Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Acts 4
There are 121 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 431, footnote 4 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Doctrine of the rest of the apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3483 (In-Text, Margin)
... the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first, God, having raised up His Son, sent Him blessing you, that each may turn himself from his iniquities.” Peter, together with John, preached to them this plain message of glad tidings, that the promise which God made to the fathers had been fulfilled by Jesus; not certainly proclaiming another god, but the Son of God, who also was made man, and suffered; thus leading Israel into knowledge, and through Jesus preaching the resurrection of the dead,[Acts 4:2] and showing, that whatever the prophets had proclaimed as to the suffering of Christ, these had God fulfilled.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 431, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Doctrine of the rest of the apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3484 (In-Text, Margin)
... impotent man, by what means he has been made whole; be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head-stone of the corner. [Neither is there salvation in any other: for] there is none other name under heaven, which is given to men, whereby we must be saved:”[Acts 4:8] Thus the apostles did not change God, but preached to the people that Christ was Jesus the crucified One, whom the same God that had sent the prophets, being God Himself, raised up, and gave in Him salvation to men.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 431, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Doctrine of the rest of the apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3485 (In-Text, Margin)
5. They were confounded, therefore, both by this instance of healing (“for the man was above forty years old on whom this miracle of healing took place”[Acts 4:22]), and by the doctrine of the apostles, and by the exposition of the prophets, when the chief priests had sent away Peter and John. [These latter] returned to the rest of their fellow-apostles and disciples of the Lord, that is, to the Church, and related what had occurred, and how courageously they had acted in the name of Jesus. The whole Church, it is then said, “when they had heard that, lifted up the voice to God ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 431, footnote 9 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Doctrine of the rest of the apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3488 (In-Text, Margin)
... Holy Ghost, by the mouth of our father David, Thy servant, hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. For of a truth, in this city, against Thy holy Son Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.”[Acts 4:24] These [are the] voices of the Church from which every Church had its origin; these are the voices of the metropolis of the citizens of the new covenant; these are the voices of the apostles; these are voices of the disciples of the Lord, the truly ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 431, footnote 10 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Doctrine of the rest of the apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3489 (In-Text, Margin)
... heaven, and earth, and the sea,—who was announced by the prophets,— and Jesus Christ His Son, whom God anointed, and who knew no other [God]. For at that time and place there was neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor the rest of these subverters [of the truth], and their adherents. Wherefore God, the Maker of all things, heard them. For it is said, “The place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness”[Acts 4:31] to every one that was willing to believe. “And with great power,” it is added, “gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,” saying to them, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye seized and slew, hanging [Him] upon a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 431, footnote 12 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Doctrine of the rest of the apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3491 (In-Text, Margin)
... at that time and place there was neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor the rest of these subverters [of the truth], and their adherents. Wherefore God, the Maker of all things, heard them. For it is said, “The place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness” to every one that was willing to believe. “And with great power,” it is added, “gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,”[Acts 4:33] saying to them, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye seized and slew, hanging [Him] upon a beam of wood: Him hath God raised up by His right hand to be a Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 495, footnote 1 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XXIII.—The patriarchs and prophets by pointing out the advent of Christ, fortified thereby, as it were, the way of posterity to the faith of Christ; and so the labours of the apostles were lessened inasmuch as they gathered in the fruits of the labours of others. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4136 (In-Text, Margin)
... labour to go through with regard to this man, because he was already prepared in the fear of God by the prophets. For this reason, too, did the apostles, collecting the sheep which had perished of the house of Israel, and discoursing to them from the Scriptures, prove that this crucified Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God; and they persuaded a great multitude, who, however, [already] possessed the fear of God. And there were, in one day, baptized three, and four, and five thousand men.[Acts 4:4]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 18, footnote 9 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
The Pastor of Hermas (HTML)
Book First.—Visions (HTML)
Vision Fourth. Concerning the Trial and Tribulation that are to Come Upon Men. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 142 (In-Text, Margin)
... saluted me, and said, “Hail, O man!” And I returned her salutation, and said, “Lady, hail!” And she answered, and said to me, “Has nothing crossed your path?” I say, “I was met by a beast of such a size that it could destroy peoples, but through the power of the Lord and His great mercy I escaped from it.” “Well did you escape from it,” says she, “because you cast your care on God, and opened your heart to the Lord, believing that you can be saved by no other than by His great and glorious name.[Acts 4:12] On this account the Lord has sent His angel, who has rule over the beasts, and whose name is Thegri, and has shut up its mouth, so that it cannot tear you. You have escaped from great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 625, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
Christ Not the Father, as Praxeas Said. The Inconsistency of This Opinion, No Less Than Its Absurdity, Exposed. The True Doctrine of Jesus Christ According to St. Paul, Who Agrees with Other Sacred Writers. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8162 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Father? Now then, concerning Christ, if Christ is the Father, the Father is an Anointed One, and receives the unction of course from another. Else if it is from Himself that He re ceives it, then you must prove it to us. But we learn no such fact from the Acts of the Apostles in that ejaculation of the Church to God, “Of a truth, Lord, against Thy Holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together.”[Acts 4:27] These then testified both that Jesus was the Son of God, and that being the Son, He was anointed by the Father. Christ therefore must be the same as Jesus who was anointed by the Father, and not the Father, who anointed the Son. To the same effect ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 672, footnote 20 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Baptism. (HTML)
Of the Unction. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8597 (In-Text, Margin)
... derived) from the old discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood, men were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses. Whence Aaron is called “Christ,” from the “chrism,” which is “the unction;” which, when made spiritual, furnished an appropriate name to the Lord, because He was “anointed” with the Spirit by God the Father; as written in the Acts: “For truly they were gathered together in this city against Thy Holy Son whom Thou hast anointed.”[Acts 4:27] Thus, too, in our case, the unction runs carnally, (i.e. on the body,) but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself too is carnal, in that we are plunged in water, but the effect spiritual, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 123, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1184 (In-Text, Margin)
... theirs who have the soul only treasured up. If we cannot serve God and mammon, can we be redeemed both by God and by mammon? For who will serve mammon more than the man whom mammon has ransomed? Finally, of what example do you avail yourself to warrant your averting by money the giving of you up? When did the apostles, dealing with the matter, in any time of persecution trouble, extricate themselves by money? And money they certainly had from the prices of lands which were laid down at their feet,[Acts 4:34-35] there being, without a doubt, many of the rich among those who believed—men, and also women, who were wont, too, to minister to their comfort. When did Onesimus, or Aquila, or Stephen, give them aid of this kind when they were persecuted? Paul ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 644, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VIII (HTML)
Chapter XII (HTML)
... known that saying, “I and My Father are one,” and the words used in prayer by the Son of God, “As Thou and I are one,” he would not have supposed that we worship any other besides Him who is the Supreme God. “For,” says He, “My Father is in Me, and I in Him.” And if any should from these words be afraid of our going over to the side of those who deny that the Father and the Son are two persons, let him weigh that passage, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul,”[Acts 4:32] 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 ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 164, footnote 11 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Exegetical. (HTML)
On Genesis. (HTML)
... stubborn; and their wrath, for it was hardened.” But this people of the Jews dared to boast of houghing the bull: “Our hands shed this.” For this is nothing different, I think, from the word of folly: “His blood” (be upon us), and so forth. Moses recalls the curse against Levi, or, rather converts it into a blessing, on account of the subsequent zeal of the tribe, and of Phinehas in particular, in behalf of God. But that against Simeon he did not recall. Wherefore it also was fulfilled in deed.[Acts 4:36] For Simeon did not obtain an inheritance like the other tribes, for he dwelt in the midst of Judah. Yet his tribe was preserved, although it was small in number.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 226, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Against the Heresy of One Noetus. (HTML)
... And this, indeed, is said by Christ Himself, as when in the Gospel He confessed Him to be His Father and His God. For He speaks thus: “I go to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.” If then, Noetus ventures to say that He is the Father Himself, to what father will he say Christ goes away according to the word of the Gospel? But if he will have us abandon the Gospel and give credence to his senselessness, he expends his labour in vain; for “we ought to obey God rather than men.”[Acts 4:19]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 283, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To the Presbyters and Deacons. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2144 (In-Text, Margin)
... and as well as possible; but especially those who have stood with unshaken faith and have not forsaken Christ’s flock, that, by your diligence, means be supplied to them to enable them to bear their poverty, so that what the troublous time has not effected in respect of their faith, may not be accomplished by want in respect of their afflictions. Let a more earnest care, moreover, be bestowed upon the glorious confessors. And although I know that very many of those have been maintained by the vow[Acts 4:6] and by the love of the brethren, yet if there be any who are in want either of clothing or maintenance, let them be supplied, with whatever things are necessary, as I formerly wrote to you, while they were still kept in prison,—only let them know ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 286, footnote 7 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To the Clergy, Concerning Prayer to God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2184 (In-Text, Margin)
