Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Galatians 3:19
There are 24 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 420, footnote 10 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter VII.—Reply to an objection founded on the words of St. Paul (2 Cor. iv. 4). St. Paul occasionally uses words not in their grammatical sequence. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3360 (In-Text, Margin)
2. From many other instances also, we may discover that the apostle frequently uses a transposed order in his sentences, due to the rapidity of his discourses, and the impetus of the Spirit which is in him. An example occurs in the [Epistle] to the Galatians, where he expresses himself as follows: “Wherefore then the law of works? It was added, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; [and it was] ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator.”[Galatians 3:19] For the order of the words runs thus: “Wherefore then the law of works? Ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator, it was added until the seed should come to whom the promise was made,”— man thus asking the question, and the Spirit making answer. And again, in the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 496, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XXV.—Both covenants were prefigured in Abraham, and in the labour of Tamar; there was, however, but one and the same God to each covenant. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4143 (In-Text, Margin)
... Abraham those who, from either covenant, are eligible for God’s building. But this faith which is in uncircumcision, as connecting the end with the beginning, has been made [both] the first and the last. For, as I have shown, it existed in Abraham antecedently to circumcision, as it also did in the rest of the righteous who pleased God: and in these last times, it again sprang up among mankind through the coming of the Lord. But circumcision and the law of works occupied the intervening period.[Galatians 3:14-20]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 548, footnote 11 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XXI.—Christ is the head of all things already mentioned. It was fitting that He should be sent by the Father, the Creator of all things, to assume human nature, and should be tempted by Satan, that He might fulfil the promises, and carry off a glorious and perfect victory. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4629 (In-Text, Margin)
... enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for (observabit) thy head, and thou on the watch for His heel.” For from that time, He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, “that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.”[Galatians 3:19] This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus speaks: “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.” For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 338, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXVI.—Moses Rightly Called a Divine Legislator, And, Though Inferior to Christ, Far Superior to the Great Legislators of the Greeks, Minos and Lycurgus. (HTML)
... given by God through Moses. It accordingly conducts to the divine. Paul says: “The law was instituted because of transgressions, till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made.” Then, as if in explanation of his meaning, he adds: “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up,” manifestly through fear, in consequence of sins, “unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed; so that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we should be justified by faith.”[Galatians 3:19] The true legislator is he who assigns to each department of the soul what is suitable to it and to its operations. Now Moses, to speak comprehensively, was a living law, governed by the benign Word. Accordingly, he furnished a good polity, which is ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 651, footnote 13 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Appendix: Against All Heresies. (HTML)
Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8376 (In-Text, Margin)
After him brake out the heretic Cerinthus, teaching similarly. For he, too, says that the world was originated by those angels; and sets forth Christ as born of the seed of Joseph, contending that He was merely human, without divinity; affirming also that the Law was given by angels;[Galatians 3:19] representing the God of the Jews as not the Lord, but an angel.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 113, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book VII. (HTML)
The Heresy of Prepon; Follows Empedocles; Marcion Rejects the Generation of the Saviour. (HTML)
... intermediate between the good and bad Deity, He proceeded to give instruction in the synagogues. For if He is a Mediator, He has been, he says, liberated from the entire nature of the Evil Deity. Now, as he affirms, the Demiurge is evil, and his works. For this reason, he affirms, Jesus came down unbegotten, in order that He might be liberated from all (admixture of) evil. And He has, he says, been liberated from the nature of the Good One likewise, in order that He may be a Mediator, as Paul states,[Galatians 3:19] and as Himself acknowledges: “Why call ye me good? there is one good.” These, then, are the opinions of Marcion, by means of which he made many his dupes, employing the conclusions of Empedocles. And he transferred the philosophy invented by that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 203, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Porphyry’s doctrine of redemption. (HTML)
