Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Galatians 4:19

There are 22 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 400, footnote 2 (Image)

Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (HTML)

The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)

Book III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2626 (In-Text, Margin)

... Eunuchus ergo, non qui per vim excisas habet partes, sed nec qui cælebs est, dictus est, sed qui non gignit veritatem. Lignum hic prius erat aridum; si autem Logo obedierit, et sabbata custodieri, per abstinentiam a peccatis, et fecerit mandata erit honorabilior iis, qui absque recta vitæ institutione solo sermone erudiuntur. “Filioli, modicum” adhuc sum vobiscum,” inquit Magister. Quare Paulus quoque scribens ad Galatas, dicit: “Filioli mei, quos iterum parturio, donec formetur in vobis Christus.”[Galatians 4:19] Rursus ad Corinthios scribens: “Si enim decies mille pædagogos,” inquit, “habeatis in Christo, sed non multos patres. In Christo enim per Evangelium ego vosgenui.” Propterea “non ingrediatur eunuchus in Ecclesiam Dei,” qui est sterilis, et non fert ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 446, footnote 6 (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 5552 (In-Text, Margin)

... into heaven; “He led captivity captive,” meaning death or slavery of man; “He gave gifts to the sons of men,” that is, the gratuities, which we call charismata. He says specifically “ sons of men,” and not men promiscuously; thus exhibiting to us those who were the children of men truly so called, choice men, apostles. “For,” says he, “I have begotten you through the gospel;” and “Ye are my children, of whom I travail again in birth.”[Galatians 4:19] Now was absolutely fulfilled 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 ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 70, footnote 9 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)

On Monogamy. (HTML)

Even If the Permission Had Been Given by St. Paul in the Sense Which the Psychics Allege, It Was Merely Like the Mosaic Permission of Divorce--A Condescension to Human Hard-Heartedness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 677 (In-Text, Margin)

... adversely to the (strict) letter of his own rule, to suit the circumstances of the times: circumcising Timotheus on account of “supposititious false brethren;” and leading certain “shaven men” into the temple on account of the observant watchfulness of the Jews—he who chastises the Galatians when they desire to live in (observance of) the law. But so did circumstances require him to “become all things to all, in order to gain all;” “travailing in birth with them until Christ should be formed in them;”[Galatians 4:19] and “cherishing, as it were a nurse,” the little ones of faith, by teaching them some things “by way of indulgence, not by way of command”—for it is one thing to indulge, another to bid —permitting a temporary licence of re-marriage on ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 151, footnote 8 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)

Appendix (HTML)

Five Books in Reply to Marcion. (HTML)
Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1462 (In-Text, Margin)

From the free woman,[Galatians 4:19-31] joys: (the slave expelled,

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 320, footnote 8 (Image)

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

Methodius. (HTML)

The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity. (HTML)

Thaleia. (HTML)
The Dispensation of Grace in Paul the Apostle. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2581 (In-Text, Margin)

... history in the Acts relates. But when he was grown to a man, and was built up, then being moulded to spiritual perfection, he was made the help-meet and bride of the Word; and receiving and conceiving the seeds of life, he who was before a child, becomes a church and a mother, himself labouring in birth of those who, through him, believed in the Lord, until Christ was formed and born in them also. For he says, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you;”[Galatians 4:19] and again, “In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel.”

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 337, footnote 8 (Image)

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

Methodius. (HTML)

The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity. (HTML)

Thekla. (HTML)
The Faithful in Baptism Males, Configured to Christ; The Saints Themselves Christs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2726 (In-Text, Margin)

... end, explaining what we have said. Consider if the passage seems to you to be explained to your mind. For I think that the Church is here said to give birth to a male; since the enlightened receive the features, and the image, and the manliness of Christ, the likeness of the form of the Word being stamped upon them, and begotten in them by a true knowledge and faith, so that in each one Christ is spiritually born. And, therefore, the Church swells and travails in birth until Christ is formed in us,[Galatians 4:19] so that each of the saints, by partaking of Christ, has been born a Christ. According to which meaning it is said in a certain scripture, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm,” as though those who were baptized into Christ had been ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 50, footnote 2 (Image)

