Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ephesians 1:4
There are 23 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 497, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Chapter IX.—The Gnostic Free of All Perturbations of the Soul. (HTML)
... fortitude, who is not in the midst of dangers, being not present, but already wholly with the object of love? And what necessity for self-restraint to him who has not need of it? For to have such desires, as require self-restraint in order to their control, is characteristic of one who is not yet pure, but subject to passion. Now, fortitude is assumed by reason of fear and cowardice. For it were no longer seemly that the friend of God, whom “God hath fore-ordained before the foundation of the world”[Ephesians 1:4-5] to be enrolled in the highest “adoption,” should fall into pleasures or fears, and be occupied in the repression of the passions. For I venture to assert, that as he is predestinated through what he shall do, and what he shall obtain, so also has he ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 23, footnote 14 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On the Apparel of Women. (HTML)
II (HTML)
Excess in Dress, as Well as in Personal Culture, to Be Shunned. Arguments Drawn from I Cor. VII. (HTML)
... which border upon no peril or solicitude; but they sacrifice to God the humility of their soul even in the chastened use of food? Sufficiently, therefore, have you, too, used your riches and your delicacies; sufficiently have you cut down the fruits of your dowries, before (receiving) the knowledge of saving disciplines. We are they “upon whom the ends of the ages have met, having ended their course.” We have been predestined by God, before the world was, (to arise) in the extreme end of the times.[Ephesians 1:4] And so we are trained by God for the purpose of chastising, and (so to say) emasculating, the world. We are the circumcision —spiritual and carnal—of all things; for both in the spirit and in the flesh we circumcise worldly principles.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 342, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
That the World Took Its Beginning in Time. (HTML)
... Latin by the phrase “constitutio mundi,” as in the Gospel according to John, where the Saviour says, “And there will be tribulation in those days, such as was not since the beginning of the world;” in which passage καταβολή is rendered by beginning (constitutio), which is to be understood as above explained. The apostle also, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, has employed the same language, saying, “Who hath chosen us before the foundation of the world;”[Ephesians 1:4] and this foundation he calls καταβολή, to be understood in the same sense as before. It seems worth while, then, to inquire what is meant by this new term; and I am, indeed, of opinion that, as the end and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 346, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel. (HTML)
Of the Jewish Priesthood and Kingdom, Which, Although Promised to Be Established for Ever, Did Not Continue; So that Other Things are to Be Understood to Which Eternity is Assured. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1032 (In-Text, Margin)
... Him a man,” meaning either David or the Mediator of the New Testament, who was figured in the chrism with which David also and his offspring was anointed. But it is not as if He knew not where he was that God thus seeks Him a man, but, speaking through a man, He speaks as a man, and in this sense seeks us. For not only to God the Father, but also to His Only-begotten, who came to seek what was lost, we had been known already even so far as to be chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.[Ephesians 1:4] “He will seek Him” therefore means, He will have His own (just as if He had said, Whom He already has known to be His own He will show to others to be His friend). Whence in Latin this word (quærit) receives a preposition and becomes ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 390, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
A parallel history of the earthly and heavenly cities from the time of Abraham to the end of the world. (HTML)
That Haggai’s Prophecy, in Which He Said that the Glory of the House of God Would Be Greater Than that of the First Had Been, Was Really Fulfilled, Not in the Rebuilding of the Temple, But in the Church of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1234 (In-Text, Margin)
... nations,” as we read in the Hebrew. For before His advent He had not yet been desired by all nations. For they knew not Him whom they ought to desire, in whom they had not believed. Then, also, according to the Septuagint interpretation (for it also is a prophetic meaning), “shall come those who are elected of the Lord out of all nations.” For then indeed there shall come only those who are elected, whereof the apostle saith, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.”[Ephesians 1:4] For the Master Builder who said, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” did not say this of those who, on being called, came in such a way as to be cast out from the feast, but would point out the house built up of the elect, which henceforth shall ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 175, 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)
A Difficulty, How We are Justified in the Blood of the Son of God. (HTML)
... to be as it were contrary to that? In the one, the Son dies for us, and the Father is reconciled to us by His death; in the other, as though the Father first loved us, He Himself on our account does not spare the Son, He Himself for us delivers Him up to death. But I see that the Father loved us also before, not only before the Son died for us, but before He created the world; the apostle himself being witness, who says, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.”[Ephesians 1:4] Nor was the Son delivered up for us as it were unwillingly, the Father Himself not sparing Him; for it is said also concerning Him, “Who loved me, and delivered up Himself for me.” Therefore together both the Father and the Son, and the Spirit of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 165, footnote 16 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness. (HTML)
Who May Be Said to Walk Without Spot; Damnable and Venial Sins. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1435 (In-Text, Margin)
... that we may present every man perfect in Christ.’ And so to the Philippians: ‘Do all things without murmurings and disputings, that ye may be blameless, and harmless, as the immaculate sons of God.’ In like manner to the Ephesians he writes: ‘Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.’[Ephesians 1:3-4] Then again to the Colossians he says in another passage: ‘And you, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death; present yourselves holy and unblameable and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 173, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness. (HTML)
