Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Deuteronomy 8
There are 29 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 481, footnote 13 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XVI.—Perfect righteousness was conferred neither by circumcision nor by any other legal ceremonies. The Decalogue, however, was not cancelled by Christ, but is always in force: men were never released from its commandments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3997 (In-Text, Margin)
... in order that man might again become the disciple and follower of God; and He afflicted those who were disobedient, that they should not contemn their Creator; and He fed them with manna, that they might receive food for their souls (uti rationalem acciperent escam); as also Moses says in Deuteronomy: “And fed thee with manna, which thy fathers did not know, that thou mightest know that man doth not live by bread alone; but by every word of God proceeding out of His mouth doth man live.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] And it enjoined love to God, and taught just dealing towards our neighbour, that we should neither be unjust nor unworthy of God, who prepares man for His friendship through the medium of the Decalogue, and likewise for agreement with his ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 549, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XXI.—Christ is the head of all things already mentioned. It was fitting that He should be sent by the Father, the Creator of all things, to assume human nature, and should be tempted by Satan, that He might fulfil the promises, and carry off a glorious and perfect victory. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4632 (In-Text, Margin)
... opportunity of attacking Him. For as at the beginning it was by means of food that [the enemy] persuaded man, although not suffering hunger, to transgress God’s commandments, so in the end he did not succeed in persuading Him that was an hungered to take that food which proceeded from God. For, when tempting Him, he said, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” But the Lord repulsed him by the commandment of the law, saying, “It is written, Man doth not live by bread alone.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] As to those words [of His enemy,] “If thou be the Son of God,” [the Lord] made no remark; but by thus acknowledging His human nature He baffled His adversary, and exhausted the force of his first attack by means of His Father’s word. The corruption ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 238, footnote 15 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chap. I.—On Eating. (HTML)
... discipline is love,” as Wisdom says; “and love is the keeping of the law.” And these joys have an inspiration of love from the public nutriment, which accustoms to everlasting dainties. Love (agape), then, is not a supper. But let the entertainment depend on love. For it is said, “Let the children whom Thou hast loved, O Lord, learn that it is not the products of fruits that nourish man; but it is Thy word which preserves those who believe on Thee.” “For the righteous shall not live by bread.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] But let our diet be light and digestible, and suitable for keeping awake, unmixed with diverse varieties. Nor is this a point which is beyond the sphere of discipline. For love is a good nurse for communication; having as its rich provision ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 281, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Chapter VII.—Frugality a Good Provision for the Christian. (HTML)
... the breasts that are sucked or milked. For he who has the almighty God, the Word, is in want of nothing, and never is in straits for what he needs. For the Word is a possession that wants nothing, and is the cause of all abundance. If one say that he has often seen the righteous man in need of food, this is rare, and happens only where there is not another righteous man. Notwithstanding let him read what follows: “For the righteous man shall not live by bread alone, but by the word of the Lord,”[Deuteronomy 8:3] who is the true bread, the bread of the heavens. The good man, then, can never be in difficulties so long as he keeps intact his confession towards God. For it appertains to him to ask and to receive whatever he requires from the Father of all; and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 339, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXVII.—The Law, Even in Correcting and Punishing, Aims at the Good of Men. (HTML)
... “Chastening, the Lord hath chastised me, but hath not given me over unto death.” “For in order to teach thee His righteousness,” it is said, “He chastised thee and tried thee, and made thee to hunger and thirst in the desert land; that all His statutes and His judgments may be known in thy heart, as I command thee this day; and that thou mayest know in thine heart, that just as if a man were chastising his son, so the Lord our God shall chastise thee.”[Deuteronomy 8:2-3]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 339, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXVII.—The Law, Even in Correcting and Punishing, Aims at the Good of Men. (HTML)
