Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 102
There are 73 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 465, footnote 10 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter III.—Answer to the cavils of the Gnostics. We are not to suppose that the true God can be changed, or come to an end because the heavens, which are His throne and the earth, His footstool, shall pass away. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3831 (In-Text, Margin)
... shall God remain, but His servants also, expressing himself thus in the 101st Psalm: “In the beginning, Thou, O Lord, hast founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure, and all shall wax old as a garment; and as a vesture Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail. The children of Thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established for ever;”[Psalms 102:25-28] pointing out plainly what things they are that pass away, and who it is that doth endure for ever—God, together with His servants. And in like manner Esaias says: “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath; for the heaven has ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 493, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter VII.—What True Philosophy Is, and Whence So Called. (HTML)
... the manner of painting. And always in the case of each one of them, their self-love is the cause of all their mistakes. Wherefore one ought not, in the desire for the glory that terminates in men, to be animated by self-love; but loving God, to become really holy with wisdom. If, then, one treats what is particular as universal, and regards that, which serves, as the Lord, he misses the truth, not understanding what was spoken by David by way of confession: “I have eaten earth [ashes] like bread.”[Psalms 102:9] Now, self-love and self-conceit are, in his view, earth and error. But if so, science and knowledge are derived from instruction. And if there is instruction, you must seek for the master. Cleanthes claims Zeno, and Metrodorus Epicurus, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 493, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter VII.—What True Philosophy Is, and Whence So Called. (HTML)
... the manner of painting. And always in the case of each one of them, their self-love is the cause of all their mistakes. Wherefore one ought not, in the desire for the glory that terminates in men, to be animated by self-love; but loving God, to become really holy with wisdom. If, then, one treats what is particular as universal, and regards that, which serves, as the Lord, he misses the truth, not understanding what was spoken by David by way of confession: “I have eaten earth [ashes] like bread.”[Psalms 102:9] Now, self-love and self-conceit are, in his view, earth and error. But if so, science and knowledge are derived from instruction. And if there is instruction, you must seek for the master. Cleanthes claims Zeno, and Metrodorus Epicurus, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 497, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Hermogenes. (HTML)
A Presumption that All Things Were Created by God Out of Nothing Afforded by the Ultimate Reduction of All Things to Nothing. Scriptures Proving This Reduction Vindicated from Hermogenes' Charge of Being Merely Figurative. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 6494 (In-Text, Margin)
... shall be rolled together as a scroll;” nay, it shall come to nothing along with the earth itself, with which it was made in the beginning. “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” says He. “The first heaven and the first earth passed away,” “and there was found no place for them,” because, of course, that which comes to an end loses locality. In like manner David says, “The heavens, the works of Thine hands, shall themselves perish. For even as a vesture shall He change them, and they shall be changed.”[Psalms 102:25-26] Now to be changed is to fall from that primitive state which they lose whilst undergoing the change. “And the stars too shall fall from heaven, even as a fig-tree casteth her green figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind.” “The mountains shall melt ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 502, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Hermogenes. (HTML)
Conclusion. Contrast Between the Statements of Hermogenes and the Testimony of Holy Scripture Respecting the Creation. Creation Out of Nothing, Not Out of Matter. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 6597 (In-Text, Margin)
... Matter. They did not even mention any Matter, but (said) that Wisdom was first set up, the beginning of His ways, for His works. Then that the Word was produced, “through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.” Indeed, “by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their hosts by the breath of His mouth.” He is the Lord’s right hand, indeed His two hands, by which He worked and constructed the universe. “For,” says He, “the heavens are the works of Thine hands,”[Psalms 102:25] wherewith “He hath meted out the heaven, and the earth with a span.” Do not be willing so to cover God with flattery, as to contend that He produced by His mere appearance and simple approach so many vast substances, instead of rather forming them ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 262, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On the End or Consummation. (HTML)
... restoration to one and the same end and likeness; or because, while the form of those things which are seen passes away, their essential nature is subject to no corruption. And Paul seems to confirm the latter view, when he says, “For the fashion of this world passeth away.” David also appears to assert the same in the words, “The heavens shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; and they all shall wax old as a garment, and Thou shalt change them like a vesture, and like a vestment they shall be changed.”[Psalms 102:26] For if the heavens are to be changed, assuredly that which is changed does not perish, and if the fashion of the world passes away, it is by no means an annihilation or destruction of their material substance that is shown to take place, but a kind ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 341, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
That the World Took Its Beginning in Time. (HTML)
... yourselves together unto me, ye sons of Jacob, that I may tell you what shall be in the last days,” or “after the last days.” If, then, there be “last days,” or a period “succeeding the last days,” the days which had a beginning must necessarily come to an end. David, too, declares: “The heavens shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old as doth a garment: as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end.”[Psalms 102:26-27] Our Lord and Saviour, indeed, in the words, “He who made them at the beginning, made them male and female,” Himself bears witness that the world was created; and again, when He says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 347, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
On the End of the World. (HTML)
... sometimes in that of the opposite. But this corporeal nature admits of a change in substance; whence also God, the arranger of all things, has the service of this matter at His command in the moulding, or fabrication, or re-touching of whatever He wishes, so that corporeal nature may be transmuted, and transformed into any forms or species whatever, according as the deserts of things may demand; which the prophet evidently has in view when he says, “It is God who makes and transforms all things.”[Psalms 102:25-26]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 405, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
I (HTML)
Chapter XXI (HTML)
... generally, that he is capable of corruption, if there be any one to corrupt him, but that he has the good fortune to escape corruption, because there is none to corrupt. Whereas the doctrine of the Jews and Christians, which preserves the immutability and unalterableness of the divine nature, is stigmatized as impious, because it does not partake of the profanity of those whose notions of God are marked by impiety, but because it says in the supplication addressed to the Divinity, “Thou art the same,”[Psalms 102:27] it being, moreover, an article of faith that God has said, “I change not.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 502, footnote 15 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XIV (HTML)