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

The Confessions (HTML)

Commencing with the invocation of God, Augustin relates in detail the beginning of his life, his infancy and boyhood, up to his fifteenth year; at which age he acknowledges that he was more inclined to all youthful pleasures and vices than to the study of letters. (HTML)

Seized by Disease, His Mother Being Troubled, He Earnestly Demands Baptism, Which on Recovery is Postponed—His Father Not as Yet Believing in Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 162 (In-Text, Margin)

... trusted in Thee. Thou sawest, O Lord, how at one time, while yet a boy, being suddenly seized with pains in the stomach, and being at the point of death—Thou sawest, O my God, for even then Thou wast my keeper, with what emotion of mind and with what faith I solicited from the piety of my mother, and of Thy Church, the mother of us all, the baptism of Thy Christ, my Lord and my God. On which, the mother of my flesh being much troubled,—since she, with a heart pure in Thy faith, travailed in birth[Galatians 4:19] more lovingly for my eternal salvation,—would, had I not quickly recovered, have without delay provided for my initiation and washing by Thy life-giving sacraments, confessing Thee, O Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins. So my cleansing was ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 137, footnote 2 (Image)

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

The Confessions (HTML)

He speaks of his design of forsaking the profession of rhetoric; of the death of his friends, Nebridius and Verecundus; of having received baptism in the thirty-third year of his age; and of the virtues and death of his mother, Monica. (HTML)

He Describes the Praiseworthy Habits of His Mother; Her Kindness Towards Her Husband and Her Sons. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 771 (In-Text, Margin)

... one of the faithful, which, before he became so, she had endured. She was also the servant of Thy servants. Whosoever of them knew her, did in her much magnify, honour, and love Thee; for that through the testimony of the fruits of a holy conversation, they perceived Thee to be present in her heart. For she had “been the wife of one man,” had requited her parents, had guided her house piously, was “well-reported of for good works,” had “brought up children,” as often travailing in birth of them[Galatians 4:19] as she saw them swerving from Thee. Lastly, to all of us, O Lord (since of Thy favour Thou sufferest Thy servants to speak), who, before her sleeping in Thee, lived associated together, having received the grace of Thy baptism, did she devote, care ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 590, footnote 2 (Image)

Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine

Examples of the Various Styles Drawn from Scripture. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1988 (In-Text, Margin)

... have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.”[Galatians 4:10-20] Is there anything here of contrasted words arranged antithetically, or of words rising gradually to a climax, or of sonorous clauses, and sections, and periods? Yet, notwithstanding, there is a glow of strong emotion that makes us feel the fervor of ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 418, footnote 4 (Image)

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

Moral Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)

Of Holy Virginity. (HTML)

Section 5 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2032 (In-Text, Margin)

... All these degrees of nearness of kin to Himself, He shows forth in a spiritual manner, in the People whom He hath redeemed: as brothers and sisters He hath holy men and holy women, forasmuch as they all are co-heirs in the heavenly inheritance. His mother is the whole Church, because she herself assuredly gives birth to His members, that is, His faithful ones. Also His mother is every pious soul, doing the will of His Father with most fruitful charity, in them of whom it travaileth, until Himself[Galatians 4:19] be formed in them. Mary, therefore, doing the will of God, after the flesh, is only the mother of Christ, but after the Spirit she is both His sister and mother.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 317, 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 explains the Manichæan denial that man was made by God as applying to the fleshly man not to the spiritual.  Augustin elucidates the Apostle Paul’s contrasts between flesh and spirit so as to exclude the Manichæan view. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 985 (In-Text, Margin)

