Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 142
There are 20 footnotes for this reference.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 84, footnote 2 (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 Sets Out for Rome, His Mother in Vain Lamenting It. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 396 (In-Text, Margin)
... law, what by Thy unchangeable law will never be lawful. And they fancy they do it with impunity, whereas the very blindness whereby they do it is their punishment, and they suffer far greater things than they do. The manners, then, which as a student I would not adopt, I was compelled as a teacher to submit to from others; and so I was too glad to go where all who knew anything about it assured me that similar things were not done. But Thou, “my refuge and my portion in the land of the living,”[Psalms 142:5] didst while at Carthage goad me, so that I might thereby be withdrawn from it, and exchange my worldly habitation for the preservation of my soul; whilst at Rome Thou didst offer me enticements by which to attract me there, by men enchanted with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 4, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
Explanation of the First Part of the Sermon Delivered by Our Lord on the Mount, as Contained in the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 18 (In-Text, Margin)
4. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall by inheritance possess the earth:” that earth, I suppose, of which it is said in the Psalm, “Thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”[Psalms 142:5] For it signifies a certain firmness and stability of the perpetual inheritance, where the soul, by means of a good disposition, rests, as it were, in its own place, just as the body rests on the earth, and is nourished from it with its own food, as the body from the earth. This is the very rest and life of the saints. Then, the meek are those who yield to acts of wickedness, and do not resist evil, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 502, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, John vi. 53, ‘Except ye eat the flesh,’ etc., and on the words of the apostles. And the Psalms. Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3923 (In-Text, Margin)
... in my thirst, Whereby be filled, and with Whom keep that whereby I should be filled. ‘For my strength will I keep to Thee;’ whereby I am by Thy bounty filled, through Thy safe keeping I will not lose. ‘My strength will I keep to Thee.’ That Thou mightest show me this, ‘Thou turnedst away Thy Face from me, and I was troubled.’ ‘Troubled,’ because dried up; dried up, because exalted. Say then thou dry and parched one, that thou mayest be filled again; ‘My soul is as earth without water unto Thee.’[Psalms 142:6] Say, ‘My soul is as earth without water unto Thee.’ For Thou hast said, not the Lord, ‘I shall never be moved.’ Thou hast said it, presuming on thine own strength; but it was not of thyself, and thou didst think as if it were.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 217, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. 21–25. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 689 (In-Text, Margin)
... proceeding to the place whence He had come, and from which He had never departed. “I go away,” said He, “and ye shall seek me,” not from any longing for me, but in hatred. For after His removal from human sight, He was sought for both by those who hated Him and those who loved Him; by the former in a spirit of persecution, by the latter with the desire of having Him. In the Psalms the Lord Himself says by the prophet, “A place of refuge hath failed me, and there is none that seeketh after my life;”[Psalms 142:4] and again He says in another place in the Psalms, “Let them be confounded and ashamed who seek after my life.” He blamed the former for not seeking, He condemned the latter because they did. For it is wrong not to seek the life of Christ, that is, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 279, footnote 4 (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 XI. 55–57; XII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1010 (In-Text, Margin)
... that neither they nor we should have Him more: but in departing from them, He has been received by us. Some who seek Him are blamed, others who do so are commended; for it is the spirit animating the seeker that finds either praise or condemnation. Thence you have it also in the psalms, “Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul:” such are those who sought with evil purpose. But in another place he says, “Refuge hath failed me, and there is no one that seeketh after my soul.”[Psalms 142:4] Those who sought, and those who did not, are blamed alike. Therefore let us seek for Christ, that He may be ours, that we may keep Him, and not that we may slay Him; for these men sought to get hold of Him, but only for the purpose of speedily ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 11, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm V (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 116 (In-Text, Margin)
1. The title of the Psalm is, “For her who receiveth the inheritance.” The Church then is signified, who receiveth for her inheritance eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ; that she may possess God Himself, in cleaving to whom she may be blessed, according to that, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.” What earth, but that of which it is said, “Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living”?[Psalms 142:5] And again more clearly, “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.” And conversely the word Church is said to be God’s inheritance according to that, “Ask of Me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.” Therefore is God said to be our inheritance, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 80, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 748 (In-Text, Margin)
