Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Revelation 12
There are 20 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 353, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book I (HTML)
Chapter XXVII.—Doctrines of Cerdo and Marcion. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2961 (In-Text, Margin)
... they do not confess the name of their master, in order all the more to seduce others, yet they do teach his doctrines. They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus as a sort of lure, but in various ways they introduce the impieties of Simon; and thus they destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, through means of its sweetness and beauty, extending to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the great author of apostasy.[Revelation 12:9]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 407, footnote 5 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book II (HTML)
Chapter XXXI.—Recapitulation and application of the foregoing arguments. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3265 (In-Text, Margin)
... benefit of others our own means; and inasmuch as those who are cured very frequently do not possess the things which they require, they receive them from us;—[since such is the case,] these men are in this way undoubtedly proved to be utter aliens from the divine nature, the beneficence of God, and all spiritual excellence. But they are altogether full of deceit of every kind, apostate inspiration, demoniacal working, and the phantasms of idolatry, and are in reality the predecessors of that dragon[Revelation 12:14] who, by means of a deception of the same kind, will with his tail cause a third part of the stars to fall from their place, and will cast them down to the earth. It behoves us to flee from them as we would from him; and the greater the display with ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 462, footnote 6 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Preface. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3803 (In-Text, Margin)
... so also do these men, by pretending [to possess] superior knowledge, and [to be acquainted with] ineffable mysteries; and, by promising that admittance which they speak of as taking place within the Pleroma, plunge those that believe them into death, rendering them apostates from Him who made them. And at that time, indeed, the apostate angel, having effected the disobedience of mankind by means of the serpent, imagined that he escaped the notice of the Lord; wherefore God assigned him the form[Revelation 12:9] and name [of a serpent]. But now, since the last times are [come upon us], evil is spread abroad among men, which not only renders them apostates, but by many machinations does [the devil] raise up blasphemers against the Creator, namely, by means ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 40, footnote 7 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
The Pastor of Hermas (HTML)
Book Third.—Similitudes (HTML)
Similitude Eighth. The Sins of the Elect and of the Penitent are of Many Kinds, But All Will Be Rewarded According to the Measure of Their Repentance and Good Works. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 321 (In-Text, Margin)
... to have been cut away from it. By this, now, I am perplexed.” “Listen,” he said: “This great tree that casts its shadow over plains, and mountains, and all the earth, is the law of God that was given to the whole world; and this law is the Son of God, proclaimed to the ends of the earth; and the people who are under its shadow are they who have heard the proclamation, and have believed upon Him. And the great and glorious angel Michael is he who has authority over this people, and governs them;[Revelation 12:7] for this is he who gave them the law into the hearts of believers: he accordingly superintends them to whom he gave it, to see if they have kept the same. And you see the branches of each one, for the branches are the law. You see, accordingly, many ...
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,”[Revelation 12:9] 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 3, page 166, footnote 5 (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 1342 (In-Text, Margin)
... 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,” and, for every one hurt by such snakes—that is, his angels[Revelation 12:9] —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 bite of the serpents.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 216, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Apologetic. (HTML)
A Treatise on the Soul. (HTML)
The Opinions of Carpocrates, Another Offset from the Pythagorean Dogmas, Stated and Confuted. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1734 (In-Text, Margin)
... him is to renounce him, and his pomp, and his angels. Such is your agreement in this matter. Now the friendly understanding you will have to carry out must arise from your observance of the compact: you must never think of getting back any of the things which you have abjured, and have restored to him, lest he should summon you as a fraudulent man, and a transgressor of your agreement, before God the Judge (for in this light do we read of him, in another passage, as “the accuser of the brethren,”[Revelation 12:10] or saints, where reference is made to the actual practice of legal prosecution); and lest this Judge deliver you over to the angel who is to execute the sentence, and he commit you to the prison of hell, out of which there will be no ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 42, footnote 15 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
To His Wife. (HTML)
I (HTML)
