Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
1 Corinthians 15:33
There are 26 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 314, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XIV.—Succession of Philosophers in Greece. (HTML)
... prophets of the Greeks he attributes something of the truth, and is not ashamed, when discoursing for the edification of some and the shaming of others, to make use of Greek poems. Accordingly to the Corinthians (for this is not the only instance), while discoursing on the resurrection of the dead, he makes use of a tragic Iambic line, when he said, “What advantageth it me if the dead are not raised? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Be not deceived; evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:32-33] Others have enumerated Acusilaus the Argive among the seven wise men; and others, Pherecydes of Syros. And Plato substitutes Myso the Chenian for Periander, whom he deemed unworthy of wisdom, on account of his having reigned as a tyrant. That the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 43, footnote 23 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
To His Wife. (HTML)
I (HTML)
Conclusion. (HTML)
... our own working. The indulgences granted by the Lord are regulated by their own grace; the things which are objects of man’s striving are attained by earnest pursuit. Pursue earnestly, therefore, the virtue of continence, which is modesty’s agent; industry, which allows not women to be “wanderers;” frugality, which scorns the world. Follow companies and conversations worthy of God, mindful of that short verse, sanctified by the apostle’s quotation of it, “Ill interviews good morals do corrupt.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] Talkative, idle, winebibbing, curious tent-fellows, do the very greatest hurt to the purpose of widow-hood. Through talkativeness there creep in words unfriendly to modesty; through idleness they seduce one from strictness; through winebibbing they ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 346, footnote 5 (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 2586 (In-Text, Margin)
21. But for the rest, let our most beloved brethren firmly decline, and avoid the words and conversations of those whose word creeps onwards like a cancer; as the apostle says, “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] And again: “A man that is an heretic, after one admonition, reject: knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.” And the Holy Spirit speaks by Solomon, saying, “A perverse man carrieth perdition in his mouth; and in his lips he hideth a fire.” Also again, he warneth us, and says, “Hedge in thy ears with thorns, and hearken not to a wicked tongue.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 427, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Unity of the Church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3148 (In-Text, Margin)
... brethren beware of matters of a like kind, because these also were predicted beforehand, even as the Lord instructs us, and says, “But take ye heed: behold, I have told you all things.” Avoid, I beseech you, brethren, men of this kind, and drive away from your side and from your ears, as if it were the contagion of death, their mischievous conversation; as it is written, “Hedge thine ears about with thorns, and refuse to hear a wicked tongue.” And again, “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] The Lord teaches and warns us to depart from such. He saith, “They are blind leaders of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch.” Such a one is to be turned away from and avoided, whosoever he may be, that is ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 554, footnote 14 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
... not suspect fear.” Also in the same place: “Blessed is he who findeth a true friend, and who speaketh righteousness to the listening ear.” Also in the same place: “Hedge thine ears with thorns, and hear not a wicked tongue.” Also in the seventeenth Psalm: “With the righteous Thou shalt be justified; and with the innocent man Thou shalt be innocent; and with the froward man Thou shalt be froward.” Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “Evil communications corrupt good dispositions.”[1 Corinthians 15:33]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 632, footnote 4 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
The Decretals. (HTML)
The Epistles of Pope Fabian. (HTML)
To All the Ministers of the Church Catholic. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2839 (In-Text, Margin)
... the world, no less than those of the Church, do not admit the injurious, but reject them. Whence it is written, “The mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity.” And the Lord, speaking by the prophet, saith, “With the holy thou wilt show thyself holy; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward; and with the excellent thou wilt show thyself excellent (electus); and with the innocent man thou wilt show thyself innocent.” And the apostle says, “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] Wherefore, as has already been indicated, the wicked are always to be avoided and shunned, and the good and rightly-disposed are to be stedfastly followed, in order that, as far as possible, we may avoid the peril of sloth. And lest this pest may be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 410, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Good of Marriage. (HTML)
Section 27 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2013 (In-Text, Margin)
