OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd/Encolpion and Giton

paraphrase of Satyricon chapter 114
Encolpion and Giton are in a Storm, which so damages the Ship, that some trust to the Boat, while others run their Risque with the Bottom, they are upon. The Lovers are of this Number. Then, says Encolpion,
    clasping my Giton more fast than ever, with forceful Tears, and heart-bled Sobs, I vent the high swoln Passion, Thus, Thus, may we not die thus, O severe Divinities? But no; dashing Mountains are on their Way to separate our Embraces; so, Giton my Soul, kiss while permitted, kiss your Encolpion, if ever he was dear to you. Let us snatch this last Joy spite of Fate, that so raging rushes to overwhelm us.
Upon this, Giton throws off his own Robe, and wrapt with me in mine, puts up his lovely Face to kiss, and receive a thousand Kisses. (How is it to be lamented, Petronius paints such a Subject!) Moreover, the thoughtful Charmer binds us about with his Sash, least the Waves malignant prevail over so dear a Situation. Thus, however, observes he, we float together. Thus we lay to be cover’d with Stones by the Humanity of some Passenger. At worst the undesigning Sand entombs us; I calmly wait Death, disarm’d of it’s Terrors by the sweet Encirclement. Meanwhile the Tempest executes the Decree of Heaven, and leaves nothing of our Ship but the Hulk, which tumbles at the Will of the yet heaving Sea, and invites the Strangers of the Coast to plunder. Accordingly some Fishermen put off in their little Boats, but finding People able to defend their own, change their cruel designs into a very kind Assistance. Thus breaks the Cloud; thus shines the golden Sun. These Lovers so join’d, and even cemented, had past together a particular Night utter’d by Encolpion in one of the finest Raptures, ever pour’d from mouth.
    ’Tis this, What a Night was that, Gods and Goddesses; how soft the Bed! forcing and burning we gluy stick, and with Lips, which here and there gave a Love nip, transfus’d our delightedly wandering Souls. Fare ye well, low Cares: I, a Mortal, thus extacy’d begin to know the closing Dissolution.
# Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd/Ganymede and Jupiter

as paraphrased in Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d
The Persons of this Dialogue are thus situated; Jupiter in the Form of an Eagle, has just mounted Ganymede into Heaven, where resuming his … figure, he addresses the new Guest.
# Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd/The Duchess of Cleveland

This makes for the Credit of an Anecdote, I have heard concerning the rampant Duchess of Cleveland; That after a usual Bout she wou’d turn her R-mp to the rapturous Spark, and say; you have pleas’d yourself; now please me.
# Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd/A Figure of Three

Now hearken to a foreign Prank, The Duke of Orleans’s Confessor pops upon some of his Highness’s Pages in a Figure of Three: The reverend Father trots puffing to the Prince with his Story of the Pages’ growing together. His Highness with great Attention Hears both Tale and Invective, then exclaims in his turn, my God; what was the Joy of him in the Middle; it is a true Pity, the noxious Stem of Pederasty yields such water-mouth Fruit, or boasts so witty an Advocate, as the Man, who, one urging with great Parade and Stress, that the very Brutes never do it, retorted, no; because they are Brutes.
# Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd/A Momentary Mixture

Getting a Child is no such mighty Affair; a momentary Mixture’s all. I put a Question; When Pregnancy appears, ought a Man to mingle? Here if your own Sense does not inform you what Injury it must do to the Embryo, any Physician will pronounce, that he ought not. But, goes he there, ’tis clear Loss: and does it Signify where Seed, not to come up, is scattered?
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter XL

