Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
John 14:6
There are 135 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 53, footnote 12 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Ephesians: Shorter and Longer Versions (HTML)
Chapter IX.—Ye have given no heed to false teachers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 550 (In-Text, Margin)
... rock, as being chosen stones, well fitted for the divine edifice of the Father, and who are raised up on high by Christ, who was crucified for you, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, and being borne up by faith, while exalted by love from earth to heaven, walking in company with those that are undefiled. For, says [the Scripture], “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” Now the way is unerring, namely, Jesus Christ. For, says He, “I am the way and the life.”[John 14:6] And this way leads to the Father. For “no man,” says He, “cometh to the Father but by Me.” Blessed, then, are ye who are God-bearers, spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 53, footnote 13 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Ephesians: Shorter and Longer Versions (HTML)
Chapter IX.—Ye have given no heed to false teachers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 551 (In-Text, Margin)
... raised up on high by Christ, who was crucified for you, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, and being borne up by faith, while exalted by love from earth to heaven, walking in company with those that are undefiled. For, says [the Scripture], “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” Now the way is unerring, namely, Jesus Christ. For, says He, “I am the way and the life.” And this way leads to the Father. For “no man,” says He, “cometh to the Father but by Me.”[John 14:6] Blessed, then, are ye who are God-bearers, spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, being “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,” on whose account I rejoice ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 84, footnote 17 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Philadelphians: Shorter and Longer Versions (HTML)
Chapter IX.—The Old Testament is good: the New Testament is better. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 958 (In-Text, Margin)
The priests indeed, and the ministers of the word, are good; but the High Priest is better, to whom the holy of holies has been committed, and who alone has been entrusted with the secrets of God. The ministering powers of God are good. The Comforter is holy, and the Word is holy, the Son of the Father, by whom He made all things, and exercises a providence over them all. This is the Way[John 14:6] which leads to the Father, the Rock, the Defence, the Key, the Shepherd, the Sacrifice, the Door of knowledge, through which have entered Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and all the company of the prophets, and these pillars of the world, the apostles, and the spouse of Christ, on whose account He ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 339, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book I (HTML)
Chapter XV.—Sige relates to Marcus the generation of the twenty-four elements and of Jesus. Exposure of these absurdities. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2858 (In-Text, Margin)
... before the Episemon of this name appeared, that is Jesus the Son, mankind were involved in great ignorance and error. But when this name of six letters was manifested (the person bearing it clothing Himself in flesh, that He might come under the apprehension of man’s senses, and having in Himself these six and twenty-four letters), then, becoming acquainted with Him, they ceased from their ignorance, and passed from death unto life, this name serving as their guide to the Father of truth.[John 14:6] For the Father of all had resolved to put an end to ignorance, and to destroy death. But this abolishing of ignorance was just the knowledge of Him. And therefore that man (Anthropos) was chosen according to His will, having been formed after the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 417, footnote 7 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter V.—Christ and His apostles, without any fraud, deception, or hypocrisy, preached that one God, the Father, was the founder of all things. They did not accommodate their doctrine to the prepossessions of their hearers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3324 (In-Text, Margin)
1. Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth,[John 14:6] and that no lie is in Him. As also David says, prophesying His birth from a virgin, and the resurrection from the dead, “Truth has sprung out of the earth.” The apostles, likewise, being disciples of the truth, are above all falsehood; for a lie has no fellowship with the truth, just as darkness has none with light, but the presence of the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 470, footnote 9 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter VII.—Recapitulation of the foregoing argument, showing that Abraham, through the revelation of the Word, knew the Father, and the coming of the Son of God. For this cause, he rejoiced to see the day of Christ, when the promises made to him should be fulfilled. The fruit of this rejoicing has flowed to posterity, viz., to those who are partakers in the faith of Abraham, but not to the Jews who reject the Word of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3876 (In-Text, Margin)
... man, unless by the Son, and to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him. But the Son reveals the Father to all to whom He wills that He should be known; and neither without the goodwill of the Father nor without the agency of the Son, can any man know God. Wherefore did the Lord say to His disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life and no man cometh unto the Father but by Me. If ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also: and from henceforth ye have both known Him, and have seen Him.”[John 14:6-7] From these words it is evident, that He is known by the Son, that is, by the Word.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 307, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter V.—Philosophy the Handmaid of Theology. (HTML)
... been well said, “My son, despise not thou the correction of God; nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” And the foresaid Scriptures, when examined in other places, will be seen to exhibit other mysteries. We merely therefore assert here, that philosophy is characterized by investigation into truth and the nature of things (this is the truth of which the Lord Himself said, “I am the truth”[John 14:6]); and that, again, the preparatory training for rest in Christ exercises the mind, rouses the intelligence, and begets an inquiring shrewdness, by means of the true philosophy, which the initiated possess, having found it, or rather received it, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 448, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter III.—The Objects of Faith and Hope Perceived by the Mind Alone. (HTML)
For he who hopes, as he who believes, sees intellectual objects and future things with the mind. If, then, we affirm that aught is just, and affirm it to be good, and we also say that truth is something, yet we have never seen any of such objects with our eyes, but with our mind alone. Now the Word of God says, “I am the truth.”[John 14:6] The Word is then to be contemplated by the mind. “Do you aver,” it was said, “that there are any true philosophers?” “Yes,” said I, “those who love to contemplate the truth.” In the Phœdrus also, Plato, speaking of the truth, shows it as an idea. Now an idea is a conception of God; and this the barbarians have termed the Word ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 168, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Further Proofs, from Ezekiel. Summary of the Prophetic Argument Thus Far. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1376 (In-Text, Margin)
... ways predicted; (a “sign”) in which the foundation of life was forelaid for mankind; (a “sign”) in which the Jews were not to believe: just as Moses beforetime kept on announcing in Exodus, saying, “Ye shall be ejected from the land into which ye shall enter; and in those nations ye shall not be able to rest: and there shall be instability of the print of thy foot: and God shall give thee a wearying heart, and a pining soul, and failing eyes, that they see not: and thy life shall hang on the tree[John 14:6] before thine eyes; and thou shalt not trust thy life.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 620, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
On St. Philip's Conversation with Christ. He that Hath Seen Me, Hath Seen the Father. This Text Explained in an Anti-Praxean Sense. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8092 (In-Text, Margin)
But there were some who even then did not understand. For Thomas, who was so long incredulous, said: “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father also: but henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.”[John 14:5-7] And now we come to Philip, who, roused with the expectation of seeing the Father, and not understanding in what sense he was to take “seeing the Father,” says: “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” Then the Lord answered him: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?” Now ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 620, footnote 7 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
On St. Philip's Conversation with Christ. He that Hath Seen Me, Hath Seen the Father. This Text Explained in an Anti-Praxean Sense. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8098 (In-Text, Margin)
... ignorance, wished Himself to be acknowledged indeed as that Being whom He had reproached them for being ignorant of after so long a time—in a word, as the Son. And now it may be seen in what sense it was said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” —even in the same in which it was said in a previous passage, “I and my Father are one.” Wherefore? Because “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world ” and, “I am the way: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me;”[John 14:6] and, “No man can come to me, except the Father draw him;” and, “All things are delivered unto me by the Father;” and, “As the Father quickeneth (the dead), so also doth the Son;” and again, “If ye had known me, ye would have known the Father also.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 659, footnote 16 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Repentance. (HTML)
Repentance Applicable to All the Kinds of Sin. To Be Practised Not Only, Nor Chiefly, for the Good It Brings, But Because God Commands It. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8451 (In-Text, Margin)
... some plank. This will draw you forth when sunk in the waves of sins, and will bear you forward into the port of the divine clemency. Seize the opportunity of unexpected felicity: that you, who sometime were in God’s sight nothing but “a drop of a bucket,” and “dust of the threshing-floor,” and “a potter’s vessel,” may thenceforward become that “tree which is sown beside the waters, is perennial in leaves, bears fruit at its own time,” and shall not see “fire,” nor “axe.” Having found “the truth,”[John 14:6] repent of errors; repent of having loved what God loves not: even we ourselves do not permit our slave-lads not to hate the things which are offensive to us; for the principle of voluntary obedience consists in similarity of minds.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 27, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On the Veiling of Virgins. (HTML)
Truth Rather to Be Appealed to Than Custom, and Truth Progressive in Its Developments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 275 (In-Text, Margin)
... virgins to be veiled from the time that they have passed the turning-point of their age: that this observance is exacted by truth, on which no one can impose prescription—no space of times, no influence of persons, no privilege of regions. For these, for the most part, are the sources whence, from some ignorance or simplicity, custom finds its beginning; and then it is successionally confirmed into an usage, and thus is maintained in opposition to truth. But our Lord Christ has surnamed Himself Truth,[John 14:6] not Custom. If Christ is always, and prior to all, equally truth is a thing sempiternal and ancient. Let those therefore look to themselves, to whom that is new which is intrinsically old. It is not so much novelty as truth which convicts heresies. ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 239, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Preface. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1915 (In-Text, Margin)
1. All who believe and are assured that grace and truth were obtained through Jesus Christ, and who know Christ to be the truth, agreeably to His own declaration, “I am the truth,”[John 14:6] derive the knowledge which incites men to a good and happy life from no other source than from the very words and teaching of Christ. And by the words of Christ we do not mean those only which He spake when He became man and tabernacled in the flesh; for before that time, Christ, the Word of God, was in Moses and the prophets. For without the Word of God, how could they have been able to ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 426, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
I (HTML)
Chapter LXVI (HTML)
We now, believing Jesus Himself, when He says respecting His divinity, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,”[John 14:6] and employs other terms of similar import; and when He says respecting His being clothed with a human body, “And now ye seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truth,” conclude that He was a kind of compound being. And so it became Him who was making provision for His sojourning in the world as a human being, not to expose Himself unseasonably to the danger of death. And in like manner it was necessary that He should be taken away ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 605, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter LXVI (HTML)
... uncreated God, who is over all. For “the people that sat in darkness—the Gentiles—saw a great light, and to them who sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up,” —the God Jesus. No Christian, then, would give Celsus, or any accuser of the divine Word, the answer, “How shall I know God?” for each one of them knows God according to his capacity. And no one asks, “How shall I learn the way which leads to Him?” because he has heard Him who says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,”[John 14:6] and has tasted, in the course of the journey, the happiness which results from it. And not a single Christian would say to Celsus, “How will you show me God?”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 644, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VIII (HTML)
Chapter XII (HTML)
... multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul,” that he may understand the meaning of the saying, “I and My Father are one.” We worship one God, the Father and the Son, therefore, as we have explained; and our argument against the worship of other gods still continues valid. And we do not “reverence beyond measure one who has but lately appeared,” as though He did not exist before; for we believe Himself when He says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Again He says, “I am the truth;”[John 14:6] and surely none of us is so simple as to suppose that truth did not exist before the time when Christ appeared. We worship, therefore, the Father of truth, and the Son, who is the truth; and these, while they are two, con sidered as persons or ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 220, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Expository Treatise Against the Jews. (HTML)
