Scripture and canon in the early church

Didache 4.13Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Keep the Lord's commandments without adding or subtracting.
Didache 15.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Pray, give, and act as the gospel teaches.
1 Clement 45.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The scriptures are true and given by the Spirit.
1 Clement 45.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Scripture never shows the righteous rejected by the holy.
1 Clement 47.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Reread Paul's letter to you.
1 Clement 53.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · A reminder from the scriptures they know well.
1 Clement 62.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The Corinthians know the scriptures well.
Epistle of Barnabas 4.14Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Israel was abandoned despite great signs: many are called, few chosen.
2 Clement 2.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Isaiah's barren woman is the church, once childless, now fruitful.
2 Clement 2.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Another scripture: Christ came to call sinners.
2 Clement 8.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The gospel: faithful in little, faithful in much.
2 Clement 13.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Outsiders admire God's words but scoff when they see our deeds.
2 Clement 14.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The church, Christ's body and bride, existed from the beginning.
2 Clement 19.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The preacher reads an appeal after the scripture reading: repent with the whole heart.
To the Philadelphians 5.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Ignatius relies on the gospel and the apostles, and asks prayer to be made perfect.
To the Philadelphians 5.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · The prophets proclaimed the gospel beforehand and were saved by faith in Christ.
To the Philadelphians 8.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Against those who demand proof from the old scriptures, Ignatius says Christ's cross and resurrection are his “archives.”
To the Philadelphians 9.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · The prophets pointed to Christ; the gospel completes their message.
To the Smyrnaeans 7.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Avoid the false teachers and attend to the prophets and the gospel.
To the Philippians 3.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · No one can match the wisdom of Paul, who taught the Philippians in person and then wrote them letters that still build up their faith.
To the Philippians 12.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Polycarp trusts the Philippians' knowledge of Scripture and reminds them to be angry without sinning and not to let the sun go down on their anger.
To Diognetus 11.6Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Law, prophets, gospels, and apostles are honored in the church.
To Diognetus 12.5Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Paul: knowledge puffs up, love builds up.
First Apology 31Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The Hebrew prophets foretold Christ's birth, miracles, death, resurrection, and the mission to the Gentiles; the Scriptures were translated into Greek for Ptolemy.
First Apology 32Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Moses' prophecy of Judah's ruler and the foal bound to the vine, and Isaiah's star and flower from Jesse, point to Christ.
First Apology 33Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah foretold the virgin birth; the power of God, the Word, overshadowed the virgin without intercourse.
First Apology 35Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah and the Psalms foretold Christ's crucifixion; Zechariah his entry into Jerusalem.
First Apology 36Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The divine Word speaks through the prophets in different persons: as God, as Christ, or as the people.
First Apology 37Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Examples of prophecy spoken in the person of the Father.
First Apology 38Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Examples of prophecy spoken in the person of Christ, fulfilled in his passion and resurrection.
First Apology 40Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Psalm 19 foretells the apostles' preaching; Psalms 1 and 2 teach how to live and foretell the conspiracy against Christ, God's Son.
First Apology 41Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · A psalm foretells that the Lord will reign from the tree of the cross.
First Apology 42Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Prophecy speaks of certain future events as already past; only Christ, crucified and risen, fulfilled David's words.
First Apology 44Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · God gave humans free choice; the philosophers borrowed from Moses, so there are “seeds of truth” among all.
First Apology 47Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The prophets foretold the desolation of Jerusalem, now forbidden to Jews by Roman law.
First Apology 48Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah foretold Christ's healings and his death along with those who hope in him.
First Apology 49Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The Gentiles, who did not expect Christ, received him; the Jews, who expected him, did not.
First Apology 50Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah's suffering Servant (Isa 52–53) foretold Christ's passion; after his resurrection the apostles understood and preached.
First Apology 53Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Fulfilled prophecies, above all the conversion of the Gentiles, prove Christ's claims.
First Apology 59Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Plato's teaching that God made the world from formless matter was taken from Genesis 1.
First Apology 66Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The Eucharist is for the baptized only; it is not common bread and drink, but the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus, as the Gospels record.
First Apology 67Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Justin describes Sunday worship: Scripture reading, sermon, prayer, the Eucharist, and a collection for the needy, held on the day of creation and of the resurrection.
Dialogue with Trypho 7.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The old man points Justin to the prophets, older than the philosophers, who spoke the truth by the Holy Spirit.
Dialogue with Trypho 7.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The prophets' writings still exist; fulfilled prophecy proves them true.
Dialogue with Trypho 9.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin forgives Trypho's words and offers to prove his faith from the Scriptures.
Dialogue with Trypho 10.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho dismisses the rumors and says he has read the Gospel, whose commands seem impossible to keep.
Dialogue with Trypho 11.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold a new law and a new covenant.
Dialogue with Trypho 12.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah foretells an everlasting covenant to which the nations will come.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin quotes Isa 52:10–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 52:14–53:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:2–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:5–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:8–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 53:10–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 54:1–3.
Dialogue with Trypho 13.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 54:4–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:3–5.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:6–9.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 14.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 55:12–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:1–2.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:2–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:5–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:7–9.
Dialogue with Trypho 15.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 58:9–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 16.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Moses himself called for circumcision of the heart.
Dialogue with Trypho 16.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 57:1–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 17.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah's woes are applied to those who reject Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 18.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin explains why he quotes Jesus' own words.
Dialogue with Trypho 21.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ezek 20:19–21.
Dialogue with Trypho 21.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ezek 20:21–24.
Dialogue with Trypho 21.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ezek 20:25–26: God gave statutes that were not good.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 5:18–21.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 5:22–26.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 5:27–6:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Amos 6:3–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jer 7:21–22.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:1–6 (LXX 49).
Dialogue with Trypho 22.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:7–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 22.10Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 50:18–23.
Dialogue with Trypho 24.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 65:1–3.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 63:15–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 63:17–64:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 64:3–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 25.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 64:7–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:6–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 62:10–63:1.
Dialogue with Trypho 26.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 63:2–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 27.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isaiah and the Psalms describe the people's sin.
Dialogue with Trypho 28.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mal 1:10–12: a pure sacrifice among the nations.
Dialogue with Trypho 28.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 18:43–44.
Dialogue with Trypho 29.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · These are the words of David, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Moses, which belong to Christians who obey them.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:9–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:11–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:14–18.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:19–22.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:23–25.
Dialogue with Trypho 31.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Dan 7:26–28.
Dialogue with Trypho 32.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 110 (LXX 109).
Dialogue with Trypho 34.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:1–6 (LXX 71).
Dialogue with Trypho 34.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:7–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 34.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:13–16.
Dialogue with Trypho 34.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:17–20.
Dialogue with Trypho 36.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 24:1–4 (LXX 23).
Dialogue with Trypho 36.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 24:5–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 37.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 99:1–5 (LXX 98).
Dialogue with Trypho 37.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 99:6–9.
Dialogue with Trypho 38.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:1–5 (LXX 44).
Dialogue with Trypho 38.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:6–11: “Your throne, O God.”
Dialogue with Trypho 38.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 41.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mal 1:10–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 43.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:10–15: the sign of the virgin.
Dialogue with Trypho 43.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:16–17 with 8:4.
Dialogue with Trypho 50.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 39:8; 40:1–5.
Dialogue with Trypho 50.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 40:6–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 50.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 40:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 51.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho calls the prophecies ambiguous; Justin answers that prophecy ceased after John.
Dialogue with Trypho 52.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 49:8–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 53.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 9:9.
Dialogue with Trypho 53.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 13:7.
Dialogue with Trypho 55.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will give unanswerable proofs from Scripture read daily by the Jews.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:1–2 and 19:27–28.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 21:9–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.16Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho bears with Justin because he argues from the Scriptures and affirms no God above the Creator.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.17Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:13–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.18Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:20–23.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.19Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 18:33–19:16.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.20Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 19:17–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 56.21Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 19:20–25.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin claims no rhetorical skill, only God's grace to understand Scripture, which he shares freely.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 31:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 31:11–13: the angel says, “I am the God who appeared to you.”
Dialogue with Trypho 58.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 32:22–26.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 32:26–30: Jacob sees God face to face.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 35:6–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.11Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 28:10–13: Jacob's ladder.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.12Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 28:13–15.
Dialogue with Trypho 58.13Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 28:16–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 59.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Exod 2:23–3:16.
Dialogue with Trypho 61.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Prov 8:21–25: Wisdom begotten before all things.
Dialogue with Trypho 61.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Prov 8:26–31.
Dialogue with Trypho 61.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Prov 8:32–36.
Dialogue with Trypho 62.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · “Let us make man” (Gen 1:26–28) shows God speaking to another.
Dialogue with Trypho 62.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Josh 5:13–6:2: the captain of the Lord's host.
Dialogue with Trypho 63.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 45:6–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 64.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 99:1–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 64.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 72:1–5, 17–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 64.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 19:1–6.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will never admit that Scriptures contradict each other; he would rather confess he does not understand.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will read the verses in context.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:5–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:8–10.
Dialogue with Trypho 65.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 42:11–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 66.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:10–15.
Dialogue with Trypho 66.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 7:16–17 with 8:4.
Dialogue with Trypho 68.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin will show that the Septuagint is right and Isa 7:14 refers to Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 68.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Jewish teachers deny inconvenient texts or apply them to other men.
Dialogue with Trypho 69.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 35:1–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 70.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 33:13–16.
Dialogue with Trypho 70.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 33:16–19.
Dialogue with Trypho 71.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin distrusts the Jewish teachers' new translations.
Dialogue with Trypho 71.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin charges that Jewish teachers removed passages; he will argue only from texts they accept.
Dialogue with Trypho 72.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin cites a saying attributed to Ezra about the Passover as a figure of Christ.
Dialogue with Trypho 72.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jer 11:19, which Justin says had been removed.
Dialogue with Trypho 73.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin charges that “from the tree” was removed from Ps 96:10.
Dialogue with Trypho 73.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 96:1–8 (LXX 95).
Dialogue with Trypho 73.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 96:8–13.
Dialogue with Trypho 74.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin begins to explain Psalm 96.
Dialogue with Trypho 74.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The text resumes in the middle of Deut 31:16–18.
Dialogue with Trypho 78.11Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 29:13–14.
Dialogue with Trypho 79.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 30:1–5 (LXX): “evil angels” in Tanis.
Dialogue with Trypho 81.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · John the apostle, in the Revelation, foretold the thousand years and then the general resurrection and judgment.
Dialogue with Trypho 83.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 110:1–4.
Dialogue with Trypho 84.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · A young woman bearing a child is no sign; and God can make even the barren bear.
Dialogue with Trypho 85.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Repeating Scripture is no fault.
Dialogue with Trypho 85.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 66:5–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 85.9Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 66:8–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 90.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The prophets hid the truth in parables and types.
Dialogue with Trypho 91.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Moses' blessing of Joseph (Deut 33:13–17).
Dialogue with Trypho 92.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Grace is needed to understand the prophets.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:1–5.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:6–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:12–17.
Dialogue with Trypho 98.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:18–23.
Dialogue with Trypho 100.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ's resurrection is his “praise”; the Gospel records his words on knowing the Father.
Dialogue with Trypho 100.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Peter confessed Christ; Christ became man through the Virgin to undo the serpent's disobedience by the same way.
Dialogue with Trypho 102.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:9–15 foretold the events of the passion.
Dialogue with Trypho 103.8Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Gospels record Christ's bloody sweat, proving he truly suffered.
Dialogue with Trypho 106.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 22:22–23.
Dialogue with Trypho 106.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ's renaming of Peter and the sons of Zebedee shows he is the one who renamed Jacob and Joshua.
Dialogue with Trypho 107.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jonah 4:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 109.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mic 4:1–3.
Dialogue with Trypho 109.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Mic 4:4–7.
Dialogue with Trypho 112.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Understood as types, the prophets' deeds are blameless.
Dialogue with Trypho 114.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Spirit speaks through types and through future events described as past.
Dialogue with Trypho 114.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Examples of prophecies spoken as already past.
Dialogue with Trypho 114.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jer 2:13 and a free quotation on Zion's divorce.
Dialogue with Trypho 115.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 2:10–11.
Dialogue with Trypho 115.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zech 2:12–3:2.
Dialogue with Trypho 115.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Zechariah saw Joshua the priest in a vision, in ecstasy.
Dialogue with Trypho 119.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Understanding Scripture is a gift of grace.
Dialogue with Trypho 119.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Deut 32:16–23: God will provoke Israel with a nation that is no nation.
Dialogue with Trypho 120.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin notes the variant reading of Gen 49:10.
Dialogue with Trypho 124.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Ps 82 (LXX 81).
Dialogue with Trypho 130.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Deut 32:43 (LXX): the nations rejoice with his people.
Dialogue with Trypho 131.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Deut 32:7–9, with the LXX variant “angels of God.”
Dialogue with Trypho 133.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 3:9–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 133.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 3:12–15.
Dialogue with Trypho 133.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 5:18–21.
Dialogue with Trypho 133.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 5:22–25.
Dialogue with Trypho 135.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Isa 65:9–12.
Dialogue with Trypho 137.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin had quoted Isa 3:10 two ways to test his hearers.
Dialogue with Trypho 139.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Gen 9:24–27: Japheth (the Romans) now dwells in the tents of Shem.
Oration to the Greeks 29Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Tatian's conversion: disgusted by pagan rites, he sought the truth and was won over by the ancient “barbarian” Scriptures.
Oration to the Greeks 31Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Tatian begins his proof that Moses is older than Homer by showing that the Greeks cannot even agree on when Homer lived.
Oration to the Greeks 36Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Even if Homer lived at the time of the Trojan War, Moses is far older; the Babylonian historian Berossus confirms the biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar.
Oration to the Greeks 37Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Phoenician historians place Hiram, Solomon's contemporary, near the Trojan War; Moses is much older.
Oration to the Greeks 38Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Egyptian chronology places the Exodus under King Amosis, a contemporary of Inachus of Argos, twenty generations before the fall of Troy.
Oration to the Greeks 39Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The list of the kings of Argos from Inachus to Agamemnon shows that all the events of Greek legend come after Moses.
Oration to the Greeks 40Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Moses is older than all Greek legend, and Greek sages borrowed from him and distorted what they borrowed.
Oration to the Greeks 41Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Moses is older also than the legendary poets before Homer and than the Greek lawgivers and sages.
Lines 5–8Anonymous · ca. 160–220 · The Shepherd taught Abercius faithful writings and sent him to Rome to see royalty and a golden-robed queen.
On Pascha 2Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 3Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 4Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 5Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 6Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 7Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 34Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 35Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 36Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 37Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 38Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 39Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 40Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 41Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 42Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 43Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 44Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
On Pascha 45Melito of Sardis · ca. 160-180 · text not on this site
Apollinaris of Hierapolis, Fr. 3 (On the Passover)Claudius Apollinaris of Hierapolis · ca. 165-180 · Apollinaris answers those who hold that Jesus ate the Passover on the fourteenth and suffered on the feast day, arguing that this conflicts with the law and sets the Gospels against each other.
To Autolycus 1.14Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Theophilus himself was converted by reading the prophets; he urges Autolycus to believe and escape the eternal punishment the prophets foretold.
To Autolycus 2.9Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Hebrew prophets, inspired by the Holy Spirit, spoke in agreement about the past, present, and future; their fulfilled prophecies guarantee the rest.
To Autolycus 2.10Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · God made all things from nothing through his Word, whom he had within himself and “uttered” with his Wisdom before creation; this Word spoke through the prophets, and Genesis begins with “In the beginning.”
To Autolycus 2.11Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The whole account of the six days of creation (Gen 1:3–2:3) is quoted from the Septuagint.
To Autolycus 2.12Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · No one can fully explain the six days of creation; the philosophers' imitations mix truth with error; the seventh day, the sabbath, is known to all peoples though they do not know why.
To Autolycus 2.13Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Theophilus explains the first days of creation: God began with heaven, not with foundations as a builder does; the Spirit moved over the waters to give life; the Word shone like a lamp.
To Autolycus 2.19Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Genesis 2 describes how God formed the human being from dust and breathed life into him, and placed him in a garden in the east.
To Autolycus 2.20Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Genesis 2:8–25 is quoted: the garden, its rivers, the command about the tree of knowledge, the creation of the woman, and the first marriage.
To Autolycus 2.21Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Genesis 3:1–19 is quoted: the serpent's temptation, the first sin, and God's judgment on the serpent, the woman, and the man.
To Autolycus 2.22Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · It was the Word, God's Son, who walked in the garden: always within God's heart, “uttered” before creation as the firstborn of all creation, and sent by the Father to appear in a place.
To Autolycus 2.30Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The line of Cain founded the first cities, polygamy, music, and metalwork before the flood; the Scriptures, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are older and truer than the Greek writers.
To Autolycus 2.32Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · After Babel humanity spread gradually from Arabia and Chaldea over the whole earth, as far as Britain; the Greek writers, ignorant of this history, speculate about the world's shape.
To Autolycus 2.33Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Greek poets and historians came too late to know the truth about the beginnings; only Christians, taught by the Holy Spirit through the prophets, have the truth.
To Autolycus 2.35Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The law forbids the worship of anything created; the prophets, speaking by one Spirit, agree about the one Creator and condemn idolatry.
To Autolycus 3.1Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The third book will prove the antiquity of the Christian Scriptures against Autolycus's view that they are recent.
To Autolycus 3.9Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Christians confess one God, who governs all things by providence and gave the holy law of the Ten Commandments through Moses to Israel and, through them, to the world.
To Autolycus 3.11Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · God sent the prophets to call Israel to repentance; Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah show that God desires the sinner's return, not his death.
To Autolycus 3.12Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The prophets, speaking by the one Spirit, agree with the law in teaching justice, mercy, and care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow.
To Autolycus 3.16Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Theophilus turns to chronology: the Greek philosophers' vast ages for the world are guesswork, as Plato himself admits.
To Autolycus 3.17Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Since the pagan poets themselves claimed divine teaching, much more should the Christians trust the Spirit-inspired prophets, whose predictions have been fulfilled, also on chronology.
To Autolycus 3.18Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Greek flood stories (Plato's partial flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha) are fables compared with Moses' account.
To Autolycus 3.19Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Moses tells of one universal flood, from which only Noah (the Greeks' Deucalion) and his family, eight in all, were saved in the ark.
To Autolycus 3.20Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · From Manetho's list of Egyptian kings Theophilus shows that the Exodus under “Tethmosis” preceded famous Egyptian cities and the Greek hero Danaus.
To Autolycus 3.21Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Manetho's slanders (that the Hebrews were expelled lepers) are refuted, but he confirms that they were shepherds who left Egypt, long before the Trojan War.
To Autolycus 3.22Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Tyrian archives, as reported by Menander of Ephesus, date Solomon's temple, built with the help of Hiram of Tyre, about 134 years before the founding of Carthage.
To Autolycus 3.23Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Hebrew Scriptures are older than all Greek lawgivers and writers; Theophilus now begins a chronology from creation, based on Moses.
To Autolycus 3.24Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · A chronology from Adam to Samuel, following the Septuagint's genealogies: 2,242 years to the flood, 3,278 to Abraham, 3,938 to the death of Moses.
To Autolycus 3.25Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The chronology continues from Saul through the kings of Judah to the Babylonian exile and the return under Cyrus, fulfilling Jeremiah's seventy years.
To Autolycus 3.26Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The Greek historians begin only with Cyrus and Darius; the Scriptures show the true age of the world, against Plato's and Apollonius's vast figures.
To Autolycus 3.28Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The total from creation to the death of Marcus Aurelius comes to 5,695 years.
To Autolycus 3.29Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Pagan historians (Thallus, Berossus) confirm the biblical chronology; Moses is older than Kronos, Belus, and the Trojan War, and any error in Theophilus's reckoning is a matter of decades, not of thousands of years.
Lines 1–10Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · The fragment begins at the end of its account of Mark, then says that Luke the physician, Paul's companion, wrote the third Gospel from report, beginning with John's birth, and introduces John's Gospel.
Lines 11–20Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · The fragment tells how John, after a three-day fast with his fellow disciples and a revelation to Andrew, wrote his Gospel, and says that the Gospels' different beginnings do not affect faith, since one Spirit declared everything in all.
Lines 21–30Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · All the Gospels declare Christ's birth, passion, resurrection, and twofold coming, and John's first epistle confirms that he wrote as an eyewitness.
Lines 31–40Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · John wrote as eyewitness of the Lord's wonders; Luke wrote Acts for Theophilus about what he himself saw, omitting Peter's death and Paul's journey from Rome to Spain.
Lines 41–50Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · Paul's letters show their own occasions: Corinthians against schisms, Galatians against circumcision, Romans at length on the order of Scripture and Christ as its theme; like John, Paul wrote to seven churches.
Lines 51–60Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · The fragment lists Paul's letters to seven churches in order and says that, as in John's Apocalypse, writing to seven churches means writing to the one church throughout the world.
Lines 61–70Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · Paul's personal letters to Philemon, Titus, and Timothy are honored by the catholic church, but letters to the Laodiceans and Alexandrians forged for Marcion's heresy are rejected; Jude and two letters of John are accepted.
Lines 71–80Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · The fragment accepts the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypses of John and Peter (though some will not read Peter's in church), and says the Shepherd of Hermas, written recently at Rome, may be read privately but not publicly in church.
Lines 81–86Anonymous · late 2nd or 4th century (disputed) · The fragment rejects the writings of Arsinous, Valentinus, and Miltiades, and of those who composed a new book of psalms for Marcion, with Basilides and the founder of the Cataphrygians, and then breaks off.
Fragment 16Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 170–200
Fragment 27Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 170–200
A Plea for the Christians 7Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · The philosophers reached toward the one God by guesswork; Christians rely on the prophets, who spoke by the Spirit of God.
A Plea for the Christians 9Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · The prophets, speaking by the Spirit like a flute played by a musician, confirm that God is one.
12Anonymous · 180 (17 July) · The Christians carry books and Paul's letters.
12Anonymous · Greek rendering of the Latin Passion; date uncertain · The Christians carry books and Paul's letters.
Acts of Peter (Vercelli) 13Anonymous · ca. 180–200 · Peter makes a smoked fish swim again in a pool, and many believe and gather to hear him expound the Scriptures.
Acts of Peter (Vercelli) 20Anonymous · ca. 180–200 · Peter heals a blind widow, then expounds the Gospel reading on the transfiguration, teaching that Christ appeared in many forms according to each one's capacity, and lists his titles.
Acts of Peter (Vercelli) 24Anonymous · ca. 180–200 · Peter answers Simon with prophecies of Christ's virgin birth, heavenly origin, rejection and coming, and challenges him to perform a sign.
Fragment 9Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd–early 3rd century · A composite of fragments of Clement's Hypotyposes: brief notes on 1 Cor 11:10, 2 Cor 5:16, 2 Cor 6:12, and Gal 5:24; Christ's baptism of Peter; the choice of James the Just as bishop of Jerusalem; the origin of Mark's Gospel; secret knowledge passed from James, John, and Peter to the apostles and the seventy; the martyrdom of James with his accuser; why Paul did not name himself in Hebrews; and John's “spiritual” Gospel.
Adumbrations on 1 Peter, paragraph 6Clement of Alexandria · original ca. 200; Latin translation 6th century · On 1 Pet 4:6–5:13: those who fall away are corrected so that they may repent; the Spirit of glory rests on sufferers; and Mark, Peter's follower, wrote his Gospel from Peter's preaching at Rome, as Luke wrote Acts and translated Hebrews.
Fragment 21 (Hypotyposes 7; on 2 Tim 2:2)Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd-early 3rd century
Fragment 50 (Uncertain origin; Jerome, Apology against Rufinus 1.13)Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd-early 3rd century · Jerome reports that Origen, Clement, and Eusebius cited Jewish informants on Scripture.
The Instructor 1.7.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The law was given by the Word through Moses and was temporary; grace and truth came through Jesus, whom Moses foretold as the prophet like himself, prefigured by Joshua.
The Instructor 1.13.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Lord's commandments, written down as spiritual precepts, direct both this life and the eternal life; Clement will outline the latter from Scripture.
The Instructor 2.10.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Isaiah went naked and barefoot and Jeremiah wore only a loincloth; trailing robes are pretentious; the Lord's long robe signifies the Scriptures, and he is clothed with light.
The Instructor 3.12.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor now gives a summary of Scripture's commandments, leaving interpretation to the Teacher; he leads the child on the way of salvation to the treasures of wisdom revealed through law, prophets, Christ, and the Spirit.
The Instructor 3.12.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The law of Moses was written on stone, the law of the apostles on hearts; the Instructor now gives the apostolic commands, beginning with Ephesians on truth, anger, and kindness.
The Instructor 3.12.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · These are a few of Scripture's many precepts, including those for presbyters, bishops, deacons, and widows; their deeper interpretation belongs to the Teacher, to whom the Instructor now sends us.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Clement turns to the prophetic writings, simple and unadorned but saving; the Sibyl calls people from darkness to the light of the one God.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Jeremiah and Isaiah show the greatness of God, who fills heaven and earth, and foretell the shameful end of idols.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The prophets proclaim that the world will pass away but the one God, the only savior, remains; idols and their worshipers will howl.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The wisdom of Solomon and the words of Jeremiah and Moses call people back from idols to the one God, whose Wisdom is his Word.
Exhortation to the Greeks 8.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Psalms and Paul expose the vanity of worshiping creation instead of the Creator; the prophets foretell that heaven itself will pass away.
Exhortation to the Greeks 9.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Lord keeps calling sleepers to wake; the Scripture's “today” of grace lasts until the end, so no one should harden his heart.
Exhortation to the Greeks 9.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The “today” of the divine call is an image of eternity; those who disbelieve, like the Israelites in the desert, miss the rest, while godliness holds promise for this life and the next.
Exhortation to the Greeks 9.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The inspired Scriptures make one wise for salvation; the Lord and Paul both proclaim that the kingdom is at hand.
Against Heresies 1.3.6Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics twist the Gospels, the apostles, and the ambiguous parables of the Law and Prophets to fit their system.
Against Heresies 1.7.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Valentinians divide the words of the prophets and of Jesus among the mother, the spiritual seed, and the Demiurge.
Against Heresies 1.8.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Irenaeus compares the heretics' use of Scripture to rearranging the jewels of a king's mosaic into the image of a fox.
Against Heresies 1.8.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Valentinians read Jairus's daughter, Paul's “untimely birth”, the veiled woman, and the cries of Jesus's passion as figures of Achamoth.
Against Heresies 1.8.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Valentinians find their three kinds of men in Jesus's sayings to would-be followers, the parable of the leaven, and Paul's letters.
Against Heresies 1.8.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The lost sheep, the lost coin, Simeon, Anna, and texts on wisdom and marriage are made into figures of Achamoth, the Demiurge, and the conjunctions.
Against Heresies 1.8.5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Valentinians read the prologue of John's Gospel as a description of their first eight Aeons.
Against Heresies 1.9.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Like a cento stitched from Homer, the heretics' system reuses scriptural words for a foreign theme, which anyone who holds the rule of truth received in baptism will recognize.
Against Heresies 1.10.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Greater understanding means explaining God's dispensation within the one faith, not inventing another God or a Pleroma of Aeons.
Against Heresies 1.18.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics read the creation account of Genesis 1 and the human body as encoding the Tetrad, Decad, Duodecad and Triacontad.
Against Heresies 1.19.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics twist texts on Israel's ignorance of God and on not seeing God to mean an unknown Father above the Creator.
Against Heresies 1.19.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · They apply 'No one shall see God' and the angel's words to Daniel to their hidden Bythus, which Irenaeus will refute.
Against Heresies 1.20.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Marcosians use forged writings, such as the story of the boy Jesus asking his teacher what Alpha means.
Against Heresies 1.20.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics twist several Gospel sayings to mean that Jesus revealed an unknown Father.
Against Heresies 1.20.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Their chief proof-text is Jesus' saying that no one knows the Father except the Son.
Against Heresies 1.27.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Marcion blasphemed the God of the law, cut down Luke's Gospel and Paul's letters, and taught that Jesus came from a higher Father.
Against Heresies 1.27.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Irenaeus promises a separate refutation of Marcion and says all heretics are heirs of Simon Magus, using Christ's name as a lure.
Against Heresies 2.2.5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · God made the world by his Word, as John, Genesis, David, Moses and Paul testify, not by angels or other gods.
Against Heresies 2.9.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · All men, from Adam's tradition, the prophets and creation itself, and the whole Church from the apostles, confess one God, maker of the world.
Against Heresies 2.10.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Obscure parables must be explained by what is clear, not by inventing another God, which only adds a greater riddle.
Against Heresies 2.24.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The measurements of the tabernacle, ark, lampstand, oil, and incense fit none of their numbers, and any number at all can be found in Scripture.
Against Heresies 2.27.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Parables must be interpreted by the clear passages of Scripture, or there will be as many conflicting truths as interpreters.
Against Heresies 2.27.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Scripture plainly teaches one God who made all things; the heretics admit their Father appears only in secret, obscure teaching.
Against Heresies 2.27.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Building doctrine about God on parables rather than on what is certain is building on sand.
Against Heresies 2.28.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Holding to the rule of truth, we should explore God's dispensation but never abandon faith in the one Creator and Father.
Against Heresies 2.28.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Since we cannot explain many things in nature, it is no wonder that we cannot solve every question in Scripture; such things are left to God.
Against Heresies 2.28.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Some questions, such as what God did before creation, must be left to God; Scripture then remains in harmony.
Against Heresies 2.28.7Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The origin of matter, the cause of the fall of some creatures, and the nature of transgressors must be left to God, since we know only in part.
Against Heresies 2.30.6Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Scripture teaches that one God made things visible and invisible; the heretics cannot even describe the heavenly powers they claim to have made.
Against Heresies 2.35.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · All the prophets proclaimed one God, the Maker, and foretold the coming of his Son.
Against Heresies 2.35.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The various Hebrew names of God, such as Sabaoth, Eloe, and Adonai, are titles of the one God, not of different gods.
Against Heresies 2.35.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Irenaeus has shown that apostles, Lord, prophets, and law all proclaim one God; the next book will give the proofs from Scripture.
Against Heresies 3 pref.Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Book 3 will prove from the Scriptures the faith the church received from the apostles, to whom the Lord gave the Gospel.
Against Heresies 3.1.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The apostles, filled with the Spirit, preached and then wrote the Gospel: Matthew, Mark from Peter, Luke from Paul, and John at Ephesus.
Against Heresies 3.2.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · When refuted from Scripture, the heretics appeal to a secret oral tradition, which turns out to be each one's own invention.
Against Heresies 3.4.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The apostles deposited the whole truth in the church; even in a minor dispute, or without Scriptures, one should follow the tradition of the apostolic churches.
Against Heresies 3.5.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Christ is the truth and could not have called a defective god his Father; the apostles did not adapt their teaching hypocritically to their hearers.
Against Heresies 3.6.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · When Scripture calls idols gods, it adds words showing that they are not gods, as David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Elijah do.
Against Heresies 3.7.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · In 2 Cor 4:4 “of this age” belongs with “unbelievers”: God has blinded the unbelievers of this age; there is no separate god of this age.
Against Heresies 3.7.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Paul often transposes words, as in Gal 3:19 and 2 Thess 2:8–9; read correctly, 2 Cor 4:4 speaks of the true God.
Against Heresies 3.10.5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Mark begins his Gospel with the prophets and ends with Christ at God's right hand, showing the one God of prophets and Gospel.
Against Heresies 3.11.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · John wrote against Cerinthus and the Nicolaitans: one God made all things through his Word, including our creation.
Against Heresies 3.11.7Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Even the heretics use the Gospels: Ebionites Matthew, Marcion Luke, separators of Jesus and Christ Mark, Valentinians John, and each is refuted by his own Gospel.
Against Heresies 3.11.8Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · There must be four Gospels, matching the four winds, the four living creatures, and the four covenants: John the lion, Luke the calf, Matthew the man, Mark the eagle.
Against Heresies 3.11.9Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Those who add Gospels, like the Valentinians' “Gospel of Truth,” or reject them, like Marcion and the opponents of John's Gospel, destroy the Gospel's fourfold form.
Against Heresies 3.12.9Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Paul's preaching at Damascus, Athens, and Lystra proclaimed the Creator of heaven and earth and Jesus the Son of God.
Against Heresies 3.12.11Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The apostles' words and acts all proclaim one God of Abraham, Moses, and the New Testament; to allegorize them away is a sickness of questioning.
Against Heresies 3.12.12Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics, offended by the law of Moses, invented another God; Marcion mutilated the Scriptures, and the Valentinians made the Creator a product of defect.
Against Heresies 3.13.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Paul's visit to Jerusalem in Galatians matches Luke's account in Acts, showing that Paul and the apostles agreed.
Against Heresies 3.14.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Luke, Paul's constant companion as the “we” passages of Acts and Paul's letters show, learned no secret doctrine from him.
Against Heresies 3.14.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Much of the Gospel, used even by Marcion and Valentinus, is known only through Luke, so those who reject Luke reject the Gospel.
Against Heresies 3.14.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Marcion and the Valentinians must accept all of Luke or none; accepting all would lead them to repentance.
Against Heresies 3.15.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Those who reject Paul must also reject Luke's Gospel, for Luke testifies that Christ chose Paul as an apostle.
Against Heresies 3.15.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The apostles and their disciples confessed only the true God, the Creator who gave the law, and his Word.
Against Heresies 3.21.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Against Theodotion, Aquila and the Ebionites, who read “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14, Irenaeus defends “virgin,” noting that the Jews themselves translated it before Christ’s coming.
Against Heresies 3.21.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Irenaeus tells how the seventy elders, translating separately for Ptolemy, produced identical versions, as Ezra had once restored the Scriptures by inspiration.
Against Heresies 3.21.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Septuagint, made before Christ, preserves the true Scriptures, and those who now make new translations to evade the proof of Christ are shameless; the apostles agree with it.
Against Heresies 3.21.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The same Spirit spoke through the prophets, the Septuagint translators and the apostles; Isaiah 7 shows Emmanuel to be both God and man, born of a virgin.
Against Heresies 4.2.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Moses, David, and Isaiah all speak of the God who made heaven and earth.
Against Heresies 4.2.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Christ said that Moses wrote of him, so the writings of Moses and the prophets are Christ’s own words.
Against Heresies 4.2.7Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Christ cleansed the temple as his Father’s house, rebuking not the law but those who broke it.
Against Heresies 4.2.8Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Those who feared God and his law came to Christ; the law did not forbid faith in the Son of God but pointed to him, lifted up like the bronze serpent.
Against Heresies 4.6.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics alter the saying “No one knows the Father except the Son” into the past tense to claim that the true God was unknown before Christ.
Against Heresies 4.9.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The householder who brings out things new and old is Christ, author of both the old and the new covenants.
Against Heresies 4.9.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · God gives more grace through successive covenants without changing; those who keep inventing new Fathers never find God, while Christ confirmed the law’s command as the word of his Father.
Against Heresies 4.10.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Scriptures of Moses testify to Christ, who appears throughout them, and Moses foretold the day, place, and hour of his passion in the Passover.
Against Heresies 4.10.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Jacob’s blessing of Judah foretold Christ, and Moses foretold the Word hanging on the tree and the people’s unbelief.
Against Heresies 4.12.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The same great commandments of love in law and gospel show one author of both covenants.
Against Heresies 4.12.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Christ upheld the law of Moses while rebuking those who taught it without love; he is the end of the law because he is also its beginning.
Against Heresies 4.14.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · God, who needs nothing, gave Israel the tabernacle, temple, and sacrifices to train them through types to the true, heavenly realities.
Against Heresies 4.15.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · God first gave only the Decalogue; after the golden calf he added a law of servitude suited to Israel’s hardness, as Ezekiel and Stephen testify.
Against Heresies 4.15.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Moses permitted divorce because of Israel’s hardness, as Paul also made concessions for the weak; the same God gave both covenants and respects human freedom.
Against Heresies 4.16.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Decalogue made man glorious by giving him God’s friendship; spoken by the Lord himself, it remains, extended but not abolished by Christ’s coming.
Against Heresies 4.17.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The prophets show that God needs no sacrifices but wants obedience, a contrite heart, praise, and justice.
Against Heresies 4.20.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Scripture teaches one God who made all things; the Father gave all things to the Son, the Lamb who alone opens the book and through whose flesh the Father’s light reaches us.
Against Heresies 4.26.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Christ is the treasure hidden in the Scriptures, which remain riddles until his cross explains them; read by Christians, the law is a treasure, but to the Jews it is like a fable.
Against Heresies 4.26.5Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The truth is to be learned in the Church from those who have the apostolic succession and a sound life and teaching.
Against Heresies 4.31.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The presbyter taught not to reproach the ancients for sins Scripture rebukes, and to seek types where it does not, as in Lot and his daughters, a figure of the two synagogues.
Against Heresies 4.32.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The elder taught that both covenants come from the one Creator; whoever believes this and reads the Scriptures with the Church’s presbyters will find them consistent.
Against Heresies 4.32.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The apostles taught two covenants for two peoples from one God; the first covenant served Israel, foreshadowed the Church, and prophesied the future.
Against Heresies 4.33.8Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · True knowledge is the apostles’ teaching, kept in the Church through the succession of bishops with faithful reading of Scripture, and above all love.
Against Heresies 4.33.10Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The prophets, as members of Christ, each foreshadowed part of his work and suffered persecution, as will all on whom the Spirit rests.
Against Heresies 4.33.14Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The prophets’ promises of a new covenant, a new heart, and rivers in the desert announced the freedom of the new covenant and the gift of the Spirit.
Against Heresies 4.33.15Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The truly spiritual man interprets all the prophecies by the one dispensation of the one God, Word, and Spirit, judging all and judged by none.
Against Heresies 4.35.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · It is absurd to claim, as the Valentinians do, that the Father had to speak through the Demiurge’s prophets rather than through messengers of his own.
Against Heresies 4.35.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · If the Saviour used his own apostles, he would have used his own prophets too; the same Word spoke through both, so the prophets cannot be half from the Pleroma and half from the Demiurge.
Against Heresies 4.35.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The Valentinians disagree among themselves about which Aeon any Scripture refers to, whereas the Church, holding the rule of truth, says the same things about the same words.
Against Heresies 4.41.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Irenaeus closes Book 4 by announcing that the next book will take up the Lord’s plain sayings and Paul’s letters, completing the five books against the heretics.
Against Heresies 5.8.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The law’s clean and unclean animals figure the faithful, the Gentiles, the Jews, and the heretics, according to whether they walk firmly in faith and meditate on God’s words.
Against Heresies 5.13.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The heretics cling to Paul’s words about flesh and blood like unskilled wrestlers who fall holding one limb, ignoring the apostle’s meaning.
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.
Against Heresies 5.21.2Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · In the temptation in the desert Christ conquered the devil three times with the words of the law, undoing Adam’s transgression by his obedience.
Against Heresies 5.30.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The true number is 666, attested by the ancient copies and by those who saw John; those who adopt the corrupt reading 616 and invent names for the Antichrist risk being deceived by him.
Against Heresies 5.30.3Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Irenaeus notes that Euanthas, Lateinos, and especially Teitan add up to 666 but declines to name the Antichrist, since John, who saw the vision late in Domitian’s reign, did not.
Hortatory Address to the Greeks 8Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · The Hebrew prophets, older than the Greek teachers, received their knowledge from God and taught in perfect agreement.
Hortatory Address to the Greeks 10Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · Moses, raised in all the learning of Egypt, was the first to receive the prophetic gift and the first teacher of the Christians' religion.
Hortatory Address to the Greeks 12Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · The Greek philosophers are recent, while Moses' writings are older than Greek letters; the Seventy translated them into Greek with miraculous agreement.
Hortatory Address to the Greeks 13Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · The Jewish scriptures, preserved in the synagogues, belong to the Christians' teaching, and their Jewish custody guards against charges of forgery.
Hortatory Address to the Greeks 35Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · The Greeks should abandon ancestral error and read the plain-spoken prophets, who teach the way to eternal life.
Hortatory Address to the Greeks 38Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · The Sibyl foretold Christ, the Word who restored the ancient religion; true knowledge of God comes only from the prophets.
Prophetic Extracts 1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The three young men in the furnace call on the heavens and the angels to bless the Lord.
Prophetic Extracts 1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture counts the heavens and the waters among the pure powers, as Genesis also shows.
Prophetic Extracts 1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Since “power” has many senses, the song calls on every power, then the sun and moon, to bless the Lord.
Prophetic Extracts 1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The song calls on the stars and all who worship God to bless him.
Prophetic Extracts 1.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · A note that these words are in Daniel.
Prophetic Extracts 2.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The song's God who looks on the depths agrees with Enoch's vision of all matter.
Prophetic Extracts 2.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The abyss is boundless in itself but limited by
Prophetic Extracts 2.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God's power; the “depths” are the material substances from which all kinds of things arise.
Prophetic Extracts 3.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Heaven and earth in Gen 1:1 mean heavenly and earthly things.
Prophetic Extracts 3.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Hosea's “the land will commit prostitution” shows that “earth” can mean people.
Prophetic Extracts 3.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Earth” there means earthly-minded people.
Prophetic Extracts 5.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Through Hosea the Spirit calls himself our instructor and calls for the trumpet.
Prophetic Extracts 27.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The earlier elders did not write, so as not to divert their care for teaching the tradition.
Prophetic Extracts 27.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · They thought composing and teaching different gifts and left writing to others.
Prophetic Extracts 27.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Speech flows quickly; writing is tested by readers and preserves teaching for later generations.
Prophetic Extracts 27.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The elders' deposit speaks through the writer for the readers' salvation.
Prophetic Extracts 27.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Like a magnet drawing only iron, books draw only readers who can understand them.
Prophetic Extracts 27.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The word of truth is folly or offense to many, but wisdom and power to a few.
Prophetic Extracts 27.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The mature Christian is not jealous of knowledge; out of love he may even share it with an unworthy but persistent inquirer.
Prophetic Extracts 28.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · As the sea and earth serve different people differently, so Scripture helps readers in different ways.
Prophetic Extracts 32.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Pythagoras honored the first name-giver as the wisest of men.
Prophetic Extracts 32.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture must be searched carefully, since the Holy Spirit has impressed his meaning on its words, so that hidden senses can be uncovered.
Prophetic Extracts 32.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Knowledge brings out the brightness of things like white lead from black, the divine wisdom that enlightens the pure.
Prophetic Extracts 35.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The mysteries of knowledge are mocked by the many, but the few, first dazzled, grow used to them and rejoice.
Prophetic Extracts 42.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “With the holy you will be holy” means God is glorified through our knowledge of him.
Prophetic Extracts 43.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “A people I did not know served me” means the Gentiles, not known through the covenant.
Prophetic Extracts 43.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Foreign sons” are those who follow what belongs to another.
Prophetic Extracts 44.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · All believers are called kings, called to the kingdom by knowledge and inheritance.
Prophetic Extracts 51.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “The heavens” in Ps 19 has several senses, including the first-created angels through whom the covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were given.
Prophetic Extracts 51.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The first-created angels, moved by the Lord, declared God's covenants through the angels near the prophets.
Prophetic Extracts 52.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The “heavens” are properly the Lord, then the highest angels, then the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets, and the apostles.
Prophetic Extracts 52.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The firmament is God himself, unchangeable, as Ps 18 calls the Lord his firmament.
Prophetic Extracts 52.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The firmament reveals the angels God made; “day to day pours forth speech” is read like “heavens,” in many senses.
Prophetic Extracts 54.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The voices of the heavens are heard through all the earth.
Prophetic Extracts 54.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The psalm refers to the saints, called heavens and days.
Prophetic Extracts 55.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The stars, governed by angels, do not cause events but signify past, present, and future.
Prophetic Extracts 55.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The stars signify but do not cause.
Prophetic Extracts 56.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Hermogenes said Christ laid aside his body in the sun; Clement's teacher Pantaenus taught that prophecy often uses one tense for another, as here.
Prophetic Extracts 57.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Perhaps “in the sun” (ἡλίῳ) conceals the Hebrew El, “God,” as in Christ's cry “Eli, Eli.”
Prophetic Extracts 59.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Lord's testimony makes the simple wise: the apostles and us.
Prophetic Extracts 60.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Justified together” means that unity; such things are more desirable than gold.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The Savior answers prayer; his own words about the rich interpret themselves.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The sayings about wealth trouble us because we have heard them without examining them.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Mark's account of the rich man begins: a man kneels before Jesus.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The man asks how to inherit eternal life; Jesus answers that only God is good.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus lists the commandments; the man says he has kept them from his youth.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus, loving him, tells him to sell all and give to the poor; he goes away grieving.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The man had great wealth; Jesus says how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom, and the disciples are amazed.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus says a camel passes through a needle's eye more easily than a rich man enters the kingdom; what is impossible with men is possible with God.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 4.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Peter says they have left everything; Jesus promises a hundredfold now, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 5.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The story appears in Mark, and the other acknowledged Gospels agree with it in meaning, though their wording differs slightly.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 5.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ's words must not be taken in a fleshly way; their hidden meaning must be searched out carefully.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 5.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Even the sayings Christ explained to his disciples need careful attention, because of their depth.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 5.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Sayings that seem simple but bear on salvation itself, like this one, must be read with the mind fixed on the Savior's spirit and hidden meaning.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 8.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · One must first know the Father, revealed only by the Son, and then the greatness of the Savior, whose grace surpasses the law given through Moses.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The saying about the first and last applies to all believers and is set aside for now.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The camel has a deeper mystical meaning, which Clement reserves for another work.
Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whoever trusts the Scriptures and lives by them will see their truth proved at death.
Miscellanies 1.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement defends writing down Christian teaching: if pagans write freely, the preacher of truth should leave written benefit to later generations, as a father leaves children.
Miscellanies 1.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Teaching gives life when soul meets soul; but since knowledge is not for all, Christ spoke in parables, exposing the ignorance that already existed rather than causing it.
Miscellanies 1.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The parable of the talents shows that teaching must be put to work, not hidden; Paul too commands entrusting the word to faithful teachers.
Miscellanies 1.1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Both writer and preacher proclaim the word; the hearer is responsible for his choice; proclaiming gives the beginnings of faith and salvation, and Paul charges Timothy to teach impartially.
Miscellanies 1.1.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those whose inner eye is dimmed should turn to the truth in Scripture, which rekindles the soul's spark; as Plato and Pythagoras taught, one should help the needy but not the idle.
Miscellanies 1.1.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement's notes preserve the teaching of the blessed men he heard in Greece, southern Italy, and the East, and last in Egypt, a teacher like a Sicilian bee; they handed on the apostles' tradition.
Miscellanies 1.1.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Writing preserves the tradition, as used wells stay clear and used iron stays bright; wisdom must be shared like a lamp on a stand; teachers learn as they teach, since the one Teacher inspires both.
Miscellanies 1.1.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ shared the mysteries only with those able to receive them; secret things are entrusted to speech, not writing; what is hidden will be revealed to the few who can grasp it; God gave the church apostles, prophets, and teachers.
Miscellanies 1.1.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stromata will hint rather than state, refute the heresies, and prepare the ground for the higher knowledge of the tradition; it will use the best of philosophy, becoming Greek to the Greeks, as Paul did.
Miscellanies 1.1.16Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Learning seasons the work like sauce on an athlete's food; familiar sayings are included to win the many, and with time and labor the one pearl of truth will shine out among them.
Miscellanies 1.1.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Like the cook and the shepherd, readers use Greek learning for different ends; Clement uses the Greeks' own writings to water their soil so that it may receive the spiritual seed.
Miscellanies 1.1.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stromata hide the truth among philosophical doctrines like a kernel in its shell; against those who think philosophy useless or evil, Clement will show that it too is a work of providence.
Miscellanies 1.2.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Even if philosophy were useless, showing it so is useful; one must understand the Greeks to refute them; and wide learning commends the truth to hearers and catechumens.
Miscellanies 1.2.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy is not a corrupter of life but a clear image of truth, a divine gift to the Greeks; comparing doctrines strengthens faith and leads to knowledge, and the Stromata hide its seeds in learning.
Miscellanies 1.2.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Truth sought with labor is sweet; the work is arranged obscurely because it is dangerous to divulge secret teaching to contentious people.
Miscellanies 1.4.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Homer, Hesiod, and Daniel call craftsmen and sages “wise”; Scripture calls every worldly art wisdom and shows that skill comes from God, who filled Bezalel with the spirit of wisdom.
Miscellanies 1.4.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God gives understanding to those who prepare themselves; craftsmen excel in bodily senses, and poets, rhetoricians, dialecticians, and philosophers in a mental perception strengthened by practice.
Miscellanies 1.4.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God's wisdom is manifold, working through art, knowledge, faith, and prophecy; all wisdom comes from the Lord; beyond philosophy's perception lies the divine perception of godliness.
Miscellanies 1.5.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Before Christ, philosophy was given to the Greeks for righteousness, as the law was to the Hebrews: a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ; now it is a useful preparation for faith.
Miscellanies 1.5.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · There is one way of truth fed by many streams; Scripture speaks of many ways of wisdom; the harlot of Proverbs is foolish pleasure, not Greek learning; worldly studies should be used but not dwelt in, as some neglect their mistress philosophy for her maidservants.
Miscellanies 1.5.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As general studies serve philosophy, philosophy serves wisdom, the knowledge of things divine and human; Abraham first took Hagar, worldly learning, and afterward Sarah, true wisdom, bore Isaac.
Miscellanies 1.5.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following Philo, Hagar is “sojourning” and Sarah “my rule”; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob stand for learning, natural gift, and practice, which together make the seal of knowledge.
Miscellanies 1.5.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham's words to Sarah show that worldly learning is a handmaid to true knowledge; philosophy is an inquiry into truth, and Christ is the truth; preliminary training sharpens the mind for rest in him.
Miscellanies 1.7.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Good deeds without faith do not profit after death; the Scriptures were translated into Greek so the Greeks would have no excuse; many ways lead to the one gate of righteousness, which is Christ, as 1 Clement shows.
Miscellanies 1.9.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some want bare faith without learning, like expecting grapes without tending the vine; but Christ, the vine, must be cultivated; the educated believer gathers what is useful from every study to defend the faith.
Miscellanies 1.9.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Though prophets and apostles lacked technical learning, their hidden meaning needs skilled teaching to be understood; dialectic helps answer questioners; action should come from reason, the Word, not mere habit.
Miscellanies 1.11.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Worldly wisdom is folly with God, and boasting belongs only in knowing the Lord; when Paul warns against “philosophy and empty deceit,” he means not all philosophy but the Epicurean, which denies providence.
Miscellanies 1.11.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul prays for discerning love; philosophers are infants under the elements unless Christ makes them mature; Hagar's son is still Abraham's seed; solid food is for the mature, who test all things.
Miscellanies 1.12.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The tradition is not for all; the wisdom Christ taught in a mystery must be guarded, as Isaiah's lips were cleansed; Clement hesitates to cast pearls before swine.
Miscellanies 1.12.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The natural man cannot receive the Spirit's truths; the secret tradition must be handed on only to the fit; the Stromata scatter the truth so that only a good farmer will make it grow.
Miscellanies 1.13.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ecclesiastes and Proverbs praise abundant wisdom; the one versed in every kind of wisdom, Greek and barbarian, is truly knowing; wisdom is worth more than gold.
Miscellanies 1.14.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greeks' Seven Wise Men are listed; Paul quotes Epimenides of Crete as a prophet and a Greek poet on the resurrection, showing that Greek poets held some truth.
Miscellanies 1.14.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greek sages lived after Moses, and their brief, riddling style resembles the Hebrew; “Know yourself,” variously attributed, urges us to seek knowledge of the whole, including the origin of the world.
Miscellanies 1.14.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The famous sayings of the Seven Sages and their disputed authors are listed; Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosopher.
Miscellanies 1.14.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek philosophy descends in three successions, Italian, Ionian, and Eleatic; Pythagoras and Thales were probably of barbarian origin, and Thales learned from Egyptian priests.
Miscellanies 1.14.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The succession of the Ionian school leads to Socrates, then Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, with their successors.
Miscellanies 1.14.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stoic and Eleatic successions are traced to Epicurus; next Clement will give their dates to prove that Hebrew philosophy is many generations older.
Miscellanies 1.14.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The dates of the early philosophers are fixed by events: Thales' eclipse about the fiftieth Olympiad, Pythagoras about the sixty-second, Solon about the forty-sixth, Heraclitus in the time of Darius.
Miscellanies 1.15.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Most early Greek sages were barbarians or learned from barbarians: Pythagoras from Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Magi; Plato admits he learned from barbarians and visited Egypt.
Miscellanies 1.15.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato, unlike Epicurus, recognizes barbarian philosophers; barbarians honored their lawgivers as gods, believing good souls came down to give laws and philosophy, the greatest gift of the gods.
Miscellanies 1.15.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Many barbarian peoples philosophized about divine things; Plato honored them, knowing that he and Pythagoras learned their best doctrines from them.
Miscellanies 1.15.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagoras, Plato, and Eudoxus studied with Egyptian priests; Plato tells how an Egyptian taught Solon that the Greeks are children; Democritus learned from Babylon, Persia, and Egypt.
Miscellanies 1.15.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagoras is said to have studied with an Assyrian sage and with Galatians and Brahmins; a Jew associated with Aristotle; stories of the Sibyl's origin and continued prophecy are reported.
Miscellanies 1.15.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Numa, taught by Moses, forbade images of God; philosophy flourished first among barbarian peoples, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Druids, Magi, and Indian sages, including the followers of Boutta (the Buddha), before reaching the Greeks.
Miscellanies 1.15.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scythians, Hyperboreans, and German prophetesses had their sages, but the Jews are by far the oldest; Philo, Aristobulus, and Megasthenes show that their philosophy preceded the Greeks'.
Miscellanies 1.15.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Myths make the Idaean Dactyls, Atlas, and Chiron the first sages, all barbarians; their dates should be compared with Moses' age.
Miscellanies 1.16.74Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The barbarians invented nearly every art: astronomy, calendars, geometry, divination, and music.
Miscellanies 1.16.75Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Barbarians invented letters, medicine, ships, iron and bronze working, weapons, sculpture, mining, and instruments.
Miscellanies 1.16.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · More inventions of barbarians: dyes, metallurgy, boxing, musical modes and instruments, furniture, ships, linen, and letters.
Miscellanies 1.16.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists his sources on inventions; the Greeks learned from barbarians; Anacharsis the Scythian shows a philosophy of deeds, not words.
Miscellanies 1.16.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul says that one who does not understand a language is a “barbarian” to its speaker; prose and many poetic forms came late to the Greeks.
Miscellanies 1.16.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek poetic forms, rhetoric, grammar, and lawgiving all came long after Moses.
Miscellanies 1.16.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some say Greek philosophy grasps truth by chance, others that it comes from the devil or lesser powers; Clement holds that, though it cannot grasp the whole truth, it prepares the way for Christ's teaching.
Miscellanies 1.17.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some apply “all who came before me are thieves” to philosophy, saying it was stolen by a fallen angel; the prophets were sent servants; even if philosophy was stolen, God permitted it and providence turned it to good.
Miscellanies 1.17.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The false prophets stole the name of prophet; they served the devil, the father of lies, yet spoke some truths, as Hermas says; God orders all things for good.
Miscellanies 1.17.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy holds a little stolen fire, a trace of wisdom: the Greek philosophers took portions of truth from the Hebrew prophets, distorting some and discovering some; the prophets, by contrast, received from Christ's fullness.
Miscellanies 1.18.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's “wise man” and “debater of this age” are the Greek philosophers; the cross is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Greeks, but Christ's coming made believers wise; those who refused chose unbelief.
Miscellanies 1.19.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul at the Areopagus approved what Greek poets said well, quoting Aratus, and taught that the “unknown god” the Greeks honored is the Creator, who must be known through the Son.
Miscellanies 1.19.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ sent Paul to open the Gentiles' eyes, turning them to God through the Son; Clement accepts not all philosophy, but that of the few true philosophers, as Socrates says in Plato: many are called, few chosen.
Miscellanies 1.19.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato shows the hope of the righteous after death and distinguishes true philosophers, lovers of truth, from the merely learned; the general studies are roads to the good, not the good itself.
Miscellanies 1.19.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · However the Greeks came by some truths, whether by chance, nature, or reflection, all comes from the one God; they saw God dimly as in a mirror, as we do now, but face to face comes after death.
Miscellanies 1.20.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy is a joint cause helping toward the truth, like one of many men hauling a ship; truth is one, with partial truths in each field, but the sovereign, unassailable truth is found through the Son.
Miscellanies 1.20.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As one coin has many names, virtue and truth appear in many forms; Greek truth differs from Christian truth in greatness, proof, and divine power, since Christians are taught by the Son of God.
Miscellanies 1.20.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Philosophy is a preliminary training and joint cause, not a necessary condition: most believers received the word of God by faith without it; it justified the Greeks partially, and it helps with clarity and defense against heresies.
Miscellanies 1.20.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's teaching is complete in itself; philosophy adds no power to it but serves as a hedge against sophistry and as dessert to the bread of faith; the Greeks who took from the barbarians as their own are thieves who hold partial truths.
Miscellanies 1.21.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement now turns to chronology, to prove that Hebrew philosophy is the oldest; following Tatian and Cassian, he cites Apion and Ptolemy of Mendes, who date the Exodus under Amosis, in the time of Inachus.
Miscellanies 1.21.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek history begins with Inachus of Argos; the Exodus under Amosis falls in Inachus' time, long before the Trojan War and the other Greek genealogies.
Miscellanies 1.21.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato follows Acusilaus in making Phoroneus the first man; the mythical events of Greece are dated by the kings of Argos after Inachus.
Miscellanies 1.21.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The various dates given for the fall of Troy are set out; Theseus and Heracles lived a generation earlier.
Miscellanies 1.21.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses preceded the deification of Dionysus by 604 years and the other Greek heroes and gods by even more.
Miscellanies 1.21.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Cadmus, Isis, Prometheus, and Apis all lived generations after Moses; Sarapis is explained as the deified Apis.
Miscellanies 1.21.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Leto, Apollo, the first musicians, Homer and Hesiod, the lawgivers, and the sages all came after Moses, who is older even than most Greek gods.
Miscellanies 1.21.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Sibyl, of whom there were several, is older than Orpheus.
Miscellanies 1.21.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement begins the chronology of Israel after Moses: Joshua, then the judges Othniel and Ehud.
Miscellanies 1.21.110Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Abimelech, and Tola.
Miscellanies 1.21.111Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Jephthah, the minor judges, Samson, Eli, Samuel, and Saul.
Miscellanies 1.21.112Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Samuel, Saul, and David; from Joshua to David's death Clement counts 523 years and seven months.
Miscellanies 1.21.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Solomon reigned forty years; Nathan and Ahijah prophesied; from Moses to Solomon some count 595 or 576 years, or 610 on another reckoning.
Miscellanies 1.21.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · To Solomon's death Clement counts 683 years and seven months from Moses; Solomon married Hiram's daughter at the time of Menelaus; the kingdom divided under Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
Miscellanies 1.21.115Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology continues through Abijam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah, with the prophets Jehu, Elijah, Micaiah, and Elisha.
Miscellanies 1.21.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Athaliah reigned until Joash, saved by Jehosheba, took the throne; from Solomon to Elisha's death Clement counts 181 years.
Miscellanies 1.21.118Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Under Amaziah, Uzziah, and Jotham, the prophets Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah, Micah, and Joel prophesied.
Miscellanies 1.21.119Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Under Ahaz, Hoshea, and Hezekiah, Israel was deported; God added fifteen years to Hezekiah's life by turning back the sun; the prophets of this time lived about the age of Lycurgus.
Miscellanies 1.21.120Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Manasseh, Amon, and Josiah reigned; Josiah destroyed the idols and kept the Passover; the book of the law was found; Huldah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah prophesied; Josiah was killed by Neco.
Miscellanies 1.21.121Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The last kings of Judah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, bring the chronology to the exile: from Moses' birth, 1,085 years; from David, 482.
Miscellanies 1.21.122Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, blinded Zedekiah, and began the seventy-year captivity; Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Nahum, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi prophesied.
Miscellanies 1.21.123Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · In the period of the exile and return: Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem; Esther and Mordecai, the three youths in the furnace, Daniel in the lions' den, Jonah, and Tobit belong to this time.
Miscellanies 1.21.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Zerubbabel won the right to restore Jerusalem; with Ezra came the renewal of the Scriptures, the Passover, and the end of foreign marriages; from Moses' birth to the restoration Clement counts 1,155 years.
Miscellanies 1.21.125Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks, fulfilled from the Babylonian captivity, is quoted in full.
Miscellanies 1.21.127Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The captivity began in the forty-eighth Olympiad and lasted seventy years to the second year of Darius, when Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi prophesied and Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple.
Miscellanies 1.21.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists the Persian kings (235 years) and the Macedonian kings of Egypt.
Miscellanies 1.21.129Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Even the latest prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, were older than Pythagoras and Thales, the oldest of the Greek sages.
Miscellanies 1.21.130Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Solomon, contemporary with the Trojan War, was far older than the Greek sages, and Moses older still; letters between Solomon and the kings of Egypt and Tyre are recorded by Alexander Polyhistor.
Miscellanies 1.21.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The poems ascribed to Orpheus and Musaeus are late forgeries; the early Greek poets are all dated centuries after Moses.
Miscellanies 1.21.132Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists many Greek soothsayers and Sibyls, all later than the Hebrew prophets.
Miscellanies 1.21.133Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Many Greeks practiced divination, from Mopsus and Pythagoras to Socrates, who spoke of his divine sign.
Miscellanies 1.21.134Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists more Egyptian and Greek seers, all later than the Hebrew prophets.
Miscellanies 1.21.135Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek seers foretold by observation or demonic influence, but the Hebrew prophets spoke by God's power; Clement lists them from Adam to Malachi.
Miscellanies 1.21.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · There were thirty-five prophets and five prophetesses, and in the New Testament John, Anna, Simeon, and Zechariah; the Greek chronology from Moses is then summarized.
Miscellanies 1.21.137Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology of Greek legend from Perseus to the first Olympiad.
Miscellanies 1.21.138Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Eratosthenes' chronology from Troy to Alexander, and the Roman dates from the founding of Rome.
Miscellanies 1.21.139Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The chronology is brought down to the death of the emperor Commodus (AD 192), with the differing reckonings of the historians.
Miscellanies 1.21.140Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The biblical chronology from Adam to the death of Commodus is summarized by major periods.
Miscellanies 1.21.141Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Jewish chronographers Demetrius and Eupolemus reckon the years of the captivities and from Adam to the Hellenistic kings.
