Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Romans 3
There are 191 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 28, footnote 8 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Mathetes (HTML)
Epistle to Diognetus (HTML)
Chapter IX.—Why the Son was sent so late. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 309 (In-Text, Margin)
As long then as the former time[Romans 3:21-26] endured, He permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 208, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Justin Martyr (HTML)
Dialogue with Trypho (HTML)
Chapter XXVII.—Why God taught the same things by the prophets as by Moses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2018 (In-Text, Margin)
... your hands full of blood. ‘For the daughters of Zion have walked with a high neck, both sporting by winking with their eyes, and sweeping along their dresses. For they are all gone aside,’ He exclaims, ‘they are all become useless. There is none that understands, there is not so much as one. With their tongues they have practised deceit, their throat is an open sepulchre, the poison of asps is under their lips, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.’[Romans 3:10] So that, as in the beginning, these things were enjoined you because of your wickedness, in like manner because of your stedfastness in it, or rather your increased proneness to it, by means of the same precepts He calls you to a remembrance or ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 344, footnote 19 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book I (HTML)
Chapter XIX.—Passages of Scripture by which they attempt to prove that the Supreme Father was unknown before the coming of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2908 (In-Text, Margin)
... impiously declare to have been the fruit of a defect. For instance, when the prophet Isaiah says, “But Israel hath not known Me, and My people have not understood Me,” they pervert his words to mean ignorance of the invisible Bythus. And that which is spoken by Hosea, “There is no truth in them, nor the knowledge of God,” they strive to give the same reference. And, “There is none that understandeth, or that seeketh after God: they have all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable,”[Romans 3:11] they maintain to be said concerning ignorance of Bythus. Also that which is spoken by Moses, “No man shall see God and live,” has, as they would persuade us, the same reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 351, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXV.—Doctrines of Carpocrates. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2949 (In-Text, Margin)
... another, men hearing the things which they speak, and imagining that we all are such as they, may turn away their ears from the preaching of the truth; or, again, seeing the things they practise, may speak evil of us all, who have in fact no fellowship with them, either in doctrine or in morals, or in our daily conduct. But they lead a licentious life, and, to conceal their impious doctrines, they abuse the name [of Christ], as a means of hiding their wickedness; so that “their condemnation is just,”[Romans 3:8] when they receive from God a recompense suited to their works.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 424, footnote 7 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter X.—Proofs of the foregoing, drawn from the Gospels of Mark and Luke. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3405 (In-Text, Margin)
... account of unbelief, having been filled with a new spirit, did bless God in a new manner. For all things had entered upon a new phase, the Word arranging after a new manner the advent in the flesh, that He might win back to God that human nature (hominem) which had departed from God; and therefore men were taught to worship God after a new fashion, but not another god, because in truth there is but “one God, who justifieth the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.”[Romans 3:30] But Zacharias prophesying, exclaimed, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David; as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 494, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XXII.—Christ did not come for the sake of the men of one age only, but for all who, living righteously and piously, had believed upon Him; and for those, too, who shall believe. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4130 (In-Text, Margin)
... God, and practised justice and piety towards their neighbours, and have earnestly desired to see Christ, and to hear His voice. Wherefore He shall, at His second coming, first rouse from their sleep all persons of this description, and shall raise them up, as well as the rest who shall be judged, and give them a place in His kingdom. For it is truly “one God who” directed the patriarchs towards His dispensations, and “has justified the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.”[Romans 3:30] For as in the first we were prefigured, so, on the other hand, are they represented in us, that is, in the Church, and receive the recompense for those things which they accomplished.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 499, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XXVII—The sins of the men of old time, which incurred the displeasure of God, were, by His providence, committed to writing, that we might derive instruction thereby, and not be filled with pride. We must not, therefore, infer that there was another God than He whom Christ preached; we should rather fear, lest the one and the same God who inflicted punishment on the ancients, should bring down heavier upon us. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4183 (In-Text, Margin)
... submitted to His dispensations, the righteous men, the prophets, and the patriarchs, to whom He remitted sins in the same way as He did to us, which sins we should not lay to their charge, if we would not despise the grace of God. For as these men did not impute unto us (the Gentiles) our transgressions, which we wrought before Christ was manifested among us, so also it is not right that we should lay blame upon those who sinned before Christ’s coming. For “all men come short of the glory of God,”[Romans 3:23] and are not justified of themselves, but by the advent of the Lord,—they who earnestly direct their eyes towards His light. And it is for our instruction that their actions have been committed to writing, that we might know, in the first place, that ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 499, footnote 7 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XXVII—The sins of the men of old time, which incurred the displeasure of God, were, by His providence, committed to writing, that we might derive instruction thereby, and not be filled with pride. We must not, therefore, infer that there was another God than He whom Christ preached; we should rather fear, lest the one and the same God who inflicted punishment on the ancients, should bring down heavier upon us. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4184 (In-Text, Margin)
... in the glory of the Father, requiring from His stewards and dispensers the money which He had entrusted to them, with usury; and from those to whom He had given most shall He demand most. We ought not, therefore, as that presbyter remarks, to be puffed up, nor be severe upon those of old time, but ought ourselves to fear, lest perchance, after [we have come to] the knowledge of Christ, if we do things displeasing to God, we obtain no further forgiveness of sins, but be shut out from His kingdom.[Romans 3:23] And therefore it was that Paul said, “For if [God] spared not the natural branches, [take heed] lest He also spare not thee, who, when thou wert a wild olive tree, wert grafted into the fatness of the olive tree, and wert made a partaker of its ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 511, footnote 7 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XXXIV.—Proof against the Marcionites, that the prophets referred in all their predictions to our Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4342 (In-Text, Margin)
2. But the servants would then have been proved false, and not sent by the Lord, if Christ on His advent, by being found exactly such as He was previously announced, had not fulfilled their words. Wherefore He said, “Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law and the prophets till all come to pass.”[Romans 3:21] For by His advent He Himself fulfilled all things, and does still fulfil in the Church the new covenant foretold by the law, onwards to the consummation [of all things]. To this effect also Paul, His apostle, says in the Epistle to the Romans, “But now, without ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 550, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XXII.—The true Lord and the one God is declared by the law, and manifested by Christ His Son in the Gospel; whom alone we should adore, and from Him we must look for all good things, not from Satan. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4640 (In-Text, Margin)
... whom the law proclaimed as God, the same did Christ point out as the Father, whom also it behoves the disciples of Christ alone to serve. By means of the statements of the law, He put our adversary to utter confusion; and the law directs us to praise God the Creator (Demiurgum), and to serve Him alone. Since this is the case, we must not seek for another Father besides Him, or above Him, since there is one God who justifies the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.[Romans 3:30] For if there were any other perfect Father above Him, He (Christ) would by no means have overthrown Satan by means of His words and commandments. For one ignorance cannot be done away with by means of another ignorance, any more than one defect by ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 226, footnote 9 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter VIII.—Against Those Who Think that What is Just is Not Good. (HTML)
... away sins, and he that is without fear cannot be justified,” says the Scripture. And God does not inflict punishment from wrath, but for the ends of justice; since it is not expedient that justice should be neglected on our account. Each one of us, who sins, with his own free-will chooses punishment, and the blame lies with him who chooses. God is without blame. “But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who taketh vengeance? God forbid.”[Romans 3:5-6] He says, therefore, threatening, “I will sharpen my sword, and my hand shall lay hold on judgment; and I will render justice to mine enemies, and requite those who hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 228, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter VIII.—Against Those Who Think that What is Just is Not Good. (HTML)
... “He who created the heavens dwells in the heavens;” and, “Heaven is Thy throne.” And the Lord says in His prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” And the heavens belong to Him, who created the world. It is indisputable, then, that the Lord is the Son of the Creator. And if, the Creator above all is confessed to be just, and the Lord to be the Son of the Creator; then the Lord is the Son of Him who is just. Wherefore also Paul says, “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested;”[Romans 3:21-22] and again, that you may better conceive of God, “even the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ upon all that believe; for there is no difference.” And, witnessing further to the truth, he adds after a little, “through the forbearance of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 340, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXVII.—The Law, Even in Correcting and Punishing, Aims at the Good of Men. (HTML)
... Wisdom’s, “proceeds righteousness, and it bears law and mercy on its tongue.” For both the law and the Gospel are the energy of one Lord, who is “the power and wisdom of God;” and the terror which the law begets is merciful and in order to salvation. “Let not alms, and faith, and truth fail thee, but hang them around thy neck.” In the same way as Paul, prophecy upbraids the people with not understanding the law. “Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.”[Romans 3:16-17] “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” “Professing themselves wise, they became fools.” “And we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” “Desiring to be teachers of the law, they understand,” says the apostle, “neither what they ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 340, footnote 7 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXVII.—The Law, Even in Correcting and Punishing, Aims at the Good of Men. (HTML)
... bears law and mercy on its tongue.” For both the law and the Gospel are the energy of one Lord, who is “the power and wisdom of God;” and the terror which the law begets is merciful and in order to salvation. “Let not alms, and faith, and truth fail thee, but hang them around thy neck.” In the same way as Paul, prophecy upbraids the people with not understanding the law. “Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[Romans 3:18] “Professing themselves wise, they became fools.” “And we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” “Desiring to be teachers of the law, they understand,” says the apostle, “neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.” “Now the end of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 355, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter VII.—The Utility of Fear. Objections Answered. (HTML)
... death (not that which severs the soul from the body, but that which severs the soul from truth). For these are vices in reality, and the workings that proceed from them are dreadful and terrible. “For not unjustly,” say the divine oracles, “are the nets spread for birds; for they who are accomplices in blood treasure up evils to themselves.” How, then, is the law still said to be not good by certain heresies that clamorously appeal to the apostle, who says, “For by the law is the knowledge of sin?”[Romans 3:20] To whom we say, The law did not cause, but showed sin. For, enjoining what is to be done, it reprehended what ought not to be done. And it is the part of the good to teach what is salutary, and to point out what is deleterious; and to counsel the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 388, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2480 (In-Text, Margin)
... facti sunt.” Nam prophetæ divinitus inspirati, non solum quæ a Deo audierint, se loqui profitentur; sed et ipsi etiam solent ea, quæ vulgo jactantur a populo, exceptionis modo, edicere, et tanquam quæ stiones ab hominibus motas referre: cujusmodi est illud dictum, cujus mentio jam facta est. Nunquid autem ad hos verba sua dirigens, scribit Apostolus in Epistola ad Romanos: “Et non sicut blasphemamur, et sicut dicunt aliqui nos dicere: Faciamus mala, ut eveniant bona, quorum justa est damnatio?”[Romans 3:8] Ii sunt, qui inter legendum tono vocis pervertunt Scripturas ad proprias voluptates, et quorumdam accentuum et punctorum transpositione, quæ prudenter et utiliter præcepta sunt, as suas trahunt delicias. “Qui irritatis Deum sermonibus vestris,” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 410, footnote 7 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter III.—The True Excellence of Man. (HTML)
... the peculiar function of man? He is like, it appears to me, the Centaur, a Thessalian figment, compounded of a rational and irrational part, of soul and body. Well, the body tills the ground, and hastes to it; but the soul is raised to God: trained in the true philosophy, it speeds to its kindred above, turning away from the lusts of the body, and besides these, from toil and fear, although we have shown that patience and fear belong to the good man. For if “by the law is the knowledge of sin,”[Romans 3:20] as those allege who disparage the law, and “till the law sin was in the world;” yet “without the law sin was dead,” we oppose them. For when you take away the cause of fear, sin, you have taken away fear; and much more, punishment, when you have ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 449, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter III.—The Objects of Faith and Hope Perceived by the Mind Alone. (HTML)
... according to his folly.” Wherefore also, to those that ask the wisdom that is with us, we are to hold out things suitable, that with the greatest possible ease they may, through their own ideas, be likely to arrive at faith in the truth. For “I became all things to all men, that I might gain all men.” Since also “the rain” of the divine grace is sent down “on the just and the unjust.” “Is He the God of the Jews only, and not also of the Gentiles? Yes, also of the Gentiles: if indeed He is one God,”[Romans 3:29-30] exclaims the noble apostle.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 491, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter VI.—The Gospel Was Preached to Jews and Gentiles in Hades. (HTML)
One righteous man, then, differs not, as righteous, from another righteous man, whether he be of the Law or a Greek. For God is not only Lord of the Jews, but of all men, and more nearly the Father of those who know Him. For if to live well and according to the law is to live, also to live rationally according to the law is to live; and those who lived rightly before the Law were classed under faith,[Romans 3:29] and judged to be righteous,—it is evident that those, too, who were outside of the Law, having lived rightly, in consequence of the peculiar nature of the voice, though they are in Hades and in ward, on hearing the voice of the Lord, whether that of His own person or that acting through His ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 458, footnote 7 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book V. Wherein Tertullian proves, with respect to St. Paul's epistles, what he had proved in the preceding book with respect to St. Luke's gospel. Far from being at variance, they were in perfect unison with the writings of the Old Testament, and therefore testified that the Creator was the only God, and that the Lord Jesus was his Christ. As in the preceding books, Tertullian supports his argument with profound reasoning, and many happy illustrations of Holy Scripture. (HTML)
The Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul Cannot Help Using Phrases Which Bespeak the Justice of God, Even When He is Eulogizing the Mercies of the Gospel. Marcion Particularly Hard in Mutilation of This Epistle. Yet Our Author Argues on Common Ground. The Judgment at Last Will Be in Accordance with the Gospel. The Justified by Faith Exhorted to Have Peace with God. The Administration of the Old and the New Dispensations in One and the Same Hand. (HTML)
... therefore, the hardness of your heart,” —the Spirit which circumcises the heart will proceed from Him who prescribed the letter also which clips the flesh; and “the Jew which is one inwardly” will be a subject of the self-same God as he also is who is “a Jew outwardly;” because the apostle would have preferred not to have mentioned a Jew at all, unless he were a servant of the God of the Jews. It was once the law; now it is “the righteousness of God which is by the faith of (Jesus) Christ.”[Romans 3:21-22] What means this distinction? Has your god been subserving the interests of the Creator’s dispensation, by affording time to Him and to His law? Is the “ Now ” in the hands of Him to whom belonged the “ Then ”? Surely, then, the law was ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 458, footnote 18 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book V. Wherein Tertullian proves, with respect to St. Paul's epistles, what he had proved in the preceding book with respect to St. Luke's gospel. Far from being at variance, they were in perfect unison with the writings of the Old Testament, and therefore testified that the Creator was the only God, and that the Lord Jesus was his Christ. As in the preceding books, Tertullian supports his argument with profound reasoning, and many happy illustrations of Holy Scripture. (HTML)
The Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul Cannot Help Using Phrases Which Bespeak the Justice of God, Even When He is Eulogizing the Mercies of the Gospel. Marcion Particularly Hard in Mutilation of This Epistle. Yet Our Author Argues on Common Ground. The Judgment at Last Will Be in Accordance with the Gospel. The Justified by Faith Exhorted to Have Peace with God. The Administration of the Old and the New Dispensations in One and the Same Hand. (HTML)
... intercalated His law for the mere purpose of producing some employment for the grace of a rival god, an enemy to Himself (I had almost said, a god unknown to Him), “that as sin had” in His own dispensation “reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto (eternal) life by Jesus Christ,” His own antagonist! For this (I suppose it was, that) the law of the Creator had “concluded all under sin,” and had brought in “all the world as guilty (before God),” and had “stopped every mouth,”[Romans 3:19] so that none could glory through it, in order that grace might be maintained to the glory of the Christ, not of the Creator, but of Marcion! I may here anticipate a remark about the substance of Christ, in the prospect of a question which will now ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 711, footnote 11 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Patience. (HTML)
Patience Both Antecedent and Subsequent to Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 9082 (In-Text, Margin)
... on earth, because faith was not either. Of course, meantime, impatience used to enjoy the opportunities which the law gave. That was easy, while the Lord and Master of patience was absent. But after He has supervened, and has united the grace of faith with patience, now it is no longer lawful to assail even with word, nor to say “fool” even, without “danger of the judgment.” Anger has been prohibited, our spirits retained, the petulance of the hand checked, the poison of the tongue[Romans 3:13] extracted. The law has found more than it has lost, while Christ says, “Love your personal enemies, and bless your cursers, and pray for your persecutors, that ye may be sons of your heavenly Father.” Do you see whom patience gains for us as a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 76, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
God Just as Well as Merciful; Accordingly, Mercy Must Not Be Indiscriminate. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 728 (In-Text, Margin)
