OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Alexander of Lycopolis/Of the Manichaeans/Part 14

Chapter XIV.—Noxious Animals Worshipped by the Egyptians; Man by Arts an Evil-Doer; Lust and Injustice Corrected by Laws and Discipline; Contingent and Necessary Things in Which There is No Stain.
And, as it seems, we have been ignorant that the Egyptians rightly worship the crocodile and the lion and the wolf, because these animals being stronger than the others devour their prey, and entirely destroy it; the eagle also and the hawk, because they slaughter the weaker animals both in the air and upon the earth. But perhaps also, according to them, man is for this reason held in especial honour, because most of all, by his subtle inventions and arts, he is wont to subdue most of the animals. And lest he himself should have no portion in this good, he becomes the food of others. Again, therefore, those generations are, in their opinion, absurd, which from a small and common seed produce what is great; and it is much more becoming, as they think, that these should be destroyed by God, in order that the divine virtue may be quickly liberated from the troubles incident to living in this world. But what shall we say with respect to lust, and injustice, and things of this sort, Manichæus will ask. Surely against these things discipline and law come to the rescue. Discipline, indeed, using careful forethought that nothing of this sort may have place amongst men; but law inflicting punishment upon any one who has been caught in the commission of anything unjust. But, then, why should it be imputed to the earth as a fault, if the husbandman has neglected to subdue it? because the sovereignty of God, which is according to right, suffers diminution, when some parts of it are productive of fruits, and others not so; or when it has happened that when the winds are sweeping, according to another cause, some derive benefit therefrom, whilst others against their will have to sustain injuries? Surely they must necessarily be ignorant of the character of the things that are contingent, and of those that are necessary. For they would not else thus account such things as prodigies.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Methodius/Banquet of the Ten Virgins/Domnina/Part 1

Discourse X.—Domnina.
Chapter I.—Chastity Alone Aids and Effects the Most Praiseworthy Government of the Soul.
O Arete, I also, omitting the long preludes of exordiums, will endeavour according to my ability to enter upon the subject, lest, by delaying upon those matters which are outside the subject in hand, I should speak of them at greater length than their importance would warrant. For I account it a very great part of prudence not to make long speeches, which merely charm the ears, before coming to the main question, but to begin forthwith at the point in debate. So I will begin from thence, for it is time.
Nothing can so much profit a man, O fair virgins, with respect to moral excellence, as chastity; for chastity alone accomplishes and brings it about that the soul should be governed in the noblest and best way, and should be set free, pure from the stains and pollutions of the world. For which reason, when Christ taught us to cultivate it, and showed its unsurpassable beauty, the kingdom of the Evil One was destroyed, who aforetime led captive and enslaved the whole race of men, so that none of the more ancient people pleased the Lord, but all were overcome by errors, since the law was not of itself sufficient to free the human race from corruption, until virginity, succeeding the law, governed men by the precepts of Christ. Nor truly had the first men so often run headlong into combats and slaughter, into lust and idolatry, if the righteousness that is by the law had been to them sufficient for salvation. Now truly they were then confused by great and frequent calamities; but from the time when Christ was incarnate, and armed and adorned His flesh with virginity, the savage tyrant who was master of incontinence was taken away, and peace and faith have dominion, men no longer turning so much as before to idolatry.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Methodius/Banquet of the Ten Virgins/Agathe/Part 5

Chapter V.—The Reward of Virginity.
These, O fair virgins, are the orgies of our mysteries; these the mystic rites of those who are initiated in virginity; these the “undefiled rewards” of the conflict of virginity. I am betrothed to the Word, and receive as a reward the eternal crown of immortality and riches from the Father; and I triumph in eternity, crowned with the bright and unfading flowers of wisdom. I am one in the choir with Christ dispensing His rewards in heaven, around the unbeginning and never-ending King. I have become the torch-bearer of the unapproachable lights, and I join with their company in the new song of the archangels, showing forth the new grace of the Church; for the Word says that the company of virgins always follow the Lord, and have fellowship with Him wherever He is. And this is what John signifies in the commemoration of the hundred and forty-four thousand.
Go then, ye virgin band of the new ages. Go, fill your vessels with righteousness, for the hour is coming when ye must rise and meet the bridegroom. Go, lightly leaving on one side the fascinations and the pleasures of life, which confuse and bewitch the soul; and thus shall ye attain the promises, “This I swear by Him who has shown me the way of life.” This crown, woven by the prophets, I have taken from the prophetic meadows, and offer to thee, O Arete.
Agathe having thus admirably brought her discourse to an end, she said, and having been applauded for what she had uttered, Arete again commanded Procilla to speak. And she, rising and passing before the entrance, spoke thus.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Wisd. iv. 2.
* ↑ Although the Greek word is not the same as in 1 Tim. vi. 16, the meaning is probably this rather than unquenchable, as it is rendered in the Latin.—Tr. [See Discourse XI. cap. 2, infra.]
* ↑ Rev. vii. 4; xiv. 4.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Methodius/Banquet of the Ten Virgins/Arete
## Contents

* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Methodius/Banquet of the Ten Virgins/Domnina
## Contents

* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3
* Part 4
* Part 5
* Part 6
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book X/Chapter 24

24. The Diverse Forms of Spiritual Sickness.
And, if you wish to see of what nature are the sicknesses of the soul, contemplate with me the lovers of money, and the lovers of ambition, and the lovers of boys, and if any be fond of women; for these also beholding among the crowds and taking compassion upon them, He healed. For not every sin is to be considered a sickness, but that which has settled down in the whole soul. For so you may see the lovers of money wholly intent on money and upon preserving and gathering it, the lovers of ambition wholly intent on a little glory, for they gape for praise from the masses and the vulgar; and analogously you will understand in the case of the rest which we have named, and if there be any other like to them. Since, then, when expounding the words, “He healed their sick,” we said that not every sin is a sickness, it is fitting to discuss from the Scripture the difference of these. The Apostle indeed says, writing to the Corinthians who had diverse sicknesses, “For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.” Hear Him in these words, knitting a band and making it plaited of different sins, according as some are weak, and others sickly more than weak, and others, in comparison with both, are asleep. For some, because of impotence of soul, having a tendency to slip into any sin whatever, although they may not be wholly in the grasp of any form of sin, as the sickly are, are only weak; but others who, instead of loving God “with all their soul and all their heart and all their mind,” love money, or a little glory, or wife, or children, are suffering from something worse than weakness, and are sickly. And those who sleep are those who, when they ought to be taking heed and watching with the soul, are not doing this, but by reason of great want of attention are nodding in resolution and are drowsy in their reflections, such as “in their dreamings defile the flesh, and set at naught that which is highest in authority, and rail at dignities.” And these, because they are asleep, live in an atmosphere of vain and dream-like fancies concerning realities, not admitting the things which are actually true, but deceived by what appears in their vain imaginations, in regard to whom it is said in Isaiah, “Like as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but when he has risen up is still thirsty, and his soul has cherished a vain hope, so shall be the wealth of all the nations as many as have warred in Jerusalem.” If, then, we have seemed to make a digression in recounting the difference between the weak and the sickly and those that sleep, because of that which the Apostle said in the letter to the Corinthians which we have expounded, we have made the digression in our desire to represent what is meant to be understood by the saying, “And He healed their sick.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xiv. 14.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xi. 30.
* ↑ Jude 8.
* ↑ Isa. xxix. 8 (LXX., which has “against mount Zion,” where Origen has “in Jerusalem”).
* ↑ Matt. xiv. 14.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book X/Chapter 3

3. The Shining of the Righteous. Its Interpretation.
But as we said above in reference to the words, “Then shall the righteous shine as the sun,” that the righteous will shine not differently as formerly, but as one sun, we will, of necessity, set forth what appears to us on the point. Daniel, knowing that the intelligent are the light of the world, and that the multitudes of the righteous differ in glory, seems to have said this, “And the intelligent shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and from among the multitudes of the righteous as the stars for ever and ever.” And in the passage, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead,” the Apostle says the same thing as Daniel, taking this thought from his prophecy. Some one may inquire how some speak about the difference of light among the righteous, while the Saviour on the contrary says, “They shall shine as one sun.” I think, then, that at the beginning of the blessedness enjoyed by those who are being saved (because those who are not such are not yet purified), the difference connected with the light of the saved takes place: but when, as we have indicated, he gathers from the whole kingdom of Christ all things that make men stumble, and the reasonings that work iniquity are cast into the furnace of fire, and the worse elements utterly consumed, and, when this takes place, those who received the words which are the children of the evil one come to self-consciousness, then shall the righteous having become one light of the sun shine in the kingdom of their Father. For whom will they shine? For those below them who will enjoy their light, after the analogy of the sun which now shines for those upon the earth? For, of course, they will not shine for themselves. But perhaps the saying, “Let your light shine before men,” can be written “upon the table of the heart,” according to what is said by Solomon, in a threefold way; so that even now the light of the disciples of Jesus shines before the rest of men, and after death before the resurrection, and after the resurrection “until all shall attain unto a full-grown man,” and all become one sun. Then shall they shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Dan. xii. 3.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 41, 42.
* ↑ Matt. v. 16.
* ↑ Prov. vii. 3. Or, on the breadth of the heart.
* ↑ Eph. iv. 13.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book X/Chapter 4