Of the Universal Way of the Soul’s Deliverance, Which Porphyry Did Not Find Because He Did Not Rightly Seek It, and Which the Grace of Christ Has Alone Thrown Open. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 440 (In-Text, Margin)
... had not yet come to his knowledge. For though this was so, he did not on that account pronounce that the way it self had no existence. This, I say, is the universal way for the deliverance of believers, concerning which the faithful Abraham received the divine assurance, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.” He, indeed, was by birth a Chaldæan; but, that he might receive these great promises, and that there might be propagated from him a seed “disposed by angels in the hand of a Mediator,”[Galatians 3:19] in whom this universal way, thrown open to all nations for the deliverance of the soul, might be found, he was ordered to leave his country, and kindred, and father’s house. Then was he himself, first of all, delivered from the Chaldæan ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 588, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
Examples of the Various Styles Drawn from Scripture. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1977 (In-Text, Margin)
... the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one; but God is one.” And here an objection occurs which he himself has stated: “Is the law then against the promises of God?” He answers: “God forbid.” And he also states the reason in these words: “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”[Galatians 3:19-22] It is part, then, of the duty of the teacher not only to interpret what is obscure, and to unravel the difficulties of questions, but also, while doing this, to meet other questions which may chance to suggest themselves, lest these should cast ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 67, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The appearances of God to the Old Testament saints are discussed. (HTML)
The Essence of God Never Appeared in Itself. Divine Appearances to the Fathers Wrought by the Ministry of Angels. An Objection Drawn from the Mode of Speech Removed. That the Appearing of God to Abraham Himself, Just as that to Moses, Was Wrought by Angels. The Same Thing is Proved by the Law Being Given to Moses by Angels. What Has Been Said in This Book, and What Remains to Be Said in the Next. (HTML)
... of God, who was to be the Mediator of God and men, from the seed of Abraham, was preparing His own advent by the angels, that He might find some by whom He would be received, confessing themselves guilty, whom the Law unfulfilled had made transgressors. And hence the apostle also says to the Galatians, “Wherefore then serveth the Law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, which [seed] was ordered through angels in the hand of a mediator;”[Galatians 3:19] that is, ordered through angels in His own hand. For He was not born in limitation, but in power. But you learn in another place that he does not mean any one of the angels as a mediator, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in so far as He ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 217, 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 rejects the Old Testament because it leaves no room for Christ. Christ the one Bridegroom suffices for His Bride the Church. Augustin answers as well as he can, and reproves the Manichæans with presumption in claiming to be the Bride of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 559 (In-Text, Margin)
... to taunt with the stone tablets, knows the difference between the letter and the spirit, or in other words, between law and grace; and serving God no longer in the oldness of the letter, but in newness of spirit, she is not under the law, but under grace. She is not blinded by a spirit of controversy, but learns meekly from the apostle what is this law which we are not to be under; for "it was given," he says, "on account of transgression, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made."[Galatians 3:19] And again: "It entered, that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded." Not that the law is sin, though it cannot give life without grace, but rather increases the guilt; for "where there is no law, there is no ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 32, footnote 10 (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 Galatians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 361 (In-Text, Margin)
... added because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator belongs not to one party; but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”[Galatians 3:19-22]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 96, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Old Law Ministers Death; The New, Righteousness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 840 (In-Text, Margin)
Now, since, as he says in another passage, “the law was added because of transgression,”[Galatians 3:19] meaning the law which is written externally to man, he therefore designates it both as “the ministration of death,” and “the ministration of condemnation;” but the other, that is, the law of the New Testament, he calls “the ministration of the Spirit” and “the ministration of righteousness,” because through the Spirit we work righteousness, and are delivered from the condemnation due to transgression. The one, therefore, vanishes away, the other ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 175, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness. (HTML)
God’s Promises Conditional. Saints of the Old Testament Were Saved by the Grace of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1583 (In-Text, Margin)
