Fathers

Loading…

What the Fathers say

Isaiah 40:17

Western Saints

Jerome

All nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. LXX: All the nations are as nothing in his sight, and they are counted as worthless. But if all nations are in his sight as if they were not, and are considered as nothing and empty (though in all nations and in Israel also), therefore he himself is also as if he were not, and is considered as nothing and empty. We say this, so that his pride may be broken, and so that he may know that he is like the other nations.

Commentary on Isaiah ↗

Thomas Aquinas

He also shows that it exceeds every perfection of creation: both natural, for the being of creatures is, in respect to God, non being; for Dionysius says, in his book on Divine Names 12.4, that so far as the participants surpass non-participants, and the participations surpass the participants, to such an extent, he who is the principle of the participants exceeds both the participations and the participants: all nations are before him as if they had no being at all; and as to superadded perfections, which are fulfilling in a certain …

Commentary on Isaiah ↗

Bonaventure

And just as all things compared to the divine power can do virtually nothing, so all things compared to the divine essence are virtually the least. Whence in respect to the divine being this entire world is as something minimal. And this is what is said in Wisdom eleven: For as a grain in the balance, so is the whole world before you, and as a drop of morning dew that falls upon the earth: and in Isaiah forty: Behold, the nations are as a drop from a bucket and are accounted as a grain in the balance: and afterward: All nations are …

Quaestiones Disputatae, De Mysterio Trinitatis, Question 4 ↗