Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadChurch Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 10: 30.01.35 Christian Faith Book III Pt 2
TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 10 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 30.01.35 Christian Faith Book III Pt 2
Other Subjects in this Topic:
Chapter VII.
Solomon's words, "The Lord created Me," etc., mean that Christ's Incarnation was done for the redemption of the Father's creation, as is shown by the Son's own words. That He is the "beginning" may be understood from the visible proofs of His virtuousness, and it is shown how the Lord opened the ways of all virtues, and was their true beginning.
46. Hereby we are brought to understand that the prophecy of the Incarnation, "The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works,"hyperlink means that the Lord Jesus was created of the Virgin for the redeeming of the Father's works. Truly, we cannot doubt that this is spoken of the mystery of the Incarnation, forasmuch as the Lord took upon Him our flesh, in order to save the works of His hands from the slavery of corruption, so that He might, by the sufferings of His own body, overthrow him who had the power of death. For Christ's flesh is for the sake of things created, but His Godhead existed before them, seeing that He is before all things, whilst all things exist together in Him.hyperlink
47. His Godhead, then, is not by reason of creation, but creation exists because of the Godhead; even as the Apostle showed, saying that all things exist because of the Son of God, for we read as follows: "But it was fitting that He, through Whom and because of Whom are all things, after bringing many sons to glory, should, as Captain of their salvation, be made perfect through suffering."hyperlink Has he not plainly declared that the Son of God, Who, by reason of His Godhead, was the Creator of all, did in after time, for the salvation of His people, submit to the taking on of the flesh and the suffering of death?
48. Now for the sake of what works the Lord was "created" of a virgin, He Himself, whilst healing the blind man, has shown, saying: "In Him must I work the works of Him that sent Me."hyperlink Furthermore He said in the same Scripture, that we might believe Him to speak of the Incarnation: "As long as I am in this world, I am the Light of this world,"hyperlink for, so far as He is man, He is in this world for a season, but as God He exists at all times. In another place, too, He says: "Lo, I am with you even unto the end of the world."hyperlink
49. Nor is there any room for questioning with respect to "the beginning," seeing that when, during His earthly life, He was asked, "Who art Thou?" He answered: "The beginning, even as I tell you."hyperlink This refers not only to the essential nature of the eternal Godhead, but also to the visible proofs of virtues, for hereby hath He proved Himself the eternal God, in that He is the beginning of all things, and the Author of each several virtue, in that He is the Head of the Church, as it is written: "Because He is the Head of the Body, of the Church;hyperlink Who is the beginning, first-begotten from the dead."hyperlink
50. It is clear, then, that the words "beginning of His ways," which, as it seems, we must refer to the mystery of the putting on of His body, are a prophecy of the Incarnation. For Christ's purpose in the Incarnation was to pave for us the road to heaven. Mark how He says: "I go up to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God."hyperlink Then, to give you to know that the Almighty Father appointed His ways to the Son, after the Incarnation,hyperlink you have in Zechariah the words of the angel speaking to Joshua clothed in filthy garments: "Thus saith the Lord Almighty: If thou wilt walk in My ways and observe My precepts."hyperlink What is the meaning of that filthy garb save the putting on of the flesh?
51. Now the ways of the Lord are, we may say, certain courses taken in a good life, guided by Christ, Who says, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life."hyperlink The way, then, is the surpassing power of God, for Christ, is our way, and a good way, too, is He, a way which hath opened the kingdom of heaven to believers.hyperlink Moreover, the ways of the Lord are straight, as it is written: "Make Thy ways known unto me, O Lord."hyperlink Chastity is a way, faith is a way, abstinence is a way. There is, indeed, a way of virtue, and there is a way of wickedness; for it is written: "And see if there be any way of wickedness in me."hyperlink
52. Christ, then, is the beginning of our virtue. He is the beginning of purity, Who taught maidens not to look for the embraces of men,hyperlink but to yield the purity of their bodies and minds to the service of the Holy Spirit rather than to a husband. Christ is the beginning of frugality, for He became poor, though He was rich.hyperlink Christ is the beginning of patience, for when He was reviled, He reviled not again, when He was struck, He did not strike back. Christ is the beginning of humility, for He took the form of a servant, though in the majesty of His power He was equal with God the Father.hyperlink From Him each several virtue has taken its origin.
