Arnobius

Footnotes

^[3468] Heraldus has well suggested that plurimum is a gloss arising out of its being met with in the next clause.

^[3469] So the ms. and edd., reading Platoni; but Ursinus suggested Plotino, which Heraldus thinks most probably correct. There is, indeed, an evident suitableness in introducing here the later rather than the earlier philosopher, which has great weight in dealing with the next name, and should therefore, perhaps, have some in this case also.

^[3470] The ms. and both Roman edd. give Crotonio, rejected by the others because no Crotonius is known (it has been referred, however, to Pythagoras, on the ground of his having taught in Croton). In the margin of Ursinus Cronius was suggested, received by LB. and Orelli, who is mentioned by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., vi. 19, 3) with Numenius and others as an eminent Pythagorean, and by Porphyry (de Ant. Nymph., xxi.), as a friend of Numenius, and one of those who treated the Homeric poems as allegories. Gelenius substitutes Plotinus, followed by most edd.

^[3471] [Thus everywhere he writes as a Christian.]

^[3472] Stemus, the admirable correction of Gelenius for the ms. tem-p-us.

^[3473] Orelli, following Stewechius, would omit ita.

^[3474] Hildebrand thinks compescere here a gloss, but it must be remembered that redundancy is a characteristic of Arnobius.

^[3475] The superlative is here, as elsewhere, used by Arnobius instead of the comparative.

^[3476] i.e., so as to show the relations existing between them.

^[3477] Perhaps “axioms and postulates.”

^[3478] According to Crusius, non is not found in the ms.

^[3479] White and Riddle translate candidule, “sincerely,” but give no other instance of its use, and here the reference is plainly to the previous statement of the literary excellence of the philosophers. Heraldus suggests callidule, “cunningly,” of which Orelli approves; but by referring the adv. to this well-known meaning of its primitive, all necessity for emendation is obviated.

Chapter XII

^[3480] Lit., “subtleties of suspicions.” This passage is certainly doubtful. The reading translated, et suspicionum argutias profertis, is that of LB., Orelli, and the later edd. generally; while the ms. reads -atis—“Bring forward arguments to us, and” (for which Heraldus conjectures very plausibly, nec, “and not”) “subtleties,” etc., which, by changing a single letter, reads in the earlier edd. pro-fer-etis—“Will you,” or, “You will bring forward,” etc.

^[3481] Meursius conjectures in- (for ms. ju-) dicare—“pointed out,” of which Orelli approves.

^[3482] So the ms. and both Roman edd., supported by Heraldus, reading solidæ facilitatis, changed by the edd. into stolidæ—“stupid.”

^[3483] So all the edd. except Oehler; but as the first verb is plural in the ms., while the second is singular, it is at least as probable that the second was plural originally also, and that therefore the relative should be made to refer both to “virtues” and “power.”

^[3484] Orelli notes that by India is here meant Ethiopia. If so, it may be well to remember that Lucan (x. 29 sq.) makes the Seres neighbours of the Ethiopians, and dwellers at the sources of the Nile.

^[3485] Instead of sint, Stewechius would read essent—“were.”

^[3486] Instead of the ms. reading, Numæ regis artibus et antiquis superstitionibus, Stewechius, followed by Heraldus, would read ritibus—“with the rites of Numa,” etc.

^[3487] So the ms., reading res patrias, for which Heraldus, ritus patrios—“rites.”

^[3488] So the ms., although the first five edd., by changing r into s, read cur-s-um—“course.” This story is of frequent occurrence in the later Fathers, but is never referred to by the earlier, or by any except Christian writers, and is derived solely from the Apostolic Constitutions. In the Greek version of the Apost. Const. the sixth book opens with a dissertation on schisms and heresies in which the story of Simon and others is told; but that this was interpolated by some compiler seems clear from the arguments brought forward by Bunsen (Hippolytus and his Age, more particularly vol. ii. pt. 2, § 2, and the second appendix).

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