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# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XL

40. And yet, even if we grant you that this is the case, that is, even if the narratives give utterance to one thing in words, but mean something else, after the manner of raving seers, do you not observe in this case, do you not see how dishonouring, how insulting to the gods, this is which is said to be done? or can any greater wrong be devised than to term and call the earth and rain, or anything else,—for it does not matter what change is made in the interpretation,—the intercourse of Jupiter and Ceres? and to signify the descent of rain from the sky, and the moistening of the earth, by charges against the gods? Can anything be either thought or believed more impious than that the rape of Proserpine speaks of seeds buried in the earth, or anything else,—for in like manner it is of no importance,—and that it speaks of the pursuit of agriculture to the dishonour of father Dis? Is it not a thousand times more desirable to become mute and speechless, and to lose that flow of words and noisy and unseemly loquacity, than to call the basest things by the names of the gods; nay, more, to signify commonplace things by the base actions of the gods?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “say.”
* ↑ Lit., “with what shame and insult of the gods this is said to be done.”
* ↑ Lit., “with.”
* ↑ Lit., “din of.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XLII

42. But you will perhaps say, for this only is left which you may think can be brought forward by you, that the gods do not wish their mysteries to be known by men, and that the narratives were therefore written with allegorical ambiguity. And whence have you learned that the gods above do not wish their mysteries to be made public? whence have you become acquainted with these? or why are you anxious to unravel them by explaining them as allegories? Lastly, and finally, what do the gods mean, that while they do not wish honourable, they allow unseemly, even the basest things, to be said about them? When we name Attis, says my opponent, we mean and speak of the sun; but if Attis is the sun, as you reckon him and say, who will that Attis be whom your books record and declare to have been born in Phrygia, to have suffered certain things, to have done certain things also, whom all the theatres know in the scenic shows, to whom every year we see divine honours paid expressly by name amongst the other religious ceremonies? Whether was this name made to pass from the sun to a man, or from a man to the sun? For if that name is derived in the first instance from the sun, what, pray, has the golden sun done to you, that you should make that name to belong to him in common with an emasculated person? But if it is derived from a goat, and is Phrygian, of what has the sire of Phaethon, the father of this light and brightness, been guilty, that he should seem worthy to be named from a mutilated man, and should become more venerable when designated by the name of an emasculated body?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Passivè.
* ↑ Lit., “is it clear to you.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XLIV

44. But if you come to the conclusion that these fables have been written allegorically, what is to be done with the rest, which we see cannot be forced into such changes of sense? For what are we to substitute for the wrigglings into which the lustful heat of Semele’s offspring forced him upon the sepulchral mound? and what for those Ganymedes who were carried off and set to preside over lustful practices? what for that conversion of an ant into which Jupiter, the greatest of the gods, contracted the outlines of his huge body? what for swans and satyrs? what for golden showers, which the same seductive god put on with perfidious guile, amusing himself by changes of form? And that we may not seem to speak of Jupiter only, what allegories can there be in the loves of the other deities? what in their circumstances as hired servants and slaves? what in their bonds, bereavements, lamentations? what in their agonies, wounds, sepulchres? Now, while in this you might be held guilty in one respect for writing in such wise about the gods, you have added to your guilt beyond measure in calling base things by the names of deities, and again in defaming the gods by giving to them the names of infamous things. But if you believed without any doubt that they were here close at hand, or anywhere at all, fear would check you in making mention of them, and your beliefs and unchanged thoughts should have been exactly as if they were listening to you and heard your words. For among men devoted to the services of religion, not only the gods themselves, but even the names of the gods should be reverenced, and there should be quite as much grandeur in their names as there is in those even who are thought of under these names.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “waves”—fluctibus, the reading of the ms., LB., Hild., and Oehler; the other edd. reading fustibus—“stakes.”
* ↑ So Meursius, changing the ms. o- into u-rigo.
* ↑ The first four edd. retain the ms., reading partis—“brought forth;” the others adopt a suggestion of Canterus, raptis, as above.
* ↑ Lit., “vastness.”
* ↑ Addere garo gerrem, a proverb ridiculing a worthless addition, which nullifies something in itself precious, garum being a highly esteemed sauce (or perhaps soup), which would be thrown away upon gerres, a worthless kind of salt fish. Arnobius merely means, however, that while such stories are wrong, what follows is unspeakably worse.
* ↑ Lit., “with undubitable knowledge.”
* ↑ Lit., “it ought to have been so believed, and to be held fixed in thought just,” etc.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XLI

