Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Malachi 3:6
There are 26 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 405, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
I (HTML)
Chapter XXI (HTML)
... but that he has the good fortune to escape corruption, because there is none to corrupt. Whereas the doctrine of the Jews and Christians, which preserves the immutability and unalterableness of the divine nature, is stigmatized as impious, because it does not partake of the profanity of those whose notions of God are marked by impiety, but because it says in the supplication addressed to the Divinity, “Thou art the same,” it being, moreover, an article of faith that God has said, “I change not.”[Malachi 3:6]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 502, footnote 16 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XIV (HTML)
... Scripture the “condescension” of God to human affairs; for which purpose He did not need to undergo a transformation, as Celsus thinks we assert, nor a change from good to evil, nor from virtue to vice, nor from happiness to misery, nor from best to worst. For, continuing unchangeable in His essence, He condescends to human affairs by the economy of His providence. We show, accordingly, that the holy Scriptures represent God as unchangeable, both by such words as “Thou art the same,” and” I change not;”[Malachi 3:6] whereas the gods of Epicurus, being composed of atoms, and, so far as their structure is concerned, capable of dissolution, endeavour to throw off the atoms which contain the elements of destruction. Nay, even the god of the Stoics, as being ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 603, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter LXII (HTML)
... less than God, there is no absurdity in our also admitting that God possesses none of those things “of which we have knowledge.” For the attributes which belong to God are far superior to all things with which not merely the nature of man is acquainted, but even that of those who have risen far above it. And if he had read the writings of the prophets, David on the one hand saying, “But Thou art the same,” and Malachi on the other, “I am (the Lord), and change not,”[Malachi 3:6] he would have observed that none of us assert that there is any change in God, either in act or thought. For abiding the same, He administers mutable things according to their nature, and His word elects to undertake their administration.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 614, footnote 8 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)
Moreover, He is Good, Always the Same, Immutable, One and Only, Infinite; And His Own Name Can Never Be Declared, and He is Incorruptible and Immortal. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5037 (In-Text, Margin)
... certain death. Thus there is never in Him any accession or increase of any part or honour, lest anything should appear to have ever been wanting to His perfection, nor is any loss sustained in Him, lest a degree of mortality should appear to have been suffered by Him. But what He is, He always is; and who He is, He is always Himself; and what character He has, He always has. For increasing argues beginning, as well as losses prove death and perishing. And therefore He says, “I am God, I change not;”[Malachi 3:6] in that, what is not born cannot suffer change, holding His condition always. For whatever it be in Him which constitutes Divinity, must necessarily exist always, maintaining itself by its own powers, so that He should always be God. And thus He ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 51, footnote 18 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Gregory Thaumaturgus. (HTML)
Dubious or Spurious Writings. (HTML)
Twelve Topics on the Faith. (HTML)
Topic IX. (HTML)
How could one say that Christ suffers change or alteration, when the Lord Himself says, “I am and change not;”[Malachi 3:6] again, “His soul shall not be left in Hades, neither shall His flesh see corruption?”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 298, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Alexander of Alexandria. (HTML)
Epistles on the Arian Heresy and the Deposition of Arius. (HTML)
Epistle Catholic. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2458 (In-Text, Margin)
... who is the perfect image and brightness of the Father, and who says, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father?” And how, if the Son is the Word or Wisdom and Reason of God, was there a time when He was not? It is all one as if they said, that there was a time when God was without reason and wisdom. How, also, can He be changeable and mutable, who says indeed by Himself: “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” and, “I and My Father are one;” and by the prophet, “I am the Lord, I change not?”[Malachi 3:6] For even though one saying may refer to the Father Himself, yet it would now be more aptly spoken of the Word, because when He became man, He changed not; but, as says the apostle, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever.” Who hath ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 48, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Commencing with the invocation of God, Augustin relates in detail the beginning of his life, his infancy and boyhood, up to his fifteenth year; at which age he acknowledges that he was more inclined to all youthful pleasures and vices than to the study of letters. (HTML)
He Describes His Infancy, and Lauds the Protection and Eternal Providence of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 151 (In-Text, Margin)
