Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Hosea 6:6
There are 23 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 484, footnote 3 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XVII.—Proof that God did not appoint the Levitical dispensation for His own sake, or as requiring such service; for He does, in fact, need nothing from men. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4027 (In-Text, Margin)
4. From all these it is evident that God did not seek sacrifices and holocausts from them, but faith, and obedience, and righteousness, because of their salvation. As God, when teaching them His will in Hosea the prophet, said, “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.”[Hosea 6:6] Besides, our Lord also exhorted them to the same effect, when He said, “But if ye had known what [this] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” Thus does He bear witness to the prophets, that they preached the truth; but accuses these men (His hearers) of being foolish through their own ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 416, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter V.—On Contempt for Pain, Poverty, and Other External Things. (HTML)
... is fear on account of what is done; but the other which is more special, the shame which the spirit feels in itself arising from conscience. Whether then, here or elsewhere (for no place is devoid of the beneficence of God), He again says, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” And mercy is not, as some of the philosophers have imagined, pain on account of others’ calamities, but rather something good, as the prophets say. For it is said, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] And He means by the merciful, not only those who do acts of mercy, but those who wish to do them, though they be not able; who do as far as purpose is concerned. For sometimes we wish by the gift of money or by personal effort to do mercy, as to ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 602, footnote 7 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
Who is the Rich Man that shall be saved? (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3911 (In-Text, Margin)
... doors are open, and the thrice-glad Father receives His truly repentant son. And true repentance is to be no longer bound in the same sins for which He denounced death against Himself, but to eradicate them completely from the soul. For on their extirpation God takes up His abode again in thee. For it is said there is great and exceeding joy and festival in the heavens with the Father and the angels when one sinner turns and repents. Wherefore also He cries, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] “I desire not the death, but the repentance of the sinner.” “Though your sins be as scarlet wool, I will make them white as snow; though they be blacker than darkness, I will wash and make them like white wool.” For it is in the power of God alone ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 308, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book II. Wherein Tertullian shows that the creator, or demiurge, whom Marcion calumniated, is the true and good God. (HTML)
Further Description of the Divine Justice; Since the Fall of Man It Has Regulated the Divine Goodness. God's Claims on Our Love and Our Fear Reconciled. (HTML)
... doubts whether he might not fail in recompensing one or other alternative, who was unequal in his resources to meet both. Thus far, then, justice is the very fulness of the Deity Himself, manifesting God as both a perfect father and a perfect master: a father in His mercy, a master in His discipline; a father in the mildness of His power, a master in its severity; a father who must be loved with dutiful affection, a master who must needs be feared; be loved, because He prefers mercy to sacrifice;[Hosea 6:6] be feared because He dislikes sin; be loved, because He prefers the sinner’s repentance to his death; be feared, because He dislikes the sinners who do not repent. Accordingly, the divine law enjoins duties in respect of both these attributes: ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 310, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book II. Wherein Tertullian shows that the creator, or demiurge, whom Marcion calumniated, is the true and good God. (HTML)
Trace God's Government in History and in His Precepts, and You Will Find It Full of His Goodness. (HTML)
... good,” —a bounty which no other god at all exercises. It is true that Marcion has been bold enough to erase from the gospel this testimony of Christ to the Creator; but yet the world itself is inscribed with the goodness of its Maker, and the inscription is read by each man’s conscience. Nay, this very long-suffering of the Creator will tend to the condemnation of Marcion; that patience, (I mean,) which waits for the sinner’s repentance rather than his death, which prefers mercy to sacrifice,[Hosea 6:6] averting from the Ninevites the ruin which had been already denounced against them, and vouchsafing to Hezekiah’s tears an extension of his life, and restoring his kingly state to the monarch of Babylon after his complete repentance; that mercy, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 373, footnote 24 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book IV. In Which Tertullian Pursues His Argument. Jesus is the Christ of the Creator. He Derives His Proofs from St. Luke's Gospel; That Being the Only Historical Portion of the New Testament Partially Accepted by Marcion. This Book May Also Be Regarded as a Commentary on St. Luke. It Gives Remarkable Proof of Tertullian's Grasp of Scripture, and Proves that “The Old Testament is Not Contrary to the New.“ It Also Abounds in Striking Expositions of Scriptural Passages, Embracing Profound Views of Revelation, in Connection with the Nature of Man. (HTML)
