The church in the early church

The nature, marks, and authority of the church, the church catholic, and the church as body and bride of Christ.

Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.13.1 (90.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The tower is the church.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.18.3 (95.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The church will be cleansed of the wicked and become one body.
Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.18.4 (95.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The cleansed church will be one body, and the Son will rejoice in it.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 2.4.1 (8.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The elderly woman is the church, created first of all.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.3.3 (11.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The tower is the church.
Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 4.2.2 (23.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · He recognizes the church.
2 Clement 2.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Isaiah's barren woman is the church, once childless, now fruitful.
2 Clement 14.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Doing God's will places us in the first, spiritual church, created before the sun and moon.
2 Clement 14.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The church, Christ's body and bride, existed from the beginning.
2 Clement 14.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Keep the flesh pure, the copy, to share in the Spirit, the original.
2 Clement 14.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · To abuse the flesh is to abuse the church, and to lose the Spirit.
Dialogue with Trypho 63.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The “daughter” of Psalm 45 is the church, named after Christ.
Diatessaron, section 47Tatian · ca. 160-180
To Autolycus 2.14Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Plants growing from seeds foreshadow the resurrection; the world is like a salt sea kept alive by God's law and prophets, with the churches as safe harbors and the heresies as deadly reefs.
The Instructor 1.6.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The church is the one virgin mother who nurses her children with the Word; Christ bore her in the travail of his flesh and swaddled her in his blood, and is everything to his little ones.
Exhortation to the Greeks 9.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God admonishes as a gentle father; those who become like children and are born again enter the kingdom as his firstborn church.
Against Heresies 3.12.5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The first church's prayer and preaching invoked the Creator and his anointed Son Jesus; this is the voice from which every church began.
Against Heresies 3.24.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Church’s preaching is everywhere constant; the Spirit is given to the Church, and those outside it cut themselves off from life.
Against Heresies 4.20.12Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The prophets foretold Christ by actions: Hosea’s marriage, Moses’ Ethiopian wife, and Rahab, figures of the Church gathered from sinners and gentiles.
Against Heresies 5 pref.Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · In the preface to Book 5 Irenaeus reviews the first four books and announces proofs from the Lord’s teaching and Paul’s letters, ending with the Word who became what we are to make us what he is.
Against Heresies 5.20.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The faithful should flee the heretics and be nourished in the Church, planted as a paradise, eating from every Scripture of the Lord but not from the forbidden tree of heretical knowledge.
Miscellanies 7.5.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God, who needs nothing, has no need of a temple; his true temple is the church, the assembly of the elect, and the righteous soul of the one who knows is his holy statue.
Miscellanies 7.17.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Since the heresies are later counterfeits, the true church is the one ancient catholic church, which, like the one God and one Lord, is one and gathers the elect into the unity of one faith.
On Christ and Antichrist 59Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–215 · The Church is a ship tossed on the sea of the world but not sunk, with Christ as pilot and the cross as its mast.
On Christ and Antichrist 61Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–215 · The woman is the Church, always bearing Christ; her flight on eagle's wings is the persecuted Church's refuge in faith in the crucified Christ.
On Proverbs, fragment 48Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · A running interpretation of Prov 30:17–31 (LXX 24:52–66): the ways of the man in youth, the adulteress, the four things the earth cannot bear, the lizard, the locust, and the four stately things all point to Christ, the church, and the nations.
Arabic commentary on the Apocalypse, fragment 4 (on Apok Jeh312. 1)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200-235 · Hippolytus reads the woman of Rev 12:1 as the church, the sun as Christ, the moon as John the Baptist, and the twelve stars as the apostles.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, fragment 13 (Song 3:6)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · The women's witness to the resurrection silences the synagogue; the bride coming up from the wilderness is the Gentile church, and her myrrh and incense signify Christ's burial and the worship of God.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, Armenian fragment (Song 1:5-5:1)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · A long running commentary on Song 1:5–4:16 preserved in Armenian: the black and beautiful bride is humanity renewed by Christ, the watchmen are angels, the breasts are knowledge and sight, and the spices are the manifold good deeds of the righteous.
Commentary on Daniel 1.4-10Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-204 · Fragments on Daniel 1 and on Susanna: the order of the book, Hezekiah's sign, the youths' fidelity, Susanna's family, and Susanna and the elders as types of the church and its persecutors.
Commentary on Daniel 1.17-18Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-204 · Paradise as a figure of the church, its trees, river and two trees interpreted, and Susanna's garden, closed doors and hidden elders as figures of entry into the church and the devil's renewed assault.
Exhortation to Chastity 5Tertullian · ca. 208 · God made one woman from one rib for Adam, and “two in one flesh” means two, not three; Christ's one marriage to the one church doubles that rule, and plural marriage began with the accursed Lamech.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 285Origen · ca. 220-254 · Leaven is the old vice to be cast out; the blood on the doorposts guards the soul's three parts; the Passover law on foreigners read of doctrines; the Passover is eaten in one house, the church.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 287Origen · ca. 220-254 · Church teaching is not taken outside the church; spiritual circumcision of heart, ears, lips, eyes, and flesh; the stations of the exodus; the tristatai; God tests for our benefit.
Fragments on the Song of Songs, chapter 1Origen · ca. 220-254 · Short comments on Song of Songs 1:2–16 read the bride as the soul or the church from the Gentiles and the bridegroom as Christ the Word.
Fragments on Luke, column 325Origen · ca. 220-254 · The Father's true temple is the church, and Luke's list of rulers in 3:1 shows that the Gospel was for the whole world.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 201Origen · ca. 220-254 · God the Father and the church our mother rejoice over the instructed son and grieve over the foolish one, who has only one who bore him and not a mother.
PG 12:1059Origen · ca. 220-254 · Origen’s proof from the Hexapla that “diapsalma” stands for Hebrew selah, and the start of his general notes on psalm titles: the three psalms “for the winepresses” signify the churches.
PG 12:1061Origen · ca. 220-254 · The winepresses as the many churches (Psalms 8, 80, 83 LXX); the titles “for the eighth” as pointing to the resurrection on the eighth day (Psalms 6 and 11 LXX).
PG 12:1169 (Ps 5 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · On Ps 5:3–7: God does not let the lawless remain before him, as a physician does not leave the sick uncured; he hates sinners and will destroy heretics; the house of God is the virtuous soul and the church, entered only by his mercy.
PG 12:1265 (Ps 22–23 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · End of Ps 22 LXX (23) and beginning of Ps 23 LXX (24): the earth filled by Christ’s coming, the church as the inhabited world, and the ascent to the mountain of the Lord.
PG 12:1279 (Ps 26 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Ps 26 LXX (27):4–5: the house of the Lord as the church, the tent as progress and the house as perfection, and the rock as Christ.
PG 12:1427 (Ps 44–45 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · End of Ps 44 LXX (45):7–17 (the queen as the church, her glory within, virgin souls, the apostles in place of the patriarchs) and beginning of Ps 45 LXX (46): God our only refuge.
PG 12:1635 (Ps 125–126 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 126:2–5 (LXX 125) and Psalm 127:1 (LXX 126): the return from captivity, sowing in tears and reaping in joy, the builders who labour in vain, and Christ as master, king, and God of the soul.
Fragment 43 on John 3:29Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 3:29–30: the rational soul is a bride that bears virtues only from Christ the bridegroom; John is the bridegroom's friend who rejoices to send his disciples to him; Christ ‘increases’ and John ‘decreases’ as the morning star fades before the sun, not by any change in either.
Fragment 137 on John 17:11 (Munich codex 208 appendix)Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 17:11: believers are one by agreement and by likeness, one body in Christ the head as all mankind is one in Adam.
Commentary on John 1.163Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Church and the apostles are like moon and stars, lighting those who cannot yet shine themselves.
Commentary on John 6.301Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some take “world” to mean the church, the adornment of the world, since Christians are called the light of the world.
Commentary on John 6.302Origen · ca. 230–248 · Perhaps Christ is the light of the church and the disciples the light of those who call on him; if the church lights the whole race, that must be shown or referred to the end.
Commentary on John 6.303Origen · ca. 230–248 · Believers are the salt of the earth that preserves the world; when that salt loses its savor and love grows cold, the end will come.
Commentary on John 6.304Origen · ca. 230–248 · Is the “world” whose sin the Lamb removes only the church?
Commentary on John 10.228Origen · ca. 230–248 · The temple and Christ's body both prefigure the church, built of living stones on Christ the cornerstone.
Commentary on John 10.229Origen · ca. 230–248 · The church, Christ's body, though scattered by persecution, will be raised on the “third day” of the new creation, as Christ's resurrection foreshadows.
Commentary on John 10.266Origen · ca. 230–248 · The temple is the church built of living stones; Solomon, building in peace after David's wars, is a type of Christ.
Commentary on John 13.83Origen · ca. 230–248 · Until the hour comes, one must avoid the heretics' mountain and worship in Zion, the church.
Commentary on John 13.84Origen · ca. 230–248 · The true Jerusalem is the church, built of living stones, offering spiritual sacrifices.
Commentary on John 28.29Origen · ca. 230–248 · The temple is the church, the house of God.
Homilies on Exodus 1.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The multiplying of Israel after Joseph's death figures the growth of the Church after Christ's death and the increase of virtues once vices are put to death.
Homilies on Exodus 2.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The two midwives figure rational and moral learning, or better the law and the Gospels, which teach the fear of God, build up the churches, and nourish only virtue.
