OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume II/Socrates/Book VII/Chapter 30

Chapter XXX.—The Burgundians embrace Christianity under Theodosius the Younger.
I must now relate an event well worthy of being recorded, which happened about this time. There is a barbarous nation dwelling beyond the Rhine, denominated Burgundians; they lead a peaceful life; for being almost all artisans, they support themselves by the exercise of their trades. The Huns, by making continual irruptions on this people, devastated their country, and often destroyed great numbers of them. In this perplexity, therefore, the Burgundians resolved to have recourse not to any human being, but to commit themselves to the protection of some god: and having seriously considered that the God of the Romans mightily defended those that feared him, they all with common consent embraced the faith of Christ. Going therefore to one of the cities of Gaul, they requested the bishop to grant them Christian baptism: who ordering them to fast seven days, and having meanwhile instructed them in the elementary principles of the faith, on the eighth day baptized and dismissed them. Accordingly becoming confident thenceforth, they marched against their invaders; nor were they disappointed in their hope. For the king of the Huns, Uptar
by name, having died in the night from the effects of a surfeit, the Burgundians attacked that people then without a commander-in-chief; and although they were few in numbers and their opponents very many, they obtained a complete victory; for the Burgundians were altogether but three thousand men, and destroyed no less than ten thousand of the enemy. From that period this nation became zealously attached to the Christian religion. About the same time Barbas bishop of the Arians died, on the 24th of June, under the thirteenth consulate of Theodosius,
and the third of Valentinian, and Sabbatius was constituted his successor. Enough has been said of these matters.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Octar, mentioned as an uncle (father’s brother) of Attila by Jornandes, Historia Getarum, chap. 35.
* ↑ 430 a.d.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Against Nestorius/Book VII/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.
Heretics usually cover their doctrines with a cloak of holy Scripture.
“For as,” you say, “by man came death, so by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” Do you actually try to prove your wrong and impious notion by the witness of the Apostle? And do you bring the “chosen vessel” into disgrace by mixing him up with your wicked ideas? I mean, that, as you cannot understand the author of your Salvation, therefore the Apostle must be made out to have denied God. And yet, if you wanted to make use of Apostolic witnesses, why did you rest contented with one, and pass over all the others in silence? and why did you not at once add this: “Paul, an Apostle not of men neither by man, but by Jesus Christ:” or this: “We speak wisdom among the perfect:” and presently: “Whom none,” says he, “of the princes of this world knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Or this: “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And: “One Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things.” Or do you partly agree, and partly disagree with the Apostle, and only receive him so far as in consequence of the Incarnation he names Christ man, and repudiate him where he speaks of Him as God? For Paul does not deny that Jesus is man, but still he confesses that man is God: and declares that to mankind the resurrection came by man in such a way that he shows that in that man God arose. For see whether he declares that He who rose was God, as he bears his witness that He who was crucified was the Lord of glory.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gal. i. 1.
* ↑ 1 Cor. ii. 6, 8.
* ↑ Col. ii. 9.
* ↑ 1 Cor. viii. 6.
* ↑ Dispensatio.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Against Nestorius/Book VII/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII.
The heretics attribute to Christ only the shadow of Divinity, and so assert that he is to be worshipped together with God but not as God.
But still in order to avoid thinking of the Lord Jesus as one of the whole mass of people, you have given to Him some glory, by attributing to Him honour as a saint, but not Deity as true man and true God. For what do you say? “God brought about the Lord’s Incarnation. Let us honour the form of the Theodochos together with God, as one form of Godhead, as a figure that cannot be severed from the Divine link, as an image of the unseen
God.” Above you said that Adam was the image of God, here you call Christ the image: the one you speak of as a statue, and the other also as a statue. But I suppose we ought for God’s honour to be grateful to you, because you grant that the form of the Theodochos should be worshipped together with God: in which you wrong Him rather than honour Him. For in this you do not attribute to the Lord Jesus Christ the glory of Deity, but you deny it. By a subtle and wicked art you say that He is to be worshipped together with God in order that you may not have to confess that He is God, and by the very statement in which you seem deceitfully to join Him with God, you really sever Him from God. For when you blasphemously say that He is certainly not to be adored as God, but to be worshipped together with God, you thus grant to Him an union of nearness to Divinity, in order to get rid of the truth of His Divinity. Oh, you most wicked and crafty enemy of God, you want to perpetrate the crime of denying God under pretext of confessing Him. You say: Let us worship Him as a figure that cannot be severed from the Divine will, as an image of the unseen God. It is I suppose, then, owing to His kind acts that our Lord Jesus Christ has obtained among us honour as Creator and Redeemer. If then we were redeemed by Him from eternal destruction, in calling our Redeemer a figure we are endeavouring indeed to respond to His kindness and goodness, by a worthy service and a worthy allegiance, if we try to get rid of that glory which He did not refuse to bring low for our sakes.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. V. ii.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Against Nestorius/Book VII/Chapter 29

