Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Matthew 6:32
There are 12 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 264, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter XI.—On Clothes. (HTML)
... And what is superfluous, Scripture declares to be of the devil. The subjoined expression makes the meaning plain. For having said, “Seek not what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink,” He added, “Neither be ye of doubtful (or lofty) mind.” Now pride and luxury make men waverers (or raise them aloft) from the truth; and the voluptuousness, which indulges in superfluities, leads away from the truth. Wherefore He says very beautifully, “And all these things do the nations of the world seek after.”[Matthew 6:32] The nations are the dissolute and the foolish. And what are these things which He specifies? Luxury, voluptuousness, rich cooking, dainty feeding, gluttony. These are the “What?” And of bare sustenance, dry and moist, as being necessaries, He says, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 415, footnote 10 (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)
... lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” “Wherefore I say, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for your body, what ye shall put on. For your life is more than meat, and your body than raiment.” And again, “For your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” “But seek first the kingdom of heaven, and its righteousness,” for these are the great things, and the things which are small and appertain to this life “shall be added to you.”[Matthew 6:32-33] Does He not plainly then exhort us to follow the gnostic life, and enjoin us to seek the truth in word and deed? Therefore Christ, who trains the soul, reckons one rich, not by his gifts, but by his choice. It is said, therefore, that Zaccheus, or, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 683, footnote 15 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Prayer. (HTML)
The Fifth Clause. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8802 (In-Text, Margin)
... heavens.” Then we find, too, that His body is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.” And so, in petitioning for “daily bread,” we ask for perpetuity in Christ, and indivisibility from His body. But, because that word is admissible in a carnal sense too, it cannot be so used without the religious remembrance withal of spiritual Discipline; for (the Lord) commands that bread be prayed for, which is the only food necessary for believers; for “all other things the nations seek after.”[Matthew 6:32] The like lesson He both inculcates by examples, and repeatedly handles in parables, when He says, “Doth a father take away bread from his children, and hand it to dogs?” and again, “Doth a father give his son a stone when he asks for ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 72, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Monogamy. (HTML)
Weakness of the Pleas Urged in Defence of Second Marriage. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 684 (In-Text, Margin)
... women than he paints. For in him matter is abundant: whence he presumes that even the soul is material; and therefore much more (than other men) he has not the Spirit from God, being no longer even a Psychic, because even his psychic element is not derived from God’s afflatus! What if a man allege “indigence,” so as to profess that his flesh is openly prostituted, and given in marriage for the sake of maintenance; forgetting that there is to be no careful thought about food and clothing?[Matthew 6:25-34] He has God (to look to), the Foster-father even of ravens, the Rearer even of flowers. What if he plead the loneliness of his home? as if one woman afforded company to a man ever on the eve of flight! He has, of course, a widow (at hand), whom it ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 478, footnote 11 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On Works and Alms. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3550 (In-Text, Margin)
... the retribution of God. And the Lord in the Gospel, already considering the hearts of men of this kind, and with prescient voice denouncing faithless and unbelieving men, bears witness, and says: “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For these things the Gentiles seek. And your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”[Matthew 6:31-33] He says that all these things shall be added and given to them who seek the kingdom and righteousness of God. For the Lord says, that when the day of judgment shall come, those who have laboured in His Church are admitted to receive the kingdom.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 535, 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)
... your loins girt, and your shoes on your feet, and your staves in your hands: and ye shall eat it in haste, for it is the Lord’s passover.” Of this same thing in the Gospel according to Matthew: “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewith shall we be clothed? for these things the nations seek after. But your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”[Matthew 6:31-33] Likewise in the same place: “Think not for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for itself. Sufficient unto the day is its own evil.” Likewise in the same place: “No one looking back, and putting his hands to the plough, is fit for the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 434, footnote 6 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Sec. I.—On Helping the Poor (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2941 (In-Text, Margin)
... the living, grass for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men, flesh for the wild beasts, seeds for the birds, and suitable food for all creatures.” Wherefore the Lord says: “Consider the fowls of heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, and your Father feedeth them. Are not ye much better than they? Be not therefore solicitous, saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? For your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”[Matthew 6:31-32] Since ye therefore enjoy such a providential care from Him, and are partakers of the good things that are derived from Him, you ought to return praise to Him that receives the orphan and the widow, to Almighty God, through His beloved Son Jesus ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 44, footnote 9 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Excerpts of Theodotus. (HTML)
Excerpts of Theodotus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 220 (In-Text, Margin)
XII. As to knowledge, some elements of it we already possess; others, by what we do possess, we firmly hope to attain. For neither have we attained all, nor do we lack all. But we have received, as it were, an earnest of the eternal blessings, and of the ancestral riches. The provisions for the Lord’s way are the Lord’s beatitudes. For He said: “Seek,” and anxiously seek, “the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you: for the Father knoweth what things ye have need of.”[Matthew 6:32] Thus He limits not only our occupations, but our cares. For He says: “Ye cannot, by taking thought, add aught to your stature.” For God knows well what it is good for us to have and what to want. He wishes, therefore, that we, emptying ourselves of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 248, footnote 16 (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)
... that God swears, He said, ‘Let your yea be yea, and nay, nay; for what is more than these is of the evil one.’ And to those who say that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are dead, He said, ‘God is not of the dead, but of the living.’ And to those who suppose that God tempts, as the Scriptures say, He said, ‘The tempter is the wicked one,’ who also tempted Himself. To those who suppose that God does not foreknow, He said, ‘For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye need all these things before ye ask Him.’[Matthew 6:32] And to those who believe, as the Scriptures say, that He does not see all things, He said, ‘Pray in secret, and your Father, who seeth secret things, will reward you.’
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 59, footnote 13 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
The Diatessaron of Tatian. (HTML)
The Diatessaron. (HTML)
Section X. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 765 (In-Text, Margin)
... [6, 7] rest? Consider the wild lily, how it grows, although it toils not, nor spins; and I say unto you that Solomon in the greatness of his glory was not clothed like one of [8] them. And if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow [9] is cast into the oven, how much more shall be unto you, O ye of little faith! Be not anxious, so as to say, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With [10] what shall we be clothed? Neither let your minds be perplexed in this:[Matthew 6:32] all these things the nations of the world seek; and your Father which is in heaven knoweth [11] your need of all these things. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; [12] [Arabic, p. 39] and all these shall come to you as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 504, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
Of the Work of Monks. (HTML)
Section 2 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2477 (In-Text, Margin)
... clotheth; how much more you, (O ye) of little faith! Be not therefore solicitous, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clad? for all these things do the Gentiles seek. And your heavenly Father knoweth that ye need all these. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these shall be added unto you. Be not therefore solicitous for the morrow: for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”[Matthew 6:25-34] Lo, say they, where the Lord biddeth us be without care concerning our food and clothing: how then could the Apostle think contrary to the Lord, that he should instruct us that we ought to be in such sort solicitous, what we shall eat, or what we ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 36, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 584 (In-Text, Margin)
... “that which is our own” is the spiritual heritage of which it is elsewhere said: “The ransom of a man’s life is his riches.” “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” Riches, that is; for in the heathen tongue of the Syrians riches are called mammon. The “thorns” which choke our faith are the taking thought for our life. Care for the things which the Gentiles seek after[Matthew 6:32] is the root of covetousness.