Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Luke 18:19
There are 21 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 410, footnote 7 (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)
The Parables of the Importunate Widow, and of the Pharisee and the Publican. Christ's Answer to the Rich Ruler, the Cure of the Blind Man. His Salutation--Son of David. All Proofs of Christ's Relation to the Creator, Marcion's Antithesis Between David and Christ Confuted. (HTML)
... the lifter-up of the humble, not in pride, because He brings down the proud. What other god has He manifested to me to receive my supplications? With what formula of worship, with what hope (shall I approach him?) I trow, none. For the prayer which He has taught us suits, as we have proved, none but the Creator. It is, of course, another matter if He does not wish to be prayed to, because He is the supremely and spontaneously good God! But who is this good God? There is, He says, “none but one.”[Luke 18:19] It is not as if He had shown us that one of two gods was the supremely good; but He expressly asserts that there is one only good God, who is the only good, because He is the only God. Now, undoubtedly, He is the good God who “sendeth rain on the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 410, footnote 11 (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)
The Parables of the Importunate Widow, and of the Pharisee and the Publican. Christ's Answer to the Rich Ruler, the Cure of the Blind Man. His Salutation--Son of David. All Proofs of Christ's Relation to the Creator, Marcion's Antithesis Between David and Christ Confuted. (HTML)
... is the good God who “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust, and maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good;” sustaining and nourishing and assisting even Marcionites themselves! When afterwards “a certain man asked him, ‘Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” (Jesus) inquired whether he knew (that is, in other words, whether he kept) the commandments of the Creator, in order to testify that it was by the Creator’s precepts that eternal life is acquired.[Luke 18:18-20] Then, when he affirmed that from his youth up he had kept all the principal commandments, (Jesus) said to him: “One thing thou yet lackest: sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 71, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Monogamy. (HTML)
Even If the Permission Had Been Given by St. Paul in the Sense Which the Psychics Allege, It Was Merely Like the Mosaic Permission of Divorce--A Condescension to Human Hard-Heartedness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 680 (In-Text, Margin)
... long shall we allege “the flesh,” because the Lord said, “the flesh is weak?” But He has withal premised that “the Spirit is prompt,” in order that the Spirit may vanquish the flesh—that the weak may yield to the stronger. For again He says, “Let him who is able to receive, receive (it);” that is, let him who is not able go his way. That rich man did go his way who had not “received” the precept of dividing his substance to the needy, and was abandoned by the Lord to his own opinion.[Luke 18:18-27] Nor will “harshness” be on this account imputed to Christ, the ground of the vicious action of each individual free-will. “Behold,” saith He, “I have set before thee good and evil.” Choose that which is good: if you cannot, because you will not—for ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 75, footnote 7 (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 715 (In-Text, Margin)
“But,” say they, “God is ‘good,’ and ‘most good,’[Luke 18:19] and ‘pitiful-hearted,’ and ‘a pitier,’ and ‘abundant in pitiful-heartedness,’ which He holds ‘dearer than all sacrifice,’ ‘not thinking the sinner’s death of so much worth as his repentance’, ‘a Saviour of all men, most of all of believers.’ And so it will be becoming for ‘the sons of God’ too to be ‘pitiful-hearted’ and ‘peacemakers;’ ‘giving in their turn just as Christ withal hath given to us;’ ‘not judging, that we be not judged.’ For ‘to his own lord a man standeth ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 251, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On Christ. (HTML)
... the same thing which we expressed a little ago, in speaking of the image formed by the mirror. For He is the primal goodness, doubtless, out of which the Son is born, who, being in all respects the image of the Father, may certainly also be called with propriety the image of His goodness. For there is no other second goodness existing in the Son, save that which is in the Father. And therefore also the Saviour Himself rightly says in the Gospel, “There is none good save one only, God the Father,”[Luke 18:19] that by such an expression it may be understood that the Son is not of a different goodness, but of that only which exists in the Father, of whom He is rightly termed the image, because He proceeds from no other source but from that primal goodness, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 50, footnote 14 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Naasseni Ascribe Their System, Through Mariamne, to James the Lord's Brother; Really Traceable to the Ancient Mysteries; Their Psychology as Given in the “Gospel According to Thomas;” Assyrian Theory of the Soul; The Systems of the Naasseni and the Assyrians Compared; Support Drawn by the Naasseni from the Phrygian and Egyptian Mysteries; The Mysteries of Isis; These Mysteries Allegorized by the Naasseni. (HTML)
