Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Deuteronomy 4:19
There are 13 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 222, footnote 4 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter LV.—Trypho asks that Christ be proved God, but without metaphor. Justin promises to do so. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2119 (In-Text, Margin)
And Trypho answered, “We shall remember this your exposition, if you strengthen [your solution of] this difficulty by other arguments: but now resume the discourse, and show us that the Spirit of prophecy admits another God besides the Maker of all things, taking care not to speak of the sun and moon, which, it is written,[Deuteronomy 4:19] God has given to the nations to worship as gods; and oftentimes the prophets, employing this manner of speech, say that ‘thy God is a God of gods, and a Lord of lords,’ adding frequently, ‘the great and strong and terrible [God].’ For such expressions are used, not as if they really were gods, but because the Scripture is teaching us ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 260, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter CXXI.—From the fact that the Gentiles believe in Jesus, it is evident that He is Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2413 (In-Text, Margin)
And as they kept silence, I went on: “[The Scripture], speaking by David about this Christ, my friends, said no longer that ‘in His seed’ the nations should be blessed, but ‘in Him.’ So it is here: ‘His name shall rise up for ever above the sun; and in Him shall all nations be blessed.’ But if all nations are blessed in Christ, and we of all nations believe in Him, then He is indeed the Christ, and we are those blessed by Him. God formerly gave the sun as an object of worship,[Deuteronomy 4:19] as it is written, but no one ever was seen to endure death on account of his faith in the sun; but for the name of Jesus you may see men of every nation who have endured and do endure all sufferings, rather than deny Him. For the word of His truth and wisdom ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 420, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter VI—The Holy Ghost, throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, made mention of no other God or Lord, save him who is the true God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3355 (In-Text, Margin)
... expound it; but his meaning is similar to that of Moses, when it is said, “Thou shalt not make to thyself any image for God, of whatsoever things are in heaven above, whatsoever in the earth beneath, and whatsoever in the waters under the earth.” And he does thus explain what are meant by the things in heaven: “Lest when,” he says, “looking towards heaven, and observing the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and all the ornament of heaven, falling into error, thou shouldest adore and serve them.”[Deuteronomy 4:19] And Moses himself, being a man of God, was indeed given as a god before Pharaoh; but he is not properly termed Lord, nor is called God by the prophets, but is spoken of by the Spirit as “Moses, the faithful minister and servant of God,” which also ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 108, footnote 5 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Theophilus (HTML)
Theophilus to Autolycus (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter XXXV.—Precepts from the Prophetic Books. (HTML)
... desire thy neighbour’s wife.” So also the prophets. Solomon indeed teaches us that we must not sin with so much as a turn of the eye, saying, “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thy eyelids look straight before thee.” And Moses, who himself also was a prophet, says, concerning the sole government of God: “Your God is He who establishes the heaven, and forms the earth, whose hands have brought forth all the host of heaven; and He has not set these things before you that you should go after them.”[Deuteronomy 4:19] And Isaiah himself also says: “Thus saith the Lord God who established the heavens, and founded the earth and all that is therein, and giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. This is the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 505, footnote 14 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter XIV.—Degrees of Glory in Heaven. (HTML)
Not only then the believer, but even the heathen, is judged most righteously. For since God knew in virtue of His prescience that he would not believe, He nevertheless, in order that he might receive his own perfection gave him philosophy, but gave it him previous to faith. And He gave the sun, and the moon, and the stars to be worshipped; “which God,” the Law says,[Deuteronomy 4:19] made for the nations, that they might not become altogether atheistical, and so utterly perish. But they, also in the instance of this commandment, having become devoid of sense, and addicting themselves to graven images, are judged unless they repent; some of them because, though able, they would not believe God; ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 510, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XXXI (HTML)
... regard to the truth of each individual thing, and not to form representations of things contrary to reality, feigning the appearance merely of what was really male or really female, or the nature of animals, or of birds, or of creeping things, or of fishes. Venerable, too, and grand was this prohibition of theirs: “Lift not up thine eyes unto heaven, lest, when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and all the host of heaven, thou shouldst be led astray to worship them, and serve them.”[Deuteronomy 4:19] And what a régime was that under which the whole nation was placed, and which rendered it impossible for any effeminate person to appear in public; and worthy of admiration, too, was the arrangement by which harlots were removed out of the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 545, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter VI (HTML)
