Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 110:3
There are 37 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 229, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter LXIII.—It is proved that this God was incarnate. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2180 (In-Text, Margin)
... it not appear to you to refer to One who, not having descent from men, was said to be delivered over to death by God for the transgressions of the people?—of whose blood, Moses (as I mentioned before), when speaking in parable, said, that He would wash His garments in the blood of the grape; since His blood did not spring from the seed of man, but from the will of God. And then, what is said by David, ‘In the splendours of Thy holiness have I begotten Thee from the womb, before the morning star.[Psalms 110:3] The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek,’ —does this not declare to you that [He was] from of old, and that the God and Father of all things intended Him to be begotten by a human womb? ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 237, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter LXXVI.—From other passages the same majesty and government of Christ are proved. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2241 (In-Text, Margin)
... prophets declared obscurely that Christ would suffer, and thereafter be Lord of all, yet that [declaration] could not be understood by any man until He Himself persuaded the apostles that such statements were expressly related in the Scriptures. For He exclaimed before His crucifixion: ‘The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the Scribes and Pharisees, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ And David predicted that He would be born from the womb before sun and moon,[Psalms 110:3] according to the Father’s will, and made Him known, being Christ, as God strong and to be worshipped.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 173, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
Exhortation to the Heathen (HTML)
Chapter I.—Exhortation to Abandon the Impious Mysteries of Idolatry for the Adoration of the Divine Word and God the Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 865 (In-Text, Margin)
You have, then, God’s promise; you have His love: become partaker of His grace. And do not suppose the song of salvation to be new, as a vessel or a house is new. For “before the morning star it was;”[Psalms 110:3] and “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Error seems old, but truth seems a new thing.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 196, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
Exhortation to the Heathen (HTML)
Chapter IX.—“That Those Grievously Sin Who Despise or Neglect God’s Gracious Calling.” (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 963 (In-Text, Margin)
... concupiscence.” After the accusation of such a witness, and his invocation of God, what else remains for the unbelieving than judgment and condemnation? And the Lord, with ceaseless assiduity, exhorts, terrifies, urges, rouses, admonishes; He awakes from the sleep of darkness, and raises up those who have wandered in error. “Awake,” He says, “thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,” —Christ, the Sun of the Resurrection, He “who was born before the morning star,”[Psalms 110:3] and with His beams bestows life. Let no one then despise the Word, lest he unwittingly despise himself. For the Scripture somewhere says, “To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 448, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book V. Wherein Tertullian proves, with respect to St. Paul's epistles, what he had proved in the preceding book with respect to St. Luke's gospel. Far from being at variance, they were in perfect unison with the writings of the Old Testament, and therefore testified that the Creator was the only God, and that the Lord Jesus was his Christ. As in the preceding books, Tertullian supports his argument with profound reasoning, and many happy illustrations of Holy Scripture. (HTML)
The Doctrine of the Resurrection. The Body Will Rise Again. Christ's Judicial Character. Jewish Perversions of Prophecy Exposed and Confuted. Messianic Psalms Vindicated. Jewish and Rationalistic Interpretations on This Point Similar. Jesus--Not Hezekiah or Solomon--The Subject of These Prophecies in the Psalms. None But He is the Christ of the Old and the New Testaments. (HTML)
... the Lord send forth from Sion, and He shall rule along with Thee in the midst of Thine enemies.” It is necessary for me to lay claim to those Scriptures which the Jews endeavour to deprive us of, and to show that they sustain my view. Now they say that this Psalm was a chant in honour of Hezekiah, because “he went up to the house of the Lord,” and God turned back and removed his enemies. Therefore, (as they further hold,) those other words, “Before the morning star did I beget thee from the womb,”[Psalms 110:3] are applicable to Hezekiah, and to the birth of Hezekiah. We on our side have published Gospels (to the credibility of which we have to thank them for having given some confirmation, indeed, already in so great a subject); and these declare that the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 449, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book V. Wherein Tertullian proves, with respect to St. Paul's epistles, what he had proved in the preceding book with respect to St. Luke's gospel. Far from being at variance, they were in perfect unison with the writings of the Old Testament, and therefore testified that the Creator was the only God, and that the Lord Jesus was his Christ. As in the preceding books, Tertullian supports his argument with profound reasoning, and many happy illustrations of Holy Scripture. (HTML)
The Doctrine of the Resurrection. The Body Will Rise Again. Christ's Judicial Character. Jewish Perversions of Prophecy Exposed and Confuted. Messianic Psalms Vindicated. Jewish and Rationalistic Interpretations on This Point Similar. Jesus--Not Hezekiah or Solomon--The Subject of These Prophecies in the Psalms. None But He is the Christ of the Old and the New Testaments. (HTML)
