Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Luke 12:4
There are 13 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 395, footnote 17 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book IV. In Which Tertullian Pursues His Argument. Jesus is the Christ of the Creator. He Derives His Proofs from St. Luke's Gospel; That Being the Only Historical Portion of the New Testament Partially Accepted by Marcion. This Book May Also Be Regarded as a Commentary on St. Luke. It Gives Remarkable Proof of Tertullian's Grasp of Scripture, and Proves that “The Old Testament is Not Contrary to the New.“ It Also Abounds in Striking Expositions of Scriptural Passages, Embracing Profound Views of Revelation, in Connection with the Nature of Man. (HTML)
Examples from the Old Testament, Balaam, Moses, and Hezekiah, to Show How Completely the Instruction and Conduct of Christ Are in Keeping with the Will and Purpose of the Creator. (HTML)
... recognition of an hitherto unknown and hidden god. When He remarks also on their murmurs and taunts, in saying of Him, “This man casteth out devils only through Beelzebub,” He means that all these imputations would come forth to the light of day, and be in the mouths of men in consequence of the promulgation of the Gospel. He then turns to His disciples with these words, “I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them which can only kill the body, and after that have no more power over you.”[Luke 12:4] They will, however, find Isaiah had already said, “See how the just man is taken away, and no man layeth it to heart.” “But I will show you whom ye shall fear: fear Him who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell” (meaning, of course, ...
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.[Luke 12:4-5] 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 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.”[Luke 12:4-5] 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 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.”[Luke 12:4-5] 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 3 (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 63 (In-Text, Margin)
... body, but are not able to kill the soul,” 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 they kill the body, but after death, lest they deprive it of burial? If this be so, then that is false which Christ says, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do;”[Luke 12:4] for it seems they can do great injury to the dead body. Far be it from us to suppose that the Truth can be thus false. They who kill the body are said “to do something,” because the deathblow is felt, the body still having sensation; but after that, ...
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,”[Luke 12:4] 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 3 (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 11 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2736 (In-Text, Margin)
... of sepulture. But yet what mercy is that, which is afforded to them that have feeling of nothing? Or haply is this to be challenged back to that conceit of an infernal river which men unburied were not able to pass over? Far be this from the faith of Christians: else hath it gone most ill with so great a multitude of Martyrs, for whom there could be no burying of their bodies, and Truth did cheat them when It said, “Fear not them which kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do,”[Luke 12:4] if these have been able to do to them so great evils, by which they were hindered to pass over to the places which they longed for. But, because this without all doubt is most false, and it neither any whit hurts the faithful to have their bodies ...
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."[Luke 12:4] 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 5, page 460, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
The Spirit of Fear a Great Gift of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3175 (In-Text, Margin)
... the fear with which Peter denied Christ that we have received the spirit of, but that fear concerning which Christ Himself says, “Fear Him who hath power to destroy both soul and body in hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him.” This, indeed, He said, lest we should deny Him from the same fear which shook Peter; for such cowardice he plainly wished to be removed from us when He, in the preceding passage, said, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.”[Luke 12:4] It is not of this fear that we have received the spirit, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. And of this spirit the same Apostle Paul discourses to the Romans: “We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and ...
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.”[Luke 12:4-5] 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.”[Luke 12:4-5] 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 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.”[Luke 12:4-5]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 423, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse III (HTML)
Texts Explained; Twelfthly, Matthew xxvi. 39; John xii. 27, &c. Arian inferences are against the Regula Fidei, as before. He wept and the like, as man. Other texts prove Him God. God could not fear. He feared because His flesh feared. (HTML)
... besought that the cup might pass away. Thus certainly it is written; but again I would ask you (for the same rejoinder must of necessity be made to each of your objections), If the speaker is mere man, let him weep and fear death, as being man; but if He is the Word in flesh (for one must not be reluctant to repeat), whom had He to fear being God? or wherefore should He fear death, who was Himself Life, and was rescuing others from death? or how, whereas He said, ‘Fear not him that kills the body[Luke 12:4],’ should He Himself fear? And how should He who said to Abraham, ‘Fear not, for I am with thee,’ and encouraged Moses against Pharaoh, and said to the son of Nun, ‘Be strong, and of a good courage,’ Himself feel terror before Herod and Pilate? ...