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167 i.e., the pagans worship false gods, but they at least have the decency to regard them as a higher order than human creatures, and not to wilfully depreciate them.
168 proesens. Cf. Acts. vii. 38-"lively oracles."
179 S. John xx. 17. The "grace" of which St. Ambrose speaks is the grace of adoption. Jesus Christ is the Son of God fusei, we are sons uioqesia "by adoption."
180 Ps. xxii. 1. Cf. S. Matt. xxvii. 46; S. Mark xv. 24.
182 Gal. iv. 4. See Note p. 217.
183 Acts ii. 36. Cf. 1 John iv. 3.
184 Prov. viii. 22. See Note below.
185 The 22d in the Prayer-Book and Bible. See Ps. xxii. 13-compare S. Matt. xxvii. 36; S. Luke xxiii. 35.
186 Ps. xxii. 19. Cf. S. Matt. xxvii. 35; S. Mark xv. 24; S. Luke xxiii. 34; S. John xix. 23-24.
187 Is. xlv. 11. A.V.-"Ask me of things to come." Vulgate, l.c.-Ventura interrogate me.
Note on Gal. iv 4, cited in §94.-St. Ambrose has factum where St. Paul originally wrote genomenon, rendered "born" in the A.V. St. Paul designedly, perhaps, wrote genomenon, not gegennhqenta, the more usual word for "born." For gignesqai is used to denote other modes of beginning to exist, besides that in which animals are brought into life; it is used of inanimate, as well as animate existence-e.g., Mark iv. 37: "There ariseth (ginetai) a great storm of wind;" and thus we get the impersonal egeneto, "it came to pass," simply signifying an order of events. The import, then, of the words factum ex muliere, genomenon ekgnnaikoj, is that Christ, in being born in human form, "in the likeness of men," subjected Himself to the limits of human existence, "came into being," that is, in the sensual world. This was his self-emptying (Phil. ii. 7). Jesus, the man, the human person was made-"made man" (Nicene Creed)-was made "man of the substance of His mother" (Atlantas. Creed); but by this "making," St. Ambrose points out, we must understand no more than the taking on of fleshly form. The Son, on the other hand, Who is God, never began to exist, as He will never cease; and even if He had not existed from eternity, He must have been pre-existent, in order to assume a fleshly form so that, in any case, birth of the Virgin does not affect His pre-existence as Son of God, whilst to say that He was ever "made" is to confound that birth with the Son's generation of the Father, eternity with time, the divine with the human order, the self-existent with the created.
Note on Prov. viii. 22, cited in §96.-The A.V. is "The Lord possessed me," and the Vulgate likewise Dominus possedit me. The Greek versions of the passage appear to have presented two readings.which might exhibit little difference to the eye in a closely-written ms., though the difference in meaning was by no, means small. The two readings were: (1) ektise me and (2) ekthsato me: the former meaning "founded," "established," or "created" me, the latter "acquired me." The strict Greek equivalent of possedit (Vulgate) or "possessed" (A.V.) would be ekekthto.
190 or "of the name of Father," i.e., of all the consequences of that Name.
193 Ps. xxxiii. 9; Ps. cxlviii. 5.
194 Num. xiv. 21; Ps. lxxii. 19; Is. vi. 3; Zech. xiv. 9.
205 S. John v. 19, John v. 21.
211 Fucus, the word used by St. Ambrose, denoted face-paint in general, but it seems to have also had the especial meaning of a red pigment, or rouge for the cheeks. The custom of face-painting was known of old in the East (2 Kings ix. 30; Ezek. xxiii. 40), whence, most probably, it passed into Greece-it was known, in Ionia at least, when the Odyssey was written (say 900 b.c.)-and thence to Rome. See Dict. Antiq. art. "Fucus."
212 An allusion to the practice of the nota censoria. The censors, under the Republic, were vested with the power of appointing properly qualified citizens to vacancies in the Senate, and it was their duty to make up the roll of senators for each lustrum, or period of five years. Exclusion from the Senate was simply effected by omitting a senator's name from the new list, and senators so "unseated" were called proeteriti, since their names had been passed over and not read out with the rest. The decrees of the Fathers of the Church laid down, as it were, the qualification for membership: all who came under the description established by these decrees were regarded as admitted-whilst those who, like the Arians, did not were tacitly excluded. Or we might say that the Anathema, appended to the Nicene symbol, excluded the Arians, not by name, but by description. In either way, the exclusion was tacit, like the censorial, in so far as no names were mentioned. In the case of exclusion from the Senate by the censors, it was understood that the reason for exclusion was grave immorality.
213 St. Ambrose has here rendered into Latin the anathema appended to the original Nicene Creed of 325 a.d. Notice "substance or o/sia." The original is substantia vel o/sia. The closer Greek equivalent of substantia is upostasiz (found in Heb. i. 3, and translated "person" in A.V.), whilst the Latin for o/sia is essentia ("essence"). St. Ambrose appears to regard o/sia as a proper equivalent of substantia, whence we may perhaps infer that he also identified o/sia and upostasij in meaning. But some distinguished the two, using the term o/sia in the sense of "essence" or "substance" (i.e., the Godhead) and upostasij in that of "person"-so that, according to them, there would be three "hypostases" in the unity of the Godhead.