Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Exodus 3:14
There are 58 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 419, footnote 8 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter VI—The Holy Ghost, throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, made mention of no other God or Lord, save him who is the true God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3338 (In-Text, Margin)
2. Wherefore, as I have already stated, no other is named as God, or is called Lord, except Him who is God and Lord of all, who also said to Moses, “ I am that I am. And thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is, hath sent me unto you;”[Exodus 3:14] and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe in His name the sons of God. And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, He says, “I am come down to deliver this people.” For it is He who descended and ascended for the salvation of men. Therefore God has been declared through the Son, who is in the Father, and has the Father in Himself —He who ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 227, footnote 8 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter VIII.—Against Those Who Think that What is Just is Not Good. (HTML)
... also may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given them; that they may be one, as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one.” God is one, and beyond the one and above the Monad itself. Wherefore also the particle “Thou,” having a demonstrative emphasis, points out God, who alone truly is, “who was, and is, and is to come,” in which three divisions of time the one name (ὀ ὤν); “who is,”[Exodus 3:14] has its place. And that He who alone is God is also alone and truly righteous, our Lord in the Gospel itself shall testify, saying “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 338, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXV.—Plato an Imitator of Moses in Framing Laws. (HTML)
... But to philosophize is best. For he who is wise will live concentrating all his energies on knowledge, directing his life by good deeds, despising the opposite, and following the pursuits which contribute to truth. And the law is not what is decided by law (for what is seen is not vision), nor every opinion (not certainly what is evil). But law is the opinion which is good, and what is good is that which is true, and what is true is that which finds “true being,” and attains to it. “He who is,”[Exodus 3:14] says Moses, “sent me.” In accordance with which, namely, good opinion, some have called law, right reason, which enjoins what is to be done and forbids what is not to be done.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 682, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Prayer. (HTML)
The Second Clause. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8773 (In-Text, Margin)
The name of “God the Father” had been published to none. Even Moses, who had interrogated Him on that very point, had heard a different name.[Exodus 3:13-16] To us it has been revealed in the Son, for the Son is now the Father’s new name. “I am come,” saith He, “in the Father’s name;” and again, “Father, glorify Thy name;” and more openly, “I have manifested Thy name to men.” That name, therefore, we pray may “be hallowed.” Not that it is becoming for men to wish God well, as if there were any other by whom He may be wished well, or as if He would suffer ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 253, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
6. That the working of the Father and the Son operates both in saints and in sinners, is manifest from this, that all who are rational beings are partakers of the word, i.e., of reason, and by this means bear certain seeds, implanted within them, of wisdom and justice, which is Christ. Now, in Him who truly exists, and who said by Moses, “ I Am Who I Am,”[Exodus 3:14] all things, whatever they are, participate; which participation in God the Father is shared both by just men and sinners, by rational and irrational beings, and by all things universally which exist. The Apostle Paul also shows truly that all have a share in Christ, when he says, “Say not in thine heart, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 614, footnote 9 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)
Moreover, He is Good, Always the Same, Immutable, One and Only, Infinite; And His Own Name Can Never Be Declared, and He is Incorruptible and Immortal. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5038 (In-Text, Margin)
... what He is, He always is; and who He is, He is always Himself; and what character He has, He always has. For increasing argues beginning, as well as losses prove death and perishing. And therefore He says, “I am God, I change not;” in that, what is not born cannot suffer change, holding His condition always. For whatever it be in Him which constitutes Divinity, must necessarily exist always, maintaining itself by its own powers, so that He should always be God. And thus He says, “I am that I am.”[Exodus 3:14] For what He is has this name, because it always maintains the same quality of Himself. For change takes away the force of that name “That I Am;” for whatever, at any time, is changed, is shown to be mortal in that very particular which is changed. ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 335, footnote 5 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity. (HTML)
Thekla. (HTML)
The Lot and Inheritance of Virginity. (HTML)
... temperance, and other flowers and plants of wisdom, equally splendid, of which we here behold only the shadows and apparitions, as in dreams, and think that they consist of the actions of men, because there is no clear image of them here, but only dim copies, which themselves we see often when making dark copies of them. For never has any one seen with his eyes the greatness or the form or the beauty of righteousness itself, or of understanding, or of peace; but there, in Him whose name is I AM,[Exodus 3:14] they are seen perfect and clear, as they are. For there is a tree of temperance itself, and of love, and of understanding, as there are plants of the fruits which grow here—as of grapes, the pomegranate, and of apples; and so, too, the fruits of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 472, footnote 6 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VII. Concerning the Christian Life, and the Eucharist, and the Initiation into Christ (HTML)
Sec. II.—On the Formation of the Character of Believers, and on Giving of Thanks to God (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3483 (In-Text, Margin)
