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# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book IV/Chapter XXXIV

34. But why do I complain that you have disregarded the insults offered to the other deities? That very Jupiter, whose name you should not have spoken without fear and trembling over your whole body, is described as confessing his faults when overcome by lust of his wife, and, hardened in shamelessness, making known, as if he were mad and ignorant, the mistresses he preferred to his spouse, the concubines he preferred to his wife; you say that those who have uttered so marvellous things are chiefs and kings among poets endowed with godlike genius, that they are persons most holy; and so utterly have you lost sight of your duty in the matters of religion which you bring forward, that words are of more importance, in your opinion, than the profaned majesty of the immortals. So then, if only you felt any fear of the gods, or believed with confident and unhesitating assurance that they existed at all, should you not, by bills, by popular votes, by fear of the senate’s decrees, have hindered, prevented, and forbidden any one to speak at random of the gods otherwise than in a pious manner? Nor have they obtained this honour even at your hands, that you should repel insults offered to them by the same laws by which you ward them off from yourselves. They are accused of treason among you who have whispered any evil about your kings. To degrade a magistrate, or use insulting language to a senator, you have made by decree a crime, followed by the severest punishment. To write a satirical poem, by which a slur is cast upon the reputation and character of another, you determined, by the decrees of the decemvirs, should not go unpunished; and that no one might assail your ears with too wanton abuse, you established formulæ for severe affronts. With you only the gods are unhonoured, contemptible, vile; against whom you allow any one liberty to say what he will, to accuse them of the deeds of baseness which his lust has invented and devised. And yet you do not blush to raise against us the charge of want of regard for deities so infamous, although it is much better to disbelieve the existence of the gods than to think they are such, and of such repute.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “complain of the neglected insults of the other gods.”
* ↑ Lit., “as a lover by.” Cf. Homer, Il., 14, 312.
* ↑ i.e., of himself.
* ↑ Lit., “except that which was full of religion.”
* ↑ i.e., according to which such offenses should be punished.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V
## Contents

* Chapter I
* Chapter II
* Chapter III
* Chapter IV
* Chapter V
* Chapter VI
* Chapter VII
* Chapter VIII
* Chapter IX
* Chapter X
* Chapter XI
* Chapter XII
* Chapter XIII
* Chapter XIV
* Chapter XV
* Chapter XVI
* Chapter XVII
* Chapter XVIII
* Chapter XIX
* Chapter XX
* Chapter XXI
* Chapter XXII
* Chapter XXIII
* Chapter XXIV
* Chapter XXV
* Chapter XXVI
* Chapter XXVII
* Chapter XXVIII
* Chapter XXIX
* Chapter XXX
* Chapter XXXI
* Chapter XXXII
* Chapter XXXIII
* Chapter XXXIV
* Chapter XXXV
* Chapter XXXVI
* Chapter XXXVII
* Chapter XXXVIII
* Chapter XXXIX
* Chapter XL
* Chapter XLI
* Chapter XLII
* Chapter XLIII
* Chapter XLIV
* Chapter XLV
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter II

