Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 14:1
There are 22 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 108, footnote 11 (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)
... be wise, for their error and hardness of heart. Jeremiah, indeed, said: “Every man is brutishly gone astray from the knowledge of Him; every founder is confounded by his graven images; in vain the silversmith makes his molten images; there is no breath in them: in the day of their visitation they shall perish.” The same, too, says David: “They are corrupt, they have done abominable works; there is none that doeth good, no, not one; they have all gone aside, they have together become profitless.”[Psalms 14:1] So also Habakkuk: “What profiteth the graven image that he has graven it a lying image? Woe to him that saith to the stone, Awake; and to the wood, Arise.” Likewise spoke the other prophets of the truth. And why should I recount the multitude of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 90, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of fate, freewill, and God’s prescience, and of the source of the virtues of the ancient Romans. (HTML)
Concerning the Foreknowledge of God and the Free Will of Man, in Opposition to the Definition of Cicero. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 195 (In-Text, Margin)
... triumphant, because truly these are such as destroy and refute themselves. Nevertheless, they are far more tolerable who assert the fatal influence of the stars than they who deny the foreknowledge of future events. For, to confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly. This Cicero himself saw, and therefore attempted to assert the doctrine embodied in the words of Scripture, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”[Psalms 14:1] That, however, he did not do in his own person, for he saw how odious and offensive such an opinion would be; and therefore, in his book on the nature of the gods, he makes Cotta dispute concerning this against the Stoics, and preferred to give his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 167, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He expounds this trinity that he has found in knowledge by commending Christian faith. (HTML)
The Attempt is Made to Distinguish Out of the Scriptures the Offices of Wisdom and of Knowledge. That in the Beginning of John Some Things that are Said Belong to Wisdom, Some to Knowledge. Some Things There are Only Known by the Help of Faith. How We See the Faith that is in Us. In the Same Narrative of John, Some Things are Known by the Sense of the Body, Others Only by the Reason of the Mind. (HTML)
... themselves are men, and through intercourse with men; so that they are able to think what is said, “There was a man, whose name was John,” because they know the names also by interchange of speech. But that which is there also, viz. “sent from God,” they who hold at all, hold by faith; and they who do not hold it by faith, either hesitate through doubt, or deride it through unbelief. Yet both, if they are not in the number of those over-foolish ones, who say in their heart “There is no God,”[Psalms 14:1] when they hear these words, think both things, viz. both what God is, and what it is to be sent from God; and if they do not do this as the things themselves really are, they do it at any rate as they can.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 380, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Continence. (HTML)
Section 4 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1816 (In-Text, Margin)
... commit adultery with her in his heart? Or if the harlot be not found in the brothel, doth he, who seeks her, on that account fail to commit fornication in his heart? Or if time and place be wanting to one who wishes to hurt his neighbor by a lie, hath he on that account failed already to speak false witness with his inner mouth? Or if any one fearing men, dare not utter aloud blasphemy with tongue of flesh, is he on this account guiltless of this crime, who saith in his heart, “There is no God.”[Psalms 14:1] Thus all the other evil deeds of men, which no motion of the body performs, of which no sense of the body is conscious, have their own secret criminals, who are also polluted by consent alone in thought, that is, by evil words of the inner mouth. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 606, footnote 6 (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 21 (HTML)
... had consciences stained with guilt and adultery, whilst men were unwittingly baptized by them after they were degraded by the sin subsequently brought to light, and yet the sky did not fall! What have we here to do with Pilus and Furius, who defended the cause of injustice against justice? What have we here to do with the atheist Diagoras, who denied that there was any God, so that he would seem to be the man of whom the prophet spoke beforehand, "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God?"[Psalms 14:1] What have we here to do with these? Why were their names brought in, except that they might make a diversion in favor of a man who had nothing to say? that while he is at any rate saying something, though needlessly, about these, the matter in hand ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 123, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
