Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Isaiah 1:2
There are 37 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 142, footnote 16 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Barnabas (HTML)
The Epistle of Barnabas (HTML)
Chapter IX.—The spiritual meaning of circumcision. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1554 (In-Text, Margin)
... “In the hearing of the ear they obeyed me.” And again He saith, “By hearing, those shall hear who are afar off; they shall know what I have done.” And, “Be ye circumcised in your hearts, saith the Lord.” And again He says, “Hear, O Israel, for these things saith the Lord thy God.” And once more the Spirit of the Lord proclaims, “Who is he that wishes to live for ever? By hearing let him hear the voice of my servant.” And again He saith, “Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for God hath spoken.”[Isaiah 1:2] These are in proof. And again He saith, “Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of this people.” And again He saith, “Hear, ye children, the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Therefore He hath circumcised our ears, that we might hear His word ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 463, footnote 7 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter II.—Proofs from the plain testimony of Moses, and of the other prophets, whose words are the words of Christ, that there is but one God, the founder of the world, whom Our Lord preached, and whom He called His Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3810 (In-Text, Margin)
... he had received from the Creator (Demiurge), thus speaks in Deuteronomy: “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.” Again, David saying that his help came from the Lord, asserts: “My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” And Esaias confesses that words were uttered by God, who made heaven and earth, and governs them. He says: “Hear, O heavens; and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken.”[Isaiah 1:2] And again: “Thus saith the Lord God, who made the heaven, and stretched it out; who established the earth, and the things in it; and who giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them who walk therein.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 525, footnote 1 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XLI.—Those persons who do not believe in God, but who are disobedient, are angels and sons of the devil, not indeed by nature, but by imitation. Close of this book, and scope of the succeeding one. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4438 (In-Text, Margin)
... then—that is, according to creation, so to speak— we are all sons of God, because we have all been created by God. But with respect to obedience and doctrine we are not all the sons of God: those only are so who believe in Him and do His will. And those who do not believe, and do not obey His will, are sons and angels of the devil, because they do the works of the devil. And that such is the case He has declared in Isaiah: “I have begotten and brought up children, but they have rebelled against Me.”[Isaiah 1:2] And again, where He says that these children are aliens: “Strange children have lied unto Me.” According to nature, then, they are [His] children, because they have been so created; but with regard to their works, they are not His children.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 229, footnote 5 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter IX.—That It is the Prerogative of the Same Power to Be Beneficent and to Punish Justly. Also the Manner of the Instruction of the Logos. (HTML)
Complaint is censure of those who are regarded as despising or neglecting. He employs this form when He says by Esaias: “Hear, O heaven; and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have begotten and brought up children, but they have disregarded Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not known Me.”[Isaiah 1:2-3] For how shall we not regard it fearful, if he that knows God, shall not recognise the Lord; but while the ox and the ass, stupid and foolish animals, will know him who feeds them, Israel is found to be more irrational than these? And having, by Jeremiah, complained against the people on many grounds, He adds: “And ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 440, footnote 7 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter XXIII.—The Same Subject Continued. (HTML)
... ignorance, is sinful, “is earth and ashes;” while he who is in a state of knowledge, being assimilated as far as possible to God, is already spiritual, and so elect. And that Scripture calls the senseless and disobedient “earth,” will be made clear by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, in reference to Joachim and his brethren “Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord; Write this man, as man excommunicated.” And another prophet says again, “Hear, O heaven; and give ear, O earth,”[Isaiah 1:2] calling understanding “ear,” and the soul of the Gnostic, that of the man who has applied himself to the contemplation of heaven and divine things, and in this way has become an Israelite, “heaven.” For again he calls him who has made ignorance and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 154, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1167 (In-Text, Margin)
