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Theophilus
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Introductory Note to Theophilus of Antioch
[600] In the Greek the word is, “work” or “labour,” as we also speak of working land.
Chapter XXV.—God Was Justified in Forbidding Man to Eat of the Tree of Knowledge.
[601] [“Pulchra, si quis ea recte utatur,” is the rendering of the Paris translators. A noble motto for a college.]
[602] [No need of a long argument here, to show, as some editors have done, that our author calls Adam an infant, only with reference to time, not physical development. He was but a few days old.]
Chapter XXVII.—The Nature of Man.
[603] [A noble sentence: ἐλεύθερον γὰρ καὶ αὐτεξούσιον ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον.]
[604] Apparently meaning, that God turns death, which man brought on himself by disobedience, into a blessing.
Chapter XXVIII.—Why Eve Was Formed of Adam’s Rib.
[605] Gen. ii. 24. [Kaye justly praises our author’s high estimate of Christian marriage. See his Justin M., p. 128.]
[606] Referring to the bacchanalian orgies in which “Eva” was shouted, and which the Fathers professed to believe was an unintentional invocation of Eve, the authoress of all sin.
[608] [He speaks of the æconomy of the narative: τὴν οἰκονομίαν τῆς ἐξηγήσεως. Kaye’s Justin, p. 175.]
[609] Fell remarks, “Blood shed at once coagulates, and does not easily enter the earth.” [On the field of Antietam, after the battle, I observed the blood flaked upon the soil, not absorbed by it.]
Chapter XXX.—Cain’s Family and Their Inventions.
[610] Il., xx. 216. But Homer refers only to Troy.
[611] [Of the founder of Christian chronology this must be noted.]
Chapter XXXI.—The History After the Flood.
[612] But the Benedictine editor understands the words to mean, that the succeeding kings were in like manner called Pharaoh.
[613] Theophilus spells some of the names differently from what they are given in our text. For Tidal he has Thargal; for Bera, Ballas; for Birsha, Barsas; for Shinab, Senaar; for Shemeber, Hymoor. Kephalac is taken to be a corruption for Balak, which in the previous sentence is inserted by many editors, though it is not in the best mss.
[614] [St. Paul seems to teach us that the whole story of Melchisedek is a “similitude,” and that the one Great High Priest of our profession appeared to Abraham in that character, as to Joshua in another, the “Captain of our salvation” (Heb. vii. 1-3; Josh. v. 13-15). We need a carefully digested work on the apparitions of the Word before His incarnation, or the theophanies of the Old Testament.]
[615] [Certainly a striking etymon, “Salem of the priest.” But we can only accept it as a beautiful play upon words.]
Chapter XXXII.—How the Human Race Was Dispersed.
[616] Proving the antiquity of Scripture, by showing that no recent occurrences are mentioned in it. Wolf, however, gives another reading, which would be rendered, “understand whether those things are recent which we utter on the authority of the holy prophets.”
Chapter XXXIV.—The Prophets Enjoined Holiness of Life.
[617] [Comp. book i. cap. xiv., supra, p. 93.]
[618] Benedictine editor proposes “ they.”
Chapter XXXV.—Precepts from the Prophetic Books.
[619] Literally, “a nod.”
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