Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Colossians 2:14
There are 38 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 545, footnote 8 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book V (HTML)
Chapter XVII.—There is but one Lord and one God, the Father and Creator of all things, who has loved us in Christ, given us commandments, and remitted our sins; whose Son and Word Christ proved Himself to be, when He forgave our sins. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4599 (In-Text, Margin)
... as man He suffered for us, so as God He might have compassion on us, and forgive us our debts, in which we were made debtors to God our Creator. And therefore David said beforehand, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin;” pointing out thus that remission of sins which follows upon His advent, by which “He has destroyed the handwriting” of our debt, and “fastened it to the cross;”[Colossians 2:14] so that as by means of a tree we were made debtors to God, [so also] by means of a tree we may obtain the remission of our debt.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 574, footnote 20 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenæus (HTML)
XXXVII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4873 (In-Text, Margin)
... and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice;” as John also declares in the Apocalypse: “The incense is the prayers of the saints.” Then again, Paul exhorts us “to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” And again, “Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips.” Now those oblations are not according to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord took away from the midst by cancelling it;[Colossians 2:14] but they are according to the Spirit, for we must worship God “in spirit and in truth.” And therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a carnal one, but a spiritual; and in this respect it is pure. For we make an oblation to God of the bread and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 166, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Concerning the Passion of Christ, and Its Old Testament Predictions and Adumbrations. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1338 (In-Text, Margin)
... battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have com mended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech—destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil—the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory?[Colossians 2:14-15] Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any “likeness of anything,” set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a “tree,” in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 166, footnote 4 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
An Answer to the Jews. (HTML)
Concerning the Passion of Christ, and Its Old Testament Predictions and Adumbrations. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1341 (In-Text, Margin)
... of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any “likeness of anything,” set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a “tree,” in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord’s cross on which the “serpent” the devil was “made a show of,”[Colossians 2:14-15] and, for every one hurt by such snakes—that is, his angels —on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ’s cross, salvation was outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that (cross) was freed from the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 96, footnote 11 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
Objections from the Revelation and the First Epistle of St. John Refuted. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 948 (In-Text, Margin)
... who abideth in Him sinneth not; every one who sinneth neither hath seen nor knoweth Him. Little children, let none seduce you. Every one who doeth righteousness is righteous, as He withal is righteous. He who doeth sin is of the devil, inasmuch as the devil sinneth from the beginning. For unto this end was manifested the Son of God, to undo the works of the devil:” for He has “undone” them withal, by setting man free through baptism, the “handwriting of death” having been “made a gift of” to him:[Colossians 2:13-14] and accordingly, “he who is being born of God doeth not sin, because the seed of God abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he hath been born of God. Herein are manifest the sons of God and the sons of the devil.” Where in? except it be ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 142, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
Appendix (HTML)
Five Books in Reply to Marcion. (HTML)
Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
Now triumphed over, to unequal[Colossians 2:14-15] arms!
