Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Galatians 4:4

There are 74 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 28, footnote 8 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Mathetes (HTML)

Epistle to Diognetus (HTML)

Chapter IX.—Why the Son was sent so late. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 309 (In-Text, Margin)

As long then as the former time[Galatians 4:4] endured, He permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 441, footnote 4 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Irenæus (HTML)

Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)

Chapter XVI.—Proofs from the apostolic writings, that Jesus Christ was one and the same, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3578 (In-Text, Margin)

... with power through the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And again, writing to the Romans about Israel, he says: “Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever.” And again, in his Epistle to the Galatians, he says: “But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption;”[Galatians 4:4-5] plainly indicating one God, who did by the prophets make promise of the Son, and one Jesus Christ our Lord, who was of the seed of David according to His birth from Mary; and that Jesus Christ was appointed the Son of God with power, according to ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 443, footnote 6 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Irenæus (HTML)

Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)

Chapter XVI.—Proofs from the apostolic writings, that Jesus Christ was one and the same, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3603 (In-Text, Margin)

... reason why, when men were often desirous to take Him, it is said, “No man laid hands upon Him, for the hour of His being taken was not yet come;” nor the time of His passion, which had been foreknown by the Father; as also says the prophet Habakkuk, “By this Thou shalt be known when the years have drawn nigh; Thou shalt be set forth when the time comes; because my soul is disturbed by anger, Thou shalt remember Thy mercy.” Paul also says: “But when the fulness of time came, God sent forth His Son.”[Galatians 4:4] By which is made manifest, that all things which had been foreknown of the Father, our Lord did accomplish in their order, season, and hour, foreknown and fitting, being indeed one and the same, but rich and great. For He fulfils the bountiful and ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 454, footnote 7 (Image)

Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus

Irenæus (HTML)

Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)

Chapter XXII.—Christ assumed actual flesh, conceived and born of the Virgin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3740 (In-Text, Margin)

... were, He did no great thing in what He suffered and endured. But every one will allow that we are [composed of] a body taken from the earth, and a soul receiving spirit from God. This, therefore, the Word of God was made, recapitulating in Himself His own handiwork; and on this account does He confess Himself the Son of man, and blesses “the meek, because they shall inherit the earth.” The Apostle Paul, moreover, in the Epistle to the Galatians, declares plainly, “God sent His Son, made of a woman.”[Galatians 4:4] And again, in that to the Romans, he says, “Concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated as the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 549, footnote 1 (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 4630 (In-Text, Margin)

... 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.” 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.”[Galatians 4:4] For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man’s opponent. And therefore ...

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)
CCEL Footnote 1106 (In-Text, Margin)

... 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 3, page 435, footnote 21 (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)
CCEL Footnote 5329 (In-Text, Margin)

... covenant, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.” 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 sponge! But indeed it is superfluous to dwell on what he has erased, when he may be more effectually confuted from that which he has retained. “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son”[Galatians 4:4] —the God, of course, who is the Lord of that very succession of times which constitutes an age; who also ordained, as “ signs ” of time, suns and moons and constellations and stars; who furthermore both predetermined and predicted that ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 446, footnote 8 (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 5554 (In-Text, Margin)

... that promise of the Spirit which was given by the word of Joel: “In the last days will I pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy; and upon my servants and upon my handmaids will I pour out of my Spirit.” Since, then, the Creator promised the gift of His Spirit in the latter days; and since Christ has in these last days appeared as the dispenser of spiritual gifts (as the apostle says, “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;”[Galatians 4:4] and again, “This I say, brethren, that the time is short”), it evidently follows in connection with this prediction of the last days, that this gift of the Spirit belongs to Him who is the Christ of the predicters. Now compare the Spirit’s specific ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 538, footnote 14 (Image)

Tertullian (I, II, III)

Anti-Marcion. (HTML)

On the Flesh of Christ. (HTML)

Christ Born of a Virgin, of Her Substance. The Physiological Facts of His Real and Exact Birth of a Human Mother, as Suggested by Certain Passages of Scripture. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7217 (In-Text, Margin)

... fact is, if he had meant “of her,” he must have said “in her;” for that which was of her, was also in her. The angel’s expression, therefore, “in her,” has precisely the same meaning as the phrase “of her.” It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down the Lord’s descent from Abraham to Mary, says, “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Christ.” But Paul, too, silences these critics when he says, “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.”[Galatians 4:4] Does he mean through a woman, or in a woman? Nay more, for the sake of greater emphasis, he uses the word “ made ” rather than born, although the use of the latter expression would have been simpler. But by saying “ ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 31, footnote 3 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)

On the Veiling of Virgins. (HTML)

The Parallel Case of Mary Considered. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 296 (In-Text, Margin)

Let us now see whether the apostle withal observes the norm of this name in accordance with Genesis, attributing it to the sex; calling the virgin Mary a woman, just as Genesis (does) Eve. For, writing to the Galatians, “God,” he says, “sent His own Son, made of a woman,”[Galatians 4:4] who, of course, is admitted to have been a virgin, albeit Hebion resist (that doctrine). I recognise, too, the angel Gabriel as having been sent to “a virgin.” But when he is blessing her, it is “among women,” not among virgins, that he ranks her: “Blessed (be) thou among women.” The angel withal knew that even a ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 519, footnote 8 (Image)

Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

Cyprian. (HTML)

The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)

Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
That although from the beginning He had been the Son of God, yet He had to be begotten again according to the flesh. (HTML)CCEL Footnote 3994 (In-Text, Margin)

... for Thy possession.” Also in the Gospel according to Luke: “And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and she was filled with the Holy Ghost, and she cried out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Also Paul to the Galatians: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son, born of a woman.”[Galatians 4:4] Also in the Epistle of John: “Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. But whosoever denies that He is come in the flesh is not of God, but is of the spirit of Antichrist.”

