Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 104
There are 120 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 15, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Clement of Rome (HTML)
First Epistle to the Corinthians (HTML)
Chapter XXXVI.—All blessings are given to us through Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 157 (In-Text, Margin)
... a glass, His immaculate and most excellent visage. By Him are the eyes of our hearts opened. By Him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms up anew towards His marvellous light. By Him the Lord has willed that we should taste of immortal knowledge, “who, being the brightness of His majesty, is by so much greater than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” For it is thus written, “Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.”[Psalms 104:4] But concerning His Son the Lord spoke thus: “Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.” And again He saith to Him, “Sit ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 113, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to Hero, a Deacon of Antioch (HTML)
Chapter I.—Exhortations to earnestness and moderation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1271 (In-Text, Margin)
... saints. Bear [the burdens of] the weak, that “thou mayest fulfil the law of Christ.” Devote thyself to fasting and prayer, but not beyond measure, lest thou destroy thyself thereby. Do not altogether abstain from wine and flesh, for these things are not to be viewed with abhorrence, since [the Scripture] saith, “Ye shall eat the good things of the earth.” And again, “Ye shall eat flesh even as herbs.” And again, “Wine maketh glad the heart of man, and oil exhilarates, and bread strengthens him.”[Psalms 104:15] But all are to be used with moderation, as being the gifts of God. “For who shall eat or who shall drink without Him? For if anything be beautiful, it is His; and if anything be good, it is His.” Give attention to reading, that thou mayest not only ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 403, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book II (HTML)
Chapter XXX.—Absurdity of their styling themselves spiritual, while the Demiurge is declared to be animal. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3245 (In-Text, Margin)
1. Such being the state of the case, these infatuated men declare that they rise above the Creator (Demiurge); and, inasmuch as they proclaim themselves superior to that God who made and adorned the heavens, and the earth, and all things that are in them, and maintain that they themselves are spiritual, while they are in fact shamefully carnal on account of their so great impiety,—affirming that He, who has made His angels[Psalms 104:2] spirits, and is clothed with light as with a garment, and holds the circle of the earth, as it were, in His hand, in whose sight its inhabitants are counted as grasshoppers, and who is the Creator and Lord of all spiritual substance, is of an animal nature,—they do beyond doubt and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 403, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book II (HTML)
Chapter XXX.—Absurdity of their styling themselves spiritual, while the Demiurge is declared to be animal. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3245 (In-Text, Margin)
1. Such being the state of the case, these infatuated men declare that they rise above the Creator (Demiurge); and, inasmuch as they proclaim themselves superior to that God who made and adorned the heavens, and the earth, and all things that are in them, and maintain that they themselves are spiritual, while they are in fact shamefully carnal on account of their so great impiety,—affirming that He, who has made His angels[Psalms 104:4] spirits, and is clothed with light as with a garment, and holds the circle of the earth, as it were, in His hand, in whose sight its inhabitants are counted as grasshoppers, and who is the Creator and Lord of all spiritual substance, is of an animal nature,—they do beyond doubt and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 562, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XXXIII.—Further proofs of the same proposition, drawn from the promises made by Christ, when He declared that He would drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples in His Father’s kingdom, while at the same time He promised to reward them an hundred-fold, and to make them partake of banquets. The blessing pronounced by Jacob had pointed out this already, as Papias and the elders have interpreted it. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4733 (In-Text, Margin)
... of it, and given it to the disciples, said to them: “Drink ye all of it: this is My blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of this vine, until that day when I will drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” Thus, then, He will Himself renew the inheritance of the earth, and will re-organize the mystery of the glory of [His] sons; as David says, “He who hath renewed the face of the earth.”[Psalms 104:30] He promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples, thus indicating both these points: the inheritance of the earth in which the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection of His disciples in the flesh. For the new flesh ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 266, footnote 10 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter XI.—On Clothes. (HTML)
If one should adduce the garment of the Lord reaching down to the foot, that many-flowered coat shows the flowers of wisdom, the varied and unfading Scriptures, the oracles of the Lord, resplendent with the rays of truth. In such another robe the Spirit arrayed the Lord through David, when he sang thus: “Thou wert clothed with confession and comeliness, putting on light as a garment.”[Psalms 104:2]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 466, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter XIV.—Greek Plagiarism from the Hebrews. (HTML)
... accordingly, in the last book of the Republic, says in these express terms: “Then these men fierce and fiery to look on, standing by, and hearing the sound, seized and took some aside; and binding Aridæus and the rest hand, foot, and head, and throwing them down, and flaying them, dragged them along the way, tearing their flesh with thorns.” For the fiery men are meant to signify the angels, who seize and punish the wicked. “Who maketh,” it is said, “His angels spirits; His ministers flaming fire.”[Psalms 104:4] It follows from this that the soul is immortal. For what is tortured or corrected being in a state of sensation lives, though said to suffer. Well! Did not Plato know of the rivers of fire and the depth of the earth, and Tartarus, called by the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 304, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book II. Wherein Tertullian shows that the creator, or demiurge, whom Marcion calumniated, is the true and good God. (HTML)
Man, Endued with Liberty, Superior to the Angels, Overcomes Even the Angel Which Lured Him to His Fall, When Repentant and Resuming Obedience to God. (HTML)
... neither through infirmity nor through ignorance, so that no blame can be imputed to the Creator. No doubt it was an angel who was the seducer; but then the victim of that seduction was free, and master of himself; and as being the image and likeness of God, was stronger than any angel; and as being, too, the afflatus of the Divine Being, was nobler than that material spirit of which angels were made. Who maketh, says he, His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.[Psalms 104:4] He would not have made all things subject to man, if he had been too weak for the dominion, and inferior to the angels, to whom He assigned no such subjects; nor would He have put the burden of law upon him, if he had been incapable of sustaining so ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 250, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On Christ. (HTML)
... although cursorily, of warning, since the question before us is, how wisdom is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty, lest any one should think that the title of Omnipotent was anterior in God to the birth of Wisdom, through whom He is called Father, seeing that Wisdom, which is the Son of God, is the purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty. Let him who is inclined to entertain this suspicion hear the undoubted declaration of Scripture pronouncing, “In wisdom hast Thou made them all,”[Psalms 104:24] and the teaching of the Gospel, that “by Him were all things made, and without Him nothing was made;” and let him understand from this that the title of Omnipotent in God cannot be older than that of Father; for it is through the Son that the Father ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 254, footnote 7 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
... flesh had corrupted their way before God, it is recorded that God spoke thus, as of undeserving men and sinners: “My Spirit shall not abide with those men for ever, because they are flesh.” By which, it is clearly shown that the Spirit of God is taken away from all who are unworthy. In the Psalms also it is written: “Thou wilt take away their spirit, and they will die, and return to their earth. Thou wilt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou wilt renew the face of the earth;”[Psalms 104:29-30] which is manifestly intended of the Holy Spirit, who, after sinners and unworthy persons have been taken away and destroyed, creates for Himself a new people, and renews the face of the earth, when, laying aside, through the grace of the Spirit, the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 288, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
On the Soul (Anima). (HTML)
... destruction, it may become a second time what it was before it perished, and be called a soul. But from the very signification of the name soul which the Greek word conveys, it has appeared to a few curious inquirers that a meaning of no small importance may be suggested. For in sacred language God is called a fire, as when Scripture says,” Our God is a consuming fire.” Respecting the substance of the angels also it speaks as follows: “Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a burning fire;”[Psalms 104:4] and in another place, “The angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire in the bush.” We have, moreover, received a commandment to be “fervent in spirit;” by which expression undoubtedly the Word of God is shown to be hot and fiery. The prophet ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 291, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
On the World and the Movements of Rational Creatures, Whether Good or Bad; And on the Causes of Them. (HTML)
... things in heaven or things on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or powers, or principalities, or dominions; all things were created by Him, and in Him;” and as in his Gospel John indicates the same thing, saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made;” and as in the Psalm also it is written, “In wisdom hast Thou made them all;”[Psalms 104:24] —seeing, then, Christ is, as it were, the Word and Wisdom, and so also the Righteousness, it will undoubtedly follow that those things which were created in the Word and Wisdom are said to be created also in that righteousness which is Christ; that ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 531, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Chapter LXXV (HTML)
... however, who are devoted to the worship of the only God, who created these things, feel grateful for them to Him who made them, because not only for us, but also (on our account) for the animals which are subject to us, He has prepared such a home, seeing “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that He may bring forth food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.”[Psalms 104:14-15] But that He should have provided food even for the most savage animals is not matter of surprise, for these very animals are said by some who have philosophized (upon the subject) to have been created for the purpose of affording exercise to the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 582, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter XVII (HTML)
... found in very few individuals, Moses is related to have entered into the darkness where God was. And again, with regard to Moses it is said: “Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but the rest shall not come nigh.” And again, that the prophet may show the depth of the doctrines which relate to God, and which is unattainable by those who do not possess the “Spirit which searcheth all things, even the deep things of God,” he added: “The abyss like a garment is His covering.”[Psalms 104:6] Nay, our Lord and Saviour, the Logos of God, manifesting that the greatness of the knowledge of the Father is appropriately comprehended and known pre-eminently by Him alone, and in the second place by those whose minds are enlightened by the Logos ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 585, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter XXV (HTML)
... described ten circles, distinct from each other, but united by one circle, which was said to be the soul of all things, and was called “Leviathan.” This Leviathan, the Jewish Scriptures say, whatever they mean by the expression, was created by God for a plaything; for we find in the Psalms: “In wisdom hast Thou made all things: the earth is full of Thy creatures; so is this great and wide sea. There go the ships; small animals with great; there is this dragon, which Thou hast formed to play therein.”[Psalms 104:24-26] Instead of the word “dragon,” the term “leviathan” is in the Hebrew. This impious diagram, then, said of this leviathan, which is so clearly depreciated by the Psalmist, that it was the soul which had travelled through all things! We observed, also, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 666, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VIII (HTML)
Chapter LXVII (HTML)
... nothing wrong in that. For to him has been given whatever there is upon earth; and whatever you receive in this life, you receive from him.” We deny, however, that all things which are on the earth have been given to the king, or that whatever we receive in this life we receive from him. For whatever we receive rightly and honourably we receive from God, and by His providence, as ripe fruits, and “corn which strengtheneth man’s heart, and the pleasant vine, and wine which rejoiceth the heart of man.”[Psalms 104:15] And moreover, the fruit of the olive-tree, to make his face to shine, we have from the providence of God.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 253, footnote 9 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
Appendix to the Works of Hippolytus. Containing Dubious and Spurious Pieces. (HTML)
A discourse by the most blessed Hippolytus, bishop and martyr, on the end of the world, and on Antichrist, and on the second coming of our lord Jesus Christ. (HTML)
Section XLIII. (HTML)
... and gave Thee drink? Thou Terrible One, when saw we Thee naked, and clothed Thee? Immortal, when saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? Thou Friend of man, when saw we Thee sick or in prison, and came unto Thee? Thou art the ever-living One. Thou art without beginning, like the Father, and co-eternal with the Spirit. Thou art He who made all things out of nothing. Thou art the prince of the angels. Thou art He at whom the depths tremble. Thou art He who is covered with light as with a garment.[Psalms 104:2] Thou art He who made us, and fashioned us of earth. Thou art He who formed things invisible. From Thy presence the whole earth fleeth away, and how have we received hospitably Thy kingly power and lordship?
