Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Genesis 3:15
There are 23 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 250, footnote 1 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter CII.—The prediction of the events which happened to Christ when He was born. Why God permitted it. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2337 (In-Text, Margin)
... with Mary and departed into Egypt. For the Father had decreed that He whom He had begotten should be put to death, but not before He had grown to manhood, and proclaimed the word which proceeded from Him. But if any of you say to us, Could not God rather have put Herod to death? I return answer by anticipation: Could not God have cut off in the beginning the serpent, so that he exist not, rather than have said, ‘And I will put enmity between him and the woman, and between his seed and her seed?’[Genesis 3:15] Could He not have at once created a multitude of men? But yet, since He knew that it would be good, He created both angels and men free to do that which is righteous, and He appointed periods of time during which He knew it would be good for them to ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 524, footnote 9 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XL.—One and the same God the Father inflicts punishment on the reprobate, and bestows rewards on the elect. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4435 (In-Text, Margin)
... wickedly [on the part of another], became involved in disobedience; and He turned the enmity by which [the devil] had designed to make [man] the enemy of God, against the author of it, by removing His own anger from man, turning it in another direction, and sending it instead upon the serpent. As also the Scripture tells us that God said to the serpent, “And I will place enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.”[Genesis 3:15] And the Lord summed up in Himself this enmity, when He was made man from a woman, and trod upon his [the serpent’s] head, as I have pointed out in the preceding book.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 548, footnote 10 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XXI.—Christ is the head of all things already mentioned. It was fitting that He should be sent by the Father, the Creator of all things, to assume human nature, and should be tempted by Satan, that He might fulfil the promises, and carry off a glorious and perfect victory. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4628 (In-Text, Margin)
1. He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as thou canst perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for (observabit) thy head, and thou on the watch for His heel.”[Genesis 3:15] For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, “that the law of works was ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 17, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On the Apparel of Women. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Of Precious Stones and Pearls. (HTML)
... internal pustule, that ought to be regarded rather as its defect than as its glory; and although it be called “pearl,” still something else must be understood than some hard, round excrescence of the fish. Some say, too, that gems are culled from the foreheads of dragons, just as in the brains of fishes there is a certain stony substance. This also was wanting to the Christian woman, that she may add a grace to herself from the serpent! Is it thus that she will set her heel on the devil’s head,”[Genesis 3:15] while she heaps ornaments (taken) from his head on her own neck, or on her very head?
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 166, footnote 2 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Exegetical. (HTML)
On Genesis. (HTML)
... “falling” denotes His death; as it is written in the Gospel: “Behold, this (child) is set for the fall and rising again of many.” We take the “robber” to be the traitor. Nor was there any other traitor to the Lord save the (Jewish) people. “Shall rob him,” i.e., shall plot against him. At the heels: that refers to the help of the Lord against those who lie in wait against Him. And again, the words “at the heels” denote that the Lord will take vengeance swiftly. He shall be well armed in the foot[Genesis 3:15] (heel), and shall overtake and rob the robber’s troop.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 166, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Exegetical. (HTML)
On Genesis. (HTML)
... and the course of their apostleship they were by no means to find free of peril, as he intimated indeed by way of an example, when he said, “Let (Dan) be,” meaning by that, that there shall be a multitude of persecutors in Dan like a “serpent lying by the way on the path, stinging the horse’s heel,” i.e., giving fierce and dangerous bites; for the bites of snakes are generally very dangerous. And they were “in the heel” in particular, for “he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”[Genesis 3:15] And some did persecute the holy apostles in this way even to the death of the flesh. And thus we may say that their position was something like that when a horse stumbles and flings out his heels. For in such a case the horseman will be thrown, and, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 519, footnote 11 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
... the evil, He shall exchange the good.” This seed God had foretold would proceed from the woman that should trample on the head of the devil. In Genesis: “Then God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from every kind of the beasts of the earth. Upon thy breast and thy belly shalt thou crawl, and earth shall be thy food all the days of thy life. And I will place enmity between thee and the woman and her seed. He shall regard thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel.”[Genesis 3:14-15]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 568, footnote 4 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)
Revelation of Moses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2471 (In-Text, Margin)
... heart, cursed art thou of all the beasts. Thou shalt be deprived of the food which thou eatest; and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; upon thy breast and belly shalt thou go, and thou shalt be deprived both of thy hands and feet; there shall not be granted thee ear, nor wing, nor one limb of all which those have whom thou hast enticed by thy wickedness, and hast caused them to be cast out of paradise. And I shall put enmity between thee and between his seed. He shall lie in wait for[Genesis 3:15] thy head, and thou for his heel, until the day of judgment. And having thus said, He commands His angels that we be cast out of paradise. And as we were being driven along, and were lamenting, your father Adam entreated the angels, saying, Allow me ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 508, footnote 11 (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 XIV. (HTML)
