceded, man would have been begotten by means of the organs of generation, not less obedient than the other members to a quiet and normal will) is not of the Father, but is of the world.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gen. iii. 7.
* ↑ Gen. iv. 1.
* ↑ 1 John ii. 16.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 21

Chapter 21 [IX.]—It is the Good God That Gives Fruitfulness, and the Devil That Corrupts the Fruit.
What, therefore, is this man’s meaning, in the next passage, wherein he says concerning Noah and his sons, that “they were blessed, even as Adam and Eve were; for God said unto them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and have dominion over the earth’”? To these words of the Almighty he added some of his own, saying: “Now that pleasure, which you would have seem diabolical, was resorted to in the case of the above-mentioned married pairs; and it continued to exist, both in the goodness of its institution and in the blessing attached to it. For there can be no doubt that the following words were addressed to Noah and his sons in reference to their bodily connection with their wives, which had become by this time unalterably fixed by use: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.’” It is unnecessary for us to employ many words in repeating our former argument. The point here in question is the corruption in our nature, whereby its goodness has been depraved, of which corruption the devil is the author. That goodness of nature, as it is in itself, the author of which is God, is not the question we have to consider. Now God has never withdrawn from corrupted and depraved nature His own mercy and goodness, so as to deprive man of fruitfulness, vivacity, and health, as well as the very substance of his mind and body, his senses also and reason, as well as food, and nourishment, and growth. He, moreover, “maketh His sun to arise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust;” and all that is good in human nature is from the good God, even in the case of those men who will not be delivered from evil.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gen. ix. 1.
* ↑ Matt. v. 45.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 16

Chapter 16 [VI.]—It is Not of Us, But Our Sins, that the Devil is the Author.
He puts to us, then, another question, saying, “Whom, then, do you confess to be the author of infants? The true God?” I answer: “Yes; the true God.” He then remarks, “But He did not make evil;” and again asks, “Whether we confess the devil to be the creator of infants?” Then again he answers, “But he did not create human nature.” He then closes the subject, as it were, with this inference: “Since union is evil, and the condition of our bodies is degraded, therefore you ascribe our bodies to an evil creator.” My answer to this is, I do not ascribe to an evil creator our bodies, but our sins; by reason of which it came to pass that, whereas in our bodies, that is to say, in what God has made, all was honourable and well-pleasing, there yet accrued in the intercourse of male and female what caused shame, so that their union was not such as might have been in the body of that unimpaired life, but such as we see with a blush in the body of this death. “But God,” says he, “has divided in sex what He would unite in operation. So that from Him comes the union of bodies, from whom first came the creation of bodies.” We have already furnished an answer to this statement, when we said that these bodies are of God. But as regards the disobedience of the members of these bodies, this comes through the lust of the flesh which “is not of the Father.” He goes on to say, that “it is impossible for evil fruits to spring from so many good things, such as bodies, sexes, and their unions; or that human beings should be made by God for the purpose of their being, by lawful right, as you maintain, held in possession by the devil.” Now it has been already affirmed, that they are not thus held because they are men, which designation belongs to their nature, of which the devil is not the author; but because they are sinners, which designation is the result of that fault of nature of which the devil is the author.

## Footnotes

* ↑ This is the Benedictine reading; but another reading has “he answers,” which seems to suit the context. See the following: “again he answers.”
* ↑ 1 John ii. 16.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 20

Chapter 20.—Original Sin is Derived from the Faulty Condition of Human Seed.
This, however, I would not say, as implying at all that we must look for some other creator than the supreme and true God, of either human seed or of man himself who comes from the seed; but as meaning, that the seed would have issued from the human being by the quiet and normal obedience of his members to his will’s command, if sin had not preceded. The question now before us does not concern the nature of human seed, but its corruption. Now the nature has God for its author; it is from its corruption that original sin is derived. If, indeed, the seed had itself no corruption, what means that passage in the Book of Wisdom, “Not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation, and that their malice was inbred, and that their cogitation would never be changed; for their seed was accursed from the beginning”? Now whatever may be the particular application of these words, they are spoken of mankind. How, then, is the malice of every man inbred, and his seed cursed from the beginning, unless it be in respect of the fact, that “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for in him all have sinned”? But where is the man whose “evil cogitation can never be changed,” unless because it cannot be effected by himself, but only by divine grace; without the assistance of which, what are human beings, but that which the Apostle Peter says of them, when he describes them as “natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed”? Accordingly, the Apostle Paul, in a certain passage, having both conditions in view,—even the wrath of God with which we are born, and the grace whereby we are delivered,—says: “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by whose grace we are saved.” What, then, is man’s “natural malice,” and “the seed cursed from the beginning;” and what are “the natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed,” and what the “by nature children of wrath”? Was this the condition of the nature which was formed in Adam? God forbid! Inasmuch as his pure nature, however, was corrupted in him, it has run on in this condition by natural descent through all, and still is running; so that there is no deliverance for it from this ruin, except by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Wisd. xii. 10, 11.
* ↑ Rom. v. 12.
* ↑ 2 Pet. ii. 12.
* ↑ Eph. ii. 3–5.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 22

