Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ezekiel 16
There are 38 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 237, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter LXXVII.—He returns to explain the prophecy of Isaiah. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2242 (In-Text, Margin)
... happened in the case of our Christ. For at the time of His birth, Magi who came from Arabia worshipped Him, coming first to Herod, who then was sovereign in your land, and whom the Scripture calls king of Assyria on account of his ungodly and sinful character. For you know,” continued I, “that the Holy Spirit oftentimes announces such events by parables and similitudes; just as He did towards all the people in Jerusalem, frequently saying to them, ‘Thy father is an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.’[Ezekiel 16:3]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 268, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter XIII—Against Excessive Fondness for Jewels and Gold Ornaments. (HTML)
... falsehood; and shows not what is decorous, simple, and truly childlike, but what is pompous, luxurious, and effeminate. But these women obscure true beauty, shading it with gold. And they know not how great is their transgression, in fastening around themselves ten thousand rich chains; as they say that among the barbarians malefactors are bound with gold. The women seem to me to emulate these rich prisoners. For is not the golden necklace a collar, and do not the necklets which they call catheters[Ezekiel 16:11] occupy the place of chains? and indeed among the Attics they are called by this very name. The ungraceful things round the feet of women, Philemon in the Synephebus called ankle-fetters:—
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 162, footnote 10 (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 1269 (In-Text, Margin)
... ignominious on the score of idolatry; for she had at that time revolted from God under King Jeroboam. For this, again, is no novelty to the Divine Scriptures, figuratively to use a transference of name grounded on parallelism of 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;”[Ezekiel 16:3] 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.” So, too, Egypt is ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 162, footnote 10 (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 1269 (In-Text, Margin)
... ignominious on the score of idolatry; for she had at that time revolted from God under King Jeroboam. For this, again, is no novelty to the Divine Scriptures, figuratively to use a transference of name grounded on parallelism of 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;”[Ezekiel 16:45] 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.” So, too, Egypt is ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 332, footnote 15 (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)
... under the name of Samaria, as that city was shameful for its idolatry, through which it had then revolted from God from the days of king 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,”[Ezekiel 16:3] by reason of their kindred iniquity; although He had actually called them His sons: “I have nourished and brought up children.” So likewise by Egypt is sometimes understood, in His sense, the whole world as being marked out by superstition ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 106, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Fasting. (HTML)
Further Examples from the Old Testament in Favour of Fasting. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1053 (In-Text, Margin)
Through this attendant of mourning, and (this) hunger, even that sinful state, Nineveh, is freed from the predicted ruin. For repentance for sins had sufficiently commended the fast, keeping it up in a space of three days, starving out even the cattle with which God was not angry. Sodom also, and Gomorrah, would have escaped if they had fasted.[Ezekiel 16:49] This remedy even Ahab acknowledges. When, after his transgression and idolatry, and the slaughter of Naboth, slain by Jezebel on account of his vineyard, Elijah had upbraided him, “How hast thou killed, and possessed the inheritance? In the place where dogs had licked up the blood of Naboth, thine also shall they lick ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 280, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
On Justice and Goodness. (HTML)
... long-suffering of God in the days of Noah, when the ark was preparing, in which a few, i.e., eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto also baptism by a like figure now saves you.” And with regard to Sodom and Gomorrah, let them tell us whether they believe the prophetic words to be those of the Creator God—of Him, viz., who is related to have rained upon them a shower of fire and brimstone. What does Ezekiel the prophet say of them? “Sodom,” he says, “shall be restored to her former condition.”[Ezekiel 16:55] But why, in afflicting those who are deserving of punishment, does He not afflict them for their good?—who also says to Chaldea, “Thou hast coals of fire, sit upon them; they will be a help to thee.” And of those also who fell in the desert, let ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 423, footnote 1 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book II. Of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons (HTML)
Sec. VII.—On Assembling in the Church (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2841 (In-Text, Margin)
