Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
John 4:24
There are 49 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 574, footnote 21 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenæus (HTML)
XXXVII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4874 (In-Text, Margin)
... declares in the Apocalypse: “The incense is the prayers of the saints.” Then again, Paul exhorts us “to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” And again, “Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips.” Now those oblations are not according to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord took away from the midst by cancelling it; but they are according to the Spirit, for we must worship God “in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:24] And therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a carnal one, but a spiritual; and in this respect it is pure. For we make an oblation to God of the bread and the cup of blessing, giving Him thanks in that He has commanded the earth to bring ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 66, footnote 6 (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 429 (In-Text, Margin)
... 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 die than show myself false and ungrateful. Our God did not begin to be in time: He alone is without beginning, and He Himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit,[John 4:24] not pervading matter, but the Maker of material spirits, and of the forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being Himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things. Him we know from His creation, and apprehend His invisible ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 495, footnote 20 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Hermogenes. (HTML)
The Account of the Creation in Genesis a General One, Corroborated, However, by Many Other Passages of the Old Testament, Which Give Account of Specific Creations. Further Cavillings Confuted. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 6466 (In-Text, Margin)
... Of darkness, indeed, the Lord Himself by Isaiah says, “I formed the light, and I created darkness.” Of the wind also Amos says, “He that strengtheneth the thunder, and createth the wind, and declareth His Christ unto men;” thus showing that that wind was created which was reckoned with the formation of the earth, which was wafted over the waters, balancing and refreshing and animating all things: not (as some suppose) meaning God Himself by the spirit, on the ground that “God is a Spirit,”[John 4:24] because the waters would not be able to bear up their Lord; but He speaks of that spirit of which the winds consist, as He says by Isaiah, “Because my spirit went forth from me, and I made every blast.” In like manner the same Wisdom says of the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 551, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
The Earthy Material of Which Flesh is Created Wonderfully Improved by God's Manipulation. By the Addition of the Soul in Man's Constitution It Became the Chief Work in the Creation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7340 (In-Text, Margin)
... ignominious a consignment secure, of course, its condemnation. Well, then, has He placed, or rather inserted and commingled, it with the flesh? Yes; and so intimate is the union, that it may be deemed to be uncertain whether the flesh bears about the soul, or the soul the flesh; or whether the flesh acts as apparitor to the soul, or the soul to the flesh. It is, however, more credible that the soul has service rendered to it, and has the mastery, as being more proximate in character to God.[John 4:24] This circumstance even redounds to the glory of the flesh, inasmuch as it both contains an essence nearest to God’s, and renders itself a partaker of (the soul’s) actual sovereignty. For what enjoyment of nature is there, what produce of the world, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 602, footnote 12 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
The Son by Being Designated Word and Wisdom, (According to the Imperfection of Human Thought and Language) Liable to Be Deemed a Mere Attribute. He is Shown to Be a Personal Being. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7843 (In-Text, Margin)
... nothing can be made by that which is a void and empty thing. Is that Word of God, then, a void and empty thing, which is called the Son, who Himself is designated God? “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is written, “Thou shalt not take God’s name in vain.” This for certain is He “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” In what form of God? Of course he means in some form, not in none. For who will deny that God is a body, although “God is a Spirit?”[John 4:24] For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form. Now, even if invisible things, whatsoever they be, have both their substance and their form in God, whereby they are visible to God alone, how much more shall that which has been ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 690, footnote 14 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Prayer. (HTML)
Of the Spiritual Victim, Which Prayer is. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8938 (In-Text, Margin)
... victim which has abolished the pristine sacrifices. “To what purpose,” saith He, “(bring ye) me the multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of holocausts of rams, and I desire not the fat of rams, and the blood of bulls and of goats. For who hath required these from your hands?” What, then, God has required the Gospel teaches. “An hour will come,” saith He, “when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and truth. For God is a Spirit, and accordingly requires His adorers to be such.”[John 4:23-24] We are the true adorers and the true priests, who, praying in spirit, sacrifice, in spirit, prayer,—a victim proper and acceptable to God, which assuredly He has required, which He has looked forward to for Himself! This victim, devoted from ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 85, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
