Appendix quarta: Oxoniensis editionis selectae in Cyprianum notae; J. M. Routh, notae; J. Trombelli, praefatio in Exhortationem ad poenitentiam

Year 256.

Letter 86.

To Nemesianus. The names of all these Numidian bishops appear in the Synod of Carthage. Nemesianus is called "of Thubunae" at vote 5. Felix "of Bagai" is found at vote 12; one "of Amaccura" at vote 33; there are indeed other Felixes there, but they belonged to Byzacena and do not concern this place. Lucius is mentioned at vote 7, and also at 31, both Numidians; others of that name belong to Zeugitana. Litteus occurs at vote 82; Polianus we have at vote 15; the one called "of Mileum" at vote 78. It presents Victor "of Octavum", a Numidian: the other, "of Gor", does not seem to concern this place. Jader "of Midila" occurs at vote 45. Lastly Dativus "of Badis" is mentioned at vote 15. Of Nemesianus alone could it be doubted whether he was a Numidian or a Moor; except that Tubiana occurs in Numidia no less than in Mauretania, as is clear from the Conference of Carthage and the Notitia Imperii, and indeed Ptolemy's Thebitis seems to belong here, although I decided otherwise in the notes to the Council of Carthage. That the aforesaid bishops were condemned to three mines separately is clear from their threefold reply; although which is the Siguense mine mentioned in Letter 78 is not agreed. The name of Litteus is missing in the replies; whence one may conjecture that he had departed this life.

"The bounds of a prescribed place were restraining." Rigault says: Accordingly in Letters 4 and 81 he excuses himself on account of the condition of his place, which, that is, prescribed bounds were confining.

"This thing is not to be execrated by us." Rigault says: So far is it from being execrable to us that it ought to be received as the sacrament of eternal salvation.

"Whose whole hope is in the wood." Rigault says: That is, in Christ, Who hung on the wood for sinners. So Paul glories in the cross, that is, in the crucified Lord.

"The sacrament of our salvation." Rigault says: In this sense all things that Christ did in the flesh are sacraments of our salvation.

"And places which [yield] gold." It is by no means necessary that the confessors were condemned to mines of gold or silver; it suffices that those incitements to evils are commonly dug out of those bowels of the earth. Certainly Pliny says, book 4, that Numidia is notable for the yield of nothing except Numidian marble and wild beasts.

"With crossbars." Rigault says: He calls "crossbars" those things which restrain and hinder from the side. Vitruvius book 8, chapter 6, and book 10, chapter 11. Chains, through the rings of which they consist, adapt themselves to every movement; but crosswise irons set between the fetters torment like stocks.

"The hair of the half-shorn head bristles." Rigault says: By its ugliness it brings horror on those who look. In the following letter: "you have matched the hair of the half-shorn head." Horace: "Cropped as to his hair by an uneven barber." Thus those condemned to the oars are shaved, so that if they seek to slip away by flight they can be recognized and dragged back.

"The opportunity of offering is not given." To the martyrs in the Decian persecution, however harshly they were treated, this benefit was not denied. See Letter 4.

"To premeditate excusing" (to prepare beforehand to make a defence). Of this rendering we have treated elsewhere.

"The sixtyfold fruit." Of the hundredfold yield of martyrs and the sixtyfold of virgins we have treated in the book On the Dress of Virgins.

"To stand for the promised reward of God." Opposed to this state, in the book On the Lapsed, is "to stand for pardon." Moreover we have quite often observed that, in the judgement of the ancient Church, martyrs by a peculiar privilege are perfected without awaiting the day of judgement. Hence below he says "all ready for divine and heavenly glory": namely, for martyrdom.

"These darknesses of the world." Which perhaps [are felt] under the open sky and in the glowing sun: heavier than those which men condemned to the mines and buried within the bowels of the earth feel.

Against the injuries of the heretics. That these Numidians stood with Cyprian in the council in the matter of the Baptism of heretics has been observed above.

Year 257.

Letter 77.

To lay bare hidden mysteries. Rigault says: The secrets of the Holy Scriptures, their mysteries, difficulties, hidden senses: the uncertain and hidden things of the divine wisdom.

To come to belief. Rigault says: To the Christian faith.

Helpers of one another. Rigault says: Each helping the other in turn. Above, Ep. 64, coming to one another.

Letter 78.

According to its breadth. Rigault says: He speaks of breadth of heart with reference to the heart of a holy man, which is wont to be fruitful and magnificent in the praises of God and in good works.

We have received that which you sent from Quirinus and from yourself, a sacrifice. Mention of this is made in the preceding Letter, and perhaps in the books inscribed to Quirinus.

With a clean work. With a clean creature or animal. For πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν he seems to have read ἀπὸ πάσης κτίσεως.

So may He look also upon yours. Rigault says: In the following Letter, And there will be in time the regard for them.

Letter 79.

We have received the amount under the name of an offering. Rigault says: The sum of money which each had contributed from his own: or which Cyprian had sent from his own resources. We have remarked on this at the preceding Letters.

I, Felix, wrote [this]. This reading seems wholly to be admitted; for that Felix, who appears first at the head of the Letter, should be wholly passed over at its foot, is foreign to common usage. Indeed, that mention should be made of the rest, who had either subscribed or read, while he who had written was omitted, seems hardly fitting. Who Eutychianus is, whom bishop Polianus calls Lord, is not easy to conjecture. It is a quite customary form of greeting that someone should be called lord brother. See Ep. 77, and elsewhere.

Letter 80.

Under the stroke of the contest. Rigault says: In the following Letter he will say, At that moment of confession.

