[436:1] See the Vision of Hermas, b. 2, c. iii.
[436:2] Mosheim, vol. i. p. 197. Quoted in Taylor's Diegesis, p. 47.
[436:3] Dr. Giles: Hebrew and Christian Records, vol. ii. p. 99.
[436:4] "Continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister." (Colossians, i. 23.)
[436:5] "Being crafty, I caught you with guile." (II. Cor. xii. 16.)
[436:6] "For if the truth of God had more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner." (Romans, iii. 7.)
[437:1] "Si me tamen audire velis, mallem te pænas has dicere indefinitas quam infinitas. Sed veniet dies, cum non minus absurda, habebitur et odiosa hæc opinio quam transubstantiatio hodie." (De Statu Mort., p. 304. Quoted in Taylor's Diegesis, p. 43.)
[437:2] Quoted in Taylor's Syntagma, p. 52.
Among the ancients, there were many stories current of countries, the inhabitants of which were of peculiar size, form or features. Our Christian saint evidently believed these tales, and thinking thus, sought to make others believe them. We find the following examples related by Herodotus: "Aristeas, son of Caystrobius, a native of Proconesus, says in his epic verses that, inspired by Apollo, he came to the Issedones; that beyond the Issedones dwell the Arimaspians, a people that have only one eye." (Herodotus, book iv. ch. 13.) "When one has passed through a considerable extent of the rugged country (of the Seythians), a people are found living at the foot of lofty mountains, who are said to be all bald from their birth, both men and women alike, and they are flat-nosed, and have large chins." (Ibid. ch. 23.) "These bald men say, what to me is incredible, that men with goat's feet inhabit these mountains; and when one has passed beyond them, other men are found, who sleep six months at a time, but this I do not at all admit." (Ibid. ch. 24.) In the country westward of Libya, "there are enormous serpents, and lions, elephants, bears, asps, and asses with horns, and monsters with dog's heads and without heads, who have eyes in their breasts, at least, as the Libyans say, and wild men and wild women, and many other wild beasts which are not fabulous." (Ibid. ch. 192.)
[438:1] Nicodemus, Apoc., ch. xii.