53. For this cause, then, that we might learn these divers virtues, "a Son was given us, Whose beginning was upon His shoulder."hyperlink That "beginning" is the Lord's Cross-the beginning of strong courage, wherewith a way has been opened for the holy martyrs to enter the sufferings of the Holy War.
Chapter VIII.
The prophecy of Christ's Godhead and Manhood, contained in the verse of Isaiah just now cited, is unfolded, and its force in refuting various heresies demonstrated.
54. This beginning did Isaiah see, and therefore he says: "A Child is born, a Son is given to us," as also did the Magi, and therefore worshipped they, when they saw the little One in the stable, and said: "A Child is born," and, when they saw the star, declared, "A Son is given to us." On the one hand, a gift from earth-on the other, a gift from heaven-and both are One Person, perfect in respect of each, without any changeableness in the Godhead, as without any taking away from the fulness of the Manhood. One Person did the Magi adore, to one and the same they offered their gifts, to show that He Who was seen in the stall was the very Lord of heaven.
55. Mark how the two verbs differ in their import: "A Child is born, a Son is given." Though born of the Father, yet is He not born, but given to us, forasmuch as the Son is not for our sakes, but we for the Son's. For indeed He was not born to us, being born before us, and the maker of all things created: nor is He now brought to life for the first time, Who was always, and was in the beginning;hyperlink on the other hand, that which before-time was not is born to us. Again we find it thus recorded, how that the angel, when he spoke to the shepherds, said that He had been born: "Who is this day born to us a Saviour, Who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David."hyperlink To us, then, was born that which was not before-that is, a child of the Virgin, a body from Mary-for this was made after man had been created, whereas [the Godhead] was before us.
56. Some manuscripts read as follows: "A Child is born to us a Son is given to us;"hyperlink that is to say, He, Who is Son of God, is born as Mary's child for us, and given to us. As for the fact that He is "given," listen to the prophet's words: "And grant us Thy salvation."hyperlink But that which is above us is given: what is from heaven is given: even as indeed we read concerning the Spirit, that "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Who is given unto us."hyperlink
57. But note how this passage is as water upon fire to a crowd of heresies. "A Child is born to us," not to the Jews; "to us," not to the Manichaeans; "to us," not to the Marcionites. The prophet says "to us," that is, to those who believe, not to unbelievers. And He indeed, in His pitifulness, was born for all, but it is the disloyalty of heretics that hath brought it to pass that the birth of Him Who was born for all should not profit all. For the sun is bidden to rise upon the good and the bad, but to them that see not there is no appearance of sunrise.
58. Even as the Child, then, is born not unto all, but unto the faithful: so the Son is given to the faithful and not to the unbelieving. He is given to us, not to the Photinians; for they affirm that the Son of God was not given unto us, but was born and first began to exist amongst us. To us is He given, not to the Sabellians, who will not hear of a Son being given, maintaining that Father and Son are one and the same. Unto us is He given, not unto the Arians, in whose judgment the Son was not given for salvation, but sent over subject and inferior, to whom, moreover, He is no "Counsellor," inasmuch as they hold that He knows nought of the future, no Son, since they believe not in His eternity, though of the Word of God it is written: "That which was in the beginning;" and again: "In the beginning was the Word."hyperlink To return to the passage we set before us to discuss. "In the beginning," saith the Scripture, "before He made the earth, before He made the deeps, before He brought forth the springs of water, before all the hills He begat Me."hyperlink
Chapter IX.
The preceding quotation from Solomon's Proverbs receives further explanation.
59. Perchance you will ask how I came to cite, as referring to the Incarnation of Christ, the place, "The Lord created Me," seeing that the creation of the universe took place before the Incarnation of Christ? But consider that the use of holy Scripture is to speak of things to come as though already past, and to make intimation of the union of two natures, Godhead and Manhood, in Christ, lest any should deny either His Godhead or His Manhood.