... birth also is twofold. In the humiliating process of ordinary generation, we spring from the heat of animal passion; but when we are brought into the faith, we are formed under good instruction in honor and purity in Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit. For this reason, in all religion, and especially in the Christian religion, young children are invited to membership. This is hinted at in the words of His apostle: "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you."[Galatians 4:19] The question, then, is not whether God makes man, but what man He makes, and when, and how. For if it is when we are fashioned in the womb that God forms us after His own image, which is the common belief of Gentiles and Jews, and which is also your ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 188, footnote 6 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm L (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1788 (In-Text, Margin)

... cherishing her own children.” Not a nurse nursing children of others, but a nurse cherishing her own children. For there are mothers who when they have borne give to nurses: they that have borne cherish not their children, because they have given them to be nursed; but those that cherish, cherish not their own, but those of others: but he himself had borne, he was himself cherishing, to no nurse did commit what he had borne; for he had said, “Of whom I travail again until Christ be formed in you.”[Galatians 4:19] He did cherish them, and gave milk. But there were some as it were learned and spiritual men who detracted from Paul. “His letters indeed, say they, are weighty and powerful; but the presence of his body weak, and speech contemptible:” he saith ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 202, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1928 (In-Text, Margin)

... they are. Christ here travaileth, Christ here is in pain: the Head is above, the members below. For one not travailing nor in pain would not say, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Him, with whom when persecuting He was travailing, being converted, He made to travail. For he also was himself afterwards enlightened, and grafted on those members which he used to persecute; being pregnant with the same love, he said, “My little children, of whom again I travail, until Christ be formed in you.”[Galatians 4:19] For the members therefore of Christ, for His Body which is the Church, for that same One Man, that is, for that very unity, whereof the Head is above, this Psalm is sung.…Who are they, then, amid whom we travail and groan, if in the Body of Christ ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 231, footnote 7 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm LVIII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2177 (In-Text, Margin)

... country, from the blessed life. Perchance alienated they are from the very womb. And what sinners have been alienated from the womb? For what men would have been born, if therein they had not been held? Or what men to-day would be alive to hear these words to no purpose, unless they were born? Perchance therefore sinners have been alienated from a certain womb, wherein that charity was suffering pains, which speaketh through the Apostle, “Of whom again I am in labour, until Christ be formed in you.”[Galatians 4:19] Expect thou therefore; be formed: do not to thyself ascribe a judgment which perchance thou knowest not. Carnal thou art as yet, conceived thou hast been: from that very time when thou hast received the name of Christ, by a sort of sacrament thou ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 608, footnote 2 (Image)

Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms

Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)

Psalm CXXVII (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 5527 (In-Text, Margin)

... the Lord” (ver. 3). Since he saith, “fruit of the womb,” these children have been born in travail. There is a certain woman, in whom what was said unto Eve, “in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children,” is shown after a spiritual manner. The Church beareth children, the Bride of Christ; and if she beareth them, she travaileth of them. In figure of her, Eve was called also “the Mother of all living.” He who said, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you,”[Galatians 4:19] was amongst the members of her who travaileth. But she travailed not in vain, nor brought forth in vain: there will be a holy seed at the resurrection of the dead: the righteous who are at present scattered over the whole world shall abound. The ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 97, footnote 3 (Image)

Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes

An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall. (HTML)

Letter I (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 247 (In-Text, Margin)

... suffered so many things in vain if it be indeed in vain.” Nevertheless after making so great an advance they committed sin sufficient to estrange them from Christ concerning which he declares saying: “Behold, I Paul tell you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing:” and again “ye who would be justified by the law are fallen away from grace:” and yet even after so great a lapse he welcomes them saying “my little children of whom I am in travail again until Christ be formed in you[Galatians 4:19] ” showing that after extreme perversion it is possible for Christ to be formed again in us: for He doth not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be convened and live.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 295, footnote 10 (Image)

Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes

Letters of St. Chrysostom to Olympias. (HTML)

To Olympias. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 945 (In-Text, Margin)

