Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Acts 9:15
There are 25 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 55, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Ignatius (HTML)
Epistle to the Ephesians: Shorter and Longer Versions (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Praise of the Ephesians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 575 (In-Text, Margin)
... I am, and to whom I write. I am the very insignificant Ignatius, who have my lot with those who are exposed to danger and condemnation. But ye have been the objects of mercy, and are established in Christ. I am one delivered over [to death], but the least of all those that have been cut off for the sake of Christ, “from the blood of righteous Abel” to the blood of Ignatius. Ye are initiated into the mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred, inasmuch as he was “a chosen vessel;”[Acts 9:15] at whose feet may I be found, and at the feet of the rest of the saints, when I shall attain to Jesus Christ, who is always mindful of you in His prayers.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 439, footnote 7 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XV.—Refutation of the Ebionites, who disparaged the authority of St. Paul, from the writings of St. Luke, which must be received as a whole. Exposure of the hypocrisy, deceit, and pride of the Gnostics. The apostles and their disciples knew and preached one God, the Creator of the world. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3565 (In-Text, Margin)
... they do receive all these, they must necessarily admit also that testimony concerning Paul, when he (Luke) tells us that the Lord spoke at first to him from heaven: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? I am Jesus Christ, whom thou persecutest;” and then to Ananias, saying regarding him: “Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name among the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him, from this time, how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”[Acts 9:15-16] Those, therefore, who do not accept of him [as a teacher], who was chosen by God for this purpose, that he might boldly bear His name, as being sent to the forementioned nations, do despise the election of God, and separate themselves from the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 676, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Baptism. (HTML)
Another Objection: Abraham Pleased God Without Being Baptized. Answer Thereto. Old Things Must Give Place to New, and Baptism is Now a Law. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8684 (In-Text, Margin)
... became believers used to be baptized. Then it was, too, that Paul, when he believed, was baptized; and this is the meaning of the precept which the Lord had given him when smitten with the plague of loss of sight, saying, “Arise, and enter Damascus; there shall be demonstrated to thee what thou oughtest to do,” to wit—be baptized, which was the only thing lacking to him. That point excepted, he had sufficiently learnt and believed “the Nazarene” to be “the Lord, the Son of God.”[Acts 9:1-31]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 89, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
The Same Subject Continued. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 853 (In-Text, Margin)
... mourning, he therefore—the moderate nature of his fault permitting it—subsequently received pardon, than that you should interpret that (pardon as granted) to an incestuous fornicator? For this you had been bound to read, even if not in an Epistle, yet impressed upon the very character of the apostle, by (his) modesty more clearly than by the instrumentality of a pen: not to steep, to wit, Paul, the “apostle of Christ,” the “teacher of the nations in faith and verity,” the “vessel of election,”[Acts 9:15] the founder of Churches, the censor of discipline, (in the guilt of) levity so great as that he should either have condemned rashly one whom he was presently to absolve, or else rashly absolved one whom he had not rashly condemned, albeit on the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 333, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
On the Opposing Powers. (HTML)
... meaning, that all the athletes and soldiers of Christ have to wrestle and struggle against all the adversaries enumerated,—the struggle having, indeed, to be maintained against all, but by single individuals either with individual powers, or at least in such manner as shall be determined by God, who is the just president of the struggle. For I am of opinion that there is a certain limit to the powers of human nature, although there may be a Paul, of whom it is said, “He is a chosen vessel unto Me;”[Acts 9:15] or a Peter, against whom the gates of hell do not prevail; or a Moses, the friend of God: yet not one of them could sustain, without destruction to himself, the whole simultaneous assault of these opposing powers, unless indeed the might of Him ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 208, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Archelaus. (HTML)
The Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes. (HTML)
Chapter XXXIV. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1783 (In-Text, Margin)
... says of this Paraclete, “He shall receive of mine.” Him therefore He selected as an acceptable vessel; and He sent this Paul to us in the Spirit. Into him the Spirit was poured; and as that Spirit could not abide upon all men, but only on Him who was born of Mary the mother of God, so that Spirit, the Paraclete, could not come into any other, but could only come upon the apostles and the sainted Paul. “For he is a chosen vessel,” He says, “unto me, to bear my name before kings and the Gentiles.”[Acts 9:15] The apostle himself, too, states the same thing in his first epistle, where he says: “According to the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God.” “I say the truth ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 541, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)
In which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of Petilianus, as though disputing with an adversary face to face. (HTML)
Chapter 21 (HTML)
... the persecutor, not to be again expelled except by baptism! Let us see, therefore, what he did in the city. ‘Ananias,’ it is said, ‘entered into the house to Saul, and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales; and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.’[Acts 9:4-18] Seeing therefore that Paul, being freed by baptism from the offense of persecution, received again his eyesight freed from guilt, why will not you, a persecutor and traditor, blinded by false baptism be baptized by those whom you persecute?"