... motion.They affirm, then, concerning the substance of the seed which is a cause of all existent things, that it is none of these, but that it produces and forms all things that are made, expressing themselves thus: “I become what I wish, and I am what I am: on account of this I say, that what puts all things in motion is itself unmoved. For what exists remains forming all things, and nought of existing things is made.” He says that this (one) alone is good, and that what is spoken by the Saviour[Luke 18:19] is declared concerning this (one): “Why do you say that am good? One is good, my Father which is in the heavens, who causeth His sun to rise upon the just and unjust, and sendeth rain upon saints and sinners.” But who the saintly ones are on whom He ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 113, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book VII. (HTML)
The Heresy of Prepon; Follows Empedocles; Marcion Rejects the Generation of the Saviour. (HTML)
... instruction in the synagogues. For if He is a Mediator, He has been, he says, liberated from the entire nature of the Evil Deity. Now, as he affirms, the Demiurge is evil, and his works. For this reason, he affirms, Jesus came down unbegotten, in order that He might be liberated from all (admixture of) evil. And He has, he says, been liberated from the nature of the Good One likewise, in order that He may be a Mediator, as Paul states, and as Himself acknowledges: “Why call ye me good? there is one good.”[Luke 18:19] These, then, are the opinions of Marcion, by means of which he made many his dupes, employing the conclusions of Empedocles. And he transferred the philosophy invented by that (ancient speculator) into his own system of thought, and (out of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 249, footnote 1 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Clementine Homilies. (HTML)
Homily III. (HTML)
Teaching of Christ. (HTML)
“But to those who are persuaded that He is evil, as the Scriptures say, He said, ‘Call not me good, for One only is good.’[Luke 18:19] And again, ‘Be ye good and merciful, as your Father in the heavens, who makes the sun rise on good and evil men, and brings rain upon just and unjust.’ But to those who were misled to imagine many gods, as the Scriptures say, He said, ‘Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God is one Lord.’”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 374, footnote 3 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book VI. (HTML)
Naaman the Syrian and the Jordan. No Other Stream Has the Same Healing Power. (HTML)
... Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean,” He not only said, “I will, be thou clean,” but in addition to the word He touched him, and he was cleansed from his leprosy. Naaman, then, is still in error, and does not see how far inferior other rivers are to the Jordan for the cure of the suffering; he extols the rivers of Damascus, Arbana, and Pharpha, saying, “Are not Arbana and Pharpha, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Shall I not wash in them and be clean?” For as none is good[Luke 18:19] but one, God the Father, so among rivers none is good but the Jordan, nor able to cleanse from his leprosy him who with faith washes his soul in Jesus. And this, I suppose, is the reason why the Israelites are recorded to have wept when they sat by ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 91, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He proceeds to refute those arguments which the heretics put forward, not out of the Scriptures, but from their own conceptions. And first he refutes the objection, that to beget and to be begotten, or that to be begotten and not-begotten, being different, are therefore different substances, and shows that these things are spoken of God relatively, and not according to substance. (HTML)
Whatever is Spoken of God According to Substance, is Spoken of Each Person Severally, and Together of the Trinity Itself. One Essence in God, and Three, in Greek, Hypostases, in Latin, Persons. (HTML)
... as they perversely suppose, but of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, “Thou art great: Thou art God alone.” And the Father is good, the Son good, and the Holy Spirit good; yet not three goods, but one good, of whom it is said, “None is good, save one, that is, God.” For the Lord Jesus, lest He should be understood as man only by him who said, “Good Master,” as addressing a man, does not therefore say, There is none good, save the Father alone; but, “None is good, save one, that is, God.”[Luke 18:18-19] For the Father by Himself is declared by the name of Father; but by the name of God, both Himself and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity is one God. But position, and condition, and places, and times, are not said to be in God ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 170, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness. (HTML)
