Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Exodus 21
There are 32 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 481, footnote 1 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XVI.—Perfect righteousness was conferred neither by circumcision nor by any other legal ceremonies. The Decalogue, however, was not cancelled by Christ, but is always in force: men were never released from its commandments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3985 (In-Text, Margin)
... declares: “God said unto Abraham, Every male among you shall be circumcised; and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, as a token of the covenant between Me and you.” This same does Ezekiel the prophet say with regard to the Sabbaths: “Also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord, that sanctify them.” And in Exodus, God says to Moses: “And ye shall observe My Sabbaths; for it shall be a sign between Me and you for your generations.”[Exodus 21:13] These things, then, were given for a sign; but the signs were not unsymbolical, that is, neither unmeaning nor to no purpose, inasmuch as they were given by a wise Artist; but the circumcision after the flesh typified that after the Spirit. For ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 482, footnote 9 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XVII.—Proof that God did not appoint the Levitical dispensation for His own sake, or as requiring such service; for He does, in fact, need nothing from men. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4008 (In-Text, Margin)
... perceived them neglecting righteousness, and abstaining from the love of God, and imagining that God was to be propitiated by sacrifices and the other typical observances, Samuel did even thus speak to them: “God does not desire whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices, but He will have His voice to be hearkened to. Behold, a ready obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” David also says: “Sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire, but mine ears hast Thou perfected;[Exodus 21:6] burnt-offerings also for sin Thou hast not required.” He thus teaches them that God desires obedience, which renders them secure, rather than sacrifices and holocausts, which avail them nothing towards righteousness; and [by this declaration] he ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 387, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2474 (In-Text, Margin)
... intemperantiam non dissolvitis autem, quæ ab ipso fit, hiemem, ut media adhuc hieme æstatem faciatis: neque terram navigabilem, mare autem pedibus pervium, facitis, ut qui historias composuerunt, barbarum Xerxem dicunt voluisse facere? Cur vero non omnibus præceptis repugnatis? Nam cum ille dicat; “Crescite et multiplicamini,” oporteret vos, qui adversamini, nullo modo uti coitu. Et cure dixit: “Dedi vobis omnia ad vescendum” et fruendum, vos nullo frui oportuit. Quinetiam eo dicente: “Oculum pro oculo,”[Exodus 21:24] oportuit vos decertationem contraria non rependere decertatione. Et cure furem jusserit reddere “quadruplum,” oportuit vos furl aliquid etiam adhere. Rursus vero similiter, cum præcepto: “Diliges Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo,” repugnetis, oportuit ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 457, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter VIII.—The Use of the Symbolic Style by Poets and Philosophers. (HTML)
... And the pit was destitute of knowledge; into which being thrown and stript of his knowledge, he that had become unconsciously wise, stript of knowledge, seemed like his brethren. Otherwise interpreted, the coat of many colours is lust, which takes its way into a yawning pit. “And if one open up or hew out a pit,” it is said, “and do not cover it, and there fall in there a calf or ass, the owner of the pit shall pay the price in money, and give it to his neighbour; and the dead body shall be his.[Exodus 21:33] Here add that prophecy: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not understood Me.” In order, then, that none of those, who have fallen in with the knowledge taught by thee, may become incapable of holding the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 457, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter VIII.—The Use of the Symbolic Style by Poets and Philosophers. (HTML)
... And the pit was destitute of knowledge; into which being thrown and stript of his knowledge, he that had become unconsciously wise, stript of knowledge, seemed like his brethren. Otherwise interpreted, the coat of many colours is lust, which takes its way into a yawning pit. “And if one open up or hew out a pit,” it is said, “and do not cover it, and there fall in there a calf or ass, the owner of the pit shall pay the price in money, and give it to his neighbour; and the dead body shall be his.[Exodus 21:36] Here add that prophecy: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not understood Me.” In order, then, that none of those, who have fallen in with the knowledge taught by thee, may become incapable of holding the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 154, footnote 13 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1178 (In-Text, Margin)
... into ploughs, and their lances into sickles; and nations shall not take up glaive against nation, and they shall no more learn to fight.” Who else, therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught by the new law, observe these practices,—the old law being obliterated, the coming of whose abolition the action itself demonstrates? For the wont of the old law was to avenge itself by the vengeance of the glaive, and to pluck out “eye for eye,” and to inflict retaliatory revenge for injury.[Exodus 21:24-25] But the new law’s wont was to point to clemency, and to convert to tranquillity the pristine ferocity of “glaives” and “lances,” and to remodel the pristine execution of “war” upon the rivals and foes of the law into the pacific actions of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 311, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book II. Wherein Tertullian shows that the creator, or demiurge, whom Marcion calumniated, is the true and good God. (HTML)