... to be like him in his mode of life, Thou wast then called his God, saying: “I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee.” And when our father Jacob was sent into Mesopotamia, Thou showedst him Christ, and by him speakest, saying: “Behold, I am with thee, and I will increase thee, and multiply thee exceedingly.” And so spakest Thou to Moses, Thy faithful and holy servant, at the vision of the bush: “I am He that is; this is my name for ever, and my memorial for generations of generations.”[Exodus 3:14-15] O Thou great protector of the posterity of Abraham, Thou art blessed for ever.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 330, footnote 4 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Of Things Not Made Through the Logos. (HTML)
... which are not, not among those which have no existence whatever, but rather among things which are evil. To him the Not-being is evil; “God,” he says, “called the things that are not as things that are.” And Mardochæus, too, in the Esther of the Septuagint, calls the enemies of Israel “those that are not,” saying, “Deliver not Thy sceptre, O Lord, to those that are not.” We may also notice how evil men, on account of their wickedness, are said not to be, from the name ascribed to God in Exodus:[Exodus 3:14-15] “For the Lord said to Moses, I am, that is My name.” The good God says this with respect of us also who pray that we may be part of His congregation. The Saviour praises him, saying, “None is good but one, God the Father.” The good, then, is the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 109, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age, in which very grave errors as to the nature of God and the origin of evil being distinguished, and the Sacred Books more accurately known, he at length arrives at a clear knowledge of God, not yet rightly apprehending Jesus Christ. (HTML)
Divine Things are the More Clearly Manifested to Him Who Withdraws into the Recesses of His Heart. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 532 (In-Text, Margin)
... dissimilarity, as if I heard this voice of Thine from on high: “I am the food of strong men; grow, and thou shalt feed upon me; nor shall thou convert me, like the food of thy flesh, into thee, but thou shall be converted into me.” And I learned that Thou for iniquity dost correct man, and Thou dost make my soul to consume away like a spider. And I said, “Is Truth, therefore, nothing because it is neither diffused through space, finite, nor infinite?” And Thou criedst to me from afar, “Yea, verily, ‘ ’”[Exodus 3:14] And I heard this, as things are heard in the heart, nor was there room for doubt; and I should more readily doubt that I live than that Truth is not, which is “clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 152, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Some account of the Socratic and Platonic philosophy, and a refutation of the doctrine of Apuleius that the demons should be worshipped as mediators between gods and men. (HTML)
How Plato Has Been Able to Approach So Nearly to Christian Knowledge. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 310 (In-Text, Margin)
... connection, and that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which was given to the question elicited from the holy Moses when the words of God were conveyed to him by the angel; for, when he asked what was the name of that God who was commanding him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given: “I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me unto you;”[Exodus 3:14] as though compared with Him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not,—a truth which Plato zealously held, and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 227, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the creation of angels and men, and of the origin of evil. (HTML)
That There is No Entity Contrary to the Divine, Because Nonentity Seems to Be that Which is Wholly Opposite to Him Who Supremely and Always is. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 527 (In-Text, Margin)
This may be enough to prevent any one from supposing, when we speak of the apostate angels, that they could have another nature, derived, as it were, from some different origin, and not from God. From the great impiety of this error we shall disentangle ourselves the more readily and easily, the more distinctly we understand that which God spoke by the angel when He sent Moses to the children of Israel: “I am that I am.”[Exodus 3:14] For since God is the supreme existence, that is to say, supremely is, and is therefore unchangeable, the things that He made He empowered to be, but not to be supremely like Himself. To some He communicated a more ample, to others a more limited existence, and thus arranged the natures ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 531, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Containing a General View of the Subjects Treated in Holy Scripture (HTML)
In What Way God Uses Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1744 (In-Text, Margin)
... goodness of God. God, however, in His use of us, has reference to His own goodness. For it is because He is good we exist; and so far as we truly exist we are good. And, further, because He is also just, we cannot with impunity be evil; and so far as we are evil, so far is our existence less complete. Now He is the first and supreme existence, who is altogether unchangeable, and who could say in the fullest sense of the words, “I AM I AM,” and “Thou shalt say to them, I AM hath sent me unto you;”[Exodus 3:14] so that all other things that exist, both owe their existence entirely to Him, and are good only so far as He has given it to them to be so. That use, then, which God is said to make of us has no reference to His own advantage, but to ours only; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 18, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
This Work is Written Against Those Who Sophistically Assail the Faith of the Trinity, Through Misuse of Reason. They Who Dispute Concerning God Err from a Threefold Cause. Holy Scripture, Removing What is False, Leads Us on by Degrees to Things Divine. What True Immortality is. We are Nourished by Faith, that We May Be Enabled to Apprehend Things Divine. (HTML)
... wont to frame, as it were, allurements for children from the things which are found in the creature; whereby, according to their measure, and as it were by steps, the affections of the weak may be moved to seek those things that are above, and to leave those things that are below. But the same Scripture rarely employs those things which are spoken properly of God, and are not found in any creature; as, for instance, that which was said to Moses, “I am that I am;” and, “I Am hath sent me to you.”[Exodus 3:14] For since both body and soul also are said in some sense to be, Holy Scripture certainly would not so express itself unless it meant to be understood in some special sense of the term. So, too, that which the Apostle says, “Who only hath ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 26, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