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 120, footnote 1 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book VIII. (HTML)
Christ Undoes the Work of the Demiurge; Docetic Account of the Baptism and Death of Jesus; Why He Lived for Thirty Years on Earth. (HTML)
... in Jordan, and when He was baptized He received a figure and a seal in the water of (another spiritual body beside) the body born of the Virgin. (And the object of this was,) when the Archon condemned his own peculiar figment (of flesh) to death, (that is,) to the cross, that that soul which had been nourished in the body (born of the Virgin) might strip off that body and nail it to the (accursed) tree. (In this way the soul) would triumph by means of this (body) over principalities and powers,[Colossians 2:14-15] and would not be found naked, but would, instead of that flesh, assume the (other) body, which had been represented in the water when he was being baptized. This is, says (the Docetic), what the Saviour affirms: “Except a man be born of water and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 181, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Exegetical. (HTML)
On Daniel. (HTML)
... priests might be manifested in the world, and that He who taketh away the sins of the world might be evidently set forth, as John speaks concerning Him: “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” And in like manner Gabriel says: “To blot out transgressions, and make reconciliation for sins.” But who has blotted out our transgressions? Paul the apostle teaches us, saying, “He is our peace who made both one;” and then, “Blotting out the handwriting of sins that was against us.”[Colossians 2:14]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 484, footnote 9 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book VIII. Concerning Gifts, and Ordinations, and the Ecclesiastical Canons (HTML)
Sec. II.—Election and Ordination of Bishops: Form of Service on Sundays (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3615 (In-Text, Margin)
... earnestly pray for our brethren in the state of penitence, that God, the lover of compassion, will show them the way of repentance, and accept their return and their confession, and bruise Satan under their feet suddenly, and redeem them from the snare of the devil, and the ill-usage of the demons, and free them from every unlawful word, and every absurd practice and wicked thought; forgive them all their offences, both voluntary and involuntary, and blot out that handwriting which is against them,[Colossians 2:13-14] and write them in the book of life; cleanse them from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and restore and unite them to His holy flock. For He knoweth our frame. For who can glory that he has a clean heart? And who can boldly say, that he is pure ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 378, footnote 4 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book VI. (HTML)
Of the Effects of the Death of Christ, of His Triumph After It, and of the Removal by His Death of the Sins of Men. (HTML)
... offscouring of all things, —what and how great things must be said of the Lamb of God, who was sacrificed for this very reason, that He might take away the sin not of a few but of the whole world, for the sake of which also He suffered? If any one sin, we read, “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world,” since He is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe, who[Colossians 2:14-15] blotted out the written bond that was against us by His own blood, and took it out of the way, so that not even a trace, not even of our blotted-out sins, might still be found, and nailed it to His cross; who having put off from Himself the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 508, footnote 8 (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 XIV. (HTML)
The Divorce of Israel. (HTML)
... was left as a booth in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a besieged city.” And, about the same time, I think, the husband wrote out a bill of divorcement to his former wife, and gave it into her hands, and sent her away from his own house, and the bond of her who came from the Gentiles has been cancelled about which the Apostle says, “Having blotted out the bond written in ordinances, which was contrary to us, and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;”[Colossians 2:14] for Paul also and others became proselytes of Israel for her who came from the Gentiles. The first wife, accordingly, not having found favour before her husband, because in her had been found an unseemly thing, went out from the dwelling of her ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 115, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age, in which very grave errors as to the nature of God and the origin of evil being distinguished, and the Sacred Books more accurately known, he at length arrives at a clear knowledge of God, not yet rightly apprehending Jesus Christ. (HTML)
What He Found in the Sacred Books Which are Not to Be Found in Plato. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 576 (In-Text, Margin)
... over unto that ancient sinner, the governor of death; for he induced our will to be like his will, whereby he remained not in Thy truth. What shall “wretched man” do? “Who shall deliver him from the body of this death,” but Thy grace only, “through Jesus ‘Christ our Lord,’” whom Thou hast begotten co-eternal, and createdst in the begin ning of Thy ways, in whom the Prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, yet killed he Him, and the handwriting which was contrary to us was blotted out?[Colossians 2:14] This those writings contain not. Those pages contain not the expression of this piety,—the tears of confession, Thy sacrifice, a troubled spirit, “a broken and a contrite heart,” the salvation of the people, the espoused city, the earnest of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 141, footnote 7 (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 Entreats God for Her Sins, and Admonishes His Readers to Remember Her Piously. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 806 (In-Text, Margin)