From Parables Tertullian Comes to Consider Definite Acts of the Lord. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 819 (In-Text, Margin)
... parables indeed has by this time been disposed of. If, however, the Lord, by His deeds withal, issued any such proclamation in favour of sinners; as when He permitted contact even with his own body to the “woman, a sinner,”—washing, as she did, His feet with tears, and wiping them with her hair, and inaugurating His sepulture with ointment; as when to the Samaritaness—not an adulteress by her now sixth marriage, but a prostitute—He showed (what He did show readily to any one) who He was;[John 4:1-25] —no benefit is hence conferred upon our adversaries, even if it had been to such as were already Christians that He (in these several cases) granted pardon. For we now affirm: This is lawful to the Lord alone: may the power of His indulgence be ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 242, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On God. (HTML)
1. I know that some will attempt to say that, even according to the declarations of our own Scriptures, God is a body, because in the writings of Moses they find it said, that “our God is a consuming fire;” and in the Gospel according to John, that “God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:24] Fire and spirit, according to them, are to be regarded as nothing else than a body. Now, I should like to ask these persons what they have to say respecting that passage where it is declared that God is light; as John writes in his Epistle, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” Truly He is that light ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 243, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On God. (HTML)
... God was less rightly or duly worshipped, according to the privileges of the different localities, either by the Jews in Jerusalem or by the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, the Saviour answered that he who would follow the Lord must lay aside all preference for particular places, and thus expressed Himself: “The hour is coming when neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain shall the true worshippers worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:23-24] And observe how logically He has joined together the spirit and the truth: He called God a Spirit, that He might distinguish Him from bodies; and He named Him the truth, to distinguish Him from a shadow or an image. For they who worshipped in ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 460, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter LXXI (HTML)
... any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” He, treating of Deity, stated to His true disciples the doctrine regarding God; and we, discovering traces of such teaching in the Scripture narratives, take occasion from such to aid our theological conceptions, hearing it declared in one passage, that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all;” and in another, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:24] But the purposes for which the Father sent Him are innumerable; and these any one may ascertain who chooses, partly from the prophets who prophesied of Him, and partly from the narratives of the evangelists. And not a few things also will he learn ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 606, footnote 13 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter LXX (HTML)
... is apparent to the senses,” while by the “spirit” that which is the object of the “understanding.” It is the same, too, with the expression, “God is a Spirit.” And because the prescriptions of the law were obeyed both by Samaritans and Jews in a corporeal and literal manner, our Saviour said to the Samaritan woman, “The hour is coming, when neither in Jerusalem, nor in this mountain, shall ye worship the Father. God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:24] And by these words He taught men that God must be worshipped not in the flesh, and with fleshly sacrifices, but in the spirit. And He will be understood to be a Spirit in proportion as the worship rendered to Him is rendered in spirit, and with ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 616, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)
And That, Although Scripture Often Changes the Divine Appearance into a Human Form, Yet the Measure of the Divine Majesty is Not Included Within These Lineaments of Our Bodily Nature. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5048 (In-Text, Margin)
... God is not at all bounded within the restraints of a temple. It is not therefore God who is limited, but the perception of the people is limited; nor is God straitened, but the understanding of the reason of the people is held to be straitened. Finally, in the Gospel the Lord said, “The hour shall come when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father;” and gave the reasons, saying, “God is a Spirit; and those therefore who worship, must worship in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:24] Thus the divine agencies are there exhibited by means of members; it is not the appearance of God nor the bodily lineaments that are described. For when the eyes are spoken of, it is implied that He sees all things; and when the ear, it is set forth ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 43, footnote 4 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Gregory Thaumaturgus. (HTML)
Dubious or Spurious Writings. (HTML)
A Sectional Confession of Faith. (HTML)
Section X. (HTML)
