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Arnobius

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Introductory Notice to Arnobius.

[3278] So LB. and Orelli; but the ms. reads, “himself to be like a god by his prophets,” etc.—se esse similem profiteatur in vatibus.

[3279] So corrected by Pithœus for the ms. profanus.

Chapter XXVII

[3280] [Evidences of our author’s Christian status abound in this fine passage.]

Chapter XXVIII

[3281] So Gelenius, followed by Orelli and others, for the ms., reading divini interpretes viri (instead of juris)—“O men, interpreters of the sacred and divine,” which is retained by the 1st ed., Hildebrand, and Oehler.

[3282] Aii Locutii. Shortly before the Gallic invasion, b.c. 390, a voice was heard at the dead of night announcing the approach of the Gauls, but the warning was unheeded. After the departure of the Gauls, the Romans dedicated an altar and sacred enclosure to Aius Locutius, or Loquens, i.e., “The Announcing Speaker,” at a spot on the Via Nova, where the voice was heard. The ms. reads aiaceos boetios, which Gelenius emended Aios Locutios.

[3283] So emended by Ursinus for the ms. libentinos, which is retained in the 1st ed., and by Gelenius, Canterus, and others. Cf. iv. 9, where Libentina is spoken of as presiding over lusts.

[3284] As a soul was assigned to each individual at his birth, so a genius was attributed to a state. The genius of the Roman people was often represented on ancient coins.

[3285] Thus the Athenians paid honours to Leæna, the Romans to Acca Laurentia and Flora.

[3286] The superstitions of the Egyptians are here specially referred to.

[3287] That is, by whose pleasure and at whose command they are preserved from annihilation.

[3288] So Orelli, adopting a conjecture of Meursius, for the ms. nobis.

[3289] That is, not self-existent, but sprung from something previously in being.

Chapter XXIX

[3290] Columen is here regarded by some as equal to culmen; but the term “pillar” makes a good sense likewise.

[3291] This is according to the doctrine of Pythagoras, Plato, Origen, and others, who taught that the souls of men first existed in heavenly beings, and that on account of sins of long standing they were transferred to earthly bodies to suffer punishment. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. p. 433.

Chapter XXX

[3292] The Peripatetics called God the locus rerum, τόπος πάντων, the “locality and the area of all things;” that is, the being in whom all else was contained.

Chapter XXXI

[3293] [This prayer of Arnobius is surely worthy of admiration.]

[3294] Diagoras of Melos and Theodorus of Cyrene, called the Atheists. The former flourished about b.c. 430, the latter about b.c. 310. See Cic., Nat. Deor., i. 2. [Note the universal faith, cap. 34, infra.]

[3295] Protagoras of Abdera, b. b.c. 480, d. 411.

[3296] Democritus of Abdera, b. b.c. 460, and Epicurus, b. b.c. 342, d. 270.

[3297] Obstinatione, literally “stubbornness;” Walker conjectures opinatione, “imaginings,” which Orelli approves.

Chapter XXXV

[3298] So the ms.; for which Meursius would read, nobis vobisque, communis esset (for cessat)—“is to us and to you, the anger of the gods would be shared in common.”

Chapter XXXVI

 

 

 

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