... is called in Scripture the “condescension” of God to human affairs; for which purpose He did not need to undergo a transformation, as Celsus thinks we assert, nor a change from good to evil, nor from virtue to vice, nor from happiness to misery, nor from best to worst. For, continuing unchangeable in His essence, He condescends to human affairs by the economy of His providence. We show, accordingly, that the holy Scriptures represent God as unchangeable, both by such words as “Thou art the same,”[Psalms 102:27] and” I change not;” whereas the gods of Epicurus, being composed of atoms, and, so far as their structure is concerned, capable of dissolution, endeavour to throw off the atoms which contain the elements of destruction. Nay, even the god of the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 523, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Chapter LVI (HTML)
... ether is immaterial, and consists of a fifth nature, separate from the other four elements, against which view both the Platonists and the Stoics have nobly protested. And we too, who are despised by Celsus, will contravene it, seeing we are required to explain and maintain the following statement of the prophet: The heavens shall perish, but Thou remainest: and they all shall wax old as a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same.”[Psalms 102:26-27] These remarks, however, are sufficient in reply to Celsus, when he asserts that “the soul is the work of God, but that the nature of body is different;” for from his argument it follows that there is no difference between the body of a bat, or of a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 602, footnote 17 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter LXI (HTML)
... But “neither is it consistent with the fitness of things that the first God should work with His own hands.” If you understand the words “work with His own hands” literally, then neither are they applicable to the second God, nor to any other being partaking of divinity. But suppose that they are spoken in an improper and figurative sense, so that we may translate the following expressions, “And the firmament showeth forth His handywork,” and “the heavens are the work of Thy hands,”[Psalms 102:25] and any other similar phrases, in a figurative manner, so far as respects the “hands” and “limbs” of Deity, where is the absurdity in the words, “God thus working with His own hands?” And as there is no absurdity in God thus working, so neither is ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 603, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter LXII (HTML)
... meaning upon the words, “of which we have knowledge,” since all that we know is less than God, there is no absurdity in our also admitting that God possesses none of those things “of which we have knowledge.” For the attributes which belong to God are far superior to all things with which not merely the nature of man is acquainted, but even that of those who have risen far above it. And if he had read the writings of the prophets, David on the one hand saying, “But Thou art the same,”[Psalms 102:27] and Malachi on the other, “I am (the Lord), and change not,” he would have observed that none of us assert that there is any change in God, either in act or thought. For abiding the same, He administers mutable things ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 114, footnote 9 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Dionysius. (HTML)
Exegetical Fragments. (HTML)
A Commentary on the Beginning of Ecclesiastes. (HTML)
Chapter III. (HTML)
And this is true. For no one is able to comprehend the works of God altogether. Moreover, the world is the work of God. No one, then, can find out as to this world what is its space from the beginning and unto the end, that is to say, the period appointed for it, and the limits before determined unto it; forasmuch as God has set the whole world as a realm of ignorance in our hearts. And thus one says: “Declare to me the shortness of my days.”[Psalms 102:24] In this manner, and for our profit, the end of this world (age)—that is to say, this present life—is a thing of which we are ignorant.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 314, footnote 13 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Clementine Homilies. (HTML)
Homily XVI. (HTML)
Simon and Peter Continue the Discussion. (HTML)
... the Scriptures; for thus it is written: ‘Let the gods who did not make the heavens and the earth perish.’ And He said thus, not as though had made the heavens and were not to perish, as you interpreted the passage. For it is plainly declared that He who made them is one in the very first part of Scripture: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And it did not say, ‘the gods.’ And somewhere else it says, ‘And the firmament showeth His handiwork.’ And in another place it is written,[Psalms 102:26-27] ‘The heavens themselves shall perish, but Thou shalt remain for ever.’”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 450, footnote 7 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)
The Gospel of Nicodemus; Part II.--Christ's Descent into Hell: Latin. First Version. (HTML)
Chapter 5. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1984 (In-Text, Margin)
... glory shall come in. Hades, seeing that they had twice shouted out this, says, as if not knowing: Who is the king of glory? David says, in answer to Hades: I recognise those words of the shout, since I prophesied the same by His Spirit. And now, what I have said above I say to thee, The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle; He is the King of glory. And the Lord Himself hath looked down from heaven upon earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, and to release the sons of the slain.[Psalms 102:19-20] And now, most filthy and most foul Hades, open thy gates, that the King of glory may come in. While David was thus speaking, there came to Hades, in the form of a man, the Lord of majesty, and lighted up the eternal darkness, and burst asunder the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 585, footnote 1 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)
Revelation of John. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2590 (In-Text, Margin)
... other. And when He shall open the second seal, the moon shall be hidden, and there shall be no light in her. And when He shall open the third seal, the light of the sun shall be withheld, and there shall not be light upon the earth. And when He shall open the fourth seal, the heavens shall be dissolved, and the air shall be thrown into utter confusion, as saith the prophet: And the heavens are the works of Thy hands; they shall perish, but Thou endurest, and they shall all wax old as a garment.[Psalms 102:26] And when He shall open the fifth seal, the earth shall be rent, and all the tribunals upon the face of all the earth shall be revealed. And when He shall open the sixth seal, the half of the sea shall disappear. And when He shall open the seventh ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 474, footnote 8 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XIII. (HTML)
Relation of the Baptist to Elijah. The Theory of Transmigration Considered. (HTML)
... appear to me that by Elijah the soul is spoken of, lest I should fall into the dogma of transmigration, which is foreign to the church of God, and not handed down by the Apostles, nor anywhere set forth in the Scriptures; for it is also in opposition to the saying that “things seen are temporal,” and that “this age shall have a consummation,” and also to the fulfilment of the saying, “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” and “the fashion of this world passeth away,” and “the heavens shall perish,”[Psalms 102:26] and what follows. For if, by hypothesis, in the constitution of things which has existed from the beginning unto the end of the world, the same soul can be twice in the body, for what cause should it be in it? For if because of sin it should be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 48, footnote 3 (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 Describes His Infancy, and Lauds the Protection and Eternal Providence of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 152 (In-Text, Margin)
