Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 51:5
There are 25 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 10, footnote 11 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Clement of Rome (HTML)
First Epistle to the Corinthians (HTML)
Chapter XVIII.—David as an example of humility. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 85 (In-Text, Margin)
... Thy governing Spirit. I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and the ungodly shall be converted unto Thee. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation: my tongue shall exult in Thy righteousness. O Lord, Thou shalt open my mouth, and my lips shall show forth Thy praise. For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would have given it; Thou wilt not delight in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice [acceptable] to God is a bruised spirit; a broken and a contrite heart God will not despise.”[Psalms 51:1-17]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 632, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter L (HTML)
Celsus has not explained how error accompanies the “becoming,” or product of generation; nor has he expressed himself with sufficient clearness to enable us to compare his ideas with ours, and to pass judgment on them. But the prophets, who have given some wise suggestions on the subject of things produced by generation, tell us that a sacrifice for sin was offered even for new-born infants, as not being free from sin. They say, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;”[Psalms 51:5] also, “They are estranged from the womb;” which is followed by the singular expression, “They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” Besides, our wise men have such a contempt for all sensible objects, that sometimes they speak of all ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 547, footnote 18 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
In Job: “For who is pure from filth? Not one; even if his life be of one day on the earth.” Also in the fiftieth Psalm: “Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins hath my mother conceived me.”[Psalms 51:5] Also in the Epistle of John: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 391, footnote 2 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)
The History of Joseph the Carpenter. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1728 (In-Text, Margin)
16. Woe to the day on which I was born into the world! Woe to the womb which bare me! Woe to the bowels which admitted me! Woe to the breasts which suckled me! Woe to the feet upon which I sat and rested! Woe to the hands which carried me and reared me until I grew up! For I was conceived in iniquity, and in sins did my mother desire me.[Psalms 51:5] Woe to my tongue and my lips, which have brought forth and spoken vanity, detraction, falsehood, ignorance, derision, idle tales, craft, and hypocrisy! Woe to mine eyes, which have looked upon scandalous things! Woe to mine ears, which have delighted in the words of slanderers! Woe to my hands, which have seized what did not of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 235, footnote 3 (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)
David as an Example of Humility. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4093 (In-Text, Margin)
... Thy governing Spirit. I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and the ungodly shall be converted unto Thee. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation: my tongue shall exult in Thy righteousness. O Lord, Thou shalt open my mouth, and my lips shall show forth Thy praise. For if Thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would have given it; Thou wilt not delight in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice [acceptable] to God is a bruised spirit; a broken and a contrite heart God will not despise.”[Psalms 51:1-17]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 49, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Commencing with the invocation of God, Augustin relates in detail the beginning of his life, his infancy and boyhood, up to his fifteenth year; at which age he acknowledges that he was more inclined to all youthful pleasures and vices than to the study of letters. (HTML)
He Shows by Example that Even Infancy is Prone to Sin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 157 (In-Text, Margin)
... most fair, who madest all things fair, and orderest all according to Thy law. This period, then, of my life, O Lord, of which I have no remembrance, which I believe on the word of others, and which I guess from other infants, it chagrins me—true though the guess be—to reckon in this life of mine which I lead in this world; inasmuch as, in the darkness of my forgetfulness, it is like to that which I passed in my mother’s womb. But if “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,”[Psalms 51:5] where, I pray thee, O my God, where, Lord, or when was I, Thy servant, innocent? But behold, I pass by that time, for what have I to do with that, the memories of which I cannot recall?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 253, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
The Enchiridion. (HTML)
It is Probable that Children are Involved in the Guilt Not Only of the First Pair, But of Their Own Immediate Parents. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1169 (In-Text, Margin)
... sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Here lies the necessity that each man should be born again, that he might be freed from the sin in which he was born. For the sins committed afterwards can be cured by penitence, as we see is the case after baptism. And therefore the new birth would not have been appointed only that the first birth was sinful, so sinful that even one who was legitimately born in wedlock says: “I was shapen in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me.”[Psalms 51:5] He did not say in iniquity, or in sin, though he might have said so correctly; but he preferred to say “iniquities” and “sins,” because in that one sin which passed upon all men, and which was so great that human nature was by it made ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 430, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