The Divorce of Israel. (HTML)
... some evil power. And in the case of some of that synagogue there has happened the former thing which was written in the law, but in the case of others, that which was second. For the last husband hated his wife and will write out for her some day at the consummation of things a bill of divorcement, when God so orders it, and will give it into her hands and will send her away from his dwelling; for as the good God will put enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between his seed and her seed,[Genesis 3:15] so will He order it that the last husband shall hate her.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 175, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He expounds this trinity that he has found in knowledge by commending Christian faith. (HTML)
All, on Account of the Sin of Adam, Were Delivered into the Power of the Devil. (HTML)
16. By the justice of God in some sense, the human race was delivered into the power of the devil; the sin of the first man passing over originally into all of both sexes in their birth through conjugal union, and the debt of our first parents binding their whole posterity. This delivering up is first signified in Genesis, where, when it had been said to the serpent, “Dust shalt thou eat,” it was said to the man, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shall return.”[Genesis 3:14-19] In the words, “Unto dust shalt thou return,” the death of the body is fore-announced, because he would not have experienced that either, if he had continued to the end upright as he was made; but in that it is said to him whilst still living, “Dust thou art,” it is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 91, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 845 (In-Text, Margin)
... departed from Him. His foot, called he his affection. “Let not the foot of pride come against me: let not the hand of the wicked remove me:” that is, let not the works of the wicked remove me from Thee, that I should wish to imitate them. But wherefore said he this against pride, “Thereby have fallen all that work iniquity”? Because those who now are ungodly, have fallen by pride. Therefore when the Lord would caution His Church, He said, “It shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel.”[Genesis 3:15] The serpent watcheth when the foot of pride may come against thee, when thou mayest fall, that he may cast thee down. But watch thou his head: the beginning of all sin is pride. “Thereby have fallen all that work iniquity: they are driven out, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 148, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1400 (In-Text, Margin)
11. What does he mean to express by the “thigh”? The flesh. Whence those words, “A prince shall not depart from Judah; and a lawgiver from his thighs”? Did not Abraham himself (to whom was promised the seed in which “all the nations of the earth were to be blessed”), when he sent his servant to seek and to bring home a wife for his son, being by faith fully persuaded, that in that, so to speak, contemptible seed was contained the great Name;[Genesis 3:15] that is, that the Son of God was to come of the seed of Abraham, out of all the children of men; did not he, I say, cause his servant to swear unto him in this manner, saying, “Put thy hand under my thigh,” and so swear; as if he had said, “Put thy hand on the altar, or on ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 170, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLIX (HTML)
Part 1 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1621 (In-Text, Margin)
... while they live, let them take heed to themselves, let them put away iniquity from their heel: let them walk in that way, let them walk in the way of which He saith Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life:” and let them not fear in the evil day, for He giveth them safety who became “The Way.” Therefore let them avoid the iniquity of their heel. With the heel a man slippeth. Let your Love observe. What was said by God to the Serpent? “She shall mark thy head, and thou shalt mark her heel.”[Genesis 3:15] The devil marketh thy heel, in order that when thou slippest he may overthrow thee. He marketh thy heel, do thou mark his head. What is his head? The beginning of an evil suggestion. When he beginneth to suggest evil thoughts, then do thou thrust ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 346, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3351 (In-Text, Margin)
... hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth? Hear: “Thou hast broken the head of the dragon” (ver. 14). Of what dragon? We understand by dragons all the demons that war under the devil: what single dragon then, whose head was broken, but the devil himself ought we to understand? What with him hath He done? “Thou hast broken the head of the dragon.” That is, the beginning of sin. That head is the part which received the curse, to wit that the seed of Eve should mark the head of the serpent.[Genesis 3:15] For the Church was admonished to shun the beginning of sin. Which is that beginning of sin, like the head of a serpent? The beginning of all sin is pride. There hath been broken therefore the head of the dragon, hath been broken pride diabolical. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 368, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3546 (In-Text, Margin)
... it is thus with the sayings of God which make their way to us through our bodily sense. The Creator moveth the subject creature by an invisible working; not so that the substance is changed into anything corporal and temporal, when by means of corporal and temporal signs, whether belonging to the eyes or to the ears, as far as men are able to receive it, He would make His will to be known. For if an angel is able to use air, mist, cloud, fire, and any other natural substance or corporal species;[Genesis 3:1-16] and man to use face, tongue, hand, pen, letters, or any other significants, for the purpose of intimating the secret things of his own mind: in a word, if, though he is a man, he sendeth human messengers, and he saith to one, “Go, and he goeth; and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 369, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily IV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1211 (In-Text, Margin)