The Texts of Scripture Explained Respecting the Subjection of the Son to the Father, Which Have Been Misunderstood. Christ Will Not So Give Up the Kingdom to the Father, as to Take It Away from Himself. The Beholding Him is the Promised End of All Actions. The Holy Spirit is Sufficient to Our Blessedness Equally with the Father. (HTML)
17. For this contemplation is held forth to us as the end of all actions, and the everlasting fullness of joy. For “we are the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” For that which He said to His servant Moses, “I am that I am; thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me to you;”[Exodus 3:14] this it is which we shall contemplate when we shall live in eternity. For so it is said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” This shall be when the Lord shall have come, and “shall have brought to light the hidden ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 88, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He proceeds to refute those arguments which the heretics put forward, not out of the Scriptures, but from their own conceptions. And first he refutes the objection, that to beget and to be begotten, or that to be begotten and not-begotten, being different, are therefore different substances, and shows that these things are spoken of God relatively, and not according to substance. (HTML)
God the Only Unchangeable Essence. (HTML)
3. He is, however, without doubt, a substance, or, if it be better so to call it, an essence, which the Greeks call οὐσία. For as wisdom is so called from the being wise, and knowledge from knowing; so from being comes that which we call essence. And who is there that is, more than He who said to His servant Moses, “I am that I am;” and, “Thus shall thou say unto the children of Israel, He who is hath sent me unto you?”[Exodus 3:14] But other things that are called essences or substances admit of accidents, whereby a change, whether great or small, is produced in them. But there can be no accident of this kind in respect to God; and therefore He who is God is the only unchangeable substance or ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 111, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He resolves the question he had deferred, and teaches us that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one power and one wisdom, no otherwise than one God and one essence. And he then inquires how it is that, in speaking of God, the Latins say, One essence, three persons; but the Greeks, One essence, three substances or hypostases. (HTML)
In God, Substance is Spoken Improperly, Essence Properly. (HTML)
... in Him as in a subject. And hence it is clear that God is improperly called substance, in order that He may be understood to be, by the more usual name essence, which He is truly and properly called; so that perhaps it is right that God alone should be called essence. For He is truly alone, because He is unchangeable; and declared this to be His own name to His servant Moses, when He says, “I am that I am;” and, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: He who is hath sent me unto you.”[Exodus 3:14] However, whether He be called essence, which He is properly called, or substance, which He is called improperly, He is called both in respect to Himself, not relatively to anything; whence to God to be is the same thing as to subsist; and so the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 324, footnote 15 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
A Treatise on Faith and the Creed. (HTML)
Of the Son of God as Neither Made by the Father Nor Less Than the Father, and of His Incarnation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1559 (In-Text, Margin)
... And it is my opinion that this is the very consideration to which was due the circumstance that He introduced to the apprehension of His servant Moses the kind of name [which He then adopted]. For when he asked of Him by whom he should say that he was sent, in the event of the people to whom he was being sent despising him, he received his answer when He spake in this wise: “.” Thereafter, too, He added this: “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, (Qui est) has sent me unto you.”[Exodus 3:14]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 355, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans. (HTML)
To Have True Existence is an Exclusive Prerogative of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1090 (In-Text, Margin)
Magnificently and divinely, therefore, our God said to his servant: "I am that I am," and "Thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me to you."[Exodus 3:14] For He truly is because He is unchangeable. For every change makes what was not, to be: therefore He truly is, who is unchangeable; but all other things that were made by Him have received being from Him each in its own measure. To Him who is highest, therefore nothing can be contrary, save what is not; and consequently as from Him everything that is good has its being, so from Him is everything that by nature ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 171, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness. (HTML)
The Fourth Passage. In What Sense God Only is Good. With God to Be Good and to Be Himself are the Same Thing. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1509 (In-Text, Margin)
... from the beginning;’ and yet again, ‘They that are good shall dwell in the land.’” Now to all this we must say in answer, that the passages in question must be understood in the same sense as the former one, “There is none good, save one, that is, God.” Either because all created things, although God made them very good, are yet, when compared with their Creator, not good, being in fact incapable of any comparison with Him. For in a transcendent, and yet very proper sense, He said of Himself, “ ”[Exodus 3:14] The statement therefore before us, “None is good save one, that is, God,” is used in some such way as that which is said of John, “He was not that light;” although the Lord calls him “a lamp,” just as He says to His disciples: “Ye are the light of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 14, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter I. 6–14. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 27 (In-Text, Margin)