... unto the King’s son,” that is, to Christ’s people; for His sons are they who are born again in Him. But it will here be said that this Psalm has reference to Solomon. However, will not those portions of the Psalm which apply to Christ alone, be enough to teach us that all the rest, too, relates to Christ, and not to Solomon? “He shall come down,” says He, “like rain upon a fleece, and like dropping showers upon the earth,” describing His descent from heaven to the flesh as gentle and unobserved.[Psalms 110:3] Solomon, however, if he had indeed any descent at all, came not down like a shower, because he descended not from heaven. But I will set before you more literal points. “He shall have dominion,” says the Psalmist, “from sea to sea, and from the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 605, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
The Identity of the Father and the Son, as Praxeas Held It, Shown to Be Full of Perplexity and Absurdity. Many Scriptures Quoted in Proof of the Distinction of the Divine Persons of the Trinity. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7879 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Emitter and the Emitted, both He who sent forth and He who was sent forth, since He is both the Word and God. I bid you also observe, that on my side I advance the passage where the Father said to the Son, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” If you want me to believe Him to be both the Father and the Son, show me some other passage where it is declared, “The Lord said unto Himself, I am my own Son, to-day have I begotten myself;” or again, “Before the morning did I beget myself;”[Psalms 110:3] and likewise, “I the Lord possessed Myself the beginning of my ways for my own works; before all the hills, too, did I beget myself;” and whatever other passages are to the same effect. Why, moreover, could God the Lord of all things, have hesitated ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 151, footnote 13 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book X. (HTML)
The Doctrine of the Truth Continued. (HTML)
Now the Logos of God controls all these; the first begotten Child of the Father, the voice of the Dawn antecedent to the Morning Star.[Psalms 110:3] Afterwards just men were born, friends of God; and these have been styled prophets, on account of their foreshowing future events. And the word of prophecy was committed unto them, not for one age only; but also the utterances of events predicted throughout all generations, were vouchsafed in perfect clearness. And this, too, not at the time merely when seers furnished a reply to those present; but ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 229, footnote 16 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Against the Heresy of One Noetus. (HTML)
... the Father keeps with Himself, intending to reveal it then to the holy ones and those worthy of seeing His face? Rest satisfied with the word spoken by Christ, viz., “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” just as, speaking by the prophet of the generation of the Word, He shows the fact that He is begotten, but reserves the question of the manner and means, to reveal it only in the time determined by Himself. For He speaks thus: “From the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten Thee.”[Psalms 110:3]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 512, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
In the cixth Psalm: “Before the morning star I begat thee. The Lord hath sworn, and He will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.”[Psalms 110:3] Also in the first book of Kings, God says to the priest Eli: “And I will raise up to me a faithful priest, who shall do all things which are in my heart: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall pass in the presence of my anointed ones for all days. And it shall be, whosoever shall remain in thine house, shall come to worship for an obolus of money, and for one loaf of bread.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 294, footnote 5 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Alexander of Alexandria. (HTML)
Epistles on the Arian Heresy and the Deposition of Arius. (HTML)
To Alexander, Bishop of the City of Constantinople. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2425 (In-Text, Margin)
... natural sons, “delivered Him up.” For to distinguish Him from those who are not properly sons, He said that He was His own Son. And in the Gospel we read: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Moreover, in the Psalms the Saviour says: “The Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art my Son.” Where, showing that He is the true and genuine Son, He signifies that there are no other genuine sons besides Himself. And what, too, is the meaning of this: “From the womb before the morning I begat thee”?[Psalms 110:3] Does He not plainly indicate the natural sonship of paternal bringing forth, which he obtained not by the careful framing of His manners, not by the exercise of and increase in virtue, but by property of nature? Wherefore, the only-begotten Son of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 297, footnote 8 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Alexander of Alexandria. (HTML)
Epistles on the Arian Heresy and the Deposition of Arius. (HTML)
Epistle Catholic. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2454 (In-Text, Margin)
... hears these words of the Gospel, “the only-begotten Son;” and, “by Him were all things made,” will not hate those who declare He is one of the things made? For how can He be one of the things made by Him? or how shall He be the only-begotten who, as they say, is reckoned with all the rest, if indeed He is a thing made and created? And how can He be made of things which are not, when the Father says, “My heart belched forth a good Word;” and, “From the womb, before the morning have I begotten Thee?”[Psalms 110:3] Or how is He unlike to the substance of the Father, who is the perfect image and brightness of the Father, and who says, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father?” And how, if the Son is the Word or Wisdom and Reason of God, was there a time when ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 113, footnote 13 (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. XIV.—Of the priesthood of Jesus foretold by the prophets (HTML)