60. In Isaiah, for example, you may read: "A Child is born unto us, and a Son is given unto us;" so here also [in the Proverbs] the prophet sets forth first the creation of the flesh, and joined thereto the declaration of the Godhead, that you might know that Christ is not two, but One, being both begotten of the Father before the worlds, and in the last timeshyperlink created of the Virgin. And thus the meaning is: I, Who am begotten before the worlds, am He Who was created of mortal woman, created for a set purpose.
61. Again, immediately before the declaration, "The Lord created Me," He says, "I will tell of the things which are from eternity," and before saying, "He begat," He premised, "In the beginning, before He made the earth, before all hills." In its extent, the preposition "before" reaches back into the past without end or limit, and so "Before Abraham was, I am,"hyperlink clearly need not mean "after Adam," just as "before the Morning Star"hyperlink need not mean "after the angels." But when He said "before," He intended, not that He was included in any one's existence, but that all things are included in His, for thus it is the custom of Holy Writ to show the eternity of God. Finally, in another passage you may read: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art from everlasting to everlasting."hyperlink
62. Before all created things, then, is the Son begotten; within all and for the good of all is He made; begotten of the Father, above the Law,hyperlink brought forth of Mary, under the Law.hyperlink
Chapter X.
Observations on the words of John the Baptist (John i. 30), which may be referred to divine fore-ordinance, but at any rate, as explained by the foregoing considerations, must be understood of the Incarnation. The precedence of Christ is mystically expounded, with reference to the history of Ruth.
63. But [say they] it is written: "After me cometh a Man, Who is made before me, because He was before me;"hyperlink and so they argue: "See, He Who was aforetime is `made.'" Let us take the words by themselves. "After me cometh a Man." He, then, Who came is a Man, and this is the Man Who "was made." But the word "man" connotes sex, and sex is attributed to human nature, but never to the Godhead.
64. I might argue: The Man [Christ Jesus] was in pre-existence so far as His body was foreknown, though His power is from everlasting-for both the Church and the Saints were foreordained before the worlds began. But here I lay aside this argument, and urge that the being made concerns not the Godhead, but the nature of the Incarnation, even as John himself said: "This is He of Whom I said: After me cometh a Man, Who was made before me."
65. The Scripture, then, having, as I showed above, discovered the twofold nature in Christ, that you might understand the presence of both Godhead and Manhood, here begins with the flesh; for it is the cutsom of Holy Writ to begin without fixed rule sometimes with the Godhead of Christ, and descend to the visible tokens of Incarnation; sometimes, on the other hand, to start from its humility, and rise to the glory of the Godhead, as oftentimes in the Prophets and Evangelists, and in St. Paul. Here, then, after this use, the writer begins with the Incarnation of our Lord, and then proclaims His Divinity, not to confound, but to distinguish, the human and the divine. But Arians, like Jew vintners,hyperlink mix water with the wine, confounding the divine generation with the human, and ascribing to the majesty of God what is properly said only of the lowliness of the flesh.
66. I have no fears of a certain objection they are likely to put forward, namely, that in the words cited we have "a man"-for some have, "Who cometh after me." But here, too, let them observe what precedes. "The Word," it is said, "was made flesh."hyperlink Having said that the Word was made flesh, the Evangelist added no mention of man. We understand "man" there in the mention of "flesh," and "flesh" by the mention of "man." After the statement made, then, that "the Word was made flesh," there was no need here to particularly mention "man," whom he already intended by using the name "flesh."
