OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter XXVI

26. O dreadful forms of terror and frightful bugbears on account of which the human race was to be benumbed for ever, to attempt nothing in its utter amazement, and to restrain itself from every wicked and shameful act—little sickles, keys, caps, pieces of wood, winged sandals, staves, little timbrels, pipes, psalteries, breasts protruding and of great size, little drinking cups, pincers, and horns filled with fruit, the naked bodies of women, and huge veretra openly exposed! Would it not have been better to dance and to sing, than calling it gravity and pretending to be serious, to relate what is so insipid and so silly, that images were formed by the ancients to check wrongdoing, and to arouse the fears of the wicked and impious? Were the men of that age and time, in understanding, so void of reason and good sense, that they were kept back from wicked actions, just as if they were little boys, by the preternatural savageness of masks, by grimaces also, and bugbears? And how has this been so entirely changed, that though there are so many temples in your states filled with images of all the gods, the multitude of criminals cannot be resisted even with so many laws and so terrible punishments, and their audacity cannot be overcome by any means, and wicked deeds, repeated again and again, multiply the more it is striven by laws and severe judgments to lessen the number of cruel deeds, and to quell them by the check given by means of punishments? But if images caused any fear to men, the passing of laws would cease, nor would so many kinds of tortures be established against the daring of the guilty: now, however, because it has been proved and established that the supposed terror which is said to flow out from the images is in reality vain, recourse has been had to the ordinances of laws, by which there might be a dread of punishment which should be most certain fixed in men’s minds also, and a condemnation settled; to which these very images also owe it that they yet stand safe, and secured by some respect being yielded to them.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Formidinum.
* ↑ Terrores.
* ↑ Or, perhaps, “relate that images so frigid and so awkward.”
* ↑ The ms., and both Roman edd. read monstruosissima-s torvi-tate-s annis; corrected by Gelenius and later edd. monstruosissimâ torvitate animos, and by Salmasius, Orelli, Hild., and Oehler, as above, m. t. sannis.
* ↑ The ms., first four edd., Elm., and Oberthür read manus, which, with animos read in most (cf. preceding note), would run, “that they were even kept back, as to (i.e., in) minds and hands, from wicked actions by the preternatural savageness of masks.” The other edd. read with Salmasius, as above, maniis.
* ↑ Lit., “cut away.”
* ↑ Lit., “opinion of.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter XVIII

18. What then? Do the gods remain always in such substances, and do they not go away to any place, even though summoned by the most momentous affairs? or do they have free passage, when they please to go any whither, and to leave their own seats and images? If they are under the necessity of remaining, what can be more wretched than they, what more unfortunate than if hooks and leaden bonds hold them fast in this wise on their pedestals? but if we allow that they prefer these images to heaven and the starry seats, they have lost their divine power. But if, on the contrary, when they choose, they fly forth, and are perfectly free to leave the statues empty, the images will then at some time cease to be gods, and it will be doubtful when sacrifices should be offered,—when it is right and fitting to withhold them. Oftentimes we see that by artists these images are at one time made small, and reduced to the size of the hand, at another raised to an immense height, and built up to a wonderful size. In this way, then, it follows that we should understand that the gods contract themselves in little statuettes, and are compressed till they become like a strange body; or, again, that they stretch themselves out to a great length, and extend to immensity in images of vast bulk. So, then, if this is the case, in sitting statues also the gods should be said to be seated, and in standing ones to stand, to be running in those stretching forward to run, to be hurling javelins in those represented as casting them, to fit and fashion themselves to their countenances, and to make themselves like the other characteristics of the body formed by the artist.

