Job xxxviii. 4–6; Isa. xl. 12–17.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-3 · Original source
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Exposition of the Christian Faith — Historical footnotes
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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40. Aye, let some one show what there is that the Son of God cannot do. Who was His helper, when He made the heavens,—Who, when He laid the foundations of the world? Had He any need of a helper to set men free, Who needed none in constituting angels and principalities?
Cf. the Collect for the Feast of St. Michael and all Angels.
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40. Aye, let some one show what there is that the Son of God cannot do. Who was His helper, when He made the heavens,—Who, when He laid the foundations of the world? Had He any need of a helper to set men free, Who needed none in constituting angels and principalities?
i.e. human nature. Cf. “Athanasian” Creed, clause 31.
Editorial footnote · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter V., editorial note cite_note-7 · Original source
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42. The words, you say, are the words of Christ. True—consider, though, the occasion of His speaking them, and in what character He speaks. He hath taken upon Him the substance of man, and therewith its affections. Again, you find in the place above cited, that “He went forward a little further, and fell on His face, praying, and saying: Father, if it be possible.” Not as God, then, but as man, speaketh He, for could God be ignorant of the possibility or impossibility of aught? Or is anything impossible for God, when the Scripture saith: “For Thee nothing is impossible”?
The principle common to these and other like heretics (who ignored or misconstrued many passages of Scripture which plainly declare the completeness and truth of our Lord’s humanity) was that matter is inherently and by its very nature evil. Mani, therefore, and the rest were easily led to think shame of attributing to Christ a real, tangible, visible body. For the doctrines of Mani, see note on I. 57. Valentinus was a Gnostic, who lived at Rome (whither he came from Alexandria) between 140 and 160 a.d. Marcion became known as a heresiarch in the papacy of Eleutherius (177–190 a.d.). For the doctrines of Valentinus and Marcion, see Robertson’s Church History, Bk. I. ch. iv.
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44. Both records are true, and it is equally natural that the person who is the less should not fear, as that He Who is the greater should endure this feeling, for the one has all a man’s ignorance of the might of death, whilst the other, as being God inhabiting a body, displays the weakness of the flesh, that the wickedness of those who deny the mystery of the Incarnation might have no excuse. Thus, then, hath He spoken, yet the Manichæan believed not; Valentinus denied, and Marcion judged Him to be a ghost.