Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Matthew 23:26
There are 11 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 485, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XVIII.—Concerning sacrifices and oblations, and those who truly offer them. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4041 (In-Text, Margin)
... hypocrisy.” For while they were thought to offer correctly so far as outward appearance went, they had in themselves jealousy like to Cain; therefore they slew the Just One, slighting the counsel of the Word, as did also Cain. For [God] said to him, “Be at rest;” but he did not assent. Now what else is it to “be at rest” than to forego purposed violence? And saying similar things to these men, He declares: “Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse that which is within the cup, that the outside may be clean also.”[Matthew 23:26] And they did not listen to Him. For Jeremiah says, “Behold, neither thine eyes nor thy heart are good; but [they are turned] to thy covetousness, and to shed innocent blood, and for injustice, and for man-slaying, that thou mayest do it.” And again ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 283, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Chapter IX.—Why We are to Use the Bath. (HTML)
... the dirt which gathers and grows to it, sometimes also to relieve fatigue). “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” saith the Lord, “for ye are like to whited sepulchres. Without, the sepulchre appears beautiful, but within it is full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” And again He says to the same people, “Woe unto you! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and platter, but within are full of uncleanness. Cleanse first the inside of the cup, that the outside may be clean also.”[Matthew 23:25-26] The best bath, then, is what rubs off the pollution of the soul, and is spiritual. Of which prophecy speaks expressly: “The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Israel, and will purge the blood from the midst of them” —the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 662, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Repentance. (HTML)
Baptism Not to Be Presumptously Received. It Requires Preceding Repentance, Manifested by Amendment of Life. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8476 (In-Text, Margin)
... distinguishes you from a perfected servant of God? Is there one Christ for the baptized, another for the learners? Have they some different hope or reward? some different dread of judgment? some different necessity for repentance? That baptismal washing is a sealing of faith, which faith is begun and is commended by the faith of repentance. We are not washed in order that we may cease sinning, but because we have ceased, since in heart we have been bathed[Matthew 23:26] already. For the first baptism of a learner is this, a perfect fear; thenceforward, in so far as you have understanding of the Lord faith is sound, the conscience having once for all embraced repentance. Otherwise, if it is ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 685, footnote 18 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Prayer. (HTML)
Of Washing the Hands. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8843 (In-Text, Margin)
But what reason is there in going to prayer with hands indeed washed, but the spirit foul?—inasmuch as to our hands themselves spiritual purities are necessary, that they may be “lifted up pure” from falsehood, from murder, from cruelty, from poisonings, from idolatry, and all the other blemishes which, conceived by the spirit, are effected by the operation of the hands. These are the true purities;[Matthew 23:25-26] not those which most are superstitiously careful about, taking water at every prayer, even when they are coming from a bath of the whole body. When I was scrupulously making a thorough investigation of this practice, and searching into the reason of it, I ascertained it to be a commemorative act, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 155, footnote 2 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Recognitions of Clement. (HTML)
Book VI. (HTML)
Inward and Outward Cleansing. (HTML)
... who seemed to be better than others, and separated from the people, calling them hypocrites, because they purified only those things which were seen of men, but left defiled and sordid their hearts, which God alone sees. To some therefore of them—not to all—He said, ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye cleanse the outside of the cup and platter, but the inside is full of pollution. O blind Pharisees, first make clean what is within, and what is without shall be clean also.’[Matthew 23:25-26] For truly, if the mind be purified by the light of knowledge, when once it is clean and clear, then it necessarily takes care of that which is without a man, that is, his flesh, that it also may be purified. But when that which is without, the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 106, footnote 1 (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 XL. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2788 (In-Text, Margin)
[55] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, while the inside of them is full of injustice and wrong. [56][Matthew 23:26] Ye blind Pharisees, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, then shall the outside of them be cleansed.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 196, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Porphyry’s doctrine of redemption. (HTML)
That All the Saints, Both Under the Law and Before It, Were Justified by Faith in the Mystery of Christ’s Incarnation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 425 (In-Text, Margin)
... “My heart and my flesh,” he says, “fail, O God of my heart.” Happy failure, from things below to things above! And hence in another psalm He says, “My soul longeth, yea, even faileth, for the courts of the Lord.” Yet, though he had said of both his heart and his flesh that they were failing, he did not say, O God of my heart and my flesh, but, O God of my heart; for by the heart the flesh is made clean. Therefore, says the Lord, “Cleanse that which is within, and the outside shall be clean also.”[Matthew 23:26] He then says that God Himself,—not anything received from Him, but Himself,—is his portion. “The God of my heart, and my portion for ever.” Among the various objects of human choice, God alone satisfied him. “For, lo,” he says, “they that are far ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 262, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
The Enchiridion. (HTML)
To Give Alms Aright, We Should Begin with Ourselves, and Have Pity Upon Our Own Souls. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1247 (In-Text, Margin)
... if He meant to say: I know these alms of yours, and ye need not think that I am now admonishing you in respect of such things; “and pass over judgment and the love of God,” an alms by which ye might have been made clean from all inward impurity, so that even the bodies which ye are now washing would have been clean to you. For this is the import of “all things,” both inward and outward things, as we read in another place: “Cleanse first that which is within, that the outside may be clean also.”[Matthew 23:26] But lest He might appear to despise the alms which they were giving out of the fruits of the earth, He says: “These ought ye to have done,” referring to judgment and the love of God, “and not to leave the other undone,” referring to the giving of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 380, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Continence. (HTML)
Section 4 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1813 (In-Text, Margin)
4. For which cause our Lord Himself also with His own mouth saith, “Cleanse what are within, and what are without will be clean.”[Matthew 23:26] And, also, in another place, when He was refuting the foolish speeches of the Jews, in that they spake evil against His disciples, eating with unwashen hands; “Not what entereth into the mouth,” said He, “defileth the man: but what cometh forth out of the mouth, that defileth the man.” Which sentence, if the whole of it be taken of the mouth of the body, is absurd. For neither doth vomit defile him, whom food defileth not. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 604, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5498 (In-Text, Margin)
... defileth us, if it is good, cleanseth us. For concerning this very mouth ye heard when the Gospel was read. For the Jews reproached the Lord, because His disciples ate with unwashen hands. They reproached who had cleanness without; and within were full of stains. They reproached, whose righteousness was only in the eyes of men. But the Lord sought our inward cleanness, which if we have, the outside must needs be clean also. “Cleanse,” He saith, “the inside,” and “the outside shall be clean also.”[Matthew 23:26] …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 444, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Letters of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
Letters on the Apollinarian Controversy. (HTML)
Against Apollinarius; The Second Letter to Cledonius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4729 (In-Text, Margin)
... describes the Incarnation, viz.: He was made Man, explaining it to mean, not, He was in the human nature with which He surrounded Himself, according to the Scripture, He knew what was in man; but teaching that it means, He consorted and conversed with men, and taking refuge in the expression which says that He was seen on Earth and conversed with Men. And what can anyone contend further? They who take away the Humanity and the Interior Image cleanse by their newly invented mask only our outside,[Matthew 23:25-26] and that which is seen; so far in conflict with themselves that at one time, for the sake of the flesh, they explain all the rest in a gross and carnal manner (for it is from hence that they have derived their second Judaism and their silly thousand ...