Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Isaiah 53:2

There are 35 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 179, footnote 5 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Justin Martyr (HTML)

The First Apology (HTML)

Chapter L.—His humiliation predicted. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1871 (In-Text, Margin)

... stricken, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of peace was upon Him, by His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; every man has wandered in his own way. And He delivered Him for our sins; and He opened not His mouth for all His affliction. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. In His humiliation, His judgment was taken away.”[Isaiah 53:1-8] Accordingly, after He was crucified, even all His acquaintances forsook Him, having denied Him; and afterwards, when He had risen from the dead and appeared to them, and had taught them to read the prophecies in which all these things were foretold ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 215, footnote 10 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Justin Martyr (HTML)

Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)

Chapter XLII.—The bells on the priest’s robe were a figure of the apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2064 (In-Text, Margin)

... and grace of God and of His Christ. Wherefore David also says: ‘Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’ And Isaiah speaks as if he were personating the apostles, when they say to Christ that they believe not in their own report, but in the power of Him who sent them. And so he says: ‘Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have preached before Him as if [He were] a child, as if a root in a dry ground.’[Isaiah 53:1-2] (And what follows in order of the prophecy already quoted.) But when the passage speaks as from the lips of many, ‘We have preached before Him,’ and adds, ‘as if a child,’ it signifies that the wicked shall become subject to Him, and shall obey His ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 391, footnote 12 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Irenæus (HTML)

Against Heresies: Book II (HTML)

Chapter XXII.—The thirty Æons are not typified by the fact that Christ was baptized in His thirtieth year: He did not suffer in the twelfth month after His baptism, but was more than fifty years old when He died. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3138 (In-Text, Margin)

... youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord. So likewise He was an old man for old men, that He might be a perfect Master for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, He came on to death itself, that He might be “the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence,” the Prince of life, existing before all, and going before all.[Isaiah 53:2]

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 449, footnote 7 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Irenæus (HTML)

Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)

Chapter XIX.—Jesus Christ was not a mere man, begotten from Joseph in the ordinary course of nature, but was very God, begotten of the Father most high, and very man, born of the Virgin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3675 (In-Text, Margin)

... Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. But that He had, beyond all others, in Himself that pre-eminent birth which is from the Most High Father, and also experienced that pre-eminent generation which is from the Virgin, the divine Scriptures do in both respects testify of Him: also, that He was a man without comeliness, and liable to suffering;[Isaiah 53:2] that He sat upon the foal of an ass; that He received for drink, vinegar and gall; that He was despised among the people, and humbled Himself even to death and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Beautiful in appearance, and ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 272, footnote 1 (Image)

Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (HTML)

The Instructor (HTML)

Book III (HTML)
Chapter I.—On the True Beauty. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1579 (In-Text, Margin)

And that the Lord Himself was uncomely in aspect, the Spirit testifies by Esaias: “And we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness but His form was mean, inferior to men.”[Isaiah 53:2-3] Yet who was more admirable than the Lord? But it was not the beauty of the flesh visible to the eye, but the true beauty of both soul and body, which He exhibited, which in the former is beneficence; in the latter—that is, the flesh—immortality.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 73, footnote 2 (Image)

Tertullian (I, II, III)

Apologetic. (HTML)

On Idolatry. (HTML)

Dress as Connected with Idolatry. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 307 (In-Text, Margin)

... none, in so far as you are the slave of Christ alone, who has freed you likewise from the captivity of the world, will incur the duty of acting after your Lord’s pattern. That Lord walked in humility and obscurity, with no definite home: for “the Son of man,” said He, “hath not where to lay His head;” unadorned in dress, for else He had not said, “Behold, they who are clad in soft raiment are in kings’ houses:” in short, inglorious in countenance and aspect, just as Isaiah withal had fore-announced.[Isaiah 53:2] If, also, He exercised no right of power even over His own followers, to whom He discharged menial ministry; if, in short, though conscious of His own kingdom, He shrank back from being made a king, He in the fullest manner gave His own an example ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 172, footnote 1 (Image)

Tertullian (I, II, III)

Apologetic. (HTML)

An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)

Conclusion. Clue to the Error of the Jews. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1445 (In-Text, Margin)

