Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Psalms 3

There are 46 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 12, footnote 5 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Clement of Rome (HTML)

First Epistle to the Corinthians (HTML)

Chapter XXVI.—We shall rise again, then, as the Scripture also testifies. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 107 (In-Text, Margin)

Do we then deem it any great and wonderful thing for the Maker of all things to raise up again those that have piously served Him in the assurance of a good faith, when even by a bird He shows us the mightiness of His power to fulfil His promise? For [the Scripture] saith in a certain place, “Thou shalt raise me up, and I shall confess unto Thee;” and again, “I laid me down, and slept; I awaked, because Thou art with me;”[Psalms 3:6] and again, Job says, “Thou shalt raise up this flesh of mine, which has suffered all these things.”

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 175, footnote 9 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Justin Martyr (HTML)

The First Apology (HTML)

Chapter XXXVIII.—Utterances of the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1846 (In-Text, Margin)

... walk in a way that is not good.” And again: “I gave My back to the scourges, and My cheeks to the buffetings; I turned not away My face from the shame of spittings; and the Lord was My helper: therefore was I not confounded: but I set My face as a firm rock; and I knew that I should not be ashamed, for He is near that justifieth Me.” And again, when He says, “They cast lots upon My vesture, and pierced My hands and My feet. And I lay down and slept, and rose again, because the Lord sustained Me.”[Psalms 3:5] And again, when He says, “They spake with their lips, they wagged the head, saying, Let Him deliver Himself.” And that all these things happened to Christ at the hands of the Jews, you can ascertain. For when He was crucified, they did shoot out the ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 247, footnote 7 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Justin Martyr (HTML)

Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)

Chapter XCVII.—Other predictions of the cross of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2320 (In-Text, Margin)

“For it was not without design that the prophet Moses, when Hur and Aaron upheld his hands, remained in this form until evening. For indeed the Lord remained upon the tree almost until evening, and they buried Him at eventide; then on the third day He rose again. This was declared by David thus: ‘With my voice I cried to the Lord, and He heard me out of His holy hill. I laid me down, and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me.’[Psalms 3:4-5] And Isaiah likewise mentions concerning Him the manner in which He would die, thus: ‘I have spread out My hands unto a people disobedient, and gainsaying, that walk in a way which is not good.’ And that He would rise again, Isaiah himself said: ‘His burial has been taken away from ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 505, footnote 7 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Irenæus (HTML)

Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)

Chapter XXXI.—We should not hastily impute as crimes to the men of old time those actions which the Scripture has not condemned, but should rather seek in them types of things to come: an example of this in the incest committed by Lot. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4236 (In-Text, Margin)

... father who hath obtained thee [by generation], and formed thee, and created thee?” At what time, then, did He pour out upon the human race the life-giving seed—that is, the Spirit of the remission of sins, through means of whom we are quickened? Was it not then, when He was eating with men, and drinking wine upon the earth? For it is said, “The Son of man came eating and drinking;” and when He had lain down, He fell asleep, and took repose. As He does Himself say in David, “I slept, and took repose.”[Psalms 3:6] And because He used thus to act while He dwelt and lived among us, He says again, “And my sleep became sweet unto me.” Now this whole matter was indicated through Lot, that the seed of the Father of all—that is, of the Spirit of God, by whom all ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 510, footnote 18 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Irenæus (HTML)

Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)

Chapter XXXIII.—Whosoever confesses that one God is the author of both Testaments, and diligently reads the Scriptures in company with the presbyters of the Church, is a true spiritual disciple; and he will rightly understand and interpret all that the prophets have declared respecting Christ and the liberty of the New Testament. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4326 (In-Text, Margin)

13. Those of them, again, who spoke of His having slumbered and taken sleep, and of His having risen again because the Lord sustained Him,[Psalms 3:5] and who enjoined the principalities of heaven to set open the everlasting doors, that the King of glory might go in, proclaimed beforehand His resurrection from the dead through the Father’s power, and His reception into heaven. And when they expressed themselves thus, “His going forth is from the height of heaven, and His returning even to the highest heaven; and there is no one who can hide himself from His heat,” they ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 469, footnote 3 (Image)

Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (HTML)

The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)