... Church, and assemble all nations to the true worship of God. This is the faithful house, this is the everlasting temple; and if any one hath not sacrificed in this, he will not have the reward of immortality. And since Christ was the builder of this great and eternal temple, He must also have an everlasting priesthood in it; and there can be no approach to the shrine of the temple, and to the sight of God, except through Him who built the temple. David in the cixth Psalm teaches the same, saying:[Psalms 110:3-4] “Before the morning-star I begat Thee. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent; Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec.” Also in the first book of Kings: “And I will raise me up a faithful Priest, who shall do all things that ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 365, footnote 7 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Dionysius (HTML)
Against the Sabellians (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2348 (In-Text, Margin)
... made by Himself—made, I say, by the Son Himself. But this “created” is not to be understood in the same manner as “made.” For to make and to create are different from one another. “Is not He Himself thy Father, that hath possessed thee and created thee?” says Moses in the great song of Deuteronomy. And thus might any one reasonably convict these men. Oh reckless and rash men! was then “the first-born of every creature” something made?—“He who was begotten from the womb before the morning star?”[Psalms 110:3] —He who in the person of Wisdom says, “Before all the hills He begot me?” Finally, any one may read in many parts of the divine utterances that the Son is said to have been begotten, but never that He was made. From which considerations, they who ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 761, footnote 7 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Remains of the Second and Third Centuries. (HTML)
Melito, the Philosopher. (HTML)
From 'The Key.' (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3663 (In-Text, Margin)
The womb of the Lord —the hidden recess of Deity out of which He brought forth His Son. In the Psalm: “Out of the womb, before Lucifer, have I borne Thee.”[Psalms 110:3]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 31, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form of God, Other Things According to the Form of a Servant. In What Way It is of Christ to Give the Kingdom, in What Not of Christ. Christ Will Both Judge and Not Judge. (HTML)
24. According to the form of God, it is said “Before all the hills He begat me,” that is, before all the loftinesses of things created and, “Before the dawn I begat Thee,”[Psalms 110:3] that is, before all times and temporal things: but according to the form of a servant, it is said, “The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.” Because, according to the form of God, He said, “I am the truth;” and according to the form of a servant, “I am the way.” For, because He Himself, being the first-begotten of the dead, made a passage to the kingdom of God to life eternal for His Church, to which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 21, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter I. 15–18. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 54 (In-Text, Margin)
... preferred before me, this is “He was made before me.” Wherefore was He made before thee, when He came after thee? “Because He was before me.” Before thee, O John! what great thing to be before thee! It is well that thou dost bear witness to Him; let us, however, hear Himself saying, “Even before Abraham, I am.” But Abraham also was born in the midst of the human race: there were many before him, many after him. Listen to the voice of the Father to the Son: “Before Lucifer I have begotten Thee.”[Psalms 110:3] He who was begotten before Lucifer Himself illuminates all. A certain one was named Lucifer, who fell; for he was an angel and became a devil; and concerning him the Scripture said, “Lucifer, who did arise in the morning, fell.” And why was he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 462, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John I. 1–II. 11. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1999 (In-Text, Margin)
... God’s witnesses. It pleased God to have men for His witnesses, that men also may have God to be their witness. “We have seen,” saith he, “and are witnesses.” Where have they seen? In the manifestation. What meaneth, in the manifestation? In the sun, that is, in this light of day. And how should He be seen in the sun who made the sun, except as “in the sun He hath set His tabernacle; and Himself as a bridegroom going forth out of his chamber, exulted as a giant to run His course?” He before the sun,[Psalms 110:3] who made the sun, He before the day-star, before all the stars, before all angels, the true Creator, (“for all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made,”) that He might be seen by eyes of flesh which see the sun, set His very ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 472, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John II. 12–17. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2094 (In-Text, Margin)
