OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Rufinus/Jerome's Apology/Book II/Chapter 27

34. I beg you, my most sweet friend, who are so curious that you even know my dreams, and that you scrutinize for purposes of accusations all that I have written during these many years without fear of future calumny; answer me, how is it you do not know the prefaces of the very books on which you ground your charges against me? These prefaces, as if by some prophetic foresight, gave the answer to the calumnies that were coming, thus fulfilling the proverb, “The antidote before the poison.” What harm has been done to the churches by my translation? You bought up, as I knew, at great cost the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and the Jewish authors of the fifth and sixth translations. Your Origen, or, that I may not seem to be wounding you with fictitious praises, our Origen, (for I may call him ours for his genius and learning, though not for the truth of his doctrines) in all his books explains and expounds not only the Septuagint but the Jewish versions. Eusebius and Didymus do the same. I do not mention Apollinarius, who, with a laudable zeal though not according to knowledge, attempted to patch up into one garment the rags of all the translations, and to weave a consistent text of Scripture at his own discretion, not according to any sound rule of criticism. The Hebrew Scriptures are used by apostolic men; they are used, as is evident, by the apostles and evangelists. Our Lord and Saviour himself whenever he refers to the Scriptures, takes his quotations from the Hebrew; as in the instance of the words “He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,” and in the words used on the cross itself, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” which is by interpretation “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” not, as it is given by the Septuagint, “My God, my God, look upon me, why hast thou forsaken me?” and many similar cases. I do not say this in order to aim a blow at the seventy translators; but I assert that the Apostles of Christ have an authority superior to theirs. Wherever the Seventy agree with the Hebrew, the apostles took their quotations from that translation; but, where they disagree, they set down in Greek what they had found in the Hebrew. And further, I give a challenge to my accuser. I have shown that many things are set down in the New Testament as coming from the older books, which are not to be found in the Septuagint; and I have pointed out that these exist in the Hebrew. Now let him show that there is anything in the New Testament which comes from the Septuagint but which is not found in the Hebrew, and our controversy is at an end.

## Footnotes

* ↑ John vii. 38, supposed to be taken from Prov. xviii. 4, or Is. lviii. 11
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Rufinus/Jerome's Apology/Book II/Chapter 4

4. He goes on:
“Still, since there may be some persons, who may wish to prove my faith, or to hear and learn what it is, I will declare that I thus think of the Trinity;”
and so on. At first you said that you entrusted your faith to the Bishop as a stick with which he might fortify himself on your behalf against those barking dogs. Now you speak a little less confidently, “There may be some persons who wish to prove my faith.” You begin to hesitate when the barkings which reach your ears are so numerous. I will not stop to discuss the forms of diction which you use, for these you look down upon and condemn: I will answer according to the meaning alone. You are asked about one thing, and you give account for yourself upon another. As to the doctrines of Arius, you contended against them at Alexandria a long time ago, by imprisonment and exile, not with words but with blood. But the question now relates to the heresy of Origen, and the feeling aroused against you on the subject. I should be sorry that you should trouble yourself to cure wounds which are already healed. You confess a Trinity in one Godhead. The whole world now confesses this, and I think that even the devils confess that the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary, and took upon him the flesh and the soul belonging to human nature. But I must beg you not to think me a contentious man if I examine you a little more strictly. You say that the Son of God took the flesh and soul belonging to human nature. Well then, I would ask you not to be vexed with me but to answer this question. That soul which Jesus took upon him, did it exist before it was born of Mary? Was it created together with the body in that original Virgin nature which was begotten by the Holy Spirit? or, when the body was already formed within the womb, was it made all at once, and sent down from heaven? I wish to know which one of these you choose as your opinion. If it existed before it was born from Mary, then it was not yet the soul of Jesus; and it was employed in some way, and, for a reward of its virtues, it was made his soul. If it arose by traduction, then human souls, which we believe to be eternal, are subject to the same condition as those of the brutes, which perish with the body. But if it is created and sent into the body after the body has been formed, tell us so simply, and free us from anxiety.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ex traduce, that is, from a layer like that of the vine. This embodies the view that the soul is derived, with the body, from the parent. There is no English word for the process; and since the word Traducianism is used to express the theory, ‘Traduction’ is used here to express the process.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter
## Contents