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 620, footnote 4 (Image)

Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix

Novatian. (HTML)

A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)

And Indeed that Christ Was Not Only Man, But God Also; That Even as He Was the Son of Man, So Also He Was the Son of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5087 (In-Text, Margin)

... doctrines would be endangered in one and the other way, by one being convicted to have lost belief in the other. Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus Christ the Son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God. For in the manner that as man He is of Abraham, so also as God He is before Abraham himself. And in the same manner as He is as man the “Son of David,” so as God He is proclaimed David’s Lord. And in the same manner as He was made as man “under the law,”[Galatians 4:4] so as God He is declared to be “Lord of the Sabbath.” And in the same manner as He suffers, as man, the condemnation, so as God He is found to have all judgment of the quick and dead. And in the same manner as He is born as man subsequent to the ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 226, footnote 1 (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 IL. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2050 (In-Text, Margin)

... but there are the mightiest issues involved in this word. For just as all the law and the prophets are summed up in two words, so also all our hope is made to depend on the birth by the blessed Mary. Give me therefore an answer to these several questions which I shall address to you. How shall we get rid of these many words of the apostle, so important and so precise, which are expressed in terms like the following: “But when the good pleasure of God was with us, He sent His Son, made of a woman;”[Galatians 4:4] and again, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us;” and once more, “God hath both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us together with Him by His own power?” And there are many other passages of a similar import; as, for example, this which ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 386, footnote 4 (Image)

Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius

Methodius. (HTML)

Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna On the Day that They Met in the Temple. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3020 (In-Text, Margin)

... as Isaiah has even before declared. But when He says, “As the years draw nigh, thou shalt be recognised,” He means, as has been said before, that glorious recognition of our Saviour, God in the flesh, who is otherwise invisible to mortal eye; as somewhere Paul, that great interpreter of sacred mysteries, says: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His 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.”[Galatians 4:4-5] And then, as to that which is subjoined, “When the time is come, Thou shalt be shown forth,” what exposition doth this require, if a man diligently direct the eye of his mind to the festival which we are now celebrating? “For then shalt Thou be ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 490, footnote 17 (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 XIII. (HTML)
The Little Ones and Their Angels. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5990 (In-Text, Margin)

... delivereth them;” but of the great, whether it is the Lord who is greater than the angels, who might say about each of them, “I am with him in affliction;” and, so long as we are imperfect, and need one to assist us that we may be delivered from evils, we stand in need of an angel of whom Jacob said, “The angel who delivered me from all the evils;” but, when we have become perfected, and have passed through the stage of being subject to nursing-fathers and nursing-mothers and guardians and stewards,[Galatians 4:4] we are meet to be governed by the Lord Himself.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 64, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters

The Confessions (HTML)

Of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth years of his age, passed at Carthage, when, having completed his course of studies, he is caught in the snares of a licentious passion, and falls into the errors of the Manichæans. (HTML)

He Attacks the Doctrine of the Manichæans Concerning Evil, God, and the Righteousness of the Patriarchs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 247 (In-Text, Margin)

... certain temporal reasons, commanded them one thing, and these another, but both obeying the same righteousness; though they see, in one man, one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different members, and a thing which was formerly lawful after a time unlawful—that permitted or commanded in one corner, which done in another is justly prohibited and punished. Is justice, then, various and changeable? Nay, but the times over which she presides are not all alike, because they are times.[Galatians 4:4] But men, whose days upon the earth are few, because by their own perception they cannot harmonize the causes of former ages and other nations, of which they had no experience, with these of which they have experience, though in one and the same ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 24, footnote 9 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
In What Manner the Son is Less Than the Father, and Than Himself. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 64 (In-Text, Margin)

... the likeness of men: and was found in fashion as a man.” The Son of God, then, is equal to God the Father in nature, but less in “fashion.” For in the form of a servant which He took He is less than the Father; but in the form of God, in which also He was before He took the form of a servant, He is equal to the Father. In the form of God He is the Word, “by whom all things are made;” but in the form of a servant He was “made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.”[Galatians 4:4-5] In like manner, in the form of God He made man; in the form of a servant He was made man. For if the Father alone had made man without the Son, it would not have been written, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 30, footnote 8 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
By What Rule in the Scriptures It is Understood that the Son is Now Equal and Now Less. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 126 (In-Text, Margin)

... without a scruple of doubt to be fulfilled concerning Himself,—“The Spirit of the Lord God,” He says, “is upon me: because He hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek He hath sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives,” etc.: for the doing of which things He therefore declares Himself to be “sent,” because the Spirit of God is upon Him. According to the form of God, all things were made by Him; according to the form of a servant, He was Himself made of a woman, made under the law.[Galatians 4:4] According to the form of God, He and the Father are one; according to the form of a servant, He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him. According to the form of God, “As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 40, footnote 8 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

The equality of the Trinity maintained against objections drawn from those texts which speak of the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
The Son and Holy Spirit are Not Therefore Less Because Sent. The Son is Sent Also by Himself. Of the Sending of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 231 (In-Text, Margin)

8. For this reason, then, if both the Son and the Holy Spirit are sent thither where they were, we must inquire, how that sending, whether of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, is to be understood; for of the Father alone, we nowhere read that He is sent. Now, of the Son, the apostle writes thus: “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.”[Galatians 4:4-5] “He sent,” he says, “His Son, made of a woman.” And by this term, woman, what Catholic does not know that he did not wish to signify the privation of virginity; but, according to a Hebraism, the difference of sex? When, therefore, he says, “God sent His Son, made of a woman,” he ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 41, footnote 9 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

The equality of the Trinity maintained against objections drawn from those texts which speak of the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
The Son and Holy Spirit are Not Therefore Less Because Sent. The Son is Sent Also by Himself. Of the Sending of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 241 (In-Text, Margin)

... that Word of God itself which was in the beginning with God and was God, namely, in the wisdom itself of God, apart from time, at what time that wisdom must needs appear in the flesh. Therefore, since without any commencement of time, the Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, it was in the Word itself without any time, at what time the Word was to be made flesh and dwell among us. And when this fullness of time had come, “God sent His Son, made of a woman,”[Galatians 4:4] that is, made in time, that the Incarnate Word might appear to men; while it was in that Word Himself, apart from time, at what time this was to be done; for the order of times is in the eternal wisdom of God without time. Since, then, that the Son ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 43, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