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 677, footnote 2 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Appendix. (HTML)
Anonymous Treatise on Re-baptism. (HTML)
A Treatise on Re-Baptism by an Anonymous Writer. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5480 (In-Text, Margin)
... descended upon the disciples, that they might be baptized in Him, there were seen sitting upon each one tongues as if of fire, that it might be manifest that they were baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire—that is, with that Spirit which was, whether fire, or as fire, such as was the fire which burned in the bush, and did not consume the bush; and such as is that fire which is the Spirit of the Angel, as saith the Scripture, “Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a burning fire;”[Psalms 104:4] whom if thou shouldst resemble, or be a companion or sharer with, thou shalt be able to dread no fire, not even that which, going before the Lord in the day of judgment, shall burn up the whole world, save those who are baptized in the Holy Spirit ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 60, footnote 8 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Gregory Thaumaturgus. (HTML)
Dubious or Spurious Writings. (HTML)
Four Homilies. (HTML)
On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary. (HTML)
... is called Bethlehem, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child, because they were of the house and family of David. And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered; and she brought forth her son, the first-born of the whole creation, and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” She wrapped in swaddling-clothes Him who is covered with light as with a garment.[Psalms 104:2] She wrapped in swaddling-clothes Him who made every creature. She laid in a manger Him who sits above the cherubim and is praised by myriads of angels. In the manger set apart for dumb brutes did the Word of God repose, in order that He might impart ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 68, footnote 7 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Gregory Thaumaturgus. (HTML)
Dubious or Spurious Writings. (HTML)
Four Homilies. (HTML)
On the Holy Theophany, or on Christ's Baptism. (HTML)
... to deny the greatness of Thy divinity? Or, because Thou hast condescended so far to me as to have approached my body, and dost bear me wholly in Thyself in order to effect the salvation of the whole man, am I, on account of that body of Thine which is seen, to overlook that divinity of Thine which is only apprehended? Or, because on behalf of my salvation Thou hast taken to Thyself the offering of my first-fruits, am I to ignore the fact that Thou “coverest Thyself with light as with a garment?”[Psalms 104:2] Or, because Thou wearest the flesh that is related to me, and dost show Thyself to men as they are able to see Thee, am I to forget the brightness of Thy glorious divinity? Or, because I see my own form in Thee, am I to reason against Thy divine ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 69, footnote 7 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Gregory Thaumaturgus. (HTML)
Dubious or Spurious Writings. (HTML)
Four Homilies. (HTML)
On the Holy Theophany, or on Christ's Baptism. (HTML)
... righteousness, over me who am but the torch of Thy grace. Even though Thou art compassed with the pure cloud of the body, I can still recognise Thy lordship. I acknowledge my own servitude, I proclaim Thy glorious greatness, I recognise Thy perfect lordship, I recognise my own perfect insignificance, I am not worthy to unloose the latchets of Thy shoes; and how shall I dare to touch Thy stainless head? How can I stretch out the right hand upon Thee, who didst stretch out the heavens like a curtain,[Psalms 104:2] and didst set the earth above the waters? How shall I spread those menial hands of mine upon Thy head? How shall I wash Thee, who art undefiled and sinless? How shall I enlighten the light? What manner of prayer shall I offer up over Thee, who dost ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 87, footnote 2 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Dionysius. (HTML)
Extant Fragments. (HTML)
Containing Various Sections of the Works. (HTML)
From the Books on Nature. (HTML)
... of things that are unapparent. For they do not seem even to have any notion of those regulated risings and settings of the heavenly bodies,—those of the sun, with all their wondrous glory, no less than those of the others; nor do they appear to make due application of the aids furnished through these to men, such as the day that rises clear for man’s work, and the night that overshadows earth for man’s rest. “For man,” it is said, “goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour, until the evening.”[Psalms 104:23] Neither do they consider that other revolution, by which the sun makes out for us determinate times, and convenient seasons, and regular successions, directed by those atoms of which it consists. But even though men like these—and miserable men they ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 344, footnote 5 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity. (HTML)
Tusiane. (HTML)
Chastity the Chief Ornament of the True Tabernacle; Seven Days Appointed to the Jews for Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles: What They Signify; The Sum of This Septenary Uncertain; Not Clear to Any One When the Consummation of the World Will Be; Even Now the Fabric of the World Completed. (HTML)
For since in six days God made the heaven and the earth, and finished the whole world, and rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, so by a figure in the seventh month, when the fruits of the earth have been gathered in, we are commanded to keep the feast to the Lord, which signifies that, when this world shall be terminated at the seventh thousand years, when God shall have completed the world, He shall rejoice in us.[Psalms 104:31] For now to this time all things are created by His all-sufficient will and inconceivable power; the earth still yielding its fruits, and the waters being gathered together in their receptacles; and the light still severed from darkness, and the allotted ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 349, footnote 6 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity. (HTML)
Domnina. (HTML)
The Malignity of the Devil as an Imitator in All Things; Two Kinds of Fig-Trees and Vines. (HTML)
For we find in the Sacred Writings that there are two kinds of fig-trees and vines, “the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil;” “wine that maketh glad the heart of man,”[Psalms 104:15] and wine which is the poison of dragons, and the incurable venom of asps. But from the time when chastity began to rule over men, the fraud was detected and overcome, Christ, the chief of virgins, overturning it. So both the true fig-tree and the true vine yield fruit after that the power of chastity has laid hold upon all men, as Joel the prophet preaches, saying: “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 366, footnote 9 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
From the Discourse on the Resurrection. (HTML)
Part I. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2868 (In-Text, Margin)
... destruction the change from a childish form into a perfect man, as the stature of the child is turned into manly size and beauty. We may expect that the creation will pass away, as if it were to perish in the burning, in order that it may be renewed, not however that it will be destroyed, that we who are renewed may dwell in a renewed world without taste of sorrow; according as it is said, “When Thou lettest Thy breath go forth, they shall be made, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth;”[Psalms 104:30] God henceforth providing for the due temperature of that which surrounds it. For as the earth is to exist after the present age, there must be by all means inhabitants for it, who shall no longer be liable to death, nor shall marry, nor beget ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 387, footnote 7 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna On the Day that They Met in the Temple. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3038 (In-Text, Margin)
... Preserver of that which has been brought into being; as the Framer of things by nature different; as He who, with wise and steady hand, holds the helm of the universe; as the very Principle of all good order; as the irrefragable Bond of concord and peace. For in Thee we live, and move, and have our being. Wherefore, O Lord my God, I will glorify Thee, I will praise Thy name; for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth; Thou art clothed with majesty and honour.[Psalms 104:1] For what is more splendid for a king than a purple robe embroidered around with flowers, and a shining diadem? Or what for God, who delights in man, is more magnificent than this merciful assumption of the manhood, illuminating with its resplendent ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 390, footnote 13 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna On the Day that They Met in the Temple. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3077 (In-Text, Margin)
... upholds all things by His word; the gate through which God appears in the flesh; the tongs of that cleansing coal; the bosom in small of that bosom which is all-containing; the fleece of wool, the mystery of which cannot be solved; the well of Bethlehem, that reservoir of life which David longed for, out of which the draught of immortality gushed forth; the mercy-seat from which God in human form was made known unto men; the spotless robe of Him who clothes Himself with light as with a garment.[Psalms 104:2] Thou hast lent to God, who stands in need of nothing, that flesh which He had not, in order that the Omnipotent might become that which it was his good pleasure to be. What is more splendid than this? What than this is more sublime? He who fills ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 107, footnote 1 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Lactantius (HTML)
The Divine Institutes (HTML)
Book IV. Of True Wisdom and Religion (HTML)
Chap. VIII.—Of the birth of Jesus in the spirit and in the flesh: of spirits and the testimonies of prophets (HTML)
But Hermes also was of the same opinion, when he says that He was “His own father,” and “His own mother.” But if this were so, as He is called by the prophets father, so also He would be called mother. In what manner, then, did He beget Him? First of all, divine operations cannot be known or declared by any one; but nevertheless the sacred writings teach us, in which it is laid down that this Son of God is the speech, or even the reason of God, and also that the other angels are spirits[Psalms 104:4] of God. For speech is breath sent forth with a voice signifying something. But, however, since breath and speech are sent forth from different parts, inasmuch as breath proceeds from the nostrils, speech from the mouth, the difference between the Son of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 434, footnote 3 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Sec. I.—On Helping the Poor (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2938 (In-Text, Margin)
... and all pious reverence, and to return thanks to God who gives food to the needy, and to lift up their eyes to Him. For, says He, “Which of you shall eat, or who shall drink without Him? For He openeth His hand, and filleth every living thing with His kindness: giving wheat to the young men, and wine to the maidens, and oil for the joy of the living, grass for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men, flesh for the wild beasts, seeds for the birds, and suitable food for all creatures.”[Psalms 104:14-15] Wherefore the Lord says: “Consider the fowls of heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, and your Father feedeth them. Are not ye much better than they? Be not therefore solicitous, saying, What shall we ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 473, footnote 2 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VII. Concerning the Christian Life, and the Eucharist, and the Initiation into Christ (HTML)
Sec. II.—On the Formation of the Character of Believers, and on Giving of Thanks to God (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3486 (In-Text, Margin)
... immediately, when, after so much long-suffering, we hardly get clear of our miserable condition? The heavens declare Thy dominion, and the earth shakes with earthquakes, and, hanging upon nothing, declares Thy unshaken stedfastness. The sea raging with waves, and feeding a flock of ten thousand creatures, is bounded with sand, as standing in awe at Thy command, and compels all men to dry out: “How great are Thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy creation.”[Psalms 104:24] And the bright host of angels and the intellectual spirits say to Palmoni, “There is but one holy Being;” and the holy seraphim, together with the six-winged cherubim, who sing to Thee their triumphal song, cry out with never-ceasing voices, “Holy, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 487, footnote 2 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VIII. Concerning Gifts, and Ordinations, and the Ecclesiastical Canons (HTML)