... law of Moses will bow down to the angels who are in heaven; and, in like manner, as they do not bow down to sun, moon, and stars, the host of heaven, they refrain from doing obeisance to heaven and its angels, obeying the law which declares: “Lest thou lift up thine eyes to heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations.”[Deuteronomy 4:19]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 547, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter X (HTML)
... written in the book of Deuteronomy: “And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations unto the whole heaven. But the Lord hath taken us, and brought us forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto Him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.”[Deuteronomy 4:19-20] The Hebrew people, then, being called by God a “chosen generation, and a royal priesthood, and a holy nation, and a purchased people,” regarding whom it was foretold to Abraham by the voice of the Lord addressed to him, “Look now towards heaven, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 443, footnote 3 (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 3046 (In-Text, Margin)
XII. Nor do the legislators give us only prohibitions concerning idols, but also warn us concerning the luminaries, not to swear by them, nor to serve them. For they say: “Lest, when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, thou shouldest be seduced to worship them.”[Deuteronomy 4:19] 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 ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 324, footnote 1 (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 II. (HTML)
Various Relations of the Logos to Men. (HTML)
... the God of these beings who are truly Gods, and then He is the God, in a word, of the living and not of the dead. But God the Logos is the God, perhaps, of those who attribute everything to Him and who consider Him to be their Father. Now the sun and the moon and the stars were connected, according to the accounts of men of old times, with beings who were not worthy to have the God of gods counted their God. To this opinion they were led by a passage in Deuteronomy which is somewhat on this wise:[Deuteronomy 4:19] “Lest when thou liftest up thine eyes to heaven, and seest the sun and the moon and the whole host of heaven, thou wander away and worship them and serve them which the Lord thy God hath appointed to all the peoples. But to you the Lord thy God hath ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 487, footnote 4 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XIII. (HTML)
The World and Offences. Various Meanings of World. (HTML)
“ Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling. ” The expression “cosmos,” is used in itself and absolutely in the passage, “He was in the cosmos and the cosmos knew Him not,” but it is used relatively and in respect of its connection with that of which it is the cosmos, in the words, “Lest you look up to the heaven, and seeing the sun, and the moon, and all the cosmos of the heavens, you should stray and bow down to them and worship them.”[Deuteronomy 4:19] And the like you will find in the Book of Esther, spoken about her, when it is written, stripping off all her “cosmos.” For the word “cosmos,” simply, is not the same as the “cosmos” of heaven, or the “cosmos” of Esther; and this which we are now investigating is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 14, page 251, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Hebrews
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John. (HTML)
John 12.34 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1925 (In-Text, Margin)
... question, but it is not so if we rightly consider it. For as the sun dazzles the eyes of the weak, not by reason of its proper nature, so it is with those who give not heed to the words of God. Thus, in the case of Pharaoh, He is said to have hardened his heart, and so it is with those who are at all contentious against the words of God. This is a peculiar mode of speech in Scripture, as also the, “He gave them over unto a reprobate mind” (Rom. i. 28), and the, “He divided them to the nations,”[Deuteronomy 4:19] that is, allowed, permitted them to go. For the writer doth not here introduce God as Himself working these things, but showeth that they took place through the wickedness of others. For, when we are abandoned by God, we are given up to the devil, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 28, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Heathen. (Contra Gentes.) (HTML)
Contra Gentes. (Against the Heathen.) (HTML)
Part III (HTML)
Conclusion. Doctrine of Scripture on the subject of Part I. (HTML)
... silver and gold, the works of men’s hands: a mouth have they and will not speak, eyes have they and will not see, ears have they and will not hear, noses have they and will not smell, hands have they and will not handle, feet have they and will not walk.” Nor has it passed over in silence the doctrine of creation; but, knowing well its beauty, lest any attending solely to this beauty should worship things as if they were gods, instead of God’s works, it teaches men firmly beforehand when it says[Deuteronomy 4:19]: “And do not when thou lookest up with thine eyes and seest the sun and moon and all the host of heaven, go astray and worship them, which the Lord thy God hath given to all nations under heaven.” But He gave them, not to be their gods, but that by ...