... his own lord a man standeth or falleth; who art thou, to judge another’s servant?’ ‘Remit, and remission shall be made to thee.’” Such and so great futilities of theirs wherewith they flatter God and pander to themselves, effeminating rather than invigorating discipline, with how cogent and contrary (arguments) are we for our part able to rebut,—(arguments) which set before us warningly the “severity” of God, and provoke our own constancy? Because, albeit God is by nature good, still He is “just”[Romans 3:26] too. For, from the nature of the case, just as He knows how to “heal,” so does He withal know how to “smite;” “making peace,” but withal “creating evils;” preferring repentance, but withal commanding Jeremiah not to pray for the aversion of ills on ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 79, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
Examples of Such Offences Under the Old Dispensation No Pattern for the Disciples of the New. But Even the Old Has Examples of Vengeance Upon Such Offences. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 761 (In-Text, Margin)
... by day and by night.” About that (law) the same David (says) again: “The law of the Lord (is) unblameable, converting souls; the statutes of the Lord (are) direct, delighting hearts; the precept of the Lord far-shining, enlightening eyes.” Thus, too, the apostle: “And so the law indeed is holy, and the precept holy and most good” —“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” of course. But he had withal said above: “Are we, then, making void the law through faith? Far be it; but we are establishing the law”[Romans 3:31] —forsooth in those (points) which, being even now interdicted by the New Testament, are prohibited by an even more emphatic precept: instead of, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Whoever shall have seen with a view to concupiscence, hath already ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 80, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
Of the Parables of the Lost Ewe and the Lost Drachma. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 784 (In-Text, Margin)
... and hence in the ‘sheep’ we must understand a Christian who has erred from the Church’s ‘flock.’” In that case, you make the Lord to have given no answer to the Pharisees’ muttering, but to your presumption. And yet you will be bound so to defend that presumption, as to deny that the (points) which you think applicable to Christians are referable to a heathen. Tell me, is not all mankind one flock of God? Is not the same God both Lord and Shepherd of the universal nations?[Romans 3:29] Who more “perishes” from God than the heathen, so long as he “errs?” Who is more “re-sought” by God than the heathen, when he is recalled by Christ? In fact, it is among heathens that this order finds antecedent place; if, that is, Christians are ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 226, footnote 11 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Against the Heresy of One Noetus. (HTML)
... “Philip, have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” By which He means, If thou hast seen me, thou mayest know the Father through me. For through the image, which is like (the original), the Father is made readily known. But if thou hast not known the image, which is the Son, how dost thou seek to see the Father? And that this is the case is made clear by the rest of the chapter, which signifies that the Son who “has been set forth[Romans 3:25] was sent from the Father, and goeth to the Father.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 341, footnote 7 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Cornelius, Concerning Fortunatus and Felicissimus, or Against the Heretics. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2554 (In-Text, Margin)
... scattering them, of whom John also in his epistle says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us.” Paul also warns us, when evil men perish out of the Church, not to be disturbed, nor to let our faith be lessened by the departure of the faithless. “For what,” he says, “if some of them have departed from the faith? Hath their unbelief made the faith of God of none effect? God forbid! For God is true, but every man a liar.”[Romans 3:3-4]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 372, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To the Clergy and People Abiding in Spain, Concerning Basilides and Martial. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2780 (In-Text, Margin)
... faith as the truth. Among very many there still remains a sincere mind and a substantial religion, and a spirit devoted to nothing but the Lord and its God. Nor does the perfidy of others press down the Christian faith into ruin, but rather stimulates and exalts it to glory, according to what the blessed Apostle Paul exhorts, and says: “For what if some of these have fallen from their faith: hath their unbelief made the faith of God of none effect? God forbid. For God is true, but every man a liar.”[Romans 3:3-4] But if every man is a liar, and God only true, what else ought we, the servants, and especially the priests, of God, to do, than forsake human errors and lies, and continue in the truth of God, keeping the Lord’s precepts?
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 374, footnote 7 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Florentius Pupianus, on Calumniators. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2801 (In-Text, Margin)
... to itself in an undivided concord: they alone have remained without, who even, if they had been within, would have had to be cast out. Nor does the Lord, the protector of His people, and their guardian, suffer the wheat to be snatched from His floor; but the chaff alone can be separated from the Church, since also the apostle says, “For what if some of them have departed from the faith? shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? God forbid; for God is true, but every man a liar.”[Romans 3:3-4] And the Lord also in the Gospel, when disciples forsook Him as He spoke, turning to the twelve, said, “Will ye also go away?” then Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the word of eternal life; and we believe, and are sure, that ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 428, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Unity of the Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3157 (In-Text, Margin)
... not on that account did the faith and firmness of the apostles fail, because the traitor Judas failed from their fellowship: so also in the case in question the holiness and dignity of confessors is not forthwith diminished, because the faith of some of them is broken. The blessed Apostle Paul in his epistle speaks in this manner: “For what if some of them fall away from the faith, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: for God is true, though every man be a liar.”[Romans 3:3] The greater and better part of the confessors stand firm in the strength of their faith, and in the truth of the law and discipline of the Lord; neither do they depart from the peace of the Church, who remember that they have obtained grace in the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 493, footnote 5 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On Jealousy and Envy. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3658 (In-Text, Margin)
... prosperously in his way.” And again: “The wicked shall observe the righteous, and shall gnash upon him with his teeth. But God shall laugh at him; for He seeth that his day is coming.” The blessed Apostle Paul designates and points out these when he says, “The poison of asps is under their lips, and their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, who have not known the way of peace; neither is the fear of God before their eyes.”[Romans 3:13-18]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 526, footnote 11 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
... hath eternal life: he that is not obedient in word to the Son hath not life; but the wrath of God shall abide upon him.” Also Paul to the Ephesians: “And when He had come, He preached peace to you, to those which are afar off, and peace to those which are near, because through Him we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father.” Also to the Romans: “For all have sinned, and fail of the glory of God; but they are justified by His gift and grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”[Romans 3:23-24] Also in the Epistle of Peter the apostle: “Christ hath died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that He might present us to God.” Also in the same place: “For in this also was it preached to them that are dead, that they might be raised ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 554, footnote 22 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
In the Epistle of Paul to the Romans: “Let us do evil until the good things come; whose condemnation is just.”[Romans 3:8]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 570, footnote 9 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian. Concerning the Baptism of Heretics. (HTML)
The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian. Concerning the Baptism of Heretics. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4758 (In-Text, Margin)
Paulus of Obba said: It does not disturb me if any man does not assert the faith and truth of the Church, since the apostle says, “For what if some of them have fallen away from the faith? Has their unbelief made the faith of God of no effect? By no means. For God is true, but every man a liar.”[Romans 3:3-4] But if God is true, how can the truth of baptism be among the heretics, among whom God is not?
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 214, footnote 22 (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 XL. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1889 (In-Text, Margin)
... I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” Further, he averred that the same apostle made this statement most obviously on the subject of the resurrection of the flesh, when he also said that “he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh,” and that according to the letter the law has in it no advantage. And again he adduced the statement, that “Abraham has glory, but not before God;” and that “by the law there comes only the knowledge of sin.”[Romans 3:20] And many other things did he introduce, with the view of detracting from the honour of the law, on the ground that the law itself is sin; by which statements the simpler people were somewhat influenced, as he continued to bring them forward; and in ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 406, footnote 1 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book II. Of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons (HTML)
Sec. III.—How the Bishop is to Treat the Innocent, the Guilty, and the Penitent (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2698 (In-Text, Margin)
... entangled in impiety, whereby thou wilt be guilty of his perdition: for it is not fair to be too hasty in casting out an offender, but slow in receiving him when he returns; to be forward in cutting off, but unmerciful when he is sorrowful, and ought to be healed. For of such as these speaks the divine Scripture: “Their feet run to mischief; they are hasty to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. The fear of God is not before their eyes.”[Romans 3:15] Now the way of peace is our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has taught us, saying: “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you;” that is, give remission of sins, and your offences shall be forgiven you. As also He instructed us ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 618, footnote 3 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
The Decretals. (HTML)
The Epistles of Pope Callistus. (HTML)
To All the Bishops of Gaul. (HTML)
As to whether a priest may minister after a lapse. (HTML)
... (virtutum) and the King of glory. For the apostle says: “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, ‘I say,’ at this time His righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”[Romans 3:23-26] And David says: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.” Man, therefore, is cleansed of his sin, and rises again by the grace of God though he has fallen, and abides in his first position, according to the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 618, footnote 7 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
The Decretals. (HTML)
The Epistles of Pope Callistus. (HTML)
To All the Bishops of Gaul. (HTML)
As to whether a priest may minister after a lapse. (HTML)
... and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek: but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good.”[Romans 3:3-10] My brethren, shun not only the holding, but even the hearing, of the judgment that bans mercy; for better is mercy than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. We have replied to your interrogations shortly, because your letter found us burdened ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 308, footnote 3 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
The Word Was in the Beginning, I.e., in Wisdom, Which Contained All Things in Idea, Before They Existed. Christ's Character as Wisdom is Prior to His Other Characters. (HTML)
... evident that He cannot be the arche in respect of His being the first-born from the dead. And if we go through all His titles carefully we find that He is the arche only in respect of His being wisdom. Not even as the Word is He the arche, for the Word was in the arche. And so one might venture to say that wisdom is anterior to all the thoughts that are expressed in the titles of the first-born of every creature. Now God is altogether one and simple; but our Saviour, for many reasons, since God[Romans 3:25] set Him forth a propitiation and a first fruits of the whole creation, is made many things, or perhaps all these things; the whole creation, so far as capable of redemption, stands in need of Him. And, hence, He is made the light of men, because ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 309, footnote 17 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
The Title “Word” Is to Be Interpreted by the Same Method as the Other Titles of Christ. The Word of God is Not a Mere Attribute of God, But a Separate Person. What is Meant When He is Called the Word. (HTML)
... the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world,” and in these words he declares Him as a man, “This is He about whom I said, that there cometh after me a man who is there before me; for He was before me.” And in his Catholic Epistle John says that He is a Paraclete for our souls with the Father, as thus: “And if any one sin, we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” and he adds that He is a propitiation for our sins, and similarly Paul says He is a propitiation:[Romans 3:25-26] “Whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, on account of forgiveness of the forepast sins, in the forbearance of God.” According to Paul, too, He is declared to be the wisdom and the power of God, as in the Epistle to the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 317, footnote 5 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Christ as Paraclete, as Propitiation, and as the Power of God. (HTML)
But none of the names we have mentioned expresses His representation of us with the Father, as He pleads for human nature, and makes atonement for it; the Paraclete, and the propitiation, and the atonement. He has the name Paraclete in the Epistle of John: “If any man sin, we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” And He is said in the same epistle to be the atonement for our sins. Similarly, in the Epistle to the Romans, He is called a propitiation:[Romans 3:25] “Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith.” Of this proportion there was a type in the inmost part of the temple, the Holy of Holies, namely, the golden mercy-seat placed upon the two cherubim. But how could He ever be the Paraclete, and the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 416, footnote 5 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book X. (HTML)
The Exposition Continued. (HTML)
... Scriptures and seeking to understand the Christ, he finds the treasure in it; and, having found it, he hides it, thinking that it is not without danger to reveal to everybody the secret meanings of the Scriptures, or the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ. And, having hidden it, he goes away, working and devising how he shall buy the field, or the Scriptures, that he may make them his own possession, receiving from the people of God the oracles of God with which the Jews were first entrusted.[Romans 3:2] And when the man taught by Christ has bought the field, the kingdom of God which, according to another parable, is a vineyard, “is taken from them and is given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,” —to him who in faith has bought the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 448, footnote 4 (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 XI. (HTML)
Concerning the Multitudes Who Were Healed. Comparison of the Mountain Where Jesus Sat to the Church. (HTML)
... beauty to them; and when they see clearly “the invisible things of God Himself from the creation of the world, which are perceived through the things that are made;” that is, they see and understand with care and clearness. Now the multitudes seeing these things, glorified the God of Israel, and glorify Him in the persuasion that it is the same God, who is the Father of Him who healed those previously mentioned, and the God of Israel. For He is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.[Romans 3:29] Let us then cause to go up along with ourselves to the mountain where Jesus sits—His church—those who wish to go up to it along with us, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the maimed and many others, and let us cast them at the feet of Jesus that He may ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 462, footnote 12 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XII. (HTML)
The Rebuke of Peter and the Answer of Jesus. (HTML)
... and below the dignity of the Father who had revealed to him so great things about Christ,—for the things that concerned His coming suffering had not been revealed to him,—on this account he took Him, and as one forgetful of the honour due to the Christ, and that the Son of the living God neither does nor says anything worthy of rebuke, he began to rebuke Him; and as to one who needed propitiation,—for he did not yet know that “God had set Him forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood,”[Romans 3:25] he said, “God be propitious to thee, O Lord.” Approving his purpose, indeed, but rebuking his ignorance, because of the purpose being right, He says to him, “Get thee behind Me,” as to one who, by reason of the things of which he was ignorant and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 203, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Of the goodness of God explained in the creation of things, and of the Trinity as found in the first words of Genesis. The story concerning the origin of the world (Gen. I.) is allegorically explained, and he applies it to those things which God works for sanctified and blessed man. Finally, he makes an end of this work, having implored eternal rest from God. (HTML)
He Explains the Fruits of the Earth (Ver. 29) of Works of Mercy. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1394 (In-Text, Margin)
38. I would also say, O Lord my God, what the following Scripture reminds me of; yea, I will say it without fear. For I will speak the truth, Thou inspiring me as to what Thou willest that I should say out of these words. For by none other than Thy inspiration do I believe that I can speak the truth, since Thou art the Truth, but every man a liar.[Romans 3:4] And therefore he that “speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own;” therefore that I may speak the truth, I will speak of Thine. Behold, Thou hast given unto us for food “every herb bearing seed,” which is upon the face of all the earth, “and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed.” Nor to us only, but to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 312, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
To Januarius (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1822 (In-Text, Margin)
... of Forty Days has its warrant both in the Old Testament, from the fasting of Moses and of Elijah, and in the Gospel from the fact that our Lord fasted the same number of days; proving thereby that the Gospel is not at variance with the Law and the Prophets. For the Law and the Prophets are represented in the persons of Moses and Elijah respectively; between whom also He appeared in glory on the Mount, that what the apostle says of Him, that He is “witnessed unto both by the Law and the Prophets,”[Romans 3:21] might be made more clearly manifest. Now, in what part of the year could the observance of the Fast of Forty Days be more appropriately placed, than in that which immediately precedes and borders on the time of the Lord’s Passion? For by it is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 263, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
Of Carnal Life, Which is to Be Understood Not Only of Living in Bodily Indulgence, But Also of Living in the Vices of the Inner Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 640 (In-Text, Margin)
... after the flesh. For by flesh it means not only the body of a terrestrial and mortal animal, as when it says, “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, another of birds,” but it uses this word in many other significations; and among these various usages, a frequent one is to use flesh for man himself, the nature of man taking the part for the whole, as in the words, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified;”[Romans 3:20] for what does he mean here by “no flesh” but “no man?” And this, indeed, he shortly after says more plainly: “No man shall be justified by the law;” and in the Epistle to the Galatians, “Knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law.” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 264, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 652 (In-Text, Margin)
