OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XVI/Chapter 23

Chapter 23.—Of the Word of the Lord to Abraham, by Which It Was Promised to Him that His Posterity Should Be Multiplied According to the Multitude of the Stars; On Believing Which He Was Declared Justified While Yet in Uncircumcision.
The word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision also. For when God promised him protection and exceeding great reward, he, being solicitous about posterity, said that a certain Eliezer of Damascus, born in his house, would be his heir. Immediately he was promised an heir, not that house-born servant, but one who was to come forth of Abraham himself; and again a seed innumerable, not as the dust of the earth, but as the stars of heaven,—which rather seems to me a promise of a posterity exalted in celestial felicity. For, so far as multitude is concerned, what are the stars of heaven to the dust of the earth, unless one should say the comparison is like inasmuch as the stars also cannot be numbered? For it is not to be believed that all of them can be seen. For the more keenly one observes them, the more does he see. So that it is to be supposed some remain concealed from the keenest observers, to say nothing of those stars which are said to rise and set in another part of the world most remote from us. Finally, the authority of this book condemns those like Aratus or Eudoxus, or any others who boast that they have found out and written down the complete number of the stars. Here, indeed, is set down that sentence which the apostle quotes in order to commend the grace of God, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness;” lest the circumcision should glory, and be unwilling to receive the uncircumcised nations to the faith of Christ. For at the time when he believed, and his faith was counted to him for righteousness, Abraham had not yet been circumcised.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. iv. 3; Gen. xv. 6.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XVI/Chapter 25

Chapter 25.—Of Sarah’s Handmaid, Hagar, Whom She Herself Wished to Be Abraham’s Concubine.
And here follow the times of Abraham’s sons, the one by Hagar the bond maid, the other by Sarah the free woman, about whom we have already spoken in the previous book. As regards this transaction, Abraham is in no way to be branded as guilty concerning this concubine, for he used her for the begetting of progeny, not for the gratification of lust; and not to insult, but rather to obey his wife, who supposed it would be solace of her barrenness if she could make use of the fruitful womb of her handmaid to supply the defect of her own nature, and by that law of which the apostle says, “Likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife,” could, as a wife, make use of him for childbearing by another, when she could not do so in her own person. Here there is no wanton lust, no filthy lewdness. The handmaid is delivered to the husband by the wife for the sake of progeny, and is received by the husband for the sake of progeny, each seeking, not guilty excess, but natural fruit. And when the pregnant bond woman despised her barren mistress, and Sarah, with womanly jealousy, rather laid the blame of this on her husband, even then Abraham showed that he was not a slavish lover, but a free begetter of children, and that in using Hagar he had guarded the chastity of Sarah his wife, and had gratified her will and not his own,—had received her without seeking, had gone in to her without being attached, had impregnated without loving her,—for he says, “Behold thy maid is in thy hands: do to her as it pleaseth thee;” a man able to use women as a man should,—his wife temperately, his handmaid compliantly, neither intemperately!

## Footnotes

* ↑ 1 Cor. vii. 4.
* ↑ Gen. xvi. 6.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XVI/Chapter 28

Chapter 28.—Of the Change of Name in Abraham and Sarah, Who Received the Gift of Fecundity When They Were Incapable of Regeneration Owing to the Barrenness of One, and the Old Age of Both.
Now when a promise so great and clear was made to Abraham, in which it was so plainly said to him, “I have made thee a father of many nations, and I will increase thee exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall go forth of thee. And I will give thee a son of Sarah; and I will bless him, and he shall become nations, and kings of nations shall be of him,”—a promise which we now see fulfilled in Christ,—from that time forward this couple are not called in Scripture, as formerly, Abram and Sarai, but Abraham and Sarah, as we have called them from the first, for every one does so now. The reason why the name of Abraham was changed is given: “For,” He says, “I have made thee a father of many nations.” This, then, is to be understood to be the meaning of Abraham; but Abram, as he was formerly called, means “exalted father.” The reason of the change of Sarah’s name is not given; but as those say who have written interpretations of the Hebrew names contained in these books, Sarah means “my princess,” and Sarai “strength.” Whence it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed.” For both were old, as the Scripture testifies; but she was also barren, and had ceased to menstruate, so that she could no longer bear children even if she had not been barren. Further, if a woman is advanced in years, yet still retains the custom of women, she can bear children to a young man, but not to an old man, although that same old man can beget, but only of a young woman; as after Sarah’s death Abraham could of Keturah, because he met with her in her lively age.  This, then, is what the apostle mentions as wonderful, saying, besides, that Abraham’s body was now dead; because at that age he was no longer able to beget children of any woman who retained now only a small part of her natural vigor. Of course we must understand that his body was dead only to some purposes, not to all; for if it was so to all, it would no longer be the aged body of a living man, but the corpse of a dead one. Although that question, how Abraham begot children of Keturah, is usually solved in this way, that the gift of begetting which he received from the Lord, remained even after the death of his wife, yet I think that solution of the question which I have followed is preferable, because, although in our days an old man of a hundred years can beget children of no woman, it was not so then, when men still lived so long that a hundred years did not yet bring on them the decrepitude of old age.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gen. xvii. 5, 6, 16.
* ↑ Heb. xi. 11.
* ↑ Heb. xi. 12.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Donatist Controversy/Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist/Book II/Chapter 88