Examples of Heathens Urged as Commendatory of Widowhood and Celibacy. (HTML)
... is intact to be quite forsaken, than for what has been lost not to be yearned after. A hard and arduous thing enough, surely, is the continence for God’s sake of a holy woman after her husband’s decease, when Gentiles, in honour of their own Satan, endure sacerdotal offices which involve both virginity and widowhood! At Rome, for instance, they who have to do with the type of that “inextinguishable fire,” keeping watch over the omens of their own (future) penalty, in company with the (old) dragon[Revelation 12:9] himself, are appointed on the ground of virginity. To the Achæan Juno, at the town Ægium, a virgin is allotted; and the (priestesses) who rave at Delphi know not marriage. Moreover, we know that widows minister to the African ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 217, footnote 4 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus. (HTML)
Dogmatical and Historical. (HTML)
Treatise on Christ and Antichrist. (HTML)
... she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast (out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast) out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the saints of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus.”[Revelation 12:1-6]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 661, footnote 12 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Appendix. (HTML)
Anonymous Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian. (HTML)
A Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian by an Anonymous Bishop. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5396 (In-Text, Margin)
... wicked will turn from all his sins which he hath committed, and will do righteousness, he shall live in eternal life, and shall not die in his wickedness.” For the sins which he has committed shall be abolished from memory by the good deeds which succeed. Thou reconsiderest now, whether the wounds of the lapsed who have fallen, stripped bare by the devil, ought to be cured; dashed down, as they are, by the “violence of the flood which the serpent sent forth from his mouth after the woman.”[Revelation 12:15] But “What shall I say?” says the apostle. “Do I praise you? In this I praise you not; that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.” For where there are “rivalries and dissensions among you, are ye not carnal, and walk according to ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 336, footnote 2 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity. (HTML)
Thekla. (HTML)
Exhortation to the Cultivation of Virginity; A Passage from the Apocalypse is Proposed to Be Examined. (HTML)
John, in the course of the Apocalypse, says:[Revelation 12:1-6] “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 382, footnote 8 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (HTML)
Chapter XVI.—Watchfulness; The Coming of the Lord (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2511 (In-Text, Margin)
... in which our Lord cometh. 2. But often shall ye come together, seeking the things which are befitting to your souls: for the whole time of your faith will not profit you, if ye be not made perfect in the last time. 3. For in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate; 4. for when lawlessness increaseth, they shall hate and persecute and betray one another, and then shall appear the world-deceiver[Revelation 12:9] as the Son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands, and he shall do iniquitous things which have never yet come to pass since the beginning. 5. Then shall the creation of men come into the fire of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 56, footnote 20 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Two Epistles Concerning Virginity. (HTML)
The First Epistle of the Blessed Clement, the Disciple of Peter the Apostle. (HTML)
The Irksomeness and the Enemies of Virginity. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 329 (In-Text, Margin)
... upon this contest and “strive,” that, in the might of the Holy Spirit, thou choosest this for thyself, that thou mayest be crowned with a crown of light, and that they may lead thee about in triumph through “the Jerusalem above”? If so be, then, that thou longest for all these things, conquer the body; conquer the appetites of the flesh; conquer the world in the Spirit of God; conquer these vain things of time, which pass away and grow old, and decay, and come to an end; conquer the dragon;[Revelation 12:7] conquer the lion; conquer the serpent; conquer Satan;—through Jesus Christ, who doth strengthen thee by the hearing of His words and the divine Eucharist. “Take up thy cross and follow” Him who makes thee clean, Jesus Christ thy Lord. Strive to run ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 80, footnote 14 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
He describes the twenty-ninth year of his age, in which, having discovered the fallacies of the Manichæans, he professed rhetoric at Rome and Milan. Having heard Ambrose, he begins to come to himself. (HTML)
Having Heard Faustus, the Most Learned Bishop of the Manichæans, He Discerns that God, the Author Both of Things Animate and Inanimate, Chiefly Has Care for the Humble. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 375 (In-Text, Margin)
