Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Leviticus 23

There are 21 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 417, footnote 16 (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)
How the Steps in the Passion of the Saviour Were Predetermined in Prophecy. The Passover.  The Treachery of Judas. The Institution of the Lord's Supper. The Docetic Error of Marcion Confuted by the Body and the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5072 (In-Text, Margin)

In like manner does He also know the very time it behoved Him to suffer, since the law prefigures His passion. Accordingly, of all the festal days of the Jews He chose the passover. In this Moses had declared that there was a sacred mystery: “It is the Lord’s passover.”[Leviticus 23:5] How earnestly, therefore, does He manifest the bent of His soul: “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” What a destroyer of the law was this, who actually longed to keep its passover! Could it be that He was so fond of Jewish lamb? But was it not because He had to be “led like a lamb to the slaughter; and because, as a sheep ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 103, footnote 1 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)

On Fasting. (HTML)

Arguments of the Psychics, Drawn from the Law, the Gospel, the Acts, the Epistles, and Heathenish Practices. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1004 (In-Text, Margin)

For, so far as pertains to fasts, they oppose to us the definite days appointed by God: as when, in Leviticus, the Lord enjoins upon Moses the tenth day of the seventh month (as) a day of atonement, saying, “Holy shall be to you the day, and ye shall vex your souls; and every soul which shall not have been vexed in that day shall be exterminated from his people.”[Leviticus 23:26-29] At all events, in the Gospel they think that those days were definitely appointed for fasts in which “the Bridegroom was taken away;” and that these are now the only legitimate days for Christian fasts, the legal and prophetical antiquities having been abolished: for wherever it suits their wishes, they recognise ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 148, footnote 2 (Image)

Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius

Anatolius and Minor Writers. (HTML)

Anatolius of Alexandria. (HTML)

The Paschal Canon of Anatolius of Alexandria. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1175 (In-Text, Margin)

... one-and-twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses.” From this they maintain that it is quite permissible to celebrate the Passover on the twenty-first day of the moon; understanding that if the twenty-second day were added, there would be found eight days of unleavened bread. A thing which cannot be found with any probability, indeed, in the Old Testament, as the Lord, through Moses, gives this charge: “Seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread.”[Leviticus 23:6] Unless perchance the fourteenth day is not reckoned by them among the days of unleavened bread with the celebration of the feast; which, however, is contrary to the Word of the Gospel which says: “Moreover, on the first day of unleavened bread, the ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 149, footnote 5 (Image)

Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius

Anatolius and Minor Writers. (HTML)

Anatolius of Alexandria. (HTML)

The Paschal Canon of Anatolius of Alexandria. (HTML)
Chapter XI. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1182 (In-Text, Margin)

... Lord rose from the dead. But we decide that it is better that it should be extended even on to the twentieth day, on account of the Lord’s day, than that we should anticipate the Lord’s day on account of the fourteenth day; for on the Lord’s day was it that light was shown to us in the beginning, and now also in the end, the comforts of all present and the tokens of all future blessings. For the Lord ascribes no less praise to the twentieth day than to the fourteenth. For in the book of Leviticus[Leviticus 23:5-7] the injunction is expressed thus: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of this month, at even, is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord. Seven days ye shall eat unleavened ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 344, footnote 2 (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)

Tusiane. (HTML)
Chastity the Chief Ornament of the True Tabernacle; Seven Days Appointed to the Jews for Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles: What They Signify; The Sum of This Septenary Uncertain; Not Clear to Any One When the Consummation of the World Will Be; Even Now the Fabric of the World Completed. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2757 (In-Text, Margin)

... boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations; ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths; that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”[Leviticus 23:39-42]

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 345, 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)

Tusiane. (HTML)
How Each One Ought to Prepare Himself for the Future Resurrection. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2765 (In-Text, Margin)

“And ye shall take you,” He says, “on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows (and the tree of chastity) of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God.”[Leviticus 23:40] The Jews, uncircumcised in heart, think that the most beautiful fruit of wood is the citron wood, on account of its size; nor are they ashamed to say that God is worshipped with cedar, to whom not all the quadrupeds of the earth would suffice as a burnt-offering or as incense for burning. And moreover, O hard breasts, if the citron appear beautiful to you, why not the ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 346, footnote 6 (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)

Tusiane. (HTML)
The Mind Clearer When Cleansed from Sin; The Ornaments of the Mind and the Order of Virtue; Charity Deep and Full; Chastity the Last Ornament of All; The Very Use of Matrimony to Be Restrained. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2771 (In-Text, Margin)

“And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees.”[Leviticus 23:40] This signifies the exercise of divine discipline, by which the mind that subdues the passions is cleansed and adorned by the sweeping out and ejection from it of sins. For it is necessary to come cleansed and adorned to the feast, arrayed, as by a decorator, in the discipline and exercise of virtue. For the mind being cleansed by laborious exercises from the distracting thoughts which darken it, quickly perceives the truth; as the widow in the ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 342, footnote 25 (Image)

Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies

Victorinus (HTML)

On the Creation of the World (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2225 (In-Text, Margin)

Behold the seven horns of the Lamb, the seven eyes of God —the seven eyes are the seven spirits of the Lamb; seven torches burning before the throne of God seven golden candlesticks, seven young sheep,[Leviticus 23:18] the seven women in Isaiah, the seven churches in Paul, seven deacons, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven seals to the book, seven periods of seven days with which Pentecost is completed, the seven weeks in Daniel, also the forty-three weeks in Daniel; with Noah, seven of all clean things in the ark; seven revenges of Cain, seven years for a debt to be acquitted, the lamp with seven orifices, ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 388, footnote 8 (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 X. (HTML)
Why the Passover is Said to Be that of the “Jews.”  Its Institution:  and the Distinction Between “Feasts of the Lord” And Feasts Not So Spoken of. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5029 (In-Text, Margin)

... people hath transgressed, which thou leddest out of the land of Egypt.” As, then, the people when it does not sin is the people of God, but when it sins is no longer spoken of as His, thus, also, the feasts when they are hated by the Lord’s soul are said to be feasts of sinners, but when the law is given regarding them, they are called feasts of the Lord. Now of these feasts passover is one, which in the passage before us is said to be that not of the Lord, but of the Jews. In another passage, too,[Leviticus 23:2] we find it said, “These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall call chosen, holy.” From the mouth of the Lord Himself, then, we see that there is no gainsaying our statement on this point. Some one, no doubt, will ask about the words of the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 333, footnote 4 (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 1033 (In-Text, Margin)

... Thus, in the Passover, which is also the annual feast of the Old Testament, while it is written that in this observance you must slay a lamb to be eaten in the evening, and that you must abstain from leaven for seven days, and be content with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, you accept the feast, but pay no attention to the rules for its observance. It is the same with the feast of Pentecost, or seven weeks, and the accompaniment of a certain kind and number of sacrifices which Moses enjoins:[Leviticus 23] you observe the feast, but you condemn the propitiatory rites, which are part of it, because they are not in harmony with Christianity. As regards the command to abstain from Gentile food, you are zealous believers in the uncleanness of things ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 247, 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 IX. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 838 (In-Text, Margin)

... them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees;” not all, but some; for some were already anointed. What then said those who neither saw nor were anointed? “This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath.” He it was rather who kept it, who was without sin. For this is the spiritual Sabbath, to have no sin. In fact, brethren, it is of this that God admonishes us, when He commends the Sabbath to our notice: “Thou shalt do no servile work.”[Leviticus 23:8] These are God’s words when commending the Sabbath, “Thou shalt do no servile work.” Now ask the former lessons, what is meant by servile work; and listen to the Lord: “Every one that committeth sin is the servant of sin.” But these men, neither ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 315, footnote 2 (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 LIII on Acts xxvi. 30-32. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1156 (In-Text, Margin)

... but they always sailed near the land. “And when we had sailed slowly many days, and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, over against Salmone; and, hardly passing it, came unto a place which is called the fair havens; nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea. Now when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already past, Paul admonished them.” (v. 7–9.) By “the fast” here, I suppose he means that of the Jews.[Leviticus 23:27] For they departed thence a long time after the Pentecost, so that it was much about midwinter that they arrived at the coasts of Crete. And this too was no slight miracle, that they also should be saved on his account. “Paul admonished them, and ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 508, footnote 2 (Image)

Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters

Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)

The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)

Festal Letters. (HTML)
For 329. Easter-day xi Pharmuthi; viii Id. April; Ær. Dioclet. 45; Coss. Constantinus Aug. VIII. Constantinus Cæs. IV; Præfect. Septimius Zenius; Indict. II. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3910 (In-Text, Margin)

... this, exhorting them by Isaiah the Prophet, and saying, ‘This is not the fast and the day that I have chosen, that a man should humble his soul; not even if thou shouldest bow down thy neck like a hook, and shouldest strew sackcloth and ashes under thee; neither thus shall ye call the fast acceptable.’ That we may be able to shew what kind of persons we should be when we fast, and of what character the fast should be, listen again to God commanding Moses, and saying, as it is written in Leviticus[Leviticus 23:26], ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, In the tenth day of this seventh month, there shall be a day of atonement; a convocation, and a holy day shall it be to you; and ye shall humble your souls, and offer whole burnt-offerings unto the Lord.’ And ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 94, footnote 11 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Nepotian. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1371 (In-Text, Margin)

... pleasing, let us keep to everything else as well as the gold. Let the bishops of Christ be bound to marry wives, who must be virgins. Let the best-intentioned priest be deprived of his office if he bear a scar and be disfigured. Let bodily leprosy be counted worse than spots upon the soul. Let us be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, but let us slay no lamb and celebrate no mystic passover, for where there is no temple, the law forbids these acts. Let us pitch tents in the seventh month[Leviticus 23:40-42] and noise abroad a solemn fast with the sound of a horn. But if we compare all these things as spiritual with things which are spiritual; and if we allow with Paul that “the Law is spiritual” and call to mind David’s words: “open thou mine eyes that ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 266, footnote 24 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Demetrius. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3709 (In-Text, Margin)