... Patriarchs, pronounced accursed, whoso raised not up seed in Israel, even he, who could, put it not forth, but yet possessed it. But from the period that the fullness of time hath come, that it should be said, “Whoso can receive, let him receive,” from that period even unto this present, and from henceforth even unto the end, whoso hath, worketh: whoso shall be unwilling to work, let him not falsely say, that he hath. And through this means, they, who corrupt good manners by evil communications,[1 Corinthians 15:33] with empty and vain craft, say to a Christian man exercising continence, and refusing marriage, What then, are you better than Abraham? But let him not, upon hearing this, be troubled; neither let him dare to say, “Better,” nor let him fall away ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 268, footnote 2 (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 770 (In-Text, Margin)
... the minds of unbelievers, we grant that he does so by his evil suggestions, from yielding to which, men lose the light of righteousness in God’s righteous retribution. This is all in accordance with sacred Scripture. The apostle himself speaks of temptation from without: "I fear lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and purity that is in Christ." To the same purpose are the words, "Evil communications corrupt good manners;"[1 Corinthians 15:33] and when he speaks of a man deceiving himself, "Whoever thinketh himself to be anything, when he is nothing, deceiveth himself;" or again, in the passage already quoted of the judgment of God, "God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 318, 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 explains the Manichæan denial that man was made by God as applying to the fleshly man not to the spiritual. Augustin elucidates the Apostle Paul’s contrasts between flesh and spirit so as to exclude the Manichæan view. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 992 (In-Text, Margin)
... same flesh." Then he speaks of celestial and terrestrial bodies, and then of the change of our body by which it will become spiritual and heavenly. "It is sown," he says, "in dishonor, it shall rise in glory; it is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power; it is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body." Then, in order to show the origin of the animal body, he says, "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body; as it is written, The first man, Adam, was made a living soul."[1 Corinthians 15:33-45] Now this is written in Genesis, where it is related how God made man, and animated the body which He had formed of the earth. By the old man the apostle simply means the old life, which is a life in sin, and is after the manner of Adam, of whom it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 454, footnote 11 (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 he treats of what follows in the same epistle of Cyprian to Jubaianus. (HTML)
Chapter 12 (HTML)
... epistles, execrated and abhorred the sacrilegious wickedness of heretics, so as to say that ‘their word does spread as a canker.’" What then? Does not Paul also show that those who said, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," were corrupters of good manners by their evil communications, adding immediately afterwards, "Evil communications corrupt good manners;" and yet he intimated that these were within the Church when he says, "How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?"[1 Corinthians 15:32-33] But when does he fail to express his abhorrence of the covetous? Or could anything be said in stronger terms, than that covetousness should be called idolatry, as the same apostle declared? Nor did Cyprian understand his language otherwise, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 503, footnote 16 (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 13 (HTML)
25. We answer: What of those who, when they are baptized, turn themselves to the Lord with their lips and not with their heart? do not they possess an adulterous mind? Are not they themselves lovers of the world, which they renounce in words and not in deeds; and they corrupt good manners through evil communications, saying, "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die?"[1 Corinthians 15:33] Did not the discourse of the apostle take heed even against such as these, when he says, "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds [also] should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ?" When, therefore, Cyprian held the baptism of Christ to be in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 491, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace. (HTML)
The Purpose of Rebuke. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3406 (In-Text, Margin)
Although, therefore, even while the faith of some is subverted, the foundation of God standeth sure, since the Lord knoweth them that are His, still, we ought not on that account to be indolent and negligent in rebuking those who should be rebuked. For not for nothing was it said, “Evil communications corrupt good manners;”[1 Corinthians 15:33] and, “The weak brother shall perish in thy knowledge, on account of whom Christ died.” Let us not, in opposition to these precepts, and to a wholesome fear, pretend to argue, saying, “Well, let evil communications corrupt good manners, and let the weak brother perish. What is that to us? The foundation of God standeth sure, and no one ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 301, 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 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 2189 (In-Text, Margin)
... saith, “Ye sin against Christ.” For men are in the habit of saying, I sin against man; am I sinning against God?” Deny then that Christ is God. Dost thou dare deny that Christ is God? Hast thou learned this other doctrine, when thou didst sit at meat in the idol’s temple? The school of Christ doth not admit that doctrine. I ask; Where learnedst thou that Christ is not God? The Pagans are wont to say so. Seest thou what bad associations do? Seest thou, “that evil communications corrupt good manners?”[1 Corinthians 15:33] There thou canst not speak of the Gospel, and thou dost hear others talking of idols. There thou losest the truth that Christ is God; and what thou dost drink in there, thou vomitest out in the Church. It may be thou art bold enough to speak here; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 41, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 417 (In-Text, Margin)
