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at the sojourn of the Lord Christ, through the apostles many nations of the Greeks, seeing the signs, came to the faith of Christ, confessing his resurrection and his ascension into heaven. But now that much time has passed and the signs have ceased, they have fallen into a kind of forgetfulness of that faith and have run back to their former superstition, saying that it is impossible for there to be a resurrection of men from the dead and an ascension into heaven. 12.18 For this reason you find them having baptism and holding the opinion that heaven has a spherical shape, in order that the resurrection of bodies and their ascension into heaven might be denied. These things for the most part one will find being philosophized among the Greeks and them alone, who put forward arguments and theories of eclipses as based on a spherical shape, as some divine learning, by which they are both deceived and deceive. Therefore we too, turning to the shapes and the places of the whole universe and the revolution of the stars, and campaigning against them from the divine Scriptures, have written, hastening to show through all these things also ...

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τῆς ἐπιδημίας τοῦ ∆εσπότου Χριστοῦ διὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων πολλὰ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἔθνη θεωροῦντα τὰ σημεῖα τῇ πίστει τοῦ Χριστοῦ συμβέβηκεν, ὁμολογοῦντα τὴν ἀνάστασιν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἄνοδον. Νυνὶ δὲ χρόνου πολλοῦ διαδραμόντος καὶ τῶν σημείων παυσαμένων, ὥσπερ λήθην τινὰ ἔλαβον ἐκείνης τῆς πίστεως καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν προτέραν ἀνέδραμον δεισιδαιμονίαν, ἀδύνατον εἶναι λέγοντες ἀνάστασιν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἔσεσθαι ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἄνοδον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ. 12.18 ∆ιὰ τοῦτο καὶ βάπτισμα μὲν αὐτοὺς εὑρίσκεις ἔχοντας καὶ τὸ σφαιρικὸν σχῆμα ἔχειν τὸν οὐρανὸν δοξάζοντας πρὸς τὸ τὴν ἀνάστασιν τῶν σωμάτων ἀθετηθῆναι καὶ τὴν ἄνοδον αὐτῶν τὴν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ. Ταῦτα ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον παρ' Ἕλλησι καὶ μόνοις εὑρήσει τις φιλοσοφουμένους, τοὺς λόγους καὶ τὰς ἐκλείψεις ὡς ἐπὶ σφαιρικοῦ σχήματος προβαλλομένους ὡς θεῖόν τι μάθημα, εἰς ὃ καὶ ἀπατῶνται καὶ ἀπατῶσι. ∆ιὸ καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐπὶ τὰ σχήματα καὶ τοὺς τόπους τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου καὶ τῶν ἄστρων τὴν περιφορὰν ὁρμήσαντες καὶ ἀντιστρατευσάμενοι πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἐκ τῶν θείων Γραφῶν κατεγράψαμεν, δεικνύναι σπεύδοντες διὰ τούτων πάντων καὶ ...