Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Matthew 10:29
There are 21 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 397, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book II (HTML)
Chapter XXVI.—“Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.” (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3204 (In-Text, Margin)
... some have larger and others smaller heads, some have bushy heads of hair, others thin, and others scarcely any hair at all,—and then those who imagine that they have discovered the number of the hairs, should endeavour to apply that for the commendation of their own sect which they have conceived? Or again, if any one should, because of this expression which occurs in the Gospel, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father,”[Matthew 10:29] take occasion to reckon up the number of sparrows caught daily, whether over all the world or in some particular district, and to make inquiry as to the reason of so many having been captured yesterday, so many the day before, and so many again on ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 551, footnote 1 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XXII.—The true Lord and the one God is declared by the law, and manifested by Christ His Son in the Gospel; whom alone we should adore, and from Him we must look for all good things, not from Satan. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4645 (In-Text, Margin)
... and to do his will, is to fall from the glory of God. And in what thing either pleasant or good can that man who has fallen participate? Or what else can such a person hope for or expect, except death? For death is next neighbour to him who has fallen. Hence also it follows that he will not give what he has promised. For how can he make grants to him who has fallen? Moreover, since God rules over men and him too, and without the will of our Father in heaven not even a sparrow falls to the ground,[Matthew 10:29] it follows that his declaration, “All these things are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give them,” proceeds from him when puffed up with pride. For the creation is not subjected to his power, since indeed he is himself but one among ...
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 571, footnote 2 (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 7515 (In-Text, Margin)
... should be raised up and destined to “the killing in hell,” in order to be put an end to, when it might suffer such an annihilation (more directly) if not raised again at all. A pretty paradox, to be sure, that an essence must be refitted with life, in order that it may receive that annihilation which has already in fact accrued to it! But Christ, whilst confirming us in the selfsame hope, adds the example of “the sparrows”—how that “not one of them falls to the ground without the will of God.”[Matthew 10:29] He says this, that you may believe that the flesh which has been consigned to the ground, is able in like manner to rise again by the will of the same God. For although this is not allowed to the sparrows, yet “we are of more value than many ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 50, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Exhortation to Chastity. (HTML)
Introduction. Virginity Classified Under Three Several Species. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 514 (In-Text, Margin)
... to be freed: the second, of virtue, (and consists in) contemning that the power of which you know full well: the remaining species, (that) of marrying no more after the disjunction of matrimony by death, besides being the glory of virtue, is (the glory) of moderation likewise; for moderation is the not regretting a thing which has been taken away, and taken away by the Lord God, without whose will neither does a leaf glide down from a tree, nor a sparrow of one farthing’s worth fall to the earth.[Matthew 10:29]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 66, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Monogamy. (HTML)
From Examples Tertullian Passes to Direct Dogmatic Teachings. He Begins with the Lord's Teaching. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 653 (In-Text, Margin)
... permitted formerly, He now prohibits, first because “from the beginning it was not so,” like plurality of marriage; secondly, because “What God hath conjoined, man shall not separate,” —for fear, namely, that he contravene the Lord: for He alone shall “separate” who has “conjoined” (separate, moreover, not through the harshness of divorce, which (harshness) He censures and restrains, but through the debt of death) if, indeed, “one of two sparrows falleth not on the ground without the Father’s will.”[Matthew 10:29] Therefore if those whom God has conjoined man shall not separate by divorce, it is equally congruous that those whom God has separated by death man is not to conjoin by marriage; the joining of the separation will be just as contrary to God’s will ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 118, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1148 (In-Text, Margin)
... church. For you say, seeing we assemble without order, and assemble at the same time, and flock in large numbers to the church, the heathen are led to make inquiry about us, and we are alarmed lest we awaken their anxieties. Do ye not know that God is Lord of all? And if it is God’s will, then you shall suffer persecution; but if it is not, the heathen will be still. Believe it most surely, if indeed you believe in that God without whose will not even the sparrow, a penny can buy, falls to the ground.[Matthew 10:29] But we, I think, are better than many sparrows.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 334, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
On the Opposing Powers. (HTML)
... certain time he was made to fall under the power of others, and to have his house plundered by unjust persons. And therefore holy Scripture teaches us to receive all that happens as sent by God, knowing that without Him no event occurs. For how can we doubt that such is the case, viz., that nothing comes to man without (the will of) God, when our Lord and Saviour declares, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father who is in heaven.”[Matthew 10:29] But the necessity of the case has drawn us away in a lengthened digression on the subject of the struggle waged by the hostile powers against men, and of those sadder events which happen to human life, i.e., its temptations—according to the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 667, footnote 7 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VIII (HTML)
