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# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XXV

25. For if whatever is done by men, and especially in religion, should have its causes,—and nothing should be done without a reason in all that men do and perform,—tell us and say what is the cause, what the reason, that these things also are given to the gods and burned upon their sacred altars? For here we delay, constrained most urgently to wait for this cause, we pause, we stand fast, desiring to learn what a god has to do with pottage, with cakes, with different kinds of stuffing prepared in manifold ways, and with different ingredients? Are the deities affected by splendid dinners or luncheons, so that it is fitting to devise for them feasts without number? Are they troubled by the loathings of their stomachs, and is variety of flavours sought for to get rid of their aversion, so that there is set before them meat at one time roasted, at another raw, and at another half cooked and half raw? But if the gods like to receive all these parts which you term præsiciæ, and if these gratify them with any sense of pleasure or delight, what prevents, what hinders you from laying all these upon their altars at once with the whole animals? What cause, what reason is there that the haunch-piece by itself, the gullet, the tail, and the tail-piece separately, the entrails only, and the membrane alone, should be brought to do them honour? Are the gods of heaven moved by various condiments? After stuffing themselves with sumptuous and ample dinners, do they, as is usually done, take these little bits as sweet dainties, not to appease their hunger, but to rouse their wearied palates, and excite in themselves a perfectly voracious appetite? O wonderful greatness of the gods, comprehended by no men, understood by no creatures! if indeed their favours are bought with the testicles and gullets of beasts, and if they do not lay aside their anger and resentment, unless they see the entrails prepared and offæ bought and burned upon their altars.

## Footnotes

* ↑ i.e., cut off for sacrifice.
* ↑ Caro strebula.
* ↑ Plasea.
* ↑ The ms. reads unintelligibly nomen quæ, corrected by Gelenius omentum, as above.
* ↑ Lit., “admonish the ease of the palate;” a correction of Salmasius, by omitting a from the ms. palati-a admoneant.
* ↑ Næniæ.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XXIX

29. Wine is used along with incense; and of this, in like manner, we ask an explanation why it is poured upon it when burning. For if a reason is not shown for doing this, and its cause is not set forth, this action of yours must not now be attributed to a ridiculous error, but, to speak more plainly, to madness, foolishness, blindness. For, as has been already said pretty frequently, everything which is done should have its cause manifest, and not involved in any dark obscurity. If, therefore, you have confidence in what is done, disclose, point out why that liquor is offered; that is, why wine is poured on the altars. For do the bodies of the deities feel parching thirst, and is it necessary that their dryness be tempered by some moisture? Are they accustomed, as men are, to combine eating and drinking? In like manner, also, after the solid food of cakes and pottages, and victims slain in honour of them, do they drench themselves, and make themselves merry with very frequent cups of wine, that their food may be more easily softened, and thoroughly digested? Give, I beg, to the immortal gods to drink; bring forth goblets, bowls, ladles, and cups; and as they stuff themselves with bulls, and luxurious feasts, and rich food,—lest some piece of flesh hastily gulped down should stick in passing through the stomach, run up, hasten, give pure wine to Jupiter, the most excellent, the supreme, lest he be choked. He desires to break wind, and is unable; and unless that hindrance passes away and is dissolved, there is very great danger that his breathing will be stopped and interrupted, and heaven be left desolate without its rulers.

## Footnotes

* ↑ So LB. and Oehler, reading ni-si. (ms. si), and other edd. inserting non, the negative being absolutely necessary to the sense, and supplied in the next clause.
* ↑ Lit., “nor will it have its cause.”
* ↑ Although this is clearly the meaning, Stewechius explained solidos by referring to the ancient belief that such offerings should be wholly consumed, and no fragment left.
* ↑ Briæ, drinking-cups, but of their peculiar shape or purpose we know nothing.
* ↑ Lit., “badly.”
* ↑ Lit., “being strangled, may be.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XXVI