That Valerian had written back to the senate. This remarkable change of affairs does not seem one to be passed over in silence. This is that Emperor Valerian of whom Trebellius Pollio relates: Noble by birth, his father being Valerius, formerly censor, and rising through all the grades of office in their due times to the highest summit on earth, he whose praiseworthy life over 70 years had climbed to such glory that, after all honours and magistracies had been discharged with distinction, he became emperor; not, as is usual, by a tumultuous concourse of the people, nor by the din of soldiers, but by right of merit and as it were by the one voice of the whole world. In short, if all had been given the power of declaring their choice of whom they wished as emperor, no other would have been elected. And so that it may be known how great was the weight of public merit in Valerian, I shall set out the decrees of the senate, from which all may observe what that most ample order always judged of him. In the consulship of the two Decii, on the sixth day before the Kalends of November, when the senate was being held in the temple of the Castors on account of imperial letters, and the opinions of each member were being taken as to whom the censorship ought to be conferred upon (for the Decii had placed this in the power of the most ample senate), as soon as the praetor declared: What is your view, Conscript Fathers, concerning the choosing of a censor? and had asked the opinion of him who was then first man of the senate, Valerian being absent (for he was on campaign with Decius): all said with one voice, breaking the custom of giving opinions in turn, The life of Valerian is a censorship. Let him judge of all who is than all

better. Let him judge concerning the senate who has no crime. Let him pass sentence on our life against whom nothing can be objected. Valerian was a censor from his earliest boyhood. Valerian was a censor in his whole life. A prudent senator, a modest senator, a grave senator. A friend of the good, an enemy of tyrants, a foe of crimes, a foe of vices. Him we all accept as censor, him we all wish to imitate. First in birth, noble in blood, upright in life, renowned in learning, singular in character, a pattern of antiquity. When these things had been said many times, they all added [their assent]: and so the assembly broke up. It adds to this man's praise that he greatly favoured the Christians, so that, as Dionysius of Alexandria relates, he was mild and friendly towards the men of God. For no other of the emperors before him was so kindly and favourably disposed towards them; not even those who were said to have openly become Christians, as he was manifestly receiving them most intimately and most affectionately at the beginning; and his whole house was filled with godly people, and it was a church of God. But after all this, led astray by the counsels of Macrianus, an impious man and a magician, when he turned to attacking the Church; entangled in a Persian war, and betrayed by that very Macrianus, the author of the counsels against the Church; he came into the power of a barbarian enemy, and there, serving a most wretched servitude, he served as a footstool as long as he lived: trampled by an unbridled victor, who, when about to mount his horse, would raise himself on him, his back being bent and his foot set on his neck: neither the intercession of the kings who attended the Persian, nor fear of the Roman people and of the sons of Valerian, who were succeeding to the empire, availed anything; indeed he would have perished wholly unavenged, had not Odenathus of Palmyra, having gathered an army, broken the onset of the raging barbarian; and moreover utterly destroyed the wretched remnants of the family of Marcianus, who was slain by Aurelius.

Let them be punished forthwith. Rigaltius says: Sometimes a day for denying, that is, for renouncing Christ, was appointed; as in the book On the Lapsed, "when the day appointed for those denying had passed."

Enrolled among the imperial estates. The reading of the Verona manuscript, which has et scripti, leads the way to the better-approved one, ascripti. It is well enough known from the writers on imperial law what kind of servitude the serfs bound to the soil served.

The emperor Valerian to his speech. Rigaltius says: He here calls "speech" what he said above the Caesar had written back. Moreover, the emperor, by a speech delivered in the senate, was the proposer to the senate of resolving what then seemed to be for the good of the commonwealth. Of this kind is that speech of Antoninus On Gifts between Husband and Wife, which is cited by Ulpian. Whatever was formerly proposed in the senate by the emperors with the prerogative of an oracle, as about to turn out to the advantage of the commonwealth, was called Speeches: hence all constitutions addressed to the senate were called speeches of the princes. Thus in a law of Theodosius and Valens to the Senate it is said: "By this speech we decree that a father shall succeed without doubt to his infant son dying at any age, whether he, on the death of the child's mother, has performed the office of entering upon the inheritance or of claiming possession of the goods for his infant sons, or has neglected it."

In the cemetery. That is, the burial ground where he had assembled with the Christian people for the solemn worship of God, the emperor Valerian forbidding it in vain; whence, to strike greater terror, he was put to death in that very place. The Roman Martyrology records that he suffered in the cemetery of Callistus, where the martyrdom of Cornelius was also commemorated, and that of blessed Cyprian as well; which is said to have been done so that the holy prelates, who in the time of the Decian persecution had been joined to one another by holiness of life, strength of mind and frequent letters, and had been crowned on the same day, should not be separated in the place of veneration either. I quote the words of Francesco Maria Fiorentini, in his notes on the Roman Martyrology.

And with him Quartus. This seems to be a presbyter, or the name of someone, since he is designated with no addition. The things concerning Felix, Agapetus, Donatianus, Faustinus, Praetextatus, Laurentius, Epolitus, Afra and the Soldiers

165 which are usually added want some author more trustworthy than the common martyrologies.

Prefects in the City. The office of the prefect of the city was to restrain unlawful associations; but by this name Cyprian seems to mean all the other magistrates.

Letter 81.

That frumentarii had been sent to conduct me to Utica. On his journey to Utica the proconsul sent his frumentarii to arrest Cyprian; the same man, on returning to Carthage, made use of the services of the stratores. Both were fit agents for deadly commands. Hence, with all respect to Rigaltius, what is read here and in the Acts agrees well enough. Rigaltius says: The Life of Cyprian, which is said to have been written by his deacon Pontius, displays the charm of rhetorical diction rather than the care of historical narration. So much so that of the deeds of the most holy man which are contained in his own Letters it touches on nothing; not even this, which pertains to his martyrdom: that when he learned that he was being sought by the frumentarii and was to be conducted to Utica, he hid for a while, so as not to be snatched away from his own Carthaginians, in whose sight he longed to undergo martyrdom, so that what he had taught in sermons and writings must be borne for the name of Christ he might also confirm by his own example in dying. He hid, therefore, in a concealed retreat. For so he himself says in this Letter. But where he had his retreat he does not say: prudently, certainly. For it would not have been safe for him then. But after the contest was over, when Pontius the deacon, who was also his companion and intimate in exile, was handing down the life of his bishop to posterity, who would think that he performed this so meagrely and so thinly as not to indicate to what place he had withdrawn on the advice of his dearest friends; indeed, that he passed over the whole history of this retreat? For the fact that he was exiled to Curubis, which we read in the treatise that goes about under the name of Pontius, has nothing to do with this retreat which is in question here. Nor is one who moved to the place to which he had been ordered to go into exile to be said to have hidden from the frumentarii. Moreover, if anyone finds wanting in that little work on the life of Cyprian the trustworthiness or care of the writer, he must be touched with the same want with regard to the acts of the passion which Lazius and Morellius published. For these do not present this retreat of Cyprian from his gardens: only this, that having returned from exile to his gardens, he was summoned from there and conducted to the proconsul. But neither does Augustine mention the frumentarii, having followed certain martyrologies very like those acts. For he related that he was carried in a chariot to his passion between two attendants; the acts, that two chief officers came to the martyr, the strator of the office and the equistrator. These things indeed betray the ignorance or negligence of the writers of that time. Far from the mark has strayed the one who suspects that frumentarii are spoken of here metaphorically, namely the lictors themselves who dragged Christians off to punishment, as if, in the manner of corn-agents, they were storing the Lord's corn in the Lord's granary. One might laugh at this conjecture all the more, since the correct interpretation is quite plain and easy: nor did it take the work of great midnight study to see clearly that Cyprian here means no other frumentarii than that class of men who, counted among the military offices, under the pretext of collecting corn through the various provinces, listened and searched out whether anything was being stirred up against the majesty of Caesar or of the Roman people, seized the authors of plots and disturbances, and conducted them where they had been ordered, or even killed them on the spot. There is moreover in Eusebius, History, book 6, a Letter of Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, writing to a certain Germanus in these words: Sabinus, he was prefect under Decius, sent a frumentarius to search for me. And in very many places in Spartianus, Lampridius and Capitolinus one can find that frumentarii signify spies, messengers, overseers, watchers, searchers, scouts. Thus the emperor Hadrian was so curious, not only about his own household but also about his friends', that he searched out all hidden things through frumentarii; and his friends did not notice that their life was known to the emperor until the emperor himself showed it. Well known is that saying of Capitolinus about Maximinus: it was written to all the provinces, frumentarii having been sent, and it was ordered that whoever had helped Maximinus should be counted among the enemies. Jerome on Obadiah, ch. 1. For those whom