... interpretation of which they emit envenomed sentences from them. “They have prepared their arrows in the quiver:” the same words, that is, which they will shoot out on the authority of Scripture, they have prepared in the secret place of the heart. “That they may in the obscure moon shoot at the upright in heart:” that when they see, from the Church’s light being obscured by the multitude of the unlearned and the carnal, that they cannot be convicted, they may corrupt good manners by evil communications.[1 Corinthians 15:33] But against all these terrors we must say, “In the Lord I trust.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 417, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3998 (In-Text, Margin)
... against Christ? No: for it is not they that cause us much trouble. For they have not yet believed: they have not yet owned their salvation. Against the Body of Christ bad Christians rise up, from whom the Body of Christ daily suffereth trouble. All schisms, all heresies, all within who live wickedly and engraft their own character on those who live well, and draw them over to their own side, and with evil communications corrupt good manners; these persons “transgressing the law rose up against Me.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] Let every pious soul speak, let every Christian soul speak. That one which suffers not this, let it not speak. But if it is a Christian soul, it knows that it suffers evils: if it owns in itself its own sufferings, let it own herein its own voice; ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 664, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5898 (In-Text, Margin)
... “the way of sinners”? To mock at these things which we say. “Who is an orphan, who a widow? What kingdom of heaven, what punishment of hell is there? These are fables of the Christians. To what I see, to that will I live: “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Beware lest such men persuade you of aught: let them not enter through your ears into your heart; let them find thorns in your ears: let him, who seeketh to enter thus, go away pierced: for “evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] But here perhaps thou wilt say, “Wherefore then are they prosperous? Behold, they worship not God, and commit every kind of evil daily: yet they abound in those things, through want of which I toil.” Be not envious against sinners. What they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 337, footnote 1 (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)
The Argument (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1188 (In-Text, Margin)
... too then, in imitation of him, each one bring into order, if not the world, or not entire cities and nations, yet at all events his own house, his wife, his children, his friends, his neighbors. And let no one say to me, “I am unskilled and unlearned:” nothing were less instructed than Peter, nothing more rude than Paul, and this himself confessed, and was not ashamed to say, “though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge.” (2 Cor. xi. 6.) Yet nevertheless this rude one, and that unlearned man,[1 Corinthians 15:33] overcame countless philosophers, stopped the mouths of countless orators, and did all by their own ready mind and the grace of God. What excuse then shall we have, if we are not equal to twenty names, and are not even of service to them that live ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 88, footnote 5 (Image)
Socrates: Church History from A.D. 305-438; Sozomenus: Church History from A.D. 323-425
The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Of the Literary Labors of the Two Apollinares and the Emperor's Prohibition of Christians being instructed in Greek Literature. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 534 (In-Text, Margin)
... learning, but that he himself seems by no means to have neglected it, inasmuch as he knows many of the sayings of the Greeks. Whence did he get the saying, ‘The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow-bellies,’ but from a perusal of The Oracles of Epimenides, the Cretan Initiator? Or how would he have known this, ‘For we are also his offspring,’ had he not been acquainted with The Phenomena of Aratus the astronomer? Again this sentence, ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners,’[1 Corinthians 15:33] is a sufficient proof that he was conversant with the tragedies of Euripides. But what need is there of enlarging on this point? It is well known that in ancient times the doctors of the church by unhindered usage were accustomed to exercise ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 35, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 568 (In-Text, Margin)
Idle persons and busybodies, whether virgins or widows; such as go from house to house calling on married women and displaying an unblushing effrontery greater than that of a stage parasite, cast from you as you would the plague. For “evil communications corrupt good manners,”[1 Corinthians 15:33] and women like these care for nothing but their lowest appetites. They will often urge you, saying, “My dear creature, make the best of your advantages, and live while life is yours,” and “Surely you are not laying up money for your children.” Given to wine and wantonness, they instill all manner of mischief into people’s minds, and induce even the most ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 91, footnote 16 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Nepotian. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1347 (In-Text, Margin)
