47 Cf. the note on "Against Nestorius" VII. ix.
48 The "ancient tradition" to which Cassian here alludes is given in the Clementine Recognitions I. xxix., xxx.; and in Epiphanius "Heresies," c. lxvi. § 83, sq., where it is given as an answer to the Manichaean objection against the cruelty and injustice of the extermination of the Canaanites by the Israelites.
1 This Abbot Theodore is probably the same person as the one mentioned in the Institutes, Book V. cc. xxxiii.-xxxv.; but nothing further is known of him, there is no reason for identifying him with any of the other monks of this name of the fourth century.
3 Saraceni (Saraknhnoi/) a name given by the classical geographers to a tribe of Arabia Felix, famous for its predatory propensities Jerome speaks of the "mons et desertum Saracenorum quad vocatur Pharan" (Liber de situ et nominibus sub voce Choreb) and elsewhere describes their predatory habits (Liber Heb. Quaest in Genesim) "Saracenos vagos . . . qui universas gentes . . . incursant." By the seventh century the name had become a merely general term equivalent to Arab, and was accordingly adopted and applied indifferently to all the followers of Mohammed by the writers of the middle ages (cf. the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, sub voce).
4 There is no mention of these martyrs in the so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum, but they are commemorated on May 28, in the Roman Martyrology.
5 Cellae, which was according to the passage before us, between the deserts of Scete and Nitria, apparently derived its name from the cells of the monks who congregated there. This at least is the explanation of the name given by Sozomen (H.E. VI. xxx.) who speaks of a region called kelli/a, throughout which numerous little dwellings (oi0kh/mata) are dispersed, whence it obtains its name. Sozomen also speaks (c. xxix.) of Macarius as priest of Cellae, a fact which gives some ground for conjecturing that Cellae may be identified with Dair Abu Makâr, one of the four monasteries still existing in the deserts of Nitria and Scete, probably founded by the saint whose name it bears (Macarius). See A. J. Butler's "Coptic Churches of Egypt," vol. i. c. vii.