they now call agentes in rebus or veredarii, the ancients named frumentarii. Let what [was noted] on Tertullian concerning the curiosi and beneficiarii be consulted.

Honour will be mutilated. The martyrs were an honour to their Churches, and were likewise themselves to be honoured by them. But owing to the temper of men, whom nothing moderate pleases, deference easily passed over into worship; so much so that the souls lying beneath the altar were everywhere moved up to the altars, and the Angels of the Churches, crowned with martyrdom, were thereafter held to be the guardian Angels of their cities. About our Cyprian, the avenger of his Carthaginians, a memorable story is found in Procopius, History of the Vandals, book 2, ch. 21. The Vandals, while Huneric was still reigning, took the church of Cyprian from the Christians by force, and having at once driven its priests out of it with much dishonour, they themselves thereafter took charge of the sacred rites, as belonging to the Arians. So, as the Libyans were vexed and distressed on this account, they say that Cyprian often appeared to them in a dream and said that the Christians need not be anxious about him at all, for he himself, as time went on, would be his own avenger. And when the story, carried about, reached all the Libyans, they were expecting that some retribution would at some time come upon the Vandals on account of these sacred things, but they could not conjecture how the vision of the dream would ever be fulfilled for them. Now, then, when the emperor's fleet arrived in Libya (for the time, coming round, was already about to bring the festival on the following day), the priests of the Arians, though † [judging] affairs to be in doubt for the Vandals, cleansed the whole sanctuary, and having † the finest of the offerings there and got the lamps ready, and having brought out the treasures from the storerooms, they prepared everything carefully, as each of them happened to be suitably fitted for its use. But things in this uncertainty turned out as I have related above; and the priests of the Arians went off in flight, while the Christians, who hold right belief, came to the church of Cyprian, lit all the lamps, and attended to the sacred rites in the manner in which it is customary for these to be performed; and thus it became known to all what the vision of the dream had foretold. Of this expulsion of the orthodox from the churches dedicated to Cyprian Victor of Vita treats.

I, a bishop set over another Church. He presided over all the Churches of Africa by metropolitan right; for he says in Ep. 46: Our Province is spread more widely, for it has Numidia and the two Mauretanias attached to it. But episcopal right is bound by a certain closer tie: the prayers of the whole Church were offered to God by the bishop's voice; likewise the solemn confession was framed in his words; above all, therefore, that confession which is sealed with blood ought to be sought again from him. So in Epistle 60 he says that in Cornelius the whole Roman Church confessed.

Sentence having been received upon confession. Rigault says: That is, in confession of the name, namely the Christian name. Augustine, against the Letter of Gaudentius: Instructed by these sacred writings, blessed Cyprian said in his Confession: That discipline forbids anyone to offer himself.

And to suffer there. Rigault says: Among you, before the eyes of the Church over which I have been set by God.

Nor let any of you offer himself of his own accord to the Gentiles. Those who provoke the fury of the persecutors and bring death upon themselves are to be called Circumcellions rather than martyrs. And indeed this rashness has for the most part turned out unhappily. Those who were too eager to enter the contest were equally quick to shrink from it; and that hurried course only laid the step towards a fall. Rightly, therefore, did the Church set a brake against this spreading evil, lest overheated and arrogant men should mix public ruin with their private disaster. And the Theologians rightly lay down that men ought not to ask of God absolutely, even in their prayers, that they may be martyrs; since such an act, without the reservation of the divine good pleasure, will seem to flow from presumption or rashness rather than from true hope, or faith, or Christian charity. The Fathers of Elvira themselves, who were by no means favourable to images, decreed in canon 60: If anyone has broken idols and has been killed on the spot, inasmuch as this is not written in the Gospel nor is it found ever to have been done under the Apostles, it is resolved that he is not to be received into the number of the martyrs. Rigault says: That Cyprian said this in his confession

Augustine records, in the place already cited. And in the ancient Acts: To Paternus the proconsul, when he made inquiry, Cyprian said: Since discipline forbids that anyone should offer himself of his own accord, and this also displeases your judgement, they cannot offer themselves, but when sought out by you they will be found, that is, in their own cities. The antiquity of these Acts, therefore, is confirmed by the clear testimony of a very great man. It is indeed to be wished that what we know to have been ancient we might also possess as entirely genuine.

We shall arrange in common. Rigaltius says: Not without reason does he so diligently impress this: In common. He foresaw the vices of monarchy, and shrank from the kindling of a very great evil. Meanwhile perhaps he may be said to take counsel in common who provides for the public good, even alone.

About the year 246.

Book to Donatus

On the Grace of God.

Caecilius Cyprian. The same as Thascius. See Ep. 67, in Pamelius's numbering 69, and also the Acts of the martyrdom of Cyprian. Hence, with little consideration, in the Roman synod of seventy bishops which is attributed to Gelasius, the little works of Cyprian the martyr are admitted, but the writings of Thascius Cyprian are condemned as apocryphal.