Concerning Loans. Prohibition of Usury and the Usurious Spirit. The Law Preparatory to the Gospel in Its Provisions; So in the Present Instance. On Reprisals. Christ's Teaching Throughout Proves Him to Be Sent by the Creator. (HTML)
... no right to complain of man’s ingratitude, because he had used no means to make them grateful. Compassion also does He teach: “Be ye merciful,” says He, “as your Father also that had mercy upon you.” This injunction will be of a piece with, “Deal thy bread to the hungry; and if he be houseless, bring him into thine house; and if thou seest the naked, cover him;” also with, “Judge the fatherless, plead with the widow.” I recognise here that ancient doctrine of Him who “prefers mercy to sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] If, however, it be now some other being which teaches mercy, on the ground of his own mercifulness, how happens it that he has been wanting in mercy to me for so vast an age? “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 376, footnote 15 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book IV. In Which Tertullian Pursues His Argument. Jesus is the Christ of the Creator. He Derives His Proofs from St. Luke's Gospel; That Being the Only Historical Portion of the New Testament Partially Accepted by Marcion. This Book May Also Be Regarded as a Commentary on St. Luke. It Gives Remarkable Proof of Tertullian's Grasp of Scripture, and Proves that “The Old Testament is Not Contrary to the New.“ It Also Abounds in Striking Expositions of Scriptural Passages, Embracing Profound Views of Revelation, in Connection with the Nature of Man. (HTML)
Concerning the Centurion's Faith. The Raising of the Widow's Son. John Baptist, and His Message to Christ; And the Woman Who Was a Sinner. Proofs Extracted from All of the Relation of Christ to the Creator. (HTML)
... greatness of John. We have already spoken of the forgiveness of sins. The behaviour of “the woman which was a sinner,” when she covered the Lord’s feet with her kisses, bathed them with her tears, wiped them with the hairs of her head, anointed them with ointment, produced an evidence that what she handled was not an empty phantom, but a really solid body, and that her repentance as a sinner deserved forgiveness according to the mind of the Creator, who is accustomed to prefer mercy to sacrifice.[Hosea 6:6] But even if the stimulus of her repentance proceeded from her faith, she heard her justification by faith through her repentance pronounced in the words, “Thy faith hath saved thee,” by Him who had declared by Habakkuk, “The just shall live by his ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 663, footnote 13 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Repentance. (HTML)
Examples from Scripture to Prove the Lord's Willingness to Pardon. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8497 (In-Text, Margin)
... for trusting to their riches; and yet gives them all general monitions to repentance—under comminations, it is true; but He would not utter comminations to one un repentant if He did not forgive the repentant. The matter were doubtful if He had not withal elsewhere demonstrated this profusion of His clemency. Saith He not, “He who hath fallen shall rise again, and he who hath been a verted shall be con verted?” He it is, indeed, who “would have mercy rather than sacrifices.”[Hosea 6:6] The heavens, and the angels who are there, are glad at a man’s repentance. Ho! you sinner, be of good cheer! you see where it is that there is joy at your return. What meaning for us have those themes of the Lord’s parables? Is not the fact that a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 75, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
God Just as Well as Merciful; Accordingly, Mercy Must Not Be Indiscriminate. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 717 (In-Text, Margin)
“But,” say they, “God is ‘good,’ and ‘most good,’ and ‘pitiful-hearted,’ and ‘a pitier,’ and ‘abundant in pitiful-heartedness,’ which He holds ‘dearer than all sacrifice,’[Hosea 6:6] ‘not thinking the sinner’s death of so much worth as his repentance’, ‘a Saviour of all men, most of all of believers.’ And so it will be becoming for ‘the sons of God’ too to be ‘pitiful-hearted’ and ‘peacemakers;’ ‘giving in their turn just as Christ withal hath given to us;’ ‘not judging, that we be not judged.’ For ‘to his own lord a man standeth or falleth; who art thou, to judge another’s servant?’ ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 531, footnote 19 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
... seed begging their bread. The whole day he is merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is in blessing.” Of this same thing in the fortieth Psalm: “Blessed is he who considereth over the poor and needy: in the evil day God will deliver him.” Also in the cxith Psalm: “He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness shall remain from generation to generation.” Of this same thing in Hosea: “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than whole burnt-offerings.”[Hosea 6:6] Of this same thing also in the Gospel according to Matthew: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be satisfied.” Also in the same place: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” Also in the same ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 87, footnote 5 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Recognitions of Clement. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
The Holy Place. (HTML)
“In addition to these things, he also appointed a place in which alone it should be lawful to them to sacrifice to God. And all this was arranged with this view, that when the fitting time should come, and they should learn by means of the Prophet that God desires mercy and not sacrifice,[Hosea 6:6] they might see Him who should teach them that the place chosen of God, in which it was suitable that victims should be offered to God, is his Wisdom; and that on the other hand they might hear that this place, which seemed chosen for a time, often harassed as it had been by hostile invasions and plunderings, was at last to be wholly destroyed. And in ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 248, footnote 20 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Clementine Homilies. (HTML)
