Table of Contents
Title Pages.
Introductory Notice.
Gregory Thaumaturgus.
Title Page.
Introductory Note.
Acknowledged Writings.
A Declaration of Faith.
A Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes.
Canonical Epistle.
The Oration and Panegyric Addressed to Origen.
For Eight Years Gregory Has Given Up the Practice of Oratory, Being Busied with the Study Chiefly of Roman Law and the Latin Language.
He Essays to Speak of the Well-Nigh Divine Endowments of Origen in His Presence, into Whose Hands He Avows Himself to Have Been Led in a Way Beyond All His Expectation.
He is Stimulated to Speak of Him by the Longing of a Grateful Mind. To the Utmost of His Ability He Thinks He Ought to Thank Him. From God are the Beginnings of All Blessings; And to Him Adequate Thanks Cannot Be Returned.
The Son Alone Knows How to Praise the Father Worthily. In Christ and by Christ Our Thanksgivings Ought to Be Rendered to the Father. Gregory Also Gives Thanks to His Guardian Angel, Because He Was Conducted by Him to Origen.
Here Gregory Interweaves the Narrative of His Former Life. His Birth of Heathen Parents is Stated. In the Fourteenth Year of His Age He Loses His Father. He is Dedicated to the Study of Eloquence and Law. By a Wonderful Leading of Providence, He is Brought to Origen.
The Arts by Which Origen Studies to Keep Gregory and His Brother Athenodorus with Him, Although It Was Almost Against Their Will; And the Love by Which Both are Taken Captive. Of Philosophy, the Foundation of Piety, with the View of Giving Himself Therefore Wholly to that Study, Gregory is Willing to Give Up Fatherland, Parents, the Pursuit of Law, and Every Other Discipline. Of the Soul as the Free Principle. The Nobler Part Does Not Desire to Be United with the Inferior, But the Inferior with the Nobler.
The Wonderful Skill with Which Origen Prepares Gregory and Athenodorus for Philosophy. The Intellect of Each is Exercised First in Logic, and the Mere Attention to Words is Contemned.
Then in Due Succession He Instructs Them in Physics, Geometry, and Astronomy.
But He Imbues Their Minds, Above All, with Ethical Science; And He Does Not Confine Himself to Discoursing on the Virtues in Word, But He Rather Confirms His Teaching by His Acts.
Hence the Mere Word-Sages are Confuted, Who Say and Yet Act Not.
Origen is the First and the Only One that Exhorts Gregory to Add to His Acquirements the Study of Philosophy, and Offers Him in a Certain Manner an Example in Himself. Of Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude. The Maxim, Know Thyself.
Gregory Disallows Any Attainment of the Virtues on His Part. Piety is Both the Beginning and the End, and Thus It is the Parent of All the Virtues.
The Method Which Origen Used in His Theological and Metaphysical Instructions. He Commends the Study of All Writers, the Atheistic Alone Excepted. The Marvellous Power of Persuasion in Speech. The Facility of the Mind in Giving Its Assent.
Whence the Contentions of Philosophers Have Sprung. Against Those Who Catch at Everything that Meets Them, and Give It Credence, and Cling to It. Origen Was in the Habit of Carefully Reading and Explaining the Books of the Heathen to His Disciples.
The Case of Divine Matters. Only God and His Prophets are to Be Heard in These. The Prophets and Their Auditors are Acted on by the Same Afflatus. Origen's Excellence in the Interpretation of Scripture.
Gregory Laments His Departure Under a Threefold Comparison; Likening It to Adam's Departure Out of Paradise. To the Prodigal Son's Abandonment of His Father's House, and to the Deportation of the Jews into Babylon.
Gregory Consoles Himself.
Peroration, and Apology for the Oration.
Apostrophe to Origen, and Therewith the Leave-Taking, and the Urgent Utterance of Prayer.
Elucidations.
Dubious or Spurious Writings.
Dionysius.
Julius Africanus.
Anatolius and Minor Writers.
Archelaus.
Alexander of Lycopolis.
Title Page.
Introductory Notice.