When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil. Because not even an angel might live according to an angel, but only according to God, if he was to abide in the truth, and speak God’s truth and not his own lie. And of man, too, the same apostle says in another place, “If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie;”[Romans 3:7] —“my lie,” he said, and “God’s truth.” When, then, a man lives according to the truth, he lives not according to himself, but according to God; for He was God who said, “I am the truth.” When, therefore, man lives according to himself,—that is, according to man, not according to God,—assuredly he lives according to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 265, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 657 (In-Text, Margin)
... unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.” And this is to be interpreted by the same usage, a part being taken for the whole. For both the soul and the flesh, the component parts of man, can be used to signify the whole man; and so the animal man and the carnal man are not two different things, but one and the same thing, viz., man living according to man. In the same way it is nothing else than men that are meant either in the words, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified;”[Romans 3:20] or in the words, “Seventy-five souls went down into Egypt with Jacob.” In the one passage, “no flesh” signifies “no man;” and in the other, by “seventy-five souls” seventy-five men are meant. And the expression, “not in words which man’s ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 340, footnote 5 (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)
About the Prefigured Change of the Israelitic Kingdom and Priesthood, and About the Things Hannah the Mother of Samuel Prophesied, Personating the Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 989 (In-Text, Margin)
... not bound, not even in preachers who are bound. “I am made glad,” she says, “in Thy salvation.” This is Christ Jesus Himself, whom old Simeon, as we read in the Gospel, embracing as a little one, yet recognizing as great, said, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” Therefore may the Church say, “I am made glad in Thy salvation. For there is none holy as the Lord, and none is righteous as our God;” as holy and sanctifying, just and justifying.[Romans 3:26] “There is none holy beside Thee;” because no one becomes so except by reason of Thee. And then it follows, “Do not glory so proudly, and do not speak lofty things, neither let vaunting talk come out of your mouth. For a God of knowledge is the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 341, 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)
About the Prefigured Change of the Israelitic Kingdom and Priesthood, and About the Things Hannah the Mother of Samuel Prophesied, Personating the Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 994 (In-Text, Margin)
“They that were full of bread,” she says, “are diminished, and the hungry have gone beyond the earth.” Who are to be understood as full of bread except those same who were as if mighty, that is, the Israelites, to whom were committed the oracles of God?[Romans 3:2] But among that people the children of the bond maid were diminished,—by which word minus, although it is Latin, the idea is well expressed that from being greater they were made less,—because, even in the very bread, that is, the divine oracles, which the Israelites alone of all nations have received, they savor earthly things. But the nations to whom that law ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 351, footnote 5 (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)
To Whose Person the Entreaty for the Promises is to Be Understood to Belong, When He Says in the Psalm, ‘Where are Thine Ancient Compassions, Lord?’ Etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1068 (In-Text, Margin)
... which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants, which I have borne in my bosom of many nations; wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the change of Thy Christ.” Now it may with very good reason be asked whether this is spoken in the person of those Israelites who desired that the promise made to David might be fulfilled to them; or rather of the Christians, who are Israelites not after the flesh but after the Spirit.[Romans 3:28-29] This certainly was spoken or written in the time of Ethan, from whose name this psalm gets its title, and that was the same as the time of David’s reign; and therefore it would not have been said, “Where are Thine ancient compassions, Lord, which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 423, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the last judgment, and the declarations regarding it in the Old and New Testaments. (HTML)
That Proofs of the Last Judgment Will Be Adduced, First from the New Testament, and Then from the Old. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1321 (In-Text, Margin)
... Old acts the part of herald to the New. We shall therefore first cite passages from the New Testament, and confirm them by quotations from the Old Testament. The Old contains the law and the prophets, the New the gospel and the apostolic epistles. Now the apostle says “By the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; now the righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ upon all them that believe.”[Romans 3:20-22] This righteousness of God belongs to the New Testament, and evidence for it exists in the old books, that is to say, in the law and the prophets. I shall first, then state the case, and then call the witnesses. This order Jesus Christ Himself ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 441, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the last judgment, and the declarations regarding it in the Old and New Testaments. (HTML)
Utterances of the Prophet Isaiah Regarding the Resurrection of the Dead and the Retributive Judgment. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1427 (In-Text, Margin)
... speaking of the wicked and sinners under the figure of the meats forbidden by the old law, from which they had not abstained, he summarily recounts the grace of the new testament, from the first coming of the Saviour to the last judgment, of which we now speak; and herewith he concludes his prophecy. For he relates that the Lord declares that He is coming to gather all nations, that they may come and witness His glory. For, as the apostle says, “All have sinned and are in want of the glory of God.”[Romans 3:23] And he says that He will do wonders among them, at which they shall marvel and believe in Him; and that from them He will send forth those that are saved into various nations, and distant islands which have not heard His name nor seen His glory, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 540, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
A Diversity of Interpretations is Useful. Errors Arising from Ambiguous Words. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1782 (In-Text, Margin)
18. And very often a translator, to whom the meaning is not well known, is deceived by an ambiguity in the original language, and puts upon the passage a construction that is wholly alien to the sense of the writer. As for example, some texts read: “Their feet are sharp to shed blood;”[Romans 3:15] for the word ὁζύς among the Greeks means both sharp and swift. And so he saw the true meaning who translated: “Their feet are swift to shed blood.” The other, taking the wrong sense of an ambiguous word, fell into error. Now translations such as this are not obscure, but false; and there is a wide ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 31, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
In What Manner the Son is Said Not to Know the Day and the Hour Which the Father Knows. Some Things Said of Christ According to the Form of God, Other Things According to the Form of a Servant. In What Way It is of Christ to Give the Kingdom, in What Not of Christ. Christ Will Both Judge and Not Judge. (HTML)
... all things and by him all things consist;” according to the form of a servant, “He is the head of the body, the Church.” According to the form of God, “He is the Lord of glory.” From which it is evident that He Himself glorifies His saints: for, “Whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Of Him accordingly it is said, that He justifieth the ungodly; of Him it is said, that He is just and a justifier.[Romans 3:26] If, therefore, He has also glorified those whom He has justified, He who justifies, Himself also glorifies; who is, as I have said, the Lord of glory. Yet, according to the form of a servant, He replied to His disciples, when inquiring about their ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 249, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
The Enchiridion. (HTML)
The Ineffable Mystery of the Birth of Christ the Mediator Through the Virgin Mary. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1147 (In-Text, Margin)
... consistent words this single statement, that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” so that we may believe on the only Son of God the Father Almighty, born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. The meaning of the Word being made flesh, is not that the divine nature was changed into flesh, but that the divine nature assumed our flesh. And by “flesh” we are here to understand “man,” the part being put for the whole, as when it is said: “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified,”[Romans 3:20] that is, no man. For we must believe that no part was wanting in that human nature which He put on, save that it was a nature wholly free from every taint of sin,—not such a nature as is conceived between the two sexes through carnal lust, which is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 269, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
The Enchiridion. (HTML)
As God’s Mercy is Free, So His Judgments are Just, and Cannot Be Gainsaid. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1290 (In-Text, Margin)
... one could justly have questioned the justice of God; and that it was right that those who are redeemed should be redeemed in such a way as to show, by the greater number who are unredeemed and left in their just condemnation, what the whole race deserved, and whither the deserved judgment of God would lead even the redeemed, did not His undeserved mercy interpose, so that every mouth might be stopped of those who wish to glory in their own merits, and that he that glorieth might glory in the Lord.[Romans 3:19]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 381, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Continence. (HTML)
Section 7 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1823 (In-Text, Margin)
... themselves, save such as war on the side of the virtues, and war down the vices: nor doth any thing storm the evil of lust, save the good of Continence. But there are, who, being utterly ignorant of the law of God, account not evil lusts among their enemies, and through wretched blindness being slaves to them, over and above think themselves also blessed, by satisfying them rather than taming them. But whoso through the Law have come to know them, (“For through the Law is the knowledge of sin,”[Romans 3:20] and, “Lust,” saith he, “I knew not, unless the Law should say, Thou shalt not lust after,” and yet are overcome by their assault, because they live under the Law, whereby what is good is commanded, but not also given: they live not under Grace, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 383, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Continence. (HTML)
Section 11 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1843 (In-Text, Margin)
... is Christ, that Man was taken unto Himself by the Word of God, not surely without a rational soul, as certain heretics will have it; and yet we read, “The Word was made flesh.” What is to be here understood by “flesh,” but Man? “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” What can be understood, but all men? “Unto Thee shall all flesh come.” What is it, but all men? “Thou hast given unto Him power over all flesh.” What is it, but all men? “Of the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”[Romans 3:20] What is it, but no man shall be justified? And this the same Apostle in another place confessing more plainly saith, “Man shall not be justified of the works of the Law.” The Corinthians also he rebukes, saying, “Are ye not carnal, and walk after ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 481, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
Against Lying. (HTML)
Section 1 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2384 (In-Text, Margin)
... either teach them the truth, or at least having convicted them by the truth, may not allow them to hurt others? to this end, therefore, that their lie may be blotted out, or shunned, and God’s truth increased. How then by a lie shall I rightly be able to prosecute lies? Or is it by robbery that robberies and by sacrilege that sacrileges, and by adultery that adulteries, are to be prosecuted? “But if the truth of God shall abound by my lie,” are we too to say, “Let us do evil that good may come?”[Romans 3:7-8] A thing which thou seest how the Apostle detesteth. For what else is, “Let us lie, that we may bring heretic liars to the truth,” but, “Let us do evil that good may come?” Or, is a lie sometimes good, or sometimes a lie not evil? Why then is it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 496, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
Against Lying. (HTML)
Section 32 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2447 (In-Text, Margin)
... while he sins? So indeed it may seem: but in truth it is one thing to say, “I ought not to have sinned, but I will do works of mercy whereby I may blot out the sin which I did before;” and another to say, “I ought to sin, because I cannot else show mercy.” It is, I say, one thing to say, “Because we have already sinned, let us do good,” and another to say, “Let us sin, that we may do good.” There it is said, “Let us do good, because we have done evil;” but here, “Let us do evil that good may come.”[Romans 3:8] And, consequently, there we have to drain off the sink of sin, here to beware of a doctrine which teacheth to sin.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 500, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
Against Lying. (HTML)
Section 40 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2470 (In-Text, Margin)
... deed of lewdness. And the Father heareth and granteth his prayer that he may avail without a lie to succor whom the Father Himself, Whose judgments are unsearchable, willeth to be succored. Such a son therefore so keeps watch against a lie, as he doth against sin. For indeed sometimes the name of lie is put for the name of sin: whence is that saying, “All men are liars.” For it is so said, as if it were said, “All men are sinners.” And that: “But if the truth of God hath abounded through my lie.”[Romans 3:7] And therefore, when he lies as a man he sins as a man, and will be held by that sentence in which it is said, “All men are liars;” and, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But when nothing false cometh ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 184, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus denies that the prophets predicted Christ. Augustin proves such prediction from the New Testament, and expounds at length the principal types of Christ in the Old Testament. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 413 (In-Text, Margin)
... is evidently through the Son of God; as the apostle says to the Galatians: "In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." And the glory spoken of is chiefly that of which he says in the same Epistle to the Romans: "What advantage hath the Jew? or what profit is there in circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because unto them were committed the oracles of God."[Romans 3:1-2] Can the Manichæans tell us of any oracles of God committed to the Jews besides those of the Hebrew prophets? And why are the covenants said to belong especially to the Israelites, but because not only was the Old Testament given to them, but also ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 185, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus denies that the prophets predicted Christ. Augustin proves such prediction from the New Testament, and expounds at length the principal types of Christ in the Old Testament. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 418 (In-Text, Margin)
5. But we reject those false teachers whose Christ is false, or rather, whose Christ never existed. For we have a Christ true and truthful, foretold by the prophets, preached by the apostles, who in innumerable places refer to the testimonies of the law and the prophets in support of their preaching. Paul, in one short sentence, gives the right view of this subject. "Now," he says, "the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets."[Romans 3:21] What prophets, if not of Israel, to whom, as he expressly says, pertain the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the promises? And what promises, but about Christ? Elsewhere, speaking of Christ, he says concisely: "All the promises of God are in Him ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 258, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus repels the charge of sun-worship, and maintains that while the Manichæans believe that God’s power dwells in the sun and his wisdom in the moon, they yet worship one deity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are not a schism of the Gentiles, nor a sect. Augustin emphasizes the charge of polytheism, and goes into an elaborate comparison of Manichæan and pagan mythology. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 741 (In-Text, Margin)
... imply when he says that Jesus hangs from every tree, why do you not pluck the fruit, and so take Jesus down from hanging on the tree to bury Him in your stomach, which would correspond to the good deed of Joseph of Arimathea, when he took down the true Jesus from the cross to bury Him? Why should it be impious to take Christ from the tree, while it is pious to lay Him in the tomb? Perhaps you wish to apply to yourselves the words quoted from the prophet by Paul, "Their throat is an open sepulchre:"[Romans 3:13] and so you wait with open mouth till some one comes to use your throat as the best sepulchre for Christ. Once more, how many Christs do you make? Is there one whom you call the mortal Christ, whom the earth conceives and brings forth by the power of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 265, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus denies that Manichæans believe in two gods. Hyle no god. Augustin discusses at large the doctrine of God and Hyle, and fixes the charge of dualism upon the Manichæans. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 757 (In-Text, Margin)
... the minds of unbelievers. They put a stop after the word God, and read the following words together. Or without this punctuation you may, for the sake of exposition, change the order of the words, and read, "In whom God has blinded the minds of unbelievers of this world," which gives the same sense. The act of blinding the minds of unbelievers may in one sense be ascribed to God, as the effect not of malice, but of justice. Thus Paul himself says elsewhere, "Is God unjust, who taketh vengeance?"[Romans 3:5] and again, "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For Moses saith, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Observe what he adds, after asserting the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 424, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
He proves that baptism can be conferred outside the Catholic communion by heretics or schismatics, but that it ought not to be received from them; and that it is of no avail to any while in a state of heresy or schism. (HTML)
Chapter 19 (HTML)
... stopped. For they advance his authority before the unlearned, to show that in a manner they do well when they baptize afresh the faithful who come to them. Too wretched are they—and, unless they correct themselves, even by themselves are they utterly condemned—who choose in the example set them by so great a man to imitate just that fault, which only did not injure him, because he walked with constant steps even to the end in that from which they have strayed who "have not known the way of peace."[Romans 3:17] It is true that Christ’s baptism is holy; and although it may exist among heretics or schismatics, yet it does not belong to the heresy or schism; and therefore even those who come from thence to the Catholic Church herself ought not to be baptized ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 428, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
In which Augustin proves that it is to no purpose that the Donatists bring forward the authority of Cyprian, bishop and martyr, since it is really more opposed to them than to the Catholics. For that he held that the view of his predecessor Agrippinus, on the subject of baptizing heretics in the Catholic Church when they join its communion, should only be received on condition that peace should be maintained with those who entertained the opposite view, and that the unity of the Church should never be broken by any kind of schism. (HTML)
Chapter 5 (HTML)
... but such as is common to man." It is therefore part of man’s nature to be sometimes wrong. Wherefore he says in another place, "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." But to whom does He reveal it when it is His will (be it in this life or in the life to come), save to those who walk in the way of peace, and stray not aside into any schism? Not to such as those who have not known the way of peace,[Romans 3:17] or for some other cause have broken the bond of unity. And so, when the apostle said, "And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you," lest they should think that besides the way of peace their own wrong views might ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 503, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
On Baptism, Against the Donatists. (HTML)
In which the remaining judgments of the Council of Carthage are examined. (HTML)
Chapter 11 (HTML)
20. Paul of Bobba said: "I for my part am not moved if some fail to uphold the faith and truth of the Church, seeing that the apostle says ‘For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea let God be true, but every man a liar.’[Romans 3:3-4] But if God be true, how can the truth of baptism be in the company of heretics, where God is not?"
