Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

1 Corinthians 12:27

There are 20 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 446, footnote 11 (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)
Man the Image of the Creator, and Christ the Head of the Man. Spiritual Gifts. The Sevenfold Spirit Described by Isaiah. The Apostle and the Prophet Compared. Marcion Challenged to Produce Anything Like These Gifts of the Spirit Foretold in Prophecy in His God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5557 (In-Text, Margin)

... of might.” “To another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues;” this will be “the spirit of knowledge.” See how the apostle agrees with the prophet both in making the distribution of the one Spirit, and in interpreting His special graces. This, too, I may confidently say: he who has likened the unity of our body throughout its manifold and divers members to the compacting together of the various gifts of the Spirit,[1 Corinthians 12:12-30] shows also that there is but one Lord of the human body and of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, (according to the apostle’s showing,) meant not that the service of these gifts should be in the body, nor did He place them in the human body); and on the ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 80, footnote 1 (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 775 (In-Text, Margin)

... be precinct not with the leaves of lasciviousness, but the flowers of holiness; which was to impart to the waters its own purities—thenceforth, whatever flesh (is) “in Christ” has lost its pristine soils, is now a thing different, emerges in a new state, no longer (generated) of the slime of natural seed, nor of the grime of concupiscence, but of “pure water” and a “clean Spirit.” And, accordingly, why excuse it on the ground of pristine precedent? It did not bear the names of “body of Christ,”[1 Corinthians 12:27] of “members of Christ,” of “temple of God,” at the time when it used to obtain pardon for adultery. And thus if, from the moment when it changed its condition, and “having been baptized into Christ put on Christ,” and was “redeemed with a great ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 400, 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 X. (HTML)
The Temple Which Christ Says He Will Raise Up is the Church.  How the Dry Bones Will Be Made to Live Again. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5088 (In-Text, Margin)

... fittingly gave the answer about the sign connected with the temple, and not about signs unconnected with the temple. Now, both of these two things, the temple and the body of Jesus, appear to me, in one interpretation at least, to be types of the Church, and to signify that it is built of living stones, a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the head corner-stone; and it is, therefore, called a temple. Now, from the text,[1 Corinthians 12:27] “Ye are the body of Christ, and members each in his part,” we see that even though the harmonious fitting of the stones of the temple appear to be dissolved and scattered, as it is written in the twenty-second Psalm that all the bones of Christ are, ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 403, footnote 9 (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 X. (HTML)
The Temple Spoken of by Christ is the Church.  Application to the Church of the Statements Regarding the Building of Solomon's Temple, and the Numbers Stated in that Narrative. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5117 (In-Text, Margin)

... remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” This refers to the statement that the body of the Son is His temple. It may be asked whether this is to be taken in its plain sense, or whether we should try to connect each statement that is recorded about the temple, with the view we take about the body of Jesus, whether the body which He received from the Virgin, or that body of Christ which the Church is said to be, as we are said by the Apostle[1 Corinthians 12:27] to be all members of His body. One may, on the one hand, suppose it to be hopeless to get everything that is said about the temple properly connected with the body, in whatever sense the body be taken, and one may have recourse to a simpler ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 507, footnote 2 (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 XIV. (HTML)
Union of Christ and the Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 6183 (In-Text, Margin)

... church, the Lord—the husband—left the Father whom He saw when He was “in the form of God,” left also His mother, as He was the very son of the Jerusalem which is above, and was joined to His wife who had fallen down here, and these two here became one flesh. For because of her, He Himself also became flesh, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” and they are no more two, but now they are one flesh, since it is said to the wife, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members each in his part;”[1 Corinthians 12:27] for the body of Christ is not something apart different from the church, which is His body, and from the members each in his part. And God has joined together these who are not two, but have become one flesh, commanding that men should not separate ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 496, footnote 6 (Image)

Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine

City of God (HTML)

Of the eternal happiness of the saints, the resurrection of the body, and the miracles of the early Church. (HTML)

Of the Perfect Man, that Is, Christ; And of His Body, that Is, The Church, Which is His Fullness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1641 (In-Text, Margin)

... whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love.” Behold what the perfect man is—the head and the body, which is made up of all the members, which in their own time shall be perfected. But new additions are daily being made to this body while the Church is being built up, to which it is said, “Ye are the body of Christ and His members;”[1 Corinthians 12:27] and again, “For His body’s sake,” he says, “which is the Church;” and again, “We being many are one head, one body.” It is of the edification of this body that it is here, too, said, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 299, footnote 9 (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. viii. 8, ‘I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof,’ etc., and of the words of the apostle, 1 Cor. viii. 10, ‘For if a man see thee who hast knowledge sitting at meat in an idol’s temple,’ etc. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2176 (In-Text, Margin)