Chapter XXIX.
In the next place he puts the authority of S. Athanasius.
Athanasius also, priest of the city of Alexandria, a splendid instance of constancy and virtue, whom the storm of heretical persecution tested without crushing him: whose life was always like a clear glass, and who had almost obtained the reward of martyrdom before attaining the dignity of confessorship: Let us see what was his view of the Lord Jesus Christ and the mother of the Lord. “This then,” he says, “is the mind and stamp of Holy Scripture, as we have often said; viz., that in one and the same Saviour two things have to be understood: (1) that He was ever God, and is Son, Word, and Light, and Wisdom of the Father, and (2) that afterwards for our sakes He took flesh of the Virgin Mary the Theotocos, and was made man.” Again after some other matter: “Many then were saints and clean from sin: Jeremiah also was sanctified from the womb, and John, while still in the womb leapt for joy at the voice of Mary the Theotocos.” He certainly says that God, the Son of God, who (to declare the faith of all in his words) is “the Word, and Light and Wisdom of the Father,” took flesh for our sakes; and therefore he calls the Virgin Mary Theotocos, because she was the Mother of God.

## Footnotes

* ↑ See the orations against the Arians IV. The Greek is as follows: Σκοπὸς τοίνυν οὗτος καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς γραφῆς, ὡς πολλάκις εἴπομεν, διπλῆν εἰναι τὴν περὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἀπαγγελίαν ἐν αὐτῇ, ὅτι τε ἀεὶ Θεὸς ἦν καὶ ἔστιν ὁ υεός, λόγος ὦν καὶ ἀπαύγασμα καὶ σοφία τοῦ πατρος, καὶ ὅτι ὕστερον δι᾽ ἡμᾶς σάρκα λαβὼν ἐκ παρθένου τῆς θεοτόκου Μαριάς ἄνθρωπος γέγονεν.
* ↑ Ibid. πολλοὶ γοῦν ἅγιοι γεγόνασι καὶ καθαροὶ πάσης ἁμαρτίας· ῾Ιερεμίας δὲ καὶ ἐκ κοιλίας ἡγιάσθη καὶ ᾽Ιωάννης ἔτι κυοφορούμενος ἐσκίρτησεν ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει ἐπὶ τῇ φωνῇ τῆς Θεοτόκου Μαρίας.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book III/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII.—That the Assembly was composed, as in the Acts of the Apostles, of Individuals from Various Nations.
For it is said that in the Apostles’ age, there were gathered “devout men from every nation under heaven”; among whom were Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and the parts of Libya about Cyrene; and sojourners from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. But that assembly was less, in that not all who composed it were ministers of God; but in the present company, the number of bishops exceeded two hundred and fifty, while that of the presbyters and deacons in their train, and the crowd of acolytes and other attendants was altogether beyond computation.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Acts ii. 5sqq.
* ↑ The number present is given variously as three hundred (Socrates), three hundred and eighteen (Athanasius, &c.), two hundred and seventy (Theodoret), or even two thousand (cf. Hefele). It has been conjectured that the variation came from the omission of names of the Arians (cf. note of Heinichen, Vol. 3, p. 506–507), or that it varied during the two months and more.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book IV/Chapter 1

Book IV.
Chapter I.—How he honored Many by Presents and Promotions.
While thus variously engaged in promoting the extension and glory of the church of God, and striving by every measure to commend the Saviour’s doctrine, the emperor was far from neglecting secular affairs; but in this respect also he was unwearied in bestowing benefits of every kind and in quick succession on the people of every province. On the one hand he manifested a paternal anxiety for the general welfare of his subjects; on the other he would distinguish individuals of his own acquaintance with various marks of honor; conferring his benefits in every instance in a truly noble spirit. No one could request a favor from the emperor, and fail of obtaining what he sought: no one expected a boon from him, and found that expectation vain. Some received presents in money, others in land; some obtained the Prætorian præfecture, others senatorial, others again consular rank: many were appointed provincial governors: others were made counts of the first, second, or third order: in numberless instances the title of Most Illustrious and many other distinctions were conferred; for the emperor devised new dignities, that he might invest a larger number with the tokens of his favor.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Compare Prolegomena, under Character, for the criticism of this conduct from those who viewed it from another point of view.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book IV/Chapter 10

