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Tatian
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Introductory Note to Taitian the Assyrian
[489] The Cynic Peregrinus is meant.
[490] They need the rich to invite them to banquets.
[491] The Cynic.
[492] [The vigor of this passage, and the impact of its truths upon heathen idols, are noble specimens of our author’s power.]
[493] [They ate and drank bread and wine hallowed to be the κοινωνία of the flesh and blood of Christ (1 Cor. x. 16); but they knew nothing of the modern doctrine of the Latin churches, which is precisely what Tatian denies.]
Chapter XXVII.—The Christians are Hated Unjustly.
[494] [Athenagoras, Embassy, cap. ii., infra.]
[495] In Crete.
[496] Comp. Tit. i. 12. Callimachus is probably the author referred to, through others express the same opinion respecting the Cretans.
[497] Accommodating himself to the popular opinions, through fear.
Chapter XXIX.—Account of Tatian’s Conversion.
[498] At Aricia, near Rome.
[499] [A memorable tribute to the light-giving power of the Holy Scriptures. “Barbarian books” (barbaric means something else) they were; but well says Dr. Watts in a paraphrase of Ps. cxix. 96 (and comp. capp. xl., xli., infra),—
“Let all the heathen writers join to form one perfect book,
Great God if once compared with thine, how mean their writings look!”
See his Hymns, p. 238. Ed. Worcester, 1836.]
Chapter XXX.—How He Resolved to Resist the Devil.
[500] Comp. Matt. xiii. 44. [Cogent reasoning with Greeks.]
Chapter XXXI.—The Philosophy of the Christians More Ancient Than that of the Greeks.
[501] Comp. Matt. xiii. 44. [Cogent reasoning with Greeks.]
Chapter XXXII.—The Doctrine of the Christians, is Opposed to Dissensions, and Fitted for All.
[502] [Compare cap. xi. p. 69. And note, thus early, the Christian freeschools, such as Julian closed and then imitated, confessing their power.]
[503] Il., ix.
Chapter XXXIII.—Vindication of Christian Women.
[504] [See note 2, next page.]
[505] [St. Chrysostom speaks of the heathen as ὁι ταῖς σατανικαῖς ῷδαῖς κατασηπόμενοι. In Psalmum, cxvii. tom. v. p. 533. Ed. Migne.]
[506] [Such as the Magnificat of the Virgin, the Twenty-third Psalm, or the Christian Hymn for Eventide, which they learned in the Christian schools (cap. xxxii. p. 78). Cold is the heart of any mother’s son that does not warm over such a chapter as this on the enfranchisement of womanhood by Christ. Observe our author’s scorn for the heathen “affinity with unreason” (this chapter, supra), and then enjoy this glimpse of the contrast afforded by the Gospel in its influence upon women. Intensely should we delight in the pictures of early Christian society, of which the Fathers give us these suggestive outlines. Rejecting the profane and wanton songs they heard around them,— “Satanic minstrelsies,” as St. Chryosostom names them,—they beguiled their toils and soothed their sorrows with “Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” As St. Jerome relates, “You could not go into the field, but you might hear the ploughman’s hallelujahs, the mower’s hymns, and the vine-dresser’s chant of the Psalms of David.” See Cave’s Primitive Christianity, p. 132.]
[507] [Such as the Magnificat of the Virgin, the Twenty-third Psalm, or the Christian Hymn for Eventide, which they learned in the Christian schools (cap. xxxii. p. 78). Cold is the heart of any mother’s son that does not warm over such a chapter as this on the enfranchisement of womanhood by Christ. Observe our author’s scorn for the heathen “affinity with unreason” (this chapter, supra), and then enjoy this glimpse of the contrast afforded by the Gospel in its influence upon women. Intensely should we delight in the pictures of early Christian society, of which the Fathers give us these suggestive outlines. Rejecting the profane and wanton songs they heard around them,—“Satanic minstrelsies,” as St. Chryosostom names them,—they beguiled their toils and soothed their sorrows with “Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” As St. Jerome relates, “You could not go into the field, but you might hear the ploughman’s hallelujahs, the mower’s hymns, and the vine-dresser’s chant of the Psalms of David.” See Cave’s Primitive Christianity, p. 132.]
[508] [St. Paul’s spirit was stirred within him, beholding the abominable idolatries of the Athenians; and who can wonder at the loathing of Christians, whose wives and children could not escape from these shameful spectacles. The growing asceticism and fanatical views of sexual relations, which were now rising in the Church, were a morbid but virtuous revolt of faith against these impurities.]
Chapter XXXV.—Tatian Speaks as an Eye-Witness.
[509] Chap. xxxi. [With what calm superiority he professes himself a barbarian! I honour the eye-witness who tells not only what he had seen, but what he felt amid such evidences of man’s degradation and impiety.]
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