## Footnotes

* ↑ It will be seen that these words fit into the indirect argument of Arnobius very well, although transposed in LB. to the end of last chapter, and considered a gloss by Orelli and Hildebrand. “See the consequences,” Arnobius says, “of supposing that the gods do not quit these images: not merely are they in a wretched case, but they must further lose their power as divinities.” Meursius, with, more reason, transposes the clause to the end of the next sentence, which would be justifiable if necessary.
* ↑ Perhaps “into,” as Arnobius sometimes uses the abl. after in instead of the acc.
* ↑ Lit., “compressed to the similitude of.”
* ↑ Lit., “to adapt their similitude to.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter XXII

22. But you will perhaps say that the gods do not trouble themselves about these losses, and do not think that there is sufficient cause for them to come forth and inflict punishment upon the offenders for their impious sacrilege. Neither, then, if this is the case, do they wish to have these images, which they allow to be plucked up and torn away with impunity; nay, on the contrary, they tell us plainly that they despise these statues, in which they do not care to show that they were contemned, by taking any revenge. Philostephanus relates in his Cypriaca, that Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, loved as a woman an image of Venus, which was held by the Cyprians holy and venerable from ancient times, his mind, spirit, the light of his reason, and his judgment being darkened; and that he was wont in his madness, just as if he were dealing with his wife, having raised the deity to his couch, to be joined with it in embraces and face to face, and to do other vain things, carried away by a foolishly lustful imagination. Similarly, Posidippus, in the book which he mentions to have been written about Gnidus and about its affairs, relates that a young man, of noble birth,—but he conceals his name,—carried away with love of the Venus because of which Gnidus is famous, joined himself also in amorous lewdness to the image of the same deity, stretched on the genial couch, and enjoying the pleasures which ensue. To ask, again, in like manner: If the powers of the gods above lurk in copper and the other substances of which images have been formed, where in the world was the one Venus and the other to drive far away from them the lewd wantonness of the youths, and punish their impious touch with terrible suffering? Or, as the goddesses are gentle and of calmer dispositions, what would it have been for them to assuage the furious joys of the wretched men, and to bring back their insane minds again to their senses?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “punishment of violated religion.”
* ↑ Clemens says merely “the Cyprian Pygmalion.”
* ↑ Lit., “of ancient sanctity and religion.”
* ↑ Lit., “imagination of empty lust.”
* ↑ Cf. ch. 13.
* ↑ So Gelenius, reading rebus for the ms. and first ed. re a (ms. ab) se.
* ↑ Lit., “in the limits of.”
* ↑ Lit., “agonizing restraint.”
* ↑ Lit., “to.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book VI/Chapter XXV

25. For what grandeur—if you look at the truth without any prejudice—is there in these images of which they speak, that the men of old should have had reason to hope and think that, by beholding them, the vices of men could be subdued, and their morals and wicked ways brought under restraint? The reaping-hook, for example, which was assigned to Saturn, was it to inspire mortals with fear, that they should be willing to live peacefully, and to abandon their malicious inclinations? Janus, with double face, or that spiked key by which he has been distinguished; Jupiter, cloaked and bearded, and holding in his right hand a piece of wood shaped like a thunderbolt; the cestus of Juno, or the maiden lurking under a soldier’s helmet; the mother of the gods, with her timbrel; the Muses, with their pipes and psalteries; Mercury, the winged slayer of Argus; Æsculapius, with his staff; Ceres, with huge breasts, or the drinking cup swinging in Liber’s right hand; Mulciber, with his workman s dress; or Fortune, with her horn full of apples, figs, or autumnal fruits; Diana, with half-covered thighs, or Venus naked, exciting to lustful desire; Anubis, with his dog’s face; or Priapus, of less importance than his own genitals: were these expected to make men afraid?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Lit., “and without any favour,” gratificatione.
* ↑ Lit., “what great thing have these images in them.”
* ↑ So the ms., first four edd., Elm., Hild., and Oehler, reading mores et maleficia, corrected in the others a maleficio—“morals withheld from wickedness.”
* ↑ Cf. ch. 12, p. 511.
* ↑ The reference is probably to some statue or picture of Juno represented as girt with the girdle of Venus. (Il., xiv. 214).
* ↑ Lit., “inferior.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter LXXIII

