Ethical

Footnotes

^[8968] [He is said to have perished circa a.d. 170.]

^[8969] [After the defeat and suicide of Albinus, at Lyons, many persons, some of Senatorial rank, were cruelly put to death.]

Introductory Notice.

^[8970] Cap. lv. He calls her fortissima martyr, and she is one of only two or three contemporary sufferers whom he mentioned by name.

^[8971] [In the De Anima, cap. lv. as see above.]

^[8972] [Yet see the sermons of St. Augustine (if indeed his) on the Passion of these Saints. Sermon 281 and 282, opp. Tom. v. pp. 1284–5.]

^[8973] Hist. of Christianity, vol. i. ch. viii.

Preface.

^[8974] [Both Perpetua and Felicitas were evidently Montanistic in character and impressions, but, the fact that they have never been reputed other than Catholic, goes far to explain Tertullian’s position for years after he had withdrawn from communion with the vacillating Victor.]

^[8975] Joel ii. 28, 29. [The quotation here is a note of Montanistic prepossessions in the writer.]

^[8976] [Routh notes this as undoubted evidence of a Montanistic author. Reliquiæ, Vol. I. p. 455.]

^[8977] [St. Augustine takes pains to remind us that these Acta are not canonical. De Anima, cap. 2, opp. Tom. x. p. 481.]

Chapter I.—Argument.—When the Saints Were Apprehended, St. Perpetua Successfully Resisted Her Father’s Pleading, Was Baptized with the Others, Was Thrust into a Filthy Dungeon. Anxious About Her Infant, by a Vision Granted to Her, She Understood that Her Martyrdom Would Take Place Very Shortly.

^[8978] “Refrigeravit,” Græce ἀνέπαυσεν, scil. “requiem dedit.”

^[8979] i.e. the grace of martyrdom.

^[8980] Sibi vacabant.

^[8981] Commeatus.

^[8982] “Sustineo,” Græce ὑπομένω, scil. “exspecto.”

^[8983] This was an ordinary mode of picturing our Lord in the oratories and on the sacred vessels of those days. [This passage will recall the allegory of Hermas, with which the martyr was doubtless familiar.]

Chapter II.—Argument. Perpetua, When Besieged by Her Father, Comforts Him. When Led with Others to the Tribunal, She Avows Herself a Christian, and is Condemned with the Rest to the Wild Beasts. She Prays for Her Brother Dinocrates, Who Was Dead.

^[8984] “Catasta,” a raised platform on which the martyrs were placed either for trial or torture.

^[8985] [St. August. opp. iv. 541.]

^[8986] [The story in2 Maccab. xii. 40-45, is there narrated as a thought suggested to the soldiers under Judas, and not discouraged by him, though it concerned men guilty of idolatry and dying in mortal sin, by the vengeance of God. It may have occurred to early Christians that their heathen kindred might, therefore, not be beyond the visitations of the Divine compassion. But, obviously, even were it not an Apocryphal text, it can have no bearing whatever on the case of Christians. The doctrine of Purgatory is that nobody dying in mortal sin can have the benefit of its discipline, or any share in the prayers and oblations of the Faithful, whatever.]

^[8987] “Oromate.” [This vision, it must be observed, has nothing to do with prayers for the Christian dead, for this brother of Perpetua was a heathen child whom she supposed to be in the Inferi. It illustrates the anxieties Christians felt for those of their kindred who had not died in the Lord; even for children of seven years of age. Could the gulf be bridged and they received into Abraham’s bosom? This dream of Perpetua comforted her with a trust that so it should be. Of course this story has been used fraudulently, to help a system of which these times knew nothing. Cyprian says expressly: “Apud Inferos confessio, non est, nec exomologesis illic fieri potest.” Epistola lii. p. 98. Opp. Paris, 1574. In the Edinburgh series (translation) this epistle is numbered 51, and elsewhere 54.]

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