The Fourth Passage. In What Sense God Only is Good. With God to Be Good and to Be Himself are the Same Thing. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1504 (In-Text, Margin)
“They likewise,” says he, “quote what the Saviour says: ‘Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that is, God?’”[Luke 18:19] This statement, however, he makes no attempt whatever to explain; all he does is to oppose to it sundry other passages which seem to contradict it, which he adduces to show that man, too, is good. Here are his remarks: “We must answer this text with another, in which the same Lord says, ‘A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things.’ And again: ‘He maketh His sun to rise on the good and on the evil.’ ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 157, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
The Harmony of the Gospels. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Of the Little Children on Whom He Laid His Hands; Of the Rich Man to Whom He Said, ‘Sell All that Thou Hast;’ Of the Vineyard in Which the Labourers Were Hired at Different Hours; And of the Question as to the Absence of Any Discrepancy Between Matthew and the Other Two Evangelists on These Subjects. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1120 (In-Text, Margin)
... mentions what He said to those who were asking each other who should be the greatest, and next subjoins at once the passage concerning the man whom they had seen casting out devils, although he did not follow Him; then he parts company with the other two at the point where he tells us how He stedfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem; and after the interposition of a number of subjects, he joins them again in giving the story of the rich man, to whom the word is addressed, “Sell all that thou hast,”[Luke 18:18-30] which individual’s case is related here by the other two evangelists, but still in the succession which is followed by all the narratives alike. For in the passage referred to in Luke, that writer does not fail to bring in the story of the little ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 295, footnote 1 (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. vii. 7, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you;’ etc. An exhortation to alms-deeds. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2138 (In-Text, Margin)
... to them that ask Him? Though ye be evil,” He saith, “ye know how to give good gifts unto your children.” A marvellous thing, Brethren! we are evil: yet have we a good Father. What is more evident? We have heard our proper name: “Though ye be evil, ye know how to give good gifts unto your children.” And now see what kind of Father He showeth them, whom he called evil. “How much more shall your Father?” Father of whom? undoubtedly of the evil. And what kind of Father? “None is good but God only.”[Luke 18:19]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 82, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians. (HTML)
Homilies on Ephesians. (HTML)
Ephesians 3:8-11 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 258 (In-Text, Margin)
It seems necessary to state what are meant by “families.” (πατριαί) Here on earth, indeed there are “families” that is races sprung from one parent stock; but in heaven how can this be, where none is born of another? Surely then, by “families,”[Luke 18:19] he means either the assemblies and orders of heavenly beings; as also we find it written in Scripture, “the family of Amattari:” (1 Sam. x. 21. See Septuagint.) or else that it is from Him from whom earthly fathers have their name of father.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 397, footnote 9 (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; Eighthly, John xvii. 3. and the Like. Our Lord's divinity cannot interfere with His Father's prerogatives, as the One God, which were so earnestly upheld by the Son. 'One' is used in contrast to false gods and idols, not to the Son, through whom the Father spoke. Our Lord adds His Name to the Father's, as included in Him. The Father the First, not as if the Son were not First too, but as Origin. (HTML)
... Absalom, so also the Father looks upon the Son, then let Him utter and urge such words against Himself, lest He the Son, calling Himself God, make any to revolt from the Father. But if he who knows the Son, on the contrary, knows the Father, the Son Himself revealing Him to him, and in the Word he shall rather see the Father, as has been said, and if the Son on coming, glorified not Himself but the Father, saying to one who came to Him, ‘Why callest thou Me good? none is good save One, that is, God[Luke 18:19];’ and to one who asked, what was the great commandment in the Law, answering, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord;’ and saying to the multitudes, ‘I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me;’ and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 314, footnote 10 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Fourth Theological Oration, Which is the Second Concerning the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3661 (In-Text, Margin)