67. Later on, St. John uses the lamb, that "taketh away the sins of the world," as an example; and to teach you plainly the Incarnation of Him, of Whom he had spoken before, he says: "This is He of Whom I said before: After me cometh a Man, Who is made before me," to wit, of Whom I said that He was "made" as being man, not as being God. However, to show that it was He Who was before the worlds, and none other, that became flesh, lest we should suppose two Sons of God, he adds: "because He was before me." If the words "was made" had referred to the divine generation, what need was there that the writer should add this, and repeat himself? But, having first said, with regard to the Incarnation only, "After me cometh a Man, Who is made before me," he added: "because He was before me," because it was needful to teach the eternity of [Christ's] Godhead; and this is the reason why St. John acknowledged Christ's priority, that He, Who is His own Father's eternal Power, may be presented as on that account duly preferred.hyperlink
68. But the abounding activity of the spiritual understanding makes it a pleasing exercise to sally forth and drive into a corner the Arians, who will understand the term "made" in this passage, not of the manhood, but of the Godhead [of Christ]. What ground, indeed, is left for them to take their stand upon, when the Baptist has declared that "after me cometh One Who is made before me," that is, Who, though in the course of earthly life He comes after me, yet is placed above the degree of my worth and grace, and Who has title to be worshipped as God. For the words "cometh after me" belong to an event in time, but "was before me" signify Christ's eternity; and "is made before me" refer to His pre-eminence, forasmuch as, indeed, the mystery of the Incarnation is above human deserving.hyperlink
69. Again, St. John Baptist also taught in less weighty language what ideas they were he had combined, saying: "After me cometh a Man, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear," setting forth at least the more excellent dignity [of Christ], though not the eternity of His Divine Generation. Now these words are so fully intended of the Incarnation, that Scripture hath given us, in an earlier book, a human counterpart of the mystic sandal. For, by the Law, when a man died, the marriage bond with his wife was passed on to his brother, or other man next of kin, in order that the seed of the brother or next of kin might renew the life of the house, and thus it was that Ruth, though she was foreign-born, but yet had possessed a husband of the Jewish people, who had left a kinsman of near relation, being seen and loved of Boaz whilst gleaning and maintaining herself and her mother-in-law with that she gleaned, was yet not taken of Boaz to wife, until she had first loosed the shoe from [the foot of] him whose wife she ought, by the Law, to have become.hyperlink
70. The story is a simple one, but deep are its hidden meanings, for that which was done was the outward betokening of somewhat further. If indeed we should rack the sense so as to fit the letter exactly, we should almost find the words an occasion of a certain shame and horror, that we should regard them as intending and conveying the thought of common bodily intercourse; but it was the foreshadowing of One Who was to arise from Jewry-whence Christ was, after the flesh-Who should, with the seed of heavenly teaching, revive the seed of his dead kinsman, that is to say, the people, and to Whom the precepts of the Law, in their spiritual significance, assigned the sandal of marriage, for the espousals of the Church.
71. Moses was not the Bridegroom, for to him cometh the word, "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot,"hyperlink that he might give place to his Lord. Nor was Joshua, the son of Nun, the Bridegroom, for to him also it was told, saying, "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot,"hyperlink lest, by reason of the likeness of his name, he should be thought the spouse of the Church. None other is the Bridegroom but Christ alone, of Whom St. John said: "He Who hath the bride is the Bridegroom."hyperlink They, therefore, loose their shoes, but His shoe cannot be loosed, even as St. John said: "I am not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoe."hyperlink
72. Christ alone, then, is the Bridegroom to Whom the Church, His bride, comes from the nations, and gives herself in wedlock; aforetime poor and starving, but now rich with Christ's harvest; gathering in the hidden bosom of her mind handfuls of the rich crop and gleanings of the Word, that so she may nourish with fresh food her who is worn out, bereaved by the death of her son, and starving, even the mother of the dead people,-leaving not the widow and destitute, whilst she seeks new children.
73. Christ, then, alone is the Bridegroom, grudging not even to the synagogue the sheaves of His harvest. Would that the synagogue had not of her own will shut herself out! She had sheaves that she might herself have gathered, but, her people being dead, she, like one bereaved by the death of her son, began to gather sheaves, whereby she might live, by the hand of the Church-the which sheaves they who come in joyfulness shall carry, even as it is written: "Yet surely shall they come with joy, bringing their sheaves with them."hyperlink
74. Who, indeed, but Christ could dare to claim the Church as His bride, whom He alone, and none other, hath called from Libanus, saying: "Come hither from Libanus, my bride; come hither from Libanus"?hyperlink Or of Whom else could the Church have said: "His throat is sweetness, and He is altogether desirable"?hyperlink And seeing that we entered upon this discussion from speaking of the shoes of His feet,-to Whom else but the Word of God incarnate can those words apply? "His legs are pillars of marble, set upon bases of gold."hyperlink For Christ alone walks in the souls and makes His path in the minds of His saints, in which, as upon bases of gold and foundations of precious stone the heavenly Word has left His footprints ineffaceably impressed.