... to appear mean to you, through the habit of daily words, for it is added, “and the Word was God.” This Word is He of whom yesterday we spoke much; and I trust that God was present, and that even from only thus much speaking something reached your hearts. “In the beginning was the Word.” He is the same, and is in the same manner; as He is, so He is always; He cannot be changed; that is, He is. This His name He spoke to His servant Moses: “I am that I am; and He that is hath sent me.”[Exodus 3:14] Who then shall comprehend this when you see that all mortal things are variable; when you see that not only do bodies vary as to their qualities, by being born, by increasing, by becoming less, by dying, but that even souls themselves through the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 220, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. 21–25. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 696 (In-Text, Margin)
... who is hath sent me to you.” Perhaps it was too much even for Moses himself, as it is too much for us also, and much more so for us, to understand the meaning of such words, “I am who am;” and, “He who is hath sent me to you.” And supposing that Moses comprehended it, when would those to whom he was sent comprehend it? The Lord therefore put aside what man could not comprehend, and added what he could; for He said also besides, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”[Exodus 3:13-15] This thou canst comprehend; for “I am who am,” what mind can comprehend?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 224, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. 26, 27. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 714 (In-Text, Margin)
... shall close. I have said this, then, to enlist your attention. Every soul, as being a thing, is mutable; and although a great creature, yet a creature; though superior to the body, yet made. Every soul, then, since it is changeable—that is, sometimes believes, sometimes disbelieves; at one time wishes, at another time refuses; at one time is adulterous, at another chaste; now good, and again wicked,—is changeable. But God is that which is, and so has retained as His own peculiar name, “I am who am.”[Exodus 3:14] Such also is the Son, when He says, “If ye believe not that I am;” and thereto pertains also, “Who art thou? The Beginning” (ver. 25). God therefore is unchangeable, the soul changeable. When the soul receives from God the elements of its goodness ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 225, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. 28–32. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 720 (In-Text, Margin)
3. The Lord then, recognizing such in that crowd, said, “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [He].” You know already what “I am” signifies; and we must not be continually repeating, lest so great a subject beget distaste. Recall that, “I am who am,” and “He who is hath sent me,”[Exodus 3:14] and you will recognize the meaning of the words, “Then shall ye know that I am.” But both the Father is, and the Holy Spirit is. To the same belongs the whole Trinity. But because the Lord spake as the Son, in order that, when He says, “Then shall ye know that I am,” there might be no chance of entrance for the error of the Sabellians, that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 383, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter XVI. 13. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1636 (In-Text, Margin)
... eternal, without beginning and without end, in whatever tense the verb is put, whether in the past, or present, or future, there is no falsehood thereby implied. For although to that immutable and ineffable nature, there is no proper application of Was and Will be, but only Is: for that nature alone is in truth, because incapable of change; and to it therefore was it exclusively suited to say, “I Am That I Am,” and “Thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, He Who Is hath sent me unto you:”[Exodus 3:14] yet on account of the changeableness of the times amid which our mortal and changeable life is spent, there is nothing false in our saying, both it was, and will be, and is. It was in past, it is in present, it will be in future ages. It was, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 472, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John II. 12–17. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2093 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou wilt: if thou wilt, it is a day; if thou wilt, a year; if thou wilt, years. For it is said of this same, “And thy years shall not fail.” But when is it called a day? When it is said to the Lord, “To-day have I begotten Thee.” From the eternal Father begotten, from eternity begotten, in eternity begotten: with no beginning, no bound, no space of breadth; because He is what is, because Himself is “He that Is.” This His name He told to Moses: “Thou shalt say unto them, hath sent me unto you.”[Exodus 3:14] Why speak then of “before Abraham”? why, before Noe? why, before Adam? Hear the Scripture: “Before the day-star have I begotten Thee.” In fine, before heaven and earth. Wherefore? Because “all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 2, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 29 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Lord is ignorant of anything, and yet He says to sinners, “I never knew you.” “But the way of the ungodly shall perish;” is the same as if it were said, the way of the ungodly the Lord knoweth not. But it is expressed more plainly that this should be not to be known of the Lord, namely, to “perish;” and this to be known of the Lord, namely, to “abide;” so as that to be should appertain to the knowledge of God, but to His not knowing not to be. For the Lord saith, “ that,” and, “ hath sent me.”[Exodus 3:14]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 35, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm IX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 366 (In-Text, Margin)
... mere Name of God hath now been published everywhere: but the knowledge of the name is, when He is known whose name it is. For the name is not a name for its own sake, but for that which it signifies. Now it has been said, “The Lord is His Name.” Wherefore whoso willingly submits himself to God as His servant, hath known this name. “And let them who know Thy Name hope in Thee” (ver. 10). Again, the Lord saith to Moses, “I am That I am; and Thou shalt say to the children of Israel,, hath sent me.”[Exodus 3:14] “Let them” then “who know Thy Name, hope in Thee;” that they may not hope in those things which flow by in time’s quick revolution, having nothing but “will be” and “has been.” For what in them is future, when it arrives, straightway becomes the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 35, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm IX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 367 (In-Text, Margin)