Some of God's Laws Defended as Good, Which the Marcionites Impeached, Such as the Lex Talionis. Useful Purposes in a Social and Moral Point of View of This, and Sundry Other Enactments. (HTML)
But what parts of the law can I defend as good with a greater confidence than those which heresy has shown such a longing for?—as the statute of retaliation, requiring eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and stripe for stripe.[Exodus 21:24] Now there is not here any smack of a permission to mutual injury; but rather, on the whole, a provision for restraining violence. To a people which was very obdurate, and wanting in faith towards God, it might seem tedious, and even incredible, to expect from God that vengeance which was subsequently to be declared by the prophet: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 370, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book IV. In Which Tertullian Pursues His Argument. Jesus is the Christ of the Creator. He Derives His Proofs from St. Luke's Gospel; That Being the Only Historical Portion of the New Testament Partially Accepted by Marcion. This Book May Also Be Regarded as a Commentary on St. Luke. It Gives Remarkable Proof of Tertullian's Grasp of Scripture, and Proves that “The Old Testament is Not Contrary to the New.“ It Also Abounds in Striking Expositions of Scriptural Passages, Embracing Profound Views of Revelation, in Connection with the Nature of Man. (HTML)
The Precept of Loving One's Enemies. It is as Much Taught in the Creator's Scriptures of the Old Testament as in Christ's Sermon. The Lex Talionis of Moses Admirably Explained in Consistency with the Kindness and Love Which Jesus Christ Came to Proclaim and Enforce in Behalf of the Creator. Sundry Precepts of Charity Explained. (HTML)
... Isaiah: “Say, Ye are our brethren, to those who hate you.” For if they who are our enemies, and hate us, and speak evil of us, and calumniate us, are to be called our brethren, surely He did in effect bid us bless them that hate us, and pray for them who calumniate us, when He instructed us to reckon them as brethren. Well, but Christ plainly teaches a new kind of patience, when He actually prohibits the reprisals which the Creator permitted in requiring “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,”[Exodus 21:24] and bids us, on the contrary, “to him who smiteth us on the one cheek, to offer the other also, and to give up our coat to him that taketh away our cloak.” No doubt these are supplementary additions by Christ, but they are quite in keeping with the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 54, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Exhortation to Chastity. (HTML)
The Objection from the Polygamy of the Patriarchs Answered. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 536 (In-Text, Margin)
... out, and recalled the indulgence which He had granted; not without a reasonable ground for the extension (of that indulgence) in the beginning, and the limitation of it in the end. Laxity is always allowed to the beginning (of things). The reason why any one plants a wood and lets it grow, is that at his own time he may cut it. The wood was the old order, which is being pruned down by the new Gospel, in which withal “the axe has been laid at the roots.” So, too, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,”[Exodus 21:24] has now grown old, ever since “Let none render evil for evil” grew young. I think, moreover, that even with a view to human institutions and decrees, things later prevail over things primitive.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 267, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On the Angels. (HTML)
... advance and maintain, viz., that souls descend to such a pitch of abasement that they forget their rational nature and dignity, and sink into the condition of irrational animals, either large or small; and in support of these assertions they generally quote some pretended statements of Scripture, such as, that a beast, to which a woman has unnaturally prostituted herself, shall be deemed equally guilty with the woman, and shall be ordered to be stoned; or that a bull which strikes with its horn,[Exodus 21:28-29] shall be put to death in the same way; or even the speaking of Balaam’s ass, when God opened its mouth, and the dumb beast of burden, answering with human voice, reproved the madness of the prophet. All of which assertions we not only do not ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 562, footnote 7 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter XLIII (HTML)
But what need is there to point out how agreeable to sound reason, and unattended with injury either to master or slave, was the law that one of the same faith should not be allowed to continue in slavery more than six years?[Exodus 21:2] The Jews, then, cannot be said to preserve their own law in the same points with the other nations. For it would be censurable in them, and would involve a charge of insensibility to the superiority of their law, if they were to believe that they had been legislated for in the same way as the other nations among the heathen. And although Celsus will not admit it, the Jews ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 622, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XXV (HTML)
Celsus then extracts from the Gospel the precept, “To him who strikes thee once, thou shalt offer thyself to be struck again,” although without giving any passage from the Old Testament which he considers opposed to it. On the one hand, we know that “it was said to them in old time, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;”[Exodus 21:24] and on the other, we have read, “I say unto you, Whoever shall smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also.” But as there is reason to believe that Celsus produces the objections which he has heard from those who wish to make a difference between the God of the Gospel and the God of the law, we must say in reply, that ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 214, footnote 9 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Archelaus. (HTML)
The Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes. (HTML)
Chapter XL. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1876 (In-Text, Margin)
