665 The actual heading of the Report stands thus: "A. GGG. NNN. Anulinus VC. proconsul Africae." For the tnterpretation we are indebted to the marginal note on the Codex Gervasianus.
668 The value of the evidence of these wirnesses is apparent when we remember that they were all in a position to speak from personal knowledge of the persecution in A.D. 303 (under Diocletian and Maximian), and had in their public capacity some share in enforcing the demand made in that persecution for the surrender of the sacred books. These could tell whether Felix the Bishop of Aptunga was guilty or not of the unfaithfulness to his religion with which the faction of Majorinus reproached him.
671 Ecclus. xxvii. 29, and Prov. xxvi. 27.
672 Donatist bishop of Hippo. See Letter XXXIII. p. 260.
674 For a more detailed reference to this case, see Letter CV. sec. 4. Crispinus was charged with an attempt to kill Possidius the bishop of Calama. See also Aug. Cont. Crescon. b. iii. c. 46, n. 50, and c. 47, n. 51.
675 Isa. lxvi. 5, as given by Augustine.
683 He refers to a riot in which the Pagans, after celebrating a heathen festival, attacked the Christians on June 1, 408 A.D.
685 Here culminates in the original a play upon words, towards which Augustine has been working with the ingenuity of a rhetorician from the beginning of the second paragraph; but the zest of his wit is necessarily lost in translation, because in our language the words "flower" and "flourish" are not so immediately suggestive of each other as the corresponding noun and verb in Latin (flos and florere).
687 The law of Honorius, passed on Nov. 24, 407, forbidding the celebration of public heathen solemnities and festivals (quidquam, solemnitatis agitare).