... fail.” But when is it called a day? When it is said to the Lord, “To-day have I begotten Thee.” From the eternal Father begotten, from eternity begotten, in eternity begotten: with no beginning, no bound, no space of breadth; because He is what is, because Himself is “He that Is.” This His name He told to Moses: “Thou shalt say unto them, hath sent me unto you.” Why speak then of “before Abraham”? why, before Noe? why, before Adam? Hear the Scripture: “Before the day-star have I begotten Thee.”[Psalms 110:3] In fine, before heaven and earth. Wherefore? Because “all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” By this know ye the “fathers:” for they become fathers by acknowledging “That which is from the beginning.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 38, footnote 8 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Epistle of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria to Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople. (HTML)
“And do not these words, I begot thee ‘from the womb before the morning[Psalms 110:3],’ plainly show the natural sonship of the paternal birth of One whose lot it is, not from diligence of conduct, or exercise in moral progress, but by individuality of nature? Hence it ensues that the filiation of the only-begotten Son of the Father is incapable of fall; while the adoption of reasonable beings who are not His sons by nature, but merely on account of fitness of character, and by the bounty of God, may fall away, as it is written in the word, ‘ ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 158, footnote 14 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Two senses of the word Son, 1. adoptive; 2. essential; attempts of Arians to find a third meaning between these; e.g. that our Lord only was created immediately by God (Asterius's view), or that our Lord alone partakes the Father. The second and true sense; God begets as He makes, really; though His creation and generation are not like man's; His generation independent of time; generation implies an internal, and therefore an eternal, act in God; explanation of Prov. viii. 22. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 835 (In-Text, Margin)
... maker, but the son unlike him who begat him; but rather he will confess that the son is an image of the father, but the house a work of art, unless his mind be disordered, and he beside himself. Plainly, divine Scripture, which knows better than any the nature of everything, says through Moses, of the creatures, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;’ but of the Son it introduces not another, but the Father Himself saying, ‘I have begotten Thee from the womb before the morning star[Psalms 110:3];’ and again, ‘Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.’ And the Lord says of Himself in the Proverbs, ‘Before all the hills He begets me;’ and concerning things originated and created John speaks, ‘All things were made by Him;’ but preaching ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 168, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Authorities in Support of the Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome; Origen. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 934 (In-Text, Margin)
... is not one, for we must understand ‘He created’ in this place, as ‘He set over the works made by Him,’ that is, ‘made by the Son Himself.’ And ‘He created’ here must not be taken for ‘made,’ for creating differs from making. ‘Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee and created thee?’says Moses in his great song in Deuteronomy. And one may say to them, O reckless men, is He a work, who is ‘the First-born of every creature, who is born from the womb before the morning star[Psalms 110:3],’ who said, as Wisdom, ‘Before all the hills He begets me?’ And in many passages of the divine oracles is the Son said to have been generated, but nowhere to have come into being; which manifestly convicts those of misconception about the Lord’s ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 168, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Authorities in Support of the Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome; Origen. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 939 (In-Text, Margin)
... nowhere to have come into being; which manifestly convicts those of misconception about the Lord’s generation, who presume to call His divine and ineffable generation a making. Neither then may we divide into three Godheads the wonderful and divine Monad; nor disparage with the name of ‘work’ the dignity and exceeding majesty of the Lord; but we must believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus His Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and hold that to the God of the universe the Word is united[Psalms 110:3]. For ‘I,’ says He, ‘and the Father are one;’ and, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me.’ For thus both the Divine Triad, and the holy preaching of the Monarchy, will be preserved.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 442, 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 IV (HTML)
Since the Word is from God, He must be Son. Since the Son is from everlasting, He must be the Word; else either He is superior to the Word, or the Word is the Father. Texts of the New Testament which state the unity of the Son with the Father; therefore the Son is the Word. Three hypotheses refuted--1. That the Man is the Son; 2. That the Word and Man together are the Son; 3. That the Word became Son on His incarnation. Texts of the Old Testament which speak of the Son. If they are merely prophetical, then those concerning the Word may be such also. (HTML)
... title, Unto the ‘end concerning the hidden things of the Son, a Psalm of David;’ and in the forty-fourth, ‘Unto the end, concerning the things that shall be changed to the Sons of Korah for understanding, a song about the Well-beloved;’ and in Isaiah, ‘I will sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Well-beloved touching my vineyard. My Well-beloved hath a vineyard;’ Who is this ‘Well-beloved’ but the Only-begotten Son? as also in the hundred and ninth, ‘From the womb I begat Thee before the morning star[Psalms 110:3],’ concerning which I shall speak afterwards; and in the Proverbs, ‘Before the hills He begat me;’ and in Daniel, ‘And the form of the Fourth is like the Son of God;’ and many others. If then from the Old be ancientness, ancient must be the Son, who ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 199, footnote 20 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2795 (In-Text, Margin)