The equality of the Trinity maintained against objections drawn from those texts which speak of the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
A Doubt Raised About Divine Appearances. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 260 (In-Text, Margin)

... the mount, and whatever other things of the kind appeared at that time, when (as we have learned from Scripture testimony) He spake face to face with the fathers, if He Himself was manifested by those modes and forms of the creature, as exhibited and presented corporeally to human sight? But if the Son was manifested by them, why is He said to be sent so long after, when He was made of a woman, as the apostle says, “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,”[Galatians 4:4] seeing that He was sent also before, when He appeared to the fathers by those changeable forms of the creature? Or if He cannot rightly be said to be sent, unless when the Word was made flesh, why is the Holy Spirit said to be sent, of whom no such ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 56, footnote 5 (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)
Preface. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 356 (In-Text, Margin)

... sight of mortals in some corporeal form from a spiritual hiding-place; which, because the Father did not, He is said only to have sent, not also to be sent. Our next inquiry was, Why the Father also is not sometimes said to be sent, if He Himself was manifested through those corporeal forms which appeared to the eyes of the ancients. But if the Son was manifested at these times, why should He be said to be “sent” so long after, when the fullness of time was come that He should be born of a woman;[Galatians 4:4] since, indeed, He was sent before also, viz., when He appeared corporeally in those forms? Or if He were not rightly said to be “sent,” except when the Word was made flesh; why should the Holy Spirit be read of as “sent,” of whom such an ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 82, footnote 5 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

Augustin explains for what the Son of God was sent; but, however, that the Son of God, although made less by being sent, is not therefore less because the Father sent Him; nor yet the Holy Spirit less because both the Father sent Him and the Son. (HTML)
In What Manner the Son Was Sent and Proclaimed Beforehand. How in the Sending of His Birth in the Flesh He Was Made Less Without Detriment to His Equality with the Father. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 532 (In-Text, Margin)

26. “When, therefore, the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law;”[Galatians 4:4] to such a degree lowly, that He was “made;” in this way therefore sent, in that He was made. If, therefore, the greater sends the less, we too, acknowledge Him to have been made less; and in so far less, in so far as made; and in so far made, in so far as sent. For “He sent forth His Son made of a woman.” And yet, because all things were made by Him, not only before He was made and sent, but before all things were at all, we confess the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 84, footnote 3 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

Augustin explains for what the Son of God was sent; but, however, that the Son of God, although made less by being sent, is not therefore less because the Father sent Him; nor yet the Holy Spirit less because both the Father sent Him and the Son. (HTML)
The Sender and the Sent Equal. Why the Son is Said to Be Sent by the Father. Of the Mission of the Holy Spirit. How and by Whom He Was Sent. The Father the Beginning of the Whole Godhead. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 539 (In-Text, Margin)

... glory, that, being present, she may labor with me;” that is, may teach me to labor [heartily] in order that I may not labor [irksomely]. For her labors are virtues. But she is sent in one way that she may be with man; she has been sent in another way that she herself may be man. For, “entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God and prophets;” so she also fills the holy angels, and works all things fitting for such ministries by them. But when the fullness of time was come, she was sent,[Galatians 4:4] not to fill angels, nor to be an angel, except in so far as she announced the counsel of the Father, which was her own also; nor, again, to be with men or in men, for this too took place before, both in the fathers and in the prophets; but that the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 182, footnote 2 (Image)

Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises

Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)

He expounds this trinity that he has found in knowledge by commending Christian faith. (HTML)
What Has Been Treated of in This Book. How We Have Reached by Steps to a Certain Trinity, Which is Found in Practical Knowledge and True Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 849 (In-Text, Margin)

... through the forgiveness of sins, save by Him; and that in the abiding place of the devil, life must needs be at once miserable and never-ending, which ought rather to be called death than life. All which I have also argued, so far as space permitted, in this book, while I have already said much on the subject in the fourth book of this work as well; but in that place for one purpose, here for another,—namely, there, that I might show why and how Christ was sent in the fullness of time by the Father,[Galatians 4:4] on account of those who say that He who sent and He who was sent cannot be equal in nature; but here, in order to distinguish practical knowlege from contemplative wisdom.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 410, footnote 9 (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 2011 (In-Text, Margin)

27. Therefore at that time, when the Law also, following upon the days of the 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,[Galatians 4:4] 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, with empty and vain craft, say to a Christian man ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 160, footnote 3 (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 objects to the incarnation of God on the ground that the evangelists are at variance with each other, and that incarnation is unsuitable to deity.  Augustin attempts to remove the critical and theological difficulties. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 310 (In-Text, Margin)

... advantages of the Jews, says: "Whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law; whose are the fathers, and of whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." And again: "We ourselves also groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, even the redemption of the body." Again, elsewhere: "But in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."[Galatians 4:4-5] These passages show clearly that adoption is a significant symbol. God has an only Son, whom He begot from His own substance, of whom it is said, "Being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal to God." Us He begot not of His own ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 179, 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 quotes passages to show that the Apostle Paul abandoned belief in the incarnation, to which he earlier held.  Augustin shows that the apostle was consistent with himself in the utterances quoted. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 381 (In-Text, Margin)

... with the race of darkness his members, or vesture, or weapons, that is, the five elements, which also are part of the substance of God, so that they became subject to confinement and pollution. Nor does Faustus get from Paul his Second Man, of whom Paul says that He is from heaven, and that He is the last Adam, and a quickening spirit; and also that He was born of the seed of David after the flesh, that He was made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law.[Galatians 4:4-5] Of Him Paul says to Timothy: "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel." And this resurrection he quotes as an example of our resurrection: "I delivered unto you first of all that which I ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 184, footnote 3 (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 the prophets predicted Christ.  Augustin proves such prediction from the New Testament, and expounds at length the principal types of Christ in the Old Testament. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 412 (In-Text, Margin)