... “Chastening, the Lord hath chastised me, but hath not given me over unto death.” “For in order to teach thee His righteousness,” it is said, “He chastised thee and tried thee, and made thee to hunger and thirst in the desert land; that all His statutes and His judgments may be known in thy heart, as I command thee this day; and that thou mayest know in thine heart, that just as if a man were chastising his son, so the Lord our God shall chastise thee.”[Deuteronomy 8:5]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 368, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter XVIII.—The Mosaic Law the Fountain of All Ethics, and the Source from Which the Greeks Drew Theirs. (HTML)
... instruction, teaching that we must cut the growths of sins, and the useless weeds of the mind that spring up round the vital fruit, till the shoot of faith is perfected and becomes strong. For in the fourth year, since there is need of time to him that is being solidly catechized, the four virtues are consecrated to God, the third alone being already joined to the fourth, the person of the Lord. And a sacrifice of praise is above holocausts: “for He,” it is said, “giveth strength to get power.”[Deuteronomy 8:18] And if your affairs are in the sunshine of prosperity, get and keep strength, and acquire power in knowledge. For by these instances it is shown that both good things and gifts are supplied by God; and that we, becoming ministers of the divine ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 155, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1184 (In-Text, Margin)
... is the “people” which was ignorant of God, but ours, who in days bygone knew not God? and who, in the hearing of the ear, gave heed to Him, but we, who, forsaking idols, have been converted to God? For Israel—who had been known to God, and who had by Him been “upraised” in Egypt, and was transported through the Red Sea, and who in the desert, fed forty years with manna, was wrought to the semblance of eternity, and not contaminated with human passions, or fed on this world’s[Deuteronomy 8:4] meats, but fed on “angel’s loaves” —the manna—and sufficiently bound to God by His benefits—forgot his Lord and God, saying to Aaron: “Make us gods, to go before us: for that Moses, who ejected us from the land of Egypt, hath quite forsaken us; and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 369, footnote 1 (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)
Sermon on the Mount Continued. Its Woes in Strict Agreement with the Creator's Disposition. Many Quotations Out of the Old Testament in Proof of This. (HTML)
... and it is because of these that woes are denounced on the rich, even in the Gospel. “Ye have received,” says He, “your consolation;” that is, of course, from their riches, in the pomps and vanities of the world which these purchase for them. Accordingly, in Deuteronomy, Moses says: “Lest, when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, as well as thy silver and thy gold, thine heart be then lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God.”[Deuteronomy 8:12-14] In similar terms, when king Hezekiah became proud of his treasures, and gloried in them rather than in God before those who had come on an embassy from Babylon, (the Creator) breaks forth against him by the mouth of Isaiah: “Behold, the days come ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 417, footnote 7 (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)
Concerning Those Who Come in the Name of Christ. The Terrible Signs of His Coming. He Whose Coming is So Grandly Described Both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, is None Other Than the Christ of the Creator. This Proof Enhanced by the Parable of the Fig-Tree and All the Trees. Parallel Passages of Prophecy. (HTML)
... for evermore! And so Isaiah predicted that it should. Let the disciples also be warned, “lest their hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this world; and so that day come upon them unawares, like a snare” —if indeed they should forget God amidst the abundance and occupation of the world. Like this will be found the admonition of Moses,—so that He who delivers from “the snare” of that day is none other than He who so long before addressed to men the same admonition.[Deuteronomy 8:12-14] Some places there were in Jerusalem where to teach; other places outside Jerusalem whither to retire —“in the day-time He was teaching in the temple;” just as He had foretold by Hosea: “In my house did they find me, and there did I speak with them.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 593, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
The Details of Our Bodily Sex, and of the Functions of Our Various Members. Apology for the Necessity Which Heresy Imposes of Hunting Up All Its Unblushing Cavils. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7751 (In-Text, Margin)
... cease; so there will be no more need of the nutriment of food for the defence of life, nor will mothers’ limbs any longer have to be laden for the replenishment of our race. But even in the present life there may be cessations of their office for our stomachs and our generative organs. For forty days Moses and Elias fasted, and lived upon God alone. For even so early was the principle consecrated: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] See here faint outlines of our future strength! We even, as we may be able, excuse our mouths from food, and withdraw our sexes from union. How many voluntary eunuchs are there! How many virgins espoused to Christ! How many, both of men and women, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 105, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Fasting. (HTML)
