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Tatian
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Introductory Note to Taitian the Assyrian
[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.]
[510] Solon. Bergh., Poetæ Græc. Lyr., fr. 18. [The interest and biographical importance of this chapter must be apparent.]
Chapter XXXVII.—Testimony of the Phœnicians.
[511] Called Hiram in our authorized translation.
Chapter XXXIX.—Catalogue of the Argive Kings.
[512] The words within brackets, though they occur in the mss. and in Eusebius, are supposed by some scholars to be a very old interpolation.
Chapter XL.—Moses More Ancient and Credible Than the Heathen Heroes.
[513] This expression admits of several meanings: “Without properly understanding them,”—Worth; “not with a proper sense of gratitude.”—Maranus.
[514] [There is increasing evidence of the obligations of the Greek sages to that “light shining in a dark place,” i.e., amid an idolatrous world.]
[515] [Let it be noted as the moral of our author’s review, that there is no self-degradation of which man is not capable when he rejects the true God. Rom. i. 28.]
Chapter XLII.—Concluding Statement as to the Author.
[516] [Comp. cap. xxix. p. 77, supra.]
[517] [Compare the boastful Rousseau: “Que la trompette du jugement sonne quand elle voudra, je viendrai ce livra a la main, me presenter devant le souverain Juge.” Confessions, livre i. p. 2.]
[518] [“Adhere immoveably.” Alas! “let him that thinketh he standeth”, etc. But I cannot part with Tatian nor think of Tertullian without recalling David’s threnode: “There the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away … . I am distressed for thee, my brother: … very pleasant hast thou been unto me … How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!” Our own sad times have taught us similar lamentations for some who seemed for a time to be “burning and shining lights.” God be merciful to poor frail men.]
[519] From the lost works of Tatian. Ed. Otto.
[520] i.e., Justin Martyr.
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