... and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." Here is the most abundant and express testimony and the most solemn commendation. The adoption here spoken of is evidently through the Son of God; as the apostle says to the Galatians: "In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."[Galatians 4:4-5] And the glory spoken of is chiefly that of which he says in the same Epistle to the Romans: "What advantage hath the Jew? or what profit is there in circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because unto them were committed the oracles of God." Can the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 315, footnote 3 (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 recurs to the genealogical difficulty and insists that even according to Matthew Jesus was not Son of God until His baptism.  Augustin sets forth the Catholic view of the relation of the divine and the human in the person of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 980 (In-Text, Margin)

... The voice from heaven at the Jordan should be compared with the voice heard on the Mount. In neither case do the words, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," imply that He was not the Son of God before; for He who from the Virgin’s womb took the form of a servant "was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God." And the same Apostle Paul himself says distinctly elsewhere, "But in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law;"[Galatians 4:4] that is, a woman in the Hebrew sense, not a wife, but one of the female sex. The Son of God is both Lord of David in His divine nature, and Son of David as being of the seed of David after the flesh. And if it were not profitable for us to believe ...

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 1, Volume 6, page 104, footnote 4 (Image)

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

The Harmony of the Gospels. (HTML)

Book II (HTML)

A Statement of the Reason Why Matthew Enumerates One Succession of Ancestors for Christ, and Luke Another. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 678 (In-Text, Margin)

... declared to have been sent with the view of assuming to Himself the flesh proper to that race to which we too belong according to our nature, in order that by His participation in our mortality, through His love for us, He might make us partakers of His own divinity in the way of adoption. For the apostle speaks thus: “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His 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.”[Galatians 4:4-5] And yet we are also said to be born of God,—that is to say, in so far as we, who already were men, have received power to be made the sons of God,—to be made such, moreover, by grace, and not by nature. For if we were sons by nature, we never could ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 251, footnote 11 (Image)

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

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

Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1740 (In-Text, Margin)

... not the high honour of her womb, but the order of wedlock did she regard, for Christ the humble would not have taught His mother to be proud. “Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.” Thy father and I, she saith, “for the husband is the head of the woman.” How much less then ought other women to be proud! for Mary herself also is called a woman, not from the loss of virginity, but by a form of expression peculiar to her country; for of the Lord Jesus the Apostle also said, “made of a woman,”[Galatians 4:4] yet there is no interruption hence to the order and connection of our Creed wherein we confess “that He was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” For as a vir gin she conceived Him, as a virgin brought Him forth, and a virgin she continued; ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 256, 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)

Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1784 (In-Text, Margin)

... Apostle Paul does continually use this very word “adoption,” and that to express a great mystery. For though Scripture testifies that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, it says, that the brethren and coheirs whom He hath vouchsafed to have, are made so by a kind of adoption through Divine grace. “When,” saith he, “the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His 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.”[Galatians 4:4-5] And in another place: “We groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” And again, when he was speaking of the Jews, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 261, 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)

Of the words of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap. iii. 13, 'Then Jesus cometh from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.' Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1845 (In-Text, Margin)

... the Son. I will quote Paul; one competently versed in the divine law. That Paul, I say, will I quote, who prescribes the laws of peace, not of litigation, for lawyers at this day also have a Paul who prescribes the laws of the courts, not the Christian’s laws. Let the holy Apostle show us then how the birth of the Son was the work of the Father. “But,” saith he, “when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law.”[Galatians 4:4-5] Thus have ye heard him, and because it is plain and express, have understood. See, the Father made the Son to be born of a Virgin. For “when the fulness of time was come, God sent His Son;” the Father sent His Christ. How sent He Him? “made of a ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 261, 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)

Of the words of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap. iii. 13, 'Then Jesus cometh from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.' Concerning the Trinity. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1851 (In-Text, Margin)

... what is the birth of the Son of the Virgin Mary? Surely it is His assumption of the form of a servant in the Virgin’s womb. Is the birth of the Son ought else, but the taking of the form of a servant in the womb of the Virgin? Now hear how that this was the work of the Son also. “Who when He was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant.” “When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,”[Galatians 4:4] who was “made His Son of the seed of David according to the flesh.” In this then we see that the birth of the Son was the work of the Father; but in that the Son Himself “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,” we see that the birth of the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 19, 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 I. 15–18. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 46 (In-Text, Margin)

... By it humbled, by it also glorified; by it He raised the humble, even by that to which He, when humbled, descended. We belong, then, to the gospel, we belong to the New Testament. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” We ask the apostle, and he says to us, since we are not under the law but under grace. “He sent therefore His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”[Galatians 4:4-5] Behold, for this end Christ came, that He might redeem those who were under the law; that now we may not be under the law, but under grace. Who, then, gave the law? He gave the law who gave likewise grace; but the law He sent by a servant, with ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 180, footnote 1 (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 VII. 1–13. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 551 (In-Text, Margin)

5. What did the Lord answer to these things? Then saith Jesus to them: “My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready.” What is this? Had not Christ’s time yet come? Why then was Christ come, if His time had not yet come? Have we not heard the apostle say, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son”?[Galatians 4:4] If, therefore, He was sent in the fullness of time, He was sent when He ought to be sent, He came when it behoved that He should come. What means then, “My time is not yet come”? Understand, brethren, with what intention they spoke, when they appeared to advise Him as their brother. They were giving Him counsel to pursue glory; as ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 190, 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 VII. 25–36. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 596 (In-Text, Margin)

... under fate. This is not to be believed concerning thee, much less concerning Him by whom thou wast made. If thy hour is His good will, what is His hour but His good will? He meant not therefore an hour in which He should be forced to die, but that in which He would deign to be put to death. But He was awaiting the time in which He should die, for He awaited also the time in which He should be born. The apostle, speaking of this time, says, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son.”[Galatians 4:4] For this cause many say, Why did not Christ come before? To whom we must make answer, Because the fullness of time had not yet come, while He by whom the times were made sets their bounds; for He knew when He ought to come. In the first place, it ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 394, footnote 2 (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 XVII. 1. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1692 (In-Text, Margin)

