Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Acts 7
There are 116 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 110, footnote 8 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Antiochians (HTML)
Chapter II.—The true doctrine respecting God and Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1223 (In-Text, Margin)
... Lord,” and thus proclaimed that there was only one God, did yet forthwith confess also our Lord when he said, “The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord.” And again, “And God said, Let Us make man after our image: and so God made man, after the image of God made He him.” And further, “In the image of God made He man.” And that [the Son of God] was to be made man, [Moses shows when] he says, “A prophet shall the Lord raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me.”[Acts 7:37]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 434, footnote 3 (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 3511 (In-Text, Margin)
... no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet He promised that He would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him. … And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and should be brought into bondage, and should be evil-entreated four hundred years; and the nation whom they shall serve will I judge, says the Lord. And after that shall they come forth, and serve me in this place. And He gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so [Abraham] begat Isaac.”[Acts 7:2-8] And the rest of his words announce the same God, who was with Joseph and with the patriarchs, and who spake with Moses.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 435, footnote 3 (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 3516 (In-Text, Margin)
13. But that both the apostles and their disciples thus taught as the Church preaches, and thus teaching were perfected, wherefore also they were called away to that which is perfect— Stephen, teaching these truths, when he was yet on earth, saw the glory of God, and Jesus on His right hand, and exclaimed, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”[Acts 7:56] These words he said, and was stoned; and thus did he fulfil the perfect doctrine, copying in every respect the Leader of martyrdom, and praying for those who were slaying him, in these words: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Thus were they perfected who knew one and the same God, who from ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 480, footnote 4 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XV.—At first God deemed it sufficient to inscribe the natural law, or the Decalogue, upon the hearts of men; but afterwards He found it necessary to bridle, with the yoke of the Mosaic law, the desires of the Jews, who were abusing their liberty; and even to add some special commands, because of the hardness of their hearts. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3974 (In-Text, Margin)
... [this] Moses, who led us from the land of Egypt. And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifices to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their own hands. But God turned, and gave them up to worship the hosts of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets: O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to Me sacrifices and oblations for forty years in the wilderness? And ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of the god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them;”[Acts 7:38] pointing out plainly, that the law being such, was not given to them by another God, but that, adapted to their condition of servitude, [it originated] from the very same [God as we worship]. Wherefore also He says to Moses in Exodus: “I will send ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 561, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XXXII.—In that flesh in which the saints have suffered so many afflictions, they shall receive the fruits of their labours; especially since all creation waits for this, and God promises it to Abraham and his seed. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4724 (In-Text, Margin)
... God, which He gave to Abraham, remains stedfast. For thus He said: “Lift up thine eyes, and look from this place where now thou art, towards the north and south, and east and west. For all the earth which thou seest, I will give to thee and to thy seed, even for ever.” And again He says, “Arise, and go through the length and breadth of the land, since I will give it unto thee;” and [yet] he did not receive an inheritance in it, not even a footstep, but was always a stranger and a pilgrim therein.[Acts 7:5] And upon the death of Sarah his wife, when the Hittites were willing to bestow upon him a place where he might bury her, he declined it as a gift, but bought the burying-place (giving for it four hundred talents of silver) from Ephron the son of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 573, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenæus (HTML)
XXXII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4850 (In-Text, Margin)
Josephus says, that when Moses had been brought up in the royal palaces, he was chosen as general against the Ethiopians; and having proved victorious, obtained in marriage the daughter of that king, since indeed, out of her affection for him, she delivered the city up to him.[Acts 7:22]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 335, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXIII.—The Age, Birth, and Life of Moses. (HTML)
... poetry, harmony, and besides, medicine and music, by those that excelled in these arts among the Egyptians; and besides, the philosophy which is conveyed by symbols, which they point out in the hieroglyphical inscriptions. The rest of the usual course of instruction, Greeks taught him in Egypt as a royal child, as Philo says in his life of Moses. He learned, besides, the literature of the Egyptians, and the knowledge of the heavenly bodies from the Chaldeans and the Egyptians; whence in the Acts[Acts 7:22] he is said “to have been instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” And Eupolemus, in his book On the Kings in Judea, says that “Moses was the first wise man, and the first that imparted grammar to the Jews, that the Phœnicians received ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 151, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Occasion of Writing. Relative Position of Jews and Gentiles Illustrated. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1135 (In-Text, Margin)
... edict of the divine utterance, the prior and “greater” people—that is, the Jewish—must necessarily serve the “less;” and the “less” people—that is, the Christian—overcome the “greater.” For, withal, according to the memorial records of the divine Scriptures, the people of the Jews—that is, the more ancient—quite forsook God, and did degrading service to idols, and, abandoning the Divinity, was surrendered to images; while “the people” said to Aaron, “Make us gods to go before us.”[Acts 7:39-40] And when the gold out of the necklaces of the women and the rings of the men had been wholly smelted by fire, and there had come forth a calf-like head, to this figment Israel with one consent (abandoning God) gave honour, saying, “These are the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 152, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Occasion of Writing. Relative Position of Jews and Gentiles Illustrated. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1136 (In-Text, Margin)
... Jews—that is, the more ancient—quite forsook God, and did degrading service to idols, and, abandoning the Divinity, was surrendered to images; while “the people” said to Aaron, “Make us gods to go before us.” And when the gold out of the necklaces of the women and the rings of the men had been wholly smelted by fire, and there had come forth a calf-like head, to this figment Israel with one consent (abandoning God) gave honour, saying, “These are the gods who brought us from the land of Egypt.”[Acts 7:38-41] For thus, in the later times in which kings were governing them, did they again, in conjunction with Jeroboam, worship golden kine, and groves, and enslave themselves to Baal. Whence is proved that they have ever been depicted, out of the volume of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 153, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
The Law Anterior to Moses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1151 (In-Text, Margin)
... the ground of equity and righteousness, (in the observance) of a natural law? Whence was Melchizedek named “priest of the most high God,” if, before the priesthood of the Levitical law, there were not levites who were wont to offer sacrifices to God? For thus, after the above-mentioned patriarchs, was the Law given to Moses, at that (well-known) time after their exode from Egypt, after the interval and spaces of four hundred years. In fact, it was after Abraham’s “four hundred and thirty years”[Acts 7:6] that the Law was given. Whence we understand that God’s law was anterior even to Moses, and was not first (given) in Horeb, nor in Sinai and in the desert, but was more ancient; (existing) first in paradise, subsequently reformed for the patriarchs, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 170, footnote 25 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Argument from the Destruction of Jerusalem and Desolation of Judea. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1424 (In-Text, Margin)
... baptism by the “wood” of Christ, that is, of His passion; in order that what had formerly perished through the “tree” in Adam, should be restored through the “tree” in Christ? while we, of course, who have succeeded to, and occupy, the room of the prophets, at the present day sustain in the world that treatment which the prophets always suffered on account of divine religion: for some they stoned, some they banished; more, however, they delivered to mortal slaughter, —a fact which they cannot deny.[Acts 7:51-52]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 355, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book IV. In Which Tertullian Pursues His Argument. Jesus is the Christ of the Creator. He Derives His Proofs from St. Luke's Gospel; That Being the Only Historical Portion of the New Testament Partially Accepted by Marcion. This Book May Also Be Regarded as a Commentary on St. Luke. It Gives Remarkable Proof of Tertullian's Grasp of Scripture, and Proves that “The Old Testament is Not Contrary to the New.“ It Also Abounds in Striking Expositions of Scriptural Passages, Embracing Profound Views of Revelation, in Connection with the Nature of Man. (HTML)
Other Proofs from the Same Chapter, that Jesus, Who Preached at Nazareth, and Was Acknowledged by Certain Demons as Christ the Son of God, Was the Creator's Christ. As Occasion Offers, the Docetic Errors of Marcion are Exposed. (HTML)
... dilemma of having to conduct himself contrary to his nature, whereas he might in his simple goodness have at once treated them with leniency. He fell, too, into another false position —of prevarication, when he permitted himself to be feared by the demons as the Son of the Creator, that he might drive them out, not indeed by his own power, but by the authority of the Creator. “He departed, and went into a desert place.” This was, indeed, the Creator’s customary region. It was proper that the Word[Acts 7:38] should there appear in body, where He had aforetime, wrought in a cloud. To the gospel also was suitable that condition of place which had once been determined on for the law. “Let the wilderness and the solitary place, therefore, be glad and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 589, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
The Change of a Thing's Condition is Not the Destruction of Its Substance. The Application of This Principle to Our Subject. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7709 (In-Text, Margin)
... give us instances of. The hand of Moses is changed, and it becomes like a dead one, bloodless, colourless, and stiff with cold; but on the recovery of heat, and on the restoration of its natural colour, it is again the same flesh and blood. Afterwards the face of the same Moses is changed, with a brightness which eye could not bear. But he was Moses still, even when he was not visible. So also Stephen had already put on the appearance of an angel, although they were none other than his human knees[Acts 7:59-60] which bent beneath the stoning. The Lord, again, in the retirement of the mount, had changed His raiment for a robe of light; but He still retained features which Peter could recognise. In that same scene Moses also and Elias gave proof that the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 627, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Against Praxeas. (HTML)
How the Son Was Forsaken by the Father Upon the Cross. The True Meaning Thereof Fatal to Praxeas. So Too, the Resurrection of Christ, His Ascension, Session at the Father's Right Hand, and Mission of the Holy Ghost. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8195 (In-Text, Margin)