26. We have now to say a few words about incense and wine, for these, too, are connected and mixed up with your ceremonies, and are used largely in your religious acts. And, first, with respect to that very incense which you use, we ask this of you particularly, whence or at what time you have been able to become acquainted with it, and to know it, so that you have just reason to think that it is either worthy to be given to the gods, or most agreeable to their desires. For it is almost a novelty; and there is no endless succession of years since it began to be known in these parts, and won its way into the shrines of the gods. For neither in the heroic ages, as it is believed and declared, was it known what incense was, as is proved by the ancient writers, in whose books is found no mention of it; nor was Etruria, the parent and mother of superstition, acquainted with its fame and renown, as the rites of the chapels prove; nor was it used by any one in offering sacrifice during the four hundred years in which Alba flourished; nor did even Romulus or Numa, who was skilful in devising new ceremonies, know either of its existence or growth, as the sacred grits show with which it was customary that the usual sacrifices should be performed. Whence, therefore, did its use begin to be adopted? or what desire of novelty assailed the old and ancient custom, so that that which was not needed for so many ages took the first place in the ceremonies? For if without incense the performance of a religious service is imperfect, and if a quantity of it is necessary to make the celestials gentle and propitious to men, the ancients fell into sin, nay rather, their whole life was full of guilt, for they carelessly neglected to offer that which was most fitted to give pleasure to the gods. But if in ancient times neither men nor gods sought for this incense, it is proved that to-day also that is offered uselessly and in vain which antiquity did not believe necessary, but modern times desired without any reason.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “these kinds of ceremonies, too, were coupled and mixed,” etc.
* ↑ On this Oehler remarks, that the books of Moses show that it was certainly used in the East in the most ancient times. But Arnobius has expressly restricted his statement to the use of incense “in these parts.”
* ↑ Pium far.
* ↑ [See p. 519, note 1, supra.]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XX

20. But let us agree, as you wish, that there are both infernal regions and Manes, and that some gods or other dwell in these by no means favourable to men, and presiding over misfortunes; and what cause, what reason is there, that black victims, even of the darkest hue, should be brought to their altars? Because dark things suit dark, and gloomy things are pleasing to similar beings. What then? Do you not see—that we, too, may joke with you stupidly, and just as you do yourselves—that the flesh of the victims is not black, nor their bones, teeth, fat, the bowels, with the brains, and the soft marrow in the bones? But the fleeces are jet-black, and the bristles of the creatures are jet-black. Do you, then, sacrifice to the gods only wool and little bristles torn from the victims? Do you leave the wretched creatures, despoiled it may be, and shorn, to draw the breath of heaven, and rest in perfect innocence upon their feeding-grounds? But if you think that those things are pleasing to the infernal gods which are black and of a gloomy colour, why do you not take care that all the other things which it is customary to place upon their sacrifices should be black, and smoked, and horrible in colour? Dye the incense if it is offered, the salted grits, and all the libations without exception. Into the milk, oil, blood, pour soot and ashes, that this may lose its purple hue, that the others may become ghastly. But if you have no scruple in introducing some things which are white and retain their brightness, you yourselves do away with your own religious scruples and reasonings, while you do not maintain any single and universal rule in performing the sacred rites.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “and.” Immediately after, the ms. is corrected in later writing color-es (for -is)—“and the darkest colours.”
* ↑ Similiter. This is certainly a suspicious reading, but Arnobius indulges occasionally in similar vague expressions.
* ↑ Lit., “is white.”
* ↑ Or, very probably, “the membranes with (i.e., enclosing) the brains,” omenta cum cerebris.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XVIII

18. And as we are now speaking of the animals sacrificed, what cause, what reason is there, that while the immortal gods—for, so far as we are concerned, they may all be gods who are believed to be so—are of one mind, or should be of one nature, kind, and character, all are not appeased with all the victims, but certain deities with certain animals, according to the sacrificial laws? For what cause is there, to repeat the same question, that that deity should be honoured with bulls, another with kids or sheep, this one with sucking pigs, the other with unshorn lambs, this one with virgin heifers, that one with horned goats, this with barren cows, but that with teeming swine, this with white, that with dusky victims, one with female, the other, on the contrary, with male animals? For if victims are slain in sacrifice to the gods, to do them honour and show reverence for them, what does it matter, or what difference is there with the life of what animal this debt is paid, their anger and resentment put away? Or is the blood of one victim less grateful and pleasing to one god, while the other’s fills him with pleasure and joy? or, as is usually done, does that deity abstain from the flesh of goats because of some reverential and religious scruple, another turn with disgust from pork, while to this mutton stinks? and does this one avoid tough ox-beef that he may not overtax his weak stomach, and choose tender sucklings that he may digest them more speedily?

## Footnotes

* ↑ The ms. and first four edd. read ingentibus scrofis—“with huge breeding swine,” changed by rest, as above, incient-, from the margin of Ursinus.
* ↑ Or “gloomy,” tetris, the reading of ms. and all edd. since LB., for which earlier edd. give atris—“black.”
* ↑ Lit., “the tenderness of.”
* ↑ [The law of clean and unclean reflects the instincts of man, as here appealed to; but compare and patiently study these texts: Lev. x. 10 and Ezek. xxii. 26; Lev. xi. and Acts x. 15; Rom. xiv. 14 and Luke xi. 41.]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XXI

