OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XXVI

26. If any one perchance thinks that we are speaking wicked calumnies, let him take the hooks of the Thracian soothsayer, which you speak of as of divine antiquity; and he will find that we are neither cunningly inventing anything, nor seeking means to bring the holiness of the gods into ridicule, and doing so: for we shall bring forward the very verses which the son of Calliope uttered in Greek, and published abroad in his songs to the human race throughout all ages:—
“With these words she at the same time drew up her garments from the lowest hem,
And exposed to view formatas inguinibus res,
Which Baubo grasping with hollow hand, for
Their appearance was infantile, strikes, touches gently.
Then the goddess, fixing her orbs of august light,
Being softened, lays aside for a little the sadness of her mind;
Thereafter she takes the cup in her hand, and laughing,
Drinks off the whole draught of cyceon with gladness.”
What say you, O wise sons of Erectheus? what, you citizens of Minerva? The mind is eager to know with what words you will defend what it is so dangerous to maintain, or what arts you have by which to give safety to personages and causes wounded so mortally. This is no false mistrust, nor are you assailed with lying accusations: the infamy of your Eleusinia is declared both by their base beginnings and by the records of ancient literature, by the very signs, in fine, which you use when questioned in receiving the sacred things,—“I have fasted, and drunk the draught; I have taken out of the mystic cist, and put into the wicker-basket; I have received again, and transferred to the little chest.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Orpheus, under whose name there was current in the time of Arnobius an immense mass of literature freely used, and it is probable sometimes supplemented, by Christian writers. Cf. c. 19.
* ↑ Lit, “put forth with Greek mouth.”
* ↑ Lit., “tossing.”
* ↑ It may be well to observe that Arnobius differs from the Greek versions of these lines found in Clem. Alex. (vol. ii. p. 177) and Eusebius (Præpar. Evang. ii. 3), omitting all mention of Iacchus, who is made very prominent by them; and that he does not adhere strictly to metrical rules, probably, as Heraldus pointed out, because, like the poets of that age, he paid little heed to questions of quantity. Whether Arnobius has merely paraphrased the original as found in Clement and Eusebius, or had a different version of them before him, is a question which can only be discussed by means of a careful comparison between the Greek and Latin forms of the verses with the context in both cases.
* ↑ So LB., Hild., and Oehler, reading Erechthidæ O(inserted by Hild.) for the ms. erithideo.
* ↑ i.e., Athenians.
* ↑ The ms., 1st ed., Hild., and Oehler read ita—“It is thus not,” etc.; the others as above, ista.
* ↑ Delatione calumniosa. [Conf. vol. ii. p. 175, col. 2.]
* ↑ Cyceon. [P. 499, supra, and 503, infra.]
* ↑ The ms. reads exci-ta, corrected as above, ex cista, in the margins of Ursinus.
* ↑ [It is a pity that all this must be retailed anew after Clement, vol. ii. pp. 175, 177, notes.]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XXXII

32. But you err, says my opponent, and are mistaken, and show, even in criticising these things, that you are rather ignorant, unlearned, and boorish. For all those stories which seem to you disgraceful, and tending to the discredit of the gods, contain in them holy mysteries, theories wonderful and profound, and not such as any one can easily become acquainted with by force of understanding. For that is not meant and said which has been written and placed on the surface of the story; but all these things are understood in allegorical senses, and by means of secret explanations privately supplied. Therefore he who says Jupiter lay with his mother, does not mean the incestuous or shameful embraces of Venus, but names Jupiter instead of rain, and Ceres instead of the earth. And he, again, who says that he dealt lasciviously with his daughter, speaks of no filthy pleasures, but puts Jupiter for the name of a shower, and by his daughter means the crop sown. So, too, he who says that Proserpina was carried off by father Dis, does not say, as you suppose, that the maiden was carried off to gratify the basest desires; but because we cover the seed with clods, he signifies that the goddess has sunk under the earth, and unites with Orcus to bring forth fruit. In like manner in the other stories also one thing indeed is said, but something else is understood; and under a commonplace openness of expression there lurks a secret doctrine, and a dark profundity of mystery.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Subditivis secretis.
* ↑ Both Roman edd. and ms. read dicet—“shall say;” all others as above—dicit.
* ↑ i.e., Jupiter.
* ↑ Lit., “in the signification of his daughter.”
* ↑ So the margin of Ursinus—ut reris for the ms. ut ce-reris.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XXXIII