XIII. The eighth passage is, That they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent; and There is none good save one, that is, God.[Luke 18:19] The solution of this appears to me very easy. For if you attribute this only to the Father, where will you place the Very Truth? For if you conceive in this manner of the meaning of To the only wise God, or Who only hath Immortality, Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, or of to the king of the Ages, immortal, invisible, and only wise God, then the Son has vanished under sentence of death, or of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 117, footnote 8 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the Cæsareans. A defence of his withdrawal, and concerning the faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1796 (In-Text, Margin)
... the case of an individual, as for instance of Paul, that he alone was caught into the third heaven and “heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” and of human nature, as when David says, “as for man his days are as grass,” not meaning any particular man, but human nature generally; for every man is short-lived and mortal. So we understand these words to be said of the nature, “who alone hath immortality” and “to God only wise,” and “none is good save one, that is God,”[Luke 18:19] for here “one” means the same as alone. So also, “which alone spreadest out the heavens,” and again “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.” “There is no God beside me.” In Scripture “one” and “only” are not predicated of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 47, footnote 4 (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 I (HTML)
... invalidate the birth of God the Only-begotten;—heretics who ignore the mystery of the revelation hidden from the beginning of the world, and forget that the Gospel faith proclaims the union of God and man. For their denial that our Lord Jesus Christ is God, like unto God and equal with God as Son with Father, born of God and by right of His birth subsisting as very Spirit, they are accustomed to appeal to such words of our Lord as, Why callest thou Me good? None is good save One, even God[Luke 18:19]. They argue that by His reproof of the man who called Him good, and by His assertion of the goodness of God only, He excludes Himself from the goodness of that God Who alone is good and from that true Divinity which belongs only to One. With this ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 48, footnote 7 (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 I (HTML)
... distortion and perversion of the meaning of Christ’s words. We account for those words by stating what manner of questions He was answering, at what times He was speaking, what partial knowledge He was deigning to impart; we make the circumstances explain the words, and do not force the former into consistency with the latter. Thus each case of variance, that for instance between The Father is greater than I, and I and the Father are One, or between None is good save One, even God[Luke 18:19], and He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also, or a difference so wide as that between Father, all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine, and That they may know Thee, the only true God, or between I in the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 381, footnote 9 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Virgins. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter I. St. Ambrose now goes back to the address of Liberius when he gave the veil to Marcellina. Touching on the crowds pressing to the bridal feast of that Spouse Who feeds them all, he passes on to the fitness of her profession on the day on which Christ was born of a Virgin, and concludes with a fervent exhortation to love Him. (HTML)
3. Love him, my daughter, for He is good. For, “None is good save God only.”[Luke 18:19] For if there be no doubt that the Son is God, and that God is good, there is certainly no doubt that God the Son is good. Love Him I say. He it is Whom the Father begat before the morning star, as being eternal, He brought Him forth from the womb as the Son; He uttered him from His heart, as the Word. He it is in Whom the Father is well pleased; He is the Arm of the Father, for He is Creator of all, and the Wisdom of the Father, for He proceeded from the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 521, footnote 6 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXIII. The Third Conference of Abbot Theonas. On Sinlessness. (HTML)
Chapter IV. How man's goodness and righteousness are not good if compared with the goodness and righteousness of God. (HTML)
... called good in the gospel, as a good tree, and good treasure, and a good man, and a good servant, for He says: “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit;” and: “a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things;” and: “Well done, good and faithful servant;” and certainly there can be no doubt that none of these are good in themselves, yet if we take into consideration the goodness of God, none of them will be called good, as the Lord says: “None is good save God alone”?[Luke 18:19] In whose sight even the apostles themselves, who in the excellence of their calling in many ways went beyond the goodness of mankind, are said to be evil, as the Lord thus speaks to them: “If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts to your ...