272 Ps. cxix. in our arrangement of the Psalter. The psalm isdivided into twenty-two portions, which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The following fifteen psalms are called in our Authorized Version, Songs of Degrees (Vulgate, graduum, steps). For the origin of the title, Wordsworth, or Neal and Littledale on Ps. cxx. may be consulted.
274 Numb. xxxiv. 15; Josh. xiv. 3.
279 Aristippus though the disciple of Socrates, taught that pleasure was the highest good.
282 S. John xix. 6, John xix. 15.
283 Jovinianus's doctrine is said to have influenced some who had taken a vow of virginity, to marry.
285 Pythagoras asserted that he had once been the Trojan Euphorbus.
288 Jer. vii. 4; Ps. xiv. 4, Ps. liii. 4.
290 That is, coelebs from coelum.
1 Is. xiii. 21, Is. xiii. 22, and Is. xxxiv. 14-16.
3 Quintilian, the rhetorician, was born at Calagurris, in Spain, but not the same as the birthplace of Vigilantius.
4 Combining the cheating tavern-keeper with the heretic.
9 From convenio, to come together.
14 Another reading is, "Shut up in the altar."
17 Acts vii. 59, Acts vii. 60.
22 vii. 35 sq. The passage occurs in the Ethiopic and Arabic versions, not in the Latin. It was probably rejected in later times for dogmatic reasons.
23 The chief of the Egyptian Gnostics.
25 Matt. xxvi. 8; Mark xiv. 4.
26 Rom. xiv. 5. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. R. V.
31 i.e. antidote to the scorpion's bite.
33 Acts xxiv. 17, Acts xxiv. 18.
41 Matt. xx. 16: Matt. xxii. 14.
42 He seems to mean that monks spoke of young ladies as Mothers of the Convents, so as to be able to frequent their society without reproach.