Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 139:16
There are 12 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 380, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
IV (HTML)
Sections 24-End translated from the Latin. (HTML)
35. But some one will perhaps inquire whether we can obtain out of Scripture any grounds for such an understanding of the subject. Now I think some such view is indicated in the Psalms, when the prophet says, “Mine eyes have seen thine imperfection;”[Psalms 139:16] by which the mind of the prophet, examining with keener glance the first principles of things, and separating in thought and imagination only between matter and its qualities, perceived the imperfection of God, which certainly is understood to be perfected by the addition of qualities. Enoch also, in his book, speaks as follows: “I have walked on even to imperfection;” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 445, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Lapsed. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3280 (In-Text, Margin)
... it is written, “Ye cannot serve two masters,” he has served an earthly master in that he has obeyed his edict; he has been more obedient to human authority than to God. It matters not whether he has published what he has done with less either of disgrace or of guilt among men. Be that as it may, he will not be able to escape and avoid God his judge, seeing that the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, “Thine eyes did see my substance, that it was imperfect, and in Thy book shall all men be written.”[Psalms 139:16] And again: “Man seeth the outward appearance, but God seeth the heart.” The Lord Himself also forewarns and prepares us, saying, “And all the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and the heart.” He looks into the hidden and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 86, footnote 1 (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)
... violence of the impetus. In like manner, then, we might with all propriety say also to these men, that those atoms of theirs, which remain idle and unmanipulated and useless, are introduced vainly. Let them, accordingly, seek for themselves to see into what is beyond the reach of sight, and conceive what is beyond the range of conception; unlike him who in these terms confesses to God that things like these had been shown him only by God Himself: “Mine eyes did see Thy work, being till then imperfect.”[Psalms 139:16] But when they assert now that all those things of grace and beauty, which they declare to be textures finely wrought out of atoms, are fabricated spontaneously by these bodies without either wisdom or perception in them, who can endure to hear them ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 88, footnote 5 (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)
... decision, like one who has obtained understanding of himself, and would say, not to these atoms, but to his Father and Maker, “Thy hands have made me and fashioned me.” And he would take up, too, this wonderful account of his formation as it has been given by one of old: “Hast Thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me as cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. Thou hast granted me life and favour, and Thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.”[Psalms 139:12-16] For of what quantity and of what origin were the atoms which the father of Epicurus gave forth from himself when he begat Epicurus? And how, when they were received within his mother’s womb, did they coalesce, and take form and figure? and how were ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 440, footnote 32 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Sec. I.—Concerning the Martyrs (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3023 (In-Text, Margin)
... Wherefore also our Saviour and Master Jesus Christ says, that “what is impossible with men is possible with God.” And David, the beloved of God, says: “Thine hands have made me, and fashioned me.” And again: “Thou knowest my frame.” And afterward: “Thou hast fashioned me, and laid Thine hand upon me. The knowledge of Thee is declared to be too wonderful for me; it is very great, I cannot attain unto it.” “Thine eyes did see my substance, being yet imperfect; and all men shall be written in Thy book.”[Psalms 139:16] Nay, and Isaiah says in his prayer to Him: “We are the clay, and Thou art the framer of us.” If, therefore, man be His workmanship, made by Christ, by Him most certainly will he after he is dead be raised again, with intention either of being ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 155, footnote 30 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Having manifested what he was and what he is, he shows the great fruit of his confession; and being about to examine by what method God and the happy life may be found, he enlarges on the nature and power of memory. Then he examines his own acts, thoughts and affections, viewed under the threefold division of temptation; and commemorates the Lord, the one mediator of God and men. (HTML)
About to Speak of the Temptations of the Lust of the Flesh, He First Complains of the Lust of Eating and Drinking. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 922 (In-Text, Margin)
