[272:2] Rev. i. 16.
[272:3] Ps. lxvii. 1, 2.
[275:1] A.D. 96 to A.D. 98.
[275:2] A.D. 98 to A.D. 117.
[276:1] Origen, "Contra Celsum," i. Sec. 67. See also i. Sec. 26.
[276:2] Origen, "Contra Celsum," iii. Sec. 29.
[277:1] Justin Martyr, "Apol." ii. 61. Edit, Paris, 1615.
[277:2] The Peshito, or old Syriac version, is supposed to have been
made in the first half of the second century.--Westcott "On the Canon,"
pp. 264, 265. There are traces of the existence of a Latin version in
the time of Tertullian, or before the close of the second
century.--Ibid., p. 275. "Two versions into the dialects of Upper and
Lower Egypt--the Thebaic (Sahidic) and Memphitic--date from the close of
the third century."--Ibid. pp. 415, 416.
[278:1] See Middleton's "Inquiry," pp. 3, 9.
[278:2] See Kaye's "Tertullian," pp. 98-101. Edition, Cambridge, 1826.
[278:3] Tertullian states that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius became
friendly to the Christians, in consequence of a remarkable interposition
of Providence in favour of his army, in a war with the Marcomanni and
the Quadi. It was alleged that, in answer to the prayers of a body of
Christian soldiers, afterwards known as the _Thundering Legion_, the
imperial troops were relieved by rain, whilst a thunderstorm confounded
the enemy. It is quite certain that the Roman army was rescued from
imminent peril by a seasonable shower; but it is equally clear that the
emperor attributed his deliverance, not to the God of the Christians,
but to Jupiter Pluvius, and that a certain section of the Roman soldiers
was known long before by the name of the Thundering Legion. There is no
evidence that Marcus Aurelius ever became friendly to the Christians.
See Lardner. "Heathen Testimonies," "Works," vii. 176-188.
[279:1] See Middleton's "Inquiry," p. 84. Edition, Dublin, 1749. Bishop
Kaye has remarked that, in the writings of Tertullian, "the only power
of the exercise of which specific instances are alleged, was that of
exorcising evil spirits." "Kaye's Tertullian," p. 461. From the symptoms
mentioned it would appear that the individuals with whom the exorcists
succeeded were epileptics.
[279:2] Irenaeus, who seems to have been not unfavourable to the
Montanists, speaks of the gift of tongues as possessed by some in his
age, and yet he himself, as a missionary, was obliged to struggle with
the difficulties of a foreign language. "Adv. Haeres," v., c. 6, and
"Praef." ad. 1.
[279:3] When
|