... multitude press Thee.” And the Lord would seem to say, I am asking for one who touched, not for one who pressed Me. In this case also is His Body now, that is, His Church. The faith of the few “touches” it, the throng of the many “press” it. For ye have heard, as being her children, that Christ’s Body is the Church, and if ye will, ye yourselves are so. This the Apostle says in many places, “For His body’s sake, which is the Church;” and again, “But ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”[1 Corinthians 12:27] If then we are His body, what His body then suffered in the crowd, that doth His Church suffer now. It is pressed by many, touched by few. The flesh presses it, faith touches it. Lift up therefore your eyes, I beseech you, ye who have wherewithal to ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 399, footnote 8 (Image)

Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels

Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)

On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxii. 42, where the Lord asks the Jews whose son they said David was. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3063 (In-Text, Margin)

... can ascend, but he who in His Body is made a member of Him; that is fulfilled, “that no man hath ascended, but He that descended.” For thou canst not say, “Lo, why hath Peter, for instance, ascended, why hath Paul ascended, why have the Apostles ascended, if no one hath ascended, but He that descended?” The answer to this is, “What do Peter, and Paul, and the rest of the Apostles, and all the faithful, what do they hear from the Apostle? ‘Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular.’[1 Corinthians 12:27] If then the Body of Christ and His members belong to One, do not thou make two of them. For He left ‘father and mother, and clave to his wife, that two might be one flesh.’ He left His Father, in that here He did not show Himself as equal with the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 539, footnote 6 (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 4271 (In-Text, Margin)

... this? Because he also says, “If ye be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Mind the things which are above, not those which are upon the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” How then is He Alone? Is He therefore Alone because Christ with all His members is One, as the Head with His Body? Now what is His Body, but the Church? As the same teacher says, “Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular.”[1 Corinthians 12:27] Forasmuch then as we have fallen, and He descended for our sakes, what is, “No man hath ascended, but He That descended;” but that no man hath ascended, except as made one with Him, and as a member fastened into His Body who descended? And thus He ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 98, 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 III. 29–36. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 326 (In-Text, Margin)

... to the only Son He gives not by measure. How does He give to men by measure? “To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of wisdom according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another kinds of tongues; to another the gift of healing. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gift of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?”[1 Corinthians 12:8-30] This man has one gift, that man another; and what that man has, this has not: there is a measure, a certain division of gifts. To men, therefore, it is given by measure, and concord among them makes one body. As the hand receives one kind of gift to ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 140, footnote 4 (Image)

Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies

Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)

Chapter V. 20–23. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 427 (In-Text, Margin)

... with every wind of doctrine.” But above he had said, “Until we all come together into the unity of faith, and to the knowledge of the Son of God, to the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.” The fullness of Christ, then, is head and members. Head and members, what is that? Christ and the Church. We should indeed be arrogating this to ourselves proudly, if He did not Himself deign to promise it, who saith by the same apostle, “But ye are the body of Christ, and members.”[1 Corinthians 12:27]

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 521, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies

Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)

1 John V. 1–3. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2495 (In-Text, Margin)

... Father; nor can any love the Father except he love the Son, and he that loves the sons, loves also the Son of God. What sons of God? The members of the Son of God. And by loving he becomes himself a member, and comes through love to be in the frame of the body of Christ, so there shall be one Christ, loving Himself. For when the members love one another, the body loves itself. “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.”[1 Corinthians 12:26-27] And then he goes on to say, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members.” John was speaking just before of brotherly love, and said, “He that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?” But if thou lovest thy ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 7, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm III (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 65 (In-Text, Margin)

9. This Psalm can be taken as in the Person of Christ another way; which is that whole Christ should speak. I mean by whole, with His body, of which He is the Head, according to the Apostle, who says, “Ye are the body of Christ, and the members.”[1 Corinthians 12:27] He therefore is the Head of this body; wherefore in another place he saith, “But doing the truth in love, we may increase in Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body is joined together and compacted.” In the Prophet then at once, the Church, and her Head (the Church founded amidst the storms of persecution throughout the whole world, which we ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 236, footnote 9 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LIX (HTML)

Part 1 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2223 (In-Text, Margin)

... thus are marked on the face, but however in all the Passion of the Lord is foretold. Therefore here also let us perceive the Lord’s Passion, and let there speak to us Christ, Head and Body. So always, or nearly always, let us hear the words of Christ from the Psalm, as that we look not only upon that Head, the one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. …But let us think of Christ, Head and whole Body, a sort of entire Man. For to us is said, “But ye are the Body of Christ and members,”[1 Corinthians 12:27] by the Apostle Paul. If therefore He is Head, we Body; whole Christ is Head and Body. For sometimes thou findest words which do not suit the Head, and unless thou shalt have attached them to the Body, thy understanding will waver: again thou findest ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 293, footnote 19 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXVIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2801 (In-Text, Margin)

