{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/203/2030101.htm","path":"chr/ecf/203/2030101.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030101.htm","text":"Chapter XVIII.\u2014Of the prediction of the pedagogue.\nAnother instance is that of an excellent man at Antioch, entrusted with the charge of young lads, who was better educated than is usually the case with pedagogues, 654 and was the intimate friend of the chief teacher of that period, Libanius the far-famed sophist.\nNow Libanius 655 was a heathen expecting victory and bearing in mind the threats of Julian, so one day, in ridicule of our belief he said to the pedagogue, \u201cWhat is the carpenter\u2019s son about now?\u201d Filled with divine grace, he foretold what was shortly to come to pass. \u201cSophist,\u201d said he, \u201cthe Creator of all things, whom you in derision call carpenter\u2019s son, is making a coffin.\u201d 656\nAfter a few days the death of the wretch was announced. He was carried out lying in his coffin. The vaunt of his threats was proved vain, and God was glorified. 657\nThe word seems here used in its strictly Athenian sense of a slave who took charge of boys on their way between school and home (Vide Lycias 910. 2 and Plat. Rep. 373. C.) rather than in the more general sense of teacher. In Xen. Lac. 3. 1. it is coupled with \u03b4\u03b9\u03b4\u03ac\u03c3\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2: here it is contrasted with it.\n105:655\n\u201cOne of the most noteworthy and characteristic figures of expiring heathenism.\u201d J.R. Mozley, Dict. Christ. Biog. s.v. Born in Antioch a.d. 314, he died about the close of the century. He was a voluminous author, and wrote among other things a \u201cvain, prolix, but curious narrative of his own life.\u201d Gibbon. The most complete account of him will be found in E. R. Siever\u2019s Das Leben des Libanius.\n105:656\nThe form in the text (\u03b3\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03c3\u03cc\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd) is rejected by Attic purists, but is used twice by St. John, as well as in the Septuagint. In 2 Chron. xxiv. 8 (cf. 2 Kings xii. 9) it means a chest. In John 12:6, John 13:29 it is \u201cthe bag,\u201d properly (John 11.3) \u201cbox,\u201d which Judas carried. In the Palatine anthology Nicanor the coffin maker makes these \u201cglossokoma\u201d or coffins. Derivatively the word means \u201ctongue-cases,\u201d i.e. cases to keep the tongues or reeds of musical instruments. An instance of similar transfer of meaning is our word \u201ccoffin;\u201d derivatively a wicker basket;\u2014at one time any case or cover, and in Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus Act V. 2, 189) pie crust. Perhaps \u201ccasket,\u201d which now still holds many things, may one day only hold a corpse.\n105:657\nIn times and circumstances totally different, it may seem that Julian\u2019s courtesy and moderation contrast favourably with the fierce zeal of the Christians. A modern illustration of the temper of the Church in Julian\u2019s reign may be found in the following account given of his dragoman by the late author of \u201cEothen.\u201d \u201cReligion and the literature of the Church which he served had made him a man, and a brave man too. The lives of his honored Saints were full of heroic actions provoking imitation, and since faith in a creed involves faith its ultimate triumph, Dthemetri was bold from a sense of true strength; his education too, though not very general in its character, had been carried quite far enough to justify him in pluming himself upon a very decided advantage over the great bulk of the Mahometan population, including the men in authority. With all this consciousness of religious and intellectual superiority, Dthemetri had lived for the most part in countries lying under Mussulman governments, and had witnessed (perhaps too had suffered from) their revolting cruelties; the result was that he abhorred and despised the Mussulman faith and all who clung to it. And this hate was not of the dull, dry, and inactive sort; Dthemetri was in his way a true crusader, and whenever there appeared a fair opening in the defence of Islam, he was ready and eager to make the assault. Such feelings, backed by a consciousness of understanding the people with whom he had to do, made Dthemetri not only firm and resolute in his constant interviews with men in authority, but sometimes also very violent and very insulting.\u201d Kinglake\u2019s \u201cEothen,\u201d 5th Ed., p. 270.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. III: The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret.: Of the prediction of the pedagogue.","type":"page"}