Chapter 88.—192. Petilianus said: "We advise you, therefore, if so be that you will hear it willingly, and even though you do not willingly receive it, yet we warn you that the Lord Christ instituted for Christians, not any form of slaying, but one of dying only. For if He loved men who thus delight in battle, He would not have consented to be slain for us."
193. Augustin answered: Would that your martyrs would follow the form that He prescribed! they would not throw themselves over precipices, which He refused to do at the bidding of the devil. But when you persecute our ancestors with false witness even now that they are dead, whence have you received this form? In that you endeavor to stain us with the crimes of men we never knew, while you are unwilling that the most notorious misdeeds of your own party should be reckoned against you, whence have you received this form? But we are too much yielding to our own conceit if we find fault about ourselves, when we see that you utter false testimony against the Lord Himself, since He Himself both promised and made manifest that His Church should extend throughout all nations, and you maintain the contrary. This form, therefore, you did not receive even from the Jewish persecutors themselves, for they persecuted His body while He was walking on the earth: you persecute His gospel as He is seated in heaven. Which gospel endured more meekly the flames of furious kings than it can possibly endure your tongues; for while they blazed, unity remained, and this it cannot do amid your words. They who desired that the word of God should perish in the flames did not believe that it could be despised if read. They would not, therefore, set their flames to work upon the gospel, if you would let them use your tongues against the gospel. In the earlier persecution the gospel of Christ was sought by some in their rage, it was betrayed by others in their fear; it was burned by some in their rage, it was hidden by others in their love; it was attacked, but none were found to speak against its truth. The more accursed share of persecution was reserved for you when the persecution of the heathen was exhausted. Those who persecuted the name of Christ believed in Christ: now those who are honored for the name of Christ are found to speak against His truth.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. iv. 6, 7.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Donatist Controversy/Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist/Book II/Chapter 87

Chapter 87.—190. Petilianus said: "For neither has the Lord God at any time rejoiced in human blood, seeing that He was even willing that Cain, the murderer of his brother, should continue to exist in his murderer’s life."
191. Augustin answered: If God was unwilling that death should be inflicted on him who slew his brother, preferring that he should continue to exist in his murderer’s life, see whether this be not the cause why, seeing that the heart of the king is in the hand of God, whereby he has himself enacted many laws for your correction and reproof, yet no law of the king has commanded that you should be put to death, perhaps with this very object, that any one of you who persists in the obstinate self-will of his sacrilegious madness should be tortured with the punishment of the fratricide Cain, that is to say, with the life of a murderer. For we read that many were slain in mercy by Moses the servant of the Lord; for in that he prayed thus in intercession to the Lord for their wicked sacrilege, saying, "O Lord, if Thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which Thou hast written," his unspeakable charity and mercy are plainly shown. Could it be, then, that he was suddenly changed to cruelty, when, on descending from the mount, he ordered so many thousands to be slain? Consider, therefore, whether it may not be a sign of greater anger on the part of God, that, whilst so many laws have been enacted against you, you have not been ordered by any emperor to be put to death. Or do you think that you are not to be compared to that fratricide? Hearken to the Lord speaking through His prophet: "From the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." On this brother’s sacrifice you show that you look with malignant eyes, over and above the respect which God pays to it; and if ye have ever heard that "from the rising of the sun, unto the going down of the same, the Lord’s name is to be praised," which is that living sacrifice of which it is said, "Offer unto God thanksgiving," then will your countenance fall like that of yonder murderer. But inasmuch as you cannot kill the whole world, you are involved in the same guilt by your mere hatred, according to the words of John, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." And I would that any innocent brother might rather fall into the hands of your Circumcelliones, to be murdered by their weapons, than be subjected to the poison of your tongue and rebaptized.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ex. xxxii. 28-32.
* ↑ Mal. i. 11.
* ↑ Ps. cxiii. 3.
* ↑ Ps. l. 14.
* ↑ 1 John iii. 15.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Donatist Controversy/Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist/Book II/Chapter 86