... men;” but, “He hath given gifts unto men.” For he with Apostolic authority hath spoken thus according to the faith that the Son is God with the Father. For in respect of this He hath given gifts to men, sending to them the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. But forasmuch as the self-same Christ is understood in His Body which is the Church, wherefore also His members are His saints and believers, whence to them is said, “But ye are the Body of Christ, and the members,”[1 Corinthians 12:27] doubtless He hath Himself also received gifts in men. Now Christ hath gone up on high, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father: but unless He were here also on the earth, He would not thence have cried, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 347, footnote 1 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXXIV (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3355 (In-Text, Margin)

... prophetic, and mind not perturbed but enlightened! He did what? Cast it into the fire, in order that first the form itself may be obliterated; piece by piece grind it down, in order that little by little it may be consumed: cast it into the water, give to the people to drink! What is this but that the worshippers of the devil were become the body of the same? In the same manner as men confessing Christ become the Body of Christ; so that to them is said, “but ye are the Body of Christ and the members.”[1 Corinthians 12:27] The body of the devil was to be consumed, and that too by Israelites was to be consumed. For out of that people were the Apostles, out of that people the first Church.…Thus the devil is being consumed with the loss of his members. This was figured ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 426, footnote 8 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXXXVIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 4103 (In-Text, Margin)

... a light that could never fail? But He meant by His eyes those members in the body, of which He was Himself the head, which, as brighter and more eminent and chief above the rest, He loved. It was of this body that the Apostle was speaking, when he wrote, taking his metaphor from our own body, “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?” etc. What he wished understood by these words, he has expressed more clearly, by adding, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”[1 Corinthians 12:27] Wherefore as those eyes, that is, the holy Apostles, to whom not flesh and blood, but the Father which is in Heaven had revealed Him, so that Peter said, “Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God,” when they saw Him betrayed, and suffering such ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 94, footnote 2 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Nepotian. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1362 (In-Text, Margin)

... to the bishop; let him take heed whom he appoints to be his almoner. It is better for me to have no money to give away than shamelessly to beg what I mean to hoard. It is arrogance too to wish to seem more liberal than he who is Christ’s bishop. “All things are not open to us all.” In the church one is the eye, another is the tongue, another the hand, another the foot, others ears, belly, and so on. Read Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians and learn how the one body is made up of different members.[1 Corinthians 12:12-27] The rude and simple brother must not suppose himself a saint just because he knows nothing; and he who is educated and eloquent must not measure his saintliness merely by his fluency. Of two imperfect things holy rusticity is better than sinful ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 353, footnote 4 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)

Concerning Repentance. (HTML)

Book II. (HTML)
Chapter VII. An exhortation to mourning and confession of sins for Christ is moved by these and the tears of the Church. Illustration from the story of Lazarus. After showing that the Novatians are the successors of those who planned to kill Lazarus, St. Ambrose argues that the full forgiveness of every sin is signified by the odour of the ointment poured by Mary on the feet of Christ; and further, that the Novatian heretics find their likeness in Judas, who grudged and envied when others rejoiced. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3120 (In-Text, Margin)

62. Mary herself pours ointment on the feet of the Lord Jesus. Perchance for this reason on His feet, because one of the lowliest has been snatched from death, for we are all the body of Christ,[1 Corinthians 12:27] but others perchance are the more honourable members. The Apostle was the mouth of Christ, for he said, “Ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in me.” The prophets through whom He spake of things to come were His mouth, would that I might be found worthy to be His foot, and may Mary pour on me her precious ointment, and anoint me and wipe away my sin.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 153, footnote 1 (Image)

Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian

The Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins, For the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All Heresies. (HTML)

Chapter XXVIII. In what Way, on collating the consentient opinions of the Ancient Masters, the Novelties of Heretics may be detected and condemned. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 510 (In-Text, Margin)

[73.] Lest any one perchance should rashly think the holy and Catholic consent of these blessed fathers to be despised, the Apostle says, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, “God hath placed some in the Church, first Apostles,”[1 Corinthians 12:27-28] of whom himself was one; “secondly Prophets,” such as Agabus, of whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles; “then doctors,” who are now called Homilists, Expositors, whom the same apostle sometimes calls also “Prophets,” because by them the mysteries of the Prophets are opened to the people. Whosoever, therefore, shall despise these, who had their appointment of God in His Church ...

Online Dictionary & Commentary of Early Church Beliefs