... them, but that in their petitions there were dissonant voices, and wills disagreeing, and that this excessively displeased Him who had said, “Ask, and ye shall obtain,” because the disagreement of the people was out of harmony, and there was not a consent of the brethren one and simple, and a united concord; since it is written, “God who maketh men to be of one mind in a house;” and we read in the Acts of the Apostles, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.”[Acts 4:32] And the Lord has bidden us with His own voice, saying, “This is my command, that ye love one another.” And again, “I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that you shall ask, it shall be done for you of my Father ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 371, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To the Clergy and People Abiding in Spain, Concerning Basilides and Martial. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2767 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter speaks to the people of ordaining an apostle in the place of Judas. “Peter,” it says, “stood up in the midst of the disciples, and the multitude were in one place.” Neither do we observe that this was regarded by the apostles only in the ordinations of bishops and priests, but also in those of deacons, of which matter itself also it is written in their Acts: “And they twelve called together,” it says, “the whole congregation of the disciples, and said to them;”[Acts 4:2] which was done so diligently and carefully, with the calling together of the whole of the people, surely for this reason, that no unworthy person might creep into the ministry of the altar, or to the office of a priest. For that unworthy persons are ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 429, footnote 7 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Unity of the Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3164 (In-Text, Margin)
25. This unanimity formerly prevailed among the apostles; and thus the new assembly of believers, keeping the Lord’s commandments, maintained its charity. Divine Scripture proves this, when it says, “But the multitude of them which believed were of one heart and of one soul.”[Acts 4:32] And again: “These all continued with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.” And thus they prayed with effectual prayers; thus they were able with confidence to obtain whatever they asked from the Lord’s mercy.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 483, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On Works and Alms. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3581 (In-Text, Margin)
... transferred their lands thither where they might receive the fruits of an eternal possession, and there prepared homes where they might begin an eternal habitation. Such, then, was the abundance in labours, as was the agreement in love, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles: “And the multitude of them that believed acted with one heart and one soul; neither was there any distinction among them, nor did they esteem anything their own of the goods which belonged to them, but they had all things common.”[Acts 4:32] This is truly to become sons of God by spiritual birth; this is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father. For whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from His benefits and His gifts, so as to prevent the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 522, footnote 12 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
... interrogated by you about the good deed done to the impotent man, by means of which he is made whole. Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye have crucified, whom God hath raised up from the dead, by Him he stands whole in your presence, but by none other. This is the stone which was despised by you builders, which has become the head of the corner. For there is no other name given to men under heaven in which we must be saved.”[Acts 4:8-12] This is the stone in Genesis, which Jacob places at his head, because the head of the man is Christ; and as he slept he saw a ladder reaching to heaven, on which the Lord was placed, and angels were ascending and descending. And this stone he ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 533, footnote 12 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
... eternal life abiding in him.” Also in the same place: “If any one shall say that he loves God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he who loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?” Of this same thing in the Acts of the Apostles: “But the multitude of them that had believed acted with one soul and mind: nor was there among them any distinction, neither did they esteem as their own anything of the possessions that they had; but all things were common to them.”[Acts 4:32] Of this same thing in the Gospel according to Matthew: If thou wouldest offer thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave thou thy gift before the altar, and go; first be reconciled to thy brother, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 670, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Appendix. (HTML)
Anonymous Treatise on Re-baptism. (HTML)
A Treatise on Re-Baptism by an Anonymous Writer. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5441 (In-Text, Margin)
... Holy Spirit. Nor, as I think, was it for any other reason that the apostles had charged those whom they addressed in the Holy Spirit, that they should be baptized in the name of Christ Jesus, except that the power of the name of Jesus invoked upon any man by baptism might afford to him who should be baptized no slight advantage for the attainment of salvation, as Peter relates in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: “For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.”[Acts 4:12] As also the Apostle Paul unfolds, showing that God hath exalted our Lord Jesus, and “given Him a name, that it may be above every name, that in the name of Jesus all should bow the knee, of things heavenly and earthly, and under the earth, and every ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 378, footnote 18 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
Chapter IV.—Various Precepts (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2417 (In-Text, Margin)
... the hands to receive and a drawer of them back to give. 6. If thou hast aught, through thy hands thou shalt give ransom for thy sins. 7. Thou shalt not hesitate to give, nor murmur when thou givest; for thou shalt know who is the good repayer of the hire. 8. Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in want, but thou shalt share all things with thy brother, and shalt not say that they are thine own; for if ye are partakers in that which is immortal, how much more in things which are mortal?[Acts 4:32] 9. Thou shalt not remove thy hand from thy son or from thy daughter, but from their youth shalt teach them the fear of God. 10. Thou shalt not enjoin aught in thy bitterness upon thy bondman or maidservant, who hope in the same God, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 438, footnote 1 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Sec. I.—Concerning the Martyrs (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2974 (In-Text, Margin)
... are given over to death, or bonds, or banishment, in order to deliver your fellow-members from wicked hands. And if any one who accompanies with them is caught, and falls into misfortune, he is blessed, because he is partaker with the martyr, and is one that imitates the sufferings of Christ; for we ourselves also, when we oftentimes received stripes from Caiaphas, and Alexander, and Annas, for Christ’s sake, “went out rejoicing that we were counted worthy to suffer such things for our Saviour.”[Acts 4:6] Do you also rejoice when ye suffer such things, for ye shall be blessed in that day.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 417, footnote 2 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)
The Gospel of Nicodemus; Part I.--The Acts of Pilate: First Greek Form. (HTML)
Chapter 1. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1808 (In-Text, Margin)
And Pilate having called the runner, says to him: Why hast thou done this, and spread out thy cloak upon the earth, and made Jesus walk upon it? The runner says to him: My lord procurator, when thou didst send me to Jerusalem to Alexander,[Acts 4:6] I saw him sitting upon an ass, and the sons of the Hebrews held branches in their hands, and shouted; and other spread their clothes under him saying, Save now, thou who art in the highest: blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 504, footnote 3 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Apocrypha of the New Testament. (HTML)
The Acts of Philip. (HTML)
Acts of Saint Philip the Apostle When He Went to Upper Hellas. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2190 (In-Text, Margin)
... have said, Do not refuse us through envy, let it not be that I should refuse you; but rather in great exultation and in great joy I have to reveal to you that name, for I have no other work in this world than this proclamation. For when my Lord came into this world, He chose us, being twelve in number, having filled us with the Holy Spirit; from His light He made us know who He was, and commanded us to preach all salvation through Him, because there is no other name named out of heaven than this.[Acts 4:12] On this account I have come to you, to make you fully assured, not in word only, but also in the showing forth of wonderful works in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 619, footnote 5 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
The Decretals. (HTML)
The Epistle of Pope Urban First. (HTML)
Of the life in common, and of the reason why the Church has begun to hold property. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2767 (In-Text, Margin)
... all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, the son of consolation), a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet;”[Acts 4:32-37] and so forth. Accordingly, as the chief priests and others, and the Levites, and the rest of the faithful, perceived that it might be of more advantage if they handed over to the churches over which the bishops presided the heritages and fields ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 633, footnote 1 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
The Decretals. (HTML)
The Epistles of Pope Fabian. (HTML)
To All the Bishops of the East. (HTML)
Of the right of bishops not to be accused or hurt by detraction. (HTML)
... along with the rest to preach the Gospel. For the apostles had no such custom, neither did they teach that it was one fit to be had. And to like effect their successors also, foreseeing by the Spirit of God things to come, have determined largely on such subject. Besides, as you read in the Acts of the Apostles, “There was at that time among them that believed one heart and one soul; neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.”[Acts 4:32] For there was no laying of accusations against each other among them, except what was friendly; neither ought there ever to be such among their followers or among believers: for the Lord says, “Do not that to another which thou wouldst not have done ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 11, footnote 3 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
The Gospel of Peter. (HTML)
Synoptical Table of the Four Canonical Gospels and The Gospel According to Peter. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 12 (In-Text, Margin)
1 But of the Jews none washed his hands, neither Herod nor any one of his judges.[Acts 4:27] 2 And when they had refused to wash them, Pilate rose up. And Herod the king commandeth that the Lord be taken, saying to them, What things soever I commanded you to do unto them, do.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 310, footnote 7 (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 Title “Word” Is to Be Interpreted by the Same Method as the Other Titles of Christ. The Word of God is Not a Mere Attribute of God, But a Separate Person. What is Meant When He is Called the Word. (HTML)
... is called the stone, as follows: “The stone which the builders rejected is made the head of the corner. It is from the Lord, and it is wonderful in our eyes.” And the Gospel shows, as also does Luke in the Acts, that the stone is no other than Christ; the Gospel as follows: “Have ye never read, the stone which the builders rejected is made the head of the corner. Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust.” And Luke writes in Acts:[Acts 4:11] “This is the stone, which was set at naught of you the builders, which has become the head of the corner.” And one of the names applied to the Saviour is that which He Himself does not utter, but which John records;—the Word who was in the beginning ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 421, footnote 9 (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 X. (HTML)
The Disciples as Scribes. (HTML)
