Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
John 8:36
There are 20 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 448, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XIX.—Jesus Christ was not a mere man, begotten from Joseph in the ordinary course of nature, but was very God, begotten of the Father most high, and very man, born of the Virgin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3665 (In-Text, Margin)
1. But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”[John 8:36] But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: “I said, Ye are all the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 215, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter VI.—The Name Children Does Not Imply Instruction in Elementary Principles. (HTML)
... carping. For we are not termed children and infants with reference to the childish and contemptible character of our education, as those who are inflated on account of knowledge have calumniously alleged. Straightway, on our regeneration, we attained that perfection after which we aspired. For we were illuminated, which is to know God. He is not then imperfect who knows what is perfect. And do not reprehend me when I profess to know God; for so it was deemed right to speak to the Word, and He is free.[John 8:35-36] For at the moment of the Lord’s baptism there sounded a voice from heaven, as a testimony to the Beloved, “Thou art My beloved Son, to-day have I begotten Thee.” Let us then ask the wise, Is Christ, begotten to-day, already perfect, or—what were ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 352, footnote 9 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter V.—He Proves by Several Examples that the Greeks Drew from the Sacred Writers. (HTML)
... Alcibiades he calls vice a servile thing, and virtue the attribute of freemen. “Take away from you the heavy yoke, and take up the easy one,” says the Scripture; as also the poets call [vice] a slavish yoke. And the expression, “Ye have sold yourselves to your sins,” agrees with what is said above: “Every one, then, who committeth sin is a slave; and the slave abideth not in the house for ever. But if the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free, and the truth shall make you free.”[John 8:32-36]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 247, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
The Enchiridion. (HTML)
Men are Not Saved by Good Works, Nor by the Free Determination of Their Own Will, But by the Grace of God Through Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1127 (In-Text, Margin)
... the servant of sin is free to sin. And hence he will not be free to do right, until, being freed from sin, he shall begin to be the servant of righteousness. And this is true liberty, for he has pleasure in the righteous deed; and it is at the same time a holy bondage, for he is obedient to the will of God. But whence comes this liberty to do right to the man who is in bondage and sold under sin, except he be redeemed by Him who has said, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed?”[John 8:36] And before this redemption is wrought in a man, when he is not yet free to do what is right, how can he talk of the freedom of his will and his good works, except he be inflated by that foolish pride of boasting which the apostle restrains when he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 75, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
On the Morals of the Manichæans. (HTML)
The Value of the Symbol of the Mouth Among the Manichæans, Who are Found Guilty of Blaspheming God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 169 (In-Text, Margin)
... the soul into truth, since it is not in folly; nor is the soul renewed by true religion, since it does not need renewal; nor is it perfected by your symbols, since it is already perfect; nor does God give it assistance, since it does not need it; nor is Christ its physician, since it is in health; nor does it require the promise of happiness in another life. Why then is Jesus called the deliverer, according to His own words in the Gospel, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed?"[John 8:36] And the Apostle Paul says, "Ye have been called to liberty." The soul, then, which has not attained this liberty is in bondage. Therefore, according to you, God, since part of God is God, is both corrupted by folly, and is changed by falling, and is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 186, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus denies that the prophets predicted Christ. Augustin proves such prediction from the New Testament, and expounds at length the principal types of Christ in the Old Testament. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 429 (In-Text, Margin)
... sin in killing his innocent brother. So also the Jews, of whom all these things are a figure, if they had been content, instead of being turbulent, and had acknowledged the time of salvation through the pardon of sins by grace, and heard Christ saying, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance;" and, "Every one that committeth sin is the servant of sin;" and, "If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed,"[John 8:36] —they would in confession have referred their sin to themselves, saying to the Physician, as it is written in the Psalm, "I said, Lord, be merciful to me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee." And being made free by the hope of grace, they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 47, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Four Questions on the Perfection of Righteousness: (1.) Whether a Man Can Be Without Sin in This Life. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 480 (In-Text, Margin)
... whom, however, he directs his wish,—not to fortune, or fate, or some one else besides God,—he shows with sufficient clearness in the following words, where he says: “Order my steps in Thy word; and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” From the thraldom of this execrable dominion they are liberated, to whom the Lord Jesus gave power to become the sons of God. From so horrible a domination were they to be freed, to whom He says, “If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed.”[John 8:36] From these and many other like testimonies, I cannot doubt that God has laid no impossible command on man; and that, by God’s aid and help, nothing is impossible, by which is wrought what He commands. In this way may a man, if he pleases, be without ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 106, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
