Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
1 Thessalonians 4:4
There are 10 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 425, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter XII.—Basilides’ Idea of Martyrdom Refuted. (HTML)
... each one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence, as the Gentiles who know not the Lord: that none of you should overreach or take advantage of his brother in any matter; because the Lord is the avenger in respect of all such, as we also told you before, and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but to holiness. Wherefore he that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given His Holy Spirit to you.”[1 Thessalonians 4:3-8] Wherefore the Lord was not prohibited from this sanctification of ours. If, then, one of them were to say, in reply, that the martyr is punished for sins committed before this embodying, and that he will again reap the fruit of his conduct in this ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 462, 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)
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians. The Shorter Epistles Pungent in Sense and Very Valuable. St. Paul Upbraids the Jews for the Death First of Their Prophets and Then of Christ. This a Presumption that Both Christ and the Prophets Pertained to the Same God. The Law of Nature, Which is in Fact the Creator's Discipline, and the Gospel of Christ Both Enjoin Chastity. The Resurrection Provided for in the Old Testament by Christ. Man's Compound Nature. (HTML)
... the same level: the climax, therefore, was only possible by the sin having been in fact committed against one and the same Lord in the two respective circumstances. To one and the same Lord, then, belonged Christ and the prophets. What that “sanctification of ours” is, which he declares to be “the will of God,” you may discover from the opposite conduct which he forbids. That we should “abstain from fornication,” not from marriage; that every one “should know how to possess his vessel in honour.”[1 Thessalonians 4:3-4] In what way? “Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles.” Concupiscence, however, is not ascribed to marriage even among the Gentiles, but to extravagant, unnatural, and enormous sins. The law of nature is opposed to luxury as well as ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 556, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
The Heretics Called the Flesh “The Vessel of the Soul,” In Order to Destroy the Responsibility of the Body. Their Cavil Turns Upon Themselves and Shows the Flesh to Be a Sharer in Human Actions. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7375 (In-Text, Margin)
... owing to the diversity in the nature of the objects. For every vessel or every instrument becomes useful from without, consisting as it does of material perfectly extraneous to the substance of the human owner or employer; whereas the flesh, being conceived, formed, and generated along with the soul from its earliest existence in the womb, is mixed up with it likewise in all its operations. For although it is called “a vessel” by the apostle, such as he enjoins to be treated “with honour,”[1 Thessalonians 4:4] it is yet designated by the same apostle as “the outward man,” —that clay, of course, which at the first was inscribed with the title of a man, not of a cup or a sword, or any paltry vessel. Now it is called a “ vessel ” in consideration of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 92, footnote 11 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
Consistency of the Apostle in His Other Epistles. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 888 (In-Text, Margin)
... of modesty, of chastity, of sanctity; they all aim their missiles against the interests of luxury, and lasciviousness, and lust. What, in short, does he write to the Thessalonians withal? “For our consolation (originated) not of seduction, nor of impurity:” and, “This is the will of God, your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; that each one know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of concupiscence, as (do) the nations which are ignorant of God.”[1 Thessalonians 4:3-5] What do the Galatians read? “Manifest are the works of the flesh.” What are these? Among the first he has set “fornication, impurity, lasciviousness:” “(concerning) which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that whoever do such acts are not to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 275, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
Of the Evil of Lust,—A Word Which, Though Applicable to Many Vices, is Specially Appropriated to Sexual Uncleanness. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 741 (In-Text, Margin)
... the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing indeed is this pleasure, that at the moment of time in which it is consummated, all mental activity is suspended. What friend of wisdom and holy joys, who, being married, but knowing, as the apostle says, “how to possess his vessel in santification and honor, not in the disease of desire, as the Gentiles who know not God,”[1 Thessalonians 4:4] would not prefer, if this were possi ble, to beget children without this lust, so that in this function of begetting offspring the members created for this purpose should not be stimulated by the heat of lust, but should be actuated by his volition, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 267, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
On Marriage and Concupiscence (HTML)
This Disease of Concupiscence in Marriage is Not to Be a Matter of Will, But of Necessity; What Ought to Be the Will of Believers in the Use of Matrimony; Who is to Be Regarded as Using, and Not Succumbing To, the Evil of Concupiscence; How the Holy Fathers of the Old Testament Formerly Used Wives. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2084 (In-Text, Margin)
This disease of concupiscence is what the apostle refers to, when, speaking to married believers, he says: “This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the disease of desire, even as the Gentiles which know not God.”[1 Thessalonians 4:3-5] The married believer, therefore, must not only not use another man’s vessel, which is what they do who lust after others’ wives; but he must know that even his own vessel is not to be possessed in the disease of carnal concupiscence. And this counsel is not to be understood as if the apostle prohibited conjugal—that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 253, 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)
Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1759 (In-Text, Margin)
... the former is repressed, the more is the other strengthened and confirmed. Are they then not married people who thus live, not requiring from each other any carnal gratification, or exacting the satisfaction of any bodily desire? And yet the wife is subject to the husband, because it is fitting that she should be, and so much the more in subjection is she, in proportion to her greater chastity; and the husband for his part loveth his wife truly, as it is written, “In honour and sanctification,”[1 Thessalonians 4:4] as a coheir of grace: as “Christ,” saith the Apostle, “loved the Church.” If then this be a union, and a marriage; if it be not the less a marriage because nothing of that kind passes between them, which even with unmarried persons may take place, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 181, footnote 10 (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)
The Immutable. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1171 (In-Text, Margin)
... the wood are more worthless than man is it much more disgraceful for him to dwell in stone and wood. But perhaps mankind seems to them to be of less value than these senseless objects. They bring down the substance of God into stones and into dogs; but many heretics into fouler things than these. But we could never endure even to hear of these things. But what we say is that of a virgin’s womb the Christ took pure flesh, holy and without spot, and made impervious to all sin, and restored the body[1 Thessalonians 4:4] that was His own.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 259, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Gaudentius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3599 (In-Text, Margin)
... wherein he is called, therein abide. Is any called being circumcised,”— that is, as a virgin?—“let him not become uncircumcised” —that is, let him not seek the coat of marriage given to Adam on his expulsion from the paradise of virginity. “Is any called in uncircumcision,”—that is, having a wife and enveloped in the skin of matrimony? let him not seek the nakedness of virginity and of that eternal chastity which he has lost once for all. No, let him “possess his vessel in sanctification and honour,”[1 Thessalonians 4:4] let him drink of his own wells not out of the dissolute cisterns of the harlots which cannot hold within them the pure waters of chastity. The same Paul also in the same chapter, when discussing the subjects of virginity and marriage, calls those ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 214, footnote 7 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Diodorus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2539 (In-Text, Margin)
... implacable jealousy her who ought to cherish them with a mother’s love. It is only stepmothers who extend their hatred even beyond death; other enemies make a truce with the dead; stepmothers begin their hatred after death. The sum of what I say is this. If any one wants to contract a lawful marriage, the whole world is open to him: if he is only impelled by lust, let him be the more restricted, “that he may know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of concupiscence.”[1 Thessalonians 4:4] I should like to say more, but the limits of my letter leave me no further room. I pray that my exhortation may prove stronger than lust, or at least that this pollution may not be found in my own province. Where it has been ventured on there let it ...