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 538, 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 15 (HTML)
... more true than that which Christ said, that His Church should be throughout all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, then there is nothing more false than that which you say, that it is in the party of Donatus. But the tongues which have deceived are the tongues of those who, whilst they are acquainted with their own deeds, not only say that they are just men, but that they are justifiers of men, which is said of One only "that justifieth the ungodly," and that because "He is just and the justifier."[Romans 3:26] As regards the poison of asps, and the mouth full of cursing and bitterness, we have said enough already. But you have yourselves said that the followers of Maximianus had feet swift to shed blood, as is testified by the sentence of your plenary ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 647, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
The Correction of the Donatists. (HTML)
Chapter 9 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2547 (In-Text, Margin)
... by faith, so far we are righteous; but in so far as we drag along with us the traces of our mortal nature as derived from Adam, so far we cannot be free from sin. For there is truth both in the statement that "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin," and also in the former statement, that "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." The Lord Jesus, therefore, is both righteous and able to justify; but we are justified freely by no other grace than His.[Romans 3:24] For there is nothing that justifieth save His body, which is the Church; and therefore, if the body of Christ bears off the spoils of the unrighteous, and the riches of the unrighteous are laid up in store as treasures for the body of Christ, the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 31, footnote 14 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
From the Epistle to the Romans. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 351 (In-Text, Margin)
... is upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; since all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness; that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”[Romans 3:22-26] Then in another passage he says: “To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 88, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
In What Respect the Pelagians Acknowledge God as the Author of Our Justification. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 754 (In-Text, Margin)
“But,” say they, “we do praise God as the Author of our righteousness, in that He gave the law, by the teaching of which we have learned how we ought to live.” But they give no heed to what they read: “By the law there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God.”[Romans 3:20] This may indeed be possible before men, but not before Him who looks into our very heart and inmost will, where He sees that, although the man who fears the law keeps a certain precept, he would nevertheless rather do another thing if he were permitted. And lest any one should suppose that, in the passage just quoted from him, the apostle had meant to say that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 88, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
In What Respect the Pelagians Acknowledge God as the Author of Our Justification. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 755 (In-Text, Margin)
... precept, he would nevertheless rather do another thing if he were permitted. And lest any one should suppose that, in the passage just quoted from him, the apostle had meant to say that none are justified by that law, which contains many precepts, under the figure of the ancient sacraments, and among them that circumcision of the flesh itself, which infants were commanded to receive on the eighth day after birth; he immediately adds what law he meant, and says, “For by the law is the knowledge of sin.”[Romans 3:20] He refers then to that law of which he afterwards declares, “I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” For what means this but that “by the law comes the knowledge of sin?”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 88, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Righteousness of God Manifested by the Law and the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 757 (In-Text, Margin)
Here, perhaps, it may be said by that presumption of man, which is ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishes to establish one of its own, that the apostle quite properly said, “For by the law shall no man be justified,”[Romans 3:20] inasmuch as the law merely shows what one ought to do, and what one ought to guard against, in order that what the law thus points out may be accomplished by the will, and so man be justified, not indeed by the power of the law, but by his free determination. But I ask your attention, O man, to what follows. “But now the righteousness of God,” says he, “without the law is manifested, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 88, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Righteousness of God Manifested by the Law and the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 758 (In-Text, Margin)
... apostle quite properly said, “For by the law shall no man be justified,” inasmuch as the law merely shows what one ought to do, and what one ought to guard against, in order that what the law thus points out may be accomplished by the will, and so man be justified, not indeed by the power of the law, but by his free determination. But I ask your attention, O man, to what follows. “But now the righteousness of God,” says he, “without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.”[Romans 3:21] Does this then sound a light thing in deaf ears? He says, “The righteousness of God is manifested.” Now this righteousness they are ignorant of, who wish to establish one of their own; they will not submit themselves to it. His words are, “ The ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 89, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Righteousness of God Manifested by the Law and the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 760 (In-Text, Margin)
... ungodly. This is witnessed by the law and the prophets; in other words, the law and the prophets each afford it testimony. The law, indeed, by issuing its commands and threats, and by justifying no man, sufficiently shows that it is by God’s gift, through the help of the Spirit, that a man is justified; and the prophets, because it was what they predicted that Christ at His coming accomplished. Accordingly he advances a step further, and adds, “But righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ,”[Romans 3:22] that is by the faith wherewith one believes in Christ for just as there is not meant the faith with which Christ Himself believes, so also there is not meant the righteousness whereby God is Himself righteous. Both no doubt are ours, but yet they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 89, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Righteousness of God Manifested by the Law and the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 762 (In-Text, Margin)
... the law discovers to a man his weakness, it is in order that by faith he may flee for refuge to His mercy, and be healed. And thus concerning His wisdom we are told, that “she carries law and mercy upon her tongue,” —the “ law,” whereby she may convict the proud, the “ mercy,” wherewith she may justify the humbled. “The righteousness of God,” then, “by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all that believe; for there is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”[Romans 3:22-23] —not of their own glory. For what have they, which they have not received? Now if they received it, why do they glory as if they had not received it? Well, then, they come short of the glory of God; now observe what follows: “Being justified freely ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 89, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Righteousness of God Manifested by the Law and the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 764 (In-Text, Margin)
... proud, the “ mercy,” wherewith she may justify the humbled. “The righteousness of God,” then, “by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all that believe; for there is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” —not of their own glory. For what have they, which they have not received? Now if they received it, why do they glory as if they had not received it? Well, then, they come short of the glory of God; now observe what follows: “Being justified freely by His grace.”[Romans 3:24] It is not, therefore, by the law, nor is it by their own will, that they are justified; but they are justified freely by His grace,—not that it is wrought without our will; but our will is by the law shown to be weak, that grace may heal its ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 89, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
How the Law Was Not Made for a Righteous Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 772 (In-Text, Margin)
... grace,” since it is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them,—in other words, not because we have fulfilled the law, but in order that we may be able to fulfil the law. Now He said, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,” of whom it was said, “We have seen His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” This is the glory which is meant in the words, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”[Romans 3:23] and this the grace of which he speaks in the next verse, “Being justified freely by His grace.” The unrighteous man therefore lawfully uses the law, that he may become righteous; but when he has become so, he must no longer use it as a chariot, for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 89, footnote 14 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
How the Law Was Not Made for a Righteous Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 773 (In-Text, Margin)
... do them,—in other words, not because we have fulfilled the law, but in order that we may be able to fulfil the law. Now He said, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,” of whom it was said, “We have seen His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” This is the glory which is meant in the words, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” and this the grace of which he speaks in the next verse, “Being justified freely by His grace.”[Romans 3:24] The unrighteous man therefore lawfully uses the law, that he may become righteous; but when he has become so, he must no longer use it as a chariot, for he has arrived at his journey’s end,—or rather (that I may employ the apostle’s own simile, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 90, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
How the Law Was Not Made for a Righteous Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 774 (In-Text, Margin)
... holiness, may escape the penalty of the law’s menacing letter through the spirit’s soothing gift? In this way the two statements will not be contrary, nor will they be repugnant to each other: even the righteous man may lawfully use a good law, and yet the law be not made for the righteous man; for it is not by the law that he becomes righteous, but by the law of faith, which led him to believe that no other resource was possible to his weakness for fulfilling the precepts which “the law of works”[Romans 3:27] commanded, except to be assisted by the grace of God.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 90, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Exclusion of Boasting. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 775 (In-Text, Margin)
Accordingly he says, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith.”[Romans 3:27] He may either mean, the laudable boasting, which is in the Lord; and that it is excluded, not in the sense that it is driven off so as to pass away, but that it is clearly manifested so as to stand out prominently. Whence certain artificers in silver are called “ exclusores.” In this sense it occurs also in that passage in the Psalms: “That they may be excluded, who have been proved with silver,” —that is, that they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 92, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Law of Works and the Law of Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 795 (In-Text, Margin)
... there is a fallacy in this distinction, the greatness of which I have for some time been endeavoring to expose; and to such as are acute in appreciating distinctions, especially to yourself and those like you, I have possibly succeeded in my effort. Since, however, the subject is an important one, it will not be unsuitable, if with a view to its illustration, we linger over the many testimonies which again and again meet our view. Now, the apostle says that that law by which no man is justified,[Romans 3:20] entered in that the offence might abound, and yet in order to save it from the aspersions of the ignorant and the accusations of the impious, he defends this very law in such words as these: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 92, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Law of Works and the Law of Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 799 (In-Text, Margin)
... Christ upon all them that believe; for there is no difference: seeing that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare His righteousness at this time; that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”[Romans 3:20-26] And then he adds the passage which is now under consideration: “Where, then, is your boasting? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith.” And so it is the very law of works itself which says, “Thou shalt not covet;” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 92, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Law of Works and the Law of Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 800 (In-Text, Margin)
... through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare His righteousness at this time; that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” And then he adds the passage which is now under consideration: “Where, then, is your boasting? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith.”[Romans 3:27] And so it is the very law of works itself which says, “Thou shalt not covet;” because thereby comes the knowledge of sin. Now I wish to know, if anybody will dare to tell me, whether the law of faith does not say to us, “Thou shalt not covet”? For ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 92, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Law of Works and the Law of Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 801 (In-Text, Margin)
... “Thou shalt not covet;” because thereby comes the knowledge of sin. Now I wish to know, if anybody will dare to tell me, whether the law of faith does not say to us, “Thou shalt not covet”? For if it does not say so to us, what reason is there why we, who are placed under it, should not sin in safety and with impunity? Indeed, this is just what those people thought the apostle meant, of whom he writes: “Even as some affirm that we say, Let us do evil, that good may come; whose damnation is just.”[Romans 3:8] If, on the contrary, it too says to us, “Thou shall not covet” (even as numerous passages in the gospels and epistles so often testify and urge), then why is not this law also called the law of works? For it by no means follows that, because it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 94, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Passage in Corinthians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 815 (In-Text, Margin)
... to suppose that “the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones,” is not said equally of all the ten commandments, but only of the solitary one touching the Sabbath-day? In which class do we place that which is thus spoken of: “The law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression?” and again thus: “Until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law?” and also that which we have already so often quoted: “By the law is the knowledge of sin?”[Romans 3:20] and especially the passage in which the apostle has more clearly expressed the question of which we are treating: “I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet?”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 102, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Answer Is, that the Passage Must Be Understood of the Faithful of the New Covenant. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 928 (In-Text, Margin)
... and honour, and peace, in their doing good works, if living without the grace of the gospel? Since there is no respect of persons with God, and since it is not the hearers of the law, but the doers thereof, that are justified, it follows that any man of any nation, whether Jew or Greek, who shall believe, will equally have salvation under the gospel. “For there is no difference,” as he says afterwards; “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace.”[Romans 3:22-24] How then could he say that any Gentile person, who was a doer of the law, was justified without the Saviour’s grace?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 102, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
It is Not by Their Works, But by Grace, that the Doers of the Law are Justified; God’s Saints and God’s Name Hallowed in Different Senses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 930 (In-Text, Margin)
Now he could not mean to contradict himself in saying, “The doers of the law shall be justified,” as if their justification came through their works, and not through grace; since he declares that a man is justified freely by His grace without the works of the law,[Romans 3:24] intending by the term “ freely ” nothing else than that works do not precede justification. For in another passage he expressly says, “If by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” But the statement that “the doers of the law shall be justified” must be so understood, as that we may know that they are not otherwise doers of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 102, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
It is Not by Their Works, But by Grace, that the Doers of the Law are Justified; God’s Saints and God’s Name Hallowed in Different Senses. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 930 (In-Text, Margin)
Now he could not mean to contradict himself in saying, “The doers of the law shall be justified,” as if their justification came through their works, and not through grace; since he declares that a man is justified freely by His grace without the works of the law,[Romans 3:28] intending by the term “ freely ” nothing else than that works do not precede justification. For in another passage he expressly says, “If by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” But the statement that “the doers of the law shall be justified” must be so understood, as that we may know that they are not otherwise doers of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 103, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Law ‘Being Done by Nature’ Means, Done by Nature as Restored by Grace. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 952 (In-Text, Margin)
... this sinfulness, the law of God is erased out of their hearts; and therefore, when, the sin being healed, it is written there, the prescriptions of the law are done “ by nature, ”—not that by nature grace is denied, but rather by grace nature is repaired. For “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men; in which all have sinned;” wherefore “there is no difference: they all come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace.”[Romans 3:22-24] By this grace there is written on the renewed inner man that righteousness which sin had blotted out; and this mercy comes upon the human race through our Lord Jesus Christ. “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 104, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Grace Promised by the Prophet for the New Covenant. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 966 (In-Text, Margin)
... nature the things contained in the law,” if in this description not they are to be understood who belong to the Mediator’s grace, but rather they who, while not worshipping the true God with true godliness, do yet exhibit some good works in the general course of their ungodly lives? Or did the apostle perhaps deem it probable, because he had previously said that “with God there is no respect of persons,” and had afterwards said that “God is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles,”[Romans 3:29] —that even such scanty little works of the law, as are suggested by nature, were not discovered in such as received not the law, except as the result of the remains of the image of God; which He does not disdain when they believe in Him, with whom ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 104, footnote 20 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