... mouth, O Lord.” For she, when the day of her dissolution was near at hand, took no thought to have her body sumptuously covered, or embalmed with spices; nor did she covet a choice monument, or desire her paternal burial-place. These things she entrusted not to us, but only desired to have her name remembered at Thy altar, which she had served without the omission of a single day; whence she knew that the holy sacrifice was dispensed, by which the handwriting that was against us is blotted out;[Colossians 2:14] by which the enemy was triumphed over, who, summing up our offences, and searching for something to bring against us, found nothing in Him in whom we conquer. Who will restore to Him the innocent blood? Who will repay Him the price with which He ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 33, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
From the Epistle to the Colossians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 369 (In-Text, Margin)
... with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. And you, when ye were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; and putting the flesh off Him, He made a show of principalities and powers, confidently triumphing over them in Himself.”[Colossians 2:10-15]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 64, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
An Objection of the Pelagians. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 623 (In-Text, Margin)
... resurrection of all men to eternal life shall happen through one, even Christ. How can it therefore be that “the one has injured us more by sinning than the other has benefited us by redeeming,” when by the sin of the former we die a temporal death, but by the redemption of the latter we rise again not to a temporal, but to a perpetual life? Our body, therefore, is dead because of sin, but Christ’s body only died without sin, in order that, having poured out His blood without fault, “the bonds”[Colossians 2:14] which contain the register of all faults “might be blotted out,” by which they who now believe in Him were formerly held as debtors by the devil. And accordingly He says, “This is my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 464, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John I. 1–II. 11. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2018 (In-Text, Margin)
... light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” Let us walk in the light, as He is in the light, that we may be able to have fellowship with Him. And what are we to do about our sins? Hear what follows, “And the blood of Jesus Christ His Son shall purge us from all sin.” Great assurance hath God given! Well may we celebrate the Passover, wherein was shed the blood of the Lord, by which we are cleansed “from all sin!” Let us be assured: the “handwriting which was against us,”[Colossians 2:14] the bond of our slavery, the devil held, but by the blood of Christ it is blotted out. “The blood,” saith he, “of His Son shall purge us from all sin.” What meaneth, “from all sin”? Mark: lo even now, in the name of Christ whom these here have now ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 432, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXIX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4158 (In-Text, Margin)
... only the proud. When such an example of humility was displayed before them, men learned to condemn their own pride, and to imitate the humility of God. Thus also the devil, by losing those whom he had in his power, has even himself been humbled; not chastened, but thrown prostrate. “Thou hast humbled the proud like one that is wounded.” Thou hast been humbled, and hast humbled others: Thou hast been wounded, and hast wounded others: for Thy blood, as it was shed to blot the handwriting of sins,[Colossians 2:14] could not but wound him. For what was the ground of his pride, except the bond which he held against us. This bond, this handwriting, Thou hast blotted out with Thy blood: him therefore hast Thou wounded, from whom Thou hast rescued so many victims. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 249, footnote 7 (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)
Demonstrations by Syllogisms. (HTML)
Proof that the Divinity of the Saviour is Impassible. (HTML)
15. If our Lord and Saviour nailed the handwriting to the cross, as says the divine Apostle,[Colossians 2:14] He then nailed the body, for on his body every man like letters marks the prints of his sins, wherefore on behalf of sinners He gave up the body that was free from all sin.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 549, footnote 7 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed. (HTML)
Section 15 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3289 (In-Text, Margin)
... Prophet saith, “We were sold under our sins.” For every man, when he yields to lust, is receiving the purchase-money of his soul. Under that bond then every man was held by those most wicked rulers, which same bond Christ, when He came, tore down and stripped them of this their power. This Paul signifies under a great mystery, when he says of Him, “He destroyed the hand-writing which was against us, nailing it to His cross, and led away principalities and powers, triumphing over them in Himself.”[Colossians 2:14-15] Those rulers, then, whom God had set over mankind, having become contumacious and tyrannical, took in hand to assail the men who had been committed to their charge and to rout them utterly in the conflicts of sin, as the Prophet Ezekiel mystically ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 39, footnote 15 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 637 (In-Text, Margin)