LX. And how can he be other than an adversary to God, who takes pains about temporary things night and day, but takes no care of things eternal? who takes care of washings and temporary food every day, but does not take care of those that endure for ever? How can such a one even now avoid hearing that word of the Lord, “The Gentiles are justified more than you?”[Ezekiel 16:52] as He says, by way of reproach, to Jerusalem, “Sodom is justified rather than thou.” For if the Gentiles every day, when they arise from sleep, run to their idols to worship them, and before all their work and all their labours do first of all pray to them, and in their feasts and in their solemnities do ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 296, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus states his objections to the morality of the law and the prophets, and Augustin seeks by the application of the type and the allegory to explain away the moral difficulties of the Old Testament. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 885 (In-Text, Margin)
... And when, by his order, she was brought out to be killed, on her producing the staff and necklace and ring, saying that the father of the child was the man who had given her those pledges, Judah acknowledged them, and said, "She hath been more righteous than I" —not praising her, but condemning himself. He blamed her desire to have children less than his own unlawful passion, which had led him to one whom he thought to be an harlot. In a similar sense, it is said of some that they justified Sodom;[Ezekiel 16:52] that is, their sin was so great, that Sodom seemed righteous in comparison. And even allowing that this woman is not spoken of as comparatively less guilty, but is actually praised by her father-in-law, while, on account of her not observing the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 446, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
Augustin undertakes the refutation of the arguments which might be derived from the epistle of Cyprian to Jubaianus, to give color to the view that the baptism of Christ could not be conferred by heretics. (HTML)
Chapter 19 (HTML)
... adulterous woman is addressed by the mouth of Ezekiel: "Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them; and tookest my broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before thine idols for a sweet savor: and this thou hast done."[Ezekiel 16:17-19] For she turns all the sacraments, and the words of the sacred books, to the images of her own idols, with which her carnal mind delights to wallow. Nor yet, because those images are false, and the doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, are ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 498, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
In which is considered the Council of Carthage, held under the authority and presidency of Cyprian, to determine the question of the baptism of heretics. (HTML)
Chapter 44 (HTML)
... extent of his powers he has not preserved the sacrament, but done it violence in heart and will, yet so far as the sacrament’s own nature is concerned, it has remained unhurt in its integrity even in the man who despised and rejected it. Were not the people of Sodom heathens, that is to say, Gentiles? The Jews therefore were worse, to whom the Lord says, "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee;" and to whom the prophet says, "Thou hast justified Sodom,"[Ezekiel 16:51] that is to say, in comparison with thee Sodom is righteous. Shall we, however, maintain that on this account the holy sacraments which existed among the Jews partook of the nature of the Jews themselves,—those sacraments which the Lord Himself also ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 297, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
The Pelagians Argue that Cohabitation Rightly Used is a Good, and What is Born from It is Good. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2274 (In-Text, Margin)
... with the strength of the generative organs, because the Sodomites were steeped in sin thereby, you will have also to censure such created things as bread and wine, since Holy Scripture informs us that they sinned also in the abuse of these gifts. For the Lord, by the mouth of His prophet Ezekiel, says: ‘These, moreover, were the sins of thy sister Sodom; in their pride, she and her children overflowed in fulness of bread and abundance of wine; and they helped not the hand of the poor and needy.’[Ezekiel 16:49] Choose, therefore,” says he, “which alternative you would rather have: either impute to the work of God the sexual connection of human bodies, or account such created things as bread and wine to be equally evil. But if you should prefer this latter ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 237, footnote 1 (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. 37–47. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 781 (In-Text, Margin)
... out of which to make all that He made, and yet He made it. For they were made because He willed it, they were made because He said it; but the things made cannot be compared with the Maker. If thou seekest a proper subject of comparison, turn thy mind to the only-begotten Son. How, then, were the Jews the children of the devil? By imitation, not by birth. Listen to the usual language of the Holy Scriptures. The prophet says to those very Jews, “Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.”[Ezekiel 16:3] The Amorites were not a nation that gave origin to the Jews. The Hittites also were themselves of a nation altogether different from the race of the Jews. But because the Amorites and Hittites were impious, and the Jews imitated their impieties, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 103, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall. (HTML)