41. It was once usual, in speaking allegorically, to conceal under perfectly decent ideas, and clothe with the respectability of decency, what was base and horrible to speak of openly; but now venerable things are at your instance vilely spoken of, and what is quite pure is related in filthy language, so that that which vice formerly concealed from shame, is now meanly and basely spoken of, the mode of speech which was fitting being changed. In speaking of Mars and Venus as having been taken in adultery by Vulcan’s art, we speak of lust, says my opponent, and anger, as restrained by the force and purpose of reason. What, then, hindered, what prevented you from expressing each thing by the words and terms proper to it? nay, more, what necessity was there, when you had resolved to declare something or other, by means of treatises and writings, to resolve that that should not be the meaning to which you point, and in one narrative to take up at the same time opposite positions—the eagerness of one wishing to teach, the niggardliness of one reluctant to make public? Was there no risk in speaking of the gods as unchaste? The mention of lust and anger, my opponent says, was likely to defile the tongue and mouth with foul contagion. But, assuredly, if this were done, and the veil of allegorical obscurity were removed, the matter would be easily understood, and by the same the dignity of the gods would be maintained unimpaired. But now, indeed, when the restraining of vices is said to be signified by the binding of Mars and Venus, two most inconsistent things are done at the very same time; so that, on the one hand, a description of something vile suggests an honourable meaning, and on the other, the baseness occupies the mind before any regard for religion can do so.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Passivè.
* ↑ Lit., “strong in chastity.”
* ↑ The ms., first three edd., Elm., and Oehler read commorantur—“lingers,” i.e., “continues to be spoken of;” the other edd. receive commemorantur, as above, from the errata in the 1st ed.
* ↑ The ms., first four edd., and Oehler read gravitas—seriousness; corrected pr. as above, in all edd. after Stewechius.
* ↑ So, perhaps, the unintelligible ms. dignorum should be emended digna rerum.
* ↑ So all edd. since Stewechius, adding s to the ms. voluisse.
* ↑ i.e., the mere fact that the stories were published, showed a wish to teach; but their being allegories, showed a reluctance to allow them to be understood.
* ↑ The edd. read this sentence interrogatively.
* ↑ i.e., “if you said exactly what you mean.” The reference is not to the immediately preceding words, but to the question on which the chapter is based—“what prevented you from expressing,” etc.
* ↑ Lit., “perverse.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XLIII

43. But what the meaning of this is, is already clear to all. For because you are ashamed of such writers and histories, and do not see that these things can be got rid of which have once been committed to writing in filthy language, you strive to make base things honourable, and by every kind of subtlety you pervert and corrupt the real senses of words for the sake of spurious interpretations; and, as oft times happens to the sick, whose senses and understanding have been put to flight by the distempered force of disease, you toss about confused and uncertain conjectures, and rave in empty fictions.
Let it be granted that the irrigation of the earth was meant by the union of Jupiter and Ceres, the burying of the seed by the ravishing of Proserpine by father Dis, wines scattered over the earth by the limbs of Liber torn asunder by the Titans, that the restraining of lust and rashness has been spoken of as the binding of the adulterous Venus and Mars.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “natures.”
* ↑ Lit., “things.”
* ↑ So most edd., reading occultatiofor the ms. occupatio.
* ↑ So all edd., reading com-, except Hild. and Oehler, who retain the ms. reading, im-pressio—“the assault of,” i.e., “on.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XIII

13. Through her bosom, we are told, Nana conceived a son by an apple. The opinion is self-consistent; for where rocks and hard stones bring forth, there apples must have their time of generating. The Berecyntian goddess fed the imprisoned maiden with nuts and figs, fitly and rightly; for it was right that she should live on apples who had been made a mother by an apple. After her offspring was born, it was ordered by Sangarius to be cast far away: that which he believed to be divinely conceived long before, he would not have called the offspring of his child. The infant was brought up on he-goats’ milk. O story ever opposed and most inimical to the male sex, in which not only do men lay aside their virile powers, but beasts even which were males become mothers! He was famous for his beauty, and distinguished by his remarkable comeliness. It is wonderful enough that the noisome stench of goats did not cause him to be avoided and fled from. The Great Mother loved him—if as a grandmother her grandson, there is nothing wrong; but if as the theatres tell, her love is infamous and disgraceful. Acdestis, too, loved him above all, enriching him with a hunter’s gifts. There could be no danger to his purity from one emasculated, you say; but it is not easy to guess what Midas dreaded? The Mother entered bearing the very walls. Here we wondered, indeed, at the might and strength of the deity; but againwe blame her carelessness, because when she remembered the decree of fate, she heedlessly laid open the city to its enemies. Acdestis cites to fury and madness those celebrating the nuptial vows. If King Midas had displeased him who was binding the youth to a wife, of what had Gallus been guilty, and his concubine’s daughter, that he should rob himself of his manhood, she herself of her breasts? “Take and keep these,” says he, “because of which you have excited such commotions to the overwhelming of our minds with fear.” We should none of us yet know what the frenzied Acdestis had desired in his paramour’s body, had not the boy thrown to him, to appease his wrath, the parts cut off.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “he says.”
* ↑ Lit., “must rut”—suriant, as deer. The ms., first four edd., and Elm. read surgant—“rise,” corrected as above in the margin of Ursinus.
* ↑ Lit., “acorns”—glandibus.
* ↑ The ms. reads des-, emended as above ded-ignatus by Stewechius, followed by Heraldus and Orelli.
* ↑ i.e., he-goats are made to yield milk.
* ↑ Lit., “praiseworthy.”
* ↑ Lit., “with.”
* ↑ So the ms., both Roman edd., LB., Hild. and Oehler, reading rursus, for which the others receive the emendation of Gelenius, regis—“the king’s carelessness.”
* ↑ Lit., “the law and fate.”
* ↑ i.e., Attis.
* ↑ The ms. reads satietati-s objecisset offensi, corrected as above by Hild., (omitting s), followed by Oehler. The conjectures of previous edd. are very harsh and forced.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XLV

