Tertullian

“ What follows seems to decide the meaning of “feta,” as a child could hardly be included in a census before birth.↑ Again I have had to attempt to amend the text of the Latin in order to extract any sense, and am far from sure that I have extracted the right one.↑ “Fatentur,” unless our author use it passively ="are confessed.”↑ “Possunt,” i.e., probably “have the hardihood.”↑ Because Christ plainly, as they understood Him, “made Himself the Son of God;” ”

“ Footnotes ↑ I make no apology for the ruggedness of the versification and the obscurity of the sense in this book, further than to say that the state of the Latin text is such as to render it almost impossible to find any sense at all in many places, while the grammar and metre are not reducible to any known laws. ”

“ Comp. the Psalmist’s prayer: “Give me understanding and I shall live” (Ps. cxix. 144; in LXX., Ps. cxviii. 144) .↑ The “furentes” of Pam. and Rig. is preferred to Oehler’s “ferentes.”↑ “Complexis,” lit. “embracing.”↑ i.e., both Jews and Gentile heretics, the “senseless frantic men” just referred to probably: or possibly the “ambo” may mean “both sects,” viz., the Marcionites and Manichees, against whom the writer whom Oehler supposes to be the probable author of these “Five Books,” Victorinus, a rhetorician of Marseilles, directed his efforts. ”

“ John i. 11, and see the Greek.↑ Whether this be the sense I know not. The passage is a mass of confusion.↑ i.e., according to Marcion’s view.↑ i.e., as spirits, like himself.↑ Mundum.↑ i.e., Marcionite.↑ See book ii. 3.↑ i.e., apparently on the day of Christ’s resurrection.↑ Replesset, i.e., replevisset. If this be the right reading, the meaning would seem to be, “would have taken away all further desire for” them, as satiety or repletion takes away all appetite for food. ”

“ It is about the hardest and most uninteresting book of the five.↑ Or, “consecrated by seers and patriarchs.”↑ i.e., all the number of Thy disciples.↑ Tempora lustri, i.e., apparently the times during which these “elders” (i.e., the bishops, of whom a list is given at the end of book iii.) held office. “Lustrum” is used of other periods than it strictly implies, and this seems to give some sense to this difficult passage.↑ i.e., Marcion.↑ i.e., excommunicated.↑ Complexu vario.↑ Ancipiti quamquam cum crimine. ”