Chapter X.—The Writer denounces Idols, and glorifies God.
“This God I invoke with bended knees, and recoil with horror from the blood of sacrifices, from their foul and detestable odors, and from every earth-born magic fire: for the profane and impious superstitions which are defiled by these rites have cast down and consigned to perdition many, nay, whole nations of the Gentile world. For he who is Lord of all cannot endure that those blessings which, in his own loving-kindness and consideration of the wants of men, he has revealed for the use of all, should be perverted to serve the lusts of any. His only demand from man is purity of mind and an undefiled spirit; and by this standard he weighs the actions of virtue and godliness. For his pleasure is in works of moderation and gentleness: he loves the meek, and hates the turbulent spirit: delighting in faith, he chastises unbelief: by him all presumptuous power is broken down, and he avenges the insolence of the proud. While the arrogant and haughty are utterly overthrown, he requires the humble and forgiving with deserved rewards: even so does he highly honor and strengthen with his special help a kingdom justly governed, and maintains a prudent king in the tranquillity of peace.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [Referring to the luminous appearances produced by the Pagan priests in the celebration of their mysteries.—Bag.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book III/Chapter 64

Chapter LXIV.—Constantine’s Edict against the Heretics.
“Victor Constantinus, Maximus Augustus, to the heretics.
“Understand now, by this present statute, ye Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians, and all ye who devise and support heresies by means of your private assemblies, with what a tissue of falsehood and vanity, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inseparably interwoven; so that through you the healthy soul is stricken with disease, and the living becomes the prey of everlasting death. Ye haters and enemies of truth and life, in league with destruction! All your counsels are opposed to the truth, but familiar with deeds of baseness; full of absurdities and fictions: and by these ye frame falsehoods, oppress the innocent, and withhold the light from them that believe. Ever trespassing under the mask of godliness, ye fill all things with defilement: ye pierce the pure and guileless conscience with deadly wounds, while ye withdraw, one may almost say, the very light of day from the eyes of men. But why should I particularize, when to speak of your criminality as it deserves demands more time and leisure than I can give? For so long and unmeasured is the catalogue of your offenses, so hateful and altogether atrocious are they, that a single day would not suffice to recount them all. And, indeed, it is well to turn one’s ears and eyes from such a subject, lest by a description of each particular evil, the pure sincerity and freshness of one’s own faith be impaired. Why then do I still bear with such abounding evil; especially since this protracted clemency is the cause that some who were sound are become tainted with this pestilent disease? Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief by a public manifestation of displeasure?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Sufficiently good general accounts of these various heresies may be found in Blunt. Dict. of Sects, Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties, and Schools of Religious Thought, Lond. 1874, p. 382–389, Novatians; p. 612–614, Valentinians; p. 296–298, Marcionites; p. 515–517, Samosatenes (Paulians); p. 336–341, Montanists (Cataphrygians). Or see standard Encyclopædias.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book III/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.—Of the General Council, at which Bishops from all Nations were Present.
In effect, the most distinguished of God’s ministers from all the churches which abounded in Europe, Lybia, and Asia were here assembled. And a single house of prayer, as though divinely enlarged, sufficed to contain at once Syrians and Cilicians, Phœnicians and Arabians, delegates from Palestine, and others from Egypt; Thebans and Libyans, with those who came from the region of Mesopotamia. A Persian bishop too was present at this conference, nor was even a Scythian found wanting to the number. Pontus, Galatia, and Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Phrygia, furnished their most distinguished prelates; while those who dwelt in the remotest districts of Thrace and Macedonia, of Achaia and Epirus, were notwithstanding in attendance. Even from Spain itself, one whose fame was widely spread took his seat as an individual in the great assembly. The prelate of the imperial city was prevented from attending by extreme old age; but his presbyters were present, and supplied his place. Constantine is the first prince of any age who bound together such a garland as this with the bond of peace, and presented it to his Saviour as a thank-offering for the victories he had obtained over every foe, thus exhibiting in our own times a similitude of the apostolic company.