... flesh cannot undergo the full extent of death, i.e., in corruption and decay. For the Son, therefore, to die, amounted to His being forsaken by the Father. The Son, then, both dies and rises again, according to the Scriptures. It is the Son, too, who ascends to the heights of heaven, and also descends to the inner parts of the earth. “He sitteth at the Father’s right hand” —not the Father at His own. He is seen by Stephen, at his martyrdom by stoning, still sitting at the right hand of God[Acts 7:55] where He will continue to sit, until the Father shall make His enemies His footstool. He will come again on the clouds of heaven, just as He appeared when He ascended into heaven. Meanwhile He has received from the Father the promised gift, and has ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 648, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Scorpiace. (HTML)
Chapter XV. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8325 (In-Text, Margin)
... sufferings, we know: the teaching is clear. This only I perceive in running through the Acts. I am not at all on the search. The prisons there, and the bonds, and the scourges, and the big stones, and the swords, and the onsets by the Jews, and the assemblies of the heathen, and the indictments by tribunes, and the hearing of causes by kings, and the judgment-seats of proconsuls and the name of Cæsar, do not need an interpreter. That Peter is struck, that Stephen is overwhelmed by stones,[Acts 7:59] that James is slain as is a victim at the altar, that Paul is beheaded has been written in their own blood. And if a heretic wishes his confidence to rest upon a public record, the archives of the empire will speak, as would the stones of Jerusalem. ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 651, footnote 13 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Appendix: Against All Heresies. (HTML)
Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8376 (In-Text, Margin)
After him brake out the heretic Cerinthus, teaching similarly. For he, too, says that the world was originated by those angels; and sets forth Christ as born of the seed of Joseph, contending that He was merely human, without divinity; affirming also that the Law was given by angels;[Acts 7:53] representing the God of the Jews as not the Lord, but an angel.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 710, footnote 18 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Patience. (HTML)
As God is the Author of Patience So the Devil is of Impatience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 9071 (In-Text, Margin)
... unquiet of quietness. In order that each individual may become evil he will be unable to persevere in being good. How, therefore, can such a hydra of delinquencies fail to offend the Lord, the Disapprover of evils? Is it not manifest that it was through impatience that Israel himself also always failed in his duty toward God, from that time when, forgetful of the heavenly arm whereby he had been drawn out of his Egyptian affliction, he demands from Aaron “gods[Acts 7:39-40] as his guides;” when he pours down for an idol the contributions of his gold: for the so necessary delays of Moses, while he met with God, he had borne with impatience. After the edible rain of the manna, after the watery following of the rock, they ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 716, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Patience. (HTML)
The Power of This Twofold Patience, the Spiritual and the Bodily. Exemplified in the Saints of Old. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 9169 (In-Text, Margin)
With this strength of patience, Esaias is cut asunder, and ceases not to speak concerning the Lord; Stephen is stoned, and prays for pardon to his foes.[Acts 7:59-60] Oh, happy also he who met all the violence of the devil by the exertion of every species of patience! —whom neither the driving away of his cattle nor those riches of his in sheep, nor the sweeping away of his children in one swoop of ruin, nor, finally, the agony of his own body in (one universal) wound, estranged from the patience and the faith which he had plighted to the Lord; whom the devil smote with all his ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 276, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
The God of the Law and the Prophets, and the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, is the Same God. (HTML)
2. It would be tedious to collect out of all the passages in the Gospels the proofs by which the God of the law and of the Gospels is shown to be one and the same. Let us touch briefly upon the Acts of the Apostles,[Acts 7] where Stephen and the other apostles address their prayers to that God who made heaven and earth, and who spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, calling Him the “God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob;” the God who “brought forth His people out of the land of Egypt.” Which expressions undoubtedly clearly direct our understandings to faith in the Creator, and implant an affection for Him ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 389, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
A Letter from Origen to Africanus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3044 (In-Text, Margin)
In the Acts of the Apostles also, Stephen, in his other testimony, says, “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.”[Acts 7:52] That Stephen speaks the truth, every one will admit who receives the Acts of the Apostles; but it is impossible to show from the extant books of the Old Testament how with any justice he throws the blame of having persecuted and slain the prophets on the fathers of those who believed not in Christ. And Paul, in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, testifies this ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 483, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Chapter XLVI (HTML)
... inferior to it, “the word of knowledge,” but third, and lower down, “faith.” And because he regarded “the word” as higher than miraculous powers, he for that reason places “workings of miracles” and “gifts of healings” in a lower place than the gifts of the word. And in the Acts of the Apostles Stephen bears witness to the great learning of Moses, which he had obtained wholly from ancient writings not accessible to the multitude. For he says: “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.”[Acts 7:22] And therefore, with respect to his miracles, it was suspected that he wrought them perhaps, not in virtue of his professing to come from God, but by means of his Egyptian knowledge, in which he was well versed. For the king, entertaining such a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 546, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter VIII (HTML)
... on account of certain sins, these sins (of idol-worship) also were committed by them. For it is related in the Acts of the Apostles regarding the Jews, that “God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to Me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which you made to worship them.”[Acts 7:42-43] And in the writings of Paul, who was carefully trained in Jewish customs, and converted afterwards to Christianity by a miraculous appearance of Jesus, the following words may be read in the Epistle to the Colossians: “Let no man beguile you of your ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 221, footnote 2 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Expository Treatise Against the Jews. (HTML)
... himself the Son of God. And therefore, as in the person of the Jews, Solomon speaks again of this righteous one, who is Christ, thus: “He was made to reprove our thoughts, and he maketh his boast that God is his Father. Let us see, then, if his words be true, and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him; for if the just man be the Son of God, He will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Let us condemn him with a shameful death, for by his own saying he shall be respected.”[Acts 7:52]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 488, footnote 9 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Advantage of Patience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3622 (In-Text, Margin)
... times, but seventy times seven times, but, moreover, all his sins altogether; that you should love your enemies; that you should offer prayer for your adversaries and persecutors? Can you accomplish these things unless you maintain the stedfastness of patience and endurance? And this we see done in the case of Stephen, who, when he was slain by the Jews with violence and stoning, did not ask for vengeance for himself, but for pardon for his murderers, saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:60] It behoved the first martyr of Christ thus to be, who, fore-running the martyrs that should follow him in a glorious death, was not only the preacher of the Lord’s passion, but also the imitator of His most patient gentleness. What shall I say of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 273, footnote 9 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Peter of Alexandria. (HTML)
The Canonical Epistle, with the Commentaries of Theodore Balsamon and John Zonaras. (HTML)
Canon IX. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2311 (In-Text, Margin)
... death, inasmuch as thus we should be compelling them both to be harsher, and to carry out their deadly works, but He would have us to wait, and to take heed to ourselves, to watch and to pray, lest we enter into temptation. Thus first Stephen, pressing on His footsteps, suffered martyrdom, being apprehended in Jerusalem by the transgressors, and being brought before the council, he was stoned, and glorified for the name of Christ, praying with the words, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:59] Thus James, in the second place, being of Herod apprehended, was beheaded with the sword. Thus Peter, the first of the apostles, having been often apprehended, and thrown into prison, and treated with igominy, was last of all crucified at Rome. ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 463, footnote 26 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Sec. VI.—Conclusion of the Work (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3341 (In-Text, Margin)
... heavens by the power of His God and Father in our sight, who ate and drank with Him for forty days after He arose from the dead; who is sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty of Almighty God upon the cherubim; to whom it was said, “Sit Thou on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool;” whom the most blessed Stephen saw standing at the right hand of power, and cried out, and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God,”[Acts 7:56] as the High Priest of all the rational orders,—through Him, worship, and majesty, and glory be given to Almighty God, both now and for evermore. Amen.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 492, footnote 4 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VIII. Concerning Gifts, and Ordinations, and the Ecclesiastical Canons (HTML)
Sec. III.—Ordination and Duties of the Clergy (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3686 (In-Text, Margin)
... faithful God, who art rich unto all that call upon Thee in truth, who art fearful in counsels, and wise in understanding, who art powerful and great, hear our prayer, O Lord, and let Thine ears receive our supplication, and “cause the light of Thy countenance to shine upon this Thy servant,” who is to be ordained for Thee to the office of a deacon; and replenish him with Thy Holy Spirit, and with power, as Thou didst replenish Stephen, who was Thy martyr, and follower of the sufferings of Thy Christ.[Acts 7] Do Thou render him worthy to discharge acceptably the ministration of a deacon, steadily, unblameably, and without reproof, that thereby he may attain an higher degree, through the mediation of Thy only begotten Son, with whom glory, honour, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 500, footnote 5 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VIII. Concerning Gifts, and Ordinations, and the Ecclesiastical Canons (HTML)
Sec. V.—All the Apostles Urge the Observance of the Order of the Church (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3766 (In-Text, Margin)
... made man for our sake, and offering the spiritual sacrifice to His God and Father, before His suffering gave it us alone in charge to do this, although there were others with us who had believed in Him. But he that believes is not presently appointed a priest, or obtains the dignity of the high-priesthood. But after His ascension we offered, according to His constitution, the pure and unbloody sacrifice; and ordained bishops, and presbyters, and deacons, seven in number: one of which was Stephen,[Acts 7] that blessed martyr, who was not inferior to us as to his pious disposition of mind towards God; who showed so great piety towards God, by his faith and love towards our Lord Jesus Christ, as to give his life for Him, and was stoned to death by the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 154, footnote 2 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Recognitions of Clement. (HTML)
Book VI. (HTML)
How the Fight Begins. (HTML)
... possible, to share it with all, as given by the good God; yea, even with those who hate and persecute them: for they know that ignorance is the cause of their sin. Wherefore, in short, the Master Himself, when He was being led to the cross by those who knew Him not, prayed the Father for His murderers, and said, ‘Father, forgive their sin, for they know not what they do!’ The disciples also, in imitation of the Master, even when themselves were suffering, in like manner prayed for their murderers.[Acts 7:60] But if we are taught to pray even for our murderers and persecutors, how ought we not to bear the persecutions of parents and relations, and to pray for their conversion?
