5.
But to proceed. The day now hastening to its close, and late 1 evening arriving, and the final sentence of the court being expected, all were in still greater agony, and besought God that He would grant some delay and respite; and incline the soul of the judges to refer the facts that had been investigated to the decision of the Emperor; since perchance some advantage might arise from this reference. 2 Moreover, by the people general supplications 3 were sent up to the Merciful God; imploring that He would save the remnants of the city; and not suffer it entirely to be razed from its foundations. Nor could one see any one joining in this cry but with tears. Nevertheless, none of these things then moved the judges within, although they heard. One thing only they considered, that there might be a rigid enquiry into the deeds that had been perpetrated.
-
bathut?tes, which seems to imply darkness. See Luc. xxiv. 1. ↩
-
Or. "delay." hup?rthesis. But hupertithemai is "to refer" in Herodotus, as i. 8, and elsewhere. ↩
-
litai. The term was originally used of any kind of prayer, but about this time was beginning to be applied to a special kind of penitential prayer. St. Basil, A.D. 375, ep. 207 (al. 63), writes to the Neocaesareans in defence of litaneiai, to which they objected as newly introduced; and the prayers here mentioned seem to be something distinct from the common service. See Bingham, b. xiii. c. 1, sec. 10. The passage he quotes from St. Augustin, Hom. CLXXII. de Temp. is attributed by the Benedictine editor to Caesarius, after some mss. ↩