6. And then hear what follows: “Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not.” And surely ye have been darkened in the eyes of your soul with a darkness utter and everlasting. For now that the true light has arisen, ye wander as in the night, and stumble on places with no roads, and fall headlong, as having forsaken the way that saith, “I am the way.”[John 14:6] Furthermore, hear this yet more serious word: “And their back do thou bend always;” that means, in order that they may be slaves to the nations, not four hundred and thirty years as in Egypt, nor seventy as in Babylon, but bend them to servitude, he says, “always.” In fine, then, how dost thou indulge vain hopes, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 383, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Jubaianus, Concerning the Baptism of Heretics. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2869 (In-Text, Margin)
... alone, without the Father, or against the Father, can be of advantage to anybody; but that it might be shown to the Jews, who boasted as to their having the Father, that the Father would profit them nothing, unless they believed on the Son whom He had sent. For they who know God the Father the Creator, ought also to know Christ the Son, lest they should flatter and applaud themselves about the Father alone, without the acknowledgment of His Son, who also said, “No man cometh to the Father but by me.”[John 14:6] But He, the same, sets forth, that it is the knowledge of the two which saves, when He says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Since, therefore, from the preaching and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 389, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Pompey, Against the Epistle of Stephen About the Baptism of Heretics. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2908 (In-Text, Margin)
... error and follow the truth, knowing that in Esdras also the truth conquers, as it is written: “Truth endureth and grows strong to eternity, and lives and prevails for ever and ever. With her there is no accepting of persons or distinctions; but what is just she does: nor in her judgments is there unrighteousness, but the strength, and the kingdom, and the majesty, and the power of all ages. Blessed be the Lord God of truth!” This truth Christ showed to us in His Gospel, and said, “I am the truth.”[John 14:6] Wherefore, if we are in Christ, and have Christ in us, if we abide in the truth, and the truth abides in us, let us keep fast those things which are true.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 448, footnote 5 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Lord's Prayer. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3307 (In-Text, Margin)
... Father acknowledge the words of His Son when we make our prayer, and let Him also who dwells within in our breast Himself dwell in our voice. And since we have Him as an Advocate with the Father for our sins, let us, when as sinners we petition on behalf of our sins, put forward the words of our Advocate. For since He says, that “whatsoever we shall ask of the Father in His name, He will give us,” how much more effectually do we obtain what we ask in Christ’s name, if we ask for it in His own prayer![John 14:6]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 526, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
In the Gospel: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh to the Father but by me.”[John 14:6] Also in the same place: “I am the door: by me if any man shall enter in, he shall be saved.” Also in the same place: “Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” Also in the same place: “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life: he that is not obedient in word to the Son hath not life; but the wrath of God shall abide ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 542, footnote 2 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
In the Gospel according to John: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”[John 14:6] Also in the same place: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 569, footnote 2 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian. Concerning the Baptism of Heretics. (HTML)
The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian. Concerning the Baptism of Heretics. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4733 (In-Text, Margin)
Libosus of Vaga said: In the Gospel the Lord says, “I am the truth.”[John 14:6] He said not, “I am the custom.” Therefore the truth being manifest, let custom yield to truth; so that, although for the past any one was not in the habit of baptizing heretics in the Church, let him now begin to baptize them.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 638, footnote 7 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)
He Proves Also that the Words Spoken to Philip Make Nothing for the Sabellians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5237 (In-Text, Margin)
... Father. For what the Lord said, “If ye have known me, ye have known my Father also: and henceforth ye have known Him, and have seen Him,” He said not as wishing to be understood Himself to be the Father, but implying that he who thoroughly, and fully, and with all faith and all religiousness, drew near to the Son of God, by all means shall attain, through the Son Himself, in whom he thus believes, to the Father, and shall see Him. “For no one,” says He, “can come to the Father, but by me.”[John 14:6] And therefore he shall not only come to God the Father, and shall know the Father Himself; but, moreover, he ought thus to hold, and so to pre sume in mind and heart, that he has henceforth not only known, but seen the Father. For often the divine ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 51, footnote 10 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Gregory Thaumaturgus. (HTML)
Dubious or Spurious Writings. (HTML)
Twelve Topics on the Faith. (HTML)
Topic VII. (HTML)
How could one say that Christ is saved, when the Lord Himself says, “I am the life;”[John 14:6] and, “I am come that they might have life;” and, “He that believeth on me shall not see death, but he shall behold the life eternal?”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 113, footnote 5 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Dionysius. (HTML)
Exegetical Fragments. (HTML)
A Commentary on the Beginning of Ecclesiastes. (HTML)
Chapter II. (HTML)
... here of the eyes of the mind. For as the eyes of the swine do not turn naturally up towards heaven, just because it is made by nature to have an inclination toward the belly; so the mind of the man who has once been enervated by pleasures is not easily diverted from the tendency thus assumed, because he has not “respect unto all the commandments of the Lord.” Again: “Christ is the head of the Church.” And they, therefore, are the wise who walk in His way; for He Himself has said, “I am the way.”[John 14:6] On this account, then, it becomes the wise man always to keep the eyes of his mind directed toward Christ Himself, in order that he may do nothing out of measure, neither being lifted up in heart in the time of prosperity, nor becoming negligent in ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 459, footnote 9 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Arnobius. (HTML)
The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen. (Adversus Gentes.) (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter LXV. (HTML)
... sickness; if you believe that Ceres can give good crops, Æsculapius health, Neptune one thing, Juno another, that Fortune, Mercury, Vulcan, are each the giver of a fixed and particular thing,—this, too, you must needs receive from us, that souls can receive from no one life and salvation, except from Him to whom the Supreme Ruler gave this charge and duty. The Almighty Master of the world has determined that this should be the way of salvation,—this the door, so to say, of life; by Him[John 14:6] alone is there access to the light: nor may men either creep in or enter elsewhere, all other ways being shut up and secured by an impenetrable barrier.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 242, footnote 7 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Lactantius (HTML)
The Divine Institutes (HTML)
The Epitome of the Divine Institutes (HTML)
Chap. XLIX.—That God is one only (HTML)
... demons, it follows that no other hope is proposed to man, unless he shall follow true religion and true wisdom, which is in Christ, and he who is ignorant of Him is always estranged from the truth and from God. Nor let the Jews, or philosophers, flatter themselves respecting the Supreme God. He who has not acknowledged the Son has been unable to acknowledge the Father. This is wisdom, and this is the mystery of the Supreme God. God willed that He should be acknowledged and worshipped through Him.[John 14:6] On this account He sent the prophets beforehand to announce His coming, that when the things which had been foretold were fulfilled in Him, then He might be believed by men to be both the Son of God and God.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 113, footnote 42 (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 XLV. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3144 (In-Text, Margin)
... Let not your hearts be troubled: believe in God, [30] and believe in me. The stations in my Father’s house are many, else I should [31] have told you. I go to prepare for you a place. And if I go to prepare for you a place, I shall return again, and take you unto me: and so where I am, there ye [32, 33] shall be also. And the place that I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas said unto him, Our Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how is the way for [34] us to the knowledge of that?[John 14:6] Jesus said unto him, I am the way, and the truth, [35] and the life: and no man cometh unto my Father, but through me. And if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father: and from henceforth ye know him, [36] and have seen him. Philip said unto ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 303, footnote 1 (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 I. (HTML)
Jesus is All Good Things; Hence the Gospel is Manifold. (HTML)
... understand how many good things Jesus is, whom those preach whose feet are beautiful. One good thing is life; but Jesus is the life. Another good thing is the light of the world, when it is true light, and the light of men; and all these things the Son of God is said to be. And another good thing which one may conceive to be in addition to life or light is the truth. And a fourth in addition to time is the way which leads to the truth. And all these things our Saviour teaches that He is, when He says:[John 14:6] “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Ah, is not that good, to shake off earth and mortality, and to rise again, obtaining this boon from the Lord, since He is the resurrection, as He says: “I am the resurrection.” But the door also is a good, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 307, footnote 10 (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 I. (HTML)
The Word Was in the Beginning, I.e., in Wisdom, Which Contained All Things in Idea, Before They Existed. Christ's Character as Wisdom is Prior to His Other Characters. (HTML)
... there is no wonder, since, as we have said before, the Saviour is many good things, if He comprises in Himself thoughts of the first order, and of the second, and of the third. This is what John suggested when he said about the Word: “That which was made was life in Him.” Life then came in the Word. And on the one side the Word is no other than the Christ, the Word, He who was with the Father, by whom all things were made; while, on the other side, the Life is no other than the Son of God, who says:[John 14:6] “I am the way and the truth and the life.” As, then, life came into being in the Word, so the Word in the arche. Consider, however, if we are at liberty to take this meaning of arche for our text: “In the beginning was the Word,” so as to obtain the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 353, footnote 4 (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)
“Grace and Truth Came Through Jesus Christ.” These Words Belong to the Baptist, Not the Evangelist. What the Baptist Testifies by Them. (HTML)
... formed the righteousness which is in each individual, so that there are in the saved many righteousnesses, whence also it is written, “For the Lord is righteous, and He loved righteousnesses.” This is the reading in the exact copies, and in the other versions besides the Septuagint, and in the Hebrew. Consider if the other things which Christ is said to be in a unity admit of being multiplied in the same way and spoken of in the plural. For example, Christ is our life as the Saviour Himself says,[John 14:6] “I am the way and the truth and the life.” The Apostle, too, says, “When Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” And in the Psalms again we find, “Thy mercy is better than life;” for it is on account of Christ who ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 455, footnote 10 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XII. (HTML)
Concerning the Question of Jesus in Cæsarea, Who Do Men Say that I Am? Different Conceptions of Jesus. (HTML)
... to receive the revelation of the Father in heaven, confessed that He was the Christ. The saying of Peter to the Saviour, “Thou art the Christ,” when the Jews did not know that He was Christ, was indeed a great thing, but greater that he knew Him not only to be Christ, but also “the Son of the living God,” who had also said through the prophets, “I live,” and “They have forsaken Me the spring of living water;” —and He is life also, as from the Father the spring of life, who said, “I am the Life;”[John 14:6] and consider carefully, whether, as the spring of the river is not the same thing as the river, the spring of life is not the same as life. And these things we have added because to the saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of God,” was subjoined ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 467, footnote 8 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XII. (HTML)
Interpretation of “Tasting of Death.” (HTML)
But we must seek to understand what is meant by “tasting of death.” And He is life who says, “I am the life,”[John 14:6] and this life assuredly has been hidden with Christ in God; and. “when Christ our life shall be manifested, then along with Him” shall be manifested those who are worthy of being manifested with Him in glory. But the enemy of this life, who is also the last enemy of all His enemies that shall be destroyed, is death, of which the soul that sinneth dies, having the opposite disposition to that which takes place in the soul that lives ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 472, footnote 2 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XII. (HTML)
Discussion of the Saying of Peter. (HTML)
... desiring to separate them from one another, under pretext of the three tabernacles.” And likewise it was a lie, “It is good for us to be here;” for if it had been a good thing they would also have re mained there. But if it were a lie, you will seek to know who caused the lie to be spoken; and especially since according to John, “When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and the father thereof;” and as there is no truth apart from the working of Him who says, “I am the Truth,”[John 14:6] so there is no lie apart from him who is the enemy of truth. These contrary qualities, accordingly, were still in Peter truth and falsehood; and from truth he said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God,” but from falsehood he said, “May ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 480, footnote 10 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XIII. (HTML)