2. What the mind should take up first, what last, or what it should pass by silently, it is not easy to say, nor is it made clear by any amount of reflection; for all have been so devised and fitted to be laughed at, that you should strive that they may be believed to be false—even if they are true—rather than pass current as true, and suggest as it were something extraordinary, and bring contempt upon deity itself. What, then, do you say, O you—? Are we to believe that that Faunus and Martius Picus—if they are of the number of the gods, and of that everlasting and immortal substance—were once parched with thirst, and sought the gushing fountains, that they might be able to cool with water their heated veins? Are we to believe that, ensnared by wine, and beguiled by the sweetness of mead, they dipped so long into the treacherous cups, that they even got into danger of becoming drunk? Are we to believe that, being fast asleep, and plunged in the forgetfulness of most profound slumbers, they gave to creatures of earth an opportunity to bind them? On what parts, then, were those bonds and chains flung? Did they have any solid substance, or had their hands been formed of hard bones, so that it might be possible to bind them with halters and hold them fast by tightly drawn knots? For I do not ask, I do not inquire whether they could have said anything when swaying to and fro in their drunken maunderings; or whether, while Jupiter was unwilling, or rather unwitting, any one could have made known the way to bring him down to earth. This only do I wish to hear, why, if Faunus and Picus are of divine origin and power, they did not rather themselves declare to Numa, as he questioned them, that which he desired to learn from Jove himself at a greater risk? Or did Jupiter alone have knowledge of this—for from him the thunderbolts fall—how training in some kind of knowledge should avert impending dangers? Or, while he himself hurls these fiery bolts, is it the business of others to know in what way it is fitting to allay his wrath and indignation? For truly it would be most absurd to suppose that he himself appoints the means by which may be averted that which he has determined should befall men through the hurling of his thunderbolts. For this is to say, By such ceremonies you will turn aside my wrath; and if I shall at any time have foreshown by flashes of lightning that some evil is close at hand, do this and that, so that what I have determined should be done may be done altogether in vain, and may pass away idly through the force of these rites.

## Footnotes

* ↑ The ms. and edd. read cred-i-musne—“do we believe,” for which Meursius suggests -e- as above.
* ↑ Lit., “or whether.” Below the ms. reads corruptly ad ipsum—“to him.”
* ↑ The ms. reads scire, but “knows” would hardly suit the context. Instead of adopting any conjecture, however, it is sufficient to observe, with Oehler, that scire is elsewhere used as a contraction for sciscere.
* ↑ The ms. omits ut.
* ↑ So Cujacius, inserting vi, omitted by the ms.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book IV/Chapter XXXI

31. We wish, then, to question you, and invite you to answer a short question, Whether you think it a greater offence to sacrifice to them no victims, because you think that so great a being neither wishes nor desires these; or, with foul beliefs, to hold opinions about them so degrading, that they might rouse any one’s spirit to a mad desire for revenge? If the relative importance of the matters be weighed, you will find no judge so prejudiced as not to believe it a greater crime to defame by manifest insults any one’s reputation, than to treat it with silent neglect. For this, perhaps, may be held and believed from deference to reason; but the other course manifests an impious spirit, and a blindness despaired of in fiction. If in your ceremonies and rites neglected sacrifices and expiatory offerings may be demanded, guilt is said to have been contracted; if by a momentary forgetfulness any one has erred either in speaking or in pouring wine; or again, if at the solemn games and sacred races the dancer has halted, or the musician suddenly become silent,—you all cry out immediately that something has been done contrary to the sacredness of the ceremonies; or if the boy termed patrimus let go the thong in ignorance, or could not hold to the earth: and yet do you dare to deny that the gods are ever being wronged by you in sins so grievous, while you confess yourselves that, in less matters, they are often angry, to the national ruin?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “an error of inadvertence.”
* ↑ Lit., “with the sacrificial bowl.”
* ↑ So the ms., both Roman edd., Elm., Hild., and Oehler, reading rursus; the others in cursu—“in the course.”
* ↑ Patrimus, i.e., one whose father is alive, is probably used loosely for patrimus et matrimus, to denote one both of whose parents were alive, who was therefore eligible for certain religious services.
* ↑ So the ms. reading terram tenere, for which Hild. would read tensam, denoting the car on which were borne the images of the gods, the thongs or reins of which were held by the patrimus et matrimus; Lipsius, siserram, the sacrificial victim. The reading of the text has been explained as meaning to touch the ground with one’s hands; but the general meaning is clear enough,—that it was unlucky if the boy made a slip, either with hands or feet.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book IV/Chapter XXXII

