Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Genesis 7
There are 34 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 7, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Clement of Rome (HTML)
First Epistle to the Corinthians (HTML)
Chapter VII.—An exhortation to repentance. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 36 (In-Text, Margin)
... good, pleasing, and acceptable in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us look stedfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God, which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted unto Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved.[Genesis 7] Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 263, footnote 13 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter CXXVII.—These passages of Scripture do not apply to the Father, but to the Word. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2452 (In-Text, Margin)
“These and other such sayings are recorded by the lawgiver and by the prophets; and I suppose that I have stated sufficiently, that wherever God says, ‘God went up from Abraham,’ or, ‘The Lord spake to Moses,’ and ‘The Lord came down to behold the tower which the sons of men had built,’ or when ‘God shut Noah into the ark,’[Genesis 7:16] you must not imagine that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place. For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither has come to any place, nor walks, nor sleeps, nor rises up, but remains in His own place, wherever that is, quick to behold and quick to hear, having neither eyes nor ears, but being of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 152, footnote 13 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
The Law Anterior to Moses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1148 (In-Text, Margin)
... superinduction of a law is the work of the same Being who had before premised a precept; since it is His province withal subsequently to train, who had before resolved to form, righteous creatures. For what wonder if He extends a discipline who institutes it? if He advances who begins? In short, before the Law of Moses, written in stone-tables, I contend that there was a law unwritten, which was habitually understood naturally, and by the fathers was habitually kept. For whence was Noah “found righteous,”[Genesis 7:1] if in his case the righteousness of a natural law had not preceded? Whence was Abraham accounted “a friend of God,” if not on the ground of equity and righteousness, (in the observance) of a natural law? Whence was Melchizedek named “priest of the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 153, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
The Law Anterior to Moses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1155 (In-Text, Margin)
... uncircumcised as colonist of paradise. Therefore, since God originated Adam uncircumcised, and inobservant of the Sabbath, consequently his offspring also, Abel, offering Him sacrifices, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, was by Him commended; while He accepted what he was offering in simplicity of heart, and reprobated the sacrifice of his brother Cain, who was not rightly dividing what he was offering. Noah also, uncircumcised—yes, and inobservant of the Sabbath—God freed from the deluge.[Genesis 7:23] For Enoch, too, most righteous man, uncircumcised and inobservant of the Sabbath, He translated from this world; who did not first taste death, in order that, being a candidate for eternal life, he might by this time show us that we also may, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 62, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Monogamy. (HTML)
Waiving Allusion to the Paraclete, Tertullian Comes to the Consideration of the Ancient Scriptures, and Their Testimony on the Subject in Hand. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 601 (In-Text, Margin)
... beasts should be born of adultery. “Out of all beasts,” said (God), “out of all flesh, two shalt thou lead into the ark, that they may live with thee, male and female: they shall be (taken) from all flying animals according to (their) kind, and from all creepers of the earth according to their kind; two out of all shall enter unto thee, male and female.” In the same formula, too, He orders sets of sevens, made up of pairs, to be gathered to him, consisting of male and female—one male and one female.[Genesis 7:3] What more shall I say? Even unclean birds were not allowed to enter with two females each.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 151, footnote 16 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
Appendix (HTML)
Five Books in Reply to Marcion. (HTML)
Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments. (HTML)
30 Faultless, and just—God witnessing[Genesis 7:1] the fact—
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 646, footnote 2 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
On the Jewish Meats. (HTML)
He First of All Asserts that the Law is Spiritual; And Thence, Man's First Food Was Only the Fruit Trees, and the Use of Flesh Was Added, that the Law that Followed Subsequently Was to Be Understood Spiritually. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5313 (In-Text, Margin)
... the advantage of culture something more might be added to the vigour of the human body. All these things, as I have said, were by grace and by divine arrangement: so that either the most vigorous food should not be given in too small quantity for men’s support, and they should be enfeebled for labour; or that the more tender meat should not be too abundant, so that, oppressed beyond the measure of their strength, they should not be able to bear it. But the law which followed subsequently ordained[Genesis 7:2] the flesh foods with distinction: for some animals it gave and granted for use, as being clean; some it interdicted as not clean, and conveying pollution to those that eat them. Moreover, it gave this character to those that were clean, that those ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 343, 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 2233 (In-Text, Margin)