Book V (HTML)
Chapter XIV.—Greek Plagiarism from the Hebrews. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3128 (In-Text, Margin)

Plato, again, in the seventh book of the Republic, has called “the day here nocturnal,” as I suppose, on account of “the world-rulers of this darkness;” and the descent of the soul into the body, sleep and death, similarly with Heraclitus. And was not this announced, oracularly, of the Saviour, by the Spirit, saying by David, “I slept, and slumbered; I awoke: for the Lord will sustain me;“[Psalms 3:5] For He not only figuratively calls the resurrection of Christ rising from sleep; but to the descent of the Lord into the flesh he also applies the figurative term sleep. The Saviour Himself enjoins, “Watch;” as much as to say, “Study how to live, and endeavour to separate the soul from ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 364, footnote 21 (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)
Christ's Connection with the Creator Shown. Many Quotations Out of the Old Testament Prophetically Bear on Certain Events of the Life of Jesus--Such as His Ascent to Praying on the Mountain; His Selection of Twelve Apostles; His Changing Simon's Name to Peter, and Gentiles from Tyre and Sidon Resorting to Him. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3913 (In-Text, Margin)

... one of the twelve (minor prophets), Nahum: “For behold upon the mountain the swift feet of Him that bringeth glad tidings of peace.” Moreover, concerning the voice of His prayer to the Father by night, the psalm manifestly says: “O my God, I will cry in the day-time, and Thou shalt hear; and in the night season, and it shall not be in vain to me.” In another passage touching the same voice and place, the psalm says: “I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy mountain.”[Psalms 3:4] You have a representation of the name; you have the action of the Evangelizer; you have a mountain for the site; and the night as the time; and the sound of a voice; and the audience of the Father: you have, (in short,) the Christ of the prophets. ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 606, footnote 5 (Image)

Tertullian (I, II, III)

Anti-Marcion. (HTML)

Against Praxeas. (HTML)

The Identity of the Father and the Son, as Praxeas Held It, Shown to Be Full of Perplexity and Absurdity. Many Scriptures Quoted in Proof of the Distinction of the Divine Persons of the Trinity. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7885 (In-Text, Margin)

... Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be their salvation to the end of the earth.” Hear now also the Son’s utterances respecting the Father: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel unto men.” He speaks of Himself likewise to the Father in the Psalm: “Forsake me not until I have declared the might of Thine arm to all the generation that is to come.” Also to the same purport in another Psalm: “O Lord, how are they increased that trouble me!”[Psalms 3:1] But almost all the Psalms which prophesy of the person of Christ, represent the Son as conversing with the Father—that is, represent Christ (as speaking) to God. Observe also the Spirit speaking of the Father and the Son, in the character of ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 206, footnote 10 (Image)

Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

Hippolytus. (HTML)

The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)

Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Treatise on Christ and Antichrist. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1425 (In-Text, Margin)

... flower, Jacob calls a shoot. For first he shot forth, and then he flourished in the world. And the expression, “he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lion’s whelp,” refers to the three days’ sleep (death, couching) of Christ; as also Isaiah says, “How is faithful Sion become an harlot! it was full of judgment; in which righteousness lodged (couched); but now murderers.” And David says to the same effect, “I laid me down (couched) and slept; I awaked: for the Lord will sustain me;”[Psalms 3:5] in which words he points to the fact of his sleep and rising again. And Jacob says, “Who shall rouse him up?” And that is just what David and Paul both refer to, as when Paul says, “and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead.”

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 525, footnote 14 (Image)

Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

Cyprian. (HTML)

The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)

Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
That He was not to be overcome of death, nor should remain in Hades. (HTML)CCEL Footnote 4091 (In-Text, Margin)

In the twenty-ninth Psalm: “O Lord, Thou hast brought back my soul from hell.” Also in the fifteenth Psalm: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.” Also in the third Psalm: “I laid me down and slept, and rose up again, because the Lord helped me.”[Psalms 3:5] Also according to John: “No man taketh away my life from me; but I lay it down of myself. I have the power of laying it down, and I have the power of taking it again. For this commandment I have received from my Father.”