Satan and the “Delivery” Of Jesus. (HTML)
Now we must think that the devil has the power of death,—not of that which is common and indifferent, in accordance with which those who are compacted of soul and body die, when their soul is separated from the body,—but of that death which is contrary to and the enemy of Him who said, “I am the Life,”[John 14:6] in accordance with which “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” But that it was not God who gave Him up into the hands of men, the Saviour manifestly declares when He says, “If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews.” For, when He was delivered up to the Jews, He was delivered into ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 72, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Then follows a period of nine years from the nineteenth year of his age, during which having lost a friend, he followed the Manichæans—and wrote books on the fair and fit, and published a work on the liberal arts, and the categories of Aristotle. (HTML)
That the Love of a Human Being, However Constant in Loving and Returning Love, Perishes; While He Who Loves God Never Loses a Friend. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 306 (In-Text, Margin)
... friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thy sake. For he alone loses none dear to him to whom all are dear in Him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God, the God that created heaven and earth, and filleth them, because by filling them He created them? None loseth Thee but he who leaveth Thee. And he who leaveth Thee, whither goeth he, or whither fleeth he, but from Thee well pleased to Thee angry? For where doth not he find Thy law in his own punishment? “And Thy law is the truth,” and truth Thou.[John 14:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 112, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age, in which very grave errors as to the nature of God and the origin of evil being distinguished, and the Sacred Books more accurately known, he at length arrives at a clear knowledge of God, not yet rightly apprehending Jesus Christ. (HTML)
Jesus Christ, the Mediator, is the Only Way of Safety. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 553 (In-Text, Margin)
24. And I sought a way of acquiring strength sufficient to enjoy Thee; but I found it not until I embraced that “Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,” “who is over all, God blessed for ever,” calling unto me, and saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,”[John 14:6] and mingling that food which I was unable to receive with our flesh. For “the Word was made flesh,” that Thy wisdom, by which Thou createdst all things, might provide milk for our infancy. For I did not grasp my Lord Jesus,—I, though humbled, grasped not the humble One; nor did I know what lesson that infirmity of His would teach us. For Thy Word, the Eternal ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 116, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He finally describes the thirty-second year of his age, the most memorable of his whole life, in which, being instructed by Simplicianus concerning the conversion of others, and the manner of acting, he is, after a severe struggle, renewed in his whole mind, and is converted unto God. (HTML)
He, Now Given to Divine Things, and Yet Entangled by the Lusts of Love, Consults Simplicianus in Reference to the Renewing of His Mind. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 593 (In-Text, Margin)
... wonderful is His name.” Thy words had stuck fast into my breast, and I was hedged round about by Thee on every side. Of Thy eternal life I was now certain, although I had seen it “through a glass darkly.” Yet I no longer doubted that there was an incorruptible substance, from which was derived all other substance; nor did I now desire to be more certain of Thee, but more stedfast in Thee. As for my temporal life, all things were uncertain, and my heart had to be purged from the old leaven. The “Way,”[John 14:6] the Saviour Himself, was pleasant unto me, but as yet I disliked to pass through its straightness. And Thou didst put into my mind, and it seemed good in my eyes, to go unto Simplicianus, who appeared to me a faithful servant of Thine, and Thy grace ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 151, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Having manifested what he was and what he is, he shows the great fruit of his confession; and being about to examine by what method God and the happy life may be found, he enlarges on the nature and power of memory. Then he examines his own acts, thoughts and affections, viewed under the threefold division of temptation; and commemorates the Lord, the one mediator of God and men. (HTML)
All Wish to Rejoice in the Truth. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 863 (In-Text, Margin)
... the spirit against the flesh,” so that they “cannot do the things that they would,” they fall upon that which they are able to do, and with that are content; because that which they are not able to do, they do not so will as to make them able? For I ask of every man, whether he would rather rejoice in truth or in falsehood. They will no more hesitate to say, “in truth,” than to say, “that they wish to be happy.” For a happy life is joy in the truth. For this is joy in Thee, who art “the truth,”[John 14:6] O God, “my light,” “the health of my countenance, and my God.” All wish for this happy life; this life do all wish for, which is the only happy one; joy in the truth do all wish for. I have had experience of many who wished to deceive, but not one ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 261, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
To Proculeianus (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1561 (In-Text, Margin)
... for it has been increased by the oil of the sinner, that is, not of one correcting with stern truth, but of one commending with smooth flattery. Do not, however, suppose me to mean by this, that I wish it to be understood that you have been corrected by brother Evodius, as by a righteous man; for I fear lest you should think that anything is spoken by me also in an insulting manner, against which I desire to the utmost of my power to be on guard. But He is righteous who hath said, “I am the truth.[John 14:6] When, therefore, any true word has been uttered, though it may be somewhat rudely, by the mouth of any man, we are corrected not by the speaker, who may perhaps be not less a sinner than ourselves, but by the truth itself, that is to say, by Christ ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 203, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Porphyry’s doctrine of redemption. (HTML)
Of the Universal Way of the Soul’s Deliverance, Which Porphyry Did Not Find Because He Did Not Rightly Seek It, and Which the Grace of Christ Has Alone Thrown Open. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 442 (In-Text, Margin)
... of all, delivered from the Chaldæan superstitions, and by his obedience worshipped the one true God, whose promises he faithfully trusted. This is the universal way, of which it is said in holy prophecy, “God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us; that Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations.” And hence, when our Saviour, so long after, had taken flesh of the seed of Abraham, He says of Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”[John 14:6] This is the universal way, of which so long before it had been predicted, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 264, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 653 (In-Text, Margin)
... according to God, he is like the devil. Because not even an angel might live according to an angel, but only according to God, if he was to abide in the truth, and speak God’s truth and not his own lie. And of man, too, the same apostle says in another place, “If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie;” —“my lie,” he said, and “God’s truth.” When, then, a man lives according to the truth, he lives not according to himself, but according to God; for He was God who said, “I am the truth.”[John 14:6] When, therefore, man lives according to himself,—that is, according to man, not according to God,—assuredly he lives according to a lie; not that man himself is a lie, for God is his author and creator, who is certainly not the author and creator of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 521, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Preface (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1715 (In-Text, Margin)
... of man? The truth is, he fears to incur the re proach: “Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers.” Seeing, then, that these men teach others, either through speech or writing, what they understand, surely they cannot blame me if I likewise teach not only what they understand, but also the rules of interpretation they follow. For no one ought to consider anything as his own, except perhaps what is false. All truth is of Him who says, “I am the truth.”[John 14:6] For what have we that we did not receive? and if we have received it, why do we glory, as if we had not received it?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 532, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Containing a General View of the Subjects Treated in Holy Scripture (HTML)
Christ the First Way to God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1753 (In-Text, Margin)
... journey in Him. The apostle, therefore, although still on the way, and following after God who called him to the reward of His heavenly calling, yet forgetting those things which were behind, and pressing on towards those things which were before, had already passed over the beginning of the way, and had now no further need of it; yet by this way all must commence their journey who desire to attain to the truth, and to rest in eternal life. For He says: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life;”[John 14:6] that is, by me men come, to me they come, in me they rest. For when we come to Him, we come to the Father also, because through an equal an equal is known; and the Holy Spirit binds, and as it were seals us, so that we are able to rest permanently ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 31, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form of God, Other Things According to the Form of a Servant. In What Way It is of Christ to Give the Kingdom, in What Not of Christ. Christ Will Both Judge and Not Judge. (HTML)
24. According to the form of God, it is said “Before all the hills He begat me,” that is, before all the loftinesses of things created and, “Before the dawn I begat Thee,” that is, before all times and temporal things: but according to the form of a servant, it is said, “The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.” Because, according to the form of God, He said, “I am the truth;” and according to the form of a servant, “I am the way.”[John 14:6] For, because He Himself, being the first-begotten of the dead, made a passage to the kingdom of God to life eternal for His Church, to which He is so the Head as to make the body also immortal, therefore He was “created in the beginning of the ways” of God in His work. For, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 261, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
The Enchiridion. (HTML)
God Does Not Pardon the Sins of Those Who Do Not from the Heart Forgive Others. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1235 (In-Text, Margin)
... whom he has sinned, being moved by his sin to ask forgiveness, cannot be counted an enemy in such a sense that it should be as difficult to love him now as it was when he was engaged in active hostility. And the man who does not from his heart forgive him who repents of his sin, and asks forgiveness, need not suppose that his own sins are forgiven of God. For the Truth cannot lie. And what reader or hearer of the Gospel can have failed to notice, that the same person who said, “I am the Truth,”[John 14:6] taught us also this form of prayer; and in order to impress this particular petition deeply upon our minds, said, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 322, footnote 8 (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 God and His Exclusive Eternity. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1530 (In-Text, Margin)
3. As we believe, therefore, in the, we ought to uphold the opinion that there is no creature which has not been created by the Almighty. And since He created all things by the Word, which Word is also designated the Truth, and the Power, and the Wisdom of God,[John 14:6] —as also under many other appellations the Lord Jesus Christ, who is commended to our faith, is presented likewise to our mental apprehensions, to wit, our Deliverer and Ruler, the Son of God; for that Word, by whose means all things were founded, could not have been begotten by any other than by Him who founded all things by His instrumentality;—
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 451, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Good of Widowhood. (HTML)
Section 23 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2283 (In-Text, Margin)
... beauty, but His face cast down, and His posture unseemly.” Yet from this unseemliness of your Redeemer flowed the price of your beauty, but of a beauty within, for “all the beauty of the King’s daughter is within.” By this beauty please ye Him, this beauty order ye with studious care and anxious thought. He loves not dyes of deceits; the Truth delighteth in things that are true, and He, if you recognize what you have read, is called the Truth. “I am,” saith He, “the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] Run ye to Him through Him, please ye Him of Him; live ye with Him, in Him, of Him. With true affections and holiest chastity love ye to be loved by such a Husband.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 48, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
On the Morals of the Catholic Church. (HTML)
We are Joined Inseparably to God by Christ and His Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 59 (In-Text, Margin)
22. Let this same Paul tell us who is this Christ Jesus our Lord. "To them that are called," he says, "we preach Christ the virtue of God, and the wisdom of God." And does not Christ Himself say, "I am the truth?"[John 14:6] If, then, we ask what it is to live well,—that is, to strive after happiness by living well,—it must assuredly be to love virtue, to love wisdom, to love truth, and to love with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the mind; virtue which is inviolable and immutable, wisdom which never gives place to folly, truth which knows no change or variation from its uniform character. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 49, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
On the Morals of the Catholic Church. (HTML)
Harmony of the Old and New Testaments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 76 (In-Text, Margin)
... the time of Thy making the world, and knew what would be pleasing in Thine eyes?" And as Christ is called the truth, which is also taught by His being called the brightness of the Father (for there is nothing round about the sun but its brightness which is produced from it), what is there in the Old Testament more plainly and obviously in accordance with this than the words, "Thy truth is round about Thee?" Once more, Wisdom herself says in the gospel, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me;"[John 14:6] and the prophet says, "Who knoweth Thy mind, unless Thou givest wisdom?" and a little after, "The things pleasing to Thee men have learned, and have been healed by wisdom."