... apostle? “God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” And yet after the Saviour had fasted forty days, it was through food that the old enemy laid a snare for him, saying, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Under the law, in the seventh month after the blowing of trumpets and on the tenth day of the month, a fast was proclaimed for the whole Jewish people, and that soul was cut off from among his people which on that day preferred self-indulgence to self-denial.[Leviticus 23:27] In Job it is written of behemoth that “his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.” Our foe uses the heat of youthful passion to tempt young men and maidens and “sets on fire the wheel of our birth.” He thus fulfils the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 266, footnote 24 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Demetrius. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3709 (In-Text, Margin)

... apostle? “God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” And yet after the Saviour had fasted forty days, it was through food that the old enemy laid a snare for him, saying, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Under the law, in the seventh month after the blowing of trumpets and on the tenth day of the month, a fast was proclaimed for the whole Jewish people, and that soul was cut off from among his people which on that day preferred self-indulgence to self-denial.[Leviticus 23:29] In Job it is written of behemoth that “his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.” Our foe uses the heat of youthful passion to tempt young men and maidens and “sets on fire the wheel of our birth.” He thus fulfils the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 192, footnote 1 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)

On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus. (HTML)

Book II. On the Belief in the Resurrection. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1621 (In-Text, Margin)

... heavenly festivals. For here is the shadow, there the truth. Let us endeavour to attain to the truth by means of the shadow. Of which truth the figure is expressed in this manner, where we read that the Lord said to Moses: “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, shall be a rest unto you, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, it shall be called holy unto you. Ye shall not do any servile work, and ye shall kindle a whole burnt-offering unto the Lord.”[Leviticus 23:24-25] And in the Book of Numbers: “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Make thee two trumpets of beaten work, of silver shalt thou make them, and they shall be to thee for calling the assembly and for the journeying of the camp. And thou shalt blow with ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 218, footnote 4 (Image)

Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian

The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)

The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)

Book III. Of the Canonical System of the Daily Prayers and Psalms. (HTML)
Chapter XI. Of the points in which the service held on Sunday differs from what is customary on other days. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 755 (In-Text, Margin)

But we ought to know this, too, that on Sunday only one office is celebrated before dinner, at which, out of regard for the actual service[Leviticus 23:36] and the Lord’s communion, they use a more solemn and a longer service of Psalms and prayers and lessons, and so consider that Tierce and Sext are included in it. And hence it results that, owing to the addition of the lessons, there is no diminution of the amount of their devotions, and yet some difference is made, and an indulgence over other times seems to be granted to the brethren out of reverence for the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 200, footnote 1 (Image)

Leo the Great, Gregory the Great

The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)

Sermons. (HTML)

On the Fast of Seventh Month, V. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1198 (In-Text, Margin)

We proclaim the holy Fast of the Seventh Month, dearly-beloved, for the exercise of common devotions, confidently inciting you with fatherly exhortations to make Christian by your observance that which was formerly Jewish[Leviticus 23:26-44]. For it is at all times suitable and in agreement with both the New and Old Testament, that the Divine Mercy should be sought with chastisement both of mind and body, because nothing is more effectual in prevailing with God than that a man should judge himself and never cease from asking pardon, knowing that he is never without fault. For human nature has this ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 228, 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)

Ephraim Syrus:  Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. (HTML)

Hymn II. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 394 (In-Text, Margin)

Blessed the Shepherd Who became a Lamb for our reconcilement! Blessed the Branch Who became the Cup of our Redemption! Blessed also be the Cluster, Fount of medicine of life! Blessed also be the Tiller, Who became Wheat, that He might be sown; and a Sheaf,[Leviticus 23:11] that He might be cut! [Blessed be] the Architect Who became a Tower for our place of safety! Blessed He Who so tempered the feelings of our mind, that we with our harp should sing that which the winged creatures’ mouth knows not with its strains to sing! Glory to Him, Who beheld how we had pleased to be like to brutes in our rage and our greediness; and came down and ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 230, 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)

Ephraim Syrus:  Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. (HTML)

Hymn III. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 403 (In-Text, Margin)

... forerunning Cluster, in which the cup of salvation was concealed! This day is the first-born feast, which, being born the first, overcomes all feasts. In the winter which strips the fruit of the branches off from the barren vine, Fruit sprang up unto us; in the cold that bares all the trees, a shoot was green for us of the house of Jesse. In December when the seed is hidden in the earth, there sprouted forth from the Womb the Ear of Life. In March when the seed was sprouting in the air, a Sheaf[Leviticus 23:10] sowed itself in the earth. The harvest thereof, Death devoured it in Hell; which the Medicine of life that is hidden therein did yet burst open! In March when the lambs bleat in the wilderness, into the Womb the Paschal Lamb entered! Out of the ...

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