And again, if the impious say, How will there not be three Gods and three Persons, on the supposition that they have one and the same divinity?—we shall reply: Just because God is the Cause and Father of the Son; and this Son is the image and offspring of the Father, and not His brother; and the Spirit in like manner is the Spirit of God, as it is written, “God is a Spirit.”[John 4:24] And in earlier times we have this declaration from the prophet David: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens stablished, and all the power of them by the breath (spirit) of His mouth.” And in the beginning of the book of the creation it is written thus: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 44, footnote 7 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Gregory Thaumaturgus. (HTML)
Dubious or Spurious Writings. (HTML)
A Sectional Confession of Faith. (HTML)
Section XIV. (HTML)
... God and in the things that are made, because none of these is in substance God. Nor, indeed, is the Lord one of these according to substance, but there is one Lord the Son, and one Holy Spirit; and we speak also of one Divinity, and one Lordship, and one Sanctity in the Trinity; because the Father is the Cause of the Lord, having begotten Him eternally, and the Lord is the Prototype of the Spirit. For thus the Father is Lord, and the Son also is God; and of God it is said that “God is a Spirit.”[John 4:24]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 92, footnote 4 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Dionysius. (HTML)
Extant Fragments. (HTML)
Containing Various Sections of the Works. (HTML)
Epistle to Dionysius Bishop of Rome. (HTML)
4. Since, therefore, the Father is eternal, the Son also is eternal, Light of Light. For where there is the begetter, there is also the offspring. And if there is no offspring, how and of what can He be the begetter? But both are, and always are. Since, then, God is the Light, Christ is the Brightness. And since He is a Spirit—for says He, “God is a Spirit”[John 4:24] —fittingly again is Christ called Breath; for “He,” saith He, “is the breath of God’s power.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 76, footnote 29 (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 XXI. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1508 (In-Text, Margin)
... this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem [25] is the place in which worship must be. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe me, an hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, shall ye worship [26] the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not: but we worship that which [27] we know: for salvation is of the Jews. But an hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: and the Father also [28] seeketh such as these worshippers.[John 4:24] For God is a Spirit: and they that worship him [29] must worship him in spirit and in truth. That woman said unto him, I know that [30] the Messiah cometh: and when he is come, he will teach us everything. Jesus said unto her, I that speak unto thee ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 64, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth years of his age, passed at Carthage, when, having completed his course of studies, he is caught in the snares of a licentious passion, and falls into the errors of the Manichæans. (HTML)
He Attacks the Doctrine of the Manichæans Concerning Evil, God, and the Righteousness of the Patriarchs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 243 (In-Text, Margin)
... esteemed righteous who had many wives at once and did kill men, and sacrificed living creatures?” At which things I, in my ignorance, was much disturbed, and, retreating from the truth, I appeared to myself to be going towards it; because as yet I knew not that evil was naught but a privation of good, until in the end it ceases altogether to be; which how should I see, the sight of whose eyes saw no further than bodies, and of my mind no further than a phantasm? And I knew not God to be a Spirit,[John 4:24] not one who hath parts extended in length and breadth, nor whose being was bulk; for every bulk is less in a part than in the whole, and, if it be infinite, it must be less in such part as is limited by a certain space than in its infinity; and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 260, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam’s sin. (HTML)
How We Must Understand that Breathing of God by Which ‘The First Man Was Made a Living Soul,’ And that Also by Which the Lord Conveyed His Spirit to His Disciples When He Said, ‘Receive Ye the Holy Ghost.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 632 (In-Text, Margin)
... earth?” or of that physical spirit which is called wind, for so the Psalmist calls it: “Fire and hail; snow and vapors; stormy wind;” or of the uncreated Creator Spirit, of whom the Lord said in the gospel, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” indicating the gift by the breathing of His mouth; and when He says, “Go ye and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” words which very expressly and excellently commend the Trinity; and where it is said, “God is a Spirit;”[John 4:24] and in very many other places of the sacred writings. In all these quotations from Scripture we do not find in the Greek the word πνοή used, but πνεῦμα, and in the Latin, not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 93, footnote 2 (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)
What is Said Relatively in the Trinity. (HTML)
