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

2. For—that you may learn what are our sentiments and opinions about that race—we think that they—if only they are true gods, that the same things may be said again till you are wearied hearing them—should have all the virtues in perfection, should be wise, upright, venerable,—if only our heaping upon them human honours is not a crime,—strong in excellences within themselves, and should not give themselves up to external props, because the completeness of their unbroken bliss is made perfect; should be free from all agitating and disturbing passions; should not burn with anger, should not be excited by any desires; should send misfortune to none, should not find a cruel pleasure in the ills of men; should not terrify by portents, should not show prodigies to cause fear; should not hold men responsible and liable to be punished for the vows which they owe, nor demand expiatory sacrifices by threatening omens; should not bring on pestilences and diseases by corrupting the air, should not burn up the fruits with droughts; should take no part in the slaughter of war and devastation of cities; should not wish ill to one party, and be favourable to the success of another; but, as becomes great minds, should weigh all in a just balance, and show kindness impartially to all. For it belongs to a mortal race and human weakness to act otherwise; and the maxims and declarations of wise men state distinctly, that those who are touched by passion live a life of suffering, and are weakened by grief, and that it cannot be but that those who have been given over to disquieting feelings, have been bound by the laws of mortality. Now, since this is the case, how can we be supposed to hold the gods in contempt, who we say are not gods, and cannot be connected with the powers of heaven, unless they are just and worthy of the admiration which great minds excite?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “and to satiety.”
* ↑ The ms. wants se, which was supplied by Stewechius.
* ↑ i.e., not act impartially and benevolently, which may possibly be the meaning of contrariis agere, or, as Oehler suggests, “to assail men with contrary, i.e., injurious things.” All edd. read egere, except Oehler, who can see no meaning in it; but if translated, “to wish for contrary things,” it suits the next clause very well.
* ↑ Lit., “whom passion touches, suffer.”
* ↑ So the ms., Stewechius, Hild., and Oehler, while the first four edd. and Oberthür merely add m to dolore, and join with the preceding pati—“suffer pain, are weakened.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter V

5. Now, if this be not the case, all hope of help is taken away, and it will be doubtful whether you are heard by the gods or not, if ever you perform the sacred rites with due ceremonies. For, to make it clear, let us suppose that there is a temple of some deity in the Canary Islands, another of the same deity in remotest Thyle, also among the Seres, among the tawny Garamantes, and any others who are debarred from knowing each other by seas, mountains, forests, and the four quarters of the world. If they all at one time beg of the deity with sacrifices what their wants compel each one to think about, what hope, pray, will there be to all of obtaining the benefit, if the god does not hear the cry sent up to him everywhere, and if there shall be any distance to which the words of the suppliant for help cannot penetrate? For either he will be nowhere present, if he may at times not be anywhere, or he will be at one place only, since he cannot give his attention generally, and without making any distinction. And thus it is brought about, that either the god helps none at all, if being busy with something he has been unable to hasten to give ear to their cries, or one only goes away with his prayers heard, while the rest have effected nothing.

## Footnotes

* ↑ So the margin of Ursinus, Elm., LB., and Orelli, with Meursius, reading audiamini for the ms. audiamur—“we are heard,” which does not harmonize with the next clause.
* ↑ Lit., “for the purpose of coming to know the thing.”
* ↑ Lit., “if there are any others.”
* ↑ So the ms., reading c-ogitare, corrected r-—“to beg,” in the margin of Ursinus and Elm. For the preceding words the ms. reads, poscantque de numine. The edd. omit que as above, except Oehler, who reads quæ—“what hope will there be, what, pray, to all,” etc.
* ↑ So the ms., reading si uspiam poterit aliquando non esse, which may be understood in two senses, either not limited by space, or not in space, i.e., not existing; but the reading and meaning must be regarded as alike doubtful.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XXXVII