... enough to fashion himself? Or is there any other vein by which being and life runs into us save this, that “Thou, O Lord, hast made us,” with whom being and life are one, because Thou Thyself art being and life in the highest? Thou art the highest, “Thou changest not,” neither in Thee doth this present day come to an end, though it doth end in Thee, since in Thee all such things are; for they would have no way of passing away unless Thou sustainedst them. And since “Thy years shall have no end,”[Psalms 102:27] Thy years are an ever present day. And how many of ours and our fathers’ days have passed through this Thy day, and received from it their measure and fashion of being, and others yet to come shall so receive and pass away! “But Thou art the same;” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 65, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth years of his age, passed at Carthage, when, having completed his course of studies, he is caught in the snares of a licentious passion, and falls into the errors of the Manichæans. (HTML)
He Argues Against the Same as to the Reason of Offences. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 255 (In-Text, Margin)
... in private combinations or divisions, according as they have been pleased or offended. And these things are done whenever Thou art forsaken, O Fountain of Life, who art the only and true Creator and Ruler of the universe, and by a self-willed pride any one false thing is selected therefrom and loved. So, then, by a humble piety we return to Thee; and thou purgest us from our evil customs, and art merciful unto the sins of those who confess unto Thee, and dost “hear the groaning of the prisoner,”[Psalms 102:20] and dost loosen us from those fetters which we have forged for ourselves, if we lift not up against Thee the horns of a false liberty,— losing all through craving more, by loving more our own private good than Thee, the good of all.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 107, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age, in which very grave errors as to the nature of God and the origin of evil being distinguished, and the Sacred Books more accurately known, he at length arrives at a clear knowledge of God, not yet rightly apprehending Jesus Christ. (HTML)
By God’s Assistance He by Degrees Arrives at the Truth. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 496 (In-Text, Margin)
12. “But Thou, O Lord, shall endure for ever,”[Psalms 102:12] yet not for ever art Thou angry with us, because Thou dost commiserate our dust and ashes; and it was pleasing in Thy sight to reform my deformity, and by inward stings didst Thou disturb me, that I should be dissatisfied until Thou wert made sure to my inward sight. And by the secret hand of Thy remedy was my swelling lessened, and the disordered and darkened eyesight of my mind, by the sharp anointings of healthful sorrows, was from day to day made whole.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 139, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He speaks of his design of forsaking the profession of rhetoric; of the death of his friends, Nebridius and Verecundus; of having received baptism in the thirty-third year of his age; and of the virtues and death of his mother, Monica. (HTML)
How He Mourned His Dead Mother. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 785 (In-Text, Margin)
31. The boy then being restrained from weeping, Evodius took up the Psalter, and began to sing—the whole house responding—the Psalm, “I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto Thee, O Lord.”[Psalms 102] But when they heard what we were doing, many brethren and religious women came together; and whilst they whose office it was were, according to custom, making ready for the funeral, I, in a part of the house where I conveniently could, together with those who thought that I ought not to be left alone, discoursed on what was suited to the occasion; and by this alleviation of truth mitigated the anguish ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 168, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
The design of his confessions being declared, he seeks from God the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and begins to expound the words of Genesis I. I, concerning the creation of the world. The questions of rash disputers being refuted, ‘What did God before he created the world?’ That he might the better overcome his opponents, he adds a copious disquisition concerning time. (HTML)
Before the Times Created by God, Times Were Not. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1040 (In-Text, Margin)
16. Nor dost Thou by time precede time; else wouldest not Thou precede all times. But in the excellency of an ever-present eternity, Thou precedest all times past, and survivest all future times, because they are future, and when they have come they will be past; but “Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end.”[Psalms 102:27] Thy years neither go nor come; but ours both go and come, that all may come. All Thy years stand at once since they do stand; nor were they when departing excluded by coming years, because they pass not away; but all these of ours shall be when all shall cease to be. Thy years are one day, and Thy day is not daily, but today; because ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 197, footnote 14 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Of the goodness of God explained in the creation of things, and of the Trinity as found in the first words of Genesis. The story concerning the origin of the world (Gen. I.) is allegorically explained, and he applies it to those things which God works for sanctified and blessed man. Finally, he makes an end of this work, having implored eternal rest from God. (HTML)
Of the Lights and Stars of Heaven—Of Day and Night, Ver. 14. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1306 (In-Text, Margin)
... things are become new;” and “because our salvation is nearer than when we believed;” and because “the night is far spent, the day is at hand;” and because Thou wilt crown Thy year with blessing, sending the labourers of Thy goodness into Thy harvest, in the sowing of which others have laboured, sending also into another field, whose harvest shall be in the end. Thus Thou grantest the prayers of him that asketh, and blessest the years of the just; but Thou art the same, and in Thy years which fail not[Psalms 102:27] Thou preparest a garner for our passing years. For by an eternal counsel Thou dost in their proper seasons bestow upon the earth heavenly blessings.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 444, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the last judgment, and the declarations regarding it in the Old and New Testaments. (HTML)
Passages from the Psalms of David Which Predict the End of the World and the Last Judgment. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1440 (In-Text, Margin)
... the last judgment in the Psalms, but for the most part only casual and slight. I cannot, however, omit to mention what is said there in express terms of the end of this world: “In the beginning hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth, O Lord; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shall endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; and as a vesture Thou shall change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:25-27] Why is it that Porphyry, while he lauds the piety of the Hebrews in worshipping a God great and true, and terrible to the gods themselves, follows the oracles of these gods in accusing the Christians of extreme folly because they say that this world ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 18, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
This Work is Written Against Those Who Sophistically Assail the Faith of the Trinity, Through Misuse of Reason. They Who Dispute Concerning God Err from a Threefold Cause. Holy Scripture, Removing What is False, Leads Us on by Degrees to Things Divine. What True Immortality is. We are Nourished by Faith, that We May Be Enabled to Apprehend Things Divine. (HTML)