4. Concerning the Parable of the Treasure Hidden in the Field. The Parable Distinguished from the Similitude.
“Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid.” The former parables He spoke to the multitudes; but this and the two which follow it, which are not parables but similitudes in relation to the kingdom of heaven, He seems to have spoken to the disciples when in the house. In regard to this and the next two, let him who “gives heed to reading” inquire whether they are parables at all. In the case of the latter the Scripture does not hesitate to attach in each case the name of parable; but in the present case it has not done so; and that naturally. For if He spoke to the multitudes in parables, and “spake all these things in parables, and without a parable spake nothing to them,” but on going to the house He discourses not to the multitudes but to the disciples who came to Him there, manifestly the things spoken in the house were not parables: for, to them that are without, even to those to whom “it is not given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” He speaks in parables. Some one will then say, If they are not really parables, what are they? Shall we then say in keeping with the diction of the Scripture that they are similitudes (comparisons)? Now a similitude differs from a parable; for it is written in Mark, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or in what parable shall we set it forth?” From this it is plain that there is a difference between a similitude and a parable. The similitude seems to be generic, and the parable specific. And perhaps also as the similitude, which is the highest genus of the parable, contains the parable as one of its species, so it contains that particular form of similitude which has the same name as the genus. This is the case with other words as those skilled in the giving of many names have observed; who say that “impulse” is the highest genus of many species, as, for example, of “disinclination” and “inclination,” and say that, in the case of the species which has the same name as the genus, “inclination” is taken in opposition to and in distinction from “disinclination.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xiii. 44.
* ↑ 1 Tim. iv. 13.
* ↑ Matt. xiii. 34.
* ↑ Matt. xiii. 11.
* ↑ Mark iv. 30.
* ↑ ὁρμή; also inclination.
* ↑ ἀφορμή.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book X/Chapter 6

6. The Exposition Continued.
And at this point you will inquire, whether the kingdom of heaven is likened only to the treasure hidden in the field, so that we are to think of the field as different from the kingdom, or is likened to the whole of this treasure hidden in the field, so that the kingdom of heaven contains according to the similitude both the field and the treasure hidden in the field. Now a man who comes to the field, whether to the Scriptures or to the Christ who is constituted both from things manifest and from things hidden, finds the hidden treasure of wisdom whether in Christ or in the Scriptures. For, going round to visit the field and searching the Scriptures and seeking to understand the Christ, he finds the treasure in it; and, having found it, he hides it, thinking that it is not without danger to reveal to everybody the secret meanings of the Scriptures, or the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ. And, having hidden it, he goes away, working and devising how he shall buy the field, or the Scriptures, that he may make them his own possession, receiving from the people of God the oracles of God with which the Jews were first entrusted. And when the man taught by Christ has bought the field, the kingdom of God which, according to another parable, is a vineyard, “is taken from them and is given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,”—to him who in faith has bought the field, as the fruit of his having sold all that he had, and no longer keeping by him anything that was formerly his; for they were a source of evil to him. And you will give the same application, if the field containing the hidden treasure be Christ, for those who give up all things and follow Him, have, as it were in another way, sold their possessions, in order that, by having sold and surrendered them, and having received in their place from God—their helper—a noble resolution, they may purchase, at great cost worthy of the field, the field containing the treasure hidden in itself.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. iii. 2.
* ↑ Matt. xxi. 43.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book X/Chapter 9