... Solomon.[Genesis 7:2] seven revenges of Cain, seven years for a debt to be acquitted, the lamp with seven orifices, seven pillars of wisdom in the house of Solomon.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 488, footnote 4 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VIII. Concerning Gifts, and Ordinations, and the Ecclesiastical Canons (HTML)
Sec. II.—Election and Ordination of Bishops: Form of Service on Sundays (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3649 (In-Text, Margin)
... sacrifice of Abel as of an holy person, Thou didst reject the gift of Cain, the murderer of his brother, as of an abhorred wretch. And besides these, Thou didst accept of Seth and Enos, and didst translate Enoch: for Thou art the Creator of men, and the giver of life, and the supplier of want, and the giver of laws, and the rewarder of those that observe them, and the avenger of those that transgress them; who didst bring the great flood upon the world by reason of the multitude of the ungodly,[Genesis 7] and didst deliver righteous Noah from that flood by an ark, with eight souls, the end of the foregoing generations, and the beginning of those that were to come; who didst kindle a fearful fire against the five cities of Sodom, and “didst turn a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 238, footnote 3 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Clementine Homilies. (HTML)
Homily II. (HTML)
Sins of the Saints Denied. (HTML)
Then Peter answered: “Assuredly, with good reason, I neither believe anything against God, nor against the just men recorded in the law, taking for granted that they are impious imaginations. For, as I am persuaded, neither was Adam a transgressor, who was fashioned by the hands of God; nor was Noah drunken, who was found righteous above all the world;[Genesis 7:1] nor did Abraham live with three wives at once, who, on account of his sobriety, was thought worthy of a numerous posterity; nor did Jacob associate with four—of whom two were sisters—who was the father of the twelve tribes, and who intimated the coming of the presence of our Master; nor was Moses a murderer, nor did he ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 231, footnote 12 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
The Epistles of Clement. (HTML)
The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. (HTML)
An Exhortation to Repentance. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4041 (In-Text, Margin)
... is good, pleasing, and acceptable in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us look stedfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted unto Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved.[Genesis 7] Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 295, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The progress of the earthly and heavenly cities traced by the sacred history. (HTML)
That the Years in Those Ancient Times Were of the Same Length as Our Own. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 810 (In-Text, Margin)
... protracted lives of those men the years were not so short that ten of their years were equal to only one of ours, but were of as great length as our own, which are measured by the course of the sun. It is proved by this, that Scripture states that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. But why in the same place is it also written, “The waters of the flood were upon the earth in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month,”[Genesis 7:10-11] if that very brief year (of which it took ten to make one of ours) consisted of thirty-six days? For so scant a year, if the ancient usage dignified it with the name of year, either has not months, or this month must be three days, so that it may ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 195, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He speaks of the true wisdom of man, viz. that by which he remembers, understands, and loves God; and shows that it is in this very thing that the mind of man is the image of God, although his mind, which is here renewed in the knowledge of God, will only then be made the perfect likeness of God in that image when there shall be a perfect sight of God. (HTML)
How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man. (HTML)
... are the words in the Gospel, “And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit;” by which the death of the body, through the spirit’s leaving it, is signified. We speak also of the spirit of a beast, as it is expressly written in the book of Solomon called Ecclesiastes; “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” It is written too in Genesis, where it is said that by the deluge all flesh died which “had in it the spirit of life.”[Genesis 7:22] We speak also of the spirit, meaning the wind, a thing most manifestly corporeal; whence is that in the Psalms, “Fire and hail, snow and ice, the spirit of the storm.” Since spirit, then, is a word of so many meanings, the apostle intended to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 248, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
No Man Ever Saved Save by Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1998 (In-Text, Margin)
... that very rule of faith which makes us Christians. How happens it, then, that the human nature, which first existed, is praised by these men as being so far less tainted with evil manners? How is it that they overlook the fact that men were even then sunk in so many intolerable sins, that, with the exception of one man of God and his wife, and three sons and their wives, the whole world was in God’s just judgment destroyed by the flood, even as the little land of Sodom was afterwards with fire?[Genesis 7] From the moment, then, when “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all sinned,” the entire mass of our nature was ruined beyond doubt, and fell into the possession of its destroyer. And ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 356, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Questions About the Nature of the Body are Sufficiently Mysterious, and Yet Not Higher Than Those of the Soul. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2461 (In-Text, Margin)
