Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Matthew 10:28
There are 68 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 169, footnote 8 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
The First Apology (HTML)
Chapter XIX.—The resurrection possible. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1810 (In-Text, Margin)
... become such and produced from such materials, as they now see both themselves and the whole world to be. And that it is better to believe even what is impossible to our own nature and to men, than to be unbelieving like the rest of the world, we have learned; for we know that our Master Jesus Christ said, that “what is impossible with men is possible with God,” and, “Fear not them that kill you, and after that can do no more; but fear Him who after death is able to cast both soul and body into hell.”[Matthew 10:28] And hell is a place where those are to be punished who have lived wickedly, and who do not believe that those things which God has taught us by Christ will come to pass.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 447, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XVIII.—Continuation of the foregoing argument. Proofs from the writings of St. Paul, and from the words of Our Lord, that Christ and Jesus cannot be considered as distinct beings; neither can it be alleged that the Son of God became man merely in appearance, but that He did so truly and actually. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3654 (In-Text, Margin)
... and persecute you from city to city.” He knew, therefore, both those who should suffer persecution, and He knew those who should have to be scourged and slain because of Him; and He did not speak of any other cross, but of the suffering which He should Himself undergo first, and His disciples afterwards. For this purpose did He give them this exhortation: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to send both soul and body into hell;”[Matthew 10:28] [thus exhorting them] to hold fast those professions of faith which they had made in reference to Him. For He promised to confess before His Father those who should confess His name before men; but declared that He would deny those who should deny ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 30, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
The Pastor of Hermas (HTML)
Book Second.—Commandments (HTML)
Commandment Twelfth. On the Twofold Desire. The Commandments of God Can Be Kept, and Believers Ought Not to Fear the Devil. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 242 (In-Text, Margin)
... sins have despaired of life, and who add to your sins and weigh down your life; for if ye return to the Lord with all your heart, and practice righteousness the rest of your days, and serve Him according to His will, He will heal your former sins, and you will have power to hold sway over the works of the devil. But as to the threats of the devil, fear them not at all, for he is powerless as the sinews of a dead man. Give ear to me, then, and fear Him who has all power, both to save and destroy,[Matthew 10:28] and keep His commandments, and ye will live to God.” I say to him, “Sir, I am now made strong in all the ordinances of the Lord, because you are with me; and I know that you will crush all the power of the devil, and we shall have rule over him, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 66, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Tatian (HTML)
Address to the Greeks (HTML)
Chapter IV. The Christians Worship God Alone. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 426 (In-Text, Margin)
For what reason, men of Greece, do you wish to bring the civil powers, as in a pugilistic encounter, into collision with us? And, if I am not disposed to comply with the usages of some of them, why am I to be abhorred as a vile miscreant?[Matthew 10:22-39] Does the sovereign order the payment of tribute, I am ready to render it. Does my master command me to act as a bondsman and to serve, I acknowledge the serfdom. Man is to be honoured as a fellow-man; God alone is to be feared,—He who is not visible to human eyes, nor comes within the compass of human art. Only when I am commanded to deny Him, will I not obey, but will rather ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 570, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
Explanation of What is Meant by the Body, Which is to Be Raised Again. Not the Corporeality of the Soul. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7512 (In-Text, Margin)
But He also teaches us, that “He is rather to be feared, who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell,” that is, the Lord alone; “not those which kill the body, but are not able to hurt the soul,”[Matthew 10:28] that is to say, all human powers. Here, then, we have a recognition of the natural immortality of the soul, which cannot be killed by men; and of the mortality of the body, which may be killed: whence we learn that the resurrection of the dead is a resurrection of the flesh; for unless it were raised again, it would be impossible for the flesh to be “killed in hell.” But as a question may ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 76, footnote 17 (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 739 (In-Text, Margin)
... “jealous,” and is One who is not contemptuously derided —derided, namely, by such as flatter His goodness—and who, albeit “patient,” yet threatens, through Isaiah, an end of (His) patience. “I have held my peace; shall I withal always hold my peace and endure? I have been quiet as (a woman) in birth-throes; I will arise, and will make (them) to grow arid.” For “a fire shall proceed before His face, and shall utterly burn His enemies;” striking down not the body only, but the souls too, into hell.[Matthew 10:28] Besides, the Lord Himself demonstrates the manner in which He threatens such as judge: “For with what judgment ye judge, judgment shall be given on you.” Thus He has not prohibited judging, but taught (how to do it). Whence the apostle withal ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 120, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1160 (In-Text, Margin)
... suggested also the haven of flight to them. For He was not able even without flight—a protection so base, and unworthy, and servile—to preserve in persecution such as He knew to be weak! Whereas in fact He does not cherish, but ever rejects the weak, teaching first, not that we are to fly from our persecutors, but rather that we are not to fear them. “Fear not them who are able to kill the body, but are unable to do ought against the soul; but fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] And then what does He allot to the fearful? “He who will value his life more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he who takes not up his cross and follows Me, cannot be My disciple.” Last of all, in the Revelation, He does not propose flight to the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 349, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To the People of Thibaris, Exhorting to Martyrdom. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2612 (In-Text, Margin)