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 641, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
The Correction of the Donatists. (HTML)
Chapter 6 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2515 (In-Text, Margin)
... the darkness of infidelity to desire the light of the heart, He first struck him with physical blindness of the eyes. If that punishment had not been inflicted, he would not afterwards have been healed by it; and since he had been wont to see nothing with his eyes open, if they had remained unharmed, the Scripture would not tell us that at the imposition of Ananias’ hands, in order that their sight might be restored, there fell from them as it had been scales, by which the sight had been obscured.[Acts 9:1-18] Where is what the Donatists were wont to cry: Man is at liberty to believe or not believe? Towards whom did Christ use violence? Whom did He compel? Here they have the Apostle Paul. Let them recognize in his case Christ first compelling, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 84, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
The Harmony of the Gospels. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Of Some Who are Mad Enough to Suppose that the Books Were Inscribed with the Names of Peter and Paul. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 553 (In-Text, Margin)
... fellowship with His disciples, Paul had never become His disciple. Only after His passion, after His resurrection, after His ascension, after the mission of the Holy Spirit from heaven, after many Jews had been converted and had shown marvellous faith, after the stoning of Stephen the deacon and martyr, and when Paul still bore the name Saul, and was grievously persecuting those who had become believers in Christ, did Christ call that man [by a voice] from heaven, and made him His disciple and apostle.[Acts 9:1-30] How, then, is it possible that Christ could have written those books which they wish to have it believed that He did write before His death, and which were addressed to Peter and Paul, as those among His disciples who had been most intimate with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 344, 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. xv. 21,’Jesus went out thence, and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanitish woman,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2612 (In-Text, Margin)
... believed, not by seeing, but by hearing. Therefore have the Gentiles the greater praise. For the others saw and slew Him; the Gentiles heard and believed. Now it was to call and gather together the Gentiles, that that might be fulfilled which we have just now chanted, “Gather us from among the Gentiles, that we may confess to Thy Name, and glory in Thy praise,” that the Apostle Paul was sent. He, the least, made great, not by himself, but by Him whom he once persecuted, was sent to the Gentiles,[Acts 9:15] from a robber become a shepherd, from a wolf a sheep. He, the least Apostle, was sent to the Gentiles, and laboured much among the Gentiles, and through him the Gentiles believed. His Epistles are the witnesses.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 105, 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 II (HTML)
The Course pursued by the Apostles after the Ascension of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 265 (In-Text, Margin)
14. In addition to these, Paul, that “chosen vessel,”[Acts 9:15] “not of men neither through men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ himself and of God the Father who raised him from the dead,” was appointed an apostle, being made worthy of the call by a vision and by a voice which was uttered in a revelation from heaven.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 107, footnote 5 (Image)
Socrates: Church History from A.D. 305-438; Sozomenus: Church History from A.D. 323-425
The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
The Deeds of Some Holy Persons who devoted themselves to a Solitary Life. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 627 (In-Text, Margin)
... him to minister while fasting to the sick. And being asked why he prescribed this: ‘Such affections,’ said he, ‘are by nothing so effectually dissipated as by the exercise of compassion.’ A certain philosopher of those times coming to Anthony the Just, said to him, ‘How can you endure, father, being deprived of the comfort of books?’ ‘My book, O philosopher,’ replied Anthony, ‘is the nature of things that are made, and it is present whenever I wish to read the words of God.’ That ‘chosen vessel,’[Acts 9:15] the aged Egyptian Macarius, asked me, why the strength of the faculty of memory is impaired by cherishing the remembrance of injury received from men; while by remembering those done us by devils it remains uninjured? And when I hesitated, scarcely ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 24, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 372 (In-Text, Margin)