... making an affirmation, it is necessarily said not “these things” only,—which is demonstrative,—not “all things” only, but “all these things.” And here He seems to represent the disciples as having been scribes before the kingdom of heaven; but to this is opposed what is said in the Acts of the Apostles thus, “Now when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled, and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.”[Acts 4:13] Some one may inquire in regard to these things—if they were scribes, how are they spoken of in the Acts as unlearned and ignorant men? Or if they were unlearned and ignorant men, how are they very plainly called scribes by the Saviour? And it might ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 495, 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 XIV. (HTML)
The Power of Harmony in Relation to Prayer. (HTML)
... and the three speak as one, “As the heart panteth after the springs of the water, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” But also they say in the plural in the forty-fourth Psalm, “O God, we have heard with our ears.” But if you wish still further to see those who are making symphony on earth look to those who heard the exhortation, “that ye may be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment,” and who strove after the goal, “the soul and the heart of all the believers were one,”[Acts 4:32] who have become such, if it be possible for such a condition to be found in more than two or three, that there is no discord between them, just as there is no discord between the strings of the ten-stringed psaltery with each other. But they were ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 136, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He speaks of his design of forsaking the profession of rhetoric; of the death of his friends, Nebridius and Verecundus; of having received baptism in the thirty-third year of his age; and of the virtues and death of his mother, Monica. (HTML)
Of the Conversion of Evodius, and the Death of His Mother When Returning with Him to Africa; And Whose Education He Tenderly Relates. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 768 (In-Text, Margin)
... us. Yet Thou renderest not unto them what Thou dost by them, but what was proposed by them. For she, being angry, desired to irritate her young mistress, not to cure her; and did it in secret, either because the time and place of the dispute found them thus, or perhaps lest she herself should be exposed to danger for disclosing it so late. But Thou, Lord, Governor of heavenly and earthly things, who convertest to Thy purposes the deepest torrents, and disposest the turbulent current of the ages,[Acts 4:26] healest one soul by the unsoundness of another; lest any man, when he remarks this, should attribute it unto his own power if another, whom he wishes to be reformed, is so through a word of his.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 245, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
from Paulinus and Therasia (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1503 (In-Text, Margin)
... examples of the just, if I may through your prayers apprehend that for which I have been apprehended by the compassion of God. Guide, therefore, this infant creeping on the ground, and by your steps teach him to walk. For I would not have you judge of me by the age which began with my natural birth, but by that which began with my spiritual new birth. For as to the natural life, my age is that which the cripple, healed by the apostles by the power of their word at the gate Beautiful, had attained.[Acts 4:22] But with respect to the birth of my soul, mine is as yet the age of those infants who, being sacrificed by the death-blows which were aimed at Christ, preceded with blood worthy of such honour the offering of the Lamb, and were the harbingers of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 559, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Utility of the Bondage of the Jews. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1856 (In-Text, Margin)
... obedient, fixed the thoughts of those who observed them on the worship of the One God who made heaven and earth. These men, because they had been very near to spiritual things (for even in the temporal and carnal offerings and types, though they did not clearly apprehend their spiritual meaning, they had learnt to adore the One Eternal God,) were filled with such a measure of the Holy Spirit that they sold all their goods, and laid their price at the apostles’ feet to be distributed among the needy,[Acts 4:34-35] and consecrated themselves wholly to God as a new temple, of which the old temple they were serving was but the earthly type.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 169, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He expounds this trinity that he has found in knowledge by commending Christian faith. (HTML)
Faith a Thing of the Heart, Not of the Body; How It is Common and One and the Same in All Believers. The Faith of Believers is One, No Otherwise than the Will of Those Who Will is One. (HTML)
... whose it is; although not indeed itself but a faith like it, is also in others. For it is not one in number, but in kind; yet on account of the likeness, and the absence of all difference, we rather call it one than many. For when, too, we see two men exceedingly alike, we wonder, and say that both have one countenance. It is therefore more easily said that the souls were many,—a several soul, of course, for each several person—of whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles, that they were of one soul,[Acts 4:32] —than it is, where the apostle speaks of “one faith,” for any one to venture to say that there are as many faiths as there are faithful. And yet He who says, “O woman, great is thy faith;” and to another, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 223, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
He embraces in a brief compendium the contents of the previous books; and finally shows that the Trinity, in the perfect sight of which consists the blessed life that is promised us, is here seen by us as in a glass and in an enigma, so long as it is seen through that image of God which we ourselves are. (HTML)
The Question Why the Holy Spirit is Not Begotten, and How He Proceeds from the Father and the Son, Will Only Be Understood When We are in Bliss. (HTML)
... debt of sin has conquered them; but not by the might of power before He had done so by the righteousness of blood. And free accordingly from the power of the devil, they are borne up by holy angels, being set free from all evils by the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Since by the harmonious testimony of the Divine Scriptures, both Old and New, both those by which Christ was foretold, and those by which He was announced, there is no other name under heaven whereby men must be saved.[Acts 4:12] And when purged from all contagion of corruption, they are placed in peaceful abodes until they take their bodies again, their own, but now incorruptible, to adorn, not to burden them. For this is the will of the best and most wise Creator, that the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 370, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Creed. (HTML)
Section 4 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1769 (In-Text, Margin)
... yourselves such like in your heart, ye set up idols in the “one soul.” Utterly repel it. First believe, then understand. Now to whom God gives that when he has believed he soon understands; that is God’s gift, not human frailness. Still, if ye do not yet understand, believe: One God the Father, God Christ the Son of God. Both are what? One God. And how are both said to be One God? How? Dost thou marvel? In the Acts of the Apostles, “There was,” it says, “in the believers, one soul and one heart.”[Acts 4:32] There were many souls, faith had made them one. So many thousands of souls were there; they loved each other, and many are one: they loved God in the fire of charity, and from being many they are come to the oneness of beauty. If all those many ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 408, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Good of Marriage. (HTML)
Section 21 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1988 (In-Text, Margin)
21. But since out of many souls there shall be hereafter one City of such as have one soul and one heart[Acts 4:32] towards God; which perfection of our unity shall be hereafter, after this sojourn in a strange land, wherein the thoughts of all shall neither be hidden one from another, nor shall be in any matter opposed one to another; on this account the Sacrament of marriage of our time hath been so reduced to one man and one wife, as that it is not lawful to ordain any as a steward of the Church, save the husband of one wife. And this they have ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 519, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
Of the Work of Monks. (HTML)
Section 32 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2578 (In-Text, Margin)
... poor estate converted unto this manner of life, let him not account himself to be doing that which he was doing aforetime, if foregoing the love of even increasing his ever so small matter of private substance, and now no more seeking his own but the things which be Jesu Christ’s, he hath translated himself into the charity of a life in common, to live in fellowship of them who have one soul and one heart to Godward, so that no man saith that any thing is his own, but they have all things common.[Acts 4:32] For if in this earthly commonwealth its chief men in the old times did, as their own men of letters are wont in their most glowing phrase to tell of them, to that degree prefer the common weal of the whole people of their city and country to their ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 592, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)
In which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of Petilianus, as though disputing with an adversary face to face. (HTML)
Chapter 105 (HTML)
... whom we understand to be represented with greater dignity and more conspicuous fortitude in the beard, read in the Acts of the Apostles, and see those who "brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet. Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own: but they had all things common: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul."[Acts 4:32-35] I doubt not that you are aware that it is so written. Recognize, therefore, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Recognize the beard of Aaron; recognize the skirts of the spiritual garments. Search the Scriptures ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 646, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
The Correction of the Donatists. (HTML)
Chapter 9 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2531 (In-Text, Margin)
... not only the property which they call their own, but also with it what is asserted to be ours. For it is written "All are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." Under Him as our Head, let us all be one in His one body; and in all such matters as you speak of, let us follow the example which is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles: "They were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common."[Acts 4:32] Let us love what we sing: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" that so they may know, by their own experience, with what perfect truth their mother, the Catholic Church, calls out to them what the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 34, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
From the Acts of the Apostles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 386 (In-Text, Margin)
... Lord Jesus as “the Author of life,” upbraiding the Jews for having put Him to death in these words: “But ye dishonoured and denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and ye killed the Author of life.” While in another passage he says: “This is the stone which was set at nought by you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.”[Acts 4:11-12] And again, else where: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, by hanging on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” Once more: “To Him ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 137, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
Shall We Follow Scripture, or Add to Its Declarations? (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1243 (In-Text, Margin)
... to what he reads in them; that he would only faithfully and obediently hear that which is written there: “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men; in which all have sinned;” and that he would not weaken the grace of the great Physician,—all by his unwillingness to confess that human nature is corrupted! Oh how I wish that he would, as a Christian, read the sentence, “There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved;”[Acts 4:12] and that he would not so uphold the possibility of human nature, as to believe that man can be saved by free will without that Name!
