The Five Books Against Marcion — Book 4, Chapter 21

I have no doubt that ten was the word written by our author; for some Greek copies read δέκα, and Ambrose in his Hexaëmeron, book vi. chap. ii., mentions the same number (Fr. Junius).

2 Kings iv. 42–44.

Luke ix. 20.

Recensebat.

Luke ix. 21.

Utique.

Immo.

Luke ix. 22.

See below, chaps. xl.–xliii.

Sic quoque.

Luke ix. 24.

Certe.

Compare above, chap. x., towards the end.

Jam tunc.

Dan. iii. 25, 26.

Ista.

Decucurrerunt.

Isa. lvii. i.

We have, by understanding res, treated these adjectives as nouns. Rigalt. applies them to the doctrina of the sentence just previous. Perhaps, however, “persecutione” is the noun.

Luke ix. 26.

Materia conveniat.

Ordo.

Perorantibus.

Fœditatem.

Ipsius etiam carnis indignitatem; because His flesh, being capable of suffering and subject to death, seemed to them unworthy of God. So Adv. Judæos, chap. xiv., he says: “Primo sordidis indutus est, id est carnis passibilis et mortalis indignitate.” Or His “indignity” may have been εἶδος οὐκ ἄξιον τυραννίδος, His “unkingly aspect” (as Origen expresses it, Contra Celsum, 6); His “form of a servant,” or slave, as St. Paul says. See also Tertullian’s De Patientia, iii. (Rigalt.)

Coagulatur. [Job x. 10.]

Ex feminæ humore.

Pecus. Julius Firmicus, iii. 1, uses the word in the same way: “Pecus intra viscera matris artuatim concisum a medicis proferetur.” [Jul. Firmicus Maternus, floruit circa, a.d. 340.]

Such is probably the meaning of “non decem mensium cruciatu deliberatus.” For such is the situation of the infant in the womb, that it seems to writhe (cruciari) all curved and contracted (Rigalt.). Latinius read delibratus instead of deliberatus, which means, “suspended or poised in the womb as in a scale.” This has my approbation. I would compare De Carne Christi, chap. iv. (Fr. Junius). Oehler reads deliberatus in the sense of liberatus.

Statim lucem lacrimis auspicatus.

Primo retinaculi sui vulnere: the cutting of the umbilical nerve. [Contrast Jer. Taylor, on the Nativity, Opp. I. p. 34.]

Nec sale ac melle medicatus. Of this application in the case of a recent childbirth we know nothing; it seems to have been meant for the skin. See Pliny, in his Hist. Nat. xxii. 25.

Nec pannis jam sepulturæ involucrum initiatus.

Volutatus per immunditias.

Vix.

Tarde.

Expositus.

i.e., he never passed through stages like these.

Veritate.

Debuit pronuntiasse.

Ps. viii. 6.

Ps. xxii. 6.

Isa. liii. 5.

Se deposuit.

Ad meritum confusionis.

Quod illum finxisti.

Book 4 · Chapter 21

Notes