... through the words of the prophets, saying, “Your land is desert; your cities utterly burnt with fire; your country, in your sight, strangers shall eat up; and, deserted and subverted by strange peoples, the daughter of Zion shall be derelict, like a shed in a vineyard, and like a watchhouse in a cucumber-field, and as it were a city which is being stormed.” Why so? Because the subsequent discourse of the prophet reproaches them, saying, “Sons have I begotten and upraised, but they have reprobated me;”[Isaiah 1:2] and again, “And if ye shall have outstretched hands, I will avert my face from you; and if ye shall have multiplied prayers, I will not hear you: for your hands are full of blood;” and again, “Woe! sinful nation; a people full of sins; wicked sons; ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 155, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Of Circumcision and the Supercession of the Old Law. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1182 (In-Text, Margin)
... circumcision has shone out into the voluntary obediences of peace. For “a people,” he says, “whom I knew not hath served me; in obedience of the ear it hath obeyed me.” Prophets made the announcement. But what is the “people” which was ignorant of God, but ours, who in days bygone knew not God? and who, in the hearing of the ear, gave heed to Him, but we, who, forsaking idols, have been converted to God? For Israel—who had been known to God, and who had by Him been “upraised”[Isaiah 1:2] in Egypt, and was transported through the Red Sea, and who in the desert, fed forty years with manna, was wrought to the semblance of eternity, and not contaminated with human passions, or fed on this world’s meats, but fed on “angel’s loaves” —the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 162, footnote 11 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Of the Prophecies of the Birth and Achievements of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1270 (In-Text, Margin)
... crimes. For it calls your rulers “rulers of Sodom,” and your people the “people of Gomorrha,” when those cities had already long been extinct. And elsewhere it says, through a prophet, to the people of Israel, “Thy father (was) an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite;” of whose race they were not begotten, but (were called their sons) by reason of their consimilarity in impiety, whom of old (God) had called His own sons through Isaiah the prophet: “I have generated and exalted sons.”[Isaiah 1:2] So, too, Egypt is sometimes understood to mean the whole world in that prophet, on the count of superstition and malediction. So, again, Babylon, in our own John, is a figure of the city Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 325, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book III. Wherein Christ is shown to be the Son of God, Who created the world; to have been predicted by the prophets; to have taken human flesh like our own, by a real incarnation. (HTML)
Community in Certain Points of Marcionite and Jewish Error. Prophecies of Christ's Rejection Examined. (HTML)
... like them, should hear with their ears and not understand Christ while teaching them, and see with their eyes and not perceive Christ, although giving them signs. Similarly it is said elsewhere: “Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, but he who ruleth over them?” Also when He upbraids them by the same Isaiah: “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know; my people doth not consider.”[Isaiah 1:2-3] We indeed, who know for certain that Christ always spoke in the prophets, as the Spirit of the Creator (for so says the prophet: “The person of our Spirit, Christ the Lord,” who from the beginning was both heard and seen as the Father’s vicegerent ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 332, footnote 17 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book III. Wherein Christ is shown to be the Son of God, Who created the world; to have been predicted by the prophets; to have taken human flesh like our own, by a real incarnation. (HTML)
Isaiah's Prophecies Considered. The Virginity of Christ's Mother a Sign. Other Prophecies Also Signs. Metaphorical Sense of Proper Names in Sundry Passages of the Prophets. (HTML)
... Jeroboam. Nor is this an unusual manner for the Creator, (in His Scriptures) figuratively to employ names of places as a metaphor derived from the analogy of their sins. Thus He calls the chief men of the Jews “rulers of Sodom,” and the nation itself “people of Gomorrah.” And in another passage He also says: “Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite,” by reason of their kindred iniquity; although He had actually called them His sons: “I have nourished and brought up children.”[Isaiah 1:2] So likewise by Egypt is sometimes understood, in His sense, the whole world as being marked out by superstition and a curse. By a similar usage Babylon also in our (St.) John is a figure of the city of Rome, as being like (Babylon) great and proud ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 344, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book III. Wherein Christ is shown to be the Son of God, Who created the world; to have been predicted by the prophets; to have taken human flesh like our own, by a real incarnation. (HTML)
Christ's Millennial and Heavenly Glory in Company with His Saints. (HTML)
... they were kites; they fly as clouds, and as young doves, unto me” —that is, simply like a dove. For we shall, according to the apostle, be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord (even the Son of man, who shall come in the clouds, according to Daniel) and so shall we ever be with the Lord, so long as He remains both on the earth and in heaven, who, against such as are thankless for both one promise and the other, calls the elements themselves to witness: “Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth.”[Isaiah 1:2] Now, for my own part indeed, even though Scripture held out no hand of heavenly hope to me (as, in fact, it so often does), I should still possess a sufficient presumption of even this promise, in my present enjoyment of the earthly gift; and I ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 448, footnote 17 (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)