... its time the passion of Christ; for we may well shrink from the thought that the stars should compel their own Maker to die. It was not the time, therefore, that drove Christ to His death, but Christ who selected the time to die: who also fixed the time, when He was born of the Virgin, with the Father, of whom He was born independently of time. And in accordance with this true and salutary doctrine, the Apostle Paul also says, “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;”[Galatians 4:4] and God declares by the prophet, “In an acceptable time have I heard Thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee;” and yet again the apostle, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” He then may say, “Father, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 449, footnote 7 (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 XXI. 19–25. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1974 (In-Text, Margin)

... anger of God, whereof the Scriptures say, “Man, that is born of woman, is of few days and full of anger:” for the anger of God is not like that of man, the disturbance of an excited man, but the calm fixing of righteous punishment. In this anger of His, God restraineth not, as it is written, His tender mercies; but, besides other consolations to the miserable, which He ceaseth not to bestow on mankind, in the fullness of time, when He knew that such had to be done, He sent His only-begotten Son,[Galatians 4:4] by whom He created all things, that He might become man while remaining God, and so be the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus: that those who believe in Him, being absolved by the laver of regeneration from the guilt of all their ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 296, footnote 5 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXVIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2837 (In-Text, Margin)

... that coming wherein He shall be Judge of quick and dead, “From this time,” He saith, “ye shall see the Son of Man coming in clouds.” These “Thy steps have been seen,” that is, have been manifested, by the revealing the grace of the New Testament. Whence hath been said, “How beautiful are the feet of them that proclaim peace, that proclaim good things!” For this grace and those steps were lying hid in the Old Testament: but when there came the fulness of time, and it pleased God to reveal His Son,[Galatians 4:4] that He might be proclaimed among the Gentiles, “there were seen Thy steps, O God: the steps of my God, of the King who is in the holy place.” In what holy place, save in His Temple? “For the Temple of God is holy,” he saith, “which ye are.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 337, footnote 10 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LXXIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3277 (In-Text, Margin)

13. “Therefore there shall return hither My people” (ver. 10). Now Asaph himself is returning hither. For he saw these things abound to unrighteous men, he saw them abound to proud men: he is returning to God, and is beginning to inquire and discuss. But when? “When full days shall be found in them.” What is “full days”? “But when there came the fulness of time, God sent His Son.”[Galatians 4:4] This is the very fulness of time, when He came to teach men that things temporal should be despised, that they should not esteem as a great matter whatever object evil men covet, that they should suffer whatever evil men fear. He became the way, He recalled us to inward thought, admonished us of what ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 498, footnote 6 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 4610 (In-Text, Margin)

14. “Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Sion: for it is time that Thou have mercy upon her” (ver. 13). What time? “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law.” And where is Sion? “To redeem them that were under the Law.”[Galatians 4:4-5] First then were the Jews: for thence were the Apostles, thence those more than five hundred brethren, thence that later multitude, who had but one heart and one soul toward God. Therefore, “the time is come.” What time? “Behold, now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation.” Who saith this? That Servant of God, that Builder, who said, “Ye ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 554, footnote 6 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CXVI (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 5079 (In-Text, Margin)

3. And what are thy days, since thou hast said, “In my days I have called upon Him”? Are they those perchance, in which “the fulness of time came,” and “God sent His Son,”[Galatians 4:4] who had already said, “In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee”? …I may rather call my days the days of my misery, the days of my mortality, the days according to Adam, full of toil and sweat, the days according to the ancient corruption. “For I lying, stuck fast in the deep mire,” in another Psalm also have cried out, “Behold, Thou hast made my days old;” in these ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 581, footnote 5 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CXIX (HTML)

Ain. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5316 (In-Text, Margin)

125. “It is time,” he saith, “for the Lord to lay to His hand” (ver. 126). For this is the reading of most copies: not as some have, “O Lord.” Now what is this, save the grace which was revealed in Christ at its own time? Of which season the Apostle saith, “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent His Son.”[Galatians 4:4] …But wherefore is it that, seemingly anxious to show the Lord that it was time to lay to His hand, he hath subjoined, “They have scattered Thy law;” as if it were the season for the Lord to act, because the proud scattered His law. For what meaneth this? In the wickedness of transgression, they have not guarded its integrity. It was ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 584, footnote 4 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CXIX (HTML)

Koph. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5340 (In-Text, Margin)

... the love of prayer strongly urging us, the time of prayer, which is wont to be after the crowing of the cock, is not awaited, but prevented. But if we understand night of the whole of this world’s duration; we indeed cry unto God at midnight, and prevent the fulness of time in which He will restore us what He hath promised, as is elsewhere read, “Let us prevent His presence with confession.” Although if we choose to understand the unripe season of this night, before the fulness of time had come,[Galatians 4:4] that is, the ripe season when Christ should be manifested in the flesh; neither was the Church then silent, but preventing this fulness of time, in prophecy cried out, and trusted in the words of God, who was able to do what He promised, that in the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 13, page 54, footnote 2 (Image)

Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon

The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians. (HTML)

Homilies on Ephesians. (HTML)

Ephesians 1:1--2 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 189 (In-Text, Margin)

The fullness of the times,[Galatians 4:4] however, was His coming. After, then, He had done everything, by the ministry both of Angels, and of Prophets, and of the Law, and nothing came of it, and it was well nigh come to this, that man had been made in vain, brought into the world in vain, nay, rather to his ruin; when all were absolutely perishing, more fearfully than in the deluge, He devised this dispensation, that is by grace; that it might not be in vain, might not be to no purpose that man was created. This he calls ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 133, footnote 2 (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 V (HTML)

The Author's Views respecting the Celebration of Easter, Baptism, Fasting, Marriage, the Eucharist, and Other Ecclesiastical Rites. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 801 (In-Text, Margin)