Chapter XL.
After these things, Celsus appears to me to act like those who, in their intense hatred of the Christians, maintain, in the presence of those who are utterly ignorant of the Christian faith, that they have actually ascertained that Christians devour the flesh of infants, and give themselves without restraint to sexual intercourse with their women. Now, as these statements have been condemned as falsehoods invented against the Christians, and this admission made by the multitude and those altogether aliens to our faith; so would the following statements of Celsus be found to be calumnies invented against the Christians, where he says that “he has seen in the hands of certain presbyters belonging to our faith barbarous books, containing the names and marvellous doings of demons;” asserting further, that “these presbyters of our faith professed to do no good, but all that was calculated to injure human beings.” Would, indeed, that all that is said by Celsus against the Christians was of such a nature as to be refuted by the multitude, who have ascertained by experience that such things are untrue, seeing that most of them have lived as neighbours with the Christians, and have not even heard of the existence of any such alleged practices!
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV.
In designating others by the epithets of “uninstructed, and servile, and ignorant,” Celsus, I suppose, means those who are not acquainted with his laws, nor trained in the branches of Greek learning; while we, on the other hand, deem those to be “uninstructed” who are not ashamed to address (supplications) to inanimate objects, and to call upon those for health that have no strength, and to ask the dead for life, and to entreat the helpless for assistance. And although some may say that these objects are not gods, but only imitations and symbols of real divinities, nevertheless these very individuals, in imagining that the hands of low mechanics can frame imitations of divinity, are “uninstructed, and servile, and ignorant;” for we assert that the lowest among us have been set free from this ignorance and want of knowledge, while the most intelligent can understand and grasp the divine hope. We do not maintain, however, that it is impossible for one who has not been trained in earthly wisdom to receive the “divine,” but we do acknowledge that all human wisdom is “folly” in comparison with the “divine.” In the next place, instead of endeavouring to adduce reasons, as he ought, for his assertions, he terms us “sorcerers,” and asserts that “we flee away with headlong speed from the more polished class of persons, because they are not suitable subjects for our impositions, while we seek to decoy those who are more rustic.” Now he did not observe that from the very beginning our wise men were trained in the external branches of learning: Moses, e.g., in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; Daniel, and Ananias, and Azariah, and Mishael, in all Assyrian learning, so that they were found to surpass in tenfold degree all the wise men of that country. At the present time, moreover, the Churches have, in proportion to the multitudes (of ordinary believers), a few “wise” men, who have come over to them from that wisdom which is said by us to be “according to the flesh;” and they have also some who have advanced from it to that wisdom which is “divine.”
* ↑ τοὺς μὴ αἰσχυνομένους ἐν τῷ τοῖς ἀψύχοις προσλαλεῖν, καὶ περὶ μὲν ὑγείας τὸ ἀσθενὲς ἐπικαλουμένους, περὶ δὲ ζωῆς τὸ νεκρὸν ἀξιοῦντας, περὶ δὲ ἐπικουρίας τὸ ἀπορώτατον ἱκετεύοντας.
* ↑ βαναύσων.
* ↑ τοὺς ἐσχάτους.
* ↑ γόητας.
* ↑ προτροπάδ῾ν.
* ↑ τοὺς χαριεστέρους.
* ↑ παλεύομεν.  [See note supra, p. 482. S.]
* ↑ Cf. 1 Cor. i. 26.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter XLI

Chapter XLI.
In the next place, as if he had forgotten that it was his object to write against the Christians, he says that, “having become acquainted with one Dionysius, an Egyptian musician, the latter told him, with respect to magic arts, that it was only over the uneducated and men of corrupt morals that they had any power, while on philosophers they were unable to produce any effect, because they were careful to observe a healthy manner of life.” If, now, it had been our purpose to treat of magic, we could have added a few remarks in addition to what we have already said on this topic; but since it is only the more important matters which we have to notice in answer to Celsus, we shall say of magic, that any one who chooses to inquire whether philosophers were ever led captive by it or not, can read what has been written by Moiragenes regarding the memoirs of the magician and philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, in which this individual, who is not a Christian, but a philosopher, asserts that some philosophers of no mean note were won over by the magic power possessed by Apollonius, and resorted to him as a sorcerer; and among these, I think, he especially mentioned Euphrates and a certain Epicurean. Now we, on the other hand, affirm, and have learned by experience, that they who worship the God of all things in conformity with the Christianity which comes by Jesus, and who live according to His Gospel, using night and day, continuously and becomingly, the prescribed prayers, are not carried away either by magic or demons. For verily “the angel of the Lord encamps round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them” from all evil; and the angels of the little ones in the Church, who are appointed to watch over them, are said always to behold the face of their Father who is in heaven, whatever be the meaning of “face” or of “behold.”
* ↑ Cf. Ps. xxxiv. 7.
* ↑ Cf. Matt. xviii. 10.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter X

