24 Prov. xv. 1, the Septuagint Version.
28 It is not possible to say precisely who the electors to bishoprics were at this time, but probably a mixed body of the clergy and leading laymen of the diocese. Chrysostom calls the electors "fathers," i. ch. 6. and "great men," ch. 7, and here he speaks of a "council of elders," which may mean the whole body of clergy of the second order, or a select body of laymen, or possibly the two combined. In one way or other, during the first five centuries, the people certainly had a considerable voice in the election of bishops. Socrates, the historian, vi. c. 2, says that Chrysostom himself was chosen for the See of Constantinople "by the common vote of all, clergy and people." Pope Leo (A.D). 440-461) lays down the rule that "when the election of a bishop is handled he is to be preferred who is demanded by the unanimous consent of clergy and people." Epist. 84. A law of the Emperor Justinian restricted the right of election to the clergy and the "optimates" or people of chief rank.
29 A narrow Strait between the island of Euboa and the mainland of Greece, in which the tide was very rapid. Hence the "condition of Euripus" became a proverbial expression indicative of agitation and fluctuation.
30 i.e., the business of elections. Chrysostom seems to have passed on from the elections of bishops to the consideration of elections to clerical offices over which the bishop had to preside.
31 That is , "put upon the Chruch-roll." From apostolic times as we know from I Tim. v. 9, 10, the Church had recognized the care of widows as a duty; but one to be exercised with caution, lest unworthy persons should take advantage of it. In Chrysostom's time there was an "order of widows", which had departed very much from the primitive simplicity and devotion to religious works which distinguished the order of earlier days. The Church strongly encouraged abstinence from a second marriage: and many women seem to have taken a vow of wodowhood, and secured a place in the Chruch-roll, only in the hope of throwing a decent veil over an irreligious, if not immoral life.
34 i.e., a life of religious contemplation, not, however, as a member of a monastic community, for Chrysostom, throughout this section, appears to be speaking of the canonical or ecclesiastical virgins who were consecrated to a religious life, yet remained at home under the care of their parents (if living) or of the Church.. The first notices of separate houses for women who had taken the vow of virginity occur in the middle of the 4 th century. St. Ambrose mentions one at Bologna. De Virg. i. 10. St. Basil is said to have founded some (See St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 47).
38 Hebrews xiii.17.*****************
1 prolabw=n ga\r au0to\j e9autou= tau/thn a0fei/leto th\n a0pologi/an.page 61
4 Matt. xxiv. 51; Luke xii. 46. Dixotomhqh=/ai. Some take this word to express the severance of the unrighteous from the godly priest, but others seek its meaning rather in the "dividing asunder" of sacrificial victims (Heb. iv. 12), or in he punishment of "sawing asunder" (Dan. iii. 29; Heb. xi. 37): so that its use by SS. Matthew and Luke would point to the distress caused by the severance between conscience and practice, which will be the reflective torment of lost souls.
6 paranomi/aj. If paranomi/aj be read, then "excesses" must he understood: -the word meaning. 1st, excess in drink and 2d, excess of any kind.
10 Numb. xi. 15. <\i>\Ei d0 ou#tw su\ poie=ij moi a0po/kteinonme<\|i>\, LXX.
15 i. e., because he had been chosen an apostle.
18 Eupori/aj, restricted here to commerce carried on by sea, as the context shows.
21 Matt xxiv. 51 The Revised Version in the margin renders, the lord of that servant shall severly scourge him. See above, p. 61, note.
24 Paidotribw=n, literally, those who teach boys wrestling.
26 1 Pet iii. 15; "Haud seio an ita loqui possit primatus romani defensor." Bengel's Edition of this Treatise, Leipzig, 1834.p. 145, note 17.
29 The followers of Manes, or Manich'us, who was born about 240 A.D. He taught that God was the cause of good, and matter the cause of evil. This theory about matter led him to hold that the body of Jesus wasan incorporeal phantom. He eliminated the Old Testament from the Scriptures, and held himself at liberty also to reject such passages in the New Testament as were opposed to his own opinions. See Robertson,: Hist. of the Christian Church, vol. i. 139-145.
30 "oi\ thn e9imapmnehn e0sa/gontej", sc. The Stoics. They were still a numerous body, and St. Chrysostom himself wrote six Homilies against them.
31 Marcion and Valentinus (A.D. 140) were each founders of a form of Gnosticism. Each held that the God of the Old Testament was morally contrary to the God of the New: while the system of Valentinus represented the imaginative and speculative side of Gnosticism, that of Marcion represented its practical side, and was rather religious than theological. The sect of the Valentinians lasted as late as the 5th century; and Marcionism was not extinct till the 6th.
33 Sabellius was condemned in a Council held in Rome,A.D. 263, for holding that there is but one person in the Godhead, and that the word and Holy Spirit are only virtues or emanations of the Deity. Arius held that our Lord Jesus Christ existed before His Incarnation, that by Him as by an instrument the Supreme God made the worlds, and that as being the most ancient and the highest of created beings, He is to be worshipped; but that He had a beginning of existence, and so is not God's co-eternally begotten Son, nor of the very substance of the Supreme God. See Liddon, Bampton Lectures, i. p. 25. The heresy of Arius was condemned at the Council of Niciex, A.D. 325.
35 Paul of Samosata was appointed Bishop of Antioch about 260 A.D. The Humanitarian movement culminated in his teaching, which maintained that the Word was only in the Father, as reason is in man; that Jesus was a mere man, and that he is called Son of God as having, in a certain sense. become such through the influence of the Divine Word which dwelt in him, but without any personal union.
36 i. e., while he maintained the Unity of the Godhead against the Arians there was danger of slipping into the Sabellian error of "confounding the Persons."
37 i.e., while he divided the Persons against the Sabellians he had to guard against the Arian error of "dividing the substance" also.
39 2 Cor. xi. 6. See alao, 2 Cor. x. 10
44 <\i>\terpqreia/an<\|i>\, from <\i>\te/rqron<\|i>\, literally, a sail-rope. The man who condescends to catching the ear by mere rhetorical artifice being like the mountebank on the trapeze, fascinating the spectators in a circus by his performances.