46 diaforan kai protrophn. The irony here is so obvious as to make the proposed reading (diafqoran kai paratrophn, corruption and depravation) unnecessary. Otto prefers the reading adopted above. Trollope, on the other hand, inclines to the latter reading, mainly on the score of the former expressions being unusual. See his very sensible note in loc.
47 The Benedictine editor, Maranus, Otto, and Trollope, here note that Justin in this chapter promises to make good three distinct positions: 1st, That Christian doctrines alone are true, and are to be received, not on account of their resemblance to the sentiments of poets and philosophers, but on their own account; 2d, that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God, and our teacher; 3d that before His incarnation, the demons, having some knowledge of what He would accomplish, enabled the heathen poets and priest in some points to anticipate, though in a distorted form, the facts of the incarnation. The first he establishes in chap. xxiv-xxix.; the second in chap. xxx.-liii.; and the third in chap. liv. et sq.
48 We have here followed the reading and rendering of Trollope. [But see reading of Langus, and Grabe's note, in the edition already cited, 1. 46.]
49 en grafaij stefanouj. The only conjecture which seems at all probable is that of the Benedictine editor folloed here. [Grabe after Salmasius reads en grafaij stefanouj and quotes Martial, Sutilis aptetur rosa crinibus. Translate, "patch-work garlands."]
50 i.e., on account of the assistance gained for him by Thetis, and in return for it.
51 It is very generally supposed that Justin was mistaken in understanding this to have been a statue erected to Simon Magus. This supposition rests on the fact that in the year 1574, there was dug up in the island of the Tiber a fragment of marble, with the inscription "Semoni Sanco Deo," etc., being probably the base of a statue erected to the Sabine deity Semo Sancus. This inscription Justin is supposed to have mistaken for the one he gives above. This has always seemed to us very slight evidence on which to reject so precise a statement as Justin here makes; a statement which he would scarcely have hazarded in an apology addressed to Rome, where every person had the means of ascertaining its accuracy. If, as is supposed, he made a mistake, it must have been at once exposed, and other writers would not have so frequently repeated the story as they have done. See Burton's Bampton Lectures, p. 374. [See Note in Grabe (1. 51), and also mine, at the end.]
53 Which were commonly charged against the Christians.
54 Thirlby remarks that the serpent was the symbol specially of eternity, of power, and of wisdom, and that there was scarcely any divine attribute to which the heathen did not find some likeness in this animal. See also Hardwick's Christ and other Masters, vol. ii. 146 (2d ed.).
55 [Note how he retaliates upon the calumny (cap. xxvi.) of the "upsetting of the lamp."]
56 Literally, "For He foreknows some about to be saved by repentance, and some not yet perhaps born."
57 Those things which concern the salvation of man; soi Trollope and the other interpreters, except Otto, who reads toutwn masculine, and understands it of the men first spoken of. [See Plato (De Legibus, opp. ix. p. 98, Bipont., 1786), and the valuable edition of Book X. by Professor Tayler Lewis (p. 52. etc.). New York, 1845.]
58 For a sufficient account of the infamous history here alluded to and the extravagant grief of Hadrian, and the servility of the people, see Smith's Dictionary of Biography: "Antinous." [Note, "all were prompt, through fear," etc. Thus we may measure the defiant intrepidity of this stinging sarcasm addressed to the "philosophers," with whose sounding titles this Apology begins.]
59 Some attribute this blunder in chronology to Justin, others to his transcribers: it was Eleazer the high priest to whom Ptolemy applied.
61 Grabe would here read, not sperma, but pneuma, the spirit; but the Benedictine, Otto, and Trollope all think that no change should be made.
65 qeoforountai, lit. are borne by a god-a word used of those who were supposed to be wholly under the influence of a deity.
67 These predictions have so little reference to the point Justin intends to make out, that some editors have supposed that a passage has here been lost. Others think the irrelevancy an insufficient ground for such a supposition. [See below, cap. xl.]
71 aktwn. These Acts of Pontius Pilate, or regular accounts of his procedure sent by Pilate to the Emporer Tiberius, are supposed to have been destroyed at an early period, possibly in consequence of the unanswerable appeals which the Christians constantly made to them. There exists a forgery in imitation of these Acts. See Trollope.
72 The reader will notice that these are not the words of Zephaniah, but of Zechariah (ix. 9), to whom also Justin himself refers them in the Dial. Tryph, c. 53. [Might be corrected in the text, therefore, as a clerical slip of the pen.]
74 Isa. i. 3. This quotation varies only in one word from that of the LXX.
84 Ps. xix. 2, etc. [Note how J. excuses himself for the apparent irrelevancy of some of his citations (cap. xxxv., note), though quite in the manner of Plato himself. These Scriptures were of novel interest, and was stimulating his readers to study the Scriptures.]