Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Colossians 2:21
There are 6 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 472, footnote 1 (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)
The Epistle to the Colossians. Time the Criterion of Truth and Heresy. Application of the Canon. The Image of the Invisible God Explained. Pre-Existence of Our Christ in the Creator's Ancient Dispensations. What is Included in the Fulness of Christ. The Epicurean Character of Marcion's God. The Catholic Truth in Opposition Thereto. The Law is to Christ What the Shadow is to the Substance. (HTML)
... assigning one to one god and the other to another, it is the same as if you were to at tempt to separate the shadow from the body of which it is the shadow. Manifestly Christ has relation to the law, if the body has to its shadow. But when he blames those who alleged visions of angels as their authority for saying that men must abstain from meats—“you must not touch, you must not taste”—in a voluntary humility, (at the same time) “vainly puffed up in the fleshly mind, and not holding the Head,”[Colossians 2:21] (the apostle) does not in these terms attack the law or Moses, as if it was at the suggestion of superstitious angels that he had enacted his prohibition of sundry aliments. For Moses had evidently received the law from God. When, therefore, he ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 649, footnote 6 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
On the Jewish Meats. (HTML)
But There Was a Limit to the Use of These Shadows or Figures; For Afterwards, When the End of the Law, Christ, Came, All Things Were Said by the Apostle to Be Pure to the Pure, and the True and Holy Meat Was a Right Faith and an Unspotted Conscience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5336 (In-Text, Margin)
... are acquired for us by divine awe and heavenly fear, and not by earthly food. And such the apostle fitly rebuked, as “obeying the superstitions of angels, puffed up by their fleshly mind; not holding Christ the head, from whom all the body, joined together by links, and inwoven and grown together by mutual members in the bond of charity, increaseth to God;” but observing those things: “Touch not, taste not, handle not; which indeed seem to have a form of religion, in that the body is not spared.”[Colossians 2:21] Yet there is no advantage at all of righteousness, while we are recalled by a voluntary slavery to those elements to which by baptism we have died.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 442, footnote 3 (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 XI. (HTML)
The Offence of the Pharisees. (HTML)
... worthless interpretation of the law, they were not the plant of his own Father in heaven, and on this account were being rooted up; for they were rooted up as they did not receive the true vine, which was cultivated by the Father, even Jesus Christ. For how could they be a plant of His Father who were offended at the words of Jesus, words which turn men away from the precept, “Handle not, nor taste, nor touch,—all which things were to perish in the using—after the precepts and doctrines of men,”[Colossians 2:21-22] but induce the intelligent hearer of them to seek in regard to them the things which are above and not the things upon the earth as the Jews do? And since, because of their evil opinions, the Pharisees were not the plant of His Father in heaven, on ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 31, footnote 8 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter XXXVI. One of the duties of fortitude is to keep the weak from receiving injury; another, to check the wrong motions of our own souls; a third, both to disregard humiliations, and to do what is right with an even mind. All these clearly ought to be fulfilled by all Christians, and especially by the clergy. (HTML)
184. Think, then, how he teaches those who enter upon their duties in the Church, that they ought to have contempt for all earthly things: “If, then, ye be dead with Christ from the elements of this world, why do ye act as though living in the world? Touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using.”[Colossians 2:20-22] And further: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, not those things which are on the earth.” And again: “Mortify, therefore, your members which are on the earth.” This, indeed, is meant for all the faithful. But thee, especially, my son, he urges to despise riches and to avoid profane and old wives ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 357, footnote 6 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
Chapter X. In order to do away with the feeling of shame which holds back the guilty from public penance, St. Ambrose points out the advantage of prayers offered by the whole Church, and sets forth the example of saints who have sorrowed. Then, after reproving those who imagine that penance may be often repeated, he points out the difficulty of repentance, and how it is to be carried out. (HTML)
97. Well then did the Lord say: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” For they who are dead and buried in Christ ought not again to make their conclusions as though living in the world. “Touch not,” it is said, “nor attend to those things which tend to corruption by their very use,[Colossians 2:21] for the very customs of this life corrupt integrity.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 441, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII. (HTML)
Conference XIV. The First Conference of Abbot Nesteros. On Spiritual Knowledge. (HTML)
Chapter XI. Of the manifold meaning of the Holy Scriptures. (HTML)
... that from them they might tell the things that shall come to thee,” of which fornication elsewhere also the Lord says in rebuking them: “The spirit of fornication deceived them, and they went a whoring from their God.” But one who has forsaken both these kinds of fornication, will have a third kind to avoid, which is contained in the superstitions of the law and of Judaism; of which the Apostle says: “Ye observe days and months and times and years;” and again: Touch not, taste not, handle not.”[Colossians 2:21] And there is no doubt that this is said of the superstitions of the law, into which one who has fallen has certainly gone a whoring from Christ, and is not worthy to hear this from the Apostle: “For I have espoused you to one husband, to exhibit you ...