Miscellanies 1.21.142Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some historians count seventy-five nations from Moses' seventy-five descendants of Jacob; Scripture counts seventy-two languages; the Greeks have five dialects.
Miscellanies 1.21.143Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato attributes language to gods and even animals; the original languages are barbarian and name things by nature, as Plato admits of the word “fire.”
Miscellanies 1.21.144Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists the Roman emperors and their reigns from Augustus to Commodus, to fix the date of Christ's birth.
Miscellanies 1.21.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Daniel's 1,290 and 1,335 days are cited; Josephus and others reckon from Moses; Matthew's genealogy has three periods of fourteen generations, six sevens.
Miscellanies 1.22.148Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek under Ptolemy I or II, with Demetrius of Phalerum managing the work, for the library at Alexandria.
Miscellanies 1.22.149Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Seventy elders translated separately, yet their translations agreed word for word by God's will, a kind of Greek prophecy; so too Ezra, inspired, restored the Scriptures lost in the exile.
Miscellanies 1.22.150Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Aristobulus says Plato and Pythagoras learned from an earlier Greek translation of the law; Numenius calls Plato “Moses speaking Attic”; Clement now turns to Moses' life.
Miscellanies 1.23.151Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses, of Chaldean descent and born in Egypt, was hidden three months from Pharaoh's decree and then placed in a papyrus basket by the river, watched by his sister.
Miscellanies 1.23.152Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pharaoh's daughter found Moses, his sister brought his own mother as nurse, and the princess named him Moses, from the Egyptian word for water.
Miscellanies 1.23.153Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses, also called Joachim and in heaven Melchi, was educated by Egyptians and Greeks in every science; Eupolemus says he taught letters to the Jews, from whom they passed to the Phoenicians and Greeks; he killed the Egyptian who attacked a Hebrew.
Miscellanies 1.23.154Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A tradition says Moses killed the Egyptian by a word, as Peter did Ananias and Sapphira; Artapanus tells how Moses, freed from prison, spoke God's name into Pharaoh's ear and struck him speechless.
Miscellanies 1.23.156Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ezekiel's drama continues with the Hebrew's challenge to Moses; Moses fled and became a shepherd, a training for ruling the human flock.
Miscellanies 1.23.157Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptians ignored God's warnings; the Hebrews' taking of Egyptian goods at the Exodus was not greed but a just wage for years of unpaid slavery.
Miscellanies 1.24.160Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses was the source of Greek strategy: leading Israel out, he avoided the direct road, took the desert route, and traveled by night, and the long journey trained the people in faith.
Miscellanies 1.24.161Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' foresight was proved when the pursuing Egyptians drowned; the pillar of fire led Israel through the desert, training them in courage and endurance before the promised land.
Miscellanies 1.24.162Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' tactic of attacking from the desert was imitated by Miltiades at Marathon, who led the Athenians by night along a trackless way to surprise the Persians.
Miscellanies 1.24.163Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A guiding fire led Thrasybulus by night, making the pillar of fire credible to Greeks; the pillar signifies that God cannot be imaged and that his light is unchanging.
Miscellanies 1.25.165Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato learned legislation from Moses: he preferred a constitution with one aim, looking to one God and justice; the true statesman is the Creator, and good government unites fitting rulers and obedient subjects, as Moses sought.
Miscellanies 1.25.166Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato made contemplation the goal of both statesman and law-abiding citizen; law is true opinion that finds what truly is, as God is “He who is”; some call it right reason commanding and forbidding.
Miscellanies 1.26.167Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law given through Moses is a rule of justice leading to God; Paul says it was a schoolmaster guarding us until Christ; Moses was a living law.
Miscellanies 1.26.168Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' constitution and judgments corrected souls; the philosophers call only the wise man king, lawgiver, general, just, and holy, and Scripture shows all this in Moses, who was truly wise.
Miscellanies 1.26.170Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greeks disbelieve that God gave the law through Moses, yet claim their own lawgivers received laws from gods, imitating Moses without acknowledging him.
Miscellanies 1.27.174Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul shows the law's benefit to the Jews; wisdom bears law and mercy; the law and the gospel are the work of one Lord, Christ, God's power and wisdom.
Miscellanies 1.27.175Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The prophets and Paul reproach those who do not understand the law; the law is good if used rightly, and its aim is love from a pure heart.
Miscellanies 1.28.176Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' philosophy has four parts: history, law, priestly ritual, and theology; true dialectic, as Plato says, aims to speak and act in a way pleasing to God.
Miscellanies 1.28.177Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · True dialectic, joined to true philosophy, rises to God and guides right action; Scripture calls us to be approved money-changers, testing all things and keeping what is good.
Miscellanies 1.28.179Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul knew the mystery by revelation and spoke to those able to receive it; the law must be read in three ways, as sign, as commandment, and as prophecy; Scripture must be studied carefully, not all lumped together.
Miscellanies 1.29.180Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptian priest in Plato calls the Greeks children without ancient learning; the “old” wisdom is that of the barbarians, the Hebrews, while Greek myths and reasonings are childish.
Miscellanies 1.29.181Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hermas says revelations are given for the double-minded; learning strengthens the wavering; Scripture calls the law a light, and Pindar and Hesiod, guessing, speak of the divine lawgiver who gave justice to humans.
Miscellanies 2.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Book 2 will show that the Greeks stole and falsified the Hebrews' doctrines on faith, wisdom, knowledge, hope, repentance, self-control, and the fear of God, and imitated their symbolic style.
Miscellanies 2.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement will also answer Greek charges against Christians, hoping to convert both Jews and Greeks by a loving refutation, and will examine the general studies, astrology, and magic.
Miscellanies 2.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement cares for meaning, not polished Greek; truth hidden among Greek writings must be sought with effort, like a rose among thorns or a pearl in an oyster.
Miscellanies 2.2.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Christian philosophy is perfect: Wisdom speaks of knowledge of nature and of hidden things; it leads to God, who is far in essence but near in power, seeing all things.
Miscellanies 2.2.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Solomon praises those who seek wisdom and understanding; the inspired search the depths of God, but holy things must not be given to the dogs.
Miscellanies 2.2.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Heraclitus blames those who do not believe; the prophets say the righteous live by faith and that without faith there is no understanding; faith is a voluntary preconception and assent, as Hebrews defines it.
Miscellanies 2.2.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is an intellectual assent and the beginning of action and knowledge; for the believer, God's voice in Scripture is itself an irrefutable demonstration; blessed are those who believe without seeing.
Miscellanies 2.4.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christians, free to choose, rest on faith in God's word as an unshakable criterion; Hebrews 11 shows that faith justified the righteous even before the law.
Miscellanies 2.4.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hebrews lists many heroes of faith; truth is known through sense, mind, knowledge, and opinion; faith passes beyond opinion to truth; first principles cannot be demonstrated.
Miscellanies 2.4.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Only faith reaches the first principle of all things, which the Greek philosophers never knew; knowledge is demonstrative, but faith is a grace that rises to the simple, immaterial God.
Miscellanies 2.4.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Materialists drag everything down to what can be touched, while Platonists defend invisible forms; Christ gives new eyes to see what faith grasps; faith, like a money-changer's skill, is the criterion of knowledge.
Miscellanies 2.4.16Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Conjecture counterfeits faith; virtue is learned by obeying the Word, and to obey him is to believe him; faith and knowledge support each other; even Epicurus called faith a preconception without which no inquiry is possible.
Miscellanies 2.4.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · No one can learn without a preconception, which is faith; so Isaiah's “if you do not believe, you will not understand” is true, and Heraclitus paraphrased it.
Miscellanies 2.5.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greek doctrine that the wise man possesses all things and is dear to God comes from Moses: Abraham was God's friend, Jacob saw God, Isaac was a type of Christ's sacrifice, and God spoke with Moses as with a friend.
Miscellanies 2.5.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wisdom belongs to the faithful; knowledge of the first principle is by faith; if Pythagoreans accept “he himself said it,” how much more should we trust Christ, the only Savior; only the mind truly hears.
Miscellanies 2.6.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith comes from hearing the preached word of God; the word of the Lord is itself a demonstration; as in a ball game, teaching needs hearers who receive it with faith.
Miscellanies 2.6.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is a willing preconception, confidence a firm judgment; we trust God alone, who keeps his promises; Abraham's faith was reckoned as righteousness, and we, his seed by hearing, must believe; the one God gave both covenants.
Miscellanies 2.6.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Gentile church has inherited Israel's covenant; the old and new covenants are one in power, given by one God through the Son; salvation runs “from faith to faith,” from prophecy to gospel.
Miscellanies 2.7.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · To attack fear is to attack the law and the God who gave it; without law, desire rules; the fear the commandments inspire is not irrational but rational, whatever the philosophers call it.
Miscellanies 2.9.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Brotherly love binds those who share the Spirit, as Paul teaches in Romans 12; the Jews had zeal without knowledge, following the letter of the law and not the Christ it prophesied, the end of the law.
Miscellanies 2.9.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The calling of the Gentiles was foretold because of Israel's disobedience, yet God's goodness seeks Israel's repentance; the Shepherd of Hermas knows righteous people among Gentiles and Jews even before the law.
Miscellanies 2.10.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Christian philosopher holds to three things, contemplation, keeping the commandments, and forming good people; Leviticus 18 commands Israel to keep God's ordinances and live by them.
Miscellanies 2.11.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Worldly knowledge puffs up, but faithful knowledge is a sure demonstration from the Scriptures; faith and demonstration are each twofold, scientific or opinion-based, and faith is a power of God.
Miscellanies 2.11.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith moves mountains and heals; human demonstration uses rhetoric and logic, but the highest demonstration, from the divine Scriptures, produces faith and true knowledge.
Miscellanies 2.11.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham and Moses “stood” before God, as faith keeps the soul steady; false knowledge has discredited true knowledge, as Paul warns Timothy, which is why the heretics reject those letters; the one who knows Christ knows the Father.
Miscellanies 2.12.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge understands prophecy, whose fulfillment in past and present confirms what is still hoped for; faith grasps the past and hope the future; even the philosophers say assent is in our power.
Miscellanies 2.15.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following Barnabas, Clement reads Psalm 1 with the food laws: scaleless fish, the pig, and birds of prey stand for kinds of sinners; a wise teacher read the three phrases as Gentiles, Jewish belief, and the heresies.
Miscellanies 2.16.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Critics say joy and pity are passions; but we err if we read Scripture's language about God in a fleshly way, for the prophets spoke as we could hear, the Lord accommodating himself to human weakness.
Miscellanies 2.18.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The virtues recorded by Moses gave the Greeks the beginning of ethics; the law teaches godliness, justice, and prudence by forbidding idols and binding us to the Maker and Father.
Miscellanies 2.18.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law exempts from war the man with a new house, vineyard, or bride, both so soldiers are undistracted and out of humanity, lest another enjoy his labors.
Miscellanies 2.19.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Noah was saved by devotion to God; of Abraham's many children only Isaac inherited, and of Isaac's twins the younger received the blessing, a prophetic type; all things belong to the wise, who long for the one through whom all things were made.
Miscellanies 3.4.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Opposers misread Malachi's “they opposed God and were saved,” which reports the grumbling of the chastised people, not a command; if any God is “shameless,” it is the devil.
Miscellanies 3.4.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul condemns “let us do evil that good may come”; the heretics twist Scripture by changing accents and punctuation, and Malachi rebukes those who say evildoers please God.
Miscellanies 3.6.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law aims at self-restrained marriage and family life; Christ fulfilled, not abolished it; marriage can be used with self-control, and those who call intercourse polluted, being born of it, condemn themselves.
Miscellanies 3.10.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The two or three may also be Jews and Gentiles made one new man in the church, and law, prophets, and gospel united in one knowledge; those who refuse marriage from hatred or misuse the flesh from desire are not among them.
Miscellanies 3.11.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement turns to the Scriptures that refute the heretics: the law's “you shall not covet” anticipated Christ's “you shall not desire”; the law's rule on captive women shows it meant marriage to be used with restraint and for children.
Miscellanies 3.11.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul proclaims the same God in law and gospel, attributing “you shall not covet” to the law; his words that no good dwells in his flesh refer to indwelling sin, not to the Creator's work.
Miscellanies 3.13.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The saying Cassianus cites is not in the four Gospels handed down but in the Gospel of the Egyptians; male and female there mean anger and desire, and when they are overcome the soul becomes one, as Paul says there is neither male nor female.
Miscellanies 4.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement plans to treat the philosophers' first principles, then prophecy and the authority of Scripture, showing against the heresies one God proclaimed by law, prophets, and gospel.
Miscellanies 4.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Only after completing the ethical preparation, like the lesser mysteries before the greater, will Clement treat the knowing tradition's natural philosophy, beginning from the creation account and rising to theology.
Miscellanies 4.2.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Miscellanies are deliberately varied and indirect, so that only the right reader finds the gold; like miners, the akin will find much in little.
Miscellanies 4.2.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Miscellanies, rich in seed like every herb of the field, are named fittingly, like the mixed ancient offering Sophocles describes.
Miscellanies 4.2.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Like a farm that yields everything, the Miscellanies offer mixed fruits; the reader must winnow them to pick out the wheat.
Miscellanies 4.17.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement of Rome, whom Clement calls an apostle, praises the Corinthians' faith, godliness, hospitality, and knowledge, and holds up Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Rahab, and the prophets as models.
Miscellanies 4.21.130Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One may be perfect in particular virtues, but no one save Christ in all; the law's perfection leads to the gospel; even the knowing martyr is called “perfect” only at the completion of life, when his blood, offered through love, sends his spirit on.
Miscellanies 4.21.134Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The apostles' writings show all the virtues; though Paul came later, his writing breathes the Old Testament, since faith in Christ explains and fulfills the law; without faith the old covenant is not understood.
Miscellanies 4.26.169Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isaiah's “hear, heaven, give ear, earth” addresses the knowing soul as heaven and the ignorant as earth; Micah and Abraham also address the earthbound; the unbeliever is already judged.
Miscellanies 5.1.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Unbelievers are foolish, and useless disputes should be avoided; inquiry with faith is best; there are things not to be inquired into, but where God has spoken in Scripture, faith is established beyond dispute.
Miscellanies 5.1.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God makes foolish the wisdom of the world; Jeremiah bids us ask for the good way; Numa founded a temple of Faith; Abraham believed, and his name change from Abram, “elevated father,” signifies his turn from natural philosophy to knowledge of the one God.
Miscellanies 5.1.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greek philosophers stole their chief doctrines from Moses and the prophets; also the fallen angels revealed secrets to women; so Greek thought is partly true by conjecture and partly wrong through misreading prophetic allegory.
Miscellanies 5.3.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The many demand proofs rather than trusting faith; Empedocles says the wicked distrust the truth; Clement will speak to Greeks through their own wisdom, as Paul became all things to all, for God's grace falls on all and God is God of the Gentiles too.
Miscellanies 5.4.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The crowd judges by pleasure, not truth; the unready must stay outside the divine chorus; hence the Egyptians' sanctuaries and the Hebrews' veil symbolize the concealment of sacred truth, which only the purified may approach.
Miscellanies 5.4.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Prophecies and mysteries are veiled in riddles; the Egyptians learn three scripts, demotic, hieratic, and hieroglyphic, the last partly literal and partly symbolic, figurative, or enigmatic.
Miscellanies 5.4.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptians used enigmatic hieroglyphs, like the scarab for the sun; all theologians, barbarian and Greek, have veiled first principles in riddles, symbols, and allegories, as the Greek oracles did.
Miscellanies 5.4.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · “Know yourself” has many meanings: that you are mortal, of little account, whose image you bear, and how you are akin to God; Isaiah's hidden treasures are God's wisdom, hard to find.
Miscellanies 5.4.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The poets, taught by the prophets, veiled their theology in poetry, not from envy but to stir inquiry, as Sophocles says the god speaks in riddles to the wise.
Miscellanies 5.4.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All Scripture is spoken in parables, as the psalm says; Paul speaks God's hidden wisdom among the perfect, revealed by the Spirit; the unspiritual man cannot receive it.
Miscellanies 5.4.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul calls the common faith milk and foundation, and knowledge solid food and precious building; the heresies build stubble; fire will test each work; spiritual gifts could not be written openly.
Miscellanies 5.5.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Eurysus the Pythagorean said the Creator made man using himself as model, echoing Genesis; Pythagoras and Plato drew on Moses; Greek philosophy is like lamplight stolen from the sun, useful by night but outshone when the Word dawned.
Miscellanies 5.6.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Almost all Scripture speaks in riddles; the temple's enclosures and the high priest's robe are symbols, and the veil's four colors stand for the four elements that reveal God.
Miscellanies 5.6.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The altar of incense stood between the holy of holies and the court, symbolizing earth or the boundary of the intelligible and sensible worlds; the outer veil with five pillars bars those bound to the five senses, as the five loaves fed the crowd; knowledge of God is beyond the senses.
Miscellanies 5.6.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Son is the Father's face, made flesh; the inner veil with four pillars signifies the four covenants and the four-letter divine Name, pronounced “Iaoue”; Christ alone as high priest enters the unspeakable; the seven-branched lampstand represents the sun among the planets.
Miscellanies 5.6.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The golden lampstand is a sign of Christ, giving light in many ways; the seven lamps are the seven spirits on Jesse's rod; the table of loaves, the ark, and the six-winged cherubim symbolize the churches, the intelligible world, and the heavens.
Miscellanies 5.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A tragic poet describes time and the twin Bears; the ark (Hebrew tēbāh) signifies the intelligible world or God, and rest with the glorifying spirits; the cherubim are not images but symbols of the rational soul, its ministries, and ceaseless praise.
Miscellanies 5.6.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The high priest's robe symbolizes the sensible world: the stones are the planets or ways of salvation, the 360 bells the year of the Lord's favor proclaiming the Savior, and the golden crown Christ's kingship as head of the church.
Miscellanies 5.6.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The high priest's headdress signifies that God is head of Christ; the breastpiece's parts signify work and the Word; its twelve stones the zodiac or the righteous of both covenants; the Name on the gold plate is the Son, image of the invisible God, beginning of all things.
Miscellanies 5.7.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptians, like the Hebrews, kept their mysteries hidden; their symbols include the sun on a ship or crocodile; a temple gate at Diospolis shows a child, an old man, a hawk, a fish, and a crocodile.
Miscellanies 5.7.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Diospolis symbols together say, “You who are born and die, God hates shamelessness”; votive ears and eyes mean God sees and hears all; the lion, ox, horse, sphinx, and man are further Egyptian symbols.
Miscellanies 5.7.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · In Egyptian processions two dogs, a hawk, and an ibis, called “four letters,” symbolize the hemispheres or tropics, the sun or equator, and the moon or ecliptic.
Miscellanies 5.8.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Symbolic interpretation serves theology, piety, and wisdom; children's primers teach the elements through obscure words like the Phrygian “bedy,” meaning water or air.
Miscellanies 5.8.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek writers explain the obscure words of the old primer: bedy is air or water, zaps the sea, chthōn the earth, plēktron the pole or air.
Miscellanies 5.8.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A third primer line hints that salvation is won by toil through understanding the world; Epigenes explains Orpheus's symbolic words for plows, seed, rain, the moon, and the seasons.
Miscellanies 5.8.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Pythagoreans and many philosophers and poets wrote enigmatically; Heraclitus was called “the Obscure,” and difficult poets like Callimachus and Lycophron are exercises for students.
Miscellanies 5.8.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' food laws are symbolic: the pig stands for greedy, unclean desire; as Barnabas explains, clean animals that part the hoof and chew the cud signify those who ponder God's word and live in this world while awaiting the next.
Miscellanies 5.8.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The unclean birds stand for plunderers, the unjust, and the greedy, whom we must avoid; the Psalms, 1 Clement, and Theognis teach that companions shape us; the horse and rider cast into the sea are desire and the soul that gives it rein.
Miscellanies 5.8.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato's fallen charioteer and Phaethon signify the soul overcome by passion; Joseph stripped of his coat and cast into the waterless pit signifies knowledge rejected by those with bare faith; the uncovered pit in the law introduces a lesson about teaching.
Miscellanies 5.8.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law of the uncovered pit teaches teachers to hide the depths of knowledge from those not ready, lest they stumble; the knowing teacher is accountable to God for those harmed by teaching beyond their capacity.
Miscellanies 5.8.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law and prophets were types until John, who, pointing to Christ, confessed himself unworthy to loose his sandal, that is, to baptize with his power, and so loosed the meaning of the prophecies; Roman will ceremonies are also symbolic.
Miscellanies 5.9.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture, the barbarian philosophy, is written symbolically for memory, brevity, and elevation; it is meant for those tested in faith and life, needing a guide; truth seen through a veil appears greater.
Miscellanies 5.9.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Concealed sayings admit several meanings, clear to the knower but not to the ignorant; the Pythagoreans expelled Hipparchus for publishing secrets; Scripture calls apostates dead and bids believers separate from the unclean.
Miscellanies 5.9.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Epicureans, Stoics, and Aristotelians also had secret teachings, and the mysteries hid doctrines in myths; so much more should holy contemplation be veiled; yet Scripture and Plato's myths are not to be allegorized word by word, only in their general meaning.
Miscellanies 5.10.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul speaks of a mystery hidden for ages and now revealed, and of a fuller knowledge for which he prays that the Colossians may be filled.
Miscellanies 5.10.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul asks for prayer to speak the mystery of Christ, and Hebrews distinguishes milk for infants from solid food for the perfect; some things were handed down unwritten.
Miscellanies 5.10.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Barnabas reads the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey as a hidden teaching about Christ in the flesh; the Lord keeps his mystery for the sons of his house, and knowing the Father is eternal life.
Miscellanies 5.10.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The prophets and David speak of hidden treasures and secret wisdom; Christ the Teacher has opened what was hidden, and Paul reserved the fullness of the tradition for teaching in person.
Miscellanies 5.11.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham's seeing the place “on the third day” means that after sight and desire the mind perceives spiritual things, opened by Christ who rose on the third day; God's place is seen only from afar.
Miscellanies 5.12.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture repeatedly speaks of hidden wisdom: the unleavened cakes hidden in ashes, Paul's hidden wisdom, Christ's mystery of the kingdom, his parables, and the leaven hidden in the meal.
Miscellanies 5.13.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato said we must believe the children of the gods even without proof; Clement applies this to the prophets and to Christ, the true Son, through whom God proclaimed the Scriptures.
Miscellanies 5.14.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Chapter 14 begins Clement's account of how the Greeks borrowed from the Hebrew Scriptures: the Stoic idea of God pervading all things misread Wisdom, and Plato hinted at a single first principle.
Miscellanies 6.3.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Samuel's prayer for rain shows that the one God answers the prayers of the righteous; the Greeks tell similar stories of Aristaeus and of the Delphians' sacrifice to the winds.
Miscellanies 6.3.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Empedocles was said to control the winds and heal, an idea taken from the Scriptures' righteous wonder-workers; but whatever powers move the winds, the one God is their Lord.
Miscellanies 6.3.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Democritus foretold rain from the stars; the Greeks should not then disbelieve the fire and trumpets at Sinai, seen, as Aristobulus says, by the whole assembled people.
Miscellanies 6.3.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God can produce a voice without any physical source to convert unbelievers; at Sinai Israel heard words but saw no form, for the Lord's voice is the formless Word.
Miscellanies 6.5.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The same God gave both covenants and gave philosophy to the Greeks; from both Greeks and Jews believers are gathered into one saved people, and God raised prophets for the Greeks too.
Miscellanies 6.5.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A saying ascribed to Paul points the Greeks to the Sibyl and Hystaspes as witnesses to one God and his Son; the Preaching of Peter tells of the apostles sent to the world after twelve years.
Miscellanies 6.6.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law was given to the Hebrews and philosophy to the Greeks as preparation for the gospel; the righteous of both lacked faith, and so the Lord preached also to those in Hades.
Miscellanies 6.7.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All good teaching goes back to the Lord; if some choke the seeds of truth, as the Pharisees did the law, the fault is theirs, while those who come to Christ from the law or from philosophy reach full knowledge.
Miscellanies 6.7.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ is wisdom, so knowledge taught by the Son is wisdom embracing past, present, and future; this knowledge came down unwritten from the apostles to a few and must be trained into constant contemplation.
Miscellanies 6.8.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul does not condemn philosophy but warns those who have reached knowledge not to go back to it, for it is only elementary training; and understanding itself is God's gift.
Miscellanies 6.8.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Understanding is God's gift, as the psalms show; God dealt with other nations too, though not as with his people, and in every nation whoever fears him is acceptable.
Miscellanies 6.8.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pleasure-loving Greek wisdom is the “wisdom of this age,” elementary and worldly; perfect knowledge concerns things beyond the world, revealed by Christ to the apostles, true knowers of all things.
Miscellanies 6.10.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Learning serves the one who knows as a helper, not a virtue: it teaches him to distinguish words and things, even in Scripture, and to guard the truth, while useless learning is to be avoided.
Miscellanies 6.11.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Geometry is illustrated by the tabernacle and Noah's ark, whose square timbers and pyramid-like proportions point to the holy dwelling places and to those purified by fire.
Miscellanies 6.11.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The ark's proportions are read as the cross (300), Pentecost (50), and the preaching (30 or 12), and the table in the temple as the earth with its four seasons and twelve months.
Miscellanies 6.11.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · David the harpist-prophet is the example of music; the ancient Hebrew psalmody was a model even for Terpander, and the lyre signifies the Lord, his ministers, and the saved people, while the harmony of law, prophets, and gospel is the church's symphony.
Miscellanies 6.11.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Learning serves philosophy and philosophy serves truth; the soul must be prepared like wool for weaving, and for the sake of others the teacher needs both general education and the Scriptures, especially with hearers from Greek schools.
Miscellanies 6.11.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The queen in many-colored robes in Psalm 45 is the church adorned with varied learning, but truth comes from the Lord, who gives wisdom and the Spirit; the knower understands past, future, and riddles.
Miscellanies 6.15.115Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower bears the closer likeness, the Teacher's mind, teaching and living it; a Christian must master his inner passions and exceed the Pharisees, and only the knower understands the hidden sayings of the Spirit, keeping silent before the unworthy.
Miscellanies 6.15.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The dark clouds, hail, and coals of Psalm 18 show that Scripture is hidden, clear to knowers but dark to the many; the knower knows when, how, and to whom to speak.
Miscellanies 6.15.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul circumcised Timothy and Daniel wore the Persian chain out of accommodation; the true liars are those who corrupt the essentials and do not hand on Scripture worthily, whereas the apostolic tradition is proclaimed and explained by the rule of truth.
Miscellanies 6.15.125Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ spoke all things in parables, including the law and prophets, which are understood by the church's rule, the harmony of the two covenants; knowledge leads to prudence and then self-restraint, and the perfect man's righteousness comes from love of God.
Miscellanies 6.15.126Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture hides its meaning so that we may keep searching and so that the unprepared are not harmed; its parabolic character matches the Lord who came as one of the world to lead us to higher realities.
Miscellanies 6.15.127Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The incarnation, virgin birth, passion, and resurrection look like a riddle to outsiders but, when the Scriptures are opened, are God's power and wisdom; prophecy spoke in veiled terms, and prophets, the Lord, and the apostles were all persecuted.
Miscellanies 6.15.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Preaching of Peter says the apostles found Christ's coming, death, cross, resurrection, and ascension in the prophets, spoken in parables, riddles, and plain words, and so believed; they say nothing without Scripture.
Miscellanies 6.15.129Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Each language has its own character; Greek writers use figures of speech deliberately for effect, in imitation of the prophets, but prophecy hides the truth not for beauty but so that only those who seek it in love will find it.
Miscellanies 6.15.130Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Proverbs 1 lists the forms of prophetic speech—proverb, parable, riddle, wisdom, instruction—and the Greek dialects, named from Hellen, are many generations younger than Hebrew.
Miscellanies 6.15.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hermas copied his book letter by letter without grasping the syllables: the plain reading is for faith, the deeper reading for knowledge; Isaiah's new book foretold the unwritten tradition the Savior gave the apostles, now written on new hearts.
Miscellanies 6.15.132Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Joshua and Caleb saw Moses double at his assumption, one with the angels and one buried: some see only the letter of Scripture, others its meaning; as Peter knew Christ as Son of God by the Father's revelation, so truth is seen gradually.
Miscellanies 6.16.133Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Ten Commandments, written by God's finger (his power), picture creation: a heavenly decalogue of sun, moon, stars, and elements and an earthly one of living things; the ark is wisdom, and the two tablets foretell two covenants.
Miscellanies 6.16.137Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The first commandment teaches the one Almighty God who brought Israel out of Egypt; the second forbids applying God's name to idols, for only He Who Is is uncreated; the third teaches creation and the Sabbath rest, which we, not God, need.
Miscellanies 6.16.146Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The fifth commandment's father is God and its mother is divine wisdom, not matter or the church; the commandment against adultery forbids forsaking true knowledge of God for false opinion and idolatry.
Miscellanies 6.16.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Idolatry is spiritual adultery, as the prophet says; murder is violently removing the truth about God's providence and eternity; theft is claiming God's creative work for human art, or counterfeiting true philosophy.
Miscellanies 6.16.148Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The stars and elements do not rule the world but obey God's word; the tenth commandment forbids desiring falsehood, such as the idea that created things act on their own, for they work only as instruments of God's providence, like tools in a craftsman's hand.
Miscellanies 6.18.166Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Human speech cannot express God's power and works, and even those taught by God reach only some knowledge of him by grace and the Spirit; only Christian wisdom is taught by God, and the Lord's coming was foretold by countless forerunners.
Miscellanies 6.18.168Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · If Plato and Democritus call inspired poets holy, how much more should we marvel at God's prophets; Clement closes his portrait of the knower and promises to treat creation later.
Miscellanies 7.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement announces that he will show the Greeks that the true Christian, the one who knows God, is the only truly pious person, sketching the faith first and giving the Scripture proofs later.
Miscellanies 7.15.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The truth can be found by demonstration from the Scriptures, which shows that exact knowledge belongs to the ancient church alone; heretics either deceive themselves or knowingly deceive others, and they head schools, not a church.
Miscellanies 7.16.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Seekers of truth must find their proof in the Scriptures and lay aside conceit; whoever has once received the gospel must not look back, like Lot's wife, either to his old life or to the heresies.
Miscellanies 7.16.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As Mary gave birth and remained a virgin, so the Scriptures give birth to the truth yet keep its mysteries hidden; those who know receive their offspring, while heretics, lacking the rule of truth, twist Scripture to suit their desires.
Miscellanies 7.16.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Whoever rejects the church's tradition for heresy becomes like Circe's beasts, while whoever returns to the Scriptures is made godlike; the Lord speaking in Scripture is the first principle, grasped by faith, and his voice is the surest proof.
Miscellanies 7.16.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Heretics use Scripture selectively, taking isolated ambiguous phrases and changing their meaning; the truth is found by reading Scripture as a whole and interpreting Scripture by Scripture in a way worthy of God.
Miscellanies 7.16.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · When refuted from Scripture, heretical leaders prefer their own opinions to the prophets, gospel, and apostles; despising the common faith and reading Scripture superficially, they fell away from the truth.
Miscellanies 7.16.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Muddied by false doctrines, heretics cannot see the truth; like naughty children shutting out their tutor, they exclude the prophets from their churches, and like bad almonds they are empty of God's purposes and Christ's traditions.
Miscellanies 7.16.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As a soldier must hold his post, the believer must keep the place the Word assigns; sudden temptation, bad habit, and conflicting doctrines each have their remedy; the gentiles live in ignorance, the heresies in conceit, and the true church in understanding.
Miscellanies 7.16.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some reject the truth unheard; others twist Scripture from laziness or love of glory, setting human teachings against the apostolic tradition; Marcion and Prodicus added nothing to what the apostles and teachers had handed down.
Miscellanies 7.16.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows grows old in the Scriptures, holds the apostolic and church teaching, and lives by the Lord's tradition; not all who hear receive knowledge, and the knowledge that “puffs up” means either false knowledge or a lofty mind.
Miscellanies 7.16.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wisdom “puffs up” her children in the good sense of making them confident in the truth; heretics commit adultery against the truth and steal the church's rule, whereas love of neighbor means teaching them to hold to the truth.
Miscellanies 7.18.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement closes with an allegory of the food laws: clean animals both divide the hoof (faith in the Father and the Son) and chew the cud (meditating on Scripture); animals with only one sign stand for most Jews and for the heretics.
Miscellanies 8.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christians should not be quarrelsome disputers like the later Greek philosophers but should inquire as Scripture bids, “Seek and you will find,” since inquiry by question and answer opens the door to true knowledge.
On Idolatry 4Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · The law forbids making idols as well as worshipping them, and Enoch, Isaiah, and David all condemn those who make idols together with those who worship them.
Octavius 34.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The philosophers' ideas echo the prophets, from whom they borrowed a distorted shadow of truth.
Apology 18Tertullian · ca. 197 · God has also revealed himself through the prophets, whose writings were translated into Greek for Ptolemy Philadelphus and are read openly by the Jews every Sabbath.
Apology 19Tertullian · ca. 197 · The Scriptures are older than all pagan literature and religion, since Moses lived long before Danaus, the Trojan war, and Homer.
Apology 20Tertullian · ca. 197 · The fulfillment of prophecy in present events proves the Scriptures divine and grounds Christian confidence about the future.
Apology 39Tertullian · ca. 197 · Tertullian describes Christian life together: common prayer, Scripture reading, discipline, elders chosen for character, a voluntary fund for the poor and imprisoned, and the agape meal.
On the Dress of Women 1.3Tertullian · ca. 197–206 · Tertullian defends the Book of Enoch as Scripture, though the Jews exclude it: Noah could have preserved or restored it, it speaks of Christ, and Jude quotes it.
Against the Jews 3Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · Circumcision was given as a temporary sign, not for salvation; the prophets foretold a spiritual circumcision of the heart and a new law of peace going out from Zion to the nations, who have become God's people.
Against the Jews 4Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · The sabbath too was temporary: the patriarchs did not keep it, Scripture distinguishes a human sabbath from God's eternal one, and Joshua at Jericho and the Maccabees worked and fought on the sabbath.
Against the Jews 5Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · Cain's and Abel's offerings prefigure the earthly sacrifices of Israel and the spiritual sacrifices of the church; the prophets foretell that pure sacrifices of praise will be offered to God in every place.
Against the Jews 6Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · Since the prophets foretold a new law, circumcision, sacrifice, and sabbath, the question is whether the one who was to bring them has already come.
Against the Jews 8Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · From Daniel's seventy weeks and a list of rulers the author calculates that Christ was born, suffered, and Jerusalem was destroyed at the times foretold, so that prophecy is now sealed.
Against the Jews 9Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · The author argues that Isaiah's prophecies of Emmanuel, of the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria, of the name Jesus, of the rod from Jesse, and of Christ's preaching and miracles were fulfilled in Jesus, read figuratively rather than as warfare.
Against the Jews 10Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · Against the objection that one hanged on a tree is cursed, the author argues that Christ's crucifixion was foretold and prefigured in Isaac, Joseph, Moses' outstretched hands, the bronze serpent, the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos.
Against the Jews 11Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · Citing Ezekiel's vision of the sign Tau, Moses' warning of a life “hanging on a tree,” and Daniel's seventy weeks, the author argues that Christ's coming and suffering have sealed and fulfilled prophecy.
Against the Jews 12Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · The conversion of the nations fulfils the promise to the Son in Psalm 2 and Isaiah's light to the nations, which fits Christ, not David.
Against the Jews 13Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · The author argues that the destruction of Jerusalem, the loss of anointing and temple, the prophecies of the cross (the tree, Isaac, Elisha's axe-head), the resurrection on the third day, and the dispersion of the Jews show that the Christ foretold has already come.
Against the Jews 14Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · The author explains Jewish unbelief by Christ's two comings, the first in humility and the second in glory, prefigured in Zechariah's high priest Jesus and the two goats of the Day of Atonement, and concludes that the prophecies have been fulfilled in Christ.
To the Nations 2.2Tertullian · 197 · Philosophers, lacking the fear of God that is the beginning of wisdom, disagree endlessly about the gods, borrowing scraps of Scripture and distorting them.
On the Shows 3Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Though Scripture does not forbid the shows by name, the first psalm's blessing on the man who does not sit in the council of the ungodly applies to the crowds of the theatre and circus.
The Testimony of the Soul 5Tertullian · ca. 197–198 · The soul's testimony is natural and therefore divine, older than literature; and if it was learned from books at all, it came from the Scriptures, which are older than pagan writings.
Acts of Thomas 59Anonymous · ca. 200–250 · The people believe and give money for the widows, whom Thomas provides for through his deacons, and he proves from the prophets that Jesus is the Christ.
Didascalia 1.6 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · The law binding Christians is the Decalogue and the judgments given before the golden calf; the laws added after it are a “second legislation” from which Christ released believers.
Didascalia 6.15Anonymous · first half of the third century · Converts from the Jewish people should leave the ritual observances of the “second legislation”; the abiding law is the Decalogue and the judgments, in which the name of Jesus is signified by the iota (ten).
Didascalia 6.16 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · The law of the Decalogue is simple and light, without food laws or sacrifices; the altar law of Exodus 20 is only a concession, since God never needed sacrifice.
Didascalia 6.18 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · The law gives life and binds Jews and Gentiles in the church as a yoke, but the “bonds” of the second legislation, from which Christ frees believers, are distinct from it.
Didascalia 6.19 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · Taking on the second legislation brings a curse; believers follow Christ and the Gospel, while the law of the Decalogue stands and binds even the lawless.
On Christ and Antichrist 1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–215 · Hippolytus dedicates the treatise to Theophilus and warns him to share its contents only with the faithful.
On Christ and Antichrist 2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–215 · The prophets, moved by the Word like instruments by a plectrum, foretold the future, and the author only sets out what they wrote.
On Christ and Antichrist 12Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–215 · Christ's eyes are the prophets, who foresaw his sufferings and rejoiced.
On Christ and Antichrist 31Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–215 · Hippolytus praises the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and John, whose words have been fulfilled.
On Christ and Antichrist 32Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–215 · Daniel's visions of the bear, leopard, ram and he-goat have all been fulfilled.
Against Noetus 9Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–230 · God is known only from the Scriptures, which must be believed as the Father wills, not by private choice.
Against Noetus 11Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–230 · The Word is "another" beside God not as a second God but as light from light; even the heretics must admit one cause of all.
Against Noetus 12Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–230 · The Word who spoke through the prophets is the Word made flesh, through whom the Father is known; the Son is believed and the Spirit worshipped.
Spurious Greek introduction to the Psalms, fragment 1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · The Psalms are the second book of teaching after Moses, in which David introduced a new worship by hymns that goes beyond the sacrificial law.
On Proverbs, fragment 30Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · ‘Parable’ has many senses; a parable compares spiritual things with sensible ones and presents the invisible through the visible.
On Proverbs, fragment 39Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · On Prov 24:13: honey is the allegorical sense, the honeycomb the historical sense, and the throat the soul's power of nourishment.
On the resurrection, to the Empress Mammaea, Syriac fragment IIIHippolytus of Rome · ca. 200-235 · Hippolytus explains that he examines Paul's words so that what Paul handed down may be kept for all who call on the Lord's name.
Arabic Pentateuch fragment XXVIIHippolytus of Rome · unknown (transmitted in a medieval Arabic catena) · The catena tells how Moses viewed the promised land from Nebo, charged Joshua, gave the law to the Levites to be read at the feast of tabernacles, and died and was buried by the angels.
On Ezekiel (Syriac fragment I, on Ezek 1:5-10)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200-235 · Hippolytus reads the four faces of Ezekiel's living creatures as the four Gospels: ox for Luke, lion for Matthew, man for Mark, eagle for John.
On Mount Sinai and Mount Zion 1Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The writer asks whether Sinai, where the law was given, and Zion, from which Isaiah says the law goes forth, are the same mountain, and proposes to answer from the meaning of their names.
Against All Heresies 6Anonymous · early 3rd cent. (disputed) · The author describes Cerdo's two gods, Marcion, his disciple Lucanus, and Apelles with his starry-fleshed Christ and the prophetess Philumene.
Against Hermogenes 19Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · The “beginning” of Genesis 1:1 is not a substance from which God made the world but the start of his works, or, in the Greek sense of archē, his sovereign power.
Against Hermogenes 20Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · God made heaven and earth “in the beginning”, that is, in his Wisdom; since neither Genesis nor John's Gospel names any material, he made them from nothing.
Against Hermogenes 21Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · Scripture had no need to say that the world was made from nothing, but it would have had to say so if it had been made from matter.
Against Hermogenes 22Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · Where Genesis makes things from other things it says so; since it names no material for heaven and earth, they were made from nothing, and adding to Scripture brings a woe.
Against Hermogenes 26Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · Genesis first names a thing and then describes it, so “but the earth was invisible” describes the earth God had just made, not a hidden pre-existing matter.
Against Hermogenes 32Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · Other Scriptures state that the abyss, darkness, spirit, and waters of Genesis 1:2 were made by God; so either they are not matter, or matter is shown nowhere.
Against Hermogenes 33Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · Hermogenes found his matter in his own imagination, not in Scripture; everything was made from nothing, and even the materials used later were themselves made by God.
Against Hermogenes 45Tertullian · ca. 200–206 · Scripture teaches that God made the world through his Wisdom and Word with his own power, from nothing; Hermogenes' chaotic matter is really a portrait of himself.
Prescription against Heretics 7Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heresies draw their questions and doctrines from philosophy; Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem, and after Christ and the gospel no further inquiry is needed.
Prescription against Heretics 8Tertullian · ca. 203 · “Seek and you will find” was spoken early in Christ's ministry chiefly to the Jews, who had the law and prophets to seek him in; Christians receive the teaching through the apostles.
Prescription against Heretics 14Tertullian · ca. 203 · Within the rule of faith one may inquire freely, but faith, not skill in Scripture, saves; heretics who claim still to be seeking are not yet believers, and conferring with them only leads the blind into the pit.
Prescription against Heretics 15Tertullian · ca. 203 · Since heretics appeal to Scripture, the first question must be to whom the Scriptures belong; those who have no right to them are not to be admitted to argue from them.
Prescription against Heretics 16Tertullian · ca. 203 · Paul forbids disputing with heretics and allows only a single rebuke, and arguing over Scripture with them achieves nothing.
Prescription against Heretics 17Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heretics reject, mutilate, or misinterpret Scripture, so arguing from it with them gains nothing.
Prescription against Heretics 18Tertullian · ca. 203 · A doubter who watches such a dispute leaves more uncertain, since each side accuses the other of corrupting Scripture.
Prescription against Heretics 19Tertullian · ca. 203 · The first question is not what Scripture says but to whom the faith and the Scriptures belong; where the true faith is, there are the true Scriptures and interpretation.
Prescription against Heretics 22Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heretics say the apostles did not know everything, or did not teach everything to all; but Christ taught them fully and promised the Spirit would lead them into all truth, as Acts shows he did.
Prescription against Heretics 23Tertullian · ca. 203 · Paul's rebuke of Peter shows no new gospel: Paul was received by the apostles, shared their preaching, and rebuked Peter only for a fault of conduct.
Prescription against Heretics 25Tertullian · ca. 203 · Paul's charge to Timothy to guard the deposit refers to the teaching he had given openly before many witnesses, not to a secret doctrine.
Prescription against Heretics 30Tertullian · ca. 203 · Marcion, Valentinus, and Apelles were recent, expelled from the church at Rome, and their own innovations prove them later than the truth; they cannot show apostolic authority or apostolic miracles.
Prescription against Heretics 36Tertullian · ca. 203 · Anyone may visit the apostolic churches, such as Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, and Rome, where the apostles taught and died; Rome's faith, shared with Africa, is the one from which the heresies broke away.
Prescription against Heretics 37Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heretics, not being Christians, have no right to Christian Scripture; the church, as heir of the apostles, holds it by lawful title.
Prescription against Heretics 38Tertullian · ca. 203 · Corrupt doctrine requires corrupted Scriptures: Marcion cut the text with a knife, Valentinus kept the text but twisted its meaning; the church's Scriptures are unaltered because its doctrine is original.
Prescription against Heretics 39Tertullian · ca. 203 · Just as poets patch new works out of Virgil and Homer, heretics can build their doctrines out of Scripture; God so arranged the Scriptures that heresies might be possible.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, Greek fragment (on Prov 25:1; 1 Kgs 4:32)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · Of Solomon's thousands of proverbs and songs only a few books survive, because Hezekiah's scholars selected what served to build up the church.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, Armenian fragment (Song 1:5-5:1)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · The breasts of Christ are the two Testaments, whose commandments are milk that nourishes the disciple.
Commentary on Daniel 4.20Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-204 · Such errors come from preferring dreams, fables and human traditions to Scripture; some even impose fasts on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, which Christ did not appoint.
Commentary on Daniel 4.31-34Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-204 · The sixty-two weeks (434 years) run from the return to Christ's birth; Christ is the Holy of holies who wipes out sins for believers and seals them for unbelievers, and the Lamb who opens the sealed book of the prophets.
Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 2Tertullian · ca. 211–213 · Before arguing that martyrdom is good, Tertullian shows from the Law and the Prophets that God strictly forbade idolatry and commanded his people to reject other gods even at the cost of family and life.
Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting 11Tertullian · ca. 211–213 · Christ's sayings about losing one's life, answering before tribunals, and being hated and betrayed describe exactly what persecuted Christians experience, so they cannot be explained away as allegories.
Exhortation to Chastity 3Tertullian · ca. 208 · What God merely permits is not what he truly wills; Paul gave leave to marry on his own judgment, and “better to marry than to burn” calls marriage only the lesser evil, not a good.
Exhortation to Chastity 4Tertullian · ca. 208 · Paul's leave to remarry is his own counsel, which he at once qualifies, while his counsel of continence comes with the Holy Spirit's authority and so amounts to a command.
On the Flesh of Christ 2Tertullian · ca. 206–211 · Marcion cut the whole nativity story out of the Gospel to deny Christ's flesh; having abandoned the faith handed down, he has no authority to do so.
On the Flesh of Christ 19Tertullian · ca. 206–211 · John 1:13, read as “he was born … of God”, denies only that Christ was conceived by intercourse, not that he took flesh from Mary's womb; otherwise the Spirit entered the womb for nothing.
Against Marcion 1.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion's god appeared only in the reign of Antoninus Pius, over a century after Christ, and was born of Marcion's own Antitheses, which set the gospel against the law; so Christ did not reveal him.
Against Marcion 1.20Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Paul's rebuke of Peter concerned conduct, not doctrine; the apostles agreed on one gospel, and Paul's attack on Jewish ceremonies in Galatians only carries out what the Creator himself had foretold through the prophets.
Against Marcion 1.21Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The apostolic churches argued about conduct, never about which God to worship; their unbroken tradition confesses only the Creator, so Marcion's god is his own invention.
Against Marcion 2.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The law kept Israel mindful of God in every part of life, and the prophets taught justice, mercy, and care for the poor, while the Psalms promise blessing to the righteous: proof of a supremely good God.
Against Marcion 2.20Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcionites accuse the Creator of theft for telling the Hebrews to take the Egyptians' gold and silver, but it was modest back pay for generations of unpaid slave labour and murdered children.
Against Marcion 3.5Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Before arguing from the Old Testament, Tertullian sets two rules: prophecy often speaks of the future as past, and often speaks figuratively, as Paul himself shows.
Against Marcion 3.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Jews' rejection of Jesus does not prove he was a stranger to their God, for the Creator's prophets foretold that they would fail to recognize their own Christ.
Against Marcion 3.7Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The prophets foretold two comings of Christ, one in humility and one in glory; the Jews looked only for the glorious one and so missed the first.
Against Marcion 3.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Isaiah's warlike words about the infant Christ are figurative: the magi's gold was the power of Damascus, the converted magi the spoils of idolatrous Samaria, and Herod the king of Assyria.
Against Marcion 3.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The sword of Psalm 45 is the Word of God, as John and Paul show; Christ's weapons and spoils are figurative, so the prophecies do not describe a literal warrior.
Against Marcion 3.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's lowly appearance, his fullness of the Spirit, his meekness, and his work of preaching and healing all match Isaiah's prophecies of the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 3.18Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The cross was foretold in figures: Isaac carrying the wood, the horns of Joseph's bull, the hamstrung bull of Genesis 49, Moses' outstretched arms, and the bronze serpent.
Against Marcion 3.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Further prophecies of the cross: the Lord reigning from the tree, government on his shoulder, wood cast into his bread, pierced hands and feet, and Isaiah's words on his death, burial, and resurrection.
Against Marcion 3.20Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The conversion of the nations, foretold in the Psalms, Isaiah, and Nathan's oracle, is fulfilled in Christ, the son of David through Mary, not in David or Solomon.
Against Marcion 3.21Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The calling of all nations, not merely of proselytes, was foretold for the last days, when the law would go out from Zion and swords be beaten into ploughshares; this is fulfilled in Christ.
Against Marcion 3.22Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The apostles' mission, their break with the synagogue, their persecution, the sign of the cross on believers' foreheads, and the church's pure sacrifice of praise were all foretold by the Creator's prophets.
Against Marcion 3.23Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The ruin of Judea, the scattering of the Jews, and the end of prophecy among them were foretold as punishment for rejecting the Creator's Christ, so he must be the one who came.
Against Marcion 4.1Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Opening his examination of Marcion's gospel, Tertullian turns Marcion's Antitheses against him: the Creator himself foretold a new law and covenant, and contrasts in his works point to one God, not two.
Against Marcion 4.2Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The gospels rest on apostles (Matthew, John) and apostolic men (Mark, Luke); Marcion's gospel, a cut-down Luke with no author's name, lacks the apostolic authority even Paul sought.
Against Marcion 4.3Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Paul's rebuke of Peter concerned conduct, not doctrine; if the apostolic gospel was wholly corrupted, Marcion has no true gospel either, and if his agrees with ours, ours is apostolic too.
Against Marcion 4.4Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Truth comes before its corruption; Marcion once held the church's gospel and wrote the Antitheses against it, which proves the church's Luke is older than his altered version.
Against Marcion 4.5Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The apostolic churches have held Luke's gospel, with Matthew, Mark, and John, from the beginning; Marcion's version is known only in his own late churches, so it is the altered one.
Against Marcion 4.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian sets his test: whatever in Marcion's own gospel shows Christ fulfilling the Creator's law, prophecies, and character proves Christ is the Creator's.
Against Marcion 4.7Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion's Christ begins at Capernaum, in the Galilee Isaiah foretold; he teaches in the synagogue without opposing the law, and the demon who names him Holy One recognizes the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 4.10Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Healing the paralytic and forgiving sins fulfills Isaiah; the title Son of Man, from Daniel, means Christ was born of a human mother, a virgin, and so had a real body.
Against Marcion 4.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's preaching on the mountain, his night of prayer, the choice of twelve apostles, the renaming of Peter, and the crowds from Tyre all correspond to the Creator's prophecies and figures.
Against Marcion 4.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Beatitudes on the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the persecuted echo the Creator's constant care for the lowly in the Psalms and Isaiah, and fulfill Isaiah 61, so they belong to the Creator's Christ.
Against Marcion 4.25Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's thanksgiving that things hidden from the wise are revealed to little ones, his claim that all things were delivered to him, and his answer to the lawyer about eternal life all point to the Creator, who hid and promised to reveal through his Christ.
Against Marcion 4.33Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's sayings on God and mammon, on the Pharisees' self-justification, and on the law and the prophets lasting until John show one God, the Creator, whose law is fulfilled rather than destroyed.
Against Marcion 5.1Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian demands that Marcion show where his apostle Paul comes from, argues that Paul was foretold in the Creator's Scriptures and attested by Acts, and promises to prove from Paul's own letters that he preached no other god.
Against Marcion 5.2Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Galatians attacks the old law, not the Creator: the dispute there was only whether the Creator's law still bound believers, and Paul's “no other gospel” and his agreement with Acts show he preached no new god.
Against Marcion 5.3Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Paul's visit to Jerusalem, his yielding for a time to Jewish scruples, and his rebuke of Peter concerned only the law, and his teaching on faith, curse, and blessing belongs to the Creator, Abraham's God.
Against Marcion 5.4Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Working through Galatians 3–6, Tertullian argues that the promise to Abraham, the fullness of time, the end of the old observances, the allegory of the two sons, and the law of love all belong to the Creator, and that Paul's scars show Christ's flesh was real.
Against Marcion 5.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The hidden wisdom Paul speaks of was the Creator's, veiled in figures and revealed in Christ; the rulers who crucified the Lord of glory, the one foundation, the temple of God, and the folly of worldly wisdom all point to the Creator.
Against Marcion 5.11Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 2 Corinthians 1–4 the Father of mercies, the new covenant of the Spirit, the veil of Moses, the “god of this age,” and the treasure in earthen vessels all point to the Creator and to the resurrection of the body.
Against Marcion 5.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In Romans 1–7 the God whose wrath and judgment are revealed, who judges by the gospel through Christ, whose law is holy and spiritual, and with whom sinners are reconciled, is the Creator, not Marcion's god.
Against Marcion 5.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Ephesians, which Marcion called Laodiceans, speaks of summing up all things in Christ, of the Spirit promised by Joel, of the nations brought near to Israel's God, and of Christ's real flesh and the prophets' foundation, all of which belong to the Creator.
Against Marcion 5.21Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Philemon survived Marcion's editing because of its brevity, though he rejected the Pastoral Letters; Tertullian closes the work by defending its repetitions and postponements.
On the Veiling of Virgins 4Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · Paul's rule that “women” be veiled includes virgins: he distinguishes virgins from married women only where the subject requires it, and “woman” is the general term that covers every female, as “body” covers every limb.
On the Veiling of Virgins 5Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · Eve was called “woman” while still a virgin in paradise, so the word denotes the female sex, not the married state; only the name “Eve”, mother of the living, looked forward to marriage.
On the Veiling of Virgins 6Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · Paul calls the Virgin Mary a “woman” and the angel blesses her “among women”, so the word includes virgins; she was so called not because she was betrothed but because she was female.
On the Veiling of Virgins 7Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · All Paul's reasons for veiling women apply equally or more to virgins: the man as head, the shame of a shorn head, woman as man's glory, and above all the angels, who fell through desire for the daughters of men, that is, for virgins.
On the Veiling of Virgins 8Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · Paul's reasons for leaving men uncovered apply to boys as well as grown men, and his “every woman” likewise includes virgins; the Corinthians, to whom he wrote, still veil their virgins.
On the Veiling of Virgins 16Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · Scripture, nature, and discipline all point to the veil; Tertullian urges every virgin to veil her head, since she is already married to Christ.
On the Soul 2Tertullian · ca. 210 · Philosophers sometimes stumbled on the truth, but they distort it with their own arguments; the Christian must separate truth from their reasoning and learn about the soul from God's writings.
On Flight in Persecution 6Tertullian · ca. 208–213 · Christ's command to flee from city to city was given to the apostles for their mission to Israel; once the gospel went to the nations the apostles no longer fled, as Paul's refusal to avoid Jerusalem shows, so the command does not bind Christians now.
On Fasting 2Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Tertullian lays out his opponents' case: that only the days when the bridegroom was taken away bind Christians, that other fasting is voluntary, and that Scripture condemns scruples about food.
On Modesty 2Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Against appeals to God's mercy, Tertullian sets God's justice and Scripture's warnings, and distinguishes remissible sins from irremissible ones, the “sins unto death.”
On Modesty 6Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Old Testament examples of pardon do not apply, since Christ has fulfilled and sharpened the law; flesh renewed in baptism is the body and temple of Christ, and only a precedent from the new era would count.
On Modesty 7Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · The parables of the lost sheep and coin concern heathen sinners, and even if applied to Christians they fit lesser sins, not adultery, whose guilty are counted as dead and expelled.
On Modesty 8Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · The prodigal son cannot stand for a Christian sinner, since the elder son does not fit the Jewish people; parables must be read by their own subject, not bent as the heretics bend them.
On Modesty 9Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Parables must not be forced; the prodigal son is the heathen converted in baptism, not a Christian restored after grave sin, for that reading would make every apostasy pardonable.
On Modesty 10Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Repentance belongs above all to the heathen; Tertullian rejects the idea of a second repentance for adulterers and the Shepherd of Hermas, which teaches it, in favor of John's call to amended life.
On Modesty 12Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · The apostolic decree of Acts 15 places sexual immorality between idolatry and bloodshed as sins the Spirit forbids, so, like them, it cannot be pardoned by the church.
On Modesty 20Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Hebrews, which Tertullian ascribes to Barnabas, denies a second repentance, and the laws of the leper, the leprous house, and the betrothed slave woman prefigure that relapse after baptism cannot be cleansed.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 3Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Common human notions may support the truth, but heretics who borrow the pagans' denial of life after death should be made to argue from Scripture alone.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 10Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Scripture both humbles and honours the flesh, and Paul, who speaks against the flesh, also calls the body God's temple and Christ's members.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 18Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · The phrase “resurrection of the dead” itself points to the flesh: only what falls can rise, and it is the body, not the soul, that falls in death and is buried.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 19Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Some heretics turn the resurrection into a figure for coming to knowledge or escaping the body, and deceive believers by saying one must “rise in this flesh.”
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 20Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · The prophets did not speak only in figures: Christ's birth, passion, and miracles, and the fates of nations, were foretold plainly and fulfilled literally.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 21Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · The resurrection cannot be merely figurative, because the plain texts must govern the obscure and a hope on which faith and martyrdom depend must have been announced clearly.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 26Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Prophetic promises and threats addressed to “the earth” may be read of the flesh, taken from the earth; so figurative speech itself supports the resurrection of the body.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 27Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Scriptural garments can signify the flesh, and Isaiah's “storerooms” in which God's people hide until his wrath passes are the tombs from which bodies will come forth.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 29Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones, clothed with sinews, flesh, and skin and brought to life, names the bodily substances explicitly.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 30Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Even if Ezekiel's vision figures Israel's restoration, a figure drawn from bones implies that bones will really rise, and God's testing of the prophet shows that the bodily resurrection is meant.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 31Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Israel doubted a bodily resurrection, not its political fortunes, and the prophets promise the rising of the dead to all nations, not to Israel alone.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 32Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · God will restore even bodies devoured by beasts and fish, as Jonah shows; if what Scripture says of the soul is taken literally, so must be what it says of the body.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 33Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · Christ did not speak only in parables, and even his parables are explained; his plain statements about judgment, the kingdom, and resurrection must be taken literally.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 37Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · “The flesh profits nothing” in John 6 refers to giving life, which belongs to the Spirit and the Word; the same Gospel says that all in the tombs will hear the Son's voice and come forth.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 39Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · The apostles preached the same bodily resurrection the Pharisees believed and the Sadducees denied, and the Athenians mocked Paul precisely because he preached a bodily one.
On the Resurrection of the Flesh 63Tertullian · ca. 208–212 · The whole, same flesh will rise, kept safe with God by Christ, who unites flesh and spirit, and the Paraclete’s New Prophecy has cleared away the ambiguities that heretics exploited.
Against Praxeas 11Tertullian · ca. 213 or later · Praxeas must show from Scripture that God is his own Son; instead Scripture everywhere distinguishes the one who speaks, the one spoken to, and the one spoken of, showing the three persons.
Against Praxeas 20Tertullian · ca. 213 or later · Monarchians rely on three sayings of Jesus against the whole of Scripture; but the few must be read in the light of the many and the earlier.
On the Crown 2Tertullian · 211 · All the faithful refrain from crowns; those who ask where Scripture forbids it must equally show where Scripture commands it, and what is not expressly permitted is forbidden.
On the Crown 3Tertullian · 211 · Many church practices rest on tradition and custom rather than written Scripture: the baptismal renunciation, triple immersion, milk and honey, the dawn Eucharist, offerings for the dead, not kneeling on Sundays and at Eastertide, and the sign of the cross.
On the Crown 4Tertullian · 211 · Tradition, confirmed by custom and supported by reason, binds even without a written law, as the veiling of Jewish women shows; Paul himself gave counsel with the Spirit's authority where he had no command of the Lord.
Letter to Aristides 1Julius Africanus · ca. 220–240 · Africanus rejects the view that the two Gospel genealogies mix priestly and royal lines to show Christ as priest and king, since a pious falsehood dishonours God.
Letter to Aristides 2Julius Africanus · ca. 220–240 · Israelite descent was reckoned by nature or by law (levirate marriage), so both Gospel genealogies are true.
Letter to Aristides 3Julius Africanus · ca. 220–240 · Matthan and Melchi married the same woman in turn; their sons Jacob and Heli were half-brothers, and Jacob raised up Joseph as Heli's legal son.
Letter to Origen 1Julius Africanus · ca. 220–245 · Africanus writes to Origen that the story of Susanna is a later addition to Daniel: its puns work only in Greek, its setting does not fit the captivity, it is absent from the Jewish Daniel, and its style differs.
On First Principles 1.0.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The knowledge that leads to a good life comes from the words of Christ, who spoke also in Moses and the prophets and, after his ascension, in the apostles.
On First Principles 1.0.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Scripture has both a plain and a hidden spiritual sense; the philosophical term “incorporeal” is not found in Scripture, and the saying in the Teaching of Peter does not use it in the philosophers' sense.
On First Principles 1.1.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · God as consuming fire consumes sins in the soul, and Scripture calls “spirit” what is opposed to body, as in the spiritual sense of the law.
On First Principles 1.3.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Philosophers know of God and even of his Word, but the Holy Spirit is known only from Scripture; the Father is known from creation, the Son from both Testaments.
On First Principles 2.1.5Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Second Maccabees, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Psalms confirm that God created all things out of nothing.
On First Principles 2.4.4Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · God's anger in the Old Testament is matched in Jesus' parables; in both Testaments it is to be understood spiritually, in a way worthy of God.
On First Principles 2.7.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Since Christ's ascension the Spirit is poured out on all, so that multitudes of believers now understand the law spiritually, as only the prophets once did.
On First Principles 2.11.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Some Christians, reading the letter only, expect after the resurrection bodily pleasures, marriage, a rebuilt earthly Jerusalem and earthly rule, misreading prophecies meant figuratively.
On First Principles 3.5.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Scripture (Moses, Jacob, the Psalms, Christ and Paul) teaches that the world had a beginning in time and will come to an end.
On First Principles 3.6.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · When God is all in all, bodily nature may take one splendid quality, and the heaven and earth of the beginning become the dwelling of the godly, where the true forms of the law's worship are found.
On First Principles 4.1.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · To prove that the Scriptures are inspired, Origen points first to Moses and Christ, whose laws, unlike those of any other lawgiver, have been embraced by countless people of every nation despite persecution.
