e._ his recorded character, or 'the testimony borne by Zacharias,'
_i.e._ his martyrdom." By a vexatious mistake in reprinting, "to" was
accidentally substituted for "by" in my translation of this passage in
a very few of the earlier copies of my sixth edition, but the error was
almost immediately observed and corrected in the rest of the edition.
Dr. Lightfoot seizes upon the "to" in the early copy which I had sent
to him, and argues upon it as a deliberate adoption of the
interpretation, whilst he takes me to task for actually arguing upon
the rendering "by" in my text. Very naturally a printer's error could
not extend to my argument. The following is what I say regarding the
passage in my complete edition:
"The epistle is an account of the persecution of the Christian
community of Vienne and Lyons, and Vettius Epagathus is the first
of the martyrs who is named in it: [Greek: marturia] was at that
time the term used to express the supreme testimony of Christians--
martyrdom--and the epistle seems here simply to refer to the
martyrdom, the honour of which he shared with Zacharias. It is,
we think, highly improbable that, under such circumstances, the
word [Greek: marturia] would have been used to express a mere
description of the character of Zacharias given by some other writer.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199