Hymns on Faith

Notes

1. See on R. xl. n. c.
2. i. e. the faith ought to be plain-speaking to all fit to receive it. See R. xiii. §. 1. On Deut. xv. §. 7. he says, “Let not him that is entrusted with the word of doctrine lift himself up above the unlearned and humble, but let him instruct each one in meekness, and give unto each of the word of doctrine which he hath received.” The text also concisely expresses another truth, viz. that the belief of the Church is rendered fuller by her being forced to cast it into formal statements, comp. R. ix. §. 5. and vol. ii. p. 439, b. quoted p. 139. n. e.
3. S. ‘is threefoldly perfected.’ The idea of advance is implied by the simile of the bird’s growth; he seems to refer to the gradual revelation of the Trinity, noticed by St. Epiphan. l. p. 899. and St. Basil c. Eun. p. 248. quoted above, p. 72. and to the Eunomian rejection of this great badge of Christianity.
4. To the mysteries of the Cross St. E. often recurs. See R. Ixiii. p. 104, f. 229, c. 493, h. iii. p. 343, e. 350, d. 351, e. Op. G. ii. p. 248, &c. There are parts of this R. very like the following from St. Just. M. Apol. i. §. 55. “See ye to it if there be aught in the world which without this form hath its orderings or can minister to intercourse between man and man. The sea, for instance, hath not its waves cut through, unless that ensign, which is called the mast, abide safe in the ship; the earth, again, is not ploughed without it; diggers, too, do not manage their work, nor humble artizans either, save by tools that have this form. The human form, moreover, differs in no other respect from that of animals more than in its being upright and allowing of the stretching forth of the hands,.....and pointeth to nought else than the form of the Cross.” St. Method, de Cruce i. §. 3. “The sea, as yielding to this form, alloweth itself to be sailed upon by mankind. For the whole creation, as one may say, was invested with this form in order to [its obtaining] liberty. For the birds when they fly aloft darkly intimate the figure of the Cross by the outspreading of their wings: and man himself, &c.” See on Tertullian’s Apol. cap. xvi. and xxx. and the notes to Min. Felix. cap. xxix. or Gretser de S. Cruc. i. cap. 52. whence it will appear that the same instances as St. E. notices in nature or art, as having the Cross in them, occur all over the world. If by any chance they were all taken from St. Justin, still they must, to have been generally received, commend themselves at once to the Catholic mind.
5. R. xl. §. 1.
6. By ‘the mystery’ probably the Sacrament of Baptism is intended. The connection probably is to be found by recalling the use of the Cross at Baptism; upon which see Gretser de Cr. iv. 13. In vol. ii. p. 336, b. we find the following parallel passage: “Grant to us, Lord, that we may kindle three bright-shining lights to Thee, the spirit, the soul, and the body. The spirit let us give to the Father, the soul let us give to the Son, and let us give the body to the Holy Ghost. Oh, Father, hallow Thou our spirit for us! and oh, Son, hallow Thou our soul for us! and oh, Holy Ghost, hallow the feeble body from its spots! Grant to us, Lord, to rejoice in Thee, and that Thou mayest rejoice in us, and from spirit, soul, and body, to Thee be glory and on us Thy mercies!” This passage, as well as the text, evidently alludes to 1 Thess. v. 23. the only difference is that [Syriac] supplies the place of [Syriac] in the text, as the word for spirit. Of which more in note e. St. E. is probably aiming at furnishing a sort of Creed against some heresy in vogue, although it may be difficult to determine precisely what he alludes to. Two errors, however, seem to deserve notice in this view. Apollinaris is said by St. G. Naz. ad Cledon. i. p. 744. to have made the Trinity consist of great, greater, and greatest; Spirit, Son, and Father, as brightness, ray, and sun:—in the text the Three Persons are set before us as working Each alike man’s renovation, though in distinct ways; which of course must not be so taken as to militate against the well-known rule, ‘that whatever God does externally to himself, that the whole Trinity does.’ St. E.’s object seems to be to mark out the distinctness of the Persons, as well as their equality. Basil. Ep. 265. §. 