33. These are all quirks, as is evident, and quibbles with which they are wont to bolster up weak cases before a jury; nay, rather, to speak more truly, they are pretences, such as are used in sophistical reasonings, by which not the truth is sought after, but always the image, and appearance, and shadow of the truth. For because it is shameful and unbecoming to receive as true the correct accounts, you have had recourse to this expedient, that one thing should be substituted for another, and that what was in itself shameful should, in being explained, be forced into the semblance of decency. But what is it to us whether other senses and other meanings underlie these vain stories? For we who assert that the gods are treated by you wickedly and impiously, need only receive what is written, what is said, and need not care as to what is kept secret, since the insult to the deities consists not in the idea hidden in its meanings, but in what is signified by the words as they stand out. And yet, that we may not seem unwilling to examine what you say, we ask this first of you, if only you will bear with us, from whom have you learned, or by whom has it been made known, either that these things were written allegorically, or that they should be understood in the same way? Did the writers summon you to take counsel with them? or did you lie hid in their bosoms at the time when they put one thing for another, without regard to truth? Then, if they chose, from religions awe and fear on any account, to wrap those mysteries in dark obscurity, what audacity it shows in you to wish to understand what they did not wish, to know yourselves and make all acquainted with that which they vainly attempted to conceal by words which did not suggest the truth!

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “colours of.”
* ↑ The ms. and both Roman edd. read indecorum est, which leaves the sentence incomplete. LB., followed by later edd., proposed de-cursum est, as above (Oehler, inde d.—“from these recourse has been had”), the other conjectures tending to the same meaning.
* ↑ “We need only;” lit., “it is enough for us to.”
* ↑ Lit., “heard.”
* ↑ Lit., “in the obscure mind of senses.”
* ↑ “Or at the time,” aut tum, the correction of LB, for the ms. sutum.
* ↑ Lit., “fear of any reason and of religion.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XXXIX

39. Whence, then, do we prove that all these narratives are records of events? From the solemn rites and mysteries of initiation, it is clear, whether those which are celebrated at fixed times and on set days, or those which are taught secretly by the heathen without allowing the observance of their usages to be interrupted. For it is not to be believed that these have no origin, are practised without reason or meaning, and have no causes connected with their first beginnings. That pine which is regularly born into the sanctuary of the Great Mother, is it not in imitation of that tree beneath which Attis mutilated and unmanned himself, which also, they relate, the goddess consecrated to relieve her grief? That erecting of phalli and fascina, which Greece worships and celebrates in rites every year, does it not recall the deed by which Liber paid his debt? Of what do those Eleusinian mysteries and secret rites contain a narrative? Is it not of that wandering in which Ceres, worn out in seeking for her daughter, when she came to the confines of Attica, brought wheat with her, graced with a hind’s skin the family of the Nebridæ and laughed at that most wonderful sight in Baubo’s groins? Or if there is another cause, that is nothing to us, so long as they are all produced by some cause. For it is not credible that these things were set on foot without being preceded by any causes, or the inhabitants of Attica must be considered mad to have received a religious ceremony got up without any reason. But if this is clear and certain, that is, if the causes and origins of the mysteries are traceable to past events, by no change can they be turned into the figures of allegory; for that which has been done, which has taken place, cannot, in the nature of things, be undone.