Letter I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 271 (In-Text, Margin)
... wives, much more is this the case with God, and those souls which, owing to the usurpation of the devil, have fallen from their original noble condition into the harlotry of this present life. And you will find the prophets filled with examples of this kind, when they address Jerusalem; for she fell into fornication, and a novel form of it, even as Ezekiel says: “To all harlots wages are given, but thou hast given wages to thy lovers, and there hath been perversion in thee beyond all other women,”[Ezekiel 16:33] and again another saith “Thou didst sit waiting for them like a deserted bird.” This one then who hath committed fornication in this fashion God calls back again. For the captivity which took place was not so much by way of vengeance as for the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 530, footnote 1 (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)
... 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. ’ 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[Ezekiel 16:48].’ For the Sodomites raved against angels, but these against the Lord and God and King of all, and these dared to slay the Lord of angels, not knowing that Christ, who was slain by them, liveth. But those Jews who had conspired against the Lord died, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 24, footnote 18 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 385 (In-Text, Margin)
... to this after the bridal-chamber of God the Son, after the kisses of Him who is to her both kinsman and spouse? Yes, she of whom the prophetic utterance once sang, “Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold wrought about with divers colours,” shall be made naked, and her skirts shall be discovered upon her face. She shall sit by the waters of loneliness, her pitcher laid aside; and shall open her feet to every one that passeth by, and shall be polluted to the crown of her head.[Ezekiel 16:25] Better had it been for her to have submitted to the yoke of marriage, to have walked in level places, than thus, aspiring to loftier heights, to fall into the deep of hell. I pray you, let not Zion the faithful city become a harlot: let it not be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 26, footnote 21 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 421 (In-Text, Margin)
... come out of his thigh. So, also, when his thigh shrank after the Lord had wrestled with him, he ceased to beget children. The Israelites, again, are told to celebrate the passover with loins girded and mortified. God says to Job: “Gird up thy loins as a man.” John wears a leathern girdle. The apostles must gird their loins to carry the lamps of the Gospel. When Ezekiel tells us how Jerusalem is found in the plain of wandering, covered with blood, he uses the words: “Thy navel has not been cut.”[Ezekiel 16:4-6] In his assaults on men, therefore, the devil’s strength is in the loins; in his attacks on women his force is in the navel.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 45, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 731 (In-Text, Margin)
2. It is true that a festival such as the birthday of Saint Peter should be seasoned with more gladness than usual; still our merriment must not forget the limit set by Scripture, and we must not stray too far from the boundary of our wrestling-ground. Your presents, indeed, remind me of the sacred volume, for in it Ezekiel decks Jerusalem with bracelets,[Ezekiel 16:11] Baruch receives letters from Jeremiah, and the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove at the baptism of Christ. But to give you, too, a sprinkling of pepper and to remind you of my former letter, I send you to-day this three-fold warning. Cease not to adorn yourself with good works—the true bracelets of a Christian ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 63, footnote 2 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
Paula and Eustochium to Marcella. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 982 (In-Text, Margin)
... length, breadth and height of which are all twelve thousand furlongs), and therefore the details of it must be mystically understood. The great city which Cain first built and called after his son must be taken to represent this world, which the devil, that accuser of his brethren, that fratricide who is doomed to perish, has built of vice cemented with crime, and filled with iniquity. Therefore it is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. Thus it is written, “Sodom shall return to her former estate,”[Ezekiel 16:55] that is to say, the world must be restored as it has been before. For we cannot believe that Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim are to be built again: they must be left to lie in ashes forever. We never read of Egypt as put for Jerusalem: it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 106, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Furia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1587 (In-Text, Margin)