On First Principles 4.1.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The rapid growth of the faith through persecution, spread by unlearned teachers, fulfils Christ's own predictions and shows that he who became man is truly God.
On First Principles 4.1.4Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The song of Deuteronomy foretold that God would provoke Israel by choosing “a foolish nation,” fulfilled in the calling of the nations through Christ.
On First Principles 4.1.6Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The fulfilment of prophecy in Christ proved that the prophets and the law of Moses were divinely inspired, and his coming removed the veil from the letter of the law.
On First Principles 4.1.7Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · That the divine sense of Scripture is not obvious to all no more disproves its inspiration than providence is disproved by being hidden; the treasure lies in earthen vessels, so that faith rests on God's power.
On First Principles 4.2.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Misreading Scripture by the letter led the Jews to reject Christ, the heretics to divide the just Creator from the good God, and some simple believers to think unworthily of God.
On First Principles 4.2.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Errors arise from reading Scripture by the letter; all agree that Scripture holds hidden mysteries, as in the stories of Lot, Abraham and Jacob and the tabernacle, which those who seek piously may find.
On First Principles 4.2.3Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Hidden meanings are found not only in the prophets but in the Gospels, the Revelation and the Epistles; the “key of knowledge” held by the lawyers shows that truth was with those who had the law.
On First Principles 4.2.4Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Scripture, like a human being, has body, soul and spirit, edifying the simple, the progressing and the perfect, as Origen illustrates from the two little books in the Shepherd of Hermas.
On First Principles 4.2.5Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Some passages of Scripture have no literal sense, only a soul or spirit, as the six water jars holding two or three measures signify.
On First Principles 4.2.6Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Paul gives examples of the soul of Scripture (the muzzled ox) and of its spirit (the law as a shadow, the rock that was Christ, the allegory of Abraham's two sons), extending even to the histories of Kingdoms.
On First Principles 4.2.7Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The Spirit revealed to the prophets and apostles the mysteries of God, of the incarnation, of rational creatures, of the world and of evil, and they wrote them down figuratively for those who seek with discipline.
On First Principles 4.2.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · For those unwilling or unable to labour, the Spirit veiled the mysteries in histories of creation, of the righteous and the wicked, of battles, and in the law; this garment of the letter is the body of Scripture.
On First Principles 4.2.9Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The Spirit placed stumbling-blocks, things impossible or incongruous, in the history and the law, and likewise in the Gospels and the apostles, to turn readers from the letter to a sense worthy of God.
On First Principles 4.3.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The days of creation without a sun, God planting trees and walking in paradise, Cain leaving God's face, and the devil showing Jesus all kingdoms from one mountain cannot be taken literally.
On First Principles 4.3.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Precepts of the law, such as cutting off the uncircumcised infant, eating the tragelaphus, forbidding the griffin, and sitting still on the Sabbath, are impossible to keep by the letter and lead to Jewish and Samaritan fables.
On First Principles 4.3.3Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Gospel and apostolic precepts too, such as greeting no one on the way, owning no shoes in winter, offering the left cheek, plucking out the right eye, and not drawing on a foreskin, cannot all be taken literally.
On First Principles 4.3.4Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Origen does not deny that most of Scripture's history happened or that most precepts are to be kept literally; the patriarchs' tomb, Jerusalem, the Decalogue and Christ's commands stand as written.
On First Principles 4.3.5Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Since it is often uncertain whether a history or precept is literal, readers must study with reverence, remembering that the words are divine.
On First Principles 4.3.6Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Scripture's chosen nation, Israel, Jacob and Judah, with Jerusalem as its mother-city, has a counterpart, for Paul speaks of an Israel according to the flesh and so implies an Israel according to the spirit.
On First Principles 4.3.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Israel is a race of souls “seeing God” and Jerusalem the heavenly city, so the prophecies about Judea and Jerusalem, and the cities promised in the parable, refer to the heavenly land.
On First Principles 4.3.9Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Prophecies about Egypt, Babylon, Tyre and Sidon, such as those on Pharaoh, the prince of Tyre and Lucifer, do not fit earthly kingdoms, so they refer to places and souls near the heavenly Jerusalem, from which some fall into captivity.
On First Principles 4.3.10Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · As the dead go to the underworld or Abraham's bosom, so souls “die” from higher places into this world and are born according to merit; prophecies and histories about the nations refer to such souls.
On First Principles 4.3.11Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · These meanings are hidden like treasure in a field beneath the letter; God alone breaks open the gates to the mysteries of the souls' descent into Egypt, where the seventy became as the stars and as the sand.
On First Principles 4.3.12Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The exodus, the tabernacle, the purifications, the census of men fit for war, the deaths in the desert, the tribes beyond the Jordan and Deuteronomy's second law all figure the progress of souls toward Christ's perfect law.
On First Principles 4.3.13Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · As Deuteronomy is a clearer law, so Christ's glorious second coming will fulfil the shadow of his first and bring the saints from the temporal to the eternal Gospel.
On First Principles 4.3.14Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The divine meaning lies hidden in the humble letter, and no created mind, not even the highest powers, can fully grasp God's ways; only the Son and the Spirit, figured by Isaiah's two seraphim, know the beginning and end of all things.
On First Principles 4.3.15Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Meaning matters more than words: the Greeks' “incorporeal” is Scripture's “invisible,” and the Trinity is wholly incorporeal; Scripture must be judged by the Spirit who inspired it, not by its humble language.
On First Principles 4.4.6Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The word 'matter' for the substrate of bodies is not used in the canonical Scriptures, only in Wisdom; matter is not unmade, and bodily substance can change from any quality to any other.
On First Principles 4.4.8Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Scripture hints at formless matter (the Psalm's “imperfect,” Enoch's walk to the imperfect); God made all things in number and measure, and bodily nature, changeable at his will, will last as long as rational beings need bodies.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 419Origen · ca. 220-254 · Heretics who missed the hidden meaning of the law invented another God; but Scripture, like a human being, has body, soul, and spirit, and the same God gave law and Gospel.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 911Origen · ca. 220-254 · The opening of an excerpt from Origen's homily on the lists of Joshua's allotments: their full benefit is for those who understand the true inheritance.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 913Origen · ca. 220-254 · Scripture's names, even when not understood, work like incantations: they strengthen the good powers in us and put the hostile ones to sleep; all Scripture, being inspired, is useful.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 915Origen · ca. 220-254 · Like food that improves the eyesight unnoticed, Scripture benefits the soul even from bare reading.
Fragments on Genesis, column 89Origen · ca. 220-254 · Logic is needed to read Scripture: those who missed that “world” is homonymous misread 1 John 5:19 and blasphemed the Creator.
Fragments on Genesis, column 141Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Gen 46–47: Jacob's daughters and sons-in-law; Israel and Jacob distinguished; Joseph's life unharmed in Egypt; the order of the Septuagint corrected from the Tetrapla.
Fragments on Genesis, column 165Origen · ca. 220-254 · Against Apelles, who rejected Moses because the ark was too small, Origen reports a Hebrew view that the cubits are geometrical “powers” (squares).
Fragments on Job, column 65Origen · ca. 220-254 · The friends' delay had practical causes and a providential purpose, and their seven days with Job are ordinary speech, not a claim that they never ate or slept.
Fragments on Job, column 79Origen · ca. 220-254 · Heretics mock the law and the prophets and sing their own teachers' psalms, while the speeches of Job's friends were recorded because they are useful except where they accuse Job.
Fragments on Luke, column 311Origen · ca. 220-254 · Luke's preface distinguishes the four Gospels written by the Spirit from the many that others "undertook", and stresses that the events really happened.
Fragments on Luke, column 343Origen · ca. 220-254 · The transfiguration is seen by those who rise above the six days of the world: to them the Word appears as God, his garments are the Gospel words made clear, and Moses and Elijah are the law and prophets in harmony with him.
Fragment on Matthew 7:6Origen · ca. 220-254 · Asking, seeking, and knocking are read as prayer, learning the way of virtue, and works, by which the hidden sense of Scripture is opened.
Fragment on Matthew 13:44Origen · ca. 220-254 · The parables of the hidden treasure, the pearl, and the net (Matt 13:44–50) are read as Christ hidden in the Scriptures and the gathering of the nations.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 155Origen · ca. 220-254 · Steering from God brings the soul safely to harbour; the fear of the Lord, as reverent love rather than dread of punishment, is the beginning of wisdom.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 157Origen · ca. 220-254 · The father's instruction is Scripture and the mother's precepts are the church's unwritten traditions; the harlot of Proverbs is false teaching, and the seeds of virtue can never be wholly destroyed.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 159Origen · ca. 220-254 · The adulteress and strange woman of Proverbs are false and pagan teaching, the ruler's table is the prophets read spiritually, and the leech of Prov 30 is the devil.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 179Origen · ca. 220-254 · The soul deprived of Christ's righteous blood dies; the mother wisdom leads us through creation to the Father; the commandment's lamp and light are the Old and New Testaments.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 219Origen · ca. 220-254 · Christ is the good shepherd and the rod from Jesse's root; the devil is the lion and the deep pit; Scripture's teaching is threefold, ethical, natural and theological, matching Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 221Origen · ca. 220-254 · Be ready to give an account of your hope; the boundaries of the faith, above all of the Trinity, must not be moved; Scripture must be read spiritually, for the sense of the letter flies away from those who cling to it.
Fragments on Proverbs, column 227Origen · ca. 220-254 · God repays according to the quality of deeds; the honey and honeycomb are the plain and the hidden meaning of Scripture; we must not exult over a fallen enemy; the sword of the Spirit crushes sinners for repentance.
PG 12:1055Origen · ca. 220-254 · The five books of the Psalter, and a Jewish teacher’s view that the eleven untitled or authorless psalms after Psalm 89 (LXX) belong to Moses.
PG 12:1057Origen · ca. 220-254 · The remaining psalms ascribed to Moses, the Jewish teacher’s answer to the objection from Samuel’s name in Psalm 98 (LXX), and the beginning of Origen’s inquiry into “diapsalma.”
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 12:1075 (Ps 1 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · The arrangement of the Psalms by the meaning of numbers (the seven, the two, the one), and the beginning of Origen’s preface to his tome on Psalm 1: the Scriptures are shut and sealed.
PG 12:1077 (Ps 1 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Scripture is shut and sealed, as the Apocalypse and Isaiah show, and the Savior rebuked the lawyers who took away the key of knowledge; Origen addresses his patron Ambrose.
PG 12:1079 (Ps 1 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Origen tells Ambrose of his reluctance to write on Scripture, asks for his prayers, and gives the Hebrew teacher’s parable of the locked rooms and scattered keys.
PG 12:1081 (Ps 1 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · The Holy Spirit has placed wisdom in every letter of Scripture, as the Creator has in the smallest creatures; difficulties in Scripture, like those in creation, do not justify the heretics’ rejection of the Creator.
PG 12:1083 (Ps 1 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Origen’s list of the twenty-two books of the Hebrew canon, with their Hebrew names, from his tome on Psalm 1.
PG 12:1089 (Ps 1 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Christ, the tree of life transplanted to paradise, gives his fruit in season according to the fitness of those who receive it; fruits and leaves are the primary and the secondary things of creation, of Scripture, and of the blessed man’s life.
PG 12:1099 (Ps 1–2 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · God “knows” the way of the righteous, Christ, and does not know evil, as his questions to Adam and in the Gospel show; Psalm 2 opens with Origen’s note that some Hebrew copies join it to Psalm 1, as Acts 13:33 does.
PG 12:1103 (Ps 2 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · On the divine names: Adonai, Iah, and the unpronounced four-letter name written in the old Hebrew script, rendered “Lord” in Greek; and on the Septuagint’s use of the past tense for prophecies about Christ.
PG 12:1117 (Ps 2–3 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · The end of Psalm 2 (God’s quickly kindled anger and the blessedness of trust) and the beginning of Psalm 3: the psalm cannot be read wholly as history of David’s flight from Absalom, for in Scripture David often stands for Christ.
PG 12:1183 (Ps 8 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · The winepresses in Scripture (Noah, Judah, Issachar, the righteous man’s wife) are rational natures receiving the fruit of the spiritual vine; on Ps 8:2 the infants of Matthew 21 teach an allegorical reading; the enemy is the devil, overthrown through simple fishermen; the heavens, the works of God’s fingers, and the moon and stars.
PG 12:1201 (Ps 11 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · On Ps 12:4–6 (LXX 11:5–7): the Lord arises for the poor and needy, as Paul’s sufferings and thanks show, and appoints in salvation; only the words of the Lord are pure, like silver purified seven times.
PG 12:1449 (Ps 49–50 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · End of Ps 49 LXX (50):21–23 and beginning of Ps 50 LXX (51): an excerpt on the story of David and Uriah, defending allegory, since the letter alone charges David with cruelty and leads the heterodox to invent another God.
PG 12:1581 (Ps 117–118 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on the end of Psalm 118 (LXX 117) and the opening of Psalm 119 (LXX 118): the leafy boughs of the festival, thanksgiving for God's greatness, and the alphabetic arrangement of Psalm 119.
PG 12:1599 (Ps 118 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 119:85–91 (LXX 118): who interprets Scripture well, life asked as a help toward eternal life, the word that remains in heaven, and God as master of all.
PG 12:1613 (Ps 118 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 119:136–143 (LXX 118): temptations in thought as waters, burning zeal, the fire-refined word of God, and eternal righteousness.
Refutation of All Heresies, Book 1, preface 8Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus will first set out Greek philosophy, to show that the heresies come from it rather than from Scripture.
Refutation of All Heresies 4.46.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Some heretics allegorize Aratus's star-lore as images of Scripture.
Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Naassenes treat Homer as their prophet and teach that all things come from three.
Refutation of All Heresies 6.35.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Valentinians say the law and prophets came from the foolish Demiurge, citing John 10:8.
Refutation of All Heresies 6.55.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus will not repeat their allegorical number-readings of Scripture, which Irenaeus already refuted, and says they took them from Pythagoreans and astrologers.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.38.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Apelles rejected the Law and Prophets, picked from the Gospels and Paul, and followed the prophetess Philumene.
Refutation of All Heresies 8.14.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · All knowledge is the ten plagues and ten commandments; even the five books of the Law come from the number five in the iota.
Refutation of All Heresies 8.19.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Phrygians (Montanists) follow Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla as prophets of the Paraclete and claim to learn more from their books than from Scripture.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.22.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · They study the Law, the Prophets, and other writings, and are keen on the healing powers of herbs and stones.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.29.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Sadducees, strong around Samaria, keep only the law of Moses without interpretation and reject the prophets.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.20.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Apelles followed Philumene's Revelations, said Christ's flesh came from the world's elements, attacked the Law and Prophets, and denied the resurrection of the flesh.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.10Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The giving of the law proves human free will; God gave it through righteous men and finally through Moses.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.11Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Word, the Father's first-born, governs all things; righteous friends of God became prophets foretelling the future.
Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.12Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The prophets spoke to all generations, recalling the past, rousing the present, and foretelling the future.
Fragment 12 on John 1:17Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 1:17: the law was given by God through Moses, but grace and truth came through Christ, who, coming after the law and prophets, came before them as the cause of all inspired Scripture.
Fragment 35 on John 3:8Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 3:8: the Spirit visits only the virtuous; it is a willing, acting essence, not merely an activity of God, as the Scriptures show; one who reads Scripture without understanding hears only its voice.
Fragment 46 on John 3:34Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 3:34: the prophets had the Spirit in part, but Christ, its source, gives it without measure; and the Jews who read the Scriptures without examination did not receive their testimony to Christ.
Fragment 47 on John (verse reference unclear)Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 3:31–34: against heretics who ascribe the Old Testament to a different God and apply ‘he who is from the earth’ to John and the prophets, the fragment shows that John was sent by the Father of Christ and that the prophets bear witness to Christ.
Fragment 53 on John 4:12Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 4:12: allegorically, Jacob's well is the writing of Moses, from which Jacob, his sons and his flocks, the simple, drank.
Fragment 54 on John 4:13Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 4:13–14: the law, Jacob's well, was given until the time of reformation, so its drinkers thirst again for the gospel, whose water becomes in them a spring leaping to eternal life.
Fragment 55 on John 4:15Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 4:15–18: allegorically, the woman's ‘husband’ is the law; her five husbands are the five books of Moses received only in their sensible sense, and the sixth, not her husband, is her half-assent that Jesus is a prophet.
Fragment 61 on John 9:6Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 9:6–7: Christ's spittle mixed with earth figures the divine meaning of Scripture clothed in historical letter; the blind must be anointed with the letter and wash in Siloam, the Sent One, to see; the distance to the pool made the miracle widely known.
Fragment 72 on John 10:31Origen · ca. 226-254 · On John 10:31–32: ‘again took up stones’ points back to their earlier slanders, which are stones thrown at him; Scripture mixes history with spiritual exercise, and Christ's ‘good works’ are to be read spiritually, like the wine at Cana and the cleansing of the temple.
Commentary on John 1.12Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen's first work, as a firstfruits offering, must be the study of the Gospel, the firstfruits of Scripture.
Commentary on John 1.14Origen · ca. 230–248 · The law of Moses is the first-born produce of Scripture, and the Gospel its firstfruits.
Commentary on John 1.15Origen · ca. 230–248 · The apostolic letters are wise and trustworthy but, unlike the prophets' “Thus says the Lord,” they rely on testimony from Scripture.
Commentary on John 1.16Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen asks whether Paul's personal remarks carry apostolic authority without the full purity of inspired words.
Commentary on John 1.17Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Old Testament foretells Christ, but the whole New Testament is gospel because it shows and praises him.
Commentary on John 1.18Origen · ca. 230–248 · Because evangelists also exhort to faith, the apostles' writings can be called gospel.
Commentary on John 1.20Origen · ca. 230–248 · The letters are gospel only in a looser sense; the Gospel remains the firstfruits of Scripture.
Commentary on John 1.21Origen · ca. 230–248 · Of the four Gospels, the elements of the church's faith, John's is the firstfruits, beginning from the Word who has no genealogy.
Commentary on John 1.22Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew and Mark begin with Christ's human descent and the gospel's beginning; John most clearly reveals his divinity.
Commentary on John 1.23Origen · ca. 230–248 · John's Gospel is the firstfruits of the Gospels; to understand it one must, like John, receive Mary as mother and have Christ living in oneself.
Commentary on John 1.24Origen · ca. 230–248 · Understanding the Gospel's hidden meaning requires the mind of Christ.
Commentary on John 1.25Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul's “my gospel” shows that everything he preached and wrote was gospel.
Commentary on John 1.26Origen · ca. 230–248 · Whatever makes Christ present in souls, as Paul's and Peter's writings do, is gospel.
Commentary on John 1.32Origen · ca. 230–248 · Objection: the law and the prophets would also fit the first definition of a gospel.
Commentary on John 1.33Origen · ca. 230–248 · Before Christ the law and prophets were not yet gospel; his coming made all Scripture gospel.
Commentary on John 1.34Origen · ca. 230–248 · Like leaven, Christ's coming revealed the true, spiritual meaning of the law and the histories.
Commentary on John 1.36Origen · ca. 230–248 · The gospel of the new covenant brings out the Spirit's newness hidden in all the Scriptures.
Commentary on John 1.39Origen · ca. 230–248 · As the law was a shadow of good things to come, the gospel read literally is a shadow of Christ's mysteries.
Commentary on John 1.40Origen · ca. 230–248 · The eternal, spiritual gospel reveals the realities behind Christ's words and deeds; there is an outward and a hidden Christianity.
Commentary on John 1.44Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen distinguishes a perceptible gospel from a spiritual one.
Commentary on John 1.45Origen · ca. 230–248 · The task of the commentary is to draw the spiritual gospel out of the literal one.
Commentary on John 1.46Origen · ca. 230–248 · The aim is to reach the deep meaning of the gospel, free of types.
Commentary on John 1.80Origen · ca. 230–248 · The “beginning of the gospel” is either the whole Old Testament, typified by John the Baptist, or its end in John.
Commentary on John 1.82Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark's opening refutes heretics who ascribe the two Testaments to two different gods.
Commentary on John 1.85Origen · ca. 230–248 · Philip's preaching of Jesus from Isaiah shows that the prophets belong to the beginning of the gospel.
Commentary on John 1.86Origen · ca. 230–248 · Since all the prophets announced Christ, all Scripture is in some way part of the gospel.
Commentary on John 1.90Origen · ca. 230–248 · The word “beginning” has many meanings in Scripture as well as in Greek philosophy.
Commentary on John 1.255Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ is the great high priest who offered himself once for all rational beings, not for humans alone.
Commentary on John 1.279Origen · ca. 230–248 · In Scripture “horse” often stands for the voice that carries God's teaching.
Commentary on John 1.284Origen · ca. 230–248 · The speaker of Psalm 45:1 may be the prophet, not the Father.
Commentary on John 1.285Origen · ca. 230–248 · The psalm speaks of God in the third person, so the Father cannot be the speaker.
Commentary on John 1.286Origen · ca. 230–248 · An objector might argue that only the Father could address the church as “daughter.”
Commentary on John 1.287Origen · ca. 230–248 · Psalms often change speaker, so the Father may speak only from verse 10.
Commentary on John 2.2Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen gathers texts where the word of the Lord “came to” the prophets.
Commentary on John 2.4Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Word came to Hosea, “one being saved,” son of Beeri, “wells”: every saved person is a son of the spring of God's wisdom.
Commentary on John 2.63Origen · ca. 230–248 · The fine linen may stand for earthly languages that express truth purely; the next lemma is John 1:2.
Commentary on John 2.101Origen · ca. 230–248 · Heracleon's reading is forced, and he adds to Scripture without support, as if he had apostolic authority.
Commentary on John 2.132Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some manuscripts read “is life”; the living are those in the light, the sons of light.
Commentary on John 2.159Origen · ca. 230–248 · Scripture calls God's commandments light, and speaks also of a light of knowledge.
Commentary on John 2.173Origen · ca. 230–248 · The “dark treasures” and “dark sayings” are hidden truths revealed in Christ, to be proclaimed in the light.
Commentary on John 2.174Origen · ca. 230–248 · The good darkness of hidden mysteries becomes light when understood; the next lemma is John 1:6.
Commentary on John 2.203Origen · ca. 230–248 · Many come to faith by seeing how the prophets foretold Christ's birth, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection.
Commentary on John 2.204Origen · ca. 230–248 · Miracles persuaded their witnesses, but prophecy fulfilled now convinces later generations and supports the miracles.
Commentary on John 2.205Origen · ca. 230–248 · The prophets teach much about the Father and the Son, as the apostles do.
Commentary on John 2.207Origen · ca. 230–248 · Foretelling Christ was a gift to the prophets, who taught earlier generations about the Son.
Commentary on John 2.208Origen · ca. 230–248 · Denying that the prophets testified to Christ robs them of their greatest grace.
Commentary on John 2.213Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen holds that John 1:16–18 is the Baptist's speech, not the evangelist's.
Commentary on John 4.1Origen · ca. 230–248 · Scripture's rough style does not matter, since its meaning is sound, as Paul says his preaching was not in persuasive words.
Commentary on John 4.2Origen · ca. 230–248 · The treasure of divine wisdom is in the “earthen vessels” of Scripture's plain style, so that its success is shown to be God's power, not eloquence.
Commentary on John 5.1Origen · ca. 230–248 · In the preface to Book 5 Origen protests to Ambrose that writing so many books risks breaking the command of Ecclesiastes.
Commentary on John 5.2Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen considers the meaning of “beware of making many books” and the objection that the saints wrote few.
Commentary on John 5.3Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul, Peter, and John wrote little: Paul a few letters, Peter one acknowledged letter, John a Gospel, Revelation, and short letters.
Commentary on John 5.4Origen · ca. 230–248 · Solomon and Paul said much, so “much speaking” cannot simply mean saying many things.
Commentary on John 5.5Origen · ca. 230–248 · The truth is one Word, however much is said; falsehood is “many words,” so all holy writings form one book.
Commentary on John 5.6Origen · ca. 230–248 · All Scripture that speaks of Christ is one “book,” like the scroll in Revelation, with a plain sense in front and a spiritual sense behind.
Commentary on John 5.7Origen · ca. 230–248 · Scripture speaks of one book of life but many books of judgment; the whole of Scripture is one book, and the four Gospels are one gospel, against Marcion.
Commentary on John 6.15Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ taught the prophets and Abraham too; they also received from his fullness, passing from types to truth.
Commentary on John 6.16Origen · ca. 230–248 · Only some prophets longed to see what the apostles saw; the perfected prophets had already seen it spiritually.
Commentary on John 6.21Origen · ca. 230–248 · The prophets, being wise, understood their own prophecies.
Commentary on John 6.22Origen · ca. 230–248 · Moses and Joshua understood the spiritual realities behind their own histories.
Commentary on John 6.23Origen · ca. 230–248 · Isaiah and Ezekiel saw the highest mysteries in their visions.
Commentary on John 6.24Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen will add a little more to show that the perfect of old knew as much as the apostles.
Commentary on John 6.25Origen · ca. 230–248 · Since the mystery was revealed to the apostles through the prophets' writings, the prophets knew it too.
Commentary on John 6.26Origen · ca. 230–248 · Something is “revealed” either when it is understood or when it is fulfilled.
Commentary on John 6.27Origen · ca. 230–248 · The prophets knew that the Gentiles would share in the promise.
Commentary on John 6.28Origen · ca. 230–248 · The apostles did not understand more than the prophets, but they saw the prophecies fulfilled.
Commentary on John 6.30Origen · ca. 230–248 · Seeing the fulfillment does not make the apostles wiser than the fathers and prophets.
Commentary on John 6.31Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen insists on this against those who, exalting the apostles, invented another God or belittled the prophets.
Commentary on John 6.40Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ is Righteousness itself, and from him come many righteousnesses in the saved.
Commentary on John 6.53Origen · ca. 230–248 · Careful readers of Scripture must note who speaks and when; the next lemma is John 1:19–20.
Commentary on John 6.109Origen · ca. 230–248 · If prophecy were mere sound, Christ would not send us to the Scriptures.
Commentary on John 6.110Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ praises the prophets and sends us to them, which he would not do if they were empty noise.
Commentary on John 6.127Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen will compare the parallel Gospel passages.
Commentary on John 6.128Origen · ca. 230–248 · John puts Isaiah's “voice” in the Baptist's mouth; Mark uses it to open his Gospel.
Commentary on John 6.129Origen · ca. 230–248 · John abbreviated Isaiah; Mark combined Malachi and Isaiah under Isaiah's name.
Commentary on John 6.130Origen · ca. 230–248 · The two prophecies come from Isaiah 40 and Malachi 3.
Commentary on John 6.131Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark, like John, abbreviates and adapts the prophetic texts.
Commentary on John 6.132Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Pharisees' question in John came before their coming to baptism in Matthew.
Commentary on John 6.133Origen · ca. 230–248 · In Matthew only the Pharisees and Sadducees were rebuked; Mark mentions no rebuke at all.
Commentary on John 6.135Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen defends his use of the other Gospels here.
Commentary on John 6.137Origen · ca. 230–248 · Luke continues the Isaiah quotation and abbreviates it like Mark.
Commentary on John 6.138Origen · ca. 230–248 · Luke's changes to Isaiah show that the evangelists abbreviate and adapt prophecy.
Commentary on John 6.139Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew addresses the rebuke to the Pharisees, Luke to the crowds.
Commentary on John 6.140Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Pharisees are told to bear “fruit,” the crowds “fruits,” of repentance.
Commentary on John 6.158Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen will compare the Gospels' accounts of “I baptize with water.”
Commentary on John 6.162Origen · ca. 230–248 · In Matthew, John's water baptism prepares for Christ's spiritual baptism with the Holy Spirit and purifying fire.
Commentary on John 6.170Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark agrees with Matthew that a mightier one comes after John, but differs in adding that John is not fit to stoop and untie his sandal strap.
Commentary on John 6.171Origen · ca. 230–248 · Carrying the sandals and untying them are different acts, so John must have said both at different times.
Commentary on John 6.172Origen · ca. 230–248 · The evangelists did not misremember; to carry Christ's sandals and to untie them both mean grasping the mysteries of his incarnation.
Commentary on John 6.184Origen · ca. 230–248 · The first three Gospels speak of sandals, John of a single sandal.
Commentary on John 6.186Origen · ca. 230–248 · Alternatively, “sandal” and “sandals” can be taken as meaning the same, so that the four Gospels agree.
Commentary on John 6.196Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Word was always among human beings, speaking through Isaiah and David.
Commentary on John 6.204Origen · ca. 230–248 · Though most copies read “Bethany,” Origen, having visited the places, prefers “Bethabara.”
Commentary on John 6.205Origen · ca. 230–248 · Bethany is near Jerusalem, far from the Jordan, while Bethabara is shown on the Jordan's bank as John's baptizing place.
Commentary on John 6.207Origen · ca. 230–248 · Bethany, “house of obedience,” fits Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; the meanings of names deserve careful attention.
Commentary on John 6.208Origen · ca. 230–248 · Names are often corrupted in the Greek copies, as with the place of the Gadarene swine.
Commentary on John 6.209Origen · ca. 230–248 · Gerasa is in Arabia, far from any sea or lake, so the evangelists cannot have meant it.
Commentary on John 6.210Origen · ca. 230–248 · Gadara, the other reading, has hot springs but no lake with cliffs.
Commentary on John 6.211Origen · ca. 230–248 · Gergesa, by the Sea of Galilee with a cliff, is the right place; its name, “dwelling of those who cast out,” fits the people who sent Jesus away.
Commentary on John 6.212Origen · ca. 230–248 · Names are also corrupted in the Greek Old Testament, as comparison with Hebrew copies and the versions of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus shows.
Commentary on John 6.213Origen · ca. 230–248 · For example, Levi's son Gershon is miscopied as “Geson” in most Greek copies.
Commentary on John 6.214Origen · ca. 230–248 · Other examples: Aunan for Onan, and Bouthan for Etham in the list of Israel's camps.
Commentary on John 6.215Origen · ca. 230–248 · Lists of names, as in Joshua, Chronicles, and Ezra, are especially likely to be corrupted.
Commentary on John 6.216Origen · ca. 230–248 · Names carry meanings useful for interpretation, but that topic must wait.
Commentary on John 6.217Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jordan means “descent,” like the name Jared, in whose days, according to Enoch, the sons of God came down; some take this as souls descending into bodies.
Commentary on John 6.226Origen · ca. 230–248 · God led Israel through the Red Sea by Moses and through the Jordan by Joshua.
Commentary on John 6.227Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul interprets the Red Sea crossing spiritually, as a baptism into Moses.
Commentary on John 6.228Origen · ca. 230–248 · So also the Jordan crossing under Joshua should be read as a baptism into Jesus.
Commentary on John 6.247Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jeremiah rebukes those who drink Egypt's water instead of the Jordan.
Commentary on John 6.248Origen · ca. 230–248 · Ezekiel's oracle against Pharaoh as the dragon in his rivers shows that Scripture's rivers are not merely physical.
Commentary on John 6.260Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew says Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized.
Commentary on John 6.261Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark names Nazareth; Luke omits the place.
Commentary on John 6.263Origen · ca. 230–248 · Only Matthew records John's protest and Jesus' reply; the next verse is “Behold the Lamb of God.”
Commentary on John 6.265Origen · ca. 230–248 · To understand the sacrifices spiritually, one must ask what heavenly things they foreshadow, especially the lamb.
Commentary on John 6.266Origen · ca. 230–248 · Hebrews teaches that the sacrifices are copies and shadows of heavenly realities.
Commentary on John 6.267Origen · ca. 230–248 · Only the mature can uncover the spiritual truth of the law brought by Jesus Christ.
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 10.1Origen · ca. 230–248 · Book 10 opens with John 2:12–25; after a gap, Origen remarks that numbers in Scripture have meaning, as the book of Numbers suggests.
Commentary on John 10.3Origen · ca. 230–248 · John says Jesus went down to Capernaum; the other Gospels say he withdrew to Galilee after the temptation.
Commentary on John 10.4Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew and Luke say Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum; Matthew and Mark connect this with John's arrest.
Commentary on John 10.5Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew's account: after the temptation and John's arrest, Jesus moved to Capernaum and began to preach repentance.
Commentary on John 10.6Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark's account of the temptation and the start of Jesus' preaching in Galilee.
Commentary on John 10.7Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark then tells of the first disciples and Jesus teaching in Capernaum's synagogue.
Commentary on John 10.8Origen · ca. 230–248 · Luke's account: after the temptation Jesus returned to Galilee and came to Nazareth.
Commentary on John 10.9Origen · ca. 230–248 · Luke tells of the rejection at Nazareth and Jesus going down to Capernaum.
Commentary on John 10.10Origen · ca. 230–248 · Apparent contradictions between the Gospels must be resolved spiritually, or people lose faith; John's chronology leaves no room for the forty days of temptation.
Commentary on John 10.11Origen · ca. 230–248 · In John, Jesus went from Capernaum to Jerusalem for Passover and cleansed the temple.
Commentary on John 10.12Origen · ca. 230–248 · John's Gospel then tells of Nicodemus, Jesus baptizing in Judea while John still baptized at Aenon, and John's disciples' question.
Commentary on John 10.13Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew and Mark place the move to Galilee after John's arrest, but John has much happening before John was imprisoned: both cannot be literally true.
Commentary on John 10.14Origen · ca. 230–248 · Faced with the Gospels' discrepancies, one must either pick one Gospel arbitrarily or hold that their truth lies beyond the literal level.
Commentary on John 10.15Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen offers an analogy: imagine four seers each reporting God's appearances to different saints, agreeing in some points and differing in others.
Commentary on John 10.16Origen · ca. 230–248 · In the analogy, the second seer reports God appearing at the same time to someone far away, saying other things.
Commentary on John 10.17Origen · ca. 230–248 · Someone reading these reports as plain history, and imagining God confined to one place, would think they contradict one another.
Commentary on John 10.18Origen · ca. 230–248 · So the evangelists, being wise, sometimes expressed spiritual truths in the form of historical narrative.
Commentary on John 10.19Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen accepts that the evangelists sometimes changed place, time, or details for the sake of spiritual meaning.
Commentary on John 10.20Origen · ca. 230–248 · Where literal and spiritual truth could not both be kept, the evangelists preferred the spiritual, as Jacob spoke spiritual truth in saying “I am Esau.”
Commentary on John 10.21Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ has many aspects, so the evangelists could say seemingly contradictory things, such as that he was and was not born of David.
Commentary on John 10.27Origen · ca. 230–248 · The spiritual interpretation reconciles the Gospels' apparent discords.
Commentary on John 10.28Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul too speaks in different characters, fleshly and spiritual, which can seem contradictory.
Commentary on John 10.29Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul became all things to all people, so his words must be read according to the audience he addresses.
Commentary on John 10.30Origen · ca. 230–248 · Examples: Paul speaks as weak, as a Jew in shaving his head and circumcising Timothy, and as without law in quoting pagan poets at Athens.
Commentary on John 10.31Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Gospels also differ about the disciples: Peter's call in John differs from his call by the Sea of Galilee.
Commentary on John 10.32Origen · ca. 230–248 · John, the more spiritual Gospel, tells of Peter being found by his brother and named Cephas at once.
Commentary on John 10.33Origen · ca. 230–248 · In Matthew, Peter receives his name only later, at his confession.
Commentary on John 10.34Origen · ca. 230–248 · In John, Jesus baptizes through his disciples; in the other Gospels he does not baptize.
Commentary on John 10.35Origen · ca. 230–248 · John's Gospel never tells of the Baptist's arrest, while Matthew places it right after the temptation.
Commentary on John 10.36Origen · ca. 230–248 · Few are wise enough to grasp the whole Christ from all four Gospels.
Commentary on John 10.62Origen · ca. 230–248 · A student should gather everything the Gospels say about Capernaum to interpret it correctly.
Commentary on John 10.64Origen · ca. 230–248 · In the first three Gospels Jesus' preaching and first miracles begin at Capernaum.
Commentary on John 10.65Origen · ca. 230–248 · Only John marks a “beginning of signs,” and he places it at Cana.
Commentary on John 10.67Origen · ca. 230–248 · Why does John add “of the Jews” to the Passover?
Commentary on John 10.68Origen · ca. 230–248 · “Of the Jews” may distinguish a merely human Passover from the true, divine Passover kept in spirit and truth.
Commentary on John 10.86Origen · ca. 230–248 · Someone may feel Paul raised our thoughts to heavenly realities without explaining how the law's rites foreshadow them.
Commentary on John 10.103Origen · ca. 230–248 · Eating the lamb raw is reading Scripture only literally, like beasts.
Commentary on John 10.104Origen · ca. 230–248 · Boiling the lamb is watering Scripture down into lax, comfortable interpretations.
Commentary on John 10.105Origen · ca. 230–248 · The lamb must be roasted with the fire of the Spirit, as Jeremiah's words burned in him and the disciples' hearts burned on the road to Emmaus.
Commentary on John 10.106Origen · ca. 230–248 · One eats from head to feet: from the highest doctrines down to teachings about matter, the underworld, and demons.
Commentary on John 10.107Origen · ca. 230–248 · Scripture must be taken whole, inner meanings included, without breaking its unity, as heretics do.
Commentary on John 10.110Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Passover signifies Christ; historical things are types of spiritual realities.
Commentary on John 10.113Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew's sequence of Jesus' movements in and around Capernaum has no mention of a Passover.
Commentary on John 10.114Origen · ca. 230–248 · No other Gospel says the Passover was near after Jesus' stay in Capernaum.
Commentary on John 10.119Origen · ca. 230–248 · John puts the temple cleansing at the start of Jesus' ministry; the others put a similar event near the end.
Commentary on John 10.120Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew's account of Jesus cleansing the temple after his entry into Jerusalem.
Commentary on John 10.121Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark's account of the temple cleansing.
Commentary on John 10.122Origen · ca. 230–248 · Luke's account: Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, then cleanses the temple.
Commentary on John 10.123Origen · ca. 230–248 · John places a similar cleansing during a different, earlier visit to Jerusalem.
Commentary on John 10.124Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew's account of the entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and colt.
Commentary on John 10.125Origen · ca. 230–248 · Then follows the passage already quoted.
Commentary on John 10.126Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark's account of the entry, the withered fig tree, and the temple cleansing.
Commentary on John 10.127Origen · ca. 230–248 · Luke's account of the entry into Jerusalem.
Commentary on John 10.128Origen · ca. 230–248 · John tells of the entry into Jerusalem at a later visit, after the supper at Bethany.
Commentary on John 10.129Origen · ca. 230–248 · The three Gospels put these events in one visit; John spreads them over two, separated by much else.
Commentary on John 10.130Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen holds that literal reading alone cannot reconcile these accounts, and invites reasoned rebuttal.
Commentary on John 10.131Origen · ca. 230–248 · Praying for insight, Origen begins with John: Jerusalem, the great King's city, is built on a height to which the tribes go up.
Commentary on John 10.143Origen · ca. 230–248 · The clean animals are used because the story must be historically plausible; unclean animals could not be in the temple.
Commentary on John 10.144Origen · ca. 230–248 · The evangelist drew on the real practice of traders in the outer court at feasts.
Commentary on John 10.145Origen · ca. 230–248 · Taken literally, could a carpenter's son have driven out so many traders without being accused of violence?
Commentary on John 10.146Origen · ca. 230–248 · Anyone whipped by an obscure man would have resisted with help from the crowd.
Commentary on John 10.147Origen · ca. 230–248 · Taken literally, Jesus making a whip might seem rash and disorderly.
Commentary on John 10.152Origen · ca. 230–248 · Next come the parallel passages in the other Gospels.
Commentary on John 10.153Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew says the whole city was stirred when Jesus entered.
Commentary on John 10.154Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew first tells of the two disciples fetching the donkey and colt.
Commentary on John 10.155Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew says this fulfilled Zechariah's prophecy.
Commentary on John 10.156Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew describes Jesus riding on both animals as the crowds spread garments and branches and cried Hosanna.
Commentary on John 10.157Origen · ca. 230–248 · The crowds tell the stirred city that this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth.
Commentary on John 10.158Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew's account of the cleansing itself.
Commentary on John 10.159Origen · ca. 230–248 · For literalists: why was it necessary to send two disciples for the animals?
Commentary on John 10.160Origen · ca. 230–248 · What was worth recording in the ride, and why did Zechariah prophesy it so grandly?
Commentary on John 10.161Origen · ca. 230–248 · Literalists must also explain the rest of Zechariah's prophecy, which Jesus did not literally fulfill.
Commentary on John 10.162Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew quotes Zechariah freely, abridging and changing the wording.
Commentary on John 10.163Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jewish critics rightly ask how Jesus literally fulfilled the rest of Zechariah 9.
Commentary on John 10.164Origen · ca. 230–248 · The short distance from Bethany does not explain why he needed an animal, let alone two.
Commentary on John 10.166Origen · ca. 230–248 · Literally, the garments and branches would seem foolish and even a hindrance.
Commentary on John 10.167Origen · ca. 230–248 · The same, and greater, difficulties apply to the cleansing in Matthew.
Commentary on John 10.168Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew has Jesus drive out buyers too, a much larger crowd.
Commentary on John 10.170Origen · ca. 230–248 · In John it is the Father's house turned into a market; in the others the house of prayer becomes a den of robbers.
Commentary on John 10.172Origen · ca. 230–248 · Understanding these things requires the mind of Christ, beyond our own ability.
Commentary on John 10.173Origen · ca. 230–248 · Though our sight is dim, we will reach out in faith to the words of life, as one touching Christ's garment.
Commentary on John 10.174Origen · ca. 230–248 · Spiritually, the Word enters the soul riding the Old Testament, untied by two interpreters: one applying it to the soul, one to the realities to come.
Commentary on John 10.175Origen · ca. 230–248 · The colt is the New Testament; both Testaments carry the Word that cleanses us.
Commentary on John 10.178Origen · ca. 230–248 · The donkey is a burden-bearer, like the heavy letter of Scripture, especially of the Old Testament.
Commentary on John 10.179Origen · ca. 230–248 · The New Testament letter is a lighter burden than the Old.
Commentary on John 10.185Origen · ca. 230–248 · The donkey was bound because the veil over the law hid Jesus.
Commentary on John 10.188Origen · ca. 230–248 · If the animals are the two Testaments, they are sent back once the Word has entered the purified soul.
Commentary on John 10.192Origen · ca. 230–248 · Mark and Luke mention only an unridden colt.
Commentary on John 10.197Origen · ca. 230–248 · The rest of Mark's and Luke's accounts can be understood from what was said about Matthew.
Commentary on John 10.198Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Gospels' variations describe different souls: in some Christ drives out all, in others he only begins, in others only the sellers.
Commentary on John 10.199Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Gospels' discords are resolved spiritually: each evangelist describes the Word working differently in different souls.
Commentary on John 10.200Origen · ca. 230–248 · John's different timing can be reconciled only spiritually; he describes palm branches and a crowd going out to meet Jesus.
Commentary on John 10.202Origen · ca. 230–248 · John too quotes Zechariah freely, adding “Fear not,” which is not in the prophet.
Commentary on John 10.209Origen · ca. 230–248 · Literally, “no human has sat on it” would be pointless, since only humans ride colts.
Commentary on John 10.252Origen · ca. 230–248 · The false witnesses took his words about his body as about the stone temple; he stayed silent before the high priest.
Commentary on John 10.254Origen · ca. 230–248 · Historically, the forty-six years are hard to explain.
Commentary on John 10.255Origen · ca. 230–248 · Kings says the temple was prepared for three years and finished in Solomon's eleventh year.
Commentary on John 10.256Origen · ca. 230–248 · Even with preparation, the building took about eleven years, not forty-six.
Commentary on John 10.257Origen · ca. 230–248 · One might count forty-six years from David's plan to build, since he gathered materials though he could not build.
Commentary on John 10.258Origen · ca. 230–248 · Chronicles records David gathering vast materials for the temple.
Commentary on John 10.259Origen · ca. 230–248 · Counting from David's fifth year gives forty-six years only by forcing; or the temple meant is Ezra's, for which the figure cannot be verified.
Commentary on John 10.260Origen · ca. 230–248 · Perhaps the temple was rebuilt in Maccabean times, but Origen does not know.
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 10.273Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen now presses literalists to seek a spiritual meaning worthy of Scripture.
Commentary on John 10.274Origen · ca. 230–248 · Would princes cut stones, and would Scripture record such numbers without purpose?
Commentary on John 10.276Origen · ca. 230–248 · How could eighty thousand stonecutters work without any noise?
Commentary on John 10.282Origen · ca. 230–248 · The cherubim stood in the Debir, a word the translators left untranslated.
Commentary on John 10.290Origen · ca. 230–248 · But refusing to apply the history would be like the heretics, who break Scripture's unity.
Commentary on John 10.297Origen · ca. 230–248 · A full study is left to tireless readers of the prophets.
Commentary on John 10.299Origen · ca. 230–248 · Spiritually, at the resurrection of Christ's whole body the disciples will see what Scripture foreshadowed and believe fully.
Commentary on John 10.300Origen · ca. 230–248 · Truly believing Scripture means grasping the Spirit's meaning, which fleshly readers never glimpse.
Commentary on John 13.23Origen · ca. 230–248 · It is good first to drink from Jacob's spring; Jesus does not call it a well.
Commentary on John 13.24Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jacob's spring has value, or Jesus would not have sat there and asked for a drink.
Commentary on John 13.26Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jacob's spring may be the Scriptures, and Jesus' water the truth itself, which is of a different order.
Commentary on John 13.27Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some divine mysteries exceed Scripture, and some exceed human language altogether.
Commentary on John 13.28Origen · ca. 230–248 · John was forbidden to write the thunders' words; Paul heard words that humans may not utter.
Commentary on John 13.29Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul's words were not lawful for a man to utter.
Commentary on John 13.30Origen · ca. 230–248 · All of Scripture is only a small beginning of the whole of knowledge.
Commentary on John 13.31Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jacob's spring may be Scripture, and Jesus' water what goes beyond what is written.
Commentary on John 13.32Origen · ca. 230–248 · Not all may search beyond Scripture; Sirach warns against seeking what is too hard.
Commentary on John 13.33Origen · ca. 230–248 · Knowing what lies beyond Scripture belongs to someone like John, who heard the thunders but did not write.
Commentary on John 13.34Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul's unspeakable words and what no eye has seen lie beyond what is written.
Commentary on John 13.35Origen · ca. 230–248 · What has not entered the human heart, greater than Jacob's spring, is revealed to those with the mind of Christ.
Commentary on John 13.36Origen · ca. 230–248 · “Human wisdom” may mean the elementary truths; the Spirit's teaching is the spring of eternal life.
Commentary on John 13.37Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Scriptures are introductions; from them we must go up to Jesus for the living spring.
Commentary on John 13.38Origen · ca. 230–248 · People drink from Scripture differently: the wise like Jacob and his sons, the simple like his flocks, the heterodox like the Samaritan woman.
Commentary on John 13.39Origen · ca. 230–248 · The wise, the simple, and the heretics drink differently from Scripture. Next lemma: “Sir, give me this water.”
Commentary on John 13.42Origen · ca. 230–248 · One must first labor at drawing from Scripture before receiving the Word's water. Next lemma: “Go, call your husband.”
Commentary on John 13.43Origen · ca. 230–248 · The woman's husband is the law ruling her soul, as Paul says the law rules as long as it lives.
Commentary on John 13.44Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul's “living husband” is the law.
Commentary on John 13.45Origen · ca. 230–248 · When the law dies, the soul is released from it.
Commentary on John 13.46Origen · ca. 230–248 · Paul: while the husband lives, joining another is adultery; after his death she is free.
Commentary on John 13.47Origen · ca. 230–248 · The letter of the law has died; the soul may now belong to the spiritual law, Christ risen from the dead.
Commentary on John 13.58Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen would accept this if it meant partial present knowledge, but not if it slanders the Old Testament.
Commentary on John 13.61Origen · ca. 230–248 · If Heracleon means the letter must give way to the spirit, fine; but he wrongly despises the Old Testament, which foreshadows good things to come.
Commentary on John 13.101Origen · ca. 230–248 · “You” are the Samaritans, or heretics; “we” are the Jews, or the Word and those shaped by him, whose salvation comes from the Jewish Scriptures.
Commentary on John 13.104Origen · ca. 230–248 · Heracleon cites the “Preaching of Peter,” whose authenticity is doubtful, as teaching that neither Greek idolaters nor Jews truly know God.
Commentary on John 13.107Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ fulfills the law and prophets, which shows how salvation is from the Jews.
Commentary on John 13.108Origen · ca. 230–248 · One God justifies Jews and Gentiles by faith, which establishes the law. Next lemma: John 4:23.
Commentary on John 13.110Origen · ca. 230–248 · Those enslaved to the letter worship only in figures and are not true worshipers.
Commentary on John 13.130Origen · ca. 230–248 · We must either accept absurdities about God or interpret these words spiritually.
Commentary on John 13.131Origen · ca. 230–248 · As we read God's bodily features figuratively, so we must read “spirit,” “fire,” and “light.”
Commentary on John 13.160Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jesus says Moses wrote about him.
Commentary on John 13.161Origen · ca. 230–248 · The Law has many veiled references to Christ; “Messiah” is rendered “Christ” by the Seventy and “Anointed” by Aquila.
Commentary on John 13.183Origen · ca. 230–248 · The evangelist's wording supports such spiritual readings.
Commentary on John 13.250Origen · ca. 230–248 · Literal readers of “four months to harvest” face difficulties that show Jesus often spoke of purely spiritual things.
Commentary on John 13.251Origen · ca. 230–248 · Four months before harvest would be winter, since harvest in Judea begins around Nisan, at Passover.
Commentary on John 13.252Origen · ca. 230–248 · Even if harvest is a month later, four months earlier is still midwinter; Origen will show it was actually harvest time.
Commentary on John 13.253Origen · ca. 230–248 · The sequence in John: Cana, Capernaum, then Passover in Jerusalem and the cleansing of the temple.
Commentary on John 13.254Origen · ca. 230–248 · After speaking with Nicodemus, Jesus baptized in Judea for an unstated time after Passover.
Commentary on John 13.255Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jesus left Judea for Galilee through Samaria and at Jacob's spring said this.
Commentary on John 13.256Origen · ca. 230–248 · Objection answered: after two days in Samaria Jesus reached Galilee, where people had recently seen his deeds at the Passover.
Commentary on John 13.257Origen · ca. 230–248 · Someone may reply that Jesus could have stayed longer in Judea, so the Galileans remembered deeds eight months old.
Commentary on John 13.258Origen · ca. 230–248 · But then comes the healing of the official's son and a feast in Jerusalem, where he healed the paralytic.
Commentary on John 13.259Origen · ca. 230–248 · If that feast was Passover, the chronology becomes cramped, since Tabernacles soon follows.
Commentary on John 13.260Origen · ca. 230–248 · So we must seek the spiritual meaning of “four months” and “white for harvest,” as with the waters.
Commentary on John 13.261Origen · ca. 230–248 · “White for harvest” is plainly spiritual, so the disciples' “four months” must be too.
Commentary on John 13.264Origen · ca. 230–248 · “Months” fits the image of harvest, veiling the mystery from literal-minded hearers,
Commentary on John 13.265Origen · ca. 230–248 · while showing a simple sense so the words seem clear.
Commentary on John 13.269Origen · ca. 230–248 · He must mean one harvest throughout; the literal reading makes no sense.
Commentary on John 13.270Origen · ca. 230–248 · It is inconsistent to read the second half spiritually but not the first.
Commentary on John 13.279Origen · ca. 230–248 · The fields of Scripture turn white when the Word comes and illumines them.
Commentary on John 13.284Origen · ca. 230–248 · We are urged to lift our eyes to the fields of Scripture and of creation's reasons to see the light of truth everywhere. Next lemma: John 4:36.
Commentary on John 13.285Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen proposes to survey the meanings of “harvest” in Scripture before interpreting John 4:35.
Commentary on John 13.290Origen · ca. 230–248 · Of the five senses surveyed, neither the ordinary one nor the end-of-the-age one fits John 4:36.
Commentary on John 13.297Origen · ca. 230–248 · The harvest is the clear understanding of Scripture and of the goodness of creation, which brings the reaper two fruits.
Commentary on John 13.305Origen · ca. 230–248 · Moses and the prophets sowed; the apostles who saw Christ's glory reaped the mystery now revealed.
Commentary on John 13.306Origen · ca. 230–248 · The seed was the mystery long hidden and now revealed through the prophets and Christ's appearing, the true light that whitened the fields.
Commentary on John 13.307Origen · ca. 230–248 · The fields are the Law and the Prophets, which become white only to Christ's disciples.
Commentary on John 13.308Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen urges his readers to look at the Scriptures sown by Moses and the prophets and reap their fruit.
Commentary on John 13.314Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some accept that the apostles knew more than Moses and the prophets; others hesitate to say so.
Commentary on John 13.315Origen · ca. 230–248 · Those who hold the apostles saw more cite sayings about prophets longing to see, the mystery now revealed, and the sealed book.
Commentary on John 13.316Origen · ca. 230–248 · Those who hold the prophets understood reply that the prophets knew but did not unfold the mysteries, and that what they longed to see was greater still.
Commentary on John 13.319Origen · ca. 230–248 · Another view: Moses and the prophets understood fully, but the apostles built on their seeds and reaped far more when the fullness of time came in Christ.
Commentary on John 13.325Origen · ca. 230–248 · The apostles, taught by Jesus, reaped the meaning that Moses and the prophets had labored to sow in their writings.
Commentary on John 13.361Origen · ca. 230–248 · Those who cling to Scripture's letter are at home in its “body”; those who grasp its spiritual sense are at home with the Lord.
Commentary on John 13.367Origen · ca. 230–248 · Perhaps John, unskilled in style, expressed this obscurely, though he knew what he meant.
Commentary on John 13.379Origen · ca. 230–248 · Building the prophets' tombs means honoring only the letter of Scripture and neglecting its life-giving spirit.
Commentary on John 13.380Origen · ca. 230–248 · This is the scribes' and Pharisees' error: the scribes cling to the letter, and the Pharisees are those who have separated themselves.
Commentary on John 13.438Origen · ca. 230–248 · At his first coming Christ gladdens the baptized; through him Scripture, once water, has become wine.
Commentary on John 13.448Origen · ca. 230–248 · Careful study of where and why Jesus spoke brings the fruit promised in the Psalm.
Commentary on John 13.449Origen · ca. 230–248 · Scripture never names “wonders” alone, but often names “signs” alone.
Commentary on John 13.450Origen · ca. 230–248 · Wonders are extraordinary deeds; signs are things that point beyond themselves, even when ordinary.
Commentary on John 13.452Origen · ca. 230–248 · Every wonder in Scripture is also a sign pointing beyond itself.
Commentary on John 13.453Origen · ca. 230–248 · Signs call for understanding; the official is rebuked because he needed wonders to believe.
Commentary on John 13.454Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen raises the same question about “signs in Egypt and wonders in the plain of Tanis” in Ps 78.
Commentary on John 19.40Origen · ca. 230–248 · The evangelist's note that Jesus spoke in the treasury must have a purpose.
Commentary on John 19.43Origen · ca. 230–248 · Spiritually, the temple treasury is a place of offerings for God's honor and the relief of the poor.
Commentary on John 19.44Origen · ca. 230–248 · The coins are sacred words bearing the King's image, to be tested like coins; each should bring what he can to build up the church.
Commentary on John 19.56Origen · ca. 230–248 · God's wisdom, spoken among the perfect, surpasses all worldly wisdom as gold surpasses sand; Scripture's words are refined silver from the Word.
Commentary on John 20.7Origen · ca. 230–248 · The steward of mysteries must choose the right time, measure, and hearers for such doctrines.
Commentary on John 20.39Origen · ca. 230–248 · This spiritual reading fits if Israel in the Gospels is also understood spiritually.
Commentary on John 20.67Origen · ca. 230–248 · Since no one must literally copy Abraham's marriages, all his works must be done spiritually, beginning with leaving one's land.
Commentary on John 20.74Origen · ca. 230–248 · Explaining each detail spiritually needs a wise interpreter; Origen will attempt it.
Commentary on John 20.115Origen · ca. 230–248 · John's statements about God's children and the devil's are carefully not parallel.
Commentary on John 20.116Origen · ca. 230–248 · John's word choice, “is” for the devil's and “born” for God's, is deliberate.
Commentary on John 20.144Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen asks whether “your” in Matt 5:45 is original or a copyist's error, since becoming the son of one's own father seems contradictory.
Commentary on John 20.187Origen · ca. 230–248 · Psalm 19 speaks of God's judgments as things to be desired.
Commentary on John 20.275Origen · ca. 230–248 · Many today admire Jesus' story but reject its deeper meaning; we must beware of this.
Commentary on John 20.322Origen · ca. 230–248 · Christ is the tree of life whose every leaf is lasting.
Commentary on John 20.323Origen · ca. 230–248 · Every saying of Jesus deserves careful study, even the simplest.
Commentary on John 20.324Origen · ca. 230–248 · If we find nothing deep, the fault is ours.
Commentary on John 28.95Origen · ca. 230–248 · Spiritually, literal worship and teaching resist Christ, the truth, as flesh resists Spirit.
Commentary on John 28.137Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen obelized “the Spirit of God came upon him,” absent from other Greek versions.
Commentary on John 28.154Origen · ca. 230–248 · Or it was true in a deeper sense: Christ tasted death for everyone.
Commentary on John 28.190Origen · ca. 230–248 · As heretics twist Scripture's holy sense, so the council misheard Caiaphas' true prophecy and plotted to kill Jesus.
Commentary on John 28.225Origen · ca. 230–248 · Scripture distinguishes the Lord's feasts from those of sinners.
Commentary on John 28.241Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some still stand in the “temple” of Scripture seeking Christ, but reject the one who came.
Commentary on John 28.243Origen · ca. 230–248 · They seek Jesus in the Scriptures, wondering whether he will come.
Commentary on John 32.7Origen · ca. 230–248 · Or breakfast is the Old Testament's sense, supper the New Testament's mysteries.
Commentary on John 32.11Origen · ca. 230–248 · John deliberately places the washing after supper to point to its spiritual meaning.
Commentary on John 32.43Origen · ca. 230–248 · Why did he need to take off his garments to wash their feet? The letter points to a spiritual sense.
Commentary on John 32.51Origen · ca. 230–248 · Why does John say Jesus “began” to wash their feet?
Commentary on John 32.52Origen · ca. 230–248 · Either “began” is a scriptural idiom, or Jesus did not finish the washing at that moment.
Commentary on John 32.68Origen · ca. 230–248 · Why did Jesus not begin the washing with Peter, who is listed first among the Twelve?
Commentary on John 32.97Origen · ca. 230–248 · Literal interpreters cannot explain why refusing a mere foot-washing would cost Peter his part with Christ.
Commentary on John 32.98Origen · ca. 230–248 · The threat makes sense only if the washing means more than washing bodily feet.
Commentary on John 32.99Origen · ca. 230–248 · Read literally, Jesus would seem to answer a reverent disciple harshly, which is absurd.
Commentary on John 32.113Origen · ca. 230–248 · The words may be read as a question or as a command.
Commentary on John 32.131Origen · ca. 230–248 · The requirement that an enrolled widow have washed the saints' feet should not be taken only literally.
Commentary on John 32.133Origen · ca. 230–248 · Taken literally, the command would require bishops, masters, and parents to wash the feet of all, which is scarcely ever done.
Commentary on John 32.137Origen · ca. 230–248 · If the command is kept literally, must we also literally tell those who refuse our washing that they have no part with us?
Commentary on John 32.138Origen · ca. 230–248 · One must decide whether the wording must always be kept literally.
Commentary on John 32.140Origen · ca. 230–248 · If the command were literal, nearly everyone would be in breach of it; then follows the Gospel text John 13:16–18.
Commentary on John 32.141Origen · ca. 230–248 · The blessing on those who “do these things” refers to the foot-washing and supports a figurative reading.
Commentary on John 32.144Origen · ca. 230–248 · Matthew and Luke have parallel sayings about the disciple and the teacher.
Commentary on John 32.152Origen · ca. 230–248 · “I know whom I have chosen” has a simple sense, and a deeper one based on Scripture's use of “know.”
Commentary on John 32.153Origen · ca. 230–248 · Jesus' “I never knew you” cannot mean simple ignorance.
Commentary on John 32.157Origen · ca. 230–248 · John paraphrases Psalm 41 (40 LXX).
Commentary on John 32.164Origen · ca. 230–248 · John's “lifted up his heel” renders the psalm's “magnified his heel.”
Commentary on John 32.197Origen · ca. 230–248 · Fulfilled prophecy strengthens faith; then follows the Gospel text John 13:20.
Commentary on John 32.221Origen · ca. 230–248 · The instance is Sihon, whose spirit God hardened, in Deuteronomy.
Commentary on John 32.247Origen · ca. 230–248 · Psalm 41 shows that Judas had been a friend before he fell.
Commentary on John 32.260Origen · ca. 230–248 · The beloved disciple at the supper is John, as the end of the Gospel shows.
Commentary on John 32.261Origen · ca. 230–248 · The same disciple wrote the Gospel, as John 21:24 says.
Commentary on John 32.263Origen · ca. 230–248 · The beloved disciple's place at Jesus' bosom must be read spiritually, as a real honor.
Commentary on John 32.265Origen · ca. 230–248 · Understood spiritually, Abraham's bosom answers an objector who mocked the story of Lazarus as if only one could lie there.
Commentary on John 32.267Origen · ca. 230–248 · A further use of “bosom”: Moses' hand made leprous and restored.
Commentary on John 32.268Origen · ca. 230–248 · The hand stands for actions; Moses' bosom has a literal power that makes them leprous and a spiritual power that restores them.
Commentary on John 32.269Origen · ca. 230–248 · Those not persuaded by the letter may be persuaded by the spiritual sense of the law.
Commentary on John 32.271Origen · ca. 230–248 · Exodus 4:9: river water poured out becomes blood.
Commentary on John 32.294Origen · ca. 230–248 · Origen admits his inquiry may seem over-curious but prefers to test every word of Scripture.
Commentary on John 32.296Origen · ca. 230–248 · Psalm 27 is the Savior's own voice, fearless as the powers of evil gather against him.
Commentary on John 32.310Origen · ca. 230–248 · The bread and cup mean the Eucharist for simpler believers and the nourishing word of truth for deeper ones.
Commentary on John 32.395Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some thought “Today you will be with me in paradise” contradicted the three days and was a forgery.