... benefitted in no degree the inhabitant; forasmuch as he had betrayed himself; as likewise indeed the vileness of the place did to one no injury, who was fortified on every side with virtue. As to ourselves then, let us fortify our souls; for if the loss of wealth should threaten us, or even death, and yet no one can rob us of our religion, we are the happiest of men, Christ commended this when he said, “Be ye wise as serpents.” For just as he exposes the whole body in order that he may save the head,[Genesis 3:15] so also do thou. Although it should be necessary to expose wealth, or the body, or the present life, or all things, for the purpose of preserving thy religion; be not cast down! For if thou depart hence in possession of that, God will restore to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 117, footnote 9 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Article, And in One Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Which Spake in the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1995 (In-Text, Margin)
... power for a price, is to perish, how great is the impiety of Manes, who said that he was the Holy Ghost? Let us hate them who are worthy of hatred; let us turn away from them from whom God turns away; let us also ourselves say unto God with all boldness concerning all heretics, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee, and am not I grieved with Thine enemies? For there is also an enmity which is right, according as it is written, I will put enmity between thee and her seed[Genesis 3:15]; for friendship with the serpent works enmity with God, and death.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 210, footnote 16 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
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. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2611 (In-Text, Margin)
25. This is why the heathen rage and the peoples imagine vain things; why tree is set over against tree, hands against hand, the one stretched out in self indulgence,[Genesis 3:6-23] the others in generosity; the one unrestrained, the others fixed by nails, the one expelling Adam, the other reconciling the ends of the earth. This is the reason of the lifting up to atone for the fall, and of the gall for the tasting, and of the thorny crown for the dominion of evil, and of death for death, and of darkness for the sake of light, and of burial for the return to the ground, and of resurrection ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 430, footnote 9 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Second Oration on Easter. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4635 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Gospel, let him go in a spirit of philosophy and without excess, inasmuch as he must, besides being without money and without staff and with but one coat, also be barefooted, that the feet of those who preach the Gospel of Peace and every other good may appear beautiful. But he who would flee from Egypt and the things of Egypt must put on shoes for safety’s sake, especially in regard to the scorpions and snakes in which Egypt so abounds, so as not to be injured by those which watch the heel[Genesis 3:15] which also we are bidden to tread under foot. And concerning the staff and the signification of it, my belief is as follows. There is one I know to lean upon, and another which belongs to Pastors and Teachers, and which corrects human sheep. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 95, footnote 12 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Preface. (HTML)
... of Judges; water, too, from the Book of Psalms. It is the water of the message from heaven. Let, then, this water, O Lord Jesus, come into my soul, into my flesh, that through the moisture of this rain the valleys of our minds and the fields of our hearts may grow green. May the drops from Thee come upon me, shedding forth grace and immortality. Wash the steps of my mind that I may not sin again. Wash the heel of my soul, that I may be able to efface the curse, that I feel not the serpent’s bite[Genesis 3:15] on the foot of my soul, but, as Thou Thyself hast bidden those who follow Thee, may tread on serpents and scorpions with uninjured foot. Thou hast redeemed the world, redeem the soul of a single sinner.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 231, footnote 7 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)
Book IV. Of the Institutes of the Renunciants. (HTML)
Chapter XXXVII. How the devil always lies in wait for our end, and how we ought continually to watch his head. (HTML)
How the devil always lies in wait for our end, and how we ought continually to watch his head.[Genesis 3:15]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 255, footnote 1 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)
Book VII. Of the Spirit of Covetousness. (HTML)
Chapter XXI. How covetousness can be conquered. (HTML)
... For it is an impossibility for him who, overcome in the matter of a small possession, has once admitted into his heart a root of evil desire, not to be inflamed presently with the heat of a still greater desire. For the soldier of Christ will be victorious and in safety, and free from all the attacks of desire, so long as this most evil spirit does not implant in his heart a seed of this desire. Wherefore, though in the matter of all kinds of sins we ought ordinarily to watch the serpent’s head,[Genesis 3:15] yet in this above all we should be more keenly on our guard. For if it has been admitted it will grow by feeding on itself, and will kindle for itself a worse fire. And so we must not only guard against the possession of money, but also must ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 232, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Ephraim Syrus: Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. (HTML)
Hymn III. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 430 (In-Text, Margin)
With the weapon of the deceiver the First-born clad Himself, that with the weapon that killed, He might restore to life again! With the tree wherewith he slew us, He delivered us. With the wine which maddened us, with it we were made chaste! With the rib that was drawn out of Adam, the wicked one drew out the heart of Adam. There rose from the Rib[Genesis 3:15] a hidden power, which cut off Satan as Dagon: for in that Ark a book was hidden that cried and proclaimed concerning the Conqueror! There was then a mystery revealed, in that Dagon was brought low in his own place of refuge! The accomplishment came after the type, in that the wicked one was brought low in the place in ...