... “will be” and “has been.” For what in them is future, when it arrives, straightway becomes the past; it is awaited with eagerness, it is lost with pain. But in the nature of God nothing will be, as if it were not yet; or hath been, as if it were no longer: but there is only that which is, and this is eternity. Let them cease then to hope in and love things temporal, and let them apply themselves to hope eternal, who know His name who said, “I am That I am;” and of whom it was said, “ hath sent me.”[Exodus 3:14] “For Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee, O Lord.” Whoso seek Him, seek no more things transient and perishable; “For no man can serve two masters.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 114, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1036 (In-Text, Margin)
... above it, it has none. If, shaking off the trammels of these things, I contemplate things above, if I compare things that pass away with those that endure, I see what has a true being, and what rather seems to be, than really is. Should I say that these days of mine “are;” and shall I rashly apply this word so full of meaning to this course of things passing away? To such a degree have I my own self almost ceased to “be, failing” as I am in my weakness, that He escaped from my memory, who said, “.”[Exodus 3:14] Hath then any number of days any existence? In truth it hath, and it is “number without end.”…Everything is swept on by a series of moments, fleeting by, one after the other; there is a torrent of existences ever flowing on and on; a “torrent,” of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 119, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1086 (In-Text, Margin)
... is not, where there is no true being; longing to be there, where “Being” in the highest sense is! It is on account of this contrast then, while standing midway between them, he says, “Grant me a remission, that I may be refreshed before I go hence and be no more.” For if Thou “grantest me not a remission” of my sins, I shall go from Thee unto all eternity! And from whom shall I go to all eternity? From Him who said,: from Him who said, “Say unto the children of Israel, I hath sent me unto you.”[Exodus 3:14] He then who goes from Him, in the contrary direction, goes to non-existence.…
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 399, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3870 (In-Text, Margin)
... them, “Let them be ashamed and perish,” he instantly adds, “and let them know that Thy name is the Lord, Thou art only the Most Highest in all the earth” (ver. 18). Coming to this knowledge, let them be so confounded as to please God: let them so perish, as that they may abide. “Let them know,” he says, “that Thy name is the Lord:” as if whoever else are called lords are named so not truly but by falsehood, for they rule but as servants, and compared with the true Lord are not lords; as it is said,:[Exodus 3:14] as if those things which are made are not, compared with Him by whom they are made. He adds, “Thou only art the Most Highest in all the earth:” or, as other copies have it, “over all the earth;” as it might be said, in all the heaven, or over all ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 442, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XC (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4239 (In-Text, Margin)
... certain age, nor to a certain age, which has an end, since He is without end. But it often happens in the Scripture, that the equivocal Greek word causes the Latin translator to put age for eternity and eternity for age. But he very rightly does not say, Thou wast from ages, and unto ages Thou shalt be: but puts the verb in the present, intimating that the substance of God is altogether immutable. It is not, He was, and Shall be, but only Is. Whence the expression,; and, “hath sent me unto you;”[Exodus 3:14] and, “Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.” Behold then the eternity that is our refuge, that we may fly thither from the mutability of time, there to remain for evermore.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 521, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4789 (In-Text, Margin)
4. “Remember,” he saith, “His marvellous works that He hath done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth” (ver. 5). This passage seemeth like that, “Thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I hath sent me unto you:” an expression which, in ever so small part, scarce a mind taketh in. Then mentioning His own Name, He mercifully mingled in His grace towards men, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; this is My Name for ever.”[Exodus 3:14-15] By which He would have it to be understood, that they whose God He declared Himself lived with Him for ever, and He said this, which might be understood even by children, that they who by the great powers of love knew how to seek His face for evermore, might ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 655, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5844 (In-Text, Margin)
... is made like unto vanity: his days pass away like a shadow” (ver. 4). What vanity? Time, which passeth on, and floweth by. For this “vanity” is said in comparison of the Truth, which ever abideth, and never faileth: for it too is a work of His Hand, in its degree. “For,” as it is written, “God filled the earth with His good things.” What is “His”? That accord with Him. But all these things, being earthly, fleeting, transitory, if they be compared to that Truth, where it is said, “I Am That I Am,”[Exodus 3:14] all this which passeth away is called “vanity.” For through time it vanisheth, like stroke into the air. And why should I say more than that which the Apostle James said, willing to bring down proud men to humility, “What is,” saith he, “your life? ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 165, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Defence of the Council's Phrases, “from the essence,” And “one in essence.” Objection that the phrases are not scriptural; we ought to look at the sense more than the wording; evasion of the Arians as to the phrase “of God” which is in Scripture; their evasion of all explanations but those which the Council selected, which were intended to negative the Arian formulæ; protest against their conveying any material sense. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 914 (In-Text, Margin)
... very Father, but of what is about Him. But if God be simple, as He is, it follows that in saying ‘God’ and naming ‘Father,’ we name nothing as if about Him, but signify his essence itself. For though to comprehend what the essence of God is be impossible, yet if we only understand that God is, and if Scripture indicates Him by means of these titles, we, with the intention of indicating Him and none else, call Him God and Father and Lord. When then He says, ‘I am that I am,’ and ‘I am the Lord God[Exodus 3:14-15],’ or when Scripture says, ‘God,’ we understand nothing else by it but the intimation of His incomprehensible essence Itself, and that He Is, who is spoken of. Therefore let no one be startled on hearing that the Son of God is from the Essence of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 397, 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 III (HTML)
