13 Augustin no doubt refers to the interesting account given by Critias, near the beginning of the Timoeus, of the conversation of Solon with the Egyptian priests.
14 Augustin here follows the chronology of Eusebius, who reckons 5611 years from the Creation to the taking of Rome by the Goths; adopting the Septuagint version of the Patriarchal ages.
16 It is not apparent to what Augustin refers. The Arcadians, according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 7), divided their year into three months, and the Egyptians divided theirs into three seasons: each of these seasons having four months, it is possible that Augustin may have referred to this. See Wilkinson's excursus on the Egyptian year, in Rawlinson's Herod. Book ii.
17 The former opinion was held by Democritus and his disciple Epicurus; the latter by Heraclitus, who supposed that "God amused Himself" by thus renewing worlds.
18 The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavored in this way to escape from the obvious meaning of the Timoeus.
19 Antoninus says (ii. 14): "All things from eternity are of like forms, and come round in a circle." Cf. also ix. 28, and the references to more ancient philosophical writers in Gataker's notes in these passages.
20 Eccles. i. 9, 10. So Origen, de Prin. iii. 5, and ii. 3.
29 Titus i. 2, 3. Augustin here follows the version of Jerome, and not the Vulgate. Comp. Contra Priscill. 6, and de Gen. c. Man. iv. 4.
30 2 Cor. x. 12. Here, and in Enar. in Ps. xxxiv. and also in Cont. Faust. xxii. 47, Augustin follows the Greek, and not the Vulgate.
31 I. e. indefinite, or an indefinite succession of things.
39 Cicero has the same (de Amicitia, 16): Quonam modo quisquam amicus esse poterit, cuise se putabit inimicum esse posse? He also quotes Scipio to the effect that no sentiment is more unfriendly to friendship than this, that we should love as if some day we were to hate.
41 Coquaeus remarks that this is levelled against the Pelagians.
"Quando leoni
Fortior eripuit vitam leo?
quo nemore unquam
Exspiravit aper majoris dentibus apri?
Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem
Perpetuam; saevis inter se convenit ursis.
Ast homini," etc. Juvenal, Sat. xv. 160-5.-See also the very striking lines which precede these.