... night announced to the shepherds that Christ had at that moment been born, and again from the place of the birth, for it is towards night that persons arrive at the (eastern) “inn.” Perhaps, too, there was a mystic purpose in Christ’s being born at night, destined, as He was, to be the light of the truth amidst the dark shadows of ignorance. Nor, again, would God have said, “I have begotten Thee,” except to His true Son. For although He says of all the people (Israel), “I have begotten children,”[Isaiah 1:2] yet He added not “from the womb.” Now, why should He have added so superfluously this phrase “from the womb” (as if there could be any doubt about any one’s having been born from the womb), unless the Holy Ghost had wished the words to be with ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 682, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Prayer. (HTML)
The First Clause. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8770 (In-Text, Margin)
... who believed on Him He gave power to be called sons of God.” However, our Lord very frequently proclaimed God as a Father to us; nay, even gave a precept “that we call no one on earth father, but the Father whom we have in the heavens:” and so, in thus praying, we are likewise obeying the precept. Happy they who recognize their Father! This is the reproach that is brought against Israel, to which the Spirit attests heaven and earth, saying, “I have begotten sons, and they have not recognized me.”[Isaiah 1:2] Moreover, in saying “Father,” we also call Him “God.” That appellation is one both of filial duty and of power. Again, in the Father the Son is invoked; “for I,” saith He, “and the Father are One.” Nor is even our mother the Church passed by, if, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 82, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
Of the Prodigal Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 793 (In-Text, Margin)
... Jew not been a transgressor of the law; hearing with the ear, and not hearing; holding in hatred him who reproveth in the gates, and in scorn holy speech? So, too, it will be no speech of the Father to the Jew: “Thou art always with Me, and all Mine are thine.” For the Jews are pronounced “apostate sons, begotten indeed and raised on high, but who have not understood the Lord, and who have quite forsaken the Lord, and have provoked unto anger the Holy One of Israel.”[Isaiah 1:2-4] That all things, plainly, were conceded to the Jew, we shall admit; but he has likewise had every more savoury morsel torn from his throat, not to say the very land of paternal promise. And accordingly the Jew at the present day, no less than ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 495, footnote 10 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On Jealousy and Envy. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3682 (In-Text, Margin)
... to have children like to themselves—and it is more agreeable to have begotten an offspring then when the remaining progeny responds to the parent with like lineaments—how much greater is the gladness in God the Father, when any one is so spiritually born that in his acts and praises the divine eminence of race is announced! What a palm of righteousness is it, what a crown to be such a one as that the Lord should not say of you, “I have begotten and brought up children, but they have despised me!”[Isaiah 1:2] Let Christ rather applaud you, and invite you to the reward, saying, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 509, footnote 1 (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 Isaiah: “Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken; I have begotten and brought up children, but they have rejected me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not perceived me. Ah sinful nation, a people filled with sins, a wicked seed, corrupting children: ye have forsaken the Lord, and have sent that Holy One of Israel into anger.”[Isaiah 1:2-4] In the same also the Lord says: “Go and tell this people, Ye shall hear with the ear, and shall not understand; and seeing, ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people hath waxed gross, and they hardly hear with their ears, and they have shut up their eyes, lest ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 292, footnote 1 (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 2408 (In-Text, Margin)
3. We, therefore, say these wicked men, can also be the sons of God even as He. For it is written, “I have nourished and brought up children.”[Isaiah 1:2] But when what follows was objected to them, “and they have rebelled against me,” which indeed is not applicable to the nature of the Saviour, who is of an immutable nature; they, throwing off all religious reverence, say that God, since He foreknew and had foreseen that His Son would not rebel against Him, chose Him from all. For He did not choose Him as having by nature anything specially beyond His other sons, for no one ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 294, footnote 7 (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 2427 (In-Text, Margin)
... but by property of nature? Wherefore, the only-begotten Son of the Father, indeed, possesses an indefectible Sonship; but the adoption of rational sons belongs not to them by nature, but is prepared for them by the probity of their life, and by the free gift of God. And it is mutable as the Scripture recognises: “For when the sons of God saw the daughters of men, they took them wives,” etc. And in another place: “I have nourished and brought up children, but they have rebelled against Me,”[Isaiah 1:2] as we find God speaking by the prophet Isaiah.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 110, footnote 3 (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. XI.—Of the cause of the incarnation of Christ (HTML)