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 95, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
On Two Souls, Against the Manichæans. (HTML)
By What Course of Reasoning the Error of the Manichæans Concerning Two Souls, One of Which is Not from God, is Refuted. Every Soul, Inasmuch as It is a Certain Life, Can Have Its Existence Only from God the Source of Life. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 192 (In-Text, Margin)
... to be nothing else than the supreme and only and true God. Wherefore there is no reason why we should not confess, that those souls which the Manichæans call evil are either devoid of life and so not souls, neither will anything positively or negatively, neither follow after nor flee from anything; or, if they live so that they can be souls, and act as the Manichæans suppose, in no way do they live unless by life, and if it be an established fact, as it is, that Christ has said: "I am the life,"[John 14:6] that all souls seeing that they cannot be souls except by living were created and fashioned by Christ, that is, by the Life.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 227, footnote 3 (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 willing to believe not only that the Jewish but that all Gentile prophets wrote of Christ, if it should be proved; but he would none the less insist upon rejecting their superstitions. Augustin maintains that all Moses wrote is of Christ, and that his writings must be either accepted or rejected as a whole. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 606 (In-Text, Margin)
22. In the passage, "Thou shalt see thy life hanging, and shalt not believe thy life," Faustus is deceived by the ambiguity of the words. The words may be differently interpreted; but that they cannot be understood of Christ is not said by Faustus, nor can be said by anyone who does not deny that Christ is life, or that He was seen by the Jews hanging on the cross, or that they did not believe Him. Since Christ Himself says, "I am the life,"[John 14:6] and since there is no doubt that He was seen hanging by the unbelieving Jews, I see no reason for doubting that this was written of Christ; for, as Christ says, Moses wrote of Him. Since we have already refuted Faustus’ arguments by which he tries to show that the words, "I ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 439, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
Augustin undertakes the refutation of the arguments which might be derived from the epistle of Cyprian to Jubaianus, to give color to the view that the baptism of Christ could not be conferred by heretics. (HTML)
Chapter 6 (HTML)
9. Libosus also of Vaga says: "The Lord says in the gospel, ‘I am the Truth.’[John 14:6] He does not say, ‘I am custom.’ Therefore, when the truth is made manifest, custom must give way to truth." Clearly, no one could doubt that custom must give way to truth where it is made manifest. But we shall see presently about the manifestation of the truth. Meanwhile he also makes it clear that custom was on the other side.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 495, footnote 11 (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 37 (HTML)
71. Libosus of Vaga said: "The Lord says in the gospel, ‘I am the truth;’[John 14:6] He did not say, I am custom. Therefore, when the truth is made manifest, let custom yield to truth; so that, if even in time past any one did not baptize heretics in the Church, he may now begin to baptize them."
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 31, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
A Collection of Scripture Testimonies. From the Gospels. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 340 (In-Text, Margin)
... sin of the world;” and He too says of Himself, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish.” Now, inasmuch as infants are only able to become His sheep by baptism, it must needs come to pass that they perish if they are not baptized, because they will not have that eternal life which He gives to His sheep. So in another passage He says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”[John 14:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 133, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
Pride Even in Such Things as are Done Aright Must Be Avoided. Free Will is Not Taken Away When Grace is Preached. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1223 (In-Text, Margin)
... which is His own to be our way; because it is by Himself that the favour is bestowed on such as believe in Him and hope in Him that we will do it. For there is a way of righteousness of which they are ignorant “who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,” and who, wishing to frame a righteousness of their own, “have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth;” and He has said, “I am the way.”[John 14:6] Yet God’s voice has alarmed those who have already begun to walk in this way, lest they should be lifted up, as if it were by their own energies that they were walking therein. For the same persons to whom the apostle, on account of this danger, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 248, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
He Shows by the Example of Abraham that the Ancient Saints Believed in the Incarnation of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1990 (In-Text, Margin)
... would confine the meaning of the phrase so far as to say, that nothing else is meant in the Lord’s saying, “He desired to see my day,” than “He desired to see me,” who am the never-ending Day, or the unfailing Light, as when we mention the life of the Son, concerning which it is said in the Gospel: “So hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” Here the life is nothing less than Himself. So we understand the Son Himself to be the life, when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life;”[John 14:6] of whom also it was said, “He is the true God, and eternal life.” Supposing, then, that Abraham desired to see this equal divinity of the Son’s with the Father, without any precognition of His coming in the flesh—as certain philosophers sought Him, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 350, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
His Tenth Error. (See Above in Book I. 13 [XI.] and Book II. 15 [XI.]). (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2453 (In-Text, Margin)
... “In behalf of these, I most certainly decide that constant oblations and incessant sacrifices must be offered up on the part of the holy priests.” Here you show, as a layman, no submission to God’s priests for instruction; nor do you associate yourself with them (the least you could do) for inquiry; but you put yourself before them by your proud assumption of judgment. Away, my son, with all this pretension; men walk not so arrogantly in the Way, which the Humble Christ taught that He Himself is.[John 14:6] No man enters through His narrow gate with so proud a disposition as this.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 306, 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. x. 16, ‘Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,’ etc. Delivered on a Festival of Martyrs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2221 (In-Text, Margin)
... wisdom of the serpent. Imitate him in this again; “keep thy head safe.” And what does this mean, keep thy head safe? Keep Christ with thee. Have not some of you, it may be, observed, on occasions when you have wished to kill an adder, how to save his head, he will expose his whole body to the strokes of his assailant? He would not that that part of him should be struck, where he knows that his life resides. And our Life is Christ, for He hath said Himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”[John 14:6] Here the Apostle also; “The Head of the man is Christ.” Whoso then keepeth Christ in him, keepeth his head for his protection.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 491, footnote 5 (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, John v. 31, ‘If I bear witness of myself,’ etc.; and on the words of the apostle, Galatians v. 16, ‘Walk by the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3815 (In-Text, Margin)
1. have heard the words of the holy Gospel; and this that the Lord Jesus saith, “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true,” may perplex some. How then is not the witness of the Truth true? Is it not Himself who hath said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life”?[John 14:6] Whom then are we to believe, if we must not believe the Truth? For of a surety he is minded to believe nothing but falsehood, who does not choose to believe the truth. So then this was spoken on their principles, that you should understand it thus, and gather this meaning from these words; “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true,” that is, as ye ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 511, footnote 12 (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, John viii. 31, ‘If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4018 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou been taken. Wherein thou didst exult that thou hadst found something, therein thou sorrowest now that thou hast lost what thou didst possess. Therefore, brethren, let us who believe in Christ, continue in His word. For if we shall continue in His word, we are His disciples indeed. For not those twelve only, but all we who continue in His word are His disciples indeed. And “we shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall free us;” that is, Christ the Son of God who hath said, “I am the Truth,”[John 14:6] shall make you free, that is, shall free you, not from barbarians, but from the devil; not from the captivity of the body, but from the iniquity of the soul. It is He Only who freeth in such wise. Let no one call himself free, lest he remain a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 531, 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, John xiv. 6, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4188 (In-Text, Margin)
1. other things, when the Holy Gospel was being read, ye heard what the Lord Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] Truth and life doth every man desire; but not every man doth find the way. That God is a certain Life Eternal, Unchangeable, Intelligible, Intelligent, Wise, Making wise, some philosophers even of this world have seen. The fixed, settled, unwavering truth, wherein are all the principles of all things created, they saw indeed, but afar off; they saw, but amid the error in which they were placed; and therefore what way to attain ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 532, footnote 3 (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 same words of the Gospel, John xiv. 6, ‘I am the way,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4201 (In-Text, Margin)
1. divine lessons raise us up, that we be not broken by despair; and terrify us again, that we be not tossed to and fro by pride. But to hold the middle, the true, the strait way, as it were between the left hand of despair, and the right hand of presumption, would be most difficult for us, had not Christ said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] As if He had said, “By what way wouldest thou go? ‘I am the Way’. Whither wouldest thou go? ‘I am the Truth.’ Where wouldest thou abide? ‘I am the Life.’” Let us then walk with all assurance in the Way; but let us fear snares by the way side. The enemy does not dare to lay his snares in the way; because Christ is the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 534, 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 same words of the Gospel, John xiv. 6, ‘I am the way,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4214 (In-Text, Margin)
... of humility. Why doth he squeeze himself? The bulk, not for its size, but for its swelling, doth not allow him. For size hath solidity, swelling inflation. Let not him that is swollen fancy himself of great size; that he may be great, and substantial, and solid, let him bring down his swelling. Let him not long after these present things, let him not glory in this pomp of things failing and corruptible; let him hearken to Him who said, “Enter in by the strait gate,” saying also, “I am the Way.”[John 14:6] For as if some swollen one had asked, “How shall I enter in?” He saith, “‘I am the Way.’ Enter in by Me; Thou walkest only by Me, to enter in by the door.” For as He said, “I am the Way;” so also, “I am the Door.” Why seekest thou whereby to return, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 31, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter I. 33. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 91 (In-Text, Margin)
... being, as it were, bedewed by some drops from it, and comforted in the meantime in this pilgrimage, we may not fail by the way, but reach His rest and satisfying fullness. If then “he that speaketh a lie speaketh of his own,” he who speaketh the truth speaketh of God. John is true, Christ is the Truth; John is true, but every true man is true from the Truth. If, then, John is true, and a man cannot be true except from the Truth, from whom was he true, unless from Him who said, “I am the truth”?[John 14:6] The Truth, then, could not speak contrary to the true man, or the true man contrary to the Truth. The Truth sent the true man, and he was true because sent by the Truth. If it was the Truth that sent John, then it was Christ that sent him. But that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 59, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter II. 1–4. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 187 (In-Text, Margin)
... men, what do they but drive the truth out of them? They let in the devil, they drive Christ out; they let in an adulterer, shut out the bridegroom, being evidently paranymphs, or rather, the panderers of the serpent. For it is for this object they speak, that the serpent may possess, and Christ be shut out. How doth the serpent possess? When a lie possesses. When falsehood possesses, then the serpent possesses; when truth possesses, then Christ possesses. For Himself has said, “I am the truth;”[John 14:6] but of that other He said, “He stood not in the truth, because the truth is not him.” And Christ is the truth in such wise that thou shouldst receive the whole to be true in Him. The true Word, God equal with the Father, true soul, true flesh, true ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 147, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter V. 24–30. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 457 (In-Text, Margin)
8. “The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” From what source shall they live? From life. From what life? From Christ. How do we prove that the source is Christ the life? “I am,” saith He, “the way, the truth, and the life.”[John 14:6] Dost thou wish to walk? “I am the way.” Dost thou wish not to be deceived? “I am the truth.” Wouldest thou not die? “I am the life.” This saith thy Saviour to thee: There is not whither thou mayest go but to me; there is not whereby thou mayest go but by me. Therefore this hour is going on now, this act is clearly taking place, and does not at all ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 224, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. 26, 27. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 713 (In-Text, Margin)
