Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Hebrews 11:40

There are 9 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 428, footnote 2 (Image)

Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (HTML)

The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)

Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter XVI.—Passages of Scripture Respecting the Constancy, Patience, and Love of the Martyrs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2828 (In-Text, Margin)

... the promise of God” (what is expressed by a parasiopesis is left to be understood, viz., “alone”). He adds accordingly, “God having provided some better thing for us (for He was good), that they should not without us be made perfect. Wherefore also, having encompassing us such a cloud,” holy and transparent, “of witnesses, laying aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”[Hebrews 11:36-40] Since, then, he specifies one salvation in Christ of the righteous, and of us he has expressed the former unambiguously, and saying nothing less respecting Moses, adds, “Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 27, footnote 4 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)

On the Veiling of Virgins. (HTML)

Truth Rather to Be Appealed to Than Custom, and Truth Progressive in Its Developments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 278 (In-Text, Margin)

... Holy Spirit. “Still,” He said, “I have many things to say to you, but ye are not yet able to bear them: when that Spirit of truth shall have come, He will conduct you into all truth, and will report to you the supervening (things).” But above, withal, He made a declaration concerning this His work. What, then, is the Paraclete’s administrative office but this: the direction of discipline, the revelation of the Scriptures, the reformation of the intellect, the advancement toward the “better things?”[Hebrews 11:40] Nothing is without stages of growth: all things await their season. In short, the preacher says, “A time to everything.” Look how creation itself advances little by little to fructification. First comes the grain, and from the grain arises the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 64, footnote 5 (Image)

Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters

The Confessions (HTML)

Of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth years of his age, passed at Carthage, when, having completed his course of studies, he is caught in the snares of a licentious passion, and falls into the errors of the Manichæans. (HTML)

He Attacks the Doctrine of the Manichæans Concerning Evil, God, and the Righteousness of the Patriarchs. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 245 (In-Text, Margin)

13. Nor had I knowledge of that true inner righteousness, which doth not judge according to custom, but out of the most perfect law of God Almighty, by which the manners of places and times were adapted to those places and times—being itself the while the same always and everywhere, not one thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and all those commended by the mouth of God were righteous,[Hebrews 11:8-40] but were judged unrighteous by foolish men, judging out of man’s judgment, and gauging by the petty standard of their own manners the manners of the whole human race. Like as if in an armoury, one knowing not what were adapted to the several members should put ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 65, footnote 2 (Image)

Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings

A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)

Book II (HTML)

Why It is that Death Itself is Not Abolished, Along with Sin, by Baptism. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 629 (In-Text, Margin)

... certain worthies who pleased God by their faith, he says: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but seeing them afar off, and hailing them, and confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” And then afterwards he concluded his eulogy on faith in these words: “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, did not indeed receive God’s promises; for they foresaw better things for us, and that without us they could not themselves become perfect.”[Hebrews 11:39-40] Now this would be no praise for faith, nor (as I said) would it be faith at all, were men in believing to follow after rewards which they could see,—in other words, if on believers were bestowed the reward of immortality in this present world.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 100, footnote 10 (Image)

Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings

A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)

The Law Written in the Heart, and the Reward of the Eternal Contemplation of God, Belong to the New Covenant; Who Among the Saints are the Least and the Greatest. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 906 (In-Text, Margin)

... who have been further able to understand—so far as may be in this world—the light which is incorporeal and unchangeable. Or, “ the least ” may mean those who are later in time; whilst by “ the greatest ” He may have intended to indicate those who were prior in time. For they are all to receive the promised vision of God hereafter, since it was for us that they foresaw the future which would be better than their present, that they without us should not arrive at complete perfection.[Hebrews 11:40] And so the earlier are found to be the lesser, because they were less deferred in time; as in the case of the gospel “penny a day,” which is given for an illustration. This penny they are the first to receive who came last into the vineyard. Or, ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 109, footnote 3 (Image)

Socrates: Church History from A.D. 305-438; Sozomenus: Church History from A.D. 323-425

The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. (HTML)

Book IV (HTML)

Assault upon the Monks, and Banishment of their Superiors, who exhibit Miraculous Power. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 636 (In-Text, Margin)

... stoned, slain with the sword, went about in the wilderness clad in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.’ In all these things ‘they obtained a good report’ for their faith and their works, and the cures which the grace of Christ wrought by their hands. But as it appears Divine Providence permitted them to endure these evils, ‘having for them provided something better,’[Hebrews 11:40] that through their sufferings others might obtain the salvation of God, and this subsequent events seem to prove. When therefore these wonderful men proved superior to all the violence which was exercised toward them, Lucius in despair advised the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 456, footnote 1 (Image)

Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome

Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)

The Apology of Rufinus. Addressed to Apronianus, in Reply to Jerome's Letter to Pammachius. (HTML)

Book I (HTML)
Origin of men, angels, and heavenly bodies. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2901 (In-Text, Margin)

“And the creation of the new man will be fully and completely perfected when things in heaven and things in earth shall be joined in one, and we have access to the Father in one spirit, in one feeling and mind. There is something similar suggested by Paul to all thoughtful readers in another Epistle (though some do not receive it as his), in these words:[Hebrews 11:39-40] “All these, having had witness borne of their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” For this reason the whole creation groans and travails with pain in sympathy with us who groan in this tabernacle, who have conceived in the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 373, footnote 2 (Image)

Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian

The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)

The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)

Conference VII. First Conference of Abbot Serenus. On Inconstancy of Mind, and Spiritual Wickedness. (HTML)
Chapter XXX. The answer to the question raised. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1500 (In-Text, Margin)

... our hearts and the fullest affection (for “when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it”), as we know that we cannot possibly be perfected without them inasmuch as they are members of us, just as we read that our predecessors could not attain the fulness of promise without us, as the Apostle speaks of them as follows: “And these all being approved by the testimony of faith, received not the promise, God providing some better thing for us that they should not be perfected without us.”[Hebrews 11:39-40] But we never remember that holy communion was forbidden them; nay rather if it were possible, they thought that it ought to be given to them daily; nor indeed according to the words of the gospel which you incongruously apply in this sense ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 382, 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)

Aphrahat:  Select Demonstrations. (HTML)

Of the Resurrection of the Dead. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1010 (In-Text, Margin)

... receive the reward till the labour shall cease. And the traders who received the money, when the Lord of the money shall come, then shall He exact the usury. And the virgins who, while waiting for the bridegroom, slumbered and slept because He delayed to come, when they shall hear the cry, then they shall awake and trim their lamps; and they that are wise shall enter in; and the foolish shall be shut out. And they who were before us in entering the faith, without us shall not be made perfect.[Hebrews 11:40]

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