9. Christ the Pearl of Great Price.
Now you will connect with the man seeking goodly pearls the saying, “Seek and ye shall find,” and this—“Every one that seeketh findeth.” For what seek ye? Or what does every one that seeketh find? I venture to answer, pearls and the pearl which he possesses, who has given up all things, and counted them as loss; “for which,” says Paul, “I have counted all things but loss that I may win Christ;” by “all things” meaning the goodly pearls, “that I may win Christ,” the one very precious pearl. Precious, then, is a lamp to men in darkness, and there is need of a lamp until the sun rise; and precious also is the glory in the face of Moses, and of the prophets also, I think, and a beautiful sight, by which we are introduced so as to be able to see the glory of Christ, to which the Father bears witness, saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” But “that which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious in this respect by reason of the glory that surpasseth;” and there is need to us first of the glory which admits of being done away, for the sake of the glory which surpasseth; as there is need of the knowledge which is in part, which will be done away when that which is perfect comes. Every soul, therefore, which comes to childhood, and is on the way to full growth, until the fulness of time is at hand, needs a tutor and stewards and guardians, in order that, after all these things, he who formerly differed nothing from a bond-servant, though he is lord of all, may receive, when freed from a tutor and stewards and guardians, the patrimony corresponding to the very costly pearl, and to that which is perfect, which on its coming does away with that which is in part, when one is able to receive “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,” having been previously exercised, so to speak, in those forms of knowledge which are surpassed by the knowledge of Christ. But the multitude, not perceiving the beauty of the many pearls of the law, and all the knowledge, “in part,” though it be, of the prophets, suppose that they can, without a clear exposition and apprehension of these, find in whole the one precious pearl, and behold “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,” in comparison with which all things that came before such and so great knowledge, although they were not refuse in their own nature, appear to be refuse. This refuse is perhaps the “dung” thrown down beside the fig tree by the keeper of the vineyard, which is the cause of its bearing fruit.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. vii. 7.
* ↑ Matt. vii. 8.
* ↑ Phil. iii. 8.
* ↑ Matt. iii. 17.
* ↑ 2 Cor. iii. 10.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10.
* ↑ Cf. Gal. iv. 1, 2.
* ↑ Phil. iii. 8.
* ↑ Or, absolutely.
* ↑ Luke xiii. 8.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book X/Chapter 25

25. Healing Precedes Participation in the Loaves of Jesus.
After this the word says, “And when even was come, His disciples came to Him, saying, The place is desert and the time is already past; send, therefore, the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” And first observe that when about to give to the disciples the loaves of blessing, that they might set them before the multitudes, He healed the sick, in order that, having been restored to health, they might participate in the loaves of blessing; for while they are yet sickly, they are not able to receive the loaves of the blessing of Jesus. But if any one, when he ought to listen to the precept, “But let each prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread,” etc., does not obey these words, but in haphazard fashion participates in the bread of the Lord and His cup, he becomes weak or sickly, or even—if I may use the expression—on account of being stupefied by the power of the bread, asleep.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xiv. 15.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xi. 28.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/Origen on Matthew/Origen's Commentary on Matthew/Book X/Chapter 8

8. The Parable Interpreted is the Light of These Views.
Now, having collected these things out of dissertations about stones, I say that the Saviour with a knowledge of the difference of pearls, of which some are in kind goodly and others worthless, said, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls;” for, if some of the pearls had not been worthless, it would not have been said, “to a man seeking goodly pearls.” Now among the words of all kinds which profess to announce truth, and among those who report them, he seeks pearls. And let the prophets be, so to speak, the mussels which conceive the dew of heaven, and become pregnant with the word of truth from heaven, the goodly pearls which, according to the phrase here set forth, the merchantman seeks. And the leader of the pearls, on the finding of which the rest are found with it, is the very costly pearl, the Christ of God, the Word which is superior to the precious letters and thoughts in the law and the prophets, on the finding of which also all the rest are easily taken. And the Saviour holds converse with all the disciples, as merchant-men who are not only seeking the goodly pearls but who have found them and possess them, when He says, “Cast not your pearls before swine.” Now it is manifest that these things were said to the disciples from that which is prefixed to His words, “And seeing the multitudes He went up into the mountain, and when He had sat down His disciples came unto Him;” for, in the course of those words, He said, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine.” Perhaps, then, he is not a disciple of Christ, who does not possess pearls or the very costly pearl, the pearls, I mean, which are goodly; not the cloudy, nor the darkened, such as the words of the heterodox, which are brought forth not at the sunrise, but at the sunset or in the north, if it is necessary to take also into the comparison those things on account of which we found a difference in the pearls which are produced in different places. And perhaps the muddy words and the heresies which are bound up with works of the flesh, are the darkened pearls, and those which are produced in the marshes, not goodly pearls.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. xiii. 45.
* ↑ Matt. vii. 6.
* ↑ Matt. v. 1.
* ↑ Matt. vii. 6.