{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/007/0070363.htm","path":"chr/ecf/007/0070363.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/007/0070363.htm","text":"I. Fear, love, joy, sadness, lust, eager desire, anger, pity, emulation, admiration,\u2014these motions or affections of the mind exist from the beginning of man\u2019s creation by the Lord; and they were usefully and advantageously introduced into human nature, that by governing himself by these with method, and in accordance with reason, man may be able, by acting manfully, to exercise those good qualities, by means of which he would justly have deserved to receive from the Lord eternal life. For these affections of the mind being restrained within their proper limits, that is, being rightly employed, produce at present good qualities, and in the future eternal rewards. But when they advance 2004 beyond their boundaries, that is, when they turn aside to an evil course, then vices and iniquities come forth, and produce everlasting punishments. 2005\nII. Within our memory, also, Lactantius speaks of metres,\u2014the pentameter (he says) and the tetrameter. 2006\nIII. Firmianus, writing to Probus on the metres of comedies, thus speaks: \u201cFor as to the question which you proposed concerning the metres of comedies, I also know that many are of opinion that the plays of Terence in particular have not the metre of Greek comedy,\u2014that is, of Menander, Philemon, and Diphilus, which consist of trimeter verses; for our ancient writers of comedies, in the modulation of their plays, preferred to follow Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes, as has been before said.\u201d That there is a measure\u2014that is, metre 2007 \u2014in the plays of Terence and Plautus, and of the other comic and tragic writers, let these declare: Cicero, Scaurus, and Firmianus. 2008\nIV. We will bring forward the sentiments of our Lactantius, which he expressed in words in his third volume to Probus on this subject. The Gauls, he says, were from ancient times called Galatians, from the whiteness of their body; and thus the Sibyl terms them. And this is what the poet intended to signify when he said,\u2014\n \u201cGold collars deck their milk-white necks,\u201d\u00a02009\n \nwhen he might have used the word white. It is plain that from this the province was called Galatia, in which, on their arrival in it, the Gauls united themselves with Greeks, from which circumstance that region was called Gallogr\u00e6cia, and afterwards Galatia. And it is no wonder if he said this concerning the Galatians, and related that a people of the West, having passed over so great a distance in the middle of the earth, settled in a region of the East. 2010\nFrom Muratorii Antiquit. Ital. med. \u00e6v.\n323:2006\nFrom Maxim. Victorin. de carmine heroico. Cf. Hieron., Catal., c. 80. We have also another treatise, which is entitled \u201cOn Grammar.\u201d\n323:2007 323:2008\nFrom Rufinus, the grammarian, on Comic Metres, p. 2712.\n323:2009 323:2010\nFrom Hieron., Commentar. in ep. ad Gal., l. ii., opp. ed. Vallars. viii. 1, p. 426. Hieron., De Viris Illus., c. 80: we have \u201cfour books of epistles to Probus.\u201d","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VII: Lactantius: Fragments of Lactantius","type":"page"}