Chapter X.
He next continues: “You see how Plato, although maintaining that (the chief good) cannot be described in words, yet, to avoid the appearance of retreating to an irrefutable position, subjoins a reason in explanation of this difficulty, as even ‘nothing’ might perhaps be explained in words.” But as Celsus adduces this to prove that we ought not to yield a simple assent, but to furnish a reason for our belief, we shall quote also the words of Paul, where he says, in censuring the hasty believer, “unless ye have believed inconsiderately.” Now, through his practice of repeating himself, Celsus, so far as he can, forces us to be guilty of tautology, reiterating, after the boastful language which has been quoted, that “Plato is not guilty of boasting and falsehood, giving out that he has made some new discovery, or that he has come down from heaven to announce it, but acknowledges whence these statements are derived.” Now, if one wished to reply to Celsus, one might say in answer to such assertions, that even Plato is guilty of boasting, when in the Timæus he puts the following language in the month of Zeus: “Gods of gods, whose creator and father I am,” and so on. And if any one will defend such language on account of the meaning which is conveyed under the name of Zeus, thus speaking in the dialogue of Plato, why should not he who investigates the meaning of the words of the Son of God, or those of the Creator in the prophets, express a profounder meaning than any conveyed by the words of Zeus in the Timæus? For the characteristic of divinity is the announcement of future events, predicted not by human power, but shown by the result to be due to a divine spirit in him who made the announcement. Accordingly, we do not say to each of our hearers, “Believe, first of all, that He whom I introduce to thee is the Son of God;” but we put the Gospel before each one, as his character and disposition may fit him to receive it, inasmuch as we have learned to know “how we ought to answer every man.” And there are some who are capable of receiving nothing more than an exhortation to believe, and to these we address that alone; while we approach others, again, as far as possible, in the way of demonstration, by means of question and answer. Nor do we at all say, as Celsus scoffingly alleges, “Believe that he whom I introduce to thee is the Son of God, although he was shamefully bound, and disgracefully punished, and very recently was most contumeliously treated before the eyes of all men;” neither do we add, “Believe it even the more (on that account).”  For it is our endeavour to state, on each individual point, arguments more numerous even than we have brought forward in the preceding pages.
* ↑ τὸ μηδέν.
* ↑ εἰκῆ πιστεύοντι.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xv. 2.
* ↑ [p. 41. S.]
* ↑ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ.
* ↑ Cf. Col. iv. 6.
* ↑ χθὲς καὶ πρώην.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter XIX