Homily III. (HTML)
Teaching of Christ. (HTML)
... shall ask a fish, and he will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him, and to those who do His will!’ But to those who affirmed that He was in the temple, He said, ‘Swear not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet.’ And to those who supposed that God is pleased with sacrifices, He said, ‘God wishes mercy, and not sacrifices’[Hosea 6:6] —the knowledge of Himself, and not holocausts.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 627, footnote 3 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
The Decretals. (HTML)
The Epistle of Pope Anterus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2804 (In-Text, Margin)
... noted; and what is unlawful they teach as lawful, to wit, to omit to show mercy to those who endure straits: that is to say, they deny that a bishop belonging to another city should be bestowed for good, or for necessity’s sake, upon those who have no bishop, and who want the sacred episcopal ministry; and that another episcopal seat should be assigned to bishops who endure persecution or straits. They contradict the sacred Scripture also, which testifies that God desireth mercy rather than judgment.[Hosea 6:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 183, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Porphyry’s doctrine of redemption. (HTML)
Of the Sacrifices Which God Does Not Require, But Wished to Be Observed for the Exhibition of Those Things Which He Does Require. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 388 (In-Text, Margin)
... and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” In the words of this prophet, these two things are distinguished and set forth with sufficient explicitness, that God does not require these sacrifices for their own sakes, and that He does require the sacrifices which they symbolize. In the epistle entitled “To the Hebrews” it is said, “To do good and to communicate, forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” And so, when it is written, “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice,”[Hosea 6:6] nothing else is meant than that one sacrifice is preferred to another; for that which in common speech is called sacrifice is only the symbol of the true sacrifice. Now mercy is the true sacrifice, and therefore it is said, as I have just quoted, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 445, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the last judgment, and the declarations regarding it in the Old and New Testaments. (HTML)
Passages from the Psalms of David Which Predict the End of the World and the Last Judgment. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1453 (In-Text, Margin)
... His saints together unto Him.” For certainly a matter so important must be accomplished by the ministry of angels. And if we ask who the saints are who are gathered unto Him by the angels, we are told, “They who make a covenant with Him over sacrifices.” This is the whole life of the saints, to make a covenant with God over sacrifices. For “over sacrifices” either refers to works of mercy, which are preferable to sacrifices in the judgment of God, who says, “I desire mercy more than sacrifices,”[Hosea 6:6] or if “over sacrifices” means in sacrifices, then these very works of mercy are the sacrifices with which God is pleased, as I remember to have stated in the tenth book of this work; and in these works the saints make a covenant with God, because ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 298, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Catechising of the Uninstructed. (HTML)
Of the Remedy Against the Fifth and Sixth Sources of Weariness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1420 (In-Text, Margin)
22. If, however, grief has taken possession of us on account of something in which we ourselves have erred or sinned, we should bear in mind not only that a “broken spirit is a sacrifice to God,” but also the saying, “Like as water quencheth fire, so alms sin;” and again, “I will have mercy,” saith He, “rather than sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] Therefore, as in the event of our being in peril from fire we would certainly run to the water in order to get the fire extinguished, and we would be grateful if any person were to offer it in the immediate vicinity; so, if some flame of sin has risen from our own stack, and if we are troubled on that account, when an opportunity has ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 33, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
Explanation of the First Part of the Sermon Delivered by Our Lord on the Mount, as Contained in the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter XXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 241 (In-Text, Margin)
... asketh anything from him, either what he asks, if it is in his possession, and if it can rightly be given, or good advice, or to manifest a benevolent disposition, and not to turn away from him who desires to borrow; to love his enemies, to do good to those who hate him, to pray for those who persecute him;—who, I say, does these things, but the man who is fully and perfectly merciful? And with that counsel misery is avoided, by the assistance of Him who says, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] “Blessed,” therefore, “are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” But now I think it will be more convenient, that at this point the reader, fatigued with so long a volume, should breathe a little, and recruit himself for considering what ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 154, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1455 (In-Text, Margin)