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 122, footnote 7 (Image)

Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies

Lactantius (HTML)

The Divine Institutes (HTML)

Book IV. Of True Wisdom and Religion (HTML)
Chap. XIX.—Of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus; and the predictions of these events (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 782 (In-Text, Margin)

... with fear, seeing nothing, He came forth uninjured and alive from the sepulchre, and went into Galilee to seek His disciples: but nothing was found in the sepulchre except the grave-clothes in which they had enclosed and wrapt His body. Now, that He would not remain in hell, but rise again on the third day, had been foretold by the prophets. David says, in the fifteenth Psalm: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption.” Also in the third Psalm:[Psalms 3:5] “I laid me down to sleep, and took my rest, and rose again, for the Lord sustained me.” Hosea also, the first of the twelve prophets, testified of His resurrection: “This my Son is wise, therefore He will not remain in the anguish of His sons: and I ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 533, footnote 2 (Image)

Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents

Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)

Acts and Martyrdom of St. Matthew the Apostle. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2305 (In-Text, Margin)

And the bishop having run into the church, and taken the Gospel and the Psalter of David, and having assembled the presbyters and the multitude of the brethren, came to the east of the palace at the hour of sunrise; and having ordered the one who was singing to go upon a certain lofty stone, he began to praise in singing of a song to God: Precious in the sight of God is the death of His saints. And again: I laid me down and slept; I arose: because the Lord will sustain me.[Psalms 3:5] And they listened to the singing of a song of David: Shall he that is dead not rise again? Now I shall raise him up for myself, saith the Lord. And all shouted out the Alleluia. And the bishop read the Gospel, and all cried out: Glory to Thee, Thou who hast ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 237, footnote 6 (Image)

Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen

The Epistles of Clement. (HTML)

The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. (HTML)

We Shall Rise Again, Then, as the Scripture Also Testifies. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4125 (In-Text, Margin)

Do we then deem it any great and wonderful thing for the Maker of all things to raise up again those that have piously served Him in the assurance of a good faith, when even by a bird He shows us the mightiness of His power to fulfil His promise? For [the Scripture] saith in a certain place, “Thou shalt raise me up, and I shall confess unto Thee”; and again, “I laid me down, and slept”; “I awaked, because Thou art with me;”[Psalms 3:6] and again, Job says, “Thou shalt raise up this flesh of mine, which has suffered all these things.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 283, footnote 1 (Image)

Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine

City of God (HTML)

Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)

Of the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 763 (In-Text, Margin)

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.”[Psalms 3:3] In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 355, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine

City of God (HTML)

The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel. (HTML)

Of the 3d, 41st, 15th, and 68th Psalms, in Which the Death and Resurrection of the Lord are Prophesied. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1097 (In-Text, Margin)

About His resurrection also the oracles of the Psalms are by no means silent. For what else is it that is sung in His person in the 3d Psalm, “I laid me down and took a sleep, [and] I awaked, for the Lord shall sustain me?”[Psalms 3:5] Is there perchance any one so stupid as to believe that the prophet chose to point it out to us as something great that He had slept and risen up, unless that sleep had been death, and that awaking the resurrection, which behoved to be thus prophesied concerning Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown much more clearly, where in the person of the Mediator, in the usual way, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 95, footnote 1 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

He proceeds to refute those arguments which the heretics put forward, not out of the Scriptures, but from their own conceptions. And first he refutes the objection, that to beget and to be begotten, or that to be begotten and not-begotten, being different, are therefore different substances, and shows that these things are spoken of God relatively, and not according to substance. (HTML)
The Father and the Son the Only Beginning (Principium) of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 593 (In-Text, Margin)

... Only-begotten, nor made, so that by the grace of God He might be born into adoption, as we are. For that which is born of the Father, is referred to the Father only when called Son, and so the Son is the Son of the Father, and not also our Son; but that which is given is referred both to Him who gave, and to those to whom He gave; and so the Holy Spirit is not only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son who gave Him, but He is also called ours, who have received Him: as “The salvation of the Lord,”[Psalms 3:8] who gives salvation, is said also to be our salvation, who have received it. Therefore, the Spirit is both the Spirit of God who gave Him, and ours who have received Him. Not, indeed, that spirit of ours by which we are, because that is the spirit ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 157, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