Chapter LXXIII.
The Jew proceeds, after this, to state as a consequence what does not follow from the premises; for it does not follow from “His having wished, by the punishments which He underwent, to teach us also to despise death,” that after His resurrection He should openly summon all men to the light, and instruct them in the object of His coming. For He had formerly summoned all men to the light in the words, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And the object of His coming had been explained at great length in His discourses on the beatitudes, and in the announcements which followed them, and in the parables, and in His conversations with the scribes and Pharisees. And the instruction afforded us by the Gospel of John, shows that the eloquence of Jesus consisted not in words, but in deeds; while it is manifest from the Gospel narratives that His speech was “with power,” on which account also they marvelled at Him.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter LXVII

Chapter LXVII.
To the best of our ability, therefore, as in a treatise of this nature, we have answered the objection, that “if Jesus had really wished to manifest his divine power, he ought to have shown himself to those who ill-treated him, and to the judge who condemned him, and to all without reservation.” There was, however, no obligation on Him to appear either to the judge who condemned Him, or to those who ill-treated Him. For Jesus spared both the one and the other, that they might not be smitten with blindness, as the men of Sodom were when they conspired against the beauty of the angels entertained by Lot. And here is the account of the matter: “But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great; so that they wearied themselves to find the door.” Jesus, accordingly, wished to show that His power was divine to each one who was capable of seeing it, and according to the measure of His capability. And I do not suppose that He guarded against being seen on any other ground than from a regard to the fitness of those who were incapable of seeing Him. And it is in vain for Celsus to add, “For he had no longer occasion to fear any man after his death, being, as you say, a God; nor was he sent into the world at all for the purpose of being hid.” Yet He was sent into the world not only to become known, but also to be hid. For all that He was, was not known even to those to whom He was known, but a certain part of Him remained concealed even from them; and to some He was not known at all. And He opened the gates of light to those who were the sons of darkness and of night, and had devoted themselves to becoming the sons of light and of the day. For our Saviour Lord, like a good physician, came rather to us who were full of sins, than to those who were righteous.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter LXVIII

Chapter LXVIII.
But let us observe how this Jew of Celsus asserts that, “if this at least would have helped to manifest his divinity, he ought accordingly to have at once disappeared from the cross.” Now this seems to me to be like the argument of those who oppose the doctrine of providence, and who arrange things differently from what they are, and allege that the world would be better if it were as they arrange it. Now, in those instances in which their arrangement is a possible one, they are proved to make the world, so far as depends upon them, worse by their arrangement than it actually is; while in those cases in which they do not portray things worse than they really are, they are shown to desire impossibilities; so that in either case they are deserving of ridicule. And here, accordingly, that there was no impossibility in His coming, as a being of diviner nature, in order to disappear when He chose, is clear from the very nature of the case; and is certain, moreover, from what is recorded of Him, in the judgment of those who do not adopt certain portions merely of the narrative that they may have ground for accusing Christianity, and who consider other portions to be fiction. For it is related in St. Luke’s Gospel, that Jesus after His resurrection took bread, and blessed it, and breaking it, distributed it to Simon and Cleopas; and when they had received the bread, “their eyes were opened, and they knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight.”
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter LXXI

