Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Genesis 1:16
There are 12 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 607, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
Other Quotations from Holy Scripture Adduced in Proof of the Plurality of Persons in the Godhead. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7901 (In-Text, Margin)
... be light, and there was light.” Immediately there appears the Word, “that true light, which lighteth man on his coming into the world,” and through Him also came light upon the world. From that moment God willed creation to be effected in the Word, Christ being present and ministering unto Him: and so God created. And God said, “Let there be a firmament,…and God made the firmament;” and God also said, “Let there be lights (in the firmament); and so God made a greater and a lesser light.”[Genesis 1:16] But all the rest of the created things did He in like manner make, who made the former ones—I mean the Word of God, “through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.” Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says,) “The ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 263, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On Incorporeal and Corporeal Beings. (HTML)
4. And now we have to ascertain whether those beings which in the course of the discussion we have discovered to possess life and reason, were endowed with a soul along with their bodies at the time mentioned in Scripture, when “God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars also,”[Genesis 1:16] or whether their spirit was implanted in them, not at the creation of their bodies, but from without, after they had been already made. I, for my part, suspect that the spirit was implanted in them from without; but it will be worth while to prove this from Scripture: for it will seem an easy matter to make the assertion ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 341, footnote 1 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Victorinus (HTML)
On the Creation of the World (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2197 (In-Text, Margin)
... light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night, for this reason, doubtless, that day might bring over the night as an occasion of rest for men’s labours; that, again, day might overcome, and thus that labour might be refreshed with this alternate change of rest, and that repose again might be tempered by the exercise of day. “On the fourth day He made two lights in the heaven, the greater and the lesser, that the one might rule over the day, the other over the night,”[Genesis 1:16-17] — the lights of the sun and moon and He placed the rest of the stars in heaven, that they might shine upon the earth, and by their positions distinguish the seasons, and years, and months, and days, and hours.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 727, footnote 17 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Memoirs of Edessa And Other Ancient Syriac Documents. (HTML)
Bardesan. The Book of the Laws of Divers Countries. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3410 (In-Text, Margin)
... men speak after the appearances which they see, and also because these men see how things come upon them as if accidentally; to be set aside as fallacious, because the wisdom of God is too profound for them—that wisdom which founded the world, and created man, and ordained Governors, and gave to all things the degree of pre-eminence which is suited to every one of them. What I mean is, that this power is possessed by God, and the Angels, and the Potentates, and the Governors,[Genesis 1:16] and the Elements, and men, and animals; but that this power has not been given to all these orders of beings of which I have spoken in respect to everything (for He that has power over everything is One); but over some things they have ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 478, footnote 4 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XIII. (HTML)
Influence of the Moon and Stars on Men. (HTML)
Let us now, then, give heed to the very letter of the passage, and first let us inquire, how he who has been cast into darkness and repressed by an impure and deaf and dumb spirit is said to be a “lunatic,” and for what reason the expression to be a “lunatic” derives its name from the great light in heaven which is next to the sun, which God appointed “to rule over the night.”[Genesis 1:16] Let physicians then, discuss the physiology of the matter, inasmuch as they think that there is no impure spirit in the case, but a bodily disorder, and inquiring into the nature of things let them say, that the moist humours which are in the head are moved by a certain sympathy which they have with the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 215, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Augustin passes to the second part of the work, in which the origin, progress, and destinies of the earthly and heavenly cities are discussed.—Speculations regarding the creation of the world. (HTML)
What, Seemingly, We are to Understand by the Words, ‘God Divided the Light from the Darkness.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 491 (In-Text, Margin)
... heaven that are obvious to our senses to divide between the light and the darkness. “Let there be,” He says, “lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night;” and shortly after He says, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.”[Genesis 1:14-18] But between that light, which is the holy company of the angels spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the spiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 33, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
Explanation of the First Part of the Sermon Delivered by Our Lord on the Mount, as Contained in the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter XXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 239 (In-Text, Margin)
... not to feel how great the comfort, so far as this life is concerned, which that visible light and the material rain bring? And this comfort we see bestowed in this life alike upon the righteous and upon sinners in common. But He does not say, “who maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good;” but He has added the word “His,” i.e. which He Himself made and established, and for the making of which He took nothing from any one, as it is written in Genesis respecting all the luminaries;[Genesis 1:16] and He can properly say that all the things which He has created out of nothing are His own: so that we are hence admonished with how great liberality we ought, according to His precept, to give to our enemies those things which we have not created, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 460, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4361 (In-Text, Margin)
... title meaneth. Here is a great mystery, and a truly hidden one.…Let us therefore recall from the holy Scripture in Genesis, what was created on the first day; we find light: what was created on the second day; we find the firmament, which God called heaven: what was created on the third day; we find the form of earth and sea, and their separation, that all the gathering together of the waters was called sea, and all that was dry, the earth. On the fourth day, the Lord made the lights in heaven:[Genesis 1:3-19] “The sun to rule the day: the moon and stars to govern the night:” this was the work of the fourth day. What then is the reason that the Psalm hath taken its title from the fourth day: the Psalm in which patience is enjoined against the prosperity ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 363, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 continued. Absurdity of supposing a Son or Word created in order to the creation of other creatures; as to the creation being unable to bear God's immediate hand, God condescends to the lowest. Moreover, if the Son a creature, He too could not bear God's hand, and an infinite series of media will be necessary. Objected, that, as Moses who led out the Israelites was a man, so our Lord; but Moses was not the Agent in creation:--again, that unity is found in created ministrations, but all such ministrations are defective and dependent:--again, that He learned to create, yet could God's Wisdom need teaching? and why should He learn, if the Father worketh hitherto? If the Son was created to create us, He is for (HTML)
... adequate nor sufficient alone. For God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth and to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.’ And then he says, ‘And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night[Genesis 1:14-18].’
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 269, footnote 1 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On the Death of His Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3271 (In-Text, Margin)
... is a dream-vision, making sport of realities, and a series of phantasms which lead the soul astray. If this be our condition, mother, we shall neither be proud of life, nor greatly hurt, by death. What grievance can we find in being transferred hence to the true life? In being freed from the vicissitudes, the agitation, the disgust, and all the vile tribute we must pay to this life, to find ourselves, amid stable things, which know no flux, while as lesser lights, we circle round the great light?[Genesis 1:16]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 87, footnote 4 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Hexæmeron. (HTML)
The creation of luminous bodies. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1593 (In-Text, Margin)
9. “ And God made two great lights.”[Genesis 1:16] The word “great,” if, for example we say it of the heaven of the earth or of the sea, may have an absolute sense; but ordinarily it has only a relative meaning, as a great horse, or a great ox. It is not that these animals are of an immoderate size, but that in comparison with their like they deserve the title of great. What idea shall we ourselves form here of greatness? Shall it be the idea that we have of it in the ant and in all the little creatures of nature, which we ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 141, footnote 2 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Feast of the Nativity, VII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 823 (In-Text, Margin)
... have kissed my hand: what is my great iniquity and denial against the most High God822822 Ib. xxxi. 26–28.?” But what is the sun or what is the moon but elements of visible creation and material light: one of which is of greater brightness and the other of lesser light? For as it is now day time and now night time, so the Creator has constituted divers kinds of luminaries, although even before they were made there had been days without the sun and nights without the moon[Genesis 1:1-19]. But these were fashioned to serve in making man, that he who is an animal endowed with reason might be sure of the distinction of the months, the recurrence of the year, and the variety of the seasons, since through the unequal length of the ...