... Samaritans, who are an offshoot from the Jews, always celebrate this festival after the equinox. But this subject would require a distinct and copious treatise: I shall therefore merely add, that those who affect so much to imitate the Jews, and are so very anxious about an accurate observance of types, ought to depart from them in no particular. For if they have chosen to be so correct, they must not only observe days and months, but all other things also, which Christ (who was ‘made under the law’)[Galatians 4:4] did in the manner of the Jews; or which he unjustly suffered from them; or wrought typically for the good of all men. He entered into a ship and taught. He ordered the Passover to be made ready in an upper room. He commanded an ass that was tied to ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 179, footnote 8 (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 Immutable. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1144 (In-Text, Margin)

“He uses the phrase ‘of whom’ instead of ‘through whom;’ as when Paul says ‘made of a woman.’[Galatians 4:4] He clearly made this distinction for us in another place where he says that the being made of the man is proper to a woman, but to a man the being made by the woman, in the words ‘For as the woman is of the man so is the man by the woman.’ But with the object at once of pointing out the different use of these expressions, and of correcting obiter an error of certain men who supposed the body of the Lord to be spiritual, that he may shew how ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 203, footnote 8 (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 1323 (In-Text, Margin)

“But as being born of the Virgin He is said to have been made man of the woman,[Galatians 4:4] so He is described as being made under the law because of His sometimes walking by the precepts of the law, as for instance when His parents zealously urged His circumcision, when He was a child eight days old, as relates the evangelist Luke, afterwards ‘they brought Him to present Him to the Lord,’ ‘bringing the offerings of purification’ ‘to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord a pair of turtle doves or two young ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 385, footnote 8 (Image)

Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters

Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)

Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)

Discourse II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2674 (In-Text, Margin)

... Noah, the then transgressors; but He did it after the ark. He could too, without Moses, have spoken the word only and have brought the people out of Egypt; but it profited to do it through Moses. And God was able without the judges to save His people; but it was profitable for the people that for a season judges should be raised up to them. The Saviour too might have come among us from the beginning, or on His coming might not have been delivered to Pilate; but He came ‘at the fulness of the ages[Galatians 4:4],’ and when sought for said, ‘I am He.’ For what He does, that is profitable for men, and was not fitting in any other way; and what is profitable and fitting, for that He provides. Accordingly He came, not ‘that He might be ministered unto, but that ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 410, footnote 11 (Image)

Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters

Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)

Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)

Discourse III (HTML)
Introductory to Texts from the Gospels on the Incarnation. Enumeration of texts still to be explained. Arians compared to the Jews. We must recur to the Regula Fidei. Our Lord did not come into, but became, man, and therefore had the acts and affections of the flesh. The same works divine and human. Thus the flesh was purified, and men were made immortal. Reference to I Pet. iv. 1. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3019 (In-Text, Margin)

... rightly received Him; but neither, when they were begotten was it said that He had become man, nor, when they suffered, was it said that He Himself suffered. But when He came among us from Mary once at the end of the ages for the abolition of sin (for so it was pleasing to the Father, to send His own Son ‘made of a woman, made under the Law’), then it is said, that He took flesh and became man, and in that flesh He suffered for us (as Peter says, ‘Christ therefore having suffered for us in the flesh[Galatians 4:4],’ that it might be shewn, and that all might believe, that whereas He was ever God, and hallowed those to whom He came, and ordered all things according to the Father’s will, afterwards for our sakes He became man, and ‘bodily,’ as the Apostle says, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 574, footnote 7 (Image)

Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters

Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)

The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)

Personal Letters. (HTML)
To Epictetus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4736 (In-Text, Margin)

12. This proves that while to all the others the Word came, in order that they might prophesy, from Mary the Word Himself took flesh, and proceeded forth as man; being by nature and essence the Word of God, but after the flesh man of the seed of David, and made of the flesh of Mary, as Paul said[Galatians 4:4]. Him the Father pointed out both in Jordan and on the Mount, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ Him the Arians denied, but we recognising worship, not dividing the Son and the Word, but knowing that the Son is the Word Himself, by Whom all things are made, and by Whom we were redeemed. And for this reason we wonder how any ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 80, footnote 5 (Image)

Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen

The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)

On the words Incarnate, and Made Man. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1473 (In-Text, Margin)

... virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, and so forth. And again when the census took place, and Joseph went up to enrol himself, what saith the Scripture? And Joseph also went up from Galilee, to enrol himself with Mary who was espoused to him, being great with child. For though she was with child, yet it said not “with his wife,” but with her who was espoused to him. For God sent forth His Son, says Paul, not made of a man and a woman, but made of a woman[Galatians 4:4] only, that is of a virgin. For that the virgin also is called a woman, we shewed before. For He who makes souls virgin, was born of a Virgin.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 7, footnote 23 (Image)

Basil: Letters and Select Works

De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)

That v: not found “of whom” in the case of the Son and of the Spirit. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 781 (In-Text, Margin)

... “I have gotten a man through God,” meaning to say the same as from God; and in another passage “Moses commanded…Israel through the word of the Lord,” and, again, “Is not the interpretation through God?” Joseph, discoursing about dreams to the prisoners, instead of saying “ from God” says plainly “ through God.” Inversely Paul uses the term “ from whom” instead of “ through whom,” when he says “made from a woman” (A.V., “of” instead of “ through a woman”).[Galatians 4:4] And this he has plainly distinguished in another passage, where he says that it is proper to a woman to be made of the man, and to a man to be made through the woman, in the words “For as the woman is from [A.V., of] the man, even so is the man also ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 300, footnote 4 (Image)

Basil: Letters and Select Works

The Letters. (HTML)

To the Sozopolitans. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3173 (In-Text, Margin)

... 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; 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 them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”[Galatians 4:4-5]

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 231, footnote 1 (Image)

Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus

Title Page (HTML)

De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)

De Trinitate or On the Trinity. (HTML)
Book XII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1350 (In-Text, Margin)

