Lactantius

Footnotes

^[1309] Interfusio.

^[1310] Aspiratio.

Chap. IV.—That All Things Were Created for Some Use, Even Those Things Which Appear Evil; On What Account Man Enjoys Reason in So Frail a Body.

^[1311] [The parables of nature are admirably expounded by Jones of Nayland. See his Zoologica Ethica, his Book of Nature, and his Moral Character of the Monkey, vols. iii., xi., and xii., Works, London, 1801.]

^[1312] Asclepiades was a Christian writer, and contemporary of Lactantius, to whom he wrote a book on the providence of God. [According to Eusebius, a bishop of this name presided at Antioch from a.d. 214 to 220; but this is evidently another.]

Chap. V.—Of the Creation of Man, and of the Arrangement of the World, and of the Chief Good.

^[1313] Illis non quadrare rationem.

^[1314] Sacramentum.

^[1315] De transverso jugulasset. The Academics, affirming that nothing was certain, opposed the tenets of the other philosophers, who maintained their own opinions respectively.

^[1316] [The law of his being is stated in Bacon’s words: “Homo naturæ minister et interpres,” Nov. Org., i. 1. It is his duty to comprehend what he expounds, and to lend his voice to nature in the worship of God. See the Benedicite, or “Song of the Three Children,” in the apocryphal Bible.]

^[1317] Vexabilibus.

^[1318] Varia. Others read, “fæcunditatem variam generandi.”

^[1319] Mereamur.

^[1320] [Our author never wearies of this reference to Ovid’s beautiful verses. Compare Cowper (Task, book v.) as follows:—

“Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone

And eyes intent upon the scanty herb

It yields them; or, recumbent on its brow,

Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread

Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away

From inland regions to the distant main.

Not so the mind that has been touched from heaven.

. . . She often holds,

With those fair ministers of light to man

That nightly fill the skies with silent pomp,

Sweet conference,” etc.]

^[1321] Sequela.

^[1322] Quadrupes.

^[1323] Ex Deo.

^[1324] [Justitiam sequi. I have substituted righteousness for the translator’s justice here (see c. 25, p. 126, supra). Coleridge remarks on the weakness of the latter word. It may be, our author is quoting St. Paul (1 Tim. vi. 11 and 2 Tim. ii.), sectare justitiam, “follow after righteousness.”]

^[1325] Exponit.

^[1326] Enervatus exstinguitur.

^[1327] In terram dejecerit.

^[1328] i.e., “in discomfort,” liable to the evils of this life.

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