Of Holy Virginity. (HTML)
Section 37 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2132 (In-Text, Margin)
... vowed, and, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, not for that Thou threatenedst, but for that Thou exhortedst, they have made themselves eunuchs. To these cry out, let these hear Thee, in that Thou art “meek and lowly of heart.” Let these, by how much they are great, by so much humble themselves in all things, that they may find grace before Thee. They are just: but they are not, are they, such as Thou, justifying the ungodly? They are chaste: but them in sins their mothers nurtured in their wombs.[Psalms 51:5] They are holy, but Thou art also Holy of Holies. They are virgins, but they are not also born of virgins. They are wholly chaste both in spirit and in flesh: but they are not the Word made flesh. And yet let them learn, not from those unto whom Thou ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 589, footnote 4 (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 which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of Petilianus, as though disputing with an adversary face to face. (HTML)
Chapter 102 (HTML)
... us? For what shall be forgiven to one free from sin? Or are you indeed endowed with such an eloquence, that you can show to us some innocence which yet committeth sin? Do you not hear the words of Scripture saying, "No one is clean from sin in Thy sight, not even the infant whose life is but of a single day upon the earth?" For whence else is it that one hastens even with infants to seek remission of their sins? Do you not hear the words of another Scripture, "In sin did my mother conceive me?"[Psalms 51:5] In the next place, if a man returns a murderer, who had come without the guilt of murder, merely because he receives baptism at a murderer’s hands, then all they who returned from receiving baptism at the hands of Optatus were made partakers with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 28, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Baptism is Called Salvation, and the Eucharist, Life, by the Christians of Carthage. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 319 (In-Text, Margin)
... body and blood, it is vain to promise these blessings to infants without them. Moreover, if it be only sins that separate man from salvation and eternal life, there is nothing else in infants which these sacraments can be the means of removing, but the guilt of sin,—respecting which guilty nature it is written, that “no one is clean, not even if his life be only that of a day.” Whence also that exclamation of the Psalmist: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me!”[Psalms 51:5] This is either said in the person of our common humanity, or if of himself only David speaks, it does not imply that he was born of fornication, but in lawful wedlock. We therefore ought not to doubt that even for infants yet to be baptized was that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 74, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
The Error of Jovinianus Did Not Extend So Far. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 687 (In-Text, Margin)
... found nothing in Him; whom, though He had done no sin, God made sin for us. We, however, according to the Epistle of James, all commit many sins; and none of us is pure from uncleanness, even if his life should be but of one day. For who shall boast that he has a clean heart? Or who shall be confident that he is pure from sins? We are held guilty according to the likeness of Adam’s transgression. Accordingly David also says: ‘Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.’”[Psalms 51:5]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 246, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
The Righteous Men Who Lived in the Time of the Law Were for All that Not Under the Law, But Under Grace. The Grace of the New Testament Hidden Under the Old. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1969 (In-Text, Margin)
... more abound, even the grace which alone delivers from the body of this death. [XXV.] Yet, notwithstanding this, although not even the law which Moses gave was able to liberate any man from the dominion of death, there were even then, too, at the time of the law, men of God who were not living under the terror and conviction and punishment of the law, but under the delight and healing and liberation of grace. Some there were who said, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;”[Psalms 51:5] and, “There is no rest in my bones, by reason of my sins;” and, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit in my inward parts;” and, “Stablish me with Thy directing Spirit;” and, “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” There were some, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 253, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
Sentences from Ambrose in Favour of Original Sin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2042 (In-Text, Margin)
