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Lactantius
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Introductory Notice To Lactantius.
[294] It is not to be supposed that Lactantius, following the error of Marcion, believed that the body of man had been formed by the devil, for he has already described its creation by God. He rather speaks of the devil as exercising a power permitted to him over the earth and the bodies of men. Compare 2 Cor. iv. 4.
[295] Preface to Catiline
[296] The word teneo is used in this sense by Cicero (De Nat. Deor., 11. 54): “Tribus rebus animantium vita tenetur, cibo, potione, spiritu.”
[297] Material.
[299] We are not to understand this as asserting that the man lived in idleness, and without any employment in paradise; for this would be inconsistent with the Scripture narrative, which tells us that Adam was placed there to keep the garden and dress it. It is intended to exclude painful and anxious labour, which is the punishment of sin. See Gen. iii. 17.
[300] Paradise.
[301] Another reading is, ad dejiciendum hominem, “to overthrow the man.”
[302] Circumvallavit, “placed a barrier round.” See Gen. iii. 24: “He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.”
[303] [Not novissima, but extrema here. He refers to book vii. cap. 11, etc.]
[304] Temporary. The word is opposed to everlasting.
[305] No one actually lived a thousand years. They who approached nearest to it were Methuselah, who lived 969 years, Jared 962, and Noah 950.
[306] It appears that the practise of the Egyptians varied as to the computation of the year.
[307] Philo and Josephus.
[308] [“Old Parr,” born in Shropshire, a.d. 1483, died in 1635: i.e., born before the discovery of America, he lived to the beginning of Hampden’s career in England.]
[309] The reading is quod, which in construction refers not to the preceding, but to the following substantive. Qui has been suggested as a preferable reading.
[310] Lactantius understands the hundred and twenty years (mentioned Gen. vi. 3) as the limit of human life, and regards it as a mark of severity on God’s part. But Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and most commentators, regard it rather as a sign of God’s patience and long-suffering, in giving them that space for repentance. And this appears to be confirmed by the Apostle Peter, 1 Ep. iii. 20, “When once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.”
[311] Ham.
[313] This refers to that prophetic denunciation of divine judgment on the impiety of Ham, which Noah, by the suggestion of the Holy Spirit, uttered against the posterity of the profane man. Gen. ix. 25: “Cursed be Canaan.” The curse was not uttered in a spirit of vengeance or impatience on account of the injury received, but by the prophetic impulse of the Divine Spirit. [The prophet fixes on the descendant of Ham, whose impiety was foreseen, and to whom it brought a curse so signal.]
[314] [Our author falls into a hysteron-proteron: the curse did not work the ignorance, but wilful ignorance and idolatry wrought the curse, which was merely foretold, not fore-ordained.]
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