... brought forth a son, say: “Lord, we have been with child by thy fear, we have been in pain, we have brought forth the spirit of thy salvation, which we have wrought upon the earth.” Then shall your Son reply: “Behold my mother and my brethren.” And He whose name you have so recently inscribed upon the table of your heart, and have written with a pen upon its renewed surface —He, after He has recovered the spoil from the enemy, and has spoiled principalities and powers, nailing them to His cross[Colossians 2:14-15] —having been miraculously conceived, grows up to manhood; and, as He becomes older, regards you no longer as His mother, but as His bride. To be as the martyrs, or as the apostles, or as Christ, involves a hard struggle, but brings with it a great ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 146, footnote 28 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Oceanus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2102 (In-Text, Margin)
... new and yet can no renewing efface the stain which the word wife brings with it? We are buried with Christ by baptism and we have risen again by faith in the working of God who hath called Him from the dead. And “when we were dead in our sins and in the uncircumcision of our flesh, God hath quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way nailing it to His cross.”[Colossians 2:13-14] Can it be that when our whole being is dead with Christ and when all the sins noted down in the old “handwriting” are blotted out, the one word “wife” alone lives on? Time would fail me were I to try to lay before you in order all the passages in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 5, footnote 8 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
Procatechesis, or Prologue to the Catechetical Lectures of our Holy Father, Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 454 (In-Text, Margin)
... speak, but in thee to set thy mind upon it, and in God to make perfect. Let us nerve our minds, and brace up our souls, and prepare our hearts. The race is for our soul: our hope is of things eternal: and God, who knoweth your hearts, and observeth who is sincere, and who a hypocrite, is able both to guard the sincere, and to give faith to the hypocrite: for even to the unbeliever, if only he give his heart, God is able to give faith. So may He blot out the handwriting that is against you[Colossians 2:14], and grant you forgiveness of your former trespasses; may He plant you into His Church, and enlist you in His own service, and put on you the armour of righteousness: may He fill you with the heavenly things of the New Covenant, and give you ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 17, footnote 7 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Against those who say that it is not right to rank the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 938 (In-Text, Margin)
... and deny now what we then received? Whether a man have departed this life without baptism, or have received a baptism lacking in some of the requirements of the tradition, his loss is equal. And whoever does not always and everywhere keep to and hold fast as a sure protection the confession which we recorded at our first admission, when, being delivered “from the idols,” we came “to the living God,” constitutes himself a “stranger” from the “promises” of God, fighting against his own handwriting,[Colossians 2:14] which he put on record when he professed the faith. For if to me my baptism was the beginning of life, and that day of regeneration the first of days, it is plain that the utterance uttered in the grace of adoption was the most honourable of all. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 41, footnote 1 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Of the origin of the word “with,” and what force it has. Also concerning the unwritten laws of the church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1269 (In-Text, Margin)
66. Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church[Colossians 2:14] some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us “in a mystery” by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will gainsay;—no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 41, footnote 1 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Of the origin of the word “with,” and what force it has. Also concerning the unwritten laws of the church. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1269 (In-Text, Margin)
66. Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church[Colossians 2:14] some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us “in a mystery” by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will gainsay;—no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 304, footnote 5 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Eulogius, Alexander, and Harpocration, bishops of Egypt, in exile. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3204 (In-Text, Margin)
... sprinkling the Church which, through its faith in Christ, has not spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; cleansing of leprosy after the painless state of the resurrection; an offering of jealousy when they neither marry nor are given in marriage; shew-bread after the Bread from heaven; burning lamps after the true Light. In a word, if the law of the Commandments has been done away with by dogmas, it is plain that under these circumstances the dogmas of Christ will be nullified by the injunctions of the law.[Colossians 2:14] At these things shame and disgrace have covered my face, and heavy grief hath filled my heart. Wherefore, I beseech you, as skilful physicians, and instructed how to discipline antagonists with gentleness, to try and bring him back to the right ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 44, 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 I (HTML)
