Isaias 40:25
And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal, saith the Holy One?
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et cui assimilastis me, et adæquastis ? dicit Sanctus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- νῦν οὖν τίνι με ὡμοιώσατε, καὶ ὑψωθήσομαι; εἶπεν ὁ ἅγιος.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְאֶל מִ֥י תְדַמְּי֖וּנִי וְאֶשְׁוֶ֑ה יֹאמַ֖ר קָדֽוֹשׁ
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XIV. Greek Plagiarism from the Hebrews
And the Socratic Antisthenes, paraphrasing that prophetic utterance, “To whom have ye likened me? saith the Lord,” says that “God is like no one; wherefore no one can come to the knowledge of Him from an image.”
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XIV. Greek Plagiarism from the Hebrews
For he shows that the Divinity cannot be captured by a mortal, or apprehended either with feet, or hands, or eyes, or by the body at all. “To whom have ye likened the Lord? or to what likeness have ye likened Him?” says the Scripture. Has not the artificer made the image? or the goldsmith, melting the gold, has gilded it, and what follows.
Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion, Defence of the Divine Unity Against Objection. No Analogy Between Human Powers and God's Sovereignty. The Objection Otherwise Untenable, for Why Stop at Two Gods?
But some one may contend that two great Supremes may exist, distinct and separate in their own departments; and may even adduce, as an example, the kingdoms of the world, which, though they are so many in number, are yet supreme in their several regions. Such a man will suppose that human circumstances are always comparable with divine ones. Now, if this mode of reasoning be at all tolerable, what is to prevent our introducing, I will not say a third god or a fourth, but as many as there are kings of the earth? Now it is God that is in question, whose main property it is to admit of no comparison with Himself. Nature itself, therefore, if not an Isaiah, or rather God speaking by Isaiah, will deprecatingly ask, “To whom will ye liken me?” Human circumstances may perhaps be compared with divine ones, but they may not be with God. God is one thing, and what belongs to God is another thing. …
St Gregory Nazianzen In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office
74. I know Whose ministers we are, and where we are placed, and whither we are guides. I know the height of God, and the weakness of man, and, on the contrary, his power. Heaven is high, and the earth deep; and who of those who have been cast down by sin shall ascend? Who that is as yet surrounded by the gloom here below, and by the grossness of the flesh can purely gaze with his whole mind upon that whole mind, and amid unstable and visible things hold intercourse with the stable and invisible? For hardly may one of those who have been most specially purged, behold here even an image of the Good, as men see the sun in the water. Who hath measured the water with his hand, and the heaven with a span, and the whole earth in a measure? Who hath weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? What is the place of his rest? and to whom shall he be likened?