Chapter 22.—Shall We Be Ashamed of What We Do, or of What God Does?
It is, however, of pleasure that this man spoke in his passage, because pleasure can be even honourable: of carnal concupiscence, or lust, which produces shame, he made no mention. In some subsequent words, however, he uncovered his susceptibility of shame; and he was unable to dissemble what nature herself has prescribed so forcibly. “There is also,” says he, “that statement: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh.’” Then after these words of God, he goes on to offer some of his own, saying: “That he might express faith in works, the prophet approached very near to a perilling of modesty.” What a confession! How clear and extorted from him by the force of truth! The prophet, it would seem, to express faith in works, almost imperilled modesty, when he said, “They twain shall become one flesh;” wishing it to be understood of the sexual union of the male and the female. Let the cause be alleged, why the prophet, in expressing the works of God, should approach so near an imperilling of modesty? Is it then the case that the works of man ought not to produce shame, but must be gloried in at all events, and that the works of God must produce shame? Is it, that in setting forth and expressing the works of God the prophet’s love or labour receives no honour, but his modesty is imperilled? What, then, was it possible for God to do, which it would be a shame for His prophet to describe? And, what is a weightier question still, could a man be ashamed of any work which not man, but God, has made in man? whereas workmen in all cases strive, with all the labour and diligence in their power, to avoid shame in the works of their own hands. The truth, however, is, that we are ashamed of that very thing which made those primitive human beings ashamed, when they covered their loins. That is the penalty of sin; that is the plague and mark of sin; that is the temptation and very fuel of sin; that is the law in our members warring against the law of our mind; that is the rebellion against our own selves, proceeding from our very selves, which by a most righteous retribution is rendered us by our disobedient members. It is this which makes us ashamed, and justly ashamed. If it were not so, what could be more ungrateful, more irreligious in us, if in our members we were to suffer confusion of face, not for our own fault or penalty, but because of the works of God?
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 19

Chapter 19 [VIII.]—The Pelagians Misunderstand “Seed” In Scripture.
He goes on to say: “After a while the divine Scripture says again, ‘Adam knew Eve his wife; and she bare a son, and he called his name Seth: saying, The Lord hath raised me up another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.’” He then adds: “The Divinity is said to have raised up the seed itself; as a proof that the sexual union was His appointment.” This person did not understand what the Scripture records; for he supposed that the reason why it is said, The Lord hath raised me up another seed instead of Abel, was none other than that God might be supposed to have excited in him a desire for sexual intercourse, by means whereof seed might be raised for being poured into the woman’s womb. He was perfectly unaware that what the Scripture has said is not “Has raised me up seed” in the sense he uses, but only as meaning “Has given me a son.” Indeed, Adam did not use the words in question after his sexual intercourse, when he emitted his seed, but after his wife’s confinement, in which he received his son by the gift of God. For what gratification is there (except perhaps for lascivious persons, and those who, as the apostle says with prohibition, “possess their vessel in the lust of concupiscence”) in the mere shedding of seed as the ultimate pleasure of sexual union, unless it is followed by the true and proper fruit of marriage—conception and birth?

## Footnotes

* ↑ 1 Thess. iv. 5.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 18

Chapter 18.—The Same Continued.
But now, I pray you, look a little more attentively, and observe how he contrives to find a name wherewith to cover again what he blushes to unfold. “For,” says he, “Adam begot him by the power of his members, not by diversity of merits.” Now I confess I do not understand what he meant by the latter clause, not by diversity of merits; but when he said, “by the power of his members,” I believe he wished to express what he is ashamed to say openly and clearly. He preferred to use the phrase, “by the power of his members,” rather than say, “by the lust of the flesh.” Plainly—even if the thought did not occur to him—he intimated a something which has an evident application to the subject. For what is more powerful than a man’s members, when they are not in due submission to a man’s will? Even if they be restrained by temperance or continence, their use and control are not in any man’s power. Adam, then, begat his sons by what our author calls “the power of his members,” over which, before he begat them, he blushed, after his sin. If, however, he had never sinned, he would not have begotten them by the power, but in the obedience, of his members. For he would himself have had the power to rule them as subjects to his will, if he, too, by the same will had only submitted himself as a subject to a more powerful One.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 23