... well known. You need not go into the mire to seek for gold; you have many pearls, buy the one pearl with these. Stand, as Jeremiah says, in more ways than one that so you may come on the true way that leads to the Father. Exchange your love of necklaces and of gems and of silk dresses for earnestness in studying the scriptures. Enter the land of promise that flows with milk and honey. Eat fine flour and oil. Let your clothing be, like Joseph’s, of many colors. Let your ears like those of Jerusalem[Ezekiel 16:12] be pierced by the word of God that the precious grains of new corn may hang from them. In that reverend man Exuperius you have a man of tried years and faith ready to give you constant support with his advice.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 141, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Castrutius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2004 (In-Text, Margin)
... Josiah? Yet he was slain by the sword of the Egyptians. Were there ever loftier saints than Peter and Paul? Yet their blood stained the blade of Nero. And to say no more of men, did not the Son of God endure the shame of the cross? And yet you fancy those blessed who enjoy in this world happiness and pleasure? God’s hottest anger against sinners is when he shews no anger. Wherefore in Ezekiel he says to Jerusalem: “My jealousy will depart from thee and I will be quiet and will be no more angry.”[Ezekiel 16:42] For “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” The father does not instruct his son unless he loves him. The master does not correct his disciple unless he sees in him signs of promise. When once the doctor ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 168, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Salvina. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2470 (In-Text, Margin)
A noble alternative truly which is only to be embraced in preference to Satan! In old days even Jerusalem went a-whoring and opened her feet to every one that passed by.[Ezekiel 16:25] It was in Egypt that she was first deflowered and there that her teats were bruised. And afterwards when she had come to the wilderness and, impatient of the delays of her leader Moses, had said when maddened by the stings of lust: “these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” she received statutes that were not good and commandments that were altogether evil whereby she should ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 192, footnote 20 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Laeta. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2702 (In-Text, Margin)
... whom Gabriel found alone in her chamber and who was frightened, it would appear, by seeing a man there. Let the child emulate her of whom it is written that “the king’s daughter is all glorious within.” Wounded with love’s arrow let her say to her beloved, “the king hath brought me into his chambers.” At no time let her go abroad, lest the watchmen find her that go about the city, and lest they smite and wound her and take away from her the veil of her chastity, and leave her naked in her blood.[Ezekiel 16:1-10] Nay rather when one knocketh at her door let her say: “I am a wall and my breasts like towers. I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 248, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3454 (In-Text, Margin)
... lines too for catching fish, and copy books; that your hand may earn your food and your mind may be satisfied with reading. For “every one that is idle is a prey to vain desires.” In Egypt the monasteries make it a rule to receive none who are not willing to work; for they regard labour as necessary not only for the support of the body but also for the salvation of the soul. Do not let your mind stray into harmful thoughts, or, like Jerusalem in her whoredoms, open its feet to every chance comer.[Ezekiel 16:25]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 291, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Sabinianus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3970 (In-Text, Margin)
... carry them out; yet in My mercy and kindness I have permitted even this. But should the sinful thought have become the sinful deed? Should men in their pride have trampled thus on my tenderness? Nevertheless “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live;” and as it is not they that are whole who need a physician but they that are sick, even after his sin I hold out a hand to the prostrate sinner and exhort him, polluted as he is in his own blood,[Ezekiel 16:6] to wash away his stains with tears of penitence. But if even then he shews himself unwilling to repent, and if, after he has suffered shipwreck, he refuses to clutch the plank which alone can save him, I am compelled at last to say: “Thus saith the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 412, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4913 (In-Text, Margin)
... a penitent, I am willing to add, if you like, that the one drachma which was lost and was found was put with the others, and that the one sheep which the good shepherd, leaving the ninety and nine, sought and brought back, made up the full tale of a hundred. But it is one thing to be a penitent, and with tears sue for pardon, another to be always with the father. And so both the shepherd and the father say by the mouth of Ezekiel to the sheep that was carried back, and to the son that was lost,[Ezekiel 16:62-63] “And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: that thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth ever more, because of thy shame, when I have forgiven thee all that thou hast done.” That ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 457, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5197 (In-Text, Margin)