... women. Even then I had life and being; and as my infancy closed I was already seeking for signs by which my feelings might be made known to others. Whence could such a creature come but from Thee, O Lord? Or shall any man be skilful enough to fashion himself? Or is there any other vein by which being and life runs into us save this, that “Thou, O Lord, hast made us,” with whom being and life are one, because Thou Thyself art being and life in the highest? Thou art the highest, “Thou changest not,”[Malachi 3:6] neither in Thee doth this present day come to an end, though it doth end in Thee, since in Thee all such things are; for they would have no way of passing away unless Thou sustainedst them. And since “Thy years shall have no end,” Thy years are an ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 445, footnote 11 (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)
Of Malachi’s Prophecy, in Which He Speaks of the Last Judgment, and of a Cleansing Which Some are to Undergo by Purifying Punishments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1458 (In-Text, Margin)
The prophet Malachi or Malachias, who is also called Angel, and is by some (for Jerome tells us that this is the opinion of the Hebrews) identified with Ezra the priest, others of whose writings have been received into the canon, predicts the last judgment, saying, “Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord Almighty; and who shall abide the day of His entrance? . . . for I am the Lord your God, and I change not.”[Malachi 3:1-6] From these words it more evidently appears that some shall in the last judgment suffer some kind of purgatorial punishments; for what else can be understood by the word, “Who shall abide the day of His entrance, or who shall be able to look upon Him? for He enters as a moulder’s fire, and as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 4, footnote 10 (Image)
Socrates: Church History from A.D. 305-438; Sozomenus: Church History from A.D. 323-425
The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Division begins in the Church from this Controversy; and Alexander Bishop of Alexandria excommunicates Arius and his Adherents. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 132 (In-Text, Margin)
... unlike the Father’s essence, who is ‘his perfect image,’ and ‘the brightness of his glory’ and says: ‘He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father’? Again how if the Son is the Word and Wisdom of God, was there a period when he did not exist? for that is equivalent to their saying that God was once destitute both of Word and Wisdom. How can he be mutable and susceptible of change, who says of himself, ‘I am in the Father, and the Father in me’; and ‘I and the Father are one’; and again by the Prophet,[Malachi 3:6] ‘Behold me because I am, and have not changed’? But if any one may also apply the expression to the Father himself, yet would it now be even more fitly said of the Word; because he was not changed by having become man, but as the Apostle says, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 26, footnote 3 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Counter-statements of Theodoret. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 176 (In-Text, Margin)
Against I. —But all we who follow the words of the evangelists state that God the Word was not made flesh by nature, nor yet was changed into flesh; for the Divine is immutable and invariable. Wherefore also the prophet David says, “Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.” And this the great Paul, the herald of the truth, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, states to have been spoken of the Son. And in another place God says through the Prophet, “I am the Lord: I change not.”[Malachi 3:6] If then the Divine is immutable and invariable, it is incapable of change or alteration. And if the immutable cannot be changed, then God the Word was not made flesh by mutation, but took flesh and tabernacled in us, according to the word of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 163, footnote 5 (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 Immutable. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 981 (In-Text, Margin)
Orth. —The creature is transformed by the Creator as He will, for it is mutable and obeys the nod of Him that fashioned it. But His nature is immutable and invariable, wherefore of the creature the prophet saith “He that maketh and transformeth all things.” But of the divine Word the great David says “Thou art the same and thy years shall not fail.” And again the same God says of Himself “For I am the Lord and I change not.”[Malachi 3:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 237, footnote 5 (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 1535 (In-Text, Margin)
“Life then does not die, but quickens the dead; for as the light is not injured in a dark place, so life cannot suffer when it has visited a mortal nature, for the Godhead of the Word is immutable and invariable as the Lord says in the prophecy about Himself ‘I am the Lord I change not.’”[Malachi 3:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 311, footnote 1 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Letters of the Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus. (HTML)
To the Soldiers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1998 (In-Text, Margin)
... will, you must reply to them that He wishes to do nothing which it is not His nature to do; He is by nature good, therefore He does not wish anything evil; He is by nature just, therefore He does not wish anything unjust; He is by nature true, therefore He abominates falsehood; He is by nature immutable, therefore He does not admit of change; and if He does not admit of change He is always in the same state and condition. This He Himself asserts through the prophet. “I am the Lord I change not.”[Malachi 3:6] And the blessed David says “Thou art the same and Thy years shall have no end.” If He is the same He undergoes no change. If He is naturally superior to change and mutation He has not become from immortal, mortal nor from impassible, passible, for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 70, footnote 13 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Deposition of Arius. (Depositio Arii.) (HTML)
