338 Ut non defensurus. Defendo = vindico. See Oehler's note for other instances.
344 Plagiarii. The Plagiarius is the a!drapodisth/j or the yuxagwgo/j of Alex. Greek. This "man-stealing" profession was often accompanied with agreeable external accomplishments. Nempe yuxagwgoi/, quia blandis et mellitis verbis servos alienos sollicitant, et ad se alliciunt. Clemens Alex. Strom. i. lu/koi a!rpagej proba/twn kawdi/oij e0gkekrumme/noi, a0ndrapodiastoi/ te kai\ yuxagwgoi\ eu0glw=ssoi, kle/ptontej me\n a0fanw=j, k.t.l.-Desid. Herald. Animad. ad Arnobium, p. 101.
346 Absit, inquis, absit. [i.e., the throwing of a grain of incense into the censer, before the Emperor's image or that of a heathen god.]
349 Suffectura. A something whereon the Spirit may operate; so that the Spirit has a praefectura over the anima. [Kaye, p. 179.]
350 Resignatum. Tertullian here yields to his love of antithesis, and makes almost nonsense of signo and resigno. The latter verb has the meaning violate (in opposition to signo, in the phrase virgo signata, a pure unviolated virgin).
354 Free from all matrimonial impurity.
355 Spadonibus. This word is more general in sense than eunuch, embracing such as are impotent both by nature and by castration, White and Riddle's Lat. Dict. s.v.
356 Tertullian's Montanism appears here.
357 i.e., abstinence from marriage.
358 Sectando. [This, indeed, seems to be a fair statement of Patristic doctrine concerning marriage. As to our author's variations see Kaye, p. 378.]
360 Causa in its proper sense is, "that though which anything takes place:" its just and normal state, therefore. Culpa is the derangment of the cause; some flaw in it.
365 In fide. Tertullian uses (De Pud. 18) "Ante fidem" as synonymous with ante baptismum; similarly "post fidem."
366 [Bad as this is, does it argue the lapse of our author as at this time complete?]
369 This is the force of the erit instead of the past tense.
370 Isses in, i.e., obstitisses, check or resist, for then Marcion would, of course, not have been born: the common text has esses in.
371 Tertullian has discussed these "definitions" in chap. ii. vii., and the "conditions" from chap. viii. onward. He will "examine the Scripture" passages in books iv. and v. Fr. Junius.
1 [Contains no marks of Montanism of a decisive nature. Kaye, p. 54.]
3 From the dignity of the supreme Godhead.
6 With the tanto (answering to the previous quanto) should be understood magis, a frequent omission in our author.
20 Comp. Isa. xl. 13,14, with Rom. xi. 34.