... Concerning the Resurrection, he says: “I fell in Adam, in Adam was I expelled from Paradise, in Adam I died; and He does not recall me unless He has found me in Adam,—so as that, as I am obnoxious to the guilt of sin in him, and subject to death, I may be also justified in Christ.” Then, again, writing against the Novatians, he says: “We men are all of us born in sin; our very origin is in sin; as you may read when David says, ‘Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.’[Psalms 51:5] Hence it is that Paul’s flesh is ‘a body of death;’ even as he says himself, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ Christ’s flesh, however, has con demned sin, which He experienced not by being born, and which by dying He crucified, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 303, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
The Rise and Origin of Evil. The Exorcism and Exsufflation of Infants, a Primitive Christian Rite. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2306 (In-Text, Margin)
... that they were not removed into the kingdom of Christ without first being delivered from the power of darkness; nor is it in the books of Manichæus that we read how “the Son of man come to seek and to save that which was lost,” or how “by one man sin entered into the world,” with those other similar passages which we have quoted above; or how God “visits the sins of the fathers upon the children;” or how it is written in the Psalm, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;”[Psalms 51:5] or again, how “man was made like unto vanity: his days pass away like a shadow;” or again, “behold, Thou hast made my days old, and my existence as nothing before Thee; nay, every man living is altogether vanity;” or how the apostle says, “every ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 418, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Pelagians and Manicheans on the Praise of the Creature. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2782 (In-Text, Margin)
... mercy, seeing that by condemning both mischievous doctrines it comes to the help of the infant for salvation. It says to the Manicheans, “Hear the apostle crying, ‘Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you?’ and believe that the good God is the Creator of bodies, because the temple of the Holy Ghost cannot be the work of the prince of darkness.” It says to the Pelagians, “The infant that you look upon ‘was conceived in iniquity, and in sin its mother nourished it in the womb.’[Psalms 51:5] Why, as if in defending it as free from all mischief, do you not permit it to be delivered by mercy? No one is pure from uncleanness, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth. Allow the wretched creatures to receive remission of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 430, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Cyprian’s Testimonies Concerning the Imperfection of Our Own Righteousness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2875 (In-Text, Margin)
... this subject, to which he subjoined the divine testimonies, “That no one is without filth and without sin.” There also he set down those testimonies by which original sin is confirmed, which these men endeavour to twist into I know not what new and evil meanings, whether what the holy Job says, “No one is pure from filth, not one even if his life be of one day upon the earth,” or what is read in the Psalm, “Behold, I was conceived in iniquity; and in sins hath my mother nourished me in the womb.”[Psalms 51:5] To which testimonies, on account of those also who are already holy in mature age, since even they are not without filth and sin, he added also that word of the most blessed John, which he often mentions in many other places besides, “If we say that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 431, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
The Testimonies of Ambrose Against the Pelagians and First of All Concerning Original Sin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2886 (In-Text, Margin)
... of the feet, for those who fell in the first man, the filth of the obnoxious succession was abolished.” Also in the same work he says: “It was preserved, therefore, that of a man and woman, that is, by that mingling of bodies, no one could be seen to be free from sin; but He who is free from sin is free also from this kind of conception.” Also writing against the Novatians he says: “All of us men are born under sin. And our very origin is in corruption, as you have it read in the words of David,[Psalms 51:5] ‘For lo, I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins hath my mother brought me forth.’” Also in the apology of the prophet David, he says: “Before we are born we are spotted with contagion, and before the use of light we receive the mischief of that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 431, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
The Testimonies of Ambrose Against the Pelagians and First of All Concerning Original Sin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2890 (In-Text, Margin)
... these defilements of nature, and the fact that the stain had begun in man before his life.” Again, in the Ark of Noah he says: “Therefore by one Lord Jesus the coming salvation is declared to the nations; for He only could be righteous, although every generation should go astray, nor for any other reason than that, being born of a virgin, He was not at all bound by the ordinance of a guilty generation. ‘Behold,’ he says, ‘I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins has my mother brought me forth;’[Psalms 51:5] he who was esteemed righteous beyond others so speaks. Whom, then, should I now call righteous unless Him who is free from those chains, whom the bonds of our common nature do not hold fast?” Behold, this holy man, most approved, even by the witness ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 536, 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, John xvi. 7, ‘I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4240 (In-Text, Margin)