... heavenly warnings. Antichrist is coming, but above him comes Christ also. The enemy goeth about and rageth, but immediately the Lord follows to avenge our sufferings and our wounds. The adversary is enraged and threatens, but there is One who can deliver us from his hands. He is to be feared whose anger no one can escape, as He Himself forewarns, and says: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] And again: “He that loveth his life, shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal.” And in the Apocalypse He instructs and forewarns, saying, “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 407, footnote 5 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
Cyprian to Sergius, Rogatianus, and the Other Confessors in Prison. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3037 (In-Text, Margin)
... men, and prophets, and apostles who were sent. To all of whom the Lord also in Himself has appointed an example, teaching that none shall attain to His kingdom but those who have followed Him in His own way, saying, “He that loveth his life in this world shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” And again: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] Paul also exhorts us that we who desire to attain to the Lord’s promises ought to imitate the Lord in all things. “We are,” says he, “the sons of God: but if sons, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 500, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus. (HTML)
That God is so angry against idolatry, that He has even enjoined those to be slain who persuade others to sacrifice and serve idols. (HTML)
... Paul also says: “For if we die with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us.” John too: “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father; he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath both the Son and the Father.” Whence the Lord exhorts and strengthens us to contempt of death, saying: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to kill soul and body in Gehenna.”[Matthew 10:28] And again: “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he who hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 538, footnote 8 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
... same place: “The hour shall come, that every one that killeth you shall think he doeth service to God; but they shall do this also because they have not known the Father nor me.” Of this same matter, according to Matthew: “Blessed are they which shall suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Also in the same place: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to kill the soul and body in Gehenna.”[Matthew 10:28] Also in the same place: “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him also will I confess before my Father which is in heaven; but he who shall deny me before men, him also will I deny before my Father which is in heaven. And he that shall endure to ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 636, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)
And that It Does Not Follow Thence, that Because Christ Died It Must Also Be Received that God Died; For Scripture Sets Forth that Not Only Was Christ God, But Man Also. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5207 (In-Text, Margin)
... died which is man? For what if the divinity in Christ does not die, but the substance of the flesh only is destroyed, when in other men also, who are not flesh only, but flesh and soul, the flesh indeed alone suffers the inroads of wasting and death, while the soul is seen to be uncorrupted, and beyond the laws of destruction and death? For this also our Lord Himself said, exhorting us to martyrdom and to contempt of all human power: “Fear not those who slay the body, but cannot kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28] But if the immortal soul cannot be killed or slain in any other, although the body and flesh by itself can be slain, how much rather assuredly could not the Word of God and God in Christ be put to death at all, although the flesh alone and the body ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 662, footnote 13 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Appendix. (HTML)
Anonymous Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian by an Anonymous Bishop. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5413 (In-Text, Margin)
... judgment: “Thou shalt not accept,” says He, “the person, neither shalt thou judge according to the least nor according to the greatest.” Like words to these He also said by Ezekiel: “All souls,” said He, “are mine; as the soul of the father, so is the soul of the son: the soul that hath sinned, it shall die.” It is then He who must be revered by us; He must be held fast; He must be propitiated by our full and worthy confession, “who has the power of sending soul and body to the Gehenna of fire,”[Matthew 10:28] —as it is written, “Behold, He cometh with many thousands of His messengers, to execute judgment upon all, and to destroy all the wicked, and to condemn all flesh, for all the deeds of the wicked which they have wickedly done, and for all the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 222, footnote 5 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Archelaus. (HTML)
The Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes. (HTML)
Chapter XLVII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2014 (In-Text, Margin)
... and that I hold also a proper conception of Christ; and yet the family of the apostles is rather of the character that bears all things and endures all things, even although a man may assail them with revilings and curses. If it is your intention to persecute me, I am prepared for it: and if you wish to involve me in punishment, I shall not shrink from it; yea, if you mean even to put me to death, I am not afraid: “For we ought to fear Him only who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] Archelaus said: Far be that from me! Not such is my intention. For what have you ever had to suffer at my hands, or at the hands of those who think with us, even when you were disparaging us and doing us injury, and when you were speaking in ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 265, footnote 4 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Peter of Alexandria. (HTML)
The Genuine Acts of Peter. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2261 (In-Text, Margin)
... gentle step he descended to the interior part of the prison, and according to the agreement made, made a sound on the wall; and those outside hearing this, forcing an aperture, received this athlete of Christ armed on all sides with no brazen breastplate, but with the virtue of the cross of the Lord, and fully prepared to carry out the Lord’s words who said, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] Wonderful was the occurrence! Such a heavy whirlwind of wind and rain prevailed during that night, that no one of those who kept the door of the prison could hear the sound of the excavation. This martyr most constant too, kept urging on his ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 438, footnote 10 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Sec. I.—Concerning the Martyrs (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2983 (In-Text, Margin)
... than me, is not worthy of me; and he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” And afterwards: “Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 518, footnote 17 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
The Second Epistle of Clement (HTML)
The Homily (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3887 (In-Text, Margin)