After premising the difference between wisdom and knowledge, he points out a kind of trinity in that which is properly called knowledge; but one which, although we have reached in it the inner man, is not yet to be called the image of God. (HTML)
Why This Opinion is to Be Rejected. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 750 (In-Text, Margin)

... image, but in the image of His Son, why does He not say, “Let us make man after Thy image and likeness,” whereas He does say, “our;” unless it be because the image of the Trinity was made in man, that in this way man should be the image of the one true God, because the Trinity itself is the one true God? Such expressions are innumerable in the Scriptures, but it will suffice to have produced these. It is so said in the Psalms, “Salvation belongeth unto the Lord; Thy blessing is upon Thy people;”[Psalms 3:8] as if the words were spoken to some one else, not to Him of whom it had been said, “Salvation belongeth unto the Lord.” And again, “For by Thee,” he says, “I shall be delivered from temptation, and by hoping in my God I shall leap over the wall;” as ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 521, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings

Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)

Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)

Written in the form of a letter addressed to the Catholics, in which the first portion of the letter which Petilian had written to his adherents is examined and refuted. (HTML)
Chapter 3 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1924 (In-Text, Margin)

... salvation of the spirit is made uncertain, so long as in opposition to the holy Scriptures, which say, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man," and, "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man," they remove the hope of those who are to be baptized from the Lord their God, and persuade them that it should be placed in man; the practical result of which is, that their salvation becomes not merely uncertain, but actually null and void. For "salvation belongeth unto the Lord,"[Psalms 3:8] and "vain is the help of man." Therefore, whosoever places his trust in man, even in one whom he knows to be just and innocent, is accursed. Whence also the Apostle Paul finds fault with those who said they were of Paul saying, "Was Paul crucified ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 622, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings

Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)

Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)

In this book Augustin refutes the second letter which Petilianus wrote to him after having seen the first of Augustin’s earlier books.  This letter had been full of violent language; and Augustin rather shows that the arguments of Petilianus had been deficient and irrelevant, than brings forward arguments in support of his own statements. (HTML)
Chapter 50 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2435 (In-Text, Margin)

62. But the passages which I have advanced to assert the truth of the Catholic Church, are the following: As regards the question of baptism, that our being born again, cleansed, justified by the grace of God, should not be ascribed to the man who administered the sacrament, I quoted these: "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man:" and "Cursed be every one that trusteth in man;" and that, "Salvation belongeth unto the Lord;"[Psalms 3:8] and that, "Vain is the help of man;" and that, "Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase;" and that He in whom men believe justifieth the ungodly, that his faith may be counted to him for righteousness. But in behalf ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 90, footnote 10 (Image)

Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings

A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)

Piety is Wisdom; That is Called the Righteousness of God, Which He Produces. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 783 (In-Text, Margin)

... Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” This is the righteousness of God, which was veiled in the Old Testament, and is revealed in the New; and it is called the righteousness of God, because by His bestowal of it He makes us righteous, just as we read that “salvation is the Lord’s,”[Psalms 3:8] because He makes us safe. And this is the faith “from which” and “to which” it is revealed,— from the faith of them who preach it, to the faith of those who obey it. By this faith of Jesus Christ—that is, the faith which Christ has ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 108, footnote 23 (Image)

Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings

A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)

The Faith of Those Who are Under the Law Different from the Faith of Others. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1041 (In-Text, Margin)

... which faith works, if not from the source whence faith itself obtained it? For it would not be within us, to what extent soever it is in us, if it were not diffused in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us. Now “ the love of God ” is said to be shed abroad in our hearts, not because He loves us, but because He makes us lovers of Himself; just as “ the righteousness of God ” is used in the sense of our being made righteous by His gift; and “ the salvation of the Lord,”[Psalms 3:8] in that we are saved by Him; and “ the faith of Jesus Christ,” because He makes us believers in Him. This is that righteousness of God, which He not only teaches us by the precept of His law, but also bestows upon us by the gift of His ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 487, footnote 2 (Image)

Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings

A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace. (HTML)

To a Sound Will is Committed the Power of Persevering or of Not Persevering. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3370 (In-Text, Margin)