Righteousness is the Gift of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 976 (In-Text, Margin)
... in his ear for him to hear. For “if righteousness is by the law, then Christ has died in vain.” Seeing, however, that if He has not died in vain, He has ascended up on high, and has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men, it follows that whosoever has, has from this source. But whosoever denies that he has from Him, either has not, or is in great danger of being deprived of what he has. “For it is one God which justifies the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith;”[Romans 3:30] in which clauses there is no real difference in the sense, as if the phrase “ by faith ” meant one thing, and “ through faith ” another, but only a variety of expression. For in one passage, when speaking of the Gentiles,—that is, of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 106, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
Grace Establishes Free Will. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 994 (In-Text, Margin)
Do we then by grace make void free will? God forbid! Nay, rather we establish free will. For even as the law by faith, so free will by grace, is not made void, but established.[Romans 3:31] For neither is the law fulfilled except by free will; but by the law is the knowledge of sin, by faith the acquisition of grace against sin, by grace the healing of the soul from the disease of sin, by the health of the soul freedom of will, by free will the love of righteousness, by love of righteousness the accomplishment of the law. Accordingly, as the law is not made void, but is established through ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 108, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Faith of Those Who are Under the Law Different from the Faith of Others. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1021 (In-Text, Margin)
... adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” The fear, then, of which we speak is slavish; and therefore, even though there be in it a belief in the Lord, yet righteousness is not loved by it, but condemnation is feared. God’s children, however, exclaim, “Abba, Father,”—one of which words they of the circumcision utter; the other, they of the uncircumcision,—the Jew first, and then the Greek; since there is “one God, which justifieth the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.”[Romans 3:30] When indeed they utter this call, they seek something; and what do they seek, but that which they hunger and thirst after? And what else is this but that which is said of them, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 108, footnote 15 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Faith of Those Who are Under the Law Different from the Faith of Others. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1033 (In-Text, Margin)
... Christ’s apostle, or even Christ Himself, who says in His gospel, “Seek and ye shall find;” and who also says to us, speaking by His apostle: “If any one of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given to him. Let him, however, ask in faith, nothing wavering?” This is the faith by which the just man lives; this is the faith whereby he believes on Him who justifies the ungodly; this is the faith through which boasting is excluded,[Romans 3:27] either by the retreat of that with which we become self-inflated, or by the rising of that with which we glory in the Lord. This, again, is the faith by which we procure that largess of the Spirit, of which it is said: “We indeed through the Spirit ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 108, footnote 22 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Faith of Those Who are Under the Law Different from the Faith of Others. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1040 (In-Text, Margin)
... but by loving righteousness. Whence, therefore, arises this love,—that is to say, this charity,—by which faith works, if not from the source whence faith itself obtained it? For it would not be within us, to what extent soever it is in us, if it were not diffused in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us. Now “ the love of God ” is said to be shed abroad in our hearts, not because He loves us, but because He makes us lovers of Himself; just as “ the righteousness of God ”[Romans 3:21] is used in the sense of our being made righteous by His gift; and “ the salvation of the Lord,” in that we are saved by Him; and “ the faith of Jesus Christ,” because He makes us believers in Him. This is that righteousness of God, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 122, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
The Occasion of Publishing This Work; What God’s Righteousness is. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1130 (In-Text, Margin)
... grace of Christ, to which alone the fear of the law, as of a schoolmaster, usefully conducts. Now, the man who understands this understands why he is a Christian. For “If righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” If, however He did not die in vain, in Him only is the ungodly man justified, and to him, on believing in Him who justifies the ungodly, faith is reckoned for righteousness. For all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His blood.[Romans 3:23-24] But all those who do not think themselves to belong to the “all who have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” have of course no need to become Christians, because “they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick;” whence it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 122, footnote 14 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
Free Grace. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1140 (In-Text, Margin)
This grace, however, of Christ, without which neither infants nor adults can be saved, is not rendered for any merits, but is given gratis, on account of which it is also called grace. “Being justified,” says the apostle, “freely through His blood.”[Romans 3:24] Whence they, who are not liberated through grace, either because they are not yet able to hear, or because they are unwilling to obey; or again because they did not receive, at the time when they were unable on account of youth to hear, that bath of regeneration, which they might have received and through which they might have been saved, are indeed justly ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 122, footnote 15 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
Free Grace. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1141 (In-Text, Margin)
... they are unwilling to obey; or again because they did not receive, at the time when they were unable on account of youth to hear, that bath of regeneration, which they might have received and through which they might have been saved, are indeed justly condemned; because they are not without sin, either that which they have derived from their birth, or that which they have added from their own misconduct. “For all have sinned”—whether in Adam or in themselves—“and come short of the glory of God.”[Romans 3:23]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 137, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
How the Term ‘All’ Is to Be Understood. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1251 (In-Text, Margin)
His opponents adduced the passage, “All have sinned,”[Romans 3:23] and he met their statement founded on this with the remark that “the apostle was manifestly speaking of the then existing generation, that is, the Jews and the Gentiles;” but surely the passage which I have quoted, “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men; in which all have sinned,” embraces in its terms the generations both of old and of modern times, both ourselves and our posterity. He adduces also this passage, whence ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 220, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On the Grace of Christ. (HTML)
The Law One Thing, Grace Another. The Utility of the Law. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1799 (In-Text, Margin)
... more firmly and manifestly “concluded under sin,” so that none may pre-sumptuously endeavour to accomplish their justification by means of free will as if by their own resources; but rather “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Because by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.”[Romans 3:19-21] How then manifested without the law, if witnessed by the law? For this very reason the phrase is not, “manifested without the law,” but “the righteousness without the law,” because it is “the righteousness of God;” that is, the righteousness which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 228, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On the Grace of Christ. (HTML)
Pelagius Says that Grace is Given According to Men’s Merits. The Beginning, However, of Merit is Faith; And This is a Gratuitous Gift, Not a Recompense for Our Merits. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1872 (In-Text, Margin)
... free will merit the Lord’s grace, and keep His commandments.” Now it is clear that he says grace is bestowed according to merit, whatever and of what kind soever the grace is which he means, but which he does not plainly declare. For when he speaks of those persons as deserving reward who make a good use of their free will, and as therefore meriting the Lord’s grace, he asserts in fact that a debt is paid to them. What, then, becomes of the apostle’s saying, “Being justified freely by His grace”?[Romans 3:24] And what of his other statement too, “By grace are ye saved”? —where, that he might prevent men’s supposing that it is by works, he expressly added, “ by faith. ” And yet further, lest it should be imagined that faith itself is to be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 247, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
The Righteous Men Who Lived in the Time of the Law Were for All that Not Under the Law, But Under Grace. The Grace of the New Testament Hidden Under the Old. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1981 (In-Text, Margin)
... were not themselves partakers of them. The Apostle Peter says, “Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.” Now on what principle does he make this statement, if it be not because even they were saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not the law of Moses, from which comes not the cure, but only the knowledge of sin?[Romans 3:20] Now, however, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. If, therefore, it is now manifested, it even then existed, but it was hidden. This concealment was symbolized by the veil of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 247, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
The Righteous Men Who Lived in the Time of the Law Were for All that Not Under the Law, But Under Grace. The Grace of the New Testament Hidden Under the Old. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1982 (In-Text, Margin)
... disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.” Now on what principle does he make this statement, if it be not because even they were saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not the law of Moses, from which comes not the cure, but only the knowledge of sin? Now, however, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.[Romans 3:21] If, therefore, it is now manifested, it even then existed, but it was hidden. This concealment was symbolized by the veil of the temple. When Christ was dying, this veil was rent asunder, to signify the full revelation of Him. Even of old, therefore ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 301, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
The Reign of Death, What It Is; The Figure of the Future Adam; How All Men are Justified Through Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2291 (In-Text, Margin)
But what else is meant even by the apostle’s subsequent words? For after he had said the above, he added, “For until the law sin was in the world,” as much as to say that not even the law was able to take away sin. “But sin,” adds he, “was not imputed when there was no law.” It existed then, but was not imputed, for it was not set forth so that it might be imputed. It is on the same principle, indeed, that he says in another passage: “By the law is the knowledge of sin.”[Romans 3:20] “Nevertheless,” says he, “death reigned from Adam to Moses;” that is, as he had already expressed it, “until the law.” Not that there was no sin after Moses, but because even the law, which was given by Moses, was unable to deprive death of its power, which, of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 381, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Fifth Calumny,—That It is Said that Paul and the Rest of the Apostles Were Polluted by Lust. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2557 (In-Text, Margin)
... hand. On which subject he says: “Because by the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all them that believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”[Romans 3:20] And again: “Where is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law.” And again: “For the promise that he should be the heir of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 381, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Fifth Calumny,—That It is Said that Paul and the Rest of the Apostles Were Polluted by Lust. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2558 (In-Text, Margin)
... is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all them that believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” And again: “Where is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law.”[Romans 3:27] And again: “For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but by the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 408, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Why One of the Covenants is Called Old, the Other New. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2728 (In-Text, Margin)
... proud might be convicted who were desirous of establishing their own righteousness, as if they had no need of divine help, and being made guilty of the letter, might flee to the Spirit of grace, not to be justified by their own righteousness, but by that of God—that is, by the righteousness which was given to them of God. For as the same apostle says, “By the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and by the prophets.”[Romans 3:20-21] Because the law, by the very fact that in it no man is justified, affords a witness to the righteousness of God. For that in the law no man is justified before God is manifest, because “the just by faith lives.” Thus, therefore, although the law ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 408, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Why One of the Covenants is Called Old, the Other New. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2731 (In-Text, Margin)
... redemption: that, as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” But that law was kept hidden from the beginning, when nature itself convicted wicked men, who did to others what they would not have done to themselves. But the revelation of the new testament in Christ was made when He was manifested in the flesh, wherein appeared the righteousness of God—that is, the righteousness which is to men from God. For hence he says, “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested.”[Romans 3:21] This is the reason why the former is called the old testament, because it was revealed in the earlier time; and the latter the new, because it was revealed in the later time. In a word, it is because the old testament pertains to the old man, from ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 421, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
The Pelagians Understand that the Law Itself is God’s Grace. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2805 (In-Text, Margin)
... is like to that in which it is said, “The letter killeth, the spirit maketh alive.” For “Knowledge puffeth up,” corresponds to “The letter killeth:” and, “Love edifieth,” to “The spirit maketh alive;” because “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us.” Therefore the knowledge of the law makes a proud transgressor; but, by the gift of charity, he delights to be a doer of the law. We do not then make void the law through faith, but we establish the law,[Romans 3:31] which by terrifying leads to faith. Thus certainly the law worketh wrath, that the mercy of God may bestow grace on the sinner, frightened and turned to the fulfilment of the righteousness of the law through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is that wisdom ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 432, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
The Testimonies of Ambrose Concerning God’s Grace. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2899 (In-Text, Margin)
... could stop the mouth of all men; it could not convert their mind.” In another place also, in the same treatise, he says: “The law condemns the deed; it does not take away its wickedness.” Let them see that this faithful and catholic man agrees with the apostle who says, “Now we know that what things soever the law says, it says to those who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Because by the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight.”[Romans 3:19-20] For from that apostolic opinion Ambrose took and wrote these things.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 437, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Two Letters Written by Augustin to Valentinus and the Monks of Adrumetum. (HTML)
Letter I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2920 (In-Text, Margin)
2. “I beseech you therefore, brethren,” even as the apostle besought the Corinthians, “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you.” For, in the first place, the Lord Jesus, as it is written in the Gospel of the Apostle John, “came not to condemn the world, but that the world by Himself might be saved.” Then, afterwards, as the Apostle Paul writes, “God shall judge the world[Romans 3:6] when He shall come,” as the whole Church confesses in the Creed, “to judge the quick and the dead.” Now, I would ask, if there is no grace of God, how does He save the world? and if there is no free will, how does He judge the world? That book of mine, therefore, or epistle, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 438, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Two Letters Written by Augustin to Valentinus and the Monks of Adrumetum. (HTML)
Letter I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2929 (In-Text, Margin)
... Father of lights.” And so no man can say that it is by the merit of his own works, or by the merit of his own prayers, or by the merit of his own faith, that God’s grace has been conferred upon him; nor suppose that the doctrine is true which those heretics hold, that the grace of God is given us in proportion to our own merit. This is altogether a most erroneous opinion; not, indeed, because there is no desert, good in pious persons, or evil in impious ones (for how else shall God judge the world?),[Romans 3:6] but because a man is converted by that mercy and grace of God, of which the Psalmist says, “As for my God, His mercy shall prevent me;” so that the unrighteous man is justified, that is, becomes just instead of impious, and begins to possess that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 438, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Two Letters Written by Augustin to Valentinus and the Monks of Adrumetum. (HTML)
Letter I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2931 (In-Text, Margin)
... request you), if you will not refuse to send to me the very person by whom they say they have been disturbed. For either he does not understand my book, or else, perhaps, he is himself misunderstood, when he endeavours to solve and explain a question which is a very difficult one, and intelligible to few. For it is none other than the question of God’s grace which has caused persons of no understanding to think that the Apostle Paul prescribes it to us as a rule, “Let us do evil that good may come.”[Romans 3:8] It is in reference to these that the Apostle Peter writes in his second Epistle; “Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless and account that the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 440, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Two Letters Written by Augustin to Valentinus and the Monks of Adrumetum. (HTML)
Letter II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2948 (In-Text, Margin)