The Physical Tendencies of Fasting and Feeding Considered. The Cases of Moses and Elijah. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1034 (In-Text, Margin)
... does not impute the cause to “fulness:” “(My) beloved is waxen thick, and fat, and distent, and hath quite forsaken God, who made him, and hath gone away from the Lord his Saviour.” In short, in the self-same Deuteronomy, when bidding precaution to be taken against the self-same cause, He says: “Lest, when thou shalt have eaten, and drunken, and built excellent houses, thy sheep and oxen being multiplied, and (thy) silver and gold, thy heart be elated, and thou be forgetful of the Lord thy God.”[Deuteronomy 8:12-14] To the corrupting power of riches He made the enormity of edacity antecedent, for which riches themselves are the procuring agents. Through them, to wit, had “the heart of the People been made thick, lest they should see with the eyes, and hear with ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 105, footnote 12 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Fasting. (HTML)
The Physical Tendencies of Fasting and Feeding Considered. The Cases of Moses and Elijah. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1038 (In-Text, Margin)
... and (thy) silver and gold, thy heart be elated, and thou be forgetful of the Lord thy God.” To the corrupting power of riches He made the enormity of edacity antecedent, for which riches themselves are the procuring agents. Through them, to wit, had “the heart of the People been made thick, lest they should see with the eyes, and hear with the ears, and understand with a heart” obstructed by the “fats” of which He had expressly forbidden the eating, teaching man not to be studious of the stomach.[Deuteronomy 8:3]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 298, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
On Counter Promises. (HTML)
... are approved of, he will be capable of receiving instruction in that Jerusalem, the city of the saints, i.e., he will be educated and moulded, and made a living stone, a stone elect and precious, because he has undergone with firmness and constancy the struggles of life and the trials of piety; and will there come to a truer and clearer knowledge of that which here has been already predicted, viz., that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth from the mouth of God.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] And they also are to be understood to be the princes and rulers who both govern those of lower rank, and instruct them, and teach them, and train them to divine things.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 471, footnote 12 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Mortality. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3494 (In-Text, Margin)
... their murmuring cease from me, and they shall not die.” We must not murmur in adversity, beloved brethren, but we must bear with patience and courage whatever happens, since it is written, “The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise;” since also in Deuteronomy the Holy Spirit warns by Moses, and says, “The Lord thy God will vex thee, and will bring hunger upon thee; and it shall be known in thine heart if thou hast well kept His commandments or no.”[Deuteronomy 8:2] And again: “The Lord your God proveth you, that He may know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 648, footnote 8 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
On the Jewish Meats. (HTML)
But There Was a Limit to the Use of These Shadows or Figures; For Afterwards, When the End of the Law, Christ, Came, All Things Were Said by the Apostle to Be Pure to the Pure, and the True and Holy Meat Was a Right Faith and an Unspotted Conscience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5329 (In-Text, Margin)
... the draught. For he who worships the Lord by meats, is merely as one who has his belly for his Lord. The meat, I say, true, and holy, and pure, is a true faith, an unspotted conscience, and an innocent soul. Whosoever is thus fed, feeds also with Christ. Such a banqueter is God’s guest: these are the feasts that feed the angels, these are the tables which the martyrs make. Hence is that word of the law: “Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] Hence, too, that saying of Christ: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” Hence, “Ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of my loaves and were filled. But labour not for the meat which ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 109, footnote 12 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Recognitions of Clement. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Polytheism Inexcusable. (HTML)
... not have us participators in this attempt; nor will we suffer ourselves to be deceived by you. For it will not serve us for an excuse in the judgment, if we say that you deceived us; because neither could it excuse the first woman, that she had unhappily believed the serpent; but she was condemned to death, because she believed badly. For this cause therefore, Moses, also commending the faith of one God to the people, says, ‘Take heed to thyself, that thou be not seduced from the Lord thy God.’[Deuteronomy 8:11] Observe that he makes use of the same word which the first woman also made use of in excusing herself, saying that she was seduced; but it profited her nothing. But over and above all this, even if some true prophet should arise, who should perform ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 450, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