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 248, footnote 10 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Clementine Homilies. (HTML)
Homily III. (HTML)
Other Sayings of Christ. (HTML)
... prophets from whom they asserted that they had learned, He proclaimed that they died desiring the truth, but not having learned it, saying, ‘Many prophets and kings desired to see what ye see, and to hear what you hear; and verily I say to you, they neither saw nor heard.’ Still further He said, ‘I am he concerning whom Moses prophesied, saying, A Prophet shall the Lord our God raise unto you of your brethren, like unto me: Him hear in all things; and whosoever will not hear that Prophet shall die.’[Acts 7:37]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 784, footnote 6 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Remains of the Second and Third Centuries. (HTML)
Pseud-Irenæus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3864 (In-Text, Margin)
“They humbled themselves under the powerful hand by which they are now highly exalted. Then they pleaded for all, but accused none; they absolved all, they bound none; and they prayed for those who inflicted the tortures, even as Stephen the perfect Witness, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’[Acts 7:60] But if he prayed for those who stoned him, how much more for the brethren!”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 269, footnote 2 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher. (HTML)
The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher. Translated from the Syriac. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4434 (In-Text, Margin)
IX. Let us proceed further to their account of their gods that we may carefully demonstrate all that is said above. First of all, the Greeks bring forward as a god Kronos, that is to say Chiun[Acts 7:43] (Saturn). And his worshippers sacrifice their children to him, and they burn some of them alive in his honour. And they say that he took to him among his wives Rhea, and begat many children by her. By her too he begat Dios, who is called Zeus. And at length he (Kronos) went mad, and through fear of an oracle that had been made known to him, he began to devour his sons. And from him Zeus was stolen ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 425, footnote 3 (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)
Prophets in Their Country. (HTML)
... But, figuratively interpreted, it is absolutely true; for we must think of Judæa as their country, and that famous Israel as their kindred, and perhaps of the body as the house. For all suffered dishonour in Judæa from the Israel which is according to the flesh, while they were yet in the body, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, as having been spoken in censure to the people, “Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute, who showed before of the coming of the Righteous one?”[Acts 7:52] And by Paul in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians like things are said: “For ye brethren became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judæa in Christ Jesus, for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen even as they did of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 109, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age, in which very grave errors as to the nature of God and the origin of evil being distinguished, and the Sacred Books more accurately known, he at length arrives at a clear knowledge of God, not yet rightly apprehending Jesus Christ. (HTML)
He Compares the Doctrine of the Platonists Concerning the Λόγος With the Much More Excellent Doctrine of Christianity. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 525 (In-Text, Margin)
... Egypt, and prostrating Thy image—their own soul—before the image “of an ox that eateth grass.” These things found I there; but I fed not on them. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger; and Thou hast called the Gentiles into Thine inheritance. And I had come unto Thee from among the Gentiles, and I strained after that gold which Thou willedst Thy people to take from Egypt, seeing that wheresoever it was it was Thine.[Acts 7:22] And to the Athenians Thou saidst by Thy apostle, that in Thee “we live, and move, and have our being;” as one of their own poets has said. And verily these books came from thence. But I set not my mind on the idols of Egypt, whom they ministered to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 190, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Porphyry’s doctrine of redemption. (HTML)
Of the Ministry of the Holy Angels, by Which They Fulfill the Providence of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 409 (In-Text, Margin)
And so it has pleased Divine Providence, as I have said, and as we read in the Acts of the Apostles,[Acts 7:53] that the law enjoining the worship of one God should be given by the disposition of angels. But among them the person of God Himself visibly appeared, not, indeed, in His proper substance, which ever remains invisible to mortal eyes, but by the infallible signs furnished by creation in obedience to its Creator. He made use, too, of the words of human speech, uttering them syllable by syllable successively, though in His own nature He speaks not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 307, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The progress of the earthly and heavenly cities traced by the sacred history. (HTML)
Of the Ark and the Deluge, and that We Cannot Agree with Those Who Receive the Bare History, But Reject the Allegorical Interpretation, Nor with Those Who Maintain the Figurative and Not the Historical Meaning. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 856 (In-Text, Margin)
... animals of both sexes, two of the unclean and seven of the clean. But they seem to me to reckon only one area of 300 cubits long and 50 broad, and not to remember that there was another similar in the story above, and yet another as large in the story above that again; and that there was consequently an area of 900 cubits by 150. And if we accept what Origen has with some appropriateness suggested, that Moses the man of God, being, as it is written, “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,”[Acts 7:22] who delighted in geometry, may have meant geometrical cubits, of which they say that one is equal to six of our cubits, then who does not see what a capacity these dimensions give to the ark? For as to their objection that an ark of such size could ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 320, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel. (HTML)
Of the Time of the Migration of Abraham, When, According to the Commandment of God, He Went Out from Haran. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 898 (In-Text, Margin)
Now the blessed Stephen, in narrating these things in the Acts of the Apostles, says: “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, and come into the land which I will show thee.”[Acts 7:2-3] According to these words of Stephen, God spoke to Abraham, not after the death of his father, who certainly died in Haran, where his son also dwelt with him, but before he dwelt in that city, although he was already in Mesopotamia. Therefore he had already departed from the Chaldeans. So that when Stephen adds, “Then Abraham ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 320, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel. (HTML)
Of the Time of the Migration of Abraham, When, According to the Commandment of God, He Went Out from Haran. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 899 (In-Text, Margin)
... thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, and come into the land which I will show thee.” According to these words of Stephen, God spoke to Abraham, not after the death of his father, who certainly died in Haran, where his son also dwelt with him, but before he dwelt in that city, although he was already in Mesopotamia. Therefore he had already departed from the Chaldeans. So that when Stephen adds, “Then Abraham went out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran,”[Acts 7:4] this does not point out what took place after God spoke to him (for it was not after these words of God that he went out of the land of the Chaldeans, since he says that God spoke to him in Mesopotamia), but the word “then” which he uses refers to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 321, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel. (HTML)
Of the Order and Nature of the Promises of God Which Were Made to Abraham. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 903 (In-Text, Margin)
... it was made Abraham had departed out of Haran because the Scripture cannot be contradicted in which we read, “Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.” But if this promise was made in that year, then of course Abraham was staying in Haran with his father; for he could not depart thence unless he had first dwelt there. Does this, then, contradict what Stephen says, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran?”[Acts 7:2] But it is to be understood that the whole took place in the same year,—both the promise of God before Abraham dwelt in Haran, and his dwelling in Haran, and his departure thence,—not only because Eusebius in the Chronicles reckons from the year of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 383, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
A parallel history of the earthly and heavenly cities from the time of Abraham to the end of the world. (HTML)
That Prophetic Records are Found Which are More Ancient Than Any Fountain of the Gentile Philosophy. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1212 (In-Text, Margin)
... tongue the literature of this age chiefly appears, have no ground for boasting of their wisdom, in which our religion, wherein is true wisdom, is not evidently more ancient at least, if not superior. Yet it must be confessed that before Moses there had already been, not indeed among the Greeks, but among barbarous nations, as in Egypt, some doctrine which might be called their wisdom, else it would not have been written in the holy books that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,[Acts 7:22] as he was, when, being born there, and adopted and nursed by Pharaoh’s daughter, he was also liberally educated. Yet not even the wisdom of the Egyptians could be antecedent in time to the wisdom of our prophets, because even Abraham was a prophet. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 554, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Whatever Has Been Rightly Said by the Heathen, We Must Appropriate to Our Uses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1824 (In-Text, Margin)
... brethren done? Do we not see with what a quantity of gold and silver and garments Cyprian, that most persuasive teacher and most blessed martyr, was loaded when he came out of Egypt? How much Lactantius brought with him? And Victorinus, and Optatus, and Hilary, not to speak of living men! How much Greeks out of number have borrowed! And prior to all these, that most faithful servant of God, Moses, had done the same thing; for of him it is written that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.[Acts 7:22] And to none of all these would heathen superstition (especially in those times when, kicking against the yoke of Christ, it was persecuting the Christians) have ever furnished branches of knowledge it held useful, if it had suspected they were about ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 66, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The appearances of God to the Old Testament saints are discussed. (HTML)
The Essence of God Never Appeared in Itself. Divine Appearances to the Fathers Wrought by the Ministry of Angels. An Objection Drawn from the Mode of Speech Removed. That the Appearing of God to Abraham Himself, Just as that to Moses, Was Wrought by Angels. The Same Thing is Proved by the Law Being Given to Moses by Angels. What Has Been Said in This Book, and What Remains to Be Said in the Next. (HTML)
24. For Stephen, too, in the Acts of the Apostles, relates these things in that manner in which they are also written in the Old Testament: “Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken,” he says; “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia.”[Acts 7:2] But lest any one should think that the God of glory appeared then to the eyes of any mortal in that which He is in Himself, he goes on to say that an angel appeared to Moses. “Then fled Moses,” he says, “at that saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons. And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 66, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The appearances of God to the Old Testament saints are discussed. (HTML)
The Essence of God Never Appeared in Itself. Divine Appearances to the Fathers Wrought by the Ministry of Angels. An Objection Drawn from the Mode of Speech Removed. That the Appearing of God to Abraham Himself, Just as that to Moses, Was Wrought by Angels. The Same Thing is Proved by the Law Being Given to Moses by Angels. What Has Been Said in This Book, and What Remains to Be Said in the Next. (HTML)