... held in the mean of slackness and tightness. And who, O Lord, is he who is not in some degree carried away beyond the bounds of necessity? Whoever he is, he is great; let him magnify Thy name. But I am not such a one, “for I am a sinful man.” Yet do I also magnify Thy name; and He who hath “overcome the world” maketh intercession to Thee for my sins, accounting me among the “feeble members” of His body, because Thine eyes saw that of him which was imperfect; and in Thy book all shall be written.[Psalms 139:16]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 558, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
How Pronunciation Serves to Remove Ambiguity. Different Kinds of Interrogation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1849 (In-Text, Margin)
7. There is, again, an ambiguity arising out of the doubtful sound of syllables; and this of course has relation to pronunciation. For example, in the passage, “My bone [os meum] was not hid from Thee, which Thou didst make in secret,”[Psalms 139:16] it is not clear to the reader whether he should take the word os as short or long. If he make it short, it is the singular of ossa [bones]; if he make it long, it is the singular of ora [mouths]. Now difficulties such as this are cleared up by looking into the original tongue, for in the Greek we find not στόμα ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 422, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
He proves that baptism can be conferred outside the Catholic communion by heretics or schismatics, but that it ought not to be received from them; and that it is of no avail to any while in a state of heresy or schism. (HTML)
Chapter 15 (HTML)
... they will still belong to the old covenant. But if they advance, even before they receive them, yet by their very advance and approach they belong to the new covenant; and if, before becoming spiritual, they are snatched away from this life, yet through the protection of the holiness of the sacrament they are reckoned in the land of the living, where the Lord is our hope and our portion. Nor can I find any truer interpretation of the scripture, "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect"[Psalms 139:16] considering what follows, "And in Thy book shall all be written."
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 114, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1046 (In-Text, Margin)
... things which are before,” says, “Lord, make me to know mine end, and the number of my days, which really is, that I may know what is wanting unto me.” See he still drags with him Adam; and even so he is hasting unto Christ. “Behold,” saith he, “thou hast made my days old.” It is those days that are derived from Adam, those days, I say, that thou hast made old. They are waxing old day by day: and so waxing old, as to be at some day or other consumed also. “And my substance is as nothing before Thee.”[Psalms 139:16] “Before Thee, O Lord, my substance is as nothing.” “Before Thee;” who seest this; and I too, when I see it, see it only when “before Thee.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 145, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1362 (In-Text, Margin)
... help us” (ver. 26). And indeed, dearly beloved, He has arisen and helped us. For when he awaked (i.e. when He arose again, and became known to the Gentiles) on the cessation of persecutions, even those who had cleaved to the earth were raised up from the earth, and on performing penance, have been restored to Christ’s body, feeble and imperfect though they were: so that in them was fulfilled the text, “Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect; and in Thy book shall they all be written.”[Psalms 139:16]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 399, footnote 1 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4413 (In-Text, Margin)
12. In his earliest years he was swathed and fashioned, in that best and purest fashioning which the Divine David speaks of as proceeding day by day,[Psalms 139:16] in contrast with that of the night, under his great father, acknowledged in those days by Pontus, as its common teacher of virtue. Under him then, as life and reason grew and rose together, our illustrious friend was educated: not boasting of a Thessalian mountain cave, as the workshop of his virtue, nor of some braggart Centaur, the tutor of the heroes of his day: nor was he taught under such tuition to shoot hares, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 233, footnote 1 (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)
Ephraim Syrus: Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. (HTML)
Hymn III. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 435 (In-Text, Margin)
... man can approach unto the Essence, to which He is equal. The thirty years He was in the earth, Who was ordering all creatures, Who was receiving all the offerings of praise from those above and those below. He was wholly in the depths and wholly in the highest! He was wholly with all things and wholly with each. While His body was forming within the womb, His power was fashioning all members! While the Conception of the Son was fashioning in the womb, He Himself was fashioning babes in the womb.[Psalms 139:16] Yet not as His body was weak in the womb, was His power weak in the womb! So too not as His body was feeble by the Cross, was His might also feeble by the Cross. For when on the Cross He quickened the dead, His Body quickened them, yea, rather His ...