Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Numbers 12:3
There are 11 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 54, footnote 7 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Ephesians: Shorter and Longer Versions (HTML)
Chapter X.—Exhortations to prayer, humility, etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 560 (In-Text, Margin)
... goes astray return?” Permit them, then, to be instructed by you. Be ye therefore the ministers of God, and the mouth of Christ. For thus saith the Lord, “If ye take forth the precious from the vile, ye shall be as my mouth.” Be ye humble in response to their wrath; oppose to their blasphemies your earnest prayers; while they go astray, stand ye stedfast in the faith. Conquer ye their harsh temper by gentleness, their passion by meekness. For “blessed are the meek;” and Moses was meek above all men;[Numbers 12:3] and David was exceeding meek. Wherefore Paul exhorts as follows: “The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle towards all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.” Do not seek to avenge yourselves ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 64, footnote 16 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Magnesians: Shorter and Longer Versions (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Ye are superior to me. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 722 (In-Text, Margin)
... that thou mayest be justified;” and again, “When ye shall have done all things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants;” “for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” For says [the Scripture], “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Therefore those great ones, Abraham and Job, styled themselves “dust and ashes” before God. And David says, “Who am I before Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast glorified me hitherto?” And Moses, who was “the meekest of all men,”[Numbers 12:3] saith to God, “I am of a feeble voice, and of a slow tongue.” Be ye therefore also of a humble spirit, that ye may be exalted; for “he that abaseth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth himself shall be abased.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 331, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Antonianus About Cornelius and Novatian. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2472 (In-Text, Margin)
... different, dearest brother, who say that all sins are equal, and that a grave man ought not easily to be moved. But there is a wide difference between Christians and philosophers. And when the apostle says, “Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,” we are to avoid those things which do not come from God’s clemency, but are begotten of the presumption of a too rigid philosophy. Concerning Moses, moreover, we find it said in the Scriptures, “Now the man Moses was very meek;”[Numbers 12:3] and the Lord in His Gospel says, “Be ye merciful, as your Father also had mercy upon you;” and again, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” What medical skill can he exercise who says, “I cure the sound only, who have no ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 450, footnote 11 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Sec. I.—On Heresies (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3167 (In-Text, Margin)
III. And they raised a sedition against Moses the servant of God, the meekest of all men,[Numbers 12:3] and faithful, and affronted so great a man with the highest ingratitude; him who was their lawgiver, and guardian, and high priest, and king, the administrator of divine things; one that showed as a creator the mighty works of the Creator; the meekest man, freest from arrogance, and full of fortitude, and most benign in his temper; one who had delivered them from many dangers, and freed them from several deaths by his holiness; who had ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 467, footnote 8 (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 3408 (In-Text, Margin)
VII. Be not a murmurer, remembering the punishment which those underwent who murmured against Moses. Be not self-willed, be not malicious, be not hard-hearted, be not passionate, be not mean-spirited; for all these things lead to blasphemy. But be meek, as were Moses and David,[Numbers 12:3] since “the meek shall inherit the earth.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 580, footnote 4 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)
Revelation of Paul. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2553 (In-Text, Margin)
... because the Lord will give him in requital sevenfold reward in the world to come. And while he was yet speaking with me, I saw another coming afar off, and the appearance of him was as the appearance of an angel. And I asked the angel, saying: My lord, who is this? And he said to me: This is Moses the lawgiver, by whom God led forth the children of Israel out of the slavery of Egypt. And when he came near me, he saluted me weeping. And I said to him: Father, why weepest thou, being righteous and meek?[Numbers 12:3] And he answered and said to me: I must weep for every man, because I brought trouble upon a people that does not understand, and they have not borne fruit; and I see the sheep of which I was shepherd scattered, and the toil which I toiled for the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 62, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
Treatise Concerning the Christian Priesthood. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 136 (In-Text, Margin)
... excuse for the sins they commit in the dis charge thereof, but they too who come to it through the ambitious desire of others; for truly if those persons who have been chosen for this high office by God himself, though they have never so often refused it, have paid such heavy penalties, and if nothing has availed to deliver any of them from this danger, neither Aaron nor Eli, nor that holy man the Saint, the prophet, the wonder worker, the meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth,[Numbers 12:3] who spake with God, as a man speaketh unto his friend, hardly shall we who fall so infinitely short of the excellence of that great man, be able to plead as a sufficient excuse the consciousness that we have never been ambitious of the dignity, more ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 176, footnote 3 (Image)
Socrates: Church History from A.D. 305-438; Sozomenus: Church History from A.D. 323-425
The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Panegyric of the Emperor Theodosius Younger. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1031 (In-Text, Margin)
these reasons the emperor had the highest esteem for Proclus. For in fact he himself was a pattern to all true clergymen, and never approved of those who attempted to persecute others. Nay I may venture to affirm, that in meekness he surpassed all those who have ever faithfully borne the sacerdotal office. And what is recorded of Moses in the book of Numbers,[Numbers 12:3] ‘Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth’—may most justly be applied at this day; for the Emperor Theodosius is ‘meek above all the men which are upon the face of the earth.’ It is because of this meekness that God subdued his enemies without martial conflicts, as the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 171, footnote 13 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2512 (In-Text, Margin)
... the present learned and gathered many things. The kingdom of the mild David was quickly dismembered by one who chastised his people with scorpions and fancied that his fingers were thicker than his father’s loins. The Roman people refused to brook insolence even in a king. Moses was leader of the host of Israel; he brought ten plagues upon Egypt; sky, earth, and sea alike obeyed his commands: yet he is spoken of as “very meek above all the men which were” at that time “upon the face of the earth.”[Numbers 12:3] He maintained his forty-years’ supremacy because he tempered the insolence of office with gentleness and meekness. When he was being stoned by the people he made intercession for them; nay more he wished to be blotted out of God’s book sooner than ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 262, footnote 2 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On the Death of His Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3237 (In-Text, Margin)
24. But what was most excellent and most characteristic, though least generally recognized, was his simplicity, and freedom from guile and resentment. For among men of ancient and modern days, each is supposed to have had some special success, as each chanced to have received from God some particular virtue: Job unconquered patience in misfortune, Moses[Numbers 12:3] and David meekness, Samuel prophecy, seeing into the future, Phineas zeal, for which he has a name, Peter and Paul eagerness in preaching, the sons of Zebedee magniloquence, whence also they were entitled Sons of thunder. But why should I enumerate them all, speaking as I do among those who know this? Now the specially ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 82, footnote 11 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XV. After mentioning a noble action of the Romans, the writer shows from the deeds of Moses that he had the greatest regard for what is virtuous. (HTML)
... had raised his hand and spread out the darkness. All the first-born of Egypt died, whilst all the offspring of the Hebrews was left unharmed. Moses was asked to put an end to these horrors, and he prayed and obtained his request. In the one case it was a fact worthy of praise that he checked himself from joining in deceit; in the other it was noteworthy how, by his innate goodness, he turned aside from the foe those divinely ordered punishments. He was indeed, as it is written, gentle and meek.[Numbers 12:3] He knew that the king would not keep true to his promises, yet he thought it right and good to pray when asked to do so, to bless when wronged, to forgive when besought.