OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section X

X.
And again, if the impious say, How will there not be three Gods and three Persons, on the supposition that they have one and the same divinity?—we shall reply: Just because God is the Cause and Father of the Son; and this Son is the image and offspring of the Father, and not His brother; and the Spirit in like manner is the Spirit of God, as it is written, “God is a Spirit.” And in earlier times we have this declaration from the prophet David: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens stablished, and all the power of them by the breath (spirit) of His mouth.” And in the beginning of the book of the creation it is written thus: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” And Paul in his Epistle to the Romans says: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” And again he says: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” And again: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” And again: “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.” And again: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ John iv. 24.
* ↑ Ps. xxxiii. 6.
* ↑ Κοσμοποιΐας.
* ↑ Gen. i. 2.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 9.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 11.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 14, 15.
* ↑ Rom. ix. 1.
* ↑ Rom. xv. 13.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section XI

XI.
And again, writing to those same Romans, he says: “But I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God. For I dare not to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit.” And again: “Now I beseech you, brethren, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and by the love of the Spirit.” And these things, indeed, are written in the Epistle to the Romans.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [A reference to his canon, perhaps, recorded in 2 Cor. x. 13–16. Compare Rom. xv. 20. The canonists erect the discrimination between Orders and Mission, upon these texts and (Acts xiii. 2, 3, etc.) Gal. ii. 8, 9. See vol. i. p. 495, note 3.]
* ↑ Rom. xv. 15–19. [Concerning which remarkable passage, see vol. v. p. 409, Elucidation I.]
* ↑ Rom. xv. 30.
* ↑ [It is evident that St. Paul founded the Church at Rome. St. Peter (see note 13, supra) could only have come to Rome to look after the Jewish disciples there. Elucidation, p. 47, infra.]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section II

II.
But the Church’s Confession, and the Creed that brings salvation to the world, is that which deals with the incarnation of the Word, and bears that He gave Himself over to the flesh of man which He acquired of Mary, while yet He conserved His own identity, and sustained no divine transposition or mutation, but was brought into conjunction with the flesh after the similitude of man; so that the flesh was made one with the divinity, the divinity having assumed the capacity of receiving the flesh in the fulfilling of the mystery. And after the dissolution of death there remained to the holy flesh a perpetual impassibility and a changeless immortality, man’s original glory being taken up into it again by the power of the divinity, and being ministered then to all men by the appropriation of faith.

## Footnotes

* ↑ ἐν τῇ πίστεως οἰκειώσει.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section V

V.
Again, when one speaks of the Holy Spirit as an object made holy, he will no longer be able to apprehend all things as being sanctified in (the) Spirit. For he who has sanctified one, sanctifies all things. That man, consequently, belies the fountain of sanctification, the Holy Spirit, who denudes Him of the power of sanctifying, and he will thus be precluded from numbering Him with the Father and the Son; he makes nought, too, of the holy (ordinance of) baptism, and will no more be able to acknowledge the holy and august Trinity. For either we must apprehend the perfect Trinity in its natural and genuine glory, or we shall be under the necessity of speaking no more of a Trinity, but only of a Unity; or else, not numbering created objects with the Creator, nor the creatures with the Lord of all, we must also not number what is sanctified with what sanctifies; even as no object that is made can be numbered with the Trinity, but in the name of the Holy Trinity baptism and invocation and worship are administered. For if there are three several glories, there must also be three several forms of cultus with those who impiously worship the creature; for if there is a distinction in the nature of the objects worshipped, there ought to be also with these men a distinction in the nature of the worship offered. What is recent surely is not to be worshipped along with what is eternal; for the recent comprehends all that has had a beginning, while mighty and measureless is He who is before the ages. He, therefore, who supposes some beginning of times in the life of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, therewith also cuts off any possibility of numbering the Son and the Spirit with the Father. For as we acknowledge the glory to be one, so ought we also to acknowledge the substance in the Godhead to be one, and one also the eternity of the Trinity.

## Footnotes

* ↑ ἡγιασμένον ποίημα.
* ↑ Trias. [See vol. ii. p. 101.]
* ↑ Trias. [See vol. ii. p. 101.]
* ↑ Monas.
* ↑ συναριθμεῖν.
* ↑ τὰ πρόσφατα.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section VIII

VIII.
Now the person in each declares the independent being and subsistence. But divinity is the property of the Father; and whenever the divinity of these three is spoken of as one, testimony is borne that the property of the Father belongs also to the Son and the Spirit: wherefore, if the divinity may be spoken of as one in three persons, the trinity is established, and the unity is not dissevered; and the oneness which is naturally the Father’s is also acknowledged to be the Son’s and the Spirit’s. If one, however, speaks of one person as he may speak of one divinity, it cannot be that the two in the one are as one. For Paul addresses the Father as one in respect of divinity, and speaks of the Son as one in respect of lordship: “There is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.” Wherefore if there is one God, and one Lord, and at the same time one person as one divinity in one lordship, how can credit be given to (this distinction in) the words “of whom” and “by whom,” as has been said before? We speak, accordingly, not as if we separated the lordship from the divinity, nor as estranging the one from the other, but as unifying them in the way warranted by actual fact and truth; and we call the Son God with the property of the Father, as being His image and offspring; and we call the Father Lord, addressing Him by the name of the One Lord, as being His Origin and Begettor.