To Donatus. The Speyer edition, almost coeval with the art of printing, entitles it thus: Book of Cyprian to Donatus. And indeed very many manuscript codices agree; in them, at the very threshold, the customary words of an epistolary writing and the opening greeting are more often lacking. Moreover, in no copies, whether printed or written, is a closing farewell added anywhere. I grant that St Augustine calls it a letter; but it will be necessary to remember likewise that the treatises On the Lord's Prayer, On Mortality, On Works and Almsgiving, On the Dress of Virgins and On Patience are everywhere marked by him with the same title. That is, inasmuch as the author, after these books were written, would send them to a particular friend or to the community of the whole Church, which is established to have been done in most cases; or in the way that short treatises and little books which do not exceed the measure of a letter are commonly called letters. The character of this work is altogether remote from the epistolary, and in truth this writing seems to have been composed with the same purpose as Tertullian's Apologeticus and Minucius Felix's Octavius and the like, namely as vindications of the Christian religion. For, as the most learned Rigaltius rightly observes, the more learned men, when they first professed their name in the Church, were accustomed to compose apologies for the sect which they had embraced and for their own way of life. But what the same learned man adds, that in Augustine's time this work was customarily placed first in the copies, and that this is evident from the book On Christian Doctrine, is not equally clear. For in the place cited the most holy Father adduces the passage in this form: in a certain Letter; but if he had taken account of the order, he would without doubt have called it the first. Indeed, the order of the works of this writer varies so much that neither in printed books nor in manuscripts (I speak of a thing thoroughly ascertained) does either this treatise or any other hold a fixed place.

On the grace of God. We retain this title as the simplest and as set by Cyprian himself, having first said this, that this and almost all the rest were added by the ingenuity of the copyists. For Pontius seems certainly to have had this in view when he says: Who would have shown the profit of grace advancing through faith? For although in that place his aim is to make a defence of the blessed Martyr's withdrawal, bringing forward those writings which the Church of God would have lacked if Cyprian had been snatched away in the first storm of the Decian persecution; yet since, from the things done afterwards during his withdrawal over a period of ten years, even the earlier writings gained credit and light as if by interest, Pontius not without reason attributed these too to that same withdrawal and to the safety thereby obtained.

1. You rightly admonish. Rufinus, in the prologue to Origen's homilies on Numbers, mentions this passage, saying: I shall use to you, brother, the words of the blessed Martyr: You rightly admonish, dearest Donatus.

I remember that I promised. These and very many things that follow seem to have been inserted for ornament, after the example of the writings of Plato and Cicero; and especially of Minucius Felix in his Octavius, whom Cyprian plainly imitates in this whole setting. Tullius reminds Varro of this manner of writing in the preface to the Academic Questions: "I think it will happen that, when you read it, you will wonder that we said among ourselves what we never said; but you know the custom of dialogues." Foolishly, then, a certain smatterer, lest perhaps something should seem lacking, forged a letter in Donatus' own name, to open the way for Cyprian's reply; indeed it, although found in a single copy, won credence from Pamelius, such was his easiness, and praise from Cardinal Baronius. But lest the reader suspect that a fraud has been practised upon him, it will not irk me to have added the fine little letter. It runs thus: "I believe you remember, most holy Cyprian, what chatter we had among the orators; one mind, one thought, undivided reading. Why are we not thus strengthened in our souls in divine reading too? Or was it not always our thought that we should believe together?"

The vintage granting leave. Although Christians held the festivals of the Gentiles to be impious and profane, they judged the vintage holidays more mildly, inasmuch as these professed relief after the labours of harvest rather than the worship of deities. And therefore the Christian emperors, while abolishing the others, retained these. Law Omnes dies, Code, On Holidays: "It shall be lawful for those days of holiday alone to remain which the more indulgent year takes in two months for rest from labour, for softening the summer heats and for gathering the autumn fruits," etc.

With studied talk, that is, with speech composed with study and care, such as the μῦθοι of the rhetoricians are wont to be. Below it is said, "we give our studies to the ears"; and Tertullian, On the Shows: "Where there is pleasure, there is study, through which, namely, pleasure has its savour; where there is study, there is also rivalry, through which study has its savour." By the word fabulae, moreover, the narration of a thing done is meant; so Minucius Felix: "We were taking our way with tales beguiling it," etc.

Let us seek this seat. St Augustine cites this passage as an example of embroidered diction, flowing loose in a foaming compass of words. He perhaps depicts those very gardens which Pontius records that he sold when converted to the faith, and into which he withdrew a little before his martyrdom.

II. May it come into your breast. That I may earn your goodwill.

Divine indulgence. Our author everywhere understands divine grace by this word, as does Tertullian also. Because of its wonderful and sudden effects it is presently called "the short way of grace". But this whole passage is drawn from Tertullian, book On Baptism: "Is it not to be wondered at that death is washed away by a bath?" And a little after: "We ourselves also wonder, but because we believe; unbelief, however, wonders and does not believe; for it wonders at simple things as though vain, at magnificent things as though impossible," etc.

Should put off (exponeret). Should lay aside: a sense very common in our author and in Tertullian.

Inborn through the mould of matter. Natural evils, overlaid as it were with the mould and filth of the old man from whom they came forth: to which are opposed the voluntary ones, transferred by long habit into a second nature, which our author calls "acquired". The third Bodleian codex not badly puts genitum; but I change nothing lightly.

III. That death of crimes. Baptism, namely, in which we die with Christ (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12); yet so that thenceforth we live to God and to His righteousness: as the Apostle concludes from it in the places cited above, and elsewhere throughout.

Has begun to belong to faith. If we now do anything worthy of praise, it is to be credited to divine grace; if anything was committed formerly, the most merciful God will impute it to human error; see (Acts 17:30; 1 Tim. 1:13–14).

Shone in. This reading is approved, and taken from the African dialect. So Tertullian, book On the Soul, "The swarm of Valentinus

the seed of wisdom shone into the soul." Yet the reading that has put influxit ("flowed in") is not to be rejected altogether. Min. Fel.: Weights would have founded the earth, and although liquid has flowed into the sea, etc. But inluxit ("shone upon") could also have been said.

IV. With unfallen firmness. That is, stable, upright, without a fall. It is the same form as when Tertullian, Against Marcion, book 4, says, if a brother should die childless. By this word he seems to censure the lapsed for some disgraceful act.