... glory among the Gentiles.” Therefore, when God wished to send to the earth one who should measure His temple, He was unwilling to send him with heavenly power and glory, that the people who had been ungrateful towards God might be led into the greatest error, and suffer punishment for their crimes, since they had not received their Lord and God, as the prophets had before foretold that it would thus happen. For Isaiah whom the Jews most cruelly slew, cutting him asunder with a saw, thus speaks:[Isaiah 1:2-3] “Hear, O heaven; and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have begotten sons, and lifted them up on high, and they have rejected me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s stall; but Israel hath not known, my people has not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 432, footnote 6 (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 2900 (In-Text, Margin)
But now, since the Pelagians say that there either are or have been righteous men in this life who have lived without any sin, to such an extent that the future life which is to be hoped for as a reward cannot be more advanced or more perfect, let Ambrose here also answer them and refute them. For, expounding Isaiah the Prophet in reference to what is written, “I have begotten and brought up children, and they have despised me,”[Isaiah 1:2] he undertook to dispute concerning the generations which are of God, and in that argument he quoted the testimony of John when he says, “He that is born of God sinneth not.” And, treating the same very difficult question, he says: “Since in this world there is none who is free from ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 39, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
On the Latter Part of Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Contained in the Sixth and Seventh Chapters of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter IV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 271 (In-Text, Margin)
... pray to God as a Father; but as Lord He was made known to them, as being yet servants, i.e. still living according to the flesh. I say this, however, inasmuch as they received the commands of the law, which they were ordered to observe: for the prophets often show that this same Lord of ours might have been their Father also, if they had not strayed from His commandments: as, for instance, we have that statement, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me;”[Isaiah 1:2] and that other, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High;” and this again, “If then I be a Father, where is mine honour? and if I be a Master, where is my fear?” and very many other statements, where the Jews are ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 395, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3830 (In-Text, Margin)
... Gentiles, or idols, or any creature in heaven or earth except men; for a little after this verse the same Psalm relates and explains what Gods it means in whose synagogue God stood, where it says, “I have said, Ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Most High: but ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” In the synagogue of these children of the Most High, of whom the same Most High said by the mouth of Isaiah, “I have begotten sons and brought them up, but they despised Me,”[Isaiah 1:2] stood God. By the synagogue we understand the people of Israel, because synagogue is the word properly used of them, although they were also called the Church. Our congregation, on the contrary, the Apostles never called synagogue, but always ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 62, footnote 5 (Image)
Socrates: Church History from A.D. 305-438; Sozomenus: Church History from A.D. 323-425
The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Of the Synod at Ariminum, and the Creed there published. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 401 (In-Text, Margin)
... impiety, so that those who deny the Son to be eternal, have styled him eternal emperor. Thus are they proved to be the enemies of Christ by their profanity. But perhaps the holy prophets’ record of time afforded them a precedent for [noticing] the consulate! Now even if they should presume to make this pretext, they would most glaringly expose their own ignorance. The prophecies of these holy men do indeed mark the times. Isaiah and Hosea lived in the days of Uzziah, Joatham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah;[Isaiah 1:2] Jeremiah in the time of Josiah; Ezekiel and Daniel in the reign of Cyrus and Darius; and others uttered their predictions in other times. Yet they did not then lay the foundations of religion. That was in existence before them, and always was, even ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 36, footnote 1 (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)
... that He is by nature liable to change, and capable both of virtue and of vice, and thus, by their hypothesis of his having been created out of that which was non-existent, they overthrow the testimony of the Divine Scriptures, which declare the immutability of the Word and the Divinity of the Wisdom of the Word, which Word and Wisdom is Christ. ‘We are also able,’ say these accursed wretches, ‘to become like Him, the sons of God; for it is written,— I have nourished and brought up children[Isaiah 1:2].’ When the continuation of this text is brought before them, which is, ‘ and they have rebelled against Me, ’ and it is objected that these words are inconsistent with the Saviour’s nature, which is immutable, they throw aside all reverence, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 38, footnote 11 (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)
... 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, ‘ The sons of God saw the daughters of men, and took them as wives, ’ and so forth. And God, speaking by Isaiah, said, ‘ I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me[Isaiah 1:2].’
