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30 "Gibbon seems to confuse this young man Theodorus with Theodoretus the presbyter and martyr who was put to death about this time at Antioch by the Count Julianus, the uncle of the emperor, (Soz. v. 8., Ruinart's Act. Mart. Sinc. p. 605 sq.) for he speaks in his text of `a presbyter of the name of Theodoret, 0' and in his notes of `the passion of S. Theodore in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, 0'" Bp. Lightfoot. p. 43.
31 "Gibbon says, `During the night which terminated this indiscreet procession, the temple of Daphne was in flames, 0' and later writers have blindly followed him. He does not give any authority, but obviously he is copying Tillemont H. E. iii. p. 407 `en mesme temps que l'on portant dans la ville la châsse du Saint Martyr, c'est àdire la nuit suivante. 0' The only passage which Tillemont quotes is Ammianus, (xxii. 13) `eodem tempore die xi. Kal. Nov., 0' which does not bear him out. On the contrary the historians generally (cf. Soz. v. 20, Theod. iii. 7) place the persecutions which followed on the processions, and which must have occupied some time, before the burning of the temple." Bp. Lightfoot.
32 newkorouj. newkoroj is the word rendered "worshipper" in Acts xix. 35 by A. V. The R.V. has correctly "temple-keeper," the old derivation from korew = sweep, being no doubt less probable than the reference of the latter part of the word to a root KOR = KOL, found in colo, curo.
33 thj twn sithresiwn afairesewj. This deprivation is not further referred to in the text. Philostorgius (vii. 4) says "He distributed the allowance of the churches among the ministers of the daemons," cf. Soz. v. 5. The restitution is recorded in Theod. iv. 4. The sitometrion of St. Luke xii. 42. (cf. thn trofhn in Matt. xxiv. 45) is analogous to the sithresia of the text. Vide Suicer s. v.
34 By the constitution of Constantine the two great ministers of finance were (i) the Comes sacrarum largitionum, treasurer and paymaster of the public staff of the Empire; (ii) Comes rei privatoe, who managed the privy purse and kept the liber beneficionum, an account of privileges granted by the emperor. cf. Dict. Christ. Ant. i. p. 634.
35 Trapeza is the word commonly employed by the Greek Fathers and in Greek Liturgies to designate the Lord's Table. Qusiasthrion is used by Eusebius H. E. x. 4, for the Altar of the Church of Tyre, but the earlier qusiasthrion of Ignatius (Philad. iv.) does not appear to mean the Lord's Table. cf. Bp. Lightfoot Ap. Fathers. pt. II. ii. p. 258.
37 The earliest authorities for the order are St. Paul, Rom. xvi. 1, and probably I. Tim. iii. 11; and Pliny in his letter to Trajan, if ancilla = diakonoj.
41 Song of the Three Children, v. 8, quoted not quite exactly from the Septuagint, which runs pareowkaj hmaj ...basilei adikw kai ponhrotatw para pasan thn ghn. The text is, paredwkaj hmaj basilei paranomw apostath para panta ta eqnh ta onta epi thj ghj.
42 cf. St. Chrysostom's homily in their honour. The Basilian menology mentions Juventinus under Oct. 9.
43 Valentinianus, a native of Cibalis (on the Save) in Pannonia (Bosnia) was elected Feb. 26, 364, and reigned till Nov. 17, 375. Though a Christian, he was tolerant of paganism, or the peasant's religion, as in his reign heathenism began to be named (Codex Theod. xvi. ii. 18). The "shortly after" of the text means some two years.
44 "The original mode of making the sign of the Cross was with the thumb of the right hand, generally on the forehead only, or on other objects, once or thrice. (Chrysost. Hom. ad pop. Art. xl.) `Thrice he made the sign of the cross on the chalice with his finger. 0' (Sophron. in Prat. Spirit.)" Dict. Christ. Ant. s. v.
45 By the Constitution of Constantine the supreme military command was given to a "Magister equitum" and a "Magister peditum." Under them were a number of "Duces" and "Comites," Dukes and Counts, with territorial titles.
46 Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII. 11) says, "Artemius ex duce Aegypti, Alexandrinis urgentibus, atrocium criminum mole, supplicio capitall multatus est."
51 Bp. Wordsworth (Dict. Chris. Biog. iii, 500) is in favour of the letter (Ep. 24, Ed. Didot 350) in which Julian desires the prayers of the Creator and professes a wish to rebuild and inhabit Jerusalem with them after his return from the Persian war and there give glory to the Supreme Being. It is addressed to his "brother Julus, the very venerable patriarch."
52 This is the motive ascribed by the Arian Philostorgius (vii. 9).
53 "The curious statement that crosses were imprinted on the bodies anti clothes of persons present, is illustrated in the original edition of Newman's Essay (clxxxii.)" (i.e. on ecclesiastical miracles) "by some parallel instances quoted by Warburton from Casaubon and from Boyle. Such crosses, or cross-like impressions, are said to have followed not only a thunderstorm, but also an eruption of Vesuvius these crosses were seen on linen garments, as shirt sleeves, women's aprons, that had lain open to the air, and upon the exposed parts of sheets." "Chrysostom (Ed. Montfaucon, vol. v. 271, etc.) mentions `crosses imprinted upon garments, 0' as a sign that had occurred in his generation, close to the mention of the Temple of Apollo that was overthrown by a thunderbolt, and separated from the wonders in Palestine that he mentions subsequently." Dr. E. A. Abbott. Philomythus, 189.