... cause in the prophet Isaiah; because by him God said: “If ye be willing, and hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye be not willing, and hearken not to me, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken this.” As if the entire law were not full of conditions of this sort; or as if its commandments had been given to proud men for any other reason than that “the law was added because of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.”[Galatians 3:19] “It entered, therefore, that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” In other words, That man might receive commandments, trusting as he did in his own resources, and that, failing in these and becoming a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 403, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Scriptural Confirmation of the Catholic Doctrine. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2685 (In-Text, Margin)
This is what we say; this is that about which they object to us that we say “that the law was so given as to be a cause of greater sin.” They do not hear the apostle saying, “For the law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression;” and, “The law was added for the sake of transgression until the seed should come to whom the promise was made;”[Galatians 3:19] and, “If there had been a law given which could have given life, righteousness should altogether have been by the law; but the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” Hence it is that the Old Testament, from the Mount Sinai, where the law ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 405, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
The New Testament is More Ancient Than the Old; But It Was Subsequently Revealed. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2714 (In-Text, Margin)
... offence might abound; since by sin the pride of man presuming on his own righteousness is convinced of transgression, and where sin abounded grace much more abounded by the faith of the now humble man failing in the law and taking refuge in God’s mercy. Therefore, when he had said, “For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no longer of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise,” as if it might be said to him, “Why then was the law made afterwards? “he added and said, “What then is the law?”[Galatians 3:19] To which interrogation he immediately replied, “It was added because of transgression, until the seed should come to which the promise was made.” This he says again, thus: “For if they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 405, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
The New Testament is More Ancient Than the Old; But It Was Subsequently Revealed. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2715 (In-Text, Margin)
... much more abounded by the faith of the now humble man failing in the law and taking refuge in God’s mercy. Therefore, when he had said, “For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no longer of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise,” as if it might be said to him, “Why then was the law made afterwards? “he added and said, “What then is the law?” To which interrogation he immediately replied, “It was added because of transgression, until the seed should come to which the promise was made.”[Galatians 3:19] This he says again, thus: “For if they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect: because the law worketh wrath: for where there is no law, there is no transgression.” What he says in the former ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 439, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4216 (In-Text, Margin)
... 47). That David, who was placed among the Jews in the flesh, in Christ in hope, speaks “Remember what is my substance.” For not because the Jews fell away, did my substance fail: for from that people came the Virgin Mary, and from her the flesh of Christ; that Flesh sins not, but purifies sins; there, saith David, is my substance. “O remember what my substance is.” For the root has not entirely perished; the seed shall come to whom the promise was made, ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator.[Galatians 3:19] “For Thou hast not made all the sons of men for nought” (ver. 47). Lo! all the sons of men have gone into vanity: yet Thou hast not made them for nought. If then all went into vanity, whom Thou hast not made for nought; hast Thou not reserved some ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 107, footnote 2 (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 XVII on Acts vii. 35. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 387 (In-Text, Margin)
... prophet,” etc.] He shows, that the prophecy must by all means be fulfilled, and that Moses is not opposed to Him. “This is he that was in the Church in the wilderness, and, that said unto the children of Israel.” (v. 38.) Do you mark that thence comes the root, and that “salvation is from the Jews?” (John iv. 22.) “With the Angel,” it says, “which spake unto him.” (Rom. xi. 16.) Lo, again he affirms that it was He (Christ) that gave the Law, seeing Moses was with “Him” in the Church in the wilderness.[Galatians 3:19] And here he puts them in mind of a great marvel, of the things done in the Mount: “Who received living oracles to give unto us.” On all occasions Moses is wonderful, and (so) when need was to legislate. What means the expression, “Living oracles” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 11, page 109, footnote 5 (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 XVII on Acts vii. 35. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 398 (In-Text, Margin)