45. Judge fairly, and you are deserving of censure in this, that in your common conversation you name Mars when you mean fighting, Neptune when you mean the seas, Ceres when you mean bread, Minerva when you mean weaving, Venus when you mean filthy lusts. For what reason is there, that, when things can be classed under their own names, they should be called by the names of the gods, and that such an insult should be offered to the deities as not even we men endure, if any one applies and turns our names to trifling objects? But language, you say, is contemptible, if defiled with such words. O modesty, worthy of praise! you blush to name bread and wine, and are not afraid to speak of Venus instead of carnal intercourse!

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “are in this part of censure.”
* ↑ Lit., “for.”
* ↑ Lit., “the warp,” stamine.
* ↑ i.e., if things are spoken of under their proper names.
* ↑ The ms. reads ac unintelligibly.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XV

15. We might long ago have urged you to ponder this, were it not foolish to ask proofs of such things, as well as to say them. But this story is false, and is wholly untrue. It is no matter to us, indeed, because of whom you maintain that the gods have been driven from the earth, whether it is consistent and rests on a sure foundation, or is, on the contrary, framed and devised in utter falsehood. For to us it is enough—who have proposed this day to make it plain—that those deities whom you bring for ward, if they are anywhere on earth, and glow with the fires of anger, are not more excited to furious hatred by us than by you; and that that story, has been classed as an event and committed to writing by you, and is willingly read over by you every day, and handed down in order for the edifying of later times. Now, if this story is indeed true, we see that there is no reason in it why the celestial gods should be asserted to be angry with us, since we have neither declared things so much to their disgrace, nor committed them to writing at all, nor brought them publicly to light by the celebration of sacred rites; but if, as you think, it is untrue, and made up of delusive falsehoods, no man can doubt that you are the cause of offence, who have either allowed certain persons to write such stories, or have suffered them, when written, to abide in the memory of ages.

## Footnotes

* ↑ So the ms., according to Crusius, the edd. inserting s, di-s-cere—“to learn.”
* ↑ Lit., “on firmness of faith.”
* ↑ Lit., “sent to public testifying.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 14

14. That He is the righteous One whom the Jews should put to death.
In the Wisdom of Solomon: “Let us lay hold of the righteous, because He is disagreeable to us, and is contrary to our works, and reproacheth us with our transgressions of the law. He professeth that He has the knowledge of God, and calls Himself the Son of God; He has become to us an exposure of our thoughts; He is grievous unto us even to look upon, because His life is unlike to others, and His ways are changed. We are esteemed by Him as frivolous, and He restraineth Himself from our ways, as if from uncleanness; and He extols the last end of the righteous, and boasts that He has God for His Father. Let us see, then, if His words are true, and let us try what will come to Him. Let us interrogate Him with reproach and torture, that we may know His reverence and prove His patience. Let us condemn Him with a most shameful death.  These things they considered, and erred. For their maliciousness hath blinded them, and they knew not the sacraments of God.” Also in Isaiah: “See ye how the righteous perisheth, and no man understandeth; and righteous men are taken away, and no man regardeth. For the righteous man is taken away from the face of unrighteousness, and his burial shall be in peace.”  Concerning this very thing it was before foretold in Exodus:  “Thou shalt not slay the innocent and the righteous.” Also in the Gospel: “Judas, led by penitence, said to the priests and elders, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ The Oxford translation here inserts from the Apocrypha, without authority even for its text, “and objecteth to us the transgressions of the law.”
* ↑ Wisd. ii. 12–22.
* ↑ Isa. lvii. 1, 2. [Justin, vol. i. 203.]
* ↑ Ex. xxiii. 7.
* ↑ Matt. xxvii. 3, 4.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 2

