1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible
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| Hebrews 1:3 | *Who being the splendour of his glory, and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high: Wisdom 7:26. | Who being the spendour,{ Ver. 3. Splendor gloriae, apaugasma, refulgentia, effulgentia, etc.|} or brightness of his glory, not as beams or rays are derived from a lightsome body, but by a necessary and eternal communication of the same substance, and of the whole light; in which sense the council of Nice[Nicaea] understood the eternal Son of God to be light of light. This partly helps us to conceive the eternal generation of the Son from the Father, because the brightness is at the same time with the sun, though all comparisons fall short of this mystery. (Witham) --- We may here observe the two natures of Christ. As God, he is the Creator of all things; as man, he is constituted heir of the goods of God. Not content to possess the inheritance of his Father in his own person, he will have us as coheirs to share it also with him. May we so live as to hear one day that happy sentence: Come, ye blessed of my Father, etc. --- And the figure of his substance.{ Ver. 3. Figura substantiae, charakter tes upostaseos. Hypostasis signifies persona, subsistentia, and also substantia.|} In the Greek is the character of his substance; which might be translated, the express image. There are different ways by which a thing may be said to be a figure or image of another: here it is taken for such a representation of the substance of the Father, that though the Father and the Son be distinct persons, and the Son proceed from the Father, yet he is such a figure and image, as to have the same nature and substance with the Father, as the Catholic Church always believed and declared against the ancient heretics, and particularly against the Arians. Their words may be partly seen in Petavius, lib. 2:de Trin. Hebrews 11.; lib. 4:chap. 6.; lib. vi. Hebrews 6., being too prolix for these short notes. And this may be understood by the following words concerning the Son: and upholding or preserving all things by the word of his power. As he had said before, that all things were made by him, so all things are preserved by him, equally with the Father. See Colossians 1:16, 17. See also ver. 10. of this chapter, and the annotations on John 1:3. (Witham) --- Figure. This does not exclude the reality. So Christ's body in the eucharist, and his mystical death in the mass, though called a figure, image, or representation of Christ's visible body and sacrifice upon the cross, yet may be and is the self-same substance. (Bristow) ---Sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high. This also may be taken to express the equality of the Son with the Father, if considered as God; but this sitting on the right hand of God, both here, in St. Mark 16. and in the apostles' creed, express what agrees with Christ, as our Redeemer, God made man by his incarnation, and who as man is made the head of his Church, the judge of the living and of the dead; and so St. Stephen said, (Acts vii.) I see the heavens open, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. (Witham) |