Chapter XVIII. Of the prediction of the pedagogue.
Another 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, 1 and was the intimate friend of the chief teacher of that period, Libanius the far-famed sophist.
Now Libanius 2 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, “What is the carpenter’s son about now?” Filled with divine grace, he foretold what was shortly to come to pass. “Sophist,” said he, “the Creator of all things, whom you in derision call carpenter’s son, is making a coffin.” 3
After 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. [^63]
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The 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 διδάσκαλος : here it is contrasted with it. ↩
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“One of the most noteworthy and characteristic figures of expiring heathenism.” 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 “vain, prolix, but curious narrative of his own life.” Gibbon. The most complete account of him will be found in E. R. Siever’s Das Leben des Libanius. ↩
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The form in the text ( γλωσσόκομον ) 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 St. John’s Gospel xii. 6 and xiii. 29 it is “the bag,” properly ( xi. 3 ) “box,” which Judas carried. In the Palatine anthology Nicanor the coffin maker makes these “glossokoma” or coffins. Derivatively the word means “tongue-cases,” i.e. cases to keep the tongues or reeds of musical instruments. An instance of similar transfer of meaning is our word “coffin;” derivatively a wicker basket;—at one time any case or cover, and in Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus Act V. 2, 189) pie crust. Perhaps “casket,” which now still holds many things, may one day only hold a corpse. ↩