Texts Explained; Seventhly, John xiv. 10. Introduction. The doctrine of the coinherence. The Father and the Son Each whole and perfect God. They are in Each Other, because their Essence is One and the Same. They are Each Perfect and have One Essence, because the Second Person is the Son of the First. Asterius's evasive explanation of the text under review; refuted. Since the Son has all that the Father has, He is His Image; and the Father is the One God, because the Son is in the Father. (HTML)
... and thus the faith is one in one God. And he who worships and honours the Son, in the Son worships and honours the Father; for one is the Godhead; and therefore one the honour and one the worship which is paid to the Father in and through the Son. And he who thus worships, worships one God; for there is one God and none other than He. Accordingly when the Father is called the only God, and we read that there is one God, and ‘I am,’ and ‘beside Me there is no God,’ and ‘I the first and I the last[Exodus 3:14],’ this has a fit meaning. For God is One and Only and First; but this is not said to the denial of the Son, perish the thought; for He is in that One, and First and Only, as being of that One and Only and First the Only Word and Wisdom and Radiance. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 433, 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 IV (HTML)
The substantiality of the Word proved from Scripture. If the One Origin be substantial, Its Word is substantial. Unless the Word and Son be a second Origin, or a work, or an attribute (and so God be compounded), or at the same time Father, or involve a second nature in God, He is from the Father's Essence and distinct from Him. Illustration of John x. 30, drawn from Deut. iv. 4. (HTML)
... externally to that Beginning, lest from that diversity a Dyarchy and Polyarchy should ensue; but of the one Beginning He is own Son, own Wisdom, own Word, existing from It. For, according to John, ‘in’ that ‘Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,’ for the Beginning was God; and since He is from It, therefore also ‘the Word was God.’ And as there is one Beginning and therefore one God, so one is that Essence and Subsistence which indeed and truly and really is, and which said ‘I am that I am[Exodus 3:14],’ and not two, that there be not two Beginnings; and from the One, a Son in nature and truth, is Its own Word, Its Wisdom, Its Power, and inseparable from It. And as there is not another essence, lest there be two Beginnings, so the Word which is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 490, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Synodal Letter to the Bishops of Africa. (Ad Afros Epistola Synodica.) (HTML)
Synodal Letter to the Bishops of Africa. (Ad Afros Epistola Synodica.) (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3725 (In-Text, Margin)
... people, he would discover the piety of the one and the folly of the others. They who assembled at Nicæa did so not after being deposed: and secondly, they confessed that the Son was of the Essence of the Father. But the others, after being deposed again and again, and once more at Ariminum itself, ventured to write that it ought not to be said that the Son had Essence or Subsistence. This enables us to see, brethren, that they of Nicæa breathe the spirit of Scripture, in that God says in Exodus[Exodus 3:14], ‘I am that I am,’ and through Jeremiah, ‘Who is in His substance and hath seen His word;’ and just below, ‘if they had stood in My subsistence and heard My words:’ now subsistence is essence, and means nothing else but very being, which Jeremiah ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 105, footnote 7 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He next skilfully confutes the partial, empty and blasphemous statement of Eunomius on the subject of the absolutely existent. (HTML)
... like things, though they exist so far as appearance is concerned, have not real existence. If then they maintain, in accordance with the Jewish opinion, that the Only-begotten God does not exist at all, they are right in predicating real existence of the Father alone. But if they do not deny the existence of the Maker of all things, let them be content not to deprive of real existence Him Who is, Who in the Divine appearance to Moses gave Himself the name of Existent, when He said, “I am that I am[Exodus 3:14]:” even as Eunomius in his later argument agrees with this, saying that it was He Who appeared to Moses. Then he says that God is “one in nature and in glory.” Whether God exists without being by nature God, he who uses these words may perhaps know: ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 19, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pope Damasus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 289 (In-Text, Margin)
... this, and this alone, truly is. For absolute being is derived from no other source but is all its own. All things besides, that is all things created, although they appear to be, are not. For there was a time when they were not, and that which once was not may again cease to be. God alone who is eternal, that is to say, who has no beginning, really deserves to be called an essence. Therefore also He says to Moses from the bush, “I am that I am,” and Moses says of Him, “I am hath sent me.”[Exodus 3:14] As the angels, the sky, the earth, the seas, all existed at the time, it must have been as the absolute being that God claimed for himself that name of essence, which apparently was common to all. But because His nature alone is perfect, and because ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 74, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pammachius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1128 (In-Text, Margin)
... powers, and the rest of the virtues? No; if things which are good in themselves as being the handiwork of a good Creator are called vanity, it is because they are compared with things which are better still. For example, compared with a lamp, a lantern is good for nothing; compared with a star, a lamp does not shine at all; the brightest star pales before the moon; put the moon beside the sun, and it no longer looks bright; compare the sun with Christ, and it is darkness. “I am that I am,” God says;[Exodus 3:14] and if you compare all created things with Him they have no existence. “Give not thy sceptre,” says Esther, “unto them that be nothing” —that is to say, to idols and demons. And certainly they were idols and demons to whom she prayed that she and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 316, footnote 1 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Fourth Theological Oration, Which is the Second Concerning the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3681 (In-Text, Margin)
