Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
1 Corinthians 4:12
There are 12 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 418, footnote 10 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter VII.—The Blessedness of the Martyr. (HTML)
... add the following, to show the contempt for faith in the case of the multitude? “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as appointed to death: we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. Up to this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are beaten, and are feeble, and labour, working with our hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat; we are become as it were the offscourings of the world.”[1 Corinthians 4:11-13] Such also are the words of Plato in the Republic: “The just man, though stretched on the rack, though his eyes are dug out, will be happy.” The Gnostic will never then have the chief end placed in life, but in being always happy and blessed, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 572, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
Chapter LXIII (HTML)
... manner of things shameful to be spoken; nor will they yield in the slightest point for the sake of harmony, hating each other with a perfect hatred.” Now, in answer to this, we have already said that in philosophy and medicine sects are to be found warring against sects. We, however, who are followers of the word of Jesus, and have exercised ourselves in thinking, and saying, and doing what is in harmony with His words, “when reviled, bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat;”[1 Corinthians 4:12-13] and we would not utter “all manner of things shameful to be spoken” against those who have adopted different opinions from ours, but, if possible, use every exertion to raise them to a better condition through adherence to the Creator alone, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 631, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XLVI (HTML)
... men who desire to be God’s servants, to beware lest, by the calumnies which they cast upon others who strive to live well, they “lame” their own souls, and “mutilate” the inner man, by severing from it that justice and moderation of mind which the Creator has planted in the nature of all His rational creatures. As for those, however, who, along with other lessons given by the Divine Word, have learned and practised this, “when reviled to bless, when persecuted to endure, when defamed to entreat,”[1 Corinthians 4:12-13] they may be said to be walking in spirit in the ways of uprightness, to be purifying and setting in order the whole soul. They distinguish—and to them the distinction is not one of words merely—between “substance,” or that which is, and that which ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 29, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
Explanation of the First Part of the Sermon Delivered by Our Lord on the Mount, as Contained in the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter XX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 200 (In-Text, Margin)
... receives pays back the thing which is given him. Rightly, therefore, does the divine authority exhort us to this mode of bestowing a favour, saying, “And from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away:” i.e., do not alienate your goodwill from him who asks it, both because your money will be useless, and because God will not pay you back, inasmuch as the man has done so; but when you do that from a regard to God’s precept, it cannot be unfruitful with Him who gives these commands.[1 Corinthians 4:12-13]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 434, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Luke xi. 5, ‘Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3375 (In-Text, Margin)
12. Ye have noticed, it may be, how a hen will tear a scorpion in pieces. O then that the Hen of the Gospel would tear in pieces and devour these blasphemers, creeping out of their holes, and inflicting hurtful stings, would pass them over into Her Body, and turn them into an egg. Let them not be angry; we seem to be excited; but we do not return curses for curses. “We are cursed, and we bless, being defamed, we entreat.”[1 Corinthians 4:12-13] But “let him not speak of Rome, it is said of me: O that he would hold his tongue about Rome;” as though I were insulting it, and not rather entreating the Lord for it, and exhorting you all, unworthy as I am. Be it far from me to insult it! The Lord avert this from my heart, and from ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 21, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To the Presbyter Marcus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 318 (In-Text, Margin)
... hair are by right tokens of sorrow, and not ensigns of royalty. I merely ask leave to remain silent. Why do they torment a man who does not deserve their ill-will? I am a heretic, you say. What is it to you if I am? Stay quiet, and all is said. You are afraid, I suppose, that, with my fluent knowledge of Syriac and Greek, I shall make a tour of the churches, lead the people into error, and form a schism! I have robbed no man of anything; neither have I taken what I have not earned. With my own hand[1 Corinthians 4:12] daily and in the sweat of my brow I labor for my food, knowing that it is written by the apostle: “If any will not work, neither shall he eat.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 236, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Ageruchia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3318 (In-Text, Margin)
... people say of me.’ That was not the principle on which the apostle acted. He provided things honest not only in the sight of God but in the sight of all men; that the name of God might not be blasphemed among the Gentiles. Though he had power to lead about a sister, a wife, he would not do so, for he did not wish to be judged by an unbeliever’s conscience. And, though he might have lived by the gospel, he laboured day and night with his own hands, that he might not be burdensome to the believers.[1 Corinthians 4:12] “If meat,” he says, “make my brother to offend. I will eat no flesh while the world standeth.” Let us then say, if a sister or a brother causes not one or two but the whole church to offend, ‘I will not see that sister or that brother.’ It is better ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 248, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3449 (In-Text, Margin)
... body and mind to the Lord, overcome wrath by patience, love the knowledge of scripture, and you will no longer love the sins of the flesh. Do not let your mind become a prey to excitement, for if this effects a lodgment in your breast it will have dominion over you and will lead you into the great transgression. Always have some work on hand, that the devil may find you busy. If apostles who had the right to live of the Gospel laboured with their own hands that they might be chargeable to no man,[1 Corinthians 4:12] and bestowed relief upon others whose carnal things they had a claim to reap as having sown unto them spiritual things; why do you not provide a supply to meet your needs? Make creels of reeds or weave baskets out of pliant osiers. Hoe your ground; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 216, footnote 3 (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 2667 (In-Text, Margin)
... watchings, his sufferings in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, his assailants from without, his adversaries within. I pass over the persecutions, councils, prisons, bonds, accusers, tribunals, the daily and hourly deaths, the basket, the stonings, beatings with rods, the travelling about, the perils by land and sea, the deep, the shipwrecks, the perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from his countrymen, perils among false brethren, the living by his own hands, the gospel without charge,[1 Corinthians 4:12] the being a spectacle to both angels and men, set in the midst between God and men to champion His cause, and to unite them to Him, and make them His own peculiar people, beside those things that are without. For who could worthily detail these ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 332, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
Against The Arians, and Concerning Himself. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3775 (In-Text, Margin)
... bad? Concerning what churches or property have I disputed with you; though you have more than enough of both, and the others too little? What imperial edict have we rejected and emulated? What rulers have we fawned upon against you? Whose boldness have we denounced? And what has been done on the other side against me? “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” even then I said, for I remembered in season the words of Stephen, and so I pray now. Being reviled, we bless: being blasphemed we retreat.[1 Corinthians 4:12]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 39, footnote 2 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XLVIII. The argument for restraining anger is given again. Then the three classes of those who receive wrongs are set forth; to the most perfect of which the Apostle and David are said to have attained. He takes the opportunity to state the difference between this and the future life. (HTML)
244. But if I am perfect (I say this only by way of example, for in truth I am weak), if, then, I am perfect, I bless him that curses me, as Paul also blessed, for he says: “Being reviled we bless.”[1 Corinthians 4:12] He had heard Him Who says: “Love your enemies, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” And so Paul suffered persecution and endured it, for he conquered and calmed his human feelings for the sake of the reward set before him, namely, that he should become a son of God if he loved his enemies.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 345, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter I. St. Ambrose gives additional rules concerning repentance, and shows that it must not be delayed. (HTML)
5. Let us then not be ashamed to confess our sins unto the Lord. Shame indeed there is when each makes known his sins, but that shame, as it were, ploughs his land, removes the ever-recurring brambles, prunes the thorns, and gives life to the fruits which he believed were dead. Follow him who, by diligently ploughing his field, sought for eternal fruit: “Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat, we are made as the offscouring of the world.”[1 Corinthians 4:12-13] If you plough after this fashion you will sow spiritual seed. Plough that you may get rid of sin and gain fruit. He ploughed so as to destroy in himself the last tendency to persecution. What more could Christ give to lead us on to the pursuit of perfection, ...