1.
To other men, indeed, the present state of matters would not appear to offer a fit season for a festival: and this certainly is no festal time to them; nor, in sooth, is any other that to them. And I say this, not only of occasions manifestly sorrowful, 1 but even or all occasions whatsoever which people might consider to be most joyous. 2 And now certainly all things are turned to mourning, and all men are in grief, and lamentations resound through the city, by reason of the multitude of the dead and of those who are dying day by day. For as it is written in the case of the first-born of the Egyptians, so now too a great cry has arisen. "For there is not a house in which there is not one dead." 3 And would that even this were all!
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ouch hopos ton epilupon is the reading of Codices Maz., Med., and Savil.; others give, less correctly, epiloipon. ↩
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The text gives, all' oud' ei tis perichares hon oietheien malista, which is put probably for the mere regular construction, hon hoiointo an malista perichare. Nicephorus reads, ei tis perichares on oitheie. The idea is, that the heathen could have no real festal time. All seasons, those apparently most joyous, no less than those evidently sorrowful, must be times void of all real rejoicing to them, until they learn the grace of God. ↩
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Ex. xii. 30. ↩