... metaphorically, in respect to the creature, on account of the adoption of sons. For that which is written, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord,” ought certainly not to be understood as if the Son were excepted, or the Holy Spirit were excepted; which one Lord our God we rightly call also our Father, as regenerating us by His grace. Neither can the Trinity in any wise be called the Son, but it can be called, in its entirety, the Holy Spirit, according to that which is written, “God is a Spirit;”[John 4:24] because both the Father is a spirit and the Son is a spirit, and the Father is holy and the Son is holy. Therefore, since the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, and certainly God is holy, and God is a spirit, the Trinity can be called ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 195, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He speaks of the true wisdom of man, viz. that by which he remembers, understands, and loves God; and shows that it is in this very thing that the mind of man is the image of God, although his mind, which is here renewed in the knowledge of God, will only then be made the perfect likeness of God in that image when there shall be a perfect sight of God. (HTML)
How the Image of God is Formed Anew in Man. (HTML)
... expressed in another place by “after the image of God.” But it lost righteousness and true holiness by sinning, through which that image became defaced and tarnished; and this it recovers when it is formed again and renewed. But when he says, “In the spirit of your mind,” he does not intend to be understood of two things, as though mind were one, and the spirit of the mind another; but he speaks thus, because all mind is spirit, but all spirit is not mind. For there is a Spirit also that is God,[John 4:24] which cannot be renewed, because it cannot grow old. And we speak also of a spirit in man distinct from the mind, to which spirit belong the images that are formed after the likeness of bodies; and of this the apostle speaks to the Corinthians, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 202, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He embraces in a brief compendium the contents of the previous books; and finally shows that the Trinity, in the perfect sight of which consists the blessed life that is promised us, is here seen by us as in a glass and in an enigma, so long as it is seen through that image of God which we ourselves are. (HTML)
How Difficult It is to Demonstrate the Trinity by Natural Reason. (HTML)
... to some limited number. For that which is called life in God, is itself His essence and nature. God, therefore, does not live, unless by the life which He is to Himself. And this life is not such as that which is in a tree, wherein is neither understanding nor sense; nor such as is in a beast, for the life of a beast possesses the fivefold sense, but has no understanding. But the life which is God perceives and understands all things, and perceives by mind, not by body, because “God is a spirit.”[John 4:24] And God does not perceive through a body, as animals do, which have bodies, for He does not consist of soul and body. And hence that single nature perceives as it understands, and understands as it perceives, and its sense and understanding are one ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 215, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He embraces in a brief compendium the contents of the previous books; and finally shows that the Trinity, in the perfect sight of which consists the blessed life that is promised us, is here seen by us as in a glass and in an enigma, so long as it is seen through that image of God which we ourselves are. (HTML)
How the Holy Spirit is Called Love, and Whether He Alone is So Called. That the Holy Spirit is in the Scriptures Properly Called by the Name of Love. (HTML)
... because our patience is God’s substance, but in that He Himself gives it to us; as it is elsewhere read, “Since from Him is my patience.” For the usage of words itself in Scripture sufficiently refutes this interpretation; for “Thou art my patience” is of the same kind as “Thou, Lord, art my hope,” and “The Lord my God is my mercy,” and many like texts. And it is not said, O Lord my love, or, Thou art my love, or, God my love; but it is said thus, “God is love,” as it is said, “God is a Spirit.”[John 4:24] And he who does not discern this, must ask understanding from the Lord, not an explanation from us; for we cannot say anything more clearly.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 330, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
A Treatise on Faith and the Creed. (HTML)
Of the Holy Spirit and the Mystery of the Trinity. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1623 (In-Text, Margin)
... called the Spirit of sanctity (Spiritus Sanctus), inasmuch as all things that are sanctioned (sanciuntur) are sanctioned with a view to their permanence, and there is no doubt that the term sanctity (sanctitatem) is derived from sanction (a sanciendo). Above all, however, that testimony is employed by the upholders of this opinion, where it is thus written, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit;” “for God is a Spirit.”[John 4:24] For here He speaks of our regeneration, which is not, according to Adam, of the flesh, but, according to Christ, of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, if in this passage mention is made of the Holy Spirit, when it is said, “For God is a Spirit,” they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 484, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
In which is considered the Council of Carthage, held under the authority and presidency of Cyprian, to determine the question of the baptism of heretics. (HTML)
Chapter 12 (HTML)
... Catholic Church. For then indeed will they be able to become the sons of God, as the apostle says, ‘Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.’ All this the Catholic Church asserts. And again he says in the gospel, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; for the Spirit is God, and is born of God.’[John 4:24] Therefore all things whatsoever all heretics and schismatics do are carnal, as the apostle says, ‘Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 370, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word 'Spirit.' (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2522 (In-Text, Margin)