... clearly something more than chaste. For if chastity had no existence, one would have no ground to be chaste; but though one may refuse to be chaste, chastity remains entire. If then the term piety implies more than the term pious, comeliness more than comely, chastity than chaste, shall we say that the Truth is more than the True One? If we say so, we shall begin to say that the Son is greater than the Father. For the Lord Himself says most distinctly, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”[John 14:6] Therefore, if the Son is the truth, what is the Father but what the Truth Himself says, “He that sent me is true”? The Son is the truth, the Father true. I inquire which is the greater, but find equality. For the true Father is true not because He ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 478, footnote 3 (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 II. 18–27. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2152 (In-Text, Margin)
6. “I write unto you not because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” Behold, we are admonished how we may know antichrist. What is Christ? Truth. Himself hath said “I am the Truth.”[John 14:6] But “no lie is of the truth.” Consequently, all who lie are not yet of Christ. He hath not said that some lie is of the truth, and some lie not of the truth. Mark the sentence. Do not fondle yourselves, do not flatter yourselves, do not deceive yourselves, do not cheat yourselves: “No lie is of the truth.” Let us see then how antichrists lie, because there is more than one kind of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 520, footnote 4 (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. 1–3. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2489 (In-Text, Margin)
... none, thou wast as a man without feet, or with sore feet unable to walk: but if they seemed good, before thou didst believe, thou didst run indeed, but by running aside from the way thou wentest astray instead of coming to the goal. It is for us, then, both to run, and to run in the way. He that runs aside from the way, runs to no purpose, or rather runs but to toil. He goes the more astray, the more he runs aside from the way. What is the way by which we run? Christ hath told us, “I am the Way.”[John 14:6] What the home to which we run? “I am the Truth.” By Him thou runnest, to Him thou runnest, in Him thou restest. But, that we might run by Him, He reached even unto us: for we were afar off, foreigners in a far country. Not enough that we were in a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 10, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm IV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 105 (In-Text, Margin)
... God: that as the tribute money is rendered to him, so should the soul to God, illumined and stamped with the light of His countenance. (Ver. 7.) “Thou hast put gladness into my heart.” Gladness then is not to be sought without by them, who, being still heavy in heart, “love vanity, and seek a lie;” but within, where the light of God’s countenance is stamped. For Christ dwelleth in the inner man, as the Apostle says; for to Him doth it appertain to see truth, since He hath said, “I am the truth.”[John 14:6] And again, when He spake in the Apostle, saying, “Would you receive a proof of Christ, who speaketh in me?” He spake not of course from without to him, but in his very heart, that is, in that chamber where we are to pray.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 11, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm V (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 121 (In-Text, Margin)
... voice of my supplication, my King, and my God” (ver. 2). Although both the Son is God, and the Father God, and the Father and the Son together One God; and if asked of the Holy Ghost, we must give no other answer than that He is God; and when the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are mentioned together, we must understand nothing else, than One God; nevertheless Scripture is wont to give the appellation of King to the Son. According then to that which is said, “By Me man cometh to the Father,”[John 14:6] rightly is it first, “my King;” and then, “my God.” And yet has not the Psalmist said, Attend Ye; but, “Attend Thou.” For the Catholic faith preaches not two or three Gods, but the Very Trinity, One God. Not that the same Trinity can be together, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 105, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 970 (In-Text, Margin)
... For just as illusion is the soul’s punishment, so is Truth its reward. But when we were set in the midst of these illusions, the Truth Itself came to us, and found us overwhelmed by illusions, took upon Itself our flesh, or rather took flesh from us; that is, from the human race. He manifested himself to the eyes of the Flesh, that He might “by faith” heal those to whom He was going to reveal the Truth hereafter, that Truth might be manifested to the now healed eye. For He is Himself “the Truth,”[John 14:6] which He promised unto us at that time, when His Flesh was to be seen by the eye, that the foundation might be laid of that Faith, of which the Truth was to be the reward. For it was not Himself that Christ showed forth on earth; but it was His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 125, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XL (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1148 (In-Text, Margin)
17. “I have declared Thy Truth and Thy Salvation.” I have declared Thy Christ. This is the meaning of, “I have declared Thy Truth and Thy Salvation.” How is “Thy Truth” Christ? “I am the Truth.”[John 14:6] How is Christ “His Salvation”? Simeon recognised the infant in His Mother’s hands in the Temple, and said, “For mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation.” The old man recognised the little child; the old man having himself “become a little child” in that infant, having been renewed by faith. For he had received an oracle from God; and it said this, “The Lord had said unto him, that he was not to depart out ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 139, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1285 (In-Text, Margin)
... Light and Thy Truth. They have led me, and brought me on unto Thy holy hill, and into Thy Tabernacles” (ver. 3). For that very “Light” and “Truth” are indeed two in name; the reality expressed is but One. For what else is the “Light” of God, except the “Truth” of God? Or what else is the “Truth” of God, except the “Light” of God? And the one Person of Christ is both of these. “I am the Light of the world: he that believeth on Me, shall not walk in darkness.” “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] He is Himself “the Light:” He is Himself “the Truth.” Let Him come then and rescue us, and “separate at once our cause from the ungodly nation; let Him deliver us from the deceitful and unjust man,” let him separate the wheat from the tares, for at ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 170, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLIX (HTML)
Part 1 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1620 (In-Text, Margin)
... everlasting fire,” hath an escape. Let him not fear then. For why should he fear? Will the iniquity of his heel compass him? If then he avoid “the iniquity of his heel,” and walk in the ways of God, he shall not come to the evil day: the evil day, the last day, shall not be evil to him.…Now while they live, let them take heed to themselves, let them put away iniquity from their heel: let them walk in that way, let them walk in the way of which He saith Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life:”[John 14:6] and let them not fear in the evil day, for He giveth them safety who became “The Way.” Therefore let them avoid the iniquity of their heel. With the heel a man slippeth. Let your Love observe. What was said by God to the Serpent? “She shall mark thy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 225, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2122 (In-Text, Margin)
... evil men, let us be good men: because even we have been evil. Even as nothing God shall save men, of whom we dare to despair. Therefore of no one let us despair, for all men whom we suffer let us pray, from God let us never depart. Our patrimony let Him be, our hope let Him be, our safety let Him be. He is Himself here a comforter, there a remunerator, everywhere Maker-alive, and of life the Giver, not of another life, but of that whereof hath been said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life:”[John 14:6] in order that both here in the light of faith, and there in the light of sight, as it were in the light of the living, in the sight of the Lord we may be pleasing.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 260, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2469 (In-Text, Margin)
... spoken, the same is Idumæa, this is the desert of Idumæa, whence the Psalm hath received its title. “In a land desert.” Too little it is to say “desert,” where no man dwelleth; it is besides, both “without way, and without water.” O that the same desert had even a way: O that into this a man running, even knew where he might thence get forth!…Evil is the desert, horrible, and to be feared: and nevertheless God hath pitied us, and hath made for us a way in the desert, Himself our Lord Jesus Christ:[John 14:6] and hath made for us a consolation in the desert, in sending to us preachers of His Word: and hath given to us water in the desert, by fulfilling with the Holy Spirit His preachers, in order that there might be created in them a well of water ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 261, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2476 (In-Text, Margin)
... “Lifting up pure hands without anger and dissension.” It is in order that when thou liftest up hands to God, there may come into thy mind thy works. For whereas those hands are lifted up that thou mayest obtain that which thou wilt, those same hands thou thinkest in good works to exercise, that they may not blush to be lifted up to God. “In thy name I will lift up my hands.” Those are our prayers in this Idumæa, in this desert, in the land without water and without way, where for us Christ is the Way,[John 14:6] but not the way of this earth.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 278, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2624 (In-Text, Margin)
... of His praise.” Praise not yourselves, but praise Him. What is the voice of His praise? That by His Grace we are whatever of good we are. “Who hath set my Soul unto life” (ver. 9) Behold the voice of his praise: “Who hath set my Soul unto life.” Therefore in death she was: in death she was, in thyself. Thence it is that ye ought not to have been exalted in yourselves. Therefore in death she was, in thyself: where will it be in life, save in Him that said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”?[John 14:6] Just as to certain believers the Apostle saith, “Ye were sometime darkness, but now light in the Lord.” …“And hath not given unto motion my feet.” He hath set my Soul unto life, He guideth the feet that they stumble not, be not moved and given unto ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 283, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2657 (In-Text, Margin)
... What is, “Thy way”? That which leadeth to Thee. May we acknowledge whither we are going, acknowledge where we are as we go; neither in darkness we can do. Afar Thou art from men sojourning, a way to us Thou hast presented, through which we must return to Thee. “Let us acknowledge on earth Thy way.” What is His way wherein we have desired, “That we may know on earth Thy way”? We are going to enquire this ourselves, not of ourselves to learn it. We can learn of it from the Gospel: “I am the Way,”[John 14:6] the Lord saith: Christ hath said, “I am the Way.” But dost thou fear lest thou stray? He hath added, “And the Truth.” Who strayeth in the Truth? He strayeth that hath departed from the Truth. The Truth is Christ, the Way is Christ: walk therein. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 318, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3103 (In-Text, Margin)
... thee. “For to-morrow we die,” thou hast said: and there hath preceded, “Let us eat and drink.” For when thou hadst said, “Let us eat and drink;” thou didst add, “for to-morrow we die.” Hear the other side from me, “Yea let us fast and pray, ‘for to-morrow we die.’” I keeping this way, strait and narrow, “as it were a monster have become unto many: but Thou art a strong helper.” Be Thou with me, O Lord Jesus, to say to me, faint not in the narrow way, I first have gone along it, I am the way itself,[John 14:6] I lead, in Myself I lead, unto Myself I lead home. Therefore though “a monster I have become unto many;” nevertheless I will not fear, for “Thou art a strong Helper.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 364, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3504 (In-Text, Margin)
14. “O God, Thy way is in the Holy One” (ver. 13). He is contemplating now the works of the mercy of God around us, out of these he is babbling, and in these affections he is exulting. At first he is beginning from thence, “Thy way is in the Holy One?” What is that way of Thine which is in the Holy One? “I am,” He saith, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] Return therefore, ye men, from your affections.…“Who is a great God, like our God?” Gentiles have their affections regarding their gods, they adore idols, they have eyes and they see not; ears they have and they hear not; feet they have and they walk not. Why dost thou walk to a God that walketh not? I do not, he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 388, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3758 (In-Text, Margin)
6. “A way Thou hast made in the sight of her, and hast planted the roots of her, and she hath filled the land” (ver. 9). Would she have filled the land, unless a way had been made in the sight of her? What was the way which was made in the sight of her? “I am,” He saith, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] With reason she hath filled the land. That hath now been said of this vineyard, which hath been accomplished at the last. But in the mean time what? “She hath covered the mountains with her shadow, and with her branch the cedars of God” (ver. 10). “Thou hast stretched out her boughs even unto the sea, and even unto the river her shoots” (ver. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 405, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3917 (In-Text, Margin)
1. …Its title is, “A Psalm for the end, to the sons of Core.” Let us understand no other end than that of which the Apostle speaks: for, “Christ is the end of the law.” Therefore when at the head of the title of the Psalm he placed the words, “for the end,” he directed our heart to Christ. If we fix our gaze on Him, we shall not stray: for He is Himself the Truth unto which we are eager to arrive, and He Himself the Way[John 14:6] by which we run.…
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 415, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3977 (In-Text, Margin)