A Distinction Drawn by Pelagius Between the Possible and Actual. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1148 (In-Text, Margin)
... sin. Among the many passages in which he treats of this subject, occurs the following: “I once more repeat my position: I say that it is possible for a man to be without sin. What do you say? That it is impossible for a man to be without sin? But I do not say,” he adds, “that there is a man without sin; nor do you say, that there is not a man without sin. Our contention is about what is possible, and not possible; not about what is, and is not.” He then enumerates certain passages of Scripture,[Psalms 14:1] which are usually alleged in opposition to them, and insists that they have nothing to do with the question, which is really in dispute, as to the possibility or impossibility of a man’s being without sin. This is what he says: “No man indeed is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 432, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
The Testimonies of Ambrose on the Imperfection of Present Righteousness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2904 (In-Text, Margin)
... shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth,’ such things as these cannot seem to have been said of any time whatever but of that future time, in which there shall be a new earth and a new heaven. Therefore they shall be disturbed that they may take their beginning. ‘And when Thou openest Thy hand all things shall be filled with goodness,’ which is not easily characteristic of this age. For concerning this age what does Scripture say? ‘There is none that doeth good, no, not one.’[Psalms 14:1] If, therefore, there are different generations,—and here the very entrance into this life is the receiver of sins to such an extent that even he who begot should be despised; while another generation does not receive sins;—let us consider whether by ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 509, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
That No One is Judged According to What He Would Have Done If He Had Lived Longer. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3502 (In-Text, Margin)
... such men, that infants’ future merits (which shall not be) should be punished or honoured. But why is it said that a man is to be judged according to those things which he has done by means of the body, when many things are done by the mind alone, and not by the body, nor by any member of the body; and for the most part things of such importance, that a most righteous punishment would be due to such thought, such as,—to say nothing of others,—that “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God”?[Psalms 14:1] What, then, is the meaning of, “According to those things that he hath done by means of the body,” except according to those things which he has done during that time in which he was in the body, so that we may understand “by means of the body” as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 311, 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, Matt. xi. 25, ‘I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2259 (In-Text, Margin)
... that is, His Body. Whence He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again.” But the sinner is dead, especially he whom the load of sinful habit presseth down, who is buried as it were like Lazarus. For he was not merely dead, he was buried also. Whosoever then is oppressed by the load of evil habit, of a wicked life, of earthly lusts, I mean, so that that in his case is true which is piteously described in a certain Psalm, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,”[Psalms 14:1] he is such an one, of whom it is said, “Confession perisheth from the dead, as from one that is not.” And who shall raise him up, but He who when the stone was removed, cried out, and said, “Lazarus, Come forth?” Now what is to “come forth,” but to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 316, footnote 3 (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. xix. 28, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2312 (In-Text, Margin)
... seest? Well therefore in the foregoing words of this very Psalm doth He say, “Understand therefore ye unwise among the people, and ye fools at length be wise.” For many men commit evil deeds whilst they think they are not seen by God. And it is difficult indeed for them to believe that He cannot see them; but they think that He will not. Few are found of such great impiety, that that should be fulfilled in them which is written, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”[Psalms 14:1] This is but the madness of a few. For as great piety belongs but to the few, no less also does great impiety. But the multitude of men speak thus: What! is God thinking now upon this, that He should know what I am doing in my house, and does God ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 202, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1930 (In-Text, Margin)