... touching the devastation of the deluge, the Scripture testifies, “All flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: and all things which have the spirit of life.” Here, if we remove all the windings of doubtful disputation, we understand the term spirit to be synonymous with soul in its general sense. Of so wide a signification is this term, that even God is called “a spirit;”[John 4:24] and a stormy blast of the air, although it has material substance, is called by the psalmist the “spirit” of a tempest. For all these reasons, therefore, you will no longer deny that what is the soul is called also spirit; I have, I think, adduced ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 268, footnote 4 (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. Chap. v. 3 and 8, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit:' etc., but especially on that, 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.' (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1904 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou wilt venture to deny that Christ is God! “Not so,” you say. Dost thou grant this too, that “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God? “I grant it,” you say. Hear then, “The soul of the righteous is the seat of wisdom.” “Yes.” For where hath God His seat, but where He dwelleth? And where doth He dwell, but in His temple? “For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” Take heed therefore how thou dost receive God. “God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:24] Let the ark of testimony enter now into thy heart, if thou art so minded, and let Dagon fall. Now therefore give ear at once, and learn to long for God; learn to make ready that whereby thou mayest see God. “Blessed,” saith He, “are the pure in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 463, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John I. 1–II. 11. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2009 (In-Text, Margin)
... endure to be smitten upon the face by the hands which Himself had made? What would He teach? What would He show? What would He declare? Let us hear: for without the fruit of the precept the hearing of the story, how Christ was born, and how Christ suffered, is a mere pastime of the mind, not a strengthening of it. What great thing hearest thou? With what fruit thou hearest, see to that. What would He teach? What declare? Hear. That “God is light,” saith he, “and there is no darkness in Him at all.”[John 4:24] Hitherto, he hath named indeed the light, but the words are dark: good is it for us that the very light which he hath named should enlighten our hearts, and we should see what he hath said. This it is that we declare, that “God is light, and there ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 526, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John V. 7, 8; Contra Maximinum, lib. ii. c. 22 §. 3. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2544 (In-Text, Margin)
... are not one. But if we will inquire into the things signified by these, there not unreasonably comes into our thoughts the Trinity itself, which is the One, Only, True, Supreme God, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of whom it could most truly be said, “There are Three Witnesses, and the Three are One:” so that by the term Spirit we should understand God the Father to be signified; as indeed it was concerning the worshipping of Him that the Lord was speaking, when He said, “God is a Spirit:”[John 4:24] by the term, blood, the Son; because “the Word was made flesh:” and by the term water, the Holy Ghost; as, when Jesus spake of the water which He would give to them that thirst, the evangelist saith, “But this said He of the Spirit ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 195, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1866 (In-Text, Margin)
... can be made whole? Because even before that He was Son of Mary, “In the beginning He was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;” and so, by the holy fathers a future dispensation of flesh taken upon Him, was looked for; as is believed by us to have been done. Times are changed, not faith. “And with Principal Spirit confirm me.” Some have here understood the Trinity in God, Itself God; the dispensation of Flesh being excepted therefrom: since it is written, “God is a Spirit.”[John 4:24] For that which is not body, and yet is, seemeth to exist in such sort as that it is spirit. Therefore some understand here the Trinity spoken of: “In upright Spirit,” the Son; in “Holy Spirit,” Holy Ghost; in “Principal Spirit,” Father. It is not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 614, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5577 (In-Text, Margin)
... have often warned you, beloved, that it ought not to be received as the voice of one man singing, but of all who are in Christ’s Body. And since all are in His Body, as it were one man speaketh: and he is one who also is many.…Now he prayeth in the temple of God, who prayeth in the peace of the Church, in the unity of Christ’s Body; which Body of Christ consisteth of many who believe in the whole world: and therefore he who prayeth in the temple, is heard. For he prayeth in the spirit and in truth,[John 4:21-24] who prayeth in the peace of the Church; not in that temple, wherein was the figure.…
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 471, footnote 4 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. (HTML)
Homilies on 1 Timothy. (HTML)
1 Timothy 6:13-16 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1312 (In-Text, Margin)
