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Chapter XIV.
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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Latin, “subsistunt” subsist, persist, last through changes. Even the ephemeris thus persists, subsists, or endures, for its few hours of life.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-2 · Original source
109. In virtue of this likeness Christ said: “All things that the Father hath are Mine.” We cannot, then, deny substance to God, for indeed He is not unsubstantial, Who hath given to others the ground of their being, though this be different in God from what it is in the creature. The Son of God, by Whose agency all things endure, could not be unsubstantial.
“Non est occultatum os meum quod fecisti in abscondito, et substantia mea in inferioribus terræ.” The Prayer-book version runs: “My bones are not hid from Thee, though I be made secretly, and fashioned beneath in the earth.”—Ps. cxxxix. 14. “My bones were not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, [when] I was curiously wrought [as] in the lower parts of the earth.”—Perowne.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-3 · Original source
110. And therefore, the Psalmist saith: “My bones are not hidden, which Thou didst make in secret, and my substance in the underworld.” For to His power and Godhead, the things that before the foundation of the world were done, though their magnificence was [as yet] invisible, could not be hidden. Here, then, we find mention of “substance.”
Ps. cxxxix. 7. See R.V. “Hell” is “Sheol,” a word also rendered “grave.” It means the “place of darkness,” the gloomy underworld, where the spirits of the departed were believed to abide. It is the place from which Samuel’s spirit was called up by the witch of Endor.—1 Sam. xxviii.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-5 · Original source
112. And, indeed, what hinders you from understanding, by that substance, His divine substance, seeing that God is everywhere, so that it hath been said to Him: “If I go up into heaven, Thou art there; if I go down into hell, Thou art present.”
Nahum ii. 6.—The LXX. shows—“πύλαι τῶν πόλεων διηνοίχθησαν, καὶ τὰ βασίλεια διέπεσε. καὶ ἡ ὑπόστασις ἀπεκαλύφθη.” The Vulg.—“Portæ fluviorum apertæ sunt, et templum ad solum dirutum. Et miles captivus adductus est.” R.V.—“The gates of the rivers are opened and the palace is dissolved, and Huzzab is uncovered, and it is decreed; she is uncovered, she is carried away,” etc.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-7 · Original source
115. But is this the only place where we read of “substance”? Hath it not also been said in another passage: “The gates of the cities are broken down, the mountains are fallen, and His substance is revealed”? What, does the word mean something created here also? Some, I know, are accustomed to say that the substance is substance in money. Then, if you give this meaning to the word, the mountains fell, in order that some one’s possessions of money might be seen.
Jer. li. 25. The “mount of corruption” is Babylon.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-13 · Original source
118. We behold that height, lifting up itself against the knowledge of God, cast down by the word of the Lord, when the Son of God said: “Hold thy peace, and come forth, thou foul spirit.” Concerning whom the prophet also said: “Behold, I am come to thee, thou mount of corruption!”
i.e. those cities and nations and persons who have exalted themselves, lifted themselves up as high mountains, challenging, as it were, the majesty of heaven. Cf. Ps. lxviii. 16, R.V.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-14 · Original source
119. Those mountains, then, are fallen, and it is revealed that in Christ was the substance of God, in the words of those who had seen Him: “Truly Thou art the Son of God,” for it was in virtue of divine, not human power, that He commanded devils. Jeremiah also saith: “Make mourning upon the mountains, and beat your breasts upon the desert tracks, for they have failed; forasmuch as there are no men, they have not heard the word of substance: from flying fowl to beasts of burden, they trembled, they have failed.”
Jer. ix. 10. St. Ambrose follows the text of the LXX. with one or two variations in the punctuation. What St. Ambrose renders as “vox substantiæ” (“word of substance” or “voice of substance”) appears in the LXX. as “φωνὴ ὑπάρξεως” (which vox substantiæ represents verbatim), and in Vulg. as “vox possidentis” (“the voice of the possessor”—i.e. landowner); in the A.V. and R.V. as “the voice of the cattle.”—ὐπαρξις and substantia should be taken in the concrete sense (as they clearly represent a concrete term), like our “substance,” or “possessions.” Now in primitive society—like, e.g., that of the nomad Tartars—possessions consist mainly in horses and cattle. Cf. the evolution of the term pecunia=money.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-16 · Original source
119. Those mountains, then, are fallen, and it is revealed that in Christ was the substance of God, in the words of those who had seen Him: “Truly Thou art the Son of God,” for it was in virtue of divine, not human power, that He commanded devils. Jeremiah also saith: “Make mourning upon the mountains, and beat your breasts upon the desert tracks, for they have failed; forasmuch as there are no men, they have not heard the word of substance: from flying fowl to beasts of burden, they trembled, they have failed.”
The text will then be prophetic of the Agony in the Garden and upon the Cross.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-18 · Original source
120. Nor has it escaped us, that in another place also, setting forth the frailties of man’s estate, in order to show that He had taken upon Himself the infirmity of the flesh, and the affections of our minds, the Lord said, by the mouth of His prophet: “Remember, O Lord, what My substance is,” because it was the Son of God speaking in the nature of human frailty.
“Holiness.” E.V.—“crown.”
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-21 · Original source
121. Of Him the Scripture saith, in the passage cited, in order to discover the mysteries of the Incarnation: “But Thou hast rejected, O Lord, and counted for nought—Thou hast cast out Thy Christ. Thou hast overthrown the covenant made with Thy Servant, and trampled His holiness in the earth.” What was it, in regard whereof the Scripture called Him “Servant,” but His flesh?—seeing that “He did not hold equality with God as a prey, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made into the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man.” So, then, in that He took upon Himself My nature, He was a servant, but by virtue of His own power He is the Lord.
St. Ambrose’s “substantia” is, in the LXX., ὑπόστημα—“standing-ground.” R.V. “council.”—Jer. xxiii. 18–22.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV., editorial note cite_note-23 · Original source
122. Furthermore, what meaneth it that thou readest: “Who hath stood in the truth (substantia) of the Lord?” and again: “Now if they had stood in My truth, and had given ear to My words, and had taught My people, I would have turned them from their follies and transgressions”?