Chapter LXX (HTML)
... world prevails only so long as it is the pleasure of Him who received from the Father power to overcome the world; and from His victory we take courage. Should He even wish us again to contend and struggle for our religion, let the enemy come against us, and we will say to them, “I can do all things, through Christ Jesus our Lord, which strengtheneth me.” For of “two sparrows which are sold for a farthing,” as the Scripture says, “not one of them falls on the ground without our Father in heaven.”[Matthew 10:29-30] And so completely does the Divine Providence embrace all things, that not even the hairs of our head fail to be numbered by Him.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 340, footnote 15 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Cornelius, Concerning Fortunatus and Felicissimus, or Against the Heretics. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2546 (In-Text, Margin)
... himself a judge, not now of the bishop, but of God. No one would rend the Church by a division of the unity of Christ. No one, pleasing himself, and swelling with arrogance, would found a new heresy, separate and without, unless any one be of such sacrilegious daring and abandoned mind, as to think that a priest is made without God’s judgment, when the Lord says in His Gospel, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them does not fall to the ground without the will of your Father.”[Matthew 10:29] When He says that not even the least things are done without God’s will, does any one think that the highest and greatest things are done in God’s Church either without God’s knowledge or permission, and that priests—that is, His stewards—are not ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 373, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Florentius Pupianus, on Calumniators. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2785 (In-Text, Margin)
... eminence and your martyrdom should be stained by communion with me, that you are inquiring carefully into my character; and after God the Judge who makes priests, that you wish to judge—I will not say of me, for what am I?—but of the judgment of God and of Christ. This is not to believe in God—this is to stand forth as a rebel against Christ and His Gospel; so that although He says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and neither of them falls to the ground without the will of my Father,”[Matthew 10:29] and His majesty and truth prove that even things of little consequence are not done without the consciousness and permission of God, you think that God’s priests are ordained in the Church without His knowledge. For to believe that they who are ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 617, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)
It is This God, Therefore, that the Church Has Known and Adores; And to Him the Testimony of Things as Well Visible as Invisible is Given Both at All Times and in All Forms, by the Nature Which His Providence Rules and Governs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5054 (In-Text, Margin)
... cities themselves, and states whose destructions have been announced by the words of prophets; yea, even through the whole world itself; whose end, whose miseries, and wastings, and sufferings on account of unbelief He has allotted. And lest moreover any one should think that such an indefatigable providence of God does not reach to even the very least things, “One of two sparrows,” says the Lord, “shall not fall without the will of the Father; but even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”[Matthew 10:29-30] And His care and providence did not permit even the clothes of the Israelites to be worn out, nor even the vilest shoes on their feet to be wasted; nor, moreover, finally, the very garments of the captive young men to be burnt. And this is not ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 64, footnote 7 (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 XIII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 971 (In-Text, Margin)
... for there is nothing covered, that shall [12] [Arabic, p. 51] not be revealed; nor hid, that shall not be disclosed and published. What I say unto you in the darkness, speak ye in the light; and what ye have told [13] secretly in the ears in closets, let it be proclaimed on the housetops. I say unto you now, my beloved, Be not agitated at those who kill the body, but have no power to [14] kill the soul. I will inform you whom ye shall fear: him which is able to destroy [15] soul and body in hell.[Matthew 10:29] Yea, I say unto you, Be afraid of him especially. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing in a bond? and one of them shall not fall on the [16] ground without your Father. But what concerns you: even the hair of your heads [17, 18] also is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 75, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Then follows a period of nine years from the nineteenth year of his age, during which having lost a friend, he followed the Manichæans—and wrote books on the fair and fit, and published a work on the liberal arts, and the categories of Aristotle. (HTML)
Concerning the Books Which He Wrote ‘On the Fair and Fit,’ Dedicated to Hierius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 327 (In-Text, Margin)
... that I am in love with in another, which, if I did not hate, I should not detest and repel from myself, seeing we are equally men? For it does not follow that because a good horse is loved by him who would not, though he might, be that horse, the same should therefore be affirmed by an actor, who partakes of our nature. Do I then love in a man that which I, who am a man, hate to be? Man himself is a great deep, whose very hairs Thou numberest, O Lord, and they fall not to the ground without Thee.[Matthew 10:29-30] And yet are the hairs of his head more readily numbered than are his affections and the movements of his heart.