54 This event "came like the vision of Constantine, at a critical epoch in the world's history. It was as the heathen poet has it, a `dignus vindice nodus. 0' All who were present or heard of the event at the time, thought, we may be sure, that it was a sign from God. As a miracle then it ranges beside those biblical miracles in which, at some critical moment, the forces of nature are seen to work strikingly for God's people or against their enemies. In the O. T. we have for example, the instances of the plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea and the drowning of Pharaoh's host, the crossing of the Jordan, the prolongation of sunlight" (? darkness. Vide "A misunderstood miracle" by the Rev. A. Smythe Palmer) "the destruction of Sennacherib's army; in the N. T. the stilling of the storm, and the earthquake and the darkness at the crucifixion." Bp. Wordsworth. Dict. Ch. Biog. ii. 513. To biblical instances may be added the defeat of Sisera anti the fall of Aphek. But, too, for "the forces of nature," when the Armada was scattered, or when the siege of Leyden was raised the course of modern history would have been changed. Cressy may also be cited.
On the evidence for this event as contrasted with the so-called ecclesiastical miracles, accepted and defended by the late Cardinal Newman, vide Dr. E. A. Abbott's Philomythus pp. 1 and 5 et seq. "There is better evidence for this than for any of the preceding miracles." "The real solid testimony is that of Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 1). An impartial historian, who served under Julian in the Persian campaign, and who, twenty years afterwards, recorded the interruption of the building of the Temple by terrible bails of fire." "If Ammianus had lived nearer the time of the alleged incident, or had added a statement of the evidence on which he based his stories, the details might have been defended. As it is, the circumstances, while favouring belief in his veracity do not justify us in accepting anything more than the fact that the rebuilding of the Temple was generally believed to have been stopped by some supernatural fiery manifestation." "The rebuilding was probably stopped by a violent thunderstorm or thunderstorms."
55 This is probably the last occasion on which the moribund oracles were consulted by any one of importance. Of Delphi, the "navel of the earth" (Strabo ix. 505) in Phocis, Cicero had written some four centuries earlier "Cur isto modo jam oracula Delphi non eduntur, non modo nostra aetate, sed jam diu, ut nihil possit esse contemptius:" Div. ii. 57. Plutarch, who died about a.d. 120, wrote already "de defectu oraculorum.
The oracle of Apollo at Delos was consulted only in the summer months, as in the winter the god was supposed to beat Patara: so Virgil (iv. 143) writes
"Qualis ubi hibernam Lyciam Xanthique fluenta
Deserit, ac Delum maternam invisit Apollo."
Dodona in Epirus was the most ancient of the oracular shrines, where the suppliant went
"ofra qeoio
ek druoj uyikomoio Dioj boulhn epakousai.
Od. xiv. 327.
"The oracles" were potentially "dumb," "Apollo ...with hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving," as Milton sings, at the Nativity, but it was not till the reign of Theodosius that they were finally silenced.
56 nun pantej wrmhqhmen qeoi nikhj tropaia komisasqai para qhri potamw twn d egw hgemoneusw qouroj polemoklonos #Arhj.
57 These four illustrations, occurring in a single sentence indicate a certain breadth of reading on the part of the writer, and bear out his character for learning. (cf. Gibbon and Jortin, remarks on Eccl. Hist. ii. 113.) Socrates, the best of the philosophers, is set against Critias, one of the worst of the politicians of Hellas; Pythagoras, the Samian sage of Magna Graecia, against Phalaris, the Sicilian tyrant who
"tauro violenti membra Perilli
Torruit;" (Ovid. A. A. 1. 653)
but did not write the Epistles once ascribed to him. Theo-doretus probably remembered his Homer when he cited Thersites as the ugliest man of the old world; -
"He was squint-eyed, and lame of either foot;
So crook-back'd that he had no breast; sharp-headed, where did shoot
Here and there spersed, thin mossy hair.
Il. ii. 219. Chapman's Trans.
And the juxtaposition of Pythagoras and Nireus suggests that it may possibly have been Horace who suggested Nireus as the type of beauty: -
"Nec te Pythagorae fallant arcana renati,
Formaque vincas Nirea," (Hor. Epod. xv.)
though Nireus appears as kallistoj anhj in the same book of the Iliad as that in which Thersites is derided, and Theodoret is said to have known no Latin.
58 Valesius points out that politeuesqai means to hold the rank of Curiales or Decuriones. The Beroea mentioned is presumably the Syrian Beroea now Haleb or Aleppo.
59 The word thus translated is either active or passive according to its accentuation. Qeomishj = hated by God; Qeomishj = hating God.