2. (compare Euseb. c. Marcell. ii. 4. Timoth. Pr. ap. Cotel. M. G. iii. p. 395.) speaks of Apollinaris as restoring Sabellius’ doctrine and one form of this, of which we learn from Epiphan. Hær. lxii. init. (who says they abounded in Mesopotamia; see also St. E. ii. p. 485, d. 488, c. and Assem. B. O. i. p. 111.) and Pseudo-Athan. c. Sabell. Gregales, §. 13. would be obviated by the text. “This man (says St. Epiph.) and the Sabellians after him teach that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, is the same, so that there are three names in one subsistency, as in [the case of] man, body, soul, and spirit; that the body, so to say, is the Father, the soul the Son, and that as the spirit of a man so is the Holy Ghost in the Godhead.” The form of Baptism was often urged as telling against Sabellians as well as Arians, (see Petav. de Trin. ii. 12. §. 8.) the singular ‘Name’ proving the Unity, and the repetition of ‘the’ proving the Trinity of Persons. This then would be a heresy at which the passage quoted and the text might be levelled, though it might meet some secret form of Apollinarianism, the maintainers of which had ‘for disciples of the inner school’ more open blasphemies. Vid. Gr. Naz. p. 746, c. Our trinity means man’s nature consisting of three things, a mode of speaking to be found in St. Austin de Trin. ix. x. xi. A passage from the author c. Sabell. Greg. §. 8. may be added here. “Let no one who denieth the Three expect to find the Unity, but in the Trinity let him behold the Unity, having the sum of the faith in his Baptism, and in the three holy seals whereby he was regenerated into salvation, remembering what the Apostle says, ‘There is one God, &c.’ 1 Cor. 8, 6. See also Jerome on Eph. iv. 30. “We are sealed with the Holy Spirit of God, that our spirit and soul may be impressed with the seal of God, and we may recover that image and likeness, after which we were in the beginning created.”
7. It remains to shew why the particular Persons are assigned in the way adopted in both places by St. E. St. Greg. Nyss. ii. p. 602. says that St. Paul often “calleth the mind (τὸν νοῦν) spirit; for when this hath received the participation of the Spirit, then unto those who have received it, is present the honourable estate of adopted sonship.” The word [Syriac] in the passage quoted answers to νοῦς commonly, and also to this as illuminated. See on Ezech. xxxvii. 1. Levit. l. xxiii. and vol. i. p. 139, e. p. 132, b. p. 398, a. The spirit then being that part or faculty of the soul which receives the Gift of the Spirit, is said to be sealed with the Father, because as the Father is the Fount of the Godhead, so the spirit becomes by that Gift the fountain of a new life in man. Greg. Naz. p. 742, d. “If it was by sanctifying like by like that Christ would put an end to the condemnation of sin, then as He needed Flesh, by reason of the flesh which was under condemnation, and a Soul, by reason of the soul; so did He also need a (spirit or) mind, (νοῦ,) by reason of the (spirit or) mind which not only stumbled in Adam, but was the seat of the disease, (πρωτοπαθήσαντα,) as the physicians say of bodily ailments. For it was that which received the commandment, which also did not keep it ...and chiefly needed salvation.” comp. Cyril de Incarn. cap. 15. Mai C. N. viii. p. 77. It then may be viewed as the fountain of sin in the old Adam, of grace by the new. The expressions, God of the spirits, &c. &c. Father of spirits, Heb. xii. should be borne in mind. It may suffer from weariness, (see 2 Cor. ii. 13.) though preserved from falling by the seal upon it.
8. See R. xii. §. 1.
9. The word ‘blended’ means wholly penetrated with, united in mystical communion. See on R. xl. §. 3. It seems likely that this alludes to the Apollinarians, Apollinaris being himself a Syrian, and in the earlier form of his heresy denying Christ to have a human soul: or rather dwelling upon this aspect of Arian and Anomean error. Hence the soul may be said to be blended with the Son, because it was by having a human soul that Christ delivered souls and dwelleth in them. See Clem. Rom. ad Cor. c. 49. Athan. Apollin. i. §. 14. and ii. §. 17. Greg. Naz. p. 760, c. Petav. de Inc. iv. 13.