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 246, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
The Heresy of Pelagius and Cœlestius Aims at the Very Foundations of Our Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1961 (In-Text, Margin)
... into death, by the other are liberated unto life; the former of whom has ruined us in himself, by doing his own will instead of His who created him; the latter has saved us in Himself, by not doing His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him: and it is in what concerns these two men that the Christian faith properly consists. For “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;” since “there is none other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved;”[Acts 4:12] and “in Him hath God defined unto all men their faith, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” Now without this faith, that is to say, without a belief in the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; without faith, I say, in His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 322, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin (HTML)
By ‘Breath’ Is Signified Sometimes the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2357 (In-Text, Margin)
... then, as an exposition of what he had designated “ breath,” he went on to say, “and spirit to them that walk over it.” Surely this prediction was most manifestly fulfilled when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. If, however, the term “ people ” is not yet applicable to the one hundred and twenty persons who were then assembled together in one place, at all events, when the number of believers amounted to four or five thousand, who when they were baptized received the Holy Ghost,[Acts 4:31] can any doubt that the recipients of the Holy Ghost were then “the people,” even “the men walking in the earth”? For that spirit which is given to man as appertaining to his nature, whether it be given by propagation or be inbreathed as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 514, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
It is in the Power of Evil Men to Sin; But to Do This or That by Means of that Wickedness is in God’s Power Alone. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3518 (In-Text, Margin)
... sea, and all things that are therein; who, by the mouth of our father David, thy holy servant, hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. For in truth, there have assembled together in this city against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, Herod and Pilate, and the people of Israel, to do whatever Thy hand and counsel predestinated to be done.”[Acts 4:24] See what is said: “As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sakes.” Because God’s hand and counsel predestinated such things to be done by the hostile Jews as were necessary for the gospel, for our sakes. But what is it that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 35, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
On the Latter Part of Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Contained in the Sixth and Seventh Chapters of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 252 (In-Text, Margin)
... unbelievers, so that by our good works, which are to be praised, they may honour God, and may come to salvation. But if you should be of opinion that the left hand means an enemy, so that your enemy is not to know when you do alms, why did the Lord Himself, when His enemies the Jews were standing round, mercifully heal men? why did the Apostle Peter, by healing the lame man whom he pitied at the gate Beautiful, bring also the wrath of the enemy upon himself, and upon the other disciples of Christ?[Acts 4] Then, further, if it is necessary that the enemy should not know when we do our alms, how shall we do with the enemy himself so as to fulfil that precept, “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 203, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
The Harmony of the Gospels. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Of the Derision Ascribed to the Robbers, and of the Question Regarding the Absence of Any Discrepancy Between Matthew and Mark on the One Hand, and Luke on the Other, When the Last-Named Evangelist States that One of the Two Mocked Him, and that the Other Believed on Him. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1435 (In-Text, Margin)
... where it is said that they “were sawn asunder,” while that manner of death is reported only of Isaiah. In the same way, when it is said in the Psalm, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together,” etc., the plural number is employed instead of the singular, according to the exposition given of the passage in the Acts of the Apostles. For those who have made use of the testimony of the said Psalm in that book take the kings to refer to Herod, and the princes to Pilate.[Acts 4:26-27] But further, inasmuch as the pagans are in the habit of bringing such slanderous charges against the Gospel, I would ask them to consider how their own writers have spoken of Phaedras and Medeas and Clytemnestras, when there really was but a single ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 330, footnote 9 (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. xii. 32, ‘Whosoever shall speak a word against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.’ Or, ‘on the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2475 (In-Text, Margin)
... delivered by the Lord, since mention had been made of the unclean spirit whom the Lord shows to be divided against himself, because of the Holy Spirit who is not only not divided against Himself, but who also makes those whom He gathers together undivided, by forgiving those sins which are divided against themselves, and by inhabiting those who are cleansed, that it may be with them, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.”[Acts 4:32] And this gift of forgiveness none resists, but he who has the hardness of an impenitent heart. For in another place also the Jews said of the Lord that He had a devil, yet He spake nothing there of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit; because they did ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 343, footnote 13 (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. xv. 21,’Jesus went out thence, and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanitish woman,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2608 (In-Text, Margin)
... among this people of the Jews; were converted, and baptized. They came to the Lord’s table, and in faith drank that Blood, which in their fury they had shed. Now in what sort they were converted, how decidedly, and how perfectly, the Acts of the Apostles show. “For they sold all that they possessed, and laid the prices of their things at the Apostles’ feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need; and no man said that ought was his own, but they had all things common.”[Acts 4:32] And, “They were,” as it is written, “of one heart and of one soul.” Lo here are the sheep of whom He said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” For to them He exhibited His Presence, for them in the midst of their violence ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 428, 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, Luke x. 38, ‘And a certain woman named Martha received him into her house,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3319 (In-Text, Margin)
... “Now I beseech you, brethren, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that ye be perfected in the same mind, and in the same knowledge.” And in another place, “That ye be of one mind, thinking one thing, doing nothing through strife or vainglory.” And the Lord prays to the Father touching them that are His: “that they may be one even as We are One.” And in the Acts of the Apostles; “And the multitude of them that believed were of one soul, and of one heart.”[Acts 4:32] Therefore, “Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His Name in one together.” For one thing is necessary, that celestial Oneness, the Oneness in which the Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit are One. See how the praise of Unity is commended to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 458, 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, Luke xxiv. 36, ‘He himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, peace be unto you,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3570 (In-Text, Margin)
... that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” Let the Jews rage madly, and be filled with jealousy: Stephen be stoned, Saul keep the raiment of them who stone him, Saul, one day to be the Apostle Paul. Let Stephen be killed, the Church of Jerusalem dispersed in confusion: out of it go forth burning brands, and spread themselves and spread their flame. For in the Church of Jerusalem, as it were burning brands were set on fire by the Holy Spirit, when they had all one soul, and one heart to God-ward.[Acts 4:32] When Stephen was stoned, that pile suffered persecution: the brands were dispersed, and the world was set on fire.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 525, 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 x. 14, ‘I am the good shepherd,’ etc. Against the Donatists. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4147 (In-Text, Margin)
7. It seems obscure, obscure it is; for it is a mystery of the sacred marriage bed. For she says, “The King hath brought me into His chamber.” Of such a chamber is this a mystery. But ye who are not as profane kept off from this chamber, hear ye what ye are, and say with her, if with her ye love (and ye do love with her, if ye are in her); say all, and yet let one say, for unity saith; “Tell me, O Thou whom my soul loveth. For they had one soul to Godward, and one heart.[Acts 4:32] Tell me where Thou feedest, where Thou liest down in the midday?” What does the midday signify? “Great heat, and great brightness.” So then, “make known to me who are Thy wise ones,” fervent in spirit, and brilliant in doctrine. “Make known to me Thy Right ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 97, 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 III. 29–36. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 323 (In-Text, Margin)
... the spirit of man, when it cleaves to God, is one spirit, as the apostle openly declares, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit;” how much more is the equal Son, joined to the Father, together with Him one God! Hear another testimony. You know how many believed, when they sold all they had and laid it at the apostles’ feet, that it might be distributed to each according to his need; and what saith the Scripture of that gathering of the saints? “They had one soul and one heart in the Lord.”[Acts 4:32] If charity made one soul of so many souls, and one heart of so many hearts, how great must be the charity between the Father and the Son! Surely it must be greater than that between those men who had one heart. If, then, the heart of many brethren ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 118, 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 V. 19. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 378 (In-Text, Margin)
... not one God. Why, saith he; dost not thou, too, affirm two Gods, equal the one to the other? This I do not assert: for I understand this equality as implying therein also undivided love; and if undivided love, then perfect unity. For if the love that God put in men doth make of many hearts of men one heart, and doth make many souls of men into one soul, as it is written of them that believed and mutually loved one another, in the Acts of the Apostles, “They had one soul and one heart toward God:”[Acts 4:32] if, therefore, my soul and thy soul become one soul, when we think the same thing and love one another, how much more must God the Father and God the Son be one God in the fountain of love!
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 223, 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 708 (In-Text, Margin)
... of another miracle there were added other five thousand. A considerable community was created, in which all, receiving the Holy Spirit, by whom spiritual love was kindled, were by their very love and fervor of spirit welded into one, and began in the very unity of fellowship to sell all that they had, and to lay the price at the apostles’ feet, that distribution might be made to every one as each had need. And the Scripture says this of them, that “they were of one soul and one heart toward God.”[Acts 4:32] Give heed then, brethren, and from this acknowledge the mystery of the Trinity, how it is we say, There is both the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and yet there is one God. See! there were so many thousands of these, and yet there was one ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 225, 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 VIII. 28–32. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 718 (In-Text, Margin)
... commending, and with much entreaty setting forth for your imitation. For on the sending down of the Holy Spirit after the Lord’s passion, and resurrection, and ascension, when miracles were being done in the name of Him whom, as if dead, the persecuting Jews had despised, they were pricked in their hearts; and they who in their rage slew Him were changed and believed; and they who in their rage shed His blood, now in the spirit of faith drank it; to wit, those three thousand, and those five thousand Jews[Acts 4:4] whom now He saw there, when He said, “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [He].” It was as if He had said, I let your recognition lie over till I have completed my passion: in your own order ye shall know who I am. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 363, 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 XV. 26, 27. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1510 (In-Text, Margin)
