149 Harvey here remarks: "In a theological point of view, it should be observed, that no saving merit is ascribed to almsgiving: it is spoken of here as the negation of the vice of covetousness, which is wholly inconsistent with the state of salvation to which we are called."
151 That is, as Harvey observes, the natural man, as described in Rom. ii. 27.
174 [Acts vi. 3-7. It is evident that the laity elected, and the apostles ordained.]
176 In accordance with the Codex Bezae.
185 [Note this stout assertion of the freedom of human actions.]
190 Deut. x. 16, LXX. version.
191 The Latin text here is : "Sabbata autem perseverantiam totius diei erga Deum deservitionis edocebant;" which might be rendered, "The Sabbaths taught that we should continue the whole day in the service of God;" but Harvey conceives the original Greek to have been, thn kaqhmerinhn diamonhn thj peri ton Qeon latreiaj.
195 Massuet remarks here that Irenaeus makes a reference to the apocryphal book of Enoch, in which this history is contained. It was the belief of the later Jews, followed by the Christian fathers, that "the sons of God" (Gen. vi. 2) who took wives of the daughters of men, were the apostate angels. The LXX. translation of that passage accords with this view. See the articles "Enoch," "Enoch, Book of," in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. [See Paradise Lost, b. i. 323-431.]
198 [Hearts and souls; i.e., moral and mental natures. For a correct view of the patristic conceptions of the Gentiles before the law, this is valuable.]
199 i.e., the letters of the Decalogue on the two tables of stone.
204 [Most noteworthy among primitive testimonies to the catholic reception of the Decalogue.]
211 Latin, "aures autem perfecisti mihi;" a reading agreeable to neither the Hebrew nor Septuagint version, as quoted by St. Paul in Heb. x. 9. Harvey, however, is of opinion that the text of the old Latin translation was originally "perforasti;" indicating thus an entire concurrence with the Hebrew, as now read in this passage. [Both readings illustrated by their apparent reference to Ex. xxi. 6, compared with Heb. v. 7, 8, 9.]