37. Let us examine, then, what is said in this way. In the grove of Henna, my opponent says, the maiden Proserpine was once gathering flowers: this is as yet uncorrupted, and has been told in a straightforward manner, for all know without any doubt what a grove and flowers are, what Proserpine is, and a maiden. Summanus sprung forth from the earth, borne along in a four-horse chariot: this, too, is just as simple, for a team of four horses, a chariot, and Summanus need no interpreter. Suddenly he carried off Proserpine, and bore her with himself under the earth: the burying of the seed, my opponent says, is meant by the rape of Proserpine. What has happened, pray, that the story should be suddenly turned to something else? that Proserpine should be called the seed? that she who was for a long time held to be a maiden gathering flowers, after that she was taken away and carried off by violence, should begin to signify the seed sown? Jupiter, my opponent says, having turned himself into a bull, longed to have intercourse with his mother Ceres: as was explained before, under these names the earth and falling rain are spoken of. I see the law of allegory expressed in the dark and ambiguous terms. Ceres was enraged and angry, and received the parts of a ram as the penalty demanded by vengeance: this again I see to be expressed in common language, for both anger and (testes and) satisfaction are spoken of in their usual circumstances. What, then, happened here,—that from Jupiter, who was named for the rain, and Ceres, who was named for the earth, the story passed to the true Jove, and to a most straightforward account of events?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Proles.
* ↑ Lit., “for penalty and.”
* ↑ Lit., “in their customs and conditions.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book V/Chapter XXXVIII

38. Either, then, they must all have been written and put forward allegorically, and the whole should be pointed out to us; or nothing has been so written, since what is supposed to be allegorical does not seem as if it were part of the narrative. These are all written allegorically, you say. This seems by no means certain. Do you ask for what reason, for what cause? Because, I answer, all that has taken place and has been set down distinctly in any book cannot be turned into an allegory, for neither can that be undone which has been done, nor can the character of an event change into one which is utterly different. Can the Trojan war be turned into the condemnation of Socrates? or the battle of Cannæ become the cruel proscription of Sulla? A proscription may indeed, as Tullius says in jest, be spoken of as a battle, and be called that of Cannæ; but what has already taken place, cannot be at the same time a battle and a proscription; for neither, as I have said, can that which has taken place be anything else than what has taken place; nor can that pass over into a substance foreign to it which has been fixed down firmly in its own nature and peculiar condition.

## Footnotes

* ↑ i.e., if historical, the whole must be so, as bits of allegory would not fit in.
* ↑ Cicero, pro Rosc. Am., c. 32.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter I

Book VI.
1. Having shown briefly how impious and infamous are the opinions which you have formed about your gods, we have now to speak of their temples, their images also, and sacrifices, and of the other things which are united and closely related to them. For you are here in the habit of fastening upon us a very serious charge of impiety because we do not rear temples for the ceremonies of worship, do not set up statues and images of any god, do not build altars, do not offer the blood of creatures slain in sacrifices, incense, nor sacrificial meal, and finally, do not bring wine flowing in libations from sacred bowls; which, indeed, we neglect to build and do, not as though we cherish impious and wicked dispositions, or have conceived any madly desperate feeling of contempt for the gods, but because we think and believe that they—if only they are true gods, and are called by this exalted name—either scorn such honours, if they give way to scorn, or endure them with anger, if they are roused by feelings of rage.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “it remains that we.”
* ↑ Lit., “series which is,” etc.
* ↑ Singular. [But costly churches were built about this time.]
* ↑ Non altaria, non aras, i.e., neither to the superior nor inferior deities. Cf. Virgil, Ecl., v. 66.
* ↑ [It is not with any aversion to incense that I note its absence, so frequently attested, from primitive rites of the Church.]
* ↑ The earlier edd. prefix d to the ms. eos—“that the gods,” etc.
* ↑ Lit., “endowed with the eminence of this name.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter IX

9. We worship the gods, you say, by means of images. What then? Without these, do the gods not know that they are worshipped, and will they not think that any honour is shown to them by you? Through bypaths, as it were, then, and by assignments to a third party, as they are called, they receive and accept your services; and before those to whom that service is owed experience it, you first sacrifice to images, and transmit, as it were, some remnants to them at the pleasure of others. And what greater wrong, disgrace, hardship, can be inflicted than to acknowledge one god, and yet make supplication to something else—to hope for help from a deity, and pray to an image without feeling? Is not this, I pray you, that which is said in the common proverbs: “to cut down the smith when you strike at the fuller;” “and when you seek a man’s advice, to require of asses and pigs their opinions as to what should be done?”

