Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Romans 12:1
There are 31 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 574, footnote 18 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenæus (HTML)
XXXVII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4871 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Lord instituted a new oblation in the new covenant, according to [the declaration of] Malachi the prophet. For, “from the rising of the sun even to the setting my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice;” as John also declares in the Apocalypse: “The incense is the prayers of the saints.” Then again, Paul exhorts us “to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”[Romans 12:1] And again, “Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips.” Now those oblations are not according to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord took away from the midst by cancelling it; but they are according to the Spirit, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 135, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Athenagoras (HTML)
A Plea for the Christians (HTML)
Chapter XIII.—Why the Christians Do Not Offer Sacrifices. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 740 (In-Text, Margin)
And what have I to do with holocausts, which God does not stand in need of?—though indeed it does behove us to offer a bloodless sacrifice and “the service of our reason.”[Romans 12:1]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 581, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
St. Paul, All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7619 (In-Text, Margin)
... strayed, raising what is fallen; and this from earth to heaven, where, as the apostle teaches the Philippians, “we have our citizenship, from whence also we look for our Saviour Jesus Christ, who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” —of course after the resurrection, because Christ Himself was not glorified before He suffered. These must be “the bodies” which he “beseeches” the Romans to “present” as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.”[Romans 12:1] But how a living sacrifice, if these bodies are to perish? How a holy one, if they are profanely soiled? How acceptable to God, if they are condemned? Come, now, tell me how that passage (in the Epistle) to the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 686, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Prayer. (HTML)
Of Putting Off Cloaks. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8852 (In-Text, Margin)
But since we have touched on one special point of empty observance, it will not be irksome to set our brand likewise on the other points against which the reproach of vanity may deservedly be laid; if, that is, they are observed without the authority of any precept either of the Lord, or else of the apostles. For matters of this kind belong not to religion, but to superstition, being studied, and forced, and of curious rather than rational ceremony;[Romans 12:1] deserving of restraint, at all events, even on this ground, that they put us on a level with Gentiles. As, e.g., it is the custom of some to make prayer with cloaks doffed, for so do the nations approach their idols; which practice, of course, were its observance ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 404, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
Cyprian to Nemesianus and Other Martyrs in the Mines. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3012 (In-Text, Margin)
... sacrifice to God; you celebrate this sacrifice without intermission day and night, being made victims to God, and exhibiting yourselves as holy and unspotted offerings, as the apostle exhorts and says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”[Romans 12:1-2]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 501, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus. (HTML)
That we must press on and persevere in faith and virtue, and in completion of heavenly and spiritual grace, that we may attain to the palm and the crown. (HTML)
... to anxieties of this world, that he may be able to please Him to whom he hath approved himself. Moreover, also, if a man should contend, he will not be crowned unless he have fought lawfully.” And again: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye constitute your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God; and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed in the renewing of your spirit, that ye may prove what is the will of God, good, and acceptable, and perfect.”[Romans 12:1-2] And again: “We are children of God: but if children, then heirs; heirs indeed of God, but joint-heirs with Christ, if we suffer together, that we may also be glorified together.” And in the Apocalypse the same exhortation of divine preaching speaks, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 381, footnote 11 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
Chapter XIV.—Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2493 (In-Text, Margin)
1. But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.[Romans 12:1] 2. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. 3. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 203, footnote 9 (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 1401 (In-Text, Margin)
... house Thou didst give mercy, because he frequently refreshed Thy Paul, and was not ashamed of his chain. This did also the brethren, and such fruit did they bear, who out of Macedonia supplied what was wanting unto him. But how doth he grieve for certain trees, which did not afford him the fruit due unto him, when he saith, “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.” For these fruits are due to those who minister spiritual[Romans 12:1] doctrine, through their understanding of the divine mysteries; and they are due to them as men. They are due to them, too, as to the living soul, supplying itself as an example in all continency; and due unto them likewise as flying creatures, for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 184, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Porphyry’s doctrine of redemption. (HTML)
Of the True and Perfect Sacrifice. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 394 (In-Text, Margin)