Chapter LXXI.
Jesus taught us who it was that sent Him, in the words, “None knoweth the Father but the Son;” and in these, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” He, treating of Deity, stated to His true disciples the doctrine regarding God; and we, discovering traces of such teaching in the Scripture narratives, take occasion from such to aid our theological conceptions, hearing it declared in one passage, that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all;” and in another, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” But the purposes for which the Father sent Him are innumerable; and these any one may ascertain who chooses, partly from the prophets who prophesied of Him, and partly from the narratives of the evangelists. And not a few things also will he learn from the apostles, and especially from Paul. Moreover, those who are pious He leadeth to the light, and those who sin He will punish,—a circumstance which Celsus not observing, has represented Him “as one who will lead the pious to the light, and who will have mercy on others, whether they sin or repent.”
* ↑ Cf. Luke x. 22.
* ↑ John i. 18.
* ↑ ὧν ἴχνη ἐν τοῖς γεγραμμένοις εὑρίσκοντες ἀφορμὰς ἔχομεν θεολογεῖν.
* ↑ 1 John i. 5.
* ↑ John iv. 24.
* ↑ The text is, τοὺς δὲ ἁμαρτάνοντας ἢ μεταγνόντας ἐλεήσων. Bohereau would read μὴ μεταγνόντας, or would render the passage as if the reading were ἢ ἁμαρτανόντας, ἢ μεταγνόντας.  This suggestion has been adopted in the translation.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter LXVI

Chapter LXVI.
And be not surprised if all the multitudes who have believed on Jesus do not behold His resurrection, when Paul, writing to the Corinthians, can say to them, as being incapable of receiving greater matters, “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified;” which is the same as saying, “Hitherto ye were not able, neither yet now are ye able, for ye are still carnal.” The Scripture, therefore, doing everything by appointment of God, has recorded of Jesus, that before His sufferings He appeared to all indifferently, but not always; while after His sufferings He no longer appeared to all in the same way, but with a certain discrimination which measured out to each his due. And as it is related that “God appeared to Abraham,” or to one of the saints, and this “appearance” was not a thing of constant occurrence, but took place at intervals, and not to all, so understand that the Son of God appeared in the one case on the same principle that God appeared to the latter.
* ↑ 1 Cor. ii. 2.
* ↑ Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 2, 3.
* ↑ οὕτω μοι νόει καὶ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὦφθαι τῇ παραπλησίᾳ εἰς τὸ περὶ ἐκείνων, εἰς τὸ ὦφθαι αὐτοῖς τὸν Θεόν, κρίσει.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter LXX

Chapter LXX.
But how is it that this Jew of Celsus could say that Jesus concealed Himself? For his words regarding Him are these: “And who that is sent as a messenger ever conceals himself when he ought to make known his message?” Now, He did not conceal Himself, who said to those who sought to apprehend Him, “I was daily teaching openly in the temple, and ye laid no hold upon Me.” But having once already answered this charge of Celsus, now again repeated, we shall content ourselves with what we have formerly said. We have answered, also, in the preceding pages, this objection, that “while he was in the body, and no one believed upon him, he preached to all without intermission; but when he might have produced a powerful belief in himself after rising from the dead, he showed himself secretly only to one woman, and to his own boon companions.” Now it is not true that He showed Himself only to one woman; for it is stated in the Gospel according to Matthew, that “in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there had been a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord had descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone.” And, shortly after, Matthew adds: “And, behold, Jesus met them”—clearly meaning the afore-mentioned Marys—“saying, All hail. And they came and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him.” And we answered, too, the charge, that “while undergoing his punishment he was seen by all, but after his resurrection only by one,” when we offered our defence of the fact that “He was not seen by all.” And now we might say that His merely human attributes were visible to all men but those which were divine in their nature—I speak of the attributes not as related, but as distinct—were not capable of being received by all. But observe here the manifest contradiction into which Celsus falls. For having said, a little before, that Jesus had appeared secretly to one woman and His own boon companions, he immediately subjoins: “While undergoing his punishment he was seen by all men, but after his resurrection by one, whereas the opposite ought to have happened.” And let us hear what he means by “ought to have happened.” The being seen by all men while undergoing His punishment, but after His resurrection only by one individual, are opposites. Now, so far as his language conveys a meaning, he would have that to take place which is both impossible and absurd, viz., that while undergoing His punishment He should be seen only by one individual, but after His resurrection by all men! or else how will you explain his words, “The opposite ought to have happened?”
* ↑ τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ θιασώταις.
* ↑ Matt. xxviii. 1, 2.
* ↑ Matt. xxviii. 9.
* ↑ λέγω δὲ οὐ περὶ τῶν σχέσιν πρὸς ἕτερα ἐχόντων, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῶν κατὰ διαφοράν.
* ↑ ἐναντίον τὸν μὲν κολαζόμενον πᾶσιν ἑωρᾶσθαι, ἀναστάντα δὲ ἑνί. The Benedictine editor reads τὸν μὲν κολαζόμενον, and Bohereau proposes ἐναντίον τῷ κολαζόμενον μὲν, etc.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Origen/Origen Against Celsus/Book II/Chapter LXXII