14. “Lead me, O Lord, in Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth” (ver. 11). Thy way, Thy truth, Thy life, is Christ. Therefore belongeth the Body to Him, and the Body is of Him. I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.[John 14:6] “Lead me, O Lord, in Thy way.” In what way? “And I will walk in Thy truth.” It is one thing to lead to the way, another to guide in the way. Behold man everywhere poor, everywhere in need of help. Those who are beside the way are not Christians, or not yet Catholics: let them be guided to the way: but when they have been brought to the way and made Catholics in Christ, they must be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 415, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3980 (In-Text, Margin)
... lead thee even to the end. How doth He lead thee? By always admonishing, always giving thee His hand. And the arm of the Lord, to whom is it revealed? For in giving His Christ He giveth His hand: in giving His hand, He giveth His Christ. He leadeth to the way, in leading to His Christ: He leadeth in the way, by leading in His Christ, and Christ is truth. “Lead me,” therefore, “O Lord, in Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth:” in Him verily who said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] For Thou who leadest in the way and the truth, whither leadest Thou, but unto life? In Him then, unto Him Thou leadest.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 514, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4733 (In-Text, Margin)
... this indeed should be taken of the spiritual wine, but not of that spiritual bread; He hath shown this very point, that it is also spiritual: “and bread,” he saith, “strengtheneth man’s heart.” So understand it therefore of the bread as thou dost understand it of the wine; hunger inwardly, thirst inwardly: “Blessed are they,” saith our Lord, “who hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” That bread is righteousness, that wine is righteousness: it is truth, Christ is truth.[John 14:6] “I am,” He said, “the living bread, who came down from heaven;” and, “I am the Vine, and ye are the branches.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 562, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
Beth. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5143 (In-Text, Margin)
13. “I have had as great delight in the way Thy testimonies, as in all manner of riches” (ver. 14). We understand that there is no more speedy, no more sure, no shorter, no higher way of the testimonies of God than Christ, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Thence he saith that he hath had as great delight in this way, as in all riches. Those are the testimonies, by which He deigneth to prove unto us how much He loveth us.[John 14:6] …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 565, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
He. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5171 (In-Text, Margin)
37. The next words in the Psalm which we have undertaken to expound are, “O turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity: and quicken Thou me in Thy way” (ver. 37). Vanity and truth are directly contrary to one another. The desires of this world are vanity: but Christ, who freeth us from the world, is truth. He is the way, too, wherein this man wisheth to be quickened, for He is also the life: “I am the way, the truth, and the life,”[John 14:6] are His own words.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 640, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5741 (In-Text, Margin)
20. “And see,” saith he, “if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (ver. 24). “Search,” he saith, “my paths,” that is, my counsels and thoughts. What else saith he, but “lead me in Christ”? For who is “the way everlasting,” save He that is the life everlasting? For everlasting is He who said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] If then thou findest anything in my way which displeaseth Thine eyes, since my way is mortal, do Thou “lead me in the way everlasting,” wherein is no iniquity; for even “if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins;” He is “the Way ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 256, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
Two Homilies on Eutropius. (HTML)
Homily II. After Eutropius having been found outside the Church had been taken captive. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 828 (In-Text, Margin)
... heaven, it is wider than the earth. It never waxes old, but is always in full vigour. Wherefore as significant of its solidity and stability Holy Scripture calls it a mountain: or of its purity a virgin, or of its magnificence a queen; or of its relationship to God a daughter; and to express its productiveness it calls her barren who has borne seven: in fact it employs countless names to represent its nobleness. For as the master of the Church has many names: being called the Father, and the way,[John 14:6] and the life, and the light, and the arm, and the propitiation, and the foundation, and the door, and the sinless one, and the treasure, and Lord, and God, and Son, and the only begotten, and the form of God, and the image of God so is it with the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 464, footnote 5 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
The Apology of Rufinus. Addressed to Apronianus, in Reply to Jerome's Letter to Pammachius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Counsel (HTML)
10. You chose a bad introducer. If you will take my counsel, both you and I will by preference turn to him who introduces us to the Father and who said[John 14:6] ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ I lament for you, my brother, if you believe this; and if you believe it not, I still lament that you hunt through all sorts of ancient and antiquated documents for grounds for suspecting other men of perjury, while perjury, lasting and endless with all its inexplicable impiety, remains upon your own lips. Might not these words of the Apostle be rightly applied to you: “Thou ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 158, footnote 7 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of the Nicene Definition. (De Decretis.) (HTML)
De Decretis. (Defence of the Nicene Definition.) (HTML)
Two senses of the word Son, 1. adoptive; 2. essential; attempts of Arians to find a third meaning between these; e.g. that our Lord only was created immediately by God (Asterius's view), or that our Lord alone partakes the Father. The second and true sense; God begets as He makes, really; though His creation and generation are not like man's; His generation independent of time; generation implies an internal, and therefore an eternal, act in God; explanation of Prov. viii. 22. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 828 (In-Text, Margin)
... yet it is possible from it to understand something above man’s nature, instead of thinking the Son’s generation to be on a level with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever was not, so that he should dare to say that the Son was not always, or that the Son was not before His generation? or who is capable of separating the radiance from the sun, or to conceive of the fountain as ever void of life, that he should madly say, ‘The Son is from nothing,’ who says, ‘I am the life[John 14:6],’ or ‘alien to the Father’s essence,’ who, says, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father?’ for the sacred writers wishing us thus to understand, have given these illustrations; and it is unseemly and most irreligious, when Scripture contains ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 242, footnote 7 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Apology to the Emperor. (Apologia Ad Constantium.) (HTML)
Apology to the Emperor. (Apologia Ad Constantium.) (HTML)
Truth the defence of Thrones. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1322 (In-Text, Margin)
Had I been accused before any other, I should have appealed to your Piety; as once the Apostle appealed unto Cæsar, and put an end to the designs of his enemies against him. But since they have had the boldness to lay their charge before you, to whom shall I appeal from you? to the Father of Him who says, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6],’ that He may incline your heart into clemency:—
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 245, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Apology to the Emperor. (Apologia Ad Constantium.) (HTML)
Apology to the Emperor. (Apologia Ad Constantium.) (HTML)
Fourth charge, of having disobeyed an Imperial order. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1343 (In-Text, Margin)
... the deficiencies which I thought existed in the condition of our Churches. Now I desire to thank your Piety, which condescended to assent to my request, on the supposition that I had written to you, and has made provision for me to undertake the journey, and to accomplish it without trouble. But here again I am astonished at those who have spoken falsehood in your ears, that they were not afraid, seeing that lying belongs to the Devil, and that liars are alien from Him who says, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6].’ For I never wrote to you, nor will my accuser be able to find any such letter; and though I ought to have written every day, if I might thereby behold your gracious countenance, yet it would neither have been pious to desert the Churches, nor ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 313, footnote 15 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse I (HTML)
That the Son is Eternal and Increate. These attributes, being the points in dispute, are first proved by direct texts of Scripture. Concerning the 'eternal power' of God in Rom. i. 20, which is shewn to mean the Son. Remarks on the Arian formula, 'Once the Son was not,' its supporters not daring to speak of 'a time when the Son was not.' (HTML)
... And the words addressed to the Son in the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, ‘Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages,’ forbid any one to imagine any interval at all in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval in the ages is measured, and of all the ages the Word is King and Maker, therefore, whereas no interval at all exists prior to Him, it were madness to say, ‘There was once when the Everlasting was not,’ and ‘From nothing is the Son.’ And whereas the Lord Himself says, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6],’ not ‘I became the Truth;’ but always, ‘I am,—I am the Shepherd,—I am the Light,’—and again, ‘Call ye Me not, Lord and Master? and ye call Me well, for so I am,’ who, hearing such language from God, and the Wisdom, and Word of the Father, speaking ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 317, footnote 5 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse I (HTML)
Subject Continued. Third proof of the Son's eternity, viz. from other titles indicative of His coessentiality; as the Creator; One of the Blessed Trinity; as Wisdom; as Word; as Image. If the Son is a perfect Image of the Father, why is He not a Father also? because God, being perfect, is not the origin of a race. Only the Father a Father because the Only Father, only the Son a Son because the Only Son. Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of the True. The Son does not become a Father, because He has received from the Father to be immutable and ever the same. (HTML)
... sanctuary; O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters;’ and in the book of Baruch it is written, ‘Thou hast forsaken the Fountain of wisdom,’—this implies that life and wisdom are not foreign to the Essence of the Fountain, but are proper to It, nor were at any time without existence, but were always. Now the Son is all this, who says, ‘I am the Life[John 14:6],’ and, ‘I Wisdom dwell with prudence.’ Is it not then irreligious to say, ‘Once the Son was not?’ for it is all one with saying, ‘Once the Fountain was dry, destitute of Life and Wisdom.’ But a fountain it would then cease to be; for what begetteth ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 318, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse I (HTML)
Subject Continued. Third proof of the Son's eternity, viz. from other titles indicative of His coessentiality; as the Creator; One of the Blessed Trinity; as Wisdom; as Word; as Image. If the Son is a perfect Image of the Father, why is He not a Father also? because God, being perfect, is not the origin of a race. Only the Father a Father because the Only Father, only the Son a Son because the Only Son. Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of the True. The Son does not become a Father, because He has received from the Father to be immutable and ever the same. (HTML)
... exists, there be withal its Image, viz. Radiance, and, a Subsistence existing, there be of it the entire Expression, and, a Father existing, there be His Truth (viz. the Son); let them consider what depths of irreligion they fall into, who make time the measure of the Image and Form of the Godhead. For if the Son was not before His generation, Truth was not always in God, which it were a sin to say; for, since the Father was, there was ever in Him the Truth, which is the Son, who says, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6].’ And the Subsistence existing, of course there was forthwith its Expression and Image; for God’s Image is not delineated from without, but God Himself hath begotten it; in which seeing Himself, He has delight, as the Son Himself says, ‘I was His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 327, footnote 8 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse I (HTML)
Objections Continued. How the Word has free will, yet without being alterable. He is unalterable because the Image of the Father, proved from texts. (HTML)
... as in any particular essence, a certain grace and habit of virtue exists accidentally, which is called Word and Son and Wisdom, and admits of being taken from it and added to it. For they have often expressed this sentiment, but it is not the faith of Christians; as not declaring that He is truly Word and Son of God, or that the wisdom intended is true Wisdom. For what alters and changes, and has no stay in one and the same condition, how can that be true? whereas the Lord says, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6].’ If then the Lord Himself speaks thus concerning Himself, and declares His unalterableness, and the Saints have learned and testify this, nay and our notions of God acknowledge it as religious, whence did these men of irreligion draw this novelty? ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 359, footnote 5 (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)
Chapter XVI.--Introductory to Proverbs viii. 22, that the Son is not a Creature. Arian formula, a creature but not as one of the creatures; but each creature is unlike all other creatures; and no creature can create. The Word then differs from all creatures in that in which they, though otherwise differing, all agree together, as creatures; viz. in being an efficient cause; in being the one medium or instrumental agent in creation; moreover in being the revealer of the Father; and in being the object of worship. (HTML)