... is the Lord Himself. Concerning thee has Micah prophesied of old, “Thou Bethlehem Ephratah art not the least among the thousands of Judah, for out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore wilt thou give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.” For in thee was born the prince begotten before Lucifer.[Psalms 110:3] Whose birth from the Father is before all time: and the cradle of David’s race continued in thee, until the virgin brought forth her son and the remnant of the people that believed in Christ returned unto the children of Israel and preached freely ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 44, footnote 9 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
The Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 968 (In-Text, Margin)
... will make him my first-born, high among the kings of the earth. For if they should insist that these things are said of David or Solomon or any of their successors, let them shew how the throne of him, who is in their judgment described in the prophecy, is as the days of heaven, and as the sun before God, and as the moon established for ever. And how is it also that they are not abashed at that which is written, From the womb before the morning-star have I begotten thee[Psalms 110:3]: also this, He shall endure with the sun, and before the moon, from generation to generation. To refer these passages to a man is a proof of utter and extreme insensibility.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 65, footnote 17 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Words, the Only-Begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father Very God Before All Ages, by Whom All Things Were Made. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1259 (In-Text, Margin)
... time nor to place, nor to genealogical descent: for His generation who shall declare? God is a Spirit; He who is a Spirit hath spiritually begotten, as being incorporeal, an inscrutable and incomprehensible generation. The Son Himself says of the Father, The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. Now this to-day is not recent, but eternal: a timeless to-day, before all ages. From the womb, before the morning star, have I begotten Thee[Psalms 110:3].
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 65, footnote 17 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Words, the Only-Begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father Very God Before All Ages, by Whom All Things Were Made. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1259 (In-Text, Margin)
... time nor to place, nor to genealogical descent: for His generation who shall declare? God is a Spirit; He who is a Spirit hath spiritually begotten, as being incorporeal, an inscrutable and incomprehensible generation. The Son Himself says of the Father, The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. Now this to-day is not recent, but eternal: a timeless to-day, before all ages. From the womb, before the morning star, have I begotten Thee[Psalms 110:3].
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 227, footnote 32 (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 2918 (In-Text, Margin)
... counsel, and receive me with glory, Who is a Shepherd to shepherds and a Guide to guides: that we may feed His flock with knowledge, not with the instruments of a foolish shepherd, according to the blessing, and not according to the curse pronounced against the men of former days: may He give strength and power unto his people, and Himself present to Himself His flock resplendent and spotless and worthy of the fold on high, in the habitation of them that rejoice, in the splendour of the saints,[Psalms 110:3] so that in His temple everyone, both flock and shepherds together may say, Glory, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be all glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 307, footnote 2 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
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The Third Theological Oration. On the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3524 (In-Text, Margin)
XVII. For we have learnt to believe in and to teach the Deity of the Son from their great and lofty utterances. And what utterances are these? These: God—The Word—He That Was In The Beginning and With The Beginning, and The Beginning. “In the Beginning was The Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and “With Thee is the Beginning,”[Psalms 110:3] and “He who calleth her The Beginning from generations.” Then the Son is Only-begotten: The only “begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, it says, He hath declared Him.” The Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;” and “I am the Light of the World.” Wisdom and Power, “Christ, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 349, footnote 1 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3871 (In-Text, Margin)
... object of which was the destruction of wickedness), at last he needed a stronger remedy, for his diseases were growing worse; mutual slaughters, adulteries, perjuries, unnatural crimes, and that first and last of all evils, idolatry and the transfer of worship from the Creator to the Creatures. As these required a greater aid, so also they obtained a greater. And that was that the Word of God Himself—Who is before all worlds, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible, the Bodiless, Beginning of Beginning,[Psalms 110:3] the Light of Light, the Source of Life and Immortality, the Image of the Archetypal Beauty, the immovable Seal, the unchangeable Image, the Father’s Definition and Word, came to His own Image, and took on Him flesh for the sake of our flesh, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 216, footnote 7 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter 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)