... of the coming of the Just One:” he still says, “the Just One,” wishing to check them: “of Whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers”—two charges he lays against them —“who have received the Law by the disposition of Angels, and have not kept it.” (v. 52.) How, “By the disposition of Angels?” Some say (The Law), disposed by Angels; or, put into his hand by the Angel Who appeared to him in the bush; for was He man? No wonder that He who wrought those works, should also have wrought these.[Galatians 3:19] “Ye slew them who preached of Him,” much more Himself. He shows them disobedient both to God, and to Angels, and the Prophets, and the Spirit, and to all: as also Scripture saith elsewhere: “Lord, they have slain Thy Prophets, and thrown down Thine ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 187, footnote 3 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)
Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus. (HTML)
The Unconfounded. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1203 (In-Text, Margin)
Eran. —But was not Moses called a mediator, though only a man?[Galatians 3:19]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 39, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
The Incarnation of the Word. (HTML)
On the Incarnation of the Word. (HTML)
The human race then was wasting, God's image was being effaced, and His work ruined. Either, then, God must forego His spoken word by which man had incurred ruin; or that which had shared in the being of the Word must sink back again into destruction, in which case God's design would be defeated. What then? was God's goodness to suffer this? But if so, why had man been made? It could have been weakness, not goodness on God's part. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 213 (In-Text, Margin)
For this cause, then, death having gained upon men, and corruption abiding upon them, the race of man was perishing; the rational man made in God’s image was disappearing, and the handiwork of God was in process of dissolution. 2. For death, as I said above, gained from that time forth a legal hold over us, and it was impossible to evade the law, since it had been laid down by God because[Galatians 3:19] of the transgression, and the result was in truth at once monstrous and unseemly. 3. For it were monstrous, firstly, that God, having spoken, should prove false—that, when once He had ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the death, after the transgression man should not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 20, footnote 17 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Objection that some were baptized unto Moses and believed in him, and an answer to it; with remarks upon types. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 992 (In-Text, Margin)
... our confession in the God of the universe. “The people,” it is written, “believed the Lord and his servant Moses.” Moses then is joined with God, not with the Spirit; and he was a type not of the Spirit, but of Christ. For at that time in the ministry of the law, he by means of himself typified “the Mediator between God and men.” Moses, when mediating for the people in things pertaining to God, was not a minister of the Spirit; for the law was given, “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator,”[Galatians 3:19] namely Moses, in accordance with the summons of the people, “Speak thou with us,…but let not God speak with us.” Thus faith in Moses is referred to the Lord, the Mediator between God and men, who said, “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 300, footnote 2 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To the Sozopolitans. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3171 (In-Text, Margin)
... everlasting, but manifested in His own times, when the Lord, when He had gone through all things pertaining to the cure of the human race, bestowed on all of us the boon of His own sojourn among us. For He helped His own creation, first through the patriarchs, whose lives were set forth as examples and rules to all willing to follow the footsteps of the saints, and with zeal like theirs to reach the perfection of good works. Next for succour He gave the Law, ordaining it by angels in the hand of Moses;[Galatians 3:19] then the prophets, foretelling the salvation to come; judges, kings, and righteous men, doing great works, with a mighty hand. After all these in the last days He was Himself manifested ill the flesh, “made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 521, footnote 9 (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 XXIII. The Third Conference of Abbot Theonas. On Sinlessness. (HTML)
Chapter IV. How man's goodness and righteousness are not good if compared with the goodness and righteousness of God. (HTML)
... goodness turns to badness in the eyes of the Highest so also our righteousness when set against the Divine righteousness is considered like a menstruous cloth, as Isaiah the prophet says: “All your righteousness is like a menstruous cloth.” And to produce something still plainer, even the vital precepts of the law itself, which are said to have been “given by angels by the hand of a mediator,” and of which the same Apostle says: “So the law indeed is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good,”[Galatians 3:19] when they are compared with the perfection of the gospel are pronounced anything but good by the Divine oracle: for He says: “And I gave them precepts that were not good, and ordinances whereby they should not live in them.” The Apostle also affirms ...