4 [ Acts ix. 5. The principle is recognised in the words, "Ye did it unto me," where Christ identifies Himself with members of His body. Oh, the condescension! Heb. ii. 11.]
5 [ Ps. lxiv. 3. The revilings of the multitude are reckoned by the Psalmist among the most cruel tortures of Christ: and we cannot doubt that the early Christians found the like cruelty of the heathen a daily martyrdom, before they came to their crowning passion. Compare Tertullian, vol. iii. p. 712.]
8 "Coguntur," or "coquuntur," -"are matured."
9 [The heathen attributed this pestilence to the "atheism" of Christians, and hence persecuted them the more fiercely; and, as it was better to die by martyrdom than by the pestilence, he thus speaks. Death an advantage. Shaks., Hen. V., act. iv. sc. 1.]
12 [The sufferings of this life are here supposed to be retributive in the case of those who must be weaned from the world. Martyrs have weaned themselves, and go gladly to their rest.]
15 [The terrible pictures in S. Stefano Rotondo (see p. 288, supra] might seem to have been taken from this graphic treatise. Can our faith and love be compared with that of these sufferers?]
16 [To me, these dramatic narrations of what was going on among the crowds that gazed upon the tortures of Christ's witnesses, are very suggestive of the whole scene. Compare pp. 295-296, supra.]
23 [The adoption of "the sign of the cross," after the immersion of baptism, is referable to this martyr-age. It was meant to impress the idea of soldiership.]
24 Matt. iii. 10. [Elucidation II.]
28 Gal. vi. 14. [Compare Ep. xxv. p. 303, supra.]
33 [ Rev. vi. 9; also vol i. p. 486, note 10, this series.]
34 [" Si tamen qui Christi compares estis aliquando peccastis;" not very happily translated, but extravagant at best.]
35 [Think, I say again, of three hundred years of such "fiery trial," so marvellously sustained, and we shall gain new views of Christ's power to perfect His own strength in human weakness. The life of these Christians was a conscious daily warfare against "the world, the flesh, and the devil;" and we must recognise this in all judgments of their discipline and their modes of thought.]
1 [Not reckoned by Erasmus as worthy of Cyprian. Pamelius . thinks otherwise.]
2 [This illustrates pp. 322 and 389, note 7.]
3 [" So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity, etc."-Milton, Comus, 455.]
4 [Holy men have generally recognised this rule as ennobling the estate of matrimony. See Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, cap. ii. sec. 3.]
5 [This natural law, renewed in Christ, is part of the honour which He has restored to womanhood: honouring His mother therein as the second Eve. Matt. xix. 8; Gen. ii. 24.]
12 [Turtullian, vol. iv. pp. 74, 97, etc.]
13 This passage is allowed by all to be corrupt. If we were to punctuate differently, to insert "nisi" before "consummata," and change "longe est" into "non deesset," we get the following sense: "Therefore we should always meditate, brethren, on chastity, as circumstances teach us, that it may be more easy for us. It depends on no arts; for what is it but perfected will, which, if it were not checked, would certainly not fail to arise? And it is our own will, too: therefore it has not to be acquired, but we have to cherish what is already our own."
14 [" Kalendarium cujusvis excedunt." The kalendaria were tablets of monthly accounts, in which the monthly interest due, etc., were set down. "Exceed the entire monthly income" would be better. Tertullian uses the same word, "exhaust the kalendarium," rendered by our Edinburgh translator ( vol. iv. p. 18), a "fortune." In this treatise Tertullian is constantly copied and quoted.]
15 [Laughter, vol. ii. p. 249, and contact p. 291.]
16 [Everything in antiquity breathes this spirit of "searching the Scriptures." Compare Hippol., p. 219, note 4, supra.]
1 [Almost wholly made up of Scripture, and useful in any age to all Christians. Whatever its origin, it breathes a truly primitive spirit. Compare Tertullian, vol. iii. p. 657.]