## Footnotes

* ↑ [It is manifest that nothing of the kind was said by Christians. See p. 506, note 3, supra.]
* ↑ i.e., you do not seek access to the gods directly, and seek to do them honour by giving that honour to the idols instead.
* ↑ i.e., the transmission of the sacrifice to the gods is made dependent on idols.
* ↑ This corresponds exactly to the English, “to shoot at the pigeon and hit the crow.”
# As others saw Him

AS OTHERS SAW HIM
AS OTHERS SAW HIM
A Retrospect
A. D. 54
It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem
Luke xiii. 33
WITH AFTERWORDS AND NOTES
BY
JOSEPH JACOBS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1900
Copyright, 1895,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.
SECOND EDITION.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
​To Aglaophonos, Physician of the Greeks at Corinth, Meshullam ben Zadok, a Scribe of the Jews at Alexandria, greeting:—
It was a joy and a surprise to me to hear news after many days from thee, my master and my friend. To thee I owe whatever I have of Greek wisdom; for when in the old days at the Holy City thou soughtest me for instruction in our Law, I learnt more from thee than I could impart to thee. Since I last wrote to thee, I have come to this great city, where many of my nation dwell, and almost all the most learned of thy tongue are congregated. Truly, it would please me much, and mine only son and his wife, if thou couldst come and take up thy sojourn among us for a while.
Touching the man Saul of Tarsus, of whom thou writest, I know but little. He is well instructed in our Law, both written and oral, having received the latter from the chief master among those of the past generation, Gamaliel by name. Yet he is not of the disciples of Aaron that love peace; for when I last heard of him he was among the leaders of a riot in which a man was slain. And now I think thereon, I am almost certain that the slain man was of the followers of Jesus the Nazarene, and this Saul was ​among the bitterest against them. And yet thou writest that the same Saul has spoken of the Nazarene that he was a god like Apollo, that had come down on earth for a while to live his life among men. Truly, men's minds are as the wind that bloweth hither and thither.
CONTENTS.
| | | PAGE |
| I. | The Man with the Scourge | 9 |
| II. | The Upbringing | 21 |
| III. | Earlier Teaching. Sermon in the Synagogue of the Galilæans | 37 |
| IV. | The Two Ways | 55 |
| V. | The Woman Taken in Adultery. the Rich Young Man | 63 |
| VI. | The Testings in the Temple | 75 |
| VII. | The Second Sermon | 87 |
| VIII. | The Rebuking of Jesus | 99 |
| IX. | Jesus in the Temple | 111 |
| X. | The Entry Into Jerusalem | 121 |
| XI. | The Cleansing of the Temple | 133 |
| XII. | The Woes | 145 |
| XIII. | The Great Refusal | 155 |
| XIV. | The Meeting of the Hananites | 167 |
| XV. | The Examination Before the Sanhedrim | 181 |
| XVI. | Condemnation and Execution | 195 |
| | Epilogue | 207 |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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# As it fell upon a day

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* "As it fell upon a day", a poem by Richard Barnfield
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# As once for Jonah, so the Lord

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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The gourd by John Newton
    As once for Jonah, so the Lord
    To soothe and cheer my mournful hours,
    Prepared for me a pleasing gourd,
    Cool was its shade, and sweet its flow'rs.
    To prize his gift was surely right;
    But through the folly of my heart,
    It hid the Giver from my sight,
    And soon my joy was changed to smart.
    While I admired its beauteous form,
    Its pleasant shade and graceful fruit;
    The LORD, displeased, sent forth a worm,
    Unseen, to prey upon the root.
    I trembled when I saw it fade,
    But guilt restrained the murm'ring word;
    My folly I confessed, and prayed,
    Forgive my sin, and spare my gourd.
    His wondrous love can ne'er be told,
    He heard me and relieved my pain;
    His word the threat'ning worm controlled,
    And bid my gourd revive again.
    Now, Lord, my gourd is mine no more,
    'Tis thine, who only couldst it raise;
    The idol of my heart before,
    Henceforth shall flourish to thy praise.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Dionysius/Extant Fragments/Containing Epistles, or Fragments of Epistles/To Cornelius the Roman Bishop

