Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Galatians 4:3
There are 8 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 217, footnote 11 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter VI.—The Name Children Does Not Imply Instruction in Elementary Principles. (HTML)
... he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors, till the time appointed by the father. So also we, when we were children, were in bondage under the rudiments of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to 218redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons ”[Galatians 4:1-5] by Him. See how He has admitted those to be children who are under fear and sins; but has conferred manhood on those who are under faith, by calling them sons, in contradistinction from the children that are under the law: “For thou art no more a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 312, footnote 9 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XI.—What is the Philosophy Which the Apostle Bids Us Shun? (HTML)
... be the first principles of things, arrogating the name of philosophers, being wretched creatures devoted to pleasure. “Wherefore I pray,” says the apostle, “that your love may abound yet more and more, in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent.” “Since, when we were children,” says the same apostle, “we were kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world. And the child, though heir, differeth nothing from a servant, till the time appointed of the father.”[Galatians 4:1-3] Philosophers, then, are children, unless they have been made men by Christ. “For if the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free,” at least he is the seed of Abraham, though not of promise, receiving what belongs to him by ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 435, footnote 14 (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)
Another Instance of Marcion's Tampering with St. Paul's Text. The Fulness of Time, Announced by the Apostle, Foretold by the Prophets. Mosaic Rites Abrogated by the Creator Himself. Marcion's Tricks About Abraham's Name. The Creator, by His Christ, the Fountain of the Grace and the Liberty Which St. Paul Announced. Marcion's Docetism Refuted. (HTML)
“But,” says he, “I speak after the manner of men: when we were children, we were placed in bondage under the elements of the world.”[Galatians 4:3] This, however, was not said “after the manner of men.” For there is no figure here, but literal truth. For (with respect to the latter clause of this passage), what child (in the sense, that is, in which the Gentiles are children) is not in bondage to the elements of the world, which he looks up to in the light of a god? With regard, however, to the former clause, there was a figure (as the apostle wrote it); because after ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 435, footnote 17 (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)
Another Instance of Marcion's Tampering with St. Paul's Text. The Fulness of Time, Announced by the Apostle, Foretold by the Prophets. Mosaic Rites Abrogated by the Creator Himself. Marcion's Tricks About Abraham's Name. The Creator, by His Christ, the Fountain of the Grace and the Liberty Which St. Paul Announced. Marcion's Docetism Refuted. (HTML)
... no figure here, but literal truth. For (with respect to the latter clause of this passage), what child (in the sense, that is, in which the Gentiles are children) is not in bondage to the elements of the world, which he looks up to in the light of a god? With regard, however, to the former clause, there was a figure (as the apostle wrote it); because after he had said, “I speak after the manner of men,” he adds), “Though it be but a man’s covenant, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.”[Galatians 4:3] For by the figure of the permanency of a human covenant he was defending the divine testament. “To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He said not ‘to seeds,’ as of many; but as of one, ‘to thy seed,’ which is Christ.” Fie on Marcion’s ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 125, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book IX. (HTML)
An Account of Contemporaneous Heresy. (HTML)
... greatest struggle now remains behind, viz., to furnish an account and refutation of those heresies that have sprung up in our own day, by which certain ignorant and presumptuous men have attempted to scatter abroad the Church, and have introduced the greatest confusion among all the faithful throughout the entire world. For it seems expedient that we, making an onslaught upon the opinion which constitutes the prime source of (contemporaneous) evils, should prove what are the originating principles[Galatians 4:3] of this (opinion), in order that its offshoots, becoming a matter of general notoriety, may be made the object of universal scorn.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 188, footnote 8 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Archelaus. (HTML)
The Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes. (HTML)
Chapter XIII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1569 (In-Text, Margin)
... had not sin. Now, however, ye both see and hear, and yet ye desire to walk in ignorance, in order that ye may keep that law which has been destroyed and abandoned. And Paul, too, who is held to be the most approved apostle with us, expresses himself to the same effect in one of his epistles, when he says: “For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator.” And in saying this he pronounces on them as Gentiles, because they were under the elements of the world,[Galatians 4:3] before the fulness of faith came, believing then as they did in the law and the prophets.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 39, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
On the Latter Part of Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Contained in the Sixth and Seventh Chapters of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter IV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 275 (In-Text, Margin)
... where the Jews are accused of showing by their sin that they did not wish to become sons: those things being left out of account which are said in prophecy of a future Christian people, that they would have God as a Father, according to that gospel statement, “To them gave He power to become the sons of God.” The Apostle Paul, again, says, “The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant;” and mentions that we have received the Spirit of adoption, “whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”[Galatians 4:1-6]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 96b, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Against the Jews on the question of the Sabbath. (HTML)
As I said, therefore, for the purpose of securing leisure to worship God in order that they might, both servant and beast of burden, devote a very small share to Him and be at rest, the observance of the Sabbath was devised for the carnal that were still childish and in the bonds of the elements of the world[Galatians 4:3], and unable to conceive of anything beyond the body and the letter. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Only-begotten Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. For to as many of us as received Him, He gave power to become ...