... Since the soul also both is said to be, and is, in a certain manner immortal, Scripture would not say “only hath,” unless because true immortality is unchangeableness; which no creature can possess, since it belongs to the creator alone. So also James says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” So also David, “Thou shall change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same.”[Psalms 102:26-27]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 58, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The appearances of God to the Old Testament saints are discussed. (HTML)
The Will of God is the Higher Cause of All Corporeal Change. This is Shown by an Example. (HTML)
... written in the Psalm concerning all saints, of whom as of living stones is built that Jerusalem which is the mother of us all, eternal in the heavens. For so it is sung, “Jerusalem is builded as a city, that is partaker of that which is in and of itself.” For “in and of itself,” in that place, is understood of that chiefest and unchangeable good, which is God, and of His own wisdom and will. To whom is sung in another place, “Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same.”[Psalms 102:26-27]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 92, footnote 3 (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)
Whatever is Spoken of God According to Substance, is Spoken of Each Person Severally, and Together of the Trinity Itself. One Essence in God, and Three, in Greek, Hypostases, in Latin, Persons. (HTML)
... Father by Himself is declared by the name of Father; but by the name of God, both Himself and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity is one God. But position, and condition, and places, and times, are not said to be in God properly, but metaphorically and through similitudes. For He is both said to dwell between the cherubims, which is spoken in respect to position; and to be covered with the deep as with a garment, which is said in respect to condition; and “Thy years shall have no end,”[Psalms 102:27] which is said in respect of time; and, “If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there,” which is said in respect to place. And as respects action (or making), perhaps it may be said most truly of God alone, for God alone makes and Himself is not made. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 356, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans. (HTML)
It is Proved by the Testimonies of Scripture that God is Unchangeable. The Son of God Begotten, Not Made. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1096 (In-Text, Margin)
... divine Scriptures, so that those who by reason of feebler intellect are not able to comprehend these things, may believe the divine authority, and so may deserve to know. But let not those who understand, but are less instructed in ecclesiastical literature, suppose that we set forth these things from our own intellect rather than what are in those Books. Accordingly, that God is unchangeable is written in the Psalms: "Thou shalt change them and they shall be changed; but Thou thyself art the same."[Psalms 102:27] And in the book of Wisdom, concerning wisdom: "Remaining in herself, she renews all things." Whence also the Apostle Paul: "To the invisible, incorruptible, only God." And the Apostle James: "Every best giving and every perfect gift is from above, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 128, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
How Our Nature Could Be Vitiated by Sin, Even Though It Be Not a Substance. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1180 (In-Text, Margin)
... to the use of that food, by abstaining from which it became so corrupted and injured. In the same way sin is not a substance; but God is a substance, yea the height of substance and only true sustenance of the reasonable creature. The consequence of departing from Him by disobedience, and of inability, through infirmity, to receive what one ought really to rejoice in, you hear from the Psalmist, when he says: “My heart is smitten and withered like grass, since I have forgotten to eat my bread.”[Psalms 102:4]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 284, 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)
Again, on Matt. vi. on the Lord’s Prayer. To the Competentes. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2031 (In-Text, Margin)
... of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” For many have been tried even with hunger, and have been found gold, and have not been forsaken by God. They would have perished with hunger, if the daily inward bread were to leave their heart. After this let us chiefly hunger. For, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” But He can in mercy look upon our infirmity, and see us, as it is said, “Remember that we are dust.”[Psalms 102:14] He who from the dust made and quickened man, for that His work of clay’s sake, gave His Only Son to death. Who can explain, who can worthily so much as conceive, how much He loveth us?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 500, 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, John vi. 9, where the miracle of the five loaves and the two fishes is related. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3902 (In-Text, Margin)
4. We have begun to be some great thing; let no man despise himself: we were once nothing; but we are something. We have said unto the Lord, “Remember that we are dust;”[Psalms 102:14] but out of the dust He made man, and to dust He gave life, and in Christ our Lord hath He already brought this same dust to the Kingdom of Heaven. For from this dust took He flesh, from this took earth, and hath raised earth to heaven, He who made heaven and earth. If then these two new things, not yet done, were set before us, and it were asked of us, “Which is the most wonderful, that He who is God should be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 50, 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 I. 34–51. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 155 (In-Text, Margin)
... For if they were not expecting it, why did they exclaim, “What have we to do with Thee? art Thou come before the time to destroy us? We know who Thou art; the Holy One of God.” They expected that He would come, but they were ignorant of the time. But what have you heard in the psalm regarding Jerusalem? “For Thy servants have taken pleasure in her stones, and will pity the dust thereof. Thou shall arise,” says he, “and have mercy upon Zion: for the time is come that Thou wilt have mercy upon her.”[Psalms 102:13-14] When the time came for God to have mercy, the Lamb came. What sort of a Lamb whom wolves fear? What sort of a Lamb is it who, when slain, slew a lion? For the devil is called a lion, going about and roaring, seeking whom he may devour. By the blood ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 221, 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. 21–25. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 700 (In-Text, Margin)
... the earth, and ever hearing and answering according to the flesh, what did they say to Him? “Who art thou?” For when thou saidst, “If ye believe not that I am,” thou didst not tell us what thou wert. Who art thou, that we may believe? He answered “The Beginning.” Here is the existence that [always] is. The beginning cannot be changed: the beginning is self-abiding and all-originating; that is, the beginning, to which it has been said, “But thou Thyself art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] “The beginning,” He said, “for so I also speak to you.” Believe me [to be] the beginning, that ye may not die in your sins. For just as if by saying, “Who art thou?” they had said nothing else than this, What shall we believe thee to be? He replied, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 472, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John II. 12–17. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2091 (In-Text, Margin)
... knoweth not. It is one day there, but a day that is for ever and ever. That day yesterday and tomorrow do not set in the midst between them: for when the ‘yesterday’ is ended, the ‘to-day’ begins, to be finished by the coming ‘tomorrow.’ That one day there is a day without darkness, without night, without spaces, without measure, without hours. Call it what thou wilt: if thou wilt, it is a day; if thou wilt, a year; if thou wilt, years. For it is said of this same, “And thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] But when is it called a day? When it is said to the Lord, “To-day have I begotten Thee.” From the eternal Father begotten, from eternity begotten, in eternity begotten: with no beginning, no bound, no space of breadth; because He is what is, because ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 29, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm VIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 291 (In-Text, Margin)