... Him that called us, and not fear to depart out of this world. For the Lord saith, “Ye shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves.” And Peter answered and said unto Him, “What, then, if the wolves shall tear in pieces the lambs?” Jesus said unto Peter, “The lambs have no cause after they are dead to fear the wolves; and in like manner, fear not ye them that kill you, and can do nothing more unto you; but fear Him who, after you are dead, has power over both soul and body to cast them into hell-fire.”[Matthew 10:28] And consider, brethren, that the sojourning in the flesh in this world is but brief and transient, but the promise of Christ is great and wonderful, even the rest of the kingdom to come, and of life everlasting. By what course of conduct, then, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 319, footnote 3 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Clementine Homilies. (HTML)
Homily XVII. (HTML)
Jesus Inconsistent in His Teaching. (HTML)
“‘In saying this, Jesus is consistent not even with himself. For sometimes by other utterances, taken from the Scriptures, he presents God as being terrible and just, saying,[Matthew 10:28] “Fear not him who killeth the body, but can do nothing to the soul; but fear Him who is able to cast both body and soul into the Gehenna of fire. Yea, I say unto you, fear Him.” But that he asserted that He is really to be feared as being a just God, to whom he says those who receive injustice cry, is shown in a parable of which he gives the interpretation, saying: “If, then, the unjust judge did so, because ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 698, footnote 1 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Memoirs of Edessa And Other Ancient Syriac Documents. (HTML)
Martyrdom of the Holy Confessors Shamuna, Guria, and Habib, from Simeon Metaphrastes. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3282 (In-Text, Margin)
... to death, nor, come what may, will we be foiled by the stratagems of the adversary, by which the first man was ensnared and plucked death from the tree through his disobedience; and Cain was persuaded, and, after staining his hands with his brother’s blood, found the rewards of sin to be wailing and fear. But we, listening to the words of Christ, will “not be afraid of those that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul:” Him rather will we fear “who is able to destroy our soul and body.”[Matthew 10:28] The tyrant said: It is not to give you an opportunity of disproving my allegations by snatches of your own writings that I refrain from anger and show myself forbearing; but that you may perform the command of the emperor and return in peace to your ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 252, footnote 13 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
The Epistles of Clement. (HTML)
The Second Epistle of Clement. (HTML)
This World Should Be Despised. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4357 (In-Text, Margin)
... Him that called us, and not fear to depart out of this world. For the Lord saith, “Ye shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves.” And Peter answered and said unto Him, “What, then, if the wolves shall tear in pieces the lambs?” Jesus said unto Peter, “The lambs have no cause after they are dead to fear the wolves; and in like manner, fear not ye them that kill you, and can do nothing more unto you; but fear Him who, after you are dead, has power over both soul and body to cast them into hell-fire.”[Matthew 10:28] And consider, brethren, that the sojourning in the flesh in this world is but brief and transient, but the promise of Christ is great and wonderful, even the rest of the kingdom to come, and of life everlasting. By what course of conduct, then, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 9, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Augustin censures the pagans, who attributed the calamities of the world, and especially the recent sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion, and its prohibition of the worship of the gods. (HTML)
Of the Burial of the Dead: that the Denial of It to Christians Does Them No Injury. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 62 (In-Text, Margin)
... bosom.[Matthew 10:28] if anything whatever that an enemy could do to the body of the slain could be detrimental to the future life. Or will some one perhaps take so absurd a position as to contend that those who kill the body are not to be feared before death, and lest ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 99, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of fate, freewill, and God’s prescience, and of the source of the virtues of the ancient Romans. (HTML)
How Far Christians Ought to Be from Boasting, If They Have Done Anything for the Love of the Eternal Country, When the Romans Did Such Great Things for Human Glory and a Terrestrial City. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 219 (In-Text, Margin)
... commanded that an armed man should be cast headlong into that destruction;—if he did this, shall we say that that man has done a great thing for the eternal city who may have died by a like death, not, however, precipitating himself spontaneously into a gulf, but having suffered this death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, more especially when he has received from his Lord, who is also King of his country, a more certain oracle, “Fear not them who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul?”[Matthew 10:28] If the Decii dedicated themselves to death, consecrating themselves in a form of words, as it were, that falling, and pacifying by their blood the wrath of the gods, they might be the means of delivering the Roman army;—if they did this, let not the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 245, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam’s sin. (HTML)
Of that Death Which Can Affect an Immortal Soul, and of that to Which the Body is Subject. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 578 (In-Text, Margin)
... forsakes it, as the death of the body when the soul forsakes it. Therefore the death of both—that is, of the whole man—occurs when the soul, forsaken by God, forsakes the body. For, in this case, neither is God the life of the soul, nor the soul the life of the body. And this death of the whole man is followed by that which, on the authority of the divine oracles, we call the second death. This the Saviour referred to when He said, “Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] And since this does not happen before the soul is so joined to its body that they cannot be separated at all, it may be matter of wonder how the body can be said to be killed by that death in which it is not forsaken by the soul, but, being animated ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 391, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
A parallel history of the earthly and heavenly cities from the time of Abraham to the end of the world. (HTML)
Of the Preaching of the Gospel, Which is Made More Famous and Powerful by the Sufferings of Its Preachers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1243 (In-Text, Margin)