Homilies on Exodus 9.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The tabernacle built from the people's free gifts figures the Church: its silvered pillars are the teachers, their bases the prophets, their capital Christ, the curtains the faithful hanging on the threefold cord of faith in the Trinity, and its materials the virtues.
Homilies on Ezekiel 1.11Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · The many elements of the vision are deep mysteries; truths about God must be spoken with care, and the Church, like a net or a threshing floor, holds good and bad until Christ’s judgment.
Homilies on Ezekiel 11.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · Nebuchadnezzar could take Jerusalem’s leaders only because they sinned; the transplanted vine grew weak, so believers should stay within the Church and accept God’s chastisement rather than flee to “Pharaoh.”
Homilies on Ezekiel 12.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · The cedar shoot planted on the high mountain is the apostles planted in Christ, growing into the Church; the high and green tree brought low is the Jewish people, the dry tree made green the Gentiles.
Homilies on Joshua 3.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Rahab, “breadth,” is the church gathered from sinners and the Gentiles, made a prophetess; Canaan’s servitude to his brothers shows God’s hidden kindness to sinners.
Homilies on Joshua 3.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Rahab’s scarlet cord is the blood of Christ, and her house is the church, outside of which no one is saved.
Homilies on Joshua 6.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Jericho, taken by trumpets, is the world that will fall at the trumpet of Christ’s coming, from which only the church, once a harlot and now a chaste bride, will be saved by his blood.
Homilies on Joshua 7.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The people’s shout at Jericho signifies the concord of a church of one mind, and each believer, a priest, must sound the trumpets of Scripture and bring his own thoughts into harmony.
Homilies on Joshua 9.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · After the victory over Ai, Joshua builds an altar of whole stones; believers are living stones built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets and on Christ, and those devoted to prayer form the altar.
Homilies on Joshua 10.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The Gibeonites, saved but made servants, figure believers who serve the church yet never amend their lives, saved only with a mark of disgrace, like the fruitless elm that supports the vine in the Shepherd of Hermas.
Homilies on Joshua 21.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The Jebusites who remained in Jerusalem are the sinners who remain in the church, which cannot be wholly purified on earth; those whose sins are manifest are to be expelled, but no one whose sin is hidden, lest the wheat be uprooted with the tares.
Homilies on Leviticus 4.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Partnership is spiritually our fellowship with the Father, Son, Spirit, and the saints, denied by sin; 'robbery' is seizing the church's deeper mysteries before being purified.
Homilies on Leviticus 9.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The two goats of the Day of Atonement represent those in the church who are the Lord's lot and those who are cast out into the wilderness.
Homilies on Leviticus 12.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Christ's bride is the church, a virgin in the simplicity of faith; the 'widow' is the soul that leaves the law without taking up the Gospel, and 'of his own race' marks the church, not Israel, as Christ's kin.
Homilies on Jeremiah 4.3Origen · ca. 240 · In the age of the martyrs Christians were few but true; now the church is large but has few real believers, as Christ foretold for the end of the age.
Homilies on Jeremiah 5.16Origen · ca. 240 · The trumpet is the Word that rouses us to spiritual war; we must flee into the walled city, the church, to escape the lion from the north, the devil, who hunts in the night.
Homilies on Jeremiah 9.2Origen · ca. 240 · Jerusalem is the church; Christians, who believe Moses because they believe Christ, hear the covenant and have come out of the spiritual Egypt, while the people once called God's people were told “not my people.”
Homilies on Jeremiah 9.3Origen · ca. 240 · The church, born all at once from the Gentiles, is God's new people; God is the God only of the living, those who have turned from dead works, and the promised land is the one Christ promised to the meek.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.124Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The 'skins of Solomon' are the goat-hair coverings of the tabernacle, black yet adorning it, or the coverings of the heavenly tabernacle; the one bride is the many churches, or the repentant soul.
Homily on the Song of Songs 1Origen · ca. 240–250 · Origen's first homily on the Song of Songs presents it as the highest of the Bible's songs, a wedding drama of Christ and the church, and expounds Song 1:2–11 on the kiss, the ointments, the black but beautiful bride, and the bridegroom's absences.
Against Celsus 3.30Origen · ca. 248 · Origen compares the churches of Athens, Corinth, and Alexandria, and their councils and leaders, with the civic assemblies and magistrates of those cities, finding the church's members, even the weaker ones, morally superior.
Against Celsus 8.75Origen · ca. 248 · Instead of holding civic office, Christians serve in the church, the other country founded by God's Word in every city, whose rulers are chosen for ability and good life and serve under compulsion from Christ, caring for those within and without.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 54Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · “This generation” is not only Christ's contemporaries but the generation of the Church, which will not pass until all is fulfilled in each believer; Christ's words never pass because they are always being fulfilled.
Commentary on Matthew 10.13Origen · ca. 246–248 · Saved humans are not therefore above all angels; the church on earth contains the wicked until the angels separate them, and the bad will go into the furnace of which Ezekiel speaks.
Commentary on Matthew 11.18Origen · ca. 246–248 · The mountain where Jesus sits is the Church; the deaf, blind, lame, and maimed in soul, such as catechumens laid at the feet of Christ’s body, are healed in time, fulfilling Isaiah spiritually.
Commentary on Matthew 12.11Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen argues that the promises to Peter—the rock, the keys, binding and loosing—belong to every disciple who confesses Christ as Peter did, and that the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the rock or the Church, which are one.
Commentary on Matthew 12.12Origen · ca. 246–248 · Every sin is a gate of Hades; a soul stained by sin is no rock and no part of the Church, however many claim membership, and each heretic, such as Marcion, Basilides, and Valentinus, has built a gate of Hades.
Commentary on Matthew 14.1Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen explains “agreement” from its musical sense, gives scriptural examples of two or three who agreed, and says that prayers go unanswered because believers do not agree in doctrine or in life.
Commentary on Matthew 16.21Origen · ca. 246–248 · The church is now the living temple, but some in it, perhaps even its leaders, make it a den of robbers through greed and luxury; Christ weeps over it and will come to scourge and cleanse it.
Commentary on Romans 9.2Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Speaking through grace converts hearers as eloquence does not; virtue is a measure that can be exceeded or fallen short of, as in false asceticism or heresy about Christ; each member of Christ's body has its own gift according to the measure of faith, and providence dispenses all according to merits gathered by free choice.
To Quirinus 2.19Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Christ is the Bridegroom and the church his bride; Joshua and Moses took off their shoes, and John was unworthy to loose Christ's sandal, because none of them was the bridegroom.
Letter 4.4Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · The offending clergy are rightly excluded; virgins found intact may return, those found corrupted must do full penance, and the obstinate are cast out, since there is no salvation outside the church.
Letter 33.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · The church is built on the bishops, as on Peter; the lapsed who wrote to Cyprian in the name of “the church” presume too much, since the church is the bishop, clergy, and those who stood firm.
Letter 43.5Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · There is one God, one Christ, one church, and one chair founded on Peter; a rival altar is sacrilege, and those who offer the lapsed a false peace are blind guides.
Letter 52.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Evaristus has lost his see and Nicostratus his diaconate after robbing the church; one who has denied Christ's bride, the church, cannot call himself a confessor of Christ.
Letter 59.7Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Defections were foretold; when disciples left Jesus, Peter, on whom the church was built, answered for the church that it would never leave Christ; those who leave were never truly of the church.
Letter 66.8Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Only chaff has left the church; as Peter answered for the church, the church never leaves Christ: the bishop is in the church and the church in the bishop, and the one catholic church is bound together by its bishops.
Letter 69.2Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · The church is one, a sealed fountain and the one ark of Noah; no one outside it can drink of its water or be saved by its baptism.
Letter 75.3Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · God unites his people across distance, as he joined Noah, Job, Daniel, and Ezekiel across ages; those who divide themselves from God's unity perish.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 4Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Christ built the church on Peter to show its unity; the other apostles had equal honour and power, but the church begins from one and is one.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 6Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · The church is Christ's faithful bride and our mother; outside her, as outside Noah's ark, there is no salvation, for her unity reflects the unity of God.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 7Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Christ's seamless tunic, not torn at the cross, signifies the church's unity, unlike Ahijah's torn garment, which signified Israel's division.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 8Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · There is one flock and one shepherd; like Rahab's house and the Passover lamb eaten in one house, salvation is found only within the one church.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 12Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Christ's promise to be with 'two or three' applies only to those praying in unity within the church, not to schismatics.
On the Unity of the Catholic Church 23Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Cyprian begs those misled by schism to return, for there is one God, one Christ, one church, and nothing cut off from it can live.
Symposium 3.8Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Christ is the new Adam: from his side, in the trance of his passion, God forms the church, his bride, who through baptism and teaching bears new children to virtue.
Symposium 8.5Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The woman clothed with the sun is the church, our mother, the Jerusalem of Isaiah 60, clothed with the light of the Word and crowned with stars.
Symposium 8.11Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The church's wilderness is Arete's garden, and the 1,260 days are the knowledge of the Trinity: a thousand for the Father, two hundred for the Spirit, and sixty, from the perfect number six, for Christ.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 1.7Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · The seven churches addressed stand for the one catholic church, as do Paul's letters to seven churches and the seven women of Isaiah.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 12.1Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · The woman clothed with the sun is the ancient church of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, longing for Christ's birth from her people.
