FOOTNOTES
[1] Goldfasts are the ember-fasts, on the three ember-days of each of the four seasons of the year; possibly called "goldfasts" because on these days rents were collected. See Realencyklopädie, 5: 780, 9.
[2] The fasts enjoined upon a people by a public edict or ban. The term "ban" as here used does not denote the Church's excommunication, but an authoritative proclamation.
[3] The Tatianists, followers of Tatian, who lived in Syria in the middle of the second century. Tatian, apparently basing his view of marriage upon 1 Cor. 7:5, ascribes the institution of marriage and the whole Old Testament Law to the devil. Eusebius held that Tatian was the founder of a sect known as the Encratites, or Abstainers. Modern historians see in the Encratites groups of ascetic Christians found frequently in the early Church, somewhat similar to the later monks and nuns, so that Harnack can write that Tatian "joined the Encratites." _Dogmengeschichte_3, I, 227 n. See _Realencyklopädie_3, 19, 386-394 on Tatian; 5, 392 f. on the Encratites.
[4] The Manicheans, strictly speaking not a Christian sect, but a rival religious community, which made inroads upon the Christian Church. Founded by the Babylonian Mani, who was born in the third century, they taught the inherent evil of all matter, and consequently had many fasts, averaging seven days in each month, while the "perfect" among them abstained from meat, wine and marriage. See Realencyklopädie 3, 12, 193-228; von Orelli, Religionsgeschichte, 279-291.
[5] The Greek anathema Luther here translates ein Bann, "let him be a ban." This explains the reference to the ban below.
[6] Stehet untereuch, whereas above Luther writes ist inwendig in euch.
[7] Contra Epistolam Manichaei, vi, Paris Ed., 1839, 28: 185: Ego vero Evangelic non crederem, nisi me ecclesiae catholicae commoveret anctoritas. On the preceding page Augustine had written: "If the claim of truth be shown to be so evident that it cannot be called into question, it is to be preferred before all those things by which I am held in the Catholic faith."
[8] O raging madness, worthy of our age!