Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Exodus 32:4
There are 14 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 152, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Occasion of Writing. Relative Position of Jews and Gentiles Illustrated. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1136 (In-Text, Margin)
... Jews—that is, the more ancient—quite forsook God, and did degrading service to idols, and, abandoning the Divinity, was surrendered to images; while “the people” said to Aaron, “Make us gods to go before us.” And when the gold out of the necklaces of the women and the rings of the men had been wholly smelted by fire, and there had come forth a calf-like head, to this figment Israel with one consent (abandoning God) gave honour, saying, “These are the gods who brought us from the land of Egypt.”[Exodus 32:4] For thus, in the later times in which kings were governing them, did they again, in conjunction with Jeroboam, worship golden kine, and groves, and enslave themselves to Baal. Whence is proved that they have ever been depicted, out of the volume of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 461, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter LXXIV (HTML)
... passage of the Red Sea, and in the pillar of fire and cloud of light, but also when the Decalogue was announced to the whole people, and yet was received with incredulity by those who saw these things: for had they believed what they saw and heard, they would not have fashioned the calf, nor changed their own glory into the likeness of a grass-eating calf; nor would they have said to one another with reference to the calf, “These be thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”[Exodus 32:4] And observe whether it is not entirely in keeping with the character of the same people, who formerly refused to believe such wonders and such appearances of divinity, throughout the whole period of wandering in the wilderness, as they are recorded ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 183, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Exegetical. (HTML)
On Daniel. (HTML)
28. And who was he that spake, but the angel who was given to the people, as he says in the law of Moses: “I will not go with you, because the people is stiff-necked; but my angel shall go before along with you?”[Exodus 32:4] This (angel) withstood Moses at the inn, when he was bringing the child uncircumcised into Egypt. For it was not allowed Moses, who was the elder (or legate) and mediator of the law, and who proclaimed the covenant of the fathers, to introduce a child uncircumcised, lest he should be deemed a false prophet and deceiver by the people. “And now,” says he, “will I show the truth to thee.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 443, footnote 6 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Sec. II.—All Association with Idols is to Be Avoided (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3049 (In-Text, Margin)
... stars, thou shouldest be seduced to worship them.” And elsewhere: “Do not ye learn to walk after the ways of the heathen, and be not afraid of the signs of heaven.” For the stars and the luminaries were given to men to shine upon them, but not for worship; although the Israelites, by the perverseness of their temper, “worshipped the creature instead of the Creator,” and acted insultingly to their Maker, and admired the creature more than is fit. And sometimes they made a calf, as in the wilderness;[Exodus 32:4] sometimes they worshipped Baalpeor; another time Baal, and Thamuz, and Astarte of Sidon; and again Moloch and Chamos; another time the sun, as it is written in Ezekiel; nay, and besides, brute creatures, as among the Egyptians Apis, and the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 459, footnote 3 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Sec. IV.—Of the Law (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3270 (In-Text, Margin)
... right intention, showing Himself pleased with their sacrifices. Therefore He says: “If thou desirest to offer, do not offer to me as to one that stands in need of it, for I stand in need of nothing; for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.” But when this people became forgetful of that, and called upon a calf as God, instead of the true God, and to him did ascribe the cause of their coming out of Egypt, saying, “These are thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt;”[Exodus 32:4] and when these men had committed wickedness with the “similitude of a calf that eateth hay;” and denied God who had visited them by Moses in their afflictions, and had done signs with his hand and rod, and had smitten the Egyptians with ten plagues; ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 459, footnote 7 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Sec. IV.—Of the Law (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3274 (In-Text, Margin)
... ordain thee the distinction of clean and unclean creatures, although every creature is good, as being made by me; and I appoint thee several separations, purgations, frequent washings and sprinklings, several purifications, and several times of rest; and if thou neglectest any of them, I determine that punishment which is proper to the disobedient, that being pressed and galled by thy collar, thou mayest depart from the error of polytheism, and laying aside that, “These are thy gods, O Israel,”[Exodus 32:4] mayest be mindful of that, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord;” and mayest run back again to that law which is inserted by me in the nature of all men, “that there is only one God in heaven and on earth, and to love Him with all thy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 109, footnote 1 (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)
He Compares the Doctrine of the Platonists Concerning the Λόγος With the Much More Excellent Doctrine of Christianity. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 523 (In-Text, Margin)
... also did I read there, that they had changed the glory of Thy incorruptible nature into idols and divers forms,—“into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things,” namely, into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright; for that Thy first-born people worshipped the head of a four-footed beast instead of Thee, turning back in heart towards Egypt, and prostrating Thy image—their own soul—before the image “of an ox that eateth grass.”[Exodus 32:1-6] These things found I there; but I fed not on them. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger; and Thou hast called the Gentiles into Thine inheritance. And I had come ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 252, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