32. But all these things, they say, are the fictions of poets, and games arranged for pleasure. It is not credible, indeed, that men by no means thoughtless, who sought to trace out the character of the remotest antiquity, either did not insert in their poems the fables which survived in men’s minds and common conversation; or that they would have assumed to themselves so great licence as to foolishly feign what was almost sheer madness, and might give them reason to be afraid of the gods, and bring them into danger with men. But let us grant that the poets are, as you say, the inventors and authors of tales so disgraceful; you are not, however, even thus free from the guilt of dishonouring the gods, who either are remiss in punishing such offences, or have not, by passing laws, and by severity of punishments, opposed such indiscretion, and determined that no man should henceforth say that which tended to the dishonour, or was unworthy of the glory of the gods. For whoever allows the wrongdoer to sin, strengthens his audacity; and it is more insulting to brand and mark any one with false accusations, than to bring forward and upbraid their real offences. For to be called what you are, and what you feel yourself to be, is less offensive, because your resentment is checked by the evidence supplied against you on privately reviewing your life; but that wounds very keenly which brands the innocent, and defames a man’s honourable name and reputation.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Oberthür and Orelli omit non.
* ↑ Lit., “notions.”
* ↑ Lit., “placed in their ears.”
* ↑ Lit., “and it has not been established by you,”—a very abrupt transition in the structure of the sentence.
* ↑ Lit., “which was very near to disgrace.”
* ↑ So the margin of Ursinus, followed by later edd., prefixing d before the ms. -eorum.
* ↑ Lit., “has less bite, being weakened by the testimony of silent reviewing,” recognitionis.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book IV/Chapter XXXIII

33. Your gods, it is recorded, dine on celestial couches, and in golden chambers, drink, and are at last soothed by the music of the lyre, and singing. You fit them with ears not easily wearied; and do not think it unseemly to assign to the gods the pleasures by which earthly bodies are supported, and which are sought after by ears enervated by the frivolity of an unmanly spirit. Some of them are brought forward in the character of lovers, destroyers of purity, to commit shameful and degrading deeds not only with women, but with men also. You take no care as to what is said about matters of so much importance, nor do you check, by any fear of chastisement at least, the recklessness of your wanton literature; others, through madness and frenzy, bereave themselves, and by the slaughter of their own relatives cover themselves with blood, just as though it were that of an enemy. You wonder at these loftily expressed impieties; and that which it was fitting should be subjected to all punishments, you extol with praise that spurs them on, so as to rouse their recklessness to greater vehemence. They mourn over the wounds of their bereavement, and with unseemly wailings accuse the cruel fates; you are astonished at the force of their eloquence, carefully study and commit to memory that which should have been wholly put away from human society, and are solicitous that it should not perish through any forgetfulness. They are spoken of as being wounded, maltreated, making war upon each other with hot and furious contests; you enjoy the description; and, to enable you to defend so great daring in the writers, pretend that these things are allegories, and contain the principles of natural science.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “most enduring.”
* ↑ Coetu. The ms. and most edd. read coalitu,—a word not occurring elsewhere; which Gesner would explain, “put away that it may not be established among men,” the sense being the same in either case.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book IV/Chapter XXXV

35. But is it only poets whom you have thought proper to allow to invent unseemly tales about the gods, and to turn them shamefully into sport? What do your pantomimists, the actors, that crowd of mimics and adulterers? Do they not abuse your gods to make to themselves gain, and do not the others find enticing pleasures in the wrongs and insults offered to the gods? At the public games, too, the colleges of all the priests and magistrates take their places, the chief Pontiffs, and the chief priests of the curiæ; the Quindecemviri take their places, crowned with wreaths of laurel, and the flamines diales with their mitres; the augurs take their places, who disclose the divine mind and will; and the chaste maidens also, who cherish and guard the ever-burning fire; the whole people and the senate take their places; the fathers who have done service as consuls, princes next to the gods, and most worthy of reverence; and, shameful to say, Venus, the mother of the race of Mars, and parent of the imperial people, is represented by gestures as in love, and is delineated with shameless mimicry as raving like a Bacchanal, with all the passions of a vile harlot. The Great Mother, too, adorned with her sacred fillets, is represented by dancing; and that Pessinuntic Dindymene is, to the dishonour of her age, represented as with shameful desire using passionate gestures in the embrace of a herdsman; and also in the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, that son of Jupiter, Hercules, entangled in the toils of a death-fraught garment, is exhibited uttering piteous cries, overcome by his violent suffering, and at last wasting away and being consumed, as his intestines soften and are dissolved. But in these tales even the Supreme Ruler of the heavens Himself is brought forward, without any reverence for His name and majesty, as acting the part of an adulterer, and changing His countenance for purposes of seduction, in order that He might by guile rob of their chastity matrons, who were the wives of others, and putting on the appearance of their husbands, by assuming the form of another.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “have willed.”
* ↑ Lit., “full-grown race,” exoleti, a word frequently used, as here, sensu obscæno.
* ↑ i.e., the actors, etc.
* ↑ i.e., the crowd of adulterers, as Orelli suggests.
* ↑ Lit., “draw enticements of pleasures from.”
* ↑ Or, “Venus, the mother…and loving parent,” etc.
* ↑ Lit., “of meretricious vileness.”
* ↑ i.e., Cybele, to whom Mount Dindymus in Mysia was sacred, whose rites, however, were celebrated at Pessinus also, a very ancient city of Galatia.
* ↑ ms. Sofocles, corrected in LB. Sophocles. Cf. Trach. 1022 sqq.
* ↑ Lit., “towards (in) the last of the wasting consumed by the softening of his bowels flowing apart.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book XIII/Chapter 9

