5. What say you, O ignorant
ones, for whom we might well weep and be sad?3420
| 3420 Lit.,
“most worthy even of weeping and pity.” |
Are you so
void of
fear that these
things may be true which are
despised by you and turned to ridicule?
and do you not consider with yourselves at least, in your
secret
thoughts, lest that which to-day with
perverse obstinacy you refuse to
believe, time may too
late show to be true,
3421
| 3421
Redarguat. This sense is not recognised by Riddle and
White, and would therefore seem to be, if not unique, at least
extremely rare. The derivative redargutio, however, is in
late Latin used for “demonstration,” and this is evidently
the meaning here. |
and ceaseless remorse
punish
you? Do not even these
proofs at least give you
faith to
believe,
3422
| 3422
Fidem vobis faciunt argumenta credendi. Heraldus, joining
the two last words, naturally regards them as a gloss from the margin;
but read as above, joining the first and last, there is nothing out of
place. |
viz.,
that already, in so short and brief a time, the oaths of this vast
army
have spread abroad over all the
earth? that already there is no
nation
so rude and
fierce that it has not, changed by His
love,
subdued its
fierceness, and with tranquillity hitherto unknown, become mild in
disposition?
3423
| 3423
Lit., “tranquillity being assumed, passed to placid
feelings.” |
that
men endowed with so great abilities,
orators, critics,
rhetoricians,
lawyers, and
physicians, those, too, who pry into the
mysteries of philosophy,
seek to
learn these things, despising those in
which but now they trusted? that
slaves choose to be
tortured by their
masters as they please,
wives to be
divorced,
children to be
disinherited by their
parents, rather than be
unfaithful to
Christ and
cast off the oaths of the
warfare of
salvation? that although so
terrible punishments have been denounced by you against those who
follow the
precepts of this
religion, it
3424
increases
even more, and a great
host strives more boldly against all
threats and the terrors which
would keep it back, and is roused to
zealous faith by the very attempt
to
hinder it? Do you indeed believe that these things happen idly
and at random? that these feelings are
adopted on being met with by
chance?
3425
| 3425
Lit., “on chance encounters.” |
Is not
this, then,
sacred and
divine? Or
do you believe that,
without
God’s
grace, their minds are so changed, that
although murderous
hooks and other
tortures without number threaten, as
we said, those who shall believe, they receive the grounds of
faith
with which they have become acquainted,
3426
| 3426
Rationes cognitas. There is some difficulty as to the
meaning of these words, but it seems best to refer them to the
argumenta credendi (beginning of chapter, “do not even
these proofs”), and render as above. Hildebrand, however,
reads tortiones, “they accept the tortures which they know
will befall them.” |
as if carried away (A) by some charm,
and by an eager longing for all the
virtues,
3427
| 3427
The ms. reads et non
omnium, “and by a love not of all the
virtues,” changed in most edd. as above into atque
omnium, while Oehler proposes et novo omnium,
“and by fresh love of all,” etc. It will be
remembered that the transposition of leaves in the ms. (note on ii. 1) occurs here, and this seems to account
for the arbitrary reading of Gelenius, which has no ms. authority whatever, but was added by himself when
transposing these chapters to the first book (cf. p. 432, n.
14), atque nectare ebrii cuncta
contemnant—“As if intoxicated with a certain sweetness
and nectar, they despise all things.” The same circumstance
has made the restoration of the passage by Canterus a connecting of
fragments of widely separated sentences and arguments. |
and prefer the
friendship of Christ to
all that is in the world?
3428
| 3428
Lit., “all the things of the world.” Here the
argument breaks off, and passes into a new phase, but Orelli includes
the next sentence also in the fifth chapter. |
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