The Seventh Passage. Who May Be Called Immaculate. How It is that in God’s Sight No Man is Justified. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1550 (In-Text, Margin)
... had, of course, read amongst these very commandments the method of cleansing their own sins. For, according to what is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews of “every high priest taken from among men,” Zacharias used no doubt to offer sacrifices even for his own sins. The meaning, however, of the phrase “ blameless,” which is applied to him, we have already, as I suppose, sufficiently explained. “And,” he adds, “the blessed apostle says, ‘That we should be holy, and without blame before Him.’”[Ephesians 1:4] This, according to him, is said that we should be so, if those persons are to be understood by “ blameless ” who are altogether without sin. If, however, they are “ blameless ” who are without blame or censure, then it is impossible ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 515, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Special Calling of the Elect is Not Because They Have Believed, But in Order that They May Believe. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3526 (In-Text, Margin)
... they did not choose Him that He should choose them, but He chose them that they might choose Him; because His mercy preceded them according to grace, not according to debt. Therefore He chose them out of the world while He was wearing flesh, but as those who were already chosen in Himself before the foundation of the world. This is the changeless truth concerning predestination and grace. For what is it that the apostle says, “As He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world”?[Ephesians 1:4] And assuredly, if this were said because God foreknew that they would believe, not because He Himself would make them believers, the Son is speaking against such a foreknowledge as that when He says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you;” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 531, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance. (HTML)
Why God Willed that He Should Be Asked for that Which He Might Give Without Prayer. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3591 (In-Text, Margin)
... have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, which has abounded towards them in all wisdom and prudence; that He might show them the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Him, in the dispensation of the fulness of times to restore all things in Christ which are in heaven and which are in earth; in Him, in whom also we have obtained a lot, being predestinated according to His purpose who worketh all things.”[Ephesians 1:4-11] Against a trumpet of truth so clear as this, what man of sober and watchful faith can receive any human arguments?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 254, 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 X. 1–10. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 866 (In-Text, Margin)
... predestinated, justified, glorified; regarding whom there follows, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Therefore “the Lord knoweth them that are His;” they are the sheep. Such sometimes do not know themselves, but the Shepherd knoweth them, according to this predestination, this foreknowledge of God, according to the election of the sheep before the foundation of the world: for so saith also the apostle, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.”[Ephesians 1:4] According, then, to this divine foreknowledge and predestination, how many sheep are outside, how many wolves within! and how many sheep are inside, how many wolves without! How many are now living in wantonness who will yet be chaste! how many are ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 323, 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)
On the Same Passage. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1264 (In-Text, Margin)
... is yet to be.” Therefore He has both made such things and is yet to make them. For they have not been made at all if He has not made them; nor will they ever be if He make them not Himself. He has made them therefore in the way of fore-ordaining them; He has yet to make them in the way of actual elaboration. Just as the Gospel plainly intimates when He chose His disciples, that is to say, at the time of His calling them; and yet the apostle says, “He chose us before the foundation of the world,”[Ephesians 1:4] to wit, by predestination, not by actual calling. “And whom He did predestinate, them He also called;” He hath chosen by predestination before the foundation of the world, He chooses by calling before its close. And so also has He prepared those ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 348, footnote 5 (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 XV. 11, 12. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1407 (In-Text, Margin)
... that your joy might be full.” And what else is Christ’s joy in us, save that He is pleased to rejoice over us? And what is this joy of ours which He says is to be made full, but our having fellowship with Him? On this account He had said to the blessed Peter, “If I wash thee not, thou shall have no part with me.” His joy, therefore, in us is the grace He hath bestowed upon us: and that is also our joy. But over it He rejoiced even from eternity, when He chose us before the foundation of the world.[Ephesians 1:4] Nor can we rightly say that His joy was not full; for God’s joy was never at any time imperfect. But that joy of His was not in us: for we, in whom it could be, had as yet no existence; and even when our existence commenced, it began not to be in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 353, footnote 10 (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 XV. 15, 16. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1447 (In-Text, Margin)
... then, but sinful and lost? We had not yet come to believe on Him, in order to lead to His choosing us; for if it were those who already believed that He chose, then was He chosen Himself, prior to His choosing. But how could He say, “Ye have not chosen me,” save only because His mercy anticipated us? Here surely is at fault the vain reasoning of those who defend the foreknowledge of God in opposition to His grace, and with this view declare that we were chosen before the foundation of the world,[Ephesians 1:4] because God foreknew that we should be good, but not that He Himself would make us good. So says not He, who declares, “Ye have not chosen me.” For had He chosen us on the ground that He foreknew that we should be good, then would He also have ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 377, footnote 6 (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 XVI. 12, 13 (continued). (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1597 (In-Text, Margin)