## Footnotes

* ↑ The ms. and edd. read matris deæ—“of the mother goddess;” for which Meursius proposed deûm—“mother of the gods,” the usual form of the title. Cf. cc. 7 and 16. [See Elucidation V.; also note the reference to St. Augustine.]
* ↑ The name is wanting in the ms. Cf. c. 28.
* ↑ No Attic family of this name is mentioned anywhere; but in Cos the Nebridæ were famous as descendants of Æsculapius through Nebros. In Attica, on the other hand, the initiated were robed in fawn-skins (νεβρίδες), and were on this account spoken of as νεβρίζοντες. Salmasius has therefore suggested (ad Solinum, p. 864, E) that Arnobius, or the author on whom he relied, transferred the family to Attica on account of the similarity of sound.
* ↑ Lit., “who have attached to themselves.”
* ↑ Arnobius would seem to have been partial to this phrase, which occurs in the middle of c. 38.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XXXV

35. Finally, if you think it right, returning to our inquiry, we ask this of you, whether you think that all stories about the gods, that is, without any exception, have been written throughout with a double meaning and sense, and in a way admitting of several interpretations; or that some parts of them are not ambiguous at all, while, on the contrary, others have many meanings, and are enveloped in the veil of allegory which has been thrown round them? For if the whole structure and arrangement of the narrative have been surrounded with a veil of allegory from beginning to end, explain to us, tell us, what we should put and substitute for each thing which every story says, and to what other things and meanings we should refer each. For as, to take an example, you wish Jupiter to be said instead of the rain, Ceres for the earth, and for Libera and father Dis the sinking and casting of seed into the earth, so you ought to say what we should understand for the bull, what for the wrath and anger of Ceres; what the word Brimo means; what the anxious prayer of Jupiter; what the gods sent to make intercession for him, but not listened to; what the castrated ram; what the parts of the castrated ram; what the satisfaction made with these; what the further dealings with his daughter, still more unseemly in their lustfulness; so, in the other story also, what the grove and flowers of Henna are; what the fire taken from Ætna, and the torches lit with it; what the travelling through the world with these; what the Attic country, the canton of Eleusin, the hut of Baubo, and her rustic hospitality; what the drought of cyceonmeans, the refusal of it, the shaving and disclosure of the privy parts, the shameful charm of the sight, and the forgetfulness of her bereavement produced by such means. Now, if you point out what should be put in the place of all these, changing the one for the other, we shall admit your assertion; but if you can neither present another supposition in each case, nor appeal to the context as a whole, why do you make that obscure, by means of fair-seeming allegories, which has been spoken plainly, and disclosed to the understanding of all?

## Footnotes

* ↑ The ms., first four edd., and Hild. read de his—“about these,” corrected in the others dîs or diis, as above.
* ↑ Lit., “each.”
* ↑ Pl.
* ↑ Lit., “call.”
* ↑ i.e., Proserpine. The readiness with which Arnobius breaks the form of the sentence should be noted. At first the gods represent physical phenomena, but immediately after natural events are put for the gods. In the ms. two copyists have been at work, the earlier giving Libero, which is rather out of place, and is accordingly corrected by the later, Libera followed by LB., Oberthür, Orelli, Hild., and Oehler.
* ↑ The ms. reads primo. Cf. c. 20.
* ↑ Proles.
* ↑ [κυκεὼν, a draught resembling caudle. See p. 499, note 10.]
* ↑ Lit., “by change of things.”
* ↑ The ms. omits ad, supplied by Ursinus.
* ↑ So all edd., except Hild. and Oehler, reading obscur-atisfor the ms. -itatibus.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Acknowledged Writings/Canonical Epistle/Elucidations

Elucidations.
I.
(The title, p. 18.)
This is a genuine epistle, all but the eleventh canon. It is addressed to an anonymous bishop; one of his suffragans, some think. I suppose, rather, he consults, as Cyprian did, the bishop of the nearest Apostolic See, and awaits his concurrence. It refers to the ravages of the Goths in the days of Gallienus (a.d. 259–267), and proves the care of the Church to maintain discipline, even in times most unfavourable to order and piety. The last canon is an explanatory addition made to elucidate the four degrees or classes of penitents. It is a very interesting document in this respect, and sheds light on the famous canonical epistles of St. Basil.
II.
(Basil the Great, p. 18, note.)
The “Canonical Epistles” of St. Basil are not private letters, but canons of the churches with which he was nearest related. When there was no art of printing, the chief bishops were obliged to communicate with suffragans, and with their brethren in the Apostolic See nearest to them. See them expounded at large in Dupin, Ecclesiastical Writers of the Fourth Century, Works, vol. i., London, 1693 (translated), p. 139, etc.
III.
(Most holy father, p. 18.)
This expression leads me to think that this epistle is addressed to the Bishop of Antioch or of some other Apostolic See. It must not be taken as a prescribed formula, however, as when we say “Most Reverend” in our days; e.g., addressing the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rather, it is an expression of personal reverence. As yet, titular distinctions, such as these, were not known. In the West existing usages seem to have been introduced with the Carlovingian system of dignities, expounded by Gibbon.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Acknowledged Writings/Oration to Origen

The Oration and Panegyric Addressed to Origen.