Chapter XIX.
Celsus in the next place alleges, that “certain Christians, having misunderstood the words of Plato, loudly boast of a ‘super-celestial’ God, thus ascending beyond the heaven of the Jews.” By these words, indeed, he does not make it clear whether they also ascend beyond the God of the Jews, or only beyond the heaven by which they swear. It is not our purpose at present, however, to speak of those who acknowledge another god than the one worshipped by the Jews, but to defend ourselves, and to show that it was impossible for the prophets of the Jews, whose writings are reckoned among ours, to have borrowed anything from Plato, because they were older than he. They did not then borrow from him the declaration, that “all things are around the King of all, and that all exist on account of him;” for we have learned that nobler thoughts than these have been uttered by the prophets, by Jesus Himself and His disciples, who have clearly indicated the meaning of the spirit that was in them, which was none other than the spirit of Christ. Nor was the philosopher the first to present to view the “super-celestial” place; for David long ago brought to view the profundity and multitude of the thoughts concerning God entertained by those who have ascended above visible things, when he said in the book of Psalms: “Praise God, ye heaven of heavens and ye waters that be above the heavens, let them praise the name of the Lord.” I do not, indeed, deny that Plato learned from certain Hebrews the words quoted from the Phædrus, or even, as some have recorded, that he quoted them from a perusal of our prophetic writings, when he said: “No poet here below has ever sung of the super-celestial place, or ever will sing in a becoming manner,” and so on. And in the same passage is the following:  “For the essence, which is both colourless and formless, and which cannot be touched, which really exists, is the pilot of the soul, and is beheld by the understanding alone; and around it the genus of true knowledge holds this place.” Our Paul, moreover, educated by these words, and longing after things “supra-mundane” and “super-celestial,” and doing his utmost for their sake to attain them, says in the second Epistle to the Corinthians:  “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are unseen are eternal.”
* ↑ Ps. cxlviii. 4.
* ↑ Cf. Plato in Phædro, p. 247.
* ↑ Cf. 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII.
In the next place, after other Platonic declarations, which demonstrate that “the good” can be known by few, he adds: “Since the multitude, being puffed up with a contempt for others, which is far from right, and being filled with vain and lofty hopes, assert that, because they have come to the knowledge of some venerable doctrines, certain things are true.” “Yet although Plato predicted these things, he nevertheless does not talk marvels, nor shut the mouth of those who wish to ask him for information on the subject of his promises; nor does he command them to come at once and believe that a God of a particular kind exists, and that he has a son of a particular nature, who descended (to earth) and conversed with me.” Now, in answer to this we have to say, that with regard to Plato, it is Aristander, I think, who has related that he was not the son of Ariston, but of a phantom, which approached Amphictione in the guise of Apollo. And there are several other of the followers of Plato who, in their lives of their master, have made the same statement. What are we to say, moreover, about Pythagoras, who relates the greatest possible amount of wonders, and who, in a general assembly of the Greeks, showed his ivory thigh, and asserted that he recognised the shield which he wore when he was Euphorbus, and who is said to have appeared on one day in two different cities!  He, moreover, who will declare that what is related of Plato and Socrates belongs to the marvellous, will quote the story of the swan which was recommended to Socrates while he was asleep, and of the master saying when he met the young man, “This, then, was the swan!” Nay, the third eye which Plato saw that he himself possessed, he will refer to the category of prodigies. But occasion for slanderous accusations will never be wanting to those who are ill-disposed, and who wish to speak evil of what has happened to such as are raised above the multitude. Such persons will deride as a fiction even the demon of Socrates. We do not, then, relate marvels when we narrate the history of Jesus, nor have His genuine disciples recorded any such stories of Him; whereas this Celsus, who professes universal knowledge, and who quotes many of the sayings of Plato, is, I think, intentionally silent on the discourse concerning the Son of God which is related in Plato’s Epistle to Hermeas and Coriscus.  Plato’s words are as follows: “And calling to witness the God of all things—the ruler both of things present and things to come, father and lord both of the ruler and cause—whom, if we are philosophers indeed, we shall all clearly know, so far as it is possible for happy human beings to attain such knowledge.”
* ↑ οὐ τερατεύεται.
* ↑ The night before Ariston brought Plato to Socrates as his pupil, the latter dreamed that a swan from the altar of Cupid alighted on his bosom. Cf. Pausanias in Atticis, p. 58.
* ↑ “Alicubi forsan occurrit: me vero uspiam legisse non memini. Credo Platonem per tertium oculum suam πολυμάθειαν et scientiam, quâ ceteris anteibat, denotare voluisse.”—Spencer.
* ↑ Plato, Epist., vi.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter XII