What do you say to the statement, that amongst the works of God there are some which it is more difficult to know than even God Himself,—so far, indeed, as He can be an object of knowledge to us at all? For we have learnt that God is a Trinity; but to this very day we do not know how many kinds of animals, not even of land animals which were able to enter Noah’s ark,[Genesis 7:8-9] He has created—unless by some happy chance you have ascertained this fact. Again, in the Book of Wisdom it is written, “For if they were able to prevail so much, that they could know and estimate the world; how is it that they did not more easily find out the Lord thereof?” Is it because the subject before us is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 370, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word 'Spirit.' (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2521 (In-Text, Margin)
... general sense of the term; as we read in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of men, whether it goeth upward; and the spirit of the beast, whether it goeth downward into the earth?” In like manner, touching the devastation of the deluge, the Scripture testifies, “All flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: and all things which have the spirit of life.”[Genesis 7:21-22] Here, if we remove all the windings of doubtful disputation, we understand the term spirit to be synonymous with soul in its general sense. Of so wide a signification is this term, that even God is called “a spirit;” and a stormy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 93, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
The Harmony of the Gospels. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Of the Fact that the False Gods Do Not Forbid Others to Be Worshipped Along with Themselves. That the God of Israel is the True God, is Proved by His Works, Both in Prophecy and in Fulfilment. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 610 (In-Text, Margin)
... easily refuted by His works, both in prophecy and in fulfilment. I do not speak of those works which they deem themselves at liberty not to credit, such as His work in the beginning, when He made heaven and earth, and all that is in them. Neither do I specify here those events which carry us back into the remotest antiquity, such as the translation of Enoch, the destruction of the impious by the flood, and the saving of righteous Noah and his house from the deluge, by means of the [ark of] wood.[Genesis 7] I begin the statement of His doings among men with Abraham. To this man, indeed, was given by an angelic oracle an intelligible promise, which we now see in its realization. For to him it was said, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.” Of his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 258, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1805 (In-Text, Margin)
... For the number ten, by which the perfection of blessedness is signified, multiplied four times, because of the fourfold divisions of the seasons, and the fourfold divisions of the world, will make the number forty. Wherefore Moses and Elias, and the Mediator Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, fasted forty days, because in the time of this life, continence from the enticements of the body is necessary. Forty years also did the people wander in the wilderness. Forty days the waters of the flood lasted.[Genesis 7:4] Forty days after His resurrection did the Lord converse with the disciples, persuading them of the reality of His risen body, whereby He showed that in this life, “wherein we are absent from the Lord” (which the number forty, as has been already ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 494, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, John v. 31, ‘If I bear witness of myself,’ etc.; and on the words of the apostle, Galatians v. 16, ‘Walk by the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3838 (In-Text, Margin)
... is in him.” I see then that man himself hath his own spirit appertaining to his proper nature, and I hear thee saying, “But if through the Spirit ye do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live.” I ask, through what spirit; my own, or God’s? For I hear thy words, and am still perplexed by this ambiguity. For when the word “spirit” is used, it is used sometimes of the spirit of a man, and of cattle, as it is written, that “all flesh which had in itself the spirit of life, died by the flood.”[Genesis 7:22] And so the word spirit is spoken of cattle, and spoken of man too. Sometimes even the wind is called spirit; as it is in the Psalm, “Fire, hail, snow, frost, the spirit of the tempest.” For as much then as the word “spirit” is used in many ways, by ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 31, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm VIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 315 (In-Text, Margin)
... beyond question, to recognise some difference or another. But under this word, “moreover,” not only “beasts of the field,” but also “birds of the air, and fish of the sea, which walk through the paths of the sea” (ver. 8), are to be taken in. What is then this distinction? Call to mind the “wine-presses,” holding husks and wine; and the threshing-floor, containing chaff and corn; and the nets, in which were enclosed good fish and bad; and the ark of Noah, in which were both unclean and clean animals:[Genesis 7:8] and you will see that the Churches for a while, now in this time, unto the last time of judgment, contain not only sheep and oxen, that is, holy laymen and holy ministers, but “moreover beasts of the field, birds of the air, and birds of the sea, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 443, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XC (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4251 (In-Text, Margin)
... Psalms clearly insinuate to be a sacred one. One hundred and fifty have the same relative signification as fifteen, the latter number being composed of seven and eight together: the first of which points to the Old Testament through the observation of the Sabbath; the latter to the New, referring to the resurrection of our Lord. Hence the fifteen steps in the Temple. Hence in the Psalms, fifteen “songs of degrees.” Hence the waters of the deluge overtopped the highest mountains by fifteen cubits:[Genesis 7:20] and many other instances of the same nature. “Our years are passed in thought like a spider.” We were labouring in things corruptible, corruptible works were we weaving together: which, as the Prophet Isaiah saith, by no means covered us. “The days ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 611, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5552 (In-Text, Margin)