2. “The unwise man hath said in his heart, There is no God” (ver. 1). Such sort is it of men amid whom is pained and groaneth the Body of Christ. If such is this sort of men, of not many do we travail; as far as seemeth to occur to our thoughts, very few there are; and a difficult thing it is to meet with a man that saith in his heart, “There is no God;”[Psalms 14:1] nevertheless, so few there are, that, fearing amid the many to say this, in their heart they say it, for that with mouth to say it they dare not. Not much then is that which we are bid to endure, hardly is it found: uncommon is that sort of men that say in their heart, “There is no God.” But, if it be examined in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 349, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3389 (In-Text, Margin)
... Dried be the rivers of Etham! Perish those doctrines of the Gentiles, flourish the plantations of Jerusalem! Let them see what they can, in heart believe what they cannot see! Certainly all those things which throughout the world now are seen, when God was working Salvation in the midst of the earth, when those things were being spoken of, they were not then as yet: and behold at that time they were foretold, now they are shown as fulfilled, and still the fool saith in his heart, “there is no God.”[Psalms 14:1] Woe to the perverse hearts: for so will there come to pass the things which remain, as there have come to pass the things which at that time were not, and were being foretold as to come to pass. Hath God indeed performed to us all the things which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 352, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3418 (In-Text, Margin)
... before thyself, and will bring upon thee punishment from thyself. So also here, “Speak not iniquity against God.” Attend. Many men speak this iniquity; but dare not openly, lest as blasphemers they be abhorred by godly men: in their heart they gnaw upon these things, within they feed upon such impious food; it delighteth them to speak against God, and if they break not out with tongue, in heart they are not silent. Whence in another Psalm is said, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”[Psalms 14:1] The fool hath said, but he hath feared men: he would not say it where men might hear; and he said it in that place where He might Himself hear concerning whom he said it. Therefore here also in this Psalm (dearly beloved attend), whereas that which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 428, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4120 (In-Text, Margin)
11. “Shall thy wondrous works be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land where all things are forgotten?” (ver. 12), the dark answers to the land of forgetfulness: for the unbelieving are meant by the dark, as the Apostle saith, “For ye were sometimes darkness;” and the land where all things are forgotten, is the man who has forgotten God; for the unbelieving soul can arrive at darkness so intense, “that the fool saith in his heart, There is no God.”[Psalms 14:1] Thus the meaning of the whole passage may thus be drawn out in its connection: “Lord, I have called upon Thee,” amid My sufferings; “all day I have stretched forth my hands unto Thee” (ver. 13). I have never ceased to stretch forth My works to glorify Thee. Why ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 123, footnote 1 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Narrative of events at Alexandria in the time of Lucius the Arian, taken from a letter of Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria. (HTML)
Now I invoke your zeal to rise in our vindication. From what I write you ought to be able to calculate the character and extent of the wrongs committed against the Church of God by the starting up of this Lucius to oppose us. Often rejected by your piety and by the orthodox bishops of every region, he seized on a city which had just and righteous cause to regard and treat him as a foe. For he does not merely say like the blasphemous fool in the psalms “Christ is not true God.”[Psalms 14:1] But, corrupt himself, he corrupted others, rejoicing in the blasphemies uttered continually against the Saviour by them who worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The scoundrel’s opinions being quite on a par with those of a heathen, why should he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 491, footnote 1 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Synodal Letter to the Bishops of Africa. (Ad Afros Epistola Synodica.) (HTML)
Synodal Letter to the Bishops of Africa. (Ad Afros Epistola Synodica.) (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3730 (In-Text, Margin)
... existence.’ For subsistence, and essence, is existence: for it is, or in other words exists. This Paul also perceiving wrote to the Hebrews, ‘who being the brightness of his glory, and the express Image of his subsistence.’ But the others, who think they know the Scriptures and call themselves wise, and do not choose to speak of subsistence in God (for thus they wrote at Ariminum and at other synods of theirs), were surely with justice deposed, saying as they did, like the fool did in his heart[Psalms 14:1], ‘God is not.’ And again the fathers taught at Nicæa that the Son and Word is not a creature, nor made, having read ‘all things were made through Him,’ and ‘in Him were all things created, and consist;’ while these men, Arians rather than ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 536, footnote 1 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
For 339. Coss. Constantius Augustus II, Constans I; Præfect, Philagrius the Cappadocian, for the second time; Indict. xii; Easter-day xvii Kal. Mai, xx Pharmuthi; Æra Dioclet. 55. (HTML)