Lepr. 15Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The Lord's garment is the church: the warp is bishops and teachers, the woof the people, the skin the catechumens; purified souls become virgins united to Christ.
Sang. 7Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · In Psalm 19 the heavens are the angels, who announced Christ, the Glory of God, and the firmament is the church, which proclaims his life and works.
Prophetic Extracts 4.13Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius reads Isaiah's precious cornerstone laid in Zion, against the rulers' covenant with death, as Christ, the foundation of the church of the nations.
Divine Institutes 4.13.26Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The true temple is the church, built in believers' hearts; Solomon's temple fell.
Divine Institutes 4.14.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The prophets foretold that Christ, of David's line, would found the church as God's eternal temple.
Divine Institutes 4.30.11Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Only the catholic church keeps true worship; outside it there is no hope of salvation.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.3.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The church stands unconquered, as Christ promised when he said the gates of Hades would not prevail against it.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.2.72Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Isaiah’s prophecy concludes with good news for the church of the nations.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.16.21Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The courts of the Lord are the churches of Christ everywhere; the next heading introduces Psalm 89, which names the rejected Christ.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.16.23Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The “ransom” reproached is the church, mocked for Christ’s cross; the next heading introduces Psalm 132.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.16.46Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The faithful priest is everyone who serves Christ in the church throughout the world, whose spiritual worship replaces the animal sacrifices God rejected.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.17.21Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Having defeated the devil, Christ built the house of God from believers as living stones, fulfilling Zechariah 6.
Demonstration of the Gospel 5.2.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The queen of Psalm 45, who leaves her father’s house for the King, is the church of the nations.
Demonstration of the Gospel 5.3.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The churches flourishing amid enemies everywhere fulfill “rule in the midst of your enemies.”
Demonstration of the Gospel 5.26.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Lord will come and the nations will flee to the greater Lord, his God, and become God’s people in the church, the daughter of Zion.
Demonstration of the Gospel 5.26.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Word dwells in the church, as Christ promised to be with his disciples always.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.1.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The darkness is the hidden dispensation of the incarnation, and the tent around him is the catholic church.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.17.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The daughter of Zion is the church, daughter of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.17.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Gentile church, as daughter through the apostles, receives the good news of the Lord’s coming.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.18.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Lord standing on the Mount of Olives means his establishment in the church.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.21.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The desert is the church of the nations, once without God, to which Lebanon's glory is promised.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.24.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Zion also means the worldwide church, and Jerusalem the godly commonwealth once among the Jews, now renewed through Christ.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.86Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The plowed mountain is the church, the city set on a hill.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.87Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The church, once waste, becomes pasture for sheep and oxen.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.88Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The church, once barren, now feeds the simple and is tilled by the mature, the “oxen” of Paul.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.3.26Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Lebanon signifies Jerusalem; the church, Christ's fruit, is exalted above it.
Demonstration of the Gospel 9.17.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The daughter of Zion is the church of the nations, born from Christ and his apostles as from the Jewish synagogue.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.104Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · “My praise in the great assembly” refers to the worldwide church that praises Christ by the Father’s will.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.105Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The great assembly is the church of all nations, far surpassing the synagogue.
Letter 1.10Alexander of Alexandria · ca. 319–324 · Alexander completes his creed (the one church, the resurrection, Christ's true incarnation from Mary the God-bearer, his death, resurrection, and ascension) and asks his fellow bishops to reject Arius and his excommunicated followers.
Theophany 3.27Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Encyclical Letter 1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339 · Athanasius compares the outrage done to the Church of Alexandria with the outrage of the Levite's concubine in Judges and calls on all bishops to be moved to act.
Oration II Against the Arians 80Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · As Christ said “Why are you persecuting me?” of his church, so Wisdom speaks of her created impress as herself; the words “before all the hills he begets me” guard her uncreated nature.
Catechetical Lecture 6.25Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The Manichaean myth of rain is absurd; the Church, with its order, purity, marriage, and virginity, is the opposite. Former Manichaeans may be saved if they renounce the error from the heart.
Catechetical Lecture 18.23Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The church is called catholic because it is worldwide, teaches the whole truth, includes every kind of person, heals every sin, and has every virtue and gift.
Catechetical Lecture 18.24Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The name "Church" (ekklēsia) means the assembly God calls out and gathers, as in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the Psalms.
Catechetical Lecture 18.27Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Because heretical gatherings also call themselves churches, the creed specifies "one holy catholic Church", the bride of Christ and mother of all believers.
Commentary on Matthew 7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · The leper, the tribune’s servant, Peter’s mother-in-law, the evening healings, the scribe, and the disciple who would bury his father are read as figures of the believing crowd, the nations, unbelief healed, and the church as Christ’s ship.
Commentary on Matthew 13Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · Hilary expounds the parables of Matthew 13: Christ in the boat as the church, the mustard seed, the leaven in three measures (law, prophets, Gospels), the hidden treasure, the pearl, and the net.
On the Trinity 7.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · The truth shines through its opponents: the heresies refute one another, and the one church triumphs over them all.
On the Trinity 8.33Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · The ministries and workings in the church are both God's and Christ's gifts, as 1 Cor 12:27–28 and Eph 4:7–12 show.
On Saint Athanasius 1.30Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · Lucifer charges the emperor with fickleness over Eudoxius and with hating Athanasius for his faith, and applies Psalms 78, 82, 97 and 101 to show that one who loves the Lord hates evil and that the persecutor stands outside the church.
On Saint Athanasius 1.34Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · Lucifer says the emperor imprisons and exiles bishops to stop them preaching, warns from Wisdom and the Psalms that persecutors of God's church persecute God himself, and compares him to Pharaoh.
Letter 243Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil appeals to the bishops of Italy and Gaul to make the persecution of the orthodox in the East known to the Western emperor or to send visitors, describing exiled bishops, closed churches, and congregations drawn into Arian communion, and sends the presbyter Dorotheus.
Homilies on the Psalms 28.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil explains Ps 29:1–6: the rams are the Church's leaders and their sons the faithful; glory and honor are brought by good works and right doctrine; worship belongs within the Church's one court; the Lord's voice is an inward impression, heard in baptism and the Gospel's thunder; and he breaks the proud cedars of Lebanon.
Homilies on the Psalms 29.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil distinguishes “psalm” (action) from “song” (contemplation), reads the “dedication of the house” of Christ's incarnation and of the Church's renewal, and asks how man can “exalt” God.
Homilies on the Psalms 33.13Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil asks how Ps 34:20 can say the bones of the righteous are not broken, since the martyrs' bones were broken.
Homilies on the Psalms 44.10Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 45:10–12 Basil reads the address to the daughter as Christ's call to the Church of the nations to hear and contemplate, forget her pagan customs and father the devil, and recover her beauty; the gifts of Tyre are the homage of converted Canaan, and worship goes to Christ, her head.
Homilies on the Psalms 44.11Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 45:13–17 Basil teaches that the bride's glory, a garment woven of word and deed, is within; that virgins who choose virginity gladly will be led into the king's temple; and that the Church's sons, the apostles and saints, rule the earth in place of the fathers, while the peoples confess Christ forever.
Homilies on the Psalms 45.4Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 46:4–5 Basil makes the quiet river that gladdens God's city the Holy Spirit, whom the righteous drink now in part and later in fullness; the city is the Church or the heavenly Jerusalem, the tabernacle is Christ's flesh, and the morning help is the rising of Christ, the Sun of righteousness, in the soul.
Homilies on the Psalms 48.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil sets the Christian end of life, the blessed life under God's rule in the age to come, against the philosophers' ends (knowledge, action, pleasure), relates the psalm title “to the end” to the victory of Christ, and begins on Ps 49:1–2, a summons to all nations, earthborn and sons of men, rich and poor.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 60Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's sixtieth rule: since the Spirit's gifts differ, each must be content with his gift and all must agree in Christ's love like members of one body.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.3.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The church, born from Christ's side and nourished by his flesh in the sacrament, is foreshadowed in Eve.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.30.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The burning bush prefigures the church, burned by persecution but not consumed.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.9.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The scarlet sign links to the Passover blood and the blood of the covenant; outside the house, as outside the church, is death.
Tractates on the Psalms 14.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The earthly tabernacles were figures that passed away; the true tabernacles are the churches founded by the apostles everywhere, many yet one.
Tractates on the Psalms 14.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The mountain of the Lord is Christ's assumed body, on which the church is built and in which the redeemed will rest with the angels.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.22Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The prophet is a fruitful olive in God's house, the church, never cut off like the unbelieving branches; his hope reaches beyond death to the resurrection.
Tractates on the Psalms 59.9Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Ephraim, the younger son preferred by Jacob's crossed hands, prefigures the church taken up into Christ's body.
Tractates on the Psalms 64.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · "A hymn befits you in Sion": Sion is the church, the body of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem, where God is praised.
Tractates on the Psalms 64.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The good things of God's house are the church's gifts and the unseen glory to come; the holy temple is the believer's body and also Christ's humanity, in which the fullness of the divinity dwells.
Tractates on the Psalms 67.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God’s holy place is the church, where the like-minded dwell, sinners are freed, and the spiritually dead are led out of their tombs.
Tractates on the Psalms 68.32Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The cities of Judah are the churches, gatherings of believers who are Jews inwardly, dwelling in the heavenly Zion.
Tractates on the Psalms 121.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The church is one body through faith, love, concord, and sacrament; those who separate themselves by sin, pride, or quarrels have no share in the city whose sharing is "in the selfsame".