60 The word seems here used in its strictly Athenian sense of a slave who took charge of boys on their way between school and home (Vide Lycias 910. 2 and Plat. Rep. 373. C.) rather than in the more general sense of teacher. In Xen. Lac. 3. 1. it is coupled with didaskaloj: here it is contrasted with it.
61 "One of the most noteworthy and characteristic figures of expiring heathenism." J.R. Mozley, Dict. Christ. Biog. s. v. Born in Antioch a.d. 314, he died about the close of the century. He was a voluminous author, and wrote among other things a "vain, prolix, but curious narrative of his own life." Gibbon. The most complete account of him will be found in E. R. Siever's Das Leben des Libanius.
62 The form in the text (glwssokomon) is rejected by Attic purists, but is used twice by St. John, as well as in the Septuagint. In II. Chron. xxiv. 8 (cf. II. Kings xii. 9) it means a chest. In St. John's Gospel xii. 6 and xiii. 29 it is "the bag," properly (xi. 3) "box," which Judas carried. In the Palatine anthology Nicanor the coffin maker makes these "glossokoma" or coffins. Derivatively the word means "tongue-cases," i.e. cases to keep the tongues or reeds of musical instruments. An instance of similar transfer of meaning is our word "coffin;" derivatively a wicker basket; - at one time any case or cover, and in Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus Act V. 2, 189) pie crust. Perhaps "casket," which now still holds many things, may one day only hold a corpse.
63 In times and circumstances totally different, it may seem that Julian's courtesy and moderation contrast favourably with the fierce zeal of the Christians. A modern illustration of the temper of the Church in Julian's reign may be found in the following account given of his dragoman by the late author of "Eothen." "Religion and the literature of the Church which he served had made him a man, and a brave man too. The lives of his honored Saints were full of heroic actions provoking imitation, and since faith in a creed involves faith its ultimate triumph, Dthemetri was bold from a sense of true strength; his education too, though not very general in its character, had been carried quite far enough to justify him in pluming himself upon a very decided advantage over the great bulk of the Mahometan population, including the men in authority. With all this consciousness of religious and intellectual superiority, Dthemetri had lived for the most part in countries lying under Mussulman governments, and had witnessed (perhaps too had suffered from) their revolting cruelties; the result was that he abhorred and despised the Mussulman faith and all who clung to it. And this hate was not of the dull, dry, and inactive sort; Dthemetri was in his way a true crusader, and whenever there appeared atair open. ing in the defence of Islam, he was ready and eager to make the assault. Such feelings, backed by a consciousness of understanding the people with whom he had to do, made Dthemetri not only firm and resolute in his constant Interviews with men in authority, but sometimes also very violent and very insulting." Kinglake's "Eothen," 5th Ed., p. 270.
64 The emperor Julian was wounded in the neighbourhood of Symbria or Hucumbra on the Tigris on the morning of June 26th, 363, and died at midnight. On the somewhat similar stories of Apollonius of Tyana mounting a lofty rock in Asia Minor and shouting to the crowd about him `well done, Stephanus; excellent, Stephanus; smite the blood-stained wretch; thou hast struck, thou hast wounded, thou hast slain, 0' at the very moment when Domitian was being murdered at Rome (Dion Cass, 67. 18); and of Irenaeus at Rome hearing a voice as of a trumpet at the exact hour when Polycarp suffered at Smyrna proclaiming `Polycarp has been martyred 0' (Vid. Ep. Smyrn.). Bp. Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers 1. 455) writes "The analogies of authenticated records of apparitions seen and voices heard at a distance at the moment of death have been too frequent in all ages to allow us to dismiss the story at once as a pure fiction." Such narratives at all events testify to a wide-spread belief.
65 There seems to be an allusion to Caesar's passage of the Rubicon in 49 b.c.
66 His fleet, with the exception of a few vessels, was burned at Abuzatha, where he halted five days (Zos 3. 26).
67 The exclamation was differently reported. Sozomen vi. 2. says that some thought he lifted his hand to chicle the sun for failing to help him. It has been observed that the sound of nenikhkaj Galilaie and hpathkaj hlie would not be so dissimilar in Greek as in English. Ammianus Marcellinus (xxv. 3-9.) says that he lost all hope of recovery when he heard that the place where he lay was called Phrygia, for in Phrygia he had been told that he would die. So it befell with Cambyses at Ecbatana (Her. iii. 64), Alexander King of Epirus at the Acheron (Livy viii. 24) and Henry IV in the Jerusalem Chamber, when he asked "Doth any name particular belong unto this lodging where I first did swoon?" and on hearing that the chamber was called Jerusalem, remembered the old prediction that in Jerusalem he must die, and died.
68 The reading eusebeian for asebeian seems to keep up the irony.
69 hpatoskopia, or "inspection of the liver," was a recognized form of divination. cf. the Sept. of Ez. xxi. 21. "kai eperwthsai en toij gluptoij, kai hpatoskophsasqai" and Cic. de div. ii. 13. "Caput jecoris ex omni parte diligentissime considerant; si vero id non est inventum, nihil putant accidere potuisse tristius." Vide also Aesch. Pr. V. 503, and Paley's note.