{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/210/2100210.htm","path":"chr/ecf/210/2100210.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/210/2100210.htm","text":"Certain passages from Scripture, urged against the Omnipotence of Christ, are resolved; the writer is also at especial pains to show that Christ not seldom spoke in accordance with the affections of human nature.\n39. Although it is written concerning God, \u201cBlessed and only Potentate,\u201d 1948 yet I have no misgiving that the Son of God is thereby severed from Him, seeing that the Scripture entitled God, not the Father by Himself, the \u201conly Potentate.\u201d The Father Himself also declares by the prophet, concerning Christ, that \u201cI have set help upon one that is mighty.\u201d 1949 It is not the Father alone, then, Who is the only Potentate; God the Son also is Potentate, for in the Father\u2019s praise the Son is praised too.\n40. Aye, let some one show what there is that the Son of God cannot do. Who was His helper, when He made the heavens,\u2014Who, when He laid the foundations of the world? 1950 Had He any need of a helper to set men free, Who needed none in constituting 1951 angels and principalities? 1952\n41. \u201cIt is written,\u201d say they: \u201c\u2018My Father, if it be possible, take away this cup from Me.\u2019 1953 If, then, He is Almighty, how comes He to doubt of the possibility?\u201d Which means that, because I have proved Him to be Almighty, I have proved Him unable to doubt of possibility.\n42. The words, you say, are the words of Christ. True\u2014consider, though, the occasion of His speaking them, and in what character He speaks. He hath taken upon Him the substance of man, 1954 and therewith its affections. Again, you find in the place above cited, that \u201cHe went forward a little further, and fell on His face, praying, and saying: Father, if it be possible.\u201d 1955 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: \u201cFor Thee nothing is impossible\u201d? 1956\n43. Of Whom, howbeit, does He doubt\u2014of Himself, or of the Father? Of Him, surely, Who saith: \u201cTake away from Me,\u201d\u2014being moved as man is moved to doubt. The prophet reckons nothing impossible with God. The prophet doubts not; think you that the Son doubts? Wilt thou put God lower than man? What\u2014God hath doubts of His Father, and is fearful at the thought of death! Christ, then, is afraid\u2014afraid, whilst Peter fears nothing. Peter saith: p. 229 \u201cI will lay down my life for Thy sake.\u201d 1957 Christ saith: \u201cMy soul is troubled.\u201d 1958\n44. 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\u2019s 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 Manich\u00e6an believed not; 1959 Valentinus denied, and Marcion judged Him to be a ghost.\n45. But indeed He so far put Himself on a level with man, such as He showed Himself to be in the reality of His bodily frame, as to say, \u201cNevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt,\u201d 1960 though truly it is Christ\u2019s especial power to will what the Father wills, even as it is His to do what the Father doeth.\n46. Here, then, let there be an end of the objection which it is your custom to oppose to us, on the ground that the Lord said, \u201cNot as I will, but as Thou wilt;\u201d and again, \u201cFor this cause I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.\u201d 1961\nCf. the Collect for the Feast of St. Michael and all Angels.\n228:1952 228:1953\nMatt. 26:39, Matt. 14:35, Luke 22:41.\n228:1954\ni.e. human nature. Cf. \u201cAthanasian\u201d Creed, clause 31.\n228:1955 228:1956 229:1957\nS. John xiii. 37.\n229:1958\nS. John xii. 27.\n229:1959\nThe 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\u2019s 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\u2013190 a.d.). For the doctrines of Valentinus and Marcion, see Robertson\u2019s Church History, Bk. I. ch. iv.\n229:1960\nS. Matt. xxvi. 39.\n229:1961\nS. John vi. 38.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. X: Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons.: Chapter V. Certain passages from Scripture, urged against the Omnipotence of Christ, are resolved; the writer is also at especial pains to show that Christ not seldom spoke in accordance with the affections of human nature.","type":"page"}