... might have had, but lost; and lost by that very means whereby it might have had them, that is, by its free will; on account of which there remains nothing to those who are to be delivered, save the grace of the Deliverer. Thus, therefore, no flesh glories in His presence. For the unrighteous do not glory, since they have no ground of glory; nor the righteous, because they have a ground from Him, and have no glory of theirs, but Himself, to whom they say, “My glory, and the lifter up of my head.”[Psalms 3:3] And thus it is that what is written pertains to every man, “that no flesh should glory in His presence.” To the righteous, however, pertains that Scripture: “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” For this the apostle most manifestly showed, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 503, footnote 13 (Image)

Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels

Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)

On the words of the Gospel, John vi. 53, ‘Except ye eat the flesh,’ etc., and on the words of the apostles. And the Psalms. Against the Pelagians. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3940 (In-Text, Margin)

9. This then is the righteousness of God. As it is called, “The Lord’s salvation,”[Psalms 3:9] not whereby the Lord is saved, but which He giveth to them whom He saveth; so too the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord is called the righteousness of God, not as that whereby the Lord is righteous, but whereby He justifieth those whom of ungodly He maketh righteous. But some, as the Jews in former times, both wish to be called Christians, and still ignorant of God’s righteousness, desire to establish their own, even in our own times, in the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 201, 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 VIII. 12. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 632 (In-Text, Margin)

... mercy, the same multiplicity of Thy mercy reaches not only to men whom Thou hast created in Thine own image, but even to the beasts which Thou hast made subservient to men. For He who gives salvation to man, the same gives salvation also to the beast. Do not blush to think this of the Lord thy God: nay, rather believe this and trust it, and see thou think not otherwise. He that saves thee, the same saves thy horse and thy sheep; to come to the very least, also thy hen: “Salvation is of the Lord,”[Psalms 3:9] and God saves these. Thou art uneasy, thou questionest. I wonder why thou doubtest. Shall He disdain to save who deigned to create? Of the Lord is the saving of angels, of men, and of beasts: “Salvation is of the Lord.” Just as no man is from ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 262, footnote 7 (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 X. 14–21. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 921 (In-Text, Margin)

... from a bed? But He loves to give glory to the Father, that He may stir us up to glorify our Creator. For in adding, “I arose, for the Lord sustaineth me;” think you there was here a kind of failing in His power, so that, while He had it in His own power to die, He had it not in His power to rise again? So, indeed, the words seem to imply when not more closely considered. “I lay down to sleep;” that is, I did so, because I pleased. “And I arose:” why? “Because the Lord sustaineth [will sustain] me.”[Psalms 3:5] What then? wouldst Thou not have power to rise of Thyself? If Thou hadst not the power, Thou wouldst not have said, “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.” But, as showing that not only did the Father raise the Son, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 348, footnote 2 (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 XV. 8–10. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1404 (In-Text, Margin)

... God, yet such human nature does by grace belong to the person of the only-begotten Son of God; and that by grace so great, that there is none greater, yea, none that even approaches equality. For there were no merits that preceded that assumption of humanity, but all His merits began with that very assumption. The Son, therefore, abideth in the love wherewith the Father hath loved Him, and so hath kept His commandments. For what are we to think of Him even as man, but that God is His lifter up?[Psalms 3:3] for the Word was God, the Only-begotten, co-eternal with Him that begat; but that He might be given to us as Mediator, by grace ineffable, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 12, footnote 2 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm V (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 124 (In-Text, Margin)

... not, “Thou wilt hear,” but “hear Thou”? Is it that after the Church cried out, “hear Thou,” and was not heard, she perceived what must needs pass away to enable her to be heard? Or is it that she was heard above, but doth not yet understand that she was heard, because she doth not yet see by whom she hath been heard; and what she now says, “In the morning Thou wilt hear,” she would have thus taken, In the morning I shall understand that I have been heard? Such is that expression, “Arise, O Lord,”[Psalms 3:7] that is, make me arise. But this latter is taken of Christ’s resurrection: but at all events that Scripture, “The Lord your God proveth you, that He may know whether ye love Him,” cannot be taken in any other sense, than, that ye by Him may know, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 15, footnote 12 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm VI (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 162 (In-Text, Margin)