21. But this, too, it is fitting that we should here learn from you: If a goat be slain to Jupiter, which is usually sacrificed to father Liber and Mercury, or if the barren heifer be sacrificed to Unxia, which you give to Proserpine, by what usage and rule is it determined what crime there is in this, what wickedness or guilt has been contracted, since it makes no difference to the worship offered to the deity what animal it is with whose head the honour is paid which you owe? It is not lawful, says my opponent, that these things should be confounded, and it is no small crime to throw the ceremonies of the rites and the mode of expiation into confusion. Explain the reason, I beg. Because it is right to consecrate victims of a certain kind to certain deities, and that certain forms of supplication should be also adopted. And what, again, is the reason that it is right to consecrate victims of a certain kind to certain deities, and that certain forms of supplication should be also adopted, for this very rightfulness should have its own cause, and spring, be derived from certain reasons? Are you going to speak about antiquity and custom? If so, you relate to me merely the opinions of men, and the inventions of a blind creature: but I, when I request a reason to be brought forward to me, wish to hear either that something has fallen from heaven, or, which the subject rather requires, what relation Jupiter has to a bull’s blood that it should be offered in sacrifice to him, not to Mercury or Liber. Or what are the natural properties of a goat, that they again should be suited to these gods, should not be adapted to the sacrifices of Jupiter? Has a partition of the animals been made amongst the gods? Has some contract been made and agreed to, so that it is fitting that this one should hold himself back from the victim which belongs to that, that the other should cease to claim as his own the blood which belongs to another? Or, as envious boys, are they unwilling to allow others to have a share in enjoying the cattle presented to them? or, as is reported to be done by races which differ greatly in manners, are the same things which by one party are considered fit for eating, rejected as food by others?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Goats were sacrificed to Bacchus, but not, so far as is known, to Mercury. Cf. c. 16, p. 524, n. 3.
* ↑ Lit. “by the paction of some transaction is it,” etc.
* ↑ So all except both Roman edd., which retain the ms. reading desi-d-eret (corrected -n- by Gelenius)—“wish.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VII/Chapter XXII

22. If, then, these things are vain, and are not supported by any reason, the very offering of sacrifices also is idle. For how can that which follows have a suitable cause, when that very first statement from which the second flows is found to be utterly idle and vain, and established on no solid basis? To mother Earth, they say, is sacrificed a teeming and pregnant sow; but to the virgin Minerva is slain a virgin calf, never forced by the goad to attempt any labour. But yet we think that neither should a virgin have been sacrificed to a virgin, that the virginity might not be violated in the brute, for which the goddess is especially esteemed; nor should gravid and pregnant victims have been sacrificed to the Earth from respect for its fruitfulness, which we all desire and wish to go on always in irrepressible fertility. For if because the Tritonian goddess is a virgin it is therefore fitting that virgin victims be sacrificed to her, and if because the Earth is a mother she is in like manner to be entertained with gravid swine, then also Apollo should be honoured by the sacrifice of musicians because he is a musician; Æsculapius, because he is a physician, by the sacrifice of physicians; and because he is an artificer, Vulcan by the sacrifice of artificers; and because Mercury is eloquent, sacrifice should be made to him with the eloquent and most fluent. But if it is madness to say this, or, to speak with moderation, nonsense, that shows much greater madness to slaughter pregnant swine to the Earth because she is even more prolific; pure and virgin heifers to Minerva because she is pure, of unviolated virginity.

## Footnotes

* ↑ So the ms., Hild., and Oehler, reading d-atio, approved of by Stewechius also. The others read r-—“reasoning on behalf.”
* ↑ Inci-ens, so corrected in the margin of Ursinus for ms. ing-—“huge.” Cf. ch. 18, p. 524, n. 10.
* ↑ The ms. reads excitata conatus (according to Hild.); corrected, as above, by the insertion of ad.
* ↑ Quam, i.e., the earth.
* ↑ Singularly enough, for fecunditate Oberthür reads virginitate—“inextinguishable virginity,” which is by no means universally desired in the earth. Orelli, as usual, copies without remark the mistake of his predecessor.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section III

III.
If, then, there are any here, too, who falsify the holy faith, either by attributing to the divinity as its own what belongs to the humanity—progressions, and passions, and a glory coming with accession—or by separating from the divinity the progressive and passible body, as if subsisted of itself apart,—these persons also are outside the confession of the Church and of salvation. No one, therefore, can know God unless he apprehends the Son; for the Son is the wisdom by whose instrumentality all things have been created; and these created objects declare this wisdom, and God is recognised in the wisdom. But the wisdom of God is not anything similar to the wisdom which man possesses, but it is the perfect wisdom which proceeds from the perfect God, and abides for ever, not like the thought of man, which passes from him in the word that is spoken and (straightway) ceases to be. Wherefore it is not wisdom only, but also God; nor is it Word only, but also Son. And whether, then, one discerns God through creation, or is taught to know Him by the Holy Scriptures, it is impossible either to apprehend Him or to learn of Him apart from His wisdom. And he who calls upon God rightly, calls on Him through the Son; and he who approaches Him in a true fellowship, comes to Him through Christ. Moreover, the Son Himself cannot be approached apart from the Spirit. For the Spirit is both the life and the holy formation of all things; and God sending forth this Spirit through the Son makes the creature like Himself.

