21 John vii. 12; ix. 5; xiv. 6.
30 Prov. viii. 22; John x. 36; Acts ii. 36.
44 Matt. viii. 24; Mark iv. 38.
48 S. Gregory often speaks of Human Nature as our composite being; and here he means the Sacred Humanity exclusively; there is no shadow of suspicion of Nestorianism or Eutychianism attaching to his name.
49 The word oi'konomi/a is used in four principal senses: (a) The ministry of the Gospel, cf. Ephes. iii. 2. Col. i. 25, etc., and S. Cyril Hieros., has the expression "Economy of the Mystery" (Cat. xxv.). It is also used absolutely by S. Chrysostom and others. (b) The Providence of God, as by Epiphanius, Greg. Nyss., and others. (c) The Incarnation, as in the text, without any epithet - in which use it is opposed to h 9qeo/thj. Sometimes however epithets are added. (d) The whole Mystery of Redemption, including the Passion.
50 cf. S. Leo, Serm. xxi., De Nativ. Dei, c. ii. "Remaining what He was, and putting on what He was not, He untied the true form of a servant to that form in which He was equal to God the Father, and combined both natures in a union so close that the lower was not consumed by receiving glory, nor the higher lessened by assuming lowliness.
51 "Mediante anima." cf. Orat. xxxviii., 13. S. T. Aq., Summa III., vi. Jungmann. de Verbo Incarn., c. 68. Forbes, On Nicene Creed, p. 188. Petav. de Incarn, IV., xiii., 2.
52 geno/menoj a#nqrwpoj o 9 ka/tw qeo/j. The passage is one of great difficulty. Elias Cretensis renders the words as follows:-"Becoming Man, the inferior God, because humanity was" etc.; but his rendering is rejected as impossible by Petavius (de Incarn Iv., ix., 2. 3). (i.) It is grammatically possible (Madvig, Gk. Syntax, 9 a. rem. 3) for o 9 ka/tw, standing as it does, to qualify a#nqrwpoj. (ii.) But the kai\ geno/menoj. . . qeo\j may be taken as a nom. absolute, which would have been expressed by a gen. If a#nqrwpoj had not been the same Person as o 9milh/saj.
53 As by the Incarnation He who was God was made perfect Man, so Man was made perfect God, and each nature retained its own qualities. Or it may mean that God Incarnate was made Man in respect of body, soul, and mind; that is, in all points: and the Humanity which He assumed was in all these points Defied; and therefore they who are His kindred and imitators share to that extent the Deification (Elias). In the First Epistle to Cledonius (v. infra) the Priest, against Apollinarius, which is sometimes reckoned as the 51st Oration. S. Gregory says. "The Godhead and the Manhood are two natures, just as soul and body are. But there are not two Sons or two Gods; although Paul did thus entangle the outward man and the inward. And, to speak succinctly, the Natures which make our Saviour are distinct, for the Invisible is not the same as the visible, nor the Timeless as that which is subject to time; but He is not two Persons, God forbid, for both these are one in the union. God being made Man, and Man being mad God, or however else you may express it." And upon this S. Thomas Aquinas remarks that it is true, if by Man you understand simply Human Nature, and not a Human Person; in this sense it was brought to pass that Man was God: or in other words Human Nature was made that of the Son of God. (Summa, III., xvi., 7.)
54 "If any does not admit Mary to be the Mother of God (qeoto/kon), he is separated from God. If any say that He passed through the Virgin as through a conduit, and that He was not formed in her both divinely and humanly (divinely, because without a human father; humanly, because in accordance with the laws of gestation), he is in like manner atheistic. If any assert that the Humanity was thus formed, and the Deity subsequently, added, he is condemned; for this is not a generation of God, but and evasion of generation" (S. G. N. ad Cled., Eph. i.) S. Thomas Aquinas explains the fitness of the title thus: The Blessed Virgin could be denied to be the Mother of God only if either His Humanity had been conceived and born before That Man was the Son of God: - which was the position taken up by Photinus; or else if the Humanity had not been assumed into the unity of the Person (or Hypostasis) of the Son of God; - which was the position of Nestorius. Both these positions are erroneous. Therefore to deny that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God is heretical (Summa, III.. xxxv.. 4). In the text S. Gregory merely means that the Godhead of our Lord was not derived from His Blessed Mother, just as his Manhood was not derived from any man; but, as the extract at the beginning of this Note shew, he would be the last to take up the Nestorian notion, which was afterwards condemned at the Council of Ephesus.
55 Both These. i.e., the being without Father, and without Mother is a condition which belongs only to the Godhead.
56 S. John the Baptist (S. Luke i.).
58 Referring, perhaps, to the tradition that at the coming of Christ into Egypt all the Idols in the land fell down and were broken.
1 Prov. viii. 22. The A.V. has in the place Possessed, and this has very high authority: but the Hebrew word in almost every case signifies to Acquire. It is used, says Bp. Wordsworth (ad h. l.), about eighty times in the O. T., and in only five places is it rendered in our Translation by Possess; - in two of which (Gen. xiv. 10, 22, and Ps. cxxxix. 13) it might well have the sense of Creating, and in two (Jer. xxxii. 15, and Zech. xi. 5) of Getting. In some ancient Versions (LXX. and Syr.) it is rendered by Create. S. Jerome in his Ep. and Cypr. (ii. 697) says that the word may here be understood of possession, but in his Comm. on Ephes. ii. (p. 342) he adopts the rendering Create, which he applies to the Incarnation, as in several places does S. Athanasius. But Wordsworth thinks it better to apply the words to the Eternal Generation, as S. Hilary expounds it (c. Arianos, who argued from it that Christ was a creature): "quia Filius Dei non corporalis parturitionis est genitus exemplo, sed ex perfecto Deo perfectus Deus natus; et ideo ait creatam se esse Sapientia; omnem in generatione sua notionem passionis corporalis excludens."
9 Isa. xlix. 6: liii. 11. The LXX. here mistranslates; the Hebrew and the Latin have the same word in all the passages quoted below, while the LXX. varies, as follows: Isa. xlii. 1. pai=j. 19. pai!dej, dou=loi. xliv. 2. pai=j. 21. pai=j. xlviii. 29. dou=lon. xlix. 3. dou=loj. 5. dou=lon. 6. pai=da. 7. dou=lon. lii. 13. pai=j. liii. 11. dou=le/onta.