... arrogate to himself the knowledge of that time, by any computation of years. For if that day is to come after seven thousand years, every man could learn its advent by reckoning the years. What comes then of the Son’s even not knowing this? Which of course is said with this meaning, that men do not learn this by the Son, not that He by Himself doth not know it: according to that form of speech, “the Lord your God trieth you that He may know;” that is, that He may make you know: and, “arise, O Lord;”[Psalms 3:7] that is, make us arise. When therefore the Son is thus said not to know this day; not because He knoweth it not, but because He causeth those to know it not, for whom it is not expedient to know it, that is, He doth not show it to them; what does ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 27, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm VII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 268 (In-Text, Margin)

18. “His toil shall be turned on his head, and his iniquity shall descend on his pate” (ver. 16). For he had no mind to escape sin: but was brought under sin as a slave, so to say, as the Lord saith, “Whosoever sinneth is a slave.” His iniquity then will be upon him, when he is subject to his iniquity; for he could not say to the Lord, what the innocent and upright say, “My glory, and the lifter up of my head.”[Psalms 3:3] He then will be in such wise below, as that his iniquity may be above, and descend on him; for that it weigheth him down and burdens him, and suffers him not to fly back to the rest of the saints. This occurs, when in an ill regulated man reason is a slave, and lust hath dominion.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 32, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm IX (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 327 (In-Text, Margin)

1. The inscription of this Psalm is, “To the end for the hidden things of the Son, a Psalm of David himself.” As to the hidden things of the Son there may be a question: but since he has not added whose, the very only-begotten Son of God should be understood. For where a Psalm has been inscribed of the son of David,[Psalms 3] “When,” he says, “he fled from the face of Absalom his son;” although his name even was mentioned, and therefore there could be no obscurity as to whom it was spoken of: yet it is not merely said, from the face of son Absalom; but “his” is added. But here both because “his” is not added, and much is said of the Gentiles, it cannot ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 41, footnote 4 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm XI (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 413 (In-Text, Margin)

... exaggerating the sins of many in the Church, as if either all or the majority among themselves were righteous, strive to turn and snatch us away from the breasts of the one True Mother Church: affirming that Christ is with them, and warning us as if with piety and earnestness, that by passing over to them we may go over to Christ, whom they falsely declare they have. Now it is known that in prophecy Christ, among the many names in which notice of Him is conveyed in allegory, is also called a mountain.[Psalms 3:3] We must accordingly answer these people, and say, “I trust in the Lord: how say ye to my soul, Remove into the mountains as a sparrow?” (ver. 1). I keep to one mountain wherein I trust, how say ye that I should pass over to you, as if there were ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 130, footnote 11 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm XLI (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1203 (In-Text, Margin)

... Fools! How shall the inheritance be yours? Because ye killed Him? Lo! ye even killed Him; yet shall not the inheritance be yours. “Shall not He that sleepeth add this also, that He rise again”? When ye exulted that ye had slain Him, He slept; for He saith in another Psalm, “I slept.” They raged and would slay Me; “I slept.” If I had not willed, I had not even slept. “I slept,” because “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again.” “I laid Me down and slept, and rose up again.”[Psalms 3:5] Rage then the Jews; be “the earth given into the hands of the wicked,” be the flesh left to the hands of persecutors, let them on wood suspend it, with nails transfix it, with a spear pierce it. “Shall He that sleepeth, not add this, that He rise up ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 139, footnote 5 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm XLIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1289 (In-Text, Margin)

... “brought us and led us to His holy hill, and into His Tabernacles.” We possess the “earnest;” we hope for the prize. “His holy Hill” is His holy Church. It is that mountain which, according to Daniel’s vision, grew from a very small “stone,” till it crushed the kingdoms of the earth; and grew to such a size, that it “filled the face of the earth.” This is the “hill,” from which he tells us that his prayer was heard, who says, “I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill.”[Psalms 3:4] Let no one of those that are without that mountain, hope to be heard unto eternal life. For many are heard in their prayers for many things. Let them not congratulate themselves on being heard; the devils were heard in their prayer, that they might ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 143, footnote 1 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm XLIV (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1338 (In-Text, Margin)

10. “Thou has given us like sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered us among the nations” (ver. 11). We have been “devoured” by “the nations.” Those persons are meant, who, through their sufferings, have by process of assimilation, becomes part of the “body” of the Gentile world. For the Church mourns over them, as over members of her body, that have been devoured.[Psalms 3]