8. Wherefore, most dearly beloved, whosoever says, My will suffices for me to perform good works, declines to the right. But, on the other hand, they who think that a good way of life should be forsaken, when they hear God’s grace so preached as to lead to the supposition and belief that it of itself makes men’s wills from evil to good, and it even of itself keeps them what it has made them; and who, as the result of this opinion, go on to say, “Let us do evil that good may come,”[Romans 3:8] —these persons decline to the left. This is the reason why he said to you, “Turn not aside to the right hand, nor to the left;” in other words, do not uphold free will in such wise as to attribute good works to it without the grace of God, nor so defend ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 451, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
Faith Without Good Works is Not Sufficient for Salvation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3051 (In-Text, Margin)
Unintelligent persons, however, with regard to the apostle’s statement: “We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law,”[Romans 3:28] have thought him to mean that faith suffices to a man, even if he lead a bad life, and has no good works. Impossible is it that such a character should be deemed “a vessel of election” by the apostle, who, after declaring that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,” adds at once, “but faith which worketh by love.” It is such faith which severs God’s faithful from unclean demons,—for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 452, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
Who is the Transgressor of the Law? The Oldness of Its Letter. The Newness of Its Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3072 (In-Text, Margin)
Therefore, brethren, you ought by free will not do evil but do good; this, indeed, is the lesson taught us in the law of God, in the Holy Scriptures—both Old and New. Let us, however, read, and by the Lord’s help understand, what the apostle tells us: “Because by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”[Romans 3:20] Observe, he says “ the knowledge,” not “the destruction,” of sin. But when a man knows sin, and grace does not help him to avoid what he knows, undoubtedly the law works wrath. And this the apostle explicitly says in another passage. His words are: “The law worketh wrath.” The reason of this statement ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 453, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
Who is the Transgressor of the Law? The Oldness of Its Letter. The Newness of Its Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3077 (In-Text, Margin)
... to be here understood by “the oldness of the letter,” and what else by “newness of spirit” than grace? Then, that it might not be thought that he had brought any accusation, or suggested any blame, against the law, he immediately takes himself to task with this inquiry: “What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? God forbid.” He then adds the statement: “Nay, I had not known sin but by the law;” which is of the same import as the passage above quoted: “By the law is the knowledge of sin.”[Romans 3:20] Then: “For I had not known lust,” he says, “except the law had said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 475, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace. (HTML)
Why They May Justly Be Rebuked Who Do Not Obey God, Although They Have Not Yet Received the Grace of Obedience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3269 (In-Text, Margin)
... be rebuked in a man because it is not peculiar to him who is rebuked, but is common to all? Nay, let that also be rebuked in individuals, which is common to all. For the circumstance that none is altogether free from it is no reason why it should not attach to each man. Those original sins, indeed, are said to be the sins of others, because individuals derived them from their parents; but they are not unreasonably said to be our own also, because in that one, as the apostle says, all have sinned.[Romans 3:23] Let, then, the damnable source be rebuked, that from the mortification of rebuke may spring the will of regeneration,—if, indeed, he who is rebuked is a child of promise,—in order that, by the noise of the rebuke sounding and lashing from without, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 483, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace. (HTML)
The First Man Himself Also Might Have Stood by His Free Will. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3345 (In-Text, Margin)
... delivered by God’s grace are certainly delivered from the condemnation in which they are already held bound. Whence, even if none should be delivered, no one could justly blame the judgment of God. That, therefore, in comparison of those that perish few, but in their absolute number many, are delivered, is effected by grace, is effected freely: thanks must be given, because it is effected, so that no one may be lifted up as of his own deservings, but that every mouth may be stopped,[Romans 3:19] and he that glorieth may glory in the Lord.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 551, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance. (HTML)
In What Sense the Holy Spirit Solicits for Us, Crying, Abba, Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3708 (In-Text, Margin)
And this especially since “we know not what to pray for as we ought,” says the apostle, “but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; and He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to God.”[Romans 3:26] What is “the Spirit Himself maketh intercession,” but, “causes to make intercession,” “with groanings that cannot be uttered,” but “truthful,” since the Spirit is truth? For He it is of whom the apostle says in another place, “God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, “crying, Abba, Father!” And here what is the meaning of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 347, footnote 15 (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. xvii. 1, ‘After six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and John his brother,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2653 (In-Text, Margin)
... when you hear the Prophet Isaiah saying, “Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow”? Moses and Elias, that is, the Law and the Prophets, what avail they, except they converse with the Lord? Except they give witness to the Lord, who would read the Law or the Prophets? Mark how briefly the Apostle expresses this; “For by the Law is the knowledge of sin; but now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested:” behold the sun; “being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,”[Romans 3:20-21] behold the shining of the Sun.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 350, 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. xvii. 19, ‘Why could not we cast it out’? etc., and on prayer. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2676 (In-Text, Margin)
... infatuation derides him; he will hold out hope to the one that weeps, and will deplore the case of the other that laughs. Why? but because the sounder in health he thinks himself, the more dangerous his sickness is! This was the case with the Jews. Christ came to them that were sick; He found them all sick. Let no one then flatter himself on his healthful state, lest the physician give him up. He found all sick; it is the Apostle’s judgment, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”[Romans 3:23] Though He found them all sick, yet were there two sorts of sick folk. The one came to the Physician, clave to Christ, heard, honoured, followed Him, were converted. He received all without disdaining any, for to heal them, who healed of free favour, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 417, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Luke vii. 37, ‘And behold, a woman who was in the city, a sinner,’ etc. On the remission of sins, against the Donatists. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3218 (In-Text, Margin)
... is said, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Cause there is for fear, yea great cause for fear, lest by these words of the Lord, there steal over the minds of those who understand them not aright, who indulge their fleshly lusts, and are loth to be brought away from them into liberty, that sentiment which, even as the Apostles preached, sprung up in the tongues of slanderous men, of whom the Apostle Paul says, “And as some affirm that we say, Let us do evil that good may come.”[Romans 3:8] For a man may say, “If ‘he to whom little is forgiven, loveth little;’ and he to whom more is forgiven, loveth more; and it is better to love more, than to love less; it is right that we should sin much, and owe much which we may desire to be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 480, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
Again in John v. 2, etc., on the five porches, where lay a great multitude of impotent folk, and of the pool of Siloa. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3724 (In-Text, Margin)
... Scripture teacheth thee nothing else, but restraint from the love of the world, that thy love may speed on to God. As a figure that the Law teaches this, Moses fasted forty days. As a figure that the Prophets teach it, Elias fasted forty days. As a figure that the Gospel teaches it, the Lord fasted forty days. And therefore in the mount too these three appeared, the Lord in the middle, Moses and Elias at the sides. Wherefore? Because the Gospel itself receives testimony from the Law and the Prophets.[Romans 3:21] But why in the number forty is the perfection of righteousness? In the Psalter it is said, “O God, I will sing a new song unto Thee, upon a psaltery of ten strings will I sing praises unto Thee.” Which signifies the ten precepts of the Law, which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 509, 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 of John vii. 6, etc., where Jesus said that He was not going up unto the feast, and notwithstanding went up. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3987 (In-Text, Margin)
... But hear still the same Evangelist John pouring forth what he had drunk in; “And we beheld,” saith he, “His glory.” What did he behold? what glory beheld he? “The glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” See then, see, if we ought not haply to restrain weak or rash disputings, and to presume nothing false of the truth, to give to the Lord what is His due; let us give glory to the Fountain, that we may fill ourselves securely. “Now God is true, but every man a liar.”[Romans 3:4] What is this? God is full; every man is empty; if he will be filled, let him come to Him That is full. “Come unto Him, and be enlightened.” Moreover, if man is empty, in that he is a liar, and he seeks to be filled, and with haste and eagerness runs ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 536, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, John xvi. 7, ‘I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4246 (In-Text, Margin)
... believe not on Him. This is the sin of which He also saith, “If I had not come, they had not had sin.” For what! had they not innumerable other sins? But by His coming this one sin was added to them that believed not, by which the rest should be retained. Whereas in them that believe, because this one was wanting, it was brought to pass that all should be remitted to them that believe. Nor is it with any other view that the Apostle Paul saith, “All have sinned, and have need of the glory of God;[Romans 3:23] that “whosoever believeth on Him, should not be confounded;” as the Psalm also saith “Come ye unto Him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be confounded.” Whoso then glorieth in himself shall be confounded; for he shall not be found ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 536, footnote 14 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, John xvi. 7, ‘I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4249 (In-Text, Margin)
... sins. Accordingly he only shall not be confounded who glorieth in the Lord. “For all have sinned, and have need of the glory of God.” And so when he was speaking of the infidelity of the Jews, he did not say, “For if some of them have sinned, shall their sin make the faith of God of none effect?” For how should he say, “If some of them have sinned;” when he said himself, “For all have sinned”? But he said, “If some of them believed not, shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect?”[Romans 3:3] That he might point out more expressly this sin, by which alone the door is closed against the rest that they by the grace of God should not be remitted. Of which one sin by the coming of the Holy Ghost, that is by the gift of His grace, which is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 538, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the same words of the Gospel, John xvi. 8, ‘He will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4264 (In-Text, Margin)
... this one above all the rest, by which it comes to pass that the rest are not loosed, so long as proud man believes not in an Humbled God? For so it is written; “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” Now this grace of God is a gift of God. But the greatest gift is the Holy Ghost Himself; and therefore is it called grace. For forasmuch “as all had sinned, and needed the glory of God; because by one man sin entered into the world, and death by his sin in whom all have sinned;”[Romans 3:23] therefore is it grace because given gratuitously. And therefore is it given gratuitously, because it is not rendered as a reward after a strict scrutiny of deserts, but given as a gift after the pardon of sins.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 544, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the same words of the Gospel of John. xxi. 15, ‘Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these?’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4324 (In-Text, Margin)
... would die for the Lord, when the Lord was first to die for him. When he said then, “I will be with Thee even unto death,” and “I will lay down my life for Thee;” the Lord answered him, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for Me? Verily I say unto thee, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice.” They came to the hour; and because that Christ was God, and Peter a man, the Scripture was fulfilled, “I said in my panic, Every man is a liar.” And the Apostle says, “For God is true, and every man a liar.”[Romans 3:4] Christ true, Peter a liar.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 112, 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 IV. 1–18. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 358 (In-Text, Margin)
... you are well aware. For Moses fasted forty days, and Elias as many; and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did Himself fulfill this number of fasting. By Moses is signified the law; by Elias, the prophets; by the Lord, the gospel. It was for this reason that these three appeared on that mountain, where He showed Himself to His disciples in the brightness of His countenance and vesture. For He appeared in the middle, between Moses and Elias, as the gospel had witness from the law and the prophets.[Romans 3:21] Whether, therefore, in the law, or in the prophets, or in the gospel, the number forty is commended to our attention in the case of fasting. Now fasting, in its large and general sense, is to abstain from the iniquities and unlawful pleasures of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 164, footnote 3 (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. 15–44. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 499 (In-Text, Margin)
... they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already. Faith is indeed distinguished from works, even as the apostle says, “that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law:”[Romans 3:28] there are works which appear good, without faith in Christ; but they are not good, because they are not referred to that end in which works are good; “for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” For that reason, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 165, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter VI. 15–44. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 502 (In-Text, Margin)
... that cometh to me;” this is the same thing as “He that believeth on me;” and “shall never hunger” is to be understood to mean the same thing as “shall never thirst.” For by both is signified that eternal sufficiency in which there is no want. You desire bread from heaven; you have it before you, and yet you do not eat. “But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and ye believed not.” But I have not on that account lost my people. “For hath your unbelief made the faith of God of none effect?”[Romans 3:3] For, see thou what follows: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out of doors.” What kind of within is that, whence there is no going out of doors? Noble interior, sweet retreat! O secret ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 277, footnote 10 (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 XI. 1–54. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 998 (In-Text, Margin)
23. “Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been [dead] four days. Jesus saith unto her, Have I not said unto thee, that, if thou believest, thou shalt see the glory of God?” What does He mean by this, “thou shalt see the glory of God”? That He can raise to life even one who is putrid and hath been four days [dead]. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;[Romans 3:23] and, “Where sin abounded, grace also did superabound.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 325, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter XIV. 4–6. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1282 (In-Text, Margin)
... flesh was buried, Christ was buried (for thus with the heart we believe unto righteousness, and thus with the mouth do we make confession unto salvation); so when the flesh came from death unto life, Christ came to life. And because Christ is the Word of God, He is also the life. And thus in a wonderful and ineffable manner He, who never laid down or lost Himself, came to Himself. But God, as was said, had come through the flesh to men, the truth to liars; for God is true, and every man a liar.[Romans 3:4] When, therefore, He withdrew His flesh from amongst men, and carried it up there where no liar is found, He also Himself—for the Word was made flesh—returned by Himself, that is, by His flesh, to the truth, which is none other but Himself. And this ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 465, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John I. 1–II. 11. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2027 (In-Text, Margin)
... to Him those words in the same Psalm, “For I acknowledge mine iniquity.” “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purge us from all iniquity. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” If thou shalt say, I have not sinned, thou makest Him a liar, while thou wishest to make thyself true. How is it possible that God should be a liar, and man true, when the Scripture saith the contrary, “Every man a liar, God alone true”?[Romans 3:4] Consequently, God true through Himself, thou true through God; because through thyself, a liar.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 15, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm V (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 151 (In-Text, Margin)
17. “For Thou wilt bless the just man” (ver. 12). This is blessing, to glory in God, and to be inhabited by God. Such sanctification is given to the just. But that they may be justified, a calling goes before: which is not of merit, but of the grace of God. “For all have sinned, and want the glory of God.”[Romans 3:23] “For whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Since then calling is not of our merit, but of the goodness and mercy of God, he went on to say, “O Lord, as with the shield of Thy good will Thou hast crowned us.” For God’s good will goes before our good will, to call sinners to repentance. And these ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 46, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 486 (In-Text, Margin)
4. “All have gone out of the way, they have together become useless:” that is, the Jews have become as the Gentiles, who were spoken of above. “There is none that doeth good, no not up to one” (ver. 3), must be interpreted as above. “Their throat is an open sepulchre.”[Romans 3:13-18] Either the voracity of the ever open palate is signified: or allegorically those who slay, and as it were devour those they have slain, into whom they instil the disorder of their own conversation. Like to which with the contrary meaning is that which was said to Peter, “Kill and eat;” that he should convert the Gentiles to his own faith and good conversation. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 277, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2620 (In-Text, Margin)