... himself; as it is written, “Have mercy on thy soul by pleasing God.” Our body, too, as a sacrifice when we chasten it by temperance, if we do so as we ought, for God’s sake, that we may not yield our members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but instruments of righteousness unto God. Exhorting to this sacrifice, the apostle says, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”[Romans 12:1] If, then, the body, which, being inferior, the soul uses as a servant or instrument, is a sacrifice when it is used rightly, and with reference to God, how much more does the soul itself become a sacrifice when it offers itself to God, in order ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 345, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel. (HTML)
Of Those Things Which a Man of God Spake by the Spirit to Eli the Priest, Signifying that the Priesthood Which Had Been Appointed According to Aaron Was to Be Taken Away. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1024 (In-Text, Margin)
... or how small, of Thy priesthood. By the priesthood he here means the people itself, of which He is the Priest who is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. This people the Apostle Peter calls “a holy people, a royal priesthood.” But some have translated, “Of Thy sacrifice,” not “Of Thy priesthood,” which no less signifies the same Christian people. Whence the Apostle Paul says, “We being many are one bread, one body.” [And again he says, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.”[Romans 12:1]] What, therefore, he has added, to “eat bread,” also elegantly expresses the very kind of sacrifice of which the Priest Himself says, “The bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The same is the sacrifice not after the order ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 588, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
Examples of the Various Styles Drawn from Scripture. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1979 (In-Text, Margin)
40. In the following words of the apostle we have the temperate style: “Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters.” And also in these: “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is you reasonable service.”[Romans 12:1] And almost the whole of this hortatory passage is in the temperate style of eloquence; and those parts of it are the most beautiful in which, as if paying what was due, things that belong to each other are gracefully brought together. For example: “Having then gifts, differing according to the grace ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 389, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On Continence. (HTML)
Section 24 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1897 (In-Text, Margin)
... admonished to imitate the peace of its members? How is it the creation of the enemy, when the souls themselves, which rule the bodies, take pattern from the members of the body, not to have schisms of enmities among themselves, in order that, what God hath granted unto the body by nature, this themselves also may love to have by grace? With good cause, writing to the Romans, “I beseech you,” saith he, “brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God.”[Romans 12:1] Without reason we contend that darkness is not light, nor light darkness, if we present a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God, of the bodies of the “nation of darkness.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 222, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus willing to believe not only that the Jewish but that all Gentile prophets wrote of Christ, if it should be proved; but he would none the less insist upon rejecting their superstitions. Augustin maintains that all Moses wrote is of Christ, and that his writings must be either accepted or rejected as a whole. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 581 (In-Text, Margin)
... "When thou offerest thy gift at the altar;" and again, "Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thyself a sacrifice as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." What these things prefigured the Lord Himself partly tells us, when He calls His own body the temple; and we learn also from the apostle, who says, "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are;" and again, "I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God;"[Romans 12:1] and in similar passages. As the same apostle says, in words which cannot be too often quoted, these things were our examples, for they were not the work of devils, but of the one true God who made heaven and earth, and who, though not needing such ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 263, 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 754 (In-Text, Margin)
... nor to heaven, nor to the hosts of heaven, but laid the victims on the altar of the one God, Creator of all, who required these offerings as a means of foreshadowing the true victim, by whom He has reconciled us to Himself in the remission of sins through our Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul, addressing believers, who are made the body of which Christ is the Head, says: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God."[Romans 12:1] The Manichæans, on the other hand, say that human bodies are the workmanship of the race of darkness, and the prison in which the captive deity is confined. Thus Faustus’ doctrine is very different from Paul’s. But since whosover preaches to you ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 111, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
Conclusion of the Work. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1073 (In-Text, Margin)
... and not to mention Him who spoke in His apostles) certainly against not only the opinion of the great Apostle Paul, but also his strong, earnest, and vigilant conflict, prefer maintaining their own views with tenacity to listening to him, when he “beseeches them by the mercies of God,” and tells them, “through the grace of God which was given to him, not to think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God had dealt to every man the measure of faith.”[Romans 12:1]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 363, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
The Body Does Not Receive God’s Image. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2483 (In-Text, Margin)