Paul Fought, But God Gave the Victory: He Ran, But God Showed Mercy. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3041 (In-Text, Margin)
... good fight.” Well, now, I want to know by what power he fought. Was it by a power which he possessed of himself, or by strength given to him from above? It is impossible to suppose that so great a teacher as the apostle was ignorant of the law of God, which proclaims the following in Deuteronomy: “Say not in thine heart, My own strength and energy of hand hath wrought for me this great power; but thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, how it is He that giveth thee strength to acquire such power.”[Deuteronomy 8:17] And what avails “the good fight,” unless followed by victory? And who gives the victory but He of whom the apostle says himself, “Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”? Then, in another passage, having quoted ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 318, footnote 3 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Letters of the Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus. (HTML)
To John the Œconomus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2059 (In-Text, Margin)
He is named Christ from being as man anointed with the Holy Ghost, and called our High Priest, Apostle, Prophet and King. Long ago the divine Moses exclaimed “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me.”[Deuteronomy 8:15] And the divine David cries “The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek.” This prophecy is confirmed by the divine Apostle. And again “seeing then that we have a great High Priest that has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 9, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Chromatius, Jovinus, and Eusebius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 96 (In-Text, Margin)
3. You tell me that Bonosus, like a true son of the Fish, has taken to the water. As for me who am still foul with my old stains, like the basilisk and the scorpion I haunt the dry places.[Deuteronomy 8:15] Bonosus has his heel already on the serpent’s head, whilst I am still as food to the same serpent which by divine appointment devours the earth. He can scale already that ladder of which the psalms of degrees are a type; whilst I, still weeping on its first step, hardly know whether I shall ever be able to say: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Amid the threatening ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 145, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Oceanus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2063 (In-Text, Margin)
... carrying in its beak a branch betokening restoration and light, brings tidings of peace to the whole world. Pharaoh and his host, loth to allow God’s people to leave Egypt, are overwhelmed in the Red Sea figuring thereby our baptism. His destruction is thus described in the book of Psalms: “Thou didst endow the sea with virtue through thy power: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters: thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces.” For this reason adders and scorpions haunt dry places[Deuteronomy 8:15] and whenever they come near water behave as if rabid or insane. As wood sweetens Marah so that seventy palm-trees are watered by its streams, so the cross makes the waters of the law lifegiving to the seventy who are Christ’s apostles. It is Abraham ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 266, footnote 19 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3704 (In-Text, Margin)
... bread,” and “as for me when they troubled me my clothing was sackcloth.” Eve was expelled from paradise because she had eaten of the forbidden fruit. Elijah on the other hand after forty days of fasting was carried in a fiery chariot into heaven. For forty days and forty nights Moses lived by the intimate converse which he had with God, thus proving in his own case the complete truth of the saying, “man doth not live by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] The Saviour of the world, who in His virtues and His mode of life has left us an example to follow, was, immediately after His baptism, taken up by the spirit that He might contend with the devil, and after crushing him and overthrowing him might ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 399, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4785 (In-Text, Margin)
... God. The people that ate and drank and rose up to play fashioned a golden calf, and preferred an Egyptian ox to the majesty of the Lord. The toil of so many days perished through the fulness of a single hour. Moses boldly broke the tables: for he knew that drunkards cannot hear the word of God. “The beloved grew thick, waxed fat, and became sleek: he kicked and forsook the Lord which made him, and departed from the God of his salvation.” Hence also it is enjoined in the same Book of Deuteronomy:[Deuteronomy 8:12-14] “Beware, lest when thou hast eaten and drunk, and hast built goodly houses, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and gold is multiplied, then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God.” In short the people ate ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 58, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter XVII. What virtues ought to exist in him whom we consult. How Joseph and Paul were equipped with them. (HTML)
