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Arnobius
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Introductory Notice to Arnobius.
[3235] Halis Saxonum, 1844, 8vo.
[3236] Lipsiæ, 1846, 8vo.
[3237] Cf. § 1, notes 2 and 3.
[3238] [This section (8) appears as a “Preface” to the Edinburgh edition.]
[3239] The words insanire, bacchari, refer to the appearance of the ancient seers when under the influence of the deity. So Virgil says, Insanam vatem aspicies (Æn., iii. 443), and, Bacchatur vates(Æn., vi. 78). The meaning is, that they make their asseverations with all the confidence of a seer when filled, as he pretended, with the influence of the god.
[3240] Et velut quiddam promptum ex oraculo dicere, i.e., to declare a matter with boldness and majesty, as if most certain and undoubted.
[3241] Popularia verba, i.e., rumours arising from the ignorance of the common people.
[3242] The Christians were regarded as “public enemies,” and were so called.
[3243] Or, “all party zeal.”
[3244] So Meursius,—the ms. reading is inusitatum, “extraordinary.”
[3245] So Gelenius; ms., coartatur, “pressed together.”
[3246] Or, “race,” gens, i.e., the Christian people.
[3247] The verb mereri, used in this passage, has in Roman writers the idea of merit or excellence of some kind in a person, in virtue of which he is deemed worthy of some favour or advantage; but in ecclesiastical Latin it means, as here, to gain something by the mere favour of God, without any merit of one’s own.
[3248] See Livy, i. 31, etc.; and Pliny, Nat. Hist., ii. 38.
[3249] The ms. reads, flumina cognoverimus ingentia lim-in-is ingentia siccatis, “that mighty rivers shrunk up, leaving the mud,” etc.
[3250] So Tertullian, Apologet., 40, says,—“We have read that the islands Hiera, Anaphe, Delos, Rhodes, and Cos were destroyed, together with many human beings.”
[3251] Arnobius, no doubt, speaks of the story of Phæthon, as told by Ovid; on which, cf. Plato, Tim., st. p. 22.
[3252] Nourry thinks that reference is here made to the contests of gladiators and athletes with lions and other beasts in the circus. But it is more likely that the author is thinking of African tribes who were harassed by lions. Thus Ælian (de Nat Anim., xvii. 24) tells of a Libyan people, the Nomæi, who were entirely destroyed by lions.
[3253] The city of Amyclæ in Italy is referred to, which was destroyed by serpents.
[3254] In the Timæus of Plato, c. vi. st. p. 24, an old priest of Saïs, in Egypt, is represented as telling Solon that in times long gone by the Athenians were a very peaceful and very brave people, and that 9,000 years before that time they had overcome a mighty host which came rushing from the Atlantic Sea, and which threatened to subjugate all Europe and Asia. The sea was then navigable, and in front of the pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) lay an island larger than Africa and Asia together: from it travellers could pass to other islands, and from these again to the opposite continent. In this island great kings arose, who made themselves masters of the whole island, as well as of other islands, and parts of the continent. Having already possessions in Libya and Europe, which they wished to increase, they gathered an immense host; but it was repelled by the Athenians. Great earthquakes and storms ensued, in which the island of Atlantis was submerged, and the sea ever after rendered impassable by shoals of mud produced by the sunken island. For other forms of this legend, and explanations of it, see Smith’s Dictionary of Geography, under Atlantis; [also Ancient America, p. 175, Harpers, 1872. This volume, little known, seems to me “stranger than fiction,” and far more interesting].
[3255] Cf.Matt. v. 39.
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