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 155, footnote 4 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm XLV (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1468 (In-Text, Margin)

30. “They shall be mindful of thy name in every generation and generation; therefore shall the peoples confess unto Thee” (ver. 17). What does it profit then to “confess” indeed and yet to confess out of “the Temple”? What does it profit to pray, and yet not to pray on the Mount? “I cried,” says he, “unto the Lord with my voice: and He heard me out of His holy hill.”[Psalms 3:4] Out of what “hill”? Out of that of which it is said, “A city set upon a hill cannot be hid.” Of what “hill”? Out of that hill which Daniel saw “grow out of a small stone, and break all the kingdoms of the earth; and cover all the face of the earth.” There let him pray, who hopes to receive: there let him ask, who ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 314, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXX (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3060 (In-Text, Margin)

... Jesus Christ: whosoever loveth the Saviour, confesseth himself to have been made whole; whosoever confesseth himself to have been made whole, confesseth himself to have been sick. Not their own saving health, as if they could save themselves of themselves: not as it were the saving health of a man, as though by him they could be saved. “Do not,” he saith, “confide in princes, and in the sons of men, in whom there is no safety.” Why so? “Of the Lord is safety, and upon Thy people is Thy blessing.”[Psalms 3:8]

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 320, footnote 2 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXXI (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3121 (In-Text, Margin)

14. “My mouth shall tell out Thy righteousness” (ver. 15): not mine. From thence I will add to all Thy praise: because even that I am righteous, if righteous I am, is Thy righteousness in me, not mine own: for Thou dost justify the ungodly. “All the day long Thy salvation.” What is, “Thy salvation”? Let no one assume to himself, that he saveth himself, “Of the Lord is Salvation.”[Psalms 3:8] Not any one by himself saveth himself, “Vain is man’s salvation.” “All the day long Thy Salvation:” at all times. Something of adversity cometh, preach the Salvation of the Lord: something of prosperity cometh, preach the Salvation of the Lord. Do not preach in prosperity, and hold thy peace in adversity: ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 321, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXXI (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3129 (In-Text, Margin)

... active traders, rely as it were upon their own action, they praise their works, they attain not to the grace of God. Therefore traders are opposed to that grace which this Psalm doth commend. For it doth commend that grace, in order that no one may boast of his own works. Because in a certain place is said, “Physicians shall not raise to life,” ought men to abandon medicine? But what is this? Under this name are understood proud men, promising salvation to men, whereas “of the Lord is Salvation.”[Psalms 3:8] …With reason the Lord drave from the Temple them to whom He said, “It is written, My House shall be called the House of prayer, but ye have made it a house of trading;” that is, boasting of your works, seeking no inaction, nor hearing the Scripture ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 439, footnote 8 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXXXIX (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 4222 (In-Text, Margin)

... faithful shall rise from the dead, and shall themselves live for evermore, without seeing death; yet they shall not themselves deliver their own souls from the hands of Hell. He who delivers His own soul from the hands of Hell, Himself delivers those of His believers: they cannot do so of themselves. Prove that He delivers His own soul. “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again. No man taketh ‘it from Me;’ for I Myself slept, but I lay it down of Myself, and take it again,”[Psalms 3:5] because it is He Himself who delivers His own soul from the hands of Hell.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 497, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 4601 (In-Text, Margin)

... I suppose that Christ born of a Virgin is here meant. He was born in loneliness, because He alone was thus born. After the nativity, we come to His Passion.…Born in the wilderness, because alone so born; suffering in the darkness of the Jews as it were in night, in their sin, as it were in ruins: what next? “I have watched:” and “am become even as it were a sparrow, that sitteth alone upon the house-top” (ver. 7). Thou hadst then slept amid the ruins, and hadst said, “I laid me down, and slept.”[Psalms 3:5] What meaneth, “I slept”? Because I chose, I slept: I slept for love of night: but, “I rose again,” followeth. Therefore “I watched,” is here said. But after He watched, what did He? He ascended into heaven, He became as a sparrow by flying; that is, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 163, footnote 4 (Image)

Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome

The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)

Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)

The Immutable. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 980 (In-Text, Margin)