... land of Midian, where he begat two sons. And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold. Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet,”[Acts 7:29-33] etc. Here, certainly, he speaks both of angel and of Lord; and of the same as the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; as is written in Genesis.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 67, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The appearances of God to the Old Testament saints are discussed. (HTML)
The Essence of God Never Appeared in Itself. Divine Appearances to the Fathers Wrought by the Ministry of Angels. An Objection Drawn from the Mode of Speech Removed. That the Appearing of God to Abraham Himself, Just as that to Moses, Was Wrought by Angels. The Same Thing is Proved by the Law Being Given to Moses by Angels. What Has Been Said in This Book, and What Remains to Be Said in the Next. (HTML)
... Moses for the control of the children of Israel, or yet, that it was given by angels. So Stephen speaks: “Ye stiff-necked,” he says, “and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: who have received the Law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.”[Acts 7:51-53] What is more evident than this? What more strong than such an authority? The Law, indeed, was given to that people by the disposition of angels; but the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ was by it prepared and pre-announced; and He Himself, as the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 374, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Creed. (HTML)
Section 13 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1797 (In-Text, Margin)
... to build a temple for God. If he had built a temple for the sun or moon or some star or some angel, would not God condemn him? Because therefore he built a temple for God he showed that he worshipped God. And of what did he build? Of wood and stone, because God deigned to make unto Himself by His servant an house on earth, where He might be asked, where He might be had in mind. Of which blessed Stephen says, “Solomon built Him an house; howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made by hand.”[Acts 7:47-48] If then our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, what manner of God is it that built a temple for the Holy Ghost? But it was God. For if our bodies be a temple of the Holy Ghost, the same built this temple for the Holy Ghost, that built our ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 31, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
Explanation of the First Part of the Sermon Delivered by Our Lord on the Mount, as Contained in the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter XXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 220 (In-Text, Margin)
... death, if any one has not withdrawn his love from a brother, but through some infirmity of disposition has failed to perform the incumbent duties of brotherhood. And on this account our Lord also on the cross says, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do:” for, not yet having become partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit, they had not yet entered the fellowship of the holy brotherhood. And the blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles prays for those by whom he is being stoned,[Acts 7:60] because they had not yet believed on Christ, and were not fighting against that common grace. And the Apostle Paul on this account, I believe, does not pray for Alexander, because he was already a brother, and had sinned unto death, viz. by making ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 257, 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)
Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1802 (In-Text, Margin)
32. Now, in the generations which Matthew enumerates, the predominant number is forty. For it is a custom of the Holy Scriptures, not to reckon what is over and above certain round numbers. For thus it is said to be four hundred years, after which the people of Israel went out of Egypt, whereas it is four hundred and thirty.[Acts 7:6] And so here the one generation, which exceeds the fortieth, does not take away the predominance of that number. Now this number signifies the life wherein we labour in this world, as long as we are absent from the Lord, during which the temporal dispensation of the preaching of the truth is necessary. For the number ten, by which the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 279, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the Lord’s Prayer in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap. vi. 9, etc. to the Competentes. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2001 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou hadst had regard to the Lord thy God speaking thus. But perhaps you will say, He did it, but then He did it as being the Lord, as the Christ, as the Son of God, as the Only-Begotten, as the Word made flesh. But what can I, an infirm and sinful man, do? If thy Lord be too high an example for thee, turn thy thoughts upon thy fellow-servant. The holy Stephen was being stoned, and as they stoned him, on bended knees did he pray for his enemies, and say, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:60] They were casting stones, not asking pardon, yet did he pray for them. I would thou wert like him; reach forth. Why art thou for ever trailing thy heart along the earth? Hear, “Lift up thy heart,” reach forward, love thine enemies. If thou canst not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 396, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxii. 2, etc., about the marriage of the king’s son; against the Donatists, on charity. Delivered at Carthage in the Restituta. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3025 (In-Text, Margin)
... Bridegroom Himself hanging upon the Cross for thee, and praying to His Father for His enemies; “Father,” saith He, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Thou hast seen the Bridegroom speaking thus; see too the friend of the Bridegroom, a guest “with the wedding garment.” Look at the blessed Stephen, how he rebukes the Jews as though in rage and resentment, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye have resisted the Holy Ghost. Which of the Prophets have not your fathers killed?”[Acts 7:51-52] Thou hast heard how severe he is with his tongue. And at once thou art prepared to speak against any one; and I would it were against him who offendeth God, and not who offendeth thee. One offendeth God, and thou dost not rebuke him; he offendeth ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 396, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxii. 2, etc., about the marriage of the king’s son; against the Donatists, on charity. Delivered at Carthage in the Restituta. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3027 (In-Text, Margin)
... him who offendeth God, and not who offendeth thee. One offendeth God, and thou dost not rebuke him; he offendeth thee, and thou criest out; where is that “wedding garment”? Ye have heard therefore how Stephen was severe; now hear how he loved. He offended those whom he was rebuking, and was stoned by them. And as he was being overwhelmed and bruised to death by the hands of his furious persecutors on every side, and the blows of the stones, he first said, “Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit.”[Acts 7:59] Then after he had prayed for himself standing, he bent the knee for them who were stoning him, and said, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; let me die in my body, but let not these die in their souls. And when he had said this, he fell ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 396, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxii. 2, etc., about the marriage of the king’s son; against the Donatists, on charity. Delivered at Carthage in the Restituta. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3028 (In-Text, Margin)
... offended those whom he was rebuking, and was stoned by them. And as he was being overwhelmed and bruised to death by the hands of his furious persecutors on every side, and the blows of the stones, he first said, “Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit.” Then after he had prayed for himself standing, he bent the knee for them who were stoning him, and said, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; let me die in my body, but let not these die in their souls. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”[Acts 7:60] After these words he added no more; he spake them and departed; his last prayer was for his enemies. Learn ye hereby to have “the wedding garment.” So do thou too bend the knee, and beat thy forehead against the ground, and as thou art about to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 457, footnote 8 (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 3569 (In-Text, Margin)
... though to this day His Body remains imperfect. The Apostles believed; through them many of the inhabitants of Jerusalem believed; Judæa believed. Samaria believed. Let the members be added on, the building added on to the foundation. “For no other foundation can any man lay,” says the Apostle, “than 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.[Acts 7:58] 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, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 40, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter I. 32, 33. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 121 (In-Text, Margin)
... little before stormed and glowed with ardor of spirit,—who had, as it were, made an onset on his enemies, and like one full of violence had attacked them in such fiery and burning words as you have heard, “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,” that any one who heard those words might fancy that Stephen, if he were allowed, would have them consumed at once,—but when the stones thrown from their hands reached him, with fixed knee he saith, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:51-59] He held fast to the unity of the dove. For his Master, upon whom the dove descended, had done the same thing before him; who, while hanging on the cross, said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Wherefore by the dove it is shown ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 160, 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 VI. 1–14. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 483 (In-Text, Margin)
... thought Christ to be a prophet for this reason, namely, that they were sitting on the grass. But He was the Lord of the prophets, the fulfiller of the prophets, the sanctifier of the prophets, but yet a prophet also: for it was said to Moses, “I will raise up for them a prophet like unto thee.” Like, according to the flesh, but not according to the majesty. And that this promise of the Lord is to be understood concerning Christ Himself, is clearly expounded and read in the Acts of the Apostles.[Acts 7:37] And the Lord says of Himself, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country.” The Lord is a prophet, and the Lord is God’s Word, and no prophet prophesies without the Word of God: the Word of God is with the prophets, and the Word of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 370, 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. 8–11. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1553 (In-Text, Margin)
... some day? Once more, in reference to this righteousness, are we to say that the Apostle Paul was not righteous when confessing that He had seen Christ after His ascension into heaven, which was undoubtedly the time of which He had already said, “Ye shall see me no more”? Was Stephen, that hero of surpassing renown, not righteous in the spirit of this righteousness, who, when they were stoning him, exclaimed, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God”?[Acts 7:56] What, then, is meant by “I go to the Father, and ye shall see me no more,” but just this, As I am while with you now? For at that time He was still mortal in the likeness of sinful flesh. He could suffer hunger and thirst, be wearied, and sleep; and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 388, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter XVI. 16–23. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1665 (In-Text, Margin)
... a word that may also be understood in both senses, so that by it the ambiguity is not removed; and even though it were so, every difficulty would not thereby disappear. For we read that the Lord Christ, after He rose again, was both questioned and petitioned. He was asked by the disciples, on the eve of His ascension into heaven, when He would be manifested, and when the kingdom of Israel would come; and even when already in heaven, He was petitioned [asked] by St. Stephen to receive his spirit.[Acts 7:59] And who dare either think or say that Christ ought not to be asked, sitting as He does in heaven, and yet was asked while He abode on earth? or that He ought not to be asked in His state of immortality, although it was men’s duty to ask Him while ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 489, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John III. 9–18. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2251 (In-Text, Margin)
