{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1895,"date_label":"1895 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1895,"edition_year":1895,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF Series II Volume VIII title and copyright, 1895; transcription physical printing year unknown","id":"ws-library-full-note:773371629b4441c1419f:cite_note-3","is_genuine_commentary_verified":false,"license_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Reusing_Wikisource_content","public_import_allowed":true,"publication_location":"source-library","record_type":"editorial-footnote","references":[],"rights_approved":true,"section":"Chapter XVII.; original source section: Chapter 17, editorial note cite_note-3","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["41. What, however, they call sub-numeration, and in what sense they use this word, cannot even be imagined without difficulty. It is well known that it was imported into our language from the “wisdom of the world;” but a point for our present consideration will be whether it has any immediate relation to the subject under discussion. Those who are adepts in vain investigations tell us that, while some nouns are common and of widely extended denotation, others are more specific, and that the force of some is more limited than that of others. Essence, for instance, is a common noun, predicable of all things both animate and inanimate; while animal is more specific, being predicated of fewer subjects than the former, though of more than those which are considered under it, as it embraces both rational and irrational nature. Again, human is more specific than animal, and man than human, and than man the individual Peter, Paul, or John. Do they then mean by sub-numeration the division of the common into its subordinate parts? But I should hesitate to believe they have reached such a pitch of infatuation as to assert that the God of the universe, like some common quality conceivable only by reason and without actual existence in any hypostasis, is divided into subordinate divisions, and that then this subdivision is called sub-numeration. This would hardly be said even by men melancholy mad, for, besides its impiety, they are establishing the very opposite argument to their own contention. For the subdivisions are of the same essence as that from which they have been divided. The very obviousness of the absurdity makes it difficult for us to find arguments to confute their unreasonableness; so that really their folly looks like an advantage to them; just as soft and yielding bodies offer no resistance, and therefore cannot be struck a stout blow. It is impossible to bring a vigorous confutation to bear on a palpable absurdity. The only course open to us is to pass by their abominable impiety in silence. Yet our love for the brethren and the importunity of our opponents makes silence impossible."],"source_library_url":"/library/773371629b4441c1419f/#ws-library-full-note:773371629b4441c1419f:cite_note-3","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_VIII/De_Spiritu_Sancto/Chapter_17#cite_note-3","translator":"Blomfield Jackson (translator and notes), Charles Hole (proof revision and suggestions)","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0056/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"e0df170d421dcd73bd0a76f61768b09f25dd2e36668f01c873ba3f2300ffa8a2","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:773371629b4441c1419f:cite_note-3"},"verified":true,"work":"De Spiritu Sancto","work_id":"ws-npnf2-8-basil-selection-773371629b4441c1419f"}