## Contents

* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3
* Part 4
* Part 5
* Part 6
* Part 7
* Part 8
* Part 9
* Part 10
* Part 11
* Part 12
* Part 13
* Part 14
* Part 15
* Part 16
* Part 17
* Part 18
* Part 19
* Part 20
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Acknowledged Writings/Canonical Epistle/Canon XI

Canon XI.
Weeping takes place without the gate of the oratory; and the offender standing there ought to implore the faithful as they enter to offer up prayer on his behalf. Waiting on the word, again, takes place within the gate in the porch, where the offender ought to stand until the catechumens depart, and thereafter he should go forth. For let him hear the Scriptures and doctrine, it is said, and then be put forth, and reckoned unfit for the privilege of prayer. Submission, again, is that one stand within the gate of the temple, and go forth along with the catechumens. Restoration is that one be associated with the faithful, and go not forth with the catechumens; and last of all comes the participation in the holy ordinances.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [This canon is rejected as spurious. Lardner, Credib., ii. p. 633.]
* ↑ πρόσκλαυσις, discipline.
* ↑ ἀκρόασις.
* ↑ ἐν τῷ νάρθηκι.
* ↑ ὑπόπτωσις.
* ↑ σύστασις.
* ↑ ἁγιασμάτων.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Acknowledged Writings/Canonical Epistle/Canon X

Canon X.
And they who keep the commandment ought to keep it without any sordid covetousness, demanding neither recompense, nor reward, nor fee, nor anything else that bears the name of acknowledgment.

## Footnotes

* ↑ μηνυτρα, the price of information.
* ↑ σῶστρα, the reward for bringing back a runaway slave.
* ↑ εὕρετρα, the reward of discovery.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Acknowledged Writings/Oration to Origen/Part 10

Argument X.—Hence the Mere Word-Sages are Confuted, Who Say and Yet Act Not.
Now I beg of the philosophers of this present time, both those whom I have known personally myself, and those of whom I have heard by report from others, and I beg also of all other men, that they take in good part the statements I have just made. And let no one suppose that I have expressed myself thus, either through simple friendship toward that man, or through hatred toward the rest of the philosophers; for if there is any one inclined to be an admirer of them for their discourses, and wishful to speak well of them, and pleased at hearing the most honourable mention made of them by others, I myself am the man. Nevertheless, those facts (to which I have referred) are of such a nature as to bring upon the very name of philosophy the last degree of ridicule almost from the great mass of men; and I might almost say that I would choose to be altogether unversed in it, rather than learn any of the things which these men profess, with whom I thought it good no longer to associate myself in this life,—though in that, it may be, I formed an incorrect judgment. But I say that no one should suppose that I make these statements at the mere prompting of a zealous regard for the praise of this man, or under the stimulus of any existing animosity towards other philosophers. But let all be assured that I say even less than his deeds merit, lest I should seem to be indulging in adulation; and that I do not seek out studied words and phrases, and cunning means of laudation—I who could never of my own will, even when I was a youth, and learning the popular style of address under a professor of the art of public speaking, bear to utter a word of praise, or pass any encomium on any one which was not genuine. Wherefore on the present occasion, too, I do not think it right, in proposing to myself the task simply of commending him, to magnify him at the cost of the reprobation of others. And, in good sooth, I should speak only to the man’s injury, if, with the view of having something grander to say of him, I should compare his blessed life with the failings of others. We are not, however, so senseless. But I shall testify simply to what has come within my own experience, apart from all ill-judged comparisons and trickeries in words.