... ye have risen again through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead. And you, when ye were dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He hath quickened with Him, having forgiven you all your sins, blotting out the bond which was against us by its ordinances, which was contrary to us; and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the Cross; and having put off the flesh He made a show of powers openly, triumphing over them through confidence in Himself[Colossians 2:8-15]. Steadfast faith rejects the vain subtleties of philosophic enquiry; truth refuses to be vanquished by these treacherous devices of human folly, and enslaved by falsehood. It will not confine God within the limits which barred our common reason, nor ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 94, 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 V (HTML)
... words that holy and Divine Song of Deuteronomy, in which God, in His wrath against them that are no Gods, moves the unbelievers to jealousy against those that are no people and a foolish nation. Conclude for yourself, Who it is that makes Himself manifest to them that knew Him not; Who, though one people is His own, becomes the possession of strangers; Who it is that spreads out His hands before an unbelieving and gainsaying people, nailing to the cross the writing of the former sentence against us[Colossians 2:14]. For the same Spirit in the prophet, whom we are considering, proceeds thus in the course of this one prophecy, which is connected in argument as well as continuous in utterance:— But My servants shall be called by a new name, which shall be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 195, 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 X (HTML)
48. Again, the Apostle knows nothing in Christ about fear of pain. When He wishes to speak of the dispensation of the Passion, He includes it in the mystery of Christ’s Divinity. Forgiving us all our trespasses, blotting out the bond written in ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary to us: taking it away, and nailing it to the cross; stripping off from Himself His flesh, He made a shew of principalities and powers openly triumphing over them in Himself[Colossians 2:13-15]. Was that the power, think you, to yield to the wound of the nail, to wince under the piercing blow, to convert itself into a nature that can feel pain? Yet the Apostle, who speaks as the mouthpiece of Christ, relating the work of our salvation through the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 244, 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 II. The incidents properly affecting the body which Christ for our sake took upon Him are not to be accounted to His Godhead, in respect whereof He is the Most Highest. To deny which is to say that the Father was incarnate. When we read that God is one, and that there is none other beside Him, or that He alone has immortality, this must be understood as true of Christ also, not only to avoid the sinful heresy above-mentioned (Patripassianism), but also because the activity of the Father and the Son is declared to be one and the same. (HTML)
... Apostle: “In Whom ye did also rise again, by faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead.” Let them also take warning from what follows of what they are running upon—for this is what comes after: “And though ye were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He quickened us with Him, pardoning us all our offences, blotting out the handwriting of the Ordinance, which was opposed to us, and removed it from our midst, nailing it to His Cross, divesting Himself of the flesh.”[Colossians 2:13-14]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 346, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter II. A passage quoted by the heretics against repentance is explained in two ways, the first being that Heb. vi. 4 refers to the impossibility of being baptized again; the second, that what is impossible with man is possible with God. (HTML)
... farther on: “If we have been planted in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing that our old man was fastened with Him to His cross.” And to the Colossians he says: “Buried with Him by baptism, wherein ye also rose again with Him.” Which was written to the intent that we should believe that He is crucified in us, that our sins may be purged through Him, that He, Who alone can forgive sins, may nail to His cross the handwriting which was against us.[Colossians 2:14] In us He triumphs over principalities and powers, as it is written of Him: “He made a show of principalities and powers, triumphing over them in Himself.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 447, footnote 1 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)
Letter XLI: To Marcellina on the Same. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3578 (In-Text, Margin)
8. So, then, we have changed our creditor, not escaped wholly, or rather we have escaped, for the debt remains but the interest is cancelled, for the Lord Jesus said, “To those who are in bonds, Come out, and to those who are in prison, Go forth;” so your sins are forgiven. All, then, are forgiven, nor is there any one whom He has not loosed. For thus it is written, that He has forgiven “all transgressions, doing away the handwriting of the ordinance that was against us.”[Colossians 2:13-14] Why, then, do we hold the bonds of others, and desire to exact the debts of others, while we enjoy our own remission? He who forgave all, required of all that what every one remembers to have been forgiven to himself, he also should forgive others.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 213, footnote 5 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults. (HTML)