9. Satan and the “Delivery” Of Jesus.
Now we must think that the devil has the power of death,—not of that which is common and indifferent, in accordance with which those who are compacted of soul and body die, when their soul is separated from the body,—but of that death which is contrary to and the enemy of Him who said, “I am the Life,” in accordance with which “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” But that it was not God who gave Him up into the hands of men, the Saviour manifestly declares when He says, “If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews.” For, when He was delivered up to the Jews, He was delivered into the hands of men, not by His own servants, but by the prince of this age who says, concerning the powers which are in the sphere of the invisible, the kingdoms which are set up against men, “All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship Me.” Wherefore also we should think that in regard to them it was said, “The kings of the earth stood side by side, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.” And those kings, indeed, and those rulers stood side by side and were gathered against the Lord and against His Christ; but we, because we have been benefited by His being delivered by them into the hands of men and slain, say, “Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their yoke from us.” For, when we become conformed to the death of Christ, we are no longer under the bonds of the kings of the earth, as we have said, nor under the yoke of the princes of this age, who were gathered together against the Lord. And, on this account, “the Father spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,” that those, who took Him and delivered Him up into the hands of men, might be laughed at by Him who dwells in the heavens, and might be derided by the Lord, inasmuch as, contrary to their expectation, it was to the destruction of their own kingdom and power, that they received from the Father the Son, who was raised on the third day, by having abolished His enemy death, and made us conformed, not only to the image of His death but also of His resurrection; through whom we walk in newness of life, no longer sitting “in the region and shadow of death,” through the light of God which has sprung up upon us. But when the Saviour said, “The Son of man shall be delivered up into the hands of men, and they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall rise again,” they were “exceeding sorry,” giving heed to the fact that He was about to be delivered up into the hands of men, and that He would be killed, as matters gloomy and calling for sorrow, but not attending to the fact that He would rise on the third day, as He needed no longer time “to bring to nought through death him that had the power of death.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ John xiv. 6.
* ↑ Ezek. xviii. 4.
* ↑ John xviii. 36.
* ↑ Matt. iv. 9.
* ↑ Ps. ii. 2.
* ↑ Ps. ii. 3.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 32.
* ↑ Rom. vi. 4.
* ↑ Matt. iv. 16.
* ↑ Matt. xvii. 22, 23.
* ↑ Heb. ii. 14.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book XIV
## Contents

* Chapter 1
* Chapter 2
* Chapter 3
* Chapter 4
* Chapter 5
* Chapter 6
* Chapter 7
* Chapter 8
* Chapter 9
* Chapter 10
* Chapter 11
* Chapter 12
* Chapter 13
* Chapter 14
* Chapter 15
* Chapter 16
* Chapter 17
* Chapter 18
* Chapter 19
* Chapter 20
* Chapter 21
* Chapter 22
* Chapter 23
* Chapter 24
* Chapter 25
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book XIII/Chapter 7