17. Need we be surprised that, when saints are compared, some are better, some worse, since the same holds good in the comparison of sins? To Jerusalem, pierced and wounded with many sins, it is said, “Sodom is justified by thee.” It is not because Sodom, which has sunk for ever into ashes, is just in herself, that it is said by Ezekiel,[Ezekiel 16:55] “Sodom shall be restored to her former estate”; but that, in comparison with the more accursed Jerusalem, she appears just. For Jerusalem killed the Son of God; Sodom through fulness of bread and excessive luxury carried her lust beyond all bounds. The publican in the Gospel who smote upon his breast as though it were a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 141, footnote 9 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. The aforesaid unity is proved hereby, that as the Father is said to be grieved and tempted, so too the Son. The Son was also tempted in the wilderness, where a figure of the cross was set up in the brazen serpent: but the Apostle says that the Spirit also was there tempted. St. Ambrose infers from this that the Israelites were guided into the promised land by the same Spirit, and that His will and power are one with those of the Father and the Son. (HTML)
48. And we may behold this unity also in other passages of the Scriptures. For whereas Ezekiel says to the people of the Jews: “And thou hast grieved Me in all these things, saith the Lord;”[Ezekiel 16:43] Paul says to the new people in his Epistle: “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in Whom ye were sealed.” Again, whereas Isaiah says of the Jews themselves: “But they believed not, but grieved the Holy Spirit;” David says of God: “They grieved the Most High in the desert, and tempted God in their hearts.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 235, footnote 5 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)
Book V. Of the Spirit of Gluttony. (HTML)
Chapter VI. That the mind is not intoxicated by wine alone. (HTML)
... food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation. The cause of the overthrow and wantonness of Sodom was not drunkenness through wine, but fulness of bread. Hear the Lord rebuking Jerusalem through the prophet. “For how did thy sister Sodom sin, except in that she ate her bread in fulness and abundance?”[Ezekiel 16:49] And because through fulness of bread they were inflamed with uncontrollable lust of the flesh, they were burnt up by the judgment of God with fire and brimstone from heaven. But if excess of bread alone drove them to such a headlong downfall into ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 322, footnote 4 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference III. Conference of Abbot Paphnutius. On the Three Sorts of Renunciations. (HTML)
Chapter VII. How we can attain perfection in each of these sorts of renunciations. (HTML)
... same zeal and ardour. And so when we have succeeded in this, we shall be able to arrive at the third as well, in which we go forth from the house of our former parent, (who, as we know well, was our father from our very birth, after the old man, when we were “by nature children of wrath, as others also,”) and fix our whole mental gaze on things celestial. And of this father Scripture says to Jerusalem which had despised God the true Father, “Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite;”[Ezekiel 16:3] and in the gospel we read “Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye love to do.” And when we have left him, as we pass from things visible to things unseen we shall be able to say with the Apostle: “But we know that if our ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 358, footnote 21 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference VI. Conference of Abbot Theodore. On the Death of the Saints. (HTML)
Chapter XI. Of the two kinds of trials, which come upon us in a three-fold way. (HTML)
... no not even by fire. Thy uncleanness is execrable: because I desired to cleanse thee, and thou art not cleansed from thy filthiness.” Wherefore like a skilful physician, who has tried all saving cures, and sees there is no remedy left which can be applied to their disease, the Lord is in a manner overcome by their iniquities and is obliged to desist from that kindly chastisement of His, and so denounces them saying: “I will no longer be angry with thee, and thy jealousy has departed from thee.”[Ezekiel 16:42] But of others, whose heart has not grown hard by continuance in sin, and who do not stand in need of that most severe and (if I may so call it) caustic remedy, but for whose salvation the instruction of the life-giving word is sufficient—of them it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 521, footnote 12 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXIII. The Third Conference of Abbot Theonas. On Sinlessness. (HTML)
Chapter IV. How man's goodness and righteousness are not good if compared with the goodness and righteousness of God. (HTML)
... not to be considered glorious, saying: “For even that which was glorious was not glorified by reason of the glory that excelleth.” And Scripture keeps up this comparison on the other side also, i.e., in weighing the merits of sinners, so that in comparison with the wicked it justifies those who have sinned less, saying: “Sodom is justified above thee;” and again: “For what hath thy sister Sodom sinned?” and: “The rebellious Israel hath justified her soul in comparison of the treacherous Judah.”[Ezekiel 16:49] So then the merits of all the virtues, which I enumerated above, though in themselves they are good and precious, yet become dim in comparison of the brightness of contemplation. For they greatly hinder and retard the saints who are taken up with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 521, footnote 12 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXIII. The Third Conference of Abbot Theonas. On Sinlessness. (HTML)
