Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Genesis 3:18
There are 12 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 306, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book II. Wherein Tertullian shows that the creator, or demiurge, whom Marcion calumniated, is the true and good God. (HTML)
If, After Man's Sin, God Exercised His Attribute of Justice and Judgment, This Was Compatible with His Goodness, and Enhances the True Idea of the Perfection of God's Character. (HTML)
Up to the fall of man, therefore, from the beginning God was simply good; after that He became a judge both severe and, as the Marcionites will have it, cruel. Woman is at once condemned to bring forth in sorrow, and to serve her husband, although before she had heard without pain the increase of her race proclaimed with the blessing, Increase and multiply, and although she had been destined to be a help and not a slave to her male partner. Immediately the earth is also cursed,[Genesis 3:18] which before was blessed. Immediately spring up briers and thorns, where once had grown grass, and herbs, and fruitful trees. Immediately arise sweat and labour for bread, where previously on every tree was yielded spontaneous food and untilled ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 487, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Advantage of Patience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3607 (In-Text, Margin)
... “thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which alone I had charged thee that thou shouldest not eat, cursed shall be the ground in all thy works: in sorrow and in groaning shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it give forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the food of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou return into the ground from which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou go.”[Genesis 3:17-19] We are all tied and bound with the chain of this sentence, until, death being expunged, we depart from this life. In sorrow and groaning we must of necessity be all the days of our life: it is necessary that we eat our bread with sweat and labour.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 548, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
... hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of that tree of which alone I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat, cursed shall be the ground in all thy works; in sadness and groaning shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns and thistles shall it cast forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field in the sweat of thy brow. Thou shalt eat thy bread until thou return unto the earth from which also thou wast taken; because earth thou art, and to earth thou shalt go.”[Genesis 3:17-19] Also in the same place: “And Enoch pleased God, and was not found afterwards: because God translated him.” And in Isaiah: “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass. The grass withered, and the flower hath fallen away; but ...
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 5, page 66, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
An Objection of the Pelagians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 635 (In-Text, Margin)
... whose guilt God has cancelled in order that they may not stand in our way after this life, He yet permits to remain for the contest of faith, in order that they may become the means of instructing and exercising those who are advancing in the struggle after holiness. Might not some man, by not understanding this, raise a question and ask, If God has said to man because of his sin, “In the sweat of thy brow thou shall eat thy bread: thorns also and thistles shall the ground bring forth to thee,”[Genesis 3:18-19] how comes it to pass that this labour and toil continues since the remission of sins, and that the ground of believers yields them this rough and terrible harvest? Again, since it was said to the woman in consequence of her sin, “In sorrow shall ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 508, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4680 (In-Text, Margin)
14. “He will not alway be chiding: neither keepeth He His anger for ever” (ver. 9). Since it is in consequence of His anger that we live in the scourges and corruption of mortality: we have this in punishment for the first sin.…Is it not through His anger, my brethren, that “in the sweat of thy face and in toil thou shalt eat bread, and the earth shall bear thorns and thistles unto thee”?[Genesis 3:18] This was said to our forefathers. Or if our life is different from this; if thou canst, turn unto some pleasure, where thou mayest not feel thorns. Choose what thou hast wished, whether thou art covetous or luxurious; to name these two alone; add a third passion, that of ambition; how great thorns are ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 552, footnote 16 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed. (HTML)
Section 22 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3329 (In-Text, Margin)
... crowned Him.” Moreover, of the thorns another Prophet makes mention: “I looked that she should bring forth grapes, and she brought forth thorns, and instead of righteousness a cry.” But that thou mayest know the secrets of the mystery, it behoved Him, Who came to take away the sins of the world, to free the earth also from the curse, which it had received through the sin of the first man, when the Lord said “Cursed be the earth in thy labours: thorns: and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.”[Genesis 3:17-18] For this cause, therefore, is Jesus crowned with thorns, that first sentence of condemnation might be remitted. He is led to the cross, and the life of the whole word is suspended on the wood of which it is made. I would point out how this also is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 23, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 349 (In-Text, Margin)
3. I would have you draw from your monastic vow not pride but fear. You walk laden with gold; you must keep out of the robber’s way. To us men this life is a race-course: we contend here, we are crowned elsewhere. No man can lay aside fear while serpents and scorpions beset his path. The Lord says: “My sword hath drunk its fill in heaven,” and do you expect to find peace on the earth? No, the earth yields only thorns and thistles, and its dust is food for the serpent.[Genesis 3:18] “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” We are hemmed in by hosts of foes, our enemies are ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 29, footnote 7 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 460 (In-Text, Margin)
... fruitful,” God says, “and multiply, and replenish the earth.” He who desires to replenish the earth may increase and multiply if he will. But the train to which you belong is not on earth, but in heaven. The command to increase and multiply first finds fulfilment after the expulsion from paradise, after the nakedness and the fig-leaves which speak of sexual passion. Let them marry and be given in marriage who eat their bread in the sweat of their brow; whose land brings forth to them thorns and thistles,[Genesis 3:18-19] and whose crops are choked with briars. My seed produces fruit a hundredfold. “All men cannot receive God’s saying, but they to whom it is given.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 246, footnote 12 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3426 (In-Text, Margin)
... spare nothing else. The Lord says: “whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” “Who can say,” writes the wise man, “I have made my heart clean?” The stars are not pure in the Lord’s sight; how much less men whose whole life is one long temptation. Woe be to us who commit fornication every time that we cherish lust. “My sword,” God says, “hath drunk its fill in heaven;” much more then upon the earth with its crop of thorns and thistles.[Genesis 3:18] The chosen vessel who had Christ’s name ever on his lips kept under his body and brought it into subjection. Yet even he was hindered by carnal desire and had to do what he would not. As one suffering violence he cries: “O wretched man that I am! ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 87, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the words, Crucified and Buried. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1564 (In-Text, Margin)
18. Adam received the sentence, Cursed is the ground in thy labours; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee[Genesis 3:17-18]. For this cause Jesus assumes the thorns, that He may cancel the sentence; for this cause also was He buried in the earth, that the earth which had been cursed might receive the blessing instead of a curse. At the time of the sin, they clothed themselves with fig-leaves; for this cause Jesus also made the fig-tree the last of His signs. For when about to go to His passion, He curses the fig-tree, not every fig-tree, but that one ...
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 ...