48. But that blessed and true birth of the flesh conceived within the Virgin the Apostle has named both a creating and a making, for then there was born both the nature and form of our created being. And without doubt in his view this name belongs to Christ’s true birth as a man, since he says, But when the fulness of the time came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, in order that He might redeem those who are under the law, that we might obtain the adoption of sons[Galatians 4:4-5]. And so He is God’s own Son, Who is made in human form and of human origin; nor is He only made but also created, as it is said: Even as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put away according to your former manner of life, that old man, which becomes ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 56b, footnote 8 (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 III (HTML)
That the holy Virgin is the Mother of God: an argument directed against the Nestorians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2072 (In-Text, Margin)

And again the Apostle says: God sent forth His only-begotten Son, made of a woman[Galatians 4:4]. He did not say “made by a woman.” Wherefore the divine apostle meant that the only-begotten Son of God and God is the same as He who was made man of the Virgin, and that He who was born of the Virgin is the same as the Son of God and God.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 122, footnote 7 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

On the Holy Spirit. (HTML)

Book II. (HTML)
Chapter VI. To those who object that according to the words of Amos the Spirit is created, the answer is made that the word is there understood of the wind, which is often created, which cannot be said of the Holy Spirit, since He is eternal, and cannot be dissolved in death, or by an heretical absorption into the Father. But if they pertinaciously contend that this passage was written of the Holy Spirit, St. Ambrose points out that recourse must be had to a spiritual Interpretation, for Christ by His coming established the thunder, that is, the force of the divine utterances, and by Spirit is signified the human soul as also the flesh assumed by Christ. And since this was created by each Person of the Trinity, it is thence argued that the (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1081 (In-Text, Margin)

59. But it is fitting that we should consider His Majesty in the very fact of His taking flesh for us, that we may see His divine power in the very taking of the Body. For as we read that the Father created the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, the Spirit too created it; and so too we read that Christ Himself created His own Body. For the Father created it, as it is written: “The Lord created Me,” and in another place, “God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”[Galatians 4:4] And the Spirit created the whole mystery, according to that which we read, for “Mary was found with child of the Holy Spirit.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 216, footnote 14 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)

Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIV. That the Son of God is not a created being is proved by the following arguments: (1) That He commanded not that the Gospel should be preached to Himself; (2) that a created being is given over unto vanity; (3) that the Son has created all things; (4) that we read of Him as begotten; and (5) that the difference of generation and adoption has always been understood in those places where both natures--the divine and the human--are declared to co-exist in Him. All of which testimony is confirmed by the Apostle's interpretation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1842 (In-Text, Margin)

94. “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law.”[Galatians 4:4]His Son,” observe, not as one of many, not as His in common with another, but His own, and in saying “His Son,” the Apostle showed that it is of the Son’s nature that His generation is eternal. Him the Apostle has affirmed to have been afterwards “made” of a woman, in order that the making might be understood not of the Godhead, but of the putting on of a body—“made of a woman,” then, by taking on of flesh; “made under the Law” ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 221, footnote 4 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)

Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XIX. Arius is charged with the first of the above-mentioned errors, and refuted by the testimony of St. John. The miserable death of the Heresiarch is described, and the rest of his blasphemous errors are one by one examined and disproved. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1879 (In-Text, Margin)

126. Arius says that the Son of God came into being out of nought. How, then, is He Son of God—how was He begotten from the womb of the Father—how do we read of Him as the Word spoken of the heart’s abundance, save to the end that we should believe that He came forth, as it is written, from the Father’s inmost, unapproachable sanctuary? Now a son is so called either by means of adoption or by nature, as we are called sons by means of adoption.[Galatians 4:4-5] Christ is the Son of God by virtue of His real and abiding nature. How, then, can He, Who out of nothing fashioned all things, be Himself created out of nothing?

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 234, footnote 4 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)

Book II. (HTML)
Chapter IX. The objection that the Son, being sent by the Father, is, in that regard at least, inferior, is met by the answer that He was also sent by the Spirit, Who is yet not considered greater than the Son. Furthermore, the Spirit, in His turn, is sent by the Father to the Son, in order that Their unity in action might be shown forth. It is our duty, therefore, carefully to distinguish what utterances are to be fitly ascribed to Christ as God, and what to be ascribed to Him as man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2016 (In-Text, Margin)

79. This is the same One Whom the Father sent, but “born of a woman, born under the law,”[Galatians 4:4] as the Apostle hath said. This is He Who saith: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; wherefore He hath anointed Me, to bring good tidings to the poor hath He sent Me:” This is He Who saith: “My doctrine is not Mine, but His, Who sent Me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself.” Doctrine that is of God, then, is one thing; doctrine that is of man, another; and so when the Jews, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 246, footnote 7 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)

Book III. (HTML)
Chapter IV. We are told that Christ was only “made” so far as regards the flesh. For the redemption of mankind He needed no means of aid, even as He needed none in order to His Resurrection, whereas others, in order to raise the dead, had need of recourse to prayer. Even when Christ prayed, the prayer was offered by Him in His capacity as human; whilst He must be accounted divine from the fact that He commanded (that such and such things should be done). On this point the devil's testimony is truer than the Arians' arguments. The discussion concludes with an explanation of the reason why the title of “mighty” is given to the Son of Man. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2150 (In-Text, Margin)

26. It is now sufficiently made plain that the Father is not God in solitude, without the Son, and that the Son cannot be thought of as God alone, without the Father, for it is in respect of His flesh[Galatians 4:4] that we read that the Son of God was “made,” not in respect of His generation from God the Father.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 251, footnote 4 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)

Book III. (HTML)
Chapter IX. The preceding quotation from Solomon's Proverbs receives further explanation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2221 (In-Text, Margin)

60. In Isaiah, for example, you may read: “A Child is born unto us, and a Son is given unto us;” so here also [in the Proverbs] the prophet sets forth first the creation of the flesh, and joined thereto the declaration of the Godhead, that you might know that Christ is not two, but One, being both begotten of the Father before the worlds, and in the last times[Galatians 4:4] created of the Virgin. And thus the meaning is: I, Who am begotten before the worlds, am He Who was created of mortal woman, created for a set purpose.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 251, footnote 9 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)