Of the Manichæans.
The Excellence of the Christian Philosophy; The Origin of Heresies Amongst Christians.
The Age of Manichæus, or Manes; His First Disciples; The Two Principles; Manichæan Matter.
The Fancies of Manichæus Concerning Matter.
The Moon's Increase and Wane; The Manichæan Trifling Respecting It; Their Dreams About Man and Christ; Their Foolish System of Abstinence.
The Worship of the Sun and Moon Under God; Support Sought for the Manichæans in the Grecian Fables; The Authority of the Scriptures and Faith Despised by the Manichæans.
The Two Principles of the Manichæans; Themselves Controverted; The Pythagorean Opinion Respecting First Principles; Good and Evil Contrary; The Victory on the Side of Good.
Motion Vindicated from the Charge of Irregularity; Circular; Straight; Of Generation and Corruption; Of Alteration, and Quality Affecting Sense.
Is Matter Wicked? Of God and Matter.
The Ridiculous Fancies of the Manichæans About the Motion of Matter Towards God; God the Author of the Rebellion of Matter in the Manichæan Sense; The Longing of Matter for Light and Brightness Good; Divine Good None the Less for Being Communicated.
The Mythology Respecting the Gods; The Dogmas of the Manichæans Resemble This: the Homeric Allegory of the Battle of the Gods; Envy and Emulation Existing In God According to the Manichæan Opinion; These Vices are to Be Found in No Good Man, and are to Be Accounted Disgraceful.
The Transmitted Virtue of the Manichæans; The Virtues of Matter Mixed with Equal or Less Amount of Evil.
The Destruction of Evil by the Immission of Virtue Rejected; Because from It Arises No Diminution of Evil; Zeno's Opinion Discarded, that the World Will Be Burnt Up by Fire from the Sun.
Evil by No Means Found in the Stars and Constellations; All the Evils of Life Vain in the Manichæan Opinion, Which Bring on the Extinction of Life; Their Fancy Having Been Above Explained Concerning the Transportation of Souls from the Moon to the Sun.
Noxious Animals Worshipped by the Egyptians; Man by Arts an Evil-Doer; Lust and Injustice Corrected by Laws and Discipline; Contingent and Necessary Things in Which There is No Stain.
The Lust and Desire of Sentient Things; Demons; Animals Sentient; So Also the Sun and the Moon and Stars; The Platonic Doctrine, Not the Christian.
Because Some are Wise, Nothing Prevents Others from Being So; Virtue is to Be Acquired by Diligence and Study; By a Sounder Philosophy Men are to Be Carried Onwards to the Good; The Common Study of Virtue Has by Christ Been Opened Up to All.
The Manichæan Idea of Virtue in Matter Scouted; If One Virtue Has Been Created Immaterial, the Rest are Also Immaterial; Material Virtue an Exploded Notion.
Dissolution and Inherence According to the Manichæans; This is Well Put, Ad Hominem, with Respect to Manes, Who is Himself in Matter.
The Second Virtue of the Manichæans Beset with the Former, and with New Absurdities; Virtue, Active and Passive, the Fashioner of Matter, and Concrete with It; Bodies Divided by Manichæus into Three Parts.
The Divine Virtue in the View of the Same Manichæus Corporeal and Divisible; The Divine Virtue Itself Matter Which Becomes Everything; This is Not Fitting.
Some Portions of the Virtue Have Good in Them, Others More Good; In the Sun and the Moon It is Incorrupt, in Other Things Depraved; An Improbable Opinion.
The Light of the Moon from the Sun; The Inconvenience of the Opinion that Souls are Received in It; The Two Deluges of the Greeks.
The Image of Matter in the Sun, After Which Man is Formed; Trifling Fancies; It is a Mere Fancy, Too, that Man Is Formed from Matter; Man is Either a Composite Being, or a Soul, or Mind and Understanding.
Christ is Mind, According to the Manichæans; What is He in the View of the Church? Incongruity in Their Idea of Christ; That He Suffered Only in Appearance, a Dream of the Manichæans; Nothing is Attributed to the Word by Way of Fiction.