## Footnotes

* ↑ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸ καὶ ὑφεστάναι δηλοῖ.
* ↑ By the ἰδιότητα τοῦ Πατρός is meant here the divinity belonging to the Father.—Migne.
* ↑ οὐκ ἐστιν ὡς ἓν τὰ δύο ἐν τῷ ἑνί.
* ↑ 1 Cor. viii. 6.
* ↑ καθ᾽ ὃ θεότης μιᾶς κυριότητος.
* ↑ τῷ ἰδιώματι τοῦ Πατρός.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Gregory Thaumaturgus/Dubious or Spurious Writings/A Sectional Confession of Faith/Section IX

IX.
The same position we hold respecting the Spirit, who has that unity with the Son which the Son has with the Father. Wherefore let the hypostasis of the Father be discriminated by the appellation of God; but let not the Son be cut off from this appellation, for He is of God. Again, let the person of the Son also be discriminated by the appellation of Lord; only let not God be dissociated from that, for He is Lord as being the Father of the Lord. And as it is proper to the Son to exercise lordship, for He it is that made (all things) by Himself, and now rules the things that were made, while at the same time the Father has a prior possession of that property, inasmuch as He is the Father of Him who is Lord; so we speak of the Trinity as One God, and yet not as if we made the one by a synthesis of three: for the subsistence that is constituted by synthesis is something altogether partitive and imperfect. But just as the designation Father is the expression of originality and generation, so the designation Son is the expression of the image and offspring of the Father. Hence, if one were to ask how there is but One God, if there is also a God of God, we would reply that that is a term proper to the idea of original causation, so far as the Father is the one First Cause. And if one were also to put the question, how there is but One Lord, if the Father also is Lord, we might answer that again by saying that He is so in so far as He is the Father of the Lord; and this difficulty shall meet us no longer.

## Footnotes

* ↑ μέρος γὰρ ἅπαν ἀτελὲς τὸ συνθεσεως ὑφιστάμενον.
* ↑ ἀρχῆς.
* ↑ ἀρχή.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 39

XXXVIII.—To the Jews.
Evil always, and recalcitrant, with a stiff neck ye wish not that ye should be overcome; thus ye will be heirs. Isaiah said that ye were of hardened heart. Ye look upon the law which Moses in wrath dashed to pieces; and the same Lord gave to him a second law. In that he placed his hope; but ye, half healed, reject it, and therefore ye shall not be worthy of the kingdom of heaven.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 4

III.—The Worship of Demons.
When Almighty God, to beautify the nature of the world, willed that that earth should be visited by angels, when they were sent down they despised His laws. Such was the beauty of women, that it turned them aside; so that, being contaminated, they could not return to heaven. Rebels from God, they uttered words against Him. Then the Highest uttered His judgment against them; and from their seed giants are said to have been born. By them arts were made known in the earth, and they taught the dyeing of wool, and everything which is done; and to them, when they died, men erected images. But the Almighty, because they were of an evil seed, did not approve that, when dead, they should be brought back from death. Whence wandering they now subvert many bodies, and it is such as these especially that ye this day worship and pray to as gods.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 40

XXXIX.—Also to the Jews.
Look upon Leah, that was a type of the synagogue, which Jacob received as a sign, with eyes so weak; and yet he served again for the younger one beloved: a true mystery, and a type of our Church. Consider what was abundantly said of Rebecca from heaven; whence, imitating the alien, ye may believe in Christ. Thence come to Tamar and the offspring of twins. Look to Cain, the first tiller of the earth, and Abel the shepherd, who was an unspotted offerer in the ruin of his brother, and was slain by his brother.  Thus therefore perceive, that the younger are approved by Christ.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 41

XL.—Again to the Same.
There is not an unbelieving people such as yours.  O evil men! in so many places, and so often rebuked by the law of those who cry aloud. And the lofty One despises your Sabbaths, and altogether rejects your universal monthly feasts according to law, that ye should not make to Him the commanded sacrifices; who told you to throw a stone for your offence. If any should not believe that He had perished by an unjust death, and that those who were beloved were saved by other laws, thence that life was suspended on the tree, and believe not on Him. God Himself is the life; He Himself was suspended for us. But ye with indurated heart insult Him.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 36

