³³ According to some texts is read here, "to offer wine, lest in the morning hours, through the flavour of the wine, its smell should h þ recognised by its fragrant odour by the perception of unbelievers, and he should be known to be a Christian, since we commemoratethe blood of Christ in the oblation of wine." [The heathen detected Christians by this token when searching victims for the persecutor.

³⁴ Mark viii. 38. [Bingham, book xv. cap. ii. sec. 7.]

³⁵ Gal. i. 10.

³⁶ [Much light is thrown on this by the Hebrew usages. See Freeman, On the Principles of Divine Service, vol. ii. p. 293.]

³⁷ "Frequentandis dominicis."

³⁸ Ex. xii. 6.

³⁹ Ps. cxli. 2.

⁴⁰ 1 Cor. xi. 26.

⁴¹ Ps.l. 16-18.

⁴² Jer. xxiii. 28, 30, 32.

⁴³ Jer.iii. 9, 10.

⁴⁴ John viii. 12.

⁴⁵ Matt. xxviii. 18-20.

⁴⁶ [A very important monition that clearer light upon certain Scriptures may break in as time unfolds their purpose. Phil. iii. 15.]

⁴⁷ [Even these minute maxims show that the spirit of the third century was to adhere to the example of Christ and His Apostles. This gives us confidence that no intentionalinnovations were admitted.]

¹ Oxford ed.: Ep. lxv. A.D. 253.

² Isa. lvii. 6.

³ Ex. xxii. 20.

⁴ Isa. ii. 8, 9.

⁵ Apoc. xiv. 9-11.

⁶ Lev. xxi. 17.

⁷ Ex. xix. 22.

⁸ Ex. xxviii. 43.

⁹ John ix. 31.

¹⁰ [2 Thess. ii. 11. Judicial blindness the result of revolt from known truth.]

¹¹ Otherwise, "the enduring vigour of that soundness which they have preserved and guarded."

¹² Eph. v. 6, 7.

¹ Oxford ed.: Ep. iii.

² At what time this letter was written is uncertain, unless we may gather from the similar commencement in both letters, that it was written at the same synod with the following one. Perhaps A.D 249.

³ Deut. xvii. 12, 13.

⁴ [i.e., Levites-deacons. But Korah and the Levites (Viue. xvi. 9, 10) must be regarded apart from the Reubenites (laics) who sinned with them. Jude 11.]

⁵ *Sam. viii. 7.

⁶ Ecclus. vii. 29.

⁷ Ecclus. vii. 31.

⁸ Acts xxiii. 4, 5.

⁹ Matt. viii 4.

¹⁰ John xviii. 23.

¹¹ [This is the Cyprianic theory.]

¹² 1 Tim. iv. 12.

¹³ [See letter liv. sec. 16, p. 345, supra.]

¹ Oxford ed.: Ep. i.,A.D. 249.

² The Oxford translator notes here that the Roman law did not permit this office be declined.

³ 2 Tim. ii. 4. (Are not these primitive ideas a needed admonition to our times?]

⁴ "Pro dormitione ejus." Goldhorn observes here, rather needlessly, that it was unlucky among the ancient Christians to speak of death. [They counted death as a falling asleep, and the grave as a coemeterium; and this prayer for the reposeof the righteous was strictly such, that they might "rest from their labours," till, in the resurrection and not before, they should receive their consummation and reward.]

¹ Oxford ed.: Ep. lxviii. This epistle does not appear in many mss., and its genuineness has been therefore doubted. But the style. points to Cyprian as its author, and the documents where it is found are amoung the oldest, one the most ancient of all A.D. 254.

² [With all Cyprian's humility and reverence for the mother See, to which the Church of North Africa owed its origin, he yet, as an older bishop, reminds Stephen of what he ought to do to succour the Church of Irenaeus.]

³ By "us", viz., Rome and Carthage, provinces in communion with Faustinus.]

⁴ Suppl. "access," according to Baluzius.

⁵ [Note the language, "with us, dearest brother;" not a thought save that of equal and joint authority.]

⁶ Some old editions read, "who, having avoided the rocks of Marcian."

⁷ Ezek. xxxiv. 4-6, 10, 16.

⁸ Matt. ix. 12.

⁹ [" We, many shepherds (one episcopate), over one flock." Cyprian's theory is never departed from, practically.]

¹⁰ Heb. ii. 5.

---