10. R. xi. §. 6.
11. This alludes to passages which speak of the body as the Temple of the Holy Ghost, &c. A passage from the Comm. on Deut. xiv. 9. may help to connect this sentence with the following. “‘And all that is in the water with wings and scales, eat ye thereof.’ These be they who have gotten them wings from Baptism, and by their conversation fly up to share with spiritual beings.” See p. 222, n. c.
12. S. a sail in the likeness of the B.
13. S. lamed
14. or, breath
15. Leontius, c. Nest. p. 416. ap. Mai. C. N. “If in a body less than and circumscribed by Himself, He was able to contain Himself as well entire without being aught impeded, as without being aught circumscribed, yet in no way straitened; this is in very deed a sign of a natural Power, that may not by any external force be shut out from its own uncircumscribed condition, or be circumscribed in doing what it pleaseth. This too is what is spoken of as the exceeding wonder by him who saith of Christ after the flesh, that in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” The word rendered sail might also be rendered ‘linen cloth.’ Comp. note p, p. 68.
16. St. Just. Mart. c. Tryph. p. 259. “The lamb that is roasted, is roasted in a form like to that of the Cross; for one upright spit is passed through it from the nethermost parts to the head, and one again into the back, to which also the shoulders of the lamb are affixed.” This is not precisely like what St. E. says, as he alludes to the slaughter rather than the roasting of the lamb. The directions in the Mischna, Pesach. v. §. 9. compared with note 1, may serve to bring out St. E.’s meaning. “How did they hang [the lamb] and skin it? Hooks of iron were fixed in walls and posts, whereby they hung them and skinned them. And every one that had not where to hang and skin it, got thin smooth staves, and rested them upon his own shoulder and the shoulder of his fellow, and so hung it and skinned it.”
17. On Numbers xiii. p. 259, c. he says, ‘They cut thence a branch with a cluster of grapes, and carried it on a staff between the two. The cluster that was carried on the staff hanging by the branch by which it grew, is a type of the Prophets and Apostles that carried and bore about Immanuel. Its form also typifies the Rood, and they that bare it be a type of the two thieves.” So on Zech. ix. 17. “‘Virgins’ signify the souls that be barren in the seed of the devil, and have not corrupted their fair nature; the Wine of the Cluster which was hung upon the Rood, is preserved for their consolations.” Here we see the Cluster hanging much as the Lamb in note i: either case suggests the Cross to St. E.’s mind.
18. Asseman. in his lax way of rendering, gives the passage thus: “Quatit alas clarè insinuans viventibus mortuorum reditum, mortuisque prænuncians, mortem somnum breve (sic) futurum.” To me the passage is very obscure, but sepulto isto vivo would seem to be the literal rendering of [Syriac] He would then be alluding to Matt. viii. 22. 1 Tim. v. 6. Rev. iii. 1. and the like, and the passage might be paraphrased: the cock says, Awake thou that sleepest, rise from thy death of sin, be buried no more therein, seeing there is a resurrection and a judgment, and that thy drowsiness is therefore thy death in the truest and awfullest sense of death.”
19. R. xli. §. 1.
20. S. marriage union
21. The same is noticed of Vultures, by Orig. c. Cels. p. 29. (where see Spencer,) Basil Hex. viii. §. 6. Euseb. P. E. iii. 12. Ambrose, Hex. v. 20. A passage from vol. i. p. 117, f. may be worth adding. “The Father spake, and the Son wrought; and so it was fitting that the Spirit should Himself also exercise operation and shew it in His brooding over it, that hereby it might be revealed that it was by the Trinity that every thing was perfected and finished. Consider, too, that since the Scripture is speaking of the agency of God, that this Spirit is not a being created and shed forth, which it explains to be brooding over the surface of the water along with Him; but it speaks of the Holy Spirit, how that He rendereth the water hot and boiling, and imparteth thereto generative powers. An image hereof is the hen, that broodeth over the eggs; and by the heat of her brooding warmeth them, and gendereth fruitfulness in them. It is also intended to furnish us at the same time with a type of Holy Baptism, which was, by means of His brooding over it, to gender children of God.” This serves to shew how St. E. dwelt over the things of nature, and found in them types of the things of grace, arranged as it were in corresponding series. Compare what he says of Baptism, as typified by the Incarnation in n. f. p. 86.