75. Clearly we see, then, that both the man and the type point to the mystery of the Incarnation.
Chapter XI.
St. Ambrose returns to the main question, and shows that whenever Christ is said to have "been made" (or "become"), this must be understood with reference to His Incarnation, or to certain limitations. In this sense several passages of Scripture-especially of St. Paul-are expounded. The eternal Priesthood of Christ, prefigured in Melchizedek. Christ possesses not only likeness, but oneness with the Father.
76. When, therefore, Christ is said to have been "made," to have "become," the phrase relates, not to the substance of the Godhead, but often to the Incarnation-sometimes indeed to a particular office; for if you understand it of His Godhead, then God was made into an object of insult and derision inasmuch as it is written: "But thou hast rejected thy Christ,hyperlink and brought Him to nought; thou hast driven Him to wander;" and again: "And He was made the derision of His neighbours."hyperlink Of His neighbours, mark you-not of them of His household, not of them who clave to Him, for "he who cleaveth to the Lord is one Spirit;"hyperlink he who is neighbour doth not cleave to Him. Again, "He was made a derision," because the Lord's Cross is to Jews a stumbling-block, and to Greeks is foolishness:hyperlink for to them that are wise He is, by that same Cross, made higher than the heavens, higher than angels, and is made the Mediator of the better covenant, even as He was Mediator of the former.
77. Mark how I repeat the phrase; so far am I from seeking to avoid it. Yet take notice in what sense He is "made."
78. In the first place, "having made purification, He sitteth on the right hand of Majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels."hyperlink Now where purification is, there is a victim; where there is a victim, there is also a body; where a body is, there is oblation; where there is the office of oblation, there also is sacrifice made with suffering.
79. In the next place, He is the Mediator of a better covenant. But where there is testamentary disposition, the death of the testator must first come to pass,hyperlink as it is written a little further on. Howbeit, the death is not the death of His eternal Godhead, but of His weak human frame.
80. Furthermore, we are taught how He is made "higher than the heavens." "Unspotted," saith the Scripture,hyperlink "separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; not having daily need, as the priests have need, to offer a victim first for his own sins, and then for those of the people. For this He did by sacrificing Himself once and for all." None is said to be made higher, save he who has in some respect been lower; Christ, then, is, by His sitting at the right hand of the Father, made higher in regard of that wherein, being made lower than the angels, He offered Himself to suffer.
81. Finally, the Apostle himself saith to the Philippians, that "being made in the likeness of man, and found in outward appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, being made obedient even unto death."hyperlink Mark that, in regard whereof He is "made," He is made, the Apostle saith, in the likeness of man, not in respect of Divine Sovereignty, and He was made obedient unto death, so that He displayed the obedience proper to man, and obtained the kingdom appertaining of right to Godhead.
82. How many passages need we cite further in evidence that His "being made" must be understood with reference to His Incarnation, or to some particular dispensation? Now whatsoever is made, the same is also created, for "He spake and they were made; He gave also the word, and they were created."hyperlink "The Lord created me." These words are spoken with regard to His Manhood; and we have also shown, in our First Book, that the word "created" appears to have reference to the Incarnation.
83. Again, the Apostle himself, by declaring that no worship is to be rendered to a created existence, has shown that the Son has not been created, but begotten, of God.hyperlink At the same time he shows in other places what there was in Christ that was created, in order to make plain in what sense he has read in Solomon's book: "The Lord created Me."
84. Let us now review a whole passagehyperlink in order. "Seeing, then, that the sons have parts of flesh and blood, He too likewise was made to have part in the same, to the end that by death He might overthrow him who had the power of death."hyperlink Who, then, is He Who would have us to be partakers in His own flesh and blood? Surely the Son of God. How, save by means of the flesh, was He made partaker with us,hyperlink or by what, save by bodily death, brake He the chains of death? For Christ's endurance of death was made the death of Death.hyperlink This text, then, speaks of the Incarnation.