It is given according to liberty. You can do as much as you believe. So below: The Spirit, once received, enjoys its own liberty; and elsewhere: Giving to believers as much as one believes oneself to receive. See ch. 42, book 3, To Quirinus.

For the healing of the suffering. The reading formerly received was in the marrow of the young, etc., a rather harsh phrase, but one not at all foreign to the dialect of the Africans. The sense would certainly run most conveniently thus, the author saying that by Baptism a power is given by which the virus of poisons fixed by nature in the inmost marrow is extinguished, and the stain of souls, conceived by the will from evil habits, is purged. This is in the same sense as what is said above, Or what is innate by the decay of matter, etc. But I change nothing.

Unclean and wandering spirits. Demons are everywhere called unclean spirits in the Gospel, and they are likewise also called wandering (Job 1; Matt. 12:48; 1 Pet. 5:8). But after, by the Lord's promise (Mark, last chapter, 17), these signs were to follow those who believed, that in His name they would cast out demons, etc., and that right and power was held as established for all Christians, even those from the common people, so that Tertullian in the Apology ventured to pledge that, if anyone agitated by a demon were bidden by any Christian to speak, that spirit would confess itself a demon as truly as elsewhere it falsely confesses itself a god; and unless the demons, not daring to lie to a Christian, confessed themselves, then and there pour out the blood of that most impudent Christian. Hence it came about that, as among the Jews (Acts 19:13), worthless men and impostors passed themselves off as exorcists, so that they are censured even by imperial law, Digest, law 1, title On Extraordinary Cognizances: If he has used incantations, if he has used imprecations, if (to use the common word of impostors) he has exorcized. To counter this evil, the Church saw to it that approved men were assigned to this office. Moreover, since most of the heathen had wholly sold themselves into the power of demons through nefarious mysteries, they could not be claimed for the service of Christ, which is true liberty, nor could room be left for a better guest without the possessor in bad faith being ejected; hence the same men who had been in charge of instructing catechumens also discharged the office of exorcists. See canon 10 of Antioch and canon 26 of Laodicea, where at the mention of exorcists Balsamon says, exorcists, that is, catechists, and, some undertook to exorcize, that is, to catechize unbelievers, not having received this through episcopal imposition of hands, etc.; likewise Harmenopulus in the Epitome of the canons, section 1, title 9, interprets exorcists as catechists. In the Theodosian Code, law 121, On Decurions, exorcists, as clerics of higher merit, are exempted from civil burdens. The formula for ordaining an exorcist is found in the Fourth Council of Carthage, ch. 7. Moreover, not only presbyters but even bishops themselves discharged this office when occasion arose; Paulinus reports it of Ambrose, Possidius of Augustine, to pass over others.

Hidden blow. In To Demetrianus, below, he says with spiritual scourges, and in On Idols, to be beaten with scourges by the working of the hidden majesty. So also Minucius Felix: Adjured by the true and only God, unwilling and wretched, they shudder within the bodies; and either leap out at once or vanish gradually, as the faith of the sufferer assists or the grace of the healer breathes upon them.

Not yet the body and limbs. That is, in the meantime, before we have changed. Although we are still weighed down by the burden of the body, yet we are not wholly blinded by the cloud of the world. The Holy Spirit promises very many things for the future, but He also makes very many present. We hope indeed, but we also possess.

V. Wars divided everywhere. Below he says, after manifold battles scattered over the whole world.

VI. It is filled into sap. The Speyer and Rembolt editions read, The body is filled into dryness with stronger foods, and the fat of the dew. And would that other editors had so simply

and candidly been willing to err; that is, by setting down what they found in the exemplar; for from that point the passage to the true reading would have been very easy. But after Erasmus, by his critical method, had put assidui nidoris in place of arvinae roris, unmindful of the brawn, and other copyists had with equal success emended it to ad ruinam corporis, the sore was almost past hope, and, without inspection of the earliest exemplars, utterly incurable.

In costly clothing. Juvenal looks to this, Satire 3: The elegant young men of the plume-snatcher. It contributed to luxury that the eyes should feed not only on human but also on noble blood, and that a handsome face and splendid clothing should commend the spectacle. Moreover, that the condemned were customarily clothed in the garment sacred to the god for whom the games were instituted is established from the Acts of Felicity and Perpetua, in which the mantle of Saturn was put on them.

To the beasts not for a crime. Pamelius and Rigaltius read: Beasts fight against the beasts. But the author is dealing with men, whom he is by no means to be thought to have called beasts, coldly and with vulgar abuse.

The mother too pays. She buys a convenient seat for a price. Perhaps she would not have been present at the spectacle, had she not been drawn there by her son's peril.

VII. The ancient crimes of songs. Pamelius and Rigaltius read: Ancient crimes in song; the manuscripts. Supported by their votes, with the learned Gronovius concurring, I have thought it right to depart from them.

Error in incests. With all respect to Rigaltius and the others who substituted horror, I follow the manuscripts and Gronovius. The thing is well known: the plots of almost all plays owe their stage to errors. Hence the banquet of Thyestes, the parricides of Hercules and Theseus, and (that which fills both pages of the tragedians, and which Cyprian has in view in this place) the incest of Oedipus. Tertullian confirms this reading, who in the Apology says on this very matter: As soon as error has struck, from then on the transmission of incest will go forward, the line creeping on together with the crime. And again, in the book Ad Nationes, speaking of incest, he has: Let it be exposed neither to ignorance, nor to error, nor to chance, etc. But that horror should be written for errore is not an isolated slip. The Spires edition, Pemb. and Erasmus above read vitae prioris horroribus, for erroribus.

The endurance of incestuous shamefulness. Every unnatural practice, even if not with kin, is so called. Thus Vestal virgins who had been violated were to be charged with incest. But meanwhile none are so closely related as those of the same sex: among whom, as our author rightly says, sin is committed against the law and covenant of birth.

VIII. He believes him privy. That is, one who alone is privy to his own deed; whom an informer cannot drag into court.

Siding with vices. Standing on the side of vice, and befitting the worst morals.

IX. By the Twelve Tables. After a colony of Roman citizens was led out to Carthage, that city thenceforth became, under another name, the rival of Rome. Hence among them likewise theatres, baths, fora, the 12 Tables of the laws, indeed even a capitol; see below, On the Lapsed.

