Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Psalms 8:4

There are 9 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 228, footnote 1 (Image)

Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (HTML)

The Instructor (HTML)

Book I (HTML)
Chapter VIII.—Against Those Who Think that What is Just is Not Good. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1203 (In-Text, Margin)

Very clearly, then, we conclude Him to be one and the same God, thus. For the Holy Spirit has sung, “I will look to the heavens, the works of Thy hands;”[Psalms 8:4] and, “He who created the heavens dwells in the heavens;” and, “Heaven is Thy throne.” And the Lord says in His prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” And the heavens belong to Him, who created the world. It is indisputable, then, that the Lord is the Son of the Creator. And if, the Creator above all is confessed to be just, and the Lord to be the Son of the Creator; then the Lord is the Son of Him who is just. ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 657, footnote 4 (Image)

Tertullian (I, II, III)

Ethical. (HTML)

On Repentance. (HTML)

True Repentance a Thing Divine, Originated by God, and Subject to His Laws. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8424 (In-Text, Margin)

... In short, they would regulate the limit of their repentance, because they would reach (a limit) in sinning too—by fearing God, I mean. But where there is no fear, in like manner there is no amendment; where there is no amendment, repentance is of necessity vain, for it lacks the fruit for which God sowed it; that is, man’s salvation. For God—after so many and so great sins of human temerity, begun by the first of the race, Adam, after the condemnation of man, together with the dowry of the world[Psalms 8:4-8] after his ejection from paradise and subjection to death—when He had hasted back to His own mercy, did from that time onward inaugurate repentance in His own self, by rescinding the sentence of His first wrath, engaging to grant pardon to His own ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 709, footnote 21 (Image)

Tertullian (I, II, III)

Ethical. (HTML)

On Patience. (HTML)

As God is the Author of Patience So the Devil is of Impatience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 9052 (In-Text, Margin)

... their authors. Further, since God is best, the devil on the contrary worst, of beings, by their own very diversity they testify that neither works for the other; so that anything of good can no more seem to be effected for us by the Evil One, than anything of evil by the Good. Therefore I detect the nativity of impatience in the devil himself, at that very time when he impatiently bore that the Lord God subjected the universal works which He had made to His own image, that is, to man.[Psalms 8:4-6] For if he had endured (that), he would not have grieved; nor would he have envied man if he had not grieved. Accordingly he deceived him, because he had envied him; but he had envied because he had grieved: he had grieved because, of course, he had ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 534, footnote 2 (Image)

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

Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On Patience. (HTML)

Section 19 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2683 (In-Text, Margin)

19. Since the case is so, what is man, while in this life he uses his own proper will, ere he choose and love God, but unrighteous and ungodly? “What,” I say, “is man,” a creature going astray from the Creator, unless his Creator “be mindful of him,”[Psalms 8:4] and choose him freely, and love him freely? Because he is himself not able to choose or love, unless being first chosen and loved he be healed, because by choosing blindness he perceiveth not, and by loving laziness is soon wearied. But perchance some man may say: In what manner is it that God first chooses and loves unjust men, that He may justify them, when it is ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 353, footnote 1 (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, Matt. xviii. 7, where we are admonished to beware of the offences of the world. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2694 (In-Text, Margin)

1. divine lessons, which we have just heard as they were being read, warn us to gather in a stock of virtues, to fortify a Christian heart, against the offences which were predicted to come, and this from the mercy of the Lord. “For what is man,” saith Scripture, “saving that Thou art mindful of him?”[Psalms 8:4] “Woe unto the world because of offences,” saith the Lord; the Truth says so; He alarmeth and warneth us, He would not have us to be off our guard; for surely He would not make us desperate. Against this “woe,” against this evil, that is, which is to be feared, and dreaded, and guarded against, Scripture counsels, and exhorts, and instructs us in ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 444, footnote 5 (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, Luke xiii. 6, where we are told of the fig-tree, which bare no fruit for three years; and of the woman which was in an infirmity eighteen years; and on the words of the ninth Psalm, v. 19, ‘Arise, O Lord; let not man prevail: let the nations be judged in thy sight.’ (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3446 (In-Text, Margin)

... the “three years” then in “the tree” signified, that do the “eighteen years” in this woman. She was bent down, she could not look up; because in vain did she hear, “Up with your hearts.” But the Lord made her straight. There is hope then, for the children, that is, even until the day of judgment come. Man ascribes much to himself. Yet what is man? A righteous man is something great. But yet a righteous man is righteous only by the grace of God. “For what is man, save that thou art mindful of him?”[Psalms 8:4] Wouldest thou see what man is? “All men are liars.” We have chanted, “Arise, Lord; let not man prevail.” What is, “let not man prevail”? Were not the Apostles men? Were not Martyrs men? The Lord Jesus Himself, without ceasing to be God, vouchsafed ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 13, footnote 4 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm V (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 134 (In-Text, Margin)

... in saying, “But I, in the multitude of Thy mercy, will enter into Thine house” (ver. 7). “In the multitude of mercy:” perhaps he means in the multitude of perfected and blessed men, of whom that city shall consist, of which the Church is now in travail, and is bearing few by few. Now that many men regenerated and perfected, are rightly called the multitude of God’s mercy, who can deny; when it is most truly said, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him?[Psalms 8:4] I will enter into Thine house:” as a stone into a building, I suppose, is the meaning. For what else is the house of God than the Temple of God, of which it is said, “for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are”? Of which building He is the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 43, footnote 8 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm XI (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 444 (In-Text, Margin)

... drawn to shore, concerning which heretics upbraid us to their own ruin and our correction, are caused by those men, who will not be Christ’s poor. But do they turn away God’s eyes from such as would be so? “For His eyes look upon the poor.” Is it to be feared lest, in the crowd of the rich, He may not be able to see the few poor, whom He brings up in safe keeping in the bosom of the Catholic Church? “His eyelids question the sons of men.” Here by that rule I would wish to take “the sons of men”[Psalms 8:4] of those that from old men have been regenerated by faith. For these, by certain obscure passages of Scripture, as it were the closed eyes of God, are exercised that they may seek: and again, by certain clear passages, as it were the open eyes of ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 558, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CXVIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 5111 (In-Text, Margin)

7. “I have been driven on like a heap of sand, so that I was falling, but the Lord upheld me” (ver. 13). For though there were a great multitude of believers, that might be compared to the countless sand, and brought into one communion as into one heap; yet “what is man, save Thou be mindful of Him?”[Psalms 8:4] He said not, the multitude of the Gentiles could not surpass the abundance of my host, but, “the Lord,” he saith, “hath upheld me.” The persecution of the Gentiles succeeded not in pushing forward, to its overthrow, the host of the faithful dwelling together in the unity of the faith.

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