... and the poor man;” while here in the Gospel Jesus called the poor blessed, and added, that no man could be His disciple unless he gave up all that he had. Again, he maintained that there Moses took silver and gold from the Egyptians when the people fled out of Egypt; whereas Jesus delivered the precept that we should lust after nothing belonging to our neighbour. Then he affirmed that Moses had provided in the law, that an eye should be given in penalty for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;[Exodus 21:24] but that our Lord bade us offer the other cheek also to him who smote the one. He told us, too, that there Moses commanded the man to be punished and stoned who did any work on the Sabbath, and who failed to continue in all things that were written ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 377, footnote 23 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
Chapter II.—The Second Commandment: Gross Sin Forbidden (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2393 (In-Text, Margin)
1. And the second commandment of the Teaching; 2. Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not commit pæderasty, thou shalt not commit fornication, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not practice magic, thou shalt not practice witchcraft, thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.[Exodus 21:22-23] Thou shalt not covet the things of thy neighbour, 3. thou shalt not forswear thyself, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not speak evil, thou shalt bear no grudge. 4. Thou shalt not be double-minded nor double-tongued; for to be double-tongued is a snare of death. 5. Thy speech shall not be false, nor empty, but ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 412, footnote 8 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book II. Of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons (HTML)
Sec. IV.—On the Management of the Resources Collected for the Support of the Clergy, and the Relief of the Poor (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2746 (In-Text, Margin)
XXXIII. For if the divine oracle says, concerning our parents according to the flesh, “Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee;” and, “He that curseth his father or his mother, let him die the death;”[Exodus 21:17] how much more should the word exhort you to honour your spiritual parents, and to love them as your benefactors and ambassadors with God, who have regenerated you by water, and endued you with the fulness of the Holy Spirit, who have fed you with the word as with milk, who have nourished you with doctrine, who have confirmed you by their admonitions, who have imparted to ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 466, footnote 16 (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. I.—On the Two Ways,—The Way of Life and the Way of Death (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3383 (In-Text, Margin)
III. Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for He says, “Ye shall not suffer a witch to live.” Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for “everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed.”[Exodus 21:23] “Thou shalt not covet the things that belong to thy neighbour, as his wife, or his servant, or his ox, or his field.” “Thou shalt not forswear thyself; for it is said, “Thou shalt not swear at all.” But if that cannot be avoided, thou shalt swear truly; for “every one that swears by Him shall be commended.” “Thou shalt ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 438, footnote 1 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XI. (HTML)
Explanation of “Corban.” (HTML)
... thus in Leviticus, “If a man speak evil of his father or his mother, let him die the death; he has spoken evil of his father or mother, he shall be guilty.” But when we wish to examine the very letter of the words as given by Matthew, “He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death,” consider whether it was taken from the place where it was written, “Whoso striketh his father or mother, let him die the death; and he that speaketh evil of father or mother let him die the death.”[Exodus 21:15] For such are the exact words taken from the Law with regard to the two commandments; but Matthew has quoted them in part and in an abridged form, and not in the very words. But what the nature of the charge is which the Saviour brings against the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 462, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell, and of the various objections urged against it. (HTML)
Whether It is Just that the Punishments of Sins Last Longer Than the Sins Themselves Lasted. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1516 (In-Text, Margin)
... punished! Cicero tells us that the laws recognize eight kinds of penalty,—damages, imprisonment, scourging, reparation, disgrace, exile, death, slavery. Is there any one of these which may be compressed into a brevity proportioned to the rapid commission of the offence, so that no longer time may be spent in its punishment than in its perpetration, unless, perhaps, reparation? For this requires that the offender suffer what he did, as that clause of the law says, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”[Exodus 21:24] For certainly it is possible for an offender to lose his eye by the severity of legal retaliation in as brief a time as he deprived another of his eye by the cruelty of his own lawlessness. But if scourging be a reasonable penalty for kissing ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 50, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The equality of the Trinity maintained against objections drawn from those texts which speak of the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Of the Appearance on Sinai. Whether the Trinity Spake in that Appearance or Some One Person Specially. (HTML)