1. medicine for all the wounds of the soul, and the one propitiation for the offences of men, is to believe on Christ; nor can any one be cleansed at all, whether from original sin which he derived from Adam,[Psalms 51:5] in whom all men have sinned, and become by nature children of wrath; or from the sins which they have themselves added, by not resisting the concupiscence of the flesh, but by following and serving it in unclean and injurious deeds: unless by faith they are united and compacted into His Body, who was conceived without any enticement of the flesh and deadly pleasure, and whom His Mother ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 652, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5821 (In-Text, Margin)
... in dark places, as the dead of the world.” This ye hear more readily from the Head; this ye perceive more readily in the Head. For He died indeed for us, yet was He not one of the “dead of the world.” For who are the “dead of the world”? And how was not He one of the “dead of the world”? “The dead of the world” are those who have died of their own desert, receiving the reward of iniquity, deriving death from the sin transmissed to them; according as it is said, “For I was conceived in iniquity.”[Psalms 51:5] …In dying, saith He, I do the will of My Father, but I am not deserving of death. Nought have I done wherefore I should die, yet is it Mine own doing that I die, that by the death of an innocent One, they may be freed who had wherefore they should ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 273, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Ctesiphon. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3787 (In-Text, Margin)
... God.” The preacher also who is the mouthpiece of the Divine Wisdom freely protests and says: “there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not:” and again, “if thy people sin against thee, for there is no man that sinneth not:” and “who can say, I have made my heart clean?” and “none is clean from stain, not even if his life on earth has been but for one day.” David insists on the same thing when he says: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me;”[Psalms 51:5] and in another psalm, “in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” This last passage they try to explain away from motives of reverence, arguing that the meaning is that no man is perfect in comparison with God. Yet the scripture does not say: ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 293, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Sabinianus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3996 (In-Text, Margin)
... have your sight restored; if you cry to Him, and cast away your filthy garments at His call. “When thou shalt turn and bewail thyself then shalt thou be saved, and then shalt thou know where thou hast hitherto been.” Let Him but touch your scars and pass his hands over your eyeballs; and although you may have been born blind from the womb and although your mother may have conceived you in sin, he will purge you with hyssop and you shall be clean, he will wash you and you shall be whiter than snow.[Psalms 51:5] Why is it that you are bowed together and bent down to the ground, why is it that you are still prostrate in the mire? She whom Satan had bound for eighteen years came to the Saviour; and being cured by Him was made straight so that she could once ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 388, footnote 11 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4669 (In-Text, Margin)
... lamb is dumb before its shearer, so opened he not his mouth.” To Him came the prince of this world, and found nothing in Him: although He had done no sin, God made Him sin for us. But we, according to the Epistle of James, “all stumble in many things,” and “no one is pure from sin, no not if his life be but a day long.” For who will boast “that he has a clean heart? or who will be sure that he is pure from sin?” And we are held guilty after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. Hence David says,[Psalms 51:5] “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And the blessed Job, “Though I be righteous my mouth will speak wickedness, and though I be perfect, I shall be found perverse. If I wash myself with snow water and make my ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 464, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5245 (In-Text, Margin)
... And although he professes to imitate, or rather complete the work of the blessed martyr Cyprian in the treatise which the latter wrote to Quirinus, he does not perceive that he has said just the opposite in the work under discussion. Cyprian, in the fifty-fourth heading of the third book, lays it down that no one is free from stain and without sin, and he immediately gives proofs, among them the passage in Job, “Who is cleansed from uncleanness? Not he who has lived but one day upon the earth.”[Psalms 51:5] And in the fifty-first Psalm, “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And in the Epistle of John, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” You, on the other hand, maintain ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 351, footnote 11 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3894 (In-Text, Margin)
... Conception, and leap before Him; if not like John from the womb, yet like David, because of the resting of the Ark. Revere the enrolment on account of which thou wast written in heaven, and adore the Birth by which thou wast loosed from the chains of thy birth, and honour little Bethlehem, which hath led thee back to Paradise; and worship the manger through which thou, being without sense, wast fed by the Word. Know as Isaiah bids thee, thine Owner, like the ox, and like the ass thy Master’s crib;[Psalms 51:5] if thou be one of those who are pure and lawful food, and who chew the cud of the word and are fit for sacrifice. Or if thou art one of those who are as yet unclean and uneatable and unfit for sacrifice, and of the gentile portion, run with the ...