Innocence is not preserved even there where it is defended. It is protected, kept.

By capital fraud. Such, namely, as is excepted in the Digest, On the Aediles' Edict. Further, a capital penalty is one that involves death or loss of citizenship, law 103, On the Meaning of Words. Tertullian, Against Marcion, book 4, ch. 9: Seven stains of capital offences he names: idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, adultery, debauchery, false witness, fraud. So On Penitence: The graver and deadly sins, which do not admit pardon: homicide, idolatry, fraud, denial, blasphemy, and of course adultery and fornication, and any other violation of the temple of God. These are almost nothing else than a distribution of the three notorious crimes into various branches. For to these the Catholic Church herself granted a single penance.

The lie of charges. False accusations. So Tertullian, On the Crown: If the lie of divinity is what the devil

works, a liar from the beginning in this guise also, he had without doubt foreseen those too in whom the lie of [his] divinity was to be acted out.

The guilty, who do not even perish with the innocent. A twofold injustice: the innocent perish, the wicked are preserved.

The deserting attendant has befouled. He has left [him] naked.

X. Of a disappointing show. Largesses, food-doles, gifts thrown to the crowd and remissions of taxes really benefit the people to whom they are given; but shows only corrupt. It is fair, therefore, that in these gifts both should alike be disappointed, and that what the people received to no purpose, the candidate for honours should lose.

XIV. The Lord's gift. Baptism, namely. Elsewhere here it is everywhere called the Grace of God. Below, the free gift from God.

Let it see to itself, what [is done] against us. An expression almost constant with our author and with Tertullian, in the Apology: Let the outward appearance see to itself, so long as the quality of the matter is the same; let the form see to itself, so long as it is that very body of God.

XV. Constant prayer, or reading. What follows proves that the reading of the Holy Scriptures is meant. For in those ages those sacred volumes were not forbidden to laymen, nay, not even to those only just baptized.

Let us illumine with the light of righteousness. I agree with the learned Gronovius, who judges that it should be read so, with the manuscript copies in support. In the book On Works and Almsgiving it is said: The sun beams, the day illumines, just as very many codices read in this very place, a line or two before. Hence among the writers of the middle age luminare means to paint, and in our vernacular tongue a luminator is called a painter. Meanwhile it must not be concealed that illuminare and inluminare are read very often.

XVI. Patience from goodness. Patience in keeping with goodness and flowing from it, by an expression almost constant with Tertullian. Against Marcion, book II, he says: God alone happy from the property of incorruptibility. In the book On Patience: It keeps every display of wisdom on the side of patience. A little above, our author [has] the free gift from God. D. Gronovius suspects that the period should be framed thus: A mind made easy by the goodness of patience, safe towards God by solid faith, the saving hearing delights. With this conjecture the second codex of the most learned Vossius agrees.

Undertake this office according to custom. Tertullian describes this custom at greater length in the Apology: We do not recline before prayer to God has first been tasted; as much is eaten as the hungry desire, as much is drunk as is useful for the chaste. They are filled as those who remember that even during the night God is to be worshipped by them. They converse as those who know that God hears. After the water for the hands and the lights, each one, as he is able from the Holy Scriptures or from his own wit, is called into the midst to sing to God. Hence it is proved how he has drunk; likewise prayer ends the banquet. Likewise Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VII, speaking of the morals of Christians, says: his whole life is a holy festival; for instance, his sacrifices are prayers and praises, and before the feast readings of the Scriptures, and psalms and hymns during the feast, etc. Just as, namely, Christian piety took over other rites from the Jewish church, so it borrowed this custom too of sacred readings and of solemnly giving thanks for food. Nay indeed, this very thing was sanctioned by the public religions of the human race. Before they ate, they made it a custom to pour libations to the gods, says Censorinus. Hence it came about that among the heathen people were proverbially branded, as utterly impious and wicked, as those eating unsacrificed holy things, and as without libation. And thence in the writings of the ancients they commonly denoted the flesh of animals by hiereia. All the less to be borne are those who, with no preface of prayer before God, hold dog-like feasts, and like Harpies fly upon the food set before them. In this place, therefore, the criticism of Scaliger seems superfluous, who says that the period should be framed thus: Undertake this office rather with your own mouth. With him Morellius agreed.

Year 247.

Book on the Vanity of Idols.

On the Vanity of Idols. What was formerly prefixed in the printed editions in place of a title ought in truth to be called the Argument, or summary of the contents, of the following work. We retain only those words which seem best suited to designating the writing. It should further be noted that the very reasons which persuade us that the little book To Donatus was written by Cyprian immediately after he received the faith likewise indicate the origin of this wholly apologetic treatise. Accordingly, since the former is assigned to the vintage holidays at the end of the year 246, this one will not undeservedly be assigned to the beginning of the following year, that is, 247. St Jerome, Ep. 84, to Magnus, adorns this treatise with splendid praise: With what brevity, with what knowledge of all histories, with what splendour of words and thoughts has Cyprian touched upon [the theme] that idols are not gods? Meanwhile it must not be concealed that not a few things were carried over here word for word from Tertullian, and very many from Minucius; but the first Christians had one heart and one soul, and none of them said that anything of what he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common, as is said in Acts 4:32, so that there could be no action for plagiarism. Hence Athenagoras, Justin, Clement, Tatian, Arnobius, Augustine, and all the Fathers who wrote against the worship of the Gentiles, fought with the same weapons. Indeed, what one would least expect, Varro, Cicero and Pliny, to pass over the Greeks, and other pagan writers here and there as well, had used them before. Hence St Augustine, speaking of this matter in his book On Baptism against Petilian, reports not without reason: Cyprian, disputing about the one true God against the worshippers of many gods, brings forward many testimonies from the books of those whom they regard as illustrious authors. For what was more suitable for removing the odium of the Gentiles, who accused the Christians of atheism on the ground that they despised their deities, than to make it plain, by bringing forward the verdicts of the most learned among the pagans, that these had thought the same as the Christians about the gods? Further, Pontius, designating this little book by sufficiently clear indications, says: Through whom were the blasphemous Gentiles to be overcome, by the things they heap upon us being struck back upon themselves? With what justification that author mentioned this writing, together with some others which had preceded Cyprian's withdrawal, in an altogether unsuitable place, we have said above.