4. And what follows? “Let them be confounded and put to shame, that seek after my soul” (ver. 4): for to this end they seek after it, to destroy it. For I would that they would seek it for good! for in another Psalm he blameth this in men, that there was none who would seek after his soul: “Refuge failed me: there was none that would seek after my soul.”[Psalms 142:4] Who is this that saith, “There was none that would seek after my soul”? Is it haply He, of whom so long before it was predicted, “They pierced My Hands and My Feet, they numbered all My Bones, they stared and looked upon Me, they have parted My Garments among them, and cast lots for My Vesture”? Now all these things ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 97, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXVII (HTML)
Part 2 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 896 (In-Text, Margin)
... weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” And it was not by an orator that He gained to Himself the fisherman; but by the fisherman that He gained to Himself the orator; by the fisherman that He gained the Senator; by the fisherman that He gained the Emperor. For “such as shall bless Him shall inherit the land;” they shall be fellow-heirs with Him, in that “land of the living,” of which it is said in another Psalm, “Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living.”[Psalms 142:5] …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 101, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXVII (HTML)
Part 3 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 922 (In-Text, Margin)
10. “The righteous shall inherit the land” (ver. 29). Here again let not covetousness steal on thee, nor promise thee some great estate; hope not to find there, what you are commanded to despise in this world. That “land” in the text, is a certain “land of the living,” the kingdom of the Saints. Whence it is said: “Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living.”[Psalms 142:5] For if thy life too is the same life as that there spoken of, think what sort of “land” thou art about to inherit. That is “the land of the living;” this the land of those who are about to die: to receive again, when dead, those whom it nourished when living. Such then as is that land, such shall the life ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 108, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 993 (In-Text, Margin)
17. “They also that sought after my soul were preparing violence against me” (ver. 12). It is now plain who “sought after His soul;” viz. those who had not His soul, in that they were not in His Body. They who were “seeking after His soul,” were far removed from His soul; but they were “seeking it” to destroy it. For His soul may be “sought after” in a right way also. For in another passage[Psalms 142:4] He finds fault with some persons, saying, “There is no man to care for My soul.” He finds fault with some for not seeking after His soul; and again, with others for seeking after it. Who is he that seeketh after His soul in the right way? He who imitates His sufferings. Who are they that sought after ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 126, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XL (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1159 (In-Text, Margin)
23. “Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it” (ver. 14). For in a certain passage he makes an accusation, and says, “I looked upon my right hand, and beheld; and there was no man who sought after my soul;”[Psalms 142:4] that is, there was no man to imitate Mine example. Christ in His Passion is the Speaker. “I looked on my right hand,” that is, not on the ungodly Jews, but on Mine own right hand, the Apostles,—“and there was no man who sought after My soul.” So thoroughly was there no man to “seek after My soul,” that he who had presumed on his own strength, “denied My soul.” But because ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 312, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3037 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou Me?” He is speaking that hath said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of Mine, to Me ye have done it.” The voice then of this Man is known to be of the whole man, of Head and of Body: that need not often be mentioned, because it is known. “Be they confounded,” he saith, “and fear that seek my soul.” In another Psalm He saith, “I was looking unto the right and saw, and there was not one that would know Me: flight hath perished from Me, and there is not one to seek out My soul.”[Psalms 142:4] There of persecutors He saith, that there was not one to seek out His soul: but here, “Let them be confounded and fear that seek My soul.”…And where is that which thou hast heard from thy Lord, “Love ye your enemies, do good to them that hate you, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 163, footnote 4 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
Instructions to Catechumens. (HTML)
First Instruction. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 514 (In-Text, Margin)
... that we should prepare doors and bars, but that with much security, we should shut the tongue off from outrageous words; and again in another place, after showing that we need influence from above, both as accompanying and preceding our own effort so as to keep this wild beast within: stretching forth his hands to God, the prophet said, “Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice, set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips;” and he who before admonished, himself too[Psalms 142:2-3] says again “Who shall set a watch before my mouth, and a seal of wisdom upon my lips?” Dost thou not see, each one fearing these falls and bewailing them, both giving advice, and praying that the tongue may have the benefit of much watchfulness? and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 130, footnote 4 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He proceeds to discuss the views held by Eunomius, and by the Church, touching the Holy Spirit; and to show that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are not three Gods, but one God. He also discusses different senses of “Subjection,” and therein shows that the subjection of all things to the Son is the same as the subjection of the Son to the Father. (HTML)