92. In all things he was accustomed both to be full and to be hungry. Blessed is he that knows how to be full in Christ. Not corporal, but spiritual, is that satiety which knowledge brings about. And rightly is there need of knowledge: “For man lives not by bread alone, but by every word of God.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] For he who knew how to be full also knew how to be hungry, so as to be always seeking something new, hungering after God, thirsting for the Lord. He knew how to hunger, for he knew that the hungry shall eat. He knew, also, how to abound, and was able to abound, for he had nothing and yet possessed all things.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 75, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter VII. Strangers must never be expelled the city in a time of famine. In this matter the noble advice of a Christian sage is adduced, in contrast to which the shameful deed committed at Rome is given. By comparing the two it is shown that the former is combined with what is virtuous and useful, but the latter with neither. (HTML)
... hunger is profitable to no man, nor to put off the day of help as long as possible and to do nothing to check the want. Nay more, when so many of the cultivators of the soil are gone, when so many labourers are dying, the corn supplies will fail for the future. Shall we then expel those who are wont to supply us with food, are we unwilling to feed in a time of need those who have fed us all along? How great is the assistance which they supply even at this time. “Not by bread alone does man live.”[Deuteronomy 8:3] They are even our own family; many of them even are our own kindred. Let us make some return for what we have received.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 450, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)
Letter XLI: To Marcellina on the Same. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3615 (In-Text, Margin)
26. Wherefore, O Emperor, that I may now address my words not only about you, but to you, since you observe how severely the Lord is wont to censure, see that the more glorious you are become, the more utterly you submit to your Maker. For it is written: “When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into a strange land, and thou shalt eat the fruits of others, say not, My power and my righteousness hath given me this, for the Lord thy God hath given it to thee;”[Deuteronomy 7-9] for Christ in His mercy hath conferred it on thee, and therefore, in love for His body, that is, the Church, give water for His feet, kiss His feet, so that you may not only pardon those who have been taken in sin, but also by your peaceableness restore them to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 346, footnote 3 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference V. Conference of Abbot Serapion. On the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)
Chapter XV. How we can do nothing against our faults without the help of God, and how we should not be puffed up by victories over them. (HTML)
And that we ought not to be puffed up by victories over them he likewise charges us; saying, “Lest after thou hast eaten and art filled, hast built goodly houses and dwelt in them, and shalt have herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, and plenty of gold and of silver, and of all things, thy heart be lifted up and thou remember not the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; and was thy leader in the great and terrible wilderness.”[Deuteronomy 8:12-15] Solomon also says in Proverbs: “When thine enemy shall fall be not glad, and in his ruin be not lifted up, lest the Lord see and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him,” i.e., lest He see thy pride of heart, and cease from attacking ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 357, footnote 4 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference VI. Conference of Abbot Theodore. On the Death of the Saints. (HTML)
Chapter XI. Of the two kinds of trials, which come upon us in a three-fold way. (HTML)
... some cases because their sins deserve it. For their probation indeed, as we read that the blessed Abraham and Job and many of the saints endured countless tribulations; or this which is said to the people in Deuteronomy by Moses: “And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy God hath brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove thee, and that the things that were in thy heart might be made known, whether thou wouldst keep His Commandments or no:”[Deuteronomy 8:2] and this which we find in the Psalms: “I proved thee at the waters of strife.” To Job also: “Thinkest thou that I have spoken for any other cause than that thou mightest be seen to be righteous?” But for improvement, when God chastens his righteous ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 384, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference VIII. The Second Conference of Abbot Serenus. On Principalities. (HTML)
Chapter XXI. The answer to the question raised. (HTML)
... by the flood and deluge. So then when the sons of Seth at the instigation of their lust had transgressed that command which had been for a long while kept by a natural instinct from the beginning of the world, it was needful that it should afterwards be restored by the letter of the law: “Thou shalt not give thy daughter to his son to wife, nor shalt thou take a wife of his daughters to thy son; for they shall seduce your hearts to depart from your God, and to follow their gods and serve them.”[Deuteronomy 8:3]