* Title Page
* Extract from Augustin's Retractations
* Argument
* 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
* Chapter 26
* Chapter 27
* Chapter 28
* Chapter 29
* Chapter 30
* Chapter 31
* Chapter 32
* Chapter 33
* Chapter 34
* Chapter 35
* Chapter 36
* Chapter 37
* Chapter 38
* Chapter 39
* Chapter 40
* Chapter 41
* Chapter 42
* Chapter 43
* Chapter 44
* Chapter 45
* Chapter 46
* Chapter 47
* Chapter 48
* Chapter 49
* Chapter 50
* Chapter 51
* Chapter 52
* Chapter 53
* Chapter 54
* Chapter 55
* Chapter 56
* Chapter 57
* Chapter 58
* Chapter 59
* Chapter 60
* Chapter 61
* Chapter 62
* Chapter 63
* Chapter 64
* Chapter 65
* Chapter 66
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Argument

A Treatise on the spirit and the letter,
by aurelius augustin, bishop of hippo;
In One Book,
Addressed to Marcellinus, a.d. 412.
Marcellinus, in a letter to Augustin, had expressed some surprise at having read, in the preceding work, of the possibility being allowed of a man continuing if he willed it, by God’s help, without sin in the present life, although not a single human example anywhere of such perfect righteousness has ever existed. Augustin takes the opportunity of discussing, in opposition to the Pelagians, the subject of the aid of God’s grace; and he shows that the divine help to the working of righteousness by us does not lie in the fact of God’s having given us a law which is full of good and holy precepts; but in the fact that our will itself, without which we can do nothing good, is assisted and elevated by the Spirit of grace being imparted to us, without the aid of which the teaching of the law is “the letter that killeth,” because instead of justifying the ungodly, it rather holds them guilty of transgression. He begins to treat of the question proposed to him at the commencement of this work, and returns to it towards its conclusion; he shows that, as all allow, many things are possible with God’s help, of which there occurs indeed no example; and then concludes that, although a perfect righteousness is unexampled among men, it is for all that not impossible.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 11

Chapter 11 [VII.]—From What Fountain Good Works Flow.
This holy meditation preserves “the children of men, who put their trust under the shadow of God’s wings,” so that they are “drunken with the fatness of His house, and drink of the full stream of His pleasure. For with Him is the fountain of life, and in His light shall they see light. For He extendeth His mercy to them that know Him, and His righteousness to the upright in heart.” He does not, indeed, extend His mercy to them because they know Him, but that they may know Him; nor is it because they are upright in heart, but that they may become so, that He extends to them His righteousness, whereby He justifies the ungodly. This meditation does not elevate with pride: this sin arises when any man has too much confidence in himself, and makes himself the chief end of living. Impelled by this vain feeling, he departs from that fountain of life, from the draughts of which alone is imbibed the holiness which is itself the good life,—and from that unchanging light, by sharing in which the reasonable soul is in a certain sense inflamed, and becomes itself a created and reflected luminary; even as “John was a burning and a shining light,” who notwithstanding acknowledged the source of his own illumination in the words, “Of His fulness have all we received.” Whose, I would ask, but His, of course, in comparison with whom John indeed was no light at all? For “that was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Therefore, in the same psalm, after saying, “Extend Thy mercy to them that know Thee, and Thy righteousness to the upright in heart,” he adds, “Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hands of sinners move me. There have fallen all the workers of iniquity: they are cast out, and are not able to stand.” Since by that impiety which leads each to attribute to himself the excellence which is God’s, he is cast out into his own native darkness, in which consist the works of iniquity. For it is manifestly these works which he does, and for the achievement of such alone is he naturally fit. The works of righteousness he never does, except as he receives ability from that fountain and that light, where the life is that wants for nothing, and where is “no variableness, nor the shadow of turning.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ps. xxxvi. 7.
* ↑ Ps. xxxvi. 8–10.
* ↑ Rom. iv. 5.
* ↑ John v. 35.
* ↑ John i. 16.
* ↑ John i. 9.
* ↑ Ps. xxxvi. 10.
* ↑ Ps. xxxvi. 11, 12.
* ↑ Jas. i. 17.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 14