Chapter IV. How man's goodness and righteousness are not good if compared with the goodness and righteousness of God. (HTML)
... not to be considered glorious, saying: “For even that which was glorious was not glorified by reason of the glory that excelleth.” And Scripture keeps up this comparison on the other side also, i.e., in weighing the merits of sinners, so that in comparison with the wicked it justifies those who have sinned less, saying: “Sodom is justified above thee;” and again: “For what hath thy sister Sodom sinned?” and: “The rebellious Israel hath justified her soul in comparison of the treacherous Judah.”[Ezekiel 16:52] So then the merits of all the virtues, which I enumerated above, though in themselves they are good and precious, yet become dim in comparison of the brightness of contemplation. For they greatly hinder and retard the saints who are taken up with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 393, 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 Persecution. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1091 (In-Text, Margin)
3. Furthermore I questioned him about another saying that is written in Ezekiel; namely, that he said to Jerusalem:— Sodom and her daughters shall be built up as of old, and thou and thy daughters shall become as of old.[Ezekiel 16:55] So he explained this saying to me, and began to make a defence, and said to me “As to this that God said to Jerusalem by the Prophet, Sodom and her daughters shall be built up as of old, and thou and thy daughters shall become as of old; this is the force of the passage, that Sodom and her daughters shall be in their place as of old, and shall be made subject to Israel; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 393, footnote 2 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations. (HTML)
Of Persecution. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1092 (In-Text, Margin)
... part of it gracious?” He answered:—“A wrathful passage is altogether wrath, and there is no peace in it.” And I said to him:—“Since thou hast instructed me that there is no peace in that wrathful passage, hear without contention and blaspheme not, and I will instruct thee about this saying. For from the top to the bottom the whole passage is said in wrath. For he said to Jerusalem:— As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom and her daughters did not do at all as thou and they daughters have done.[Ezekiel 16:48] And he said to her (Jerusalem):— Be abashed and accept thy shame, that thou hast overcome thy sisters in thy sins, and they are justified rather than thou. Since he says that Sodom and her daughters were justified rather than Jerusalem and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 393, footnote 3 (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 Persecution. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1093 (In-Text, Margin)
... is no peace in that wrathful passage, hear without contention and blaspheme not, and I will instruct thee about this saying. For from the top to the bottom the whole passage is said in wrath. For he said to Jerusalem:— As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom and her daughters did not do at all as thou and they daughters have done. And he said to her (Jerusalem):— Be abashed and accept thy shame, that thou hast overcome thy sisters in thy sins, and they are justified rather than thou.[Ezekiel 16:52] Since he says that Sodom and her daughters were justified rather than Jerusalem and her daughters, and that Jerusalem overcame Sodom in her sins, it is right that when Israel shall be gathered together, its seat should be in Sodom and Gomorrha. For ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 393, 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 Persecution. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1100 (In-Text, Margin)
4. And Ezekiel said:— This is the iniquity of Sodom and of her daughters, that they did not take by the hand the poor and needy; and when I saw these things in them, I overthrew them.[Ezekiel 16:49] And consider and see that, from the time that Sodom was overthrown until Jerusalem was built, there were eight hundred and ninety-six years. From the time that Abraham was informed by God through the Angel that at this time next year I will return to thee, and Sarah thy wife shall have a son, from that time till Jacob entered Egypt was a hundred and ninety-one years: and the children of Jacob ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 394, footnote 3 (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 Persecution. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1104 (In-Text, Margin)
... shall Jerusalem be restored, whose iniquity is greater than that of Sodom and her daughters? As for Sodom God has not had mercy on her for two thousand two hundred and seventy-six years; and shall we say that He will have mercy on Jerusalem? For up to the present there are but three hundred and ninety-five years from the day that she was laid waste, according to the calculation that has been written above. But as to this that he said, Sodom and her daughters shall be possessed as of old,[Ezekiel 16:55] and with regard to Jerusalem he said, Thou and thy daughters shall become as of old, this is the force of the passage; that they shall not be inhabited for ever; for the Lord also thus cursed the land against which He was wroth:— It shall ...