... those lips that in their previous tremor had suppressed the truth, that, when all on whom the Holy Spirit had descended were speaking in the tongues of all nations to the crowds of Jews collected around, he alone broke forth before the others in the promptitude of his testimony in behalf of the Christ, and confounded His murderers with the account of His resurrection. And if any one would enjoy the pleasure of gazing on a sight so charming in its holiness, let him read the Acts of the Apostles:[Acts 2-5] and there let him be filled with amazement at the preaching of the blessed Peter, over whose denial of his Master he had just been mourning; there let him behold that tongue, itself translated from diffidence to confidence, from bondage to liberty, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 366, footnote 6 (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 XVI. 1–4. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1527 (In-Text, Margin)
... been broken off, that the wild olive might be ingrafted. For just at the time when the disciples of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, were speaking in the tongues of all nations, and performing many divine miracles, and scattering divine utterances on every side, Christ, even though slain, was so beloved, that His disciples, when expelled from the congregations of the Jews, gathered into a congregation of their own a vast multitude of those very Jews, and had no fear of being left to solitude.[Acts 2-4] Whereupon, accordingly, the others, reprobate and blind, being inflamed with wrath, and having a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, and believing that they were doing God service, put them to death. But He, who was slain for them, gathered ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 433, footnote 5 (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 XIX. 24–30. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1901 (In-Text, Margin)
... Acts of the Apostles. For the apostles were as if having nothing, and yet possessing all things. How was it, then, that the disciple and servant received unto his own the mother of his Lord and Master, where no one called anything his own? Or, seeing we read a little further on in the same book, “For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of them, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need,”[Acts 4:32-35] are we not to understand that such distribution was made to this disciple of what was needful, that there was also added to it the portion of the blessed Mary, as if she were his mother; and ought we not the rather so to take the words, “From that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 2, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 30 (In-Text, Margin)
1. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people meditate vain things?” (ver. 1). “The kings of the earth have stood up, and the rulers taken counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Christ” (ver. 2). It is said, “why?” as if it were said, in vain. For what they wished, namely, Christ’s destruction, they accomplished not; for this is spoken of our Lord’s persecutors, of whom also mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles.[Acts 4:26]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 11, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm IV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 114 (In-Text, Margin)
... wilt make; but, “hast made.” In whom then this hope now is, there will be assuredly that which is hoped for. And well does he say, “in singleness.” For this may refer in opposition to those many, who being multiplied from the time of His corn, of wine, and oil, say, “Who showeth us good things?” For this multiplicity perishes, and singleness is observed among the saints: of whom it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, “and of the multitude of them that believed, there was one soul, and one heart.”[Acts 4:32] In singleness, then, and simplicity, removed, that is, from the multitude and crowd of things, that are born and die, we ought to be lovers of eternity, and unity, if we desire to cleave to the one God and our Lord.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 161, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1521 (In-Text, Margin)
3. “For the Lord Most High is terrible” (ver. 2). The Most High in descending made like one ludicrous, by ascending into Heaven is made terrible. “A great King over all the earth.” Not only over the Jews; for over them also He is King. For of them also the Apostles believed and of them many thousands of men sold their goods, and laid the price at the Apostles’ feet,[Acts 4:34] and in them was fulfilled what in the title of the Cross was written, “The King of the Jews.” For He is King also of the Jews. But “of the Jews” is little. “O clap your hands, all ye nations: for God is the King of all the earth.” For it sufficeth not Him to have under Him one nation: therefore such great price ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 285, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2675 (In-Text, Margin)
... in one place; miracles were done, with the tongues of all men they spake. They were filled full of the Spirit of God, the people were converted that were in that place, fearing and receiving the divine shower, by confession they brought forth so much fruit, that all their goods they brought together into a common stock, making distribution to the poor, in order that no one might call anything his own, but all things might be to them in common, and they might have one soul and one heart unto God.[Acts 4:32] For there had been forgiven them the blood which they had shed, it had been forgiven them by the Lord pardoning, in order that now they might even learn to drink that which they had shed. Great in that place is the fruit: the earth hath given her ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 344, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3331 (In-Text, Margin)
... nevertheless Moses feared and fled. What is it that Moses fled from that serpent? What, brethren, save that which we know to have been done in the Gospel? Christ died and the disciples feared, and withdrew from that hope wherein they had been. …But, at that time some thousands of the Jews themselves, the crucifiers of Christ, believed: and because they had been found at hand, they so believed as that they sold all that they had, and the price of their goods before the feet of the Apostles they laid.[Acts 4:34-35] Because then this thing was hidden, and the redemption of the rod of God was to be more conspicuous in the Gentiles: he explaineth of what he saith that which he hath said, “Thou hast redeemed the rod of Thine inheritance.” This he hath said not of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 379, footnote 16 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3663 (In-Text, Margin)
... hath been removed thence, now He doth feed flocks of Gentiles. Truly from behind teeming sheep He hath been taken thence. For those former Churches were of such sort, as that of them it is said in the Song of Songs, “Thy teeth—are like a flock of shorn ewes going up from the washing, all of which do bear twins, and a barren one is not among them.” For they then laid aside like as it were fleeces the burdens of the world, when before the feet of the Apostles they laid the prices of their sold goods,[Acts 4:34-35] going up from that Laver, concerning which the apostle Peter doth admonish them, when they were troubled because they had shed the blood of Christ, and he saith, “Repent ye, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 381, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3679 (In-Text, Margin)
... guile was not: hence the other Joseph, who himself too looked for the kingdom of God: hence that so great multitude who went before and followed after His beast, saying, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord:” among whom was also that company of children, in whom He declared to have been fulfilled, “Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.” Hence also were those after His resurrection, of whom on one day three and on another five thousand were baptized,[Acts 4:4] welded into one soul and one heart by the fire of love; of whom no one spoke of anything as his own, but to them all things were common. Hence the holy deacons, of whom Stephen was crowned with martyrdom before the Apostles. Hence so many Churches ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 381, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3680 (In-Text, Margin)
... followed after His beast, saying, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord:” among whom was also that company of children, in whom He declared to have been fulfilled, “Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.” Hence also were those after His resurrection, of whom on one day three and on another five thousand were baptized, welded into one soul and one heart by the fire of love; of whom no one spoke of anything as his own, but to them all things were common.[Acts 4:32] Hence the holy deacons, of whom Stephen was crowned with martyrdom before the Apostles. Hence so many Churches of Judæa, which were in Christ, unto whom Paul was unknown by face, but known for an infamous ferocity, and more known for Christ’s most ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 447, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4296 (In-Text, Margin)
6. “His truth shall surround thee with a shield” (ver. 5). What are “the wings,” the same is “the shield:” since there are neither wings nor shield. If either were literally, how could the one be the same as the other? can wings be a shield or a shield wings? But all these expressions, indeed, are figuratively used through likenesses. If Christ were really a Stone,[Acts 4:10-11] He could not be a Lion; if a Lion, He could not be a Lamb: but He is called both Lion, and Lamb, and Stone, and Calf, and anything else of the sort, metaphorically, because He is neither Stone, nor Lion, nor Lamb, nor Calf, but Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all of us, for these are likenesses, not literal names. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 458, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4355 (In-Text, Margin)
... not yet the river. But when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, the Jews sent for them, and enjoined them not to preach at all, nor to teach in the name of Jesus.…For when the Apostles had been dismissed from the council of the Jews, they came to their own friends, and told them what the priests and elders said unto them: but they on hearing lifted up their voices with one accord unto the Lord, and said, “Lord, it is Thou who hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is;”[Acts 4:24] and the rest which floods lifting up their voices might say, “Wonderful are the hangings of the sea” (ver. 4). For when the disciples had lifted up their voices unto Him, many believed, and many received the Holy Spirit, and many rivers instead of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 468, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4399 (In-Text, Margin)
... brethren to whom our Lord appeared after His resurrection? Whence were so many thousands at the words of Peter (when the Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke with the tongues of all nations) converted with such zeal for the honour of God and their own accusation, that they who first shed the Lord’s blood in their rage, learnt how to drink it now that they believed? And all these five thousand were so converted that they sold their own property, and laid the price of it at the Apostles’ feet.[Acts 4:4] That which one rich man did not do, when he heard from the Lord’s mouth, and sorrowfully departed from Him, this so many thousands of those men by whose hands Christ had been crucified, did on a sudden. In proportion as the wound was deeper in their ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 489, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm C (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4546 (In-Text, Margin)
... there. Now what will one who perchance presideth over such places, nay, who serveth his brethren, in what are called monasteries, tell me? I will be cautious: I will admit no wicked man. How wilt thou admit no evil one?…Those who are about to enter, do not know themselves; how much less dost thou know them? For many have promised themselves that they were about to fulfil that holy life, which has all things in common, where no man calleth anything his own, who have one soul and one heart in God:[Acts 4:32] they have been put into the furnace, and have cracked. How then knowest thou him who is unknown even to himself?…Where then is security? Here nowhere; in this life nowhere, except solely in the hope of the promise of God. But there, when we shall ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 498, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4612 (In-Text, Margin)
14. “Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Sion: for it is time that Thou have mercy upon her” (ver. 13). What time? “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law.” And where is Sion? “To redeem them that were under the Law.” First then were the Jews: for thence were the Apostles, thence those more than five hundred brethren, thence that later multitude, who had but one heart and one soul toward God.[Acts 4:32] Therefore, “the time is come.” What time? “Behold, now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation.” Who saith this? That Servant of God, that Builder, who said, “Ye are God’s building.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 499, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4618 (In-Text, Margin)
... possessions at the Apostles’ feet. From that dust then there arose a human nature formed and beautiful. Who among the heathen acted thus? How few are there whom we admire for having done thus, compared with the many thousands of these converts? At first suddenly three, afterwards five thousand; all living in unity, all laying the price of their possessions, when they had sold them, at the Apostles’ feet, that it might be distributed to each, as each had need, who had one soul and one heart toward God.[Acts 4:32] Who made this even of that very dust, but He who created Adam himself out of dust? This then is concerning Sion, but not in Sion only.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 617, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5591 (In-Text, Margin)