... things which as spiritual they likewise acknowledged. But “let him be ignorant,” he says, who “is ignorant;” because it was not yet revealed to him to know that which he believes. When this takes place in a man’s mind, he is said to be known of God; for it is God who endows him with this power of understanding, as it is elsewhere said, “But now, knowing God, or rather, being known of God.” For it was not then that God first knew those who were foreknown and chosen before the foundation of the world;[Ephesians 1:4] but then it was that He made them to know Himself.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 398, 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 XVII. 1–5. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1709 (In-Text, Margin)
... Son says, “And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was,” we understand the predestination of the glory of His human nature, as thereafter, from being mortal, to become immortal with the Father: and that this had already been done by predestination before the world was, as also in its own time it was done in the world. For if the apostle has said of us, “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,”[Ephesians 1:4] why should it be thought incongruous with the truth, if the Father glorified our Head at the same time as He chose us in Him to be His members? For we were chosen in the same way as He was glorified; inasmuch as before the world was, neither we nor ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 410, 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 XVII. 21–23. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1771 (In-Text, Margin)
5. In close relation to these come also His further words: “And Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” That is to say, in the Son the Father loveth us, because in Him He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world.[Ephesians 1:4] For He who loveth the Only-begotten, certainly loveth also His members which, through His in strumentality, He engrafted into Him by adoption. But we are not on this account equal to the only-begotten Son, by whom we have been created and re-created, that it is said, “Thou hast loved them as [Thou hast] also [loved] me.” For one does not always intimate equality when he says, As ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 319, footnote 13 (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 John the Œconomus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2087 (In-Text, Margin)
... then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together;” and to the Galatians he writes “And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son; and if a son then an heir of God through Jesus Christ.” The lesson he gives to the Ephesians is “in love having predestinated us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.”[Ephesians 1:4-5]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 494, footnote 1 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
As to the passage “He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world.” (HTML)
22. To begin. In the first book I take the words of Paul:[Ephesians 1:4] “As he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and unspotted before him.” This I have interpreted as referring not, according to Origen’s opinion, to an election of those who had existed in a previous state, but to the foreknowledge of God; and I close the discussion with these words:
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 389, footnote 7 (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, the Context of Proverbs viii. 22 Vz. 22-30. It is right to interpret this passage by the Regula Fidei. 'Founded' is used in contrast to superstructure; and it implies, as in the case of stones in building, previous existence. 'Before the world' signifies the divine intention and purpose. Recurrence to Prov. viii. 22, and application of it to created Wisdom as seen in the works. The Son reveals the Father, first by the works, then by the Incarnation. (HTML)
... but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought to light life.’ And to the Ephesians; ‘Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself[Ephesians 1:3-5].’
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 43, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Marcella. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 701 (In-Text, Margin)
... than a mirror. And I say nothing of her consecration to the blessed life of virginity, a ceremony which took place when she was hardly more than ten years old, a mere babe still wrapped in swaddling clothes. For all that comes before works should be counted of grace; although, doubtless, God foreknew the future when He sanc tified Jeremiah as yet unborn, when He made John to leap in his mother’s womb, and when, before the foundation of the world, He set apart Paul to preach the gospel of His son.[Ephesians 1:4]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 181, footnote 3 (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 IX (HTML)
... Person, as when He says, I came not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. He does the Father’s will, not His own, and by the will of Him that sent Me, He means His Father. But that He Himself wills the same, is unmistakeably declared in the words, Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will, that, where I am, they also may be with Me. The Father wills that we should be with Christ, in Whom, according to the Apostle, He chose us before the foundation of the world[Ephesians 1:4], and the Son wills the same, namely that we should be with Him. His will is, therefore, the same in nature as the Father’s will, though to make plain the fact of the birth it is distinguished from the Father’s.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 247, footnote 15 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Exposition of the Christian Faith. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
Chapter V. Passages brought forward from Scripture to show that “made” does not always mean the same as “created;” whence it is concluded that the letter of Holy Writ should not be made the ground of captious arguments, after the manner of the Jews, who, however, are shown to be not so bad as the heretics, and thus the principle already set forth is confirmed anew. (HTML)
... said to have become my “refuge” and have turned to my “salvation,” even as the Apostle hath said: “Who became for us Wisdom from God, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption,” that is, that Christ was “made” for us, of the Father, not created. Again, the writer has explained in the sequel in what sense he says that Christ was made Wisdom for us: “But we preach the Wisdom of God in doctrine of mystery, which Wisdom is hidden, foreordained by God before the existence of the world[Ephesians 1:4] for our glory, and which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” When the mystery of the Passion is set forth, surely there is no speaking of an eternal process of generation.