... you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth.” First of all, the Church spread herself abroad from Jerusalem; and when very many in Judea and Samaria had believed, she also went into other nations by those who announced the gospel, whom, as lights, He Himself had both prepared by His word and kindled by His Holy Spirit. For He had said to them, “Fear ye not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28] And that they might not be frozen with fear, they burned with the fire of charity. Finally, the gospel of Christ was preached in the whole world, not only by those who had seen and heard Him both before His passion and after His resurrection, but ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 44, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The equality of the Trinity maintained against objections drawn from those texts which speak of the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Against Those Who Believed the Father Only to Be Immortal and Invisible. The Truth to Be Sought by Peaceful Study. (HTML)
... so He was also before mortal. For if they say the Son is mortal from having taken our flesh, then it is not the Father alone without the Son who hath immortality; because His Word also has immortality, by which all things were made. For He did not therefore lose His immortality, because He took mortal flesh; seeing that it could not happen even to the human soul, that it should die with the body, when the Lord Himself says, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28] Or, forsooth, also the Holy Spirit took flesh: concerning whom certainly they will, without doubt, be troubled to say—if the Son is mortal on account of taking our flesh—in what manner they understand that the Father only has immortality without the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 73, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
Augustin explains for what the Son of God was sent; but, however, that the Son of God, although made less by being sent, is not therefore less because the Father sent Him; nor yet the Holy Spirit less because both the Father sent Him and the Son. (HTML)
The One Death and Resurrection of The Body of Christ Harmonizes with Our Double Death and Resurrection of Body and Soul, to the Effect of Salvation. In What Way the Single Death of Christ is Bestowed Upon Our Double Death. (HTML)
... Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God; set your thoughts on things above.” For not to touch Christ, unless when He had ascended to the Father, means not to have thoughts of Christ after a fleshly manner. Again, the death of the flesh of our Lord contains a type of the death of our outer man, since it is by such suffering most of all that He exhorts His servants that they should not fear those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.[Matthew 10:28] Wherefore the apostle says, “That I may fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.” And the resurrection of the body of the Lord is found to contain a type of the resurrection of our outward man, because He says to His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 462, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Lying. (HTML)
Section 9 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2323 (In-Text, Margin)
... by how much He punisheth more severely. Now He hateth all who work iniquity: but all who speak leasing He also destroyeth. Which thing being fixed, who of them which assert this will be moved by those examples, when it is said, suppose a man should seek shelter with thee who by thy lie may be saved from death? For that death which men are foolishly afraid of who are not afraid to sin, kills not the soul but the body, as the Lord teacheth in the Gospel; whence He charges us not to fear that death:[Matthew 10:28] but the mouth which lies kills not the body but the soul. For in these words it is most plainly written, “The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul.” How then can it be said without the greatest perverseness, that to the end one man may have life of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 540, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Care to Be Had for the Dead. (HTML)
Section 3 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2715 (In-Text, Margin)
Who can incline a Christian heart to these poetical and fabulous figments, when the Lord Jesus, to the intent that under the hands of their enemies, who should have their bodies in their power, Christians might lie down without a fear, asserts that not a hair of their head shall perish, exhorting that they should not fear them which when they have killed the body have nothing more that they can do?[Matthew 10:28] Of which in the first book “On the City of God,” I have methinks enough spoken, to break the teeth in their mouths who, in imputing to Christian times the barbarous devastation, especially that which Rome has lately suffered, do cast up to us this also, that Christ did not there come to the succor ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 540, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Care to Be Had for the Dead. (HTML)
Section 4 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2716 (In-Text, Margin)
4. “But” (say I) “in such a slaughter-heap of dead bodies, could they not even be buried? not this, either, doth pious faith too greatly dread, holding that which is foretold that not even consuming beasts will be an hindrance to the rising again of bodies of which not a hair of the head shall perish.[Matthew 10:28-30] Nor in any wise would Truth say, “Fear not them which kill the body, but cannot kill the soul;” if it could at all hinder the life to come whatever enemies might choose to do with the bodies of the slain. Unless haply any is so absurd as to contend that they ought not to be feared before death, lest they kill the body, but ought to be feared ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 543, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Care to Be Had for the Dead. (HTML)
Section 8 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2730 (In-Text, Margin)
... divinely permitted, but that Christians should learn in confessing Christ, while they despise this life, much more to despise sepulture. For this thing, which with savage rage was done to the bodies of Martyrs, if it could any whit hurt them, to impair the blessed resting of their most victorious spirits, would assuredly not have been suffered to be done. In very deed therefore it was declared, that the Lord in saying, “Fear not them which kill the body, and afterward have no more that they can do,”[Matthew 10:28] did not mean that He would not permit them to do any thing to the bodies of His followers when dead; but that whatever they might be permitted to do, nothing should be done that could lessen the Christian felicity of the departed, nothing thereof ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 544, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Care to Be Had for the Dead. (HTML)
Section 10 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2734 (In-Text, Margin)
... to the savageness of persecution, should be tremblingly anxious for the honor of a sepulchre: in a word, lest faith of resurrection should dread the consuming of the body. It was fit then, that even these things should be permitted, in order that, even after these examples of so great horror, the Martyrs, fervent in confession of Christ, should become witnesses of this truth also, in which they had learned that they by whom their bodies should be slain had after that no more that they could do.[Matthew 10:28] Because, whatever they should do to dead bodies, they would after all do nothing, seeing that in flesh devoid of all life, neither was it possible for him to feel aught who had thence departed, nor for Him to lose aught thereof, Who created the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 149, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Against the Epistle of Manichæus, Called Fundamental. (HTML)
