366 Ibid. ver. 52, etc.; Ex. xxiii. 7.
367 Matt. xxiv. 48, etc.; Luke xii. 45.
368 [Contrast this spirit of a primitve Father, with the state of things which Wiclif rose up to purify, five hundred years ago.]
376 [Note the limitation; not the succession only, but with it (1) pure morality and holiness and (2) unadulterated testimony. No catholicity apart from these.]
377 Polycarp, Papias, Pothinus, and others, have been suggested as probably here referred to, but the point is involved in utter uncertainty. [Surely this testimony is a precious intimation of the apostle's meaning (Rom. ii. 12-16), and the whole chapter is radiant with the purity of the Gospel.]
386 Rom. iii. 23. [Another testimony to the mercy of God in the judgment of the unevangelized. There must have been some reason for the secrecy with which "that presbyter's" name is guarded. Irenaeus may have scrupled to draw the wrath of the Gnostics upon any name but his own.]
387 Rom. iii. 23. [Another testimony to the mercy of God in the judgment of the unevangelized. There must have been some reason for the secrecy with which "that presbyter's" name is guarded. Irenaeus may have scrupled to draw the wrath of the Gnostics upon any name but his own.]
404 [Eph. v. 4. Even from the eutrapelia which might signify a bon-mot, literally, and which certainly is not "scurrility," unless the apostle was ironical, reflecting on jokes with heathen considered "good."]
409 [Jonah iv. 11. The tenderness of our author constantly asserts itself, as in this reference to children.]
412 Matt. xiii. 11-16; Isa. vi. 10.
417 Ex. iii. 22, xi. 2. [Our English translation "borrow" is a gratuitous injury to the text. As "King of kings" the Lord enjoins a just tax, which any earthly sovereign might have imposed uprightly. Our author argues well.]
419 This perplexed sentence is pointed by Harvey interrogatively, but we prefer the above.
420 [A touching tribute to the imperial law, at a moment when Christians were "dying daily" and "as sheep for the slaughter." So powerfully worked the divine command, Luke vi. 29.]
422 This is, if he inveighs against the Israelites for spoiling the Egyptians; the former being a type of the Christian Church in relation to the Gentiles.
427 As Harvey remarks, this is "a strange translation for ekliphte" of the text. rec., and he adds that "possibly the translator read ektraphte."
429 We here follow the punctuation of Massuet in preference to that of Harvey.
430 [The Fathers regarded the whole Mosaic system, and the history of the faithful under it, as one great allegory. In everything they saw "similitudes," as we do in the Faery Queen of Spenser, or the Pilgrim's Progress. The ancients may have carried this principle too far, but as a principle it receives countenance from our Lord Himself and His apostles. To us there is often a barren bush, where the Fathers saw a bush that burned with fire.]
432 [Thus far we have a most edifying instruction. The reader will be less edified with what follows, but it is a very striking example of what is written: "to the pure all things are pure." Ti. i. 15.]