ANF06. Fathers of the Third Century: Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius, and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius

V.

I am aware that very many other matters were discussed by them, some of them with considerable probability, and others of them as matters of the clearest demonstration,¹¹⁷⁰

¹¹⁷⁰ κυριακὰς ἀποδείξεις—Christophorsonus renders it ratas; Rufinus gives validissimas assertiones. The Greeks use κύριος in this sense, κυρίαι δίκαι, δοξαι, &c., decisive, valid, judgments, opinions, &c.
by which they endeavour to prove that the festival of the Passover and unleavened bread ought by all means to be kept after the equinox. But I shall pass on without demanding such copious demonstrations (on subjects¹¹⁷¹

¹¹⁷¹ The text gives ἀπαιτῶν ὧν περιῄρηται, &c.; various codices read ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν, &c. Valesius now proposes ὕλας ἀπαιτῶν· ᾧ περι ᾑρηται, I shall pass on without…for the veil is removed from me.
) from which the veil of the Mosaic law has been removed; for now it remains for us with unveiled face to behold ever as in a glass Christ Himself and the doctrines and sufferings of Christ. But that the first month among the Hebrews is about the equinox, is clearly shown also by what is taught in the book of Enoch.¹¹⁷²

¹¹⁷² An apocryphal book of some antiquity, which professes to proceed from the patriarch of that name, but of whose existence prior to the Christian era there is no real evidence. The first author who clearly refers to it by name is Tertullian. [Vol. iii. p. 62, and iv. 380.]
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