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Apologetic
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[191] The Marcionites.
[192] [The argument amounts to this, that symbols were not idols: yet even so, God only could ordain symbols that were innocent. The Nehushtan of King Hezekiah teaches us the “peril of Idolatry” (2 Kings xviii. 4) and that even a divine symbol may be destroyed justly if it be turned to a violation of the Second Commandment.]
[193] [On which see Dr. Smith, Dict. of the Bible, ad vocem “Serpent.”]
[194] i.e., the Jewish people, who are generally meant by the expression “the People” in the singular number in Scripture. We shall endeavour to mark that distinction by writing the word, as here, with a capital.
[195] See 1 Cor. x. 6, 11.
[196] On the principle that the exception proves the rule. As Oehler explains it: “By the fact of the extraordinary precept in that particular case, God gave an indication that likeness-making had before been forbidden and interdicted by Him.”
[197] Ex. xx. 4, etc. [The absurd “brazen serpent” which I have seen in the Church of St. Ambrose, in Milan, is with brazen hardihood affirmed to be the identical serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness. But it lacks all symbolic character, as it is not set upon a pole nor in any way fitted to a cross. It greatly resembles a vane set upon a pivot.]
[198] [Elucidation I.]
Chapter VI.—Idolatry Condemned by Baptism. To Make an Idol Is, in Fact, to Worship It.
[199] i.e., Unless you made them, they would not exist, and therefore [would not be regarded as divinities; therefore] your diligence gives them their divinity.
[201] See chaps. v. and xii.
[202] See chap. ii., “The expansiveness of idolatry.”
[203] Abacum. The word has various meanings; but this, perhaps, is its most general use: as, for instance, in Horace and Juvenal.
[204] Alterius = ἑτέρον which in the New Testament is = to “neighbour” in Rom. xiii. 8, etc. [Our author must have borne in mind Cicero’s beautiful words—“Etenim omnes artes quæ ad humanitatem pertinent habent quoddam commune vinculum,” etc. Pro Archia, i. tom. x. p. 10. Ed. Paris, 1817.]
[205] Quæstum. Another reading is “questum,” which would require us to translate “plaint.”
[206] “Quorum manus non ignorantium,” i.e., “the hands of whom not unwitting;” which may be rendered as above, because in English, as in the Latin, in adjective “unwitting” belongs to the “whose,” not to the “hands.”
Chapter IX.—Professions of Some Kinds Allied to Idolatry. Of Astrology in Particular.
[207] “Ars” in Latin is very generally used to mean “a scientific art.” [See Titus iii. 14. English margin.]
[208] See Eph. v. 11, 12, and similar passages.
[209] i.e., by naming the stars after them.
[210] Comp. chap. iv., and the references there given. The idea seems founded on an ancient reading found in the Codex Alexandrinus of the LXX. in Gen. vi. 2, “angels of God,” for “sons of God.”
[211] See Tac. Ann. ii. 31, etc. (Oehler.)
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