... but shall be prepared to die for thy brother. This is perfect charity, that thou be prepared to die for thy brother. This the Lord exhibited in Himself, who died for all, praying for them by whom He was crucified, and saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But if He alone hath done this, He was not a Master, if He had no disciples. Disciples who came after Him have done this. Men were stoning Stephen, and he knelt down and said, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:59] He loved them that were killing him; since for them also he was dying. Hear also the Apostle Paul: “And I myself,” saith he, “will be spent for your souls.” For he was among those for whom Stephen, when by their hands he was dying, besought ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 527, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John V. 16; De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. i. 22, § 73. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2554 (In-Text, Margin)
... not unto death” is when a person, not having alienated his love from his brother, yet through some infirmity of mind may have failed to exhibit the due offices of brotherhood. Wherefore, on the one hand, the Lord on the cross said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” since they had not yet, by being made partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit, entered into the fellowship of holy brotherhood; and blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles prays for them who are stoning him;[Acts 7:59] because they had not yet believed Christ, and were not fighting against that grace of communion. On the other hand, the apostle Paul does not pray for Alexander, and the reason I suppose, is, that this man was a brother, and had sinned “unto death,” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 22, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm VII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 221 (In-Text, Margin)
5. “Arise, O Lord, in Thine anger” (ver. 6). Why yet does he, who we say is perfect, incite God to anger? Must we not see, whether he rather be not perfect, who, when he was being stoned, said, “O Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”?[Acts 7:60] Or does the Psalmist pray thus not against men, but against the devil and his angels, whose possession sinners and the ungodly are? He then does not pray against him in wrath, but in mercy, whosoever prays that that possession may be taken from him by that Lord “who justifieth the ungodly.” For when the ungodly is justified, from ungodly he is made just, and from being the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 162, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1531 (In-Text, Margin)
... carnally he desired, than that which spiritually by being born first he had earned: and he laid aside his birthright, that he might eat lentils. But lentils we find to be the food of the Egyptians, for there it abounds in Egypt. Whence is so magnified the lentil of Alexandria, that it comes even to our country, as if here grew no lentil. Therefore by desiring Egyptian food he lost his birthright. So also the people of the Jews, of whom it is said, “in their hearts they turned back again into Egypt.”[Acts 7:39] They desired in a manner the lentil, and lost their birthright.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 232, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2181 (In-Text, Margin)
7. This thing hath been done even in the first times of the faith. Stephen the Martyr was preaching the Truth, and to minds as though dark, in order to bring them forth into light, was making incantation: when he came to make mention of Christ, whom they would not hear at all, of them the Scripture saith what? of them relateth what? “They shut,” he saith, “their ears.”[Acts 7:57] But what they did afterwards, the narrative of the passion of Stephen doth publish. They were not deaf, but they made themselves deaf.…For this thing they did at the point where Christ was named. The indignation of these men was as the indignation of a serpent. Why your ears do ye shut? Wait, hear, and if ye ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 237, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LIX (HTML)
Part 1 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2228 (In-Text, Margin)
... cried, “Crucify, Crucify:” they were men of bloods, on whom when there was being charged the crime of the blood of Christ, they made answer, giving it to their posterity to drink, “His blood be upon us and upon our sons.” But neither against His Body did men of bloods cease to rise up; for even after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, the Church suffered persecutions, and she indeed first that grew out of the Jewish people, of which also our Apostles were. There at first Stephen was stoned,[Acts 7:58] and received that of which he had his name. For Stephanus doth signify a crown. Lowly stoned but highly crowned. Secondly, among the Gentiles rose up kingdoms of Gentiles, before that in them was fulfilled that which had been foretold, “There shall ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 312, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3040 (In-Text, Margin)
... they know not what they do.” To persons saying such things the Martyr replieth and saith, thou hast set before me the Lord, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do:” understand thou my voice also, in order that it may be thine too: for what have I said concerning mine enemies? “Let them be confounded and fear.” Already such vengeance hath been taken on the enemies of the Martyrs. That Saul that persecuted Stephen, he was confounded and feared. He was breathing out slaughters,[Acts 7:58] he was seeking some to drag and slay: a voice having been heard from above, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me,” he was confounded and laid low, and he was raised up to obedience, that had been inflamed unto persecuting. This then the Martyrs ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 315, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3068 (In-Text, Margin)
... day, or the three hours of a watch. But if thou shalt not have had endurance, late for thee it will be: and when to thee it shall be late, thou wilt be diverted from Him, and wilt be like unto those that were wearied in the desert, and hastened to ask of God the pleasant things which He was reserving for them in the Land; and when there were not given on their journey the pleasant things, whereby perchance they would have been corrupted, they murmured against God, and went back in heart unto Egypt:[Acts 7:39] to that place whence in body they had been severed, in heart they went back. Do not thou, then, so, do not so: fear the word of the Lord, saying, “Remember Lot’s wife.” She too being on the way, but now delivered from the Sodomites, looked back; in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 316, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3086 (In-Text, Margin)
... counted for righteousness. Even so then the righteousness shall be mine, not however as though mine own, not as though by mine own self given to myself: as they thought who through the letter made their boast, and rejected grace.…It is a small thing then that thou acknowledge the good thing which is in thee to be from God, unless also on that account thou exalt not thyself above him that hath not yet, who perchance when he shall have received, will outstrip thee. For when Saul was a stoner of Stephen,[Acts 7:59] how many were the Christians of whom he was persecutor! Nevertheless, when he was converted, all that had gone before he surpassed. Therefore say thou to God that which thou hearest in the Psalm, “In Thee I have hoped, O Lord, I shall not be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 381, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3681 (In-Text, Margin)
... 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. Hence the holy deacons, of whom Stephen was crowned with martyrdom before the Apostles.[Acts 7:59] 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 merciful grace. Hence even he, according to the prophecy sent before concerning him, “a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 451, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4313 (In-Text, Margin)
... in the hands of Angels, when He was taken up into heaven: not that, if Angels had not sustained Him, He would have fallen: but because they were attending on their King. Say not, Those who sustained Him are better than He who was sustained. Are then cattle better than men, because they sustain the weakness of men? And we ought not to speak thus either; for if the cattle withdraw their support, their riders fall. But how ought we to speak of it? For it is said even of God, “Heaven is My throne.”[Acts 7:49] Because then heaven supports Him, and God sits thereon, is therefore heaven the better? Thus also in this Psalm we may understand it of the service of the Angels: it does not pertain to any infirmity in our Lord, but to the honour they pay, and to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 682, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CL (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 6014 (In-Text, Margin)
... it is said, “It is written in the book of Psalms,” though the customary way of speaking is such that he seem to have wished to suggest that there is but one book, yet to this it may be answered, that the words mean “in a book of the Psalms,” that is, “in any one of those five books.” And this is in common language so unprecedented, or at least so rare, that we are only convinced that the twelve Prophets made one book, because we read in like manner, “As it is written in the book of the Prophets.”[Acts 7:42] There are some too who call all the canonical Scriptures together one book, because they agree in a very wondrous and divine unity.…
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 69, footnote 2 (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 X on Acts iv. 1. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 270 (In-Text, Margin)
... upon Him for the benefit of your enemy; call upon Him for the salvation of your own soul; then he will be present, then you will delight Him; whereas now you provoke Him to anger. Call upon Him as Stephen did; “Lord,” he said, “lay not this sin to their charge.” (ch. vii. 59.) Call upon Him as did the wife of Elkanah, with tears and sobs, and prayers. (1 Sam. i. 10.) I prevent you not, rather I earnestly exhort you to it. Call upon him as Moses called upon Him, yea, cried, interceding for those[Acts 7:29] who had driven him into banishment. For you to make mention at random of any person of consideration, is taken as an insult: and do you bandy God about in your talk, in season, out of season? I do not want to hinder you from keeping God always in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 107, footnote 2 (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 XVII on Acts vii. 35. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 387 (In-Text, Margin)
... prophet,” etc.] He shows, that the prophecy must by all means be fulfilled, and that Moses is not opposed to Him. “This is he that was in the Church in the wilderness, and, that said unto the children of Israel.” (v. 38.) Do you mark that thence comes the root, and that “salvation is from the Jews?” (John iv. 22.) “With the Angel,” it says, “which spake unto him.” (Rom. xi. 16.) Lo, again he affirms that it was He (Christ) that gave the Law, seeing Moses was with “Him” in the Church in the wilderness.[Acts 7:53] And here he puts them in mind of a great marvel, of the things done in the Mount: “Who received living oracles to give unto us.” On all occasions Moses is wonderful, and (so) when need was to legislate. What means the expression, “Living oracles” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 12, page 275, footnote 6 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on First and Second Corinthians
Homilies on Second Corinthians. (HTML)
Homily I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 377 (In-Text, Margin)
... more abundant riches. For truly such great fruit thou shalt not reap by expending all thy wealth on the needy, by going about and seeking out the poor, and scattering thy substance to the hungry, as thou shalt gain by the same word. And so neither Job do I admire so much in setting wide his house to the needy, as I am struck with and extol his taking the spoiling of his substance thankfully. The same in the loss of children it happeneth to see. For herein, also, reward no less than his who offered[Acts 7:41] his son and presented him in sacrifice shalt thou receive, if as thou seest thine die thou shalt thank the God of love. For how shalt such an one be less than Abraham? He saw not his son stretched out a corpse, but only looked to do so. So if he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 83, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians. (HTML)