5. If, then, the apostle, who was a chosen vessel[Acts 9:15] separated unto the gospel of Christ, by reason of the pricks of the flesh and the allurements of vice keeps under his body and brings it into subjection, lest when he has preached to others he may himself be a castaway; and yet, for all that, sees another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin; if after nakedness, fasting, hunger, imprisonment, scourging and other torments, he turns back to himself and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 47, footnote 7 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Marcella. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 764 (In-Text, Margin)
... When Hezekiah is panic-stricken at the near approach of death, his tears and prayers obtain for him a respite of fifteen years. If the faith of the apostle, Peter, is shaken by his Lord’s passion, it is that, weeping bitterly, he may hear the soothing words: “Feed my sheep.” If Paul, that ravening wolf, that little Benjamin, is blinded in a trance, it is that he may receive his sight, and may be led, by the sudden horror of surrounding darkness, to call Him Lord Whom before he persecuted as man.[Acts 9:3-18]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 50, footnote 18 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paula. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 813 (In-Text, Margin)
3. But why should that be hard to bear which we must one day ourselves endure? And why do we grieve for the dead? We are not born to live forever. Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah, Peter, James, and John, Paul, the “chosen vessel,”[Acts 9:15] and even the Son of God Himself have all died; and are we vexed when a soul leaves its earthly tenement? Perhaps he is taken away, “lest that wickedness should alter his understanding…for his soul pleased the Lord: therefore hasted he to take him away from the people” —lest in life’s long journey he should lose his way in some trackless maze. We should indeed mourn for the dead, but ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 88, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1299 (In-Text, Margin)
... New Testament that men have not lost the image of God. For James, an apostle and brother of the Lord, whom I have mentioned above—that we may not be entangled in the snares of Origen—teaches us that man does possess God’s image and likeness. For, after a somewhat discursive account of the human tongue, he has gone on to say of it: “It is an unruly evil…therewith bless we God, even the Father and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.” Paul, too, the “chosen vessel,”[Acts 9:15] who in his preaching has fully maintained the doctrine of the gospel, instructs us that man is made in the image and after the likeness of God. “A man,” he says, “ought not to wear long hair, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God.” He speaks ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 97, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1406 (In-Text, Margin)
2. But why should I confine my allusions to the men of this world, when the Apostle Paul, the chosen vessel[Acts 9:15] the doctor of the Gentiles, who could boldly say: “Do ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me?” knowing that he really had within him that greatest of guests—when even he after visiting Damascus and Arabia “went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him fifteen days.” For he who was to be a preacher to the Gentiles had to be instructed in the mystical numbers seven and eight. And again fourteen years after he took Barnabas and Titus ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 98, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1422 (In-Text, Margin)
... great is the difference between righteous ignorance and instructed righteous ness. Those who have the first are compared with the stars, those who have the second with the heavens. Yet, according to the exact sense of the Hebrew, both statements may be understood of the learned, for it is to be read in this way:—“They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.” Why is the apostle Paul called a chosen vessel?[Acts 9:15] Assuredly because he is a repertory of the Law and of the holy scriptures. The learned teaching of our Lord strikes the Pharisees dumb with amazement, and they are filled with astonishment to find that Peter and John know the Law although they have ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 119, footnote 7 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1738 (In-Text, Margin)
... is the gray hair unto men.” Moses too in choosing the seventy elders is told to take those whom he knows to be elders indeed, and to select them not for their years but for their discretion. And, as a boy, Daniel judges old men and in the flower of youth condemns the incontinence of age. Do not, I repeat, weigh faith by years, nor suppose me better than yourself merely because I have enlisted under Christ’s banner earlier than you. The apostle Paul, that chosen vessel framed out of a persecutor,[Acts 9:15] though last in the apostolic order is first in merit. For though last he has laboured more than they all. To Judas it was once said: thou art a man who didst take sweet food with me, my guide and mine acquaintance; we walked in the house of God with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 166, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Salvina. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2444 (In-Text, Margin)