I. They were once kings. Or at least of royal stock. Thus Ino, or Leucothoe, daughter of Cadmus king of Thebes; the Tyndaridae, sons of the king of Oebalia; Hercules, [son] of Jupiter, etc. For a mortal to help a mortal is to be god, says Pliny, bk 2, ch. 7, and this is the road to eternal glory. By this road went the Roman nobles. By this road now, with heavenly step, together with his children, walks the greatest ruler of every age, Vespasian Augustus, coming to the aid of an exhausted state. This is the most ancient custom of rendering thanks to those who deserve well, that they be enrolled among the deities. So too Cicero, bk 2, On the Nature of the Gods: The life of men and common custom have adopted the practice of raising to heaven, by fame and goodwill, men outstanding in their benefactions. Hence Hercules, hence Castor and Pollux, hence Aesculapius, hence Liber too, hence Romulus, etc. He has similar things in bk 3 as well. Rightly, then, does Cyprian call these gods, not those whom the wise, but those whom the common people worship.

II. Castor and Pollux. If it were worth the trouble to change a matter of slight moment, one ought to restore Castores here; for so writes Minucius, from whom these things seem to have been taken, and very many manuscripts support it.

That Hercules may put off the man. I do not see, says the same Cicero, how he to whom torches were brought on Mount Oeta, as Accius says, passed from that burning into the eternal home of his father.

The cave of Jupiter in Crete. Three Jupiters, says Cicero in the place cited above, are counted, of whom the first and second were born in Arcadia; the third, the Cretan, son of Saturn, whose tomb is shown on that island.

To stamp coins. Tertullian, Apology, ch. 10. From him first [came]

the tablets, and the coin stamped with an image, and thence he presides over the treasury. Yet the first to strike coins at Rome was Servius Tullius, if Pliny is to be believed.

Of rusticity. Of the country, although Papias makes a distinction: rusticity belongs to manners; rustication belongs to work; cultivation belongs to the land.

But the Moors. Tertullian in the Apology: Each province and city has its own god; as Syria has Astarte, as Arabia Dusares, as the Norici Belenus, as Africa Caelestis, as Mauretania its own petty kings.

Worship. So Tertullian, On Idolatry: that idolatry is worship directed towards men.

That this is so, Alexander the Great. Rigaltius contends that these words in fact refer to the other Alexander, namely Polyhistor: a conjecture that pleased him so much that he thrust it in three times, namely in this place, in the notes on Tertullian, and also in those on Minucius. So, it seems, Cyprian, Athenagoras, Minucius and Augustine were deceived, and indeed the most approved writers even among the heathen, who all report a letter written by Alexander the Great to his mother Olympias, in which this secret concerning the birth of the gods is said to have been extorted through fear of his very power. Tertullian alone, if Rigaltius is to be believed, is said to have grasped the actual fact; for he shows that these things are to be attributed to the tutor of Cornelius Lentulus, when he says, What the Egyptians relate, and Alexander sets in order, and his mother reads. Here he would have the words Alexander sets in order refer to a compiler (συντάκτην); and what follows, his mother reads, he says plainly denotes some writings or other dedicated to the man's mother. For my part, it is not yet established to me that the Egyptian priests so greatly feared the power of a petty Greek slave, nor have I yet learned that a book was inscribed by Polyhistor to his poor little mother. This one thing I know, that the word digerere among our writers signifies nothing more than an account of some kind of a matter. Thus Tertullian, in the book On Patience, says: If the discussion is about some good, the matter requires us to review also the contrary of that good; for you will better illuminate what is to be pursued if you likewise set in order what is to be avoided, etc. So too Pontius: That the example may be set down in writing. Further, who will believe that Cyprian could have erred in citing a volume which he held to be notable? or Athenagoras, who says expressly that these conversations took place with the priests at Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes? or that Augustine was deluded, who three times in the books On the City of God cites this letter, and says that these things were disclosed to Alexander by the priest Leo, and urges his readers to go to the Letter itself and recall what they have read? But let Plutarch settle the dispute, who was as versed as any other in the affairs of Alexander, and a trustworthy witness in history. He says in the Life of Alexander: Alexander, in a letter to his mother, says that certain secret oracles were given to him, which he himself on his return would tell to her alone, etc. It is said also that, having heard the philosopher Psammon in Egypt, he accepted above all of the things said that all men are ruled by God, for that which rules and prevails in each is divine, etc.

Why are they not born even today? Pliny, book 2, chapter 7: To believe that there are marriages among the gods, and yet that in so long an age none is born of them, and that some are aged and always grey, others youths and boys, black-coloured, winged, lame, hatched from eggs, and living and dying on alternate days, belongs almost to the ravings of children.

4. Perfidy came forth. That is, it succeeded happily. So below, the greatness of the race came forth. See Tertullian, On the Spectacles, and Against Marcion, book 1.

The goddess Cloacina too. Tatius consecrated an image of Cloacina found in the Cloaca Maxima; and because he did not know whose likeness it was, he gave it a name from the place. Arnobius, book 1.

Fear and Pallor. It is argued likewise in Cicero, book 3 On the Nature of the Gods: Love, guile, fear, toil, envy, fate, old age, death, darkness, misery, lamentation, the Graces, fraud, obstinacy, the Fates, the Hesperides, dreams: all of whom they say were born of Erebus and Night. Either, then, these monstrous things must be accepted, or the first ones must be done away with.

From bereavements Orbona. All these in the most approved manuscripts

are lacking, and they disturb the sense; yet because they appear in the Beneventan, the Veronese, the Corbie [manuscript], and in at least one of the four Vossian [manuscripts], we retain them. Mention of Orbona occurs in Pliny, book 2, and in Cicero, book 3 On the Nature of the Gods. "Parents bereft of children are under the guardianship of Orbona," says Arnobius. This perhaps gave rise to Suburbanae, which was the received reading. Or else, from "Orbona for bereavements" (orbitatibus Orbona), by inverting the last letters, "from suburban Bereavement" (ab Orbitate suburbana) was made.

But Thracian Mars. Lycophron calls him μαμερτόν.

There is also a Bald Venus. Lactantius, book 1, chapter 20: "When the city had been taken by the Gauls, the Romans besieged on the Capitol, having made engines from the women's hair, consecrated a temple to Bald Venus."

Regulus observed the auspices. Valerius Maximus, book 1, in the chapter on religion observed, says: "In those things that pertain to the keeping of religion I do not know whether M. Attilius Regulus did not surpass all." Then, after a few words in between, he adds: "The immortal gods could surely have softened that savage cruelty; but, so that the glory of Attilius might be the brighter, they allowed the Carthaginians to follow their own ways."