Sec. II.—Election and Ordination of Bishops: Form of Service on Sundays (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3641 (In-Text, Margin)
... by the very same that Thou bestowedst being, didst Thou also bestow well-being: the God and Father of Thy only begotten Son, who by Him didst make before all things the cherubim and the seraphim, the æons and hosts, the powers and authorities, the principalities and thrones, the archangels and angels; and after all these, didst by Him make this visible world, and all things that are therein. For Thou art He who didst frame the heaven as an arch, and “stretch it out like the covering of a tent,”[Psalms 104:2] and didst found the earth upon nothing by Thy mere will; who didst fix the firmament, and prepare the night and the day; who didst bring the light out of Thy treasures, and on its departure didst bring on darkness, for the rest of the living ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 494, footnote 2 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VIII. Concerning Gifts, and Ordinations, and the Ecclesiastical Canons (HTML)
Sec. IV.—Certain Prayers and Laws (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3707 (In-Text, Margin)
... water and the oil, I Matthias make a constitution. Let the bishop bless the water, or the oil. But if he be not there, let the presbyter bless it, the deacon standing by. But if the bishop be present, let the presbyter and deacon stand by, and let him say thus: O Lord of hosts, the God of powers, the creator of the waters, and the supplier of oil, who art compassionate, and a lover of mankind, who hast given water for drink and for cleansing, and oil to give man a cheerful and joyful countenance;[Psalms 104:15] do Thou now also sanctify this water and this oil through Thy Christ, in the name of him or her that has offered them, and grant them a power to restore health, to drive away diseases, to banish demons, and to disperse all snares through Christ our ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 499, footnote 2 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VIII. Concerning Gifts, and Ordinations, and the Ecclesiastical Canons (HTML)
Sec. V.—All the Apostles Urge the Observance of the Order of the Church (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3754 (In-Text, Margin)
... heareth you, heareth me; and he that heareth me, heareth Him that sent me.” And, “He that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth Him that sent me.” For if those things that are without life do observe good order, as the night, the day, the sun, the moon, the stars, the elements, the seasons, the months, the weeks, the days, and the hours, and are subservient to the uses appointed them, according to that which is said, “Thou hast set them a bound which they shall not pass;”[Psalms 104:9] and again, concerning the sea, “I have set bounds thereto, and have encompassed it with bars and gates; and I said to it, Hitherto shalt thou come, and thou shalt go no farther;” how much more ought ye not to venture to remove those things which we, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 240, footnote 9 (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)
All Blessings are Given to Us Through Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4194 (In-Text, Margin)
... a glass, His immaculate and most excellent visage. By Him are the eyes of our hearts opened. By Him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms up anew towards His marvellous light. By Him the Lord has willed that we should taste of immortal knowledge, “who, being the brightness of His majesty, is by so much greater than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” For it is thus written, “Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.”[Psalms 104:4] But concerning His Son the Lord spoke thus: “Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.” And again He saith to Him, “Sit ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 304, footnote 6 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
The Angels Also are Evangelists. (HTML)
Now if there are those among men who are honoured with the ministry of evangelists, and if Jesus Himself brings tidings of good things, and preaches the Gospel to the poor, surely those messengers who were made spirits by God,[Psalms 104:4] those who are a flame of fire, ministers of the Father of all, cannot have been excluded from being evangelists also. Hence an angel standing over the shepherds made a bright light to shine round about them, and said: “Fear not; behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people; for there is born to you, this day, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 314, footnote 8 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Christ the True Vine, and as Bread. (HTML)
To what we have said must be added how the Son is the true vine. Those will have no difficulty in apprehending this who understand, in a manner worthy of the prophetic grace, the saying:[Psalms 104:15] “Wine maketh glad the heart of man.” For if the heart be the intellectual part, and what rejoices it is the Word most pleasant of all to drink which takes us off human things, makes us feel ourselves inspired, and intoxicates us with an intoxication which is not irrational but divine, that, I conceive, with which Joseph made his brethren merry, then it is very clear how He who brings wine thus to ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 317, footnote 8 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Christ as Wisdom and Sanctification and Redemption. (HTML)
... able to conceive a bodiless existence of manifold speculations which extend to the rationale of existing things, living and, as it were, ensouled, he will see how well the Wisdom of God which is above every creature speaks of herself, when she says: “God created me the beginning of His ways, for His works.” By this creating act the whole creation was enabled to exist, not being unreceptive of that divine wisdom according to which it was brought into being; for God, according to the prophet David,[Psalms 104:24] made all things in wisdom. But many things came into being by the help of wisdom, which do not lay hold of that by which they were created: and few things indeed there are which lay hold not only of that wisdom which con cerns themselves, but of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 330, footnote 1 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
How the Word is the Maker of All Things, and Even the Holy Spirit Was Made Through Him. (HTML)
... life which is the light of men was made through Him, since it said that the life “was made” the light of men, what are we to say about wisdom, which is conceived as being prior to the Word? That, therefore, which is about the Word (His relations or conditions) was not made by the Word, and the result is that, with the exception of the notions under which Christ is presented, all things were made through the Word of God, the Father making them in wisdom. “In wisdom hast Thou made them all,” it says,[Psalms 104:24] not through, but in wisdom.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 485, footnote 2 (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)
The Little Ones and Their Stumbling-Blocks. (HTML)
... short of the likeness to them, as he falls short of the disposition of children towards the passions, of which we have spoken, to whom we ought not to give occasions of stumbling-block; but, if it be otherwise, he who has caused him to stumble will require, as contributing towards his cure, to have “an ass’s millstone hanged about his neck, and be sunk into the depths of the sea.” For, in this way, when he has paid the due penalty in the sea, where is “the dragon which God formed to play in it,”[Psalms 104:26] and, so far as is expedient for the end in view, has been punished and undergone suffering, he shall then have his part in those troubles which belong to the depths of the sea, which he endured when he was dragged down by the ass’s millstone. For ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 485, footnote 5 (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)
The Little Ones and Their Stumbling-Blocks. (HTML)
... grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left;” but the millstone of the ass is that which shall be put round him who has given occasion of stumbling-block. But some one might say—I know not whether he would speak soundly or erroneously—that the ass’s millstone is the heavy body of the wicked man, which is sunken downwards, and which he will receive at the resurrection that he may be sunk in the abyss which is called the depth of the sea, where “is the dragon which God formed to play therein.”[Psalms 104:26] But another will refer the creating of a stumbling-block to one of the little ones to the powers that are unseen by men; for from these arise many stumbling-blocks to the little ones pointed out by Jesus. But when they cause to stumble one of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 88, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He describes the twenty-ninth year of his age, in which, having discovered the fallacies of the Manichæans, he professed rhetoric at Rome and Milan. Having heard Ambrose, he begins to come to himself. (HTML)
He is Sent to Milan, that He, About to Teach Rhetoric, May Be Known by Ambrose. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 425 (In-Text, Margin)
... persons, drunk with Manichæan vanities, to be freed from whom I was going away,—neither of us, however, being aware of it,—that Symmachus, the then prefect, having proved me by proposing a subject, would send me. And to Milan I came, unto Ambrose the bishop, known to the whole world as among the best of men, Thy devout servant; whose eloquent discourse did at that time strenuously dispense unto Thy people the flour of Thy wheat, the “gladness” of Thy “oil,” and the sober intoxication of Thy “wine.”[Psalms 104:15] To him was I unknowingly led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be led to Thee. That man of God received me like a father, and looked with a benevolent and episcopal kindliness on my change of abode. And I began to love him, not at first, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 167, footnote 3 (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)
Wisdom and the Beginning. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1038 (In-Text, Margin)
... to all mine iniquities, heal also all mine infirmities; because Thou shalt also redeem my life from corruption, and crown me with Thy loving-kindness and mercy, and shalt satisfy my desire with good things, because my youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s. For by hope we are saved; and through patience we await Thy promises. Let him that is able hear Thee discoursing within. I will with confidence cry out from Thy oracle, How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord, in Wisdom hast Thou made them all.[Psalms 104:24] And this Wisdom is the Beginning, and in that Beginning hast Thou made heaven and earth.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 183, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He continues his explanation of the first Chapter of Genesis according to the Septuagint, and by its assistance he argues, especially, concerning the double heaven, and the formless matter out of which the whole world may have been created; afterwards of the interpretations of others not disallowed, and sets forth at great length the sense of the Holy Scripture. (HTML)
He Enumerates the Things Concerning Which All Agree. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1137 (In-Text, Margin)
28. For it is true, O Lord, that Thou hast made heaven and earth; it is also true, that the Beginning is Thy Wisdom, in Which Thou hast made all things.[Psalms 104:24] It is likewise true, that this visible world hath its own great parts, the heaven and the earth, which in a short compass comprehends all made and created natures. It is also true, that everything mutable sets before our minds a certain want of form, whereof it taketh a form, or is changed and turned. It is true, that that is subject to no times which so cleaveth to the changeless form as that, though it be mutable, it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 192, footnote 10 (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)
That Nothing Whatever, Short of God, Can Yield to the Rational Creature a Happy Rest. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1191 (In-Text, Margin)
... itself would have been a darksome deep, whereas now it is light in the Lord. For even in that wretched restlessness of the spirits who fell away, and, when unclothed of the garments of Thy light, discovered their own darkness, dost Thou sufficiently disclose how noble Thou hast made the rational creature; to which nought which is inferior to Thee will suffice to yield a happy rest, and so not even herself. For Thou, O our God, shalt enlighten our darkness; from Thee are derived our garments of light,[Psalms 104:2] and then shall our darkness be as the noonday. Give Thyself unto me, O my God, restore Thyself unto me; behold, I love Thee, and if it be too little, let me love Thee more strongly. I cannot measure my love, so that I may come to know how much there ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 195, footnote 24 (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)