7. The Power of Faith.
But when the Saviour said, “O faithfulness and perverse generation,” He signifies that wickedness, which is contrary to nature, stealthily enters in from perversity, and makes us perverted. But of the whole race of men on earth, I think, being oppressed by reason of their wickedness and His tarrying with them, the Saviour said, “How long shall I be with you?” We have already, then, spoken in part of the words, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain,” etc.; but nevertheless also we shall speak in this place the things that appear to us fitted to increase perspicuity. The mountains here spoken of, in my opinion, are the hostile powers that have their being in a flood of great wickedness, such as are settled down, so to speak, in some souls of men. Whenever, then, any one has all faith so that he no longer disbelieves in any things which are contained in the Holy Scriptures, and has faith such as was that of Abraham, who believed in God to such a degree that his faith was counted for righteousness. he has all faith as a grain of mustard seed; then will such an one say to this mountain—I mean, the dumb and deaf spirit in him who is called lunatic,—“Remove hence,” clearly, from the man who is suffering, perhaps to the abyss, and it shall remove. And the Apostle, taking, I think. his starting-point from this place, says with apostolical authority, “If I have all faith so as to remove mountains,” for not one mountain merely, but also several analogous to it, he removes who has all faith which is as a grain of mustard-seed; and nothing shall be impossible to him who has so great faith. But let us also attend to this, “This kind goeth not out save by prayer and fasting,” in order that if at any time it is necessary that we should be engaged in the healing of one suffering from such a disorder, we may not adjure, nor put questions, nor speak to the impure spirit as if it heard, but devoting ourselves to prayer and fasting, may be successful as we pray for the sufferer, and by our own fasting may thrust out the unclean spirit from him.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xvii. 17.
* ↑ Matt. xvii. 20.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xiii. 2.
* ↑ Matt. xvii. 20.
* ↑ Matt. xvii. 21.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book XIV/Chapter 10

10. The Man Who Owed Many Talents.
Next we must speak in regard to this, “And when he had begun to reckon, there was brought unto him one which owed many talents.” The sense of this appears to me to be as follows: The season of beginning the judgment is with the house of God, who says, as also it is written in Ezekiel, to those who are appointed to attend to punishments, “Begin ye with My saints;” and it is like “the twinkling of an eye;” but, the time of making a reckoning includes the same “twinkling,” ideally apprehended, for we are not forgetful of what has been previously said of those who owe more. Wherefore it is not written, when he was making reckoning, but it is said, “When he began to reckon,” there was brought, at the beginning of his making a reckoning, one who owed many talents; he had lost tens of thousands of talents, having been entrusted with great things, and having had many things committed to his care, but he had brought no gain to his master, but had lost tens of thousands so that he owed many talents; and, perhaps on this account, he owed many talents, seeing that he followed often the woman, who was sitting upon the talent of lead, whose name is wickedness. But observe here that every great sin is a loss of the talents of the master of the house, and such sins are committed by fornicators, adulterers, abusers of themselves with men, effeminate, idolaters, murderers. Perhaps then the one who is brought to the king owing many talents has committed no small sin but all that are great and heinous; and if you were to seek for him among men, perhaps you would find him to be “the man of sin, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against every God or object of worship;” but if you seek him outside the number of men, who can this be but the devil who has ruined so many who received him, who wrought sin in them. For “man is a great thing, and a pitiful man is precious,” precious so as to be worthy of a talent, whether of gold like as the lamp which was equal to a talent of gold, or of silver or of any kind of material whatsoever understood intellectually, the symbols of which are recorded in the Words of the Days, when David became enriched with many talents of which the number is mentioned, so many talents of gold, and so many of silver, and of the rest of the material there named, from which the temple of God was built.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xviii. 24.
* ↑ Ezek. ix. 6.
* ↑ Zech. v. 7, 8.
* ↑ 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4.
* ↑ Prov. xx. 6.
* ↑ Exod. xxv. 39.
* ↑ 1 Chron. xxii. 14.