Chapter 86.—188. Petilianus said: "Is it then the case that God has ordered the massacre even of schismatics? and if He were to issue such an order at all, you ought to be slain by some barbarians and Scythians, not by Christians."
189. Augustin answered: Let your Circumcelliones remain quiet, and let me entreat you not to terrify us about barbarians. But as to whether we or you are schismatics, let the question be put neither to you nor to me, but to Christ, that He may show where His Church is to be found. Read the gospel then, and there you find the answer, "In Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria and even in the whole earth." If any one, therefore, is not found within the Church, let not any further question be put to him, but let him either be corrected or converted, or else, being detected, let him not complain.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Acts i. 8.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Donatist Controversy/Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist/Book II/Chapter 90

Chapter 90.—196. Petilianus said: "Therefore I say, He ordained that we should undergo death for the faith, which each man should do for the communion of the Church. For Christianity makes progress by the deaths of its followers. For if death were feared by the faithful, no man would be found to live with perfect faith. For the Lord Christ says, ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’"
197. Augustin answered: I should be glad to know which of your party it was who first threw himself over a precipice. For truly that grain of corn was fruitful from which so great a crop of similar suicides has sprung. Tell me, when you make mention of the words of the Lord, that He says a grain of wheat shall die and bring forth much fruit, why do you envy the real fruit, which has most truly sprung up throughout the whole world, and bring up against it all the charges of the tares or chaff which you have ever either heard of or invented?

## Footnotes

* ↑ John xii. 24.
* ↑ Veracissime. Another reading is "feracissime," "most abundantly."
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Donatist Controversy/Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist/Book II/Chapter 83

Chapter 83.—181. Petilianus said: "If then there are not some to whom all this power of faith is found to be in opposition, on what principle do you persecute, so as to compel men to defile themselves:?"
182. Augustin answered: We neither persecute you, except so far as truth persecutes falsehood; nor has it anything to do with us if any one has persecuted you in other ways, just as it has nothing to do with you if any of your party do likewise; nor do we compel you to defile yourselves, but we persuade you to be cured.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Donatist Controversy/Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist/Book II/Chapter 9

Chapter 9.—21. Petilianus said: "Hemmed in, therefore, by these offenses, you cannot be a true bishop."
22. Augustin answered: By what offenses? What have you shown? What have you proved? And if you have proved charges on the part of I know not whom, what has that to do with the seed of Abraham, in which all the nations of the earth are blessed?
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/Against Two Letters of the Pelagians/Book I/Chapter 18

Chapter 18.—How the Apostle Said that He Did the Evil that He Would Not.
Or by chance do we fear what follows, “For that which I do I know not, for what I will I do not, but what I hate that I do,” lest perhaps from these words some one should suspect that the apostle is consenting to the evil works of the concupiscence of the flesh? But we must consider what he adds: “But if I do that which I will not, I consent to the law that it is good.” For he says that he rather consents to the law than to the concupiscence of the flesh. For this he calls by the name of sin. Therefore he said that he acted and laboured not with the desire of consenting and fulfilling, but from the impulse of lusting itself. Hence, then, he says, “I consent to the law that it is good.” I consent because I do not will what it does not will. Afterwards he says, “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me.” What does he mean by “now then,” but, now at length, under the grace which has delivered the delight of my will from the consent of lust? For, “it is not I that do it,” cannot be better understood than that he does not consent to set forth his members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. For if he lusts and consents and acts, how can he be said not to do the thing himself, even although he may grieve that he does it, and deeply groan at being overcome?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. vii. 15.
* ↑ Rom. vii. 17.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/Against Two Letters of the Pelagians/Book I/Chapter 20

