1339 De Civitate Dei, lib. I. ch. xxxvi.
1351 Homo autem Verbo accessit, non Verbum in hominem convertibiliter accesit.
1362 The work on Nature and Grace, addressed to Timasius and Jacobus-translated in the fourth volume of this series, Antipelagian Writings, i. 233.
1363 The allusion is probably to the acquittal of Pelagius in 415 by the Council of Diospolis (or Lydda, a place between Joppa and Jerusalem) Augustine viewed this Council's decisions more favourably than Jerome, who denounces it without measure as a pitiful assembly, which allowed itself to be imposed upon by the evasions and feigned recantation of Pelagius; to this he makes reference in the concluding sentence of this paragraph.
1364 We adopt here the reading found in Letter CCII. bis, sec. 3, where this sentence is quoted by Augustine in writing to Optatus, and we have "ne (instead of et) juxta Appium canina facundia exerceretur." On the phrase "canina facundia," see Lactantius, book vi. ch. 18.
1365 Rom. xiv. 5. Translated by Jerome: "Unusquisque in suo sensu abundet."
1366 Jerome probably alludes here to Augustine's request in Letter LXXI., sec. 3, 4; Letters, pp. 326, 327.
1367 An example is furnished in the case of Castorius, Letter LXIX.; Letters, p. 326.
1373 Primianus, Donatist bishop in Carthage, was in 393 deposed by a factious clique of bishops, who appointed Maximianus in his place. The other Donatist bishops, however, assembled in the following year at Bigai in Numidia, and, reversing the decision of their co-bishops deposed them in turn, and passed a sentence to which, as stated in the text, they did not inexorably adhere. The matter is referred to in Letter XLIII. p. 276.
1374 Ecclus. xxxiv. 25, translated, accurately enough, in our English version: "He that washeth himself after touching a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing?" The Donatist, in quoting the passage to support their practice of re-baptizing Catholics, omitted the clause, "et iterum tangit mortuum," and translated the sentence thus: "He that is baptized by one who is dead, what availeth his baptism?" It would be difficult to quote from the annals of controversy a more flagrant example of ignorant ingenuity in the wresting of words to serve a purpose.
1384 We have left the word ambo in "ambo ista exhorrescas" untranslated. Critics are agreed that a few words of the original are probably wanting here, only one alternative of the dilemma being stated by St. Augustine in the text.
1385 In Letters XXVIII., XL., LXXV., and LXXXII., translated Letters, pp. 251, 272, 333, 349.