In What Sense Evils are from God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 290 (In-Text, Margin)
45. Not only is it written in the Old Testament, "I make good, and create evil;" but more clearly in the New Testament, where the Lord says, "Fear not them which kill the body, and have no more that they can do; but fear him who, after he has killed the body, has power to cast the soul into hell."[Matthew 10:28] And that to voluntary corruption penal corruption is added in the divine judgment, is plainly declared by the Apostle Paul, when he says, "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are; whoever corrupts the temple of God, him will God corrupt." If this had been said in the Old Law, how vehemently would the Manichæans have denounced it as making ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 211, 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 abhors Moses for the awful curse he has pronounced upon Christ. Augustin expounds the Christian doctrine of the suffering Saviour by comparing Old and New Testament passages. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 536 (In-Text, Margin)
... worshipped is an act of the mind. The death implied in both curses is in one case the death of the body, and in the other the death of the soul. It is better to have the curse in bodily death,—which will be removed in the resurrection,—than the curse in the death of the soul, condemning it along with the body to eternal fire. The Lord solves this difficulty in the words: "Fear not them that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul; but fear him who has power to cast both soul and body into hell-fire."[Matthew 10:28] In other words, fear not the curse of bodily death, which in time is removed; but fear the curse of spiritual death, which leads to the eternal torment of both soul and body. Be assured, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree is no old wife’s ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 302, 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 912 (In-Text, Margin)
... confirmed by the patient endurance of what is commonly called adversity for the sake of that felicity. So in fullness of time the Son of God, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, made of the seed of David according to the flesh sends His disciples as sheep into the midst of wolves, and bids them not fear those that can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, and promises that even the body will be entirely restored, so that not a hair shall be lost.[Matthew 10:28] Peter’s sword He orders back into its sheath, restoring as it was before the ear of His enemy that had been cut off. He says that He could obtain legions of angels to destroy His enemies, but that He must drink the cup which His Father’s will had ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 540, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)
In which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of Petilianus, as though disputing with an adversary face to face. (HTML)
Chapter 19 (HTML)
... fulfill the instructions which you quote out of the gospel? But if you are not suffering persecution, why are you unwilling to reply to us? Or if the fact be that you are afraid lest, when you should have made reply, you then should suffer persecution, in that case how are you following the example of those preachers to whom it was said, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves?" To whom it was also further said "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul."[Matthew 10:28] And how do you escape the charge of acting contrary to the injunction of the Apostle Peter, who says, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the faith and hope that is in you?" And, lastly, wherefore are you ever ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 589, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)
In which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of Petilianus, as though disputing with an adversary face to face. (HTML)
Chapter 101 (HTML)
229. said: "Inasmuch as we live in the fear of God, we have no fear of the punishments and executions which you wreak with the sword; but the only thing which we avoid is that by your most wicked communion you destroy men’s souls, according to the saying of the Lord Himself: ‘Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’"[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 366, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Is the Soul Wounded When the Body is Wounded? (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2495 (In-Text, Margin)
... pleasure that we should suppose the phenomena in question to be rather the semblances of bodies than the reality; so that as that which is really no wound seems to be a wound, so that which is no body at all wears the appearance of corporeity? If, indeed, the soul can be wounded by those who wound the body, should we not have good reason to fear that it can be killed also by those who kill the body? This, however, is a fate which the Lord Himself most plainly declares it to be impossible to happen.[Matthew 10:28] And the soul of Dinocrates could not at any rate have died of the blow which killed his body: its wound, too, was only an apparent one; for not being corporeal, it was not really wounded, as the body had been; possessing the likeness of the body, it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 445, footnote 14 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
The Divine Commands Which are Most Suited to the Will Itself Illustrate Its Freedom. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2972 (In-Text, Margin)
... “Give no heed to a worthless woman;” and, “He is not inclined to understand how to do good;” and, “They refused to attend to my counsel;” with numberless other passages of the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament. And what do they all show us but the free choice of the human will? So, again, in the evangelical and apostolic books of the New Testament what other lesson is taught us? As when it is said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth;” and, “Fear not them which kill the body;”[Matthew 10:28] and, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself;” and again, “Peace on earth to men of good will.” So also that the Apostle Paul says: “Let him do what he willeth; he sinneth not if he marry. Nevertheless, he that standeth stedfast in his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 306, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. x. 28, ‘Be not afraid of them that kill the body.’ Delivered on a Festival of Martyrs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2227 (In-Text, Margin)