85. Let us see what follows: "For He did not indeed [straightway] put on Him the nature of angels, but that of Abraham's seed. And thus was He able to be made like to His brethren in all things throughout, that He might become a compassionate and faithful Prince, a Priest unto God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people; for in that He Himself suffered He is able also to help them that are tempted. Wherefore, brethren most holy, ye who have each his share in a heavenly calling, look upon the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, regard His faithfulness to His Creator, even as Moses was in his house."hyperlink These, then, are the Apostle's words.
86. You see what it is in respect whereof the writer calls Him created.: "In so far as He took upon Him the seed of Abraham;" plainly asserting the begetting of a body. How, indeed, but in His body did He expiate the sins of the people? In what did He suffer, save in His body-even as we said above: "Christ having suffered in the flesh"? In what is He a priest, save in that which He took to Himself from the priestly nation?hyperlink
67. It is a priest's duty to offer something, and, according to the Law, to enter into the holy places by means of blood; seeing, then, that God had rejected the blood of bulls and goats, this High Priest was indeed bound to make passage and entry into the holy of holies in heaven through His own blood, in order that He might be the everlasting propitiation for our sins. Priest and victim, then, are one; the priesthood and sacrifice are, however, exercised under the conditions of humanity, for He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek.hyperlink
88. Let no man, therefore, when he beholds an order of human establishment, contend that in it resides the claim of Divinity;hyperlink for even that Melchizedek, by whose office Abraham offered sacrifice, the Church doth certainly not hold to be an angel (as some Jewish triflers do), but a holy man and priest of God, who, prefiguring our Lord,hyperlink is described as "without father or mother, without history of his descent, without beginning and without end,"hyperlink in order to show beforehand the coming into this world of the eternal Son of God, Who likewise was incarnate and then brought forth without any father, begotten as God without mother, and was without history of descent, for it is written: "His generation who shall declare?"hyperlink
89. This Melchizedek, then, have we received as a priest of God made upon the model of Christ, but the one we regard as the type, the other as the original. Now a type is a shadow of the truth, and we have accepted the royalty of the one in the name of a single city, but that of the other as shown in the reconciliation of the whole world; for it is written: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself;"hyperlink that is to say, [in Christ was] eternal Godhead: or, if the Father is in the Son, even as the Son is in the Father, then Their unity in both naturehyperlink and operation is plainly not denied.
90. But how, indeed, could our adversaries justly deny this, even if they would, when the Scripture saith: "But the Father, Who abideth in Me, even He doeth the works;" and "The works that I do, He Himself worketh"?hyperlink Not "He also doeth the works," but one should regard it as similarity rather than unity of work; in saying, "The things that I do, He Himself doeth," the Apostle has left it clear that we ought to believe that the work of the Father and the work of the Son is one.
91. On the other hand, when He would have similarity, not unity, of works, to be understood, He said: "He that believeth in Me, the works which I do, shall he do also."hyperlink Skilfully inserting here the word "also," He hath allowed us similarity, and yet hath not ascribed natural unity. One, therefore, is the work of the Father and the work of the Son, whether the Arians please so to think or not.
Footnotes
99 Col. i. 16.
100 Heb. ii. 10.
101 S. John ix. 4. "In him" is, in our Bible, attached to the preceding verse.
102 S. John ix. 5.
103 S. Matt. xxviii. 20.
104 S. John viii. 25. St. Ambrose's words: "Principium quod et looquor vobis."
105 Col. 1:18.
106 Cf. Eph. iv. 15, Eph. iv. 16.
107 S. John xx. 17.
108 "secundum incarnationem," "as a result of the Incarnation."
109 Zech. iii. 7.
110 S. John xiv. 6.
111 Cf. the "Te Deum," ver. 17.
112 Ps. xxv. 4.
113 Ps. cxxxix. 24.
114 Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 29 and 1 Cor. vii. 34. It seems unwarrantable to suppose a reference to 2 Cor. xi 2.
115 1 Cor. viii. 9.