Homilies on Ephesians. (HTML)
Ephesians 3:8-11 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 259 (In-Text, Margin)
... he not only not ashamed of his kindred, but with all his spirit defended them, and threw himself into dangers for their sake. (Acts. vii. 24.) How? Seeing, it is said, one doing an injury to one of them, he defended him that suffered the injury, and slew him that inflicted it. But this is not as yet for the sake of enemies. Great indeed is this act of itself, but not so great as what comes afterwards. The next day, then, he saw the same thing taking place, and when he saw him whom he had defended[Acts 7:24] doing his neighbor wrong, he admonished him to desist from his wrong-doing. But he said, with great ingratitude, “Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?” (Acts. vii. 27.) Who would not have taken fire at these words? Had then the former act been ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 104, footnote 2 (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 II (HTML)
The Course pursued by the Apostles after the Ascension of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 237 (In-Text, Margin)
1., then, in the place of Judas, the betrayer, Matthias, who, as has been shown was also one of the Seventy, was chosen to the apostolate. And there were appointed to the diaconate, for the service of the congregation, by prayer and the laying on of the hands of the apostles, approved men, seven in number, of whom Stephen was one. He first, after the Lord, was stoned to death at the time of his ordination by the slayers of the Lord, as if he had been promoted for this very purpose.[Acts 7] And thus he was the first to receive the crown, corresponding to his name, which belongs to the martyrs of Christ, who are worthy of the meed of victory.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 138, footnote 6 (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 III (HTML)
The Last Siege of the Jews after Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 626 (In-Text, Margin)
2. For the Jews after the ascension of our Saviour, in addition to their crime against him, had been devising as many plots as they could against his apostles. First Stephen was stoned to death by them,[Acts 7:8] and after him James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John, was beheaded, and finally James, the first that had obtained the episcopal seat in Jerusalem after the ascension of our Saviour, died in the manner already described. But the rest of the apostles, who had been incessantly plotted against with a view to their destruction, and had been driven out of the land of Judea, went unto all ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 218, footnote 10 (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 V (HTML)
The Martyrs, beloved of God, kindly ministered unto those who fell in the Persecution. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1403 (In-Text, Margin)
5. A little further on they say: “They humbled themselves under the mighty hand, by which they are now greatly exalted. They defended all, but accused none. They absolved all, but bound none. And they prayed for those who had inflicted cruelties upon them, even as Stephen, the perfect witness, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’[Acts 7:60] But if he prayed for those who stoned him, how much more for the brethren!”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 134, footnote 10 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Of Eusebius Bishop of Samosata. (HTML)
Thus, too, he followed the example of Stephanus, his fellow slave, who, after the stones had stormed upon him, cried aloud, “Lord lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:59] So died the great Eusebius after many and various struggles. He had escaped the barbarians in Thrace, but he did not escape the violence of impious heretics, and by their means won the martyr’s crown.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 178, footnote 1 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)
The Immutable. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1127 (In-Text, Margin)
“For the tabernacle of the Word and of God is not the same, whereby the blessed Stephen beheld the divine glory.”[Acts 7:57]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 183, footnote 5 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)
The Unconfounded. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1179 (In-Text, Margin)
And the very divine Moses when he told the tale of them that came down into Egypt and stated with whom each tribal chief had come in, added, “All the souls that came out of Egypt were seventy-five,”[Acts 7:14] reckoning one soul for each immigrant. And the divine apostle at Troas, when all supposed Eutychus to be dead, said “Trouble not yourselves for his soul is in him.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 190, footnote 5 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)
The Unconfounded. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1225 (In-Text, Margin)
... “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” And in order to make his meaning clear he adds, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” And after the Passion and the Resurrection the divine Peter, in his address to the Jews, called Him man. And after His being taken up into heaven, Stephen the victorious, amid the storm of stones, said to the Jews, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”[Acts 7:56] Are we to suppose ourselves wiser than the illustrious heralds of the truth?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 200, footnote 1 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)
The Unconfounded. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1294 (In-Text, Margin)
Orth. —I have learnt these things from the divine Scripture. I have heard the words of the prophet Zechariah “They shall look on Him whom they pierced,” and how shall the event follow the prophecy unless the crucifiers recognise the nature which they crucified? And I have heard the cry of the victorious martyr Stephen, “Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God,”[Acts 7:56] and he saw the visible, not the invisible nature.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 248, footnote 1 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)
Demonstrations by Syllogisms. (HTML)
Proofs that the Union was without Confusion. (HTML)
11. The divine nature is invisible, but the thrice blessed Stephen said that he saw the Lord,[Acts 7:55] so even after the resurrection the Lord’s body is a body, and it was seen by the victorious Stephen, since the divine nature cannot be seen.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 576, footnote 11 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Personal Letters. (HTML)
To Adelphius, Bishop and Confessor: against the Arians. (HTML)
... worship the Word made flesh, are ungrateful for His becoming man. And they who divide the Word from the Flesh do not hold that one redemption from sin has taken place, or one destruction of death. But where at all will these impious men find the Flesh which the Saviour took, apart from Him, that they should even venture to say ‘we do not worship the Lord with the Flesh, but we separate the Body, and worship Him alone.’ Why, the blessed Stephen saw in the heavens the Lord standing on [God’s] right hand[Acts 7:55], while the Angels said to the disciples, ‘He shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven:’ and the Lord Himself says, addressing the Father, ‘I will that where I am, they also may be with Me.’ And surely if the Flesh is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 71, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
He falsely imagines that the same energies produce the same works, and that variation in the works indicates variation in the energies. (HTML)
... same energies producing sameness of works, and different works indicating difference in the energies as well.” Finely and irresistibly does this noble thinker plead for his doctrine. “The same energies produce sameness of works.” Let us test this by facts. The energy of fire is always one and the same; it consists in heating: but what sort of agreement do its results show? Bronze melts in it; mud hardens; wax vanishes: while all other animals are destroyed by it, the salamander is preserved alive[Acts 7:19]; tow burns, asbestos is washed by the flames as if by water; so much for his ‘sameness of works from one and the same energy.’ How too about the sun? Is not his power of warming always the same; and yet while he causes one plant to grow, he withers ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 128, footnote 1 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
He expounds the passage of the Gospel, “The Father judgeth no man,” and further speaks of the assumption of man with body and soul wrought by the Lord, of the transgression of Adam, and of death and the resurrection of the dead. (HTML)
... “The Word was made flesh,” in order to make out that the flesh was taken into the Godhead without the soul, on the ground that the soul is not expressly mentioned along with the flesh, let them learn that it is customary for Holy Scripture to imply the whole by the part. For He that said, “Unto Thee shall all flesh come,” does not mean that the flesh will be presented before the Judge apart from the souls: and when we read in sacred History that Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five souls[Acts 7:14] we understand the flesh also to be intended together with the souls. So, then, the Word, when He became flesh, took with the flesh the whole of human nature; and hence it was possible that hunger and thirst, fear and dread, desire and sleep, tears ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 52, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paula. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 840 (In-Text, Margin)
... meaning conveyed in its most simple words. We are told, for instance, that lamentation was made for Moses; yet when the funeral of Joshua is described no mention at all is made of weeping. The reason, of course, is that under Moses—that is under the old Law—all men were bound by the sentence passed on Adam’s sin, and when they descended into hell were rightly accompanied with tears. For, as the apostle says, “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned.” But under Jesus,[Acts 7:45] that is, under the Gospel of Christ, who has unlocked for us the gate of paradise, death is accompanied, not with sorrow, but with joy. The Jews go on weeping to this day; they make bare their feet, they crouch in sackcloth, they roll in ashes. And ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 117, footnote 12 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1711 (In-Text, Margin)
10. Luke the evangelist and companion of apostles describes Christ’s first martyr Stephen as relating what follows in a Jewish assembly. “With threescore and fifteen souls Jacob went down into Egypt, and died himself, and our fathers were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.”[Acts 7:15-16] In Genesis this passage is quite differently given, for it is Abraham that buys of Ephron the Hittite, the son of Zohar, near Hebron, for four hundred shekels of silver, a double cave, and the field that is about it, and that buries in it Sarah his wife. And in the same book we read that, after his return from ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 196, footnote 11 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2744 (In-Text, Margin)
... heard to say: “I keep under my body and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway;” and “It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine;” and “I humbled my soul with fasting;” and “thou wilt make all” my “bed in” my “sickness;” and “Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” And when the pain which she bore with such wonderful patience darted through her, as if she saw the heavens opened[Acts 7:56] she would say “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 247, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3436 (In-Text, Margin)
8. Others may think what they like and follow each his own bent. But to me a town is a prison and solitude paradise. Why do we long for the bustle of cities, we whose very name speaks of loneliness? To fit him for the leadership of the Jewish people Moses was trained for forty years in the wilderness;[Acts 7:29-30] and it was not till after these that the shepherd of sheep became a shepherd of men. The apostles were fishers on lake Gennesaret before they became “fishers of men.” But at the Lord’s call they forsook all that they had, father, net, and ship, and bore their cross daily without so much as a rod in their hands.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 419, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Vigilantius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4960 (In-Text, Margin)