Chapter 14.—In What Respect the Pelagians Acknowledge God as the Author of Our Justification.
“But,” say they, “we do praise God as the Author of our righteousness, in that He gave the law, by the teaching of which we have learned how we ought to live.” But they give no heed to what they read: “By the law there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God.” This may indeed be possible before men, but not before Him who looks into our very heart and inmost will, where He sees that, although the man who fears the law keeps a certain precept, he would nevertheless rather do another thing if he were permitted. And lest any one should suppose that, in the passage just quoted from him, the apostle had meant to say that none are justified by that law, which contains many precepts, under the figure of the ancient sacraments, and among them that circumcision of the flesh itself, which infants were commanded to receive on the eighth day after birth; he immediately adds what law he meant, and says, “For by the law is the knowledge of sin.” He refers then to that law of which he afterwards declares, “I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” For what means this but that “by the law comes the knowledge of sin?”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. iii. 20.
* ↑ Rom. iii. 20.
* ↑ Rom. vii. 7.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Title Page

a treatise on the soul and its origin.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 1

Chapter 1 [I.] —The Occasion of Writing This Work; A Thing May Be Capable of Being Done, and Yet May Never Be Done.
After reading the short treatises which I lately drew up for you, my beloved son Marcellinus, about the baptism of infants, and the perfection of man’s righteousness,—how that no one in this life seems either to have attained or to be likely to attain to it, except only the Mediator, who bore humanity in the likeness of sinful flesh, without any sin whatever,—you wrote me in answer that you were embarrassed by the point which I advanced in the second book, that it was possible for a man to be without sin, if he wanted not the will, and was assisted by the aid of God; and yet that except One in whom “all shall be made alive,” no one has ever lived or will live by whom this perfection has been attained whilst living here. It appeared to you absurd to say that anything was possible of which no example ever occurred,—although I suppose you would not hesitate to admit that no camel ever passed through a needle’s eye, and yet He said that even this was possible with God; you may read, too, that twelve thousand legions of angels could possibly have fought for Christ and rescued Him from suffering, but in fact did not; you may read that it was possible for the nations to be exterminated at once out of the land which was given to the children of Israel, and yet that God willed it to be gradually effected. And one may meet with a thousand other incidents, the past or the future possibility of which we might readily admit, and yet be unable to produce any proofs of their having ever really happened. Accordingly, it would not be right for us to deny the possibility of a man’s living without sin, on the ground that amongst men none can be found except Him who is in His nature not man only, but also God, in whom we could prove such perfection of character to have existed.

## Footnotes

* ↑ On the Merits of Sins, etc., ii. 6, 7, 20.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 22.
* ↑ Matt. xix. 24, 26.
* ↑ Matt. xxvi. 53, but observe the “thousand” inserted.
* ↑ Deut. xxxi. 3.
* ↑ Judg. ii. 3.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 10

Chapter 10.—Christ the True Healer.
Accordingly, the apostle shows that the same medicine was mystically set forth in the passion and resurrection of Christ, when he says, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Now it is plain enough that here by the mystery of the Lord’s death and resurrection is figured the death of our old sinful life, and the rising of the new; and that here is shown forth the abolition of iniquity and the renewal of righteousness. Whence then arises this vast benefit to man through the letter of the law, except it be through the faith of Jesus Christ?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. vi. 3–11.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 12

