Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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STORY OF ZOSIMUS 95
vincing evidence of Commodian. In the form in which it now
appears it need not be earlier than the fifth or sixth century.
I claim for it a certain vigour of imagination. It seems to
me to rise to a considerable pitch of excellence in its description
of the death of the righteous: and the circumstances of the
expulsion of Zosimus from the Earthly Paradise, and of his conflict
with the devil are examples of a kind of designedly humorous
writing, which we are too apt to ascribe to a deficiency in the
sense of humour when we meet with it in quasi-sacred literature.
The design of the little book is plain enough. It is meant to
set before the monastic communities of the East an ideal of the
ascetic life.
 
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