XVIII. As far then as we can reach, He Who Is, and God, are the special names of His Essence; and of these especially He Who Is, not only because when He spake to Moses in the mount, and Moses asked what His Name was, this was what He called Himself, bidding him say to the people “I Am hath sent me,”[Exodus 3:14] but also because we find that this Name is the more strictly appropriate. For the Name Θεός (God), even if, as those who are skilful in these matters say, it were derived from Θέειν (to run) or from Αἴθειν (to blaze), from continual ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 41, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
5. While my mind was dwelling on these and on many like thoughts, I chanced upon the books which, according to the tradition of the Hebrew faith, were written by Moses and the prophets, and found in these words spoken by God the Creator testifying of Himself ‘, and again, hath sent me unto you[Exodus 3:14].’ I confess that I was amazed to find in them an indication concerning God so exact that it expressed in the terms best adapted to human understanding an unattainable insight into the mystery of the Divine nature. For no property of God which the mind can grasp is more characteristic of Him than existence, since existence, in the absolute sense, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 73, footnote 19 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
... worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth; that He is immortal and invisible, as Paul says, Who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen nor can see, and the Evangelist, No one hath seen God at any time, except the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father; that He alone abides eternally unborn, for it is written, I Am That I Am, and Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you[Exodus 3:14], and through Jeremiah, O Lord, Who art Lord.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 91, footnote 3 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
... is given you as God; for the Angel of God is God. But perhaps He is not true God. Is the God of Abraham, then, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, not true God? For the Angel Who speaks from the bush is their God eternally. And, lest you insinuate that the name is His only by adoption, it is the absolute God Who speaks to Moses. These are His words:— And the Lord said unto Moses, I Am that I Am; and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, He that is hath sent me unto you[Exodus 3:14]. God’s discourse began as the speech of the Angel, in order to reveal the mystery of human salvation in the Son. Next He appears as the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, that we may know the name which is His by nature. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 97, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
... declaration of a name and nature inseparably joined, and rend in twain, if its furious struggles can, a union perfect in title and in fact. God is in God and beside Him there is no God. Let heresy, if it can, divide the God within from the God within Whom He is, and classify, Each after His kind, the members of that mystic union. For when He says God is in Thee, He teaches that the true nature of God the Father is present in God the Son; for we must understand that it is the God Who is[Exodus 3:14] that is in Him. And when He adds, And there is no God beside Thee, He shews that outside Him there is no God, since God’s dwelling is within Himself. And the third assertion, Thou art God and we knew it not, sets forth for our ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 102, footnote 2 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
... as are coeval with His birth. And a screen for its heresy, for if this statement be condemned, it furnishes a ready answer. He that did exist, it will be said, could not be born; being in existence already, He could not possibly come into being by passing through the process of birth, for the very meaning of birth is the entry into existence of the being that is born. Fool and blasphemer! Who dreams of birth in the case of Him Who is the unborn and eternal? How can we think of God, Who is[Exodus 3:14], being born, when being born implies the process of birth? It is the birth of God the Only-begotten from God His Father that you are striving to disprove, and it was your purpose to escape the confession of that truth by means of this “He did not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 111, footnote 4 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
... faith had recognised in Him the presence of the Divine nature. Peter is praised not merely for his tribute of adoration, but for his recognition of the mysterious truth; for confessing not Christ only, but Christ the Son of God. It would clearly have sufficed for a payment of reverence, had he said, Thou art the Christ, and nothing more. But it would have been a hollow confession, had Peter only hailed Him as Christ, without confessing Him the Son of God. And so his words Thou art[Exodus 3:14] declare that what is asserted of Him is strictly and exactly true to His nature. Next, the Father’s utterance, This is My Son, had revealed to Peter that he must confess Thou art the Son of God, for in the words This is, God the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 115, footnote 2 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
46. This is no universal and inevitable error; they who deny the Son cannot lay the fault upon their ignorance, for ignorance of the truth which they deny is impossible. They describe the Son of God as a creature who came into being out of nothing. If the Father has never asserted this, nor the Son confirmed it, nor the Apostles proclaimed it, then the dating which prompts their allegation is bred not of ignorance, but of hatred for Christ. When the Father says of His Son, This is[Exodus 3:14], and the Son of Himself, It is He that talketh with Thee, and when Peter confesses Thou art, and John assures us, This is the true God, and Paul is never weary of proclaiming Him as God’s own Son, I can conceive of no other motive ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 224, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book XII (HTML)
