¹³ Matt. xxv. 6. [This parable greatly stimulated primitive celibacy.]

¹⁴ 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.

¹⁵ 1 Thess. iv. 16.

¹⁶ Bodies.

¹⁷ 1 Thess. iv. 17. Commentators have remarked on the peculiarity of the interpretation. We give simply the writer's meaning.-Tr.

¹⁸ Wisd. iv. 2.

¹⁹ Although the Greek word is not the same as in 1 Tim. vi. 16, the meaning is probably this rather than unquenchable, as it is rendered in the Latin.-Tr. [See Discourse XI. cap. 2, infra]

²⁰ Rev. vii. 4, xiv. 4.

¹ pneu=ma here and for wind above.

² Literally, only begotten. Wisd. vii. 22.

³ St. John xiv. 28.

⁴ [That the Canticles demand allegorical interpretation, we may admit; nor can I object to our author's ideas here.]

⁵ Cant ii. 2.

⁶ Cant iv. 9-12.

⁷ Chap. iv. ver. 9-12.

⁸ Ps. xlv. 14.

⁹ 1 Cor. xv. 41, 42.

¹⁰ Matt. v. 3-16.

¹¹ Cant. vi. 8, 9.

¹² Cant. vi. 8, 9.

¹³ [Here allegorizing is refuted and perishes in fanciful and over-strained analogies.]

¹⁴ Luke xv. 23.

¹⁵ This was Eve's testimony to the serpent, not the original command.-Tr. [But I do not see the force of this note. Eve in her innocency is surely a competent witness.]

¹⁶ Gen. iii. 3.

¹⁷ Heb. xi. 23.

¹⁸ Here, and in many other places, the prevalent millenarian belief of the first centuries is expressed by Methodius.-Tr. [See Barnabas, vol. i. p. 147, this series; also Irenaeus (same vol.), p. 562, at note 11.]

¹⁹ This word, as being that employed in the E. T. of the Canticles, is adopted throughout. It must be remembered, that, in this connection, it stands for nea/nidej, and not for parqe/noi.-Tr.

²⁰ Matt. xiii. 16, 17.

²¹ Cant. vi. 8, 9.

²² The forty-fifth in our arrangement.

²³ Ps. xlv. 2.

²⁴ Ps. xlv. 15, 16.

¹ parqeni/a.

² parqeni/a.

³ parqeni/a...parqei\a.

⁴ ai0reth/.

⁵ ai@rein.

⁶ Than of the most ordinary things of life.

⁷ The influence of Plato is traceable, here and elsewhere, throughout the works of Methodius. It has been fully examined in the able work of Jahn, Methodius Platonizans.-Tr. [ Elucidation I.]

⁸ Exod. iii. 14.

⁹ Baruch iii. 14, 15. The apocryphal book of Baruch, as bearing the name of the companion of Jeremiah, was usually quoted, in the second and third centuries, as the work of that great prophet.-Tr.

¹⁰ Rev. xii. 1-6.

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