Book III. (HTML)
Chapter IX. The preceding quotation from Solomon's Proverbs receives further explanation. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2226 (In-Text, Margin)

62. Before all created things, then, is the Son begotten; within all and for the good of all is He made; begotten of the Father, above the Law, brought forth of Mary, under the Law.[Galatians 4:4]

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 306, footnote 2 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

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

Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)

Book V. (HTML)
Chapter XIV. He continues the discussion of the difficulty he has entered upon, and teaches that Christ is not subject but only according to the flesh. Christ, however, whilst in subjection in the Flesh, still gave proofs of His Godhead. He combats the idea that Christ is made subject in This. The humanity indeed, which He adopted, has been so far made subject in us, as ours has been raised in that very humanity of His. Lastly, we are taught, when that same subjection of Christ will take place. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2745 (In-Text, Margin)

... reigning; when He was buried He revived again. He offered Himself in subjection to human power, yet at another time He declared He was the Lord of eternal glory. He was before the judge, yet claimed for Himself a throne at the right hand of God, as Judge forever. For thus it is written: “Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” He was scourged by the Jews, and commanded the angels; He was born of Mary under the law;[Galatians 4:4] He was before Abraham above the law. On the cross He was revered by nature; the sun fled; the earth trembled; the angels became silent. Could the elements see the Generation of Him Whose Passion they feared to see? And will they uphold the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 434, footnote 5 (Image)

Ambrose: Select Works and Letters

Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)

Sermon Against Auxentius on the Giving Up of the Basilicas. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 3497 (In-Text, Margin)

25. Shall any one, then, follow this law, whereby the Council of Ariminum is confirmed, wherein Christ was said to be a creature. But say they: “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”[Galatians 4:4] And so they say “made,” that is, “created.” Do they not consider these very words which they have brought forward; that Christ is said to have been made, but of a woman; that is, He was “made” as regards his birth from a Virgin, Who was begotten of the Father as regards His divine generation? Have they read also to-day, “that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 438, footnote 9 (Image)

Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian

The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)

The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII. (HTML)

Conference XIV. The First Conference of Abbot Nesteros. On Spiritual Knowledge. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. Of spiritual knowledge. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1882 (In-Text, Margin)

... forward. But “doctrine” unfolds the simple course of historical exposition, under which is contained no more secret sense, but what is declared by the very words: as in this passage: “For I delivered unto you first of all what I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day, and that he was seen of Cephas;” and: “God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law;”[Galatians 4:4-5] or this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord the God is one Lord.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 574, footnote 1 (Image)

Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian

The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)

The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius. (HTML)

Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter I. That Christ was before the Incarnation God from everlasting. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2448 (In-Text, Margin)

... and man, who before His birth was only God, and that He who after He had been brought forth by the Virgin in the body was God, was before His birth from the Virgin, God the Word. Learn then first of all from the Apostle the teacher of the whole world, that He who is without beginning, God, the Son of God, became the Son of man at the end of the world, i.e., in the fulness of the times. For he says: “But when the fulness of the times was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”[Galatians 4:4] Tell me then, before the Lord Jesus Christ was born of His mother Mary, had God a Son or had He not? You cannot deny that He had, for never yet was there either a son without a father, or a father without a son: because as a son is so called with ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 595, footnote 1 (Image)

Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian

The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)

The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius. (HTML)

Book VI. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. How it can be said that Christ came and was born of a Virgin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2553 (In-Text, Margin)

... with the Father; By whom both the worlds were framed, and all things were made,” it immediately subjoins in closest connexion the following, and says: “Who for us came and was born of the Virgin Mary.” He then, who is Very God, who is of one substance with the Father, who is the Maker of all things, He, I repeat, came into the world and was born of the Virgin Mary; as the Apostle Paul says: “But when the fulness of the times was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”[Galatians 4:4] You see how the mysteries of the Creed correspond with the Holy Scriptures. The Apostle declares that the Son of God was “sent from the Father:” The Creed affirms that He “came.” For it certainly follows that our faith should confess that He has ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 29, footnote 4 (Image)

Leo the Great, Gregory the Great

The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)

Letters. (HTML)

To the Bishops of Sicily. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 190 (In-Text, Margin)

... footing with the power by which they are re-born of the Holy Ghost, of whom it is said, “which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God189189    S. John i. 13..” For the Lord who needed no remission of sin and sought not the remedy of being born again, desired to be baptized just as He desired to be circumcised, and to have a victim offered for His purification: that He, who had been “made of a woman[Galatians 4:4],” as the Apostle says, might become also “under the law” which He had come, “not to destroy but to fulfil,” and by fulfilling to end, as the blessed Apostle proclaims, saying: “but Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 41, footnote 3 (Image)

Leo the Great, Gregory the Great

The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)

Letters. (HTML)

To Flavian commonly called “the Tome.” (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 282 (In-Text, Margin)

... again be repeated that one and the same is truly Son of God and truly son of man. God in that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God279279    S. John i. l.;” man in that “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us.” God in that “all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made:” man in that “He was made of a woman, made under law[Galatians 4:4].” The nativity of the flesh was the manifestation of human nature: the childbearing of a virgin is the proof of Divine power. The infancy of a babe is shown in the humbleness of its cradle: the greatness of the Most High is proclaimed by the angels’ ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 133, footnote 3 (Image)

Leo the Great, Gregory the Great

The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)

Sermons. (HTML)

On the Feast of the Nativity, III. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 754 (In-Text, Margin)

... no other or different person in Himself, the same Son of God with the same form, says, “The Father is greater than I,” just as He says with the same form, “I and my Father are one.” For in “the form of a slave,” which He took at the end of the ages for our restoration, He is inferior to the Father: but in the form of God, in which He was before the ages, He is equal to the Father. In His human humiliation He was “made of a woman, made under the Law[Galatians 4:4]:” in His Divine majesty He abides the Word of God, “through whom all things were made.” Accordingly, He Who in the form of God made man, in the form of a slave was made man. For both natures retain ...

Online Dictionary & Commentary of Early Church Beliefs