[40] Spurious Acts of the Apostle xxi.
[41] 1 Corinthians ix., 4, 5, and 7.
[42] Thessalonians iv., 16 and 17.
[43] Acts xxi.
[44] Matthew gives five thousand men and five loaves in chapter xiv., and four thousand men and five loaves in chapter xv. Apparently, they are two different miracles, which makes in all nine thousand men and at least nine thousand women. If you add nine thousand children, the total number of diners amounts to twenty-seven thousand—which is considerable.
[45] A pun of which the point is lost in English. The French phrase, to make a man “swallow the gudgeon,” means to “gull” a man. Voltaire turns the “two little fishes” of the gospel into gudgeons to accommodate his joke.—J. M.
[46] In France, an abbey of which the “abbot” was a kind of absentee landlord. He lived at Paris, with the title and revenue, and left the work to a sub-abbot.—J. M.
[47] The indictment is too severe. The later years of Constantine were marked by silly extravagance, but not debauch. The execution of his father-in-law was justified. His (partial) acceptance of Christianity was earlier than Voltaire supposes, and there is no serious ground for suggesting large payments of money. But it is now beyond question that he put his brother-in-law (Licinius) to death treacherously, had his wife, son, and nephew murdered, and greatly degenerated in later life.—J. M.
[48] No; in the Senate.—J. M.
[49] Matthew xx., 23.