... which I have just quoted, where there is one form on the upper surface, and another on the lower one. These are the absurd lengths to which you are driven, whether you will or no, when you apply to the consideration of the soul the material ideas of bodily substances. But, as even you yourself with perfect propriety confess, God is not a body. How, then, could a body receive His image? “I beseech you, brother, that you be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind;”[Romans 12:1-2] and cherish not “the carnal mind, which is death.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 445, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
The Divine Commands Which are Most Suited to the Will Itself Illustrate Its Freedom. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2960 (In-Text, Margin)
... the fact that in so many passages God requires all His commandments to be kept and fulfilled? How does He make this requisition, if there is no free will? What means “the happy man,” of whom the Psalmist says that “his will has been the law of the Lord”? Does he not clearly enough show that a man by his own will takes his stand in the law of God? Then again, there are so many commandments which in some way are expressly adapted to the human will; for instance, there is, “Be not overcome of evil,”[Romans 12:1] and others of similar import, such as, “Be not like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding;” and, “Reject not the counsels of thy mother;” and, “Be not wise in thine own conceit;” and, “Despise not the chastening of the Lord;” and, “Forget ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 71, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XXXIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 696 (In-Text, Margin)
2. “Praise the Lord with harp:” praise the Lord, presenting unto Him your bodies a living sacrifice.[Romans 12:1] “Sing unto Him with the psaltery for ten strings” (ver. 2): let your members be servants to the love of God, and of your neighbour, in which are kept both the three and the seven commandments.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 396, 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 VIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1376 (In-Text, Margin)
... with interest; for thus it is expedient both for you, and for us who are to discharge it. Meanwhile, however, let us now speak on that subject which we left out yesterday. And what was it we left out yesterday? “God was walking,” it says, “in Paradise in the cool of the day.” What is here meant, I ask? “God was walking!” God was not walking; for how should He do this who is everywhere present and filleth all things? But He caused a perception of this sort in Adam, in order that he might collect[Romans 12:1] himself; that he might not be careless; that in flying and in hiding himself, he might present beforehand some portion of the excuse, even before any words had passed. For even as those who are about to be led to the tribunal, to sustain the charges ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 15, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Heliodorus, Monk. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 202 (In-Text, Margin)
Idolatry is not confined to casting incense upon an altar with finger and thumb, or to pouring libations of wine out of a cup into a bowl. Covetousness is idolatry, or else the selling of the Lord for thirty pieces of silver was a righteous act. Lust involves profanation, or else men may defile with common harlots those members of Christ which should be “a living sacrifice acceptable to God.”[Romans 12:1] Fraud is idolatry, or else they are worthy of imitation who, in the Acts of the Apostles, sold their inheritance, and because they kept back part of the price, perished by an instant doom. Consider well, my brother; nothing is yours to keep. “Whosoever he be of you,” the Lord says, “that forsaketh ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 139, footnote 11 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pammachius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1990 (In-Text, Margin)
12. The regard which I feel for you, my dear brother, makes me remind you of these things; for you must offer to Christ not only your money but yourself, to be a “living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service,”[Romans 12:1] and you must imitate the son of man who “came not to be ministered unto but to minister.” What the patriarch did for strangers that our Lord and Master did for His servants and disciples. “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But,” says the devil, “touch his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face.” The old enemy knows that the battle with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 223, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Julian. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3100 (In-Text, Margin)
... the price of many possessions into the sea, saying as he did so “To the bottom with you, ye provokers of evil lusts. I shall drown you in the sea that you may never drown me in sin.” If then a philosopher—a creature of vanity whom popular applause can buy and sell—laid down all his burthen at once, how can you think that you have reached virtue’s crowning height when you have yielded up but a portion of yours? It is you yourself that the Lord wishes for, “a living sacrifice…acceptable unto God.”[Romans 12:1] Yourself, I say, and not what you have. And therefore, as he trained Israel by subjecting it to many plagues and afflictions, so does He now admonish you by sending you trials of different kinds. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 247, footnote 7 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3438 (In-Text, Margin)
I say these things that, in case you desire to enter the ranks of the clergy, you may learn what you must afterwards teach, that you may offer a reasonable sacrifice[Romans 12:1] to Christ, that you may not think yourself a finished soldier while still a raw recruit, or suppose yourself a master while you are as yet only a learner. It does not become one of my humble abilities to pass judgment upon the clergy or to speak to the discredit of those who are ministers in the churches. They have their own rank and station and must keep it. If ever you become one of them my published letter to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 255, footnote 13 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Principia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3549 (In-Text, Margin)