“Whom no man hath seen nor can see.” As, indeed, no one hath seen the Son, nor can see Him.[John 4:24]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 208, footnote 3 (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 1359 (In-Text, Margin)
“The Son of Mary converses with brothers, but the only begotten has no brothers, for how could the name of only begotten be preserved among brothers? And the same Christ that said ‘God is a spirit’[John 4:24] says to His disciples ‘Handle me,’ to shew that the human nature only can be handled and that the divine is intangible; and He that said ‘I go’ indicates removal from place to place, while He that comprehends all things and ‘by Whom,’ as says the Apostle, ‘all things were created and by Whom all things consist,’ had among all existing things nothing without and beyond Himself which can stand to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 128, footnote 2 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He proceeds to discuss the views held by Eunomius, and by the Church, touching the Holy Spirit; and to show that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are not three Gods, but one God. He also discusses different senses of “Subjection,” and therein shows that the subjection of all things to the Son is the same as the subjection of the Son to the Father. (HTML)
... “Father,” that so he might not include the Son in the eternity of the Father, so he avoided employing the title Son, that he might not by it suggest His natural affinity to the Father; so here, too, he refrains from saying “Holy Spirit,” that he may not by this name acknowledge the majesty of His glory, and His complete union with the Father and the Son. For since the appellation of “Spirit,” and that of “Holy,” are by the Scriptures equally applied to the Father and the Son (for “God is a Spirit[John 4:24],” and “the anointed Lord is the Spirit before our face,” and “the Lord our God is Holy,” and there is “one Holy, one Lord Jesus Christ ”) lest there should, by the use of these terms, be bred in the minds of his readers some orthodox conception of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 120, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1752 (In-Text, Margin)
... taken. It is not, I believe, for nothing that I, like Abraham, have left my home and people. But I do not presume to limit God’s omnipotence or to restrict to a narrow strip of earth Him whom the heaven cannot contain. Each believer is judged not by his residence in this place or in that but according to the deserts of his faith. The true worshippers worship the Father neither at Jerusalem nor on mount Gerizim; for “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[John 4:24] “Now the spirit bloweth where it listeth,” and “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” When the fleece of Judæa was made dry although the whole world was wet with the dew of heaven, and when many came from the East and from the West and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 65, footnote 15 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Words, the Only-Begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father Very God Before All Ages, by Whom All Things Were Made. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1257 (In-Text, Margin)
... beginning. The one, which before He had not, He received; but the other, which He hath, He hath eternally as begotten of the Father. Two fathers He hath: one, David, according to the flesh, and one, God, His Father in a Divine manner. As the Son of David, He is subject to time, and to handling, and to genealogical descent: but as Son according to the Godhead, He is subject neither to time nor to place, nor to genealogical descent: for His generation who shall declare? God is a Spirit[John 4:24]; He who is a Spirit hath spiritually begotten, as being incorporeal, an inscrutable and incomprehensible generation. The Son Himself says of the Father, The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. Now this ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 66, footnote 8 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Words, the Only-Begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father Very God Before All Ages, by Whom All Things Were Made. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1267 (In-Text, Margin)
7. He is then the Son of God by nature and not by adoption, begotten of the Father. And he that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him; but he that despiseth Him that is begotten casts back the insult upon Him who begat. And whenever thou hear of God begetting, sink not down in thought to bodily things, nor think of a corruptible generation, lest thou be guilty of impiety. God is a Spirit[John 4:24], His generation is spiritual: for bodies beget bodies, and for the generation of bodies time needs must intervene; but time intervenes not in the generation of the Son from the Father. And in our case what is begotten is begotten imperfect: but the Son of God was begotten perfect; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 132, footnote 12 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
Continuation of the Discourse on the Holy Ghost. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2228 (In-Text, Margin)
... sacred Scriptures those of you who are diligent come to understand these things, and by this time, both from these present Lectures, and from what has before been told you, hold more steadfastly the Faith in “ One God the Father Almighty; and in our Lord Jesus Christ, His Only-Begotten Son; and in the Holy Ghost the Comforter.” Though the word itself and title of Spirit is applied to Them in common in the sacred Scriptures,—for it is said of the Father, God is a Spirit[John 4:24], as it is written in the Gospel according to John; and of the Son, A Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, as Jeremias the prophet says; and of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, as was said;—yet the arrangement of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 321, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Fifth Theological Oration. On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3712 (In-Text, Margin)