... first by the Apostle, “Except ye believe, ye shall not understand;” and saying by His own mouth, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and shall believe.” “Because of the enemies:” against whom too that is said, “I confess to Thee, O Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise, and revealed them unto babes.” “From the wise,” he saith, not the really wise, but those who deem themselves such. “That Thou mayest destroy the enemy and the defender.” Whom but the heretic?[Psalms 102] For he is both an enemy and a defender, who when he would assault the Christian faith, seems to defend it. Although the philosophers too of this world may be well taken as the enemies and defenders: forasmuch as the Son of God is the Power and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 113, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1035 (In-Text, Margin)
7. “And the number of my days, what it is.” I ask of “the number of my days, what it is.” I can speak of “number” without number, and understand “number without number,” in the same sense as “years without years” may be spoken of. For where there are years, there is a sort of “number” at all events, also. But yet, “Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] “Make me to know the number of my days;” but “to know what it is.” What then? that number in which thou art, think you that it “is” not? Assuredly, if I weigh the matter well, it has no being; if I linger behind, it has a sort of being; if I rise above it, it has none. If, shaking off the trammels of these things, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 250, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2351 (In-Text, Margin)
... days without end. “I will dwell,” he saith, “in the house of the Lord, for length of days.” Wherefore for length of days, but because now is the shortness of days? For everything which hath an end, is short: but of this King are days upon days, so that not only while these days pass away, Christ reigneth in His Church, but the Saints shall reign together with Him in those days which have no end.…For years of God have been also spoken of: “But Thou art the very Same, and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] In the same manner as years, so days, so one day. Whatsoever thou wilt thou sayest of eternity. Whatever thou wilt thou sayest for this reason, because whatever thou shalt have said, it is too little that thou hast said. For thou must needs say ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 363, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3499 (In-Text, Margin)
... two syllables, the latter doth not sound until the former hath gone by: in a word, in that same one syllable, if it chance to have two letters, the latter letter doth not sound, until the former hath gone by. What then have we got of these years? These years are changeable: the eternal years must be thought on, years that stand, that are not made up of days that come and depart; years whereof in another place the Scripture saith to God, “But Thou art the Self-same, and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] On these years this man that leapeth over, not in babbling without, but in silence hath thought.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 373, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3595 (In-Text, Margin)
17. But the generation crooked and embittering, “in all these things sinned yet more, and they believed not in His wonderful works” (ver. 32). “And in their days failed in vanity” (ver. 33). Though they might, if they had believed, have had days in truth without failing, with Him to whom hath been said, “Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] Therefore, “their days failed in vanity, and their years with haste.” For the whole life of mortal men is hastening, and that which seemeth to be longer is but a vapour of somewhat longer duration.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 401, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3884 (In-Text, Margin)
... correspond: the heart as the sparrow, the flesh as the dove. The sparrow hath found herself a home: my heart hath found itself a home. She tries her wings in the virtues of this life, in faith, and hope, and charity, by which she may fly unto her home: and when she shall have come thither, she shall remain; and now the complaining voice of the sparrow, which is here, shall no longer be there. For it is the very complaining sparrow of whom in another Psalm he saith, “Like a sparrow alone on the housetop.”[Psalms 102:7] From the housetop he flies home. Now let him be on the housetop, treading on his carnal house: he shall have a heavenly house, a perpetual home: that sparrow shall make an end of his complaints. But to the dove he hath given young, that is, to the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 425, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4088 (In-Text, Margin)
... knew not what they were doing, or who He was, regarded Him as like others who had perished from their wounds, and who slept in the tomb, who are as yet out of remembrance of God, that is, whose hour of resurrection has not yet arrived. For thus the Scripture speaks of the dead as sleeping, because it wishes them to be regarded as destined to awake, that is, to rise again. But He, wounded and asleep in the tomb, awoke on the third day, and became “like a sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop,”[Psalms 102:7] that is, on the right hand of His Father in Heaven: and now “dieth no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him.” Hence He differs widely from those whom God hath not yet remembered to cause their resurrection after this manner: for what was ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 435, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4178 (In-Text, Margin)
... end: whither His seed, which is His heritage, the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, will pass. But if ye are Christ’s, ye are also Abraham’s seed: and if ye are destined His heirs for ever, “He will establish His seed unto world without end: and His throne as the days of Heaven.” The thrones of earthly kings are as the days of the earth: different are the days of Heaven from those of earth. The days of Heaven are those years of which it is said, “Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] The days of the earth are soon overtaken by their successors: those which precede are shut out from us: nor do those which succeed remain: but they come that they may go, and are almost gone before they are come. Such are the days of earth. But the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 442, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XC (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4240 (In-Text, Margin)
... Scripture, that the equivocal Greek word causes the Latin translator to put age for eternity and eternity for age. But he very rightly does not say, Thou wast from ages, and unto ages Thou shalt be: but puts the verb in the present, intimating that the substance of God is altogether immutable. It is not, He was, and Shall be, but only Is. Whence the expression,; and, “hath sent me unto you;” and, “Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:26-27] Behold then the eternity that is our refuge, that we may fly thither from the mutability of time, there to remain for evermore.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 445, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XC (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4279 (In-Text, Margin)