... for a standard of clerical obligation. Under Christ’s banner seek for no worldly gain, lest having more than when you first became a clergyman, you hear men say, to your shame, “Their portion shall not profit them.” Welcome poor men and strangers to your homely board, that with them Christ may be your guest. A clergyman who engages in business, and who rises from poverty to wealth, and from obscurity to a high position, avoid as you would the plague. For “evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] You despise gold; he loves it. You spurn wealth; he eagerly pursues it. You love silence, meekness, privacy; he takes delight in talking and effrontery, in squares, and streets, and apothecaries’ shops. What unity of feeling can there be where there ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 149, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Magnus an Orator of Rome. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2132 (In-Text, Margin)
... philosopher. The Apostle Paul also, in writing to Titus, has used a line of the poet Epimenides: “The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.” Half of which line was afterwards adopted by Callimachus. It is not surprising that a literal rendering of the words into Latin should fail to preserve the metre, seeing that Homer when translated into the same language is scarcely intelligible even in prose. In another epistle Paul quotes a line of Menander: “Evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] And when he is arguing with the Athenians upon the Areopagus he calls Aratus as a witness citing from him the words “For we are also his offspring;” in Greek τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμεν, the close of a heroic verse. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 270, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3763 (In-Text, Margin)
18. Avoid the company of married women who are devoted to their husbands and to the world, that your mind may not become unsettled by hearing what a husband says to his wife, or a wife to her husband. Such conversations are filled with deadly venom. To express his condemnation of them the apostle has taken a verse of a profane writer and has pressed it into the service of the church. It may be literally rendered at the expense of the metre: “evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] No; you should choose for your companions staid and serious women, particularly widows and virgins, persons of approved conversation, of few words, and of a holy modesty. Shun gay and thoughtless girls, who deck their heads and wear their hair in fringes, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 352, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4305 (In-Text, Margin)
... stand on one foot and to support the rest of the body with a stick, than to crawl with broken legs. What do you say, Apostle? I do not believe you when you say “Though I be rude in speech, yet am I not in knowledge.” As humility is the source of the sayings “For I am not worthy to be called an Apostle,” and “To me who am the least of the Apostles,” and “As to one born out of due time,” so here also we have an utterance of humility. You know the meaning of language, or you would not quote Epimenides,[1 Corinthians 15:33] Menander, and Aratus. When you are discussing continence and virginity you say, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” And, “It is good for them if they abide even as I.” And, “I think that this is good by reason of the present distress.” And, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 459, footnote 10 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)
Epistle LXIII: To the Church at Vercellæ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3674 (In-Text, Margin)
18. Rightly then does the Apostle, arguing against these men, warn us that we be not shaken by such opinions, saying: “Be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners. Be ye righteously sober and sin not, for some have no knowledge of God.”[1 Corinthians 15:33] Sobriety, then, is good, for drunkenness is sin.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 273, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)
Book X. Of the Spirit of Accidie. (HTML)
Chapter XX. Of a lazy brother who tried to persuade others to leave the monastery. (HTML)
... pretending that he would follow, stopped where he was. And when the other out of shame for his flight did not dare to return again to the monastery from which he had run away, the miserable author of his flight stopped behind in the monastery. It will be enough to have given this single instance of this sort of men in order to put beginners on their guard, and to show clearly what evils idleness, as Scripture says, can produce in the mind of a monk, and how “evil communications corrupt good manners.”[1 Corinthians 15:33]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 82, footnote 1 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Letters. (HTML)
To Julian, Bishop of Cos. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 472 (In-Text, Margin)
... their meaning were hid beneath the cloke of silence it might still be doubtful whether the triple error of Apollinaris, and the mad notion of the Manichees was really revived in them. And as they no longer seek to hide themselves but rise boldly against the churches of Christ, must we not take care to destroy all the strength of their attempts, observing, as I have said, such discrimination as to separate the incorrigible from the more docile spirits: for “evil conversations corrupt good manners[1 Corinthians 15:33],” and “the wise man will be sharper than the pestilent person who is chastised;” in order that in whatever way the society of the wicked is broken up, some vessels may be snatched from the devil’s hand? For we ought not to be so offended at ...