Deposition of Arius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 375 (In-Text, Margin)
... the perfect “image” and “brightness ” of the Father, and that He saith, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father?” And if the Son is the “Word” and “Wisdom” of God, how was there “a time when He was not?” It is the same as if they should say that God was once without Word and without Wisdom. And how is He “subject to change and variation,” Who says, by Himself, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” and “I and the Father are One;” and by the Prophet, “Behold Me, for I am, and I change not[Malachi 3:6]?” For although one may refer this expression to the Father, yet it may now be more aptly spoken of the Word, viz., that though He has been made man, He has not changed; but as the Apostle has said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 327, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse I (HTML)
Objections Continued. How the Word has free will, yet without being alterable. He is unalterable because the Image of the Father, proved from texts. (HTML)
... yesterday, to-day, and for ever.’ And David in the Psalm says of Him, ‘Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thine hands. They shall perish, but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment. And as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.’ And the Lord Himself says of Himself through the Prophet, ‘See now that I, even I am He,’ and ‘I change not[Malachi 3:6].’ It may be said indeed that what is here signified relates to the Father; yet it suits the Son also to say this, specially because, when made man, He manifests His own identity and unalterableness to such as suppose that by reason of the flesh He ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 353, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts explained; Fourthly, Hebrews iii. 2. Introduction; the Regula Fidei counter to an Arian sense of the text; which is not supported by the word 'servant,' nor by 'made' which occurs in it; (how can the Judge be among the 'works' which 'God will bring into judgment?') nor by 'faithful;' and is confuted by the immediate context, which is about Priesthood; and by the foregoing passage, which explains the word 'faithful' as meaning trustworthy, as do 1 Pet. iv. fin. and other texts. On the whole made may safely be understood either of the divine generation or the human creation. (HTML)
... unworthy the name, are faithful neither in their essence nor in their promises; for the same are not everywhere, nay, the local deities come to nought in course of time, and undergo a natural dissolution; wherefore the Word cries out against them, that ‘faith is not strong in them,’ but they are ‘waters that fail,’ and ‘there is no faith in them.’ But the God of all, being one really and indeed and true, is faithful, who is ever the same, and says, ‘See now, that I, even I am He,’ and I ‘change not[Malachi 3:6];’ and therefore His Son is ‘faithful,’ being ever the same and unchanging, deceiving neither in His essence nor in His promise;—as again says the Apostle writing to the Thessalonians, ‘Faithful is He who calleth you, who also will do it;’ for in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 572, footnote 7 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Personal Letters. (HTML)
To Epictetus. (HTML)
... swaddling clothes unless it has previously been naturally brought forth. This is the meaning of His being circumcised on the eighth day: of Symeon taking Him in his arms, of His becoming a young child, and growing when He was twelve years old, and of His coming to His thirtieth year. For it was not, as some suppose, the very Essence of the Word that was changed, and was circumcised, because it is incapable of alteration or change. For the Saviour Himself says, ‘Behold, behold, it is I, and I change not[Malachi 3:6],’ while Paul writes: ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.’ But in the Body which was circumcised, and carried, and ate and drank, and was weary, and was nailed on the tree and suffered, there was the impassible and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 456, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5182 (In-Text, Margin)
... within the range not only of men, but of every creature, and is not inconsistent with our frailty, as we read in the Psalms: “In Thy sight shall no man living be justified,” is that righteousness which is said to be perfect, not in comparison with God, but as recognized by God. Job, and Zacharias, and Elizabeth, were called righteous, in respect of that righteousness which might some day turn to unrighteousness, and not in respect of that which is incapable of change, concerning which it is said,[Malachi 3:6] “I am God, and change not.” And this is that which the Apostle elsewhere writes: “That which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious in this respect, by reason of the glory that surpasseth”; because, that is, the righteousness of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 382, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On Pentecost. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4247 (In-Text, Margin)
... Counsel, of Fear (which are ascribed to Him) by Whom the Father is known and the Son is glorified; and by Whom alone He is known; one class, one service, worship, power, perfection, sanctification. Why make a long discourse of it? All that the Father hath the Son hath also, except the being Unbegotten; and all that the Son hath the Spirit hath also, except the Generation. And these two matters do not divide the Substance, as I understand it, but rather are divisions within the Substance.[Malachi 3:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 301, footnote 4 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the Monk Urbicius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3187 (In-Text, Margin)