The Enchiridion. (HTML)
In Speaking of Sin, the Singular Number is Often Put for the Plural, and the Plural for the Singular. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1165 (In-Text, Margin)
... sins, instead of saying for the remission of sin, this is the converse figure of speech, by which the plural number is put in place of the singular; as in the Gospel it is said of the death of Herod, “for they are dead which sought the young child’s life,” instead of saying, “he is dead.” And in Exodus: “They have made them,” Moses says, “gods of gold,” though they had made only one calf, of which they said: “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,”[Exodus 32:4] —here, too, putting the plural in place of the singular.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 24, footnote 7 (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. 15–18. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 70 (In-Text, Margin)
... waves through which they passed: and yet when Moses, the man of God, had departed from their sight, they asked for an idol, and said, “Make us gods to go before us; for this man has deserted us.” Their whole hope was placed in man, not in God. Behold, the man is dead: was God dead who had rescued them from the land of Egypt? And when they had made to themselves the image of a calf, they offered it adoration, and said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which delivered thee out of the land of Egypt.”[Exodus 32:1-4] How soon forgetful of such manifest grace! By what means could such a people be held except by carnal promises?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 486, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4530 (In-Text, Margin)
... punished, since he said, “Thou hast punished all their own affections:” meaning those affections of theirs, which the Lord knew in their hearts, which men knew not. For they were living in the midst of the people of God, without complaint from man. But what do we say? That perhaps the early life of Moses was sinful; for he fled from Egypt, after slaying a man. The early life of Aaron also was such as would displease God; for he allowed a maddened and infatuated people to make an idol to worship;[Exodus 32:1-4] and an idol was made for God’s people to worship. What sin did Samuel, who was given up when an infant to the temple? He passed all his life amid the holy sacraments of God: from childhood the servant of God. Nothing was ever said of Samuel, nothing ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 108, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (HTML)
Homily XVII on Acts vii. 35. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 389 (In-Text, Margin)
... (v. 39.) But concerning those, Ezekiel says that they are not “living;” as when he says, “And I gave you statutes that are not good.” (Ezek. xx. 25.) It is with reference to those that he says, “Living. But thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt”—the place where they groaned, where they cried, whence they called upon God. “And said unto Aaron, Make us gods which shall go before us.” (v. 40.) O the folly! “Make,” say they; “that they may go before us.” Whither? “Into Egypt.”[Exodus 32:4] See how hard they were to tear away from the customs of Egypt! What sayest thou? What, not wait for him that brought thee out, but flee the benefit, and deny the Benefactor? And mark how insulting they are: “For as for this Moses,” they say:—“which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 168, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Salvina. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2472 (In-Text, Margin)
A noble alternative truly which is only to be embraced in preference to Satan! In old days even Jerusalem went a-whoring and opened her feet to every one that passed by. It was in Egypt that she was first deflowered and there that her teats were bruised. And afterwards when she had come to the wilderness and, impatient of the delays of her leader Moses, had said when maddened by the stings of lust: “these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,”[Exodus 32:4] she received statutes that were not good and commandments that were altogether evil whereby she should not live but should be punished through them. Is it surprising then that when the apostle had said in another place of young widows: “when they have begun ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 10, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On Repentance and Remission of Sins, and Concerning the Adversary. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 515 (In-Text, Margin)
10. Nay more, if a whole people sin, this surpasses not the loving-kindness of God. The people made a calf, yet God ceased not from His loving-kindness. Men denied God, but God denied not Himself. These be thy gods, O Israel[Exodus 32:4], they said: yet again, as He was wont, the God of Israel became their Saviour. And not only the people sinned, but also Aaron the High Priest. For it is Moses that says: And the anger of the Lord came upon Aaron: and I prayed for him, saith he, and God forgave him. What then, did Moses praying for a High Priest that sinned prevail with God, and shall not Jesus, His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 307, footnote 1 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Ephraim Syrus: Three Homilies. (HTML)
On Our Lord. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 560 (In-Text, Margin)
... is God; when the good which had accrued to them through Him should accuse them concerning the evil which their hands had done. Thus even though the tongue of the oppressors denied, yet the help with which they were helped convicted them. For grace loaded them beyond their power, so that they should be ashamed, while laden with Thy blessings, to deny Thy person. And also Thou didst have mercy on those, whose lives had been made food for dead idols. For the one calf which they made in the desert,[Exodus 32:4] pastured on their lives as on grass in the desert. For that idolatry which they had stolen and brought out in their hearts from Egypt, when it was made manifest, slew openly those in whom it was dwelling secretly. For it was like fire concealed in ...