3. How many thousands believed, my brethren, when they laid down the price of their possessions at the Apostles’ feet! But what saith Scripture of them? Surely they are become a temple of God; not only each respectively a temple of God, but also all a temple of God together. They have therefore become a place for the Lord. And that ye may know that one place is made for the Lord in all, Scripture saith, They were of one heart and one soul toward God.[Acts 4:4] But many, so as not to make a place for the Lord, seek their own things, love their own things, delight in their own power, are greedy for their private interests. Whereas he who wisheth to make a place for the Lord, should rejoice not in his private, but the common ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 617, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5591 (In-Text, Margin)
3. How many thousands believed, my brethren, when they laid down the price of their possessions at the Apostles’ feet! But what saith Scripture of them? Surely they are become a temple of God; not only each respectively a temple of God, but also all a temple of God together. They have therefore become a place for the Lord. And that ye may know that one place is made for the Lord in all, Scripture saith, They were of one heart and one soul toward God.[Acts 4:32] But many, so as not to make a place for the Lord, seek their own things, love their own things, delight in their own power, are greedy for their private interests. Whereas he who wisheth to make a place for the Lord, should rejoice not in his private, but the common ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 617, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5591 (In-Text, Margin)
3. How many thousands believed, my brethren, when they laid down the price of their possessions at the Apostles’ feet! But what saith Scripture of them? Surely they are become a temple of God; not only each respectively a temple of God, but also all a temple of God together. They have therefore become a place for the Lord. And that ye may know that one place is made for the Lord in all, Scripture saith, They were of one heart and one soul toward God.[Acts 4:35] But many, so as not to make a place for the Lord, seek their own things, love their own things, delight in their own power, are greedy for their private interests. Whereas he who wisheth to make a place for the Lord, should rejoice not in his private, but the common ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 622, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5634 (In-Text, Margin)
... resurrection, whom the Apostle Paul commemorates? Whence those hundred and twenty, who were together in one place after the resurrection of the Lord, and His ascension into heaven, on whom when gathered into one place the Holy Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, sent down from heaven, sent, even as He was promised? All were from thence, and they first dwelt together in unity; who sold all they had, and laid the price of their goods at the Apostles’ feet, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles.[Acts 4:34-35] And distribution was made to each one as he had need, and none called anything his own, but they had all things common. And what is “together in unity”? They had, he says, one mind and one heart God-wards. So they were the first who heard, Behold ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 622, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5636 (In-Text, Margin)
... one place the Holy Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, sent down from heaven, sent, even as He was promised? All were from thence, and they first dwelt together in unity; who sold all they had, and laid the price of their goods at the Apostles’ feet, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles. And distribution was made to each one as he had need, and none called anything his own, but they had all things common. And what is “together in unity”? They had, he says, one mind and one heart God-wards.[Acts 4:32] So they were the first who heard, Behold how good and how pleasant is it, that brethren dwell together. They were the first to hear, but heard it not alone.…
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 623, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5640 (In-Text, Margin)
... id="mnf_ii.CXXXIII-p18.1">5639 μόνος, Gr. is one. Not one in any manner, for a man in a crowd is one, but though he can be called one along with others, he cannot be Monos, that is, alone, for Monos means “one alone.” They then who thus live together as to make one man, so that they really possess what is written, “one mind and one heart,”[Acts 4:32] many bodies, but not many minds; many bodies, but not many hearts; can rightly be called Monos, that is, one alone. …
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 623, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5644 (In-Text, Margin)
... pouring forth prayer in place of murmuring. For murmurers are admirably described in a certain passage of the Scriptures, “The heart of a fool is as the wheel of a cart.” What is the meaning of “the heart of a fool is as the wheel of a cart”? It carries hay, and creaks. The wheel of a cart cannot cease from creaking. Thus there are many brethren, who do not dwell together, save in the body. But who are they who dwell together? They of whom it is said, “And they had one mind and one heart towards God.”[Acts 4:32]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 21, footnote 3 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (HTML)
Homily III on Acts i. 12. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 74 (In-Text, Margin)
... the very beginning there were many that then followed Him. Observe, for instance, how this appears in these words: “One of the two which heard John speak, and followed Jesus.—All the time,” he says, “that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John.” (John i. 40.) True! for no one knew what preceded that event, though they did learn it by the Spirit. “Unto that same day that He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.”[Acts 4:2] He said not, a witness of the rest of his actions, but a witness of the resurrection alone. For indeed that witness had a better right to be believed, who was able to declare, that He Who ate and drank, and was crucified, the same rose again. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 21, footnote 3 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (HTML)
Homily III on Acts i. 12. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 74 (In-Text, Margin)
... the very beginning there were many that then followed Him. Observe, for instance, how this appears in these words: “One of the two which heard John speak, and followed Jesus.—All the time,” he says, “that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John.” (John i. 40.) True! for no one knew what preceded that event, though they did learn it by the Spirit. “Unto that same day that He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.”[Acts 4:33] He said not, a witness of the rest of his actions, but a witness of the resurrection alone. For indeed that witness had a better right to be believed, who was able to declare, that He Who ate and drank, and was crucified, the same rose again. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 12, page 14, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on First and Second Corinthians
Homilies on First Corinthians. (HTML)
Homily III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 20 (In-Text, Margin)
[8.] But prove to me that Peter and Paul were eloquent. Thou canst not: for they were “unlearned and ignorant men!”[Acts 4:13] As therefore Christ, when He was sending out His disciples into the world, having shewn unto them His power in Palestine first, and said, (St. Luke xxii. 35. (ὑποδήμάτος, rec. text ὑποδηματων.) “When I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoe, lacked ye any thing?” permitted them from that time forward to possess both a wallet and a purse; so also He hath ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 517, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. (HTML)
Homilies on 2 Timothy. (HTML)
2 Timothy 4:9-13 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1441 (In-Text, Margin)
... delivered from disease, another from the possession of devils: bind this man, and loose that.” This was done by them on earth, but it was fulfilled as in Heaven. For, “whatever ye shall bind on earth,” said He, “shall be bound in Heaven.” (Matt. xviii. 18.) And greater power than His own did He give them. And that I lie not, appears from His own words. “He that believeth in Me, greater works shall he do than these which I do.” (John xiv. 12.) Why so? Because this honor is reflected upon the Master.[Acts 4:12-13] As in our own affairs, if the servant has great power, the master is the more admired, for if the servant is so powerful, much more is he who commands him. But if any man, neglecting his master’s service thinks only of his wife, his son, or his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 98, footnote 9 (Image)
Eusebius: Church History from A.D. 1-324, Life of Constantine the Great, Oration in Praise of Constantine
The Church History of Eusebius. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Disciples of our Saviour. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 201 (In-Text, Margin)
1. names of the apostles of our Saviour are known to every one from the Gospels. But there exists no catalogue of the seventy disciples. Barnabas, indeed, is said to have been one of them, of whom the Acts of the apostles makes mention in various places,[Acts 4:36] and especially Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 320, footnote 15 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Letters of the Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus. (HTML)
To John the Œconomus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2111 (In-Text, Margin)
They who are blessed by the boons of God and have learnt to know these passages and others like them, kindled with warm love for their bountiful Master, constantly carry on their lips this His dearest name and cry in the words of the Song of Songs “My beloved is mine and I am his;” “I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” And besides all this that name of ours which we love so well we have derived from the name of Christ. We are called Christians.[Acts 4:15]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 196, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Life of Antony. (Vita Antoni.) (HTML)
Life of Antony. (Vita Antoni.) (HTML)
Birth and beginnings of Antony. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 989 (In-Text, Margin)
2. After the death of his father and mother he was left alone with one little sister: his age was about eighteen or twenty, and on him the care both of home and sister rested. Now it was not six months after the death of his parents, and going according to custom into the Lord’s House, he communed with himself and reflected as he walked how the Apostles left all and followed the Saviour; and how they in the Acts[Acts 4:35] sold their possessions and brought and laid them at the Apostles’ feet for distribution to the needy, and what and how great a hope was laid up for them in heaven. Pondering over these things he entered the church, and it happened the Gospel was being read, and he heard the Lord saying to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 405, footnote 1 (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; Ninthly, John x. 30; xvii. 11, &c. Arian explanation, that the Son is one with the Father in will and judgment; but so are all good men, nay things inanimate; contrast of the Son. Oneness between Them is in nature, because oneness in operation. Angels not objects of prayer, because they do not work together with God, but the Son; texts quoted. Seeing an Angel, is not seeing God. Arians in fact hold two Gods, and tend to Gentile polytheism. Arian explanation that the Father and Son are one as we are one with Christ, is put aside by the Regula Fidei, and shewn invalid by the usage of Scripture in illustrations; the true force of the comparison; force of the terms used. Force of 'in us;' force of 'as;' confirmed by S. John. In (HTML)
... address to His Father, He said, ‘Sanctify them through Thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth ’); but we by imitation become virtuous and sons:—therefore not that we might become such as He, did He say ‘that they may be one as We are;’ but that as He, being the Word, is in His own Father, so that we too, taking an examplar and looking at Him, might become one towards each other in concord and oneness of spirit, nor be at variance as the Corinthians, but mind the same thing, as those five thousand in the Acts[Acts 4:4], who were as one.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 405, footnote 1 (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; Ninthly, John x. 30; xvii. 11, &c. Arian explanation, that the Son is one with the Father in will and judgment; but so are all good men, nay things inanimate; contrast of the Son. Oneness between Them is in nature, because oneness in operation. Angels not objects of prayer, because they do not work together with God, but the Son; texts quoted. Seeing an Angel, is not seeing God. Arians in fact hold two Gods, and tend to Gentile polytheism. Arian explanation that the Father and Son are one as we are one with Christ, is put aside by the Regula Fidei, and shewn invalid by the usage of Scripture in illustrations; the true force of the comparison; force of the terms used. Force of 'in us;' force of 'as;' confirmed by S. John. In (HTML)
