5. Five Books in Reply to Marcion.: 129
129 Speculo vultus. The two words seem to me to go together, and, unless the second be indeed redundant, to mean perhaps a small hand-mirror, which affords more facilities for minute examination of the face than a larger fixed one.
130 "Sortis;" lit. "lot," here = "the line or family chosen by lot." Compare the similar derivation of "clergy."
132 I have ventured to substitute "Christo" for "Christi;" and thus, for
"Cum Christi populo manifeste multa locutus,"read,
"Cum Christo (populo manifeste) multa locutus."The reference is to the fact, on which such special stress is laid, of the Lord's "speaking to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh with his friend." See especially Num. xii. 5-8, Deut. xxxiv. 9-12, with Deut. xviii. 17-19, Acts iii. 22, 23, vii. 37.
133 The Latin in Oehler and Migne is thus:
"Accepram legem per paucos fudit in orbem;"and the reference seems to me to be to Ex. xxxii. 15-20, though the use of "orbem" for "ground" is perhaps strange; but "humum" would have been against the metre, if that argument be of any weight in the case of a writer so prolific of false quantities. Possibly the lines may mean that "he diffused through some few" - i.e., through the Jews, "few" as compared with the total inhabitants of the orb - "the Law which he had received;" but then the following line seems rather to favour the former view, because the tables of the Law - called briefly "the Law" - broken by Moses so soon after he had received them, were typical of the inefficacy of all Moses' own toils, which, after all, ended in disappointment, as he was forbidden, on account of a sin committed in the very last of the forty years, to lead the people into "the land," as 'he had fondly hoped to do. Only I suspect some error in "per paucos;" unless it be lawful to supply "dies," and take it to mean "received during but few days," i.e., "within few days," "only a few days before," and "accepted" or "kept" by the People "during but a few days." Would it be lawful to conjecture "perpaucis" as one word, with "ante diebus" to be understood?
134 i.e., the sign of the cross. See Tertullian, adv. Marc., l. iii. c. xviii. sub. fin.; also adv. Jud., c. x. med.
135 i.e., all the acts and the experiences of Moses.
137 See Ex. xxiii. 20-23; and comp. adv. Marc., l. iii. c. xvi.
138 Legitima, i.e., reverent of law.
"Acer in hostem.
Non virtute sua trtelam acquirere genti."I have ventured to read "suae," and connect it with "genti;" and thus have obtained what seems to me a probable sense. See Judg. viii. 22, 23.
142 I read "firmandus" for "firmatus."
144 I have again ventured a correction, "coarescere" for "coalescere." It makes at least some sense out of an otherwise (to me) unintelligible passage, the "palm" being taken as the well-known symbol of bloom and triumph. So David in Ps. xcii. 12 (xci. 13 in LXX.), "The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree." To "dry" here is, of course, neuter, and means to "wither."
145 I have changed "eadem" - which must agree with "nocte," and hance give a false sense; for it was not, of course, on "the same night," but on the next, that his second sign was given - into "eodem," to agree with "liquore," which gives a true one, as the "moisture," of course, was the same, - dew, namely.
146 Equite. It appears to be used loosely for "men of war" generally.