... Resurrection; doth it profit us nothing that we have received the Law, and that in the justifications of the Law we have lived, and have kept the commandments of the fathers? Nothing will it avail? The same to them as to us.” Let them not strive, let them not dispute. “Let not them that are bitter be exalted in their own selves.” O flesh miserable and wasting, art thou not sinful? Why crieth out thy tongue? Let the conscience be listened to. “For all men have sinned, and need the glory of God.”[Romans 3:23] Know thyself, human weakness. Thou didst receive the Law, in order that a transgressor also of the Law thou mightest be: for thou hast not kept and fulfilled that which thou didst receive. There hath come to thee because of the Law, not the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 298, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2871 (In-Text, Margin)
... that is, the works of her. Of whom, except of Ethiopia herself? For this in the Greek is not ambiguous: for the word “of her” there in the feminine gender most clearly hath been put down. And thus nothing else hath been said than “Ethiopia shall come before her hands to God,” that is, by believing in God she shall come before her works. For, “I judge,” saith the Apostle, “that a man is justified through faith without the works of the Law. Is He God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles?”[Romans 3:28] So then Ethiopia, which seemeth to be the utmost limit of the Gentiles, is justified through faith, without the works of the Law.…For the expression in Greek, χεῖρα αὐτῆς, which most copies have, both of “hand of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 331, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3217 (In-Text, Margin)
14. But while he is explaining the reasons why so great honour is paid Him by kings, and He is served of all nations: “because He hath delivered,” he saith, “the needy man from the mighty, and the poor man, to whom was no helper”(ver. 12). This needy and poor man is the people of men believing in Him. In this people are also kings adoring Him. For they do not disdain to be needy and poor, that is, humbly confessing sins, and needing the glory of God[Romans 3:23] and the grace of God, in order that this King, Son of the King, may deliver them from the mighty one. For this same mighty one is he who above was called the Slanderer: whom mighty to subdue men to himself, and to hold them bound in captivity, not his virtue did make, but ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 368, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3553 (In-Text, Margin)
... propositions from the beginning.” So then the beginning is the Old Testament, the end is the New. For fear doth prevail in the law. “But the end of the law is Christ for righteousness to every one believing;” at whose bestowing “love is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which hath been given to us:” and love made perfect doth cast out fear, inasmuch as now without the Law the righteousness of God hath been made manifest. But inasmuch as He hath a testimony by the Law and the Prophets,[Romans 3:21] therefore, “He hath raised up a testimony in Jacob.” For even that Tabernacle which was set up with a work so remarkable and full of such wondrous meanings, is named the Tabernacle of Testimony, wherein was the veil over the Ark of the Law, like the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 394, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3817 (In-Text, Margin)
15. “And My people obeyed not My voice” (ver. 11). For He would not speak these things except to His own people. For, “we know that whatsoever things the Law saith, it saith to them that are in the Law.”[Romans 3:19] “And Israel did not listen to Me.” Who? To whom? Israel to Me. O ungrateful soul! Through Me the soul, by Me the soul called, by Me brought back to hope, by Me washed from sins! “And Israel did not listen to Me!” For they are baptized and pass through the Red Sea: but on the way they murmur, gainsay, complain, are stirred with seditions, ungrateful to Him who delivered them from pursuing ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 476, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4463 (In-Text, Margin)
... a fire unto them, they melted at His presence like wax; so long hard, until that fire was applied. Every height hath been levelled; it dareth not now blaspheme Christ: and though the Pagan believeth not in Him, he blasphemeth Him not; though not as yet become a living stone, yet the hard hill hath been subdued. “At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth:” not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also, as the Apostle saith; for He is not the God of the Jews alone, but of the Gentiles also.[Romans 3:29] He is therefore the Lord of the whole earth, the Lord Jesus Christ born in Judæa, but not born for Judæa alone, because before He was born He created all men; and He who created, also new created, all men.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 478, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XCVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4479 (In-Text, Margin)
... rejoiced: and the daughters of Judah were glad.” Thus it is written, “The apostles and brethren that were in Judæa heard.” See if the daughters of Judæa rejoiced not. What did they hear? “That the Gentiles had also received the word of God.”…Therefore, “The daughters of Judah rejoiced because of Thy judgments, O Lord.” What is, because of Thy judgments? Because in any nation, and in any people, he that serveth Him is accepted of Him: for He is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.[Romans 3:29]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 521, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4790 (In-Text, Margin)
5. Unto whom is it said, “O ye seed of Abraham His servant, ye children of Jacob, His chosen”? (ver. 6).…He next addeth, “He is the Lord our God: His judgments are in all the world” (ver. 7). Is He the God of the Jews only?[Romans 3:29] God forbid! “He is the Lord our God:” because the Church, where His judgments are preached, is in all the world.…
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 534, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CVII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4886 (In-Text, Margin)
... assembly of the people, and praise Him in the seat of the elders” (ver. 32). Let them exalt, let them praise, peoples and elders, merchants and pilots. For what hath He done in this assembly? What hath He established? Whence hath He rescued it? What hath He granted it? Even as He resisted the proud, and gave grace to the humble: the proud, that is, the first people of the Jews, arrogant, and extolling itself on its descent from Abraham, and because to that nation “were entrusted the oracles of God.”[Romans 3:2] These things did not avail them unto soundness, but unto pride of heart, rather to swelling than to greatness. What then did God, resisting the proud, but giving grace to the humble; cutting off the natural branches for their pride; grafting in the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 537, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4918 (In-Text, Margin)
2. The Psalm, then, beginneth thus: “O God, be not silent as to my praise; for the mouth of the ungodly, yea, the mouth of the deceitful is opened upon me” (ver. 1). Whence it appeareth, both that the blame, which the ungodly and the deceitful is not silent of, is false, and that the praise, which God is not silent of, is true. “For God is true, but every man a liar;”[Romans 3:4] for no man is true, except him in whom God speaketh. But the highest praise is that of the only-begotten Son of God, in which He is proclaimed even that which He is, the only-begotten Son of God. But this did not appear, but, when His weakness appeared, lay hid, when the mouth of the ungodly and deceitful was ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 564, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
Daleth. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5160 (In-Text, Margin)
29. “Take Thou from me the way of iniquity” (ver. 29). And since the law of works hath entered in, that sin might abound; he addeth, “And pity me according to Thy law.” By what law, save by the law of faith? Hear the Apostle: “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works. Nay: but by the law of faith.”[Romans 3:27] This is the law of faith, whereby we believe and pray that it may be granted us through grace; that we may effect that which we cannot fulfil through ourselves; that we may not, ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to stablish our own, fail to submit ourselves unto the righteousness of God.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 576, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
Mem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5271 (In-Text, Margin)
... understandeth the commandment of God above these his enemies, wishes to be found with the Apostle, “not having” his “own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ, which is of God;” not that the Law which his enemies read is not of God, but because they do not understand it, like him who understandeth it above his enemies, by clinging to the Stone upon which they stumbled. For “Christ is the end of the law,” etc., “that they may be justified freely through His grace;”[Romans 3:24] not like those who imagine that they obey the law of their own strength, and are therefore, though by God’s law, yet still endeavouring to set up their own righteousness; but as the son of promise, who hungering and athirst after it, by seeking, by ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 582, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
Pe. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5321 (In-Text, Margin)
... give life. For it was given for this end, that it might make thee a little one instead of great, that it might show that thou hadst not strength to do the law of thine own power: and that thus, wanting aid and destitute, thou mightest fly unto grace, saying, “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak.” …Let all be little ones, and let all the world be guilty before Thee: because “by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified” in Thy sight; “for by the Law is the knowledge of sin,” etc.[Romans 3:19-21] These are Thy wonderful testimonies, which the soul of this little one hath searched; and hath therefore found, because he became humbled and a little one. For who doth Thy commandments as they ought to be done, that is, by “faith which worketh ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 584, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXIX (HTML)
Tadze. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5337 (In-Text, Margin)
... righteousness of God; but he, the younger, hath not forgotten, for he hath not wished to have a righteousness of his own, but that of God, of which he now also saith, “Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Thy law is the truth” (ver. 142). For how is not the law truth, through which came the knowledge of sin, and that which giveth testimony of the righteousness of God? For thus the Apostle saith: “The righteousness of God is manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”[Romans 3:20-21]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 626, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5664 (In-Text, Margin)
... He says, “No one cometh to Me, save whom the Father draweth.” They come suddenly from the woods, the desert, the most distant and lofty mountains, to the Church; and many of them, nay, near all hold this language, so that we see of a truth that God teacheth them within. The prophecy of Scripture is fulfilled, when it says, “And they shall all be taught of God.” We say to them, What do ye long for? And they answer, To see the glory of God. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”[Romans 3:23] They believe, they are sanctified, they will to have clergy ordained for them. Is it not fulfilled, “and He will be called upon among His servants”?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 634, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5712 (In-Text, Margin)
... exalted kings are in earthly eminence, the more ought they to humble themselves before God. What do they do? “Because they have heard all the words of Thy mouth.” In a certain nation were hidden the Law and the Prophets, “all the words of Thy mouth:” in the Jewish nation alone were “all the words of Thy mouth,” the nation which the Apostle praiseth, saying, “What advantage hath the Jew? Much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” These were the words of God.[Romans 3:1-2] …What meant Gideon’s fleece? It is like the nation of the Jews in the midst of the world, which had the grace of sacraments, not indeed openly manifested, but hidden in a cloud, or in a veil, like the dew in the fleece. The time came when the dew ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 354, footnote 3 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1125 (In-Text, Margin)
On the departure of Flavian,[Romans 3:11] Bishop of Antioch, who was gone on an embassy to the Emperor Theodosius, on behalf of the city. Of the dignity of the Priesthood. What is true fasting. Slander worse than devouring the human body. And finally of those who had been put to death on account of the sedition; and against those who complained that many innocent persons were apprehended.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 408, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily X (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1441 (In-Text, Margin)
5. Dost thou not perceive how this body wastes away, withers, and perishes after the secession of the soul, and each of the elements thereof returns to its own appointed place?[Romans 3:11] This very same thing, indeed, would also happen to the world, if the Power which always governs it had left it devoid of Its own providence. For if a ship does not hold together without a pilot, but soon founders, how could the world have held together so long a time if there was no one governing its course? And that I may not enlarge, suppose the world to be a ship; the earth to be placed below as the keel; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 441, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily XV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1627 (In-Text, Margin)
... matters. Often has a wife, often have children, often have friends, often have neighbours, proved a snare to the unheeding! And why, it is asked, are there so many snares? That we may not fly low, but seek the things that are above. For just as birds, as long as they cleave the upper air, are not easily caught; so also thou, as long as thou lookest to things above, wilt not be easily captured, whether by a snare, or by any other device. The devil is a fowler. Soar, then, too high for his arrows.[Romans 3:31] The man who hath mounted aloft will no longer admire any thing in the affairs of this life. But as when we have ascended to the top of the mountains, the city and its walls seem to us to be but small, and the men appear to us to be going along upon ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 56, footnote 1 (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 IX on Acts iii. 12. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 214 (In-Text, Margin)
... puts this by way of apology for the Jews, hoping that they may also close with what he says. “He hath so fulfilled,” he says. Do you see now how he refers everything to that source? “Repent ye therefore,” he says, “and be converted.” He does not add, “from your sins;” but, “that your sins, may be blotted out,” means the same thing. And then he adds the gain: “So shall the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord.” (v. 19.) This betokens them in a sad state, brought low by many wars.[Romans 3:4] For it is to the case of one on fire, and craving comfort, that the expression applies. And see now how he advances. In his first sermon, he but slightly hinted at the resurrection, and Christ’s sitting in heaven; but here he also speaks of His ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 385, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans (HTML)
Homily VIII on Rom. iv. 1, 2. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1293 (In-Text, Margin)
... of the righteousness of God. But God is set forth in things which are glorious and shining, and great. However, he nevertheless draws support for this from what he is at present upon, and carries his discourse forward by the method of question. And this he is always in the habit of doing both for clearness sake, and for the sake of confidence in what is said. Above, for instance, he did it, where he says, “What advantage then hath the Jew?” (ib. iii. 1.) and, “What then have we more than they?”[Romans 3:9] (ib. 9) and again, “where then is boasting? it is excluded” (Rom. iii. 27): and here, “what then shall we say that Abraham our father?” etc. Now since the Jews kept turning over and over the fact, that the Patriarch, and friend of God, was the first ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 389, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans (HTML)
Homily VIII on Rom. iv. 1, 2. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1310 (In-Text, Margin)
He had shown that faith is necessary, that it is older than circumcision, that it is more mighty than the Law, that it establisheth the Law. For if all sinned, it was necessary: if one being uncircumcised was justified, it is older: if the knowledge of sin is by the Law and yet it was without the Law made evident,[Romans 3:21] it is more mighty: if it has testimony borne to it by the Law, and establisheth the Law, it is not opposed to it, but friendly and allied to it. Again, he shows upon other grounds too that it was not even possible by the Law to attain to the inheritance, and after having matched it with the circumcision, and gained it the victory, he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 445, footnote 2 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans (HTML)
Homily XIV on Rom. viii. 12, 13. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1428 (In-Text, Margin)
... disparaging our present world, we groan, he says, not as finding fault with the present system, but through a desire of those greater things. And this he shows in the words, “Waiting for the adoption.” What dost thou say, let me hear? Thou didst insist on it at every turn, and didst cry aloud, that we were already made sons, and now dost thou place this good thing among hopes, writing that we must needs wait for it? Now it is to set this right by the sequel that he says, “to wit, the redemption[Romans 3:24] of our body.” That is, the perfect glory. Our lot indeed is at present uncertainty to our last breath, since many of us that were sons have become dogs and prisoners. But if we decease with a good hope, then is the gift unmovable, and clearer, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 12, page 75, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on First and Second Corinthians
Homilies on First Corinthians. (HTML)
Homily XIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 71 (In-Text, Margin)
For this cause he was more awful than the Mercy Seat[Romans 3:25] and the Cherubim. For no such voice went out from them as from hence; but from them it talked with men chiefly about things of sense, from the tongue of Paul on the other hand about the things above the heavens. Again, from the Mercy Seat it spake oracles to the Jews alone; but from hence to the whole world: and there it was by things without life; but here by a soul instinct with virtue.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 82, 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 258 (In-Text, Margin)
It seems necessary to state what are meant by “families.” (πατριαί) Here on earth, indeed there are “families” that is races sprung from one parent stock; but in heaven how can this be, where none is born of another? Surely then, by “families,”[Romans 3:4] he means either the assemblies and orders of heavenly beings; as also we find it written in Scripture, “the family of Amattari:” (1 Sam. x. 21. See Septuagint.) or else that it is from Him from whom earthly fathers have their name of father.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 114, footnote 3 (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 4:17-19 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 329 (In-Text, Margin)
... again, he is called righteous, who has no charge against him; for so even in courts of justice we say that that man is righteous, who has been unrighteously treated, and has not done unrighteously in return. If therefore we also before the terrible Tribunal shall be able to appear righteous one towards another, we may meet with some lovingkindness. Toward God indeed it is impossible we should appear so, whatever we may have to show. For everywhere He overcometh in what is righteous, as the Prophet[Romans 3:4] also saith, “That Thou mightest prevail when Thou comest into judgment.” But if we violate not what is righteous towards each other, then shall we be righteous. If we shall be able to show that we have been treated unrighteously, then shall we be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 114, footnote 3 (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 4:17-19 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 329 (In-Text, Margin)