... have just been read teach us in fearing not to fear, and in not fearing to fear. Ye observed when the Holy Gospel was being read, that our Lord God before He died for us, would have us to be firm; and this by admonishing us “not” to fear, and withal to fear. For he said, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.” See where He advised us not to fear. See now where He advised us to fear. “But,” saith he, “fear Him who hath power to destroy both body and soul in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] Let us fear therefore, that we may not fear. Fear seems to be allied to cowardice: seems to be the character of the weak, not the strong. But see what saith the Scripture, “The fear of the Lord is the hope of strength.” Let us then fear, that we may ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 355, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xviii. 7, where we are admonished to beware of the offences of the world. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2716 (In-Text, Margin)
... evils which he suffers, God is not displeasing. Make answer then to him who says, Lie, for it is written, “All men are liars:” I will not lie, for it is written, “The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul.” I will not lie, because it is written, “Thou shalt destroy them that speak lying.” I will not lie, because it is written, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Though he whom I displease by the truth harass my body with oppressions, I will give ear to my Lord, “Fear not them which kill the body.”[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 243, footnote 2 (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. 48–59. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 810 (In-Text, Margin)
... they can do”? What if, after having slain one, they threw his body to be mangled by wild beasts, and torn to pieces by birds? Cruelty seems still to have something it can do. But to whom is it done? He has departed. The body is there, but without feeling. The tenement lies on the ground, the tenant is gone. And so “after that they have no more that they can do;” for they can do nothing to that which is without sensation. “But fear Him who hath power to destroy both body and soul, in hell fire.”[Matthew 10:28] Here is the death that He spake of when He said, “He that keepeth my saying shall never see death.” Let us keep then, brethren, His own word in faith, as those who are yet to attain to sight, when the liberty we receive has reached its fullness.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 263, footnote 3 (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 X. 14–21. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 924 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou wilt say, that mine dieth not? Slay it not thyself, and it cannot die. How, thou asketh, can I slay my soul? To say nothing meanwhile of other sins, “The mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul.” How, thou sayest, can I be sure that it dieth not? Listen to the Lord Himself giving security to His servant: “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” But what in the plainest terms does He say? “Fear Him who hath power to slay both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28] Here you have the fact that it dieth, and that it doth not die. What is its dying? What is dying to thy flesh? Dying, to thy flesh, is the losing of its life: dying to thy soul, is the losing of its life. The life of thy flesh is thy soul: the life ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 265, footnote 2 (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 X. 14–21. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 935 (In-Text, Margin)
... found in fashion as a man.” And who is this, but the same Christ Jesus Himself? But here we have now all the parts, both the Word in that form of God which assumed the form of a servant, and the soul and the flesh in that form of a servant which was assumed by the form of God. “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death.” Now in His death, it was His flesh only that was slain by the Jews. For if He said to His disciples, “Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,”[Matthew 10:28] how could they do more in His own case than kill the body? And yet in the slaying of His flesh, it was Christ that was slain. Accordingly, when the flesh laid down its life, Christ laid it down; and when the flesh, in order to its resurrection, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 95, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXVII (HTML)
Part 2 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 875 (In-Text, Margin)
... unhurt; but his heart who “drew out the sword against” the body of the just did not clearly remain unhurt. This is attested by this very Psalm. It saith, Their weapon, that is, “Their sword shall,” not go into their body, but, “their weapon shall go into their own heart.” They would fain have slain him in the body. Let them die the death of the soul. For those whose bodies they sought to kill, the Lord hath freed from anxiety, saying, “Fear not them who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28] …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 211, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2001 (In-Text, Margin)
... hath been troubled.” And if eye hath been troubled, what followeth? “And fear of death hath fallen upon me.” Our life is love: if life is love, death is hatred. When a man hath begun to fear lest he should hate him that he was loving, it is death he is fearing; and a sharper death, and a more inward death, whereby soul is killed, not body. Thou didst mind a man raging against thee; what was he to do, against whom thine own Lord had given thee security, saying, “Fear not them that kill the body”?[Matthew 10:28] He by raging killeth body, thou by keeping hatred hast killed soul; and he the body of another, thou thine own soul. “Fear,” therefore, “of death hath fallen upon me.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 247, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2321 (In-Text, Margin)
10. “Juda is my king: Moab the pot of my hope” (ver. 7). What Juda? He that is of the tribe of Juda. What Juda, but He to whom Jacob himself said, “Juda, thy brethren shall praise thee”? What therefore should I fear, when Juda my king saith, “Fear not them that kill the body”?[Matthew 10:28] “Moab the pot of my hope.” Wherefore “pot”? Because tribulation. Wherefore “of my hope”? Because there hath gone before Juda my king.…Moab is perceived in the Gentiles. For that nation was born of sin, that nation was born of the daughters of Lot, who lay with their father drunken, abusing a father. Better were it to have remained barren, than thus to have ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 263, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2494 (In-Text, Margin)
... swallowed us up.” …Therefore for this prayeth the voice of the Martyrs, “From fear of the enemy deliver Thou my soul:” not so that the enemy may not slay me, but that I may not fear an enemy slaying. For that to be fulfilled in the Psalm the servant prayeth, which but now in the Gospel the Lord was commanding. What but now was the Lord commanding? “Fear not them that kill the body, but the soul are not able to kill; but Him rather fear ye, that hath power to kill both body and soul in the hell of fire.”[Matthew 10:28] And He repeated, “Yea, I say unto you, fear Him.” Who are they that kill the body? Enemies. What was the Lord commanding? That they should not be feared. Be prayer offered, therefore, that He may grant what He hath commanded. “From fear of the enemy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 272, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2569 (In-Text, Margin)
