[1909] "The act of knowing and comprehending all things necessarily includes the expression of mind-work or wisdom, that is, the Word, and without this it cannot even be conceived of. Rightly, then, did the Fathers deduce the eternity of the Word from the eternity of the Father."--Hurter, ad loc.
[1910] St. Ambrose's rendering of this passage (Job xxxviii. 36) agrees with the LXX.--tis de edoke gunaixin huphasmatos sophian, e poikiltiken elistemen. The A.V. 1611 has: "Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?" R.V. has "dark clouds" and "meteor" as marginal substitutes for "inward parts" and "heart." Vulgate--Quis posuit in visceribus hominis sapientiam? vel quis dedit gallo intelligentiam?
[1911] Ex. xxxv. 27. kai hoi archontes enenkan tous lithous tes smaragdou kai tous lithous tes pleroseos eis ten epomida kai to logeion.-- LXX. Lapides onycninos et gemmas ad superhumerale et rationale.--Vulg. "Stones to be set."--A.V. & R.V. The LXX. gives the closest rendering of the Hebrew.
[1912] Proverbs xxxi. 21 (22). St. Ambrose appears to follow the LXX., whose rendering of the passage is different from the Vulgate, with which our English versions agree. With what follows in the text, cf. Ex. xxviii. 33, 34, also Ex. xxviii. 5, 6.
[1913] Ps. xii. (xi. Vulg.) 6, 7. Cf. Prov. xxx. 5.
[1914] These colours entered into the fashioning of the High Priest's Ephod (Ex. xxviii. 5, 6) and the Vail of the Tabernacle. Probably a little symbolism was attached to the ornaments of Ahasuerus' palace of Susa, "where were white, green, and blue" (or violet) "hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver upon a pavement of red and blue and white and black marble." White and green might represent the earth, blue the air, purple the sea and water generally, in the curtains: whilst in the variegated marble pavement, red would naturally symbolize fire, blue the air, white water (as colourless when pure), black earth (the soil). Notice "the air we breathe," etc.--"Aëris quem spiramus et cujus carpimus flatum." Compare Virgil, Æn. I. 387, 388.
[1915] This was supposed by some of the Ionic philosophers to be the explanation of perception. We perceived earth, they supposed, by reason of the earthly constituent of our organism.
[1916] S. James ii. 14-26.
[1917] i.e. if it is possible for Him to ascend to a higher plane of existence.
[1918] i.e. He is a son "by adoption," as one of ourselves.
[1919] i.e.He may not have as yet actually sinned, but it is within the range of possibility for Him--He is, as Hurter expresses it in his note, "auctor malitiæ si non actu, saltem potentia."
[1920] S. Mark x. 18.
Chapter I.
The Arian argument from S. Mark x. 18, "There is none good but one, that is, God," refuted by explanation of these words of Christ.
15. The objection I have now to face, your sacred Majesty, fills me with bewilderment, my soul and body faint at the thought that there should be men, or rather not men, but beings with the outward appearance of men, but inwardly full of brutish folly--who can, after receiving at the hands of the Lord benefits so many and so great, say that the Author of all good things is Himself not good.
16. It is written, say they, that "There is none good but God alone." I acknowledge the Scripture--but there is no falsehood in the letter; would that there were none in the Arians' exposition thereof. The written signs are guiltless, it is the meaning in which they are taken [1921] that is to blame. I acknowledge the words as the words of our Lord and Saviour--but let us bethink ourselves when, to whom, and with what comprehension He speaks.
17. The Son of God is certainly speaking as man, and speaking to a scribe,--to him, that is, who called the Son of God "Good Master," but would not acknowledge Him as God. What he believes not, Christ further gives him to understand, to the end that he may believe in God's Son not as a good master, but as the good God, for if, wheresoever the "One God" is named, the Son of God is never sundered from the fulness of that unity, how, when God alone is said to be good, can the Only-begotten be excluded from the fulness of Divine Goodness? The Arians must therefore either deny that the Son of God is God, or confess that God is good.
18. With divinely inspired comprehension, then, our Lord said, not "There is none good but the Father alone," but "There is none good but God alone," and "Father" is the proper name of Him Who begets. But the unity of God by no means excludes the Godhead of the Three Persons, and therefore it is His Nature that is extolled. Goodness, therefore, is of the nature of God, and in the nature of God, again, exists the Son of God--wherefore that which the predicate expresses belongs not to one single Person, but to the [complete] unity [of the Godhead]. [1922]
19. The Lord, then, doth not deny His goodness--He rebukes this sort of disciple. For when the scribe said, "Good Master," the Lord answered, "Why callest thou Me good?"--which is to say, "It is not enough to call Him good, Whom thou believest not to be God." Not such do I seek to be My disciples--men who rather consider My manhood and reckon Me a good master, than look to My Godhead and believe Me to be the good God.
[1921] "Sensus in crimine." The "sense of a passage" is not something in the passage itself so much as our understanding of it. In other words, the genitive after "sense" is objective, not possessive.
[1922] Lat.--"non quod singularitatis, sed quod unitatis est, prædicatur." The Son is "in the nature of God" inasmuch as the eternal Fatherhood of God implies an Eternal Son--His eternal Love an eternal object of that Love.