Tractates on the Psalms 121.15Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Preaching peace makes the brothers into the Lord's city, and seeking its good makes the city itself God's house and temple.
Tractates on the Psalms 123.9Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The snare catches only those who already sin; like the sparrow that stays by the house, the faithful remain in the church and are freed through the name of the Lord Jesus.
Tractates on the Psalms 124.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Mount Zion is the church, founded on Christ the cornerstone, and the heavenly Jerusalem; Christ is Daniel's stone that became a mountain, emptied in the flesh and exalted through his passion.
Tractates on the Psalms 124.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Those who trust in the Lord are like Zion, beholding their resurrection in Christ's; dwelling now in the church, the earthly form of the heavenly Jerusalem, they must stand firm.
Tractates on the Psalms 125.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God turned back our captivity through the forgiveness of sins, freeing the soul from vices and making us the new Zion in the body of Christ, to the wonder of the nations.
Tractates on the Psalms 126.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Zion God chose for his rest is not the destroyed temple but believers, whom Paul calls the temple of God.
Tractates on the Psalms 126.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's house is built on the prophets and apostles from living stones joined to the cornerstone, growing into the body of Christ; Israel will share it after the fullness of the Gentiles.
Tractates on the Psalms 128.9Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Zion, meaning 'watchtower', is the church, the body of Christ; those who hate her will be put to shame and lose the glory of the resurrection.
Tractates on the Psalms 138.29Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Christ's 'bone' made in secret is the church, as Paul applies Adam's words about Eve to Christ and the church; the hidden mystery is revealed to little ones.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.3Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian argues that the name Catholic was needed to distinguish the one church from the heresies and is sanctioned by Cyprian and the bishops of the whole world.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.2Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian denies that his first letter was bitter and restates his account of the name Catholic, which Sympronian himself accepts.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.2Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian accepts the Novatians’ definition of the church and adds the Scriptural images of the church that fit the Catholic view.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.4Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian interprets the images of the church as body, temple, virgin, and spotless bride to show that heretics, not repentant sinners, are the church’s spot and wrinkle.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.13Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian argues that the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son, though first spoken to tax collectors and sinners, apply to the whole church as their figure.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.21Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian mocks the Novatians’ claim to sinlessness, describes the church as a gentle dove and a mixed ark, and applies Paul’s words about Jannes and Mambres to them.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.25Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian develops the images of the queen’s many-coloured robe and the fruitful vine to describe the church’s diversity, and contrasts its multitude with the few Novatians.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.27Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian closes by urging Sympronian to join the worldwide Catholic church, citing Scripture on the multitude of God’s people, and promises a further letter.
Paraenesis, or Exhortation to Penitence 8Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian urges sinners not to endanger the community and the priest by hiding their sins, but to confess them, as the sick show their wounds to physicians, since the church grieves with them.
Commentary on Ephesians 1.21Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Christ, raised and seated at God’s right hand, is above every power and every name, present or future, as the first motion and source of all things; he is head of the church, which Victorinus identifies with all souls to be saved, so nothing may be added to him.
Commentary on Ephesians 2.19Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Believing Ephesians are no longer strangers but citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, where the “saints” are those who saw or experienced God, like the apostles and prophets, and other believers are their fellow citizens.
Commentary on Ephesians 3.10Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Through the church, the members of Christ, the manifold wisdom of God in the mystery of Christ is made known even to the heavenly powers.
Commentary on Galatians 4.26Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · The Jerusalem above, free and spiritual, is the mother of Christians, while the earthly Jerusalem is fleshly and enslaved.
Oration 32.11Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory applies the principle of order to the Church: like the members of a body, its members have different ranks and gifts, shepherds and flock, by the one Spirit.
Tractates 1.14.2Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno teaches that God's true temple is not walls but the faithful people, and rejoices that the new church is too small for the crowd.
Tractates 2.42.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno greets the newly baptized, freed from the chains of sin, and praises the church as a mother who gives one birth to all.
Hexaemeron 4.7Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · The sea is good because it feeds springs and rain, receives the rivers, and links lands and peoples; the praying church is more beautiful still.
Hexaemeron 5.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · The trees and shrubs appeared at once; every tree has seed or its equivalent; the vine is an image of the soul in the church, hedged, staked, pruned, and called to bear fruit.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 2.1Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Optatus argues from the Psalms' promises of all nations and the whole earth to Christ that the one church must be the Catholic Church spread through the world, not the Donatist party confined to part of Africa.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:27Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The church is Christ's body, each member gifted according to faith.
Commentary on 2 Timothy 2:20Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The great house is the church, which contains good and bad members, as Corinth and the temple show; Novatian wrongly makes it the world in order to claim a pure church.
Commentary on Ephesians 2:20Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The church is built on the apostles and prophets, that is, on both Testaments, with Christ as cornerstone; the 'rock' of Matt 16:18 is the confession of faith.
Question 112, section 27Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · “Zion” is the church, and David prays for the fulfillment in Christ of full forgiveness, including freedom from Adam’s inherited sin.
Question 112, section 28Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The walls of Jerusalem are the church built of faithful people, as in Revelation, and David prays for its building in Christ.
Letter 74.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome shows from the prophets and the gospel that the church can be called a former harlot, whom Christ has taken in marriage.
Book of Rules 1Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius’s first rule: Scripture often passes without notice from Christ the head to the church his body, and reason (and grace) must discern which is meant; the coming of the Son of Man, for example, includes the continual coming of his body.
Book of Rules 2Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius’s second rule: the Lord’s body is twofold, containing both true and false members, so that Scripture addresses the one body now as blessed and now as condemned; he illustrates this from Isaiah, the Song of Songs, the Apocalypse, and Romans.
Book of Rules 4Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius’s fourth rule: Scripture speaks of a species (a particular city or person, such as Jerusalem, Solomon, Nineveh, Egypt, Tyre, Babylon) while meaning the genus (the whole church, good and bad), passing back and forth between them; he illustrates this at length from the prophets.
Book of Rules 7Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius’s seventh rule: as with Christ and his body, Scripture passes from the devil to his body (the wicked, within and without the church); he illustrates this from the fall of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 and of the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28, and ends with the coming departure of the church from the mystery of iniquity.
On the Holy Spirit 16.39Basil of Caesarea · ca. 374–375 · The Spirit was present in all God's saving work, above all in Christ's anointing, ministry, and resurrection gift, and he orders the church.
Ancoratus 26.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Christ is the eternal foundation of the church's building.
Ancoratus 101.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The church is the valiant woman, dying in persecutions.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 35.3.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The one dove of the Song is the catholic church.
On Cain and Abel 1.19Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Instead of pleasure's feast, come to the banquet of wisdom and of the church, where Christ serves the food of his word and sacraments in a house vast and well founded.
Chapter 10Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas explains the church as the one communion of all the saints and angels, distinct from heretical churches, then the forgiveness of sins in baptism, the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 14Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · Christ is the foundation, cornerstone, and head of the church.
On the Complaints of Job and David 4.16Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · Shechem, “ascending,” signifies the church and Mary, the bride who goes up shining with faith and works.
Apology of the Prophet David 82Ambrose · ca. 384-390 · David’s prayer for Zion and Jerusalem looks to the gathering of the church of the nations, the free heavenly Jerusalem.
Apology of the Prophet David 83Ambrose · ca. 384-390 · Jerusalem’s walls are the faith and the churches throughout the world, built of living stones.
Altercatio, chapter 2, speech 44Evagrius of Gaul · ca. 400 · Theophilus reads the pomegranate as the church, marked by Christ’s blood.
On the Life of Moses 385Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · The red skins and hair curtains signify Christ’s saving passion; in the tabernacle below, the Church, the pillars and lamps are its apostles and teachers, the lavers those who baptize, the curtains the concord of believers, the red skins the mortification of the flesh.
Exposition of Luke 8.9Ambrose · ca. 386–389 · Ambrose gives the spiritual sense of Luke 16:18: the marriage of Christ and the church, joined by God, which no persecution or heresy may separate.
On the Duties of the Clergy 1.29Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Justice and good faith bind even in war, as Moses, Joshua, and Elisha show, and faith in Christ is the foundation of justice, whose form is the Church.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.7.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The church, the flower of the field, has spread through the whole earth.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.7.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The church is a lily shining among the thorns of opponents and worldly cares.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.55.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Whoever is joined in love to all who fear God, despising none, shares in Christ’s body, the church.
Letter 55.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine shows from Scripture that the moon signifies the church in its mortal pilgrimage, and Jericho ('moon') falling at the seventh circuit signifies the end of worldly hope.
Letter 93.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Vincentius explains “Catholic” as observance of all commandments; Augustine replies that the church is proven by Scripture's promise of all nations, not by the name.
Letter 93.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The bridegroom's answer, “Unless you know yourself”, tells the church to know itself from Scripture's promises of a worldwide church; those who do not go out after divided flocks.
Letter 93.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The church is both few compared with the wicked and many in itself, like Abraham's seed as stars (the strong) and sand (the weak).
Letter 93.31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary's lament for a time of Arian confusion does not mean the church perished; the deceived were pardoned when corrected, and the church survived in its wheat.
Letter 93.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Scandals multiply as the wicked enter the church, but they cannot extinguish the elect, who grow with the weeds until the final winnowing.
Letter 93.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The church swims in the Lord's net with bad fish, separate from them in heart, awaiting bodily separation at the end.