Commentary on John 32.396Origen · ca. 230–248 · Either Jesus brought the thief to paradise first, or “today” means the whole present age, as elsewhere in Scripture.
On Prayer 2.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · Spiritual prayers written in Scripture, such as Hannah's and the psalms titled “prayer,” are full of the doctrines of God's wisdom.
On Prayer 13.4Origen · ca. 233–234 · The deliverances in Scripture are types of spiritual gifts; Christians should pray not for earthly things but for fruitfulness of soul and deliverance from spiritual enemies.
On Prayer 14.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The unwritten saying “ask for great and heavenly things, and small and earthly ones will be added” means we should pray for the spiritual realities of which Scripture's stories are types.
On Prayer 14.4Origen · ca. 233–234 · Examples of prayer in the strict sense, offered with glorification: Azarias, Tobit, Hannah, Habakkuk, and Jonah.
On Prayer 16.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · The answered prayers of Hannah, Hezekiah, Esther, Judith, the three youths, Daniel, and Jonah were more spiritual than bodily deliverances.
On Prayer 18.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen suggests that the prayers in Matthew and Luke, given on different occasions, may be two different prayers with parts in common; Mark has none.
On Prayer 23.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · To think God is in a bodily place implies he is a body, divisible and corruptible; so passages like God walking in paradise must not be taken literally.
On Prayer 23.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · “In heaven” sets God's being apart from all creatures, though they receive his glory and power; Scripture's language of place must be read spiritually.
On Prayer 27.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · As Paul says, milk is for spiritual infants and solid food for the mature; even Romans 14 on eating everything or only vegetables refers mainly to spiritual teaching.
On Prayer 27.14Origen · ca. 233–234 · The feasts, sabbaths, and jubilees of the law may be shadows of the ordering of whole ages, known fully only to God.
On Prayer 29.10Origen · ca. 233–234 · Even reading Scripture is a temptation: many have misread it and invented a false Father or Son, worshiping a figment instead of the true God.
Homily on Luke 1Origen · ca. 233–250 · Luke’s “many have tried” shows that many gospels were written but the church receives only four; true sight of the Word belongs to faith, and every lover of God is a “Theophilus.”
Homily on Luke 16Origen · ca. 233–250 · Simeon’s “fall and rising” answers those who reject the Creator as cruel, for the same is said of Christ; in each believer the evil must fall so that the good may rise.
Homily on Luke 28Origen · ca. 233–250 · Matthew’s descending genealogy, with its sinful ancestors and women, shows Christ taking on sinners’ condition, while Luke’s ascending genealogy follows his baptism; Christ at thirty, like Joseph, gathers the wheat of the Scriptures for the hungry.
Homily on Luke 31Origen · ca. 233–250 · The devil quotes Ps 91 against Christ, as heretics misuse Scripture, though the psalm speaks of the saints, not of Christ, and its next verse promises that the righteous will trample the devil.
Homily on Isaiah 2Origen · ca. 235–250 · Origen interprets the sign of Isa 7 as Christ, who descended and ascended, discusses the reading “you shall call” against Matthew's “he shall be called,” and reads the butter and honey as the good words and works Christ eats with us.
Homily on Isaiah 6Origen · ca. 235–250 · Comparing Isaiah's readiness with Moses' refusal, Origen teaches that church office is service, explains the spiritual meaning of the foot-washing, and expounds the fat heart, heavy ears, and closed eyes of Isa 6:9–10.
Homily on Isaiah 7Origen · ca. 235–250 · Origen expounds Isa 8:18–20: all believers are Christ's little children, even the prophets and apostles knew only in part, and Christians must not seek ventriloquists and demons, or teachers who speak from the belly, but the Law and the Word made flesh.
Homily on Isaiah 9Origen · ca. 235–250 · Origen returns to Isaiah's commission, reports a Hebrew teacher's view that the prophet grew reluctant after hearing his grim message, and explains the fat heart as one choked by worldly cares; the homily breaks off unfinished.
Address of Thanksgiving 13Gregory Thaumaturgus · ca. 238–245 · Origen had his students read all the ancient philosophers and poets except the atheists, so that no single school would capture their minds.
Address of Thanksgiving 15Gregory Thaumaturgus · ca. 238–245 · Origen taught them to heed God and the prophets above all men, and by the Spirit interpreted the dark places of Scripture; his school was a paradise.
On the Witch of Endor 1Origen · ca. 240 · Of the four passages read from 1 Samuel, the bishop asks Origen to preach on Saul and the woman who seemed to bring up Samuel.
On the Witch of Endor 2Origen · ca. 240 · Unlike some Old Testament stories, the account of Samuel and the medium concerns everyone, since it raises the question whether after death even a prophet's soul could fall under a demon's power.
On the Witch of Endor 4Origen · ca. 240 · Origen answers that the narrator of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, says plainly that the woman saw Samuel, that Saul “knew” it was Samuel, and that Samuel spoke, foretelling truthfully God's transfer of the kingdom, which a demon could not do.
Homily on 1 Samuel 1.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen raises the objection of a new hearer that the righteous Elkanah had two wives and that Hannah grieved at childlessness, though Christians honor chastity, and asks for prayer that the veil over the text be removed.
Homily on 1 Samuel 1.9Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Since Hannah’s “prayer” mostly does not address God, Origen argues that every righteous act done according to God counts as prayer, so that the righteous pray without ceasing, and reads the lifting of hands as lifting one’s deeds.
Homilies on Exodus 1.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen compares every word of Scripture to a seed that grows into a tree when it is cultivated spiritually, and asks his hearers' prayers before expounding the opening of Exodus.
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 2.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses, hidden by his Levite parents and rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, figures the law received by the Church of the Gentiles, which understands it spiritually while the Synagogue keeps only the letter.
Homilies on Exodus 4.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen will not treat as chance the varying accounts of who hardened Pharaoh's heart, and follows Paul's reticence in not committing the solution of the question to writing.
Homilies on Exodus 5.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Paul's reading of the crossing of the sea, the cloud, the manna, and the rock as baptism, the Spirit, spiritual food, and Christ gives the Church a rule for understanding the law spiritually.
Homilies on Exodus 7.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The bitter water of Marah is the law taken literally (circumcision, sacrifices, the Sabbath), and the tree that sweetens it is Christ, the tree of life, who opens its spiritual sense.
Homilies on Exodus 7.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The commandments were given to test a murmuring people and bring death to those who do not keep them, but, sweetened by the cross and understood spiritually, they are commandments of life that free us from the “Egyptian sicknesses” of worldliness, astrology, and pleasure.
Homilies on Exodus 7.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The order of the journey, Marah before Elim, is the order of faith: from the letter of the law, sweetened by the cross, to the twelve springs of the apostles and the seventy palms of the seventy disciples.
Homilies on Exodus 9.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Only one who has passed spiritually through the whole exodus can understand the tabernacle; Paul, in Hebrews, opens a little of its meaning, reading the veil as Christ's flesh and the holies as heaven.
Homilies on Exodus 10.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Taken literally, the law of the struck pregnant woman, like the law of the false witness in Deuteronomy, raises questions that cannot be settled, so both must be understood spiritually.
Homilies on Exodus 12.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses' veiled, glorified face figures the hidden glory of the law, whose veil, Paul says, is taken away only when one turns to the Lord.
Homilies on Exodus 12.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · To turn to the Lord is to leave worldly cares and give the word of God the undivided attention parents give their children's schooling; those who leave as soon as the readings end have not even reached the veil.
Homilies on Exodus 12.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · “The Lord is the Spirit” calls hearers to turn to the Word as spirit, so that the veil over the law is taken away, and true freedom comes only from the Son.
Homilies on Ezekiel 14.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · The shut gate signifies the hidden meanings of Scripture, opened only by Christ, who holds the key of knowledge; some mysteries are known to Christ alone, the prince who eats the bread within.
Homilies on Joshua 2.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses’ death signifies the end of the temple cult and the reign of Jesus in the church, as a non-canonical book’s image of two Moseses, one dead and one living, also shows.
Homilies on Joshua 2.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The “places” we tread are reached by rising from the letter of the law to its spiritual sense, up to Christ at God’s right hand.
Homilies on Joshua 3.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The two and a half tribes settled by Moses, all first-born, figure the people of the law, whose righteous men, the prophets, still come to fight beside Christians, while the women and infants who stay behind figure those who leave no teaching.
Homilies on Joshua 6.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Christ performs the true circumcision, whose wound heals when new virtues become habit; the three foods of the exodus are secular learning, the divine law, and the fruits of the promised life to come.
Homilies on Joshua 7.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The priestly trumpets that brought down Jericho are the writings of the apostles, which overthrew idolatry, divination, and the doctrines of the philosophers.
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 9.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Jesus reads the whole law to his people when he reveals its spiritual sense, so that the catholic church receives the law of Moses as read by Christ.
Homilies on Joshua 15.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The apostles gave the church the books of Israel’s wars to read only because they figure the spiritual wars Christians wage against the powers that try to make them sin.
Homilies on Joshua 18.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Caleb, “as a heart,” son of Jephunneh, “turning,” figures the believer who acts with understanding and is strong in the mysteries of both the law and the Gospel.
Homilies on Joshua 19.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · On Judah’s eastern side lie the salt sea, the spring and city of the sun, and the city of letters: the believer crosses the sea of this life to reach Christ, the Sun of righteousness, and the city of letters is won by study of Scripture.
Homilies on Joshua 20.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Even when the lists of names in Joshua are not understood, hearing Scripture benefits the soul: as pagan incantations act through names, the words of Scripture strengthen the angelic powers within and around us and drive away the demons.
Homilies on Joshua 20.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Like a medicine whose effect is felt only later, Scripture benefits the hearer even when not understood, since it has a power of its own even without explanation.
Homilies on Joshua 20.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Anak means “empty humility,” the humiliation of sin and the lowly ideas of poets and philosophers about the divine; its three sons stand for the errors of idolatry, which the law cuts off, and Debir, “speech,” shows the letter of the Old Testament turned into spiritual speech in the church.
Homilies on Joshua 23.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The division of the land by lot foreshadows the heavenly inheritance: the earthly Jerusalem given to Benjamin is a figure of the heavenly city, and the names of places, like the names of angels and patriarchs, are not chance; these mysteries were seen by Paul but are not uttered.
Homilies on Judges 5.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen asks what profit for teaching and righteousness the inspired account of Deborah, Barak, Jael, and Sisera can bring.
Homilies on Leviticus 1.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · As the Word was clothed in flesh, so Scripture is clothed in the letter; the spiritual sense of Leviticus must be sought, or the church would be bound to offer animal sacrifices.
Homilies on Leviticus 1.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Flaying and dividing the calf signify removing the veil of the letter and distributing teaching suited to beginners, the progressing, and the perfect; the washing of entrails and feet signifies baptism.
Homilies on Leviticus 2.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The soul 'from the people of the land' that does a commandment 'which shall not be done' is the one that keeps the sacrificial law literally, since God gave such commands to signify Christ, not to be done.
Homilies on Leviticus 3.7Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Hearers who receive the Lord's word and forget it have taken holy things; they must restore their five senses to God's service, add the five spiritual senses, and refer all to the one God.
Homilies on Leviticus 4.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Since the Lord and God are spirit and Christ's words are 'spirit and life', the words God spoke through Moses must also be heard spiritually.
Homilies on Leviticus 4.7Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The law that whoever touches the holy sacrifice is sanctified cannot be true literally (a murderer touching it would be sanctified), so it must be understood through the Gospel, which removes the veil from Moses.
Homilies on Leviticus 4.9Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The full handful with oil and incense signifies generous mercy and service; the 'memorial' is remembering Scripture and what is taught in church, and what exceeds one's understanding is to be left to the priest and teacher.
Homilies on Leviticus 4.10Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The high priest's daily offering, half morning and half evening, is the law in its letter and its spirit, the latter given at the Saviour's coming; the law is 'eternal' only spiritually, and Christ's own word, like a whole burnt offering, is not to be revised.
Homilies on Leviticus 5.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Read literally, the laws of sacrifice would hinder Christianity; read spiritually, they make the hearer a Jew inwardly, and the heretics who reject them fail to see that Scripture, like the world, has body, soul, and spirit.
Homilies on Leviticus 5.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The oven, frying pan, and griddle signify the three levels of Scripture (hidden, discoverable by study, and plain), corresponding to its mystical, moral, and historical senses, as do the basket of three loaves and the three loaves of the parable.
Homilies on Leviticus 5.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The peace offering must be eaten the same day because the priest's 'flesh', the word of God taught in church, must always be fresh and spiritual, not stale and literal; the old will be a blessing only in the age to come.
Homilies on Leviticus 5.9Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The two days on which the vow offering may be eaten are the two Testaments, from which all knowledge of God is to be drawn; what they leave unresolved must not be supplied from a 'third scripture' but left to God.
Homilies on Leviticus 6.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Only those who turn wholly to God, freed from worldly cares and devoted to prayer and Scripture, can see past the veil of the law on the priestly garments.
Homilies on Leviticus 6.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The people's presence at the high priest's consecration shows that the most worthy must be chosen openly; his two tunics signify knowing the law in letter and spirit, while the apostles keep only the inner, spiritual one; the ephod signifies works.
Homilies on Leviticus 7.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Paul's calling the law's food and drink 'spiritual' and 'a shadow', and Peter's vision at Joppa, interpreted by him as meaning that no human being is common or unclean, show that the clean and unclean animals signify people.
Homilies on Leviticus 7.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Christ's parable of the net shows that the clean and unclean fish are people; each person gives others clean or unclean 'food' in conversation, and even the Gospel's letter, such as eating Christ's flesh, kills unless taken spiritually.
Homilies on Leviticus 7.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The clean animal chews the cud (meditates on Scripture spiritually) and divides the hoof (lives with the age to come in view); the captive woman of Deut 21 signifies pagan learning, to be purified of everything dead before it is taken up.
Homilies on Leviticus 8.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Christ the heavenly physician heals the sick in his church, such as the woman unclean from childbirth and the leper, not with herbs but with the medicines of Scripture's words, whose power lies beneath the rough surface.
Homilies on Leviticus 9.7Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · As Isaiah's lips were purged by a coal, so sinners need fire for every member that has sinned; lack of faith and neglect of Scripture leave the flesh stronger than the spirit.
Homilies on Leviticus 9.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The altar's fire purges the saints, while sinners face the fire of their own kindling; Christ fills his hands with the 'fine compounded incense' of virtues and spiritual understanding offered by believers.
Homilies on Leviticus 10.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The law's rites were like a sculptor's clay model, needed only until Christ, the true temple, high priest, and Lamb, brought the finished work; therefore God let the temple be destroyed.
Homilies on Leviticus 13.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The loaves of presentation point to Christ, the bread from heaven, and to the eucharistic memorial; spiritually they distinguish deep teaching ('fine flour', as Abraham's loaves) from ordinary moral exhortation ('meal', as Lot's).
Homilies on Leviticus 13.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · As the loaves are 'holy of holies', so the deeper meaning of God's word is reserved for the pure in heart, while others receive it in parables.
Homilies on Leviticus 14.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The blasphemer of mixed descent figures the heretic who keeps the letter of Scripture but rejects its spiritual sense and so curses the Creator; slander against God or neighbour excludes from the kingdom.
Homilies on Leviticus 16.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The blessings at the end of Leviticus, like prizes in the games, reward keeping God's law; since the law is spiritual, its blessings are spiritual and open to all who share the virtues of those first blessed.
Homilies on Leviticus 16.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The promised rain is not the common rain given to just and unjust but the word of God, which must be given 'in its season', suited to each hearer's capacity.
Homilies on Leviticus 16.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Threshing, vintage, sowing, bread, safe dwelling, and peace promised in Lev 26 signify the testing and teaching of Scripture, Christ the living bread, firmness in faith, and the peace of God.
Homilies on Leviticus 16.7Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The 'five' who rout a hundred are the wise teachers who overcome unbelief with the sword of God's word; God's look restores, as with Peter, and the old law gives way to the new, so that God dwells in the renewed heart.
Homilies on Numbers 7.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · God's praise of Moses as one to whom he speaks face to face points to the law understood spiritually in the church, and preachers who fail to expound the law spiritually give occasion for despising it.
Homilies on Numbers 9.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Against heretics who say the God of the law is just but not good, Origen points to Moses and Aaron praying for their enemies, and teaches that the law understood spiritually is always a new testament.
Homilies on Numbers 9.7Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Aaron's rod bearing nuts figures Christ's cross and the threefold sense of Scripture (the bitter letter, the protective moral teaching, and the nourishing hidden mystery), and God, who promised only that the rod would sprout, gave more than he promised.
Homilies on Numbers 11.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Distinguishing “law” from commandments, ordinances, testimonies, and judgments, Origen argues that some precepts are only shadows, some (like the Ten Commandments) are kept literally, and some (like the joining of husband and wife) are kept literally and also bear an allegorical sense.
Homilies on Numbers 13.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The “riddle-speakers” of Numbers are the law, the prophets, and the church's spiritual interpreters, who tear down pagan error in a person's thoughts and rebuild them with truth and piety.
Homilies on Numbers 16.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Discussing whether God always does what he says, Origen examines Jonah’s preaching to Nineveh and Gad’s message to David, distinguishes God’s words from a prophet’s (as with Moses’ permission of divorce), and finally prefers Jeremiah’s teaching that God relents.
Homilies on Numbers 23.9Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The feast of trumpets in the seventh month is kept by those who commit the prophetic and gospel Scriptures, the heavenly trumpets, to memory and meditate on them.
Homilies on Numbers 26.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Since the narrator of the Pentateuch is the Holy Spirit, the account of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh settling east of the Jordan must hold a meaning worthy of him that helps the reader escape the rich man’s torments; Origen asks his hearers to pray for its unveiling.
Homilies on Numbers 27.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · As bodies need different foods, so souls need different parts of Scripture: beginners prefer the plain books and shun Leviticus or Numbers, but nothing written by the Holy Spirit is superfluous, and we must ask God for understanding.
Homilies on Numbers 27.8Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Israel left Egypt the day after the Passover, a festival kept now only “in part”; God’s vengeance on the gods of Egypt is executed whenever those whom demons deceived are converted, and above all when believers study the Scriptures.
Homilies on Numbers 27.12Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen runs through the remaining stations, reading each name as a stage of the soul’s advance (health, labours, praise of judgment, the law, the burial of cravings, blessedness, vision, temptation, and so on) down to the plains by the Jordan, and defends this method by comparing the graded stages of a school.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 1.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The wicked wither like grass and herbs: earthly glory, even an emperor’s, passes, while the word of God remains; the soul should be a vineyard of spiritual understanding, not a garden of fleshly herbs as Ahab wanted.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 1.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · “Hope in the Lord and do goodness” and “dwell in the land” mean cultivating the land of one’s own soul; “delight in the Lord” means enjoying the delicacies of understanding Scripture, and the Lord gives the heart what it naturally asks, understanding.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 2.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The promise to the meek in Ps 37:11 shows that Christ’s beatitude was already spoken in the old Scriptures, against the Valentinians; the meek delight in the abundance of peace, while the sinner who gnashes at the righteous awaits his day.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 3.6Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Literally, a little gained honestly is better than wealth gained unjustly; spiritually, the simple believer’s small faith is better than worldly learning, though best of all is to be rich in the whole of Scripture and in good works. The breaking of the sinners’ arms is read in several ways.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 5.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The mouth of the righteous should speak only wisdom, which is Christ; even the unlearned share in wisdom by faith and prayer and must not despise those who study, and the future tense points to the age to come, when all will be disciples of wisdom.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 5.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The righteous will see sinners perish; the exalted ungodly vanish for one who “passes by” in mind from the visible and temporal to the eternal, and the heretics who set another God above the Creator vanish when the letter of the law is passed over for its spiritual sense.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 8.7Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The word of God should kindle a fire in the meditation of the one who studies it, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus, Jeremiah, and the apostles at Pentecost, burning away sin through repentance and then becoming a light.
Homilies on Jeremiah 1.2Origen · ca. 240 · The dates of Jeremiah's ministry look like mere history, but a careful reader asks what they teach.
Homilies on Jeremiah 1.6Origen · ca. 240 · Some apply Jeremiah's call to Christ, but parts fit Christ poorly and parts fit Jeremiah poorly; Origen refuses to split one passage between them.
Homilies on Jeremiah 1.7Origen · ca. 240 · The nations and kingdoms to be rooted out are sins ruling in souls; and with Scripture as witness, even “I am too young” can be applied to Christ, who emptied himself and grew as a child.
Homilies on Jeremiah 4.6Origen · ca. 240 · Judah turned back to God only half-heartedly; true conversion means reading the Old and New Testaments, imitating the righteous, and living by what we read.
Homilies on Jeremiah 5.8Origen · ca. 240 · The veil over the heart that keeps sinners from understanding Scripture is their own shame and dishonor; like Moses, we remove it ourselves when we turn to the Lord.
Homilies on Jeremiah 5.13Origen · ca. 240 · Teachers must prepare their hearers' souls before sowing the doctrines of the faith, and every believer must plough his own soul, removing the thorns of worldly care, before receiving the seed of Scripture.
Homilies on Jeremiah 12.1Origen · ca. 240 · “Every wineskin will be filled with wine” is false literally, but true spiritually: every person is filled with wine, the good with the wine of Wisdom, the wicked with the wine of Sodom.
Homilies on Jeremiah 12.7Origen · ca. 240 · “Hear” refers to receiving Scripture's hidden meanings into the mind, “give ear” to its plain lessons; and both must be followed by humility, since pride is a common sin even over good things.
Homilies on Jeremiah 12.12Origen · ca. 240 · The bright mountains are the angels and saints, the dark ones the devil and his powers; to “listen secretly” is to grasp the hidden spiritual sense of Scripture, which is why Christians who keep Jewish feasts and fasts literally are rebuked, and the church must fear being crushed as Israel was.
Homilies on Jeremiah 14.3Origen · ca. 240 · Jer 15:10 has two readings, “I did not profit” (common in the churches) and “I did not owe” (in the most accurate copies, agreeing with the Hebrew); on the first reading, a teacher gains from hearers who make progress and ask questions, and Jeremiah had none.
Homilies on Jeremiah 14.12Origen · ca. 240 · The “treasures” taken from Israel as plunder are the prophets and the true meaning of Scripture, now given to the church; by rejecting Christ, who is righteousness, wisdom, and truth, they lost them all.
Homilies on Jeremiah 15.5Origen · ca. 240 · Christ owed nothing, since he committed no sin, and “no one owed him” because he forgave all debts, like the lender in the parable who forgave both debtors, the Jewish people and the Gentiles.
Homilies on Jeremiah 16.3Origen · ca. 240 · Christ's imitators, the prophets, apostles, and angels, become rocks too, each with a “cleft” through which God may be glimpsed in their words.
Homilies on Jeremiah 16.5Origen · ca. 240 · The reading “I will repay first their sins double” (lost in the Septuagint but found in the other versions) shows that believers who sin after baptism must first receive the purifying consequences of their sins before the reward of their good works.
Homilies on Jeremiah 16.10Origen · ca. 240 · Jeremiah's “sin of Judah engraved on the heart” (not in the Septuagint) applies to Christians who sin: sins leave an indelible imprint on the soul that will be laid bare at the judgment.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.2Origen · ca. 240 · Moses was told to go up the mountain, Jeremiah to go down to the potter's house: some teachings concern higher things, others lower things, and the mind that follows Christ, who both ascended and descended, can be led by the Word to all of them.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.4Origen · ca. 240 · Scripture is a spring to simple readers and a well to deeper ones; some interpret the potter who remakes the fallen vessel as God raising our bodies in the resurrection.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.6Origen · ca. 240 · Scripture's talk of God “repenting” or being angry is accommodation, like adults speaking baby talk to children: God neither changes his mind nor feels passion, but speaks so as to preserve our free will and correct us.
Homilies on Jeremiah 19.10Origen · ca. 240 · Origen closes his (mostly lost) introduction by praying that Jesus will appear and teach the meaning of the passage read.
Homilies on Jeremiah 19.11Origen · ca. 240 · Origen retells the story of Pashhur the priest, who struck Jeremiah and put him in the stocks and was renamed “Emigrant,” doomed to exile; he confesses he needs Christ's light to explain its deeper meaning.
Homilies on Jeremiah 20.1Origen · ca. 240 · God's anger, wrath, and repentance share only their names with ours: like his Word, which is unlike any human word, they are purposeful and corrective, as his “repentance” over Saul gave Israel David.
Homilies on Jeremiah 20.2Origen · ca. 240 · God's “deception” differs from ours; a Jewish convert told Origen that God, who persuades rather than compels, let Jeremiah think he would give the cup of wrath only to the nations, then told him to give it first to Jerusalem, as Isaiah too volunteered before learning his hard message.
Homilies on Jeremiah 20.5Origen · ca. 240 · According to Origen's Jewish teacher, Jeremiah, mocked whenever he said “Thus says the Lord,” began to say “Hear my words,” which is why the Hebrew book begins “The words of Jeremiah”; Christians likewise sometimes present Christian teaching without naming it to win prejudiced hearers.
Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes 1Gregory Thaumaturgus · 3rd century · Gregory's paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 1: human pursuits are empty, nothing is new, and wisdom brings toil.
On the Shows 2Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The writer reports the defenders' arguments from Scripture (Elijah's chariot, David's dancing, Paul's athletic images) and says they misread the texts.
On the Shows 3Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · Scripture's images of athletes and music do not license the shows; Scripture forbids some things by modestly leaving them unsaid, and conscience should do the rest.
On the Shows 10Novatian · mid-3rd cent. (disputed) · The Scriptures offer the Christian the true shows: creation, the flood, the exodus, the martyrs' faith, the raising of the dead, and the devil defeated under Christ's feet.
On the Trinity 6Novatian · ca. 240–250 · Scripture speaks of God's eyes, hands, and feet to suit the people's understanding; these describe his workings, for God is Spirit, simple, everywhere, and needs no members.
On the Trinity 9Novatian · ca. 240–250 · The rule of truth also requires faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Creator, whom the Old Testament promised in many prophecies of his birth, miracles, passion, resurrection, and reign.
On the Trinity 17Novatian · ca. 240–250 · Moses agrees with John: the Word through whom God created all things, and who made man in God's image and came down at Babel, is the Son, Christ, who is therefore God.
On the Trinity 19Novatian · ca. 240–250 · Scripture calls the one who spoke to Jacob both Angel and God, and the man who wrestled with Jacob both man and God; these figures point to Christ, who is God and not only man or angel.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.62Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Origen warns that the Song is solid food for the mature, notes the Jewish custom of reserving it for adults, and lists the topics of his prologue.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.77Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Proverbs also teaches the rational discipline; the order of the books leads from moral training through contempt of the visible world in Ecclesiastes to the invisible things veiled in the Song.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.83Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The Song is the seventh song, or the song beyond all songs including Isaiah's and the Psalms' songs of ascents; Origen asks why the three books of Solomon have different titles.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.87Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Origen rejects the view that the Song is one of Solomon's five thousand songs (1 Kgs 4), since neither church nor synagogue has any other songs of his in the canon.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 0.88Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Though apostles quoted apocryphal writings, the church's boundaries must not be crossed; the grammar of the title shows that the Song itself is Solomon's.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 1.100Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Christ's ointment is the Spirit, the oil of gladness; for the soul, the 'spices' are moral and natural philosophy, surpassed by the mystical understanding; Origen keeps the Septuagint's 'breasts' over a variant 'words'.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 1.106Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The fragrance of Christ gives life to some and death to others, as this spiritual exposition does; believers who mock it are to be persuaded from other scriptures that speak of spiritual senses.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.132Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The vineyards the bride keeps are the scriptures of both Testaments; her own unkept vineyard is her former learning, which she abandons, as Paul counted his Jewish observances loss for Christ.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.173Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The dove-eyes signify spiritual understanding of Scripture, given by the Holy Spirit.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.201Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Christ was first known to the Church by his voice in the prophets; he leaps on the mountains (prophets, apostles) and, for the struggling soul, opens hard passages of Scripture.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.204Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Christ leaps over the mountains as the gospel swiftly spread through the kingdoms, and as he springs out of the law and the prophets once the veil is removed.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.205Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The mountains are the saints, or the New Testament and the hills the Old; at the end those of lofty life will be found on the mountains with the Word.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.207Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Origen gathers the Scripture passages about the stag (Deuteronomy, Psalm 29, Job, Proverbs) to interpret them spiritually.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.208Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Visible creatures bear likenesses of heavenly realities, as the mustard seed images the kingdom and faith, so that the soul may rise from the visible to the invisible.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.209Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Wisdom 7 shows that knowledge of visible things points to hidden ones; God made the visible creation to teach the invisible.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.212Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · Scripture, like creation, is written so that visible events carry hidden meanings; the stags perfected by God's voice are spiritual persons who bring Christ to birth.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.216Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The roe stands for faith and the stag for good works; the mountains of Bethel are the books of Scripture; like a hunter losing the scent, Origen goes back over the passage.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.220Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · In the body the soul sees wisdom only through images; applied to Christ and the Church, Christ stood behind the wall of the Old Testament and calls the Church from the letter to the spirit.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.229Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · The literal scene (the outer wall, the veiled Bride) yields no benefit or coherence, so it must be read spiritually: the soul's winter is the time of passions, when it must withdraw and simply avoid sin.
Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.238Origen · ca. 240–245 (Rufinus's translation ca. 410) · After citing Samson and Nehemiah, Origen interprets Psalm 63: false teachers who read Scripture carnally descend to the depths and become the portion of the demons, the foxes.
Letter to Africanus 1Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen opens his reply to Julius Africanus about the story of Susanna, apologizing for its brevity.
Letter to Africanus 2Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen points out that the Greek Daniel contains much not in the Hebrew, including Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and the hymn of the three young men.
Letter to Africanus 3Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen begins to give examples of books in which the Greek copies are longer or shorter than the Hebrew.
Letter to Africanus 4Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen lists additions in the Greek Job, such as the longer speech of Job’s wife.
Letter to Africanus 5Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen notes passages missing from the Greek Job, the different order of Jeremiah, and differences in Genesis.
Letter to Africanus 6Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen asks whether Providence, which gave the churches their Scriptures, would have neglected those for whom Christ died.
Letter to Africanus 7Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen urges respect for the churches’ inherited Scriptures while explaining why he also studies the Hebrew text.
Letter to Africanus 8Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen reports that Jewish scholars he consulted could not say whether the Greek wordplay in Susanna has a Hebrew equivalent.
Letter to Africanus 11Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen argues that Jewish leaders removed passages discrediting elders and judges from public Scripture, citing the sawing of Isaiah, Jesus’ words on the prophets, Stephen, and Paul.
Letter to Africanus 12Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen answers that prophets received revelation in several ways, as Jacob did by dreams, visions, and inspiration.
Letter to Africanus 13Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen answers the charge that Daniel’s cross-examination is farcical by comparing it with Solomon’s judgment between the two women.
Letter to Africanus 14Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen begins a further remark on wordplay in the Scriptures.
Letter to Africanus 15Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen answers that some captives, like Tobit, Achiacharus, Mordecai, and Nehemiah, were wealthy and influential, so Joakim’s house and garden are not implausible.
Letter to Africanus 17Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen answers that prophets often repeat one another’s words, as Isaiah and Micah, or Chronicles and the Psalms, show.
Homily on the Song of Songs 0Origen · ca. 240–250 · In a preface to Pope Damasus, Jerome explains that he has translated Origen's two short homilies on the Song of Songs rather than his great ten-book commentary.
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.
On the Singleness of Clerics 23Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · Those who appeal to the saints should rather fear the example of the adulterous elders of Susanna; misusing the stories of Scripture to excuse sin defames the saints.
On the Computation of Easter 1Anonymous · 243 · The author explains that after long study of Scripture he has found the first day of the Passover month, and begins from the command of Exod 12.
Against Celsus 1.2Origen · ca. 248 · Christianity's Jewish origins are "barbarian," but its truth rests on a divine demonstration of the Spirit (prophecy) and of power (miracles still seen).
Against Celsus 1.4Origen · ca. 248 · Christian ethics resembles philosophy's because God wrote the moral law on every heart; the broken and rewritten tablets symbolize sin and renewal.
Against Celsus 1.12Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus boasts "I know everything" about Christianity, but he has learned only from ordinary believers, like a traveler who judges Egyptian religion by its common people rather than its priests.
Against Celsus 1.17Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus attacks allegorical reading of Moses though Greek myths about the gods are far more shameful; like Plato's Thrasymachus, he forbids his opponents their true answer.
Against Celsus 1.18Origen · ca. 248 · Compared book with book, Moses' laws help ordinary readers and reward deeper study, and they have spread through the world, while the Greek poets are forgotten.
Against Celsus 1.19Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus implies the world is eternal with repeated floods and fires, but gives no proof; Moses, inspired by God's Spirit, deserves more trust than Plato.
Against Celsus 1.34Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus ignored Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin would bear Emmanuel; Origen quotes it and defends the translation "virgin" against the rendering "young woman."
Against Celsus 1.35Origen · ca. 248 · From Isaiah's own words: a birth to a young wife would be no sign; the sign fits a virgin birth, given to the house of David and fulfilled in Christ, who descended and ascended.
Against Celsus 1.36Origen · ca. 248 · God gave Israel prophets, even for small matters, so that they would not turn to pagan divination, which the law forbade.
Against Celsus 1.42Origen · ca. 248 · Almost no history can be strictly proved, and even true stories may contain things to be read figuratively; the Gospels must be read with care and discernment.
Against Celsus 1.43Origen · ca. 248 · A Jew who believes the visions of Ezekiel and Isaiah cannot reject the dove at Jesus' baptism; Jesus' power, still at work in the churches, makes him more credible than the prophets.
Against Celsus 1.44Origen · ca. 248 · The same Spirit that taught Moses about events before his time taught the evangelists about Jesus' baptism; the deeper meaning of the dove is left for another occasion.
Against Celsus 1.45Origen · ca. 248 · Origen recalls telling Jewish scholars that they cannot believe Moses' miracles while rejecting Jesus'; indeed the prophecies of Jesus prove Moses a true prophet.
Against Celsus 1.48Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets' visions and Jesus' opened heavens are perceived by a spiritual "divine sense," not the bodily senses; and Jesus did not boast of his own baptismal vision, which John witnessed.
Against Celsus 1.49Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus ignores the many prophecies of Christ and has his Jew speak of one prophet in Jerusalem announcing a "son of God," which no Jew would say.
Against Celsus 1.50Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets foretold Christ's birthplace, sufferings, resurrection, and miracles, not merely that a judge would come; Origen will cite some of these prophecies.
Against Celsus 1.51Origen · ca. 248 · Micah foretold Bethlehem as the Messiah's birthplace, the cave of the nativity is still shown there, and the Jewish teachers knew the prophecy until they suppressed it after Christ came.
Against Celsus 1.53Origen · ca. 248 · Jacob's prophecy that rule would not leave Judah until the one came who is the nations' expectation is fulfilled in Christ, in whom the nations now hope.
Against Celsus 1.54Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's mockery of Christ's suffering, Origen quotes Isaiah's prophecy of the Servant who would suffer and die for others' sins.
Against Celsus 1.55Origen · ca. 248 · In debate with Jewish scholars who applied Isaiah's Servant to the people of Israel, Origen argued that the Servant who dies for "my people" must be someone else—Jesus Christ.
Against Celsus 2.2Origen · ca. 248 · The "many things" Jesus could not yet tell his Jewish disciples were the spiritual meaning of the law, which the Spirit later taught, as in Peter's vision.
Against Celsus 2.3Origen · ca. 248 · Jewish Christians like Paul constantly appeal to the law, reading it spiritually; Celsus, writing as an enemy, did not trouble to distinguish the different groups.
Against Celsus 2.4Origen · ca. 248 · Christians begin from the Jewish Scriptures and honor them more by uncovering their deeper meaning; the gospel's roots in the law, as Jesus and Mark say, do not bind believers to its letter.
Against Celsus 2.6Origen · ca. 248 · Even if Jesus kept the Jewish customs, he is still the Son of the God who gave the law, which the prophets themselves teach has a hidden meaning.
Against Celsus 2.20Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's charge that a foreknowing God made his disciples traitors, Origen argues that foreknowledge does not cause what it foresees, using Judas, the oracle to Laius, and the Stoic “idle argument.”
Against Celsus 2.24Origen · ca. 248 · Origen accuses Celsus of quoting Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane selectively, omitting his submission to the Father's will, as the impious quote “I will kill” without “I will make alive.”
Against Celsus 2.26Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that the disciples could easily have hidden Jesus' distress by not recording it, and that they cannot have been both sincere believers and conscious liars.
Against Celsus 2.27Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers Celsus's charge that Christians rewrote the Gospels: only heretics such as the followers of Marcion and Valentinus did so, and they no more discredit Christianity than bad philosophers discredit philosophy.
Against Celsus 2.28Origen · ca. 248 · Origen criticizes Celsus for dismissing the argument from prophecy without examining a single prophecy, and for putting into a Jew's mouth what no Jew would say.
Against Celsus 2.32Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers Celsus's objection to Jesus' royal genealogy: poor people can descend from kings, and Celsus ignores the real difficulties about the genealogies that Christians themselves discuss.
Against Celsus 2.37Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers Celsus's mockery of the vinegar and gall by pointing to Psalm 69, which foretold them.
Against Celsus 2.53Origen · ca. 248 · Origen shows that every objection Celsus's Jew raises against Jesus' warning about false wonder-workers can be turned against Moses, who gave a similar warning in Deuteronomy.
Against Celsus 2.54Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Celsus's Jew mocks Jesus' foretelling of his resurrection, yet Moses too wrote of his own mysterious, unknown burial.
Against Celsus 2.58Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Christians count the Greek tales as myths but the shared Scriptures as true, and that Jesus' resurrection, worked by the Father himself, has had far greater effects than those worked by Elijah and Elisha.
Against Celsus 2.69Origen · ca. 248 · Origen explains that Jesus' death and burial carry symbolic meaning for believers, who die and are buried with him in baptism, that his new rock-hewn tomb signifies his purity, and that vanishing from the cross would only have drawn other objections.
Against Celsus 2.74Origen · ca. 248 · Answering the claim that no god present among people is disbelieved, Origen points out that Israel disbelieved God's own manifest presence in the Exodus and made the golden calf, so their unbelief toward Jesus is in character.
Against Celsus 2.75Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Jews' rejection of Jesus matches their ancestors' unbelief in the wilderness, fulfilling Jesus' words and the prophecy of Deuteronomy about “your life hanging before your eyes.”
Against Celsus 2.76Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers that Jesus' “woes” are no different from God's in the prophets and the curses of the Law, spoken to bring people to repentance, and that even Greek sages could not persuade everyone.
Against Celsus 2.78Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Jesus did not come to cause the Jews' unbelief but foresaw it, and that God's providence used it to call the Gentiles, as the prophets and Paul foretold.
Against Celsus 3.2Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Jewish prophecies of Christ are no trifle, and that a nation taught to reject pagan oracles must have had genuine prophets to keep it from turning to them.
Against Celsus 3.3Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that Israel's faithfulness under persecution shows it had genuine signs and prophecies from God, since otherwise it would have turned to the pagan oracles and healing gods.
Against Celsus 3.4Origen · ca. 248 · Origen insists that the debate over the meaning of the prophecies is serious, since both Jews and Christians rightly accept that the prophets spoke from God.
Against Celsus 3.5Origen · ca. 248 · Origen rejects Celsus's claim that the Jews were rebel Egyptians, replying that the Egyptians oppressed the Hebrew guests, were punished by God, and slandered Moses, who was a pious lawgiver and truthful historian.
Against Celsus 3.6Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Hebrews cannot have been rebel Egyptians, since they had their own language and script before going to Egypt, in which Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
Against Celsus 3.11Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that Christians disagreed from the beginning, as the apostolic dispute over Gentile believers and Paul's letters show, so divisions are not a later corruption caused by numbers.
Against Celsus 3.18Origen · ca. 248 · Origen says Celsus credits Egyptian animal worship with hidden meaning but knows nothing of the wisdom and knowledge given by the Spirit to learned Christians.
Against Celsus 3.19Origen · ca. 248 · Origen objects that Celsus allows hidden meanings in Egyptian animal cults but denies any in Christian teaching, though Paul speaks of hidden wisdom taught to the mature.
Against Celsus 3.20Origen · ca. 248 · Origen challenges Celsus to read Paul's letters attentively, confident that he would either admire Paul's profound thought in plain language or make himself ridiculous.
Against Celsus 3.21Origen · ca. 248 · Origen points to the depth of the Gospels, with parables explained only to those “in the house” and Jesus' ascents of the mountain, as proof that Christianity's inner teaching is nothing like Egyptian animal worship.
Against Celsus 3.33Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the tale of Cleomedes vanishing from a chest, even if true, served no purpose, whereas Jesus' divinity is shown by the churches, the prophecies, the healings, and the wisdom found in Scripture.
Against Celsus 3.39Origen · ca. 248 · Origen agrees that faith produces Christian assent, but argues that the plain, guileless Gospel writers could not have invented such a teaching, and that Jesus chose them so that their power would clearly be divine, not rhetorical.
Against Celsus 3.45Origen · ca. 248 · Origen shows from the Old Testament, from David, Solomon, Hosea, Daniel, and Ezekiel, that God's word wants believers to be wise.
Against Celsus 3.46Origen · ca. 248 · The New Testament too values wisdom: Jesus explained the parables privately to his disciples, promised to send wise men, and Paul ranked the word of wisdom first among the gifts, while Stephen praised Moses' learning.
Against Celsus 3.47Origen · ca. 248 · Paul's criticism of the “wisdom of the world” targets materialist doctrines, not wisdom itself; he even admits that Greek sages knew God from the created world.
Against Celsus 3.50Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus likens Christian teachers to marketplace showmen who avoid the wise; Origen replies that Christians exhort people to piety and virtue, as Cynic philosophers also preached publicly without blame.
Against Celsus 3.52Origen · ca. 248 · Origen denies Celsus's comparison: Christians seek intelligent hearers and share their deeper teaching with them, while giving only “milk” to the simpler.
Against Celsus 3.53Origen · ca. 248 · Paul distinguished milk for beginners from solid food for the mature, which shows that Christians do not parade their highest teachings before the ignorant.
Against Celsus 3.58Origen · ca. 248 · Christians speak freely before good fathers and teachers; they turn youths away only from immoral teachers, and they build on a good philosophical education to lead students to the deeper wisdom of the prophets and apostles.
Against Celsus 3.72Origen · ca. 248 · True wisdom, defined as knowledge of divine and human things or as the radiance of God's glory, never leads people away from Christ; only sophistry falsely called wisdom does.
Against Celsus 3.73Origen · ca. 248 · Like lawgivers who legislated for ordinary people too, God through Jesus leads even the unintelligent to better lives, while the “wise” who fell into idolatry are put to shame.
Against Celsus 3.74Origen · ca. 248 · Every philosopher, like Christians, seeks to win “fools” in the sense of the morally bad, as a doctor seeks the sick; but Christians especially seek sharp minds able to grasp the hidden meanings of Scripture.
Against Celsus 4.1Origen · ca. 248 · Origen opens Book 4 with a prayer, asking for words like Jeremiah's to uproot Celsus's errors and to build up the truth, and turns to Celsus's attack on the prophecies of Christ.
Against Celsus 4.2Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks both Christians and Jews for expecting a divine judge to come to earth, but he never engages the actual prophecies about Christ; and Jews do not say the coming Messiah is God.
Against Celsus 4.7Origen · ca. 248 · God did not neglect humanity before Christ: in every generation his wisdom entered holy souls and made them friends of God and prophets.
Against Celsus 4.8Origen · ca. 248 · Why Christ came at a particular time is a deep mystery, tied to God's allotment of the nations to angels and of Israel to himself, and to his later gift of all nations to the Son.
Against Celsus 4.11Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Jews and Christians borrowed the idea of world floods and conflagrations from the Greeks; Origen answers that Moses is far older than the Greek sources, as Josephus showed.
Against Celsus 4.12Origen · ca. 248 · The flood and the coming conflagration are caused by overflowing wickedness, not by star cycles; and when Scripture says God “comes down,” it speaks figuratively of his condescension to human affairs.
Against Celsus 4.21Origen · ca. 248 · Moses' account of the tower of Babel and of Sodom is far older than the Greek myths of the Aloadae and Phaethon that Celsus says he copied; the prophets, proved true about the past, are to be trusted about the purifying fire to come.
Against Celsus 4.30Origen · ca. 248 · Humanity was made in God's image but not yet in his likeness, so Christians do not claim to be wholly like God; and Origen refuses to mock the philosophers as Celsus mocks Christians, while noting that they knew God yet fell into idolatry.
Against Celsus 4.31Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's claim that the Jews were insignificant runaways, Origen praises ancient Israel as a shadow of heavenly life: worshiping one God, banning images, prostitutes, and effeminacy, with just judges and Sabbaths devoted to hearing God's law.
Against Celsus 4.34Origen · ca. 248 · The power of the patriarchs' names in exorcism can only be explained from Genesis, and their Hebrew names prove that the Jewish nation truly descends from them.
Against Celsus 4.35Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus should have argued properly against the Jewish genealogy instead of hinting; no one can prove the patriarchs contemptible or claim their Hebrew names for another people.
Against Celsus 4.36Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus ridicules Genesis's creation of man and woman as tasteless compared with Hesiod, but Moses is far older than Hesiod, and even Plato banished such poets from his ideal state.
Against Celsus 4.37Origen · ca. 248 · Genesis never speaks of God's “hands” in creating man; such expressions, like God's wings, are figurative, and God's “breathing” into Adam means sharing his incorruptible Spirit.
Against Celsus 4.38Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks the creation of Eve from Adam's rib but admires Hesiod's myth of Pandora as allegory; Origen quotes Hesiod at length to show which story is more laughable read literally, and asks why only the Jews may not speak in allegory.
Against Celsus 4.39Origen · ca. 248 · Origen sets the story of paradise and the serpent beside Plato's myth of Eros born of Poros and Penia in the garden of Zeus, arguing that both must be read for their hidden meaning, and suggests Plato may have learned from Jewish teaching in Egypt.
Against Celsus 4.40Origen · ca. 248 · The story of Adam concerns human nature as a whole: “Adam” means “man,” and in him all die; the garments of skin carry a mystical meaning deeper than Plato's image of the soul losing its wings.
Against Celsus 4.41Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls Noah's ark monstrous but does not even know its true objection; Origen describes the ark as a marvel, built over a hundred years, tapering to a single cubit, vast in area, and preserving the seeds of all animals.
Against Celsus 4.42Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus garbles the raven of Genesis into a crow and claims the flood story was copied from Deucalion's, yet the Jewish Scriptures were meant to come to light, as Jesus himself foretold.
Against Celsus 4.43Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus sneers at Genesis's family stories and at Jacob's flocks, but these events happened as types written for Christians; Jacob's marked flocks signify believers from the nations.
Against Celsus 4.44Origen · ca. 248 · The patriarchs' wells, marriages, and unions with maidservants carry spiritual meaning, as Paul himself allegorized Sarah and Hagar in Galatians, though the wells were also real.
Against Celsus 4.45Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls Lot and his daughters worse than Thyestes; Origen, noting that Scripture neither praises nor blames them, observes that the Stoics defend such an act in a hypothetical end of the world, which Lot's daughters believed had come.
Against Celsus 4.47Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus lists the story of Joseph, his dreams, his kindness to his brothers, and the settlement in Goshen as if they were shameful, but gives no argument against any of it.
Against Celsus 4.48Origen · ca. 248 · If any stories deserve shame, it is the Greek myths of gods castrating and devouring one another, which even Chrysippus allegorized obscenely; Christians therefore refuse to call God “Zeus” or give the sun and moon divine names.
Against Celsus 4.49Origen · ca. 248 · The biblical writers themselves read their histories figuratively: Paul allegorizes the ox, marriage, the Red Sea, the manna, and the rock, and the psalmist calls Israel's history parables and riddles.
Against Celsus 4.50Origen · ca. 248 · The psalmist's prayer to see the wonders of God's law and the strange images of the prophets, like Ezekiel's dragon of Egypt, show that Scripture has hidden meanings; the Greek myths, by contrast, are silly and impious.
Against Celsus 4.51Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus evidently never read the Jewish allegorists Philo and Aristobulus, whose work would impress Greek philosophers; even the Pythagorean Numenius quoted and allegorized Moses, the prophets, and a story about Jesus.
Against Celsus 4.52Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus singles out the simple Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus as contemptible, and offers his own view that God made only immortal things and that human bodies do not differ from those of bats or frogs; Origen invites readers to judge the dialogue themselves.
Against Celsus 4.53Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus contradicts himself in calling the dialogue worthy of both pity and hatred; Scripture's writers were sincere witnesses, and no teaching improves people as effectively as faith that God sees every word, deed, and thought.
Against Celsus 4.55Origen · ca. 248 · Had Celsus read Genesis carefully, he would have noticed that “God made” is used for some creatures and not others, and asked to whom God's creative commands were addressed, rather than dismissing the account as meaningless.
Against Celsus 4.58Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus does not say whether every soul or only the rational soul is God's work; either way, since each body corresponds to its soul, a human body must differ from that of a bat or frog.
Against Celsus 4.60Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's claim that all bodies share one changing nature applies equally to the heavenly bodies; whether matter itself endures depends on whether it is unbegotten or created, a question of natural philosophy Origen leaves aside.
Against Celsus 4.71Origen · ca. 248 · As we speak simply to small children, God's Word in Scripture speaks of God in human terms for the weak, while the spiritual find a deeper sense in the same words.
Against Celsus 4.72Origen · ca. 248 · God's 'wrath' is not a passion but a figure for his stern discipline of sinners, as comparison of Scripture shows, just as his 'sleep' is not literal.
Against Celsus 4.87Origen · ca. 248 · Animals' fixed instincts show nature, not reason, at work; even Solomon's praise of the wise ants in Proverbs is a riddle with a hidden sense, as Jesus spoke in 'proverbs.'
Against Celsus 4.95Origen · ca. 248 · True foreknowledge comes through God inspiring pure human prophets, not through animals; Moses forbade augury, and Christians guard their hearts so that only God's Spirit shapes their imagination.
Against Celsus 5.29Origen · ca. 248 · The allotting of lands to gods, half-remembered in Greek and Egyptian lore, is taught truly by Moses: God divided the nations among his angels at Babel but kept Israel as his own portion; the deeper meaning is a mystery not to be exposed.
Against Celsus 5.30Origen · ca. 248 · Origen reads Babel as a hidden account of souls that leave the 'east' of divine light, build pridefully with material things, and are handed over, according to their guilt, to angels who assign them languages and lands.
Against Celsus 5.31Origen · ca. 248 · Continuing the allegory, Israel is the people that stayed in the 'east' under the Lord's own care; their growing sins led to exile among other nations, after which their Lord in turn drew people from the nations to himself.
Against Celsus 5.54Origen · ca. 248 · Only heretics like Apelles, Marcion's pupil, say Jesus alone came from God; Celsus garbled his story of the fallen angels from the Book of Enoch, which the churches do not accept as divine Scripture.
Against Celsus 5.55Origen · ca. 248 · Origen mentions an earlier interpreter who read the 'sons of God' and 'daughters of men' of Genesis 6 as souls desiring bodies, and mocks Celsus's claim that hot springs are fallen angels' tears, since tears are salty.
Against Celsus 5.56Origen · ca. 248 · The Gospels' one angel and two angels at Jesus' tomb do not contradict each other, since they describe different moments; their deeper meaning belongs to commentary on the Gospels.
Against Celsus 5.59Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus notes that the 'great church' shares the Jews' God and Genesis; Origen agrees, corrects Celsus's reading of God's 'rest' on the seventh day, and notes his silence about the plagues of Egypt.
Against Celsus 5.60Origen · ca. 248 · Christians and Jews agree the Scriptures are inspired but differ in interpretation: for Christians the literal law is veiled until one turns to the Lord, who is the Spirit, and sees its hidden glory.
Against Celsus 6.2Origen · ca. 248 · Plain Scripture has helped far more people than Plato's polished prose, because God gives power to those who preach, as Paul and the Psalms say.
Against Celsus 6.5Origen · ca. 248 · The Bible spoke of God's light kindled in the soul long before Plato, and unlike Plato's words its plain speech has actually made readers devout.
Against Celsus 6.6Origen · ca. 248 · Like Plato, who said the deepest truths cannot be written for the many, the prophets, Paul, and Jesus himself knew things they deliberately did not write down.
Against Celsus 6.7Origen · ca. 248 · Moses and the prophets could not have borrowed from Plato, who lived later, and Scripture itself commends searching inquiry and argument.
Against Celsus 6.16Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Jesus garbled Plato's saying about the rich, but Origen finds it absurd that the unlettered Jesus read Plato, and hints at the deeper meaning of the camel and the needle.
Against Celsus 6.18Origen · ca. 248 · Origen says the prophets hold loftier thoughts about God than the passage from Plato Celsus quotes, but declines to expound the mysteries of the seraphim and cherubim here.
Against Celsus 6.19Origen · ca. 248 · Christians did not borrow the idea of a realm above the heavens from Plato; David, Paul, and the prophets spoke of it first, and Plato may even have learned it from the Hebrews.
Against Celsus 6.21Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture speaks of “heavens” but never of seven; for the soul's passage between earth and heaven Origen points to Jacob's ladder rather than to the planetary path of Plato and Celsus.
Against Celsus 6.23Origen · ca. 248 · For a deeper teaching on the soul's ascent Origen points to Ezekiel's temple gates, the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelation, and Israel's camps in Numbers, and insists Scripture never mentions seven heavens.
Against Celsus 6.36Origen · ca. 248 · Origen gives biblical meanings for some of Celsus's phrases, such as death being destroyed and the gates of righteousness, and points out that the tree of life comes from Genesis, not from Jesus' trade.
Against Celsus 6.37Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's jibe about a “cliff of life” fits only the inventors of the Ophite myths, not the Church, whose teachings are understood by those who give their lives to studying Scripture.
Against Celsus 6.43Origen · ca. 248 · Origen replies that the Bible, older than all the Greek writers, already taught about the fallen evil one: the serpent of Genesis, the destroyer of Exodus, Azazel, Belial, Satan in Job, and the figures lamented in Ezekiel and Isaiah.
Against Celsus 6.44Origen · ca. 248 · Only God is good by nature; creatures who neglect the bread of life fall, and Satan, the “adversary,” is the first being who fell from blessedness, as Ezekiel describes.
Against Celsus 6.49Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus dismisses the Genesis creation story as silly without argument; Origen points to his own commentaries on Genesis and insists that Moses wrote with deep meaning, not as a comic poet.
Against Celsus 6.50Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls the creation account nonsense without argument; Origen notes that Moses himself shows the six “days” are not ordinary days, since light and the sun came after the first day.
Against Celsus 6.55Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture sometimes calls hardships “evils” sent by God, but God does not make moral evil; at most, some evils follow incidentally from his good works, as shavings fall from a carpenter's work.
Against Celsus 6.58Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus misrepresents the flood story as God repenting and hating his work; Origen says the threat was meant to convert and the flood purified the earth, as even Plato said.
Against Celsus 6.60Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus again mocks the six days of creation, and Origen again answers that the Father made the world through the Word and that the “days” are not literal periods of time.
Against Celsus 6.62Origen · ca. 248 · God has no literal mouth or voice; his “voice” is perceived spiritually, and none of our categories fit him, for, as the prophets say, God does not change.
Against Celsus 6.70Origen · ca. 248 · God's Spirit is not a body but is shared with the worthy; Scripture calls God fire and spirit figuratively, and Jesus taught worship in spirit and truth rather than through bodily rites.
Against Celsus 6.75Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says a divine being would have looked impressive, whereas Jesus was said to be small and ugly; Origen notes Isaiah says he had no beauty, but a Psalm speaks of his beauty too.
Against Celsus 6.76Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus accepts Isaiah's prophecy of Jesus' plain appearance but ignores the Transfiguration and the Psalm on his beauty, and in accepting the prophecy he concedes that Jesus fulfilled it.
Against Celsus 6.77Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus appeared differently to different people according to what they could bear, and this points to the Word of God and the Scriptures, which seem plain to the many but are transfigured in glory for those who climb higher.
Against Celsus 7.2Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims that Christians who keep the God of the Jews can only fall back on prophecy, and Origen turns to defend the prophets.
Against Celsus 7.4Origen · ca. 248 · The Hebrew prophets were made clearer in mind and soul by the Holy Spirit, whereas the Pythia's frenzy shows a demonic spirit, the kind that even simple Christians drive out by prayer.
Against Celsus 7.7Origen · ca. 248 · The Hebrew prophets were chosen for their courageous, self-denying lives, suffering for the truth, and their prophecies of Christ come from God's Spirit, unlike the demonic oracles.
Against Celsus 7.8Origen · ca. 248 · The Hebrew prophets spoke long before Christ, no true prophets have arisen among the Jews since, and the Holy Spirit's signs, abundant in the apostolic age, remain now among a few purified Christians.
Against Celsus 7.10Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets spoke plainly what was needed for moral reform, and veiled their deeper teaching in riddles and parables for diligent seekers; Celsus calls them madmen because he did not understand them.
Against Celsus 7.11Origen · ca. 248 · Origen has explained the obscure prophecies in his commentaries; the prophets can be understood by those wise in Christ, and Celsus's claim to have heard and exposed such prophets himself is unsupported.
Against Celsus 7.12Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not merely appeal to fulfilled prophecy but also explain apparent difficulties in Scripture; Celsus charges the prophets with shameful things without quoting a single example.
Against Celsus 7.14Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says fulfilled prophecy proves nothing if what is foretold is unworthy of God; Origen replies that he should instead have tried to show that the prophecies were not in fact fulfilled in Jesus.
Against Celsus 7.18Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus sets Moses' promises of wealth and conquest against Jesus' teaching on poverty and non-retaliation, but Origen replies that the law's promises were never meant literally, since the righteous prophets lived in poverty.
Against Celsus 7.19Origen · ca. 248 · The law's promises of rule and the slaughter of enemies cannot be meant literally, as a Psalm about killing all sinners every morning shows.
Against Celsus 7.20Origen · ca. 248 · The law is twofold, the letter and the spiritual meaning; as Ezekiel and Paul show, the letter kills but the spiritual sense gives life, and so the law is both “not good” and “holy.”
Against Celsus 7.21Origen · ca. 248 · The law's promise of wealth and rule is fulfilled spiritually in people like Paul, rich in knowledge, who “lent” the gospel to many nations and ruled them by the Word.
Against Celsus 7.22Origen · ca. 248 · The commands to kill enemies are to be read spiritually: the righteous destroy sinful thoughts, and the “infants of Babylon” dashed on the rock are the first stirrings of sin crushed against Christ.
Against Celsus 7.30Origen · ca. 248 · Plato's picture of precious stones in the higher earth probably came from Isaiah's description of God's jewelled city; Christians did not borrow from Plato, and Haggai distinguishes “the earth” from the “dry land” we live on.
Against Celsus 7.31Origen · ca. 248 · Like Celsus with Plato's myth, Origen defers the full explanation of the holy land to his commentaries, noting that Scripture uses the same names for true, heavenly realities as for their earthly counterparts.
Against Celsus 7.34Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not expect to see, hear, or touch God with bodily senses; Scripture speaks of spiritual eyes, ears, and hands, and of a “divine sense.”
Against Celsus 7.39Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus insults martyrs as cowards and body-lovers, and thinks the idea of the soul's eye is Greek; Origen shows it already in Genesis and in Jesus' words about the blind seeing and the seeing becoming blind.
Against Celsus 7.50Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture teaches more clearly than Celsus that becoming involves error: newborns need a sin offering, creation is subject to vanity, and the soul's life here is lowly compared with life with the Lord.
Against Celsus 7.59Origen · ca. 248 · A true doctrine is not discredited because Greeks also said it; as a wholesome food prepared for the many does more good than a delicacy for the few, so plain teaching for all is better than refined teaching for a few.
Against Celsus 7.60Origen · ca. 248 · The prophets and apostles, like Plato learning a foreign tongue to help foreigners, spoke plainly so as to reach the multitudes, while their words still hold deeper meanings for those who study them.
Against Celsus 8.3Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus' saying that no one can serve two masters is sound; Scripture speaks of an assembly of gods, not the demons of the nations, over whom the one God rules as God of gods.
Against Celsus 8.40Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's pagan priests threaten that the gods punish descendants late; Scripture teaches better, through Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, that each person dies for his own sin.
Against Celsus 8.46Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture records better-attested versions of everything Celsus claims for oracles: the Exodus led by prophecy, children given to Abraham and Sarah, Hezekiah, and the Shunammite, healings by Jesus, and punishment of those who profaned the temple.
Against Celsus 8.47Origen · ca. 248 · If one weighs the wonders of Greeks, Jews, and Christians by their purpose and results, the Christian ones stand out: unlettered apostles could not have converted people from ancestral customs without real divine power and miracles.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 4Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · All the law and the prophets, even their obscure parts, hang on love of God and neighbour, which opens their meaning; Paul's hymn to love and his confidence in Romans 8 illustrate it.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 9Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Origen distinguishes Christ's disciples from the crowds, explains the “seat of Moses” and its counterpart in the Church, warns church leaders who demand titles or impose unbearable burdens, and reads the law's commands about Passover, phylacteries, and fringes spiritually.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 15Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Teachers who open the deeper sense of Scripture open the kingdom; those who reject allegorical interpretation and keep to the letter take away the key of knowledge.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 16Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · On the proselyte made twice a son of Gehenna, degrees of punishment, oaths by the temple and altar read as Scripture and the heart, and tithing small things while neglecting judgment, mercy, and faith.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 22Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The cup and dish are the words and narratives of Scripture and of teaching, whose inner sense matters more than outward eloquence.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 23Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The law and prophets are cups and dishes whose inner, spiritual sense Christ's disciples seek, while the scribes and Pharisees keep to the outward sense.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 26Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Jesus named Zechariah, not John, because the Pharisees did not kill John; God punishes a nation only when its sins reach full measure; figuratively, the prophets' tombs are the letter of Scripture, whose spiritual sense literalists and heretics kill.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 28Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Origen explains which prophets Jerusalem killed, citing books outside the canon with caution, and reads Christ's lament as his constant will in every generation to gather God's scattered children.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 30Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Figuratively, the saints intercede for the human temple; the sinner is a temple destroyed little by little; and the Old Testament's letter is a temple to be rebuilt more spiritually, while heresies sit in it like Antichrist.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 42Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Spiritually, the holy place is Scripture, in which the false word of heresy stands as the abomination of desolation; the reader must flee from the letter to the mountains of spiritual sense and not turn back to what he has left.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 45Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The true sabbath is rest from evil works while doing good; one without good works is easily overcome by false doctrine, the greatest tribulation, and God “shortens the days” by cutting away false additions to Scripture.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 46Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · False christs are heretical teachers who cite either secret writings (“the wilderness”) or twisted canonical Scripture (“the houses”); the truth shines like lightning through all Scripture and in the Church alone, and the eagles are believers gathered to Christ's passion.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 50Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · On Christ's coming on the clouds, Origen weighs literal, combined, and spiritual readings, suggesting living and rational clouds and the Word's daily coming in Scripture; the angels gather the elect, living and dead, from earth and from successive heavens.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 52Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The great trumpet of the angels is illuminated by the silver trumpets of Numbers that gathered and moved Israel's camps from the four quarters, a shadow of the word's great voice and of the last trumpet in Paul.