89. We read that the Son is begotten, inasmuch as the Father saith: “I brought thee forth from the womb before the morning star.”[Psalms 110:3] We read of the “first-born” Son, of the “only-begotten” —first-born, because there is none before Him; only-begotten, because there is none after Him. Again, we read: “Who shall declare His generation?” “Generation,” mark you, not “creation.” What argument can be brought to meet testimonies so great and mighty as these?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 251, 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 IX. The preceding quotation from Solomon's Proverbs receives further explanation. (HTML)
61. Again, immediately before the declaration, “The Lord created Me,” He says, “I will tell of the things which are from eternity,” and before saying, “He begat,” He premised, “In the beginning, before He made the earth, before all hills.” In its extent, the preposition “before” reaches back into the past without end or limit, and so “Before Abraham was, I am,” clearly need not mean “after Adam,” just as “before the Morning Star”[Psalms 110:3] need not mean “after the angels.” But when He said “before,” He intended, not that He was included in any one’s existence, but that all things are included in His, for thus it is the custom of Holy Writ to show the eternity of God. Finally, in another passage you may read: “Before ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 273, 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 VIII. The heretical objection, that the Son cannot be equal to the Father, because He cannot beget a Son, is turned back upon the authors of it. From the case of human nature it is shown that whether a person begets offspring or not, has nothing to do with his power. Most of all must this be true since, otherwise, the Father Himself would have to be pronounced wanting in power. Whence it follows that we have no right to judge of divine things by human, and must take our stand upon the authority of Holy Writ, otherwise we must deny all power either to the Father or to the Son. (HTML)
85. The conclusion we come at, therefore, on the line of your persuasion, is that God the Father is not Almighty, because He could not beget, if He did not beget the Son, but created Him. But forasmuch as the Father is Almighty, He being, as you hold, the Almighty in so far as He is the only Author of Being, then surely He has begotten His Son, and not created Him. Howbeit, we ought to believe His word before yours. He says: “I have begotten,”[Psalms 110:3] and that more than once, witnessing to Himself as begetting.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 273, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. The heretical objection, that the Son cannot be equal to the Father, because He cannot beget a Son, is turned back upon the authors of it. From the case of human nature it is shown that whether a person begets offspring or not, has nothing to do with his power. Most of all must this be true since, otherwise, the Father Himself would have to be pronounced wanting in power. Whence it follows that we have no right to judge of divine things by human, and must take our stand upon the authority of Holy Writ, otherwise we must deny all power either to the Father or to the Son. (HTML)
... the oracles of God discover that His generation is in relation to personal attribute, for the Wisdom of God saith: “I came forth out of the mouth of the Most High,” that is to say not of compulsion, but free, not under bond of authority, but born in a hidden birth, according to personal powers of Supreme Sovereignty and rightfulness of authority. Again, concerning the same Wisdom, Which is the Lord Jesus, the Father saith in another place: “Out of the womb I begat Thee, before the morning star.”[Psalms 110:3]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 279, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter X. The objection that Christ, on the showing of St. John, lives because of the Father, and therefore is not to be regarded as equal with the Father, is met by the reply that for the Life of the Son, in respect of His Godhead, there has never been a time when it began; and that it is dependent upon none, whilst the passage in question must be understood as referring to His human life, as is shown by His speaking there of His body and blood. Two expositions of the passage are given, the one of which is shown to refer to Christ's Manhood, whilst the second teaches His equality with the Father, as also His likeness with men. Rebuke is administered to the Arians for the insult which they are seeking to inflict upon the Son, and the sense (HTML)
133. But the Arians think that they must oppose hereto the fact that He had said, “I live by the Father.” Of a certainty (suppose that they conceive the words as referring to His Godhead) the Son lives by the Father, because He is the Son begotten of the Father,—by the Father, because He is of one Substance with the Father,—by the Father, because He is the Word given forth from the heart of the Father, because He came forth from the Father, because He is begotten of the “bowels of the Father,”[Psalms 110:3] because the Father is the Fountain and Root of the Son’s being.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 390, footnote 2 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations. (HTML)
Of Christ the Son of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1062 (In-Text, Margin)
9. Furthermore, we must prove that this Jesus was beforehand promised from ancient times in the Prophets, and was called the Son of God. David said:— Thou art My Son; today have I begotten Thee. Again he said:— In the glories of holiness, from the womb, from of old, have I begotten thee, a child.[Psalms 110:3] And Isaiah said:— Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and His government was upon His shoulder, and His Name shall be called Wonderful, and Counsellor, and mighty God of the ages, and Prince of peace. And to the increase of His government and to His peace there is no end. Therefore tell me, O wise doctor of Israel, who ...