... give one also in the evening. In the same manner as thou hast contemned the morning of the world by the light of the Lord, so contemn the evening also by the sufferings of the Lord, in saying to thy soul, What more will this man do to me, than my Lord hath suffered for me? May I hold fast justice, not consent to iniquity. Let him vent his rage on the flesh, the trap will be broken, and I will fly to my Lord, that saith to me, “Do not fear them that kill the body, but the soul are not able to kill.”[Matthew 10:28] And for the body itself He hath given security, saying, “A hair of your head shall not perish.” Nobly here he hath set down, “Thou wilt delight outgoings in morning and in evening.” For if thou take not delight in the very outgoing, thou wilt not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 444, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XC (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4260 (In-Text, Margin)
... that he adds this, meaning that it is to the purpose that Thou appearest to spare some, with whom Thou art more angry, that the sinner may be prospered in his path, and receive a heavier doom at the last. For when the power of human wrath hath killed the body, it hath nothing more to do: but God hath power both to punish here, and after the death of the body to send into Hell, and by the few who are thus taught, the vain and seductive prosperity of the wicked is judged to be greater wrath of God.[Matthew 10:28] …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 479, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4483 (In-Text, Margin)
14. Because then he had said above, “see that ye hate the thing which is evil,” lest ye should fear to hate evil, lest he should kill thee, he addeth instantly, “The Lord preserveth the souls of His servants.” Hear Him preserving the souls of His servants, and saying, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28] He who hath most power against thee, slayeth the body. What hath he done unto thee? What he also did to the Lord thy God. Why lovest thou to have what Christ hath, if thou fearest to suffer what Christ did? He came to bear thy life, temporal, weak, subject unto death. Surely fear to die, if thou canst avoid dying. What thou ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 539, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4938 (In-Text, Margin)
... Christ, in whom is everlasting blessing; but the Jewish people still more decidedly refused blessing, unto whom he who had been enlightened by the Lord said, “Will ye also be His disciples?” “He clothed himself with cursing, like as with a raiment:” either Judas, or that people. “And it came into his bowels like water.” Both without, then, and within; without, like a garment; within, like water: since he hath come before the judgment-seat of Him “who hath power to destroy both body and soul in hell;”[Matthew 10:28] the body without, the soul within. “And like oil into his bones.” He showeth that he worketh evil with delight, and storeth up cursing for himself, that is, everlasting punishment; for blessing is eternal life. For at present evil deeds are his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 586, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
Schin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5370 (In-Text, Margin)
... then have the Christians offended against them? What due have they not rendered? in what have not Christians obeyed the monarchs of earth? The kings of the earth therefore have persecuted the Christians without a cause. They too had their threatening words: I banish, I proscribe, I slay, I torture with claws, I burn with fires, I expose to beasts, I tear the limbs piecemeal. But heed what he hath subjoined: “And my heart hath stood in awe of Thy word.” My heart hath stood in awe of these words,[Matthew 10:28] “Fear not them that kill the body,” etc. I have scorned man who persecuteth me, and have overcome the devil that would seduce me.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 647, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5780 (In-Text, Margin)
... another. “They shall hear My Words, for they have prevailed.” How have they prevailed? Who of them has been taken offering sacrifice, when such things were forbidden by the law, and has not denied it? Who of them has been taken worshipping an idol, and has not exclaimed, “I did it not,” and feared lest he should be convicted? Such servants hath the devil. But how have the Words of the Lord prevailed? “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Fear not those who kill the body,” etc.[Matthew 10:28] He gave them fear, He suggested hope, He kindled love. “Fear not death,” He saith. Do ye fear death? I die first. Fear ye, lest a hair of your head perish? I first rise again in the flesh uninjured. Rightly have ye heard His Words, for they have ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 650, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5805 (In-Text, Margin)
... persecutors, humbled in confession. He humbleth himself out of the sight of man: he is humbled by enemies in their sight. Therefore is he lifted up by Him both visibly and invisibly. Invisibly are the martyrs already lifted up; visibly shall they be lifted up, “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption” in the resurrection of the dead; when this very part of him, against which alone her persecutors could rage, shall be renewed. “Fear not them that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28] And what perisheth? what kill they?…Why then art thou anxious about the rest of thy members, when thou shalt not lose even a hair? “Deliver me from them that persecute me.” From whom thinkest thou that he prayeth to be delivered? From men who ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 105, footnote 3 (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 283 (In-Text, Margin)
... For he who neglects the leading element, and manifests all his zeal about inferior matters destroys and loses both; whereas he who observes the right order, and preserves and cherishes the more commanding element, even if he neglects the secondary element yet preserves it by means of saving the primary one. Which also Christ signified to us when He said, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.”[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 385, footnote 4 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily VI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1299 (In-Text, Margin)
... to God who permitted them, he was invested with a perfect crown. Be not sad then on account of death; for it is natural to die: but grieve for sin; because it is a fault of the will. But if thou grievest for the dead, mourn also for those who are born into the world; for as the one thing is of nature, so is the other too of nature. Should any one, therefore, threaten thee with death, say to him, “I am instructed by Christ not to ‘fear them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.’”[Matthew 10:28] Or should he threaten thee with the confiscation of thy goods, say to him, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither. We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” “And though thou ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 183, footnote 4 (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 Unconfounded. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1178 (In-Text, Margin)