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, Latin Series 117Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Judas's repentance refutes those who teach fixed natures that perish, for it came from the seed of virtue in every soul; but he repented without knowledge, gave way to the devil's excessive grief, and took his own life instead of awaiting God's mercy; the potter's field buries those who remain strangers to God; the prophecy attributed to Jeremiah is found in Zechariah or in a secret writing, as Paul too cites secret books.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 128Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The garments divided at the cross figure the words of Scripture, which some hold without having Christ himself, some more fully (the seamless tunic) and some only in part; the section breaks off comparing Matthew and Mark on the drink offered to Jesus.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 129Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The guard set to prevent the theft of the body could not prevent the resurrection, attested by many witnesses; so now the word of Scripture, killed by false interpretation, always rises again in those who receive it.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 139Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The earthquake signifies all flesh shaken by the new covenant; the split rocks are the prophets, whose hidden mysteries are opened in Christ; the opened tombs are bodies of souls dead to God, raised to faith after Christ's resurrection; these wonders happen daily in the soul, and seeing them spiritually is greater than seeing them bodily.
Commentary on Matthew 10.1Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen explains that Jesus explains the parable only to the disciples who come to him in his house, and that the Gospel's plain letters hide deeper meanings.
Commentary on Matthew 10.5Origen · ca. 246–248 · The field may be Scripture with its plain words and the treasure its hidden meanings, or the field may be Christ, in whom the treasures of wisdom are hidden.
Commentary on Matthew 10.6Origen · ca. 246–248 · The finder hides the treasure because the secret meanings of Scripture are not to be disclosed to all, and buys the field by giving up all his former wickedness.
Commentary on Matthew 10.9Origen · ca. 246–248 · The many fine pearls of the law and prophets prepare for the one pearl, Christ, as the partial glory of Moses prepares for the surpassing glory of the gospel.
Commentary on Matthew 10.10Origen · ca. 246–248 · As elementary teaching must be valued and then passed beyond, so the law and prophets prepare for the perfect understanding of the Gospel.
Commentary on Matthew 10.12Origen · ca. 246–248 · The net is Scripture, woven of law, prophets, Gospels and apostles, cast into the sea of human life, which angels will draw ashore at the end to separate good and bad.
Commentary on Matthew 10.14Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen discusses how the unlettered disciples can be called scribes, and explains the scribe made a disciple of the kingdom as one who rises from the letter of Scripture to its spiritual meaning.
Commentary on Matthew 10.15Origen · ca. 246–248 · The scribe of the kingdom brings out old and new, holding law and prophets together with the Gospel, against those who divide the Godhead; the householder he imitates is Jesus.
Commentary on Matthew 11.2Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen reads the five loaves as the sense-perceptible words of Scripture and the two fish as the spoken and inward word, or the word about Father and Son, multiplied by Jesus’ blessing, with twelve baskets of deeper teaching left for the disciples.
Commentary on Matthew 11.11Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen sets out Isa 29:9–15 in full and applies the sealed book and the lip-service to the Jews who do not believe in Jesus, whose wisdom and prophecy God has removed.
Commentary on Matthew 11.12Origen · ca. 246–248 · Foods are indifferent in themselves; what defiles is evil speech and thought, greed, gluttony, or eating with a doubting conscience what is offered to demons, while the food laws are a shadow of spiritual nourishment.
Commentary on Matthew 11.14Origen · ca. 246–248 · Against those who separate the God of the law from the Father of Jesus, Origen says the Pharisees were rejected for their misreading of the law, not for the law; and he argues that the bread of the Lord benefits only one who receives it with a pure conscience, the word spoken over it, not its matter, being what helps.
Commentary on Matthew 12.3Origen · ca. 246–248 · The sign of Jonah, Christ’s three days in the earth and his resurrection, was itself a sign from heaven, and every sign in Scripture points to something fulfilled later.
Commentary on Matthew 12.31Origen · ca. 246–248 · Some refer the promise that some would not taste death to the three apostles who saw the Transfiguration; Origen calls this a reading fit for beginners, “milk,” while the mature seek the solid food of Scripture.
Commentary on Matthew 12.38Origen · ca. 246–248 · Jesus’ shining garments are the words of the Gospels and apostles, made bright to one who understands them; Moses and Elijah are the law and the prophets, seen in glory when understood spiritually in harmony with Jesus.
Commentary on Matthew 12.39Origen · ca. 246–248 · The Word is transfigured as he prays to the Father on the mountain; his garments, whiter than any earthly fuller can make them, are the Scriptures, whose despised wording shines with meaning beyond the polished style of worldly wisdom.
Commentary on Matthew 14.4Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen applies the agreement of two to the harmony of the Old and New Testaments, with the Holy Spirit as the third, and notes that Christ says “there I am,” not “I will be.”
Commentary on Matthew 14.12Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen explains why the evangelists left the parables unexplained and places the king's reckoning at the final judgment, comparing the parables of the talents and of the minas.
Commentary on Matthew 14.14Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen reflects on the phrase “when Jesus had finished these words,” asking whether it is used of anyone but Jesus and connecting “finished” (etelesen) with initiation into divine mysteries.
Commentary on Matthew 14.18Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen takes up Deuteronomy's law of the bill of divorce, asks whether a law Moses gave because of hardness of heart has a spiritual sense, and compares Paul's counsel to widows given “in my judgment.”
Commentary on Matthew 15.14Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen asks whether “love your neighbour” in Matt 19:19 is a scribal addition, since Mark and Luke lack it, describes the many differences among Gospel copies and his own obelus-and-asterisk method for the Septuagint, and offers an alternative explanation.
Commentary on Matthew 16.16Origen · ca. 246–248 · The ass and colt, once ridden by Christ into Jerusalem, are sent back transformed to a higher work; Zechariah’s prophecy of peace explains Zion’s joy; and Origen compares five Greek versions of Zech 9:9 (meek, hearkening, poor).
Commentary on Matthew 17.7Origen · ca. 246–248 · Comparing the parable with Isaiah’s song of the vineyard, Origen argues that in the Gospel the vineyard is not the people but the kingdom of God, that is, the Scriptures, with the hedge, winepress, and tower as levels of their meaning.
Commentary on Matthew 17.31Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen allegorizes levirate marriage: the soul is married first to the letter of the law, which bears no children, and then to its brother, the spiritual law, whose offspring are good works that still bear the name of the law of God.
Commentary on Matthew 17.32Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen gives three readings of the brother who refuses the levirate duty: a doctrine that despises the law’s letter, the heresies that separate the law from the Gospel, and a disciple who will not carry on a wise man’s teaching.
Commentary on Matthew 17.34Origen · ca. 246–248 · Jesus says the Sadducees do not know the Scriptures because the Old Testament teaches the absence of marriage in the resurrection only figuratively; its marriage laws, like Paul’s reading of Abraham’s wives and of Genesis 2:24, point to Christ and the church.
Commentary on Matthew 17.35Origen · ca. 246–248 · Since the Old Testament teaches the absence of marriage in the resurrection only figuratively, reading it literally leads to absurdities; Jesus proved the resurrection to the Sadducees from God’s words at the bush, for he is God of the living, and the patriarchs live to him.
Commentary on Romans 0.2Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen's preface: Romans is hard because of its obscure style and its questions on free choice; Paul wrote it at his most perfect, from Corinth; Rufinus adds a discussion of why Saul is called Paul.
Commentary on Romans 1.4Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · The Gospel promised by the prophets may be distinguished from the 'eternal Gospel' of Revelation, which Christ may have proclaimed to angels and heavenly orders; the prophets abound in promises of the Gospel.
Commentary on Romans 1.8Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Paul's greeting of grace and peace is a Spirit-given blessing like those of the patriarchs, received by the worthy; Origen notes how the greetings vary between the letters.
Commentary on Romans 1.10Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · God and his saints bear witness to each other; Paul serves God in his spirit, the best part of man, and the spirit of the law over its letter, as did the patriarchs and prophets.
Commentary on Romans 1.15Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · God's righteousness is revealed in that no one is excluded from salvation; 'from faith to faith' is from the Law to the Gospel; God's wrath is revealed against those, like the philosophers, who know the truth but hold it in unrighteousness.
Commentary on Romans 2.13Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen applies Rom 2:26-29 to Jewish and Gentile believers and to catechumens, argues at length from the law that circumcision bound only Abraham's descendants and slaves, gives its spiritual meaning, answers pagan and Marcionite objections, and begins Rom 3:1-4 on the Jews' advantage, the oracles of God, and 'every man a liar.'
Commentary on Romans 3.2Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Paul confirms from Scripture that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, which Origen explains through the natural law that comes with the age of discernment; no one is righteous in God's sight except Christ, and Christians should fear being shamed by virtuous Gentiles.
Commentary on Romans 3.7Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · The 'righteousness of God manifested without the law' is Christ, revealed apart from natural law but witnessed by the spiritual sense of Moses and the prophets (Paul marks the law of Moses with the article); faith and the Scriptures together reveal it, and all, Jew and Gentile, are justified freely through the redemption of Christ's blood.
Commentary on Romans 8.6Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Not all believe the gospel; Origen distinguishes the simple 'sound' of preaching that reaches all from the 'words' of wisdom that reach the learned, explains 'no-nation' as the honor of a people drawn from all nations, and reads Isaiah's boldness as his willingness to die for the truth, while the Jews still seek Christ and do not find him.
Commentary on Romans 8.8Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · God's giving the rest of Israel eyes that do not see is a retribution and even a remedy, since it is better not to be wise than to be wise wrongly; Israel's 'table' is the Old Testament, which becomes a snare to those who will not understand it spiritually, and Christians must not come to Wisdom's table defiled.
Commentary on Romans 9.36Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Read spiritually, eating all things means the perfect who can receive every kind of teaching, and 'vegetables' the simpler word that sustains the weak; neither the advanced may despise the simple, nor the simple judge the advanced, for God can make even the fallen stand.
Commentary on Romans 9.38Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Both the abstinent and the free give thanks; spiritually, the 'days' are the chapters of Scripture, and both the student who searches them all and the simple believer saved by a brief confession of faith give thanks to God.
Commentary on Romans 10.6Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · The strong must bear the weaknesses of the weak rather than expel them, as Christ bears ours; we are to please our neighbor for his edification, not to win praise or by betraying the faith, as Christ bore reproaches to save sinners; and the Scriptures, read spiritually, were written to give comfort and hope to those who understand.
Commentary on Romans 10.8Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Christ was minister of circumcision either by being circumcised in the flesh, so that Jewish believers who keep the law should not be judged, or as minister of the spiritual circumcision of the heart; the cited texts follow the Septuagint, and the 'root of Jesse' (Jesse meaning 'he is to me') points to the eternal one who is, born for the Gentiles' salvation.
Commentary on Romans 10.31Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · The Hermas greeted by Paul is, Origen thinks, the author of the Shepherd, a useful and inspired writing, who receives neither praise nor reproach as a penitent still under the angel of repentance; the holy kiss must be chaste and unfeigned, unlike Judas's.
Commentary on Romans 10.35Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Those who sow dissension serve their belly, flattering for gain; the Romans' indiscriminate obedience, though a good disposition, must learn discernment, which comes only from training in Scripture, to obey God rather than men and to tell sheep from wolves.
Commentary on Romans 10.40Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Tertius names himself because he wrote 'in the Lord', for God's glory, recognizing that what Paul dictated was the Lord's word.
Commentary on Romans 10.43Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Marcion removed the doxology and cut away Rom 14:23 to the end, while other manuscripts place the doxology after 14:23 or at the end; the gospel strengthens all believers, but the revelation of the long-silent mystery, known to the prophets yet kept hidden until the Incarnation, is for the chosen few; God is 'only wise' as the begetter of Wisdom, Christ.
To Donatus 15Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · Donatus should pray and read Scripture, adorning his soul, the temple of the Holy Spirit, which will last into the resurrection.
To Quirinus 0Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Cyprian sends Quirinus two books of Scripture passages arranged under headings: one on the Jews and the church, the other on Christ.
To Quirinus 1.1Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Scripture shows Israel repeatedly forsaking the Lord for idols, from the golden calf to the time of the Judges.
To Quirinus 1.2Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Israel refused to listen to the prophets God sent and killed them.
To Quirinus 1.4Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The Scriptures were sealed to Israel but would be opened in the last times after Christ came, as he himself opened them to the disciples.
To Quirinus 1.5Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Understanding of Scripture comes only through faith in Christ, since righteousness has always been by faith, as with Abraham.
To Quirinus 1.6Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah and Jesus foretold the desolation of Jerusalem and its land.
To Quirinus 1.7Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah and John show that those who reject Christ lose the light of the Lord.
To Quirinus 1.8Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Scripture foretold a spiritual circumcision of the heart, and the righteous before Abraham were uncircumcised, while the sign of the Lord seals women and men alike.
To Quirinus 1.9Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah and Jesus indicate that the law given through Moses was to end.
To Quirinus 1.10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets foretold a new law going out from Zion, and the Father's voice commands us to hear his Son.
To Quirinus 1.11Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Jeremiah foretold a new covenant, unlike the one made at the exodus.
To Quirinus 1.12Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets foretold new waters in the desert, and John the Baptist and Jesus announced a new baptism of water and the Spirit.
To Quirinus 1.13Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The old yoke would be broken, and Christ offers his own easy yoke.
To Quirinus 1.14Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · God promised to remove the old shepherds of Israel and give new shepherds after his own heart.
To Quirinus 1.15Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · God promised David a son who would build God's house, and Christ foretold the temple's destruction and a new temple raised without hands.
To Quirinus 1.16Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets and Psalms reject animal sacrifices and foretell a pure sacrifice offered among the nations.
To Quirinus 1.17Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The Psalms and God's word to Eli foretold a new and eternal priest after the order of Melchizedek.
To Quirinus 1.18Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Moses foretold a prophet like himself, and Christ says that Moses wrote of him.
To Quirinus 1.19Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The two peoples in Rebecca's womb, the elder serving the younger, and Hosea's “not my people” foreshadow the old people and the new.
To Quirinus 1.20Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The barren women of Scripture who bore late, Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah, prefigure the church, which bears more children from the nations than the synagogue, symbolized by the number seven.
To Quirinus 1.21Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · From the blessings of Abraham, Jacob, Ephraim, and Judah through the prophets to Paul, Scripture foretells that the nations would believe in Christ.
To Quirinus 1.22Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets and Jesus' words about the bread of life are read as foretelling that Christ's bread and cup, and the new name of Christian, would pass to the nations.
To Quirinus 1.23Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Jesus foretold that many from east and west would enter the kingdom while the sons of the kingdom are cast out.
To Quirinus 1.24Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah's call to wash and be clean is read as an invitation to the Jews to receive forgiveness through Christ's baptism in the church.
To Quirinus 2.1Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Proverbs, Sirach, the Psalms, John, Paul, and the Apocalypse show Christ as the firstborn and the Wisdom and Power of God through whom all was made.
To Quirinus 2.2Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Wisdom's banquet in Proverbs is read as a figure of Christ's incarnation, passion, the eucharistic cup and altar, and the apostles' preaching.
To Quirinus 2.3Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The Psalms, Isaiah, John, and the Apocalypse show that Christ is the Word of God.
To Quirinus 2.5Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Passages where the angel of the Lord speaks and acts as God are read of Christ, who came in his Father's name.
To Quirinus 2.6Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · From Genesis to the Apocalypse, Scripture calls Christ God, as Thomas confessed and Paul wrote.
To Quirinus 2.7Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets foretold that God himself would come to save and enlighten, and the Gospels announce Jesus as that Savior.
To Quirinus 2.8Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The eternal Son of God was to be born in the flesh, as the Psalm, Elizabeth's greeting, Paul, and John declare.
To Quirinus 2.9Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah's sign of the virgin who bears Emmanuel, and the woman's seed who crushes the serpent's head, foretell Christ's virgin birth.
To Quirinus 2.10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Scripture shows Christ as both man and God, born of the Spirit and of Mary, the heavenly man who mediates between us and the Father.
To Quirinus 2.11Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · God's promise to David, Isaiah's shoot of Jesse, the angel's word to Mary, and the lion of Judah show that Christ was born of David's line.
To Quirinus 2.12Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Micah foretold, and Matthew records, that Christ would be born in Bethlehem.
To Quirinus 2.13Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah's suffering servant, the Psalms, Zechariah's high priest, and Paul's hymn in Philippians show that Christ came first in humility.
To Quirinus 2.14Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The Wisdom of Solomon, Isaiah, and Judas' confession point to Christ as the Righteous One who would be put to death.
To Quirinus 2.15Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Passover lamb, the Apocalypse, and John the Baptist show Christ as the lamb to be slain.
To Quirinus 2.16Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Christ is the stone of Scripture: the cornerstone of Isaiah and the Psalms, and the stone of Jacob's pillow, Moses' seat, the ark's resting place, David's sling, and Samuel's Ebenezer.
To Quirinus 2.17Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The stone cut without hands in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which becomes a mountain filling the earth, is read as Christ.
To Quirinus 2.18Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Isaiah's mountain of the Lord, to which the nations stream, and the Psalm's hill of the Lord are read of Christ in the last times.
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.
To Quirinus 2.20Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets and Psalms foretold the crucifixion: the outstretched hands, the pierced hands and feet, the divided garments, and the Son of Man lifted up like Moses' serpent.
To Quirinus 2.21Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The horns in God's hands, the government on the child's shoulders, and Moses' outstretched arms against Amalek are read as figures of the power of the cross.
To Quirinus 2.22Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The mark on the foreheads in Ezekiel, the Passover blood, and the name on the foreheads in the Apocalypse are read as the saving sign of the cross.
To Quirinus 2.23Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Amos and Jeremiah foretold the midday darkness that fell at the crucifixion.
To Quirinus 2.24Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The Psalms and Jesus' own words show that death could not hold him.
To Quirinus 2.25Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Hosea, the third day at Sinai, and the sign of Jonah foretell the resurrection on the third day.
To Quirinus 2.26Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Daniel's son of man, the Psalm's Lord at God's right hand, and the risen Christ of the Apocalypse and the Gospel show that he received all power from the Father for ever.
To Quirinus 2.27Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The Gospels and letters teach that Christ is the only way and door to the Father.
To Quirinus 2.28Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets, the Psalms, the demons' outcry, and the words of Jesus and Paul show that Christ will come as Judge.
To Quirinus 2.29Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets, the royal Psalms, the magi, and Jesus' words to Pilate show that Christ is the eternal King.
To Quirinus 2.30Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The Psalm, the rider on the white horse, and the parable of the sheep and goats show Christ as both Judge and King.
To Quirinus 3.0Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Cyprian's preface to Book 3: at Quirinus's request he has gathered short scriptural headings on Christian conduct so that they can be read quickly and memorized.
Fragment E III (on Ecclesiastes)Dionysius of Alexandria · ca. 248–265 · Fragments of a commentary on Ecclesiastes 1–4: true advantage lies in toil ‘above the sun’; worldly wisdom and pleasure are vanity; only God's wisdom stands fast; the wise man fixes the eyes of his mind on Christ; and the ‘times’ of chapter 3 are read of passion and resurrection, law and gospel.
Letter 63.3Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Noah's drinking of wine and his nakedness prefigure the Lord's passion.
Letter 63.4Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Melchizedek's offering of bread and wine prefigured Christ, priest after his order, who offered bread and the cup mixed with wine, his body and blood; the blessing of Abraham passes to all who believe.
Letter 63.5Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Wisdom's banquet in Proverbs, with its mixed wine, foretells the Lord's cup of wine mixed with water.
Letter 63.6Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Jacob's blessing of Judah, washing his robe in the blood of the grape, and Isaiah's red garments from the winepress, both point to the Lord's blood in the wine of the cup.
Letter 63.8Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Where Scripture names water alone it signifies baptism, received once; the cup of the Lord, drunk continually in the church, is another thing.
Letter 63.10Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Paul hands down the Lord's command to do what he did with the bread and cup, and warns that no one may alter the gospel.
Letter 63.12Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Christ turned water into wine at Cana, signifying the nations joining Christ; to turn the cup's wine into water reverses his sign. Waters signify peoples, as Revelation says.
Letter 63.14Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Custom cannot override Christ's example: only Christ is to be heard, and the priest truly acts in Christ's place when he offers as Christ offered.
Letter 74.2Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Stephen's appeal to “tradition” has no basis in the gospel or the apostles, who condemned heretics; true tradition is what Scripture commands.
Letter 74.3Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Putting human tradition before God's commands provokes God's anger, as Isaiah, Christ, and Paul warn.
Letter 74.9Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Custom without truth is merely old error; truth conquers, as 1 Esdras says, and Christ is the truth.
On the Lord's Prayer 1Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · The gospel's teachings, spoken by the Son himself, guide believers to heaven.
On the Lord's Prayer 28Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · As Isaiah foretold, Christ gave a short word: brief summaries of eternal life, the law, and prayer.
Letter 3Anonymous · uncertain · A spurious synodal letter rules that clergy who handed over the Scriptures in persecution (traditores) may not serve at the altar, while those who only pretended to do so are pardoned and those who surrendered them unasked are reduced to lay communion.
To Fortunatus 0.3Cyprian of Carthage · 253 or 257 · Cyprian explains that he gives headings with Scripture passages, like wool and purple from which each reader can make his own garment.
To Fortunatus 0.4Cyprian of Carthage · 253 or 257 · Cyprian will let God's own words speak, and he teaches that martyrdom is a second baptism, of blood, greater than the baptism of water.
To Fortunatus 1Cyprian of Carthage · 253 or 257 · Scripture shows that idols are lifeless works of human hands and that the elements are God's creatures, not gods.
To Fortunatus 2Cyprian of Carthage · 253 or 257 · Scripture teaches that God alone is to be worshiped and loved.
Symposium 1.1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Marcella praises virginity as the church's finest flower, which needs a noble soul, constant study of Scripture as preserving salt, and inner as well as bodily purity.
Symposium 3.1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Thalia, speaking third, argues that Paul reads the union of Adam and Eve as a figure of Christ and the church, not only of procreation.
Symposium 3.2Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Paul's varied style moves from plain to lofty; the literal sense of Genesis stands, but its higher sense about Christ and the church must also be given.
Symposium 4.4Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The willows are self-control; singing the Lord's song in a foreign land means profaning the gospel or reading the law in an earthly sense.
Symposium 5.7Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The tabernacle was a shadow of the church, and the church is an image of the heavenly city, which we shall see face to face after the resurrection.
Symposium 7.4Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · In a higher sense, the queens are the righteous before the flood, the concubines the prophets after it, who conceived faith from the Word before the church, his bride.
Symposium 8.4Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Thecla urges the virgins to endure trials like the moon behind passing clouds, and introduces the vision of the woman and the dragon in Revelation 12.
Symposium 9.1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Tysiane, the ninth speaker, reads the feast of Tabernacles as a figure of the resurrection in the seventh millennium, when the faithful will rejoice with God in the new creation.
Symposium 10.2Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Jotham's fable of the trees choosing a king foretells four stages of God's law: the fig for paradise, the vine for Noah, the olive for Moses, and the bramble for the apostles' teaching of chastity.
Symposium 10.6Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · Zechariah's two olive trees are Christ and the Holy Spirit, whose branches are the law and the prophets; chastity now lets us receive their full fruit and frees from the sentence of death.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 1.4Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · The two-edged sword from Christ's mouth is the word of the two testaments, by which all will be judged.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 4.3Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · The four living creatures are the four Gospels; the twenty-four elders are the books of the law and prophets, or the apostles and patriarchs.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 4.4Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · Victorinus matches each Gospel to a living creature (John lion, Matthew man, Luke calf, Mark eagle) and applies the four images to Christ himself.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 4.5Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · The eyes of the living creatures are spiritual foresight, and their twenty-four wings the Old Testament books that give the Gospel credibility; heretics and Jews each keep only half.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 5.2Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · Christ, the lion and the slain Lamb, unseals the testament veiled in Moses' law, which becomes plain after his death and victory.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 10.2Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · John is forbidden to write what the thunders said because interpreting prophecy belongs to the later rank of prophets in the church, not to the apostles.
Commentary on the Apocalypse 11.5Victorinus of Pettau · late 3rd century · The witnesses rise on the fourth day, not the third, and Revelation must be read by its sense, since the Spirit repeats and reorders events.
Against the Manichaeans 5Alexander of Lycopolis · ca. 280–320 · Alexander notes the Manichaeans' use of Greek myths and explains why refuting a teaching with no accepted premises is hard, unlike arguing with Christians who appeal to inspired Scripture.
Book 2, chapter 12Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · The pagan philosopher argues that the Evangelists' differing accounts of Jesus' last drink and last words prove them inventors rather than historians.
Book 2, chapter 13Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · The pagan philosopher argues that only John reports the piercing of Jesus' side and that his claim to be a true witness is empty.
Book 2, chapter 15Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · The pagan philosopher ridicules the saying that the ruler of this world will be cast out, arguing that no ruler of the world can be thrown outside it.
Book 2, chapter 17Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · Macarius answers that the Evangelists vary only in wording, and that in the terror and confusion of the crucifixion they faithfully recorded what confused people said and did.
Book 3, chapter 3Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · The pagan philosopher denies that Moses wrote anything that survives, claiming the books were rewritten by Ezra long after, and that in any case they never call Christ God or foretell his crucifixion.
Book 3, chapter 6Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · The pagan philosopher argues that the Sea of Galilee is a small lake that cannot have storms, so Mark's story of Jesus walking on the stormy sea is an invention to make a miracle.
Book 3, chapter 10Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · Macarius answers that Moses wrote of Christ in many figures, that the same Spirit restored the law through Ezra accurately, and that the prophets and Psalms call Christ the Word and God.
Book 3, chapter 13Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · Macarius answers that the lake may rightly be called a sea, as Genesis calls every gathering of waters, and interprets the walking on the water, Peter's doubt, and the fourth watch both literally and as the coming of Christ after the patriarchs, the law, and the prophets.
Book 3, chapter 40Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · Macarius answers that Paul does not disparage the law but shows that no one can keep all of it, as the clash of sabbath and circumcision proves, and that Christ alone fulfilled it, so that trying to keep it again denies his work.
Book 3, chapter 41Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · Macarius answers that the law made the trespass abound by exposing and punishing sin that had gone unrecognized, and that, like the moon before the sun, it has given way to Christ, its Master, though it remains good and holy.
Book 4, chapter 8Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · The pagan philosopher mocks the parables of the mustard seed, the leaven, and the pearl as lowly and obscure images unworthy of divine things.
Book 4, chapter 9Macarius Magnes · ca. 400 (disputed) · The pagan philosopher argues that if the mysteries are hidden from the wise and revealed to infants, ignorance would be preferable to wisdom.
On Free Will 1.3Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The prophets’ song, unlike the Sirens’, leads its hearers to a better life.
On Free Will 1.5Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The apostles sing in harmony with the prophets, interpreting what they foretold.
On Free Will 17.3Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Disobedience was not in man’s nature but came by another’s teaching, as Scripture shows.
Cib. 6Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Turning to the question of the dead body in a house (Num 19), Methodius argues that Christ, Peter's vision, and the apostolic council set aside the Law's purity and food rules.
Cib. 7Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · God gave the food laws not because foods defile but to train Israel by small commands, as teachers start children with strokes; the Law is a shadow, the gospel an image, of the good things to come.
Cib. 8Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The food laws are shadows: the divided hoof means an active life and chewing the cud means understanding Scripture, and the psalm's ivory palace means resurrection bodies, not elephant bone.
Cib. 9Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · With Christ's coming the Law's purifications ended; the ashes of the red heifer ran out, yet the Law forbade any substitute or any omission of the rite.
Cib. 10Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Since the heifer's ashes have run out, Jews cannot keep the Law literally without transgressing it; the true circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit.
Cib. 13Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The dead man in the house means the soul dead in sin, whose ways defile those who enter; dead bodies themselves are not unclean, since God will raise them.
Creat. 1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Methodius rejects Xenon's reading of the pearls and swine as mystical teaching withheld from unbelievers, since the apostles preached to unbelievers; the pearls are the virtues, which must not be given over to pleasures.
Creat. 10Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Methodius held that Moses wrote the book of Job.
Lepr. 1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The dialogue opens: Sistelius invites Eubulius to explain the Law's rules on leprosy allegorically.
Lepr. 3Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Eubulius sets out the texts of Leviticus 13 on leprosy in the skin and in garments.
Lepr. 4Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The Law's words on leprosy are coverings and shadows; those who understand Scripture only outwardly see bare walls, while spiritual understanding enters the holy of holies.
Lepr. 12Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Sistelius recalls a learned woman in Lycia who taught that the seeker of Scripture's meaning must persevere, rising like Elijah through wind, earthquake, and fire to the still voice of the Spirit.
Res. 1.1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Sistelius proposes that the heretical view be stated fully before it is answered, and Theophilus, defending the practice from Solomon's portraits of the harlot and of the ungodly, asks the physician Aglaophon to state the case against the resurrection of the body.
Res. 1.27Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The narrator, shaken by Proclus's speech, calls Auxentius to his aid and attacks the opponents' rhetoric and the presumption of those who interpret Scripture to win applause rather than to live rightly.
Res. 1.28Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The narrator compares heterodox sophists to painters who imitate ships without knowing how to build or steer them, and Auxentius asks him to lead the reply.
Res. 3.8Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Against Origen's spiritual reading of the 'gnashing of teeth', the narrator argues that Scripture speaks sometimes literally and sometimes spiritually, as its uses of 'garments' show, so bodily teeth are meant here.
Res. 3.9Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The return from Babylon did not fulfil Ezekiel's promise, since Jerusalem was repeatedly captured afterwards, as Josephus records.
Res. 3.20Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The narrator rejects the argument that 'all flesh shall see the salvation of God' would imply the resurrection of animals, since Scripture's 'all flesh' elsewhere plainly means human beings.
Sang. 1Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Methodius explains that Proverbs speaks in parables, as Jotham's fable of the trees in Judges shows, and prays for understanding.
Sang. 9Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · In Psalm 19 day is the apostles and the church, night the prophets and the Law with their dark sayings; after the resurrection the apostles' preaching went out to all the earth.
Against the Nations 1.56Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Not all of Christ's deeds could be written down, and some writings have been corrupted by demons and men, but his divinity rests on the truth of the deeds themselves.
Against the Nations 1.57Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Christian writings deserve no less credit than pagan ones, and the antiquity of pagan tradition is no guarantee of truth.
Against the Nations 1.58Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · The simple, unpolished style of the Christian writings is a sign of their truthfulness.
Against the Nations 1.59Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Faults of grammar do not affect truth, grammatical gender is a human convention, and the pagans' own classics vary in the same way.
Against the Nations 3.12Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Arnobius denies that God has any bodily form; anthropomorphic language in Jewish scriptures either does not concern Christians or must be interpreted spiritually.
Against the Nations 4.36Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Pagans reward actors who mock the gods, yet burn Christian books and destroy churches where prayer is made for all, including rulers and enemies.
Canons of Hippolytus, canon 21Anonymous · 4th century · Clergy and people are to gather daily at cockcrow for prayer, psalms, and Scripture reading; absent clergy are separated, and the gravely sick are visited daily.
Canons of Hippolytus, canon 26Anonymous · 4th century · Believers are to hasten to the assemblies for the word of God and prayer, where the Lord is present and the Spirit gives grace, rather than stay at home.
Canons of Hippolytus, canon 27Anonymous · 4th century · Those who cannot go to church daily should read Scripture at home and pray at midnight and cockcrow; marriage does not defile, and the married need only wash their hands before prayer.
Letter to Carpianus 1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius explains to Carpianus how his ten canon tables, built on Ammonius's Gospel harmony, let a reader find the parallel passages of the four Gospels by section numbers and red-ink canon marks.
Church History 1.2.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Through Moses the Word gave the Hebrew nation symbols such as the sabbath and circumcision, not yet the full mysteries.
Church History 1.7.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · To resolve the apparent conflict between Matthew's and Luke's genealogies, Eusebius cites Africanus's Letter to Aristides.
Church History 2.15.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Peter's hearers in Rome begged Mark, his follower, to write down Peter's teaching, which became the Gospel of Mark.
Church History 2.15.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Peter approved Mark's Gospel for the churches, as Clement and Papias attest; 1 Peter, written in Rome (“Babylon”), mentions Mark.
Church History 2.17.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Philo (quoted): each house has a sacred room, a “monastery,” where they study only the law, the prophets, and hymns.
Church History 2.17.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Philo (quoted): from dawn to dusk they study Scripture, interpreting it allegorically.
Church History 2.17.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Philo (quoted): they use the writings of their founders as models of allegory.
Church History 2.17.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius guesses the “ancient writings” were the Gospels, apostolic letters, and interpretations such as Hebrews.
Church History 2.17.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Philo (quoted): they read the law allegorically, as a body (the letter) with a soul (the hidden sense).
Church History 2.18.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Philo wrote much on Scripture, including the Allegories of the Sacred Laws and Questions and Solutions on Genesis and Exodus.
Church History 2.23.24Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Josephus (quoted): Albinus threatened Ananus, and Agrippa deposed him; James is said to have written the first catholic letter.
Church History 2.23.25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · James and Jude are disputed letters, seldom cited by the ancients, yet read publicly in most churches.
Church History 3.3.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · 1 Peter is acknowledged by all; 2 Peter was received as not canonical but has been valued with the other Scriptures.
Church History 3.3.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Acts, Gospel, Preaching, and Apocalypse of Peter were not handed down as catholic writings.
Church History 3.3.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius will note which writers used disputed books and what they said about the canonical ones.
Church History 3.3.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Only one of the Petrine writings is genuine and acknowledged.
Church History 3.3.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Paul's fourteen letters are clear, though some reject Hebrews; the Acts of Paul are not undisputed.
Church History 3.3.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Shepherd of Hermas is disputed but valued for beginners, read in churches, and used by early writers.
Church History 3.3.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · So much on the undisputed and disputed books.
Church History 3.4.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Luke of Antioch, a physician and Paul's companion, wrote the Gospel from eyewitness tradition and Acts from his own observation.
Church History 3.4.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Some say Paul's phrase “my gospel” refers to Luke's Gospel.
Church History 3.9.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · In Against Apion Josephus lists the undisputed Hebrew Scriptures.
Church History 3.10.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Josephus (quoted): the Jews have only twenty-two books, rightly held divine.
Church History 3.10.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Josephus (quoted): five books of Moses contain the laws and history to Moses' death.
Church History 3.10.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Josephus (quoted): thirteen books of the prophets cover Moses to Artaxerxes, and four contain hymns and precepts.
Church History 3.10.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Josephus (quoted): later writings are not equally trusted, since the succession of prophets ceased.
Church History 3.10.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Josephus (quoted): no Jew has dared to change the Scriptures; all regard them as God's decrees and would die for them.
Church History 3.16.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement's acknowledged letter to Corinth, written during a sedition there, is read publicly in many churches.
Church History 3.18.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus (quoted): the Revelation was seen near the end of Domitian's reign.
Church History 3.24.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius now turns to John's undisputed writings.
Church History 3.24.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · John's Gospel is universally acknowledged; Eusebius explains why it is placed fourth.
Church History 3.24.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Of all the disciples, only Matthew and John wrote Gospels, and that out of necessity.
Church History 3.24.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Matthew wrote his Gospel in his native language for the Hebrews before leaving them.
Church History 3.24.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · John, having preached orally, wrote last, approving the other three but supplying Christ's early deeds.
Church History 3.24.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · So the Gospels do not conflict; John omitted the genealogy and began with Christ's divinity.
Church History 3.24.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · So much for John's Gospel; Mark's origin was told earlier.
Church History 3.24.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Luke wrote to give a sure account, learned from Paul and the other apostles, in place of rash earlier attempts.
Church History 3.24.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · 1 John is undisputed; 2 and 3 John are disputed.
Church History 3.24.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Opinion on Revelation is still divided.
Church History 3.25.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius summarizes the New Testament: first the four Gospels and Acts.
Church History 3.25.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Then Paul's letters, 1 John, 1 Peter, and, if it seems right, Revelation.
Church History 3.25.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Disputed but widely known: James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John.
Church History 3.25.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Spurious: Acts of Paul, Shepherd, Apocalypse of Peter, Barnabas, the Teachings (Didache), and perhaps Revelation.
Church History 3.25.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Some add the Gospel of the Hebrews; all these are disputed.
Church History 3.25.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The list distinguishes acknowledged, disputed, and heretical writings such as the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias and various apocryphal Acts.
Church History 3.25.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Heretical books differ in style and teaching from the apostles and must be rejected outright.
Church History 3.27.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · They rejected Paul's letters as an apostate's and used only the Gospel of the Hebrews.
Church History 3.31.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Having covered the apostles and the writings, Eusebius moves on.
Church History 3.37.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Many disciples gave their goods to the poor and went out as evangelists, carrying the written Gospels.
Church History 3.38.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement's letter, acknowledged by all, draws heavily on Hebrews, proving Hebrews is early.
Church History 3.38.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Hebrews is counted with Paul's letters; some say Luke or Clement translated it from Paul's Hebrew.
Church History 3.38.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement is the likelier translator, given the similar style and thought.
Church History 3.38.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · A second letter of Clement exists, but was not used by the ancients.
Church History 3.38.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Later lengthy works with dialogues of Peter and Apion are wrongly ascribed to Clement.
Church History 3.39.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · This confirms two Johns and two tombs at Ephesus; the second John probably saw the Revelation.
Church History 3.39.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Papias (quoted), from the presbyter: Mark, Peter's interpreter, wrote accurately but not in order what Peter taught.
Church History 3.39.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Papias (quoted): Matthew compiled the oracles in Hebrew, and each translated them as he could.
Church History 3.39.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Papias quotes 1 John and 1 Peter and tells a story of a sinful woman also found in the Gospel of the Hebrews.
Church History 4.14.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Polycarp's letter uses testimonies from 1 Peter.
Church History 4.18.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Justin says prophetic gifts still flourished, ascribes Revelation to the apostle John, and accuses the Jews of cutting passages from Scripture.
Church History 4.22.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Hegesippus and the ancients called Proverbs “All-virtuous Wisdom”; he says some apocrypha were forged by heretics of his day.
Church History 4.23.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius (quoted): Corinth reads Soter's letter on the Lord's day, as it always reads Clement's earlier letter.
Church History 4.23.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius (quoted): heretics have altered his letters, so it is no wonder they tamper with the Lord's Scriptures.
Church History 4.26.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Melito's Extracts begins with a list of the Old Testament books.
Church History 4.26.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Melito (quoted) writes to Onesimus, who asked for extracts about the Saviour and for the number and order of the Old Testament books.
Church History 4.26.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Melito (quoted), after a journey to Palestine, lists the Old Testament books, which match the Hebrew canon but for Esther's absence.
Church History 4.29.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Severians use the Law, Prophets, and Gospels, but reject Paul and Acts.
Church History 4.29.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Tatian compiled the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four Gospels, and is said to have rephrased some of Paul's words.
Church History 5.1.58Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Defeat only enraged the persecutors, fulfilling Rev 22:11.
Church History 5.8.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius will now quote Irenaeus on the books of Scripture.
Church History 5.8.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus: Matthew wrote his Gospel in the Hebrews' language while Peter and Paul preached in Rome.
Church History 5.8.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus: Mark recorded Peter's preaching and Luke Paul's.
Church History 5.8.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus: John, the beloved disciple, published his Gospel at Ephesus.
Church History 5.8.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus defends the number 666 in the Apocalypse as found in the best copies and attested by John's hearers.
Church History 5.8.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus refuses to name the Antichrist and dates John's vision to the end of Domitian's reign.
Church History 5.8.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus uses 1 John and 1 Peter and quotes the Shepherd of Hermas as Scripture.
Church History 5.8.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus also uses Wisdom of Solomon and the expositions of an unnamed apostolic presbyter.
Church History 5.8.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus defends the Septuagint's “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14 against the “young woman” of Theodotion and Aquila, whom the Ebionites follow.
Church History 5.8.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus: Ptolemy son of Lagus asked the Jews for a Greek translation of their Scriptures for his library.
Church History 5.8.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Jews sent seventy elders skilled in both languages.
Church History 5.8.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Ptolemy had each translator work separately on every book.
Church History 5.8.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · All the translations agreed word for word, showing that the Greek Scriptures were translated by divine inspiration.
Church History 5.8.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus: God had earlier inspired Ezra to restore the lost Scriptures after the exile.
Church History 5.10.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · In India Pantaenus reportedly found Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew, left there by the apostle Bartholomew.
Church History 5.13.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Apelles told Rhodon that the prophecies refute themselves and that he could not prove his belief in one principle.
Church History 5.13.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Rhodon, once Tatian's pupil, promised to answer Tatian's Problems and wrote on the six days of creation.
Church History 5.13.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Apelles wrote much against the law of Moses.
Church History 5.16.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The anonymous writer hesitated to write against the Montanists lest he seem to add to the New Testament.
Church History 5.18.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Apollonius records a tradition that the apostles stayed twelve years in Jerusalem, uses the Apocalypse, and tells of John raising a dead man at Ephesus.
Church History 5.20.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus adjures future copyists to check their copies carefully and to copy his oath too.
Church History 5.20.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Irenaeus vividly remembers Polycarp recounting what he had heard from John and other eyewitnesses of the Lord.
Church History 5.26.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius lists Irenaeus's other works, including the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, and records the accession of Severus.
Church History 5.27.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius lists other writers of the period — Heraclitus, Maximus, Candidus, Apion, Sextus, Arabianus — and many anonymous orthodox works.
Church History 5.28.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Scripture and earlier writers — Justin, Miltiades, Tatian, Clement — contradict them, calling Christ God.
Church History 5.28.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Artemonites tamper with Scripture and treat it as material for logical syllogisms.
Church History 5.28.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · They neglect Scripture for Euclid, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Galen.
Church History 5.28.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · They corrupt the faith with pagan learning and have altered the Scriptures, claiming to correct them.
Church History 5.28.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Their copies of Scripture disagree with one another.
Church History 5.28.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Each Artemonite teacher's “corrected” text differs, and some even from their own earlier versions.
Church History 5.28.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · To alter Scripture is either unbelief in the Spirit's inspiration or a claim to be wiser than the Spirit.
Church History 5.28.19Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Some rejected the law and prophets altogether, under the pretext of grace.
Church History 6.2.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen was trained in the Scriptures from boyhood by his father.
Church History 6.2.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · His father made him memorize and recite Scripture daily.
Church History 6.2.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Not content with the plain sense, the boy Origen pressed his father about Scripture's deeper meaning.
Church History 6.3.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen sold his books for a small daily income and lived an austere life of study, fasting, and little sleep.
Church History 6.8.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Taking Matt 19:12 literally, and to avoid scandal in teaching women, Origen castrated himself.
Church History 6.12.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Serapion wrote against the Gospel of Peter because it had misled some at Rhossus.
Church History 6.12.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Serapion: we receive the apostles as Christ but reject writings forged in their names.
Church History 6.12.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Serapion had allowed the Gospel of Peter to be read without examining it, but now, hearing of heresy, will return.
Church History 6.12.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Serapion found the Gospel of Peter mostly orthodox but with Docetic additions.
Church History 6.13.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Miscellanies combine Scripture with useful sayings of Greek and other writers.
Church History 6.13.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement cites disputed books: Wisdom, Sirach, Hebrews, Barnabas, 1 Clement, and Jude.
Church History 6.13.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement says he stood close to the apostolic succession and promised a commentary on Genesis.
Church History 6.14.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement's Outlines commented on all Scripture, including disputed books such as Jude, Barnabas, and the Apocalypse of Peter.
Church History 6.14.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement held that Hebrews was Paul's, written in Hebrew and translated by Luke.
Church History 6.14.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Paul omitted his name so as not to repel Hebrews prejudiced against him.
Church History 6.14.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement cites a presbyter: Paul did not call himself apostle of the Hebrews, since the Lord himself was their apostle.
Church History 6.14.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Clement records the presbyters' tradition that the Gospels with genealogies were written first.
Church History 6.14.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Mark wrote his Gospel at Rome at the request of Peter's hearers.
Church History 6.14.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Peter neither forbade nor encouraged Mark's work; John last wrote a “spiritual Gospel.”
Church History 6.16.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen learned Hebrew and collected the Hebrew text and the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and others.
Church History 6.16.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Of two anonymous versions, Origen noted only where he found them.
Church History 6.16.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · In the Psalms the Hexapla had fifth, sixth, and seventh versions, one found in a jar at Jericho.
Church History 6.16.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen arranged the Hebrew and Greek versions in parallel columns in the Hexapla, and four Greek versions in the Tetrapla.
Church History 6.17.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Symmachus the translator was an Ebionite; Origen received his writings from a woman named Juliana.
Church History 6.18.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen held general learning to be useful preparation for studying Scripture.
Church History 6.19.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Even Porphyry, attacking Scripture, could only slander its interpreters, especially Origen.
Church History 6.19.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Porphyry: Christians rescue the Jewish Scriptures by turning their plain sense into allegorical mysteries.
Church History 6.19.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Porphyry: Origen read Plato and the Pythagoreans and borrowed Stoic allegory for the Jewish Scriptures.
Church History 6.19.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Fleeing trouble in Alexandria, Origen went to Caesarea, where the bishops had him preach though he was a layman.
Church History 6.20.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Gaius of Rome, arguing against a Montanist, counted only thirteen letters of Paul, excluding Hebrews.
Church History 6.22.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius lists Hippolytus's works, including an Easter cycle and Against All the Heresies.
Church History 6.23.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · With Ambrose's encouragement and money, Origen began his commentaries on Scripture.
Church History 6.23.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Ambrose paid for teams of stenographers, copyists, and women calligraphers to produce Origen's works.
Church History 6.24.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen wrote the first five books on John at Alexandria; twenty-two books survived to Eusebius's time.
Church History 6.24.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen's works written at Alexandria also included commentaries on Genesis 1–8, Psalms 1–25, Lamentations, and On the Resurrection.
Church History 6.25.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: the Hebrews count twenty-two canonical books, matching their alphabet.
Church History 6.25.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen lists the twenty-two Hebrew books with their Hebrew names, placing Maccabees outside them.
Church History 6.25.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · In his Commentary on Matthew, Origen acknowledges only four Gospels.
Church History 6.25.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: by tradition, Matthew, once a tax collector, wrote first, in Hebrew, for Jewish believers.
Church History 6.25.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Mark wrote second under Peter's guidance, as 1 Pet 5:13 calls him Peter's son.
Church History 6.25.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Luke wrote third for Gentiles, and John last.
Church History 6.25.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: Paul did not write to all his churches, and only briefly to some.
Church History 6.25.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: Peter left one acknowledged letter and a disputed second.
Church History 6.25.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: John wrote one Gospel and the Apocalypse.
Church History 6.25.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: John left one short letter; the second and third are disputed.
Church History 6.25.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: the style of Hebrews is more polished Greek than Paul's.
Church History 6.25.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Yet its thoughts are worthy of the apostle.
Church History 6.25.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: the thoughts of Hebrews are Paul's, the wording a disciple's; churches that hold it as Paul's are not to be blamed.
Church History 6.25.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen: only God knows who wrote Hebrews; some say Clement of Rome, some Luke.
Church History 6.27.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Firmilian, Alexander, and Theoctistus honoured Origen as their teacher.
Church History 6.31.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Julius Africanus wrote to Origen doubting the story of Susanna; Origen replied at length.
Church History 6.31.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Africanus's letter to Aristides reconciled the genealogies of Christ; Eusebius quoted it in Book 1.
Church History 6.32.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen wrote thirty books on Isaiah (to ch. 30) and twenty-five on Ezekiel.
Church History 6.32.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · At Athens he finished Ezekiel and began the Song of Songs, completing ten books at Caesarea.
Church History 6.36.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Past sixty, Origen at last let stenographers record his public sermons.
Church History 6.36.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Origen also wrote Against Celsus, twenty-five books on Matthew, and commentaries on the twelve prophets.
Church History 7.7.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · A voice told Dionysius to read everything and test it, as the saying “Be approved money-changers” urges.
Church History 7.15.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Bishop Theotecnus made Marinus choose between his sword and the Gospels; he chose the Gospels.
Church History 7.24.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Nepos based his view on the Apocalypse and wrote a Refutation of the Allegorists.
Church History 7.24.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Because Nepos's book leads simple believers to hope only for earthly pleasures, Dionysius must answer it in writing.
Church History 7.24.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The discussion was patient, honest, and open to persuasion by Scripture.
Church History 7.25.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius: some earlier writers rejected the Apocalypse outright as unintelligible and falsely titled.
Church History 7.25.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · They ascribed it to the heretic Cerinthus, not to John.
Church History 7.25.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius will not reject the Apocalypse, believing it has a deeper meaning beyond him.
Church History 7.25.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · He defers to faith and wonders rather than rejects what he cannot understand.
Church History 7.25.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · At the end of his prophecy the author blesses those who keep it and names himself John.
Church History 7.25.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius accepts that the author was a holy, inspired John, but doubts he was the apostle who wrote the Gospel and letter.
Church History 7.25.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Character, style, and structure show different authors; the evangelist never names himself.
Church History 7.25.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The author of the Apocalypse names himself at the very beginning.
Church History 7.25.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Apocalypse opens with a named greeting, but 1 John begins with the mystery itself, unnamed.
Church History 7.25.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Even 2 and 3 John are anonymous, while the Apocalypse names John repeatedly.
Church History 7.25.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The author is John, but which John is unclear; he never uses the Gospel's self-descriptions.
Church History 7.25.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · He calls himself only brother, companion, and witness.
Church History 7.25.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Many Christians took the name John, as they did Paul and Peter.
Church History 7.25.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · John Mark is unlikely to be the author, since he left Paul before Asia.
Church History 7.25.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The author was probably another John of Asia; two tombs of John are shown at Ephesus.
Church History 7.25.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Thought, vocabulary, and syntax also distinguish the two authors.
Church History 7.25.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Gospel of John and 1 John open with closely parallel words.
Church History 7.25.19Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · 1 John begins by opposing those who deny Christ came in the flesh.
Church History 7.25.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Gospel and letter keep consistently to the same themes and terms.
Church History 7.25.21Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Gospel and 1 John share distinctive vocabulary: life, light, truth, love, the world, antichrist, Father and Son.
Church History 7.25.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Apocalypse shares almost nothing with them.
Church History 7.25.23Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Neither mentions the other, while Paul at least alludes to his revelations.
Church History 7.25.24Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Style too distinguishes the Gospel and letter from the Apocalypse.
Church History 7.25.25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Gospel and letter are written in correct and elegant Greek.
Church History 7.25.26Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The Apocalypse's author truly received revelation but writes ungrammatical, barbarous Greek.
Church History 7.25.27Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius disclaims mockery; he only wishes to show the writings differ.
Church History 7.26.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius also commented on Ecclesiastes; Eusebius now turns to his own generation.
Church History 7.32.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Under Cyril of Antioch, Eusebius knew the learned presbyter Dorotheus, who read Scripture in Hebrew.
Church History 7.32.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius heard Dorotheus preach; Tyrannus succeeded Cyril at the height of the persecution.
Church History 7.32.19Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Christians, with the veil removed, need no such proofs; the Book of Enoch also places the first month at the equinox.
Church History 8.2.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius saw churches demolished, Scriptures burned in public, and church leaders hiding or captured, as the psalm foretold.
Church History 8.2.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · In March 303, near Easter, Diocletian's first edict ordered churches razed, Scriptures burned, and Christians stripped of rank and freedom.
Church History 8.10.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Phileas writes that the martyrs, following the examples of Scripture and the Christ who humbled himself to death, held fast to their calling.
Church History 8.10.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Offered freedom if they sacrificed or death if they refused, the martyrs gladly chose death, obeying the Scriptures that forbid worshiping other gods.
Church History 9.9.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · God drew Maxentius out of the city, confirming before all eyes the biblical stories of God's judgment on the wicked.
Church History 10.4.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Formerly believers only heard of God's wonders in Scripture and praised him for what their fathers told them.
Church History 10.4.53Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Isaiah's prophecies about the church have now been proved true by events.
Church History 10.4.64Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · The baptized he strengthens with the deeper teachings of Scripture and enlightens.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 15Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Manes opens the debate: he claims to be the Paraclete promised by Jesus and argues that the law and the prophets come from Satan, not from the Father of Christ.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 44Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Diodorus writes to Archelaus that Manes is teaching that the law of Moses comes from the evil prince, and lists the contrasts Manes draws between the law and the Gospel.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 45Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Diodorus reports Manes's use of 2 Corinthians 3, Galatians, and Romans against the law, and asks Archelaus to answer.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 46Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus replies to Diodorus that the Old and New Testaments are one fabric, and that Moses was a tutor and foster-father who handed God's people over to Christ, as the parable of the rich man shows.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 47Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus answers Manes's contrasts: Jesus' teaching on retaliation advances from justice to goodness, the spoiling of Egypt was just wages, and Jesus too accepts gifts from the rich.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 49Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus explains the "ministry of death" and the veil of Moses: the lesser glory of Moses is not rejected, as a lamp is not despised at sunrise, and the veil lies over the hearts of those who read Moses without turning to Christ.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 50Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus interprets the veil as the prophecy of Gen 49:10 and Deut 18:15, fulfilled in Christ, and then lists parallels between Moses and Jesus; the letter to Diodorus closes.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 52Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Using Archelaus's letter, Diodorus argues against Manes that two unbegotten principles would need two old or two new testaments, and that Jannes and Mambres, not Moses, resisted the truth.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 65Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · Archelaus continues: in prison Manes has his disciples buy the Christian Scriptures, recasts his teaching with Christ's name and the Paraclete, escapes to the fortress of Arabion, and is still sought by the Persian king.
Homilies 2.38Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter teaches that the written Scriptures acquired false passages against God after Moses had handed the Law orally to the seventy elders, as a test of believers' love for God.
Homilies 2.39Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter explains that he will not publicly call such passages false, but will answer Simon by questions and give the key privately to the well disposed.
Homilies 2.40Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter gives the rule that everything said or written against God is false, and says the delay allows Clement to learn it.
Homilies 2.41Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Clement asks which passages of Scripture are false and how, and Peter agrees to show him.
Homilies 2.42Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter argues that no one can become holy who believes in many gods or in a God guilty of improprieties.
Homilies 2.43Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter lists statements about God in Scripture, such as that he lies, repents, hardens hearts, or creates evil, and rejects them as unworthy of God.
Homilies 2.44Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter continues his list of unworthy statements about God, such as that he desires a mountain, dwells in a tent, craves sacrifices, and loves war.
Homilies 2.47Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Clement asks how to answer someone who insists that everything in the Scriptures is true.
Homilies 2.48Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter offers to refute one scriptural statement against God, and Clement chooses the claim that God is ignorant.
Homilies 2.49Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter begins his argument by getting Clement to agree that the author of the books was a man.
Homilies 2.50Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter argues that if the prophet had foreknowledge from God, God cannot be ignorant, so passages saying he is ignorant are false.
Homilies 2.51Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter cites Jesus' sayings “Be approved money-changers” and “You err, not knowing the Scriptures” to show that Scripture contains both true and false passages.
Homilies 2.52Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter denies the scriptural accounts of the sins of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses.
Homilies 3.3Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter grieves that the evil one uses Simon, armed with false passages of Scripture, to lead Gentile converts away from belief in one God.
Homilies 3.4Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Simon cannot harm Jews who know the secret of the falsified books, but he will mislead Gentiles, and only the few who refuse to hear evil of God will be saved.
Homilies 3.9Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Anyone can find testimonies in the Scriptures for whatever doctrine he has already formed, so they give no ground for speaking against God.
Homilies 3.10Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Both Simon and Peter can cite Scripture, which says all things so that only the right-minded, who love their Creator, find the truth.
Homilies 3.17Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Adam, formed by God’s hands, had the Spirit of foreknowledge; it is blasphemy to deny it to him and give it to one born of human seed.
Homilies 3.21Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Adam, who named the animals as a true prophet, needed no tree to know good and evil; only the undiscerning believe the serpent outwitted God.
Homilies 3.39Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Simon cites Genesis to show that the creator is ignorant, envious, repentant, needy, and evil.
Homilies 3.40Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter argues that if God wrote the charges against himself he is not wicked, and if another power wrote them, that power must be examined.
Homilies 3.42Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter’s rule: scriptural sayings agreeing with creation are true, others false; Adam was not blind but named the animals and his sons prophetically.
Homilies 3.43Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Sayings that make God ignorant are false, for God foretold to Abraham the bondage in Egypt and the return.
Homilies 3.45Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · God never desired sacrifices, as the graves of craving show, nor does he dwell in darkness, as the pure heavens prove.
Homilies 3.46Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Sayings slandering God are cancelled by contrary sayings and by creation, since no prophet wrote them.
Homilies 3.47Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter argues that Moses handed the Law down orally to seventy elders, and that it was written later by others, as the account of his death shows.
Homilies 3.48Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Asked how to sort true from false in the Law, Peter says God preserved one passage as the key.
Homilies 3.49Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · The key passage is Jacob’s prophecy of the ruler from Judah; Jesus, who fulfilled it, teaches which Scriptures are true.
Homilies 3.50Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Jesus’ sayings to the Sadducees and about approved money-changers show that Scripture contains true and false words.
Homilies 3.51Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Jesus’ sayings on not destroying the Law show that what he set aside was never part of the true Law.
Homilies 3.52Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · What has passed away, such as sacrifices, was not God’s command; Jesus alone is the gate to saving truth.
Homilies 3.55Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Jesus’ sayings correct the scriptural claims that God swears, tempts, lacks foreknowledge, or does not see all.
Homilies 3.57Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Jesus’ sayings answer the claims that God is evil or that there are many gods.
Homilies 16.9Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Simon argues that the Scriptures contradict themselves and so lead their readers astray.
Homilies 16.10Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter says the Scriptures test each reader's intent, and argues that the God in whose image and shape man was made is the only God.
Homilies 16.13Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter says passages speaking of other gods were written to test readers, citing Deuteronomy on the false prophet.
Homilies 16.14Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter grants that Scripture calls angels, Christ, Moses, and idols “gods,” but holds that for believers there is one God, the Father of Christ.
Homilies 18.19Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter says others sinned by believing false passages of Scripture that make God ignorant, bloodthirsty, bribable, and deceitful, and then imitated such a God.
Homilies 18.20Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter applies 'No one knew the Father' to those misled by passages written against God as a test, and urges everyone to be like skilled money-changers who sift true Scripture from false.
Homilies 18.21Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Simon feigns horror at Peter's view of the Scriptures and prepares to leave, recalling Peter's vow to believe no one who speaks against the Creator, not even Scripture or visions.
Homilies 19.1Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · On the next day Simon undertakes to prove that the Creator, as maker of all things, cannot be blameless.
Recognitions 1.21Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter tells Clement that the delay is providential, giving time to teach him the faith according to the tradition of the true Prophet.
Recognitions 1.68Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Caiaphas asks that the debate be held from the Scriptures, and James secures agreement that the law and the prophets will be the basis.
Recognitions 2.55Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter turns Simon's argument against him: the same charges apply to Simon's higher power, which moreover gives no evidence of existing.
Recognitions 8.60Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Rather than disputing, one should find the true Prophet and test whether his words are truly prophetic, then trust him in everything.
Recognitions 10.42Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter warns that Scripture, like the myths, can be twisted by clever readers, so its sense must be learned from those who keep the tradition received from their elders, with liberal learning used only in support of the truth.
Recognitions 10.51Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Philosophers speculate about invisible, past, and future things that only prophetic foreknowledge can reveal; Peter preaches only what the true Prophet has handed down, and offers proofs of his foreknowledge.
Letter to Zenas and Serenus 8Anonymous · 4th century (disputed) · Counsel on conduct with women, on avoiding evil talk, and on studying the Scriptures with humility.
Acts of Felix of Tibiuca 1Anonymous · 303 (15 June, per the Acts) · Under Diocletian's edict (303) the curator of Thibiuca demands the Scriptures; the clergy say the bishop has them.
Acts of Felix of Tibiuca 2Anonymous · 303 (15 June, per the Acts) · Bishop Felix refuses to surrender the Scriptures.
Acts of Felix of Tibiuca 4Anonymous · 303 (15 June, per the Acts) · Felix is imprisoned at Carthage and sent to the praetorian prefect.
Acts of Felix of Tibiuca 5Anonymous · 303 (15 June, per the Acts) · Felix is taken to Italy; at Venusia the prefect sentences him to the sword.
Prophetic Extracts 1.1Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius explains that this collection of Old Testament prophecies about Christ follows his earlier demonstrations, likens it to the bee's gathering, and sets out the distinction between texts about the pre-existent Word and texts about Christ's two comings.
Prophetic Extracts 1.6Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius suggests that Isaac's blessing of Jacob, which does not fit Jacob himself, may refer to Christ.
Prophetic Extracts 2.0Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius opens the second book of the Extracts, on prophecies from the poetic books, beginning with the Psalms.
Prophetic Extracts 2.14Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius takes God's oath to set David's offspring on his throne as a promise about Christ, distinguishing literal, spiritual, and second-coming fulfilments.
Prophetic Extracts 3.0Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Opening the third book of the Extracts (the eighth of the General Elementary Introduction), Eusebius argues that the prophecies and faith in Christ confirm each other, against both Jews and heretics who reject the prophets.
Prophetic Extracts 3.6Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius explains that the Song of Songs, read beyond its literal sense, speaks of Christ and his bride the church, and refers to the commentaries of the most industrious interpreter of Scripture.
Prophetic Extracts 3.37Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies Jeremiah's new covenant written on hearts to the Gospel, which makes the old covenant obsolete and forms a virtuous life even in the unlettered.
Prophetic Extracts 3.45Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius quotes Gabriel's prophecy of the seventy weeks and introduces Julius Africanus's explanation of it from his Chronographies.
