Exposition of the Christian Faith — Historical footnotes

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

In the original Catholic, i.e. “Catholics.” Heresies might become widespread—the Arian heresy, indeed, counted numerous adherents in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries—but they took their rise in some member or other of the ecclesiastical body, in some one of the many local churches which together made up the one œcumenical church. On the other hand, the primitive teaching, received from the apostolic age, had been delivered without difference in every place to which it had penetrated. It was acknowledged and established before sects and heresies; its original was divine, theirs only human; it rested on the rock of Christ’s authority, speaking through His apostles, whilst they were built on the sands of preeminence in sophistry and captious interpretation; it was for all times and places, therefore, but they were only for a season. In this belief those who clave to the teaching of the apostles claimed for themselves the name of “Catholics,” and for the œcumenical church of which they were members that of “Catholic and Apostolic.” To avoid any misunderstanding, I have used the term “orthodox,” which will stand very well for “Catholic,” inasmuch as “the right faith” is for all, without difference, to hold—in a word, universal, or, as it is in Greek, καθ᾽ ὅλου (whence καθολικός, Catholicus, Catholic).

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-1 · Original source

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

It would constitute an insult, as suggesting that the man was a bastard, or supposititious.

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-2 · Original source

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Thus the Arians were anathematized by the Nicene Council as “those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not.”

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-3 · Original source

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

The Arians asserted that the Son had no existence before He was begotten and that He was “formed out of nothing” or “out of things non-existent;” i.e. that He owed His existence to the Father’s absolute fiat, just as much as the light (Gen. i. 3). Furthermore, the Son’s will was mutable; He might have fallen like Satan. The Father, foreseeing that the Son would not fall, bestowed on Him the titles of “Son” and “Logos.”

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-5 · Original source

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Arius’ arguments against believing in Christ as the Almighty Power of God were based on the N.T. records of Christ’s agony and prayer in view of death, which he thought must imply, not only changeableness of will, but also limitation of power. Had Christ been omnipotent, like the Father, He would have had no fears for Himself, but would rather have imparted strength to others.

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-6 · Original source

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Arius’ teaching on this head appears to be fairly enough represented by Athanasius: “When God, being purposed to establish created Nature, saw that it could not bear the immediate touch of the Father’s hand, and His operation, He in the first place made and created a single Being only, and called Him ‘Son’ and ‘Logos’ to the end that by His intermediate ministry all things might henceforth be brought into existence.” Contra Arianos, Oratio II. § 24.

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-7 · Original source

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Christ, according to the Arians, was not truly God, though He was called God. Again, He was only so called in virtue of communication of grace from the Father. Thus He obtained His title and dignity, though the name of God was used, in speaking of Him in a transference, such as we find in Ps. lxxxii. 6; though Christ’s claim to such a title far transcended any other.

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-8 · Original source

1896 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

The original conception of Dialectic, as exhibited, for instance, in Plato’s Republic, hardly answers to this. According to Plato, the aim of Dialectic, so far from being destructive, was distinctly edifying. The Dialectic method, as its name implies, was one which took the external form of question and answer. It had a definite, positive object, viz., the attainment by force of pure reason to the clear vision of the Absolute Good, the ultimate cause of knowledge and existence. The sphere of Dialectic was pure reason, then, and its object the ultimate truth of things. (Republic, VII. p. 532.) The method which St. Ambrose here calls “Dialectic” would have been more correctly entitled “Elenchus.”

Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-12 · Original source