... forenoted: one, in humility (of course the first), when He has to be led “as a sheep for a victim; and, as a lamb voiceless before the shearer, so He opened not His mouth,” not even in His aspect comely. For “we have announced,” says the prophet, “concerning Him, (He is) as a little child, as a root in a thirsty land; and there was not in Him attractiveness or glory. And we saw Him, and He had not attractiveness or grace; but His mien was unhonoured, deficient in comparison of the sons of men,”[Isaiah 53:2] “a man set in the plague, and knowing how to bear infirmity:” to wit as having been set by the Father “for a stone of offence,” and “made a little lower” by Him “than angels,” He pronounces Himself “a worm, and not a man, an ignominy of man, ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 326, footnote 13 (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)
Prophecy Sets Forth Two Different Conditions of Christ, One Lowly, the Other Majestic. This Fact Points to Two Advents of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3184 (In-Text, Margin)

... to belong to Christ, so these presignified the same number of advents; one, and that the first, was to be in lowliness, when He had to be led as a sheep to be slain as a victim, and to be as a lamb dumb before the shearer, not opening His mouth, and not fair to look upon. For, says (the prophet), we have announced concerning Him: “He is like a tender plant, like a root out of a thirsty ground; He hath no form nor comeliness; and we beheld Him, and He was without beauty: His form was disfigured;”[Isaiah 53:2-3] “marred more than the sons of men; a man stricken with sorrows, and knowing how to bear our infirmity;” “placed by the Father as a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence;” “made by Him a little lower than the angels;” declaring Himself to be “a ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 335, footnote 13 (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)
Prophecies in Isaiah and the Psalms Respecting Christ's Humiliation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3330 (In-Text, Margin)

... Whatever that poor despised body may be, because it was an object of touch and sight, it shall be my Christ, be He inglorious, be He ignoble, be He dishonoured; for such was it announced that He should be, both in bodily condition and aspect. Isaiah comes to our help again: “We have announced (His way) before Him,” says he; “He is like a servant, like a root in a dry ground; He hath no form nor comeliness; we saw Him, and He had neither form nor beauty; but His form was despised, marred above all men.”[Isaiah 53:2] Similarly the Father addressed the Son just before: “Inasmuch as many will be astonished at Thee, so also will Thy beauty be without glory from men.” For although, in David’s words, He is fairer than the children of men,” yet it is in that ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 530, footnote 8 (Image)

Tertullian (I, II, III)

Anti-Marcion. (HTML)

On the Flesh of Christ. (HTML)

Christ's Flesh Perfectly Natural, Like Our Own. None of the Supernatural Features Which the Heretics Ascribed to It Discoverable, on a Careful View. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7075 (In-Text, Margin)

... owned Christ to be man. But if there had been in Him any new kind of flesh miraculously obtained (from the stars), it would have been certainly well known. As the case stood, however, it was actually the ordinary condition of His terrene flesh which made all things else about Him wonderful, as when they said, “Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works?” Thus spake even they who despised His outward form. His body did not reach even to human beauty, to say nothing of heavenly glory.[Isaiah 53:2] Had the prophets given us no information whatever concerning His ignoble appearance, His very sufferings and the very contumely He endured bespeak it all. The sufferings attested His human flesh, the contumely proved its abject condition. Would any ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 606, footnote 11 (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 7891 (In-Text, Margin)

... character of a third Person: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” Likewise in the words of Isaiah: “Thus saith the Lord to the Lord mine Anointed.” Likewise, in the same prophet, He says to the Father respecting the Son: “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We brought a report concerning Him, as if He were a little child, as if He were a root in a dry ground, who had no form nor comeliness.”[Isaiah 53:1-2] These are a few testimonies out of many; for we do not pretend to bring up all the passages of Scripture, because we have a tolerably large accumulation of them in the various heads of our subject, as we in our several chapters call them in as our ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 420, footnote 5 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Origen. (HTML)

Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)

I (HTML)
Chapter LIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3175 (In-Text, Margin)

... stripes we were healed. We all, like sheep, wandered from the way. A man wandered in his way, and the Lord delivered Him on account of our sins; and He, because of His evil treatment, opens not His mouth. As a sheep was He led to slaughter; and as a lamb before her shearer is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment was taken away. And who shall describe His generation? because His life is taken away from the earth; because of the iniquities of My people was He led unto death.”[Isaiah 53:1-8]

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 609, footnote 1 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Origen. (HTML)

Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)

Book VI (HTML)
Chapter LXXV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4670 (In-Text, Margin)

... that he was “little.” The language of Isaiah runs as follows, who prophesied regarding Him that He would come and visit the multitude, not in comeliness of form, nor in any surpassing beauty: “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? He made announcement before Him, as a child, as a root in a thirsty ground. He has no form nor glory, and we beheld Him, and He had no form nor beauty; but His form was without honour, and inferior to that of the sons of men.”[Isaiah 53:1-3] These passages, then, Celsus listened to, because he thought they were of use to him in bringing a charge against Jesus; but he paid no attention to the words of the forty-fifth Psalm, and why it is then said, “Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O most ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 618, footnote 1 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Origen. (HTML)

Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)

Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4702 (In-Text, Margin)

But besides, the prophecies which he introduces into his argument are very different from what the prophets actually foretold of Jesus Christ. For the prophecies do not foretell that God will be crucified, when they say of Him who should suffer, “We beheld Him, and He had no form or comeliness; but His form was dishonoured and marred more than the sons of men; He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”[Isaiah 53:2-3] Observe, then, how distinctly they say that it was a man who should endure these human sufferings. And Jesus Himself, who knew perfectly that one who was to die must be a man, said to His accusers: “But now ye seek to kill Me, a man that hath spoken unto you the truth which I heard of God.” ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 213, footnote 3 (Image)

Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

Hippolytus. (HTML)

The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)

Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Treatise on Christ and Antichrist. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1490 (In-Text, Margin)

... and to all the nations.44. For as two advents of our Lord and Saviour are indicated in the Scriptures, the one being His first advent in the flesh, which took place without honour by reason of His being set at nought, as Isaiah spake of Him aforetime, saying, “We saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness, but His form was despised (and) rejected (lit. = deficient) above all men; a man smitten and familiar with bearing infirmity, (for His face was turned away); He was despised, and esteemed not.”[Isaiah 53:2-5] But His second advent is announced as glorious, when He shall come from heaven with the host of angels, and the glory of His Father, as the prophet saith, “Ye shall see the King in glory;” and, “I saw one like the Son of man coming with the clouds ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 520, footnote 12 (Image)

Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

Cyprian. (HTML)

The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)

Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
That Christ was to come in low estate in His first advent. (HTML)CCEL Footnote 4015 (In-Text, Margin)

... His face was turned away, He was dishonoured, and was not accounted of. He bears our sins, and grieves for us; and we thought that He was in grief, and in wounding, and in affliction; but He was wounded for our transgressions, and He was weakened for our sins. The discipline of our peace was upon Him, and with His bruise we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray; man has gone out of his way. And God has delivered Him for our sins; and He, because He was afflicted, opened not His mouth.”[Isaiah 53:1-7] Also in the same: “I am not rebellious, nor do I contradict. I gave my back to the stripes, and my cheeks to the palms of the hands. Moreover, I did not turn away my face from the foulness of spitting, and God was my helper.” Also in the same: “He ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 619, footnote 3 (Image)

Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

Novatian. (HTML)

A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)

Further, that the Same Rule of Truth Teaches Us to Believe, After the Father, Also in the Son of God, Jesus Christ Our Lord God, Being the Same that Was Promised in the Old Testament, and Manifested in the New. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5076 (In-Text, Margin)

... peoples that knew Thee not shall flee unto Thee.” It is the same that he refers to when, concerning His passion, he exclaims, saying: “As a sheep He is led to the slaughter; and as a lamb before his shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth in His humility.” Him, moreover, when he described the blows and stripes of His scourgings: “By His bruises we were healed.” Or His humiliation: “And we saw Him, and He had neither form nor comeliness, a man in suffering, and who knoweth how to bear infirmity.”[Isaiah 53:2] Or that the people would not believe on Him: “All day long I have spread out my hands unto a people that believeth not.” Or that He would rise again from the dead: “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, and one who shall rise to reign over ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 117, 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. XVI.—Of the passion of Jesus Christ; that it was foretold (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 698 (In-Text, Margin)