Letter 105.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The same Scriptures that reveal Christ reveal a worldwide church, as a series of paired texts from Genesis and the Psalms shows.
Letter 118.32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that the incarnation of Truth was the best provision for leading humanity to truth by faith, and that the church combines authority with reason.
Letter 140.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Christ, as bridegroom one flesh with his bride the church, speaks in her voice on the cross, just as he spoke of the persecuted church as himself to Saul.
Letter 140.43Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The fruit of Christ's forsaking appears in the psalm's turn to praise: he declares God's name to his brothers in the one Catholic Church spread through all nations.
Letter 144.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine offers the doubtful a dilemma: whether or not the Donatist case was tried overseas, separation from the worldwide Church is indefensible; he hopes to visit.
Letter 185.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The same Scriptures that foretell Christ foretell a church spread through all nations, not confined to Africa.
Letter 187.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Rebirth presupposes birth from the mother, so no one can be reborn in the womb; only the reborn are built into God's temple, the Church.
Letter 199.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine interprets the darkened sun, moon, and falling stars as the Church obscured in the last persecution, when many who seemed to shine will fall away.
Letter 208.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says good and bad are mixed in the Church's flock until Christ separates them, and that the Donatists, by separating early, cut themselves off from unity.
Letter 208.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine teaches that good sheep place their hope in Christ, not in pastors, and that the Catholic Church spread through the world contains good and bad, while those separated from it cannot be good.
Commentary on Ephesians 5:22-23Jerome · ca. 386 · Jerome explains the wife's subjection to her husband by the image of Christ and the church, warns that a union not made according to Christ's precepts is adultery rather than marriage, and gives an allegorical reading of body and mind.
Hexameron (Exameron) 3.3Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The gathered waters figure the one catholic church gathered from heretics, pagans, and devotees of the circus.
Hexameron (Exameron) 3.5Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The church, not the theatre, is the Christian's delight: a temple of the Trinity whose curtains cover sins.
Hexameron (Exameron) 3.50Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The church is God's vine, walled by commandments and angels, with a tower of apostles, and freed from earthly cares.
Hexameron (Exameron) 3.53Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Trees without fruit serve as types: cedar and cypress for the church's pillars, palm and laurel for victory, willow for Christ's bonds of love, box for unfading hope.
Hexameron (Exameron) 4.7Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The sun and moon serve day and night; mystically, the waning moon figures the church, diminished by persecution but filled by martyrs.
Hexameron (Exameron) 4.32Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The waning and waxing moon is a type of Christ, who emptied himself, and of the church, which shines with his borrowed light and grows through persecution.
On Joseph 40Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Joseph's ring, robe, necklace, chariot, and gentile wife prefigure Christ and the church gathered from the nations.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.50.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ gathered the slight drop of the nations into the one body of the church.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 35.19.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The house is the church; the torrent of pleasure is the Holy Spirit.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.37.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The life made in Christ is the church, formed from his side as Eve from Adam's.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 39.11.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · “In the head of the book” refers to Genesis, where Eve, formed as man’s help, is a type of the church.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 39.11.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Genesis 2:23–24 speaks of the great mystery of Christ and the church, to whom we cleave as members of his body.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 39.23.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The “great church” is the church gathered from the whole world.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 39.23.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The great church is a “weighty” people, steadfast in faith and founded in Christ by love.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.32.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · “Raise me up” also means the raising of his body, the church, in place of the unbelieving people of whom Judas was a figure.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 47.17.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · God with his Son founded the church, the city the Son builds, which fills the earth with his praise.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine praises the catholic Church as mother of Christians, who teaches worship of God alone and love of neighbor in every human relationship, wives and husbands, parents and children, slaves and masters, rulers and peoples, and so kindles the fire of divine love.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 2.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Read as prophecy, Adam signifies Christ, who 'left' his Father by becoming man and his mother the Synagogue, and cleaved to his wife the Church, formed from his side as he slept in his passion; the spring watering the earth is the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.
Tractates on Matthew 5.2Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius interprets the city on a mountain as the church, the city of God of the Psalms and Isaiah, set on faith in Christ.
On True Religion 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine describes how the catholic Church makes use of pagans, heretics, schismatics and Jews, tolerates carnal members as chaff, and how good men unjustly expelled should remain loyal without forming separate assemblies.
Homily 6Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · Expounding Song 3:1–8, Gregory teaches that the soul's every attainment is the beginning of a higher desire, that God is found in the divine darkness only by faith beyond every name and created thing, and that the sixty armed men around Solomon's bed are the senses armed by self-control in the one church.
Homily 7Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · Expounding Song 3:9–4:7, Gregory reads Solomon as a type of Christ, the litter as souls transformed from wood into gold and silver, the crown as the church woven by love, and the bride's eyes, hair, teeth, lips, cheek, neck and breasts as the members of the church: its overseers, ascetics, teachers, confessors and nursing teachers.
Homily 13Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · On Song 5:8–12 Gregory explains the bride's oath "by the powers of the field" as the gospel's "Yes" (sound faith and a pure life), the wound of love as Christ's love for sinners, and begins the description of the bridegroom as Christ in his incarnate economy and his body the church: white and ruddy for his flesh, "chosen" for his virgin birth without labour, his golden head the sinless first fruits of our nature, his locks the apostles, his eyes the church's overseers.
Homily 14Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · On Song 5:13–16 Gregory continues the description of the bridegroom's body as the church: the cheeks are teachers who give plain, guileless food; the lips are preachers whose lily-bright words drip the myrrh of dying to the world (Paul with Thecla, Peter with Cornelius); the golden hands are faithful stewards (Judas the warning); the belly is the pure heart as a tablet of the law; the legs are the pillars of the church, or the two great commandments; and "this is my close one" is Christ as the Good Samaritan.
Homily 15Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · On Song 6:1–9 Gregory, beginning from Philip leading Nathanael to Christ, reads the bride's directions to the young women as the gospel of the Word who came down to replant humanity as his garden, "I am my beloved's" as the soul become a clear mirror of Christ, the bride's praised features as ranks in the church, and the sixty queens, eighty concubines, and countless young women as souls advancing by love, by fear, or as beginners, all meant to become the one perfect dove, united by the Spirit until God is all in all.
Sermon 4.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Isaac's old age and dim eyes signify the Old Testament not understood; Rebecca is the Church, which includes all the saints before Christ, such as Abraham and the prophets.
Sermon 4.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The two kids, like the two folds, walls, blind men and boats, signify the Jewish and Gentile peoples joined in one Church by Christ the cornerstone.
Sermon 4.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The field whose smell is blessed is the Church, God's farm; Jacob receives the blessing of dew, fatness and lordship over the nations.
Sermon 4.31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Good and bad in the Church share the Scriptures (the dew) and the visible sacraments (the fatness of the earth), but the wicked turn the same rain into thorns.
Sermon 4.32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The nations serve only the spiritual: in the Church spread through the world the carnal are mixed with the spiritual, who profit from bearing with them until the final winnowing.
Sermon 5.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, who forgave his crucifiers and laid down his life freely, is our model and our price; the Church bears with the wicked among her until judgment separates them.
Sermon 15.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The beauty of God's house is not fine buildings but the Church of faithful people, living stones joined by love.
Sermon 15.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In the Church there are those of the number, vessels for honor, and those beyond the number, vessels for dishonor; only those who are themselves vessels for honor find and love the beauty of God's house.
Sermon 15.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · As the wicked misuse good things, so God uses even the wicked well; the pagan soul is a fornicator, the bad Christian's soul an adulteress, yet God, whose ways are unsearchable, has a place for both in his house.
Sermon 15.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The many wicked serve to purify the few good, as Paul was tested among false brothers; the good must bear with the bad, being good in the measure that God, who alone is good, makes them.
Sermon 15.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The good must bear with the bad outside the Church and within it until the winnowing, answer the slanders of pagans by good lives, and pray for their enemies as the Lord commands.
Sermon 15.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The many wicked test the few good; while the wicked, like the dregs of an olive press, flow openly through the streets, the converted, like oil, pass hiddenly into God's house.
Sermon 22.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Adam and Eve begot us to death, Christ and the Church beget us to eternal life; Christ has received the inheritance in his flesh as head, and the whole Christ, head and body, will receive it, as the ungodly will receive eternal fire.
Sermon 24.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The people have shown their zeal against idols by acclamation; the clergy must now act with order, and the people should obey their bishop and place their hope in God.
Sermon 37.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · On a feast of martyrs Augustine announces that the “strong woman” of Prov 31, whom her husband found lost and adorned, is the Church, the mother of the martyrs.
Sermon 37.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Church was hard to find while she lay lost in her sins, but Christ, who went up on the cross and slept like a lion, found her, and now she is the city on a mountain, spread through the whole world.
Sermon 37.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Church works for Christ, not for herself; her wool and flax, the outward and the inward, must go together, so that neither showy almsgiving without God nor private worship without the Church will do.
Sermon 37.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Church rises out of the night of tribulation, feeding her household by example and Scripture and giving them work; though mistress of the house, she is the handmaid of the Lord who bought her.
Sermon 44.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Church, now spread through the world and sheltering even rulers, is the tree grown from the despised root of Christ’s passion.
Sermon 45.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The holy mountain is Christ with his body the Church, one man, head and members; the head rose first, as women first announced, so that the members might hope to rise and dwell on the mountain forever.