Prophetic Extracts 4.0Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Introducing the extracts from Isaiah, Eusebius argues that the prophets were truly inspired, since Israel accepted them as prophets because of their fulfilled predictions, wisdom, boldness, and lives.
Prophetic Extracts 4.4Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius defends the reading “the virgin shall conceive” in Isaiah 7:14 by the authority of the Seventy and by the sign's marvellousness, and refutes the Jewish view that it referred to Hezekiah.
Prophetic Extracts 4.20Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius argues, from Matthew and the Hebrew text, that Isaiah's servant who brings justice to the nations is Christ, not the Jewish people or the patriarch Jacob.
Divine Institutes 1.1.22Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Readers who are persuaded will be sent on to the full source of teaching, if they are patient enough to read or listen.
Divine Institutes 1.4.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The many prophets, filled with one Spirit, all proclaim one God.
Divine Institutes 1.4.3Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Fulfilled and harmonious prophecies show the prophets were not mad.
Divine Institutes 1.18.18Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Ceres and Liber were deified for grain and wine, though Scripture shows these were used earlier.
Divine Institutes 2.8.63Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture teaches man was made last, into a world prepared for him.
Divine Institutes 2.9.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Lactantius turns to Scripture's account of creation.
Divine Institutes 2.10.11Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The poets distorted the flood story that Scripture tells correctly.
Divine Institutes 2.11.19Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture teaches that God formed the body and breathed in the soul.
Divine Institutes 2.13.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Noah planted the first vineyard, long before Liber.
Divine Institutes 3.1.10Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture says the philosophers' thoughts are foolish; this must now be shown by argument.
Divine Institutes 3.1.11Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture speaks briefly and without argument, because God, as judge, pronounces rather than argues.
Divine Institutes 3.1.12Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · With Scripture's testimony for each point, Christians can defend truth with surer arguments than those used for falsehood.
Divine Institutes 3.16.16Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Wisdom existed from the beginning; the Greeks, lacking Scripture, did not know how it was lost.
Divine Institutes 3.19.3Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture teaches that souls are either rewarded or punished forever.
Divine Institutes 4.5.3Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · He will now use the prophets' testimony, avoided in earlier books.
Divine Institutes 4.5.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · One must know the prophets' dates to see their predictions fulfilled.
Divine Institutes 4.5.9Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture is ancient, not recently invented.
Divine Institutes 4.10.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · He will show that everything fulfilled in Christ was foretold.
Divine Institutes 4.12.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · These prophecies are in the Jews' own Scriptures.
Divine Institutes 4.15.30Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The Sibyls and prophets were understood only after Christ fulfilled them.
Divine Institutes 4.15.31Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Prophecy is understood only when fulfilled.
Divine Institutes 4.20.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · In Galilee the risen Christ opened the prophets to his disciples.
Divine Institutes 4.20.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The law is a testament, confirmed only by the testator's death.
Divine Institutes 4.20.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture is divided into Old and New Testaments.
Divine Institutes 4.20.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The New Testament fulfils the Old; Christ, the testator, makes believers heirs.
Divine Institutes 4.20.6Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Jeremiah foretold a new covenant.
Divine Institutes 4.30.7Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · corrupted the Scriptures and invented new doctrines.
Divine Institutes 5.1.15Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The learned despise Scripture because the prophets spoke plainly.
Divine Institutes 5.1.16Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Plain Scripture is scorned by those who want polished style.
Divine Institutes 5.1.18Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Neither Scripture nor its interpreters are believed, being unadorned.
Divine Institutes 5.2.13Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Hierocles tried to show Scripture contradicts itself.
Divine Institutes 5.2.16Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture has no contradictions; he simply did not understand it.
Divine Institutes 5.3.18Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Christ is believed to be God because prophecy was fulfilled in him.
Divine Institutes 5.3.21Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Christ's divinity rests on the prophets' prior testimony.
Divine Institutes 5.4.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Cyprian should have used reason, not Scripture, against an unbeliever.
Divine Institutes 6.21.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · They scorn Scripture's plain style.
Divine Institutes 6.21.6Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · God made Scripture plain so all could understand.
Divine Institutes 6.24.31Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The rest is found in Scripture itself.
Divine Institutes 7.1.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · He will argue from Scripture and reason.
Divine Institutes 7.14.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture teaches the world's beginning and end.
Divine Institutes 7.14.7Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh.
Divine Institutes 7.14.15Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Scripture reveals the end.
Divine Institutes 7.15.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Jacob's family went down to Egypt.
Divine Institutes 7.25.1Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · He has cited pagan rather than prophetic sources.
Divine Institutes 7.25.2Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Read the prophets themselves.
On the Workmanship of God 18.10Lactantius · ca. 303–305 · Histories record fulfilled dreams, and the prophets received revelations in dreams.
Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 1Anonymous · 304 (12 February) · The narrator introduces the persecution of Diocletian, which demanded the surrender of the Scriptures, and says the martyrs sealed with their blood the exclusion of the traitors from the church.
Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 3Anonymous · 304 (12 February) · The martyrs are led to the forum of Abitina, where heaven had earlier quenched with a storm the fire in which the traitor bishop Fundanus's surrendered Scriptures were being burned.
Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 11Anonymous · 304 (12 February) · Emeritus confesses that the Lord's service was held in his house, saying that they cannot be without it, and that he has the Scriptures in his heart.
Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 12Anonymous · 304 (12 February) · Felix confesses that the Christians always met at the Lord's service to read the Scriptures; the narrator insists that the Christian and the Lord's service cannot be separated; two martyrs named Felix die of beatings.
Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 13Anonymous · 304 (12 February) · Ampelius, Rogatianus, Quintus, Maximianus, and Felix the younger each confess the assembly and the Lord's service and are sent to prison.
Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 14Anonymous · 304 (12 February) · Saturninus the younger confesses that he celebrated the Lord's service because Christ is Savior, is tortured on his father's rack with his father's blood still on the hooks, and is sent to prison to join him.
Acts of Euplus of Catania (Latin) 1Anonymous · 304 (12 August) · The deacon Euplius gives himself up at Catana with the Gospels and reads from them.
Acts of Euplus of Catania (Latin) 2Anonymous · 304 (12 August) · Under torture Euplius confesses the Trinity and refuses to surrender the Scriptures.
Acts of Euplus of Catania (Latin) 3Anonymous · 304 (12 August) · Euplius is beheaded with the Gospel hung round his neck.
5Anonymous · 304 (1 April) · Irene, who hid the Scriptures, is questioned and condemned to a brothel.
6Anonymous · 304 (1 April) · Irene is kept pure in the brothel and then sentenced to be burned.
Apology for Origen 0Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · An anonymous prologue, Rufinus's preface with his creed, and Pamphilus's preface, which defends Origen's humility as an inquirer and announces a defence from Origen's own words.
Apology for Origen 1.1Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · Pamphilus quotes Origen's summary of the apostolic rule of faith (On First Principles, preface) and his definition of a heretic from the lost Commentary on Titus, to show that Origen held the Church's teaching as the test of truth.
Apology for Origen 2.1Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · Origen, quoted from On First Principles, teaches that God is incorporeal and incomprehensible, and that the God of the Old Testament is the Father of Jesus Christ.
Apology for Origen 5.1Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · Origen's argument from fulfilled prophecy (the end of Judah's rulers, the calling of the Gentiles, the spread of the gospel) closes Pamphilus's proof of his faith in the Trinity; Pamphilus then begins to list the charges against him.
Apology for Origen 5.6Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · The sixth charge: that Origen denied the historical events narrated in Scripture.
Apology for Origen 5.9Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · Pamphilus lists the last charge (transmigration of souls) and answers the first five charges with Origen's own words: the Son is born of the Father by nature, not by emission; Christ is God and not a mere man; his body was real; and there is one Christ.
Apology for Origen 6.1Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · After Origen's words on Christ as mediator before the incarnation, Pamphilus defends Christ's human soul from Scripture and answers the sixth charge with Origen's insistence that most of Scripture's history and commandments are to be taken literally.
Apology for Origen 10.1Pamphilus of Caesarea · ca. 308–310 (Rufinus's Latin about 397) · Pamphilus answers the charge that Origen taught the transmigration of souls with passages in which Origen rejects it as foreign to the Church and contrary to Scripture's teaching that the world will end.
On the Anger of God 1.3Lactantius · ca. 313–314 · Lactantius claims no wisdom of his own but follows God's teaching, since God alone knows and reveals secrets.
On the Anger of God 22.3Lactantius · ca. 313–314 · The prophets, full of the Spirit, speak of God's favor to the righteous and anger against the wicked; but philosophers need arguments.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension), inscriptionEusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · Eusebius dates the first edict of the Great Persecution (303) and states its provisions.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension) 4.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · At Caesarea he lived with Eusebius's circle, studying Scripture and practising discipline.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension) 8.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · Christians arrested at Gaza while assembled to read Scripture were maimed or tortured.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension) 11.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · Pamphilus, presbyter of Caesarea, excelled in renunciation, charity, and above all devotion to the Scriptures.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension) 11.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · Valens, an aged deacon of Jerusalem (Aelia), knew the Scriptures by heart.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension) 13.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · Blind John knew whole books of Scripture by heart and could recite the Law, Prophets, histories, Gospels and epistles.
Martyrs of Palestine (shorter recension) 13.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 311–314 · Eusebius tells of hearing blind John recite Scripture from memory in church, proof that the true person is the soul and mind.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.3.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Paul himself rejected sophistry and spoke of demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.3.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Christians are commanded to give reasons for their hope, and many recent writers have done so.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.3.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Hebrew prophets foretold Christ's coming, his teaching, the Jews' rejection of him, and the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersion.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.9.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture also says the nations were given the heavenly bodies to honor, while the Hebrews alone knew the Creator.
Preparation for the Gospel 3.10.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture teaches God's presence and providence in the world without making him part of it.
Preparation for the Gospel 3.10.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture calls the heavens the work of God's hands.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.21Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The prophecy naming Josiah long beforehand shows God's foreknowledge.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Isaiah's naming of Cyrus long beforehand shows God's foreknowledge.
Preparation for the Gospel 6.11.25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Daniel's vision of the ram and goat foretells Alexander and his successors.
Preparation for the Gospel 7.5.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God rewarded the Hebrews with revelations, theophanies, and prophecy.
Preparation for the Gospel 7.5.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Hebrew oracles teach piety, unlike the shameful Greek myths.
Preparation for the Gospel 7.11.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses, inspired by the Spirit, began with God as Creator.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.1.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Eusebius first recounts how the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.1.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · God moved Ptolemy to have the Scriptures translated in preparation for the gospel's spread.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.1.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The divinely arranged translation gave Christians the Jewish Scriptures.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.4.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Ptolemy announces his wish to have the Jewish law translated into Greek.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.5.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Jewish community approves the translation and curses any alteration.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.5.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Ptolemy admires the law; Demetrius explains that writers who tried to use it were struck by God.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.5.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The king orders the books to be carefully and reverently kept.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.7.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · On the Sabbath the people assemble to hear the law.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.7.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · A priest or elder reads and expounds the law until evening.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.8.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses required weekly hearing of the law.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.10.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Aristobulus addresses the king's question about God's 'hands' and 'feet' in Scripture.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.10.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture's descriptions of God must be understood fittingly, not mythically.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.10.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses often expresses deep truths through visible images.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.10.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Literalists miss Moses' greatness.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.12.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · On the Sabbath they gather in synagogues to hear the Scriptures read and explained.
Preparation for the Gospel 9.6.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Aristobulus claims parts of the law were translated into Greek before Alexander.
Preparation for the Gospel 11.5.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The deuterotai interpreted the hidden meanings of Scripture.
Preparation for the Gospel 11.5.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Solomon’s Proverbs begins by teaching how to understand riddles and sayings.
Preparation for the Gospel 11.5.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The prophetic books are full of logical treatment for those who read them.
Preparation for the Gospel 11.5.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Hebrew Scripture contains metrical poetry.
Preparation for the Gospel 11.5.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The content of the Hebrew writings is divine.
Preparation for the Gospel 11.7.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The prophets knew natural philosophy by divine inspiration.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.1.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture puts faith before understanding.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.1.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Beginners receive Scripture simply in faith; the mature probe its meaning.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.4.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Hebrews teach the simple the stories and the trained the deeper meaning.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.5.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Hebrews discerned true inspiration and raised children on Scripture stories.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.23.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Among the Hebrews a few inspired men judged which prophetic books were canonical.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.31.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture uses human images of God for the benefit of the simple.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.52.33Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Scripture anticipated all of Plato’s argument; Eusebius counts prophets and apostles alike as Hebrews.
Preparation for the Gospel 13.14.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Hebrew oracles, being from God and confirmed by fulfilled prophecy, are free from error.
Preparation for the Gospel 14.3.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The Hebrews preserved their true philosophy unchanged from the beginning.
Preparation for the Gospel 14.3.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The prophets never contradicted one another or Moses.
Preparation for the Gospel 15.62.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Eusebius concludes the Preparation for the Gospel.
Preparation for the Gospel 15.62.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The question the Demonstration will answer: why Gentiles use the Jewish Scriptures but not the law.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 22.2Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · God created the world from nothing, made man in his image, and forbade him the tree of knowledge.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 26.4Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Only God, or one taught by God, can be wise.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 35.5Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Since human wisdom fails, we follow the divine wisdom God has revealed.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 37.7Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Solomon and David also testified that the Son was born of God.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 38.3Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · True religion survived among the Hebrews, who received the law through Moses.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 39.1Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · The prophets foretold these things.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 43.3Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Scripture shows the nations adopted in Israel's place.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 44.3Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Prophecy fulfilled in him shows he is Son of God and God.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 55.1Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · In mercy God revealed himself and gave his divine law to end human error.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 57.7Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · The eloquent despise Scripture's plain style and prefer pleasant words to truth.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 65.6Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Scripture, the Sibyls, and even oracles attest the soul's immortality.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 65.8Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Scripture shows the philosophers wrong in thinking the world eternal or very old.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 2.2Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · The risen Christ spent forty days with his disciples, opened the Scriptures to them, and commissioned them to preach.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 12.2Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · At dawn officials broke into the church at Nicomedia, burned the Scriptures, and looted it.
Acts of the Purgation of Felix of Aptunga 4Anonymous · 314–315 (events of 303) · The record of the earlier hearing at Carthage (19 August 314), in which the Donatist Maximus produced Caecilianus's letter against Felix.
8Anonymous · 314–315 (events of 303) · The letter is read again; Caecilianus identifies the forged addition and names Ingentius.
Acts of the Purgation of Felix of Aptunga 9Anonymous · 314–315 (events of 303) · Ingentius confesses the forgery, and the proconsul declares Bishop Felix innocent.
Canon 13Anonymous · 1 August 314 · Clergy proved by public records to have surrendered Scriptures, church vessels, or names in persecution are deposed, but the ordinations they performed remain valid.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 1, preface 2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius will use Moses and the prophets as witnesses who foresaw by the Spirit what the gospel later accomplished.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.1.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The fulfillment of prophecy proves the prophets inspired and their teaching true, without rhetorical artifice.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.1.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The treatise will also refute heresies that reject the prophets, by showing the agreement of Old and New.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.3.42Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christ’s commandments, not Moses’, were to be taught to the nations, as the apostles recognized at the Jerusalem council.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.4.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christians have adopted the Hebrew Scriptures because they contain prophecies about the nations, such as David’s prayer for a lawgiver.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.80Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The apostles’ worldwide preaching fulfills the prophecy of the remnant’s glory; Aquila and Theodotion read “power and glory.”
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.94Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Since the passage must be read spiritually, its sequel must be read so too.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.125Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The reader should interpret the rest spiritually; Eusebius must move on.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.5.88Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · John modestly calls himself only “the elder” or “the disciple Jesus loved”; Peter wrote no gospel.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.5.89Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Mark, recording Peter’s preaching, omits Jesus’ praise of Peter after his confession.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.6.32Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christ's single command to make disciples of all nations was fulfilled at once, spreading laws against idolatry and savagery.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.7.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The disciples obeyed, and soon the gospel was preached everywhere and the writings about Jesus translated into many languages.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.15.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius will prove his account of Christ from the prophets, beginning with the names Jesus and Christ.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.15.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · God told Moses to make everything according to the heavenly pattern, so the anointing was a type of higher things.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.15.31Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Isaiah, like David, speaks of the coming Christ as anointed by the Father’s power, using the prophetic past tense and first person.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Before proving Christ’s divinity from the prophets, Eusebius will examine how Hebrew prophets were inspired.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Pagans claim that their oracles are as much gifts of God as the Hebrew prophets.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Unlike the oracles, Moses taught true doctrine about God and the “second cause,” gave examples of virtue, divine law, true worship, and prophecy.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 21Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The prophets sometimes answered small questions, but their main work concerned great matters.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Hebrew prophecy concerned the salvation of all humanity, not everyday trivia, which it touched only incidentally.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 23Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Moses and the prophets taught worship of the Creator, theology of the second cause, and foretold that God, the second Lord, would come to spread the patriarchs’ piety to all nations.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 24Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Spirit inspired the prophets to teach the theology of Father and Son, true piety, and the coming Savior who would bring that piety to all nations.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · With one voice the prophets taught purity, rejection of idolatry and human sacrifice, worship of the Creator, and the coming of Christ.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 27Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Holy Spirit enlightened the prophets’ minds, keeping them sober and aware.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 28Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Prophets are so called because the Spirit reveals the future to them.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 30Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Spirit dwells only in virtuous souls like the Hebrew prophets, for purposes that benefit the whole world.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 32Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Having shown the prophets’ divine inspiration, Eusebius will confirm the Gospels’ theology of Christ from them.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 34Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Paul’s Christology in Colossians agrees with John’s; Eusebius will show the same teaching in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 35Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius will rely chiefly on the Septuagint, the church’s version.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 5, preface 36Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · He will also use the later Greek versions favored by Jews when helpful.
Demonstration of the Gospel 5.13.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · As God spoke through human prophets, so here the Father speaks to Moses through the angel.
Demonstration of the Gospel 5.23.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Genesis 19 shows two Lords; Amos’s past tenses are prophetic futures.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 6, preface 3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Some prophecies are veiled because the Jews would have destroyed writings that openly foretold their rejection.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.14.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Hebrews clarifies Habakkuk’s transposed wording.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.14.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Read in order, Habakkuk seems to say God is displeased with the coming one, which is absurd; Hebrews reorders it.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.14.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Hebrews places “the righteous shall live by faith” before “if he shrinks back,” keeping the sense.
Demonstration of the Gospel 6.14.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius adopts the same reordering.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.71Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The prophets did not name Rome because the gospel and the Scriptures were to spread under Roman rule.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.72Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Scripture veils Rome in riddles, as in Daniel, to avoid offending the rulers.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.83Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The ruin of the Jews was veiled so that they would preserve the Scriptures for the gentiles.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.84Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Open prophecies of Jewish ruin would have led the Jews to destroy them.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.110Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The “new volume” signifies the new covenant; the priest and prophet as witnesses stand for the law and the prophets.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.113Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christians show the prophecy fulfilled in Christ, literally and figuratively.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.1.121Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Prophecies must be read sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively.
Demonstration of the Gospel 7.3.36Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Since the rest is figurative, the animals must be too.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.1.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Chronicles begins its genealogies with Judah; the tribe's leadership is presumed afterward, though records fail.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.1.81Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius defers fuller discussion and turns to show from Daniel that the time of Christ’s coming was foretold.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Gabriel calls his words a vision because they need deeper understanding.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Hebrew and the translators Aquila and Symmachus attach “your” to the city as well as the people.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Accurate Septuagint copies add “your” under an asterisk.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.30Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Aquila’s “to fulfil vision and prophet” is more exact, for Christ came to unseal and open the prophecies, not to close them.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.31Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Revelation’s lion of Judah opens the seals, that is, the obscurities of the prophets of which Isaiah spoke.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.32Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christ came to open the prophecies, which is why Aquila’s rendering is preferable.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.33Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets, which remained incomplete until his coming.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.34Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · In the Septuagint’s sense, “sealing vision and prophet” means that prophecy ceased among the Jewish nation after John.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.57Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The division of the weeks is divinely inspired, not arbitrary.
Demonstration of the Gospel 8.2.70Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Maccabean era begins here; under the high priest Eleazar the Seventy translated the Scriptures at Alexandria.
Demonstration of the Gospel 9.1.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Scripture teaches mystical truths while its literal sense also holds, so the star prophecy was fulfilled literally.
Demonstration of the Gospel 9.4.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · This is the third prophecy of Egypt; if Hosea is disputed, Matthew may have drawn on Numbers’ “God led him out of Egypt.” Next comes Isaiah.
Demonstration of the Gospel 9.9.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The springs of Israel are the Scriptures given to Israel, from which the churches must be watered.
Demonstration of the Gospel 9.15.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The names are obelized in the Septuagint and absent from the Hebrew and other translators.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.1.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Against those who deny that the Psalms prophesy, Eusebius cites two Psalms of Asaph from David’s time.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.3.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Peter, in Acts 1, applies the Psalm to Judas.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.4.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Since the words are not in Jeremiah, Eusebius suggests either tampering with Jeremiah or a copyist’s error in Matthew, writing Jeremiah for Zechariah.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.5.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The passage, missing from the Septuagint but in the Hebrew and marked by asterisks, names Judas and shows his sin indelible.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.40Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The other versions lack “transgressions,” so it may be a copyist’s error, or Christ speaks of our sins as his own.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.87Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Heretics divide Christ’s garments by corrupting Scripture and teaching falsely about him; then he prays for help.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.112Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius has treated the Psalm briefly and urges readers, as Christ bids, to search the Scriptures more deeply.
Against the Heathen 45Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · As a word reveals the mind, the Word reveals the Father; Scripture forbids idols and the worship of the heavenly bodies, which were given so that the nations might know their Maker.
On the Incarnation 12.2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · God also sent the law and the prophets so that humans could learn of him from other humans.
On the Incarnation 12.5Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · The law and prophets, though sent to the Jews, were a school of divine knowledge for the whole world.
On the Incarnation 33.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · The Jews' own Scriptures refute them, foretelling the virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14.
On the Incarnation 33.4Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Balaam's oracles in Numbers and Isaiah 8:4 foretell the coming of a man from Israel.
On the Incarnation 33.5Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Isaiah 19:1 and Hosea 11:1 show that the one who comes is the Lord.
On the Incarnation 34.1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Scripture plainly foretells Christ's death, its purpose, and the plot against him.
On the Incarnation 34.2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Isaiah 53 foretells the Word's suffering for our sins, his dishonor for our honor.
On the Incarnation 34.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Isaiah 53:8–10 shows that the sufferer is no ordinary man, since his generation cannot be told.
On the Incarnation 35.1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Scripture also foretells the cross.
On the Incarnation 35.2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Deuteronomy 28:66 foretells the life hanging before the people's eyes.
On the Incarnation 35.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Jeremiah 11:19 foretells wood put into his bread.
On the Incarnation 35.4Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Psalm 22 foretells the piercing of hands and feet.
On the Incarnation 35.6Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Isaiah 11:10 foretells the nations' hope in the root of Jesse.
On the Incarnation 35.7Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · No patriarch or prophet was born of a virgin, so the prophecy points to Christ alone.
On the Incarnation 38.1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Isaiah 65:1–2 speaks of one made manifest to those who did not seek him and stretching out his hands.
On the Incarnation 38.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Isaiah 35 foretells God's coming with healing of the blind, deaf, lame, and mute.
On the Incarnation 39.2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Daniel's seventy weeks mark the time of Christ's coming.
On the Incarnation 40.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Genesis 49:10 foretells that Judah's rule lasts until the expected one of the nations comes.
On the Incarnation 40.5Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · The nations now worship Israel's God, showing that the Lord foretold in Scripture has appeared in the body.
On the Incarnation 56.1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Athanasius offers this as an outline and urges the reader to study the Scriptures for fuller knowledge.
On the Incarnation 56.2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · The Scriptures were given by God, and Athanasius passes on what he learned from inspired teachers.
On the Incarnation 57.1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Understanding Scripture requires a good life and a pure soul.
On the Incarnation 57.2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Only those who imitate the saints can understand their words.
On the Incarnation 57.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · To grasp the Scriptures one must purify one's life and imitate the saints, so as to share the good things prepared for those who love God; the work ends with a doxology to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Letter to Paulinus of Tyre 4Eusebius of Nicomedia · ca. 320–323 · He claims Scripture as his source, citing Proverbs 8 to show that the Son is created, established, and begotten.
Letter to Paulinus of Tyre 7Eusebius of Nicomedia · ca. 320–323 · He cites texts that call humans and even dew 'begotten' to show that the word means coming into being by God's will.
Proceedings before Zenophilus (Gesta apud Zenophilum) 2Anonymous · 320 (inquiry of 3 Dec. 320 into events of 303) · The record of the search of the church at Cirta in 303 is read: the church's goods and the codices handed over.
On the Witch of Endor 1Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius tells Eutropius that, since he and many others are dissatisfied with Origen's homily on the witch of Endor, he will set Origen's text first and then refute it point by point.
On the Witch of Endor 2Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius retells how Saul, after banishing the mediums, was abandoned by God and in terror of the Philistines sought out the woman of Endor, and argues that divination forbidden by God cannot yield true testimony.
On the Witch of Endor 3Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues that no demon or medium has power to bring up any soul from Hades, that Origen wrongly attributes the woman's words to the Holy Spirit, and that the text says only that Saul inferred from her description that it was Samuel.
On the Witch of Endor 4Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues from Christ's words that the devil is a liar that the demon's promise to bring up a righteous soul cannot be true, and rejects Origen's claim that the narrative voice, being the Holy Spirit's, vouches that Samuel was seen.
On the Witch of Endor 5Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius quotes Origen's argument that Scripture says Saul “knew” it was Samuel, and replies with a dilemma: if what came up was bodiless it was not Samuel the man, and if it had a body Saul would have seen it himself.
On the Witch of Endor 6Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius rejects the explanation that Samuel's soul took human shape, arguing that the woman's description of an upright man in a cloak fits a body, not a soul, and that if it was a soul her description was false.
On the Witch of Endor 7Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius answers Origen's appeal to the word “knew” by arguing that Saul saw nothing and only believed what a possessed woman told him, so that the narrator's “knew” reports a madman's supposition, not the truth.
On the Witch of Endor 8Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues from the prophets of Baal, of whom Scripture says simply “they prophesied”, that the narrator's plain words do not vouch for the truth of what false prophets and mediums do.
On the Witch of Endor 9Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius adds the example of Pharaoh's magicians, of whom Scripture says they did “likewise”, arguing that their wonders were illusions and that the narrator's words do not make magic equal to God's signs.
On the Witch of Endor 10Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues that the “gods coming up” were the devil's show of power, that a true Samuel would have refused worship, and that the devil, who even asked Christ to worship him, tricked Saul into doing obeisance to him.
On the Witch of Endor 11Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues that Christians put demons to flight, as Paul did the spirit of Python at Philippi, so no demon could summon Samuel, and that a real Samuel would first have rebuked Saul for consulting a medium against the law.
On the Witch of Endor 12Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius shows that the apparition's prophecy only repeated what Samuel had told Saul after the war with Amalek, as fortune-tellers impress clients by reciting the past, and that only the words about “tomorrow” were its own.
On the Witch of Endor 13Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues that the apparition's own predictions were false, since Saul did not die the next day and died with three sons, not only Jonathan, and that whatever it said truly about war it knew as the devil, the author of all wars.
On the Witch of Endor 14Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Citing the lying spirit sent to deceive Ahab, Eustathius argues that the devil engineers the ruin of the wicked, and that the apparition's “tomorrow you will be with me” blasphemously mimics Christ's promise to the thief, since, as the parable of Lazarus shows, the wicked Saul could not be with Samuel.
On the Witch of Endor 15Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues that Saul, who disobeyed God, persecuted David, killed the priests and consulted a medium, could not be with Samuel, so the promise “tomorrow you will be with me” was a lie, and that the faithful Jonathan could not share his father's lot.
On the Witch of Endor 16Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius quotes Origen's rhetorical questions and his warning that to deny the story's truth leads to unbelief, and replies that Scripture records the medium's words and the devil's boasts without endorsing them.
On the Witch of Endor 21Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius charges Origen with inconsistency: he allegorizes paradise, Abraham's wells, Rebecca's jewellery, Job's daughters, Lazarus and the stoning of Jesus, yet insists on the literal truth of the medium's words, and he misreads John on the stoning.
On the Witch of Endor 22Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius criticizes Origen's allegories built on names, since the righteous and wicked often share names, refers to Methodius's refutation of Origen's view of the resurrection, and notes that Origen alone refused to allegorize the medium's words.
On the Witch of Endor 23Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Answering Origen's claim that a demon could not know of David's coming kingship, Eustathius argues that David's anointing and victories were public and written in Scripture, which the devil knows, as the demons knew Christ and the devil quoted the Psalms to him.
On the Witch of Endor 24Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius ridicules Origen for denying a demon power to prophesy while granting it power to bring up souls and angels, notes that even Caiaphas prophesied unwittingly, and cites the laws of Deuteronomy and Leviticus condemning mediums, reading in Deut 13:3 the Father and the Son.
On the Witch of Endor 25Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues that the law would not command the stoning of mediums if they truly brought up souls and foretold the future, and that the Scriptures consistently condemn them, as in the accounts of Manasseh and Josiah and in Isaiah's rebuke of those who consult the dead.
On the Witch of Endor 26Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius charges that Origen ignored the decisive texts, and that in a later defence he conceded that Scripture does not say the woman brought Samuel up, which leaves him unable to say who did; he adds that the very word engastrimythos means a myth made in the belly.
On the Witch of Endor 29Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius argues that if Plato rejected even Homer's and Hesiod's tales as false myths, the possessed woman's “belly-myth” must be false, as the very name implies.
On the Witch of Endor 30Eustathius of Antioch · ca. 324–337 · Eustathius concludes that the woman of Endor's oracle was a myth from the belly, staged by a shape-shifting demon who mimics the dead, and that only God and his Son can bring souls up from Hades; the text breaks off.
Book 1, lines 473–496Juvencus · ca. 330 · Salt and light; Christ comes to fulfil, not abolish, the law and the prophets.
Book 2, lines 672–699Juvencus · ca. 330 · The Scriptures and Moses bear witness to Christ; the scribes ask for a sign and are given the sign of Jonah.
Letter to Marcellinus 1Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Athanasius praises Marcellinus for studying the Psalms during his illness and promises to pass on what an old man taught him about them.
Letter to Marcellinus 2Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Each book of Scripture has its own subject, but the Psalter, like a garden, contains them all in song.
Letter to Marcellinus 3Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · The Psalms sing of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and the priesthood, as Psalms 18, 23, 113, 104, 105, and 28 (Greek numbering) show.
Letter to Marcellinus 4Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Psalms 106, 19, 125, and 121 (Greek numbering) recall Joshua, Judges, Kingdoms, and the return under Ezra.
Letter to Marcellinus 5Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · The Psalms foretell the coming of God the Word, begotten of the Father, through whom all things were made.
Letter to Marcellinus 9Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · The one Spirit inspires every book, so prophecy, law, history, and song appear in all of them; the Psalter in turn legislates, narrates, and prophesies.
Letter to Marcellinus 10Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Unlike the other books, the Psalter portrays the movements of each reader's soul and gives him the very words with which to repent, endure, give thanks, and praise.
Letter to Marcellinus 11Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Readers take the words of the patriarchs and prophets as others' words, but the Psalms they speak as their own.
Letter to Marcellinus 12Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · The Psalms are a mirror in which the singer recognizes his own soul and its movements.
Letter to Marcellinus 14Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Athanasius classifies the psalms by kind—narrative, prayer, petition, confession, prophecy, praise, thanksgiving, and others.
Letter to Marcellinus 27Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · The Psalms are sung not for pleasure but so that God is praised with full voice and so that the singer's soul is brought into harmony with itself.
Letter to Marcellinus 30Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Every human need is provided for in the Psalms; they should be used in their own words, not embellished, so that the saints and the Spirit who spoke in them may pray with us.
Letter to Marcellinus 32Athanasius of Alexandria · uncertain, after 335 · Those who pray the Psalms will be heard and protected; Scripture itself shows the power of God's words, as with Moses' Song, Deuteronomy in Joshua's and Josiah's days, and the ark of the law.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine), inscriptionEusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Guided by Scripture, Eusebius will speak of kingship, the supreme King, the true earthly copy of his rule, and its counterfeit.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 3.2Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Constantine's sons were made Caesars at successive decennials, fulfilling Daniel's prophecy that the saints would receive the kingdom.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 9.11Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · In the palace Constantine prayed and heard Scripture, and his household was staffed by devout men.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 10.2Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Converts despise the idols, learn Scripture, and worship not the heavenly bodies but their invisible Creator.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 15.12Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Christ's body was the sacrificial lamb foretold in Scripture, who bore our sins, as John the Baptist and Isaiah declared.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 16.7Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · The simultaneous end of idolatry and of national wars fulfilled the prophecies of universal peace; and no one but Christ, after his death, ever made his name known in every tongue, as he foretold.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 17.6Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Even amid persecution Christ raised up ascetics and lifelong virgins everywhere, persuaded multitudes to feed on Scripture, and taught even slaves and barbarians to despise death and expect judgment.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 17.7Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · No other sage was foretold, as Christ was, by Hebrew prophets who described his birthplace, time, life and works.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 17.8Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Christ foretold both the destruction of Jerusalem's temple, which followed swiftly, and the indestructibility of his church.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 17.9Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Christ made simple fishermen into teachers of the world, whose writings, translated into every language, are believed as divine oracles.
Against Marcellus 1.1.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Scripture's human language about God must be understood in a way worthy of God, who is spirit.
Against Marcellus 1.1.36Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Having set out the faith from Galatians, baptism and tradition, Eusebius turns to Marcellus's own words.
Against Marcellus 1.2.25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus carelessly calls Solomon a prophet and Proverbs a prophecy.
Against Marcellus 1.2.27Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Spiritual gifts differ; Solomon received wisdom, not prophecy.
Against Marcellus 1.2.28Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Scripture gives Solomon wisdom but not the life or style of a prophet.
Against Marcellus 1.2.29Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Solomon himself named his books Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, not prophecy.
Against Marcellus 1.2.30Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus explains Proverbs from Greek literature, against Paul's warning about human wisdom.
Against Marcellus 1.3.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Eusebius says he quoted the passage to show Marcellus's vain display of Greek learning.
Against Marcellus 1.3.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Paul's command to speak in words taught by the Spirit should have restrained Marcellus.
Against Marcellus 1.3.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Natural men cannot grasp spiritual things, so the Greeks could not imitate Solomon's inspired wisdom.
Against Marcellus 1.3.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Solomon wrote riddles for the soul's salvation, as Proverbs 1 says.
Against Marcellus 1.3.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Solomon's proverbs, like the leech's daughters, can only be understood beyond their surface.
Against Marcellus 1.3.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Solomon's proverbs are understood by metaphor; Greek proverbs arose from stories.
Against Marcellus 1.3.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Greek proverbs depend on stories, inspired Proverbs do not; Marcellus is wrong to compare them.
Against Marcellus 1.4.14Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus says Asterius appeals to the fathers because he cannot prove his view from Scripture.
Against Marcellus 1.4.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus calls dogma human opinion and scorns following the fathers, against Scripture.
Against Marcellus 2.2.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus cites psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah on the word of the Lord.
Against Marcellus 2.2.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus cites Jeremiah, Hosea and Micah on the word of the Lord.
Against Marcellus 2.3.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus also applies Prov 8:22 to the flesh, ignoring that Wisdom speaks there.
Against Marcellus 2.3.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Eusebius continues quoting Wisdom's speech in Proverbs 8.
Against Marcellus 2.4.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus declines to say what becomes of the immortal flesh, since Scripture does not teach it.
Against Marcellus 2.4.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Marcellus appeals to 1 Cor 13:12 to excuse his silence.
Demonstration 20.14Aphrahat · 337-345 · Isaiah's promise of water and trees for the thirsty poor is read of the nations receiving the Scriptures, with priests and the covenant as the evergreen trees.
Demonstration 22.26Aphrahat · 337-345
On Ecclesiastical Theology, Book 1, preface 2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Eusebius will refute Marcellus's scriptural arguments and set out the church's received theology of the Saviour.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.10.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Prov 8:22 must be read in context, not used to overturn the church's doctrine as Marcellus used “Word.”
On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.18.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · From his premise of a human-like word Marcellus proceeds to misinterpret Scripture.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.19.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Eusebius will show that Scripture opposes Marcellus's interpretations.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.20.53Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · “In the beginning was the Word” is as much from the New Testament as the other titles.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.20.87Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The prophets knew the Son under veiled titles; the full proclamation was kept for the church.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.18.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · John called the Son “Word” because of the prophets' formula “the word of the Lord came to.”
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.18.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Marcellus hides behind the Old Testament's teaching of one God, given to idolatrous Israel.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.19.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Marcellus gathers Old Testament texts against the Son.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The Old Testament's teaching of one God was adapted to Israel's hardness of heart.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The law's provisions, including Moses' permission of divorce, were concessions to hardness of heart.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Moses taught only one God, not the Son, because Israel kept falling into polytheism.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Moses did not mention the creation of angels, though later prophets spoke of them.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Moses knew of the angels but kept silent about their creation.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Many things the New Testament reveals, such as the hostile powers, are absent from Moses.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Must we disbelieve Paul because Moses did not mention the powers?
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The New Testament reveals things, like the heavenly Jerusalem, withheld from stubborn Israel.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Eusebius challenges Marcellus to find these things in the Old Testament.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Many mysteries Paul prays we may know were kept silent by the prophets.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Christ revealed to his disciples mysteries not found in Moses or the prophets.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The church should receive the teaching on the Son from the New Testament, kept back from Israel until its time.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.20.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The mystery of Father and Son was withheld from Israel lest they fall into Greek polytheism.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.22.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · As Christians first teach Greeks one God before Christ, so did the prophets with Israel.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.25.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Eusebius turns to Marcellus's perverse interpretations of Scripture.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.1.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Book 3: Eusebius quotes Wisdom's speech in Proverbs 8 to refute Marcellus's interpretation.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.2.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · In Amos and the Psalms “create” does not mean bringing into existence from nothing.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.2.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The Spirit existed before Pentecost; “create” there means “send,” as “create a clean heart” means “renew.”
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.2.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · “Create” is often metaphorical in Scripture, as “confess” in Matt 11:25 means “thank.”
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.2.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Scripture is full of metaphor and words with several senses.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.2.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The Hebrew and the other Greek versions read “acquired,” not “created.”
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.2.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The same Hebrew verb qānâ, “acquire,” stands in Prov 8:22.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.2.25Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Wisdom's words show the Son existed before creation and that the abyss and waters, which Moses did not call created, were made through him.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The Old Testament speaks of God's ways long before the apostles.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · David and Jeremiah also speak of God's ways.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.15Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Scripture's account of the abyss is complex and does not fit the saints' hearts.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Scripture uses “abyss” of Hades.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The abyss is linked with evil powers and darkness, not saints.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The psalms speak of the deep in many senses.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.33Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Proverbs does not mention the heavenly powers, since it educates beginners.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.34Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Proverbs addresses its reader as a child.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.35Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Many such sayings show Proverbs speaks to beginners.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.36Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Moses likewise omitted the angels because his hearers were not ready.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.3.37Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Proverbs teaches from familiar earthly things to lead toward higher things.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.21.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Eusebius closes, judging that what he has examined is enough to refute Marcellus.
Life of Constantine 3.1.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Constantine rebuilt churches and paid for fine copies of the Scriptures the persecutors had burned.
Life of Constantine 4.17.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Constantine read Scripture and led prayers in the palace like a church.
Life of Constantine 4.36.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Eusebius is to have fifty fine parchment copies of the Scriptures made for the churches of Constantinople.
Life of Constantine 4.36.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The costs are met by the treasury, and the copies are to be brought by public transport.
Life of Constantine 4.37.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The Bibles were sent; Constantine also welcomed the conversion of Constantia.
Oration I Against the Arians 54Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Athanasius lays down a rule of interpretation: to read Scripture rightly one must consider the time, the person, and the matter, and heresies arise from neglecting them.
Oration I Against the Arians 55Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Athanasius reads Heb 1:1–4 as referring to the time of the incarnation and argues that “better” marks a difference of nature between the Son and the angels, not a comparison within one kind.
Oration II Against the Arians 44Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Prov 8:22 is a proverb and must be interpreted by asking who speaks; Wisdom, the creator, speaks of the “house” she built, the body the Word took.
Oration II Against the Arians 45Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · “He created” said of Wisdom does not mean “I am a creature”; Scripture uses “creature” for things created in their very substance, and “created” can refer to something that happens to someone.
Oration II Against the Arians 46Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Scripture often uses “create” for renewal (a clean heart, the new man, a new people), so “the Lord created me” refers to the humanity of the Word, not his substance.
Oration II Against the Arians 58Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · John's “was” excludes any interval before the Son; in Deut 32, Moses puts “made” before “begot,” showing that human beings are made by nature and only afterwards called begotten by grace.
Oration III Against the Arians 18Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · If the Word differed from us only in time, he would share our name and nature; Scripture uses natural things, like animals, as examples for human conduct, not as statements of nature.
Oration III Against the Arians 28Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Athanasius urges the Arians to stop echoing Christ's opponents and to read the Gospels by the rule of the church's faith: the Son is eternal as the Father's own offspring.
Oration III Against the Arians 29Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Scripture's scope is a twofold account of the Saviour: eternally God and Son, and later made man from the Virgin Mary for us; John 1 and Phil 2 show both.
Oration IV Against the Arians 23Athanasius of Alexandria · 4th century (disputed) · The author argues that if the Word became Son only at the incarnation, no one could have known the Father before, and rejects the claim that the Son is later because the Old Testament speaks of the Word.
Oration IV Against the Arians 24Athanasius of Alexandria · 4th century (disputed) · The author lists Old Testament texts about the Son (Ps 2, 9, 45, 110; Isa 5; Prov 8; Dan 3) and argues that “beloved” means “only-begotten,” so that the Word is always Son.
Oration IV Against the Arians 27Athanasius of Alexandria · 4th century (disputed) · The author answers those who refer Ps 110:3 (“from the womb”) to Mary: like “heart,” “womb” is used of God figuratively and signifies the Son's genuine birth from the Father.
Oration IV Against the Arians 29Athanasius of Alexandria · 4th century (disputed) · The author argues that, as the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete are one though “Paraclete” is not in the Old Testament, so the Word and the Son are one; and he shows from Homer that “beloved” means “only son.”
PG 40:921-922Serapion of Thmuis · ca. 340-362 · Scripture records the saints' sins so they are not thought sinless by nature; Christ's presence in the soul makes all else vanity.
Canon 16Anonymous · ca. 343–381 · On Saturdays the Gospels are to be read together with the other Scriptures.
Canon 59Anonymous · ca. 343–381 · Only the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments are to be read in church.
Canon 60Anonymous · ca. 343–381 · A list of the books to be read: twenty-two of the Old Testament and twenty-six of the New, without Revelation.
Historical Fragments 1.9.1.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 343–367 · The catholic bishops at Ariminum resolve to keep the received creed of Nicaea without addition or subtraction, including the term “substance.”
Catechetical Lecture 4.17Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The faith must be proved from Scripture; the catechumens should not believe even their teacher without scriptural proof.
Catechetical Lecture 4.33Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The one God of both Testaments; the catechumens are to read only the twenty-two acknowledged books of the Old Testament, which were translated, Cyril says, miraculously by seventy-two translators.
Catechetical Lecture 4.34Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Cyril lists the twenty-two books of the Old Testament.
Catechetical Lecture 4.35Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Cyril lists the New Testament books: four Gospels, Acts, seven catholic letters, and fourteen letters of Paul; other writings are not to be read.
Catechetical Lecture 5.12Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The Creed, handed on by the Church and gathered from all Scripture, is to be memorized, kept secret from catechumens, and never exchanged for another teaching.
Catechetical Lecture 11.12Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Those who cannot explain the angels should not pry into the Son's begetting, which even Scripture does not describe; it is enough to confess one unbegotten Father and one Son eternally begotten, true God.
Catechetical Lecture 12.5Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Everything must be proved from the prophets; the cause of Christ's coming lies in Genesis, where man, God's image, was cast out of paradise by the devil's envy.
Catechetical Lecture 13.7Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The Jews' unbelief was foretold; Cyril promises scriptural testimonies for every detail of the passion and begins with the betrayal of Judas, foretold in the Psalms.
Catechetical Lecture 13.10Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Zechariah's “foundry” and the Gospel's “potter's field” agree, for potters also have foundries for their clay.
Catechetical Lecture 13.13Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Every detail of Christ's passion has its testimony in the prophets, though time does not allow all to be cited.
Catechetical Lecture 14.2Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Since Paul appeals to the Scriptures, Cyril will show that they foretold the season, place and circumstances of the resurrection.
Catechetical Lecture 14.15Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · If the Jews accept the written accounts of Elijah and Elisha raising the dead, they should accept the resurrection, attested by Hebrew apostles and Jerusalem's Hebrew bishops.
Catechetical Lecture 15.13Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Daniel's fourth beast is the Roman empire, and its eleventh horn the Antichrist, as the Church's interpreters teach.
Catechetical Lecture 15.20Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Cyril reads the closing poem of Ecclesiastes as a prophecy of the darkening of the heavens, Christ's coming, and the resurrection of the body.
Catechetical Lecture 16.2Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Cyril will say about the Spirit only what the Scriptures, which the Spirit himself spoke, have revealed.
Catechetical Lecture 16.7Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Marcion cut the Old Testament testimonies out of the New, and the Gnostics blasphemed the Spirit.
Catechetical Lecture 16.11Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Turning to Scripture, Cyril explains Christ's sayings about living water as referring to the Holy Spirit.
Catechetical Lecture 16.18Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Isaiah, enlightened by the Spirit, foresaw the present desolation of Zion, now turned into cucumber fields.
Catechetical Lecture 16.28Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The judges, Samuel, David, the prophets of Chronicles, Ezra, Elijah and Elisha, and the writing prophets all testify to the Holy Spirit.
Catechetical Lecture 17.1Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Cyril resumes his teaching on the Holy Spirit from the New Testament, relying only on Scripture.
Catechetical Lecture 17.20Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Cyril apologizes for the length of the lecture and turns to a few further testimonies from Acts and the Epistles.
Catechetical Lecture 17.33Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Paul's letters show the Spirit as living and personal; the order of the creed's articles excludes Sabellius' error even though "spirit" is said of Father, Son, and Spirit alike.
Catechetical Lecture 18.10Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The waxing of the moon and its recovery after an eclipse are proofs of the resurrection for those who do not accept Scripture.
Catechetical Lecture 18.14Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Texts that seem to deny the resurrection mean that the ungodly rise to condemnation and that repentance is possible only in this life.
Catechetical Lecture 18.15Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Job's words on the tree that blossoms again, read as a question, and texts of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel teach the resurrection.
Homily on the Paralytic 6Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350-387 · Christ heals by his word; the litter of the Song of Songs is read as a figure of the cross and passion, and the Song is to be heard chastely.
On the Decrees of Nicaea 13Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 350–356 · The Arians appeal to Prov 8:22, “The Lord created me,” but Scripture distinguishes making a creature, like a house, from begetting a son.
On the Decrees of Nicaea 15Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 350–356 · Since Scripture calls the Son God’s Word and Wisdom, saying he once was not means saying God was once without Word and Wisdom.
On the Decrees of Nicaea 18Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 350–356 · The Arians’ own catchwords are unscriptural, while the council’s unscriptural terms express a pious meaning; Athanasius now explains the reason for them.
On the Decrees of Nicaea 21Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 350–356 · The council’s terms are not in Scripture word for word but express its sense: the Son is from the Father, as Scripture itself teaches.
On the Decrees of Nicaea 32Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 350–356 · Scriptural terms would be preferable, but Arian craft forced the council to use clearer words; Athanasius closes by asking that the letter be read to the brothers.
Commentary on Psalms 0Diodore of Tarsus · 4th century (if Diodore, before ca. 390) · text not on this site
Long recension, Philadelphians 5Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Ignatius completes his instructions, ending with widows, and disclaims apostolic authority, writing as a fellow soldier.
Long recension, Philadelphians 8Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Ignatius urges unity, forgiveness for the penitent, and faith in the Gospel, whose authentic archive is Christ's cross, death and resurrection.
Long recension, Philadelphians 9Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Christ the high priest and Word is the door through which patriarchs, prophets, apostles and church enter; the Gospel fulfils the prophets.
Long recension, Hero 1Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Ignatius urges Hero to persevere, bear with the weak, and fast with moderation, since wine and meat are not abominable.
To the Bishops of Egypt 4Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 356 · Athanasius argues that heresies use Scripture's words without its sense, and warns that the Arians plan to send the Egyptian bishops a new creed to sign under threat of banishment, in order to bury Nicaea.
Life of Antony 16Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Antony begins his address to the monks: having begun the ascetic life, they should never slacken, for a short life of toil buys an eternal kingdom.
On the Trinity 1.18Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Hilary asks his readers to let Scripture's words, not their own presumptions, govern their understanding of God.
On the Trinity 2.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Heresy lies in misreading Scripture; to deny that the Son shares the Father's substance is to deny that the Father is truly Father.
On the Trinity 3.24Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · A created mind cannot fully understand its Creator; unbelief is the folly of measuring God by one's own weakness, as Paul teaches.
On the Trinity 3.26Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · We must acknowledge our own foolishness, refuse to confine God within natural laws, and believe about him only what he himself testifies.
On the Trinity 4.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Hilary will answer the Arians' proof texts one by one from the Gospels and the apostles.
On the Trinity 4.14Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · God must be known from his own testimony; Hilary will interpret each Arian proof text from its context.
On the Trinity 5.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Hilary defers the Gospel texts such as “the Father is greater than I” and answers the Arians first from the Law and the Prophets.
On the Trinity 5.21Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · God is known only from his own revelation; Moses, learned as he was, knew God only when God spoke to him from the bush.
On the Trinity 5.26Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · The Arians have added “you” to Isaiah's “they will bless the true God,” making it address another; the text refers to the speaker himself.
On the Trinity 6.17Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · The Arians correct God's own account of the Son's birth by claiming it makes God changeable; but God must be believed about himself.
On the Trinity 6.20Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Ironically Hilary asks God whether Moses, the prophets, and the apostles deceived him, since they taught him the faith he holds.
On the Trinity 10.41Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Hilary notes that many manuscripts lack Luke's angel and bloody sweat; even if genuine, they concern us, and the bloody sweat proves a real body.
On the Trinity 10.67Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Paul's "according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3–4) sets the limit of faith: Christ's birth, tears, hunger, suffering, and death are to be confessed as Scripture presents them.
On the Trinity 11.23Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Paul, who heard things unspeakable, warns Timothy to understand, trusting God to give understanding (2 Tim 2:7); so must we.
On the Trinity 11.24Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 356–360 · Following Phil 3:15–16, Hilary invites those who have understood 1 Cor 15 otherwise to accept a better understanding as God reveals it.
Letters to Serapion 1.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · The opponents base their view on Amos 4:13, “who creates spirit,” but the text says simply “spirit,” not the Holy Spirit, and they interpret Prov 8:22 more carefully.
Letters to Serapion 1.4Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Scripture never calls the Holy Spirit simply “spirit” without an addition such as “of God,” “Holy,” or the article, unless the context has already made the reference clear.
Letters to Serapion 1.5Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Old Testament passages always mark the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God or of the Lord, or as Holy, never simply as “spirit.”
Letters to Serapion 1.6Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · In the New Testament too the Holy Spirit is always marked as the Spirit of God, of Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the Paraclete.
Letters to Serapion 1.7Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Scripture uses “spirit” of the human spirit and of the winds, so Amos 4:13 need not refer to the Holy Spirit.
Letters to Serapion 1.8Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · “Spirit” can also mean the spiritual sense of Scripture or a person’s disposition, as with Caleb; a created “spirit” is better taken as one of these or as wind.
Letters to Serapion 1.9Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Amos’s “creates spirit,” beside the announcing of Christ, refers to the renewal of the human spirit through the incarnation, not to the Holy Spirit, in whom we are renewed.
Letters to Serapion 1.10Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · The “thunder” of Amos is the gospel word; Athanasius names his opponents “Tropici” for their figurative exegesis, and rejects their claim from 1 Tim 5:21 that the Spirit is an angel.
Letters to Serapion 1.31Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · The Triad has one activity: the Father works through the Word in the Spirit, so that the prophets, the apostles, and Paul spoke in the Spirit with Christ speaking in them.
Letters to Serapion 3.5Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · The Father creates through the Word in the Spirit, and the prophets and Paul spoke the Word’s message in the Spirit, so the Spirit is inseparable from the Son.
Letters to Serapion 4.8Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Athanasius turns hesitantly to Serapion’s question: why is blasphemy against the Son forgiven but not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?
Letter 260Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil answers Optimus's questions on Gen 4:15 (the seven vengeances on Cain, interpreted both as seven sins and seven punishments), on Lamech's seventy-sevenfold vengeance, and on Simeon's words to Mary in Luke 2:34–35, including the sword that will pierce her soul.
Letter 283Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil tells a woman that he can meet her only at the coming synod, interprets her dream as a call to care for the contemplation of the soul, and points her to the Scriptures and the Spirit's guidance.
Letter 296Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil explains to a widow that he kept her mules longer than intended as a sign of his trust, and urges her to live mindful of judgment and her daughter to study the Scriptures.
Letter 363Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil, delighted with Apollinarius's explanations, asks whether he may put further questions to him about Scripture.
Against the Arians 7Phoebadius of Agen · ca. 357-358 · Phoebadius defends the word “substance” by its meaning and by many occurrences of substantia in the Latin Bible.
Against Arius 1.2Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus argues from Ephesians 3, John 1:18 and John 8:19 that God can be known through the Son, who reveals the Father because he is of the same substance.
Against Arius 1.46Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus closes his treatment of the homoousion by listing questions still to be answered and stressing that the Scriptures speak above all of the incarnate Word crucified and risen.
Against Arius 1.59Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus concludes that Father, Son and Spirit are one God, differing only in power and action, and lists biblical uses of “substance” against those who deny that the word is scriptural.
Against Arius 2.3Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus answers the objection that “substance” is not in Scripture by arguing that God, though above substance, may be called substance, and by citing Jeremiah 23, Psalm 139 and Hebrews 1:3.
Against Arius 2.5Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus argues that hypostasis in Jeremiah 23 and Psalm 139 means God's very substance, not wealth, and that to stand in it is to see the Word.
Against Arius 2.6Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus interprets the father's dividing of his “substance” in the parable of the two sons as God's riches, which are Christ, the power and wisdom of God, and concludes that Father and Son share one hypostasis.
Against Arius 2.7Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus argues that his opponents themselves use the unscriptural phrase “light from light”, so they cannot reject homoousion, which follows from texts showing that the same life is in Father and Son.
Against Arius 2.8Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus traces the scriptural roots of ousia in epiousios bread (Matt 6:11) and the people periousios (Titus 2:14), arguing that homoousion is formed in the same way and rightly excludes heretics.
Against Arius 2.9Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus answers the objections that homoousion is obscure, scandalous or new, arguing that Scripture itself keeps foreign words, that the term excludes heretics, and that it was adopted at Nicaea and approved by Constantine.
On the Generation of the Divine Word 1Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus answers Candidus by reminding him that God is beyond human speech and that the Scriptures call Christ the only-begotten Son, one with the Father.
On Receiving the Homoousion 2Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus shows that Scripture speaks of God's substance (Jeremiah 23, Psalm 139, Hebrews 1:3) and explains that homoousion means both “of the same substance” and “substance together”, excluding Arius's “from nothing” and “there was when he was not”.
On the Words of Scripture 1Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author introduces a friend's question whether the whole world has the same hour, the friend claiming from Genesis that day and night cover the whole world at once, and asks him to hear the true reading of Moses.
On the Words of Scripture 2Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author argues that darkness, being created by God, is a substance, and that the light of the first day illuminated only half the world, the other half remaining in darkness, so that day and night move around the earth.
On the Words of Scripture 3Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author argues that God's separating light from darkness and calling the light “day” means a span of twelve hours that moves around the world, and appeals to Ecclesiastes 1:9 that things were then as they are now.
On the Words of Scripture 4Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author argues that the morning mentioned after each evening belongs to the next day, so that God's works were done by day, and tests this against the creation of the firmament, the dry land and the lights.
On the Words of Scripture 5Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author argues that the sun and moon, made on the fourth day, circle the earth without ceasing, as Ecclesiastes 1:5–6 says, so that the day passes from place to place and each morning begins a new day.
On the Words of Scripture 6Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author argues that light covers only half the globe, so that morning and evening pass round the earth, and that since light was made and named day before night, the day begins with morning, not evening.
On the Words of Scripture 7Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · The author argues from the creation of man and the seventh day of rest that each day began with morning, the morning after the sixth evening being the seventh day, since no seventh evening is mentioned.
On the Synods 85Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 358–359 · If misuse by heretics disqualified a word, much of Scripture itself would have to be discarded.
On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 39Athanasius of Alexandria · 359 (additions 361) · Unscriptural terms with a pious meaning are no fault, while heretics misuse even Scripture; the Arians object to Nicaea only because it condemned their heresy.
Old Testament listAnonymous · ca. 360 · A list of the Old Testament books counted canonical, with line counts, tied to the twenty-four elders of Revelation.
New Testament list and note on the stichometryAnonymous · ca. 360 · A list of the New Testament books with line counts, and the compiler's note on how he counted them.
Homilies on the Psalms 1.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil opens his homily on Psalm 1 by praising the book of Psalms as a storehouse of every kind of teaching, sweetened by melody so that it is learned without effort.
Homilies on the Psalms 61.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · On Ps 62:1–5 Basil teaches that the soul must be subject to God, its Maker, from whom comes salvation, Christ himself; the righteous are shaken only humanly by trials, while the devil's servants assault man until, like a leaning wall, he falls, yet God rebuilds him for the resurrection. He discusses the variant “in thirst” and “in a lie,” and condemns those who flatter vice by giving it the names of virtues.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 12Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's twelfth rule: every word of the Lord must be accepted without contradiction, human tradition must not override God's commandment, all that the Lord handed down must be kept, and God's will must be preferred to one's own.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 26Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's twenty-sixth rule: every word and deed must be confirmed by the testimony of inspired Scripture, which also teaches from nature and common life.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 42Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's forty-second rule, that the Lord came to fulfil the law and the prophets, with Rule 43 on how the gospel goes beyond the law, whose heading the scan lost.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 72Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's seventy-second rule, on hearers: they are to test teachers by the Scriptures or by the fruits of the Spirit, receive true teachers as the Lord, and accept the commandments and reproof as the way to life.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 80Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's eightieth and last rule: what the word wants Christians, and those entrusted with preaching, to be, ending with his summary of the marks of a Christian.
On the Holy Spirit 3Didymus the Blind · Greek ca. 360-390; Latin 387-391 · The same Holy Spirit spoke in the prophets and the apostles, as the use of the Greek article shows.
On the Holy Spirit 29Didymus the Blind · Greek ca. 360-390; Latin 387-391 · The prophets spoke by the Holy Spirit; what Isaiah says the Lord spoke, Paul says the Holy Spirit spoke, so the Spirit is Lord and God.
On the Holy Spirit 33Didymus the Blind · Greek ca. 360-390; Latin 387-391 · Christ left much untaught because the disciples could not bear it before the Spirit was given; the Spirit leads from the letter of the law to the truth of Scripture.
On the Holy Spirit 57Didymus the Blind · Greek ca. 360-390; Latin 387-391 · "Spirit" also means a person's will and, above all, the higher spiritual sense of Scripture as opposed to the letter.
Apology 21Eunomius of Cyzicus · ca. 360 · Eunomius cites Scripture to show that the Father alone is the one true God, God of the Son, while confessing the Son as God, immortal, wise, and good, caused by the Father.
On the Orthodox Faith against the Arians 3Gregory of Elvira · ca. 360-392 · The author answers the objection that homoousion is not in Scripture: the Arians themselves use the unscriptural “God from God, light from light,” but in a sense that makes the Son a creature, as some heretics speak of resurrection while denying the resurrection of the flesh.
On the Orthodox Faith against the Arians 5Gregory of Elvira · ca. 360-392 · The author argues that the unity of substance is taught in Scripture, and that comparisons such as “light from light” illustrate but cannot define the Son’s birth from the Father.
Tractate 11, section 1Gregory of Elvira · ca. 360-392 · Introducing the spies sent into Canaan, Gregory affirms the one Spirit speaking in both testaments and recounts the spies' report and the people's rebellion.
Tractate 16, section 1Gregory of Elvira · ca. 360-392 · Gregory asks why Isaiah's book is titled a 'vision' though it opens with rebuke, and explains that Scripture deliberately reverses order and speaks in figures to hide its sense from the devil while revealing it to those with the Spirit.
Letter 189Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 360–390 · Gregory explains that “the Word became flesh” names the whole man by a part, as Scripture often does, and means that Christ took up our condition, as he is said to have become sin and a curse.
To Constantius 8.1Hilary of Poitiers · 360 · Hilary asks to speak to the emperor before the synod from the Gospels alone.
To Constantius 8.2Hilary of Poitiers · 360 · Hilary offers the faith from Scripture, which he already holds, not from new documents.
To Constantius 9.1Hilary of Poitiers · 360 · Every heretic claims Scripture: Marcellus, Photinus, and Sabellius misread it.
To Constantius 9.2Hilary of Poitiers · 360 · Montanists, Manichaeans, and Marcionites likewise use Scripture without its sense.
To Constantius 10.1Hilary of Poitiers · 360 · Hilary asks the emperor to hear what Scripture says of Christ.
Against Constantius 16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–361 · Constantius bans unscriptural words only when they guard the faith, while admitting new ones that serve heresy.
Against Constantius 17Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–361 · Constantius proclaims an unscriptural "likeness" to suppress the scriptural equality of the Son with God (John 5).
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.1.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The fragmentary opening contrasts superficial resemblance with a full typological comparison.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.1.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · All of Scripture foretells Christ's coming in words, deeds, and examples.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.1.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Christ prefigures the church in the patriarchs from Adam to Jacob.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.1.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Hilary states his plan: to show Christ and the church prefigured in Scripture from Adam onward.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.4.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Paul's words on Adam and Eve are chiefly spiritual, about Christ and the church.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.10.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Lamech's story must be read for its figure of the future.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.23.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Since Scripture cannot lie, Jacob's blessing is fulfilled in the faithful people he prefigured.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.25.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Scripture is written so that history and future hope coincide.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.27.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The patriarchs' deeds imperfectly imitate what is fully realized in Christ.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.32.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The patriarchal deeds agree in every respect with their fulfilment in Christ.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.32.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The Old Testament events are real history and at the same time images of God's later work.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.11.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Scripture must be read with discernment between literal and typological meaning, though nothing in it is empty.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.12.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Even the simple narratives of Scripture teach about God's power, care, and justice.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.13.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Hilary lists the events of Israel's history.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.14.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · These things were written down so that later generations might see the present in the past.