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 5, page 537, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance. (HTML)
Infants are Not Judged According to that Which They are Foreknown as Likely to Do If They Should Live. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3624 (In-Text, Margin)
... heresy; and that we see this in more evident truth especially in infants? For God is not compelled by fate to come to the help of these infants, and not to come to the help of those,—since the case is alike to both. Or shall we think that human affairs in the case of infants are not managed by Divine Providence, but by fortuitous chances, when rational souls are either to be condemned or delivered, although, indeed, not a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of our Father which is in heaven?[Matthew 10:29] Or must we so attribute it to the negligence of parents that infants die without baptism, as that heavenly judgments have nothing to do with it; as if they themselves who in this way die badly had of their own will chosen the negligent parents for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 663, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5892 (In-Text, Margin)
... reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feedeth them.” Therefore even beside men, these animals are objects of care to God, to be fed, not to receive a law. As far then as regards giving a law, “God careth not for oxen:” as regards creating, feeding, governing, ruling, all things have to do with God. “Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing?” saith our Lord Jesus Christ, “and one of them shall not fall to the ground without the will of your Father: how much better are ye than they.”[Matthew 10:29] Perhaps thou sayest, God counteth me not in this great multitude. There follows here a wondrous passage in the Gospel: “the hairs of your head are all numbered.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 258, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
The accusation shews the mind of the accusers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1428 (In-Text, Margin)
... that they were falling foul of their own arguments. But since they have lost all judgment, they are still led on to persecute, and seek to destroy, and yet perceive not their own impiety. It may be they even venture to accuse Providence itself (for nothing is beyond the reach of their presumption), that it does not deliver up to them those whom they desire; certain as it is, according to the saying of our Saviour, that not even a sparrow can fall into the snare without our Father which is in heaven[Matthew 10:29]. But when these accursed ones obtain possession of any one, they immediately forget not only all other, but even themselves; and raising their brow in very haughtiness, they neither acknowledge times and seasons, nor respect human nature in those ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 362, footnote 2 (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)
Introduction to Proverbs viii. 22 continued. Absurdity of supposing a Son or Word created in order to the creation of other creatures; as to the creation being unable to bear God's immediate hand, God condescends to the lowest. Moreover, if the Son a creature, He too could not bear God's hand, and an infinite series of media will be necessary. Objected, that, as Moses who led out the Israelites was a man, so our Lord; but Moses was not the Agent in creation:--again, that unity is found in created ministrations, but all such ministrations are defective and dependent:--again, that He learned to create, yet could God's Wisdom need teaching? and why should He learn, if the Father worketh hitherto? If the Son was created to create us, He is for (HTML)
... Father feedeth them; are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith[Matthew 10:29]?’ If then it be not unworthy of God to exercise His Providence, even down to things so small, a hair of the head, and a sparrow, and the grass of the field, also it was not unworthy of Him to make them. For what things are the subjects of His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 45, footnote 18 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
The Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 988 (In-Text, Margin)
... Father’s house? and again, Take these things hence, and make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise, whereby He most clearly confessed that the former temple in Jerusalem was His own Father’s house. But if any one from unbelief wishes to receive yet more proofs as to the Father of Christ being the same as the Maker of the world, let him hear Him say again, Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and not one of them shall fall on the ground without My Father which is in heaven[Matthew 10:29]; this also, Behold the fowls of the heaven that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them; and this, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 115, footnote 1 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the wife of Nectarius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1775 (In-Text, Margin)
2. But our lives are not without a Providence. So we have learnt in the Gospel, for not a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of our Father.[Matthew 10:29] Whatever has come to pass has come to pass by the will of our Creator. And who can resist God’s will? Let us accept what has befallen us; for if we take it ill we do not mend the past and we work our own ruin. Do not let us arraign the righteous judgment of God. We are all too untaught to assail His ineffable sentences. The Lord is now making trial of your love for Him. Now there is an opportunity for you, through your ...