... whom She endureth: and as if it were asked, “Is it now?” The Church is of ancient birth: since saints have been so called, the Church hath been on earth. At one time the Church was in Abel only, and he was fought against by his wicked and lost brother Cain. At one time the Church was in Enoch alone: and he was translated from the unrighteous. At one time the Church was in the house of Noah alone, and endured all who perished by the flood, and the ark alone swam upon the waves, and escaped to shore.[Genesis 6-8] At one time the Church was in Abraham alone, and we know what he endured from the wicked. The Church was in his brother’s son, Lot, alone, and in his house, in Sodom, and he endured the iniquities and perversities of Sodom, until God freed him from ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 419, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse III (HTML)
Texts Explained; Eleventhly, Mark xiii. 32 and Luke ii. 52. Arian explanation of the former text is against the Regula Fidei; and against the context. Our Lord said He was ignorant of the Day, by reason of His human nature. If the Holy Spirit knows the Day, therefore the Son knows; if the Son knows the Father, therefore He knows the Day; if He has all that is the Father's, therefore knowledge of the Day; if in the Father, He knows the Day in the Father; if He created and upholds all things, He knows when they will cease to be. He knows not as Man, argued from Matt. xxiv. 42. As He asked about Lazarus's grave, &c., yet knew, so He knows; as S. Paul says, 'whether in the body I know not,' &c., yet knew, so He knows. He said He knew not for ou (HTML)
... having become man, said ‘No, not the Son knows,’ for He knew not in flesh, though knowing as Word. And again the example from Noah exposes the shamelessness of Christ’s enemies; for there too He said not, ‘I knew not,’ but ‘They knew not until the flood came.’ For men did not know, but He who brought the flood (and it was the Saviour Himself) knew the day and the hour in which He opened the cataracts of heaven and broke up the great deep, and said to Noah, ‘Come thou and all thy house into the ark[Genesis 7:1].’ For were He ignorant, He had not foretold to Noah, ‘Yet seven days and I will bring a flood upon the earth.’ But if in describing the day He makes use of the parallel of Noah’s time, and He did know the day of the flood, therefore He knows also ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 18, footnote 26 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pope Damasus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 278 (In-Text, Margin)
... Away with all that is overweening; let the state of Roman majesty withdraw. My words are spoken to the successor of the fisherman, to the disciple of the cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is with the chair of Peter. For this, I know, is the rock on which the church is built! This is the house where alone the paschal lamb can be rightly eaten. This is the ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails.[Genesis 7:23] But since by reason of my sins I have betaken myself to this desert which lies between Syria and the uncivilized waste, I cannot, owing to the great distance between us, always ask of your sanctity the holy thing of the Lord. Con sequently I here ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 29, footnote 20 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 473 (In-Text, Margin)
... am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.” In another place He is foretold to be “a stone cut out of the mountain without hands,” a figure by which the prophet signifies that He is to be born a virgin of a virgin. For the hands are here a figure of wedlock as in the passage: “His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me.” It agrees, also, with this interpretation that the unclean animals are led into Noah’s ark in pairs, while of the clean an uneven number is taken.[Genesis 7:2] Similarly, when Moses and Joshua were bidden to remove their shoes because the ground on which they stood was holy, the command had a mystical meaning. So, too, when the disciples were appointed to preach the gospel they were told to take with them ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 77, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pammachius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1175 (In-Text, Margin)
... Hebrew text—the words “God saw that it was good” are not inserted after the second day of the creation, as they are after the first, third, and remaining ones, and of adding immediately the following comment: “We are meant to understand that there is something not good in the number two, separating us as it does from unity, and prefiguring the marriage-tie. Just as in the account of Noah’s ark all the animals that enter by twos are unclean, but those of which an uneven number is taken are clean.”[Genesis 7:2] In this statement a passing objection is made to what I have said concerning the second day, whether on the ground that the words mentioned really occur in the passage, although I say that they do not occur, or because, assuming them to occur, I ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 87, footnote 2 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1280 (In-Text, Margin)
... Origen says of the waters that are above the firmament that they are not waters, but heroic beings of angelic power, and again of the waters that are over the earth—that is, below the firmament—that they are potencies of the contrary sort—that is, demons? If so, why do we read in the account of the deluge that the windows of heaven were opened, and that the waters of the deluge prevailed? in consequence of which the fountains of the deep were opened, and the whole earth was covered with the waters.[Genesis 7:11]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 234, footnote 13 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Ageruchia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3278 (In-Text, Margin)