Allegorical Explanation of the Firmament and Upper Works, Ver. 6. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1263 (In-Text, Margin)
16. Or who but Thou, our God, made for us that firmament of authority over us in Thy divine Scripture? As it is said, For heaven shall be folded up like a scroll; and now it is extended over us like a skin.[Psalms 104:2] For Thy divine Scripture is of more sublime authority, since those mortals through whom Thou didst dispense it unto us underwent mortality. And Thou knowest, O Lord, Thou knowest, how Thou with skins didst clothe men when by sin they became mortal. Whence as a skin hast Thou stretched out the firmament of Thy Book; that is to say, Thy harmonious words, which by the ministry of mortals Thou ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 196, footnote 19 (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)
Allegorical Explanation of the Sea and the Fruit-Bearing Earth—Verses 9 and 11. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1291 (In-Text, Margin)
... may fluctuate with an innumerable variety of cares. Who, O Lord, unless Thou, saidst, Let the waters be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, which “thirsteth after Thee”? For the sea also is Thine, and Thou hast made it, and Thy hands prepared the dry land. For neither is the bitterness of men’s wills, but the gathering together of waters called sea; for Thou even curbest the wicked desires of men’s souls, and fixest their bounds, how far they may be permitted to advance,[Psalms 104:9] and that their waves may be broken against each other; and thus dost Thou make it a sea, by the order of Thy dominion over all things.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 214, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Augustin passes to the second part of the work, in which the origin, progress, and destinies of the earthly and heavenly cities are discussed.—Speculations regarding the creation of the world. (HTML)
How We are to Understand the Words, ‘The Devil Sinneth from the Beginning.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 484 (In-Text, Margin)
... passage, “The devil sinneth from the beginning,” it is not to be supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his created existence, but from the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of Job, of which the devil is the subject: “This is the beginning of the creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His angels,” which agrees with the psalm, where it is said, “There is that dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport therein.”[Psalms 104:26] But these passages are not to lead us to suppose that the devil was originally created to be the sport of the angels, but that he was doomed to this punishment after his sin. His beginning, then, is the handiwork of God; for there is no nature, even ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 214, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Augustin passes to the second part of the work, in which the origin, progress, and destinies of the earthly and heavenly cities are discussed.—Speculations regarding the creation of the world. (HTML)
That the Flaw of Wickedness is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature, and Has Its Origin, Not in the Creator, But in the Will. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 487 (In-Text, Margin)
... evil wills. Accordingly, He caused the devil (good by God’s creation, wicked by his own will) to be cast down from his high position, and to become the mockery of His angels,—that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those whom he wishes to injure by them. And because God, when He created him, was certainly not ignorant of his future malignity, and foresaw the good which He Himself would bring out of his evil, therefore says the psalm, “This leviathan whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein,”[Psalms 104:26] that we may see that, even while God in His goodness created him good, He yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make use of him when he became wicked.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 223, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Augustin passes to the second part of the work, in which the origin, progress, and destinies of the earthly and heavenly cities are discussed.—Speculations regarding the creation of the world. (HTML)
Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 512 (In-Text, Margin)
... as He Himself, in the gospel, replied to the Jews when they asked Him who He was, that He was the Beginning; —I will not contest the point, chiefly because it gives me the liveliest satisfaction to find the Trinity celebrated in the very beginning of the book of Genesis. For having said “In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” meaning that the Father made them in the Son (as the psalm testifies where it says, “How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in Wisdom hast Thou made them all”[Psalms 104:24]), a little afterwards mention is fitly made of the Holy Spirit also. For, when it had been told us what kind of earth God created at first, or what the mass or matter was which God, under the name of “heaven and earth,” had provided for the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 303, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The progress of the earthly and heavenly cities traced by the sacred history. (HTML)
Whether We are to Believe that Angels, Who are of a Spiritual Substance, Fell in Love with the Beauty of Women, and Sought Them in Marriage, and that from This Connection Giants Were Born. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 843 (In-Text, Margin)
In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, “Who maketh His angels spirits,”[Psalms 104:4] that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as “angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that God’s ministers ought to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 504, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the eternal happiness of the saints, the resurrection of the body, and the miracles of the early Church. (HTML)
Of the Blessings with Which the Creator Has Filled This Life, Obnoxious Though It Be to the Curse. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1663 (In-Text, Margin)
... certainly not one in which beauty is sacrificed to utility, while there are some which serve no purpose but only beauty, I think it can readily be concluded that in the creation of the human body comeliness was more regarded than necessity. In truth, necessity is a transitory thing; and the time is coming when we shall enjoy one another’s beauty without any lust,—a condition which will specially redound to the praise of the Creator, who, as it is said in the psalm, has “put on praise and comeliness.”[Psalms 104:1]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 58, footnote 3 (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)
God Uses All Creatures as He Will, and Makes Visible Things for the Manifestation of Himself. (HTML)
... human affairs were in the hands of the wise, and of those who were piously and perfectly subject to God; but because this is not the case as yet (for it behoves us first to be exercised in this our pilgrimage after mortal fashion, and to be taught with stripes by force of gentleness and patience), let us turn our thoughts to that country itself that is above and heavenly, from which we here are pilgrims. For there the will of God, “who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire,”[Psalms 104:4] presiding among spirits which are joined in perfect peace and friendship, and combined in one will by a kind of spiritual fire of charity, as it were in an elevated and holy and secret seat, as in its own house and in its own temple, thence diffuses ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 92, footnote 2 (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)
... the Father alone; but, “None is good, save one, that is, God.” For the 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,[Psalms 104:6] which is said in respect to condition; and “Thy years shall have no end,” 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 ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 432, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
The Testimonies of Ambrose on the Imperfection of Present Righteousness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2903 (In-Text, Margin)
... the laver. But yet, when the prophet says, ‘All things are waiting upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them meat in season. That Thou givest them they gather for themselves; when Thou openest Thine hand, all things shall be filled with goodness. But when Thou turnest away Thy face, they shall be troubled: Thou shall take away their breath, and they shall fail, and shall be turned into their dust. Thou shall send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth,’[Psalms 104:27] such things as these cannot seem to have been said of any time whatever but of that future time, in which there shall be a new earth and a new heaven. Therefore they shall be disturbed that they may take their beginning. ‘And when Thou openest Thy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 459, 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 i. 1, ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God,’ etc. Against the Arians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3578 (In-Text, Margin)
... tell you what hinders It from being understood. For He is a certain Form, a Form not formed, but the Form of all things formed; a Form unchangeable, without failure, without decay, without thee, without place, surpassing all things, being in all things, as at once a kind of foundation in which they are, and a Head-stone under which they are. If you say that all things are in Him, you lie not. For This Word is called the Wisdom of God; and we have it written, “In Wisdom hast Thou made all things.”[Psalms 104:24] Lo, then in Him are all things: and yet in that He is God, under Him are all things. I am showing how incomprehensible is what has been read; yet it has been read, not that it should be comprehended by man, but that man should sorrow that he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 12, footnote 3 (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. 1–5. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 24 (In-Text, Margin)
16. “All things,” then, brethren, “all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” But how were all things made by Him? “That, which was made, in Him is life.” It can also be read thus: “That, which was made in Him, is life;” and if we so read it, everything is life. For what is there that was not made in Him? For He is the Wisdom of God, and it is said in the Psalm,[Psalms 104:24] “In Wisdom hast Thou made all things.” If, then, Christ is the Wisdom of God, and the Psalm says, “In Wisdom hast Thou made all things:” as all things were made by Him, so all things were made in Him. If, then, all things were made in Him, dearly beloved brethren, and that, which was made in Him, is life, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 216, 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. 19, 20. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 682 (In-Text, Margin)
... beforehand; that which was made was in His Word. The world was made; both was made and was there. How both was made and was there? Because the house which the builder rears, was previously in his art; and there, a better house, without age, without decay: however, to show forth his art, he makes a house; and so, in a manner, a house comes forth from a house; and if the house should fall, the art remains. So were all things that are made with the Word of God; because God made all things in wisdom,[Psalms 104:24] and all that He made were known to Him: for He did not learn because He made, but made because He knew. To us they are known, because they are made: to Him, if they had not been known, they would not have been made. Therefore the Word went before. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 255, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter X. 1–10. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 876 (In-Text, Margin)
... outgoing? I might say, indeed, that we enter when we engage in some inward exercise of thought; and go out, when we take to some active work without: and since, as the apostle saith, Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith, to enter by Christ is to give ourselves to thought in accordance with that faith; but to go out by Christ is, in accordance also with that same faith, to take to outside works, that is to say, in the presence of others. Hence, also, we read in a psalm, “Man goeth forth to his work;”[Psalms 104:23] and the Lord Himself saith, “Let your works shine before men.” But I am better pleased that the Truth Himself, like a good Shepherd, and therefore a good Teacher, hath in a certain measure reminded us how we ought to understand His words, “He shall ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 317, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3091 (In-Text, Margin)