... being, but all have a nature which comes to be and is created, confessing in their own selves their Framer: as David says in the Psalms, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handy work;’ and as Zorobabel the wise says, ‘All the earth calleth upon the Truth, and the heaven blesseth it: all works shake and tremble at it.’ But if the whole earth hymns the Framer and the Truth, and blesses, and fears it, and its Framer is the Word, and He Himself says, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6],’ it follows that the Word is not a creature, but alone proper to the Father, in whom all things are disposed, and He is celebrated by all, as Framer; for ‘I was by Him disposing;’ and ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.’ And the word ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 377, footnote 13 (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 is said to be created 'for the works,' i.e. with a particular purpose, which no mere creatures are ever said to be. Parallel of Isai. xlix. 5, &c. When His manhood is spoken of, a reason for it is added; not so when His Divine Nature; Texts in proof. (HTML)
54. And the Lord Himself has spoken many things in proverbs; but when giving us notices about Himself, He has spoken absolutely; ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me,’ and ‘I and the Father are one,’ and, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father,’ and ‘I am the Light of the world,’ and, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6];’ not setting down in every case the reason, nor the wherefore, lest He should seem second to those things for which He was made. For that reason would needs take precedence of Him, without which not even He Himself had come into being. Paul, for instance, ‘separated an Apostle for the Gospel, which the Lord had promised afore by the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 381, footnote 11 (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)
... For though it was after us that He was made man for us, and our brother by similitude of body, still He is therefore called and is the ‘First-born’ of us, because, all men being lost, according to the transgression of Adam, His flesh before all others was saved and liberated, as being the Word’s body; and henceforth we, becoming incorporate with It, are saved after Its pattern. For in It the Lord becomes our guide to the Kingdom of Heaven and to His own Father, saying, ‘I am the way’ and ‘the door[John 14:6],’ and ‘through Me all must enter.’ Whence also is He said to be ‘First-born from the dead,’ not that He died before us, for we had died first; but because having undergone death for us and abolished it, He was the first to rise, as man, for our ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 398, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse III (HTML)
Texts Explained; 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)
9. If then the Father be called the only true God, this is said not to the denial of Him who said, ‘I am the Truth[John 14:6],’ but of those on the other hand who by nature are not true, as the Father and His Word are. And hence the Lord Himself added at once, ‘And Jesus Christ whom Thou didst send.’ Now had He been a creature, He would not have added this, and ranked Himself with His Creator (for what fellowship is there between the True and the not true?); but as it is, by adding Himself to the Father, He has shewn that He is of the Father’s nature; and He has ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 516, footnote 11 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
For 332. Easter-day vii Pharmuthi, iv Non. Apr.; Æra Dioclet. 48; Coss. Fabius Pacatianus, Mæcilius Hilarianus; Præfect, Hyginus; Indict. v. (HTML)
... the feast, and having anointed their door-posts with the blood, implored aid against the destroyer. But now we, eating of the Word of the Father, and having the lintels of our hearts sealed with the blood of the New Testament, acknowledge the grace given us from the Saviour, who said, ‘Behold, I have given unto you to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.’ For no more does death reign; but instead of death henceforth is life, since our Lord said, ‘I am the life[John 14:6];’ so that everything is filled with joy and gladness; as it is written, ‘The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice.’ For when death reigned, ‘sitting down by the rivers of Babylon, we wept,’ and mourned, because we felt the bitterness of captivity; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 516, footnote 16 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
For 332. Easter-day vii Pharmuthi, iv Non. Apr.; Æra Dioclet. 48; Coss. Fabius Pacatianus, Mæcilius Hilarianus; Præfect, Hyginus; Indict. v. (HTML)
... received its fulfilment, and the types being accomplished, should no longer consider the feast typical, neither should we go up to Jerusalem which is here below, to sacrifice the Passover, according to the unseasonable observance of the Jews, lest, while the season passes away, we should be regarded as acting unseasonably; but, in accordance with the injunction of the Apostles, let us go beyond the types, and sing the new song of praise. For perceiving this, and being assembled together with the Truth[John 14:6], they drew near, and said unto our Saviour, ‘Where wilt Thou that we should make ready for Thee the Passover?’ For no longer were these things to be done which belonged to Jerusalem which is beneath; neither there alone was the feast to be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 542, footnote 7 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
(For 342.) Coss. Augustus Constantius III, Constans II, Præf. the same Longinus; Indict. xv; Easter-day iii Id. Apr., xvi Pharmuthi; Æra Dioclet. 58. (HTML)
2. But what sprinklings shall we now employ, while we celebrate the feast? Who will be our guide, as we haste to this festival? None can do this, my beloved, but Him Whom you will name with me, even our Lord Jesus Christ Who said, ‘I am the Way.’ For it is He Who, according to the blessed John, ‘taketh away the sin of the world[John 14:6].’ He purifies our souls, as Jeremiah the prophet says in a certain place, ‘Stand in the ways and see, and enquire, and look which is the good path, and ye shall find in it cleansing for your souls.’ Of old time, the blood of he-goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled upon those who were unclean, were fit only to purify the flesh; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 105, footnote 17 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He next skilfully confutes the partial, empty and blasphemous statement of Eunomius on the subject of the absolutely existent. (HTML)
... seen in the nature which is perishable and mortal. Accordingly he who predicates “unendingness” of the one and only God, and does not include the Son in the assertion of “unendingness” and “eternity,” maintains by such a proposition, that He Whom he thus contrasts with the eternal and unending is perishable and temporary. But we, even when we are told that God “only hath immortality,” understand by “immortality” the Son. For life is immortality, and the Lord is that life, Who said, “I am the Life[John 14:6].” And if He be said to dwell “in the light that no man can approach unto,” again we make no difficulty in understanding that the true Light, unapproachable by falsehood, is the Only-begotten, in Whom we learn from the Truth itself that the Father ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 108, footnote 5 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He then shows the unity of the Son with the Father and Eunomius' lack of understanding and knowledge in the Scriptures. (HTML)
... exercised alike by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So, too, with what follows the words above, “Most High in the heavens, Most High in the highest, Heavenly, true in being what He is, and so continuing, true in words, true in works.” Why, all these things the Christian eye discerns alike in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. If Eunomius does assign them to one only of the Persons acknowledged in the creed, let him dare to call Him “not true in words” Who has said, “I am the Truth[John 14:6],” or to call the Spirit of truth “not true in words,” or let him refuse to give the title of “true in works” to Him Who doeth righteousness and judgment, or to the Spirit Who worketh all in all as He will. For if he does not acknowledge that these ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 117, footnote 9 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He explains the phrase “The Lord created Me,” and the argument about the origination of the Son, the deceptive character of Eunomius' reasoning, and the passage which says, “My glory will I not give to another,” examining them from different points of view. (HTML)
... after man, as the Apostle says, in a new manner and not according to human wont. For we are taught that this “new man” was created —albeit of the Holy Ghost and of the power of the Highest—whom Paul, the hierophant of unspeakable mysteries, bids us to “put on,” using two phrases to express the garment that is to be put on, saying in one place, “Put on the new man which after God is created,” and in another, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” For thus it is that He, Who said “I am the Way[John 14:6],” becomes to us who have put Him on the beginning of the ways of salvation, that He may make us the work of His own hands, new modelling us from the evil mould of sin once more to His own image. He is at once our foundation before the world to come, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 111, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Amandus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1647 (In-Text, Margin)
... shameful and humiliating, to be subject to the Father (often a mark of loving devotion as in the psalm “truly my soul is subject unto God”) or to be crucified and made the curse of the cross? For “cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” If Christ then for our sakes was made a curse that He might deliver us from the curse of the law, are you surprised that He is also for our sakes subject to the Father to make us too subject to Him as He says in the gospel: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me,”[John 14:6] and “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Christ then is subject to the Father in the faithful; for all believers, nay the whole human race, are accounted members of His body. But in unbelievers, that is in Jews, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 226, footnote 7 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3139 (In-Text, Margin)
... overtake them: neither will I turn again till they are consumed,” so that I who was once thine enemy and a fugitive from thee, shall be laid hold of by thine hand. Cease not from pursuing me till my wickedness is consumed, and I return to my old husband who will give me my wool and my flax, my oil and my fine flour and will feed me with the richest foods. He it was who hedged up and enclosed my evil ways that I might find Him the true way who says in the gospel, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”[John 14:6] Hear the words of the prophet: “they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Say also with him: “All the night make I my ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 44, footnote 5 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
The Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 964 (In-Text, Margin)
... that He is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, they admit not; being of a contrary mind to their own Prophets, who in the Divine Scriptures affirm, The Lord said unto me, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee. And to this day they rage and gather themselves together against the Lord, and against His Anointed, thinking that it is possible to be made friends of the Father apart from devotion towards the Son, being ignorant that no man cometh unto the Father but by[John 14:6] the Son, who saith, I am the Door, and I am the Way. He therefore that refuseth the Way which leadeth to the Father, and he that denieth the Door, how shall he be deemed worthy of entrance unto God? They contradict also what is written in the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 57, footnote 11 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Clause, and in One Lord Jesus Christ, with a Reading from the First Epistle to the Corinthians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1124 (In-Text, Margin)
3. Believe thou In One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God. For we say “One Lord Jesus Christ,” that His Sonship may be “Only-begotten:” we say “One,” that thou mayest not suppose another: we say “One,” that thou mayest not profanely diffuse the many names of His action among many sons. For He is called a Door; but take not the name literally for a thing of wood, but a spiritual, a living Door, discriminating those who enter in. He is called a Way[John 14:6], not one trodden by feet, but leading to the Father in heaven; He is called a Sheep, not an irrational one, but the one which through its precious blood cleanses the world from its sins, which is led before the shearers, and knows when to be silent. This ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 307, footnote 5 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Third Theological Oration. On the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3527 (In-Text, Margin)
... These: God—The Word—He That Was In The Beginning and With The Beginning, and The Beginning. “In the Beginning was The Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and “With Thee is the Beginning,” and “He who calleth her The Beginning from generations.” Then the Son is Only-begotten: The only “begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, it says, He hath declared Him.” The Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;” and “I am the Light of the World.”[John 14:6] Wisdom and Power, “Christ, the Wisdom of God, and the Power of God.” The Effulgence, the Impress, the Image, the Seal; “Who being the Effulgence of His glory and the Impress of His Essence,” and “the Image of His Goodness,” and “Him hath God the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 11, footnote 23 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
In how many ways “Through whom” is used; and in what sense “with whom” is more suitable. Explanation of how the Son receives a commandment, and how He is sent. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 847 (In-Text, Margin)
... time it uses terms descriptive of His nature, for it recognises the “name which is above every name,” the name of Son, and speaks of true Son, and only begotten God, and Power of God, and Wisdom, and Word. Then again, on account of the divers manners wherein grace is given to us, which, because of the riches of His goodness, according to his manifold wisdom, he bestows on them that need, Scripture designates Him by innumerable other titles, calling Him Shepherd, King, Physician, Bridegroom, Way,[John 14:6] Door, Fountain, Bread, Axe, and Rock. And these titles do not set forth His nature, but, as I have remarked, the variety of the effectual working which, out of His tender-heartedness to His own creation, according to the peculiar necessity of each, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 12, footnote 18 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
