Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Numbers 21
There are 26 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 87, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Smyrnæans: Shorter and Longer Versions (HTML)
Chapter II.—Christ’s true passion. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 989 (In-Text, Margin)
... and again, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up;” and once more, “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me.” The Word therefore did dwell in flesh, for “Wisdom built herself an house.” The Word raised up again His own temple on the third day, when it had been destroyed by the Jews fighting against Christ. The Word, when His flesh was lifted up, after the manner of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, drew all men to Himself for their eternal salvation.[Numbers 21:9]
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 145, footnote 10 (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 1619 (In-Text, Margin)
... reveal a type of Jesus. Moses then makes a brazen serpent, and places it upon a beam, and by proclamation assembles the people. When, therefore, they were come together, they besought Moses that he would offer sacrifice in their behalf, and pray for their recovery. And Moses spake unto them, saying, “When any one of you is bitten, let him come to the serpent placed on the pole; and let him hope and believe, that even though dead, it is able to give him life, and immediately he shall be restored.”[Numbers 21:9] And they did so. Thou hast in this also [an indication of] the glory of Jesus; for in Him and to Him are all things. What, again, says Moses to Jesus (Joshua) the son of Nave, when he gave him this name, as being a prophet, with this view only, that ...
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 308, footnote 10 (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)
Evil of Two Kinds, Penal and Criminal. It is Not of the Latter Sort that God is the Author, But Only of the Former, Which are Penal, and Included in His Justice. (HTML)
... unjustly stricken with the chastisement of its ten plagues. God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. He deserved, however, to be influenced to his destruction, who had already denied God, already in his pride so often rejected His ambassadors, accumulated heavy burdens on His people, and (to sum up all) as an Egyptian, had long been guilty before God of Gentile idolatry, worshipping the ibis and the crocodile in preference to the living God. Even His own people did God visit in their ingratitude.[Numbers 21] Against young lads, too, did He send forth bears, for their irreverence to the prophet.
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 ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 679, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Baptism. (HTML)
Of Preparation For, and Conduct After, the Reception of Baptism. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8751 (In-Text, Margin)
... one un tempted should attain the celestial kingdoms.” The Lord Himself forthwith after baptism temptations surrounded, when in forty days He had kept fast. “Then,” some one will say, “it becomes us, too, rather to fast after baptism.” Well, and who forbids you, unless it be the necessity for joy, and the thanksgiving for salvation? But so far as I, with my poor powers, understand, the Lord figuratively retorted upon Israel the reproach they had cast on the Lord.[Numbers 21:5] For the people, after crossing the sea, and being carried about in the desert during forty years, although they were there nourished with divine supplies, nevertheless were more mindful of their belly and their gullet than of God. Thereupon the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 301, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
To Januarius (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1725 (In-Text, Margin)
... think himself better than the other, though, whereas the former received the Lord joyfully into his house, the latter said, “I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof,” —both honouring the Saviour, though in ways diverse and, as it were, mutually opposed; both miserable through sin, and both obtaining the mercy they required. We may further borrow an illustration here, from the fact that the manna given to the ancient people of God tasted in each man’s mouth as he desired that it might.[Numbers 21:5] It is the same with this world-subduing sacrament in the heart of each Christian. For he that dares not take it every day, and he who dares not omit it any day, are both alike moved by a desire to do it honour. That sacred food will not submit to be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 63, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The appearances of God to the Old Testament saints are discussed. (HTML)
In How Many Ways the Creature is to Be Taken by Way of Sign. The Eucharist. (HTML)
... to the future king of Israel. Sometimes, also, a thing which was not a prophet in his own proper self, and which existed already among earthly things, was assumed in order to signify this; as Jacob, when he had seen the dream, upon waking up did with the stone, which when asleep he had under his head. Sometimes a thing is made in the same kind, for the mere purpose; so as either to continue a little while in existence, as that brazen serpent was able to do which was lifted up in the wilderness,[Numbers 21:9] and as written records are able to do likewise; or so as to pass away after having accomplished its ministry, as the bread made for the purpose is consumed in the receiving of the sacrament.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 252, footnote 2 (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 1162 (In-Text, Margin)
But even these latter are frequently said to die to sin, though undoubtedly they die not to one sin, but to all the numerous actual sins they have committed in thought, word, or deed: for the singular number is often put for the plural, as when the poet says, “They fill its belly with the armed soldier,” though in the case here referred to there were many soldiers concerned. And we read in our own Scriptures: “Pray to the Lord, that He take away the serpent from us.”[Numbers 21:7] He does not say serpents though the people were suffering from many; and so in other cases. When, on the other hand, the original sin is expressed in the plural number, as when we say that infants are baptized for the remission of sins, instead of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 38, footnote 4 (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 Context of Their Chief Text. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 418 (In-Text, Margin)
... things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,[Numbers 21:9] even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have ...