... to days succeeding: since there is nothing there which exists not yet because it has not reached us, or ceases to exist because it has passed; all are together: because there is one day only, which remains and passes not away: this is eternity itself. These are the days respecting which it is written, “What man is he that lusteth to live, and would fain see good days?” These days in another passage are styled years: where unto God it is said, “But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail:”[Psalms 102:27] for these are not years that are accounted for nothing, or days that perish like a shadow: but they are days which have a real existence, the number of which he who thus spoke, “Lord, let me know mine end” (that is, after reaching what term I shall ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 495, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4577 (In-Text, Margin)
... riches? For through Him we have even these riches, ability, memory, character, health of body, the senses, and the conformation of our limbs: for when these are safe, even the poor are rich. Through Him also are those greater riches, faith, piety, justice, charity, chastity, good conduct: for no man hath these, except through Him who justifieth the ungodly.…Behold, how rich! In one so rich, how are we to recognise these words? “I have eaten ashes as it were bread: and mingled my drink with weeping.”[Psalms 102:9] Have these so great riches come to this? The former state is a very high one, this is a very lowly one.…Yet still examine whether this poor man be He; since, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Reflect also upon these words: “I am Thy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 537, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4919 (In-Text, Margin)
3. “They have spoken against me with false tongues” (ver. 2): then chiefly when they praised him as a “good Master” with insidious adulation. Whence it is elsewhere said: “and they that praised me, are sworn together against me.”[Psalms 102:8] Next, because they burst into cries, “Crucify Him, crucify Him;” he hath added, “They compassed me about also with words of hatred.” They who with a treacherous tongue spoke words seemingly of love, and not of hatred, “against me,” since they did this insidiously; afterwards “compassed me about with words” not of false and deceitful love, but of open “hatred, and fought against me ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 656, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5859 (In-Text, Margin)
... too abounding with all these things, full of this happiness? Did not Abraham’s house abound with gold, silver, children, servants, cattle? What say we? is not this happiness? Be it so, still it is on the left hand. What is, on the left hand? Temporal, mortal, bodily. I desire not that thou shun it, but that thou think it not to be on the right hand.…For what ought they to have set on the right hand? God, eternity, the years of God which fail not, whereof is said, “and Thy years shall not fail.”[Psalms 102:27] There should be the right hand, there should be our longing. Let us use the left for the time, let us long for the fight for eternity. “If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.” …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 251, footnote 4 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
Two Homilies on Eutropius. (HTML)
Homily I. When He Had Taken Refuge in the Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 812 (In-Text, Margin)
... panic-stricken and trembling, he abates his haughtiness, he puts down his pride, and having acquired the kind of wisdom concerning human affairs which it concerns him to have he departs instructed by example in the lesson which Holy Scripture teaches by precept:—“All flesh is grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass: the grass withereth and the flower faileth” or “They shall wither away quickly as the grass, and as the green herb shall they quickly fail” or “like smoke are his days,”[Psalms 102:4] and all passages of that kind. Again the poor man when he has entered and gazed at this spectacle does not think meanly of himself, nor bewail himself on account of his poverty, but feels grateful to his poverty, because it is a place of refuge to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 410, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily X (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1460 (In-Text, Margin)
... hath placed the sky as a vault, and spread it out as a tent over the earth.” And again, “Who holdeth the circle of heaven.” But another writer, shewing that although the world be great and fair, it is yet corruptible, thus speaks; “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thine hands. They shall perish, but Thou remainest, and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed.”[Psalms 102:25-26] And again, David saith of the sun, that “he is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course.” Seest thou how he places before thee the beauty of this star, and its greatness? For even as a bridegroom when he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 311, footnote 2 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Letters of the Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus. (HTML)
To the Soldiers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1999 (In-Text, Margin)
... nature to do; He is by nature good, therefore He does not wish anything evil; He is by nature just, therefore He does not wish anything unjust; He is by nature true, therefore He abominates falsehood; He is by nature immutable, therefore He does not admit of change; and if He does not admit of change He is always in the same state and condition. This He Himself asserts through the prophet. “I am the Lord I change not.” And the blessed David says “Thou art the same and Thy years shall have no end.”[Psalms 102:27] If He is the same He undergoes no change. If He is naturally superior to change and mutation He has not become from immortal, mortal nor from impassible, passible, for had this been possible He would not have taken on Him our nature. But since He ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 260, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
An hour and a time for all men. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1451 (In-Text, Margin)
... for summer, and for autumn and for winter, so, as it is written, there is a time to die, and a time to live. And so the time of the generation which lived in the days of Noah was cut short, and their years were contracted, because the time of all things was at hand. But to Hezekiah were added fifteen years. And as God promises to them that serve Him truly, ‘I will fulfil the number of thy days,’ Abraham dies ‘full of days,’ and David besought God, saying, ‘Take me not away in the midst of my days[Psalms 102:24].’ And Eliphaz, one of the friends of Job, being assured of this truth, said, ‘Thou shalt come to thy grave like ripe corn, gathered in due time, and like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.’ And Solomon confirming his words, says, ‘The souls ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 260, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
The Lord's hour and time. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1455 (In-Text, Margin)
Now as these things are written in the Scriptures, the case is clear, that the saints know that a certain time is measured to every man, but that no one knows the end of that time is plainly intimated by the words of David, ‘Declare unto me the shortness of my days[Psalms 102:23].’ What he did not know, that he desired to be informed of. Accordingly the rich man also, while he thought that he had yet a long time to live, heard the words, ‘Thou fool, this night they are requiring thy soul: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’ And the Preacher speaks confidently in the Holy Spirit, and says, ‘Man also knoweth not his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 327, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse I (HTML)
Objections Continued. How the Word has free will, yet without being alterable. He is unalterable because the Image of the Father, proved from texts. (HTML)