Grace Establishes Free Will. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1004 (In-Text, Margin)
... Lord is, there is liberty.” If, therefore, they are the slaves of sin, why do they boast of free will? For by what a man is overcome, to the same is he delivered as a slave. But if they have been freed, why do they vaunt themselves as if it were by their own doing, and boast, as if they had not received? Or are they free in such sort that they do not choose to have Him for their Lord who says to them: “Without me ye can do nothing;” and “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed?”[John 8:36]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 285, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Augustin Refutes the Passage Adduced Above. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2206 (In-Text, Margin)
Well, now, whoever you are that have said all this, what you say is by no means true; by no means, I repeat; you are much deceived, or you aim at deceiving others. We do not deny free will; but, even as the Truth declares, “if the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed.”[John 8:36] It is yourselves who invidiously deny this Liberator, since you ascribe a vain liberty to yourselves in your captivity. Captives you are; for “of whom a man is overcome,” as the Scripture says, “of the same is he brought in bondage;” and no one except by the grace of the great Liberator is loosed from the chain of this bondage, from which no man living ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 378, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Free Choice Did Not Perish With Adam ’s Sin. What Freedom Did Perish. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2529 (In-Text, Margin)
... hasten to confide rather in it for doing righteousness than in God’s aid, and to glory every one in himself, and not in the Lord. But who of us will say that by the sin of the first man free will perished from the human race? Through sin freedom indeed perished, but it was that freedom which was in Paradise, to have a full righteousness with immortality; and it is on this account that human nature needs divine grace, since the Lord says, “If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed”[John 8:36] —free of course to live well and righteously. For free will in the sinner up to this extent did not perish,—that by it all sin, especially they who sin with delight and with love of sin; what they are pleased to do gives them pleasure. Whence also ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 378, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Free Choice Did Not Perish With Adam ’s Sin. What Freedom Did Perish. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2532 (In-Text, Margin)
... had ye, then, in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being freed from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life.” He called them “free” from righteousness, not “freed;” but from sin not “free,” lest they should attribute this to themselves, but most watchfully he preferred to say “freed,” referring this to that declaration of the Lord, “If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed.”[John 8:36] Since, then, the sons of men do not live well unless they are made the sons of God, why is it that this writer wishes to give the power of good living to free will, when this power is not given save by God’s grace through Jesus Christ our Lord, as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 392, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
The Heresies of the Manicheans and Pelagians are Mutually Opposed, and are Alike Reprobated by the Catholic Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2624 (In-Text, Margin)
... may allow it as an evil sickness to be cured—the former by ceasing to believe it, as it were, incurable, the latter by ceasing to proclaim it as laudable. The Manicheans deny that to a good man the beginning of evil came from free will; the Pelagians say that even a bad man has free will sufficiently to perform the good commandment. The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the former, “God made man upright,” and saying to the latter, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”[John 8:36] The Manicheans say that the soul, as a particle of God, has sin by the commixture of an evil nature; the Pelagians say that the soul is upright, not indeed a particle, but a creature of God, and has not even in this corruptible life any sin. The ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 472, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace. (HTML)
The Catholic Faith Concerning Law, Grace, and Free Will. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3243 (In-Text, Margin)
... determine his way”? And thus also to desire the help of grace is the beginning of grace; of which, says he, “And I said, Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High.” It is to be confessed, therefore, that we have free choice to do both evil and good; but in doing evil every one is free from righteousness and a servant of sin, while in doing good no one can be free, unless he have been made free by Him who said, “If the Son shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed.”[John 8:36] Neither is it thus, that when any one has been made free from the dominion of sin, he no longer needs the help of his Deliverer; but rather thus, that hearing from Him, “Without me ye can do nothing,” he himself also says to Him, “Be thou my helper! ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 486, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace. (HTML)
There is a Greater Freedom Now in the Saints Than There Was Before in Adam. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3360 (In-Text, Margin)