... other hand He is appeased by the virtues of such as “continue in faith and charity and holiness with chastity.” “O Timothy,” cries the apostle, “keep thyself pure.” Far be it from me to suspect you capable of doing anything wrong; still it is only a kindness to admonish one whose youth and opulence lead her into temptation. You must take what I am going to say as addressed not to you but to your girlish years. A widow “that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” So speaks the “chosen vessel”[Acts 9:15] and the words are brought out from his treasure who could boldly say: “Do ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me?” Yet they are the words of one who in his own person admitted the weakness of the human body, saying: “The good that I would I do ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 246, footnote 13 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3427 (In-Text, Margin)
... else. The Lord says: “whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” “Who can say,” writes the wise man, “I have made my heart clean?” The stars are not pure in the Lord’s sight; how much less men whose whole life is one long temptation. Woe be to us who commit fornication every time that we cherish lust. “My sword,” God says, “hath drunk its fill in heaven;” much more then upon the earth with its crop of thorns and thistles. The chosen vessel[Acts 9:15] who had Christ’s name ever on his lips kept under his body and brought it into subjection. Yet even he was hindered by carnal desire and had to do what he would not. As one suffering violence he cries: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 267, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3718 (In-Text, Margin)
... turn to his own ruin the seven weeks which the Lord had appointed for a time of salvation. And as then a fourth bearing a form like the son of God slackened the terrible heat and cooled the flames of the blazing fiery furnace, until, menacing as they looked, they became quite harmless, so is it now with the virgin soul. The dew of heaven and severe fasting quench in a girl the flame of passion and enable her soul even in its earthly tenement to live the angelic life. Therefore the chosen vessel[Acts 9:15] declares that concerning virgins he has no commandment of the Lord. For you must act against nature or rather above nature if you are to forswear your natural function, to cut off your own root, to cull no fruit but that of virginity, to abjure the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 127, footnote 19 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter X. Being about to prove that the will, the calling, and the commandment of the Trinity is one, St. Ambrose shows that the Spirit called the Church exactly as the Father and the Son did, and proves this by the selection of SS. Paul and Barnabas, and especially by the mission of St. Peter to Cornelius. And by the way he points out how in the Apostle's vision the calling of the Gentiles was shadowed forth, who having been before like wild beasts, now by the operation of the Spirit lay aside that wildness. Then having quoted other passages in support of this view, he shows that in the case of Jeremiah cast into a pit by Jews, and rescued by Abdemelech, is a type of the slighting of the Holy Spirit by the Jews, and of His being honoured (HTML)
... the great and saving mystery of the Church. For as the Father called the Gentiles to the Church, saying: “I will call her My people which was not My people, and her beloved who was not beloved;” and elsewhere: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations,” so, too, the Lord Jesus said that Paul was chosen by Him to call forth and gather together the Church, as you find it said by the Lord Jesus to Ananias: “Go, for he is a chosen vessel unto Me to bear My name before all nations.”[Acts 9:15]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 179, footnote 1 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Passion, XVI.: delivered on the Sunday. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1072 (In-Text, Margin)
But O ungodliest of men, “thou seed of Chanaan and not of Juda[Acts 9:15],” and no longer “a vessel of election,” but “a son of perdition” and death, thou didst think the devil’s instigations would profit thee better, so that, inflamed with the torch of greed, thou wert ablaze to gain 30 pieces of silver and sawest not what riches thou wouldst lose. For even if thou didst not think the Lord’s promises were to be believed, what reason was there for preferring so small a sum of money to what thou hadst already ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 196, footnote 1 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul (June 29). (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1169 (In-Text, Margin)
Thither came also thy blessed brother-Apostle Paul, “the vessel of election[Acts 9:15],” and the special teacher of the Gentiles, and was associated with thee at a time when all innocence, all modesty, all freedom was in jeopardy under Nero’s rule. Whose fury, inflamed by excess of all vices, hurled him headlong into such a fiery furnace of madness that he was the first to assail the Christian name with a general persecution, as if God’s Grace could be quenched by the death of saints, whose greatest gain it was to win ...