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Remains of the Second and Third Centuries
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Introductory Notice to Remains of the Second and Third Centuries.
[3833] The writer refers to St. John’s Gospel (John 15.13): “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
[3835] This expression seems to refer to what took place in athletic combats. The athletes were tested before fighting, and those in every way qualified were permitted to fight, while the others were rejected. This testing, Valesius supposes, was called διάκρισις.
[3837] The words here admit of two meanings: that something blasphemous might be uttered by them—such as speaking against Christ and swearing by Cæsar: or that some accusation against the Christians might be uttered by them—confirming, for instance, the reports of infanticide and incest prevalent against the Christians. The latter in this passage seems unquestionably to be the meaning.
[3839] Heinichen construes differently. He makes the “torturers astonished that Blandina gave her testimony that one kind of torture was sufficient to deprive her of life.” Perhaps the right construction is to make ὅτι mean “because” or “for:” “They were astonished as Blandina bearing her testimony, for one kind of torture was sufficient to have killed her.”
[3840] The words ὑπερβεβλημένως καὶ ὑπὲρ πάντα ἄνθρωπον naturally go with ὑπομένων, and therefore intimate that Sanctus’ endurance was greater than human; but we doubt if this is intended by the writer.
[3841] John vii. 38: “He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his bosom shall flow rivers of living water.”
[3842] The holes were placed in a line, so that the further the hole in which one leg was put from the hole in which the other leg was put, the more nearly would the two legs form a straight line, and the greater would be the pain.
[3843] The dispensation is, that those who denied were not set free, but confined with the others; and that this harsh treatment and sad state of mind confirmed the resolution of those not yet apprehended to confess Christ. Various other explanations have been given, but this seems the most reasonable.
[3846] Of Christian.
[3847] We have adopted here an emendation of Routh’s. The literal version of the common text is: “The testimonies of their departure were divided into every form.”
[3848] The Greek is εἰς τὸ δημόσιον, was led “to the public building” to the wild beasts. The public building is taken to be the amphitheatre.
[3849] The words “several times” are represented in Greek by διὰ πλειόνων κλήρων, lit. “through several lots.” When there were several athletes to contend, the pairs were determined by lot. After the first contest the victors were again formed into pairs by lot, until finally there should be but one pair left. See the process at the Olympic games described in Lucian Hermotimus, c. xl. p. 782.
[3850] The bestiarii, before fighting with wild beasts, had to run the gauntlet.
[3851] Rufinus translates jugulati sunt. Probably, “killed with the sword.” The term may have been a technical one, being applied to the gladiators or bestiarii, whose death may have been looked on as a sacrifice to a god or a dead-hero.
[3852] Blandina was a slave: hence the mode of punishment. On this matter see Lipsius, De Cruce. [And my note, p. 784.]
[3853] Lord Hailes remarks that this alludes to Isa. xxvii. 1.
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