XXXV.—Of the Tree of Life and Death.
Adam was the first who fell, and that he might shun the precepts of God, Belial was his tempter by the lust of the palm tree. And he conferred on us also what he did, whether of good or of evil, as being the chief of all that was born from him; and thence we die by his means, as he himself, receding from the divine, became an outcast from the Word. We shall be immortal when six thousand years are accomplished. The tree of the apple being tasted, death has entered into the world. By this tree of death we are born to the life to come. On the tree depends the life that bears fruits—precepts. Now, therefore, pluck believingly the fruits of life. A law was given from the tree to be feared by the primitive man, whence comes death by the neglect of the law of the beginning. Now stretch forth your hand, and take of the tree of life.  The excellent law of the Lord which follows has issued from the tree. The first law is lost; man eats whence he can, who adores the forbidden gods, the evil joys of life. Reject this partaking; it will suffice you to know what it should be. If you wish to live, surrender yourselves to the second law. Avoid the worship of temples, the oracles of demons; turn yourselves to Christ, and ye shall be associates with God.  Holy is God’s law, which teaches the dead to live. God alone has commanded us to offer to Him the hymn of praise. All of you shun absolutely the law of the devil.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Scil. “capite,” conjectural for “cavete.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 42

XLI.—Of the Time of Antichrist.
Isaiah said: This is the man who moveth the world and so many kings, and under whom the land shall become desert. Hear ye how the prophet foretold concerning him. I have said nothing elaborately, but negligently. Then, doubtless, the world shall be finished when he shall appear. He himself shall divide the globe into three ruling powers, when, moreover, Nero shall be raised up from hell, Elias shall first come to seal the beloved ones; at which things the region of Africa and the northern nation, the whole earth on all sides, for seven years shall tremble. But Elias shall occupy the half of the time, Nero shall occupy half. Then the whore Babylon, being reduced to ashes, its embers shall thence advance to Jerusalem; and the Latin conqueror shall then say, I am Christ, whom ye always pray to; and, indeed, the original ones who were deceived combine to praise him. He does many wonders, since his is the false prophet. Especially that they may believe him, his image shall speak. The Almighty has given it power to appear such. The Jews, recapitulating Scriptures from him, exclaim at the same time to the Highest that they have been deceived.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [See Elucidation at end.]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 37

XXXVI.—Of the Foolishness of the Cross.
I have spoken of the twofold sign whence death proceeded, and again I have said that thence life frequently proceeds; but the cross has become foolishness to an adulterous people. The awful King of eternity shadows forth these things by the cross, that they may now believe on Him. O fools, that live in death! Cain slew his younger brother by the invention of wickedness. Thence the sons of Enoch are said to be the race of Cain. Then the evil people increased in the world, which never transfers souls to God. To believe the cross came to be a dread, and they say that they live righteously. The first law was in the tree; and thence, too, the second. And thence the second law first of all overcame the terrible law with peace. Lifted up, they have rushed into vain prevarications. They are unwilling to acknowledge the Lord pierced with nails; but when His judgment shall come, they will then discern Him. But the race of Abel already believes on a merciful Christ.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [Or, “shadows forth Himself.”]
* ↑ “Eusebius tells of another Enoch, who was not translated without seeing death.”—Rig. [See Gen. iv. 17, 18. S.]
* ↑ Et inde secunda terribilem legem primo cum pace revincit.—Davis, conjecturally.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 38

XXXVII.—The Fanatics Who Judaize.
What! art thou half a Jew? wilt thou be half profane? Whence thou shalt not when dead escape the judgment of Christ. Thou thyself blindly wanderest, and foolishly goest in among the blind. And thus the blind leadeth the blind into the ditch. Thou goest whither thou knowest not, and thence ignorantly withdrawest. Let them who are learning go to the learned, and let the learned depart. But thou goest to those from whom thou canst learn nothing. Thou goest forth before the doors, and thence also thou goest to the idols. Ask first of all what is commanded in the law. Let them tell thee if it be commanded to adore the gods; for they are ignored in respect of that which they are especially able to do. But because they are guilty of that very crime, they relate nothing concerning the commandments of God save what is marvellous. Then, however, they blindly lead you with them into the ditch. There are deaths too well known by them to relate, or because the heaping up of the plough closes up the field. The Almighty would not have them understand their King. Why such a wickedness? He Himself took refuge from those bloody men. He gave Himself to us by a superadded law. Thence now they lie concealed with us, deserted by their King. But if you think that in them there is hope, you are altogether in error if you worship God and heathen temples.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 34