Treatise on the Mysteries 2.14.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Scripture was written for our understanding, not because its truths needed later recognition.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary rejects both the fivefold division and the title "Psalms of David" and, following Acts, calls the collection "the book of Psalms."
Tractates on the Psalms 0.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalms have several named authors, so the collection is a book of prophecies by many writers; the added names of Jeremiah, Haggai, and Zechariah are not in the authentic Septuagint.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Ancient tradition assigns untitled psalms to the author named in the last preceding titled psalm.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Moses could have named Samuel in Psalm 98 (99) by prophecy, just as Josiah was named before his birth; the tradition goes back to Ezra.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalms are to be read with reference to Christ's coming, passion, kingdom, and our resurrection; prophecy is sealed to worldly wisdom, and those who deny Christ have taken away the key of knowledge.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Christ holds the key of David and alone opens the sealed book; the seven seals are the mysteries of his body, passion, death, resurrection, glory, kingdom, and judgment, which the psalms prophesy.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psaltery, struck from above and perfectly straight, is a figure of the Lord's body through which the heavenly Spirit spoke.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Hebrew psalms had no fixed order; Ezra collected them, and the Seventy arranged them in an order matching the significance of their numbers.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.9Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Historically Psalm 3 is later than Psalm 50 (51), which shows that the order follows the meaning of numbers, not chronology.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Psalm 50 (51), on forgiveness, is placed at fifty, the number of jubilee, before the historically earlier Psalm 51 (52) on the unrepentant Doeg.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The three fifties of the Psalter correspond to rebirth through forgiveness, the kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the final praise of God in the Father's kingdom.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.13Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The eighth day is figured in Psalm 8's title "for the winepresses," in Psalm 6's "for the eighth," and in the same title on Psalms 80 and 83.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.14Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Psalm 118 (119), with twenty-two groups of eight verses, displays the mystery of the eighth.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.15Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary lists the twenty-two books of the Old Testament matching the Hebrew letters, notes that some add Tobit and Judith to make twenty-four, and links Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to the inscription on the cross.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The fifteen Songs of Ascents combine seven (the law) and eight (the gospel), by which one climbs to heaven, as the priests climbed fifteen steps in the temple.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.17Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The different psalm headings ("for the end," "psalm," "song," and their combinations) have different reasons, which Hilary will briefly explain.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.18Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · "For the end" in a heading marks psalms about the final, eternal goods in which faith comes to rest.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.19Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary defines "psalm," "song," "song of a psalm," and "psalm of a song" by the relation of instrument and voice.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.20Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · "Psalm" headings concern good works, "song" headings concern knowledge of God, and the combined headings join works and knowledge in one order or the other.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.21Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The four musical headings guide the interpretation of the psalms; untitled psalms are general teaching of the Holy Spirit for every believer.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.22Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Historical headings, names, and pronouns in the titles are keys to the spiritual meaning of the psalms.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.23Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The diapsalma marks a change of speaker, sense, or musical mode.
Tractates on the Psalms 0.24Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Each psalm, like a house in a great city, must be opened with its own key; Hilary turns to Psalm 1.
Tractates on the Psalms 1.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The first key to the psalms is to discern the speaker; Psalm 1 is spoken neither by the Father nor by the Son but by the prophet about the blessed man.
Tractates on the Psalms 1.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Many have taken the blessed man of Psalm 1 to be Christ, but without good reason; when prophecy refers to him must be discerned with care.
Tractates on the Psalms 1.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Spirit opens the Psalter with exhortation, the mystery of the incarnation, promise of glory, warning of judgment, and the difference in the resurrection.
Tractates on the Psalms 1.12Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Meditating on the law day and night means living it in every action, so that the whole life becomes unceasing prayer.
Tractates on the Psalms 1.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The unfading leaves are the words of God, which protect the promised fruit and never pass away.
Tractates on the Psalms 2.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Acts 13 calls this psalm "the first"; Hilary will explain why it is second in our numbering.
Tractates on the Psalms 2.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Seventy, heirs of a secret Mosaic teaching, translated Hebrew ambiguities correctly, whereas later translators went astray; bereshith is an example.
Tractates on the Psalms 2.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Septuagint's authority rests on its pre-Christian date and its translators' learning; they numbered, ordered, and divided the psalms.
Tractates on the Psalms 2.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Paul followed Hebrew custom in calling the psalm first; Christians should follow the Septuagint numbering.
Tractates on the Psalms 9.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Spirit teaches through varied kinds of speech; Psalm 9, "for the end, for the hidden things of the son," must be read through those two terms.
Tractates on the Psalms 9.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · "For the end" in a title means the psalm concerns the last things; "hidden things" are what only God knows or reveals.
Tractates on the Psalms 13.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Scripture must be preached and heard with the reverence due to the words of God.
Tractates on the Psalms 13.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Psalm 13 (14), "for the end," is full of complaint until its final verse, which resolves it with the hope of salvation from Sion.
Tractates on the Psalms 14.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalm's brief precepts gather all of Scripture's teaching; dwelling in the tabernacle comes before rest on the mountain.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The title "for the end, understanding" shows that Psalm 51 (52) concerns the end, for which all things exist.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The title recalls Doeg's report to Saul about David at Nob and the slaughter of the priests; the psalm follows Psalm 50 (51) on forgiveness.
Tractates on the Psalms 52.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Psalm 52 (53) resembles Psalm 13 (14), but its title "for the end, understanding, to that David" shows that it concerns the end and is addressed to Christ.
Tractates on the Psalms 54.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The title "for the end, among the hymns, understanding" directs the psalm to Christ, the end of the law.
Tractates on the Psalms 54.9Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary does not deny the literal sense but adds the Christological one, since David's sufferings were fulfilled in Christ.
Tractates on the Psalms 55.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The title of Psalm 55 (56) points beyond David's capture at Gath: the inscribed title signifies Christ's victorious death, "the people far from the saints" is unbelieving Israel, and "for the end" refers to Christ.
Tractates on the Psalms 59.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The title of Psalm 59 (60) records David's victory, yet the psalm is sorrowful; the historical note gives the time of writing, not the subject, and the Septuagint's "valley of Salt" carries spiritual meaning.
Tractates on the Psalms 63.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Psalm 63 (64), headed only "for the end," is to be read spiritually.
Tractates on the Psalms 63.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Some refer every psalm to Christ; this is pious, but care is needed not to diminish what is truly his.
Tractates on the Psalms 63.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Interpreters must distinguish psalms about Christ's divinity, his humanity and works, the nations, Israel, and moral teaching.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.0.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary introduces Psalm 118 [119] as an alphabetic psalm that teaches like the alphabet taught to children, with eight verses for each of the twenty-two Hebrew letters.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.0.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary argues that God's words, like ordinary speech, use different terms for different things, and that understanding them requires God's grace.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.0.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Using Psalm 18 [19], Hilary shows that law, testimony, precept, judgment, and justification are distinct things, which Psalm 118 [119] distinguishes letter by letter.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.0.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary explains the eight verses for each letter by the holiness of the number eight in circumcision, sacrifice, Christ's presentation, and the flood.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.1.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary traces how the eight verses of the first letter speak in turn of law, testimonies, commandments, justifications, and judgments.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.1.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The law, as distinct from the other terms, is the shadow of things to come and must be read spiritually, as Paul reads it.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.3.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The law's uncleanness from touching the dead is a figure, not a bodily rule, as Moses, Elisha, and Christ show; it signifies that we are made clean only in the resurrection.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.3.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist asks to see the spiritual realities behind the law's Sabbath, Passover, jubilee, and priesthood, which are prefigured in its bodily observances.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.4.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist asks to understand the way of the justifications, since the law's ordinances (release of slaves, the sabbatical year, jubilee) are the way that prefigures future goods.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.4.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary defends the Septuagint reading "my soul has slumbered from weariness" against other translators' "dripped", as fitting the psalm's confession of weakness.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.5.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The fifth letter opens with the prayer that God legislate the way of his justifications, which the Greek expresses better than the Latin.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.5.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · What the psalmist wants to understand are the spiritual meanings of the creation week, the Sabbath, the feasts, the sabbatical and jubilee years, circumcision, Passover, and the promised land.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.5.13Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Comparing the Septuagint's "profit" with another version's "greed", Hilary shows that the psalmist turns from the money the world calls profit.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.5.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist asks to receive God's word with fear and to have even the suspected reproach of sin cut away, so that God's judgments may be welcome to him.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.6.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Against those who scorn Scripture as unreasoned, Hilary affirms its perfection, which the sixth letter will further show.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.8.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Following corrected Greek manuscripts, Hilary places "The Lord is my portion" as the first verse of the eighth letter, not the last of the seventh.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.10.15Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist hopes for the true life of the age to come through God's mercy, since present life is a body of death; meditation on the law prepares for it.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.12.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · "For the age" means for this present world, which will pass away, not for eternity; the word established in creation abides for this age.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.12.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Meditation on God's law preserved the psalmist in humiliation and must sustain Christians even under torture and persecution.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.12.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Though Christ is the end of the law, the psalmist will not forget the law's justifications, which were the beginning of justification and faith.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.12.14Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Reading the Greek, Hilary takes the psalmist to see beyond every consummation: the end of the law, the incarnation, the resurrection, Christ's kingdom, and the judgment.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.13.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The law God set is the gospel law contained in Moses' law and given through Christ, the new lawgiver the psalmist prayed for.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.13.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's words are sweeter than honey because they reach the soul, soothing the fever of unhealthy desires as honey soothes a feverish mouth.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.14.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's word is a lamp to the feet in the world's night, guiding every step of thought, word, and deed.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.16.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist asks to be taught the hidden meaning of the law's justifications, such as the Hebrew slave's release and pierced ear, which need a heavenly teacher.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.17.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's testimonies are wonderful before they are searched, because the law's sacrifices and Passover point to future goods; so the psalmist searches them with his whole soul.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.17.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's words are all that the prophets spoke at his command, as Moses and Isaiah show.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.17.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's words are veiled and sealed, needing spiritual teaching to be opened, as Isaiah and Daniel show.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.17.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The gospels declare the hidden meaning of the law and prophets through Christ's birth, incarnation, and miracles, and reveal it to the little ones.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.17.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The "mouth" opened to draw in the Spirit is the heart, which must be widened by faith to receive God's word, lest the evil one snatch it away.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.18.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's word is "refined by fire" like pure metal, containing nothing useless; the psalmist loves it, which is more than obeying.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.19.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist rises before dawn to meditate on God's words in prophets, psalms, and the lives of the saints.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.19.12Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · From Adam to Joshua, God's testimonies in the lives of the patriarchs are the foundation on which the heavenly Jerusalem is built.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.20.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The law's release of slaves, sabbatical year, and jubilee prefigure the heavenly remission of all things, and so show God's many mercies.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.22.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Prophetic speech "utters forth" what the Spirit gives beyond human thought; the psalmist's lips utter a hymn, and once taught he will declare God's words.
Tractates on the Psalms 119.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary begins Psalm 119 [120], the first Song of Ascents, noting that one explanation of their shared title will serve for all.
Tractates on the Psalms 119.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Historical psalm titles (Absalom, Abimelech, Nathan) still call for spiritual understanding; Hilary asks whether the titles of the Songs of Ascents are historical.
Tractates on the Psalms 119.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The temple's fifteen steps came after the psalms, but the psalms speak for every age, and the temple's bodily forms are understood as figures through them.
Tractates on the Psalms 119.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Fifteen, made of seven (the law's Sabbath) and eight (the gospel's eighth day), is the number of the Songs of Ascents, steps by which we climb to heaven.
Tractates on the Psalms 119.12Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's answer to the deceitful tongue is the sharp arrows and burning coals of his word, which pierce falsehood and warn of judgment.
Tractates on the Psalms 120.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The eyes lifted to the mountains are the mind's eyes, which must be opened to understand the law's meaning beyond its visible rites.
Tractates on the Psalms 120.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The mountains are the prophetic books, or the angels who minister to us, since Daniel calls the Lord himself a great mountain.
Tractates on the Psalms 120.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The "foot" means the movement of the mind and will, as in Ps 73:2 and Christ's command to cut off the stumbling foot.
Tractates on the Psalms 123.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Waters in Scripture signify peoples; the waters that would engulf us are the dark, earthly peoples roused by the devil against the faithful.
Tractates on the Psalms 124.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary begins Psalm 124 [125] by insisting that Scripture's figures, such as waters that praise and clap, must be understood spiritually, not by the sound of the words alone.
Tractates on the Psalms 124.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalm cannot refer to earthly Jerusalem, which killed the prophets and the Lord and was destroyed and left desolate; its meaning must be sought elsewhere.
Tractates on the Psalms 125.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary begins Psalm 125 [126]: some psalms cannot fit their own times, which shows that they must be read spiritually, as Christians understand them.
Tractates on the Psalms 125.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Christians understand the psalms not by their own wisdom but because Christ opened the Scriptures to his disciples and gives understanding to those who ask.
Tractates on the Psalms 126.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hilary grants that the Songs of Ascents may refer to the Babylonian captivity and return, but warns against an understanding limited to past bodily events.
Tractates on the Psalms 126.18Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · God's arrows, swift and sure, signify the prophetic and apostolic teachings that carry his word.
Tractates on the Psalms 127.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Christ is the one Way, reached by the many ways of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, the apostles, and the commandments.
Tractates on the Psalms 127.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Since Scripture's blessings are spiritual, the wife and children must be understood spiritually, as Christ the bridegroom has the church as his bride.
Tractates on the Psalms 127.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Wisdom, the wife, bears good works as her children, who surround the table of the Lord's bread and of Scripture.
Tractates on the Psalms 132.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Hermon, meaning 'anathema', is a mountain of pagan worship, linked by a book of uncertain authorship with fallen angels; Zion is the church.
Tractates on the Psalms 133.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Some regard 'in the courts of the house of the Lord' as an addition from the next psalm, but Hilary follows the ancient translation.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalm's account of the Exodus must be read like a skilled herbalist reads a field: its events, rightly understood, offer spiritual healing.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The lightning is knowledge of God's power, as in Christ's coming; teachers who flash with it pour out the rain of life-giving words, as Moses did.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.18Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Exodus events, the work of the Creator, are also, as Paul teaches, figures of what God now does spiritually in us.
Tractates on the Psalms 135.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Scripture is never idle, but we often fail to hear it read in church because our minds are busy with worldly cares and sins.
Tractates on the Psalms 135.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Scripture teaches us gradually, part by part; this psalm teaches that the whole universe exists because of God's goodness and mercy.
Tractates on the Psalms 136.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalm seems to concern the Babylonian captivity; some give it Jeremiah's title, but among the Hebrew elders it has none.
Tractates on the Psalms 136.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The events of Israel's history, as Psalm 78 and Paul teach, were figures of the future, written for our instruction.
Tractates on the Psalms 136.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · A literal reading raises absurdities; spiritually, the rivers are the fleeting pleasures of the world, beside which the exiled soul weeps for Zion.
Tractates on the Psalms 138.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · All prophecy comes from the Spirit, and Christ himself taught that the psalms speak of him; so this psalm is referred to Christ.
Tractates on the Psalms 138.43Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Greek ἐρεῖς can mean 'you will say' or 'strifes'; those who know Hebrew confirm 'strifes', which makes better sense.
Tractates on the Psalms 142.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The title about Absalom is absent in Hebrew but added by the Seventy, to direct the reader to a prophetic understanding.
Tractates on the Psalms 142.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The soul, like dry ground, needs the rain of God's word to grow green and fruitful; its progress is God's gift.
Tractates on the Psalms 143.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Septuagint title 'against Goliath' does not fit the psalm's content; the Seventy added it to signal that David's fight with Goliath prefigures Christ's war with Satan.
Tractates on the Psalms 143.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Greek article distinguishes a psalm 'by David' (τοῦ) from one 'for David' (τῷ); this psalm is 'for David', that is, about the man Christ assumed.
Tractates on the Psalms 145.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Septuagint title naming Haggai and Zechariah marks the psalm as prophetic of the eternal Jerusalem, as the Gospel's use of Zechariah shows.
Tractates on the Psalms 145.5Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The food God gives the hungry is his word, which looses the fetters of vice and gives wisdom to the spiritually blind.
Tractates on the Psalms 146.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · In Scripture the clouds signify the teaching of the saints: withheld from the unbelieving, passing away before Christ's brightness, an ascent to God, and holding his truth.
Tractates on the Psalms 146.9Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Allegorically, the rain is God's word; the mountains are patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, who provide food for 'cattle', those still ignorant of God.
Tractates on the Psalms 146.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Many manuscripts add 'and grass for the service of men'; Hilary does not need it, but either reading praises God for providing bodily and spiritual food.
Tractates on the Psalms 147.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The Septuagint again adds the names of Haggai and Zechariah, pointing to the eternal Jerusalem.
Tractates on the Psalms 150.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The 150 psalms, divided by the translators into three fifties, trace the stages of salvation: baptism and forgiveness, resurrection to judgment, and spiritual glory and praise, which the last psalm completes.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 3.1Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Book 3 begins: Titus turns to refuting Mani from Scripture, since Mani misleads Christians by using the name of Christ and calling himself the Paraclete and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 3.2Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Mani rejects the Old Testament as from evil and keeps only parts of the New Testament, cutting out what does not suit him.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 3.3Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Unlike pagans who deny the biblical histories, Mani accepts them but ascribes God’s great works to evil; Titus will show that this is irrational.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 3.8Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Titus reports Manichaean objections to Genesis: the commandment to Adam, the serpent as an angel of the good, God’s words in Gen 3:22, Abel’s murder and the flood.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 78Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Titus turns to the Manichaean treatment of the Law and the Gospels, which they cut and supplement; then, after a break in the text, he argues that no middle wall or void could separate the two principles.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 79Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The myth that wickedness destroyed itself and then swallowed the light contradicts its supposed unbegotten nature; after a break, Titus returns to the Manichaean rewriting of the Gospel.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 80Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Manichees corrupt the Gospels worse than unbelievers who reject them; Christ cannot be known without the Law and the Prophets, as the parable of Lazarus and the Transfiguration show.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 81Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Christ came to fulfil the Law and cleansed his Father’s house; the Gospels begin from the Law and the Prophets, so the Manichees who reject the Law also reject the Gospel’s witness.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 82Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · John, Luke and Paul all link the Gospel to the Law and the Prophets: Christ is David’s heir, and the God who spoke in the prophets is the Father of the Son.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 83Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Titus contrasts the Valentinian, Marcionite and Manichaean rejections of the Law and argues that the just and the good are one, since the Son who judges justly is the image of the Father.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 84Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Christ calls the Father righteous; Valentinus, Marcion and Mani attack the Law in three ways, but a Law that foretold Christ must come from one who knew God’s counsel.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 85Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · If evil knew God’s plans to write the Law, God would be mocked; in fact the Law and Prophets foretold Christ’s birth, life, death, descent, resurrection and ascension.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 86Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law foretold Christ’s enthronement, sonship and prophetic office; its commandments against immorality, idolatry and covetousness cannot come from an evil principle.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 87Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · By rejecting the Law, which opposes evil and idolatry, the Manichees side with evil and fall into worse polytheism than the pagans; Titus sets out a test of the Law in three steps.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 88Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Paul calls the Law holy and spiritual; it opposes every one of the four kinds of vice, and where it is obeyed evil loses its power.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 89Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law and the Prophets remove every vice, folly, cowardice, licentiousness and injustice, and guard eyes, tongue and body against pleasure.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 90Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law guards against idolatry, the gravest injustice, which robs God of his honour, and against love of money, the root of injustice to others.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 91Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law checks love of glory as well as love of money and honours the upright; heretics hate it because it opposes their passions. Titus begins to show that it also teaches every virtue.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 92Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Law teaches all four virtues: prudence from God, self-control in Joseph’s refusal of Potiphar’s wife, and courage in Judith’s venture.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 93Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Judith’s prudent courage and Abraham’s refusal of reward illustrate virtue in the Law; the Law, the Gospel and Paul agree on one God and on the Son begotten from the Father.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 94Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · The Father’s voice at Christ’s baptism echoes Ps 2:7, and Paul everywhere interprets the Old Testament; the apostles join Law and Gospel, while the heretics, false apostles, try to divide them.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 95Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Law and Gospel agree on Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the Manichees call the Old Testament harsh, citing Elisha’s bears and Elijah’s fire.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 97Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · David’s pardon after repentance matches Peter’s, and the Law and Prophets call all people to repentance as the Gospel does, as Nineveh shows.
Against the Manichees, Greek continuation of book 3, Lagarde p. 98Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · God spared Nineveh and even Ahab at the slightest repentance; the Law is a shadow and tutor leading to Christ. Titus turns to the Manichaean claim that the human body was made by the evil one.
Oration 2.38Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · A long stretch of the oration: right teaching on the Trinity, the difficulty of teaching mixed congregations, the presumption of untrained teachers, Paul as the model pastor, the prophets' warnings against bad shepherds, the greatness of the priesthood, and the strife that disgraces the church.
Oration 2.40Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · The war of the passions and the sanctity required of priests under the old law show that no one should accept the priesthood before being purified himself.
Oration 2.41Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory explains his return: love for his people, duty to his aged parents, and above all fear of disobedience learned from Jonah and the ancient examples; he submits and asks his father's blessing.
Oration 41.3Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Scripture honours the number seven: seven spirits, words purified sevenfold, forgiveness seventy times seven, Cain and Lamech, Wisdom's seven pillars, Zerubbabel's stone, praise seven times a day.
Oration 41.4Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory gathers further instances of seven in Scripture, from Enoch and Abraham to Jericho, Elijah, Elisha, the return from exile and the feeding of the four thousand, and explains that Christians, like the Hebrews, honour Pentecost.
Oration 41.15Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory discusses whether the miracle of Pentecost was in the hearing or in the speaking, and prefers to read Acts 2:6 as the apostles themselves speaking in foreign languages.
Oration 43.58Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory praises Basil's writings (the Hexaemeron, the books against Eunomius, On the Holy Spirit, his homilies), defends his reserve in calling the Spirit God, compares him with the great figures of the Old and New Testaments, describes those who imitated his outward manner, and comes to his death.
Oration 45.13Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · The whole law was a shadow of what was to come; God revealed himself on Sinai in measure to each, and gave the law as a gentle remedy, allowing sacrifices for a time to lead people gradually from idols to the Gospel.
Tractates 2.13.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno interprets Jacob's dream: Jacob and the stone are Christ, and the ladder is the two Testaments, like the two-edged sword and Isaiah's tongs.
Tractates 2.13.2Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno compares the two Testaments to the split pen and the two coins in the fish's mouth, which is Christ risen from the dead.
Tractates 2.13.3Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno interprets the ladder's wood as the two Testaments pointing to the cross, linking them with the householder's old and new treasures and the Good Samaritan's two denarii.
Tractates 2.13.5Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno sums up: the two Testaments are one in Christ, the ladder's steps are the virtues, and the ladder itself is the cross.
Against Eunomius 1.14Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil argues that God's essence is known only to the Son and the Spirit, that we know God from his activities, and that reading the biblical images of God literally leads to absurd notions of his essence.
Against Eunomius 2.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil denies that any saint called the Son a 'thing made,' and argues that Acts 2:36 ('God made him Lord and Christ') speaks of the incarnate Christ's authority, not of his coming into being.
Against Eunomius 2.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil exposes Eunomius's selective concern about bodily notions of begetting, and argues that 'offspring' is a name never given to the Son in Scripture, which uses 'Son', as the Septuagint translators kept even Hebrew names untranslated out of reverence.
Against Eunomius 2.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil argues that Scripture calls the Lord 'Son' but never 'offspring,' a word used of unformed miscarriages, crops, and the 'offspring of vipers.'
Against Eunomius 2.14Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil answers Eunomius's dilemma ('God begot the Son either when he was or when he was not') from John 1:1: the Word 'was' in the beginning, beyond which nothing can be conceived, and John's prologue proclaims his eternal begetting.
Against Eunomius 2.19Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil denounces calling the Son 'not being,' a phrase Scripture uses of idols, and shows that the 'superiority' Eunomius grants the Son over his works does not imply a difference of essence from creatures.
Against Eunomius 2.20Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil rejects Eunomius's redefinition of 'Only-Begotten' as 'begotten and created by the only one,' briefly treats Prov 8:22 ('The Lord created me,' rendered by other translators 'acquired me'), and shows the absurd consequences of calling the Son a mere minister.
Against Eunomius 2.24Basil of Caesarea · ca. 364 · Basil argues that even if 'Father' were taken figuratively, Scripture's language of begetting points to kinship of nature, not passion; the manner of the begetting is ineffable but must be believed; and Eunomius contradicts himself about names and essences.
Hexaemeron 1.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Basil opens by calling for a prepared hearer and by commending the trustworthiness of Moses, the writer of Genesis.
Hexaemeron 4.5Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · God made the dry land appear before the sun existed; the extra clause in many copies is marked as spurious; dryness, the earth's defining property, gives it its name, and the paired qualities bind the four elements in a circle.
Hexaemeron 9.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Basil rejects allegorizing the creation narrative and defends Moses' silence about scientific questions: "when I hear grass, I understand grass."
Homilies 12.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil explains the three books of Solomon, the meaning of “proverb,” why the author's name and kingship are given, and what wisdom is, divine and human, beginning with the fear of the Lord.
Homilies 22.2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Pagan literature can prepare the young for Scripture as dyeing prepares cloth: take from poets, historians and orators, like bees from flowers, what praises virtue (Homer, Solon, Theognis, Prodicus, the deeds of Pericles, Socrates, Alexander) and reject the rest.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 6.5Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · The Donatists used the secular courts to seize Catholic books and altar cloths, and then washed the cloths but could not wash the books, showing their own inconsistency.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 7.1Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · In the added seventh book Optatus answers the objection that the Donatists, as sons of traitors, should never have been sought for union: handing over the Scriptures under compulsion was a sin of necessity, like Moses' breaking of the tablets or Baruch's surrender of Jeremiah's scroll, the law lives in believers' hearts, and sons do not bear their fathers' guilt.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:4Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Prophesying, which means interpreting Scripture, builds up the church; tongues help others only when interpreted.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:12Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Zeal should go to explaining Scripture, which builds up the church and draws minds from vice.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:27Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Two or three at most may speak in tongues, one at a time with interpretation, leaving time for exposition of Scripture.
Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 2:13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul thanks God that the Thessalonians received his preaching as God’s own word.
Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 5:27Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul binds them to have the letter read to all, so all may hear his praise and his warnings.
Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 2:14Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul urges them to hold the apostolic traditions, and naming the Son before the Father shows their one divinity, the Father who gave his Son for our life and justification.
Commentary on 2 Thessalonians 3:17Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul signs every letter himself so that forgeries under his name cannot be accepted.
Commentary on 2 Timothy 3:14–15Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Timothy should continue in what he learned, since the Old Testament he knew from childhood points to Christ and grounds the new.
Commentary on 2 Timothy 3:16–17Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · All Scripture inspired by God is useful to teach, correct, and train the man of God for every good work.
Commentary on Colossians 4:14Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Luke, author of the Gospel and Acts, was Paul's constant companion.
Commentary on Colossians 4:16Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul's letters were meant for all churches, so the Colossian and Laodicean letters were to be exchanged.
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.
Commentary on Romans 5:14Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Reading Rom 5:14 without “not”, Ambrosiaster argues that death reigned only over those who, like Adam, sinned in contempt of God by idolatry, while those who honoured God awaited Christ in a place of rest; he defends this Latin reading against Greek manuscripts he regards as altered.
Commentary on Romans 12:10–11Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster comments on Rom 12:9–11, defending his Latin reading “serving the time” against the Greek “serving the Lord” and explaining it as speaking of the faith with discretion, as Paul did in circumcising Timothy.
Commentary on Romans 15:4–6Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Scripture was written to give hope; Paul prays that the Romans may be of one mind according to Christ and glorify God together, keeping love.
Commentary on Titus 1:14Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The judaizers’ ritual rules, including those on foods and marriage, were not good commands but a yoke given as punishment for Israel’s stubbornness, now relaxed by God’s mercy in Christ.
Festal Letter 39 1Athanasius of Alexandria · 367 (Easter letter) · In his Easter letter of 367 Athanasius lists the twenty-two books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven of the New as the canon, names other books to be read by catechumens, and rejects the apocrypha as heretical inventions.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 4.5Anonymous · ca. 370 · The author turns to events at Jerusalem, explaining that the old law and worship were a shadow of the truth that God replaced with the new.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 4.17Anonymous · ca. 370 · The author describes Elisha's healing of the spring at Jericho and the fertility of the surrounding plain.
Question 3, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Moses wrote the creation account only when Egyptian teaching, later followed by Marcion and the Manichees, ascribed the world or man to a lesser maker; his miracles confirm that God made both.
Question 9, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Words have several meanings, as “common” and “not from faith” show, so they must be read in context.
Question 10, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · God’s “fourth generation” and Moses’ “fifth generation” agree: God counted the four generations born in Egypt, Moses added the generation that went down there.
Question 44, section 11Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The Scriptures belong to the gentiles too, since David and Jeremiah speak expressly of the nations, which Scripture distinguishes from Israel.
Question 57, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Mark ascribed the combined quotation of Malachi and Isaiah to Isaiah because Isaiah first expressed the thought and both prophets say one thing.
Question 69, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Christ fulfilled the law and prophets by doing all that was written of him; prophecy of this kind ceased with him because its subject had come.
Question 72, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · “The law through Moses, grace and truth through Christ” means that Moses’ precepts were true but his history was veiled until Christ revealed its meaning and fulfilled its promises.
Question 76, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The scroll John ate in Revelation is his Gospel, written after his exile on Patmos under Domitian: sweet to the orthodox, bitter to heretics, like Ezekiel’s scroll.
Question 85, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Matthew omits Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah from the genealogy because their wickedness was unbroken and unredeemed by any father’s merit.
Question 91, section 11Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Photinus’s punctuation of John 1:1 (“and God was”) is rejected; the Gospel teaches that the Word, who was with God in the beginning, was God.
Question 94, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Scripture sometimes narrates events out of order, as John mentions Mary’s anointing before it happened, so Matthew’s order does not prove when Judas died.
Question 95, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The events of the old law prefigure the Christian faith, and the origin of Pentecost is to be sought in them.
Question 106, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Ambrosiaster begins his discussion of Genesis 1:1 by noting the problem of “heaven” and the firmament, and explains that Moses wrote to correct false views of the world’s origin current in Egypt.
Question 106, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · “Heaven and earth” in Gen 1:1 means the upper and lower substances from which the world was made, created so that matter would not be thought eternal alongside God.
Question 109, section 14Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Hebrews says plainly that Melchizedek had no beginning of days or end of life, and those who explain this away do violence to Scripture.
Question 109, section 17Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · One should yield to the plain sense of Scripture rather than force one’s own meaning on it, for truth conquers all.
Question 114, section 25Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The Christian law, unlike pagan tradition, was given by God himself at Sinai after the wonders in Egypt, recorded in the books Ptolemy placed in the Alexandrian library.
Question 127, section 13Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Moses’ miracles, Paul’s typology, and Christ’s own words show that the law of Moses comes from the same God as the gospel, so it cannot be dismissed as error.
Letter 19.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Pope Damasus asks Jerome to explain from the Hebrew what "Hosanna" means, since commentators disagree.
Letter 20.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers Damasus by rejecting earlier explanations of "Hosanna", including Hilary's "redemption of the house of David".
Letter 20.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome sets out the Gospel accounts of the cry "Hosanna" and proposes to go back to the Hebrew source.
Letter 20.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Comparing the Hebrew of Ps 118:25 with the Greek versions, Jerome explains that hosanna means "save" and that anna is a particle of entreaty.
Letter 20.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that the crowd took the cry from Ps 118, a well-known messianic psalm, and why Luke omits the untranslatable word.
Letter 20.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome concludes that hosanna combines "save" with an interjection of entreaty, meaning "save, I beseech you".
Letter 21.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome restates Damasus's questions about the parable of the prodigal son, especially how the elder brother can represent either the Jews or the righteous.
Letter 21.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets the father as God and the two sons as the two peoples called by God.
Letter 21.37Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets "all that is mine" as the law and the Scriptures given to Israel, noting that "all" in Scripture often means "most".
Letter 22.17Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome counsels Eustochium to keep ascetic companions, stay at home, fast, pray, and read Scripture, overcoming bodily desire with love for Christ.
Letter 22.30Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome tells of his famous dream, in which Christ the Judge condemned him as "a Ciceronian, not a Christian" for his love of the classics.
Letter 22.35Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome describes the ordered common life of Egyptian cenobitic monks: obedience, work, silence, prayer, Scripture, and care for the sick.
Letter 23.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome tells Marcella how, in the middle of their Bible study, news came of the death of the holy widow Lea.
Letter 25.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers Marcella's request to explain the ten Hebrew names of God, prompted by the word Shaddai in Ps 91.
Letter 25.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the first six Hebrew names of God: El, Elohim, Eloah, Sabaoth, Elyon, and the "I am" of Exodus.
Letter 25.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the names Adonai, Yah, and the four-letter divine name, which some Greek readers misread as PIPI.
Letter 25.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains Shaddai and notes that Elohim is plural in form but used of the one God.
Letter 26.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome takes up Marcella's question why certain Hebrew words are left untranslated in Scripture.
Letter 26.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that these Hebrew words were kept to avoid offending early Jewish believers and because translation would weaken their force.
Letter 26.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that alleluia means "praise the Lord".
Letter 26.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains amen as a word of confirmation and maran atha as the Syriac "Our Lord comes".
Letter 26.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defers other questions, such as the meaning of selah, to keep Marcella eager.
Letter 27.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defends his revision of the Latin Gospels against the Greek against critics who accuse him of tampering with the Lord's words.
Letter 27.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome gives examples where the Latin text his critics prefer departs from the Greek, such as "serving the time" for "serving the Lord".
Letter 28.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome agrees to explain the word diapsalma (selah) to Marcella after all.
Letter 28.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome rejects musical explanations of selah and argues from Aquila's rendering "always" and from its placement in the Psalms.
Letter 28.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome concludes that selah links passages or marks what is said as everlasting, with examples from Pss 3 and 4.
Letter 28.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that Hebrew books often close with amen, selah, or shalom.
Letter 28.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome quotes Origen's comparison of the Hebrew selah with the Greek versions in Pss 75 and 76.
Letter 29.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome agrees to answer Marcella's question about Hebrew terms, noting that in Scripture meaning matters more than eloquence.
Letter 29.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome shows from Exodus and Leviticus that the ephod is the priestly shoulder-garment, which the Greek translators render as epomis.
Letter 29.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that bad means linen, so the "ephod bad" is the plain linen ephod of ordinary priests, distinct from the high priest's ornate one.
Letter 29.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains teraphim as figured or embroidered works, linked with the ephod as signs of priesthood, with evidence from 1 Samuel and Hosea.
Letter 30.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers Paula's question about the Hebrew letters that divide Ps 119, after describing the Bible's range of physics, ethics, and theology.
Letter 30.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that Ps 119 is an alphabetic acrostic of eight verses per Hebrew letter, and agrees to write out the letters' meanings.
Letter 30.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome lists the alphabetic psalms (Pss 111, 112, 119, 145), the acrostics of Lamentations, and Prov 31, describing their verse forms.
Letter 30.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome compares learning the alphabet with beginning the spiritual life in ethics before advancing to deeper knowledge.
Letter 30.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome gives the meanings of the twenty-two Hebrew letters.
Letter 30.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reads the first letters as a sentence: the church's teaching is found in the fullness of the Scriptures.
Letter 30.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reads the next letters as teaching that life lies in knowing the Scriptures, through which Christ is known.
Letter 30.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reads "good beginning" as meaning that present knowledge is partial and will give way to direct knowledge in heaven.
Letter 30.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reads the next letters as saying that eternal help comes from the Scriptures.
Letter 30.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome exclaims that the study of Scripture is sweeter than any worldly pleasure.
Letter 32.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that he is busy comparing Aquila's Greek version with the Hebrew and sends Marcella copies of two other letters.
Letter 34.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains to Marcella that Origen's commentary on Ps 127 has been lost, so he must answer her question himself.
Letter 34.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · From the Hebrew and Greek versions Jerome concludes that the "bread of sorrow" in Ps 127 means the bread of idols.
Letter 34.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome rejects Hilary's reading of "sons of the shaken-out" in Ps 127 as the apostles, blaming Hilary's informant Heliodorus.
Letter 34.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · From the Hebrew and Greek versions Jerome shows that "sons of the shaken-out" means "sons of youth", strong young people compared to arrows.
Letter 34.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome shows that "the labors of your fruits" in Ps 128:2 is a Latin mistranslation of a Greek word meaning "hands".
Letter 35.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Pope Damasus urges Jerome to write, proposing that they discuss Scripture by question and answer.
Letter 35.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Damasus asks Jerome five questions: on the vengeance for Cain, clean and unclean animals, the generations in Egypt, Abraham's circumcision, and Isaac's blessing.
Letter 36.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome compares the Hebrew and Greek versions of Gen 4:15 and interprets it to mean that Cain was left to live in torment until his death released him.
Letter 36.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reports the tradition that Lamech, seventh from Adam, accidentally killed Cain, as Gen 4:23-24 was understood.
Letter 36.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome takes up Damasus's question on the "fourth" and "fifth" generations and lists other apparent chronological difficulties in Scripture.
Letter 36.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome resolves the discrepancy by counting four generations in the line of Levi and five in the line of Judah.
Letter 36.12Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome notes that Aquila's version of Exod 13:18 reads "armed" rather than "in the fifth generation", removing the difficulty.
Letter 36.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains from the Hebrew letters of Exod 13:18 that the word can mean "armed" and that the Greek "fifth generation" is a misreading, like other vowel ambiguities.
Letter 36.14Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defends his plain style as suited to explaining Scripture.
Letter 37.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome criticizes Reticius of Autun's commentary on the Song of Songs for confusing Tharshish with Tarsus and Ophaz with Cephas.
Letter 37.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that "Tharshish" names both a precious stone and a region or sea, named for its color.
Letter 37.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome faults Reticius for seeking eloquence rather than accuracy and for not consulting Origen or Hebrew scholars.
Letter 41.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that the church does not reject prophecy as such, but rejects the Montanists because they contradict Scripture.
Letter 43.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recalls how Origen and his patron Ambrose never ate or slept without reading Scripture and prayer.
Letter 46.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · They answer the objection from Rev 11:8, which calls the city of the crucifixion "Sodom and Egypt", by showing that Revelation elsewhere calls Jerusalem holy and must be read spiritually.
Letter 46.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · They argue that "the great city", Sodom, and Egypt in Scripture signify the world, and that Jerusalem remains the holy city.
Letter 48.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome tells Pammachius of his translations from the Hebrew and argues that church translation should be plain rather than eloquent.
Letter 49.17Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that his remark 'it is better to marry because it is worse to burn' only interprets 1 Corinthians 7:8–9, and that a commentator must say what his author means.
Letter 49.19Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defends his interpretation that the omission of 'God saw that it was good' on the second day of creation, and the pairs of unclean animals in the ark, show that the even number is inferior.
Letter 52.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges constant study of Scripture and consistency of life, and describes the proper relation between bishop and presbyters.
Letter 52.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome criticizes lavish church decoration while ministers are chosen carelessly, arguing that the gold of the temple belongs to the figures of the old law.
Letter 53.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome praises Paulinus's zeal to learn and shows from Scripture that teachers and priests must know the Scriptures.
Letter 53.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome argues that the apostles were not unlearned, since John's prologue expresses a wisdom unknown to the philosophers, and that Scripture needs revelation to be understood.
Letter 53.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome shows from the sealed book of the Apocalypse and the Ethiopian eunuch that Scripture needs a teacher.
Letter 53.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome argues that every art and craft needs a teacher, and so does Scripture.
Letter 53.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome complains that everyone thinks himself an interpreter of Scripture, and mocks forcing texts to fit one's meaning, as in Christian centos made from Virgil.
Letter 53.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome surveys the books of the Old Testament one by one, pointing to the spiritual meanings hidden in each.
Letter 53.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome briefly surveys the books of the New Testament and their depth.
Letter 53.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Paulinus to devote himself to Scripture despite its plain style, offering himself as a fellow student.
Letter 54.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome gives Furia a rule of daily Scripture reading, followed by orthodox writers.
Letter 56.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine asks Jerome to translate the Greek commentators and questions the need for a new Latin translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew.
Letter 56.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine objects to Jerome's view, in his commentary on Galatians, that Paul's rebuke of Peter at Antioch was staged, arguing that admitting any 'useful lie' in Scripture destroys its authority.
Letter 56.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine asks Jerome to reconsider the passages cited in favor of a useful lie, lest the authority of Scripture become uncertain.
Letter 57.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defends translating sense for sense, except in Scripture, by the precepts and practice of Cicero, Horace, and the Latin comic poets, and by his own earlier preface.
Letter 57.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome shows that the evangelists quote the Old Testament freely, by sense rather than word for word, giving examples from Mark, Matthew, and John.
Letter 57.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome compares Matthew's quotations of Isaiah 7:14 and Micah 5:2 with the Septuagint and the Hebrew to show that the evangelist quotes by sense.
Letter 57.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome gives further examples from Mark and Paul of free quotation of the Old Testament, to show that the apostles sought the sense and not the words.
Letter 57.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome points to discrepancies between Stephen's speech in Acts and Genesis, and to additions in the Septuagint of Psalm 22, to show that the sense matters more than the words.
Letter 57.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome notes the Septuagint's additions and omissions, defends its use in the church, and rejects Aquila's over-literal method.
Letter 58.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Paulinus to seek the hidden meaning of Scripture, which only Christ can open.
Letter 58.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Paulinus to devote his talents to the study of Scripture and mentions the visit of the presbyter Vigilantius.
Letter 59.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers Marcella that the things 'eye has not seen' are spiritual realities beyond present human knowledge, which Paul did not necessarily reveal to others.
Letter 59.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reconciles 'Do not touch me' in John with the women clasping Jesus' feet in Matthew.
Letter 64.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Beginning his treatise on the priestly law for Fabiola, Jerome interprets spiritually the portions of the sacrifices given to the priests.
Letter 64.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome applies the high priest's marriage rules spiritually to the soul, which must be a pure virgin betrothed to Christ.
Letter 64.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome briefly describes the tabernacle as a figure of the world and turns to a literal description of the priestly vestments.
Letter 64.20Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets the blue robe, ephod, and breastplate as the higher knowledge, good works, and true teaching required of a priest, works coming before teaching.
Letter 65.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the title of Psalm 45 (44 in the Greek) from the Septuagint, the Hebrew, and Symmachus.
Letter 65.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets 'My tongue is the pen of a swift scribe' of the Holy Spirit writing the Gospel on hearts through the preacher's tongue.
Letter 65.15Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome compares the versions of 'the queen stood at your right hand' and interprets the queen as the catholic church.
Letter 65.18Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome discusses the Hebrew sor ('Tyre' or 'strongest') and interprets the rich who entreat the daughter as Israelites coming to faith in the church of the Gentiles.
Letter 65.19Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets 'all the glory of the king's daughter is within' of the inner beauty of the church and of the hidden meanings of Scripture.
Letter 67.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine objects that Jerome's view of the dispute at Antioch makes Paul tell a 'well-meant lie' and so undermines the authority of Scripture.
Letter 67.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine holds that Paul truly corrected Peter for compelling Gentiles to Judaize, so that Scripture's truthfulness is kept.
Letter 67.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine urges Jerome to retract his view, as the truth of Scripture is worth more than Helen was to the Greeks.
Letter 70.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defends his use of pagan literature by the examples of Solomon and Paul and by the law of the captive woman in Deuteronomy.
Letter 71.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that copyists' errors are not his fault and lists what he has and has not translated, including his Bible versions from the Hebrew and Greek.
Letter 72.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers the presbyter Vitalis's question how Solomon and Ahaz could have fathered sons at about eleven years of age, according to the biblical chronology.
Letter 72.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome notes that the Hebrew and Greek texts agree on the figures and argues from unusual cases that such early fatherhood is possible.
Letter 72.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome proposes that Solomon and Ahaz began to reign alongside their fathers, so their sons' birth dates are less anomalous than they seem.
Letter 72.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome concludes that such chronological puzzles in Scripture are of little profit and thanks Vitalis for his gifts.
Letter 73.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome summarizes Hebrews 7: Melchizedek's being 'without genealogy' means his origins are not recorded, and he prefigures Christ's eternal priesthood.
Letter 74.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the literal sense of Solomon's judgement between two harlots and introduces the reading of the two women as synagogue and church.
Letter 77.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recalls Fabiola's visit to Bethlehem, her eager study of Scripture, and her request for an explanation of Israel's stations in the wilderness.
Letter 78.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome opens his treatise for Fabiola on Israel's stations in the wilderness by showing from Scripture that the exodus is to be read spiritually as well as historically.
Letter 78.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome interprets the ninth station, Dophkah ('knocking'), and defends his etymologies as based on the Hebrew rather than corrupt Greek and Latin copies.
Letter 96.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Theophilus condemns Origen for following philosophy rather than Scripture and argues from the Gospels and Paul that Christ's kingdom is everlasting.
Letter 98.19Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Theophilus calls Origen's followers to leave error and come to Christ like the magi, and describes the church's safe voyage through heresy to the harbour of Scripture.
Letter 100.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Theophilus likens Origen's treatises to pagan idols and urges the church's teachers to build their doctrine, like careful masons, on the Scriptures and on Christ the cornerstone.
Letter 104.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine asks why Jerome's new translation of Job from the Hebrew does not reproduce the minute accuracy that his earlier revision from the Greek, with asterisks and obelisks, seemed to show.
Letter 104.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine urges Jerome to translate the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew, fearing division between Latin and Greek churches and the difficulty of verifying Hebrew readings.
Letter 104.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine reports a riot at Oea when a bishop read Jerome's new rendering in Jonah, and the local Jews supported the old reading, suggesting Jerome may sometimes err.
Letter 104.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine thanks Jerome for his revision of the Gospels from the Greek, asks why the Hebrew and the Septuagint differ, and urges a corrected Latin version of the Septuagint.
Letter 106.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome rejoices that Goths ('Getae') like Sunnia and Fretela now study the Hebrew truth of Scripture, fulfilling the prophecies that the nations would turn from war to peace.
Letter 106.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome distinguishes the popular 'common' (Lucianic) Greek text from Origen's Hexaplaric Septuagint, which he translated, and states his principle of going back to the Hebrew where Greek and Latin disagree.
Letter 106.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 5:4 Jerome defends the Latin 'dwell' for the Greek 'sojourn', stating the rule that a good translator renders idioms by the proper usage of his own language, as Cicero and the Latin comic poets did.
Letter 106.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 5:8 Jerome shows from the Hebrew that 'direct your way in my sight' is correct, explaining it by analogy with 'hallowed be your name' in the Lord's Prayer.
Letter 106.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 6:10 Jerome confirms 'greatly' from the Hebrew and the other Greek versions.
Letter 106.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 7:8 Jerome shows from the Hebrew that 'my righteousness' is right and supports it with parallel Psalms and Genesis.
Letter 106.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 8:3 Jerome explains that 'your' was added under an asterisk and describes Origen's system of asterisks and obeli.
Letter 106.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 17 (LXX 16): 'your eyes', 'keep me' without 'Lord', and the singular 'him', which he takes as the devil.
Letter 106.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles six readings in Ps 18 (LXX 17), admitting in the last that the Latin 'nations' is a corruption for 'enemies'.
Letter 106.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 19:5 Jerome notes that 'his' stands under the obelus and is not in the Hebrew.
Letter 106.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 20 (LXX 19) Jerome judges 'Lord' superfluous in verse 4 and upholds 'in the day' in verse 9 from the Hebrew.
Letter 106.12Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 22 (LXX 21) Jerome accepts 'my help' as the correct reading and explains why the Latin keeps 'magnify' for the Greek 'glorify'.
Letter 106.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 23:5 Jerome upholds 'my cup' from the Hebrew against the common Greek edition.
Letter 106.14Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 25 (LXX 24) Jerome marks 'all' and 'Lord' as additions.
Letter 106.15Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 27 (LXX 26) Jerome rejects 'behold' and prefers 'my face has sought' without 'you'.
Letter 106.16Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 28:2 Jerome marks 'Lord' as an addition.
Letter 106.17Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 29 (LXX 28) Jerome defends 'everyone' against a literal 'every whoever' and explains his rendering 'makes the flood to be inhabited', which he refers to baptism.
Letter 106.18Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 31 (LXX 30) Jerome notes the frequent addition of 'Lord' and 'God' and explains his rendering 'in the ecstasy of my mind'.
Letter 106.19Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 32 (LXX 31) Jerome upholds 'in his spirit' and 'my distress' from the Hebrew.
Letter 106.20Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 35:10 Jerome notes that many Hebrew copies lack 'Lord' altogether.
Letter 106.21Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 37:23 Jerome marks 'greatly' as an addition.
Letter 106.22Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 39:6 Jerome explains that errors arise because copyists have dropped Origen's critical signs.
Letter 106.23Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 40 (LXX 39) Jerome grants that the Hebrew says 'belly' though the Latin says 'heart', and upholds 'look to my help'.
Letter 106.24Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 41:6 Jerome shows that 'if' is in the Hebrew and the Septuagint.
Letter 106.25Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 42 (LXX 41), and the same refrain in Ps 43 (LXX 42).
Letter 106.26Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 44 (LXX 43), noting that the Hebrew reads 'a byword among the nations'.
Letter 106.27Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 45:5 Jerome shows that 'O most mighty' was carried over from verse 3.
Letter 106.28Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 48 (LXX 47), upholding 'the kings', 'so we have seen', and 'your temple' from the Hebrew.
Letter 106.29Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 49 (LXX 48), defending 'righteous' for 'upright' as a matter of sense rather than syllables.
Letter 106.30Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 50 (LXX 49), again insisting that a translator should follow the idiom of his own language where the sense is unharmed.
Letter 106.31Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 55 (LXX 54), noting that the Hebrew and the other Greek versions read 'wind' where the Septuagint has 'faintness of spirit'.
Letter 106.32Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 56 (LXX 55), tracing the Latin 'break' to a confusion of two similar Greek verbs where the Hebrew means 'bring down'.
Letter 106.33Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles five readings in Ps 59 (LXX 58) against the Greek his correspondents used.
Letter 106.34Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 60:9 Jerome rejects the Greek 'or'.
Letter 106.35Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 61 (LXX 60).
Letter 106.36Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 62:8 Jerome marks 'for ever' as obelized.
Letter 106.37Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 63:1 Jerome upholds 'for you' from the Hebrew.
Letter 106.38Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 64:7 Jerome explains the Latin plural 'arrows' and gives the Hebrew sense.
Letter 106.39Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 65 (LXX 64).
Letter 106.40Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 66 (LXX 65).
Letter 106.41Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles six readings in Ps 68 (LXX 67), explaining its syntax and correcting his correspondents' Greek against the Hebrew.
Letter 106.42Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 69:30 Jerome rejects 'my'.
Letter 106.43Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 71 (LXX 70).
Letter 106.44Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 72 (LXX 71), seeing the Trinity in the threefold 'Lord God, God of Israel'.
Letter 106.45Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles five readings in Ps 73 (LXX 72) against his correspondents' Greek.
Letter 106.46Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles five readings in Ps 74 (LXX 73), explaining at length how his marginal note on 'let us burn' against 'let us make cease' was wrongly copied into the text.
Letter 106.47Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 75:1 Jerome rejects the Greek reading.
Letter 106.48Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 76 (LXX 75).
Letter 106.49Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 77 (LXX 76) Jerome explains 'I swept my spirit' as a hoeing metaphor for searching one's thoughts, and rejects an added phrase.
Letter 106.50Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles eight readings in Ps 78 (LXX 77), defending the Latin by Hebrew, the other Greek versions, and Latin idiom.
Letter 106.51Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 79:1 Jerome explains the Greek 'watch-hut' and Aquila's 'heap of stones'.
Letter 106.52Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 80:9 Jerome rejects 'from here'.
Letter 106.53Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 83:12 Jerome dismisses a question as superfluous.
Letter 106.54Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 84 (LXX 83) and asks his correspondents to drop pedantic disputes where the sense is unchanged.
Letter 106.55Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 85 (LXX 84) Jerome again states his rule that sense matters more than word-for-word rendering, and explains an obelized 'each other'.
Letter 106.56Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 86 (LXX 85).
Letter 106.57Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 89 (LXX 88), defending 'dreadful' from Virgil's usage and tracing 'looked upon' to a one-letter slip for 'despised'.
Letter 106.58Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 90 (LXX 89).
Letter 106.59Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 91:2 Jerome notes that 'you are' is added for euphony.
Letter 106.60Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 94 (LXX 93).
Letter 106.61Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 98:3 Jerome rejects the added 'Jacob'.
Letter 106.62Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 101:6 Jerome rejects a word-for-word rendering as clumsy.
Letter 106.63Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 102 (LXX 101) Jerome explains the flat roofs of the East, identifies the Septuagint's 'night-raven' as an owl, and settles two further readings.
Letter 106.64Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 103:9 Jerome explains the range of the Hebrew word.
Letter 106.65Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 104 (LXX 103) Jerome argues for the second person throughout ('you who make your angels spirits') and explains several Hebrew words, including the kite and the rock-badger.
Letter 106.66Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles three readings in Ps 105 (LXX 104).
Letter 106.67Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles four readings in Ps 106 (LXX 105), again mocking pedantic word-for-word renderings.
Letter 106.68Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 107 (LXX 106).
Letter 106.69Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 108 (LXX 107) Jerome traces two readings to the parallel Psalms 57 and 60.
Letter 106.70Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 110 (LXX 109).
Letter 106.71Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 111:1 Jerome rejects 'my'.
Letter 106.72Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 115:3 (LXX 113:11) Jerome rejects 'and on earth'.
Letter 106.73Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 116 (LXX 114).
Letter 106.74Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 118:10 Jerome marks 'for' with an asterisk.
Letter 106.75Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles eight readings in Ps 119 (LXX 118), explaining 'my soul is in my hands' as constant danger borne faithfully.
Letter 106.76Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 120:2 Jerome rejects 'and'.
Letter 106.77Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 127:5 Jerome upholds 'man'.
Letter 106.78Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 130:4 Jerome traces the variants 'law', 'name', and 'fear' to the Hebrew and the confusion of two Hebrew letters.
Letter 106.79Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 132:2 Jerome defends 'vowed' for a Greek word meaning both 'pray' and 'vow'.
Letter 106.80Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 136:7 Jerome shows that 'alone' comes from verse 4.
Letter 106.81Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 138:2 Jerome compares the Hebrew and the Septuagint and reads the verse christologically of the Son exalted above every name.
Letter 106.82Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 139:4 Jerome upholds 'word' against 'guile'.
Letter 106.83Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome settles two readings in Ps 140 (LXX 139).
Letter 106.84Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 141:7 Jerome upholds 'our bones'.
Letter 106.85Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 147:10 Jerome rejects 'the Lord'.
Letter 106.86Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome closes by explaining several Greek words of the Psalter: new moon, desert, throne, night-raven, dog-fly, and chisel.
Letter 107.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome prescribes daily Scripture study, Greek then Latin, the parents' example, constant supervision, a grave older companion, and a round of prayer at the set hours.
Letter 107.12Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome sets out a reading plan through the Scriptures, from the Psalms to the Song of Songs last, warns against the apocrypha, and recommends Cyprian, Athanasius, and Hilary.
Letter 108.26Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Paula was an eager student who made Jerome expound the whole Bible to her, preferring its spiritual sense, and even learned Hebrew; she rejoiced at her granddaughter's dedication and her daughter-in-law's continence.
Letter 110.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine replies to Jerome's letter brought by Asterius, puzzled that Jerome both fears hurting him and seems ready to hurt him, and declares himself glad to be corrected.
Letter 112.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome answers that his view of the dispute between Peter and Paul at Antioch came from Origen and other Greek commentators, as his preface said, and was offered for the reader's judgment.
Letter 112.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that the interpretation came from Origen, was meant to answer Porphyry's attack on Paul, and was followed by John Chrysostom, so that he errs in good company.
Letter 112.19Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that his earlier version, made from Origen's corrected Septuagint, carried obeli and asterisks, whereas his new one was translated directly from the Hebrew.
Letter 112.20Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome turns Augustine's syllogism against his own commentary on the Psalms and defends his translation from the Hebrew as a help, not a replacement, to be checked against Hebrew speakers.
Letter 112.21Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recounts, quoting Augustine, the uproar at Oea when a bishop had his new version of Jonah read and the local Jews confirmed the old reading.
Letter 112.22Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defends his rendering 'ivy' for the plant in Jonah 4:6 as the nearest equivalent to the Hebrew qiqayon, and asks Augustine to leave an old man in peace.
Letter 116.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine takes up Jerome's image of play in the field of Scripture and asks how friends can disagree frankly without being suspected of boasting or of honeyed hostility.
Letter 116.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine states that he believes only the canonical Scriptures to be free from all error, reading all other writers critically, and assumes Jerome wants his own books read the same way.
Letter 116.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine argues that if Paul's account of rebuking Peter was a pretense, nothing Paul wrote could be trusted, since he swore that he was not lying.
Letter 116.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine rejects the view that it is better to suppose Paul untruthful than Peter at fault, since by that logic one would have to deny the Gospels' account of Peter's denial and the account of David's sin.
Letter 116.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine warns that admitting that the apostles wrote falsehoods would give the Manichaeans the weapon they lack when they claim the Scriptures were corrupted.
Letter 116.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine insists that the question is what Paul wrote, not what he did: if Peter acted rightly, Paul's canonical letter would contain a lie.
Letter 116.22Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine insists that the canonical writers never lied, so that Paul's account is true, and holds up Peter's humility in accepting correction as the better answer to Porphyry.
Letter 116.24Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine appeals to Ambrose and Cyprian but above all to Paul himself, who swore before God that his account of the dispute with Peter was no lie.
Letter 116.34Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine asks which Jews Jerome thinks corrupted the Scriptures, requests his translation from the Septuagint and his book On the Best Kind of Translating, and observes that varied interpretations can agree in one faith.
Letter 116.35Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine explains that he opposes reading Jerome's Hebrew version in church only to avoid offending congregations accustomed to the Septuagint, and prefers 'gourd' in Jonah 4:6.
Letter 119.5Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome translates Didymus, who reads 'we shall all sleep, but not all be changed' and explains the moment, the last trumpet, and the difference between incorruption and immortality.
Letter 119.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Acacius discusses the other reading, 'we shall not all sleep,' rejects the view that Paul expected to survive to the end, interprets sleep as sin after baptism, and still prefers the first reading.
Letter 119.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome defends reading commentators whose doctrines he rejects, testing everything and holding to the faith of the catholic church.
Letter 119.12Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome closes, promising further answers later, and notes that the Latin reading 'we shall all rise' is not in the Greek.
Letter 120.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reconciles Matthew and Mark on the time of the resurrection, noting that the ending of Mark is missing from almost all Greek manuscripts.
Letter 120.12Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains 1 Thess 5:23: the 'spirit' kept whole is the Spirit's gifts in us, the whole body is the church, and he adds a reading based on the threefold sense of Scripture.
Letter 121.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome compares Matthew's citation of Isa 42:1-4 with the Septuagint and the Hebrew, and interprets the bruised reed as Israel and the smoking flax as the Gentiles.
Letter 121.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome expounds Rom 7:7-25: the law reveals sin, several kinds of 'law' appear in Scripture including the natural law, and Paul speaks in the person of the repentant sinner.
Letter 121.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome paraphrases Col 2:16-23, explains Paul's Cilician idioms, and reads the passage as a warning against Jewish-Christian observance of food laws, festivals, and traditions.
Letter 127.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Marcella loves Scripture and puts it into practice, lives with moderate asceticism, avoids society, and obeys her mother even in giving her property to rich relatives.
Letter 127.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · When Jerome was in Rome, Marcella questioned him constantly about Scripture and became the judge of scriptural disputes after he left, though she always presented her answers as others'.
Letter 128.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome sets out Pacatula's upbringing: seclusion from boys, obedience to her mother, the Psalter and Scripture from age seven, a sober governess; he warns of seducers and of women who desert their husbands.
Letter 129.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · The saints are strangers in the earthly land, as Abraham and the patriarchs were according to Acts and Hebrews; Jerome defends receiving both Hebrews and the Apocalypse as canonical.
Letter 130.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome praises Proba's generosity amid the sack of Rome and the extortions of the count of Africa, and begins his counsel to Demetrias: love Scripture and keep her baptismal renunciation.
Letter 130.15Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome sets out a daily rule for Demetrias: fixed hours of prayer, memorizing and reading Scripture, and working wool with her own hands.
Letter 130.20Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome closes by repeating his first counsel: love the holy Scriptures and imitate her grandmother and mother.
Letter 140.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome discusses the psalm's title, 'A prayer of Moses, the man of God', and holds that Moses wrote the eleven psalms 90–100 (89–99 in the Greek numbering).
Letter 140.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains the word 'prayer', the fivefold division of the Psalter, and why a psalm naming Samuel can still be by Moses.
Letter 148.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · The writer urges Celantia to study God's law constantly, recalling the fringes commanded by Moses and misused by the Pharisees.
Letter 148.14Jerome · ca. 370–419 · The writer urges constant reading of Scripture and commends the Golden Rule as a summary of all righteousness.
Book of Rules 0Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius introduces his seven rules for interpreting Scripture, calling them keys and lamps for its hidden meaning, and lists them.
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 3Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius’s third rule: the promise (given by faith) and the law (given to multiply sin and drive men to grace) never contradict each other; the righteous of old were justified by faith through the Spirit, and the promises to Abraham’s seed are firm because God foreknew those who would believe, while the church contains both sons of promise and sons of the slave woman.
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 5Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius’s fifth rule: numbers and times in Scripture are often figurative, by synecdoche (part for whole) or by “legitimate” numbers such as seven, ten, and twelve, which signify perfection or the whole time from Christ’s passion to the end; he applies this to the sojourn in Egypt, the three days of the burial, the Sabbath, and the flood.