The Manichæan Abstinence from Living Things Ridiculous; Their Madness in Abhorring Marriage; The Mythology of the Giants; Too Allegorical an Exposition.
The Much-Talked-of Fire of the Manichæans; That Fire Matter Itself.
Elucidation.
Peter of Alexandria.
Alexander of Alexandria.
Methodius.
Title Page.
Introductory Notice.
The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity.
Introduction.
Marcella.
Theophila.
Thaleia.
Theopatra.
Thallousa.
Agathe.
Procilla.
What the True and Seemly Manner of Praising; The Father Greater Than the Son, Not in Substance, But in Order; Virginity the Lily; Faithful Souls and Virgins, the One Bride of the One Christ.
The Interpretation of that Passage of the Canticles.
Virgins Being Martyrs First Among the Companions of Christ.
The Passage Explained; The Queens, the Holy Souls Before the Deluge; The Concubines, the Souls of the Prophets; The Divine Seed for Spiritual Offspring in the Books of the Prophets; The Nuptials of the Word in the Prophets as Though Clandestine.
The Sixty Queens: Why Sixty, and Why Queens; The Excellence of the Saints of the First Age.
The Eighty Concubines, What; The Knowledge of the Incarnation Communicated to the Prophets.
The Virgins, the Righteous Ancients; The Church, the One Only Spouse, More Excellent Than the Others.
The Human Nature of Christ His One Dove.
The Virgins Immediately After the Queen and Spouse.
Thekla.
Methodius' Derivation of the Word Virginity: Wholly Divine; Virtue, in Greek--ἀρετή, Whence So Called.
The Lofty Mind and Constancy of the Sacred Virgins; The Introduction of Virgins into the Blessed Abodes Before Others.
The Lot and Inheritance of Virginity.
Exhortation to the Cultivation of Virginity; A Passage from the Apocalypse is Proposed to Be Examined.
The Woman Who Brings Forth, to Whom the Dragon is Opposed, the Church; Her Adornment and Grace.
The Works of the Church, the Bringing Forth of Children in Baptism; The Moon in Baptism, the Full Moon of Christ's Passion.
The Child of the Woman in the Apocalypse Not Christ, But the Faithful Who are Born in the Laver.
The Faithful in Baptism Males, Configured to Christ; The Saints Themselves Christs.
The Son of God, Who Ever Is, is To-Day Begotten in the Minds and Sense of the Faithful.
The Dragon, the Devil; The Stars Struck from Heaven by the Tail of the Dragon, Heretics; The Numbers of the Trinity, that Is, the Persons Numbered; Errors Concerning Them.
The Woman with the Male Child in the Wilderness the Church; The Wilderness Belongs to Virgins and Saints; The Perfection of Numbers and Mysteries; The Equality and Perfection of the Number Six; The Number Six Related to Christ; From This Number, Too, the Creation and Harmony of the World Completed.
Virgins are Called to the Imitation of the Church in the Wilderness Overcoming the Dragon.
The Seven Crowns of the Beast to Be Taken Away by Victorious Chastity; The Ten Crowns of the Dragon, the Vices Opposed to the Decalogue; The Opinion of Fate the Greatest Evil.
The Doctrine of Mathematicians Not Wholly to Be Despised, When They are Concerned About the Knowledge of the Stars; The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac Mythical Names.
Arguments from the Novelty of Fate and Generation; That Golden Age, Early Men; Solid Arguments Against the Mathematicians.
Several Other Things Turned Against the Same Mathematicians.
The Lust of the Flesh and Spirit: Vice and Virtue.
Tusiane.
Domnina.
Arete.
Elucidations.
Concerning Free-Will.
From the Discourse on the Resurrection.
Fragments.
General Note.
Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna On the Day that They Met in the Temple.
Oration on the Palms.
Three Fragments from the Homily on the Cross and Passion of Christ.
Some Other Fragments of the Same Methodius.
Two Fragments, Uncertain.
General Note.
Arnobius.
Indexes