... and the judgment out of which they number—they knew not, and that of Thy wisdom there is no number. But the Only-begotten has been “made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,” and has been numbered amongst us, and paid tribute to Cæsar. This way, by which they might descend to Him from themselves, they knew not; nor that through Him they might ascend unto Him. This way they knew not, and they think themselves exalted with the stars and shining, and lo! they fell upon the earth,[Revelation 12:4] and “their foolish heart was darkened.” They say many true things concerning the creature; but Truth, the Artificer of the creature, they seek not with devotion, and hence they find Him not. Or if they find Him, knowing that He is God, they glorify ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 115, footnote 12 (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 586 (In-Text, Margin)
... shall not be further moved. No one there hears Him calling, “Come unto me all ye that labour.” They scorn to learn of Him, because He is meek and lowly of heart; for “Thou hast hid those things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” For it is one thing, from the mountain’s wooded summit to see the land of peace, and not to find the way thither,—in vain to attempt impassable ways, opposed and waylaid by fugitives and deserters, under their captain the “lion” and the “dragon;”[Revelation 12:3] and another to keep to the way that leads thither, guarded by the host of the heavenly general, where they rob not who have deserted the heavenly army, which they shun as torture. These things did in a wonderful manner sink into my bowels, when I ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 334, footnote 8 (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. xiii. 19, etc., where the Lord Jesus explaineth the parables of the sower. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2513 (In-Text, Margin)
... devil? yet both Christ and the devil are called “a lion.” Christ is called “a lion:” “The Lion hath prevailed of the tribe of Judah;” and the devil is called a lion: “Know ye not that your adversary the Devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour?” Both the one and the other then is a lion; the one a lion by reason of His strength; the other for his savageness; the one a lion for His “prevailing;” the other for his injuring. The devil again is a serpent, “that old serpent;”[Revelation 12:9] are we commanded then to imitate the devil, when our Shepherd told us, “Be ye wise as serpents, and simple as doves”?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 183, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Theophilus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2621 (In-Text, Margin)
Jerome to the most blessed pope Theophilus. The letter of your holiness has given me a twofold pleasure, partly because it has had for its bearers those reverend and estimable men, the bishop Agatho and the deacon Athanasius, and partly because it has shewn your zeal for the faith against a most wicked heresy. The voice of your holiness has rung throughout the world, and to the joy of all Christ’s churches the poisonous suggestions of the devil have been silenced. The old serpent[Revelation 12:9] hisses no longer, but, writhing and disembowelled, lurks in dark caverns unable to bear the shining of the sun. I have already, before the writing of your letter, sent missives to the West pointing out to those of my own language some of the quibbles ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 7, footnote 2 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
To those who are to be Enlightened, delivered extempore at Jerusalem, as an Introductory Lecture to those who had come forward for Baptism. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 476 (In-Text, Margin)
4. Thou art receiving not a perishable but a spiritual shield. Henceforth thou art planted in the invisible[Revelation 12:7] Paradise. Thou receivest a new name, which thou hadst not before. Heretofore thou wast a Catechumen, but now thou wilt be called a Believer. Thou art transplanted henceforth among the spiritual olive-trees, being grafted from the wild into the good olive-tree, from sins into righteousness, from pollutions into purity. Thou art made partaker of the Holy Vine. Well then, if thou abide in the Vine, thou growest as a fruitful branch; but if thou ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 7, footnote 2 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
To those who are to be Enlightened, delivered extempore at Jerusalem, as an Introductory Lecture to those who had come forward for Baptism. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 476 (In-Text, Margin)
4. Thou art receiving not a perishable but a spiritual shield. Henceforth thou art planted in the invisible[Revelation 12:17] Paradise. Thou receivest a new name, which thou hadst not before. Heretofore thou wast a Catechumen, but now thou wilt be called a Believer. Thou art transplanted henceforth among the spiritual olive-trees, being grafted from the wild into the good olive-tree, from sins into righteousness, from pollutions into purity. Thou art made partaker of the Holy Vine. Well then, if thou abide in the Vine, thou growest as a fruitful branch; but if thou ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 378, footnote 5 (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 VIII. The Second Conference of Abbot Serenus. On Principalities. (HTML)
Chapter VIII. Of the fall of the devil and the angels. (HTML)
... thou fallen to the ground, that didst wound the nations? and thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.” But Holy Scripture relates that these fell not alone from that summit of their station in bliss, as it tells us that the dragon dragged down together with himself the third part of the stars.[Revelation 12:4] One of the Apostles too says still more plainly: “But the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own dwelling, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day.” This too which is said to us: ...