... faithful; from whom they received the spirit, not of fear, whereby they would yield to the persecutors, but of power, and of love, and of continence, in which they could overcome all threatenings, all seductions, all torments? To him, therefore, without any sin, was given the free will with which he was created; and he made it to serve sin. But although the will of these had been the servant of sin, it was delivered by Him who said, “If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed.”[John 8:36] And by that grace they receive so great a freedom, that although as long as they live here they are fighting against sinful lusts, and some sins creep upon them unawares, on account of which they daily say, “Forgive us our debts,” yet they do not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 164, footnote 4 (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 Two Sons Who Were Commanded by Their Father to Go into His Vineyard, and of the Vineyard Which Was Let Out to Other Husbandmen; Of the Question Concerning the Consistency of Matthew’s Version of These Passages with Those Given by the Other Two Evangelists, with Whom He Retains the Same Order; As Also, in Particular, Concerning the Harmony of His Version of the Parable, Which is Recorded by All the Three, Regarding the Vineyard that Was Let Out; And in Reference Specially to the Reply Made by the Persons to Whom that Parable Was Spoken, in Relating Which Matthew Seems to Differ Somewhat from the Others. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1162 (In-Text, Margin)
... and the truth shall make you free. And they answered Him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the Son abideth for ever. If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.”[John 8:31-37] Now surely it is not to be supposed that He spake these words, “Ye seek to kill me” to those persons who had already believed on Him, and to whom He had said, “If ye abide in my word, then shall ye be my disciples indeed.” But inasmuch as He had ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 233, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
The Harmony of the Gospels. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Of the Evangelist John, and the Distinction Between Him and the Other Three. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1653 (In-Text, Margin)
... “Ye are the light of the world.” For they are compared only to the kindled light, which is not to be put beneath a bushel, but to be set upon a candlestick; as He also says of John the Baptist, that “he was a burning and shining light.” But He is Himself the beginning, of whom it is likewise declared, that “of His fulness have all we received.” On the occasion presently under review, He asserted further that He, the Son, is the Truth, which will make us free, and without which no man will be free.[John 8:36]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 32, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm IX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 330 (In-Text, Margin)
... Gentiles, it cannot properly be taken of Absalom. For the war which that abandoned one waged with his father, no way relates to the Gentiles, since there the people of Israel only were divided against themselves. This Psalm is then sung for the hidden things of the only-begotten Son of God. For the Lord Himself too, when, without addition, He uses the word Son, would have Himself, the Only-begotten to be understood; as where He says, “If the Son shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed.”[John 8:36] For He said not, the Son of God; but in saying merely, Son, He gives us to understand whose Son it is. Which form of expression nothing admits of, save His excellency of whom we so speak, that, though we name Him not, He can be understood. For so we ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 392, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3804 (In-Text, Margin)
... that labour and are heavy laden”? In another manner this same thing is signified. What the pursuit of the Egyptians did, the same thing do the burdens of sins. As if thou shouldest say, From what burdens? “His hands in the basket did serve.” By the basket are signified servile works; to cleanse, to manure, to carry earth, is done with a basket, such works are servile: because “every one that doeth sin, is the slave of sin;” and “if the Son shall have made you free, then will ye be free indeed.”[John 8:34-36] Justly also are the rejected things of the world counted as baskets, but even baskets did God fill with morsels; “Twelve baskets” did He fill with morsels; because “He chose the rejected things of this world to confound the things that were mighty.” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 385, 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 II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works. (HTML)
... as other needed it? And how, were the Word a creature, had He power to undo God’s sentence, and to remit sin, whereas it is written in the Prophets, that this is God’s doing? For ‘who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by transgression?’ For whereas God has said, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,’ men have become mortal; how then could things originate undo sin? but the Lord is He who has undone it, as He says Himself, ‘Unless the Son shall make you free[John 8:36];’ and the Son, who made free, has shewn in truth that He is no creature, nor one of things originate, but the proper Word and Image of the Father’s Essence, who at the beginning sentenced, and alone remitteth sins. For since it is said in the Word, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 388, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works. (HTML)
... those who groan, and would need one who should bring adoption and deliverance to Himself as well as others. But if the whole creation groans together, for the sake of freedom from the bondage of corruption, whereas the Son is not of those that groan nor of those who need freedom, but He it is who gives sonship and freedom to all, saying to the Jews of His time, ‘The servant remains not in the house for ever, but the Son remaineth for ever; if then the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed[John 8:35-36];’ it is clearer than the light from these considerations also, that the Word of God is not a creature but true Son, and by nature genuine, of the Father. Concerning then ‘The Lord hath created me a beginning of the ways,’ this is sufficient, as I ...