2. This absurd position can be easily confuted. The blasphemy is its own conviction, and I therefore think that, for one who fears the Lord, the mere reminder is enough. If He was turned, then He was changed. But far be it from me to say or think such a thing, when God has declared, “I am the Lord, I change not.”[Malachi 3:6] Moreover, how could the benefit of the incarnation be conveyed to us, unless our body, joined to the Godhead, was made superior to the dominion of death? If He was changed, He no longer constituted a proper body, such as subsisted after the combination with it of the divine body. But how, if all the nature of the Only-begotten was changed, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 73, footnote 7 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
... alone is good, to leave no goodness for the Son, because it has been said through Him, There is none good save One, even God; and that He alone has power, because Paul has said, Which in His own times He shall shew to us, Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And further, they profess themselves certain that in the Father there is no change nor turning, because He has said through the prophet, I am the Lord your God, and I am not changed[Malachi 3:6], and the apostle James, With Whom there is no change; certain also that He is the righteous Judge, for it is written, God is the righteous Judge, strong and patient; that He cares for all, because the Lord has said, speaking of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 130, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
... separate the nature from the birth, but must confess that the living God was in truth born from the living God. God, Who is Life, is not a Being built up of various and lifeless portions; He is Power, and not compact of feeble elements, Light, intermingled with no shades of darkness, Spirit, that can harmonise with no incongruities. All that is within Him is One; what is Spirit is Light and Power and Life, and what is Life is Light and Power and Spirit. He Who says, I am, and I change not[Malachi 3:6], can suffer neither change in detail nor transformation in kind. For these attributes, which I have named, are not attached to different portions of Him, but meet and unite, entirely and perfectly, in the whole being of the living God. He is the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 198, footnote 6 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book X (HTML)
58. But, further, no one who is endued with reason can impute to God a soul; though it is written in many places that the soul of God hates sabbaths and new moons: and also that it delights in certain things. But this is merely a conventional expression to be understood in the same way as when God is spoken of as possessing body, with hands, and eyes, and fingers, and arms, and heart. As the Lord said, A Spirit hath not flesh and bones: He then Who is, and changeth not[Malachi 3:6], cannot have the limbs and parts of a tangible body. He is a simple and blessed nature, a single, complete, all-embracing Whole. God is therefore not quickened into life, like bodies, by the action of an indwelling soul, but is Himself His own life.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 217, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book XI (HTML)
... possessions. Nothing is prior to Him, nothing derived from any other than Him, nothing beyond Him. What element of fulness is still lacking in God, which time will supply to make Him all in all? Whence can He receive it, if outside Him is nothing, and while nothing is outside Him, He is eternally Himself? And if He is eternally Himself, and there is nothing outside Him, with what increase shall He be made full, by what addition shall He be made other than He is? Did He not say, I am and I change not[Malachi 3:6] ? What possibility is there of change in Him? What scope for progress? What is prior to eternity? What more divine than God? The subjection of the Son will not therefore make God to be all in all, nor will any cause perfect Him, from Whom ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 222, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIX. Arius is charged with the first of the above-mentioned errors, and refuted by the testimony of St. John. The miserable death of the Heresiarch is described, and the rest of his blasphemous errors are one by one examined and disproved. (HTML)
131. Arius declares that the Son of God may change and swerve. How, then, is He God if He is changeable, seeing that He Himself hath said: “I am, I am, and I change not”?[Malachi 3:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 360, footnote 3 (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 XIV. The answer to the point raised by the questioner. (HTML)
... no creature can there be such perfection, as not to be subject to the feeling of change; as we read in the book of Job: “What is man that he should be without spot, and he that is born of a woman that he should appear just? Behold among His saints none is unchangeable, and the heavens are not pure in His sight.” For we confess that God only is unchangeable, who alone is thus addressed by the prayer of the holy prophet “But Thou art the same,” and who says of Himself “I am God, and I change not,”[Malachi 3:6] because He alone is by nature always good, always full and perfect, and one to whom nothing can ever be added, or from whom nothing can be taken away. And so we ought always with incessant care and anxiety to give ourselves up to the acquirement of ...