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 42, footnote 3 (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 Letter of Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre. (HTML)
... another, since it is unbegotten from the beginning. But if the fact of His being called the begotten gives any ground for the belief that, having come into being of the Father’s substance, He also has from the Father likeness of nature, we reply that it is not of Him alone that the Scriptures have spoken as begotten, but that they also thus speak of those who are entirely dissimilar to Him by nature. For of men it is said, ‘ I have begotten and brought up sons, and they have rebelled against me[Isaiah 1:2];’ and in another place, ‘ Thou hast forsaken God who begat thee;’ and again it is said, ‘ Who begat the drops of dew?’ This expression does not imply that the dew partakes of the nature of God, but simply that all things were formed ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 124, footnote 4 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Narrative of events at Alexandria in the time of Lucius the Arian, taken from a letter of Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria. (HTML)
The whole city groaned, and is lamenting to this day. Some men beating on their breast with one hand after another raised a mighty noise; others lifted up at once their hands and eyes to heaven in testimony of the wrong inflicted on them, and so saying in all but words, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,”[Isaiah 1:2] what unlawful deeds are being done. Now all was weeping and wailing; singing and sighing sounded through all the town, and from every eye flowed a river of tears which threatened to overwhelm the very sea with its tide. There was the aforesaid Magnus on the port ordering the rowers to hoist the sails, and up went a mingled cry of maids and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 319, footnote 9 (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 2083 (In-Text, Margin)
... the writer of the ancient history, says “And the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of them,” and the God of all Himself said to this Prophet “Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Israel is my son even my first-born.” In the great song he says “Rejoice O ye nations with His people and let all the sons of God be strong in Him;” and by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah He says “I have nourished and brought up sons (children) and they have rebelled against me;”[Isaiah 1:2] and through the thrice blessed David “I have said ye are gods and all of you are children of the Most High,” and to the Romans the wise Paul wrote in this manner, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 156, footnote 5 (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 805 (In-Text, Margin)
10. For if He were called God’s Son, and we the Son’s sons, their fiction were plausible; but if we too are said to be sons of that God, of whom He is Son, then we too partake the Father, who says, ‘I have begotten and exalted children[Isaiah 1:2].’ For if we did not partake Him, He had not said, ‘I have begotten;’ but if He Himself begat us, no other than He is our Father. And, as before, it matters not, whether the Son has something more and was made first, but we something less, and were made afterwards, as long as we all partake, and are called sons, of the same Father. For the more or less does not indicate a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 328, footnote 5 (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; And First, Phil. II. 9, 10. Various texts which are alleged against the Catholic doctrine: e.g. Phil. ii. 9, 10. Whether the words 'Wherefore God hath highly exalted' prove moral probation and advancement. Argued against, first, from the force of the word 'Son;' which is inconsistent with such an interpretation. Next, the passage examined. Ecclesiastical sense of 'highly exalted,' and 'gave,' and 'wherefore;' viz. as being spoken with reference to our Lord's manhood. Secondary sense; viz. as implying the Word's 'exaltation' through the resurrection in the same sense in which Scripture speaks of His descent in the Incarnation; how the phrase does not derogate from the nature of the Word. (HTML)
... reason had He ‘therefore’ been called Son and God, without being very Son. For what is from another by nature, is a real offspring, as Isaac was to Abraham, and Joseph to Jacob, and the radiance to the sun; but the so called sons from virtue and grace, have but in place of nature a grace by acquisition, and are something else besides the gift itself; as the men who have received the Spirit by participation, concerning whom Scripture saith, ‘I begat and exalted children, and they rebelled against Me[Isaiah 1:2].’ And of course, since they were not sons by nature, therefore, when they altered, the Spirit was taken away and they were disinherited; and again on their repentance that God who thus at the beginning gave them grace, will receive them, and give ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 442, footnote 1 (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)
