Ver. 2. From twenty.] [See Trapp on “Nu 1:3”]
Ver. 9. Which were famous.] But for no goodness. Tubulus, who was the Roman praetor a little afore Cicero’s time, was homo tam proiecte improbus, ut eius nomen non hominis sed vitii esse videretur, so wicked a wretch, that he seemed to be wickedness itself. Portius Latro calleth Catiline, sacrarium libidinum, portentum scelerum, gurgitem et sentinam flagitiorum, &c., a sink of sinfulness. And Josephus saith of Antipater, that his life was no better than a mystery of iniquity. These men were famous, or rather infamous, for their flagitious practices; notoriously naught; signally sinful. Lips., Antiq. Lection.
Ver. 10. And they became a sign.] An example of that rule, that great sins bring great plagues, as Herodotus hath it, speaking of the destruction of Troy. Aliorum perditio, tua sit cautio, Enjoy other men’s madness, &c. Discite iustitiam moniti, &c. Let all that behold me beware; this was written upon the statue of Sennacherib, saith Herodotus.
Ver. 11. The children of Korah died not.] As being either innocent or penitent; for Aut paenitendum, ant pereundum (Luke 13:3)
Ver. 44. The family of the Jesuites.] Serrarius will needs derive the name Jesuites from Numbers 26:24; it is wonder how he missed of this plainer text. Jesuites quasi Jashubites: like as Erasmus found friars in St Paul’s time, inter falsos fratres, amongst the false brethren. In Salamanca a friar would prove that the name of the Virgin Mary was spoken of in Genesis 1. God called the gathering together of the waters Maria Dr Poynes writes, that it was foretold in the Old Testament that the Protestants were a malignant Church, alleging, (2 Chronicles 24:19) Mittebatque prophetas ut reverterentur ad Dominum, quos protestantes illi audire nolebant. We may, with far more show of reason, fetch the name of Protestants (retained also in their Douay translation) from that text than they can from this, the name of Jesuites alias Jebusites. Stella, De Modo Concionandi, cap. 6. Preface to his book Of the Sacrament.