## Footnotes

* ↑ The standard work on councils is Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, available to the English reader in the translation of Clark, Oxenham, &c. (Edinb. 1872 sq.), a work so thoroughly fundamental that a general reference to it will serve as one continuous note to matters relating to the councils held under Constantine.
* ↑ = Africa.
* ↑ It is noted that this evidence of the presence of foreign bishops—“missionary bishops,” so to speak—is confirmed by Gelasius and also by the roll of the members.
* ↑ [Hosius of Cordova.—Bag.]
* ↑ [It has been doubted whether Rome or Constantinople is here intended. The authority of Sozomen and others is in favor of the former. See English translation, published as one volume of this series.—Bag.] Also in this series.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book III/Chapter 9

Chapter IX.—Of the Virtue and Age of the Two Hundred and Fifty Bishops.
Of these ministers of God, some were distinguished by wisdom and eloquence, others by the gravity of their lives, and by patient fortitude of character, while others again united in themselves all these graces. There were among them men whose years demanded veneration: others were younger, and in the prime of mental vigor; and some had but recently entered on the course of their ministry. For the maintenance of all ample provision was daily furnished by the emperor’s command.

## Footnotes

* ↑ This is the way it is interpreted by Sozomen, 1, 17. The phrase, which is literally “of middling character,” is translated by Molz. and others as if it meant “mild” or “modest,” as if it referred in some way to the doctrine of the mean.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book III/Chapter 65

Chapter LXV.—The Heretics are deprived of their Meeting Places.
“Forasmuch, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, that you be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your assemblies: and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you, therefore, who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion, take the far better course of entering the catholic Church, and uniting with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In any case, the delusions of your perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with and mar the felicity of our present times: I mean the impious and wretched double-mindedness of heretics and schismatics. For it is an object worthy of that prosperity which we enjoy through the favor of God, to endeavor to bring back those who in time past were living in the hope of future blessing, from all irregularity and error to the right path, from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation. And in order that this remedy may be applied with effectual power, we have commanded, as before said, that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings, I mean all the houses of prayer, if such be worthy of the name, which belong to heretics, and that these be made over without delay to the catholic Church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering; in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ There is throughout this Life a curious repetition in the details of action against heretics of precisely the same things which Christians complained of as having been done to them. The idea of toleration then seems to have been much as it was in pre-reformation times, or, not to judge other times when there is a beam in our own eye, as it is in America and England to-day,—the largest toleration for every one who thinks as we do, and for the others a temporary suspension of the rule to “judge not,” with an amended prayer, “Lord, condemn them, for they know not what they do,” and a vigorous attempt to force the divine judgment.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book III/Chapter 66

Chapter LXVI.—How on the Discovery of Prohibited Books among the Heretics, Many of them return to the Catholic Church.
Thus were the lurking-places of the heretics broken up by the emperor’s command, and the savage beasts they harbored (I mean the chief authors of their impious doctrines) driven to flight. Of those whom they had deceived, some, intimidated by the emperor’s threats, disguising their real sentiments, crept secretly into the Church. For since the law directed that search should be made for their books, those of them who practiced evil and forbidden arts were detected, and these were ready to secure their own safety by dissimulation of every kind. Others, however, there were, who voluntarily and with real sincerity embraced a better hope. Meantime the prelates of the several churches continued to make strict inquiry, utterly rejecting those who attempted an entrance under the specious disguise of false pretenses, while those who came with sincerity of purpose were proved for a time, and after sufficient trial numbered with the congregation. Such was the treatment of those who stood charged with rank heresy: those, however, who maintained no impious doctrine, but had been separated from the one body through the influence of schismatic advisers, were received without difficulty or delay. Accordingly, numbers thus revisited, as it were, their own country after an absence in a foreign land, and acknowledged the Church as a mother from whom they had wandered long, and to whom they now returned with joy and gladness. Thus the members of the entire body became united, and compacted in one harmonious whole; and the one catholic Church, at unity with itself, shone with full luster, while no heretical or schismatic body anywhere continued to exist. And the credit of having achieved this mighty work our Heaven-protected emperor alone, of all who had gone before him, was able to attribute to himself.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Here again it is worth noting, for history and for edification, that books were prohibited and heretics treated just as the Christians did not like to “be done by,” by the heathen.
* ↑ This famous “church unity,” for which Constantine has been blessed or execrated, as the case might be, in all the ages since, was hardly more complete than modern unified churches where all the members held different pet doctrines and are prepared to fight for them to the bitter end.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Constantine/The Life of Constantine/Book IV
## 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
* 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
* Chapter 67
* Chapter 68
* Chapter 69
* Chapter 70
* Chapter 71
* Chapter 72
* Chapter 73
* Chapter 74
* Chapter 75