Seven Books of Arguments Against the Pagans, Vol. II

cur in aegris aeger fit, in infantibus stolidus, in senectute defessus why it becomes sick in the sick, dull in infants, weary in old age] See Lucretius III, lines 446—470. Heraldus

in senectute defessus delira et fatua et insana weary in old age, delirious and foolish and insane] They think something is missing here. And indeed the speech seems perturbed and interrupted. Yet it depends on the preceding, which envy, I know not what, produced and brought together to make them so blind and arrogant, "so that, when we know nothing at all, we nevertheless deceive ourselves and are lifted up in the swelling tumor of the chest into an opinion of knowledge." Correctly then it follows: "Delira et fatua et insana quorum infirmitas etc." Delirious, foolish, and insane, whose infirmity, etc. But a somewhat long hyperbaton transposition of words has intervened to the proof of the preceding. Heraldus But the punctuation should not be changed in the least, nor, as Meursius thinks, is anything missing: delira, fatua, insana are ablatives and depend on senectute old age. If anything must be changed, however, I would prefer to follow the emendation of N. Heinsius in his Adversaria, Book III, Chapter XVI, p. 530: deliret et fatue et insane. O.

Chapter VIII. — Et quoniam ridere nostram fidem consuestis And since you are accustomed to laugh at our faith] The Gentiles laughed at the Christians as too credulous in God, and accused them as if they did not want to render or receive a reason for their faith, but simply to believe. Emperor Julian, according to Gregory of Nazianzus in his Invective (p. 296): "Our arguments, he says, and being Greek, belong to those who also worship the Gods; yours is the irrationality and the rusticity, and there is nothing in your wisdom beyond 'believe'." Origen (against Celsus, Book I, pp. 9 and 10), Theodoret (Sermon 1 on faith against the Greeks, pp. 12 and 13), Augustine (Vol. VI, to Honoratus on the utility of believing), and Eusebius (Praeparatio Evangelica, Book I) demolish this slanderous envy and show with the firmest reasoning that it is far from the Christians. Elmenhorst

lancinare to tear to pieces] Above, Book I, Chapter 36: "Isis, mourning darkly for her lost son and her husband torn limb from limb." See regarding this verb (which Catullus and Sallust also used) Stewechius on Apuleius, Metamorphoses IV, p. 298 (ed. Oudendorp). O.

meraco sapientiae tincti steeped in pure wisdom] Meracum, i.e., wine. Thus Horace, II Epistles II, line 137:

He expelled the disease with hellebore, and bile with pure wine.
Nourr. p. 558 Meracus, a, um is used archaically for merus, purus pure. See Lauremberg, Antiquarius on this word. O.

suscipiant, sumant atque aggrediantur actores? Peregrinamini should they undertake, take up, and approach, the actors? You are wandering] Thus Meursius and the Leiden editor. The manuscript code has aggrediantur. An terris peregrinamini. Scriverius, according to Meursius in the Appendix: a thoris peregrinamini you wander from the marriage beds. Heraldus suspects it should be read: An temere peregrinamini Do you wander rashly, from a very similar passage in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, Book I: "And he sails again into the unknown, not having proposed any other anchor for salvation, than faith alone and good hope."