2. That Christ is the Wisdom of God; and concerning the sacrament of His incarnation and of His passion, and cup and altar; and of the apostles who were sent, and preached.
In Solomon in the Proverbs: “Wisdom hath builded herself an house, and she has placed under it seven pillars; she has slain her victims; she hath mingled her wine in the goblet, and hath made ready her table, and hath sent her servants, calling with a loud announcement to the cup, saying, Let him who is foolish turn to me: and to them that want understanding she has said, Come, eat of my loaves, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. Forsake foolishness, and seek wisdom, and correct knowledge by understanding.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ [The house = the Church; the seven pillars = Isa. xi. 2, 3; her table = the Lord’s table; her cup = the sacrament of the Blood; her loaves = of the Body. Then her servants = preachers. So old authors.]
* ↑ Prov. ix. 1–6.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 20

20.  That the Jews would fasten Christ to the cross.
In Isaiah: “I have spread out my hands all day to a people disobedient and contradicting me, who walk in ways that are not good, but after their own sins.” Also in Jeremiah:  “Come, let us cast the tree into His bread, and let us blot out His life from the earth.” Also in Deuteronomy:  “And Thy life shall be hanging (in doubt) before Thine eyes; and Thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt not trust to Thy life.” Also in the twenty-first Psalm: “They tore my hands and my feet; they numbered all my bones. And they gazed upon me, and saw me, and divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast a lot. But Thou, O Lord, remove not Thy help far from me; attend unto my help. Deliver my soul from the sword, and my only one from the paw of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion, and my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare Thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the Church I will praise Thee.” Also in the cxviiith Psalm: “Pierce my flesh with nails through fear of Thee.” Also in the cxlth Psalm:  “The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice.” Of which sacrifice Sophonias said: “Fear from the presence of the Lord God, since His day is near, because the Lord hath prepared His sacrifice, He hath sanctified His elect.” Also in Zechariah: “And they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced.” Also in the eighty-seventh Psalm: “I have called unto Thee, O Lord, the whole day; I have stretched out my hands unto Thee.” Also in Numbers: “Not as a man is God suspended, nor as the son of man does He suffer threats.” Whence in the Gospel the Lord says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in the Son may have life eternal.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Isa. lxv. 2. [So Justin, vol. i. pp. 179 and 206. But compare Isa. xxv. 11, a remarkable simile.]
* ↑ Jer. xi. 19.
* ↑ Deut. xxviii. 66.
* ↑ [This is one of the passages corrupted by the Jews since the crucifixion. See Pearson, On the Creed, p. 534. All his notes on “crucified” are most precious.]
* ↑ “Manu.”
* ↑ Ps. xxii. 16–22.
* ↑ Ps. cxix. 120.
* ↑ Ps. cxli. 2.
* ↑ Zeph. i. 7.
* ↑ Zech. xii. 10.
* ↑ Ps. lxxxviii. 9.
* ↑ Num. xxiii. 19.
* ↑ John iii. 14, 15.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 12

12. That Christ should be born in Bethlehem.
In Micah: “And thou, Bethlehem, house of Ephrata, art not little, that thou shouldst be appointed among the thousands of Judah. Out of thee shall He come forth to me, that He may be a prince in Israel, and His goings forth from the beginning from the days of old.” Also in the Gospel: “And when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judah, in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi came from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east, and we have come with gifts to worship Him.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Mic. v. 2.
* ↑ Matt. ii. 1, 2.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 17

17. That afterwards this Stone should become a mountain, and should fill the whole earth.
In Daniel: “And behold a very great image; and the aspect of this image was fearful, and it stood erect before thee; whose head was of fine gold, its breast and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were of brass, and its feet were partly indeed of iron, and partly of clay, until that a stone was cut out of the mountain, without the hands of those that should cut it, and struck the image upon the feet of iron and clay, and brake them into small fragments. And the iron, and the clay, and the brass, and the silver, and the gold, was made altogether; and they became small as chaff, or dust in the threshing-floor in summer; and the wind blew them away, so that nothing remained of them. And the stone which struck the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ [Hippolytus, p. 209, supra.]
* ↑ Dan. ii. 31–35.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book II/Part 18

18. That in the last times the same mountain should be manifested, and upon it the Gentiles should come, and on it all the righteous should go up.
In Isaiah: “In the last times the mountain of the Lord shall be revealed, and the house of God upon the tops of the mountains; and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall come upon it, and many shall walk and say, Come, and let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob; and He will tell us His way, and we will walk in it.  For from Sion shall proceed the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke much people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and they shall no more learn to fight.” Also in the twenty-third Psalm: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place? He that is innocent in his hands, and of a clean heart; who hath not received his life in vanity, and hath not sworn craftily to his neighbour. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and mercy from the God that saveth him. This is the generation of those who seek Him, that seek the face of the God of Jacob.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Isa. ii. 2–4.
* ↑ “Misericordiam.”
* ↑ Ps. xxiv. 3–6.