... the other, manifest in the power of His majesty. Of the first David thus speaks in the seventy-first Psalm: “He shall descend as rain upon a fleece; and in His days shall righteousness spring forth, and abundance of peace, as long as the moon is lifted up.” For as rain, if it descends upon a fleece, cannot be perceived, because it makes no sound; so he said that Christ would come to the earth without exciting the notice of any, that He might teach righteousness and peace. Isaiah also thus spoke:[Isaiah 53:1-6] “Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We made proclamation before Him as children, and as a root in a thirsty land: He has no form nor glory; and we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness. But His form ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 465, footnote 10 (Image)

Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen

Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)

Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)

Book XII. (HTML)
The Coming of the Son of Man in Glory. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5738 (In-Text, Margin)

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His own Father with His angels. ” Now, indeed, the Son of man has not come in His glory; “for we saw Him, and He had no form nor beauty; but His form was dishonoured and defective compared with the sons of men; He was a man in affliction and toil, and acquainted with the enduring of sickness, because His face was turned away, He was dishonoured and not esteemed.”[Isaiah 53:2-3] And it was necessary that He should come in such form that He might bear our sins and suffer pain for us; for it did not become Him in glory to bear our sins and suffer pain for us. But He also comes in glory, having prepared the disciples through that epiphany of His which has no form ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 466, footnote 2 (Image)

Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen

Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)

Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)

Book XII. (HTML)
The Word Appears in Different Forms; The Time of His Coming in Glory. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5745 (In-Text, Margin)

But if you will understand the differences of the Word which by “the foolishness of preaching” is proclaimed to those who believe, and spoken in wisdom to them that are perfect, you will see in what way the Word has the form of a slave to those who are learning the rudiments, so that they say, “We saw Him and He had no form or beauty.”[Isaiah 53:2] But to the perfect He comes “in the glory of His own Father,” who might say, “and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” For indeed to the perfect appears the glory of the Word, and the only-begotten of God His Father, and the fulness of grace and likewise of truth, ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 467, footnote 6 (Image)

Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen

Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)

Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)

Book XII. (HTML)
Standing by the Saviour. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5762 (In-Text, Margin)

... of them as standing better, do not taste of death until they shall have seen the Word who dwelt with men, and on that account called Son of man, coming in His own kingdom; for Jesus does not always come in His own kingdom when He comes, since to the newly initiated He is such that they might say, beholding the Word Himself not glorious nor great, but inferior to many among them, “We saw Him, and He had no form or beauty, but His form was dishonoured, defective compared with all the sons of men.”[Isaiah 53:2-3] And these things will be said by those who beheld His glory in connection with their own former times, when at first the Word as understood in the synagogue had no form nor beauty to them. To the Word, therefore, who has assumed most manifestly the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 451, footnote 4 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Good of Widowhood. (HTML)

Section 23 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2281 (In-Text, Margin)

... form above the sons of men.” For that ye please Him, it is by His grace which is “shed abroad on His lips.” Please ye Him in that portion of thought also, which would be occupied by the world, in order to please a husband. Please ye Him, Who displeased the world, in order that such as please Him might be set free from the world. For This One, fair of form above the sons of men, men saw on the Cross of the Passion; “and He had not form or beauty, but His face cast down, and His posture unseemly.”[Isaiah 53:2] Yet from this unseemliness of your Redeemer flowed the price of your beauty, but of a beauty within, for “all the beauty of the King’s daughter is within.” By this beauty please ye Him, this beauty order ye with studious care and anxious thought. He ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 407, footnote 2 (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, Mark viii. 5, etc., where the miracle of the seven loaves is related. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3146 (In-Text, Margin)

... beauty above the children of men.” That Bridegroom became deformed because of His deformed spouse, that he might make her fair. How did the Fair One become deformed? If I do not prove it, I am blaspheming. The testimony of his fair beauty the Prophet gives me, who saith, “Thou art fair in beauty above the children of men.” The testimony of his deformity another Prophet gives me, who saith, “We saw Him, and He had no grace, nor beauty; but His countenance was marred, and His whole look deformed.”[Isaiah 53:2] O Prophet, who saidst, “Thou art fair in beauty above the children of men;” thou art contradicted; another Prophet cometh out against thee, and saith, “Thou speakest falsely. We have seen Him. What is this that thou sayest, ‘Thou art fair in beauty ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 524, footnote 6 (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 x. 14, ‘I am the good shepherd,’ etc. Against the Donatists. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 4137 (In-Text, Margin)