... image of the invisible God, in all things which are properties of God the Father is equal to Him by virtue of the fulness of true Godhead in Himself. For, as we have shewn in the former books, in respect of power and veneration He is as mighty and as worthy of honour as the Father: so also, inasmuch as the Father is always Father, He too, inasmuch as He is the Son, possesses the like property of being always the Son. For according to the words spoken to Moses, He Who is, hath sent Me unto you[Exodus 3:14], we obtain the unambiguous conception that absolute being belongs to God; since that which is, cannot be thought of or spoken of as not being. For being and not being are contraries, nor can these mutually exclusive descriptions be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 12b, footnote 3 (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 I (HTML)
Concerning what is affirmed about God. (HTML)
It appears then that the most proper of all the names given to God is “He that is,” as He Himself said in answer to Moses on the mountain, Say to the sons of Israel, He that is hath sent Me[Exodus 3:14]. For He keeps all being in His own embrace, like a sea of essence infinite and unseen. Or as the holy Dionysius says, “He that is good.” For one cannot say of God that He has being in the first place and goodness in the second.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 215, footnote 5 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIII. Discussion of the Divine Generation is continued. St. Ambrose illustrates its method by the same example as that employed by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The duty of believing what is revealed is shown by the example of Nebuchadnezzar and St. Peter. By the vision granted to St. Peter was shown the Son's Eternity and Godhead--the Apostle, then, must be believed in preference to the teachers of philosophy, whose authority was everywhere falling into discredit. The Arians, on the other hand, are shown to be like unto the heathen. (HTML)
83. He, therefore, Who said, “This is My Son,” said not, “This is a creature of time,” nor “This being is of My creation, My making, My servant,” but “This is My Son, Whom ye see glorified.” This is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, Who appeared to Moses in the bush,[Exodus 3:14] concerning Whom Moses saith, “He Who is hath sent me.” It was not the Father Who spake to Moses in the bush or in the desert, but the Son. It was of this Moses that Stephen said, “This is He Who was in the church, in the wilderness, with the Angel.” This, then, is He Who gave the Law, Who spake with Moses, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 222, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIX. Arius is charged with the first of the above-mentioned errors, and refuted by the testimony of St. John. The miserable death of the Heresiarch is described, and the rest of his blasphemous errors are one by one examined and disproved. (HTML)
131. Arius declares that the Son of God may change and swerve. How, then, is He God if He is changeable, seeing that He Himself hath said: “I am, I am, and I change not”?[Exodus 3:14]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 223, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Introduction. (HTML)
3. These tokens so declare the nature of the Son, that by them you may know both that the Father is eternal, and that the Son is not diverse from Him; for the source of generation is He Who is,[Exodus 3:14] and as begotten of the Eternal, He is God; coming forth from the Father, He is the Son; from God, He is the Word; He is the radiance of the Father’s glory, the expression of His substance, the counterpart of God, the image of His majesty; the Bounty of Him Who is bountiful, the Wisdom of Him Who is wise, the Power of the Mighty One, the Truth of Him Who is true, the Life of the Living One. In ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 287, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Chapter I. How impious the Arians are, in attacking that on which human happiness depends. John ever unites the Son with the Father, especially where he says: “That they may know Thee, the only true God, etc.” In that place, then, we must understand the words “true God” also of the Son; for it cannot be denied that He is God, and it cannot be said He is a false god, and least of all that He is God by appellation only. This last point being proved from the Apostle's words, we rightly confess that Christ is true God. (HTML)
25. Christ therefore is, and always is; for He, Who is, always is. And Christ always is, of Whom Moses says: “He that is hath sent me.”[Exodus 3:14] Gabriel indeed was, Raphael was, the angels were; but they who sometime have not been are by no means with equal reason said always to be. But Christ, as we read, “was not it is, and, it is not, but, it is was in Him.” Wherefore it is the property of God alone to be, Who ever is.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 586, footnote 3 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. He confirms the judgment of the Apostle by the authority of the Lord. (HTML)
... Simply owing to the Word of God, with which He was entirely united, so that all might understand the closeness of the union of Christ and God: since whatever God said in Christ, that in its fulness the unity of the Divinity claimed for Himself. But conscious of His own eternity, He rightly then when in the body, replied to the Jews, with the very words which He had formerly spoken to Moses in the Spirit. For here He says, “Before Abraham came into being, I am.” But to Moses He says, “I am that I am.”[Exodus 3:14] He certainly announced the eternity of His Divine nature with marvellous grandeur of language, for nothing can be spoken so worthily of God, as that He should be said ever to be. For “to be” admits of no beginning in the past or end in the future. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 388, footnote 4 (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)
Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations. (HTML)
Of Christ the Son of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1051 (In-Text, Margin)
5. For the name of Divinity is given for the highest honour in the world, and with whomsoever God is well pleased, He applies it to him. But however, the names of God are many and are venerable, as He delivered His names to Moses, saying to him:— I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. This is My Name for ever, and this is My memorial unto generations. And He called His name Ahiyah ashar Ahiyah, El Shaddai and Adonai Sabaoth.[Exodus 3:14] By these names is God called. The great and honourable name of Godhead He withheld not from His righteous ones; even as, though He is the great King, without grudging He applied the great and honourable name of Kingship to men who are His ...