Book III. Of the Canonical System of the Daily Prayers and Psalms. (HTML)
Chapter III. How throughout all the East the services of Tierce, Sext, and None are ended with only three Psalms and prayers each; and the reason why these spiritual offices are assigned more particularly to those hours. (HTML)
... at that hour and abode upon the Apostles. But at the sixth hour the spotless Sacrifice, our Lord and Saviour, was offered up to the Father, and, ascending the cross for the salvation of the whole world, made atonement for the sins of mankind, and, despoiling principalities and powers, led them away openly; and all of us who were liable to death and bound by the debt of the handwriting that could not be paid, He freed, by taking it away out of the midst and affixing it to His cross for a trophy.[Colossians 2:14-15] At the same hour, too, to Peter, in an ecstasy of mind, there was divinely revealed both the calling of the Gentiles by the letting down of the Gospel vessel from heaven, and also the cleansing of all the living creatures contained in it, when a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 578, footnote 4 (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 IX. He corroborates this statement by the authority of the old prophets. (HTML)
... to be God of God: at whose bidding the completion of the universe followed: whose will is the beginning of things: whose empire is the fabric of the world: who spake all things, and they came to pass: commanded all things, and they were created. He then alone it is who spake to the patriarchs, dwelt in the prophets, was conceived by the Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, appeared in the world, lived among men, fastened to the wood of the cross the handwriting of our offences, triumphed in Himself,[Colossians 2:14-15] slew by His death the powers that were at enmity and hostile to us; and gave to all men belief in the resurrection, and by the glory of His body put an end to the corruption of man’s flesh. You see then that all these belong to the Lord Jesus Christ ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 94, footnote 7 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Letters. (HTML)
To the Monks of Palestine. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 548 (In-Text, Margin)
... was made nothing:” and poor because “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us.” But what is that emptying of Himself, or that poverty except the receiving of the form of a slave by which the majesty of the Word was veiled, and the scheme for man’s redemption carried out? For as the original chains of our captivity could not be loosed, unless a man of our race and of our nature appeared who was not under the prejudice of the old debt, and who with his untainted blood might blot out the bond of death[Colossians 2:14], as it had from the beginning been divinely fore-ordained, so it came to pass in the fulness of the appointed time that the promise which had been proclaimed in many ways might reach its long expected fulfilment, and that thus, what had been ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 131, footnote 2 (Image)
Leo the Great, Gregory the Great
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)
Sermons. (HTML)
On the Feast of the Nativity, II. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 743 (In-Text, Margin)
... use of curses, affronts, blasphemies, abuse, in a word, poured upon Him all the force of his fury and exhausted all the varieties of trial: and knowing how he had poisoned man’s nature, had no conception that He had no share in the first transgression Whose mortality he had ascertained by so many proofs. The unscrupulous thief and greedy robber persisted in assaulting Him Who had nothing of His own, and in carrying out the general sentence on original sin, went beyond the bond on which he rested[Colossians 2:14], and required the punishment of iniquity from Him in Whom he found no fault. And thus the malevolent terms of the deadly compact are annulled, and through the injustice of an overcharge the whole debt is cancelled. The strong one is bound by his own ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 235, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Ephraim Syrus: Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. (HTML)
Hymn IV. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 443 (In-Text, Margin)
At the Birth of the Son the king was enrolling all men for the tribute-money, that they might be debtors to Him: the King came forth to us Who blotted out our bills,[Colossians 2:14] and wrote another bill in His own Name that He might be our debtor. The sun gave longer light, and foreshadowed the mystery by the degrees which it had gone up. It was twelve days since it had gone up, and to-day is the thirteenth day: a type exact of the Son’s birth and of His Twelve.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 367, footnote 4 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations. (HTML)
Of Monks. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 899 (In-Text, Margin)
... every time, for she became as a harp for him from the first day. For because of her the curse of the Law was established, and because of her the promise unto death was made. For with pangs she bears children and delivers them to death. Because of her the earth was cursed, that it should bring forth thorns and tares. Accordingly, by the coming of the offspring of the Blessed Mary the thorns are uprooted, the sweat wiped away, the fig-tree cursed, the dust made salt, the curse nailed to the cross,[Colossians 2:14] the edge of the sword removed from before the tree of life and it given as food to the faithful, and Paradise promised to the blessed and to virgins and to the saints. So the fruit of the tree of life is given as food to the faithful and to virgins, ...