... bearest an earthly vessel, wherein the treasure of God is, something must be dreaded even from that same vessel of clay. Therefore “my firmament Thou art,” in order that I may be firm in this world against all temptations. But if many they are, and they trouble me: “my refuge Thou art.” For I will confess mine infirmity, to the end that I may be timid like a “hare,” because I am full of thorns like a “hedgehog.” And as in another Psalm is said, “The rock is a refuge for the hedgehogs and the hares:”[Psalms 104:18] but the Rock was Christ.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 332, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3235 (In-Text, Margin)
... “in the tops of the mountains.” “Highly superexalted above Libanus shall be His fruit.” Libanus we are wont to take as this world’s dignity: for Libanus is a mountain bearing tall trees, and the name itself is interpreted whiteness. For what marvel, if above every brilliant state of this world there is superexalted the fruit of Christ, of which fruit the lovers have contemned all secular dignities? But if in a good sense we take Libanus, because of the “cedars of Libanus which He hath planted:”[Psalms 104:16] what other fruit must be understood, that is being exalted above this Libanus, except that whereof the Apostle speaketh when he is going to speak concerning that love of his, “yet a pre-eminent way to you I show”? For this is put forward even in the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 432, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4157 (In-Text, Margin)
11. Lastly, what hast Thou done in the sea itself, to pacify its rage, and to weaken it? “Thou hast humbled the proud as one that is wounded” (ver. 10). There is a certain proud serpent in the sea, of which another passage of Scripture speaks, “I will command the serpent, and he shall bite him;” and again, “There is that Leviathan, whom Thou hast made to mock him,”[Psalms 104:26] whose head He bruises above the water. “Thou,” he says, “hast humbled the proud, as one that is wounded.” Thou hast humbled Thyself, and the proud was humbled: for the proud held the proud ones through pride: but the great One is humbled, and by believing in Him become small. While the little one is nourished by ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 510, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4703 (In-Text, Margin)
5. “The deep, like a garment, is its clothing” (ver. 6). Whose? Is it perchance God’s? But he had already said of His clothing, “Clothed with light as with a garment.”[Psalms 104:2] I hear of God clothed in light, and that light, if we will, are we. What is, if we will? if we are no longer darkness. Therefore if God is clothed with light, whose clothing, again, is the deep? For an immense mass of waters is called the deep. All water, all the moist nature, and the substance everywhere shed abroad through the seas, and rivers, and hidden caves, is all together called by one name, the Deep. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 544, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4973 (In-Text, Margin)
... already abolished; the temple being destroyed, that priesthood taken away, their victim and their sacrifice having alike disappeared, not even the Jews have these things. They see that the priesthood after the order of Aaron hath already perished, and they do not recognise the Priesthood after the order of Melchizedec. I speak unto believers. If catechumens understand not something, let them lay aside sloth, and hasten unto knowledge. It is not therefore needful for me to disclose mysteries here:[Psalms 104] let the Scriptures intimate to you what is the Priesthood after the order of Melchizedec.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 586, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
Schin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5366 (In-Text, Margin)
... not even in His own Person pay tribute from the mouth of a fish? Did not His forerunner, when the soldiers of this kingdom were seeking what they ought to do for their everlasting salvation, instead of replying, Loose your belts, throw away your arms, desert your king, that ye may wage war for the Lord, answer, “Do violence to no man: neither accuse any falsely: and be content with your wages”? Did not one of His soldiers, His most beloved companion, say to his fellow soldiers, the provincials,[Psalms 104] so to speak, of Christ, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers”? Does he not enjoin the Church to pray for even kings themselves? How then have the Christians offended against them? What due have they not rendered? in what have not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 629, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5688 (In-Text, Margin)
6. However, whether by what he saith, “who made the heavens in understanding,” or, as others have rendered it, “in intelligence,” he meant to signify, the heavens we can understand, or that He in His understanding or intelligence, that is, in His wisdom made the heavens (as it is elsewhere written, “in wisdom hast Thou made them all”[Psalms 104:24]), implying thereby the only-begotten Word, may be a question. But if it be so, that we are to understand that “God by His wisdom made the heavens,” why saith He this only of the heavens, whereas God made all things by the same wisdom? It is that it needed only to be expressed there, so that in the rest it might be understood ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 188, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
Three Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons. (HTML)
Homily II. On the Power of Man to Resist the Devil. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 580 (In-Text, Margin)
... The Devil then is acknowledged, as I said, to be evil by all. What shall we say about this beautiful and wondrous creation? Pray is the creation too, wicked? and who is so corrupt, who so dull, and demented as to accuse the creation? what then shall we say about this? For it is not wicked, but is both beautiful and a token of the wisdom and power and lovingkindness of God. Hear at least how the prophet marvels at it, saying, “How are thy works magnified O Lord! in wisdom Thou hast made them all.”[Psalms 104:24] He did go through them one by one, but withdrew before the incomprehensible wisdom of God. And that he has made it thus beautiful and vast hear a certain one saying, “From the vastness and beauty of the creatures, the originator of them is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 205, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
Homily on the Passage (Matt. xxvi. 19), 'Father If It Be Possible Let This Cup Pass from Me,' Etc., and Against Marcionists and Manichæans. (HTML)
Against Marcionists and Manichæans. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 676 (In-Text, Margin)
... of the incarnation was very hard to receive. For the exceeding measure of His lovingkindness and the magnitude of His con descension were full of awe, and needed much preparation to be accepted. For consider what a great thing it was to hear and to learn that God the ineffable, the incorruptible, the unintelligible, the invisible, the incomprehensible, in whose hand are the ends of the earth, who looketh upon the earth, and causeth it to tremble, who toucheth the mountains, and maketh them smoke,[Psalms 104:32] the weight of whose condescension not even the Cherubim were able to bear but veiled their faces by the shelter of their wings, that this God who surpasses all understanding, and baffles all calculation, having passed by angels, archangels, and all ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 408, footnote 6 (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 1446 (In-Text, Margin)
... bringing forth during so long a time! Contemplate with me the fountains; how they burst forth and fail not, since the time they were begotten, to flow forth continually throughout the day and night! Contemplate with me the sea, receiving so many rivers, yet never exceeding its measure! But how long shall we pursue things unattainable! It is fit, indeed, that over every one of these which has been spoken of, we should say, “O Lord, how hast Thou magnified Thy works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all.”[Psalms 104:24]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 13, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (HTML)
Homily II on Acts i. 6. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 39 (In-Text, Margin)
... been conversing with them (for had they seen only from a distance, they could not have recognized Him by sight), but that He is taken up into Heaven the Angels themselves inform them. Observe how it is ordered, that not all is done by the Spirit, but the eyes also do their part. But why did “a cloud receive Him?” This too was a sure sign that He went up to Heaven. Not fire, as in the case of Elijah, nor fiery chariot, but “a cloud received Him;” which was a symbol of Heaven, as the Prophet says;[Psalms 104:3] “Who maketh the clouds His chariot” (Ps. civ. 3); it is of the Father Himself that this is said. Therefore he says, “on a cloud;” in the symbol, he would say, of the Divine power, for no other Power is seen to appear on a cloud. For hear again what ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 541, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans (HTML)
Homily XXVIII on Rom. xv. 8. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1637 (In-Text, Margin)
... rest, O my soul.” (ib. cxvi. 7.) Why the Heaven is so great, this he will also say. For it is because “the heavens declare the glory of God.” (ib. xix. 1.) Why day and night were made,—not that they may shine and give us rest only, but also that they may instruct us. “For there are no speeches nor words, the sounds of which (i.e. day and night) are not heard.” (ib. 3.) How the sea lies round about the earth, this too thou wilt learn from hence. “The deep as a garment is the envelopment thereof.”[Psalms 104:6] For so the Hebrew has it.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 375, footnote 5 (Image)
Eusebius: Church History from A.D. 1-324, Life of Constantine the Great, Oration in Praise of Constantine
The Church History of Eusebius. (HTML)
Book X (HTML)
Panegyric on the Splendor of Affairs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2882 (In-Text, Margin)
43. It seems to me superfluous to describe here in detail the length and breadth of the building, its splendor and its majesty surpassing description, and the brilliant appearance of the work, its lofty pinnacles reaching to the heavens, and the costly cedars of Lebanon above them, which the divine oracle has not omitted to mention, saying, ‘The trees of the Lord shall rejoice and the cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted.’[Psalms 104:16]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 320, footnote 4 (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 John the Œconomus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2100 (In-Text, Margin)
... heaven or in earth, as there are gods many and lords many, but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord by whom are all things and we by Him.” And the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God and so also is the soul of man, for, it is written, “His breath goeth forth,” and “O ye spirits and souls of the righteous bless ye the Lord,” and the Psalmist David called the angels spirits. “Who maketh His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire.”[Psalms 104:4] Why indeed do I mention the angels and the souls of men? Even the dæmons are so called by the Lord “He shall take unto him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they shall enter in, and the last state of that man shall be worse than the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 535, footnote 3 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
My ignorance of many natural phenomena is no excuse for your ignorance as to the origin of souls. You ought, according to your boasting dream to know everything. The thing of most importance was forgotten in your cargo of Eastern wares. (HTML)
... course, are a man not of smoke but of flame, or rather of lightning; you fulminate when you speak; you cannot contain the flames which have been conceived within your mouth, and like Barchochebas, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, who used to hold in his mouth a lighted straw and blow it out so as to appear to be breathing forth flame: so you also, like a second Salmoneus, brighten the whole path on which you tread, and reproach us as mere men of smoke, to whom perhaps the words might be applied,[Psalms 104:52] “Thou touchest the hills and they smoke.” You do not understand the allusion of the Prophet when he speaks of the smoke of the locusts; it is no doubt the beauty of your eyes which makes it impossible for you to bear the pungency of our smoke.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 161, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Proof of the Catholic Sense of the Word Son. Power, Word or Reason, and Wisdom, the names of the Son, imply eternity; as well as the Father's title of Fountain. The Arians reply, that these do not formally belong to the essence of the Son, but are names given Him; that God has many words, powers, &c. Why there is but one Son and Word, &c. All the titles of the Son coincide in Him. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 866 (In-Text, Margin)