... fearfully displayed to the senses of mortal men, whether God the Trinity spake, or the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit severally. But if it is allowable, without rash assertion, to venture upon a modest and hesitating conjecture from this passage, if it is possible to understand it of one person of the Trinity, why do we not rather understand the Holy Spirit to be spoken of, since the Law itself also, which was given there, is said to have been written upon tables of stone with the finger of God,[Exodus 21:18] by which name we know the Holy Spirit to be signified in the Gospel. And fifty days are numbered from the slaying of the lamb and the celebration of the Passover until the day in which these things began to be done in Mount Sinai; just as after the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 249, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus is willing to admit that Christ may have said that He came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them; but if He did, it was to pacify the Jews and in a modified sense. Augustin replies, and still further elaborates the Catholic view of prophecy and its fulfillment. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 707 (In-Text, Margin)
25. Nor, again, is there any opposition between that which was said by them of old time, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and what the Lord says, "But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but if any one smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also," and so on.[Exodus 21:24] The old precept as well as the new is intended to check the vehemence of hatred, and to curb the impetuosity of angry passion. For who will of his own accord be satisfied with a revenge equal to the injury? Do we not see men, only slightly hurt, eager for slaughter, thirsting for blood, as if they could never make their enemy suffer enough? If a man ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 336, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus fails to understand why he should be required either to accept or reject the New Testament as a whole, while the Catholics accept or reject the various parts of the Old Testament at pleasure. Augustin denies that the Catholics treat the Old Testament arbitrarily, and explains their attitude towards it. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1050 (In-Text, Margin)
12. The Pentecost, too, we observe, that is, the fiftieth day from the passion and resurrection of the Lord, for on that day He sent to us the Holy Paraclete whom He had promised; as was prefigured in the Jewish passover, for on the fiftieth day after the slaying of the lamb, Moses on the mount received the law written with the finger of God.[Exodus 19-31] If you read the Gospel, you will see that the Spirit is there called the finger of God. Remarkable events which happened on certain days are annually commemorated in the Church, that the recurrence of this festival may preserve the recollection of things so important and salutary. If you ask, then, why we keep the passover, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 29, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
Explanation of the First Part of the Sermon Delivered by Our Lord on the Mount, as Contained in the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter XX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 200 (In-Text, Margin)
... receives pays back the thing which is given him. Rightly, therefore, does the divine authority exhort us to this mode of bestowing a favour, saying, “And from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away:” i.e., do not alienate your goodwill from him who asks it, both because your money will be useless, and because God will not pay you back, inasmuch as the man has done so; but when you do that from a regard to God’s precept, it cannot be unfruitful with Him who gives these commands.[Exodus 21:24]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 553, footnote 4 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. (HTML)
Homilies on Philemon. (HTML)
Philemon 1:4-6 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1565 (In-Text, Margin)
This is the part of well-disposed servants, not only in His mercies, but in His corrections, and in punishments wholly to submit to Him. For how is it not absurd, if we bear with masters beating their servants, knowing that they will spare them, because they are their own;[Exodus 21:21] and yet suppose that God in punishing will not spare? This also Paul has intimated, saying, “Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Rom. xiv. 8.) A man, we say, wishes not his property to be diminished, he knows how he punishes, he is punishing his own servants. But surely no one of us spares more than He Who brought us into being out of nothing, Who ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 170, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
On the Arian Symbol “Unoriginate.” This term afterwards adopted by them; and why; three senses of it. A fourth sense. Unoriginate denotes God in contrast to His creatures, not to His Son; Father the scriptural title instead; Conclusion. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 952 (In-Text, Margin)
... that already have come to be, and things that are expected to come to be, are unoriginated; and the second is more absurd still; accordingly they will proceed to the third sense, and use the word in it; though here, in this sense too, their irreligion will be quite as great. For if by unoriginated they mean what has no origin of being, nor is originated or created, but eternal, and say that the Word of God is contrary to this, who comprehends not the craft of these foes of God? who but would stone[Exodus 21:17] such madmen? for, when they are ashamed to bring forward again those first phrases which they fabled, and which were condemned, the wretches have taken another way to signify them, by means of what they call unoriginate. For if the Son be of things ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 259, footnote 1 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
Examples of Scripture Saints in defence of flight. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1434 (In-Text, Margin)
... themselves for fear of the Jews; and Paul, when he was sought after by the governor at Damascus, was let down from the wall in a basket, and so escaped his hands. As the Scripture then relates these things of the Saints, what excuse will they be able to invent for their wickedness? To reproach them with cowardice would be an act of madness, and to accuse them of acting contrary to the will of God, would be to shew themselves entirely ignorant of the Scriptures. For there was a command under the law[Exodus 21:13] that cities of refuge should be appointed, in order that they who were sought after to be put to death, might at least have some means of saving themselves. And when He Who spake unto Moses, the Word of the Father, appeared in the end of the world, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 489, footnote 2 (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 3715 (In-Text, Margin)