... above everything to adjudge the chief place to faith in God. For what grace has the unrighteous man, though he may feign to keep the commandments? Nay rather, the unrighteous man is unable even to keep a portion of the law, for as is his mind, such of necessity must be his actions; as the Spirit says, reproving such; ‘The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.’ After this the Word, shewing that actions correspond with thoughts, says, ‘They are corrupt; they are profane in their machinations[Psalms 14:1-2].’ The unrighteous man then, in every respect corrupts his body; stealing, committing adultery, cursing, being drunken, and doing such like things. Even as Jeremiah, the prophet, convicts Israel of these things, crying out and saying, ‘Oh, that I had ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 547, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
(For 347.) Coss. Rufinus, Eusebius; Præf. the same Nestorius; Indict. v; Easter-day, Prid. Id. Apr., Pharmuthi xvii; Æra Dioclet. 63; Moon 15. (HTML)
6. Like these too, are the heretics, who, having fallen from true discernment, dare to invent to themselves atheism. ‘For the fool saith in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, and become abominable in their doings[Psalms 14:1].’ Of such as are fools in their thoughts, the actions are wicked, as He saith, ‘can ye, being evil, speak good things;’ for they were evil, because they thought wickedness. Or how can those do just acts, whose minds are set upon fraud? Or how shall he love, who is prepared beforehand to hate? How shall he be merciful, who is bent upon the love of money? How shall he be chaste, who ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 561, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Personal Letters. (HTML)
Second Letter to Lucifer. (HTML)
... should suffer trouble at their hands. For whom do Arians spare, who have spared not even their own souls? Or how can they give up their infamous actions while they persist in denying Christ our Lord the only Son of God? This is the root of their wickedness; on this foundation of sand they build up the perversity of their ways, as we find it written in the thirteenth Psalm, ‘The fool said in his heart there is no God;’ and presently follows, ‘Corrupt are they and become abominable in their works[Psalms 14:1].’ Hence the Jews who denied the Son of God, deserved to be called ‘a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children without law.’ Why ‘without law?’—because you have deserted the Lord. And so the most blessed Paul, when ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 124, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Heliodorus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1812 (In-Text, Margin)
... of eternal death did but receive life that he might perish! For “death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be in hell, who can be in the kingdom of heaven? If Thy friends—even those who had not sinned themselves—were yet for the sins of another liable to the punishment of offending Adam, what must we think of those who have said in their hearts “There is no God;” who “are corrupt and abominable”[Psalms 14:1] in their self-will, and of whom it is said “they are gone out of the way, they are become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one”? Even if Lazarus is seen in Abraham’s bosom and in a place of refreshment, still the lower regions ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 2b, footnote 8 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Proof that there is a God. (HTML)
... God, then, is no matter of doubt to those who receive the Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament, I mean, and the New; nor indeed to most of the Greeks. For, as we said, the knowledge of the existence of God is implanted in us by nature. But since the wickedness of the Evil One has prevailed so mightily against man’s nature as even to drive some into denying the existence of God, that most foolish and woe-fulest pit of destruction (whose folly David, revealer of the Divine meaning, exposed when he said[Psalms 14:1], The fool said in his heart, There is no God), so the disciples of the Lord and His Apostles, made wise by the Holy Spirit and working wonders in His power and grace, took them captive in the net of miracles and drew them up out of the depths ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 239, footnote 2 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter XIII. The wicked and dishonourable opinions held by Arians, Sabellians, and Manichæans as concerning their Judge are shortly refuted. Christ's remonstrances regarding the rest of His adversaries being set forth, St. Ambrose expresses a hope of milder judgment for himself. (HTML)
117. Thus let the followers of Arius and Photinus speak. “I deny Thy Godhead.” To whom the Lord will make answer: “‘The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God’[Psalms 14:1] Of whom, think you, is this said?—of Jew or Gentile, or of the devil. Whosoever he be of whom it is said, O disciple of Photinus, he is more to be borne with, who held his peace; thou, nevertheless, hast dared to lift up thy voice to utter it, that thou mightest be proved more foolish than the fool. Thou deniest My Godhead, whereas I said, ‘Ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Most Highest?’ And thou ...