... again, he is called righteous, who has no charge against him; for so even in courts of justice we say that that man is righteous, who has been unrighteously treated, and has not done unrighteously in return. If therefore we also before the terrible Tribunal shall be able to appear righteous one towards another, we may meet with some lovingkindness. Toward God indeed it is impossible we should appear so, whatever we may have to show. For everywhere He overcometh in what is righteous, as the Prophet[Romans 3:4] also saith, “That Thou mightest prevail when Thou comest into judgment.” But if we violate not what is righteous towards each other, then shall we be righteous. If we shall be able to show that we have been treated unrighteously, then shall we be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 189, footnote 1 (Image)
Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. (HTML)
Homilies on Philippians. (HTML)
Philippians 1:8-11 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 542 (In-Text, Margin)
And not merely upright, but “filled with the fruits of righteousness.” For there is indeed a righteousness not according to Christ, as, for example, a moral life. “Which are through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” Seest thou[Romans 3:22] that I speak not of mine own glory, but the righteousness of God; and oftentimes he calls mercy itself too righteousness; let not your love, he says, indirectly injure you, by hindering your perception of things profitable, and take heed lest you fall through your love to any one. For I would indeed that your love should be increased, but not so that ye should be injured by it. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 58, footnote 1 (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 II (HTML)
Creeds published at Sirmium in Presence of the Emperor Constantius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 372 (In-Text, Margin)
... declared over the whole world; and his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, God, and Saviour, begotten of him before the ages. But we ought not to say that there are two Gods, since the Lord himself has said ‘I go unto my Father and your Father, and unto my God and your God.’ Therefore he is God even of all, as the apostle also taught, ‘Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yea of the Gentiles also; seeing that it is one God who shall justify the circumcision by faith.’[Romans 3:29-30] And in all other matters there is agreement, nor is there any ambiguity. But since it troubles very many to understand about that which is termed substantia in Latin, and ousia in Greek; that is to say, in order to mark the sense more ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 155, footnote 7 (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 the removal of the remains of John and of the faith of Theodosius and his sisters. (HTML)
... leaving him an orphan in extreme youth, but the God of his fathers and of his forefathers permitted him not to suffer trial from his orphanhood, but provided for his nurture in piety, protected his empire from the assaults of sedition, and bridled rebellious hearts. Ever mindful of these blessings he honours his benefactor with hymns of praise. Associated with him in this divine worship are his sisters, who have maintained virginity throughout their lives, thinking the study of the divine oracles[Romans 3:21] the greatest delight, and reckoning that riches beyond robbers’ reach are to be found in ministering to the poor. The emperor himself was adorned by many graces, and not least by his kindness and clemency, an unruffled calm of soul and a faith as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 6, footnote 2 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Heathen. (Contra Gentes.) (HTML)
Contra Gentes. (Against the Heathen.) (HTML)
Part I (HTML)
Evil, then consists essentially in the choice of what is lower in preference to what is higher. (HTML)
... for it, began to do the contrary; whence, moving their hands to the contrary, it made them commit murder, and led away their hearing to disobedience, and their other members to adultery instead of to lawful procreation; and the tongue, instead of right speaking, to slander and insult and perjury; the hands again, to stealing and striking fellow-men; and the sense of smell to many sorts of lascivious odours; the feet, to be swift to shed blood, and the belly to drunkenness and insatiable gluttony[Romans 3:10]. 2. All of which things are a vice and sin of the soul: neither is there any cause of them at all, but only the rejection of better things. For just as if a charioteer, having mounted his chariot on the race-course, were to pay no attention to the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 39, footnote 5 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
The Incarnation of the Word. (HTML)
On the Incarnation of the Word. (HTML)
On the other hand there was the consistency of God's nature, not to be sacrificed for our profit. Were men, then, to be called upon to repent? But repentance cannot avert the execution of a law; still less can it remedy a fallen nature. We have incurred corruption and need to be restored to the Grace of God's Image. None could renew but He Who had created. He alone could (1) recreate all, (2) suffer for all, (3) represent all to the Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 215 (In-Text, Margin)
But just as this consequence must needs hold, so, too, on the other side the just claims[Romans 3:26] of God lie against it: that God should appear true to the law He had laid down concerning death. For it were monstrous for God, the Father of truth, to appear a liar for our profit and preservation. 2. So here, once more, what possible course was God to take? To demand repentance of men for their transgression? For this one might pronounce worthy of God; as though, just as from transgression men have become set towards corruption, so from repentance ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 41, footnote 21 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Marcella. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 684 (In-Text, Margin)
2. You may ask what is the use of repeating all this. I will reply in the apostle’s words, “much every way.”[Romans 3:2] First, it shows that all must hail with joy the release of a soul which has trampled Satan under foot, and won for itself, at last, a crown of tranquillity. Secondly, it gives me an opportunity of briefly describing her life. Thirdly, it enables me to assure you that the consul-elect, that detractor of his age, is now in Tartarus.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 124, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Heliodorus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1813 (In-Text, Margin)
... similitude of Adam’s transgression.” If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be in hell, who can be in the kingdom of heaven? If Thy friends—even those who had not sinned themselves—were yet for the sins of another liable to the punishment of offending Adam, what must we think of those who have said in their hearts “There is no God;” who “are corrupt and abominable” in their self-will, and of whom it is said “they are gone out of the way, they are become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one”?[Romans 3:12] Even if Lazarus is seen in Abraham’s bosom and in a place of refreshment, still the lower regions cannot be compared with the kingdom of heaven. Before Christ’s coming Abraham is in the lower regions: after Christ’s coming the robber is in paradise. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 273, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Ctesiphon. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3783 (In-Text, Margin)
I need not go through the lives of the saints or call attention to the moles and spots which mark the fairest skins. Many of our writers, it is true, unwisely, take this course; however, a few sentences of scripture will dispose alike of the heretics and the philosophers. What says the chosen vessel? “God had concluded all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all;” and in another place, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”[Romans 3:23] The preacher also who is the mouthpiece of the Divine Wisdom freely protests and says: “there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not:” and again, “if thy people sin against thee, for there is no man that sinneth not:” and “who can say, I have made my ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 277, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Ctesiphon. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3850 (In-Text, Margin)
... produce nobody or hardly anybody who is without sin, yet have to admit that everybody may be sinless if he likes. God’s commandments, it is argued, are possible to keep. Who denies it? But how this truth is to be understood the chosen vessel thus most clearly explains: “what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh;” and again: “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.”[Romans 3:20] And to shew that it is not only the law of Moses that is meant or all those precepts which collectively are termed the law, the same apostle writes: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 411, footnote 7 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4911 (In-Text, Margin)
... to show that railing and murder, the use of the expression raca and adultery, the idle word and godlessness, are rewarded with the same punishment, I have already given you my reply, and will now briefly repeat it. You must either deny that you are a sinner if you are not to be in danger of Gehenna: or, if you are a sinner you will be sent to hell for even a light offence: “The mouth that lieth,” says one, “kills the soul.” I suspect that you, like other men, have occasionally told a lie:[Romans 3:4] for all men are liars, that God alone may be true, and that He may be justified in His words, and may prevail when He judges. It follows either that you will not be a man lest you be found a liar: or if you are a man and are consequently a liar, you ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 455, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5174 (In-Text, Margin)
A. Although you do not say it in so many words, however reluctant you may be to admit the fact, it follows by natural sequence from your proposition. For if a man can be without sin, and it is clear the Apostles were not without sin, a man can be higher than the Apostles: to say nothing of patriarchs and prophets whose righteousness under the law was not perfect, as the Apostle says,[Romans 3:23-24] “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiator.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 471, footnote 7 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5280 (In-Text, Margin)
... alone changeth not. You ask in what respects Abel, Enoch, Joshua the son of Nun, or Elisha, and the rest of the saints have sinned. There is no need to look for a knot in a bulrush; I freely confess I do not know; and I only wish that, when sins are manifest, I might still be silent. “I know nothing against myself,” says St. Paul, “yet am I not hereby justified.” “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” Before Him no man is justified. And so Paul says confidently,[Romans 3:23] “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”; and “God hath shut up all under sin that He may have mercy upon all”; and similarly in other passages which we have repeated again and again.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 480, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5349 (In-Text, Margin)
... judgment with Thy servant”; and “In Thy sight no man living shall be justified.” You boast that you are holy, innocent, and pure, and spread out clean hands unto God. And you are not satisfied with glorying in all your works, unless you say that you are pure from all sins of speech; and you tell us how righteous, how spotless, how free from all falsehood your lips are. The Psalmist sings, “Every man is a liar”; and this is supported by apostolical authority: “That God may be true,” says St. Paul,[Romans 3:4] “and every man a liar”; and yet you have lips righteous, spotless, and free from all falsehood. Isaiah laments, saying, “Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”; and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 73, footnote 10 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the words Incarnate, and Made Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1364 (In-Text, Margin)
... Thou shalt not commit adultery, a man dared to enter a place of harlotry and transgress. After Moses, Prophets were sent to cure Israel: but in their healing office they lamented that they were not able to overcome the disease, so that one of them says, Woe is me! for the godly man is perished out of the earth, and there is none that doeth right among men: and again, They are all gone out of the way, they are together became unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one[Romans 3:12]: and again, Cursing and stealing, and adultery, and murder are poured out upon the land. Their sons and their daughters they sacrificed unto devils. They used auguries, and enchantments, and divinations. And again, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 107, footnote 11 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Clause, And Shall Come in Glory to Judge the Quick and the Dead; Of Whose Kingdom There Shall Be No End. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1860 (In-Text, Margin)
11. But as, when formerly He was to take man’s nature, and God was expected to be born of a Virgin, the devil created prejudice against this, by craftily preparing among idol-worshippers[Romans 3:30] fables of false gods, begetting and begotten of women, that, the falsehood having come first, the truth, as he supposed, might be disbelieved; so now, since the true Christ is to come a second time, the adversary, taking occasion by the expectation of the simple, and especially of them of the circumcision, brings in a certain man who is a magician, and most expert in sorceries and enchantments of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 237, footnote 4 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Amphilochius, concerning the Canons. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2698 (In-Text, Margin)
XX. I do not think that any condemnation ought to be passed on women who professed virginity while in heresy, and then afterwards preferred marriage. “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.”[Romans 3:19] Those who have not yet put on Christ’s yoke do not recognise the laws of the Lord. They are therefore to be received in the church, as having remission in the case of these sins too, as of all, from their faith in Christ. As a general rule, all sins formerly committed in the catechumenical state are not taken into account. The Church does not receive these persons without baptism; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 155, footnote 11 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter XIX. Having proved above that the Spirit abides and speaks in the prophets, St. Ambrose infers that He knows all things which are of God, and therefore is One with the Father and the Son. This same point he establishes again from the fact that He possesses all that God possesses, namely, Godhead, knowledge of the heart, truth, a Name above every name, and power to raise the dead, as is proved from Ezekiel, and in this He is equal to the Son. (HTML)
147. God has as an attribute that He is true for it is written: “Let God be true and every man a liar.”[Romans 3:4] Does the Spirit lie Who is the Spirit of Truth? and Whom we have shown to be called the Truth, since John called Him too the Truth, as also the Son? And David says in the psalm: “Send out Thy light and Thy truth, they have led me and brought me to Thy holy hill and to Thy tabernacles.” If you consider that in this passage the Son is the light, then the Spirit is the Truth, or if you consider the Son to be the Truth, then the Spirit is the ...
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[Romans 3:2] 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 237, footnote 2 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter XI. The purpose and healing effects of the Incarnation. The profitableness of faith, whereby we know that Christ bore all infirmities for our sakes,--Christ, Whose Godhead revealed Itself in His Passion; whence we understand that the mission of the Son of God entailed no subservience, which belief we need not fear lest it displease the Father, Who declares Himself to be well pleased in His Son. (HTML)
98. Fear not that the Son’s act displeased the Father, seeing that the Son Himself saith: “Whatsoever things are His good pleasure, I do always,” and “The works that I do, He Himself doeth.” How, then, could the Father be displeased with that which He Himself did through the Son? For it is One God, Who, as it is written, “hath justified circumcision in consequence of faith, and uncircumcision through faith.”[Romans 3:30]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 248, 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 V. Passages brought forward from Scripture to show that “made” does not always mean the same as “created;” whence it is concluded that the letter of Holy Writ should not be made the ground of captious arguments, after the manner of the Jews, who, however, are shown to be not so bad as the heretics, and thus the principle already set forth is confirmed anew. (HTML)
39. Nor, again, are these men careful to avoid doing dishonour to the Father, in their impious application of the fact, that Christ was “made” Wisdom for us, to His incomprehensible generation, that transcends all limits and divisions of time; for, leaving it out of account that dishonour done to the Son is an insult to the Father, they do even carry their blasphemy in assault upon the Father, of Whom it is written: “Let God be made truthful, but every man a liar.”[Romans 3:4] If indeed they think that the Son is spoken of, they do not foreclose against His generation, but in that they rest on the authority of this text they do confess that which they reject, namely, that Christ is God, and true God.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 331, footnote 2 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter III. To the argument of the Novatians, that they only deny forgiveness in the case of greater sins, St. Ambrose replies, that this is also an offence against God, Who gave the power to forgive all sins, but that of course a more severe penance must follow in case of graver sins. He points out likewise that this distinction as to the gravity of sins assigns, as it were, severity to God, Whose mercy in the Incarnation is overlooked by the Novatians. (HTML)
11. And what perversity it is to claim for yourselves what can be forgiven, and, as you say, to reserve to God what cannot be forgiven. This would be to reserve to oneself the cases for mercy, to God those for severity. And what as to that saying: “Let God be true but every man a liar, as it is written, That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words, and overcome when Thou art judged”?[Romans 3:4] In order, then, that we may recognize that the God of mercy is rather prone to indulgence than to severity, it is said: “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice.” How, then, can your sacrifice, who refuse mercy, be acceptable to God, since He says that He wills not the death of a sinner, but his correction?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 425, footnote 8 (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 VII. Of the main purpose of God and His daily Providence. (HTML)
... hand every day, which, while it “willeth all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” calleth all without any exception, saying: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” But if He calls not all generally but only some, it follows that not all are heavy laden either with original or actual sin, and that this saying is not a true one: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;” nor can we believe that “death passed on all men.”[Romans 3:23] And so far do all who perish, perish against the will of God, that God cannot be said to have made death, as Scripture itself testifies: “For God made not death, neither rejoiceth in the destruction of the living.” And hence it comes that for the ...
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[Romans 3:2] 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, ...