... Father.’ Therefore the Son in us, calling upon His own Father, causes Him to be named our Father also. Surely in whose hearts the Son is not, of them neither can God be called Father. But if because of the Word the Man is called Son, it follows necessarily, since the ancients are called sons even before the Incarnation, that the Word is Son even before His sojourn among us; for ‘I begat sons,’ saith Scripture; and in the time of Noah, ‘When the sons of God saw,’ and in the Song, ‘Is not He thy Father[Isaiah 1:2]?’ Therefore there was also that True Son, for whose sake they too were sons. But if, as they say again, neither of the two is Son, but it depends on the concurrence of the two, it follows that neither is Son; I say, neither the Word nor the Man, but ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 529, footnote 16 (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 338. Coss. Ursus and Polemius; Præf. the same Theodorus, of Heliopolis, and of the Catholics. After him, for the second year, Philagrius; Indict. xi; Easter-day, vii Kal. Ap. xxx Phamenoth; Moon 18½; Æra Dioclet. 54. (HTML)
... examined with their understanding the things which were written, they would not have carefully fulfilled the prophecies which were against themselves, so as for their city to be now desolate, grace taken from them, and they themselves without the law, being no longer called children, but strangers. For thus in the Psalms was it before declared, saying, ‘The strange children have acted falsely by Me.’ And by Isaiah the prophet; ‘I have begotten and brought up children, and they have rejected Me.[Isaiah 1:2] ’ And they are no longer named the people of God, and a holy nation, but rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah; having exceeded in this even the iniquity of the Sodomites, as the prophet also saith, ‘Sodom is justified before thee.’ For the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 19, footnote 7 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Statement of the reason why in the writings of Paul the angels are associated with the Father and the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 967 (In-Text, Margin)
... done is done within them, and that in the examination of all the actions of life they will be present with the judged. So it is said, “He shall call to the heavens above and to earth, that he may judge his people.” And so Moses when about to deliver his oracles to the people says, “I call heaven and earth to witness this day;” and again in his song he says, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth;” and Isaiah, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;”[Isaiah 1:2] and Jeremiah describes astonishment in heaven at the tidings of the unholy deeds of the people: “The heaven was astonished at this, and was horribly afraid, because my people committed two evils.” And so the apostle, knowing the angels to be set ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 106, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
... all these are deemed an insufficient witness to His glory. The Father Himself speaks from heaven, and His words are, This is My Son. What means this evidence, not of titles, but of pronouns? Titles may be appended to names at will; pronouns are a sure indication of the persons to whom they refer. And here we have, in This and My, the clearest of indications. Mark the true meaning and the purpose of the words. You have read, I have begotten sons, and have raised them up[Isaiah 1:2]; but you did not read there My sons, for He had begotten Himself those sons by division among the Gentiles, and from the people of His inheritance. And lest we should suppose that the name Son was given as an additional title to God ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 221, footnote 4 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book XII (HTML)
... before it was made, was not, so we, although we were not sons, have been made what we are. For formerly we were not sons: but after we have earned the name we are such. Moreover, we have not been born, but made; not begotten, but purchased. For God purchased a people for Himself, and by this act begot them. But we never learn that God begot sons in the strict sense of the term. For He does not say, “I have begotten and brought up My sons,” but only, I have begotten and brought up sons[Isaiah 1:2].
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 138, footnote 1 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Feast of the Nativity, VI. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 794 (In-Text, Margin)
... of the sons of God; such wisdom is not acceptable to the noble family of the adopted. That chosen and royal race must live up to the dignity of its regeneration, must love what the Father loves, and in nought disagree with its Maker, lest the Lord should again say: “I have begotten and raised up sons, but they have scorned Me: the ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not known Me and My people hath not acknowledged Me[Isaiah 1:2-3].”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 387, footnote 7 (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 1045 (In-Text, Margin)
... “ My first-born, ” when He sent to Pharaoh through Moses and said to him, Israel is My first-born; I have said unto thee, let My Son go to serve Me, and if thou art not willing to let (him) go, lo! I will slay thy son, thy firstborn. And also through the Prophet He testified concerning this, and reproved them and said to the people, Out of Egypt have I called My son. As I called them, so they went and worshipped Baal and offered incense to the graven images. And Isaiah said[Isaiah 1:2] concerning them, Children have I reared and brought up, and they have rebelled against Me. And again it is written, Ye are the children of the Lord your God. And about Solomon He said, He shall be to Me a son, and I will be to him a ...