a gentium sapientibus admitteretur Officiosa haec mendacia
vocabant bono fine exeogitata." (Quoted in Taylor's Diegesis, p. 44, and
Giles' Hebrew and Christian Records, vol. ii. p. 19.)
[436:1] See the Vision of Hermas, b. 2, c. iii.
[436:2] Mosheim, vol. i. p. 197. Quoted in Taylor's Diegesis, p. 47.
[436:3] Dr. Giles: Hebrew and Christian Records, vol. ii. p. 99.
[436:4] "Continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved
away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was
preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made
a minister." (Colossians, i. 23.)
[436:5] "Being crafty, I caught you with guile." (II. Cor. xii. 16.)
[436:6] "For if the truth of God had more abounded _through my lie_ unto
his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner." (Romans, iii. 7.)
[437:1] "Si me tamen audire velis, mallem te paenas has dicere
indefinitas quam infinitas. Sed veniet dies, cum non minus absurda,
habebitur et odiosa haec opinio quam transubstantiatio hodie." (De Statu
Mort., p. 304. Quoted in Taylor's Diegesis, p. 43.)
[437:2] Quoted in Taylor's Syntagma, p. 52.
Among the ancients, there were many stories current of countries, the
inhabitants of which were of peculiar size, form or features. Our
Christian saint evidently believed these tales, and thinking thus,
sought to make others believe them. We find the following examples
related by _Herodotus_: "Aristeas, son of Caystrobius, a native of
Proconesus, says in his epic verses that, inspired by Apollo, he came to
the Issedones; that beyond the Issedones dwell the Arimaspians, _a
people that have only one eye_." (Herodotus, book iv. ch. 13.) "When one
has passed through a considerable extent of the rugged country (of the
Seythians), a people are found living at the foot of lofty mountains,
_who are said to be all bald from their birth_, both men and women
alike, and they are flat-nosed, and have large chins." (Ibid. ch. 23.)
"These bald men say, what to me is incredible, that _men with goat's
feet_ inhabit these mountains; and when one has passed beyond them,
other men are found, _who sleep six months at a time_, but this I do not
at all admit." (Ibid. ch. 24.) In the country westward of Libya, "there
are enormous serpents, and lions, elephants, bears, asps, and asses with
horns, and monsters with dog's heads and without heads, _who have eyes
in their breasts_, at least, as the Libyans say, and wild men and
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