... we read as follows:—“there are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.” It is to this choice one that the same John addresses an epistle in these words, “the elder unto the elect lady and her children.” So too in the case of the ark which the apostle Peter interprets as a type of the church, Noah brings in for his three sons one wife apiece and not two.[Genesis 7:13] Likewise of the unclean animals pairs only are taken, male and female, to shew that digamy has no place even among brutes, creeping things, crocodiles and lizards. And if of the clean animals there are seven taken of each kind, that is, an uneven ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 234, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Ageruchia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3279 (In-Text, Margin)
... this choice one that the same John addresses an epistle in these words, “the elder unto the elect lady and her children.” So too in the case of the ark which the apostle Peter interprets as a type of the church, Noah brings in for his three sons one wife apiece and not two. Likewise of the unclean animals pairs only are taken, male and female, to shew that digamy has no place even among brutes, creeping things, crocodiles and lizards. And if of the clean animals there are seven taken of each kind,[Genesis 7:2] that is, an uneven number; this points to the palm which awaits virginal chastity. For on leaving the ark Noah sacrificed victims to God not of course of the animals taken by twos for these were kept to multiply their species, but of those taken by ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 78b, footnote 26 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Concerning Faith and Baptism. (HTML)
The first baptism was that of the flood for the eradication of sin. The second[Genesis 7:17] was through the sea and the cloud: for the cloud is the symbol of the Spirit and the sea of the water. The third baptism was that of the Law: for every impure person washed himself with water, and even washed his garments, and so entered into the camp. The fourth was that of John, being preliminary and leading those who were baptized to repentance, that they might believe in Christ: I, indeed, he said, baptize you with water; but He that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 97b, footnote 4 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Concerning Virginity. (HTML)
Noah when he was commanded to enter the ark and was entrusted with the preservation of the seed of the world received this command, Go in, saith the Lord, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives[Genesis 7:1]. He separated them from their wives in order that with purity they might escape the flood and that shipwreck of the whole world. After the cessation of the flood, however, He said, Go forth of the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives. Lo, again, marriage is granted for the sake of the multiplication of the race. Next, Elias, the fire-breathing charioteer and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 85, footnote 9 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XVIII. In the narration of that event already mentioned, and especially of the sacrifice offered by Nehemiah, is typified the Holy Spirit and Christian baptism. The sacrifice of Moses and Elijah and the history of Noah are also referred to the same. (HTML)
108. In the flood, too, in Noah’s time all flesh died, though just Noah was preserved together with his family.[Genesis 7:23] Is not a man consumed when all that is mortal is cut off from life? The outer man is destroyed, but the inner is renewed. Not in baptism alone but also in repentance does this destruction of the flesh tend to the growth of the spirit, as we are taught on the Apostle’s authority, when holy Paul says: “I have judged as though I were present him that hath so done this deed, to deliver him unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 318, footnote 7 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Mysteries. (HTML)
Chapter III. St. Ambrose points out that we must consider the divine presence and working in the water and the sacred ministers, and then brings forward many Old Testament figures of baptism. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2840 (In-Text, Margin)
... flesh was corrupt by its iniquities. “My Spirit,” says God, “shall not remain among men, because they are flesh.” Whereby God shows that the grace of the Spirit is turned away by carnal impurity and the pollution of grave sin. Upon which, God, willing to restore what was lacking, sent the flood and bade just Noah go up into the ark. And he, after having, as the flood was passing off, sent forth first a raven which did not return, sent forth a dove which is said to have returned with an olive twig.[Genesis 7:1] You see the water, you see the wood [of the ark], you see the dove, and do you hesitate as to the mystery?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 385, footnote 4 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference VIII. The Second Conference of Abbot Serenus. On Principalities. (HTML)
Chapter XXIII. The answer, that by the law of nature men were from the beginning liable to judgment and punishment. (HTML)
... creation, is clearly proved from this; viz., that we know that before the law, aye, and even before the flood, all holy men observed the commands of the law without having the letter to read. For how could Abel, without the command of the law, have known that he ought to offer to God a sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof, unless he had been taught by the law which was naturally implanted in him? How could Noah have distinguished what animals were clean and what were unclean,[Genesis 7:2] when the commandment of the law had not yet made a distinction, unless he had been taught by a natural knowledge? Whence did Enoch learn how to “walk with God,” having never acquired any light of the law from another? Where had Shem and Japheth read ...