Orth. —The creature is transformed by the Creator as He will, for it is mutable and obeys the nod of Him that fashioned it. But His nature is immutable and invariable, wherefore of the creature the prophet saith “He that maketh and transformeth all things.” But of the divine Word the great David says “Thou art the same and thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 3:27] And again the same God says of Himself “For I am the Lord and I change not.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 554, footnote 13 (Image)

Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome

Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)

A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed. (HTML)

Section 30 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3364 (In-Text, Margin)

30. It is said then in the Psalms, “I laid me down and slept, and rose up again, because the Lord sustained me.”[Psalms 3:5] Again, in another place, “Because of the wretchedness of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now will I arise, saith the Lord.” And elsewhere, as we have said above, “O Lord, thou hast brought my soul out of hell; Thou hast saved me from them that go down into the pit.” And in another place, “Because Thou hast turned and quickened me, and brought me out of the deep of the earth again.” In the 87th Psalm He is most evidently spoken of: ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 206, footnote 1 (Image)

Basil: Letters and Select Works

The Letters. (HTML)

To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2480 (In-Text, Margin)

... know your press of occupation, while you discharge your responsibilities, not as though they were of mere secondary importance, but in accordance with God’s will. I know the man who is, as it were, laying close siege to you and by whom you are forced, like birds crouching in cover under an eagle, not to go far from your shelter. I know all this. But longing is strong, both in hoping for the impracticable and attempting the impossible. Rather I should say, hope in God is the strongest of all things.[Psalms 3] For it is not from unreasonable desire, but from strength of faith, that I expect a way out, even from the greatest difficulties, and that you will find a way to get over all hindrances, and to come to see the Church that loves you best of all, and ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 324, footnote 8 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)

On the Mysteries. (HTML)

Chapter IX. In order that no one through observing the outward part should waver in faith, many instances are brought forward wherein the outward nature has been changed, and so it is proved that bread is made the true body of Christ. The treatise then is brought to a termination with certain remarks as to the effects of the sacrament, the disposition of the recipients, and such like. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2897 (In-Text, Margin)

... blessing of man had such power as to change nature, what are we to say of that divine consecration where the very words of the Lord and Saviour operate? For that sacrament which you receive is made what it is by the word of Christ. But if the word of Elijah had such power as to bring down fire from heaven, shall not the word of Christ have power to change the nature of the elements? You read concerning the making of the whole world: “He spake and they were made, He commanded and they were created.”[Psalms 3:5] Shall not the word of Christ, which was able to make out of nothing that which was not, be able to change things which already are into what they were not? For it is not less to give a new nature to things than to change them.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 216, footnote 5 (Image)

Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian

The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)

The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)

Book III. Of the Canonical System of the Daily Prayers and Psalms. (HTML)
Chapter VII. How one who does not come to the daily prayer before the end of the first Psalm is not allowed to enter the Oratory; but at Nocturnes a late arrival up to the end of the second Psalm can be overlooked. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 744 (In-Text, Margin)

... quick to make satisfaction at once for his present negligence by the help of true humility. But in the nocturnal assemblies a late arrival up to the second Psalm is allowed, provided that before the Psalm is finished and the brethren bow down in prayer he makes haste to take his place in the congregation and join them; but he will most certainly be subjected to the same blame and penance which we mentioned before if he has delayed ever so little beyond the hour permitted for a late arrival.[Psalms 3]

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 381, footnote 1 (Image)

Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat

Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)

Aphrahat:  Select Demonstrations. (HTML)

Of the Resurrection of the Dead. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1001 (In-Text, Margin)

... to Thee. And our Lord said to him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou, preach the Kingdom of God. But how is this word understood by thee, my beloved? Didst thou ever see the dead burying their dead? Or how shall a dead man arise to bury another dead man? But receive this explanation from me, that a sinner, while he is living, is dead unto God; and a righteous man, though dead, is alive unto God. For such death is a sleep, as David said, I lay down and slept, and awoke.[Psalms 3:4] Again Isaiah said, They that sleep in the dust shall awake. And our Lord said concerning the daughter of the chief of the synagogue, The damsel is not dead, but sleeping a slumber. And concerning Lazarus, He said to His disciples:— ...

Online Dictionary & Commentary of Early Church Beliefs