[106] Side was a maritime town of Pamphylia. Philip wrote in the early part of the fifth century.
[107] Lecky, History of European Morals, chap, iii., “The Persecutions,” pp. 497–8.
[108] “It is not lawful to be you,” but it is impossible to render in English the full force of this epigrammatic saying of Tertullian.
[109] De Boissier, the Academician, specially calls attention to it as a somewhat novel piece of very early ecclesiastical history, and he refers his readers to a comparatively little known study on this subject by M. Le Blant, a well-known scholar in early Christian lore; of this “Study” of Le Blant, De Boissier speaks with the highest praise.
[110] S. Cyprian, Epist. lxvi. ad Thibaritanos.
[111] A very ancient and probably an authoritative reading. When in the text the language of didactic calmness passes suddenly into the language of emotion: “How strait is the gate,” etc.—S. Matt. vii. 13, 14.
[112] Tertullian, Ad Martyres, 3.
[113] Quoted in the Scorpiace of Tertullian, and much more from S. Paul to the same point.
[114] Although the usual date given for this last attack on Christianity is a few months after the death of the Emperor Marcus. There is no doubt that they belong to the policy of persecution carried out by Marcus, and that the reaction in favour of Christianity noticeable in the reign of Commodus, his successor, had not had time to make itself felt.
[115] Compare the quotations taken from these writings given above.