... from external sources, but from the Scriptures; for God Himself says by Isaiah the Prophet; ‘My hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand hath spanned the heavens.’ And again, ‘And I will cover thee in the shadow of My Hand, by which I planted the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth.’ And David being taught this, and knowing that the Lord’s Hand was nothing else than Wisdom, says in the Psalm, ‘In wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy creation[Psalms 104:24].’ Solomon also received the same from God, and said, ‘The Lord by wisdom founded the earth,’ and John, knowing that the Word was the Hand and the Wisdom, thus preached, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 317, 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 I (HTML)
Subject Continued. Third proof of the Son's eternity, viz. from other titles indicative of His coessentiality; as the Creator; One of the Blessed Trinity; as Wisdom; as Word; as Image. If the Son is a perfect Image of the Father, why is He not a Father also? because God, being perfect, is not the origin of a race. Only the Father a Father because the Only Father, only the Son a Son because the Only Son. Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of the True. The Son does not become a Father, because He has received from the Father to be immutable and ever the same. (HTML)
... thy bones fat; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.’ And yet these, whereas God is called and is a Fountain of wisdom, dare to insult Him as barren and void of His proper Wisdom. But their doctrine is false; truth witnessing that God is the eternal Fountain of His proper Wisdom; and, if the Fountain be eternal, the Wisdom also must needs be eternal. For in It were all things made, as David says in the Psalm, ‘In Wisdom hast Thou made them all[Psalms 104:24];’ and Solomon says, ‘The Lord by Wisdom hath formed the earth, by understanding hath He established the heavens.’ And this Wisdom is the Word, and by Him, as John says, ‘all things were made,’ and ‘without Him was made not one thing.’ And this Word ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 339, footnote 6 (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)
Texts Explained; Thirdly, Hebrews i. 4. Additional texts brought as objections; e.g. Heb. i. 4; vii. 22. Whether the word 'better' implies likeness to the Angels; and 'made' or 'become' implies creation. Necessary to consider the circumstances under which Scripture speaks. Difference between 'better' and 'greater;' texts in proof. 'Made' or 'become' a general word. Contrast in Heb. i. 4, between the Son and the Works in point of nature. The difference of the punishments under the two Covenants shews the difference of the natures of the Son and the Angels. 'Become' relates not to the nature of the Word, but to His manhood and office and relation towards us. Parallel passages in which the term is applied to the Eternal Father. (HTML)
... contrary, things originate cannot be called generate, God’s handiwork as they are, except so far as after their making they partake of the generate Son, and are therefore said to have been generated also, not at all in their own nature, but because of their participation of the Son in the Spirit. And this again divine Scripture recognises; for it says in the case of things originate, ‘All things came to be through Him, and without Him nothing came to be,’ and, ‘In wisdom hast Thou made them all[Psalms 104:24];’ but in the case of sons which are generate, ‘To Job there came to be seven sons and three daughters,’ and, ‘Abraham was an hundred years old when there came to be to him Isaac his son;’ and Moses said, ‘If to any one there come to be sons.’ ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 351, 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 II (HTML)
Texts explained; Fourthly, Hebrews iii. 2. Introduction; the Regula Fidei counter to an Arian sense of the text; which is not supported by the word 'servant,' nor by 'made' which occurs in it; (how can the Judge be among the 'works' which 'God will bring into judgment?') nor by 'faithful;' and is confuted by the immediate context, which is about Priesthood; and by the foregoing passage, which explains the word 'faithful' as meaning trustworthy, as do 1 Pet. iv. fin. and other texts. On the whole made may safely be understood either of the divine generation or the human creation. (HTML)
... allegation of such phrases, ought now, though late in the day, after what has been said, to disown their irreligious thoughts, and think of the Lord as of a true Son, Word, and Wisdom of the Father, not a work, not a creature. For if the Son be a creature, by what word then and by what wisdom was He made Himself? for all the works were made through the Word and the Wisdom, as it is written, ‘In wisdom hast Thou made them all,’ and, ‘All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made[Psalms 104:24].’ But if it be He who is the Word and the Wisdom, by which all things come to be, it follows that He is not in the number of works, nor in short of things originate, but the Offspring of the Father.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 365, footnote 11 (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)
Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 continued. Contrast between the Father's operations immediately and naturally in the Son, instrumentally by the creatures; Scripture terms illustrative of this. Explanation of these illustrations; which should be interpreted by the doctrine of the Church; perverse sense put on them by the Arians, refuted. Mystery of Divine Generation. Contrast between God's Word and man's word drawn out at length. Asterius betrayed into holding two Unoriginates; his inconsistency. Baptism how by the Son as well as by the Father. On the Baptism of heretics. Why Arian worse than other heresies. (HTML)
... Him and the Word in the Father; but it suffices to will, and the work is done; so that the word ‘He said’ is a token of the will for our sake, and ‘It was so,’ denotes the work which is done through the Word and the Wisdom, in which Wisdom also is the Will of the Father. And ‘God said’ is explained in ‘the Word,’ for, he says, ‘Thou hast made all things in Wisdom;’ and ‘By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made fast;’ and ‘There is one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him[Psalms 104:24].’
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 369, footnote 11 (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)
Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 continued. Contrast between the Father's operations immediately and naturally in the Son, instrumentally by the creatures; Scripture terms illustrative of this. Explanation of these illustrations; which should be interpreted by the doctrine of the Church; perverse sense put on them by the Arians, refuted. Mystery of Divine Generation. Contrast between God's Word and man's word drawn out at length. Asterius betrayed into holding two Unoriginates; his inconsistency. Baptism how by the Son as well as by the Father. On the Baptism of heretics. Why Arian worse than other heresies. (HTML)
40. Therefore, if neither in the divine oracles is found another wisdom besides this Son, nor from the fathers have we heard of any such, yet they have confessed and written of the Wisdom coexisting with the Father unoriginately, proper to Him, and the Framer of the world, this must be the Son who even according to them is eternally coexistent with the Father. For He is Framer of all, as it is written, ‘In Wisdom hast Thou made them all[Psalms 104:24].’ Nay, Asterius himself, as if forgetting what he wrote before, afterwards, in Caiaphas’s fashion, involuntarily, when urging the Greeks, instead of naming many wisdoms, or the caterpillar, confesses but one, in these words;—‘God the Word is one, but many are the things ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 373, footnote 2 (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)
... be created, and of course the creature is created: but this mere term ‘He created’ does not necessarily signify the essence or the generation, but indicates something else as coming to pass in Him of whom it speaks, and not simply that He who is said to be created, is at once in His Nature and Essence a creature. And this difference divine Scripture recognises, saying concerning the creatures, ‘The earth is full of Thy creation,’ and ‘the creation itself groaneth together and travaileth together[Psalms 104:24];’ and in the Apocalypse it says, ‘And the third part of the creatures in the sea died which had life;’ as also Paul says, ‘Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving;’ and in the book of Wisdom it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 390, 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, the Context of Proverbs viii. 22 Vz. 22-30. It is right to interpret this passage by the Regula Fidei. 'Founded' is used in contrast to superstructure; and it implies, as in the case of stones in building, previous existence. 'Before the world' signifies the divine intention and purpose. Recurrence to Prov. viii. 22, and application of it to created Wisdom as seen in the works. The Son reveals the Father, first by the works, then by the Incarnation. (HTML)
78. Now the Only-begotten and very Wisdom of God is Creator and Framer of all things; for ‘in Wisdom hast Thou made them all[Psalms 104:24],’ he says, and ‘the earth is full of Thy creation.’ But that what came into being might not only be, but be good, it pleased God that His own Wisdom should condescend to the creatures, so as to introduce an impress and semblance of Its Image on all in common and on each, that what was made might be manifestly wise works and worthy of God. For as of the Son of God, considered as the Word, our word is an image, so of the same Son ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 434, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse IV (HTML)
The substantiality of the Word proved from Scripture. If the One Origin be substantial, Its Word is substantial. Unless the Word and Son be a second Origin, or a work, or an attribute (and so God be compounded), or at the same time Father, or involve a second nature in God, He is from the Father's Essence and distinct from Him. Illustration of John x. 30, drawn from Deut. iv. 4. (HTML)
... plain that the Word is not from nothing, nor once was not; for He was ever; since He of whom He is the Image, exists ever. But if they say that He is indeed wise and not word-less, but that He has in Himself His own wisdom and own word, and that, not Christ, but that by which He made Christ, we must answer that, if Christ in that word was brought to be, plainly so were all things; and it must be He of whom John says, ‘All things were made by Him,’ and the Psalmist, ‘In Wisdom hast Thou made them all[Psalms 104:24].’ And Christ will be found to speak untruly, ‘I in the Father,’ there being another in the Father. And ‘the Word became flesh ’ is not true according to them. For if He in whom ‘all things came to be,’ Himself became flesh, but Christ is not in the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 514, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
For 331. Easter-day xvi Pharmuthi; iii Id. April; Æra Dioclet. 47; Coss. Annius Bassus, Ablabius; Præfect, Florentius; Indict. iv. (HTML)
4. Therefore, the God of all, ‘Who maketh His angels [spirits],’ is a spirit, ‘and His ministers a flame of fire[Psalms 104:4].’ Wherefore, in the departure from Egypt, He forbade the multitude to touch the mountain, where God was appointing them the law, because they were not of this character. But He called blessed Moses to it, as being fervent in spirit, and possessing unquenchable grace, saying, ‘Let Moses alone draw near.’ He entered into the cloud also, and when the mountain was smoking, he was not injured; but rather, through ‘the words of the Lord, which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 546, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
(For 347.) Coss. Rufinus, Eusebius; Præf. the same Nestorius; Indict. v; Easter-day, Prid. Id. Apr., Pharmuthi xvii; Æra Dioclet. 63; Moon 15. (HTML)
... know what time the shadow should last, and not to forget the time that was at hand, in which no longer should the bullock of the herd be a sacrifice to God, nor the ram of the flock, nor the he-goat, but all these things should be fulfilled in a purely spiritual manner, and by constant prayer, and upright conversation, with godly words; as David sings, ‘May my meditation be pleasing to Him. Let my prayer be set forth before Thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice[Psalms 104:34].’ The Spirit also, who is in him, commands, saying, ‘Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay to the Lord thy vows. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.’