... who in ancient or modern times ever worshipped the Spirit? Who ever prayed to Him? Where is it written that we ought to worship Him, or to pray to Him, and whence have you derived this tenet of yours? We will give the more perfect reason hereafter, when we discuss the question of the unwritten; for the present it will suffice to say that it is the Spirit in Whom we worship, and in Whom we pray. For Scripture says, God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.[John 4:24] And again,—We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered; and I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the understanding also; —that is, in the mind ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 15, footnote 6 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Definitive conceptions about the Spirit which conform to the teaching of the Scriptures. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 916 (In-Text, Margin)
... lifted up in soul, who does not raise his conception to the supreme nature? It is called “Spirit of God,” “Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father,” “right Spirit,” “a leading Spirit.” Its proper and peculiar title is “Holy Spirit;” which is a name specially appropriate to everything that is incorporeal, purely immaterial, and indivisible. So our Lord, when teaching the woman who thought God to be an object of local worship that the incorporeal is incomprehensible, said “God is a spirit.”[John 4:24] On our hearing, then, of a spirit, it is impossible to form the idea of a nature circumscribed, subject to change and variation, or at all like the creature. We are compelled to advance in our conceptions to the highest, and to think of an ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 29, footnote 16 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
In what manner in the confession of the three hypostases we preserve the pious dogma of the Monarchia. Wherein also is the refutation of them that allege that the Spirit is subnumerated. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1108 (In-Text, Margin)
... ween, is with us inseparably the Spirit of knowledge, in Himself bestowing on them that love the vision of the truth the power of beholding the Image, not making the exhibition from without, but in Himself leading on to the full knowledge. “No man knoweth the Father save the Son.” And so “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost.” For it is not said through the Spirit, but by the Spirit, and “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,”[John 4:24] as it is written “in thy light shall we see light,” namely by the illumination of the Spirit, “the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” It results that in Himself He shows the glory of the Only begotten, and on true ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 30, footnote 5 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Against those who assert that the Spirit ought not to be glorified. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1115 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Spirit, “passing all understanding,” if His communion with the Father and the Son were not reckoned by our opponents as good for testimony of His rank? It is, at all events, possible for us to arrive to a certain extent at intelligent apprehension of the sublimity of His nature and of His unapproachable power, by looking at the meaning of His title, and at the magnitude of His operations, and by His good gifts bestowed on us or rather on all creation. He is called Spirit, as “God is a Spirit,”[John 4:24] and “the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord.” He is called holy, as the Father is holy, and the Son is holy, for to the creature holiness was brought in from without, but to the Spirit holiness is the fulfilment of nature, and it is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 40, footnote 6 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
That the word “in,” in as many senses as it bears, is understood of the Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1266 (In-Text, Margin)
... may however be given to the phrase, that just as the Father is seen in the Son, so is the Son in the Spirit. The “worship in the Spirit” suggests the idea of the operation of our intelligence being carried on in the light, as may be learned from the words spoken to the woman of Samaria. Deceived as she was by the customs of her country into the belief that worship was local, our Lord, with the object of giving her better instruction, said that worship ought to be offered “in Spirit and in Truth,”[John 4:24] plainly meaning by the Truth, Himself. As then we speak of the worship offered in the Image of God the Father as worship in the Son, so too do we speak of worship in the Spirit as shewing in Himself the Godhead of the Lord. Wherefore even in our ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 60, 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 II (HTML)
31. But the words of the Gospel, For God is Spirit[John 4:24], need careful examination as to their sense and their purpose. For every saying has an antecedent cause and an aim which must be ascertained by study of the meaning. We must bear this in mind lest, on the strength of the words, God is Spirit, we deny not only the Name, but also the work and the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Lord was speaking with a woman of Samaria, for He had come to be the Redeemer for all mankind. After He had discoursed at length of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 73, footnote 16 (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 IV (HTML)