... authorities, dominions, principalities, powers, and among those included under the head of thrones and powers are reckoned by Paul the Cherubim and Seraphim: so far does the term “all things” extend. But of the Holy Spirit, as being above the nature of things that have come into being, Paul said not a word in his enumeration of existing things, not indicating to us by his words either His subordination or His coming into being; but just as the prophet calls the Holy Spirit “good,” and “right,” and “guiding[Psalms 142:10] ” (indicating by the word “guiding” the power of control), even so the apostle ascribes independent authority to the dignity of the Spirit, when he affirms that He works all in all as He wills. Again, the Lord makes manifest the Spirit’s independent ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 85, footnote 16 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1262 (In-Text, Margin)
... binds—his disciples not to pray to ascend into heaven, lest sinning once more worse than they had sinned on earth they should be hurled down into the world again. Such foolish and insane notions he generally confirms by distorting the sense of the Scriptures and making them mean what they do not mean at all. He quotes this passage from the Psalms: “Before thou didst humble me by reason of my wickedness, I went wrong;” and this, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul;” this also, “Bring my soul out of prison;”[Psalms 142:7] and this, “I will make confession unto the Lord in the land of the living,” although there can be no doubt that the meaning of the divine Scripture is different from the interpretation by which he unfairly wrests it to the support of his own heresy. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 265, footnote 21 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3684 (In-Text, Margin)
... the bridegroom feeds among the lilies, that is, among those who have not defiled 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”[Psalms 142:4] will be fulfilled in their case. “The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats,” 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 ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 269, footnote 12 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3754 (In-Text, Margin)
... God’s judgments, they say, are “true and righteous altogether,” and if “there is no unrighteousness in Him,” we are compelled by reason to believe that our souls have pre-existed in heaven, that they are condemned to and, if I may so say, buried in human bodies because of some ancient sins, and that we are punished in this valley of weeping for old misdeeds. This according to them is the prophet’s reason for saying: “Before I was afflicted I went astray,” and again, “Bring my soul out of prison.”[Psalms 142:7] They explain in the same way the question of the disciples in the gospel: “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” and other similar passages.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 428, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5004 (In-Text, Margin)
... lang="EL">Περὶ Αρχῶν. The first is this, “for as it is unfitting to say that the Son can see the Father, so neither is it meet to think that the Holy Spirit can see the Son.” The second point is the statement that souls are tied up in the body as in a prison; and that before man was made in Paradise they dwelt amongst rational creatures in the heavens. Wherefore, afterwards to console itself, the soul says in the Psalms, “Before I was humbled, I went wrong”; and “Return, my soul, to thy rest”; and[Psalms 142:7] “Lead my soul out of prison”; and similarly elsewhere. Thirdly, he says that both the devil and demons will some time or other repent, and ultimately reign with the saints. Fourthly, he interprets the coats of skin, with which Adam and Eve were ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 382, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On Pentecost. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4247 (In-Text, Margin)
... Counsel, of Fear (which are ascribed to Him) by Whom the Father is known and the Son is glorified; and by Whom alone He is known; one class, one service, worship, power, perfection, sanctification. Why make a long discourse of it? All that the Father hath the Son hath also, except the being Unbegotten; and all that the Son hath the Spirit hath also, except the Generation. And these two matters do not divide the Substance, as I understand it, but rather are divisions within the Substance.[Psalms 142]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 407, 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)
Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations. (HTML)
Of Death and the Latter Times. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1184 (In-Text, Margin)
... shall arise with a mighty shout, and Death shall be emptied and stripped of all the captivity. And for judgment shall all the children of Adam be gathered together, and each shall go to the place prepared for him. The risen of the righteous shall go unto life, and the risen of the sinners shall be delivered unto death. The righteous who kept the commandment shall go, and shall not come nigh unto judgment in the day that they shall rise; as David asked, And bring not thy servant into judgment;[Psalms 142:2] nor will their Lord terrify them in that day.