Sermon 45.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The mountain is not a place to climb for prayer but Christ and the Church spread through the whole world, against the Donatists, who are only a part.
Sermon 46.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Heresies are scattered in different lands, all born of pride, while the one Catholic Church, born of love and spread everywhere like a vine, seeks the straying of every sect and can graft back the cut-off branches.
Sermon 46.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even granting that the “South” is Africa, the verse fits a Catholic from overseas asking where Christ’s true flock is in divided Africa; the reply “know yourself” means know the Church in the whole world, and those who “go out” feed goats, not sheep.
Sermon 47.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A seeker who compares the Donatists, full of the sinners they claim to have fled, with God’s word about a Church in the whole world chooses the Catholic Church.
Sermon 47.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God will save his sheep; the Church is to be sought from Christ’s own word, which sets him above the heavens and his glory, the Church, over all the earth.
Sermon 50.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Haggai’s prophecy points to Christ’s comings and to the Church; the gold and silver are wisdom and God’s word, which belong to the Lord, so that no one in the Church may boast of them as his own.
Sermon 62.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The centurion, a Gentile, prefigures the nations who believe in Christ without seeing him; the woman who touched his fringe shows that the Church, his body, is pressed by many but touched in faith by few.
Sermon 71.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Sins are forgiven only in the Church by the Holy Spirit who unites it; one who remains estranged from the Church speaks against the Spirit.
Sermon 71.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Every sin is forgiven in the one Church gathered by the Spirit; the only unforgivable sin is impenitent refusal of that forgiveness, which is guarded against by repentance within the Church.
Sermon 73.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The parable of the weeds teaches that bad Christians are mixed with the good in the Church until the harvest at the end of the age.
Sermon 75.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter walking on the water figures the Church honored in the world; tempted by human praise, she must cry out to the Lord to be saved.
Sermon 76.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter is a type of the Church: the Church is built not on Peter but on Christ the rock whom he confessed; Peter is blessed when speaking from God and called Satan when speaking from himself.
Sermon 88.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Persevering Christians win over their critics; within the Church good and bad are mixed until the harvest, and the good are not stained by the bad if they neither consent nor fail to rebuke.
Sermon 90.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The one guest without a wedding garment stands for the many bad, as Christ’s words “many are called, but few are chosen” show, while the good are many in themselves but few beside the bad.
Sermon 91.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · No one ascends to heaven except Christ, so believers ascend only as members of his body, Christ and the church being two in one flesh as in marriage.
Sermon 91.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ is bridegroom and bride as one man, head and body, according to his flesh, as Isaiah’s words about the bridegroom and the bride show.
Sermon 116.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The disciples saw Christ the head and believed in the church, his body, which was foretold to spread through all nations; we see the church and believe in the head; the persecution after Stephen’s death scattered the burning logs and set the world on fire.
Sermon 122.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man show that Christ is both above in heaven and below in his members, as his words to Saul, “why do you persecute me?”, proved.
Sermon 129.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Moses wrote of the Church as well as of Christ; the Donatists, who believe what Christ said of the head but not what he said of the body spread through all nations, would behead the Church; Augustine asks prayer for them.
Sermon 137.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ is the head and the Church his body, held together by love as by health; members cold in love are sick but can be healed while they cling to the body; the risen head intercedes for us.
Sermon 137.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ in heaven suffers in his members on earth, as the tongue cries “You are treading on me” when the foot is trodden on; so he says “I was hungry” of the needy.
Sermon 137.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “They sit on Moses’ seat” refers also to bad pastors in the Church, which is one Church from two peoples, Jews and Gentiles, figured by the two walls, two boats, Leah and Rachel, and the two blind men.
Sermon 137.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s warning about those who say “Lord, Lord” shows that the Church contains bad ministers too; they preach not rightly because they seek from God something other than God, like a wife who loves her husband’s gold rather than her husband.
Sermon 138.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ commends one shepherd because all good shepherds are his members, and he must gather his other sheep from the Gentiles into one flock; the bride of the Song, the Church, loves him, beautiful though he seemed without beauty to the blind who crucified him.
Sermon 138.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The bridegroom answers sternly: unless the Church knows that she is one, spread through all nations, and chaste, she must go out after the flocks of the schismatic “shepherds”; so warned, she is strengthened.
Sermon 138.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Donatists read “where you lie down at noon (in the south)” as Christ’s answer that the Church is in Africa; but even on their reading the Church who asks the question is outside Africa.
Sermon 144.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ alone ascends to the Father, yet we ascend in him because head and members are one Christ; he is one with the Father by nature and one with us as the seed of Abraham.
Sermon 183.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, the Bridegroom, defined his bride in Luke 24: repentance preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem; so his bride is the worldwide Church, not the party of Donatus, and to claim otherwise is to deny Christ.
Sermon 192.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Virgins, widows, and married people all share in the joy of Christ's birth; the Church, like Mary, is mother and virgin.
Sermon 213.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son; the Catholic Church throughout the world, once unfaithful through idolatry, has been made a virgin in faith and, like Mary, gives birth to Christ's members in baptism.
Sermon 214.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The holy Church, mother of believers, tolerates the wicked in her sacraments until the final separation, and holds the keys by which sins are forgiven.
Sermon 215.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Creed ends “through the holy Church”; the newly baptized must shun all sects and hold to the Catholic Church, in which forgiveness and eternal life are received.
Sermon 216.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In baptism God the Father and mother Church give a new birth free of punishment and guilt; its spiritual ages do not succeed one another but endure together and lead to the seventh age of rest.
Sermon 223.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The newly baptized, once darkness, are now light and day; they must cling to the good among the faithful and not imitate bad Christians.
Sermon 223.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The present Church is a threshing floor of grain and chaff; the good must bear with the wicked and not separate themselves before the final winnowing, while the chaff may still become grain.
Sermon 227.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine explains the Eucharist to the newly baptized: the bread and cup are Christ's body and blood, and they themselves, ground, moistened, and baked like bread, are Christ's body; he then explains the parts of the rite.
Sermon 238.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Luke 24 shows both the true bridegroom, who suffered and rose in true flesh, and the true bride, the Church spread through all nations, against the heretics confined to a corner.
Sermon 242.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The apostles saw the risen head and believed in the Church to come; we see the Church spread through the world and should believe about the head.
Sermon 248.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The two miraculous catches of fish, before the passion and after the resurrection, figure the Church as it is now, good and bad mixed, and as it will be, the good alone in a fixed number.
Sermon 249.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The first catch shows the Church now, good and bad mixed and schisms tearing the nets; the good must live well among the bad without breaking away, to be found on the right after the resurrection.
Sermon 250.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The first catch figures the Church now, full of good and bad; the good must not be discouraged by the apparent happiness of the wicked, and the bad must be tolerated, not separated, until the judgment.
Sermon 251.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The first catch signified three things in the present Church: good and bad mixed, the pressure of crowds that endangers discipline, and the separations of heretics.
Sermon 251.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The catch on the right signifies the fixed number of saints who will reign with Christ; many now in the Church are beyond the number, so believers must not imitate bad Christians.
Sermon 251.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The nets drawn to shore signify the end of the world; in the present Church, also called the kingdom of heaven, one who teaches well and lives badly is “least,” yet still useful, like the scribes on Moses’ seat.
Sermon 258.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “The day which the Lord has made” is Christ, the rejected cornerstone joining Jewish and Gentile believers, together with his body the Church.
Sermon 263.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We see the ascension by faith and should ascend with Christ in heart; no one ascends but he who descended, yet we ascend in him as his members, if sins do not weigh the spirit down.
Sermon 263.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “No one ascended but he who descended” refers to the person, not to what he wore; Christ descended without a body and ascended with it, and we too shall ascend by our unity with him, as two in one flesh.
Sermon 264.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The forty days signify this age, in which faith in the Incarnation is necessary while the Church, like the ark in the flood, holds clean and unclean; in the end believers will enjoy Christ’s divinity.
Sermon 265.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Asked about the time of judgment, Christ answered with the place of the Church, “to the ends of the earth,” so that the bride is not one faction claiming “here it is” but the Church spread through the world.
Sermon 265.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ commended the universal Church at his resurrection, at his ascension, and by the Spirit’s gift of tongues, signifying unity in all languages from east to west.
Sermon 267.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Spirit is still given, but no one now speaks all tongues because the sign is fulfilled: the small Church of one house that spoke all languages foretold the great Church that now speaks in all nations.
Sermon 267.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Holy Spirit is to the Church what the soul is to the body, giving life to all members with different functions; a member cut off from the Church, like a heretic, loses the Spirit’s life.
Sermon 268.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Only those within the Church’s unity have the Holy Spirit, as only members in the body have the soul’s life; a man separated from the Church may keep the form of sacrament, baptism, and creed, but not the life.
Sermon 268.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The risen Christ commended both the truth of his body and the Church to be preached in all nations, as a bridegroom commends his bride to his friends; Paul, a jealous friend, refused to be loved in Christ’s place by the divided Corinthians.
Sermon 269.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The tongues at Pentecost foretold that the Church would speak in all nations; no one now speaks all tongues because the sign is fulfilled in the Church’s worldwide unity, and those who refuse that unity have no answer.
Sermon 270.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The first catch signifies the present Church of good and bad, torn by schisms; the catch of 153 large fish on the right signifies the risen Church of the good, those who fulfill the law (ten) by the grace of the Spirit (seven), seventeen being the seed of 153.