Chapter XII.
Accordingly, let us pass on to another charge made by Celsus, who is not even acquainted with the words (of our sacred books), but who, from misunderstanding them, has said that “we declare the wisdom that is among men to be foolishness with God;” Paul having said that “the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God.” Celsus says that “the reason of this has been stated long ago.”  And the reason he imagines to be, “our desire to win over by means of this saying the ignorant and foolish alone.” But, as he himself has intimated, he has said the same thing before; and we, to the best of our ability, replied to it. Notwithstanding this, however, he wished to show that this statement was an invention of ours, and borrowed from the Grecian sages, who declare that human wisdom is of one kind, and divine of another. And he quotes the words of Heraclitus, where he says in one passage, that “man’s method of action is not regulated by fixed principles, but that of God is;” and in another, that “a foolish man listens to a demon, as a boy does to a man.” He quotes, moreover, the following from the Apology of Socrates, of which Plato was the author:  “For I, O men of Athens, have obtained this name by no other means than by my wisdom. And of what sort is this wisdom?  Such, probably, as is human; for in that respect I venture to think that I am in reality wise.” Such are the passages adduced by Celsus. But I shall subjoin also the following from Plato’s letter to Hermeas, and Erastus, and Coriscus: “To Erastus and Coriscus I say, although I am an old man, that, in addition to this noble knowledge of ‘forms’ (which they possess), they need a wisdom, with regard to the class of wicked and unjust persons, which may serve as a protective and repelling force against them. For they are inexperienced, in consequence of having passed a large portion of their lives with us, who are moderate individuals, and not wicked. I have accordingly said that they need these things, in order that they may not be compelled to neglect the true wisdom, and to apply themselves in a greater degree than is proper to that which is necessary and human.”
* ↑ Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 19.
* ↑ πεπλασμένον ἡμῖν.
* ↑ ἦθος γὰρ ἀνθρώπειον μὲν οὐκ ἔχει γνώμας, θεῖον δὲ ἔχει.
* ↑ Cf. Plato’s Apolog., v.
* ↑ μετρίων ὄντων.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book VI/Chapter XIII

Chapter XIII.
According to the foregoing, then, the one kind of wisdom is human, and the other divine. Now the “human” wisdom is that which is termed by us the wisdom of the “world,” which is “foolishness with God;” whereas the “divine”—being different from the “human,” because it is “divine”—comes, through the grace of God who bestows it, to those who have evinced their capacity for receiving it, and especially to those who, from knowing the difference between either kind of wisdom, say, in their prayers to God, “Even if one among the sons of men be perfect, while the wisdom is wanting that comes from Thee, he shall be accounted as nothing.” We maintain, indeed, that “human” wisdom is an exercise for the soul, but that “divine” wisdom is the “end,” being also termed the “strong” meat of the soul by him who has said that “strong meat belongeth to them that are perfect, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” This opinion, moreover, is truly an ancient one, its antiquity not being referred back, as Celsus thinks, merely to Heraclitus and Plato. For before these individuals lived, the prophets distinguished between the two kinds of wisdom. It is sufficient for the present to quote from the words of David what he says regarding the man who is wise, according to divine wisdom, that “he will not see corruption when he beholds wise men dying.” Divine wisdom, accordingly, being different from faith, is the “first” of the so-called “charismata” of God; and the “second” after it—in the estimation of those who know how to distinguish such things accurately—is what is called “knowledge;” and the “third”—seeing that even the more simple class of men who adhere to the service of God, so far as they can, must be saved—is faith. And therefore Paul says: “To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit.” And therefore it is no ordinary individuals whom you will find to have participated in the “divine” wisdom, but the more excellent and distinguished among those who have given in their adherence to Christianity; for it is not “to the most ignorant, or servile, or most uninstructed of mankind,” that one would discourse upon the topics relating to the divine wisdom.
* ↑ Cf. Wisd. of Sol. ix. 6.
* ↑ τέλειοι.
* ↑ Heb. v. 14.
* ↑ Ps. xlix. 9, 10. (LXX.).
* ↑ γνῶσις.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xii. 8, 9. [See Gieseler’s Church History, on “The Alexandrian Theology,” vol. i. p. 212. S.]