116 1 Pet. ii. 23; Phil. ii. 7.
117 Isa. ix. 6. St. Ambrose' version is "Filius datus est nobis, cujus principium super humeros ejus."
118 S. John i. 1.
119 S. Luke ii. 11.
120 This is the right rendering. See Driver's Life and Times of Isaiah, p. 30, note 2.
121 Ps. lxxxv.
122 Rom. v. 5.
123 S. John i. 1, John i. 2.
124 Prov. viii. 23 ff.
125 1 Pet. i. 21; Heb. i. 1, Heb. i. 2; Gal. iv. 4.
126 S. John viii. 58.
127 Ps. cx. 3.
128 Ps. xc. 2.
129 S. Mark ii. 28.
130 Gal. iv. 4.
131 S. John i. 30.
132 Cf. Athanasius, Third Oration Against the Arians, §35-"But should any man, noticing the divinity revealed in the action of the Word, deny the reality of the body, or marking the things peculiar to the body, deny the presence of the Word in flesh or judging from His human experiences and behaviour, conceive a low esteem of the Word, such a person, like the Jew vintner, mixing water with his wine, will hold the Cross a scandal, and, like a heathen philosopher, regard the preaching as folly-which is just the state of the ungodly followers of Arius." Horace, Sat. I. v. 3, 4-"inde Forum Appî, Differetum nautis, cauponibus atque malignis."
133 S. John i. 14.
134 The explanation of St. John Baptist's words in the Fourth Gospel is to be found, indeed, in the same Gospel (i. 27) and in the other three Gospels. See Matt. iii. 11 S. Mark i. 7; S. Luke iii. 16. In S. John i. 30, the Baptist says of Jesus Christ not merely "proteroj mouhn" but "prwtoj"-i.e. "first in relation to me" (and every other human being), "the principle of my very being." The Arians understood the phrase as if the ordinary comparative, suitable for expressing the ordinary priority of human beings to each other, had been used.
135 Or the meaning may be understood by reference to the fact that in the Man Christ Jesus there was seen, and felt, grace, authority, and power such as was more than earthly, more than human. "Full of grace are Thy lips, because God hath blessed thee for ever." So it was that He spake as never man spake, teaching with authority, and not as the scribes.
136 Deut. xxv. 5-10; Ruth iv. 5-7.
137 Ex. iii. 5.
138 Josh. v. 16.
139 S. John iii. 29.
140 S. John i. 27.
141 Ps. cxxvi. 7.
142 Song of Solomon iv. 8.
143 Song of Solomon v. 26.
144 Song of Solomon v. 15.
145 Or, as E.V.-"Thine Anointed" (xristoj from xriw=anoint).
146 Ps. lxxxix. 37 and Ps. lxxxix. 40.
147 1 Cor. vi. 17.
148 1 Cor. i. 23.
149 Heb. i. 3, Heb. i. 4.
150 Heb. vii. 22; Heb. xi. 16
151 Heb. vii. 26, Heb. vii. 27.
152 Phil. ii. 7, Phil. ii. 8.
153 Ps. cxlviii. 5.
154 Rom. i. 25.
155 Viz.: the complete section Heb. ii. 14-Heb. iii. 1, Heb. iii. 2.
156 Heb. ii. 14.
157 Particeps noster-our partner, companion, sharing all our labours (and taking the lion's share, too). Isa. liii. 4.
158 1 Cor. xv. 54, 1 Cor. xv. 55.
159 Heb. ii. 16-Heb. iii. 2.
160 "Priestly nation."-Ex. xix. 5; 1 Pet. ii. 9. We must not understand especial reference to the priestly tribe of Levi only, but to the whole people of Israel. Cf. Heb. vii.
161 Ps. cx. 4.
162 Gen. xiv. 18 ff.
163 Orig. "typum gerens Domini"-"bearing the stamp of our Lord," marked with His mark, as a coin is stamped with the image and superscription of the king or other authority who issues it.
164 Heb. vii. 1 ff.
165 Isa. liii. 8.
166 2 Cor. v. 19.
167 Lat. substantia.
168 S. John xiv. 10.
169 S. John xiv. 12.