... address to His Father, He said, ‘Sanctify them through Thy Truth, Thy Word is Truth ’); but we by imitation become virtuous and sons:—therefore not that we might become such as He, did He say ‘that they may be one as We are;’ but that as He, being the Word, is in His own Father, so that we too, taking an examplar and looking at Him, might become one towards each other in concord and oneness of spirit, nor be at variance as the Corinthians, but mind the same thing, as those five thousand in the Acts[Acts 4:32], who were as one.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 120, footnote 23 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1774 (In-Text, Margin)
... you live in the country one place is as good as another. Forsake cities and their crowds, live on a small patch of ground, seek Christ in solitude, pray on the mount alone with Jesus, keep near to holy places: keep out of cities, I say, and you will never lose your vocation. My advice concerns not bishops, presbyters, or the clergy, for these have a different duty. I am speaking only to a monk who having been a man of note in the world has laid the price of his possessions at the apostles’ feet,[Acts 4:37] to shew men that they must trample on their money, and has resolved to live a life of loneliness and seclusion and always to continue to reject what he has once rejected. Had the scenes of the Passion and of the Resurrection been elsewhere than in a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 153, footnote 15 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Lucinius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2245 (In-Text, Margin)
... inviting you to take up your abode at the holy places. Your abundance has supported the want of many that some day their riches may abound to supply your want; you have made to yourself “friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Such conduct deserves praise and merits to be compared with the virtue of apostolic times. Then, as you know, believers sold their possessions and brought the prices of them and laid them down at the apostles’ feet:[Acts 4:34-35] a symbolic act designed to shew that men must trample on covetousness. But the Lord yearns for believers’ souls more than for their riches. We read in the Proverbs: “the ransom of a man’s soul are his own riches.” We may, indeed, take a man’s own ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 268, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3739 (In-Text, Margin)
... or a connexion, you must think of nothing but his poverty. Let your praises come from the stomachs of the hungry and not from the rich banquets of the overfed. We read in the Acts of the Apostles how, while the blood of the Lord was still warm and believers were in the fervour of their first faith, they all sold their possessions and laid the price of them at the apostles’ feet (to shew that money ought to be trampled underfoot) and “distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”[Acts 4:34-35] But Ananias and Sapphira proved timid stewards, and what is more, deceitful ones; therefore they brought on themselves condemnation. For having made a vow they offered their money to God as if it were their own and not His to whom they had vowed it; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 129, footnote 10 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
Continuation of the Discourse on the Holy Ghost. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2182 (In-Text, Margin)
... which was the ninth hour, and in the Name of Jesus healed the man at the Beautiful gate, who had been lame from his mother’s womb for forty years; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken, Then shall the lame man leap as an hart. And thus, as they captured in the spiritual net of their doctrine five thousand believers at once, so they confuted the misguided rulers of the people and chief priests, and that, not through their own wisdom, for they were unlearned and ignorant men[Acts 4:13], but through the mighty power of the Holy Ghost; for it is written, Then Peter filled with the Holy Ghost said to them. So great also was the grace of the Holy Ghost, which wrought by means of the Twelve Apostles in them who believed, that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 421, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4576 (In-Text, Margin)
76. He emulated the zeal of Peter,[Acts 4:8] the intensity of Paul, the faith of both these men of name and of surname, the lofty utterance of the sons of Zebedee, the frugality and simplicity of all the disciples. Therefore he was also entrusted with the keys of the heavens, and not only from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum, but he embraces a wider circle in the Gospel; he is not named, but becomes, a Son of thunder; and lying upon the breast of Jesus, he draws thence the power of his word, and the depth of his ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 128, footnote 24 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
Without address. On the Perfection of the Life of Solitaries. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1941 (In-Text, Margin)
... before those to whom the responsibility of general discipline is committed have approved of it as pleasing to God, with a view to the common good. The Christian ought not to be enslaved by wine; nor to be eager for flesh meat, and as a general rule ought not to be a lover of pleasure in eating or drinking, “for every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” The Christian ought to regard all the things that are given him for his use, not as his to hold as his own or to lay up;[Acts 4:32] and, giving careful heed to all things as the Lord’s, not to overlook any of the things that are being thrown aside and disregarded, should this be the case. No Christian ought to think of himself as his own master, but each should rather so think ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 197, footnote 2 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2426 (In-Text, Margin)
... accordance with the old law of love, and to write to them with one consent, giving them all exhortation with pity, and to propose to them the faith of the fathers, and invite them to union. If we succeed we should be united in communion with them; if we fail we must be content with one another and purge our conduct of this uncertain spirit, restoring the evangelical and simple conversation followed by those who accepted the Word from the beginning. “They,” it is said, “were of one heart and of one soul.”[Acts 4:32] If they obey you, this will be best; if not, recognise the real authors of the war, and, for the future do not write me any more letters about reconciliation.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 208, footnote 6 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Amphilochius in the name of Heraclidas. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2497 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou wilt be perfect go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor.” He said too that the parable of the pearl bore on this point, because the merchant, who had found the pearl of great price, went away and sold all that he had and bought it; and he added too that no one ought even to permit himself the distribution of his own property, but should leave it in the hands of the person entrusted with the duty of managing the affairs of the poor; and he proved the point from the acts of the apostles,[Acts 4:35] because they sold their property and brought and laid it at the feet of the apostles, and by them it was distributed to each as every man had need. For he said that experience was needed in order to distinguish between cases of genuine need and of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 208, footnote 7 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Amphilochius in the name of Heraclidas. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2498 (In-Text, Margin)
... merchant, who had found the pearl of great price, went away and sold all that he had and bought it; and he added too that no one ought even to permit himself the distribution of his own property, but should leave it in the hands of the person entrusted with the duty of managing the affairs of the poor; and he proved the point from the acts of the apostles, because they sold their property and brought and laid it at the feet of the apostles, and by them it was distributed to each as every man had need.[Acts 4:35] For he said that experience was needed in order to distinguish between cases of genuine need and of mere greedy begging. For whoever gives to the afflicted gives to the Lord, and from the Lord shall have his reward; but he who gives to every ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 250, footnote 4 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the notables of Neocæsarea. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2781 (In-Text, Margin)
... two men at once, I can only give the truth its proper force by hitting with my proofs, and knocking down, the errors of doctrine on the right and on the left. On one side I am attacked by the Anomœan: on the other by the Sabellian. Do not, I implore you, pay any attention to these abominable and impotent sophisms. Know that the name of Christ which is above every name is His being called Son of God, as Peter says, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”[Acts 4:12] And as to the words “I came in my Father’s name,” it is to be understood that He so says describing His Father as origin and cause of Himself. And if it is said “Go and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” we must ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 47, 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 I (HTML)
... God, the eighth book is taken up with the proof of the unity of God, shewing that this unity is consistent with the birth of the Son, and that the birth involves no duality in the Godhead. First it exposes the sophistry with which these heretics have attempted to avoid, though they could not deny, the confession of the real existence of God, Father and Son; it demolishes their helpless and absurd plea that in such passages as, And the multitude of them that believed were one soul and heart[Acts 4:32], and again, He that planteth and He that watereth are one, and Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that shall believe on Me through their word, that they may all be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 139, footnote 3 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
Title Page (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book VIII (HTML)
... nevertheless pervert them by the most foolish and wicked lies so as afterwards to deny them. For the words of Christ, I and the Father are one, they endeavour to refer to a mere concord of unanimity, so that there may be in them a unity of will not of nature, that is, that they may be one not by essence of being, but by identity of will. And they apply to the support of their case the passage in the Acts of the Apostles, Now of the multitude of them that believed the heart and soul were one[Acts 4:32], in order to prove that a diversity of souls and hearts may be united into one heart and soul through a mere conformity of will. Or else they cite those words to the Corinthians, Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one, to shew ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 208, footnote 6 (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 XI (HTML)
... His God above His fellows. No one is fellow to the Only-begotten Christ, God the Word: but we know that we are His fellows by the assumption which made Him flesh. That anointing did not exalt the blessed and incorruptible Begotten Who abides in the nature of God, but it established the mystery of His body, and sanctified the manhood which He assumed. To this the Apostle Peter witnesses, Of a truth in this city were they gathered together against Thy holy Son Jesus, Whom Thou didst anoint[Acts 4:27]: and on another occasion, Ye know that the saying was published through all Judæa, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached: even Jesus of Nazareth, how that God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power. Jesus was ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 105, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter VII. The Holy Spirit is not a creature, seeing that He is infinite, and was shed upon the apostles dispersed through all countries, and moreover sanctifies the Angels also, to whom He makes us equal. Mary was full of the same likewise, so too, Christ the Lord, and so far all things high and low. And all benediction has its origin from His operation, as was signified in the moving of the water at Bethesda. (HTML)
87. But lest they should object that this was said according to the flesh, though He alone from Whose flesh went forth virtue to heal all, was more than all; yet, as the Lord fills all things, so, too, we read of the Spirit: “For the Spirit of the Lord filled the whole world.” And you find it said of all who had consorted with the Apostles that, “filled with the Holy Spirit they spoke the word of God with boldness.”[Acts 4:31] You see that the Spirit gives both fulness and boldness, Whose operation the archangel announces to Mary, saying: “The Holy Spirit shall come on thee.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 111, footnote 5 (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)
... Spirit also, since the Holy Spirit came in the Name of the Son, as it is written: “But the Paraclete, even the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things.” But He Who came in the Name of the Son came also certainly in the Name of the Father, for the Name of the Father and of the Son is one. Thus it comes to pass that the Name of the Father and of the Son is also that of the Holy Spirit. For there is no other Name given under heaven wherein we must be saved.[Acts 4:12]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 204, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter II. The Emperor is exhorted to display zeal in the Faith. Christ's perfect Godhead is shown from the unity of will and working which He has with the Father. The attributes of Divinity are shown to be proper to Christ, Whose various titles prove His essential unity, with distinction of Person. In no other way can the unity of God be maintained. (HTML)