... soul, which he terms mind. Holy Scripture on the contrary knows only one, not two souls; and this is plainly taught us by the formation of the first man. For it is written God took dust from the earth and “formed man,” and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” And in the gospels the Lord said to the holy disciples “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 218, footnote 1 (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 1415 (In-Text, Margin)
Eran. —So He said “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 223, footnote 2 (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 1446 (In-Text, Margin)
Eran. —No; how could we? We remember the Lord’s warning “Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 230, footnote 1 (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 1490 (In-Text, Margin)
... troubled.[Matthew 10:28] If then we deny that the soul of the Saviour shared death with the body, how could any one accept the blasphemy you and your friends presumptuously promulgate when you dare to say that the divine nature participated in death? This is the more ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 238, 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 1544 (In-Text, Margin)
“The flesh suffered; but the Godhead is free from death. He yielded His body to suffer according to the law of human nature. For how can God die, when the soul cannot die? ‘Fear not,’ He says, ‘them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.’[Matthew 10:28] If then the soul cannot be slain how can the Godhead be made subject to death?”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 313, footnote 7 (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 Monks of Constantinople. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2023 (In-Text, Margin)
... phytic. Their contention is that the Godhead took the part of the mind. He had learnt the distinction of soul and of mind from the philosophers that are without while divine Scripture says that man consists of soul and body. For we read “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.” And the Lord in the sacred Gospels said to His apostles “Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 556, footnote 6 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed. (HTML)
Section 33 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3389 (In-Text, Margin)
... ordereth his words in judgment.” When, however, He is said to judge the quick and the dead, this does not mean that some will come to judgment who are still living, others who are already dead; but that He will judge both souls and bodies, where, by souls are meant “the quick,” and the bodies “the dead;” as also the Lord Himself saith in the Gospel, “Fear not them who are able to kill the body, but are not able to hurt the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”[Matthew 10:28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 48, footnote 7 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
Almighty. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1038 (In-Text, Margin)
... Almighty who rules all things, who has power over all things. But they who say that one God is Lord of the soul, and some other of the body, make neither of them perfect, because either is wanting to the other. For how is he almighty, who has power over the soul, but not over the body? And how is he almighty who has dominion over bodies, but no power over spirits? But these men the Lord confutes, saying on the contrary, Rather fear ye Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell[Matthew 10:28]. For unless the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has the power over both, how does He subject both to punishment? For how shall He be able to take the body which is another’s and cast it into hell, except He first bind the strong man, and spoil ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 185, 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 X (HTML)
... glory of martyrdom with the words, He that doth not take his cross and follow after Me is not worth of Me; and, He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that hath lost his life for My sake shall find it ? If to die for Him is life, what pain can we think He had to suffer in the mystery of death, Who rewards with life those who die for Him? Could death make Him fear what could be done to the body, when He exhorted the disciples, Fear not those which kill the body[Matthew 10:28] ?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 230, footnote 10 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter VII. The resolution of the difficulty set forth for consideration is again taken in hand. Christ truly and really took upon Him a human will and affections, the source of whatsoever was not in agreement with His Godhead, and which must be therefore referred to the fact that He was at the same time both God and man. (HTML)
57. For so hath the Apostle Paul likewise said: “Because they have crucified the flesh of Christ.” And again the Apostle Peter saith: “Christ having suffered according to the flesh.” It was the flesh, therefore, that suffered; the Godhead above secure from death; to suffering His body yielded, after the law of human nature; can the Godhead die, then, if the soul cannot? “Fear not them,” said our Lord, “which can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.”[Matthew 10:28] If the soul, then, cannot be killed, how can the Godhead?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 332, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter IV. St. Ambrose proceeds with the proof of the divine mercy, and shows by the testimony of the Gospels that it prevails over severity, and he adduces the instance of athletes to show that of those who have denied Christ before men, all are not to be esteemed alike. (HTML)
15. Although what has been said sufficiently shows how inclined the Lord Jesus is to mercy, let Him further instruct us with His own words, when He would arm us against the assaults of persecution. “Fear not,” He says, “those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear Him Who can cast both body and soul into hell.”[Matthew 10:28] And farther on: “Every one, therefore, who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father, Who is in heaven, but he who shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father, Who is in heaven.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 431, footnote 5 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)
Sermon Against Auxentius on the Giving Up of the Basilicas. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3471 (In-Text, Margin)
... earthly intercourse (for perhaps we seem pleasing to some), were to withstand them? But he who loves me here, would show his love much more if he would suffer me to become Christ’s victim, for “to depart and be with Christ is much better, though to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.” There is nothing therefore for you to fear, beloved brethren. For I know that whatever I may suffer, I shall suffer for Christ’s sake. And I have read that I ought not to fear those that can kill the flesh.[Matthew 10:28] And I have heard One Who says: “He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.”