... infirmity, but left him in the furnace of his sickness so that he might therefrom contract a very great abundance of confidence. For the lessons which Paul himself had enjoyed from his Master, and the training which he had received from Him, he imparted to his disciple. For although he was not subjected to bodily infirmity, yet he was buffeted by trials not less severe, which inflicted much physical pain. “For there was given unto me” he says “a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me”[Galatians 4:19] meaning by this the blows, the bonds, the chains, the imprisonments, the being dragged about, and maltreated, and tortured by the scourges of public executioners. Wherefore also being unable to bear the pain occasioned to the body by these things ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 273, footnote 3 (Image)

Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome

The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret. (HTML)

Letters of the Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus. (HTML)

To Eulalius, Bishop of Persian Armenia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1733 (In-Text, Margin)

... attempt to save them nor leave them in the devil’s maw. Thus ever acted the divine Apostle Paul; and when the Galatians, after receiving the baptism of salvation, and the gift of the divine Spirit, fell away into the sickness of Judaism, and received circumcision, he wailed and lamented more exceedingly than the most affectionate mother, and tended them and freed them from that infirmity. We can hear him exclaiming, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”[Galatians 4:19] So too the teacher of the Corinthians, who had committed that abominable fornication, he both chastised as might a father, and very skilfully treated, and after cutting him off in the first Epistle, readmitted him in the second and says, “So that ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 300, footnote 5 (Image)

Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters

Arian History. (Historia Arianorum ad Monachos.) (HTML)

Arian History. (Historia Arianorum ad Monachos.) (HTML)

Persecution in Egypt. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1792 (In-Text, Margin)

... known therein. For Egypt has heretofore been the only country, throughout which the profession of the orthodox faith was boldly maintained; and therefore these misbelievers have striven to introduce jealousy there also, or rather not they, but the devil who has stirred them up, in order that when his herald Antichrist shall come, he may find that the Churches in Egypt also are his own, and that the Meletians have already been instructed in his principles, and may recognise himself as already formed[Galatians 4:19] in them.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 146, footnote 15 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Oceanus. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2089 (In-Text, Margin)

... salvation of either Jew or Gentile. “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters…The Lord is upon many waters…the Lord maketh the flood to inhabit it.” His “teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn which came up from the washing; whereof everyone bear twins, and none is barren among them.” If none is barren among them, all of them must have udders filled with milk and be able to say with the apostle: “Ye are my little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you;”[Galatians 4:19] and “I have fed you with milk and not with meat.” And it is to the grace of baptism that the prophecy of Micah refers: “He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us: he will subdue our iniquities, and will cast all our sins into the depths of ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 410, footnote 10 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

Treatises. (HTML)

Against Jovinianus. (HTML)

Book II (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4904 (In-Text, Margin)

30. You repeat the words bride, sister, mother, and affirm that all these are titles of the one Church and names applied to all believers. The fact goes against you. For if the Church admits but one rank, and has not many members in one body, what necessity is there for calling her bride, sister, mother? It must be that she is the bride of some, the sister of others, the mother of others. All indeed stand on the right hand, but one stands as a bridegroom, another as a brother, a third as a son.[Galatians 4:19] “My little children” says the Apostle, “of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.” Do you think that the children who are being born and the apostle who is in travail are of equal rank? And the folly of your contention that we ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 9, footnote 10 (Image)

Basil: Letters and Select Works

De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)

Issue joined with those who assert that the Son is not with the Father, but after the Father.  Also concerning the equal glory. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 802 (In-Text, Margin)

... case there might be something sinister about God, but Scripture puts before us the magnificence of the dignity of the Son by the use of dignified language indicating the seat of honour. It is left then for our opponents to allege that this expression signifies inferiority of rank. Let them learn that “Christ is the power of God and wisdom of God,” and that “He is the image of the invisible God” and “brightness of his glory,” and that “Him hath God the Father sealed,” by engraving Himself on Him.[Galatians 4:19]

Online Dictionary & Commentary of Early Church Beliefs