Chapter LXXII.
After the above statements, he continues:  “If he wished to remain hid, why was there heard a voice from heaven proclaiming him to be the Son of God? And if he did not seek to remain concealed, why was he punished? or why did he die?” Now, by such questions he thinks to convict the histories of discrepancy, not observing that Jesus neither desired all things regarding Himself to be known to all whom He happened to meet, nor yet all things to be unknown. Accordingly, the voice from heaven which proclaimed Him to be the Son of God, in the words, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” is not stated to have been audible to the multitudes, as this Jew of Celsus supposed. The voice from the cloud on the high mountain, moreover, was heard only by those who had gone up with Him. For the divine voice is of such a nature, as to be heard only by those whom the speaker wishes to hear it. And I maintain, that the voice of God which is referred to, is neither air which has been struck, nor any concussion of the air, nor anything else which is mentioned in treatises on the voice; and therefore it is heard by a better and more divine organ of hearing than that of sense. And when the speaker will not have his voice to be heard by all, he that has the finer ear hears the voice of God, while he who has the ears of his soul deadened does not perceive that it is God who speaks. These things I have mentioned because of his asking, “Why was there heard a voice from heaven proclaiming him to be the Son of God?” while with respect to the query, “Why was he punished, if he wished to remain hid?” what has been stated at greater length in the preceding pages on the subject of His suffering may suffice.
* ↑ Matt. iii. 17.
* ↑ οὐδέπω δὲ λέγω, ὅτι οὐ πάντως ἐστὶν ἀὴρ πεπληγμένος· ἢ πληγὴ ἀέρος, ἢ ὅ τι ποτὲ λέγεται ἐν τοῖς περὶ φωνῆς.
# Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VII/Lactantius/The Divine Institutes/Book VII/Chap. XXIII

Chap. XXIII.—Of the Resurrection of the Soul, and the Proofs of This Fact.
Therefore they will not be born again, which is impossible, but they will rise again, and be clothed by God with bodies, and will remember their former life, and all its actions; and being placed in the possession of heavenly goods, and enjoying the pleasure of innumerable resources, they will give thanks to God in His immediate presence, because He has destroyed all evil, and because He has raised them to His kingdom and to perpetual life. Respecting which resurrection the philosophers also attempted to speak as corruptly as the poets. For Pythagoras asserted that souls passed into new bodies; but foolishly, that they passed from men into cattle, and from cattle into men; and that he himself was restored from Euphorbus. Chrysippus says better, whom Cicero speaks of as supporting the portico of the Stoics, who, in the books which he wrote concerning providence, when he was speaking of the renewing of the world, introduced these words: “But since this is so, it is evident that nothing is impossible, and that we, after our death, when certain periods of time have again come round, are restored to this state in which we now are.” But let us return from human to divine things. The Sibyl thus speaks:—
“For the whole race of mortals is hard to be believed; but when the judgment of the world and of mortals shall now come, which God Himself shall institute, judging the impious and the holy at the same time, then at length He shall send the wicked to darkness in fire. But as many as are holy shall live again on the earth, God giving them at the same time a spirit, and honour, and life.”
But if not only prophets, but even bards, and poets, and philosophers, agree that there will be a resurrection of the dead, let no one ask of us how this is possible: for no reason can be assigned for divine works; but if from the beginning God formed man in some unspeakable manner, we may believe that the old man can be restored by Him who made the new man.