Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ephesians 4:27
There are 17 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 23, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
The Pastor of Hermas (HTML)
Book Second.—Commandments (HTML)
Commandment Fifth. Of Sadness of Heart, and of Patience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 182 (In-Text, Margin)
... by any evil spirit, but, dwelling in a broad region, he will rejoice and be glad; and with the vessel in which he dwells he will serve God in gladness, having great peace within himself. But if any outburst of anger take place, forthwith the Holy Spirit, who is tender, is straitened, not having a pure place, and He seeks to depart. For he is choked by the vile spirit, and cannot attend on the Lord as he wishes, for anger pollutes him. For the Lord dwells in long-suffering, but the devil in anger.[Ephesians 4:26-27] The two spirits, then, when dwelling in the same habitation, are at discord with each other, and are troublesome to that man in whom they dwell. For if an exceedingly small piece of wormwood be taken and put into a jar of honey, is not the honey ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 30, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
The Pastor of Hermas (HTML)
Book Second.—Commandments (HTML)
Commandment Twelfth. On the Twofold Desire. The Commandments of God Can Be Kept, and Believers Ought Not to Fear the Devil. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 239 (In-Text, Margin)
... that they are full; but he looks at the empty, being afraid lest they have become sour. For empty jars quickly become sour, and the goodness of the wine is gone. So also the devil goes to all the servants of God to try them. As many, then, as are full in the faith, resist him strongly, and he withdraws from them, having no way by which he might enter them. He goes, then, to the empty, and finding a way of entrance, into them, he produces in them whatever he wishes, and they become his servants.”[Ephesians 4:27]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 294, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Continuation: with Texts from Scripture. (HTML)
... “Children, be obedient to your parents. Parents, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Servants, be obedient to those that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the singleness of your hearts, as unto Christ; with good-will from the soul doing service. ye masters, treat your servants well, forbearing threatening: knowing that both their and your Lord is in heaven; and there is no respect of persons with Him.”[Ephesians 4:25-29]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 321, footnote 5 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XVIII.—He Illustrates the Apostle’s Saying, “I Will Destroy the Wisdom of the Wise.” (HTML)
... he, who has a show of wisdom, has certain exhortations enjoined on him by the apostle: “That ye put on the new man, which after God is renewed in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth. Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole, steal no more; but rather let him labour, working that which is good” (and to work is to labour in seeking the truth; for it is accompanied with rational well-doing), “that ye may have to give to him that has need,”[Ephesians 4:27] both of worldly wealth and of divine wisdom. For he wishes both that the word be taught, and that the money be put into the bank, accurately tested, to accumulate interest. Whence he adds, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 578, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
The Old Man and the New Man of St. Paul Explained. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7587 (In-Text, Margin)
... have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for the edification of faith, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: but be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you.”[Ephesians 4:25-32] Why, therefore, do not those who suppose the flesh to be the old man, hasten their own death, in order that by laying aside the old man they may satisfy the apostle’s precepts? As for ourselves, we believe that the whole of faith is to be ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 689, footnote 9 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Prayer. (HTML)
Of Kneeling. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8915 (In-Text, Margin)
... the act of some few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath; and since this dissension is particularly on its trial before the churches, the Lord will give His grace that the dissentients may either yield, or else indulge their opinion without offence to others. We, however (just as we have received), only on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of solicitude; deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the devil.[Ephesians 4:27] Similarly, too, in the period of Pentecost; which period we distinguish by the same solemnity of exultation. But who would hesitate every day to prostrate himself before God, at least in the first prayer with which we enter on the daylight? ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 121, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
De Fuga in Persecutione. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1167 (In-Text, Margin)
... they were confined, they wrote their letters to the Churches. Paul bids us support the weak, but most certainly it is not when they flee. For how can the absent be supported by you? By bearing with them? Well, he says that people must be supported, if anywhere they have committed a fault through the weakness of their faith, just as (he enjoins) that we should comfort the faint-hearted; he does not say, however, that they should be sent into exile. But when he urges us not to give place to evil,[Ephesians 4:27] he does not offer the suggestion that we should take to our heels, he only teaches that passion should be kept under restraint; and if he says that the time must be redeemed, because the days are evil, he wishes us to gain a lengthening of life, not ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 332, footnote 12 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
On the Opposing Powers. (HTML)
... Judas, also, respecting the betrayal of our Lord and Saviour, did not originate in the wickedness of his mind alone. For Scripture testifies that the “devil had already put it into his heart to betray Him.” And therefore Solomon rightly commanded, saying, “Keep thy heart with all diligence.” And the Apostle Paul warns us: “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest perhaps we should let them slip.” And when he says, “Neither give place to the devil,”[Ephesians 4:27] he shows by that injunction that it is through certain acts, or a kind of mental slothfulness, that room is made for the devil, so that, if he once enter our heart, he will either gain possession of us, or at least will pollute the soul, if he has ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 357, footnote 7 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Epistles of Cyprian. (HTML)
To Pomponius, Concerning Some Virgins. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2654 (In-Text, Margin)