... endure anything of the sort: for this is nothing else but a second growth of the Arian heresy. For what else do they wish for who reject the synod held against it, namely the Nicene, if not that the cause of Arius should prevail? What then do such men deserve, but to be called Arians, and to share the punishment of the Arians? For they were not afraid of God, who says, ‘Remove not the eternal boundaries which thy fathers placed,’ and ‘He that speaketh against father or mother, let him die the death[Exodus 21:17]:’ they were not in awe of their fathers, who enjoined that they who hold the opposite of their confession should be anathema.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 144, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Oceanus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2038 (In-Text, Margin)
... grace conveyed by water hallowed in Christ, I will presently tell you; meantime I will deal with this argument as it deserves. ‘An ill knot,’ says the common proverb, ‘requires but an ill wedge to split it.’ The text quoted by the objector, “a bishop must be the husband of one wife,” admits of quite another explanation. The apostle came of the Jews and the primitive Christian church was gathered out of the remnants of Israel. Paul knew that the Law allowed men to have children by several wives,[Exodus 21:10] and was aware that the example of the patriarchs had made polygamy familiar to the people. Even the very priests might at their own discretion enjoy the same license. He gave commandment therefore that the priests of the church should not claim this ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 408, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4880 (In-Text, Margin)
... tree evil fruit. If this be so, tell me how it was that Paul though he was an evil tree and persecuted the Church of Christ, afterwards bore good fruit? And Judas, though he was a good tree and wrought miracles like the other Apostles, afterwards turned traitor and brought forth evil fruit? The truth is that a good tree does not bear evil fruit, nor an evil tree good fruit, so long as they continue in their goodness, or badness. And if we read that every Hebrew keeps the same Passover, and that in[Exodus 21:2] the seventh year every prisoner is set free, and that at Jubilee, that is the fiftieth year, every possession returns to its owner, all this refers not to the present, but to the future; for being in bondage during the six days of this world, on the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 47, footnote 15 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
The Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1027 (In-Text, Margin)
... Me, lest thou from ignorance shouldest perversely mistake what was rightly written, but He added, more than Me. For when our fathers on earth are of a contrary mind to our Father in heaven, then we must obey Christ’s word. But when they put no obstacle to godliness in our way, if we are ever carried away by ingratitude, and, forgetting their benefits to us, hold them in contempt, then the oracle will have place which says, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death[Exodus 21:17].
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 228, footnote 1 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Amphilochius, concerning the Canons. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2644 (In-Text, Margin)
XI. The man who is guilty of unintentional homicide has given sufficient satisfaction in eleven years. We shall, without doubt, observe what is laid down by Moses in the case of wounded men, and shall not hold a murder to have been committed in the case of a man who lies down after he has been struck, and walks again leaning on his staff.[Exodus 21:19] If, however, he does not rise again after he has been struck, nevertheless, from there being no intent to kill, the striker is a homicide, but an unintentional homicide.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 504, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXI. The First Conference of Abbot Theonas. On the Relaxation During the Fifty Days. (HTML)
Chapter IV. How Abraham, David, and other saints went beyond the requirement of the law. (HTML)
... he would not touch any of the spoils of Sodom, which were fairly due to him as the conqueror, and which indeed the king himself, whose spoils he had rescued, offered him; and with an oath by the Divine name he exclaimed: “I lift up my hand to the Lord Most High, who made heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread to a shoe’s latchet of all that is thine.” So we know that David went beyond the requirement of the law, as, though Moses commanded that vengeance should be taken on enemies,[Exodus 21:24] he not only did not do this, but actually embraced his persecutors with love, and piously entreated the Lord for them, and wept bitterly and avenged them when they were slain. So we are sure that Elijah and Jeremiah were not under the law, as though ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 516, footnote 7 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXI. The First Conference of Abbot Theonas. On the Relaxation During the Fifty Days. (HTML)
Chapter XXXII. The answer on the difference between grace and the commands of the law. (HTML)
... perfect, go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor:” The law forbids not retaliation for wrongs and vengeance for injuries, saying “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Grace would have our patience proved by the injuries and blows offered to us being redoubled, and bids us be ready to endure twice as much damage; saying: “If a man strike thee on one cheek, offer him the other also; and to him who will contend with thee at the law and take away thy coat, give him thy cloak also.”[Exodus 21:24] The one decrees that we should hate our enemies, the other that we should love them so that it holds that even for them we ought always to pray to God.