18. Moreover, if in all them that believed there was, as it is written, one soul and one heart:[Acts 4:32] if every one that cleaveth to the Lord is one spirit, as the Apostle hath said: if a man and his wife are one flesh: if all we mortal men are, so far as regards our general nature, of one substance: if this is what the Scripture saith of created men, that, being many, they are one, who can in no way be compared to Divine Persons, how much more are the Father and the Son one in Divinity, with Whom there is no difference either of substance or of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 289, footnote 5 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book V. (HTML)
Chapter II. Since it has been proved that the Son is true God, and in that is not inferior to the Father, it is shown that by the word solus (alone) when used of the Father in the Scriptures, the Son is not excluded; nay, that this expression befits Him above all, and Him alone. The Trinity is alone, not amongst all, but above all. The Son alone does what the Father does, and alone has immortality. But we must not for this reason separate Him from the Father in our controversies. We may, however, understand that passage of the Incarnation. Lastly the Father is shut out from a share in the redemption of men by those who would have the Son to be separated from Him. (HTML)
38. But if they wish to separate the Son, when they read that the Father is the only true God, I suppose that when they read of the Incarnation of the Son: “This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner;” and further: “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved;”[Acts 4:11-12] then they imagine the Father is to be cut off from the benefit of imparting salvation to us. But there is neither salvation without the Father, nor eternal life without the Son.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 206, footnote 5 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)
Book II. Of the Canonical System of the Nocturnal Prayers and Psalms. (HTML)
Chapter V. How the fact that the number of the Psalms was to be twelve was received from the teaching of an angel. (HTML)
... characteristics for which we read, in the Acts of the Apostles, that the Church and multitude of believers in primitive times was famous (“The multitude of believers had one heart and one soul. Nor did any of them say that any of the things which he possessed was his own: but they had all things common; for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the price of the things which they sold, and laid it at the feet of the Apostles, and distribution was made to every man as he had need”),[Acts 4:32-34] but they added to these characteristics others still more sublime. For withdrawing into more secluded spots outside the cities they led a life marked by such rigorous abstinence that even to those of another creed the exalted character of their life ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 444, footnote 1 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII. (HTML)
Conference XIV. The First Conference of Abbot Nesteros. On Spiritual Knowledge. (HTML)
Chapter XVI. The answer to the effect that bad men cannot possess true knowledge. (HTML)
... it has sometimes flourished most grandly in some who were without eloquence and almost illiterate. And this is very clearly shown by the case of the Apostles and many holy men, who did not spread themselves out with an empty show of leaves, but were bowed down by the weight of the true fruits of spiritual knowledge: of whom it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: “But when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were ignorant and unlearned men, they were astonished.”[Acts 4:13] And therefore if you are anxious to attain to that never-failing fragrance, you must first strive with all your might to obtain from the Lord the purity of chastity. For no one, in whom the love of carnal passions and especially of fornication still ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 452, footnote 1 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII. (HTML)
Conference XVI. The First Conference of Abbot Joseph. On Friendship. (HTML)
Chapter VI. By what means union can be preserved unbroken. (HTML)
... previously marked out, how can he ever differ from his friend, for if he claims nothing for himself, he entirely cuts off the first cause of quarrel (which generally springs from trivial things and most unimportant matters), as he observes to the best of his power what we read in the Acts of the Apostles on the unity of believers: “But the multitude of believers was of one heart and soul; neither did any of them say that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common.”[Acts 4:32] Then how can any seeds of discussion arise from him who serves not his own but his brother’s will, and becomes a follower of his Lord and Master, who speaking in the character of man which He had taken, said: “I am not come to do Mine own will, but ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 480, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XVIII. Conference of Abbot Piamun. On the Three Sorts of Monks. (HTML)
Chapter V. Of the founders who originated the order of Cœnobites. (HTML)
... was of one heart and one soul, neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. They sold their possessions and property and divided them to all, as any man had need.” And again: “For neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as possessed fields or houses, sold them and brought the price of the things that they sold and laid them before the feet of the Apostles: and distribution was made to every man as he had need.”[Acts 4:32] The whole Church, I say, was then such as now are those few who can be found with difficulty in Cœnobia. But when at the death of the Apostles the multitude of believers began to wax cold, and especially that multitude which had come to the faith of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 480, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XVIII. Conference of Abbot Piamun. On the Three Sorts of Monks. (HTML)
Chapter V. Of the founders who originated the order of Cœnobites. (HTML)
... was of one heart and one soul, neither said any of them that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. They sold their possessions and property and divided them to all, as any man had need.” And again: “For neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as possessed fields or houses, sold them and brought the price of the things that they sold and laid them before the feet of the Apostles: and distribution was made to every man as he had need.”[Acts 4:34-35] The whole Church, I say, was then such as now are those few who can be found with difficulty in Cœnobia. But when at the death of the Apostles the multitude of believers began to wax cold, and especially that multitude which had come to the faith of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 579, footnote 5 (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 IV. (HTML)
Chapter XI. He returns to the prophecy of Isaiah. (HTML)
... therefore a prisoner in the Lord beseech you.” And again: “I beseech thee, whereas thou art such an one as Paul the aged, and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ.” You see how he rejoiced in the dignity of his chains, by the example of which he actually stirred up others. But there can be no doubt that where there is single-minded love of the Lord, there is also single-minded delight in chains worn for the Lord’s sake: as it is written: “But the multitude of the believers was of one heart and one soul.”[Acts 4:32] “And they shall worship thee,” he says, “and shall make supplication to thee: for in thee is God, and there is no God beside thee.” The Apostle clearly explains the prophet’s words, when he says that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 7, footnote 1 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Letters. (HTML)
To Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 56 (In-Text, Margin)
... will be able to estimate from this, that we are anxious to establish your beginnings on a surer basis, lest anything should seem lacking to the perfection of your love, since your meritorious acts of spiritual grace, as we have proved, are already in your favour. Fatherly and brotherly conference, therefore, ought to be most grateful to you, holy brother, and received by you in the same spirit as you know it is offered by us. For you and we ought to be at one in thought and act, so that as we read[Acts 4:32], in us also there may be proved to be one heart and one mind. For since the most blessed Peter received the headship of the Apostles from the Lord, and the church of Rome still abides by His institutions, it is wicked to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 93, footnote 8 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Letters. (HTML)
To the Monks of Palestine. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 540 (In-Text, Margin)
... handle with their hands the still open prints of the nails and the flesh wound of His pierced side. But if in spite of the truth being so clear, their persistence in heresy will not abandon their position in the darkness, let them show whence they promise themselves the hope of eternal life, which no one can attain to, save through the mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. For “there is not another name given to men under heaven, in which they must be saved[Acts 4:12].” Neither is there any ransoming of men from captivity, save in His blood, “who gave Himself a ransom for all:” who, as the blessed apostle proclaims, “when He was in the form of God, thought it not robbery that He was equal ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 95, footnote 8 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Letters. (HTML)
To Proterius, Bishop of Alexandria. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 557 (In-Text, Margin)
... fellow-bishop Nestorius duly brought us, has caused me great joy. For it was seemly that such an epistle should be sent by the head of the church of Alexandria to the Apostolic See, as showed that the Egyptians had from the first learnt from the teaching of the most blessed Apostle Peter through his blessed disciple Mark, that which it is agreed the Romans have believed, that beside the Lord Jesus Christ “there is no other name given to men under heaven, in which they must be saved[Acts 4:12].” But because “all men have not faith ” and the crafty Tempter never delights so much in wounding the hearts of men as when he can poison their unwary minds with errors that are opposed to Gospel Truth, we must strive by the mighty teaching of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 174, footnote 4 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Passion, XI. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1036 (In-Text, Margin)
... His loving compassion for even His murderers, that He prayed to the Father on the cross, and begged not for His own vengeance but for their forgiveness, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And such was the power of that prayer, that the hearts of many of those who had said, “His blood be on us and on our sons,” were turned to penitence by the Apostle Peter’s preaching, and on one day there were baptized about 3,000 Jews: and they all were “of one heart and of one soul[Acts 4:32],” being ready now to die for Him, Whose crucifixion they had demanded.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 178, footnote 4 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Passion, XVI.: delivered on the Sunday. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1069 (In-Text, Margin)
... pleased that things should be recorded as if done which nothing could hinder from being done. And hence when the Apostles also, being full of the Holy Ghost, suffered the threats and cruelty of Christ’s enemies, they said to God with one consent, “For truly in this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, Whom Thou hast anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel were gathered together to do what Thy hand and Thy counsel ordained to come to pass[Acts 4:27-28].” Did then the wickedness of Christ’s persecutors spring from God’s plan, and was that unsurpassable crime prefaced and set in motion by the hand of God? Clearly we must not think this of the highest ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 186, footnote 2 (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 1122 (In-Text, Margin)
... confounds the Trinity by merging the Persons in one. But it is not enough to know the Son of God in the Father’s nature only, unless we acknowledge Him in what is ours without withdrawal of what is His own. For that self-emptying, which He underwent for man’s restoration, was the dispensation of compassion, not the loss of power. For, though by the eternal purpose of God there was “no other name under heaven given to men whereby they must be saved[Acts 4:12],” the Invisible made His substance visible, the Intemporal temporal, the Impassible passible: not that power might sink into weakness, but that weakness might pass into indestructible power.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 203, footnote 10 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
A Homily on the Beatitudes, St. Matt. v. 1-9. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1230 (In-Text, Margin)
Of this high-souled humility the Apostles first, after the Lord, have given us example, who, leaving all that they had without difference at the voice of the heavenly Master, were turned by a ready change from the catching of fish to be fishers of men, and made many like themselves through the imitation of their faith, when with those first-begotten sons of the Church, “the heart of all was one, and the spirit one, of those that believed[Acts 4:32]:” for they, putting away the whole of their things and possessions, enriched themselves with eternal goods, through the most devoted poverty, and in accordance with the Apostles’ preaching rejoiced to have nothing of the world and possess all things with Christ. ...