... live and move and have our being, and the psalmist, Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, and whither shall I fly from Thy face? If I climb up into heaven, Thou art there; if I go down to hell, Thou art present. If I take my wings before the light and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even thither Thy hand shall lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me; that He is without body, for it is written, For God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth[John 4:24]; that He is immortal and invisible, as Paul says, Who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen nor can see, and the Evangelist, No one hath seen God at any time, except the Only-begotten Son, which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 146, footnote 5 (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 VIII (HTML)
... and in the Spirit (for to be given through the Spirit and in the Spirit is not the same thing), because the granting of a gift which is exercised in the Spirit is yet bestowed through the Spirit. But he sums up these diversities of gifts thus: Now all these things worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one as He will. Now, therefore, I ask what Spirit works these things, dividing to each one according as He wills: is it He by Whom or He in Whom there is this distribution of gifts[John 4:24]? But if any one shall dare to say that it is the same Person which is indicated, the Apostle will refute so faulty an opinion, for he says above, And there are diversities of workings, but the same God Who worketh all things in all. So there ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 107, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter IX. The Holy Spirit is rightly called the ointment of Christ, and the oil of gladness; and why Christ Himself is not the ointment, since He was anointed with the Holy Spirit. It is not strange that the Spirit should be called Ointment, since the Father and the Son are also called Spirit. And there is no confusion between them, since Christ alone suffered death, Whose saving cross is then spoken of. (HTML)
105. But what wonder, since both the Father and the Son are said to be Spirit. Of which we shall speak more fully when we begin to speak of the Unity of the Name. Yet since most suitable place occurs here, that we may not seem to have passed on without a conclusion, let them read that both the Father is called Spirit, as the Lord said in the Gospel, “for God is Spirit;”[John 4:24] and Christ is called Spirit, for Jeremiah said: “The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 145, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XI. The objection has been made, that the words of St. John, “The Spirit is God,” are to be referred to God the Father; since Christ afterwards declares that God is to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth. The answer is, first, that by the word Spirit is sometimes meant spiritual grace; next, it is shown that, if they insist that the Person of the Holy Spirit is signified by the words “in Spirit,” and therefore deny that adoration is due to Him, the argument tells equally against the Son; and since numberless passages prove that He is to be worshipped, we understand from this that the same rule is to be laid down as regards the Spirit. Why are we commanded to fall down before His footstool? Because by this signified Lord's (HTML)
69. But perhaps reference may be made to the fact that in a later passage of the same book, the Lord again said that God is Spirit, but spoke of God the Father. For you have this passage in the Gospel: “The hour now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for such also doth the Father seek. God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth.”[John 4:23-24] By this passage you wish not only to deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit, but also, from God being worshipped in Spirit, deduce a subjection of the Spirit.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 205, footnote 7 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter IV. The Unity of God is necessarily implied in the order of Nature, in the Faith, and in Baptism. The gifts of the Magi declare (1) the Unity of the Godhead; (2) Christ's Godhead and Manhood. The truth of the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity is shown in the Angel walking in the midst of the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. (HTML)
31. All nature testifies to the Unity of God, inasmuch as the universe is one. The Faith declares that there is one God, seeing that there is one belief in both the Old and the New Testament. That there is one Spirit, all holy,[John 4:24] grace witnesseth, because there is one Baptism, in the Name of the Trinity. The prophets proclaim, the apostles hear, the voice of one God. In one God did the Magi believe, and they brought, in adoration, gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Christ’s cradle, confessing, by the gift of gold, His Royalty, and with the incense worshipping Him as God. For gold is the sign of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 267, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter IV. The passage quoted adversely by heretics, namely, “The Son can do nothing of Himself,” is first explained from the words which follow; then, the text being examined, word by word, their acceptation in the Arian sense is shown to be impossible without incurring the charge of impiety or absurdity, the proof resting chiefly on the creation of the world and certain miracles of Christ. (HTML)
42. But what are we to understand by “hath seen”? Has the Son any need of bodily eyes? Nay, if they will affirm this of the Son, they will make out in the Father also a need of bodily activity,[John 4:24] in order that the Son may see that which He Himself is to do.