Chapter 12.—Paul, Whence So Called; Bravely Contends for Grace.
Accordingly Paul, who, although he was formerly called Saul, chose this new designation, for no other reason, as it seems to me, than because he would show himself little,—the “least of the apostles,”—contends with much courage and earnestness against the proud and arrogant, and such as plume themselves on their own works, in order that he may commend the grace of God. This grace, indeed, appeared more obvious and manifest in his case, inasmuch as, while he was pursuing such vehement measures of persecution against the Church of God as made him worthy of the greatest punishment, he found mercy instead of condemnation, and instead of punishment obtained grace. Very properly, therefore, does he lift voice and hand in defence of grace, and care not for the envy either of those who understood not a subject too profound and abstruse for them, or of those who perversely misinterpreted his own sound words; whilst at the same time he unfalteringly preaches that gift of God, whereby alone salvation accrues to those who are the children of the promise, children of the divine goodness, children of grace and mercy, children of the new covenant. In the salutation with which he begins every epistle, he prays: “Grace be to you, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ;” whilst this forms almost the only topic discussed for the Romans, and it is plied with so much persistence and variety of argument, as fairly to fatigue the reader’s attention, yet with a fatigue so useful and salutary, that it rather exercises than breaks the faculties of the inner man.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Acts. xiii. 9.
* ↑ See Augustin’s Confessions, viii. 4.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 9.
* ↑ See Rom. i. 7, 1 Cor. i. 3, and Gal. i. 3.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume X/Works/On the Holy Spirit/Book III/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.
The Son Himself does not judge or punish without the Spirit, so that the same Spirit is called the Sword of the Word. But inasmuch as the Word is in turn called the Sword of the Spirit, the highest unity of power is thereby recognized in each.
44. But what should we say of the other points? We have heard that the Lord Jesus not only judges in the Spirit but punishes also. For neither would He punish Antichrist, whom, as we read, “the Lord Jesus shall slay with the Spirit of His mouth,” unless He had before judged of his deserts. Yet here is not a grace received, but the unity remains undivided, since neither can Christ be without the Spirit, nor the Spirit without Christ. For the unity of the divine nature cannot be divided.
45. And since that instance comes before us, that the Lord Jesus shall slay with the Spirit of His mouth, the Spirit is understood to be as it were the Sword of the Word. Lastly, in the Gospel also the Lord Jesus Himself says: “I came not to send peace but a sword.” For He came that He might give the Spirit; and so there is in His mouth a two-edged sword, which is in truth the grace of the Spirit. So the Spirit is the Sword of the Word.
46. And that you may know that there is no inequality but unity of nature, the Word also is the Sword of the Holy Spirit, for it is written: “Taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”
47. Since, then, the Sword of the Word is the Holy Spirit, and the Sword of the Holy Spirit is the Word of God, there is certainly in Them oneness of power.

## Footnotes

* ↑ 2 Thess. ii. 8.
* ↑ S. Matt. x. 34.
* ↑ Rev. xix. 15.
* ↑ Eph. vi. 16, 17.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume X/Works/On the Mysteries

On the Mysteries.

## Contents

* Introduction
* Chapter 1
* Chapter 2
* Chapter 3
* Chapter 4
* Chapter 5
* Chapter 6
* Chapter 7
* Chapter 8
* Chapter 9
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume X/Works/On the Mysteries/Chapter 2

Chapter II.
What those who were to be initiated promised on entering the Church, of the witnesses to these promises, and wherefore they then turned themselves to the East.
5. After this the Holy of holies was opened to you, you entered the sanctuary of regeneration; recall what you were asked, and remember what you answered. You renounced the devil and his works, the world with its luxury and pleasures. That utterance of yours is preserved not in the tombs of the dead, but in the book of the living.
6. You saw there the deacon, you saw the priest, you saw the chief priest [i.e. the bishop]. Consider not the bodily forms, but the grace of the Mysteries. You spoke in the presence of the angels, as it is written: “For the priest’s lips keep knowledge, and they seek the law at his mouth, for he is the angel of the Lord Almighty.”
There is no place for deception nor for denial. He is an angel who proclaims the kingdom of Christ and eternal life. He is to be esteemed by you not according to his appearance, but according to his office. Consider what he delivered, reflect upon the rule of life he gave you, recognize his position.
7. You entered, then, that you might discern your adversary, whom you were to renounce as it were to his face, then you turned to the east; for he who renounces the devil turns to Christ, and beholds Him face to face.

## Footnotes

* ↑ “Holy of holies,” a figurative name given to the baptistery. Comp. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. Lect. XIX. 11; and with this whole treatise the last four Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem in this series, Vol. VII. p. 144 ff.
* ↑ Mal. ii. 7.