... brethren to stray, and to live according to their own fancy and lust; but that we should faithfully consult for the life of each one, and not suffer virgins to dwell with men,—I do not say to sleep together, but to live together —since both their weak sex and their age, still critical, ought to be bridled in all things and ruled by us, lest an occasion should be given to the devil who ensnares us, and desires to rage over us, to hurt them, since the apostle also says, “Do not give place to the devil.”[Ephesians 4:27] The ship is watchfully to be delivered from perilous places, that it may not be broken among the rocks and cliffs; the baggage must swiftly be taken out of the fire, before it is burnt up by the flames reaching it. No one who is near to danger is ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 331, footnote 6 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Clementine Homilies. (HTML)
Homily XIX. (HTML)
The Existence of the Devil Affirmed. (HTML)
... spoke the truth in all things, has frequently asserted that he exists. For instance, then, he acknowledges that he conversed with Him, and tempted Him for forty days. And I know that He has said somewhere else, ‘If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then is his kingdom to stand?’ And He pointed out that He saw the evil one like lightning falling down from heaven. And elsewhere He said, ‘He who sowed the bad seed is the devil.’ And again, ‘Give no pretext to the evil one.’[Ephesians 4:27] Moreover, in giving advice, He said, ‘Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay; for what is more than these is of the evil one.’ Also, in the prayer which He delivered to us, we have it said, ‘Deliver us from the evil one.’ And in another place, He ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 311, footnote 13 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xi. 25, ‘I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2267 (In-Text, Margin)
... flesh and blood, to be pitied, rather than to be feared, but against those against whom the Apostle exhorts us to arm ourselves: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood;” that is, against men whom ye see raging against you. They are but vessels, which another uses, they are but instruments which another handles. “The devil,” saith the Scripture, “entered into the heart of Judas, that he should betray the Lord.” One may say then, what have I done? Hear the Apostle, “Give not place to the devil.”[Ephesians 4:27] Thou hast given him place by an evil will: he entered, and possessed, and now uses thee. He had not possessed thee, hadst thou not given him place.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 338, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xiv. 24, ‘But the boat was now in the midst of the sea, distressed by the waves.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2549 (In-Text, Margin)
5. Yet, Brethren, this exceeding trouble is not in this ship, save only in the absence of the Lord. What! can he who is in the Church, have his Lord absent from him? When has he his Lord absent from him? When he is overcome by any lust. For as we find it said in a certain place in a figure, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil:”[Ephesians 4:26-27] and this is understood not of this visible sun which holds as it were the zenith of glory among the rest of the visible creation, and which can be seen equally by us and by the beasts; but of that Light which none but the pure hearts of the faithful see; as it is written, “That was the true Light, which lighteneth ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 51, 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 I. 34–51. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 158 (In-Text, Margin)
... desire community of ownership, but He desires to possess alone what He has purchased. He has bought at so great a price that He may possess alone: thou makest Him the partner of that devil to whom thou didst sell thyself by thy sin. “Woe to the double-hearted,” to those who in their hearts give part to God and part to the devil. God, being angry that the devil has part there, departs, and the devil will possess the whole. Not in vain, therefore, says the apostle, “Neither give place to the devil.”[Ephesians 4:27] Let us know the Lamb, then, brethren; let us know our price.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 138, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1284 (In-Text, Margin)
... unrighteous, without also wishing Him to be unrighteous, in that thou wouldest fain not be punished by Him. Consider a speech of a better kind in another Psalm. “It is good for me that Thou hast humbled me, that I might learn Thy righteousnesses.” By being lifted up, I had learned my own iniquities; let me by being “humbled,” learn “Thy righteousnesses.” “Why go I mourning, while the enemy harasses me?” Thou complainest of the enemy. It is true he does harass thee; but it was thou didst “give place”[Ephesians 4:27] to him. And even now there is a course open to thee; choose the course of prudence; admit thy King, shut the tyrant out.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 649, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXLII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5794 (In-Text, Margin)
... into thy closet, and shut the door, and pray to thy Father in secret, and He who seeth in secret shall reward thee.” If men are to reward thee, pour out thy prayer before men: if God is to reward thee, pour out thy prayer before Him; and close the door, lest the tempter enter. Therefore the Apostle, because it is in our power to shut the door, the door of our hearts, not of our walls, for in it is our “closet,”—because it is in our power to shut this door, saith, “neither give place to the devil.”[Ephesians 4:27] But what is to “shut the door”? This door hath as it were two leaves, desire and fear. Either thou desireth something earthly, and he enters by this; or thou fearest something earthly, and he enters by that. Close then the door of fear and desire ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 8, footnote 10 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On Repentance and Remission of Sins, and Concerning the Adversary. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 501 (In-Text, Margin)
3. Yet thou art not the sole author of the evil, but there is also another most wicked prompter, the devil. He indeed suggests, but does not get the mastery by force over those who do not consent. Therefore saith the Preacher, If the spirit of him that hath power rise up against thee, quit not thy place[Ephesians 4:27]. Shut thy door, and put him far from thee, and he shall not hurt thee. But if thou indifferently admit the thought of lust, it strikes root in thee by its suggestions, and enthrals thy mind, and drags thee down into a pit of evils.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 323, footnote 1 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
Libanius to Basil. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3276 (In-Text, Margin)
have not yet ceased to be offended with me, and so I tremble as I write. If you have cared, why, my dear sir, do you not write? If you are still offended, a thing alien from any reasonable soul and from your own, why, while you are preaching to others, that they must not keep their anger till sundown,[Ephesians 4:27] have you kept yours during many suns? Peradventure you have meant to punish me by depriving me of the sound of your sweet voice? Nay; excellent sir, be gentle, and let me enjoy your golden tongue.