Chapter 20.—In Me, that Is, in My Flesh.
And he declares both more plainly in what follows: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” But in that he said, “bringing me into captivity,” he can feel emotion without consenting to it. Whence, because of those three things, two, to wit, of which we have already argued, in that he says, “But I am carnal,” and “Sold under sin,” and this third, “Bringing me into captivity in the law of sin, which is in my members,” the apostle seems to be describing a man who is still living under the law, and is not yet under grace. But as I have expounded the former two sayings in respect of the still corruptible flesh, so also this latter may be understood as if he had said, “bringing me into captivity,” in the flesh, not in the mind; in emotion, not in consent; and therefore “bringing me into captivity,” because even in the flesh there is not an alien nature, but our own. As, therefore, he himself expounded what he had said, “For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing,” so also now out of the exposition of that we ought to learn the meaning of this passage, as if he had said, “Bringing me into captivity,” that is, “my flesh,” “to the law of sin, which is in my members.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. vii. 21, 22.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/Against Two Letters of the Pelagians/Book I/Chapter 21

Chapter 21.—No Condemnation in Christ Jesus.
Then he adds the reason why he said all these things: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” And thence he concludes: “Therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” To wit, with the flesh, the law of sin, by lusting; but with the mind, the law of God, by not consenting to that lust. “For there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” For he is not condemned who does not consent to the evil of the lust of the flesh. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made thee free from the law of sin and death,” so that, to wit, the lust of the flesh may not appropriate to itself thy consent. And what follows more and more demonstrates the same meaning. But moderation must be used.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. vii. 24, 25.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 1.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/Against Two Letters of the Pelagians/Book I/Chapter 16

Chapter 16.—How Sin Died, and How It Revived.
And what he says in that passage of the Epistle to the Romans, “Sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death to me by that which is good,” agrees with the former passages where he said, “But I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” And previously, “By the law is the knowledge of sin,” for he said this also here, “that it might appear sin;” that we might not understand what he had said, “For without law sin was dead,” except in the sense as if it were not, “it lies hidden, it does not appear, it is completely ignored, as if it were buried in I know not what darkness of ignorance.” And in that he says, “And I was alive once without the law,” what does he say except, I seemed to myself to live? And with respect to what he added, “But when the commandment came, sin revived,” what else is it but sin shone forth, became apparent? Nor yet does he say lived, but revived. For it had lived formerly in Paradise, where it sufficiently appeared, admitted in opposition to the command given; but when it is inherited by children coming into the world, it lies concealed, as if it were dead, until its evil, resisting righteousness, is felt by its prohibition, when one thing is commanded and approved, another thing delights and rules: then, in some measure sin revives in the knowledge of the man that is born, although it had lived already for some time in the knowledge of the man as at first made.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. vii. 13.
* ↑ Rom. vii. 7.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/Against Two Letters of the Pelagians/Book I/Chapter 15

Chapter 15 [IX.]—He Sins in Will Who is Only Deterred from Sinning by Fear.
Nor let us be disturbed by what he wrote to the Philippians: “Touching the righteousness which is in the law, one who is without blame.” For he could be within in evil affections a transgressor of the law, and yet fulfil the open works of the law, either by the fear of men or of God Himself; but by terror of punishment, not by love and delight in righteousness. For it is one thing to do good with the will of doing good, and another thing to be so inclined by the will to do evil, that one would actually do it if it could be allowed without punishment. For thus assuredly he is sinning within in his will itself, who abstains from sin not by will but by fear. And knowing himself to have been such in these his internal affections, before the grace of God which is through Jesus Christ our Lord, the apostle elsewhere confesses this very plainly. For writing to the Ephesians, he says: “And you, though ye were dead in your trespasses and sins, wherein sometime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of that spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, in whom also we all at one time had our conversation in the lusts of our flesh, doing the will of our flesh and our affections, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others also: but God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ, by whose grace we are saved.” Again to Titus he says: “For we ourselves also were sometime foolish and unbelieving, erring, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and holding one another in hatred.” Such was Saul when he says that he was, touching the righteousness which is in the law, without reproach. For that he had not pressed on in the law, and changed his character so as to be without reproach after this hateful life, he plainly shows in what follows, when he says that he was not changed from these evils except by the grace of the Saviour. For adding also this very thing, here as well as to the Ephesians, he says: “But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour shone forth, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and of the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He shed on us most abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that being justified by His grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”