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 1, Volume 8, page 346, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3348 (In-Text, Margin)
... happened unto Israel, in order that the fulness of the Gentiles might enter in, and so all Israel might be saved.” Therefore now, O Asaph, acknowledge that which hath gone before, in order that thou mayest at least follow, if thou wast not able to go before. For not in vain came Christ, or in vain was Christ slain, or in vain did the corn fall into the ground; but it fell that it might rise manifold. A serpent was lifted up in the desert, in order that it might cure of the poison him that was smitten.[Numbers 21:9] Observe what was done. Do not think it to be a vain thing that He came: lest He find thee evil, when He shall have come a second time.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 5, footnote 15 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rufinus the Monk. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 43 (In-Text, Margin)
4. Bonosus, your friend, or, to speak more truly, mine as well as yours, is now climbing the ladder foreshown in Jacob’s dream. He is bearing his cross, neither taking thought for the morrow nor looking back at what he has left. He is sowing in tears that he may reap in joy. As Moses in a type so he in reality is lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.[Numbers 21:9] This is a true story, and it may well put to shame the lying marvels described by Greek and Roman pens. For here you have a youth educated with us in the refining accomplishments of the world, with abundance of wealth, and in rank inferior to none of his associates; yet he forsakes his mother, his sisters, and his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 87, footnote 14 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the words, Crucified and Buried. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1574 (In-Text, Margin)
20. This was the figure which Moses completed by fixing the serpent to a cross, that whoso had been bitten by the living serpent, and looked to the brasen serpent, might be saved by believing[Numbers 21:9]. Does then the brazen serpent save when crucified, and shall not the Son of God incarnate save when crucified also? On each occasion life comes by means of wood. For in the time of Noe the preservation of life was by an ark of wood. In the time of Moses the sea, on beholding the emblematical rod, was abashed at him who smote it; is then Moses’ rod mighty, and is the Cross of the Saviour powerless? ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 229, footnote 5 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
To Those Who Had Invited Him, and Not Come to Receive Him. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2932 (In-Text, Margin)
... or absent, whether taking your part in our sermons, or preferring to do something else: and may ye be the children of God, pure and unblamable, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation: and may ye never be entangled in the snares of the wicked that go round about, or bound with the chain of your sins. May the Word in you never be smothered with cares of this life and so ye become unfruitful: but may ye walk in the King’s Highway, turning aside neither to the right hand nor to the left,[Numbers 21:22] but led by the Spirit through the strait gate. Then all our affairs shall prosper, both now and at the inquest There, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be the glory for ever. Amen.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 431, footnote 11 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Second Oration on Easter. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4657 (In-Text, Margin)
... Father accepts Him, but neither asked for Him nor demanded Him; but on account of the Incarnation, and because Humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself, and overcome the tyrant, and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son, Who also arranged this to the honour of the Father, Whom it is manifest that He obeys in all things? So much we have said of Christ; the greater part of what we might say shall be reverenced with silence. But that brazen serpent[Numbers 21:9] was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpents, not as a type of Him that suffered for us, but as a contrast; and it saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live, but because it was killed, and killed with it the powers ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 20, footnote 3 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Objection that some were baptized unto Moses and believed in him, and an answer to it; with remarks upon types. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 978 (In-Text, Margin)
... small and human things, it is obvious that we must not therefore conclude the divine nature to be small. The type is an exhibition of things expected, and gives an imitative anticipation of the future. So Adam was a type of “Him that was to come.” Typically, “That rock was Christ;” and the water a type of the living power of the word; as He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” The manna is a type of the living bread that came down from heaven; and the serpent on the standard,[Numbers 21:9] of the passion of salvation accomplished by means of the cross, wherefore they who even looked thereon were preserved. So in like manner, the history of the exodus of Israel is recorded to shew forth those who are being saved through baptism. For ...
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 ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 449, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)
Letter XLI: To Marcellina on the Same. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3610 (In-Text, Margin)
... enemies who were hedging thee in, and safe in the midst of the waters thou sawest the destruction of thine enemies, when the same waves which surrounded and carried thee on thy way, pouring back, drowned the enemy. Did I not, when food was lacking to thee passing through the desert, supply a rain of food, and nourishment around thee, whithersoever thou wentest? Did I not, after subduing all thine enemies, bring thee into the region of Eshcol? Did I not deliver up thee Sihon, King of the Amorites[Numbers 21:24] (that is, the proud one, the leader of them that provoked thee)? Did I not deliver up to thee alive the King of Ai, whom after the ancient curse thou didst condemn to be fastened to the wood and raised upon the cross? Why should I speak of the ...