## Footnotes

* ↑ φιλοτιμίᾳ, for which φιλονεικίᾳ is read.
* ↑ The text is, ἢ κακῶν ἂν ἔλεγον, etc. The Greek ἤ and the Latin aut are found sometimes thus with a force bordering on that of alioqui.
* ↑ ἀφραίνομεν. The Paris editor would read ἀφραίνω μέν.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Acknowledged Writings/Canonical Epistle/Canon VIII

Canon VIII.
Now those who have been so audacious as to invade the houses of others, if they have once been put on their trial and convicted, ought not to be deemed fit even to be hearers in the public congregation. But if they have declared themselves and made restitution, they should be placed in the rank of the repentant.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Concerning those who have been so audacious as to invade the houses of others in the inroad of the barbarians.
* ↑ τῶν ὑποστρεφόντων.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VII/Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXIV.
And we do not ask the question, “How shall we go to God?” as though we thought that God existed in some place. God is of too excellent a nature for any place: He holds all things in His power, and is Himself not confined by anything whatever. The precept, therefore, “Thou shalt walk after the Lord thy God,” does not command a bodily approach to God; neither does the prophet refer to physical nearness to God, when he says in his prayer, “My soul followeth hard after Thee.” Celsus therefore misrepresents us, when he says that we expect to see God with our bodily eyes, to hear Him with our ears, and to touch Him sensibly with our hands. We know that the holy Scriptures make mention of eyes, of ears, and of hands, which have nothing but the name in common with the bodily organs; and what is more wonderful, they speak of a diviner sense, which is very different from the senses as commonly spoken of. For when the prophet says, “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law,” or, “the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes,” or, “Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,” no one is so foolish as to suppose that the eyes of the body behold the wonders of the divine law, or that the law of the Lord gives light to the bodily eyes, or that the sleep of death falls on the eyes of the body. When our Saviour says, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” any one will understand that the ears spoken of are of a diviner kind. When it is said that the word of the Lord was “in the hand” of Jeremiah or of some other prophet; or when the expression is used, “the law by the hand of Moses,” or, “I sought the Lord with my hands, and was not deceived,”—no one is so foolish as not to see that the word “hands” is taken figuratively, as when John says, “Our hands have handled the Word of life.” And if you wish further to learn from the sacred writings that there is a diviner sense than the senses of the body, you have only to hear what Solomon says, “Thou shalt find a divine sense.”
* ↑ Deut. xiii. 4.
* ↑ Ps. lxiii. 8.
* ↑ Ps. cxix. 18.
* ↑ Ps. xix. 8.
* ↑ Ps. xiii. 3.
* ↑ Matt. xiii. 9.
* ↑ Ps. lxxvii. 2, according to the LXX.
* ↑ 1 John i. 1.
* ↑ Prov. ii. 5, Eng. Vers. and LXX., “Thou shalt find the knowledge of God.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VII/Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXI.
Referring to the passage in the Phædon of Plato, Celsus says: “It is not easy for every one to understand the meaning of Plato’s words, when he says that on account of our weakness and slowness we are unable to reach the highest region of the air; but that if our nature were capable of so sublime a contemplation, we would then be able to understand that that is the true heaven, and that the true light.” As Celsus has deferred to another opportunity the explanation of Plato’s idea, we also think that it does not fall within our purpose at present to enter into any full description of that holy and good land, and of the city of God which is in it; but reserve the consideration of it for our Commentary on the Prophets, having already in part, according to our power, treated of the city of God in our remarks on the forty-sixth and forty-eighth Psalms. The writings of Moses and the prophets—the most ancient of all books—teach us that all things here on earth which are in common use among men, have other things corresponding to them in name which are alone real. Thus, for instance, there is the true light, and another heaven beyond the firmament, and a Sun of righteousness other than the sun we see.  In a word, to distinguish those things from the objects of sense, which have no true reality, they say of God that “His works are truth;” thus making a distinction between the works of God and the works of God’s hands, which latter are of an inferior sort. Accordingly, God in Isaiah complains of men, that “they regard not the works of the Lord, nor consider the operation of His hands.” But enough on this point.
* ↑ Dan. iv. 37.
* ↑ Isa. v. 12.