Epistle IV.—To Cornelius the Roman Bishop.
In addition to all these, he writes likewise to Cornelius at Rome after receiving his Epistle against Novatus. And in that letter he also shows that he had been invited by Helenus, bishop in Tarsus of Cilicia, and by the others who were with him—namely, Firmilian, bishop in Cappadocia, and Theoctistus in Palestine—to meet them at the Council of Antioch, where certain persons were attempting to establish the schism of Novatus. In addition to this, he writes that it was reported to him that Fabius was dead, and that Demetrianus was appointed his successor in the bishopric of the church at Antioch. He writes also respecting the bishop in Jerusalem, expressing himself in these very words: “And the blessed Alexander, having been cast into prison, went to his rest in blessedness.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vi. 46.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Dionysius/Extant Fragments/Containing Epistles, or Fragments of Epistles/To Novatus

Epistle II.—To Novatus.
Dionysius to Novatus his brother, greeting. If you were carried on against your will, as you say, you will show that such has been the case by your voluntary retirement. For it would have been but dutiful to have suffered any kind of ill, so as to avoid rending the Church of God. And a martyrdom borne for the sake of preventing a division of the Church, would not have been more inglorious than one endured for refusing to worship idols; nay, in my opinion at least, the former would have been a nobler thing than the latter. For in the one case a person gives such a testimony simply for his own individual soul, whereas in the other case he is a witness for the whole Church. And now, if you can persuade or constrain the brethren to come to be of one mind again, your uprightness will be superior to your error; and the latter will not be charged against you, while the former will be commended in you. But if you cannot prevail so far with your recusant brethren, see to it that you save your own soul. My wish is, that in the Lord you may fare well as you study peace.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vi. 45.
* ↑ Jerome, in his Catalogus, where he adduces the beginning of this epistle, gives Novatianus for Novatus. So in the Chronicon of Georgius Syncellus we have Διονύσιος Ναυατιανῷ. Rufinus’ account appears to be that there were two such epistles,—one to Novatus, and another to Novatianus. The confounding of these two forms seems, however, to have been frequent among the Greeks. [See Lardner, Credib., sub voce Novat. Wordsworth thinks the Greeks shortened the name, on the grounds which Horace notes ad vocem “Equotuticum.” Satires, I. v. 87.]
* ↑ We read, with Gallandi, καὶ ἦν οὐκ ἀδοξυτέρα τῆς ἕνεκεν τοῦ μὴ ἰδωλολατρεῦσαι (sic) γινομένης, ἡ ἕνεκεν τοῦ μὴ σχίσαι μαρτυρία. This is substantially the reading of three Venetian codices, as also of Sophronius on Jerome’s De vir. illustr., ch. 69, and Georgius Syncellus in the Chronogr., p. 374, and Nicephorus Callist., Hist. Eccles., vi. 4. Pearson, in the Annales Cyprian., Num. x. p. 31, proposes θῦσαι for σχίσαι. Rufinus renders it: “et erat non inferior gloria sustinere martyrium ne scindatur ecclesia quam est illa ne idolis immoletur.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Dionysius/Extant Fragments/Containing Epistles, or Fragments of Epistles/From His Fourth Festival Epistle

Epistle XIV.—From His Fourth Festival Epistle.
Love is altogether and for ever on the alert, and casts about to do some good even to one who is unwilling to receive it. And many a time the man who shrinks from it under a feeling of shame, and who declines to accept services of kindness on the ground of unwillingness to become troublesome to others, and who chooses rather to bear the burden of his own grievances than cause annoyance and anxiety to any one, is importuned by the man who is full of love to bear with his aids, and to suffer himself to be helped by another, though it might be as one sustaining a wrong, and thus to do a very great service, not to himself, but to another, in permitting that other to be the agent in putting an end to the ill in which he has been involved.