... faith.” “The King has greatly desired thy beauty. And the daughters of Tyre shall worship with gifts.” With what gifts? Even so would this King be approached, and would have His treasuries filled: and it is He Himself who has given us that wherewith they may be filled, and may be filled by you. Let them come (He says) and “worship Him with gifts.” What is meant by “with gifts”?…“Give alms, and all things are clean unto you.” Come with gifts to Him that saith, “I will have mercy rather than sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] To that Temple that existed aforetime as a shadow of that which was to come, they used to come with bulls, and rams, and goats, with every different kind of animal for sacrifice: that with that blood one thing should be done, and another be typified ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 183, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm L (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1736 (In-Text, Margin)
... saith. Therefore alms He hath signified to be works of righteousness. Those very persons gather for His righteous: gather those that have had compassion on the “needy,” that have considered the needy and poor: gather them, “The Lord preserve them, and make them to live;” “Gather to Him His righteous: who order His covenant above sacrifices:” that is, who think of His promises above those things which they work. For those things are sacrifices, God saying, “I will have mercy more than sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] “Who keep His covenant more than sacrifice.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 546, footnote 9 (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 347.) Coss. Rufinus, Eusebius; Præf. the same Nestorius; Indict. v; Easter-day, Prid. Id. Apr., Pharmuthi xvii; Æra Dioclet. 63; Moon 15. (HTML)
5. Samuel, that great man, no less clearly reproved Saul, saying, ‘Is not the word better than a gift?’ For hereby a man fulfils the law, and pleases God, as He saith, ‘The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me.’ Let a man ‘learn what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice[Hosea 6:6],’ and I will not condemn the adversaries. But this wearied them, for they were not anxious to understand, ‘for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.’ And what their end is, the prophet foretold, crying, ‘Woe unto their soul, for they have devised an evil thought, saying, let us bind the just man, because he is not pleasing to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 249, footnote 10 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On His Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3085 (In-Text, Margin)
... things are, and more than terrible, when we are grieved only at what is present, and are not yet distressed by the feeling of a severer blow: since, as in sickness, the suffering which pains us from time to time is more distressing than that which is not present. But more terrible still are those which the treasures of God’s wrath contain, of which God forbid that you should make trial; nor will you, if you fly for refuge to the mercies of God, and win over by your tears Him Who will have mercy,[Hosea 6:6] and avert by your conversion what remains of His wrath. As yet, this is gentleness and loving-kindness and gentle reproof, and the first elements of a scourge to train our tender years: as yet, the smoke of His anger, the prelude of His torments; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 331, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter III. To the argument of the Novatians, that they only deny forgiveness in the case of greater sins, St. Ambrose replies, that this is also an offence against God, Who gave the power to forgive all sins, but that of course a more severe penance must follow in case of graver sins. He points out likewise that this distinction as to the gravity of sins assigns, as it were, severity to God, Whose mercy in the Incarnation is overlooked by the Novatians. (HTML)
... yourselves what can be forgiven, and, as you say, to reserve to God what cannot be forgiven. This would be to reserve to oneself the cases for mercy, to God those for severity. And what as to that saying: “Let God be true but every man a liar, as it is written, That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words, and overcome when Thou art judged”? In order, then, that we may recognize that the God of mercy is rather prone to indulgence than to severity, it is said: “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice.”[Hosea 6:6] How, then, can your sacrifice, who refuse mercy, be acceptable to God, since He says that He wills not the death of a sinner, but his correction?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 338, footnote 9 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XII. Another passage of St. John is considered. The necessity of keeping the commandments of God may be complied with by those who, having fallen, repent, as well as by those who have not fallen, as is shown in the case of David. (HTML)
... whosoever believeth on Me may not abide in darkness,” that is, that if he be in darkness he may not remain therein, but may amend his error, correct his fault, and keep My commandments, for I have said, “I will not the death of the wicked, but the correction.” I said above that he that believeth on Me is not judged, and I keep to this: “For I am not come to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through Me.” I pardon willingly, I quickly forgive, “I will have mercy rather than sacrifice,”[Hosea 6:6] because by sacrifice the just is rendered more acceptable, by mercy the sinner is redeemed. “I come not to call the righteous but sinners.” Sacrifice was under the Law, in the Gospel is mercy. “The Law was given by Moses, grace by Me.”