Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Matthew 23:27
There are 13 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 255, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter CXII.—The Jews expound these signs jejunely and feebly, and take up their attention only with insignificant matters. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2372 (In-Text, Margin)
... the offerings; and do so in a low and sordid manner, while they never venture either to speak of or to expound the points which are great and worthy of investigation, or command you to give no audience to us while we expound them, and to come not into conversation with us; will they not deserve to hear what our Lord Jesus Christ said to them: ‘Whited sepulchres, which appear beautiful outward, and within are full of dead men’s bones; which pay tithe of mint, and swallow a camel: ye blind guides!’[Matthew 23:27] If, then, you will not despise the doctrines of those who exalt themselves and wish to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, and come with such earnestness and intelligence to the words of prophecy as to suffer the same inflictions from your own people which the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 485, footnote 4 (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 4040 (In-Text, Margin)
... giving up of that evil which has been conceived within him, so that sin may not the more, by means of the hypocritical action, render him the destroyer of himself. Wherefore did the Lord also declare: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like whited sepulchres. For the sepulchre appears beautiful outside, but within it is full of dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness; even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of wickedness and hypocrisy.”[Matthew 23:27-28] 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 ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 283, footnote 2 (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)
But most of all is it necessary to wash the soul in the cleansing Word (sometimes the body too, on account of 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.”[Matthew 23:27] 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.” The best bath, then, is what rubs off the pollution of the soul, and is spiritual. Of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 559, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
The Sophistical Sense Put by Heretics on the Phrase “Resurrection of the Dead,” As If It Meant the Moral Change of a New Life. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7394 (In-Text, Margin)
... really so,—namely, the separation of body and soul: it is rather the ignorance of God, by reason of which man is dead to God, and is not less buried in error than he would be in the grave. Wherefore that also must be held to be the resurrection, when a man is reanimated by access to the truth, and having dispersed the death of ignorance, and being endowed with new life by God, has burst forth from the sepulchre of the old man, even as the Lord likened the scribes and Pharisees to “whited sepulchres.”[Matthew 23:27] Whence it follows that they who have by faith attained to the resurrection, are with the Lord after they have once put Him on in their baptism. By such subtlety, then, even in conversation have they often been in the habit of misleading our ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 54, footnote 5 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Further Exposition of the Heresy of the Naasseni; Profess to Follow Homer; Acknowledge a Triad of Principles; Their Technical Names of the Triad; Support These on the Authority of Greek Poets; Allegorize Our Saviour's Miracles; The Mystery of the Samothracians; Why the Lord Chose Twelve Disciples; The Name Corybas, Used by Thracians and Phrygians, Explained; Naasseni Profess to Find Their System in Scripture; Their Interpretation of Jacob's Vision; Their Idea of the “Perfect Man;” The “Perfect Man” Called “Papa” By the Phrygians; The Naasseni and Phrygians on the Resurrection; The Ecstasis of St. Paul; The Mysteries of Religion as Alluded to by Christ; Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower; Allegory of the Promised Land (HTML)
... infernal—who exclaim, Cause to cease, cause to cease the discord of the world, and make “peace for those that are afar off,” that is, for material and earthly beings; and “peace for those that are near,” that is, for perfect men that are spiritual and endued with reason. But the Phrygians denominate this same also “corpse”—buried in the body, as it were, in a mausoleum and tomb. This, he says, is what has been declared, “Ye are whited sepulchres, full,” he says, “of dead men’s bones within,”[Matthew 23:27] because there is not in you the living man. And again he exclaims, “The dead shall start forth from the graves,” that is, from the earthly bodies, being born again spiritual, not carnal. For this, he says, is the Resurrection that takes place ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 217, footnote 19 (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 XLII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1934 (In-Text, Margin)
... profit a man to circumcise himself, if nevertheless he cherishes the worst of thoughts against his neighbour? He desired, accordingly, rather to open up to us the ways of the fullest life by a brief path, lest perchance, after we had traversed lengthened courses of our own, we should find our day prematurely closing upon us in night, and lest, while outwardly indeed we might appear splendid to men’s view, we should inwardly be comparable only to ravening wolves, or be likened to whited sepulchres.[Matthew 23:27] For far above any person of that type of character is to be placed the man who, although clad only in squalid and threadbare attire, keeps no evil hidden in his heart against his neighbour. For it is only the circumcision of the heart that brings ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 106, footnote 2 (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 2789 (In-Text, Margin)
[57] [Arabic, p. 154][Matthew 23:27] Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye resemble whited sepulchres, which appear from the outside beautiful, but within [58] full of the bones of the dead, and all uncleanness. So ye also from without appear unto men like the righteous, but within ye are full of wrong and hypocrisy.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 567, footnote 8 (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 73 (HTML)
... have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.’"[Matthew 23:27-28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 20, footnote 4 (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 I. 15–18. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 51 (In-Text, Margin)
... of the moon, and of lamps, was that light thus in the world? No. Because “the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not;” that is to say, “the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” For the world is darkness; because the lovers of the world are the world. For did not the creature acknowledge its Creator? The heavens gave testimony by a star; the sea gave testimony, and bore its Lord when He walked upon it; the winds gave testimony, and were quiet at His bidding;[Matthew 23:27] the earth gave testimony, and trembled when He was crucified. If all these gave testimony, in what sense did the world not know Him, unless that the world signifies the lovers of the world, those who with their hearts dwell in the world? And the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 428, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4118 (In-Text, Margin)
... Psalms. “Destruction” also is a repetition of “the grave,” and signifies them who are in the grave, styled above “the dead,” in the verse, “Dost thou show wonders among the dead?” for the body is the grave of the dead soul; whence our Lord’s words in the Gospel, “Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”[Matthew 23:27-28]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 119, footnote 11 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1742 (In-Text, Margin)
The dying robber, on the contrary, exchanges the cross for paradise and turns to martyrdom the penalty of murder. How many there are nowadays who have lived so long that they bear corpses rather than bodies and are like whited sepulchres filled with dead men’s bones![Matthew 23:27] A newly kindled heat is more effective than a long continued lukewarmness.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 204, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2890 (In-Text, Margin)
... destroyed, Satan says to the Lord: “Skin for skin, yea all that a man hath, will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.” We know that many persons while they have given alms have yet given nothing which touches their bodily comfort; and while they have held out a helping hand to those in need are themselves overcome with sensual indulgences; they white wash the outside but within they are “full of dead men’s bones.”[Matthew 23:27] Paula was not one of these. Her self-restraint was so great as to be almost immoderate; and her fasts and labours were so severe as almost to weaken her constitution. Except on feast days she would scarcely ever take oil with her food; a fact from ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 248, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On His Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3057 (In-Text, Margin)
... I praise, which I welcome. By this the ignoble have won renown, and the despised have attained the highest honours. By this a crew of fishermen have taken the whole world in the meshes of the Gospel-net, and overcome by a word finished and cut short the wisdom that comes to naught. I count not wise the man who is clever in words, nor him who is of a ready tongue, but unstable and undisciplined in soul, like the tombs which, fair and beautiful as they are outwardly, are fetid with corpses within,[Matthew 23:27] and full of manifold ill-savours; but him who speaks but little of virtue, yet gives many examples of it in his practice, and proves the trustworthiness of his language by his life.