... for the slaughter.” Many generations afterwards the words were spoken: “remember the end and thou shalt never do amiss,” as well as that precept of the eloquent satirist: “live with death in your mind; time flies; this say of mine is so much taken from it.” Well then, as I was saying, she passed her days and lived always in the thought that she must die. Her very clothing was such as to remind her of the tomb, and she presented herself as a living sacrifice, reasonable and acceptable, unto God.[Romans 12:1]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 261, footnote 2 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3616 (In-Text, Margin)
... esteem I entertain for this virgin, nay more what a miracle of virtue I think her, you may judge by the fact that being occupied in the explanation of Ezekiel’s description of the temple—the hardest piece in the whole range of scripture—and finding myself in that part of the sacred edifice wherein is the Holy of Holies and the altar of incense, I have chosen by way of a brief rest to pass from that altar to this, that upon it I might consecrate to eternal chastity a living offering acceptable to God[Romans 12:1] and free from all stain. I am aware that the bishop has with words of prayer covered her holy head with the virgin’s bridal-veil, reciting the while the solemn sentence of the apostle: “I wish to present you all as a chaste virgin to Christ.” She ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 375, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4524 (In-Text, Margin)
... if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” If the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, and they who are in the flesh cannot please God, I think that they who perform the functions of marriage love the wisdom of the flesh, and therefore are in the flesh. The Apostle being desirous to withdraw us from the flesh and to join us to the Spirit, says afterwards:[Romans 12:1-3] “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 223, footnote 14 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2841 (In-Text, Margin)
95. Since then I knew these things, and that no one is worthy of the mightiness of God, and the sacrifice, and priesthood, who has not first presented himself to God, a living, holy sacrifice, and set forth the reasonable, well-pleasing service,[Romans 12:1] and sacrificed to God the sacrifice of praise and the contrite spirit, which is the only sacrifice required of us by the Giver of all; how could I dare to offer to Him the external sacrifice, the antitype of the great mysteries, or clothe myself with the garb and name of priest, before my hands had been consecrated by holy works; before my eyes had been accustomed to gaze ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 254, footnote 13 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On His Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3181 (In-Text, Margin)
... to gather together the poor that have no shelter, to cover their nakedness and not neglect those of the same blood, and now especially that we may gain a benefit from our need instead of from abundance, a result which pleases God more than plentiful offerings and large gifts. After this, nay before it, show thyself, I pray, a Moses, or Phinehas to-day. Stand on our behalf and make atonement, and let the plague be stayed, either by the spiritual sacrifice, or by prayer and reasonable intercession.[Romans 12:1] Restrain the anger of the Lord by thy mediation: avert any succeeding blows of the scourge. He knoweth to respect the hoar hairs of a father interceding for his children. Intreat for our past wickedness: be our surety for the future. Present a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 375, footnote 9 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
The Oration on Holy Baptism. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4185 (In-Text, Margin)
... the power that comes to him from these. Do not be surprised at my giving a more abundant honour to our uncomely parts, mortifying them and making them chaste by my speech, and standing up against the flesh. Let us give to God all our members which are upon the earth; let us consecrate them all; not the lobe of the liver or the kidneys with the fat, nor some part of our bodies now this now that (why should we despise the rest?); but let us bring ourselves entire, let us be reasonable holocausts,[Romans 12:1] perfect sacrifices; and let us not make only the shoulder or the breast a portion for the Priest to take away, for that would be a small thing, but let us give ourselves entire, that we may receive back ourselves entire; for this is to receive ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 58, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of Sulpitius Severus. (HTML)
The Doubtful Letters of Sulpitius Severus. (HTML)
Letter II. A Letter of Sulpitius Severus to His Sister Claudia Concerning Virginity. (HTML)
Chapter I. (HTML)
... bishop at the altar of God, as if being more holy and pure sacrifices, on account of the merits of their voluntary dedication. This is truly a sacrifice worthy of God, inasmuch as it is the offering of so precious a being, and none will please him more than the sacrifice of his own image. For I think that the Apostle especially referred to a sacrifice of this kind, when he said, “Now, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable[Romans 12:1] to God.” Virginity, therefore, possesses both that which others have, and that which others have not; while it obtains both common and special grace, and rejoices (so to speak) in its own peculiar privilege of consecration. For ecclesiastical ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 512, footnote 7 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXI. The First Conference of Abbot Theonas. On the Relaxation During the Fifty Days. (HTML)
Chapter XXII. The answer on the way to keep control over abstinence. (HTML)
... thus condemns as fraudulent workmen: “Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord fraudulently.” It is not then without reason that the Lord reproves him who thus deceives himself by unfair considerations, saying: “But vain are the children of men: the children of men are liars upon the balances that they may deceive.” And therefore the blessed Apostle warns us to keep hold of the reins of discretion and not to be attracted by excess and swerve to either side, saying: “Your reasonable service.”[Romans 12:1] And the giver of the law similarly forbids the same thing, saying: “Let the balance be just and the weights equal, the bushel just and the sextarius equal,” and Solomon also gives a like opinion on this matter: “Great and small weights and double ...