Sermon 272.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine explains to the newly baptized that the bread and cup are Christ’s body and blood, and that the faithful, many grains made one bread, are themselves the body of Christ: “Be what you see, and receive what you are.”
Sermon 295.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter fed Christ’s sheep, not his own; the heretics, who claim their own baptism makes clean, feed their own kids, while the Church spread through all nations knows herself; baptized by Peter or by Judas, the sheep are Christ’s.
Sermon 295.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Saul the persecutor, on his way to Damascus, heard Christ say ‘why do you persecute me?’, since the head suffers in the body; changed, he became a chosen vessel filled with grace, though Ananias feared him.
Sermon 305.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, the first grain, teaches us not to love our lives in this world; though he had power to lay down and take up his life, he said ‘my soul is troubled’ because he took our weakness into himself as head of his body, the Church.
On the Profit of Believing 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · The inquiry should begin with the Catholic church, the largest Christian body, which alone is called Catholic by all.
On the Profit of Believing 35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Seeing the moral fruit of the church, secured by divine providence, one should not hesitate to embrace the Catholic church, whose authority descends from the apostolic see through the succession of bishops.
Homily 20.4 on EphesiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom explains “the two shall become one flesh” and the “great mystery” of Christ and the church, and why the wife's respect and the husband's love together keep peace in the home.
On Faith and the Creed 21Augustine of Hippo · 393 · We believe in the holy catholic church, from which heretics are excluded by false belief about God and schismatics by breaking brotherly love.
Against Jovinianus 2.19Jerome · 393 · Jerome continues Jovinian's argument: the parable of the sower, Christ's indwelling, the one temple, and the one Church show that all the saved are equal.
On Continence 25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · The comparison of flesh and church holds: the church is subject to Christ yet, in its carnal members and daily sins, not yet without spot, until final healing.
On the Christian Struggle 22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · Christ was not merely made wise by God's Wisdom like the saints; he bears the person of Wisdom and is head of the church, as the head is to the body.
Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · Augustine lists what holds him in the Catholic Church (the consent of nations, its authority, the succession of bishops from Peter’s see, and its very name) unless the Manichaeans can show the truth plainly.
On Christian Doctrine 1.16Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The Church is Christ's body and bride, which he purifies through trials to join to himself forever.
On Christian Doctrine 3.32Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Tyconius's second rule concerns the mixed Church of true members and hypocrites, about whom Scripture sometimes speaks as one body.
Confessions 13.49Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The six days figure the history of salvation and the formation of the church, predestined in the Word.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the six days of creation as the six ages of the world, and Adam and Eve as figures of Christ and the church formed from his side.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Enoch and Noah’s ark, its timbers, dimensions, and pitch, as figures of Christ, baptism, and the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the exile in Babylon, Jeremiah’s letter, the return after seventy years, and the high priest Joshua in Zechariah as figures of the church among the nations and its return to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine finds in Jeremiah and the Gospels that the true church is the one visible over the whole world, like a city on a mountain.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine describes how the convert, received into the Catholic Church, learns to bear with the wicked mixed in it until the harvest, as the prophets foretold, and not to follow heretics.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine rejects the Manichaean claim to be Christ's chaste bride and, recalling his own years among them, urges the Catholic Church's little ones not to be drawn away.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 21.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine quotes in full Paul’s image of the body and its members, in which God is said to have arranged and tempered the body.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Sarah, kept pure among foreign kings, as a figure of the church, Christ's bride, persecuted by earlier emperors and honoured by later ones.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.41Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Lot's rescue as a figure of the church saved from the final judgment, his wife as those who look back, and his drunkenness with his daughters as the law misused.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.82Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine turns from defending the patriarchs to their figurative meaning, summarizing how the sons of free women and maidservants figure good and bad members born in the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.87Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine interprets David's sin with Bathsheba as a figure of Christ loving the church, washed in baptism, and killing the devil, her former husband, while still condemning David's sin.
Against Secundinus the Manichaean 26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399 · Augustine urges Secundinus not to take pride in the Manichaeans' small numbers, to cast away their scriptures as poison as Paul counted his Jewish privileges loss, and to turn to the unchangeable God who alone can make darkness light.
On the Trinity 2.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Augustine interprets God's 'back parts' shown to Moses as Christ's flesh, seen by faith in his resurrection from the 'rock' of the catholic Church, and his 'face' as the form of God that no one can see in this life; he concludes that the Father too may have appeared through creatures, since the visions signified God without showing his substance.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.46Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Lucan called the Jews' God 'uncertain,' but Psalm 19 now shows him certain, as the apostles' preaching has gone out to all the earth.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Augustine explains that he is answering a letter of the Donatist bishop Parmenian to Tyconius, a Donatist who had argued from Scripture that the church is spread through the whole world.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Against Parmenian’s unproved claim that the churches overseas share the guilt of African traitors, Augustine sets God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that all nations would be blessed in their seed, which is Christ.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · God promised not to leave Jacob until his word was fulfilled; it is more credible that Parmenian’s envoys were refused communion overseas and spread rumours than that God’s promise to the nations has failed.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Even if traitors had been received overseas through the fault of bad judges, the deceived Christian world would not lose its innocence; God’s promise to bless all nations outweighs Donatist accusations.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Augustine imagines the church of Philadelphia answering the Donatists: far from Africa and bought by Christ’s blood like all the nations, she rightly believed the neighbouring judges, and Donatist hatred and rebaptism of distant brothers show their condemnation was just.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Christ said the field is the world, not Africa, and the weeds grow with the wheat until the angels reap at the end; the Donatists, claiming the wheat survives only in Africa, show that they are the weeds.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 2.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · The curse on those who call the righteous unrighteous falls on the Donatists, who condemned the whole world unheard while keeping Optatus the Gildonian in communion and who deny God’s promise that the wheat grows everywhere until the harvest.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 2.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Augustine sets Christ’s words in the parable of the wheat and weeds against Donatus’s claims, point by point, and asks the Donatists to choose whom to believe.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 2.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · The true ruler of the people is Christ, governor of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the devil rules Babylon; the two cities will be separated only at the final winnowing, and until then the wheat tolerates all things.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · The church without spot or wrinkle was found in those who groaned over the sins done in their midst, as in Ezekiel, where the wicked are said to be within, among the good.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · If communion with greedy bishops destroyed the church in Cyprian’s time, the Donatists have no church to descend from; since the church remains in the good, even guilty men should have been tolerated until the harvest rather than divided by schism.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Parmenian used Jeremiah’s ‘What has chaff to do with wheat?’ against Tyconius to claim that the Donatists are already the purified church of the last day, a presumption that breeds every schism.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · ‘What has chaff to do with wheat?’ will be fulfilled in the barn, not in the field or on the threshing floor, as the sheep and goats and the good and bad fish are separated only at the end; now the difference is that the wheat has its heart in heaven.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Neither Paul, who tolerated envious preachers, nor Cyprian, who lived among greedy bishops, separated bodily; Cyprian loved the Lord’s house, where vessels for honour and dishonour are found together, and cleansed himself by not imitating the bad.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Psalm 26, which Parmenian quotes, is the prayer of one who loves God’s house and therefore tolerates its vessels for dishonour while asking not to perish with them; the Donatists, claiming to be pure wheat, dare not rebuke their own sinners and flatter them instead.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · The righteous are found not in separated assemblies but throughout the city on Daniel’s mountain, groaning over the sins among them; in hope their citizenship is already in heaven, free of the wicked, but in reality they bear them in the Catholic Church until the final separation.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 3.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · The church promised by God is visible everywhere like a city on a mountain; no good person leaves it, and any schism anywhere can safely be judged the work of pride, envy, worldliness, or fear.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 11.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Isaiah's fall of Lucifer, spoken against the devil under the figure of the king of Babylon, fits mostly his body: apostates from Christ and the church.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 11.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Ezekiel's lament over the prince of Tyre, fallen from God's paradise, is applied to the devil's body: heretics and backsliders who fall from the church.