XXXIII.—To the Gentiles.
O people, ferocious, without a shepherd, now at length wander not. For I also who admonish you was the same, ignorant, wandering. Now, therefore, take the likeness of your Lord.  Raise upward your wild and roughened hearts. Enter stedfastly into the fold of your sylvan Shepherd, remaining safe from robbers under the royal roof. In the wood are wolves; therefore take refuge in the cave. Thou warrest, thou art mad; nor dost thou behold where thou abidest. Believe in the one God, that when dead thou mayest live, and mayest rise in His kingdom, when there shall be the resurrection to the just.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 35

XXXIV.—Moreover, to Ignorant Gentiles.
The unsubdued neck refuses to bear the yoke of labour. Then it delights to be satisfied with herbs in the rich plains. And still unwillingly is subdued the useful mare, and it is made to be less fierce when it is first brought into subjection. O people, O man, thou brother, do not be a brutal flock. Pluck thyself forth at length, and thyself withdraw thyself. Assuredly thou art not cattle, thou art not a beast, but thou art born a man. Do thou thyself wisely subdue thyself, and enter under arms. Thou who followest idols art nothing but the vanity of the age. Your trifling hearts destroy you when almost set free. There gold, garments, silver is brought to the elbows; there war is made; there love is sung of instead of psalms. Dost thou think it to be life, when thou playest or lookest forward to such things as these? Thou choosest, O ignorant one, things that are extinct; thou seekest golden things. Thence thou shalt not escape the plague, although thyself art divine. Thou seekest not that grace which God sent to be read of in the earth, but thus as a beast thou wanderest. The golden age before spoken of shall come to thee if thou believest, and again thou shalt begin to live always an immortal life. That also is permitted to know what thou wast before. Give thyself as a subject to God, who governs all things.

## Footnotes

* ↑ [Here ends the apologetic portion.]
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Novatian/A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity/Part 32

Two Notes by the American Editor.
P. 609. The author’s elucidation of the figure, anthropopathy, is an enlargement of Clement’s casual remarks in the Stromata (cap. xvi. vol. ii. p. 363, this series). Consult On the Figurative Language of Holy Scripture, Jones of Nayland, Works, vol. iv. ed. 1801.
P. 630, note 5. Compare Waterland, vol. ii. p. 210, ed. 1823; also Life of Bishop Bull, by Robert Nelson, p.260. For the extraordinary history of Bull’s work in France, see the said Life, pp. 327–333. For Petavius, Waterland, vol. ii. p. 277, and Bull’s Life, p.243. Petavius seems to have had a crafty design to sustain the Council of Trent by arguing that the Council of Nicæa also made new dogmas. Bull proves that it only bore witness to the old. To the honour of the assembled bishops of the Gallican Church, they sustained Bull against the Jesuit.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Novatian/A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity/Part 5

Chapter V. Argument.—If We Regard the Anger, and Indignation, and Hatred of God Described in the Sacred Pages, We Must Remember that They are Not to Be Understood as Bearing the Character of Human Vices.
Moreover, if we read of His wrath, and consider certain descriptions of His indignation, and learn that hatred is asserted of Him, yet we are not to understand these to be asserted of Him in the sense in which they are human vices. For all these things, although they may corrupt man, cannot at all corrupt the divine power. For such passions as these will rightly be said to be in men, and will not rightly be judged to be in God. For man may be corrupted by these things, because he can be corrupted; God may not be corrupted by them, because He cannot be corrupted. These things, forsooth, have their force which they may exercise, but only where a material capable of impression precedes them, not where a substance that cannot be impressed precedes them. For that God is angry, arises from no vice in Him. But He is so for our advantage; for He is merciful even then when He threatens, because by these threats men are recalled to rectitude. For fear is necessary for those who want the motive to a virtuous life, that they who have forsaken reason may at least be moved by terror. And thus all those, either angers of God or hatreds, or whatever they are of this kind, being displayed for our medicine,—as the case teaches,—have arisen of wisdom, not from vice, nor do they originate from frailty; wherefore also they cannot avail for the corruption of God. For the diversity in us of the materials of which we consist, is accustomed to arouse the discord of anger which corrupts us; but this, whether of nature or of defect, cannot subsist in God, seeing that He is known to be constructed assuredly of no associations of bodily parts. For He is simple and without any corporeal commixture, being wholly of that essence, which, whatever it be,—He alone knows,—constitutes His being, since He is called Spirit. And thus those things which in men are faulty and corrupting, since they arise from the corruptibility of the body, and matter itself, in God cannot exert the force of corruptibility, since, as we have said, they have come, not of vice, but of reason.