36. Therefore the Image of the unalterable God must be unchangeable; for ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.’ And David in the Psalm says of Him, ‘Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thine hands. They shall perish, but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment. And as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail[Psalms 102:26-28].’ And the Lord Himself says of Himself through the Prophet, ‘See now that I, even I am He,’ and ‘I change not.’ It may be said indeed that what is here signified relates to the Father; yet it suits the Son also to say this, specially because, when made ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 373, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22. Proverbs are of a figurative nature, and must be interpreted as such. We must interpret them, and in particular this passage, by the Regula Fidei. 'He created me' not equivalent to 'I am a creature.' Wisdom a creature so far forth as Its human body. Again, if He is a creature, it is as 'a beginning of ways,' an office which, though not an attribute, is a consequence, of a higher and divine nature. And it is 'for the works,' which implied the works existed, and therefore much more He, before He was created. Also 'the Lord' not the Father 'created' Him, which implies the creation was that of a servant. (HTML)
46. That to be called creatures, then, and to be created belongs to things which have by nature a created essence, these passages are sufficient to remind us, though Scripture is full of the like; on the other hand that the single word ‘He created’ does not simply denote the essence and mode of generation, David shews in the Psalm, ‘This shall be written for another generation, and the people that is created shall praise the Lord[Psalms 102:18];’ and again, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God;’ and Paul in Ephesians says, ‘Having abolished the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to create in Himself of two one new man;’ and again, ‘Put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 379, footnote 9 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works. (HTML)
... said of them, ‘In the beginning He made,’ is as much as saying of them, ‘From the beginning He made:’—as the Lord, knowing that which He had made, taught, when He silenced the Pharisees, with the words, ‘He which made them from the beginning, made them male and female;’ for from some beginning, when they were not yet, were originate things brought into being and created. This too the Holy Spirit has signified in the Psalms, saying, ‘Thou, Lord, at the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth[Psalms 102:25];’ and again, ‘O think upon Thy congregation which Thou hast purchased from the beginning;’ now it is plain that what takes place at the beginning, has a beginning of creation, and that from some beginning God purchased His congregation. And that ‘In ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 384, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works. (HTML)
... death was proper; and in like manner to the bodily presence are the words proper, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways.’ For since the Saviour was thus created according to the flesh, and had become a beginning of things new created, and had our first fruits, viz. that human flesh which He took to Himself, therefore after Him, as is fit, is created also the people to come, David saying, ‘Let this be written for another generation, and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord[Psalms 102:18].’ And again in the twenty-first Psalm, ‘The generation to come shall declare unto the Lord, and they shall declare His righteousness, unto a people that shall be born whom the Lord made.’ For we shall no more hear, ‘In the day that thou eatest ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 387, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works. (HTML)
... house, but is other than the house, so He who is created for the works, must be by nature other than the works. But if otherwise, as you hold, O Arians, the Word of God be a work, by what Hand and Wisdom did He Himself come into being? for all things that came to be, came by the Hand and Wisdom of God, who Himself says, ‘My hand hath made all these things;’ and David says in the Psalm, ‘And Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands[Psalms 102:25];’ and again, in the hundred and forty-second Psalm, ‘I do remember the time past, I muse upon all Thy works, yea I exercise myself in the works of Thy hands.’ Therefore if by the Hand of God the works are wrought, and it is written that ‘all things ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 91, footnote 1 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Several ways of controverting his quibbling syllogisms. (HTML)
... following some order of sequence (we must remember God is not a compound; whatever He is is the whole of Him), and if according to this heresy He is first Ungenerate and afterwards becomes Father, then, seeing that we cannot think of Him in connexion with a heaping together of qualities, there is no alternative but that the whole of Him must be both older and younger than the whole of Him, the former by virtue of His Ungeneracy, the latter by virtue of His Fatherhood. But if, as the prophet says of God[Psalms 102:27], He “is the same,” it is idle to say that before He begat He was not Himself Ungenerate; we cannot find either of these names, the Father and the Ungenerate One, parted from the other; the two ideas rise together, suggested by each other, in the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 99, footnote 4 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Explanation of 'Ungenerate,' and a 'study' of Eternity. (HTML)
... proper nature, the single name of being ‘Above every name ’; which is granted to the Only-begotten also, because “all that the Father hath is the Son’s.” The orthodox theory allows these words, I mean “Ungenerate,” “Endless,” to be indicative of God’s eternity, but not of His being; so that “Ungenerate” means that no source or cause lies beyond Him, and “Endless” means that His kingdom will be brought to a standstill in no end. “Thou art the same,” the prophet says, “and Thy years shall not fail[Psalms 102:27],” showing by “art” that He subsists out of no cause, and by the words following, that the blessedness of His life is ceaseless and unending.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 28, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 450 (In-Text, Margin)
... members which are upon the earth.” Because he himself did so, he could afterwards say with confidence: “I live, yet not I, but Christ, liveth in me.” He who mortifies his members, and feels that he is walking in a vain show, is not afraid to say: “I am become like a bottle in the frost. Whatever there was in me of the moisture of lust has been dried out of me.” And again: “My knees are weak through fasting; I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.”[Psalms 102:5]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 28, footnote 16 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 452 (In-Text, Margin)
18. Be like the grasshopper and make night musical. Nightly wash your bed and water your couch with your tears. Watch and be like the sparrow alone upon the housetop.[Psalms 102:7] Sing with the spirit, but sing with the understanding also. And let your song be that of the psalmist: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction.” Can we, any of us, honestly make his words our own: “I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping?” Yet, should we not weep ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 29, footnote 2 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 455 (In-Text, Margin)
... Nightly wash your bed and water your couch with your tears. Watch and be like the sparrow alone upon the housetop. Sing with the spirit, but sing with the understanding also. And let your song be that of the psalmist: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction.” Can we, any of us, honestly make his words our own: “I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping?”[Psalms 102:9] Yet, should we not weep and groan when the serpent invites us, as he invited our first parents, to eat forbidden fruit, and when after expelling us from the paradise of virginity he desires to clothe us with mantles of skins such as that which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 207, footnote 13 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2965 (In-Text, Margin)