... and ardour after Him, and say to Him, “Where feedest Thou?” And observe how, by what transport this spiritual love is here animated. And far better are they by this transport delighted, who have tasted ought of the sweetness of this love. They hear this properly, who love Christ. For in them, and of them, doth the Church sing this in the Song of Songs; who love Christ, as it seemed without beauty, yet the Only Beautiful One. “For we saw Him,” it is said, “and He had neither beauty nor comeliness.”[Isaiah 53:2] Such He appeared on the Cross, such when crowned with thorns did He exhibit Himself, disfigured, and without comeliness, as if He had lost His power, as if not the Son of God. Such seemed He to the blind. For it is in the person of the Jews that ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 518, footnote 4 (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 IV. 17–21. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2475 (In-Text, Margin)

... with God, and the Word was God.” But in that He took flesh, He took upon Him, as it were, thy foulness, i.e. thy mortality, that He might adapt Himself to thee, and become suited to thee, and stir thee up to the love of the beauteousness within. Where then in Scripture do we find Jesus uncomely and deformed, as we have found Him comely and “beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons of men?” where find we Him also deformed? Ask Esaias: “And we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness.”[Isaiah 53:2] There now are two flutes which seem to make discordant sounds: howbeit one Spirit breathes into both. By this it is said, “Beauteous in loveliness surpassing the sons of men:” by that it is said in Esaias, “We saw Him, and He had no form nor ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 266, footnote 12 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXIV (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2525 (In-Text, Margin)

... they have declared the works of God, and His doings they have perceived.” What is, “His doings they have perceived”? Was it, O Lord Jesus Christ, that Thou wast silent, and like a sheep for a victim wast being led, and didst not open before the shearer Thy mouth, and we thought Thee to be set in smiting and in grief, and knowing how to bear weakness? Was it that Thou wast hiding Thy beauty, O Thou beautiful in form before the sons of men? Was it that Thou didst not seem to have beauty nor grace?[Isaiah 53:2] Thou didst bear on the Cross men reviling and saying, “If Son of God He is, let Him come down from the Cross.” …This thing they, that would have had Him come down from the Cross, perceived not: but when He rose again, and being glorified ascended ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 300, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXIX (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2906 (In-Text, Margin)

... “Save me, O God, for the waters have entered in even unto my soul” (ver. 1). That grain is despised now, that seemeth to give forth humble words. In the garden it is buried, though the world will admire the greatness of the herb, of which herb the seed was despised by the Jews. For in very deed observe ye the seed of the mustard, minute, dull coloured, altogether despicable, in order that therein may be fulfilled that which hath been said, We have seen Him, and He had neither form nor comeliness.[Isaiah 53:2] But He saith, that waters have come in even unto His soul; because those multitudes, which under the name of waters He hath pointed out, were able so far to prevail as to kill Christ.…Whence then doth He so cry out, as though He were suffering ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 499, footnote 6 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 4620 (In-Text, Margin)

... build up Sion” (ver. 16). This work is going on now. O ye living stones, run to the work of building, not to ruin. Sion is in building, beware of the ruined walls: the tower is building, the ark is in building; remember the deluge. This work is in progress now; but when Sion is built, what will happen? “And He will appear in His glory.” That He might build up Sion, that He might be a foundation in Sion, He was seen by Sion, but not in His glory: “we have seen Him, and He had no form nor comeliness.”[Isaiah 53:2] But truly when He shall have come with His angels to judge, shall they not look then upon Him whom they have pierced? and they shall be put to confusion when too late, who refused confusion in early and healthful repentance.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 205, footnote 5 (Image)

Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes

Homily on the Passage (Matt. xxvi. 19), 'Father If It Be Possible Let This Cup Pass from Me,' Etc., and Against Marcionists and Manichæans. (HTML)

Against Marcionists and Manichæans. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 679 (In-Text, Margin)

... then as that which was to happen was so strange as to be disbelieved by many even when it had taken place, He first of all sends prophets beforehand, announcing this very fact. For instance the patriarch predicted it saying “Thou didst spring from a tender shoot my son: thou didst lie down and slumber as a lion;” and Esaias saying “Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call His name Emmanuel;” and elsewhere again “We beheld Him as a young child, as a root in a dry ground;”[Isaiah 53:2] and by the dry ground he means the virgin’s womb. And again “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,” and again “there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall spring out of his root.” And Baruch in the book of ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 236, footnote 3 (Image)

Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome

The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)

Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)

The Impassible. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1529 (In-Text, Margin)

“Moreover the prophet Isaiah following the tracks of His sufferings, among other utterances exclaims with a mighty voice ‘And we saw Him and He had no form nor beauty. His form was dishonoured and rejected among the sons of men,’[Isaiah 53:2-3] thus distinctly showing that the marks of indignity and the sufferings must be applied to the human but not to the divine. And immediately afterwards he adds ‘Being a man under stroke, and able to bear infirmity.’ He it is who after suffering outrage was seen to have no form or comeliness, then again was changed and clothed with beauty, for the God dwelling in Him was not led like ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 308, footnote 11 (Image)

Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen

Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)

The Third Theological Oration.  On the Son. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3565 (In-Text, Margin)

... Whose sake He came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes —but He took off the swathing bands of the grave by His rising again. He was laid in a manger—but He was glorified by Angels, and proclaimed by a star, and worshipped by the Magi. Why are you offended by that which is presented to your sight, because you will not look at that which is presented to your mind? He was driven into exile into Egypt—but He drove away the Egyptian idols. He had no form nor comeliness in the eyes of the Jews[Isaiah 53:2] —but to David He is fairer than the children of men. And on the Mountain He was bright as the lightning, and became more luminous than the sun, initiating us into the mystery of the future.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 118, footnote 7 (Image)

Basil: Letters and Select Works

The Letters. (HTML)

To the Cæsareans.  A defence of his withdrawal, and concerning the faith. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1816 (In-Text, Margin)

... Son is of the same substance as the Father. But there is another sense underlying the expression. In what is it extraordinary that He who “is the Word and was made flesh” confesses His Father to be greater than Himself, when He was seen in glory inferior to the angels, and in form to men? For “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,” and again “Who was made a little lower than the angels,” and “we saw Him and He had neither form nor comeliness, his form was deficient beyond all men.”[Isaiah 53:2-3] All this He endured on account of His abundant loving kindness towards His work, that He might save the lost sheep and bring it home when He had saved it, and bring back safe and sound to his own land the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 263, 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 I. The marvel is, not that men have failed to know Christ, but that they have not listened to the words of the Scriptures. Christ, indeed, was not known, even of angels, save by revelation, nor again, by His forerunner. Follows a description of Christ's triumphal ascent into heaven, and the excellence of its glory over the assumption of certain prophets. Lastly, from exposition of the conversation with angels upon this occasion, the omnipotence of the Son is proved, as against the Arians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2336 (In-Text, Margin)

13. And back again came the challenge of them that stood astonished: “Who is that King of glory? For we saw Him having neither form nor comeliness;[Isaiah 53:2] if then it be not He, who is that King of glory?”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 223, footnote 9 (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 I. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 363 (In-Text, Margin)

... its fulfilment came to-day! That tree likewise, [the tree] of life, brings hope to mortal men! Solomon’s hidden proverb had to-day its explanation! To-day was born the Child, and His name was called Wonder! For a wonder it is that God as a Babe should show Himself. By the word Worm did the Spirit foreshow Him in parable, because His generation was without marriage. The type that the Holy Ghost figured to-day its meaning was [explained.] He came up as a root before Him, as a root of parched ground.[Isaiah 53:2] Aught that covertly was said, openly to-day was done! The King that in Judah was hidden, Thamar stole Him from his thigh; to-day arose His conquering beauty, which in hidden estate she loved. Ruth at Boaz’ side lay down, because the Medicine of Life ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 390, footnote 10 (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 1070 (In-Text, Margin)

... upon my vesture did they cast the lot. And Isaiah said:— Lo! My servant shall be known and shall be revealed and shall be lifted up, so that many shall be astonished at Him.  As for this man, His visage shall be marred more than that of man, and His aspect more than that of the sons of men. And he said:— He will purify many nations, and kings shall be amazed at Him. And he said in that passage:— He came up as a little child before Him, and as a root from the dry ground.[Isaiah 53:2] And in the end of the passage he said:— He shall be slain for our sins; He shall be humiliated for our iniquity; the chastisement of our peace is upon Him, and by His bruises shall we be healed. By what wounds were men healed? David was not ...

Online Dictionary & Commentary of Early Church Beliefs