Chapter 23 [X.]—The Pelagians Affirm that God in the Case of Abraham and Sarah Aroused Concupiscence as a Gift from Heaven.
He has much also to say, though to no purpose, concerning Abraham and Sarah, how they received a son according to the promise; and at last he mentions the word concupiscence. But he does not add the usual phrase, “of the flesh,” because this is the very thing which causes the shame. Whereas, on account of concupiscence there is sometimes a call for boasting, inasmuch as there is a concupiscence of the spirit against the flesh, and a concupiscence of wisdom. Accordingly, he says: “Now you have certainly defined as naturally evil this concupiscence which is indispensable for fecundity; whence comes it, therefore, that it is aroused in aged men by the gift of Heaven? Make it clear then, if you can, that that belongs to the devil’s work, which you see is conferred by God as a gift.” He says this, just as if concupiscence of the flesh had been previously wanting in them, and as if God had bestowed it upon them. No doubt it was inherent in this body of death; that fecundity, however, was wanting of which God is the author; and this was actually given whensoever God willed to confer the gift. Be it, however, far from us to affirm, what he thought we meant to say, that Isaac was begotten without the heat of sexual union.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gal. v. 17.
* ↑ Wisd. vi. 21. The word in the Latin Bible in both cases is “concupiscentia.”
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Marriage and Concupiscence/Book II/Chapter 2

Chapter 2 [II.]—In This and the Four Next Chapters He Adduces the Garbled Extracts He Has to Consider.
The paper which I now answer starts with this title: “Headings out of a book written by Augustin, in reply to which I have culled a few passages out of books.” I perceive from this that the person who forwarded these written papers to your Excellency wanted to make his extracts out of the books he does not name, with a view, so far as I can judge, to getting a quicker answer, in order that he might not delay your urgency. Now, after considering what books they were which he meant, I suppose that it must have been those which Julianus mentioned in the Epistle he sent to Rome, a copy of which found its way to me at the same time. For he there says: “They go so far as to allege that marriage, now in dispute, was not instituted by God,—a declaration which may be read in a work of Augustin’s, to which I have lately replied in a treatise of four books.” These are the books, as I believe, from which the extracts were taken. It would, then, have been perhaps the better course if I had set myself deliberately to disprove and refute that entire work of his, which he spread out into four volumes. But I was most unwilling to delay my answer, even as you yourself lost no time in forwarding to me the written statements which I was requested to reply to.

## Footnotes

* ↑ See Augustin’s Unfinished Work against Julian, i. 18.
* ↑ This Augustin afterwards did by the publication of six book against Julianus, on receiving his entire work. Augustin tells us (Unfinished Work, i. 19) that he had long endeavoured to procure a copy of Julianus’ books for the purpose of refuting them, and only succeeded in getting them after some difficulty and delay.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book XII/Chapter 33

Chapter XXXIII.
Remedies against the evil of pride.
And when men remain in this condition, there is no doubt that this quiet and secure state of humility will follow, so that considering ourselves inferior to every one else we shall bear everything offered to us, even if it is hurtful, and saddening, and damaging—with the utmost patience, as if it came from those who are our superiors. And these things we shall not only bear with the greatest ease, but we shall consider them trifling and mere nothings, if we constantly bear in mind the passion of our Lord and of all His Saints: considering that the injuries by which we are tried are so much less than theirs, as we are so far behind their merits and their lives: remembering also that we shall shortly depart out of this world, and soon by a speedy end to our life here become sharers of their lot. For considerations such as these are a sure end not only to pride but to all kinds of sins. Then, next after this we must keep a firm grasp of this same humility towards God: which we must so secure as not only to acknowledge that we cannot possibly perform anything connected with the attainment of perfect virtue without His assistance and grace, but also truly to believe that this very fact that we can understand this, is His own gift.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book XII/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.
That the evil of pride is so great that it rightly has even God Himself as its adversary.
How great is the evil of pride, that it rightly has no angel, nor other virtues opposed to it, but God Himself as its adversary! Since it should be noted that it is never said of those
who are entangled in other sins that they have God resisting them; I mean it is not said that God is opposed “to the gluttonous, fornicators, passionate, or covetous,” but only “to the proud.” For those sins react only on those who commit them, or seem to be committed against those who share in them, i.e., against other men; but this one has more properly to do with God, and therefore it is especially right that it should have Him opposed to it.