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 547, footnote 10 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
(For 347.) Coss. Rufinus, Eusebius; Præf. the same Nestorius; Indict. v; Easter-day, Prid. Id. Apr., Pharmuthi xvii; Æra Dioclet. 63; Moon 15. (HTML)
7. Let us, therefore, in the faith of the disciples, hold frequent converse with our Master. For the world is like the sea to us, my brethren, of which it is written, ‘This is the great and wide sea, there go the ships; the Leviathan, which Thou hast created to play therein[Psalms 104:25-26].’ We float on this sea, as with the wind, through our own free-will, for every one directs his course according to his will, and either, under the pilotage of the Word, he enters into rest, or, laid hold on by pleasure, he suffers shipwreck, and is in peril by storm. For as in the ocean there are storms and waves, so in the world there are many afflictions and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 23, footnote 19 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 359 (In-Text, Margin)
4. So long as we are held down by this frail body, so long as we have our treasure in earthen vessels; so long as the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, there can be no sure victory. “Our adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” “Thou makest darkness,” David says, “and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God.”[Psalms 104:20-21] The devil looks not for unbelievers, for those who are without, whose flesh the Assyrian king roasted in the furnace. It is the church of Christ that he “makes haste to spoil.” According to Habakkuk, “His food is of the choicest.” A Job is the victim of his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 152, footnote 11 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Lucinius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2212 (In-Text, Margin)
... Illyricum,” he enters Rome in bonds, that he may free those who are in the bonds of error and superstition. Two years he dwells in his own hired house that he may give to us the house eternal which is spoken of in both the testaments. The apostle, the fisher of men, has cast forth his net, and, among countless kinds of fish, has landed you like a magnificent gilt-bream. You have left behind you the bitter waves, the salt tides, the mountain-fissures; you have despised Leviathan who reigns in the waters.[Psalms 104:26] Your aim is to seek the wilderness with Jesus and to sing the prophet’s song: “my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 257, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Principia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3573 (In-Text, Margin)
... cold. Yet the few who still loved the true faith rallied to my side. Men openly sought to take their lives and every expedient was employed against them. So hotly indeed did the persecution rage that “Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation;” nay more he committed murder, if not in actual violence at least in will. Then behold God blew and the tempest passed away; so that the prediction of the prophet was fulfilled, “thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.[Psalms 104:29] In that very day his thoughts perish,” as also the gospel-saying, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 265, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3677 (In-Text, Margin)
... against you but only to warn you as an apprehensive and prudent monitor who in your case fears even what is safe. What says the scripture? “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place.” We must always stand under arms and in battle array, ready to engage the foe. When he tries to dislodge us from our position and to make us fall back, we must plant our feet firmly down, and say with the psalmist, “he hath set my feet upon a rock” and “the rocks are a refuge for the conies.”[Psalms 104:18] In this latter passage for ‘conies’ many read ‘hedgehogs.’ Now the hedgehog is a small animal, very shy, and covered over with thorny bristles. When Jesus was crowned with thorns and bore our sins and suffered for us, it was to make the roses of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 265, footnote 22 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3685 (In-Text, Margin)
... their garments, for they have remained virgins and have hearkened to the precept of the Preacher: “let thy garments be always white.” As the author and prince of virginity He says boldly of Himself: “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.” “The rocks” then “are a refuge for the conies” who when they are persecuted in one city flee into another and have no fear that the prophetic words “refuge failed me” will be fulfilled in their case. “The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats,”[Psalms 104:18] and their food are the serpents which a little child draws out of their holes. Meanwhile the leopard lies down with the kid and the lion eats straw like the ox; not of course that the ox may learn ferocity from the lion but that the lion may learn ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 432, footnote 2 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5025 (In-Text, Margin)
... Lord were the heavens established, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth’; and the creation of man is a simple proof of the same; for it was God Himself who took slime from the earth, and through the grace of His own inspiration bestowed on it a reasonable soul, and one endowed with free will; not a part of His own nature (as some impiously teach), but His own workmanship. And concerning the holy angels, the belief of Christians similarly follows Holy Scripture, which says of God,[Psalms 104:4] “Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire.” Holy Scripture does not allow us to believe that their nature is unchangeable, for it says, “And angels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, He ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 458, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5203 (In-Text, Margin)
A. Who does not wish to do what is perfect? Or who does not long to grow vigorously in all virtue? If you look for all virtues in each individual, you do away with the distinctions of things, and the difference of graces, and the variety of the work of the Creator, whose prophet cries aloud in the sacred song:[Psalms 104:24] “In wisdom hast thou made them all.” Lucifer may be indignant because he has not the brightness of the moon. The moon may dispute over her eclipses and ceaseless toil, and ask why she must traverse every month the yearly orbit of the sun. The sun may complain and want to know what he has done that he travels more slowly than the moon. And we ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 462, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5226 (In-Text, Margin)
28. The argument of the next section is, “In the day of judgment, no mercy will be shown to the unjust and to sinners, but they must be consumed in eternal fire.” Who can bear this, and suffer you to prohibit the mercy of God, and to sit in judgment on the sentence of the Judge before the day of judgment, so that, if He wished to show mercy to the unjust and the sinners, He must not, because you have given your veto? For you say it is written in the one hundred and fourth Psalm,[Psalms 104:35] “Let sinners cease to be in the earth, and the wicked be no more.” And in Isaiah, “The wicked and sinners shall be burned up together, and they who forsake God shall be consumed.” Do you not know that mercy is sometimes blended with the threatenings of God? ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 36, footnote 8 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
Concerning the Unity of God. On the Article, I Believe in One God. Also Concerning Heresies. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 861 (In-Text, Margin)
... and the true God is despised. But the wickedness of idolatry grew yet more prodigal, and cat, and dog, and wolf were worshipped instead of God: the man-eating lion also was worshipped instead of God, the most loving friend of man. The snake and the serpent, counterfeit of him who thrust us out of Paradise, were worshipped, and He who planted Paradise was despised. And I am ashamed to say, and yet do say it, even onions were worshipped among some. Wine was given to make glad the heart of man[Psalms 104:15]: and Dionysus (Bacchus) was worshipped instead of God. God made corn by saying, Let the earth bring forth grass, yielding seed after his kind and after his likeness, that bread may strengthen man’s heart: why then was Demeter (Ceres) ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 36, footnote 10 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
Concerning the Unity of God. On the Article, I Believe in One God. Also Concerning Heresies. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 863 (In-Text, Margin)
... friend of man. The snake and the serpent, counterfeit of him who thrust us out of Paradise, were worshipped, and He who planted Paradise was despised. And I am ashamed to say, and yet do say it, even onions were worshipped among some. Wine was given to make glad the heart of man: and Dionysus (Bacchus) was worshipped instead of God. God made corn by saying, Let the earth bring forth grass, yielding seed after his kind and after his likeness, that bread may strengthen man’s heart[Psalms 104:15]: why then was Demeter (Ceres) worshipped? Fire cometh forth from striking stones together even to this day: how then was Hephæstus (Vulcan) the creator of fire?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 48, footnote 9 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
Almighty. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1040 (In-Text, Margin)
... Divine Scripture and the doctrines of the truth know but One God, who rules all things by His power, but endures many things of His will. For He rules even over the idolaters, but endures them of His forbearance: He rules also over the heretics who set Him at nought, but bears with them because of His long-suffering: He rules even over the devil, but bears with him of His long-suffering, not from want of power; as if defeated. For he is the beginning of the Lord’s creation, made to be mocked[Psalms 104:26], not by Himself, for that were unworthy of Him, but by the Angels whom He hath made. But He suffered him to live, for two purposes, that he might disgrace himself the more in his defeat, and that mankind might be crowned with victory. O all ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 53, footnote 14 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Words, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of All Things Visible and Invisible. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1093 (In-Text, Margin)
... like stone. And at one time the water becomes snow like wool, at another it ministers to Him who scattereth the mist like ashes, and at another it is changed into a stony substance; since He governs the waters as He will. Its nature is uniform, and its action manifold in force. Water becomes in vines wine that maketh glad the heart of man: and in olives oil that maketh man’s face to shine: and is transformed also into bread that strengtheneth man’s heart[Psalms 104:15], and into fruits of all kinds which He hath created.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 54, footnote 2 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Words, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of All Things Visible and Invisible. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1097 (In-Text, Margin)
11. This great and wide sea, therein are things creeping innumerable[Psalms 104:25]. Who can describe the beauty of the fishes that are therein? Who can describe the greatness of the whales, and the nature of its amphibious animals, how they live both on dry land and in the waters? Who can tell the depth and the breadth of the sea, or the force of its enormous waves? Yet it stays at its bounds, because of Him who said, Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further, but within thyself shall thy waves be broken. Which sea also clearly ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 55, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Words, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of All Things Visible and Invisible. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1113 (In-Text, Margin)
... and from what is spoken and read, and whatever thou canst thyself discover or conceive, from the greatness and beauty of the creatures mayest proportionably see the maker of them, and bending the knee with godly reverence to the Maker of the worlds, the worlds, I mean, of sense and thought, both visible and invisible, thou mayest with a grateful and holy tongue, with unwearied lips and heart, praise God and say, How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord; in wisdom hast Thou made them all[Psalms 104:24]. For to Thee belongeth honour, and glory, and majesty, both now and throughout all ages. Amen.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 104, footnote 2 (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 1812 (In-Text, Margin)
... patience; but the latter brings with it the crown of a divine kingdom. For all things, for the most part, are twofold in our Lord Jesus Christ: a twofold generation; one, of God, before the ages; and one, of a Virgin, at the close of the ages: His descents twofold; one, the unobserved, like rain on a fleece; and a second His open coming, which is to be. In His former advent, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger; in His second, He covereth Himself with light as with a garment[Psalms 104:2]. In His first coming, He endured the Cross, despising shame; in His second, He comes attended by a host of Angels, receiving glory. We rest not then upon His first advent only, but look also for His second. And as at His first coming we said, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 118, footnote 7 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Article, And in One Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Which Spake in the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2006 (In-Text, Margin)
... practice is called spirit; and a devil our adversary is called spirit. Beware therefore when thou hearest these things, lest from their having a common name thou mistake one for another. For concerning our soul the Scripture says, His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return to his earth: and of the same soul it says again, Which formeth the spirit of man within him. And of the Angels it is said in the Psalms, Who maketh His Angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire[Psalms 104:4]. And of the wind it saith, Thou shalt break the ships of Tarshish with a violent spirit; and, As the tree in the wood is shaken by the spirit; and, Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of storm. And of good doctrine the Lord Himself ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 152, footnote 13 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Mysteries. IV: On the Body and Blood of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2469 (In-Text, Margin)
9. Having learnt these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ; and that of this David sung of old, saying, And bread strengtheneth man’s heart, to make his face to shine with oil[Psalms 104:15], “strengthen thou thine heart,” by partaking thereof as spiritual, and “make the face of thy soul to shine.” And so having it unveiled with a pure conscience, mayest thou reflect as a mirror the glory of the Lord, and proceed from glory to glory, in Christ Jesus our Lord:—To whom be honour, and might, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 214, footnote 10 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2649 (In-Text, Margin)
46. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as the many, able to corrupt the word of truth, and mix the wine, which maketh glad the heart of man,[Psalms 104:15] with water, mix, that is, our doctrine with what is common and cheap, and debased, and stale, and tasteless, in order to turn the adulteration to our profit, and accommodate ourselves to those who meet us, and curry favor with everyone, becoming ventriloquists and chatterers, who serve their own pleasures by words uttered from the earth, and sinking into the earth, and, to gain the special good will of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 300, footnote 5 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Second Theological Oration. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3506 (In-Text, Margin)
... visible things, or, since the Word knows the Tabernacle of Moses to be a figure of the whole creation—I mean the entire system of things visible and invisible—shall we pass the first veil, and stepping beyond the realm of sense, shall we look into the Holy Place, the Intellectual and Celestial creation? But not even this can we see in an incorporeal way, though it is incorporeal, since it is called—or is—Fire and Spirit. For He is said to make His Angels spirits, and His Ministers a flame of fire[Psalms 104:4] …though perhaps this “making” means preserving by that Word by which they came into existence. The Angel then is called spirit and fire; Spirit, as being a creature of the intellectual sphere; Fire, as being of a purifying nature; for I know that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 313, footnote 15 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Fourth Theological Oration, Which is the Second Concerning the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3649 (In-Text, Margin)
... Father? For in this sense I understand the words that whatsoever is done by the Father, these things doeth the Son likewise; not, that is, because of the likeness of the things done, but in respect of the Authority. This might well also be the meaning of the passage which says that the Father worketh hitherto and the Son also; and not only so but it refers also to the government and preservation of the things which He has made; as is shewn by the passage which says that He maketh His Angels Spirits,[Psalms 104:4-5] and that the earth is founded upon its steadfastness (though once for all these things were fixed and made) and that the thunder is made firm and the wind created. Of all these things the Word was given once, but the Action is continuous even now.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 383, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On Pentecost. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4250 (In-Text, Margin)
... the ungodly; though you may again pick a quarrel over these words, being brought into difficulty by the Consubstantiality. And the tongues were cloven, because of the diversity of Gifts; and they sat to signify His Royalty and Rest among the Saints, and because the Cherubim are the Throne of God. And it took place in an Upper Chamber (I hope I am not seeming to any one over tedious), because those who should receive it were to ascend and be raised above the earth; for also certain upper chambers[Psalms 104:3] are covered with Divine Waters, by which the praise of God are sung. And Jesus Himself in an Upper Chamber gave the Communion of the Sacrament to those who were being initiated into the higher Mysteries, that thereby might be shewn on the one hand ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 384, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On Pentecost. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4263 (In-Text, Margin)
XIV. This Spirit shares with the Son in working both the Creation and the Resurrection, as you may be shewn by this Scripture; By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the power of them by the breath of His Mouth; and this, The Spirit of God that made me, and the Breath of the Almighty that teacheth me; and again, Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.[Psalms 104:30] And He is the Author of spiritual regeneration. Here is your proof:—None can see or enter into the Kingdom, except he be born again of the Spirit, and be cleansed from the first birth, which is a mystery of the night, by a remoulding of the day and of the Light, by which every one ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 6, footnote 13 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
That v: not found “of whom” in the case of the Son and of the Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 749 (In-Text, Margin)
... things that are, comes the cause of their being, according to the will of God the Father. Through Him all things have their continuance and constitution, for He created all things, and metes out to each severally what is necessary for its health and preservation. Wherefore to Him all things are turned, looking with irresistible longing and unspeakable affection to “the author” and maintainer “of” their “life,” as it is written “The eyes of all wait upon thee,” and again, “These wait all upon thee,”[Psalms 104:27] and “Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 31, footnote 4 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Against those who assert that the Spirit ought not to be glorified. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1132 (In-Text, Margin)
... presence of the Spirit. Remission of sins was by the gift of the Spirit, for “ye were washed, ye were sanctified,…in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the holy Spirit of our God.” There is close relationship with God through the Spirit, for “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.” The resurrection from the dead is effected by the operation of the Spirit, for “Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth.”[Psalms 104:30] If here creation may be taken to mean the bringing of the departed to life again, how mighty is not the operation of the Spirit, Who is to us the dispenser of the life that follows on the resurrection, and attunes our souls to the spiritual life ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 92, footnote 4 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Hexæmeron. (HTML)
The creation of moving creatures. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1623 (In-Text, Margin)
... their mischief; because it is under the mask of friendship that they hide their clever wickedness. Men like this are ravening wolves covered with sheep’s clothing, as the Lord calls them. Flee then fickleness and pliability; seek truth, sincerity, simplicity. The serpent is shifty; so he has been condemned to crawl. The just is an honest man, like Job. Wherefore God setteth the solitary in families. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.[Psalms 104:25] Yet a wise and marvellous order reigns among these animals. Fish do not always deserve our reproaches; often they offer us useful examples. How is it that each sort of fish, content with the region that has been assigned to it, never travels over ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 103, footnote 5 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Hexæmeron. (HTML)
The creation of terrestrial animals. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1708 (In-Text, Margin)
What language can attain to the marvels of the Creator? What ear could understand them? And what time would be sufficient to relate them? Let us say, then, with the prophet, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.”[Psalms 104:24] We shall not be able to say in self-justification, that we have learnt useful knowledge in books, since the untaught law of nature makes us choose that which is advantageous to us. Do you know what good you ought to do your neighbour? The good that you expect from him yourself. Do you know what is evil? That which you would not wish another to do to you. Neither botanical ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 6b, footnote 4 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Concerning the Holy Spirit, a reasoned proof. (HTML)
But should the Jew refuse to accept the Word and the Spirit, let the divine Scripture confute him and curb his tongue. For concerning the Word, the divine David says, For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven. And again, He sent His Word and healed them. But the word that is uttered is not sent, nor is it for ever settled. And concerning the Spirit, the same David says, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created[Psalms 104:30]. And again, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Job, too, says, The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. Now the Spirit which is sent and makes and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 18b, 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 angels. (HTML)
He is Himself the Maker and Creator of the angels: for He brought them out of nothing into being and created them after His own image, an incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire: in the words of the divine David, He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire[Psalms 104:4]: and He has described their lightness and the ardour, and heat, and keenness and sharpness with which they hunger for God and serve Him, and how they are borne to the regions above and are quite delivered from all material thought.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 22b, footnote 1 (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)
Others have pictured the heaven as a hemisphere. This idea is suggested by these words of David, the singer of God, Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain[Psalms 104:2], by which word he clearly means a tent: and by these from the blessed Isaiah, Who hath established the heavens like a vault: and also because when the sun, moon, and stars set they make a circuit round the earth from west to north, and so reach once more the east. Still, whether it is this way or that, all things have been made and established by the divine command, and have the divine will and counsel ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 100b, footnote 3 (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 IV (HTML)
Concerning the Resurrection. (HTML)
And again to Moses, I am the God of Abra ham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob: God is not the God of the dead (that is, those who are dead and will be no more), but of the living, whose souls indeed live in His hand, but whose bodies will again come to life through the resurrection. And David, sire of the Divine, says to God, Thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust[Psalms 104:29]. See how he speaks about bodies. Then he subjoins this, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 216, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIV. That the Son of God is not a created being is proved by the following arguments: (1) That He commanded not that the Gospel should be preached to Himself; (2) that a created being is given over unto vanity; (3) that the Son has created all things; (4) that we read of Him as begotten; and (5) that the difference of generation and adoption has always been understood in those places where both natures--the divine and the human--are declared to co-exist in Him. All of which testimony is confirmed by the Apostle's interpretation. (HTML)
88. Who was it that led first into this error, of declaring Him Who created and made all things to be a creature? Did the Lord, I would ask, create Himself? We read that “all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” This being so, did He make Himself? We read—and who shall deny?—that in wisdom hath God made all things.[Psalms 104:24] If so, how can we suppose that wisdom was made in itself?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 249, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter VI. In order to dispose of an objection grounded on a text in St. John, St. Ambrose first shows that the Arian interpretation lends countenance to the Manichæans; then, after setting forth the different ways of dividing the words in this same passage, he shows plainly that it cannot, without dishonour to the Father, be understood with such reference to the Godhead as the Arians give it, and expounds the true meaning thereon. (HTML)
45. Just as the works, then, are the expression of the will and power of God the Father, so are they of Christ’s, even as we read: “Created in Christ in good works;” and in the psalm: “Peace be made in Thy power;” and again: “In wisdom hast Thou made them all.”[Psalms 104:24] “In wisdom hast Thou made,” mark you—not “Thou hast made wisdom;” for since all things have been made in wisdom, and Christ is the Wisdom of God, then this Wisdom is plainly not an accident, but a substance, and an everlasting one, but if the Wisdom hath been made, then is it made in a worse condition than all things, forasmuch as it could not, by itself, be made ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 260, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XV. The Arians, inasmuch as they assert the Son to be “of another substance,” plainly acknowledge substance in God. The only reason why they avoid the use of this term is that they will not, as Eusebius of Nicomedia has made it evident, confess Christ to be the true Son of God. (HTML)
... comes the name, but from “ οὖσα ἀεί,” “that which endures for ever? For He Who is, and is for ever, is God; and therefore the Divine Substance, abiding everlastingly, is called οὐσία. Bread is ἐπιούσιος, because, taking the substance of abiding power from the substance of the Word, it supplies this to heart and soul, for it is written: “And bread strengtheneth man’s heart.”[Psalms 104:15]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 271, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter VI. The fourth kind of impossibility (§49) is now taken into consideration, and it is shown that the Son does nothing that the Father approves not, there being between Them perfect unity of will and power. (HTML)
... work of the Son should not be in agreement with the Father’s Will, when what the Son works, the Father works also, and what the Father works, the Son works also, and what the Son speaks, the Father speaks also, as it is written: “My Father, Who dwelleth in Me, He it is that speaketh, and the works that I do He Himself doeth.” For the Father appointed nought save by the exercise of His Power and Wisdom, forasmuch as He made all things wisely, as it is written: “In wisdom hast Thou made them all;”[Psalms 104:24] and likewise, God the Word made nought without the Father’s participation.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 309, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Chapter XVI. The Arians are condemned by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of David: for they dare to limit Christ's knowledge. The passage cited by them in proof of this is by no means free from suspicion of having been corrupted. But to set this right, we must mark the word “Son.” For knowledge cannot fail Christ as Son of God, since He is Wisdom; nor the recognition of any part, for He created all things. It is not possible that He, who made the ages, cannot know the future, much less the day of judgment. Such knowledge, whether it concerns anything great or small, may not be denied to the Son, nor yet to the Holy Spirit. Lastly, various proofs are given from which we can gather that this knowledge exists in Christ. (HTML)
196. How then do you wish the Son of God to have made these things? Like a signet ring which does not feel the impression it makes? But the Father made all things in wisdom,[Psalms 104:24] that is, He made all things through the Son, who is the Virtue and Wisdom of God. But it befits such Wisdom as that to know both the powers and the causes of His own works. Thus the Creator of all things could not be ignorant of what He did—or be without knowledge of what He had Himself given. Therefore He knew the day which He made.