Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. I. viii. 15.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-1 · Original source
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Chapter V.
Complete historical editorial footnotes. These notes retain the original edition’s wording; individual note authors are unspecified.
English translation and editorial credits: Augustus Henry Eugene de Romestin, Eugene de Romestin (assistant), Henry Thomas Forbes Duckworth (assistant).
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Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. I. viii. 15.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-1 · Original source
51. It is, to take another example, impossible for a sick man to do a strong man’s work; but in this case the reason of the impossibility is of a different kind, for the man is rendered unable, by sickness, to do what he is naturally capable of doing. In this case, then, the cause of the impossibility is sickness, and this kind of impossibility is different from the first, since the man is hindered by bodily weakness from the possibility of doing.
Our Lord did not simply assert that He and His Father are One, without revealing to those, at least, who had faith to perceive it, what is one great bond of that Unity, showing men, so far as man can comprehend the matter, what that Unity consists in, viz., absolute and perfect harmony of will.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-19 · Original source
63. If, then, the Son can, by virtue of a common hidden power of the same nature which He has with the Father, both see and act in an invisible manner, and by the fulness of His Godhead execute every decree of His Will, what remains for us but to believe that the Son, by reason of indivisible unity of power, does nothing, save what He has seen the Father doing, forasmuch as because of His incomparable love the Son does nothing of Himself, since He wills nothing that is against His Father’s Will? Which truly is the proof not of weakness but of unity.