Mancinus kept to religion. Only so far, namely, that after prodigies had occurred at Lanuvium when he was about to go to Spain, he was frightened, turned back from his journey, and made for Genua; and there, having gone on board a boat, he was frightened by another prodigy, which nevertheless he disregarded. See Valerius Maximus, book 1, the chapter on prodigies.

Greedy chickens. Cicero, book 2 On Divination: "Flaminius did not obey the auspices: and so he perished with his army. But a year later Paulus obeyed them: did he fall any less in the battle of Cannae with his army?"

C. Caesar before. Cicero, On Divination, book 2: "What of Caesar himself? When he was warned by the chief soothsayer not to cross over into Africa before the winter solstice, did he not cross? Had he not done so, all the forces of his adversaries would have gathered into one place." So too Suetonius, Julius, chapter 95.

6. The poets too know these as demons. It is to be noted that the word was formerly of neutral, indeed of laudatory, meaning: and these intelligences could not have received their name from anything better than from knowledge. Hence in the sacred writings evil spirits are called daemones only five times, but everywhere they are called daemonia. But after the Valentinians and other Gnostics proclaimed their δαίμονας, or Aeons, as founders of the world and arbiters of things, the fathers of the Church called the evil spirits daemones, but the good ones they always called Angels.

Chief among them Hostanes. Pliny, book 30, chapter 1: "The first who, as far as I find, wrote on it was Ostanes, who accompanied Xerxes, king of the Persians, in the war that he brought upon Greece; and he scattered, as it were, the seeds of this monstrous art, infecting the world along the way wherever he had travelled. It was this Ostanes above all who drove the peoples of the Greeks not merely to an eagerness but to a frenzy for that knowledge."

Plato and Hermes. The one in the Timaeus, the other in the Poemander.

7. They disturb sleep. To which perhaps those words of the Apostle Jude refer: "dreaming, they defile the flesh" (Jude 8).

9. But what temple. Tertullian, On the Spectacles, chapter 10, has: "We spit upon temples no less than upon tombs." Minucius Felix: "They despise temples as tombs." Likewise Arnobius, book 1, and Clement of Alexandria in the Protrepticus, and others of the Fathers inveigh against those sepulchres of the dead and enclosures of the deities. Meanwhile they always admitted churches, "the Lord's upper rooms", "houses of prayer", areas, and places sacred to the worship of almighty God. Something similar may be observed in the word ara, or βωμός, which the Christians always shrank from; but the name altare, or θυσιαστήριον, they readily embraced.

And do not seek a name of God. "No one is able to speak a name for the ineffable God," etc. Justin, Apology 2. So any name whatever of God is unutterable. Minucius: "Do not seek a name for God; God is His name."

The common people in many things naturally confess God. This matter furnished the subject of a special treatise of Tertullian, namely On the Testimony of the Soul.

14. That they might give eyes for the knowledge of the truth. An expression borrowed from Tertullian. "If the swallow has blinded her chicks,

she knows how to give them eyes again from her own celandine." He uses this word likewise in the book On Modesty.

Which is Christ. Being now members of the mystical body, [they are] henceforth sharers in His glory.

About the year 248.

Of the Testimonies to Quirinus against the Jews

Preface to the first two books.

It had to be obeyed. That Cyprian wrote these treatises, and that they were formerly called the books of Testimonies, is vouched for not only by Bede and Gennadius and other authors of later times; Pelagius, Jerome and Augustine also attest the very same thing. Namely, Pelagius, when writing books of Testimonies, "confesses himself an imitator, indeed a completer, of the work of the blessed martyr Cyprian writing to Quirinus," as Jerome says, Against the Pelagians, book 1, chapter 9. Augustine repeats this in almost the same words, book 4 Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapters 8 and 10. Indeed it will be possible to observe that, in the judgement of the aforesaid Fathers, not only the first two books but also the third are to be attributed to Cyprian. For those passages from Job 25, 1 John 1 and Psalm 51 (cited by them from Cyprian's book to Quirinus) are found not in either of the earlier books but in the last. Indeed Jerome, in the most explicit words, indicates not only the book but even the very chapter, saying that they are placed "in the fifty-fourth heading of the third book," where they are still found. So to Rigault, when he asks "where the third book comes from, which the old edition certainly does not have," it will be possible to answer that it came forth from the same Cyprian as the earlier ones, though somewhat later.

That this treatise was sent only after Cyprian's episcopate [had begun] would be shown by the addressing of Quirinus under the title of son, were that not missing in certain manuscripts, and were it not also established that not only bishops but presbyters too addressed their disciples by that title. That Quirinus was a neophyte at the time when this writing was directed to him is suggested by this: Cyprian says, "Meanwhile may they profit you as you read, for forming the first outlines of the faith"; and further on, "You will be able to drink more abundantly and be filled more copiously, if you too come with us to the same fountains of divine fullness, to drink alongside us." Hence, if these things relate to the Quirinus named in Letters 77 and 78 almost on an equal footing with Cyprian (which seems quite probable), it will appear that they were written long before the last period of Cyprian's life. Or if perhaps these little books were sent somewhat later, I should still have no doubt that the mass of material was collected and arranged long before. Accordingly, that reading of D. Vossius's manuscript codex which says, "The little book was arranged beforehand in a brief compendium," was not altogether absurd. Indeed, whoever carefully considers the method of writing used by Cyprian will readily notice that his first study after receiving the faith was not only to become thoroughly versed in the Holy Scriptures but also to have them ready to hand, accurately arranged as it were under common headings. For it is his custom, and almost a constant one, that whatever subject he is dealing with, he sets out the testimonies of Holy Scripture in a mass and brings them into the battle line as if from a most fully stocked armoury. The reader will not at all regret having observed this almost at the threshold of the work.

Finally, since the formula under which the testimonies of Holy Scripture are cited throughout these writings, and the very names of the Holy Books, are altogether different from those that occur in the rest of the work, scarcely any other reason can be given for this variation (since it is established that both had the same author) than that they were written at different times; and so it must be said that this treatise preceded all the rest that follow.

I did indeed hope that, from this ample gleaning of the Scriptures contained in this treatise, some step could have been laid towards the restoration of the Latin version that preceded Jerome's. And certainly, if only