In how many ways “Through whom” is used; and in what sense “with whom” is more suitable. Explanation of how the Son receives a commandment, and how He is sent. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 875 (In-Text, Margin)
... through the works of righteousness and “the illumination of knowledge;” ever longing after what is before, and reaching forth unto those things which remain, until we shall have reached the blessed end, the knowledge of God, which the Lord through Himself bestows on them that have trusted in Him. For our Lord is an essentially good Way, where erring and straying are unknown, to that which is essentially good, to the Father. For “no one,” He says, “cometh to the Father but [“by” A.V.] through me.”[John 14:6] Such is our way up to God “through the Son.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 132, footnote 1 (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 VII (HTML)
... the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and ye have not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also. How sayest thou, Shew us the Father? Dost thou not believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth His works. Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; or else believe for the very works’ sake[John 14:6-11]. He Who is the Way leads us not into by-paths or trackless wastes: He Who is the Truth mocks us not with lies; He Who is the Life betrays us not into delusions which are death. He Himself has chosen these winning names to indicate the methods which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 230, footnote 1 (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 XII (HTML)
... commencement of the ages, there is the eternity of an endless generation: but where the same birth is represented as a creation from the commencement of the ages, for the ways of God and for His works, it is applied as the creative cause to the works and to the ways. And first, since Christ is Wisdom, we must see whether He is Himself the beginning of the way of the works of God. Of this, I think, there is no doubt; for He says, I am the way, and, No man cometh to the Father except through Me[John 14:6]. A way is the guide of those who go, the course marked out for those who hasten, the safeguard of the ignorant, a teacher, so to speak, of things unknown and longed for. Therefore He is created for the beginning of the ways, for the works of God; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 246, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
Homilies on Psalms I., LIII., CXXX. (HTML)
Homilies on the Psalms. (HTML)
Homily on Psalm LIII. (LIV.). (HTML)
... the Person of God, to Whom the petition was at the first addressed: Destroy them by Thy truth. Truth confounds falsehood, and lying is destroyed by truth. We have shewn that the whole of the foregoing prayer is the utterance of that human nature in which the Son of God was born; so here it is the voice of human nature calling upon God the Father to destroy His enemies in His truth. What this truth is, stands beyond doubt; it is of course He Who said: I am the Life, the Way, the Truth[John 14:6]. And the enemies were destroyed by the truth when, for all their attempts to win Christ’s condemnation by false witness, they heard that He was risen from the dead and had to admit that He had resumed His glory in all the reality of Godhead. Ere ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 111, footnote 12 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIII. St. Ambrose shows from the Scriptures that the Name of the Three Divine Persons is one, and first the unity of the Name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as each is called Paraclete and Truth. (HTML)
159. But as we show that the Son is called the Paraclete, so, too, do we show that the Spirit is called the Truth. Christ is the Truth, the Spirit is the Truth, for you find in John’s epistle: “For the Spirit is Truth.” Not only, then, is the Spirit called the Spirit of Truth, but also the Truth, as the Son is also declared to be the Truth, Who says: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 145, footnote 7 (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)
... Let us then here draw our inferences and put an end to the impious questionings of the Arians. For if they say that the Spirit is therefore not to be worshipped because God is worshipped in Spirit, let them then say that the Truth is not to be worshipped, because God is worshipped in truth. For although there be many truths, since it is written: “Truths are minished from the sons of men;” yet they are given by the Divine Truth, which is Christ, Who says: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] If therefore they understand the truth in this passage from custom, let them also understand the grace of the Spirit, and there is no stumbling; or if they receive Christ as the Truth, let them deny that He is to be worshipped.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 208, footnote 15 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter VII. The likeness of Christ to the Father is asserted on the authority of St. Paul, the prophets, and the Gospel, and especially in reliance upon the creation of man in God's image. (HTML)
50. By means of this image the Lord showed Philip the Father, saying, “Philip, he that sees Me, sees the Father also. How then dost thou say, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?” Yes, he who looks upon the Son sees, in portrait, the Father. Mark what manner of portrait is spoken of. It is Truth, Righteousness, the Power of God:[John 14:6] not dumb, for it is the Word; not insensible, for it is Wisdom; not vain and foolish, for it is Power; not soulless, for it is the Life; not dead, for it is the Resurrection. You see, then, that whilst an image is spoken of, the meaning is that it is the Father, Whose image the Son is, seeing that no one can ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 211, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter X. Christ's eternity being proved from the Apostle's teaching, St. Ambrose admonishes us that the Divine Generation is not to be thought of after the fashion of human procreation, nor to be too curiously pried into. With the difficulties thence arising he refuses to deal, saying that whatsoever terms, taken from our knowledge of body, are used in speaking of this Divine Generation, must be understood with a spiritual meaning. (HTML)
... doctrine from the custom of human procreation, nor yet gather the wherewithal for such work from our discourse, for we cannot compass the greatness of infinite Godhead, “of Whose greatness there is no end,” in our straitened speech. If thou shouldst seek to give an account of a man’s birth, thou must needs point to a time. But the Divine Generation is above all things; it reaches far and wide, it rises high above all thought and feeling. For it is written: “No man cometh to the Father, save by Me.”[John 14:6] Whatsoever, therefore, thou dost conceive concerning the Father—yea, be it even His eternity—thou canst not conceive aught concerning Him save by the Son’s aid, nor can any understanding ascend to the Father save through the Son. “This is My ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 219, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XVII. That Christ is very God is proved from the fact that He is God's own Son, also from His having been begotten and having come forth from God, and further, from the unity of will and operation subsisting in Father and Son. The witness of the apostles and of the centurion--which St. Ambrose sets over against the Arian teaching--is adduced, together with that of Isaiah and St. John. (HTML)
108. Hence it is that Christ is not only God, but very God indeed—very God of very God, insomuch that He Himself is the Truth.[John 14:6] If, then, we enquire His Name, it is “the Truth;” if we seek to know His natural rank and dignity, He is so truly the very Son of God, that He is indeed God’s own Son; as it is written, “Who spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for our sakes,” gave Him up, that is, so far as the flesh was concerned. That He is God’s own Son declares His Godhead; that He is very God shows that He is God’s own Son; His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 250, footnote 4 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter VII. Solomon's words, “The Lord created Me,” etc., mean that Christ's Incarnation was done for the redemption of the Father's creation, as is shown by the Son's own words. That He is the “beginning” may be understood from the visible proofs of His virtuousness, and it is shown how the Lord opened the ways of all virtues, and was their true beginning. (HTML)
51. Now the ways of the Lord are, we may say, certain courses taken in a good life, guided by Christ, Who says, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”[John 14:6] The way, then, is the surpassing power of God, for Christ, is our way, and a good way, too, is He, a way which hath opened the kingdom of heaven to believers. Moreover, the ways of the Lord are straight, as it is written: “Make Thy ways known unto me, O Lord.” Chastity is a way, faith is a way, abstinence is a way. There is, indeed, a way of virtue, and there is a way of wickedness; for it is written: “And see if ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 267, footnote 4 (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)
43. Furthermore, what mean the words: “The Son can do nothing of Himself”? Let us put this question, and debate it. Now is there anything impossible to God’s Power and Wisdom? These, observe, are names of the Son of God, Whose Might is certainly not a gift received from another, but just as He is the Life,[John 14:6] not depending upon another’s quickening action, but Himself quickening others, because He is the Life; so also He is Wisdom, not as one that is ignorant acquiring wisdom, but making others wise from His own store; so, too, He is Power, not as having through weakness obtained increase of strength, but being Himself Power, and bestowing power ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 302, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Chapter XII. He confirms what has been already said, by the parable of the rich man who went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom; and shows that when the Son delivers up the kingdom to the Father, we must not regard the fact that the Father is said to put all things in subjection under Him, in a disparaging way. Here we are the kingdom of Christ, and in Christ's kingdom. Hereafter we shall be in the kingdom of God, where the Trinity will reign together. (HTML)
149. Let the Son then deliver up His kingdom to the Father. The kingdom which He delivers up is not lost to Christ, but grows. We are the kingdom, for it was said to us: “The kingdom of God is within you.” And we are the kingdom, first of Christ, then of the Father; as it is written: “No man cometh to the Father, but by Me.”[John 14:6] When I am on the way, I am Christ’s; when I have passed through, I am the Father’s; but everywhere through Christ, and everywhere under Him.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 583, footnote 7 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Chapter V. That before His birth in time Christ was always called God by the prophets. (HTML)
... Lord and man was never separate from God: in whom even in the Virgin’s womb the fulness of the Godhead dwelt. As elsewhere the same Prophet says: “Truth has sprung from the earth and righteousness hath looked down from heaven,” that we may know that when the Son of God looked down from heaven (i.e., came and descended), righteousness was born of the flesh of the Virgin, no phantasm of a body, but the Truth: for He is the Truth, according to His own witness of Truth: “I am the Truth and the life.”[John 14:6] And so as we have proved in the earlier books that this Truth; viz., the Lord Jesus Christ, was God when born of the Virgin, let us now do as we determined to do in the book before this, and show that He who was to be born of the Virgin, was always ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 164, footnote 6 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
A Homily delivered on the Saturday before the Second Sunday in Lent--on the Transfiguration, S. Matt. xvii. 1-13. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 971 (In-Text, Margin)
“Hear ye Him,” therefore, unhesitatingly, in Whom I am throughout well pleased, and by Whose preaching I am manifested, by Whose humiliation I am glorified; because He is “the Truth and the Life[John 14:6],” He is My “Power and Wisdom.” “Hear ye Him,” Whom the mysteries of the Law have foretold, Whom the mouths of prophets have sung. “Hear ye Him,” Who redeems the world by His blood, Who binds the devil, and carries off his chattels, Who destroys the bond of sin, and the compact of the transgression. Hear ye Him, Who opens the way to heaven, and by the punishment of the cross prepares for you the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 164, footnote 7 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
A Homily delivered on the Saturday before the Second Sunday in Lent--on the Transfiguration, S. Matt. xvii. 1-13. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 972 (In-Text, Margin)
“Hear ye Him,” therefore, unhesitatingly, in Whom I am throughout well pleased, and by Whose preaching I am manifested, by Whose humiliation I am glorified; because He is “the Truth and the Life,” He is My “Power and Wisdom[John 14:6].” “Hear ye Him,” Whom the mysteries of the Law have foretold, Whom the mouths of prophets have sung. “Hear ye Him,” Who redeems the world by His blood, Who binds the devil, and carries off his chattels, Who destroys the bond of sin, and the compact of the transgression. Hear ye Him, Who opens the way to heaven, and by the punishment of the cross prepares for you the steps of ascent to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 184, footnote 3 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Lord's Resurrection, II. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1109 (In-Text, Margin)
... example whereby man’s devotion is excited: for to those who are rescued from the prisoner’s yoke Redemption further procures the power of following the way of the cross by imitation. For if the world’s wisdom so prides itself in its error that every one follows the opinions and habits and whole manner of life of him whom he has chosen as his leader, how shall we share in the name of Christ save by being inseparably united to Him, Who is, as He Himself asserted, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life[John 14:6]?” the Way that is of holy living, the Truth of Divine doctrine, and the Life of eternal happiness.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 228, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Ephraim Syrus: Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. (HTML)
Hymn II. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 393 (In-Text, Margin)
Glory to the hidden Husbandman of our intellects! His seed fell on to our ground, and made our mind rich. His increase came an hundredfold into the treasury of our souls! Let us adore Him Who sat down and took rest; and walked in the way, so that the Way was in the way, and the Door also for them that go in,[John 14:6] by which they go in to the kingdom.