## Footnotes

* ↑ προκοπάς.
* ↑ δόξαν τὴν ἐπιγινομένην.
* ↑ μόρφωσις τῶν ὅλων.
* ↑ τὴν κτίσιν.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section IV

IV.
One therefore is God the Father, one the Word, one the Spirit, the life, the sanctification of all. And neither is there another God as Father, nor is there another Son as Word of God, nor is there another Spirit as quickening and sanctifying. Further, although the saints are called both gods, and sons, and spirits, they are neither filled with the Spirit, nor are made like the Son and God. And if, then, any one makes this affirmation, that the Son is God, simply as being Himself filled with divinity, and not as being generated of divinity, he has belied the Word, he has belied the Wisdom, he has lost the knowledge of God; he has fallen away into the worship of the creature, he has taken up the impiety of the Greeks, to that he has gone back; and he has become a follower of the unbelief of the Jews, who, supposing the Word of God to be but a human son, have refused to accept Him as God, and have declined to acknowledge Him as the Son of God. But it is impious to think of the Word of God as merely human, and to think of the works which are done by Him as abiding, while He abides not Himself. And if any one says that the Christ works all things only as commanded by the Word, he will both make the Word of God idle, and will change the Lord’s order into servitude. For the slave is one altogether under command, and the created is not competent to create; for to suppose that what is itself created may in like manner create other things, would imply that it has ceased to be like the creature.

## Footnotes

* ↑ οὔτε Θεὸς ἕτερος ὡς Πατήρ.
* ↑ ἀργόν.
* ↑ This seems the idea in the sentence, οὐ γὰρ ἐξισωσθήσεται τῷ κτίσματι αὐτὸ κατ᾽ οὐδένα τρόπον, ἵν᾽ ὡς ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου ἔκτισται, οὕτω καὶ αὐτὸ κτίσῃ τὰ ἄλλαα.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section VI

VI.
Moreover, the capital element of our salvation is the incarnation of the Word. We believe, therefore, that it was without any change in the Divinity that the incarnation of the Word took place with a view to the renewal of humanity. For there took place neither mutation nor transposition, nor any circumscription in will, as regards the holy energy of God; but while that remained in itself the same, it also effected the work of the incarnation with a view to the salvation of the world: and the Word of God, living on earth after man’s fashion, maintained likewise in all the divine presence, fulfilling all things, and being united properly and individually with flesh; and while the sensibilities proper to the flesh were there, the divine energy maintained the impassibility proper to itself. Impious, therefore, is the man who introduces the passibility into the energy. For the Lord of glory appeared in fashion as a man when He undertook the economy upon the earth; and He fulfilled the law for men by His deeds, and by His sufferings He did away with man’s sufferings, and by His death He abolished death, and by his resurrection He brought life to light; and now we look for His appearing from heaven in glory for the life and judgment of all, when the resurrection of the dead shall take place, to the end that recompense may be made to all according to their desert.

## Footnotes

* ↑ περικλεισμὸς ἐν νεύματι.
* ↑ δύναμιν.
* ↑ πολιτευσάμένος.
* ↑ συγκεκραμένος.
* ↑ τὸ πάθος.
* ↑ Meaning here the whole work and business of the incarnation, and the redemption through the flesh.—Migne.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section VII

VII.
But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the idea of) a person devoid of subsistence. Wherefore we clear ourselves of Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same. For he holds that the Father is He who speaks, and that the Son is the Word that abides in the Father, and becomes manifest at the time of the creation, and thereafter reverts to God on the fulfilling of all things. The same affirmation he makes also of the Spirit. We forswear this, because we believe that three persons—namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are declared to possess the one Godhead: for the one divinity showing itself forth according to nature in the Trinity establishes the oneness of the nature; and thus there is a (divinity that is the) property of the Father, according to the word, “There is one God the Father;” and there is a divinity hereditary in the Son, as it is written, “The Word was God;” and there is a divinity present according to nature in the Spirit—to wit, what subsists as the Spirit of God—according to Paul’s statement, “Ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Trias.
* ↑ ἀνυπόστατον.
* ↑ δημιουργίας.
* ↑ φυσικῶς ἐν Τριάδι μαρτυρουμένη.
* ↑ 1 Cor. viii. 6.
* ↑ πατρῷον.
* ↑ John i. 1.
* ↑ 1 Cor. iii. 6.