... but once we die, the prayer of no person for another can be heard, and all the more because the martyrs, though they cry for the avenging of their blood, have never been able to obtain their request. If Apostles and martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, when they ought still to be anxious for themselves, how much more must they do so when once they have won their crowns, overcome, and triumphed? A single man, Moses, oft wins pardon from God for six hundred thousand armed men; and[Acts 7:59-60] Stephen, the follower of his Lord and the first Christian martyr, entreats pardon for his persecutors; and when once they have entered on their life with Christ, shall they have less power than before? The Apostle Paul says that two hundred and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 441, footnote 11 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5076 (In-Text, Margin)
... dead and walk in newness of life. As also the life of the Lord Jesus is manifested in our mortal body, so also He who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall quicken our mortal bodies on account of His Spirit Who dwelleth in us. For it is right that as we have always borne about the putting to death of Christ in our body, so the life, also, of Jesus, should be manifested in our mortal body, that is, in our flesh, which is mortal according to nature, but eternal according to grace. Stephen also[Acts 7:55] saw Jesus standing on the right hand of the Father, and the hand of Moses became snowy white, and was afterwards restored to its original colour. There was still a hand, though the two states were different. The potter in Jeremiah, whose vessel, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 76, footnote 14 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the words Incarnate, and Made Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1418 (In-Text, Margin)
17. My statement, however, promised to declare also the time of the Saviour’s and the place: and I must not go away convicted of falsehood, but rather send away the Church’s novices well assured. Let us therefore inquire the time when our Lord came: because His coming is recent, and is disputed: and because Christ Jesus is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. Moses then, the prophet, saith, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me[Acts 7:37]: but let that “ like unto me ” be reserved awhile to be examined in its proper place. But when cometh this Prophet that is expected? Recur, he says, to what has been written by me: examine carefully Jacob’s prophecy addressed to Judah: ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 149, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Mysteries. III: On Chrism. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2420 (In-Text, Margin)
... id="ii.xxv-p8.1" href="/ccel/bible/asv.Eph.1.html#Eph.1.5" onclick="return goBible('nt','Eph','1','5','1','5');" onmouseover="popupVerse(this, 'Eph 1:5 - 1:5')" onmouseout="leaveVerse()" name="_Eph_1_5_0_0">Eph. i. 5., made us to be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory. Having therefore become partakers of Christ, ye are properly called Christs, and of you God said, Touch not My Christs, or anointed. Now ye have been made Christs, by receiving the antitype[Acts 7:44] of the Holy Ghost; and all things have been wrought in you by imitation, because ye are images of Christ. He washed in the river Jordan, and having imparted of the fragrance of His Godhead to the waters, He came up from them; and the Holy Ghost in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 262, footnote 8 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On the Death of His Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3243 (In-Text, Margin)
... meekness, Samuel prophecy, seeing into the future, Phineas zeal, for which he has a name, Peter and Paul eagerness in preaching, the sons of Zebedee magniloquence, whence also they were entitled Sons of thunder. But why should I enumerate them all, speaking as I do among those who know this? Now the specially distinguishing mark of Stephen and of my father was the absence of malice. For not even when in peril did Stephen hate his assailants, but was stoned while praying for those who were stoning him[Acts 7:59] as a disciple of Christ, on Whose behalf he was allowed to suffer, and so, in his long-suffering, bearing for God a nobler fruit than his death: my father, in allowing no interval between assault and forgiveness, so that he was almost robbed of pain ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 332, footnote 2 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
Against The Arians, and Concerning Himself. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3774 (In-Text, Margin)
... have such examples, even apart from which it is hard and rare not to be bad? Concerning what churches or property have I disputed with you; though you have more than enough of both, and the others too little? What imperial edict have we rejected and emulated? What rulers have we fawned upon against you? Whose boldness have we denounced? And what has been done on the other side against me? “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” even then I said, for I remembered in season the words of Stephen,[Acts 7:59] and so I pray now. Being reviled, we bless: being blasphemed we retreat.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 389, footnote 8 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Last Farewell in the Presence of the One Hundred and Fifty Bishops. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4358 (In-Text, Margin)
... become many, and compact enough and enviable, Go through My gates and be ye enlarged. Must you always be in trouble and dwell in tents, while those who vex you rejoice exceedingly? And to the presiding Angels, for I believe, as John teaches me in his Revelation, that each Church has its guardian, Prepare ye the way of My people, and cast away the stones from the way, that there may be no stumblingblock or hindrance for the people in the divine road and entrance, now, to the temples made with hands,[Acts 7:48] but soon after, to Jerusalem above, and the Holy of holies there, which will, I know, be the end of suffering and struggle to those who here bravely travel on the way. Among whom are ye also called to be Saints, a people of possession, a royal ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 421, footnote 6 (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 4579 (In-Text, Margin)
... 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 thoughts. He was prevented from becoming a Stephen,[Acts 7:58] eager though he was, since reverence stayed the hands of those who would have stoned him. I am able to sum up still more concisely, to avoid treating in detail on these points of each individual. In some respects he discovered, in some he emulated, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 442, footnote 5 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Letters of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
Letters on the Apollinarian Controversy. (HTML)
To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4711 (In-Text, Margin)
... God and Flesh, it is time for them to say that God is God only of flesh, and not of souls, because it is written, “As Thou hast given Him power over all Flesh,” and “Unto Thee shall all Flesh come;” and “Let all Flesh bless His holy Name,” meaning every Man. Or, again, they must suppose that our fathers went down into Egypt without bodies and invisible, and that only the Soul of Joseph was imprisoned by Pharaoh, because it is written, “They went down into Egypt with threescore and fifteen Souls,”[Acts 7:14] and “The iron entered into his Soul,” a thing which could not be bound. They who argue thus do not know that such expressions are used by Synecdoche, declaring the whole by the part, as when Scripture says that the young ravens call upon God, to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 6, footnote 15 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
That v: not found “of whom” in the case of the Son and of the Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 751 (In-Text, Margin)
... expressions “of him” and “through him” and “to him” are spoken of the Lord, they cannot but be applied to God the Father. Then without question their rule will fall through, for we find not only “of whom,” but also “through whom” applied to the Father. And if this latter phrase indicates nothing derogatory, why in the world should it be confined, as though conveying the sense of inferiority, to the Son? If it always and everywhere implies ministry, let them tell us to what superior the God of glory[Acts 7:2] and Father of the Christ is subordinate.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 10, footnote 3 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Issue joined with those who assert that the Son is not with the Father, but after the Father. Also concerning the equal glory. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 811 (In-Text, Margin)
... be consistent with true religion for men taught by the Lord himself that “He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father” to refuse to worship and glorify with the Father him who in nature, in glory, and in dignity is conjoined with him? What shall we say? What just defence shall we have in the day of the awful universal judgment of all-creation, if, when the Lord clearly announces that He will come “in the glory of his Father;” when Stephen beheld Jesus standing at the right hand of God;[Acts 7:55] when Paul testified in the spirit concerning Christ “that he is at the right hand of God;” when the Father says, “Sit thou on my right hand;” when the Holy Spirit bears witness that he has sat down on “the right hand of the majesty” of God; we ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 31, footnote 17 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Against those who assert that the Spirit ought not to be glorified. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1145 (In-Text, Margin)
... teaches us who were blinded, and guides us to the choice of what profits us,—do not for this reason allow yourself to be deprived of the right and holy opinion concerning Him. For to make the loving kindness of your benefactor a ground of ingratitude were indeed a very extravagance of unfairness. “Grieve not the Holy Spirit;” hear the words of Stephen, the first fruits of the martyrs, when he reproaches the people for their rebellion and disobedience; “you do always,” he says, “resist the Holy Ghost;”[Acts 7:51] and again Isaiah,—“They vexed His Holy Spirit, therefore He was turned to be their enemy;” and in another passage, “the house of Jacob angered the Spirit of the Lord.” Are not these pas sages indicative of authoritative power? I leave it to the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 36, footnote 3 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Proof of the absurdity of the refusal to glorify the Spirit, from the comparison of things glorified in creation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1203 (In-Text, Margin)
56. Let us then examine the points one by one. He is good by nature, in the same way as the Father is good, and the Son is good; the creature on the other hand shares in goodness by choosing the good. He knows “The deep things of God;” the creature receives the manifestation of ineffable things through the Spirit. He quickens together with God, who produces and preserves all things alive,[Acts 7:19] and together with the Son, who gives life. “He that raised up Christ from the dead,” it is said, “shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in you;” and again “my sheep hear my voice,…and I give unto them eternal life;” but “the Spirit” also, it is said, “giveth life,” and again ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 52, footnote 1 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Hexæmeron. (HTML)
In the Beginning God made the Heaven and the Earth. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1365 (In-Text, Margin)
But before weighing the justice of these remarks, before examining all the sense contained in these few words, let us see who addresses them to us. Because, if the weakness of our intelligence does not allow us to penetrate the depth of the thoughts of the writer, yet we shall be involuntarily drawn to give faith to his words by the force of his authority. Now it is Moses who has composed this history; Moses, who, when still at the breast, is described as exceeding fair;[Acts 7:20] Moses, whom the daughter of Pharaoh adopted; who received from her a royal education, and who had for his teachers the wise men of Egypt; Moses, who disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble condition of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 300, footnote 5 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the Sozopolitans. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3174 (In-Text, Margin)