... joy does she sing: “as we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.” O blessed change! Once she wept but now laughs for evermore. Once she despised the broken cisterns of which the prophet speaks; but now she has found in the Lord a fountain of life. Once she wore haircloth but now she is clothed in white raiment, and can say: “thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness.” Once she ate ashes like bread and mingled her drink with weeping;[Psalms 102:9] saying “my tears have been my meat day and night;” but now for all time she eats the bread of angels and sings: “O taste and see that the Lord is good;” and “my heart is overflowing with a goodly matter; I speak the things which I have made touching ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 266, footnote 17 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3702 (In-Text, Margin)
10. After you have paid the most careful attention to your thoughts, you must then put on the armour of fasting and sing with David: “I chastened my soul with fasting,” and “I have eaten ashes like bread,”[Psalms 102:9] and “as for me when they troubled me my clothing was sackcloth.” Eve was expelled from paradise because she had eaten of the forbidden fruit. Elijah on the other hand after forty days of fasting was carried in a fiery chariot into heaven. For forty days and forty nights Moses lived by the intimate converse which he had with God, thus proving in his own case the complete truth of the saying, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 400, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4801 (In-Text, Margin)
... “Daniel, thou art worthy of compassion.” He who in the eyes of God was worthy of compassion, afterwards was an object of terror to the lions in their den. How fair a thing is that which propitiates God, tames lions, terrifies demons! Habakkuk (although we do not find this in the Hebrew Scriptures) was sent to him with the reaper’s meal, for by a week’s abstinence he had merited so distinguished a server. David, when his son was in danger after his adultery, made confession in ashes and with fasting.[Psalms 102:9] He tells us that he ate ashes like bread, and mingled his drink with weeping. And that his knees became weak through fasting. Yet he had certainly heard from Nathan the words, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin.” Samson and Samuel drank neither ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 11, footnote 1 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On Repentance and Remission of Sins, and Concerning the Adversary. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 524 (In-Text, Margin)
12. Thus then did the Prophet comfort him, but the blessed David, for all he heard it said, The Lord hath put away thy sin, did not cease from repentance, king though he was, but put on sackcloth instead of purple, and instead of a golden throne, he sat, a king, in ashes on the ground; nay, not only sat in ashes, but also had ashes for his food, even as he saith himself, I have eaten ashes as it were bread[Psalms 102:10]. His lustful eye he wasted away with tears saying, Every night will I wash my couch, and water my bed with my tears. When his officers besought him to eat bread he would not listen. He prolonged his fast unto seven whole days. If a king thus made confession ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 105, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Clause, And Shall Come in Glory to Judge the Quick and the Dead; Of Whose Kingdom There Shall Be No End. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1828 (In-Text, Margin)
... 24:29 - 24:29')" onmouseout="leaveVerse()" name="_Matt_24_29_0_0">Matt. xxiv. 29.. Let us not sorrow, as if we alone died; the stars also shall die; but perhaps rise again. And the Lord rolleth up the heavens, not that He may destroy them, but that He may raise them up again more beautiful. Hear David the Prophet saying, Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands; they shall perish, but Thou remainest[Psalms 102:25-26]. But some one will say, Behold, he says plainly that they shall perish. Hear in what sense he says, they shall perish; it is plain from what follows; And they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 117, footnote 5 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the Cæsareans. A defence of his withdrawal, and concerning the faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1793 (In-Text, Margin)
... favour, in the latter untruly. God alone is substantially and essentially God. When I say “alone” I set forth the holy and uncreated essence and substance of God. For the word “alone” is used in the case of any individual and generally of human nature. In the case of an individual, as for instance of Paul, that he alone was caught into the third heaven and “heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” and of human nature, as when David says, “as for man his days are as grass,”[Psalms 102:15] not meaning any particular man, but human nature generally; for every man is short-lived and mortal. So we understand these words to be said of the nature, “who alone hath immortality” and “to God only wise,” and “none is good save one, that is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 134, footnote 2 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the Church of Ancyra. Consolatory. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2003 (In-Text, Margin)
... edification of the brotherhood. Gone are the counsels of a mind which truly moved in God. Ah! how often, for I must accuse myself, was it my lot to feel indignation against him, because, wholly desiring to depart and be with Christ, he did not prefer for our sakes to remain in the flesh! To whom for the future shall I commit the cares of the Churches? Whom shall I take to share my troubles? Whom to participate in my gladness? O loneliness terrible and sad! How am I not like to a pelican of the wilderness?[Psalms 102:6] Yet of a truth the members of the Church, united by his leadership as by one soul, and fitted together into close union of feeling and fellowship, are both preserved and shall ever be preserved by the bond of peace for spiritual communion. God ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 221, footnote 2 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book XII (HTML)
12. On the other hand His works in creation are acts of making and not a birth through generation. For the heaven is not a son, neither is the earth a son, nor is the world a birth; for of these it is said, All things were made through Him; and by the prophet, The heavens are the works of Thy hands[Psalms 102:25]; and by the same prophet, Neglect not the works of Thy hands. Is the picture a son of the painter, or the sword a son of the smith or the house a son of the architect? These are the works of their making: but He alone is the Son of the Father Who is born of the Father.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 22b, footnote 12 (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 II (HTML)
Concerning the Heaven. (HTML)
All things, then, which are brought into existence are subject to corruption according to the law of their nature, and so even the heavens themselves are corruptible. But by the grace of God they are maintained and preserved. Only the Deity, however, is by nature without beginning and without end. Wherefore it has been said, They will perish, but Thou dost endure[Psalms 102:26]: nevertheless, the heavens will not be utterly destroyed. For they will wax old and be wound round as a covering, and will be changed, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 203, footnote 7 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter I. The author distinguishes the faith from the errors of Pagans, Jews, and Heretics, and after explaining the significance of the names “God” and “Lord,” shows clearly the difference of Persons in Unity of Essence. In dividing the Essence, the Arians not only bring in the doctrine of three Gods, but even overthrow the dominion of the Trinity. (HTML)
... divided against itself shall quickly be overthrown,” saith the Lord. Now the kingdom of the Trinity is not divided. If, therefore, it is not divided, it is one; for that which is not one is divided. The Arians, however, would have the kingdom of the Trinity to be such as may easily be overthrown, by division against itself. But truly, seeing that it cannot be overthrown, it is plainly undivided. For no unity is divided or rent asunder, and therefore neither age nor corruption has any power over it.[Psalms 102:25-27]