Apology against Jerome 1.36Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus turns Jerome's own words against him and quotes the Ephesians commentary on the church as including angels and on knowledge of God as recollection from a former life.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 39Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · The one holy church keeps the whole faith; Rufinus warns against the 'councils of vanity' of Marcion, Ebion, Mani, Paul of Samosata, Arius and others.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The dove's groaning signifies the Spirit, who makes us groan with longing for our heavenly homeland; the Church, like Noah's ark, holds both ravens, who seek their own, and doves, who seek Christ's.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · In Noah's flood the same water 'baptized' timbers inside and outside the ark; the dove refused to be 'rebaptized' and returned, bringing a fruitful olive branch, while the raven perished; so Catholics should bear fruit and call outsiders back.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 7.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ changed Simon's name to Peter, from 'rock', so that in Peter the Church built on the rock might be figured; only those who both hear and do Christ's words build on the rock and withstand the floods, such as the day's festival.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 8.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ, who came into the world to wed his bride the Church, bought with his blood, came fittingly to the wedding at Cana; the Virgin's womb was the bridal chamber where the Word was joined to human flesh.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The first jar is the age of Adam: as Eve was formed from the side of the sleeping Adam, so the Church was formed from the sacraments flowing from the side of the dead Christ, who left his Father by taking the form of a servant and his mother, the synagogue, to cling to the Church.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 13.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · John and Paul, friends of the bridegroom, were jealous for Christ, not themselves; the whole Church is one virgin, whose virginity of mind is whole faith, firm hope, and sincere love.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 15.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Eve formed from a rib of the sleeping Adam, with flesh put in its place, prefigures the Church born from the side of Christ asleep on the cross: his weakness is our strength.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 15.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Samaritan woman, a foreigner, is a figure of the Church to come from the Gentiles.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 21.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ, God and man, speaks sometimes in majesty and sometimes in humility; the Father shows the greater works to Christ's members, in whom he learns as he suffers in them.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 21.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Believers have been made not only Christians but Christ: head and members together are the whole Christ.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 21.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · What is shown to Christ's members is shown to Christ through Christ, as the head guides the hand; the distant Word came near by becoming flesh.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 25.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · With Christ, the high priest, gone up on high, the boat in the dark is the church at the world's end, where hatred darkens love and slanders toss the ship.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 26.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The bread is Christ's flesh for the life of the world; the faithful live by the Spirit of Christ only as members of his body, and the sacrament is a sign of unity and a bond of love.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 27.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We must eat Christ's flesh and blood not only in the sacrament, as the wicked also do, but to share in his Spirit as members of his body, which on earth remains mixed with the wicked until the end.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 28.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ, remaining God, hid as a man to give his members, who lack his power, an example; the whole Christ is head and body.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 28.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · As people disputed whether Christ was good or a deceiver, so they dispute about his servants, whose life is hidden like a tree in winter until the summer of judgment.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The slave of sin does not remain in God's house, but the Son, head and body, does; freed by him, we become slaves of love and justice rather than of sin.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 45.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · To go in through Christ is to enter the Church and the life of faith; to go out is to pass by faith at death to the more abundant life where the shepherd has gone before.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 50.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Judas was already a thief before the betrayal; his presence among the twelve teaches the Church to bear with the wicked without dividing Christ's body, for the one bread gives life to the good and judgment to the unworthy.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 56.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Church is without spot in the baptized who die at once, and in those whose feet are also washed, but the living still need their feet washed; how one treads earth to reach the risen Christ is deferred.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 68.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Father's house is the church, God's temple and kingdom, which now exists in name and hope and will reign when the wicked are gathered out of it.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 100.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Heretics and pagans who praise a false Christ do not give him true glory; true glory is given him by the Spirit only in the catholic church.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 108.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ sanctifies himself for his members because head and body are one Christ; the man was sanctified in the Word at the incarnation, and his members are sanctified in him.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 110.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The unity and the faith Christ prays for are the same thing: the faithful world, reconciled to God, becomes one by believing, by God's grace.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 115.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's kingdom, made up of those reborn in him, is in the world until the end but not from the world, so earthly rulers need not fear it.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 118.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The four parts of Christ's garments figure the Church spread through the world, and the seamless tunic its unity in love, as Peter answered and received the keys in the name of all.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 120.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The soldier 'opened' Christ's side, from which flowed blood and water, the sacraments of the Church, as Eve was formed from the side of the sleeping Adam.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 122.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The earlier catch (Luke 5) figures the present Church of good and bad, this one the Church of the good alone at the end of the age, in a fixed number.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 122.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The large fish are those who do what they teach; those who teach but do not do will not enter the kingdom at the end.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 124.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Peter, who bore the person of the Church, figures the present life of faith, action, and suffering, which follows Christ; John figures the future life of contemplation, which waits for his coming.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 124.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Peter and John are not to be separated: the whole Church binds and looses sins and drinks the Gospel; John's virginity, held by some, fits the life without marriage that he signifies.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 1.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Those who hate their brothers are blind, stumbling at the Church, which like the mountain of Daniel and Isaiah fills the whole earth; so the Donatists separate from the world.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 2.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Scripture foretells both Christ's suffering and rising (the bridegroom) and the Church preached to all nations from Jerusalem (the bride); those cut off should be grafted in again.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 3.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Since the Donatists also confess that Jesus is the Christ, the test of who left whom is communion with the Church spread through all nations, which is Christ's inheritance.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 6.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Those who 'dissolve' Christ by breaking up his Church deny that he came in the flesh; as in the Gospel, deeds rather than words are the test.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The children of God are the members of the one Son, so love of God, of Christ, and of his members in the Church cannot be separated; love fuses them into one like gold in fire.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 10.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Christ's last words before his ascension commended his body, the Church spread over the whole earth; if heirs keep the last words of a dying father, how much more should Christians keep the last words of the ascending Christ.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.60Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Christ's answer to Nicodemus, that only he who descended ascends, means that spiritual regeneration makes believers members of Christ, so that head and body ascend as one Christ, just as God and man are one person in him.
City of God 1.35Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine notes that future citizens of the city of God are hidden among its enemies and false members within the church, since the two cities are mixed until the last judgment, and announces his plan to treat their origin, progress, and ends.
City of God 10.6Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine defines true sacrifice as every work that unites us to God, and teaches that the whole redeemed city is offered to God through Christ the priest, as the church shows in the sacrament of the altar.
City of God 11.1Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine opens the second part of the work: the origin, course, and ends of the two cities, beginning with the angels.
City of God 15.26Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The ark, with its human proportions, its side door, and its three stories, is a figure of Christ and of the Church saved through the wood of the cross.
City of God 17.16Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Psalm 45 plainly sings of Christ the anointed king and of his bride the Church, gathered from all nations, the true city of God.
City of God 18.29Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine quotes Isaiah's song of the suffering servant as prophecy of Christ and Isaiah 54 as prophecy of the church.
City of God 18.48Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that Haggai's promised greater glory belongs to the church built of living stones, which will appear fully when only the chosen remain.
City of God 18.49Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine describes the church in this age as a net holding good and bad until the final separation, and recounts Christ's preaching, choice of apostles, passion, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Spirit at Pentecost.
City of God 20.9Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The reign of the saints for a thousand years is the present reign of the church, living and dead, with Christ; the thrones are its leaders, the beast the ungodly city, and the first resurrection the rising of souls from sin.
City of God 22.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · From the context of Eph 4, the “perfect man” is Christ with his body the church, whose fullness is completed in its members; even if it referred to the resurrection, “man” would include women.
On the Good of Widowhood 13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 414 · Augustine rejects the view that marriages of women who broke a vow of continence are adulteries, since separating such couples would make the husbands, who then remarry, real adulterers.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.6Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Jeremiah's commission to uproot and to build is read of the destruction of false doctrine and the building of the church, and by some of Christ.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · The church will be without spot or wrinkle only when she is glorious at the resurrection; now Christ cleanses and heals her step by step.
Apologetic Book 17.8Orosius · ca. 415–416 · The church as a body of mutually dependent members.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.33.17Orosius · ca. 417–418 · One God, one faith, one church.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 27Augustine of Hippo · 417 · The eighth charge, that the church here is without spot or wrinkle, is shown to contradict 1 John 1:8 and the Lord's Prayer.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 28Augustine of Hippo · 417 · Pelagius explained that the church is cleansed in baptism and the Lord wishes her to remain so; the bishops approved this, without ruling on the time of prayer between baptism and the kingdom.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 32Augustine of Hippo · 417 · Paul did have all the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12, so the bishops rightly approved Pelagius's answer; yet not all graces are in any one member, as the image of the body shows.
On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin 2.31Augustine of Hippo · 418 · The righteous of old belong to Christ's body and will rise in him, because they believed in his future incarnation, just as we believe in his future judgment.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · The church will be without spot or wrinkle only in the world to come; those who claim it is so now condemn themselves.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 56Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · In the Creed the Church follows the Trinity as temple follows God; the Church includes the holy angels, and since the Spirit has a temple, he is God, not a creature.
Chapter 20Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 437-450 · True faith and salvation are found only in the Catholic Church; the heretic will rise to damnation, while (chapter 21) the faithful will enter a life of truth, peace, and joy without fear.
Chapter 22Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 437-450 · The way to eternal life is the whole Christ, head and body, Christ and the Catholic Church; the Arian church is a harlot posing as the bride, called to return, while the true mother patiently bears her persecution.
Part 1, chapter 1Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · The creation of Eve from Adam’s side, by which a man leaves his parents and cleaves to his wife, prefigures the Church formed from Christ’s side on the cross.
Part 1, chapter 7Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · The ark prefigures the Church and the cross: its measures, built from the numbers five and six, stand for hope, love, and patience, its three decks for faith, hope, and love, and its one cubit for unity and perfection.
Part 2, chapter 2Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · The tabernacle and its materials, measures, curtains, columns, ark, table, lamp, and courts figure the Church, its martyrs, teachers, sacraments, and Christ the priest and victim.
Part 2, chapter 27Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Abishag, who warmed David in chastity, figures souls aflame with grace; Solomon’s wisdom, judgment between the two mothers, temple, and the visit of the queen of the South figure Christ the peaceable king, the Catholic mother against the heretics, the Church as temple, and the Church of the nations; his fall is a warning.
Part 2, chapter 38Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Zerubbabel’s saying that women and truth are strongest, and the deeds of Esther and Judith, who risked their lives to save their people and overthrew their enemies, figure the Church, which saves her children through the cross and the martyrs.
Part 3, chapter 32Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · The barren woman made a joyful mother is fulfilled in the Church born through baptism among all nations; (chapter 33) Jeremiah’s new covenant, Isaiah’s new things and new name, and the new song are fulfilled in the Christian name and the new man.