Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Numbers 21:8
There are 11 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 145, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Barnabas (HTML)
The Epistle of Barnabas (HTML)
Chapter XII.—The cross of Christ frequently announced in the Old Testament. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1615 (In-Text, Margin)
... “All day long I have stretched forth My hands to an unbelieving people, and one that gainsays My righteous way.” And again Moses makes a type of Jesus, [signifying] that it was necessary for Him to suffer, [and also] that He would be the author of life [to others], whom they believed to have destroyed on the cross when Israel was falling. For since transgression was committed by Eve through means of the serpent, [the Lord] brought it to pass that every [kind of] serpents bit them, and they died,[Numbers 21:6-9] that He might convince them, that on account of their transgression they were given over to the straits of death. Moreover Moses, when he commanded, “Ye shall not have any graven or molten [image] for your God,” did so that he might reveal a type of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 183, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
The First Apology (HTML)
Chapter LX.—Plato’s doctrine of the cross. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1891 (In-Text, Margin)
... borrowed in like manner from Moses; for in the writings of Moses it is related how at that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the wilderness, they fell in with poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every kind of serpent, which slew the people; and that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, “If ye look to this figure, and believe, ye shall be saved thereby.”[Numbers 21:8] And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died, and it is handed down that the people thus escaped death. Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 465, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter II.—Proofs from the plain testimony of Moses, and of the other prophets, whose words are the words of Christ, that there is but one God, the founder of the world, whom Our Lord preached, and whom He called His Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3827 (In-Text, Margin)
... because of His words, and said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we ourselves have heard [Him], and know that this man is truly the Saviour of the world.” And Paul likewise declares, “And so all Israel shall be saved;” but he has also said, that the law was our pedagogue [to bring us] to Christ Jesus. Let them not therefore ascribe to the law the unbelief of certain [among them]. For the law never hindered them from believing in the Son of God; nay, but it even exhorted them[Numbers 21:8] so to do, saying that men can be saved in no other way from the old wound of the serpent than by believing in Him who, in the likeness of sinful flesh, is lifted up from the earth upon the tree of martyrdom, and draws all things to Himself, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 166, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Concerning the Passion of Christ, and Its Old Testament Predictions and Adumbrations. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1340 (In-Text, Margin)
... ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech—destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil—the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any “likeness of anything,” set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a “tree,” in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry,[Numbers 21:4-9] they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord’s cross on which the “serpent” the devil was “made a show of,” and, for every one hurt by such snakes—that is, his angels —on turning intently ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 314, footnote 7 (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)
The Brazen Serpent and the Golden Cherubim Were Not Violations of the Second Commandment. Their Meaning. (HTML)
Likewise, when forbidding the similitude to be made of all things which are in heaven, and in earth, and in the waters, He declared also the reasons, as being prohibitory of all material exhibition of a latent idolatry. For He adds: “Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them.” The form, however, of the brazen serpent which the Lord afterwards commanded Moses to make, afforded no pretext for idolatry, but was meant for the cure of those who were plagued with the fiery serpents.[Numbers 21:8-9] I say nothing of what was figured by this cure. Thus, too, the golden Cherubim and Seraphim were purely an ornament in the figured fashion of the ark; adapted to ornamentation for reasons totally remote from all condition of idolatry, on account of which ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 650, footnote 12 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Appendix: Against All Heresies. (HTML)
Ophites, Cainites, Sethites. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8356 (In-Text, Margin)
To these are added those heretics likewise who are called Ophites: for they magnify the serpent to such a degree, that they prefer him even to Christ Himself; for it was he, they say, who gave us the origin of the knowledge of good and of evil. His power and majesty (they say) Moses perceiving, set up the brazen serpent; and whoever gazed upon him obtained health.[Numbers 21:4-9] Christ Himself (they say further) in His gospel imitates Moses’ serpent’s sacred power, in saying: “And as Moses upreared the serpent in the desert, so it behoveth the Son of man to be upreared.” Him they introduce to bless their eucharistic (elements). Now the whole parade and doctrine of this error flowed ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 39, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Serpent Lifted Up in the Wilderness Prefigured Christ Suspended on the Cross; Even Infants Themselves Poisoned by the Serpent’s Bite. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 429 (In-Text, Margin)
... in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” We know what at that time happened in the wilderness. Many were dying of the bite of serpents: the people then confessed their sins, and, through Moses, besought the Lord to take away from them this poison; accordingly, Moses, at the Lord’s command, lifted up a brazen serpent in the wilderness, and admonished the people that every one who had been serpent-bitten should look upon the uplifted figure. When they did so they were immediately healed.[Numbers 21:6-9] What means the uplifted serpent but the death of Christ, by that mode of expressing a sign, whereby the thing which is effected is signified by that which effects it? Now death came by the serpent, which persuaded man to commit the sin, by which he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 85, 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 III. 6–21. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 295 (In-Text, Margin)
... shown a great mystery, the figure of a thing to come: the Lord Himself testifies in this passage, so that no man can give another interpretation than that which the truth indicates concerning itself. Now Moses was ordered by the Lord to make a brazen serpent, and to raise it on a pole in the wilderness, and to admonish the people Israel, that, when any had been bitten by a serpent, he should look to that serpent raised up on the pole. This was done: men were bitten; they looked and were healed.[Numbers 21:6-9] What are the biting serpents? Sins, from the mortality of the flesh. What is the serpent lifted up? The Lord’s death on the cross. For as death came by the serpent, it was figured by the image of a serpent. The serpent’s bite was deadly, the Lord’s ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 344, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3327 (In-Text, Margin)
... intimate? For this was not done to no purpose. Let us inquire of the writings of God. To what did the serpent persuade man? To death. Therefore death is from the serpent. If death is from the serpent, the rod in the ser pent is Christ in death. Therefore also when by serpents in the desert they were being bitten and being slain, the Lord commanded Moses to exalt a brazen serpent in the desert, and admonish the people that whosoever by a serpent had been bitten, should look thereupon and be made whole.[Numbers 21:8] Thus also it was done: thus also men, bitten by serpents, were made whole of the venom by looking upon a serpent. To be made whole of a serpent is a great Sacrament. What is it to be made whole of a serpent by looking upon a serpent? It is to be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 345, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3337 (In-Text, Margin)
... this nation did afterwards believe, how many are yet to believe? Some are chaff, others grain; over both however there cometh in the threshing-drag; but under one threshing-drag the one is broken up, the other is purged. How great a good hath God bestowed upon us by the evil of Judas the traitor! By the very ferocity of the Jews how great a good was bestowed upon believing Gentiles! Christ was slain in order that there might be on the Cross One for him to look to who had been stung by the serpent.[Numbers 21:8] …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 299, footnote 3 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Optimus the bishop. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3162 (In-Text, Margin)
8. For a sign that shall be spoken against. By a sign, we properly understand in Scripture a cross. Moses, it is said, set the serpent “upon a pole.”[Numbers 21:8] That is upon a cross. Or else a sign is indicative of something strange and obscure seen by the simple but understood by the intelligent. There is no cessation of controversy about the Incarnation of the Lord; some asserting that he assumed a body, and others that his sojourn was bodiless; some that he had a passible body, and others that he fulfilled the bodily œconomy by a kind of appearance. Some say that his body ...