## Footnotes

* ↑ ἐκ τῆς δ᾽ ἑορταστικῆς ἐπιστολῆς. From the Sacred Parallels of John of Damascus, Works, ii. p. 753 C, edit. Paris, 1712. In his Ecclesiastical History, book vii. ch. 20, Eusebius says: “In addition to these epistles, the same Dionysius also composed others about this time, designated his Festival Epistles, and in these he says much in commendation of the Paschal feast. One of these he addressed to Flavius, and another to Domitius and Didymus, in which he gives the canon for eight years, and shows that the Paschal feast ought not to be kept until the passing of the vernal equinox. And besides these, he wrote another epistle to his co-presbyters at Alexandria.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Dionysius/Extant Fragments/Containing Epistles, or Fragments of Epistles/To Philemon, a Presbyter

Epistle VII.—To Philemon, a Presbyter.
I indeed gave attention to reading the books and carefully studying the traditions of heretics, to the extent indeed of corrupting my soul with their execrable opinions; yet receiving from them this advantage, that I could refute them in my own mind, and detested them more heartily than ever. And when a certain brother of the order of presbyters sought to deter me, and feared lest I should be involved in the same wicked filthiness, because he said that my mind would be contaminated, and indeed with truth, as I myself perceived, I was strengthened by a vision that was sent me from God. And a word spoken to me, expressly commanded me, saying, Read everything which shall come into thy hands, for thou art fit to do so, who correctest and provest each one; and from them to thee first of all has appeared the cause and the occasion of believing. I received this vision as being what was in accordance with the apostolic word, which thus urges all who are endowed with greater virtue, “Be ye skilful money-changers.”
Then, says Eusebius, he subjoins some things parenthetically about all heresies:—
This rule and form I have received from our blessed Father Heraclus: For thou, who came from heresies, even if they had fallen away from the Church, much rather if they had not fallen away, but when they were seen to frequent the assemblies of the faithful, were charged with going to hear the teachers of perverse doctrine, and ejected from the Church, he did not admit after many prayers, before they had openly and publicly narrated whatever things they had heard from their adversaries. Then he received them at length to the assemblies of the faithful, by no means asking of them to receive baptism anew. Because they had already previously received the Holy Spirit from that very baptism.
Once more, this question being thoroughly ventilated, he adds:—
I learned this besides, that this custom is not now first of all imported among the Africans alone; but moreover, long before, in the times of former bishops, among most populous churches, and that when synods of the brethren of Iconium and Synades were held, it also pleased as many as possible, I should be unwilling, by overturning their judgments, to throw them into strifes and contentious. For it is written, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which thy fathers have placed.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of Sixtus, bishop of Rome. [a.d. 257].
* ↑ 1 Thess. v. 21. [Euseb., vi. 7. The apostle is supposed to refer to one of the reputed sayings of our Lord, γινεσθε δόκιμοι τραπεζῖται = examinatores, i.e., of coins, rejecting the base, and laying up in store the precious. Compare Jer. xv. 19.]
* ↑ [I find that it is necessary to say that the “Africans” of Egypt and Carthage were no more negroes than we “Americans” are redmen. The Carthaginians were Canaanites and the Alexandrians Greeks. I have seen Cyprian’s portrait representing him as a Moor.]
* ↑ Deut. xix. 14.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Dionysius/Extant Fragments/Containing Epistles, or Fragments of Epistles/Elucidations

Elucidations.
(Apocalypse, note 7, p. 105, and note 9, p. 106.)
The moderation of Dionysius is hardly less conspicuous than his fearlessness of inquiry in the questions he raises about the Apocalypse. He utterly refuses to reject it. He testifies to the value set upon it by his fellow-Christians. Only, he doubts as to (the John) the “inspired person” who was its author, and with critical skill exposes the inferiority of the Greek of the Apocalypse to that of the Gospel and Epistles of St. John. Obviously he accepts it as part of the canon, only doubting as to the author. Modestly he owns that it passes his understanding. So Calvin forbore to comment upon it, and owned to “headache” when he came to it.

## Footnotes

* ↑ P. 84, note 6.
* ↑ P. 82, note 6.