2. If, then, the sojourn of the Lord in flesh has never taken place, the Redeemer[Acts 7:35] paid not the fine to death on our behalf, nor through Himself destroyed death’s reign. For if what was reigned over by death was not that which was assumed by the Lord, death would not have ceased working his own ends, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have been made our gain; He would not have killed sin in the flesh: we who had died in Adam should not have been made alive in Christ; the fallen to pieces would not have been framed again; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 21, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XXVI. In investigating the truth the philosophers have broken through their own rules. Moses, however, showed himself more wise than they. The greater the dignity of wisdom, the more earnestly must we strive to gain it. Nature herself urges us all to do this. (HTML)
123. Moses, learned as he was in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,[Acts 7:22] did not approve of those things, but thought that kind of wisdom both harmful and foolish. Turning away therefrom, he sought God with all the desire of his heart, and thus saw, questioned, heard Him when He spoke. Who is more wise than he whom God taught, and who brought to nought all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and all the powers of their craft by the might of his works? He did not treat things unknown as well known, and so rashly accept them. Yet these ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 204, footnote 7 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter III. By evidence gathered from Scripture the unity of Father and Son is proved, and firstly, a passage, taken from the Book of Isaiah, is compared with others and expounded in such sort as to show that in the Son there is no diversity from the Father's nature, save only as regards the flesh; whence it follows that the Godhead of both Persons is One. This conclusion is confirmed by the authority of Baruch. (HTML)
20. Now the oracles[Acts 7:38] of the prophets bear witness what close unity holy Scripture declares to subsist between the Father and the Son as regards their Godhead. For thus saith the Lord of Sabaoth: “Egypt hath laboured, and the commerce of the Ethiopians and Sabeans: mighty men shall come over to thee, and shall be thy servants, and in thy train shall they follow, bound in fetters, and they shall fall down before thee, and to thee shall they make supplication: for God is in thee, and there is no ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 215, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIII. Discussion of the Divine Generation is continued. St. Ambrose illustrates its method by the same example as that employed by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The duty of believing what is revealed is shown by the example of Nebuchadnezzar and St. Peter. By the vision granted to St. Peter was shown the Son's Eternity and Godhead--the Apostle, then, must be believed in preference to the teachers of philosophy, whose authority was everywhere falling into discredit. The Arians, on the other hand, are shown to be like unto the heathen. (HTML)
... My Son,” said not, “This is a creature of time,” nor “This being is of My creation, My making, My servant,” but “This is My Son, Whom ye see glorified.” This is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, Who appeared to Moses in the bush, concerning Whom Moses saith, “He Who is hath sent me.” It was not the Father Who spake to Moses in the bush or in the desert, but the Son. It was of this Moses that Stephen said, “This is He Who was in the church, in the wilderness, with the Angel.”[Acts 7:38] This, then, is He Who gave the Law, Who spake with Moses, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” This, then, is the God of the patriarchs, this is the God of the prophets.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 215, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIV. That the Son of God is not a created being is proved by the following arguments: (1) That He commanded not that the Gospel should be preached to Himself; (2) that a created being is given over unto vanity; (3) that the Son has created all things; (4) that we read of Him as begotten; and (5) that the difference of generation and adoption has always been understood in those places where both natures--the divine and the human--are declared to co-exist in Him. All of which testimony is confirmed by the Apostle's interpretation. (HTML)
86. It is now made plain, as I believe, your sacred Majesty, that the Lord Jesus is neither unlike the Father, nor one that began to exist in course of time. We have yet to confute another blasphemy, and to show that the Son of God is not a created being. Herein is the quickening[Acts 7:38] word that we read as our help, for we have heard the passage read where the Lord saith: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to all creation.” He Who saith “all creation” excepts nothing. How, then, do they stand who call Christ a “creature”? If He were a creature, could He have commanded that the Gospel should be preached to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 261, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XVII. An objection based on St. Stephen's vision of the Lord standing is disposed of, and from the prayers of the same saint, addressed to the Son of God, the equality of the Son with the Father is shown. (HTML)
137. There is just one place, in which Stephen hath said that he saw the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God.[Acts 7:55] Learn now the import of these words, that you may not use them to raise a question upon. Why (you would ask) do we read every where else of the Son as sitting at the right hand of God, but in one place of His standing? He sits as Judge of quick and dead; He stands as His people’s Advocate. He stood, then, as a Priest, whilst He was offering to His Father the sacrifice of a good martyr; He stood, as the Umpire, to bestow, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 262, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XVII. An objection based on St. Stephen's vision of the Lord standing is disposed of, and from the prayers of the same saint, addressed to the Son of God, the equality of the Son with the Father is shown. (HTML)
138. Receive thou also the Spirit of God, that thou mayest discern those things, even as Stephen received the Spirit; and thou mayest say, as the martyr said: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”[Acts 7:55] He who hath the heavens opened to him, seeth Jesus at the right hand of God: he whose soul’s eye is closed, seeth not Jesus at the right hand of God. Let us, then, confess Jesus at God’s right hand, that to us also the heavens may be opened. They who confess otherwise close the gates of heaven against themselves.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 262, footnote 2 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XVII. An objection based on St. Stephen's vision of the Lord standing is disposed of, and from the prayers of the same saint, addressed to the Son of God, the equality of the Son with the Father is shown. (HTML)
140. Howbeit, to make it more abundantly clear and known that the standing implied no dishonour, but rather sovereignty, Stephen prayed to the Son, being desirous to commend himself the more to the Father, saying: “Lord Jesu, receive my spirit.”[Acts 7:58] Again, to show that the sovereignty of the Father and of the Son is one and the same, he prayed again, saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” These are the words that the Lord, in His own Passion, speaks to the Father, as the Son of Man—these the words of Stephen’s prayer, in his own martyrdom to the Son of God. When the same grace is sought of both the Father ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 262, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XVII. An objection based on St. Stephen's vision of the Lord standing is disposed of, and from the prayers of the same saint, addressed to the Son of God, the equality of the Son with the Father is shown. (HTML)
140. Howbeit, to make it more abundantly clear and known that the standing implied no dishonour, but rather sovereignty, Stephen prayed to the Son, being desirous to commend himself the more to the Father, saying: “Lord Jesu, receive my spirit.” Again, to show that the sovereignty of the Father and of the Son is one and the same, he prayed again, saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:51] These are the words that the Lord, in His own Passion, speaks to the Father, as the Son of Man—these the words of Stephen’s prayer, in his own martyrdom to the Son of God. When the same grace is sought of both the Father and the Son, the same power is affirmed of each.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 337, footnote 4 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter X. St. John did not absolutely forbid that prayer should be made for those who “sin unto death,” since he knew that Moses, Jeremiah, and Stephen had so prayed, and he himself implies that forgiveness is not to be denied them. (HTML)
47. Did not John himself know that Stephen prayed for his persecutors, who had not been able even to listen to the Name of Christ, when he said of those very men by whom he was being stoned: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”?[Acts 7:60] And we see the result of this prayer in the case of the Apostle, for Paul, who kept the garments of those who were stoning Stephen, not long after became an apostle by the grace of God, having before been a persecutor.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 457, footnote 5 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)
Epistle LXIII: To the Church at Vercellæ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3650 (In-Text, Margin)
5. Let Him therefore stand in your midst, that the heavens, which declare the glory of God, may be opened to you, that you may do His will, and work His works. He who sees Jesus, to him are the heavens opened as they were opened to Stephen, when he said: “Behold I see the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”[Acts 7:56] Jesus was standing as his advocate, He was standing as though anxious, that He might help His athlete Stephen in his conflict, He was standing as though ready to crown His martyr.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 323, footnote 1 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference III. Conference of Abbot Paphnutius. On the Three Sorts of Renunciations. (HTML)
Chapter VII. How we can attain perfection in each of these sorts of renunciations. (HTML)
... with the heart forsake all these things and never be drawn back by any desires to those things which we have forsaken, as those who were led up by Moses, though they did not literally go back, are yet said to have returned in heart to Egypt; viz., by forsaking God who had led them forth with such mighty signs, and by worshipping the idols of Egypt of which they had thought scorn, as Scripture says: “And in their hearts they turned back into Egypt, saying to Aaron: Make us gods to go before us,”[Acts 7:39-40] for we should fall into like condemnation with those who, while dwelling in the wilderness, after they had tasted manna from heaven, lusted after the filthy food of sins, and of mean baseness, and should seem together with them to murmur in the same ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 423, footnote 4 (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 XIII. The Third Conference of Abbot Chæremon. On the Protection of God. (HTML)
Chapter III. The answer that without God's help not only perfect chastity but all good of every kind cannot be performed. (HTML)
... and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights,” who both begins what is good, and continues it and completes it in us, as the Apostle says: “But He who giveth seed to the sower will both provide bread to eat and will multiply your seed and make the fruits of your righteousness to increase.” But it is for us, humbly to follow day by day the grace of God which is drawing us, or else if we resist with “a stiff neck,” and (to use the words of Scripture) “uncircumcised ears,”[Acts 7:51] we shall deserve to hear the words of Jeremiah: “Shall he that falleth, not rise again? and he that is turned away, shall he not turn again? Why then is this people in Jerusalem turned away with a stubborn revolting? They have stiffened their necks ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 149, footnote 2 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Feast of the Epiphany, IV. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 888 (In-Text, Margin)
... eternal and immaterial Light? seeing that by allying Himself to that creature which He had made after His own image He furnished it with purification and received no stain, and healed the wounds of its weakness without suffering loss of power. And because this great and unspeakable mystery of divine Godliness was announced by all the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, those opponents of the Truth of which we speak have rejected the law that was given through Moses and the divinely inspired utterances[Acts 7:38] of the prophets, and have tampered with the very pages of the gospels and apostles, by removing or inserting certain things: forging for themselves under the Apostles’ names and under the words of the Saviour Himself many volumes of falsehood, ...