Book of Rules 6Tyconius · ca. 380 · Tyconius’s sixth rule: Scripture often recapitulates, telling of the same whole time again in parts, or describing a present event as the likeness of a future one; and he warns that the Antichrist is recognized by works, not words, since denying Christ in the flesh means hating his members.
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 14.33Basil of Caesarea · ca. 374–375 · Moses was a type of Christ, not of the Spirit; God trained his people through shadows and types before showing them the full light.
On the Holy Spirit 21.52Basil of Caesarea · ca. 374–375 · Scripture calls the Spirit "Lord": in Paul's prayers for the Thessalonians and in "the Lord is the Spirit," which Basil explains by the veil over the letter of the law.
On the Holy Spirit 27.66Basil of Caesarea · ca. 374–375 · Much that the church holds comes from unwritten apostolic tradition—the sign of the cross, facing east, the words of the epiclesis, the blessings and threefold immersion of baptism, standing to pray on Sunday and at Pentecost—kept in silence to guard the mysteries.
On the Holy Spirit 27.67Basil of Caesarea · ca. 374–375 · Even the confession of faith in Father, Son, and Spirit is not written as such; if it follows from baptism, the doxology may follow from the faith, and one word handed down from the fathers should be allowed.
On the Holy Spirit 29.71Basil of Caesarea · ca. 374–375 · Unwritten apostolic traditions are to be kept, and the doxology "with the Spirit" is one of them, attested by many ancient witnesses; Basil received it from the man who baptized him.
Ancoratus 19.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Search the Scriptures and the Spirit will teach you.
Ancoratus 22.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The Spirit opens the letter of Scripture.
Ancoratus 27.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Scripture's deeper words become stumbling blocks to those without knowledge.
Ancoratus 27.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Hosea: the Lord's ways are straight, but the ungodly stumble.
Ancoratus 31.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Luke's “he wept,” removed from some copies, was cited by Irenaeus.
Ancoratus 31.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Christ's agony and sweat like blood.
Ancoratus 39.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The Old Testament speaks in the person of each of the three.
Ancoratus 41.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Scripture is plain to those who understand.
Ancoratus 41.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Without God's instruction Scripture seems crooked.
Ancoratus 42.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Parables do not correspond literally to their subject.
Ancoratus 42.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The mustard seed parable is not literal.
Ancoratus 42.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Proverbial language is not to be taken literally.
Ancoratus 42.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Other parables are likewise figurative.
Ancoratus 42.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Scripture uses “wisdom” in many senses.
Ancoratus 44.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Aquila translates Proverbs 8:22 as “acquired,” not “created.”
Ancoratus 50.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Nowhere in the four Gospels is the Son said to be created.
Ancoratus 53.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Opponents allegorize the literal and literalize the figurative.
Ancoratus 53.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Some deny the prophets' visions of God.
Ancoratus 53.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · They set John 1:18 against the prophets.
Ancoratus 53.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Since the prophets are truthful, the matter needs understanding.
Ancoratus 53.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The prophets saw through the narrow opening of the body.
Ancoratus 53.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Prophets and Gospel agree: God was truly but not fully seen.
Ancoratus 54.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Isaiah saw with his eyes, truly but not fully.
Ancoratus 54.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Origen allegorized paradise.
Ancoratus 54.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Paul's “third heaven” means three heavens, not part of the air.
Ancoratus 54.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Paul was also caught up into paradise.
Ancoratus 54.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Paul distinguishes the third heaven from paradise.
Ancoratus 55.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · If paradise is allegory, all of Genesis would be.
Ancoratus 55.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Creation in Genesis is real and visible.
Ancoratus 58.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Eden is on earth: its spring goes up, not down.
Ancoratus 58.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The Pishon is identified with the Ganges or Indus.
Ancoratus 58.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The Gihon is the Nile.
Ancoratus 58.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The Tigris is the third river.
Ancoratus 58.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Denying paradise undoes the rivers too.
Ancoratus 58.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The chain continues to Adam and Eve.
Ancoratus 58.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Adam is real, for we are his descendants.
Ancoratus 59.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The generations from Adam to Noah and the flood are real.
Ancoratus 59.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · “Souls” in Scripture means whole persons.
Ancoratus 59.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The genealogy from Noah to Joseph.
Ancoratus 61.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The unbroken line from Adam shows Genesis is history.
Ancoratus 61.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The elements of the Eden story are real.
Ancoratus 61.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Adam dwelt opposite a real paradise.
Ancoratus 61.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · We accept all of Scripture simply and leave the incomprehensible to God.
Ancoratus 62.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Origen allegorized the garments of skin.
Ancoratus 62.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Adam had flesh before the fall, as the rib shows.
Ancoratus 63.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Scripture is true; heresies lack the Spirit of the church's tradition.
Ancoratus 64.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The teaching comes from the prophets and Christ's coming.
Ancoratus 73.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Moses proclaims one God, the prophets a duality, the Gospels the Trinity.
Ancoratus 73.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Revelation advances like the courts of the temple.
Ancoratus 75.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Some misread John 1:3 against the Holy Spirit.
Ancoratus 75.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Epiphanius's punctuation of John 1:3–4.
Ancoratus 94.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Scripture hints at resurrection; Christ fulfills it.
Ancoratus 109.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Both Testaments' questions are explained the same way.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 8.6.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius lists twenty-seven books of the Jewish Scriptures.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 8.6.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The twenty-seven books are counted as twenty-two, like the Hebrew alphabet.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 8.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon are disputed books among the Jews.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 8.6.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · These books taught the law until Christ came.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 8.8.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Removing one Jeconiah spoiled Matthew's count.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 9.1.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Samaritans are the first sect based on Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 9.2.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Samaritans accept only the five books of Moses.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 9.5.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Samaritans reject the prophets by ancestral tradition.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 18.1.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Nasaraeans honor the patriarchs but reject the Pentateuch as we have it.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 18.2.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture cannot be partly true and partly false.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 21.4.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Simon ascribed the law and prophets to inferior powers.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 21.5.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The law and prophets foretold Christ and forbid evil.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 21.5.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The same God and Spirit speak in both Testaments.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 23.2.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Satornilus ascribed the prophecies to angels and Satan.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 23.5.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ affirms that he spoke in the prophets and works with the Father.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 23.6.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ's words show the prophets spoke of him.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 23.6.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The New Testament affirms the Old as from the same God.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 23.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ cites the Psalms about himself.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 23.6.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The risen Christ explained the prophets on the road to Emmaus.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 25.4.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Caulacau comes from Isaiah 28.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.6.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They reject Scripture texts against them as from the worldly spirit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.6.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Texts they can bend they ascribe to the Spirit of truth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.8.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Gnostics' books: Questions of Mary, books of Seth, Revelations of Adam, gospels.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 28.5.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Cerinthians use part of Matthew's Gospel.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 28.7.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture exposes Cerinthus on every point.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 29.2.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius will explain how the promise of David's throne was fulfilled.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 29.7.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Nazoraeans accept both covenants and hold Jewish belief.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 29.7.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They read the Scriptures in Hebrew.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 29.9.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They keep a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.3.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Ebionites use only Matthew, which they call the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.3.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · A Hebrew version of John is said to be stored at Tiberias.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.3.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · A Hebrew Acts is said to be there too.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.11.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · In Cilicia Josephus befriended a bishop and read the Gospels.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.13.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius begins quoting the Ebionites' gospel.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.18.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They reject the prophets after Moses.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.18.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They reject parts of the Pentateuch that contradict their diet.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.22.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Ebionite gospel alters Luke 22:15 to reject meat.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.22.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius shows the added “not” and “meat.”
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.23.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John cites the prophets the Ebionites reject.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.23.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's Gospel quotes David and Isaiah.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.10.15Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The hours in the parable of the labourers add up to thirty, for the thirty aeons.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.10.16Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They adapt scattered Scripture texts to their fiction.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They claim the Saviour revealed this system secretly in parables.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The thirty aeons are signified by Jesus's thirty hidden years and the parable of the labourers.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They claim Paul names the aeons in Ephesians.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The twelve aeons are signified by Jesus at twelve and the twelve apostles.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The ten aeons are found in the iota of Jesus's name.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Wisdom's passion is signified by Judas, the twelfth apostle, and by a one-year ministry.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The woman healed after twelve years is read as the suffering twelfth aeon.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Touching the garment signifies how Limit healed the suffering aeon.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · 'Every male that opens the womb' is read of the Saviour as the All.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.14.13Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They apply Paul's statements about 'all things' and 'fullness' to their system.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.15.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They read Jesus's saying about carrying the cross as the supporting function of Limit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.15.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The sword and the winnowing fork are read as the dividing function of Limit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.15.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The winnowing fork is read as the Cross, which purifies the saved.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.15.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They claim Paul's words on the cross refer to their Limit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.15.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They force the Gospels and apostles to fit their fiction.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.15.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They also twist the Law and Prophets and lead astray those without firm faith in one God and one Lord.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.22.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The prophets' words came variously from the seed, the Mother and the Demiurge.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.22.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They divide the prophecies among three sources.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.22.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They divide Jesus's sayings among the same sources.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.22.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They identify the Demiurge with the centurion of the Gospel.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.24.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their system has no basis in prophets, Lord or apostles.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.24.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They fit Scripture passages to their fiction, ignoring their context.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.24.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They are like someone who rearranges a mosaic of a king into a fox.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.24.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The forger claims his fox is the king's image, deceiving the ignorant.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.24.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · So the heretics fit God's words to their old wives' tales.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Irenaeus turns to their Scripture proofs for things outside the Pleroma.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Lord's passion at the end of time signifies the passion of the last aeon.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jairus's daughter is read as a type of Achamoth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul's 'untimely born' is applied to Achamoth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The veils of 1 Corinthians and of Moses are read as Achamoth's modesty.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus's words in the passion are read as Achamoth's passions.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus's replies to would-be disciples are read as the material and psychic kinds.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The rich young man is also classed as psychic.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Other sayings, including to Zacchaeus, are read as the spiritual kind.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The parable of the leaven is read as Wisdom and the three kinds.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They read Paul's earthly, psychic and spiritual man as their three kinds.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.25.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The 'firstfruits and lump' are read as the spiritual and the psychic church.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.26.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The lost sheep is read as Achamoth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.26.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The straying of the sheep is Achamoth's time outside the Pleroma.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.26.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The woman with the lost coin is read as higher Wisdom recovering her Intention.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.26.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Simeon is read as a type of the Demiurge.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.26.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Anna the prophetess is read as a type of Achamoth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.26.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Texts about 'wisdom' are read as references to Achamoth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.26.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They read Paul's 'great mystery' of marriage as the Pleroma's pairs.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They claim John's prologue reveals the first Ogdoad.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The commentary says John posits a Beginning, the Son, in whom all was emitted.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · From the Beginning came the Word, who formed the aeons.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The commentary quotes John 1:1.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John 1:2 is read as distinguishing and uniting God, Beginning and Word.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The commentary explains each clause of John 1:1–2 by its system.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The commentary reads John 1:3–4 as revealing the pair Word and Life.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Life, being 'in' the Word, is more his own than what came 'through' him.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · 'Light of men' is read as revealing Man and Church.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Life is the 'light' that manifested Man and Church.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's prologue is said to show the second tetrad and then the first.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Saviour is the fruit of the whole Pleroma.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.13Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · 'The light shines in darkness' is read of the unrecognized Saviour.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.14Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Saviour is called Son, Truth, Life and incarnate Word.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.15Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John 1:14 is read as naming the first tetrad.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.27.16Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The commentary concludes that John named the whole first Ogdoad.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.28.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Irenaeus points out their deceptive method of using Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.28.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · If John meant their Ogdoad, he would have named it in order.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.28.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John does not name the Church or the consorts consistently, so he did not mean their pairs.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.28.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John proclaims one God and one Christ, the same who became flesh.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.29.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They are like those who build a new poem from scattered Homeric lines.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.29.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · One who holds the rule of truth received at baptism recognizes Scripture but not the heresy.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.29.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Restoring each text to its place exposes the heresy.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.30.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Church everywhere received from the apostles faith in one God the Father, Creator.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The scattered Church keeps this faith as one household with one voice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Churches in every region believe and hand down the same tradition.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The preaching of truth shines everywhere like the sun.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · No church leader, eloquent or not, adds to or diminishes the one faith.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · True understanding explains parables and God's dealings within the faith.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · It explains creation, God's appearances to prophets, and the covenants.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · It explores God's mercy, the incarnation and the timing of Christ's coming.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · It unfolds Scripture on the end and the inclusion of the Gentiles.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · It proclaims the resurrection and God's call of those who were not his people.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.31.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul marvelled at God's depth, not at invented beings above the Creator.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.34.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their myths contradict each other and have no basis in Law, prophets, Gospels or apostles.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.34.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · If these things were true, the Lord, prophets and apostles would have taught them.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.34.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus himself said he explains his parables to his disciples.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.34.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ explained his parables, such as the mustard seed and the sower.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.34.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul foretold those who would follow myths and demonic teachings.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.34.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · James contrasts earthly and heavenly wisdom; the heretics show none of the latter's fruits.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.35.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They cite Judas, the woman with the flow of blood and the lost coin.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.35.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Judas perished, but their twelfth aeon was restored, so the comparison fails.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.35.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The woman was healed after twelve years of illness, which does not fit their scheme.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.35.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The woman found her lost coin, so it cannot signify a lost aeon.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ptolemy writes to Flora about how the Mosaic Law is misunderstood.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Some ascribe the Law to God the Father, others to the devil.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Both views miss the truth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Law cannot be from the perfect God, being imperfect.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Nor can the Law be from the devil, since it forbids injustice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The world was made through the Saviour, by a just God, not a corrupt one.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · One group ignores the God of justice, the other the Father revealed by the Saviour.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.3.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ptolemy will explain the Law and its giver from the Saviour's words.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Pentateuch's law has three sources, as the Saviour shows.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The three parts are from God, from Moses, and from the elders.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ptolemy will show this from the Saviour's words.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus said Moses permitted divorce because of hardness of heart, but God joined marriage.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · So Moses' own law is distinct from God's.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus shows that the elders' traditions are mixed into the Law.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The elders' 'gift to God' rule voided God's law.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.13Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Isaiah foretold worship by human commandments.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.4.14Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Law is thus shown to have three parts.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · God's part of the Law is itself threefold: pure law, law mixed with injustice, and symbolic law.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The symbolic law was transferred by the Saviour to the spiritual level.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The pure law is the Ten Commandments, which the Saviour fulfilled.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The law of retaliation is interwoven with injustice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Retaliation was just but a concession, foreign to the Father's goodness.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Commanding the death of murderers compelled a second killing.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Son abolished retaliation, though he admitted it came from God.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The symbolic law covers offerings, circumcision, sabbath, fasting and Passover.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The symbols were abolished outwardly but kept spiritually.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christians offer spiritual sacrifices of praise, thanksgiving and generosity.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Circumcision is of the heart, and the sabbath is kept spiritually.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.15Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul shows that Passover and unleavened bread were images.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.6.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Saviour fulfilled the pure commands by forbidding anger, lust and oaths.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.6.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Retaliation was abolished by the Saviour.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.6.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus's command not to resist evil cancels retaliation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The symbolic law was transferred to the spiritual.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.6.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Now that the truth is present, the images give way.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.6.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul confirms each of the three parts.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.7.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ptolemy has shown the human additions and the threefold law of God.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.7.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · It remains to identify the lawgiver.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.7.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The lawgiver is neither the perfect God nor the devil.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.8.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their knowledge comes not from Scripture but from pagan poets.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · He restates Ptolemy's threefold division of the Law.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The elders' traditions are not in the Law at all.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Jewish 'deuteroses' are four collections of tradition, outside the Law.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The 'Corban' rule is nowhere in the Pentateuch.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ptolemy's argument fails.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Moses' laws were given by God through Moses, as Christ's words show.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Moses' divorce law was given by the Holy Spirit, not against God's will.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · As Adam's words were God's, so Moses' law was God's; two of Ptolemy's claims fall.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.13Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · God's laws served for their time, as types, or as revelations fulfilled in Christ.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.10.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ honoured the Law's righteous, who came from the Father's goodness.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.10.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ pairs 'good' with 'just', showing they are one.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.10.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ptolemy slanders the law of retaliation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.10.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The law of retaliation aims at the same end as Christ's command.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.10.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Retaliation deterred violence, as turning the cheek does.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · A father trains children differently at each age.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · So God gave each generation laws suited to it.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Early generations were restrained by fear; the mature receive fuller teaching.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The disciples too understood only later.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul shows commands are adapted to maturity.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The law threatened the offender, so people refrained from striking.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The same ethic was kept then by compulsion, now by free choice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ himself speaks of severe punishment at the judgement.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ptolemy's truth about types serves to deceive.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.11.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul confirms the Law's things were types for us.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.7.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Transfiguration is read numerically.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.7.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The dove at the baptism has the number 801, omega and alpha.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.7.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Man's creation and Christ's crucifixion on the sixth day and hour are linked.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.7.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · He applies psalms about infants' praise and the heavens to his system.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.15.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They read their system into Genesis 1:1.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.15.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Genesis 1:1–2 is made to show the tetrad.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.15.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The second tetrad is found in Genesis 1:2.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.15.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ten items in Genesis 1 are made the decad.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.15.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Twelve more items make the dodecad, so Moses taught the thirty.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Isaiah 1:3 is applied to the unknown Depth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Hosea and the Psalm are applied to ignorance of Depth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Exodus 33:20 is applied to their unseen Greatness.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They apply Daniel's sealed words to themselves as the enlightened.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They also use forged apocryphal writings.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke 2:49 is made to proclaim an unknown Father.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The answer to the rich man is applied to their good God.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus's refusal to answer is taken to show the ineffable Father.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.14Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke 19:42 is applied to the hidden Depth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.15Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Matthew 11:28–29 is made a promise to teach the unknown Father.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 34.18.16Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Matthew 11:25–27 is their chief proof-text.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 35.3.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Isaiah contrasts the quiet water of Siloam with the flood.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 37.7.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They twist John 3:14 and Matt 10:16.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 37.8.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Why Christ used the snake and dove as examples.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 37.8.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul ascribes cunning to the snake and the devil.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.1.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They honor Judas and use a 'Gospel of Judas'.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.2.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They use a forged 'Ascent of Paul'.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.4.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Genesis curses Cain.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.4.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus calls his opponents children of a liar and murderer.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.6.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Prophecy of a sin is no excuse for it.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture foretells because God foreknows; it does not cause.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 38.7.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture foretold the betrayal because it would happen.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 39.5.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Sethians use books ascribed to Seth, Abraham, Moses, and others.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 39.5.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Genesis records Cain's birth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 39.5.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Genesis records Abel's birth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 39.5.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Genesis records Seth's birth to the same parents.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 39.6.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jubilees names the wives of Cain and Seth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 40.2.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Archontics use books called the Symphonia.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 40.2.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They also use Allogenes and the Ascension of Isaiah.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 40.5.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius explains the Hebrew names of God.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 40.5.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Sabaoth always accompanies 'Lord' in Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 40.7.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Books were written in the name of Seth and his seven sons.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 41.1.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Cerdo denied Christ's flesh, the resurrection, and the Old Testament.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 41.3.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Cerdo assigns the law and prophets to the evil god.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 41.3.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The same God speaks in prophets and Gospel.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 41.3.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus says Moses wrote of him.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.2.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The presbyters explain the old wineskins as the hearts of the Pharisees and scribes.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.2.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The old garment is compared to Judas, grown old in greed.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.4.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion rejects the Law and the prophets as inspired by the world's maker.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.9.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion uses only a mutilated Gospel of Luke, lacking the birth narratives.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.9.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion cut and added material throughout his Luke.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.9.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion also uses ten Pauline letters, altered, and wrote his own treatises.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.9.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius lists Marcion's ten Pauline letters in Marcion's order, plus parts of 'Laodiceans'.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.9.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion's own texts show Christ is not foreign to the Old Testament.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.9.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They also show the resurrection of the flesh and the salvation of the patriarchs.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.10.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius explains how he excerpted and numbered passages from Marcion's Gospel and Apostolikon.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.10.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Some passages Marcion altered.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.10.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Other passages he left unchanged, and they show the two covenants agree.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.10.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Others confess the resurrection and the one Creator God.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion's gospel resembles Luke but is mutilated like a moth-eaten garment.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion omitted Luke's prologue, infancy narratives, genealogy and baptism.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion's gospel began with Luke 3:1.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius lists 78 passages from Marcion's gospel, noting what Marcion cut, added and changed from Luke.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius introduces his excerpts from Marcion's Apostolikon.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius lists 40 excerpts from Marcion's Apostolikon, with Marcion's changes, arranged by letter.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius sums up Marcion's compilation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Marcion's Apostolikon contains only some of Paul's letters.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius notes the letters lacking or defective in Marcion's collection.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.15Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius states that he will also collect passages showing the incarnation and the unity of the covenants.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.11.17Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius repeats each of his 78 excerpts from Marcion's gospel and refutes Marcion from it, chiefly on Christ's real flesh, the unity of God, and the Old Testament.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.12.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius turns to the excerpts from Marcion's Apostolikon, beginning with Galatians.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.12.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius repeats each of his 40 excerpts from Marcion's Pauline letters and refutes Marcion from them, arguing that Paul upholds the Law, the prophets, the one Creator and the resurrection of the body.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.13.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius counts 78 testimonies from Marcion's gospel and 40 from his Apostolikon.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.13.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · One further testimony comes from Marcion's 'Laodiceans', which is not in the church's Pauline collection.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.13.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · All of Scripture is alive; no part of it could serve Marcion's falsehood.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 42.13.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Even the parts Marcion kept remain alive and speak against him.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 43.1.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Lucian holds three principles and cites prophetic texts in his favour.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 44.2.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Apelles cites the saying 'Be approved money-changers' to justify selecting from Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 44.4.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture teaches that God made man in his image.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 44.5.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Apelles sets himself up as a judge over Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 45.4.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Severians use apocrypha and select words from the canonical books.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 45.4.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture foresaw and refuted such errors in advance.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 46.1.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Tatian is credited with the Diatessaron.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 47.1.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Encratites use the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, John and Thomas.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.1.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Phrygians accept Scripture and the resurrection but follow Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla as prophets.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.2.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · True prophecy is fulfilled.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius proposes to compare Montanist prophecy with biblical prophecy.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Biblical prophets spoke with sound minds.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Isaiah saw, heard and then delivered God's message consciously.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Isaiah prophesied fully aware.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ezekiel answered God with a clear mind.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · True prophets keep a sound mind and can even reply to God.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Daniel interpreted dreams with full understanding.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.3.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Daniel's wisdom came from the Holy Spirit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 48.11.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture teaches us to recognize false spirits.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.3.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They are called Alogi because they reject John's writings about the Word.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.3.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi reject both John's Gospel and Revelation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.3.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Rejecting only Revelation might be excused as caution.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.3.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Rejecting all of John's books marks them as the antichrists John foretold.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.3.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi ascribe John's writings to Cerinthus.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.4.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Books that oppose Cerinthus cannot be his.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.4.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The church accepts the Spirit's teachings in John.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.4.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi claim John's books disagree with the other apostles.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.4.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi set John's chronology against the Synoptic temptation account.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.4.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Each evangelist agrees with the others and supplies what they omitted, under the Spirit's guidance.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.4.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Synoptic Gospels also begin at different points.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.5.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Matthew, the converted tax collector, fittingly wrote the first Gospel.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.5.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Matthew wrote in Hebrew and began with the genealogy from Abraham.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.5.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Matthew omits Luke's account of Zechariah.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.6.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Omissions do not make Matthew or Luke untrue.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.6.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · God assigned each evangelist his share, with common and distinct material.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Mark begins his Gospel at the Jordan.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.6.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John wrote what the others had left for him.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.6.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Mark wrote the second Gospel in Rome as Peter's follower.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.6.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius says Mark was one of the seventy-two who left at the hard saying but returned through Peter.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.6.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Mark begins thirty years after Matthew's opening events.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.7.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Spirit moved Luke to supply what the others left out.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.7.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke traces the account back to its beginnings.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.7.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke's prologue contrasts eyewitnesses with those who merely undertook to write.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.7.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke writes so that Theophilus may know the certainty of what he was taught.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.7.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Each evangelist begins at a different point in time.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.7.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke's narrative covers a little more than thirty-one years.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.7.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke alone narrates the shepherds, circumcision, presentation, and childhood.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.8.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Pagan critics attacked the evangelists over supposed contradictions.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.8.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The critics object that Luke's timeline conflicts with Matthew's.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.8.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The critics say the flight to Egypt came the night of the birth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.8.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The critics accuse Luke of lying about the circumcision and presentation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.9.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Matthew skips from the birth to the coming of the magi two years later.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.9.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Herod's inquiry shows the magi came two years after the birth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.9.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke and Matthew cover different periods.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.10.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Gospels are exact; their critics speak from ignorance.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.11.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Gospel mystery is clear only to those taught by the Spirit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.11.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius says Luke, like Mark, was one of the seventy-two, restored through Paul.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.12.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John wrote his Gospel in old age after returning from Patmos.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.13.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's account shows Jesus returned to the Jordan after the temptation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.13.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's past tense shows the baptism had already happened.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.13.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus went to Galilee before returning to John.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.15.14Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Gospels do not contradict one another.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.15.15Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius prepares to set out the full chronology.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.17.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John omits the temptation because the other three had recorded it.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.17.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Gospels complement one another and together show one truth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.17.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The full call of the disciples came after John's arrest.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.17.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi cite the Synoptic sequence against John.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.18.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi claim John's Gospel lies about the chronology.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.18.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John does record Christ's coming to the Baptist.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.18.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John omitted what Matthew had told, to refute those who called Christ a mere man promoted to Sonship.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.18.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi reject John because it omits the temptation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.19.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John, called early but writing last, supplied what the others omitted.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.19.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Each Synoptic Gospel begins at a different point.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.19.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's Gospel is spiritual, since the others had covered the fleshly things.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.19.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The four Gospels together teach both Christ's flesh and his Godhead.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.21.14Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The agreement of the four Gospels refutes the Alogi.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.21.15Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi say John lies by omitting the temptation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.21.16Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The objectors misunderstand the Gospels' exactness.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.21.17Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's account falls before the Baptist's arrest.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.21.18Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Synoptics narrate the period after John's arrest; all four agree.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.21.19Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's sequence fits the Synoptic one.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.21.32Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John agrees with the other Gospels about the move to Capernaum.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.22.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi object that John has two Passovers, the others one.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.22.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Gospels attest three Passovers in Jesus' ministry.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.23.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The consular list refutes claims of chronological contradiction.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.23.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Gospels record three Passovers.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.30.14Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Two Passovers followed by the third of the passion; the Gospels agree.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.31.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Luke too implies several Passovers.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.31.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Law prefigured what the gospel fulfilled.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.32.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi mock the trumpets of Revelation.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.32.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Revelation's visions are useful for sound teaching.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.32.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Revelation makes plain what the Law and Prophets hid.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.32.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Revelation's trumpets are to be read spiritually.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.32.11Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul's agreement with John refutes the objection.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.33.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi object that there was no church in Thyatira.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.33.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their objection proves John's prophecy.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.33.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Revelation is shown to be true prophecy.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.34.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Alogi object to Revelation's angels at the Euphrates.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 51.35.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · John's Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation come from the same Spirit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 54.3.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Each phrase of Scripture has its own safeguard.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 55.2.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Traditions give Melchizedek’s parents as Heraclas and Astarth, natives of the plain of Save.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 55.3.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Apostolic tradition, Scripture, and the succession of teachers guard the truth.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 56.2.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · He used both Testaments and some apocrypha.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 57.7.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Prophet and apostle agree on the Father raising the Son.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 61.1.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They rely on the apocryphal Acts of Andrew and Thomas.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 61.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture needs discernment, not constant allegory.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 61.6.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The apostles handed down both Scripture and tradition.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 62.2.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They select certain texts.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 62.2.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Their main source is the Gospel of the Egyptians.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 63.2.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They use the Acts of Andrew and boast of their practice.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.3.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ambrose asked Origen to explain Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.3.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen expounded Scripture at Tyre for 28 years.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.3.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Ambrose funded Origen’s scribes and materials.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.3.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen collected the Greek translations of the Old Testament.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.3.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · He set out Hebrew and transliterated columns beside the Greek.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.3.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Hexapla contained the whole Old Testament.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen: Scripture is shut and sealed.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen cites Rev 3:7–8.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen cites Rev 5:1–2.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen cites Rev 5:3–4.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen cites Rev 5:5.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen cites Isa 29:11–12.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen: all Scripture is full of enigmas.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.6.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen cites Luke 11:52.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.15.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · “Bones” in Scripture are often figurative.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.16.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture’s “teeth” are figurative.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.19.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Everyone now interprets Scripture with conceit.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.31.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Allegorizing Adam’s flesh is rejected.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.37.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul’s compressed words are deep but orthodox.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.37.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Careful readers find Paul consistent.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.46.12Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Methodius will quote the psalm to expose their fanciful exegesis.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.47.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul distinguishes the third heaven from paradise.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.50.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Rom 7:9 does not refer to the soul’s pre-bodily life.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.50.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Origen mutilated the sequence of Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.59.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul’s letter is orthodox throughout.
On Cain and Abel 2.19Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Of four qualities that commend a sacrifice, the first, "new of the new", signifies those renewed by baptism who offer themselves, nourished by both Testaments and by the truth of Christ's body.
On Cain and Abel 2.22Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · The fourth quality, "continual", means constant prayer and meditation on Scripture, which, like exercise, strengthens the soul; such prayer is the "fat" offering.
On Paradise 7Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · We should not fault the tree of knowledge, any more than venomous creatures or obscure Scriptures, simply because we do not understand them.
On Paradise 38Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · To those who reject the Old Testament because God commanded Adam knowing he would transgress, Ambrose answers that Christ likewise chose Judas, knowing he would betray him.
On Paradise 56Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · The serpent twisted God's command, and the woman added "nor touch it"; nothing may be added to or taken from God's commands, and Ambrose thinks the fault began with the woman.
On Paradise 58Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · As a catechumen must test what heretical teachers such as Photinus, Arius and Sabellius read to him, so Scripture must be handled carefully; Adam and Eve should first have examined the tree.
On Paradise 66Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · A merely bodily interpretation of the law is like barren leaves; spiritual interpretation is a fruitful fig tree.
On Paradise 68Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · God's walking in the evening is his presence in the Scriptures, heard by the sinner who comes late to shame and tries to hide in his conscience from the God who searches hearts.
Apostolic Canon 60Anonymous · ca. 380 · Reading spurious books of the ungodly in church brings deposition.
Apostolic Canon 85Anonymous · ca. 380 · The canon lists the books to be held holy, Old and New Testament, adding Sirach for the young.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.4.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · Scripture commands constant meditation on God’s Law.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.5.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · At home one should read the Law, Kings, the Prophets, the Psalms and the Gospel.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.1Anonymous · ca. 380 · Pagan books are to be avoided.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · Foreign writings turn the unstable from the faith.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · God’s law lacks nothing that pagan fables offer.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · Scripture supplies history, wisdom and poetry better than pagan literature.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.5Anonymous · ca. 380 · Psalms, Genesis and the Law replace pagan songs, origins and laws.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.6Anonymous · ca. 380 · Foreign and diabolical writings are to be avoided.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.7Anonymous · ca. 380 · In reading the Law one should set aside the added ‘second legislation’, reading it only as history.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.8Anonymous · ca. 380 · One must distinguish the natural law from the additions given after the golden calf.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.6.9Anonymous · ca. 380 · The Decalogue is the true law, the later bonds having been ended or changed by Christ; Kings should be read for examples, and men must use men’s baths.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.7.1Anonymous · ca. 380 · Proverbs is introduced on the strange woman.
Apostolic Constitutions 1.7.11Anonymous · ca. 380 · The wise should gather further good counsel from Scripture and reject what is base.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.5.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · A bishop must study Scripture and interpret the Gospel and the Law and Prophets in harmony.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.5.5Anonymous · ca. 380 · Christ says the Scriptures testify to him.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.5.6Anonymous · ca. 380 · A bishop must distinguish the law from the ‘second legislation’.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.5.7Anonymous · ca. 380 · The bishop must teach his people thoroughly.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.57.5Anonymous · ca. 380 · The reader reads from the Old Testament books from a raised place.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.57.7Anonymous · ca. 380 · Acts and Paul’s letters are read, then the four Gospels by a deacon or presbyter.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.57.8Anonymous · ca. 380 · All stand in silence for the Gospel.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.61.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · Pagan writings are inspired by the devil and lead to polytheism.
Apostolic Constitutions 4.11.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · Children must be taught Scripture, kept under discipline and away from carousing.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.14.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · The catholic teaching: worship the one God through Christ in the Spirit, use the Scriptures, and expect the resurrection and judgment.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.16.1Anonymous · ca. 380 · Books forged in the apostles' names are not to be accepted.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.16.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · Apocryphal books under ancient names, like the heretics' books now, are hostile to the truth.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.19.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · God gave a simple law, the Ten Commandments, to help the natural law.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.19.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · Christ fulfilled the law, and Moses and Elijah witnessed his transfiguration as his friends.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.23.6Anonymous · ca. 380 · Christ removed the bonds, not the law, which is to be meditated on always.
Apostolic Constitutions 7.14.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · Keep the Lord's commandments unaltered and confess your sins.
Apostolic Constitutions 8.22.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · God is asked to give the reader a prophetic spirit.
Apostolic Constitutions 8.22.4Anonymous · ca. 380 · God, who made Ezra wise to read the law, is asked to make the reader wise.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 49Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · Gregory argues that if desire and anger are intellectual they would be separate souls; Macrina replies that the question is old, and that Christians must take Scripture, not pagan philosophy such as Plato’s chariot image, as their rule.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 51Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · Macrina sets aside Plato and Aristotle and dialectical proofs, taking Scripture as her rule: since the soul is God’s likeness, nothing foreign to God, such as anger or desire, belongs to its essence; and the definition of man as rational does not include them.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 63Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · Gregory asks for Scripture’s witness; Macrina cites the parable of the wheat and the tares: the soul’s impulses are the good seed, and sin sowed beside them an error about the good that turned them toward the brutish.
On the Soul and the Resurrection, Migne page 79Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–380 · As owners know their own broken vessels, the soul knows its body’s remains. Gregory raises the rich man and Lazarus; Macrina argues that the story’s bodily details (eyes, tongue, finger, chasm) cannot be literal for incorporeal souls and must be read spiritually.
Homily 1Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–394 · Gregory introduces Ecclesiastes as the book for the church’s way of life, reads its title of Christ the true Ecclesiast, defines “vanity of vanities”, and expounds Eccl 1:1–11 as a lesson to look beyond sense-perceived life to the original state restored in the resurrection.
Homily 7Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–394 · On Eccl 3:5–7 Gregory reads the stones thrown and gathered as scriptural words used against evil reasonings (rejecting a literal reading of the Sabbath-breaker’s stoning), the embracing of Zion and wisdom, seeking God throughout life and losing vices, keeping what is found, tearing from evil and sewing on to God and the church, and silence about God’s essence but speech about his works.
On Tobit 18Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The true “lots” are the two Testaments; clinging to Scripture would have saved the borrower.
On Tobit 61Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The just lend the silver of God’s word, as the apostles did when they preached to the nations.
On Tobit 62Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The promise “you will lend to the nations” concerns lending God’s word, not money.
On Tobit 63Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Israel’s saints lent God’s word to the nations, as when the queen of the south came to Solomon.
On Tobit 64Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · Gentile believers now lend the interpretation of Scripture back to Israel, as the parable of the pounds teaches.
On Tobit 65Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The word of God is the good lender’s money, bearing a hundredfold and earning the kingdom.
On Tobit 73Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The garment is the poverty of the preacher and the seamless tunic of Christ, the gospel divided among the evangelists as by lot.
On Tobit 83Ambrose · ca. 380-390 · The mill and upper millstone the law forbids to be pledged signify the study of Scripture and Christ the cornerstone.
Theological Oration 3 (Or. 29), On the Son 17Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Gregory lists the lofty biblical titles of the Son, God, Word, Wisdom, Power, Image, Lord, which show his eternal Godhead.
Theological Oration 3 (Or. 29), On the Son 18Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · The lowly biblical statements about Christ refer to his human nature assumed for our salvation, the lofty ones to his Godhead.
Theological Oration 4 (Or. 30), On the Son 1Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Gregory announces that he will answer, one by one, the biblical texts the Eunomians use against the Son’s Godhead.
Theological Oration 4 (Or. 30), On the Son 2Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Prov 8:22, “The Lord created me,” refers to Christ’s humanity, which has a cause, our salvation; “he begets me” refers to his uncaused Godhead.
Theological Oration 4 (Or. 30), On the Son 10Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Gregory distinguishes the many senses of “cannot” in Scripture before explaining John 5:19.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 21Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Gregory replies to the charge that the Spirit’s Godhead is unscriptural by first discussing how Scripture uses things and names.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 22Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Scripture speaks of God sleeping, being angry, walking, and sitting enthroned, figures drawn from human life for things that are not literally so.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 23Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · The Eunomians’ own key terms, “unbegotten” and “without beginning,” are not in Scripture by name but are inferred from it, as is the Spirit’s Godhead.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 24Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Scripture implies truths it does not state in so many words; Gregory will now explain why the Spirit’s Godhead was revealed gradually.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 25Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · God led humanity gradually, from idols to the Law and from the Law to the gospel, persuading rather than forcing.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 26Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Revelation of the Trinity was gradual: the Old Testament showed the Father, the New the Son, and now the Spirit makes himself clearer, as Jesus himself revealed him step by step.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 27Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · The Spirit’s Godhead was among the things the disciples could not yet bear, which Jesus promised the Spirit would teach them later.
Theological Oration 5 (Or. 31), On the Holy Spirit 29Gregory of Nazianzus · 380 · Gregory gathers the many scriptural titles and works of the Holy Spirit, which show him to be God.
Homily 3.1Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · The two women grinding are explained as the two Testaments working together like upper and lower millstones in the Church, while the synagogue grinds uselessly with one stone.
Homily 41.1Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · Israel's journey from bitter Marah to Elim, with its twelve springs and seventy palms, figures the passage from the law to the Gospel: the springs are the twelve apostles, the palms the seventy disciples and the martyrs' victory.
Homily 45.1Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · The title of Psalm 22 (Latin 21), “for the morning help,” is explained: as dawn comes before sunrise, Christ the sun of righteousness and his apostles first enlighten sinners with simple teaching.
Homily 55.1Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · The passion and resurrection were prefigured in the Old Testament: Eve from Adam's side, Abel, the ram caught in the thicket, Elisha's bones, and above all Jonah, whom the sea monster could not consume; therefore redeemed man should value himself and resist vice.
Homily 84.2Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · Joseph's devotion in burying Christ is compared to Mary's in bearing him; the 'open sepulchre' is read as the evangelists' mouths, and Mary Magdalene's question is read as unwitting prophecy of the ascension.
Sermon 15.1Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · Expounding the first temptation, Maximus shows Christ outwitting the devil by feigned hunger and answering that man lives by God's word, contrasts the deadly food of Adam, Esau and Judas with the bread that is Christ, and urges Lent be spent reading Scripture.
Sermon 106.1Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · After Christmas the preacher offers the 'leftovers' of the feast: like the loaves multiplied for the five thousand, the Scriptures are never exhausted but grow as they are shared.
Sermon 110.1Maximus of Turin · ca. 400-465 · Scripture, inspired by God, teaches and rebukes; Christ's word on adultery in the heart (Matt 5:28) guards chastity by forestalling sin at the very glance of the eyes.
Chapter 13Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas calls the creed a covenant with the Lord, a brief summary gathered from all Scripture like gems in a crown, for those who cannot read the Scriptures.
Fragment 1Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas says that those preparing for baptism need simple instructions drawn from Scripture on what they renounce, desire, receive and must keep.
Chapter 1Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas traces sacred song back to Moses’ song at the Red Sea, sung by choirs of men and women, to Deborah, and to Moses’ warning song in Deuteronomy.
Chapter 3Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas praises the Psalms as a medicine for every age and condition, sweetened by song, and containing all that the prophets and gospels teach.
Chapter 4Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas lists the moral teaching of the Psalms and their prophecies of Christ, from his generation and passion to his resurrection, session, return in judgment and the eternal kingdom.
Chapter 9Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas compares the vigil’s psalms, prayers and readings to a varied banquet for the soul.
Chapter 11Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas tells his hearers not to pray privately during the readings, citing Mary of Bethany, and to follow the deacon’s calls so that all act together.
Chapter 3Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas answers that Christ said only that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father,” and that John 1:3, spoken by the Spirit himself, concerns creatures, not the Spirit.
Chapter 4Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana · ca. 380–414 · Nicetas shows the antiquity of vigils from Isaiah and David’s psalms of prayer by night and at midnight.
Liber Orsiesii 51Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · The monks must read, learn and meditate on the Scriptures continually, as Pachomius commanded.
Liber Orsiesii 52Orsiesius · ca. 380-390 · Scripture urges the young to take up the yoke early, with the examples of Joshua, David, Timothy, Daniel and Joseph.
Book of Heresies 36.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Cerinthus rejected Paul, Acts and three gospels.
Book of Heresies 45.5Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Marcion accepted only Luke's gospel.
Book of Heresies 60.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some reject John's gospel and Apocalypse.
Book of Heresies 60.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · They ascribe John's writings to Cerinthus.
Book of Heresies 88.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some use only apocryphal books and reject the canonical Scriptures.
Book of Heresies 88.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Readers of the apocrypha teach against the canonical Scriptures.
Book of Heresies 88.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Manichees and Gnostics prefer apocryphal Acts to the canon.
Book of Heresies 88.4Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Philastrius lists the books to be read in the catholic church.
Book of Heresies 88.5Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The apocrypha may be read by the mature but not by all.
Book of Heresies 88.6Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Manichees use apocryphal Acts of Andrew, John, Peter and Paul.
Book of Heresies 89.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some ascribe Hebrews to Barnabas or Clement.
Book of Heresies 89.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some ascribe Hebrews to Luke; the letter to the Laodiceans is not read in church.
Book of Heresies 89.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Hebrews is doubted for its style, its word “made”, and its teaching on repentance.
Book of Heresies 89.4Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Hebrews calls Christ “made” in his body, not his divinity.
Book of Heresies 119.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Deuteronomy repeats the earlier law.
Book of Heresies 129.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some deny that David was a prophet of Christ.
Book of Heresies 129.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · David, as prophet, summed up all things in the first psalm.
Book of Heresies 130.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some deny that David wrote the Psalter because of its disorder.
Book of Heresies 130.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The psalms are not in historical order.
Book of Heresies 130.4Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Though other names appear in the titles, the Psalter belongs to David.
Book of Heresies 130.5Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The disorder arose from the destruction of Scriptures in captivities.
Book of Heresies 130.6Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Priests later arranged the recovered psalms as they found them.
Book of Heresies 130.7Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Spiritually the psalms speak of Christ throughout.
Book of Heresies 134.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some reject Ecclesiastes.
Book of Heresies 134.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · They stumble at Ecclesiastes' sayings on vanity.
Book of Heresies 135.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some think the Song of Songs is about human pleasures.
Book of Heresies 135.4Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Song reveals in Christ's light what the law showed in shadow.
Book of Heresies 142.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some prefer Aquila's version to the Septuagint.
Book of Heresies 142.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Aquila's version differs at Ps 2:2 and Isa 7:14.
Book of Heresies 142.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Jews use Aquila because he made Christ a mere prophet.
Book of Heresies 142.4Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The church holds to the Septuagint and treats Aquila as secondary.
Book of Heresies 142.5Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Ptolemy asked for translators to be sent to Alexandria.
Book of Heresies 142.6Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The seventy-two translated the Hebrew into Greek.
Book of Heresies 142.7Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Ptolemy had each translator work alone.
Book of Heresies 142.8Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The separate translations agreed, and the version was placed in the temple.
Book of Heresies 143.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some accept the translation of “the Thirty”.
Book of Heresies 143.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The church does not receive that translation.
Book of Heresies 144.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some follow the translation of “the Six”.
Book of Heresies 145.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some follow Theodotion and Symmachus.
Book of Heresies 146.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some follow versions found in a jar.
Book of Heresies 150.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · Some read Song 6:8 literally of Solomon's women.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 0Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · The author explains that he divided Paul's fourteen letters into numbered sections and composed ninety short canons, each followed by the numbers of the sections that support it.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 68Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · What happened in the Old Testament was a figure of us.
Eleven Tractates 1.4Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Christ ascended and opened the way to heaven; three bear witness in heaven and on earth; they will answer point by point, and they anathematize the Patripassian heresy.
Eleven Tractates 1.9Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Those who misread the beasts fall into idolatry; Christians, interpreting prophecy through Christ, reject all such covenants with beasts.
Eleven Tractates 1.13Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The beasts of Scripture are parables written for us, so that we may reject the vices they signify; Revelation and Paul identify them with spiritual powers of evil.
Eleven Tractates 1.14Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · They hold to the creed and renunciation of the devil made at baptism, and read Scripture's beasts as figures of the devil.
Eleven Tractates 1.27Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · They condemn the Ophites and all heresies by name, whether drawn from canonical or apocryphal writings.
Eleven Tractates 1.32Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Even Balaam, an idolater, prophesied Christ, and Scripture keeps his words; testimony to Christ is accepted from whatever source.
Eleven Tractates 1.36Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Christ is head over all; whatever writing, under any name, preaches Christ as God in agreement with Moses, the prophets, and the gospels is accepted, and whatever denies him is rejected.
Eleven Tractates 1.38Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · They reject any 'fifth gospel' and hold the four gospels and the creed of the church.
Eleven Tractates 1.39Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Prophecy was not closed at a fixed limit; Scripture itself (Luke, Tobit, Jude citing Enoch) shows prophets beyond the canonical books.
Eleven Tractates 2.52Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · On the disputed writings, they hold that whatever preaches Christ in agreement with the canon cannot be condemned, and whatever contradicts it must be.
Eleven Tractates 2.53Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Hydatius himself said at Saragossa only that superfluous writings should not be read; Priscillian asks Damasus for a hearing.
Eleven Tractates 3.56Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The apostles read books outside the canon: Jude quotes the prophecy of Enoch.
Eleven Tractates 3.57Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Enoch is attested as a prophet by Hebrews; condemning a prophet whom the apostles accept for the sake of quarrels is not peace but rashness.
Eleven Tractates 3.58Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Tobit calls Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob prophets, though no prophetic books of theirs stand in the canon.
Eleven Tractates 3.59Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The patriarchs are honoured in Scripture; in non-canonical books, heretical insertions should be removed like tares, not the whole book rejected.
Eleven Tractates 3.60Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Jesus' words about the blood of all the prophets, and Elijah's complaint, presuppose histories of martyred prophets that the canon does not record.
Eleven Tractates 3.61Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Matthew's 'out of Egypt I called my son' is cited from a prophet that Priscillian does not find in the canon.
Eleven Tractates 3.62Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · A book whose testimony fulfils the canon cannot be condemned; heresy arises from disputing the creed instead of believing it.
Eleven Tractates 3.63Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Christ is one, not divided; Paul and Daniel both quote words of God not found elsewhere in the canon.
Eleven Tractates 3.64Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Canonical writers cite prophecies not found in the canon, such as Ezekiel's reference to earlier prophets about Gog.
Eleven Tractates 3.65Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Chronicles cites the books of many prophets—Nathan, Ahijah, Iddo, Jehu—that are not in the canon.
Eleven Tractates 3.66Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Faced with opponents who demand that unread books be condemned, Priscillian follows Christ's command to search the Scriptures, keeping the better and rejecting the worse.
Eleven Tractates 3.67Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Heretics have falsified some non-canonical books, so they must be tested by the confession of Christ; Ezra, preserved by God, rewrote the burned Scriptures.
Eleven Tractates 3.68Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The book telling of Ezra's rewriting of the Scriptures is not canonical, yet must be trusted, since the canon could not otherwise have been restored.
Eleven Tractates 3.69Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Following the Bereans who checked the Scriptures, Priscillian reads prophecies cited by Scripture, delighting that Christ was foretold by all.
Eleven Tractates 3.70Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · As the stones would cry out, so the saints cannot be silenced from testifying to Christ; even pagans trust their omens.
Eleven Tractates 3.71Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Pagans trust their augurs; Christians must not quench prophecy, for Christ was foretold by all the patriarchs from Adam on.
Eleven Tractates 3.72Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The apostle himself told the Colossians to read the letter from Laodicea, which is not in the canon.
Eleven Tractates 3.73Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Such books should not be given to the unskilled, since heretics have falsified many, but they are no more to be condemned than Scripture itself, which heretics also misuse.
Eleven Tractates 3.74Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · It is the heretical interpretation, not the writing, that should be condemned.
Eleven Tractates 5.82Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · A homily on Genesis 1: Moses, raised by his enemies and made God's friend, began the canon.
Eleven Tractates 5.90Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The days of creation are applied to the soul: light of knowledge, the firmament of the commandments, fruitfulness, and the perfect week of the church.
Eleven Tractates 6.92Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · A homily on the Passover of Exodus 12: Scripture must be interpreted, and it has a threefold sense, the first of which disciplines the flesh.
Eleven Tractates 6.93Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Scripture's second sense forms the soul, the third shows God in man; the law's offerings of days, animals, and fruits signify the purification of body and spirit.
Eleven Tractates 6.95Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The two testaments have one author and agree: the old purifies the body, the new instructs the soul.
Eleven Tractates 6.96Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · In the old testament the Passover required animals and dates; in the new, Christ himself is offered on the cross.
Eleven Tractates 8.118Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · A homily on Psalm 3: the story of David fleeing Absalom must be read spiritually, as a figure of ourselves.
Eleven Tractates 8.119Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The inner man must be renewed by meditating on Scripture; the order of the psalms is itself meaningful.
Eleven Tractates 10.124Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · A homily on Psalm 60: the psalm's wars are written to teach us to keep a pure conscience amid the wars of the vices.
Eleven Tractates 10.125Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Armed by faith, the believer returns wholly to God; all Scripture describes the whole man, and we are gathered after death with those whose example we follow.
Eleven Tractates 10.127Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · Scripture speaks through visible things so that every believer may recognize that it was written about himself, and that friendship with the world is enmity with God.
Eleven Tractates 10.135Priscillian · ca. 380–385 · The two testaments correspond to discipline and grace; our life lies between two kingdoms, the world's and God's.
Section 36Anonymous · 3 September 381 · Ambrose accuses Palladius of misquoting John 14:28 and explains the Father as greater only according to Christ's flesh.
Section 70Anonymous · 3 September 381 · Secundianus objects that "true God" is not written of the Son in Scripture.
Pilgrimage (Itinerarium) 25.1Egeria · ca. 381-395 · On Sunday the presbyters and bishop preach in Constantine's great church.
Pilgrimage (Itinerarium) 37.5Egeria · ca. 381-395 · From the sixth to the ninth hour passages on the passion are read.
Pilgrimage (Itinerarium) 37.6Egeria · ca. 381-395 · The readings show prophecy fulfilled in the passion.
Pilgrimage (Itinerarium) 46.2Egeria · ca. 381-395 · The bishop expounds all Scripture, literally and spiritually, during Lent.
Pilgrimage (Itinerarium) 47.4Egeria · ca. 381-395 · Readings are interpreted into Syriac, and bilingual helpers explain in Latin.
On the Complaints of Job and David 1.12Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · The aging mountains are the Old Testament, made old by Christ’s new covenant; the Jews, not knowing this, crucified the Lord.
On the Complaints of Job and David 3.2Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · The psalm is David’s, given to Asaph to sing; the puzzle of the title is set aside to study the psalm itself.
On the Complaints of Job and David 4.18Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · The deep of the Old Testament called to the deep of the New, which Christ fulfilled; Christ and Scripture are the refuge in temptation.
On the Complaints of Job and David 4.24Ambrose · ca. 383-390 · Ambrose rejects the addition of “Lord” to Christ’s last words, which were addressed to the Father.
Petition to the Emperors (Libellus precum) 27Faustinus · ca. 383–384 · The petitioners reject the name "Luciferians": they follow Christ, not a man, and Lucifer taught nothing new; his books against Constantius were praised and translated by Athanasius.
Against Helvidius 7Jerome · ca. 383 · Two Old Testament examples of "up to this day" show that such phrases do not imply a later change.
Against Helvidius 8Jerome · ca. 383 · Jerome argues that Joseph, after all the signs at Christ's birth, would not have dared approach Mary, and defends Luke 2:33 against Helvidius's charge of corruption.
Apology of the Prophet David 11Ambrose · ca. 384-390 · Many Old Testament events are figures, as Paul shows with the bronze serpent and Abraham’s two sons; so too Jacob’s two wives and Judah’s twins.
Apology of the Prophet David 41Ambrose · ca. 384-390 · David wrote Psalm 51 (Vulgate 50) about this sin, placing it before psalms about earlier events.
On the Life of Moses 371Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · The victory over Amalek is won by God himself through Joshua, a type of Jesus, the true successor of Moses; Moses’ raised hands are the spiritual understanding of the law, held up by the priesthood, and form the sign of the cross; so strengthened, the soul is led to the mountain of the knowledge of God.
On the Life of Moses 399Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–395 · Gregory asks why Moses, who already spoke with God face to face, asks to see him; the request to see God and the answer about the rock and God’s back cannot be taken literally, since a God with front and back would be a body and so corruptible.
Exposition of Psalm 118 0.1.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Ambrose introduces Psalm 118 as the chief moral psalm of David, the great teacher of ethics.
Exposition of Psalm 118 0.3.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The title Alleluia means praise of God; Psalms 110 and 111 (Greek numbering) are also alphabetic.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.3.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Solomon’s three books follow the order moral, natural, mystical, though each contains the others.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.11.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Like Elisha’s servant, the reader of the prophets has his eyes opened to see the angels around him.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.11.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Whoever will not read or hear the prophets shuts his own eyes to the God who knocks at his heart.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.11.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Those who come to church but ignore the readings blind themselves willingly.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.27.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The hidden treasure is the word of Scripture; whoever betrays it, like Hezekiah to the Babylonians, loses his spiritual offspring.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.29.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The psalmist asks God himself to teach him the hidden meaning of the law’s statutes.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.31.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Scripture does not contradict itself: the unsearchable judgments are not called the judgments of his mouth.
Exposition of Psalm 118 2.31.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · God’s hidden judgments are unsearchable; the judgments of his mouth are those spoken by the prophets, though only Christ opens them.
Exposition of Psalm 118 3.19.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · As the Word took a lowly form, so God’s words appear to us now as in a mirror, until perfect truth comes.
Exposition of Psalm 118 3.22.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Only Christ removes the veil that hinders the reading of Scripture; when one turns to the Lord it is taken away.
Exposition of Psalm 118 3.23.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Only Jesus opens our eyes, as at Emmaus and on the mountain of the Transfiguration.
Exposition of Psalm 118 3.24.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Moses’ rod turned serpent and back again prefigured Christ’s cross and resurrection, a mystery Moses did not grasp.
Exposition of Psalm 118 4.13.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Ambrose explains the Greek word behind “I will be exercised”, which usually means to ramble or talk at length.
Exposition of Psalm 118 4.13.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The word means long meditation, a lengthy exercise of the mind in Scripture.
Exposition of Psalm 118 4.15.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · On verse 28: Ambrose discusses the variant “slumbered” and “dripped”, and says the perfect man never slumbers.
Exposition of Psalm 118 4.16.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Following Origen, Ambrose prefers “dripped”: the well-built soul, like a sound roof, does not leak.
Exposition of Psalm 118 4.28.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Ezekiel’s wheel within a wheel is the New Testament within the Old, carried by the apostles to the four quarters.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.24.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ is reached only through the law; heretics who reject the Old Testament cannot hold Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.27.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · On verse 36: Ambrose notes the variant reading “profit” for “greed.”
Exposition of Psalm 118 6.9.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Word comes suddenly to enlighten the mind of one puzzling over Scripture.
Exposition of Psalm 118 6.9.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Word comes and goes in the reader’s heart, returning to those who seek him.
Exposition of Psalm 118 6.24.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ, the interpreter, stands behind the wall of the Old Testament and looks through the law and the prophets.
Exposition of Psalm 118 6.24.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · From the spiritual sense of Scripture Christ calls the church beyond a literal reading.
Exposition of Psalm 118 7.7.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · God’s word is the life of the soul; as the word grows in it, so does its life.
Exposition of Psalm 118 7.25.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · What is sung clings to memory; like clean animals chewing the cud, we should ruminate on Scripture.
Exposition of Psalm 118 7.32.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The penitent washes his bed with tears; we should give most of the night to reading and prayer.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.2.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · On verse 57: Ambrose explains that this verse begins Heth, though many manuscripts put it at the end of Zain.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.17.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The law showed Christ only in figures; the gospel shows him face to face, and in baptism we die to the law to belong to the risen Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.60.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · There is one master; God teaches whoever opens his heart and seeks.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.60.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Only Christ, the Lamb who opens the sealed book, opens the obscure Scriptures to those who knock.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.61.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Those who deny Christ, the author of knowledge, cannot have the key to the Scriptures.
Exposition of Psalm 118 9.13.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · On verse 67: Ambrose rejects a variant reading taken by some to mean the soul existed before entering the body, and follows the Septuagint.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.12.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Some manuscripts read “fashioned me,” as in Job; the psalmist asks God to remember our weakness.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.19.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Understanding comes before learning; reading without understanding profits nothing.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.20.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Understanding a parable or the literal sense should not make us proud.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.20.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Even David, anointed with the Spirit, asked God for understanding, as the apostles asked Jesus to explain the parables.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.34.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · On verse 76: God’s mercy not only forgives but exhorts those who strive; the psalmist asks for strength, not relief.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.39.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Whoever meditates on the law is taught by God; the righteous speak wisdom with the word near in mouth and heart.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.39.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Bishops above all must meditate on Scripture to teach and refute, as Paul told Titus and Timothy.
Exposition of Psalm 118 11.9.5Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · We should strain toward Scripture’s meaning, like watching a ship approach until we reach the harbor of truth.
Exposition of Psalm 118 11.11.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Studying the word is not idleness; wisdom is a work like the other cardinal virtues.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.2.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Scripture must be read spiritually, without mixing earthly notions into God’s pure words.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.2.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Like good money-changers we must test Scripture’s silver and store up heavenly treasure.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.4.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Understanding is our treasure; Christ, in whom wisdom is hidden, opens the closed meaning of Scripture.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.5.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · God’s word abides in heaven and should abide in us, kept and meditated on.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.7.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Ambrose notes that the Greek phrase in Ps 119:89 is translated both “for ever” and “for the age.”
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.7.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Ambrose weighs the readings “for the age” and “for ever” against Christ’s saying that his words will not pass away.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.28.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The prophet’s meditation on the law was the oil of his light.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.28.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Humiliation can be affliction, not virtue; meditation on the law prepares us for it.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.28.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Like athletes we must train daily in the Scriptures to be ready for the adversary.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.28.5Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Trained by meditation, the believer can endure every kind of adversity and repeat the psalm’s words.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.33.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Daily reading of Scripture is the soul’s training and food against temptation.
Exposition of Psalm 118 12.45.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · On the eighth verse, Ambrose distinguishes Greek words for “end” and “consummation.”
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.2.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · God is a fire that consumes sin and kindles love of knowledge when we read Scripture.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.2.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · This fire burned in Cleopas’s heart when Christ opened the Scriptures; Ezekiel speaks of it melting base metals.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.4.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Neither the Marcionite nor the Jew can truly love the law; only the Christian, who reads it spiritually, can.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.7.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Meditate on the law with the care one uses in buying property, for you are acquiring yourself.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.7.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Take Moses, the prophets, the apostles and Christ the great Counselor as advisers.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.7.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · David gave all his time to meditation on the law, not to worldly gain.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.8.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The blessed man meditates day and night, for the day is too short for the law.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.8.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · For one who meditates in the law it is always day.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.9.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Those who reject the New Testament read in the dark; Christ bids us walk in the day.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.23.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The church’s honeycomb is the good words gathered by the prophets.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.23.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Scripture’s mystical sense is strong bread; its moral sense is sweet honey that comforts the penitent.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.26.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Reading Scripture without its spiritual sense leaves the reader ignorant of its pasture and dangers.
Exposition of Psalm 118 14.2.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The pastures yield the flowers of resurrection and the Lord’s blood, and the food of daily Scripture reading.
Exposition of Psalm 118 14.9.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Where there is no darkness the Word is light, not a lamp: a lamp in the law, a great light in the Gospel.
Exposition of Psalm 118 14.11.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Let faith and Scripture guide each step, and light your own lamp from the word.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.2.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Hearing must be spiritual, for the law is spiritual.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.2.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Hearing means understanding; the careless hearer is like Malchus whose ear Peter cut off.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.13.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The doves’ eyes are spiritual men keen to see the mysteries of Scripture, pure and without guile.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.18.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · God’s word is a word of righteousness, though some sayings seem troubling.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.18.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The “precepts not good” were imperfect precepts suited to the weak; the perfect ones came in the Gospel.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.28.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Spiritual teeth break up the hard letter of Scripture so that it nourishes rather than chokes.
Exposition of Psalm 118 16.28.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Chew the word carefully and take in only the living word.
Exposition of Psalm 118 17.7.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ spoke through the prophets and fulfilled their word in the Gospel.
Exposition of Psalm 118 17.10.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Read prophet and apostle first, then the Gospel with its stronger precepts, such as love of enemies.
Exposition of Psalm 118 17.37.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Ambrose notes a Greek variant, “brought down” versus “went down,” differing by two letters.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.19.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Christ’s fire kindles knowledge and devotion, as in Jeremiah and the disciples at Emmaus.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.36.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The law read spiritually is true; the killing letter without the Spirit is false.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.25.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Instructed in both Testaments, the church holds Christ in prayer and kisses him in psalmody.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.31.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Jews recite Scripture night and day; Christians, taught by Christ, are shamed by their sloth.
Exposition of Psalm 118 20.56.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Truth, the beginning of God’s words, is the foundation of faith.
Exposition of Psalm 118 21.2.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The soul’s wounds are healed by the remedies of God’s word and law.
Exposition of Psalm 118 21.12.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The church has found the spoils of the Old Testament books, Christ and Paul.
Exposition of Psalm 118 21.12.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The law is spiritual; without Christ the books lack their sense.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.14.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Greek reads “my dignity”; the Christian has dignity as a soldier of Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.17.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Scripture is a feast, stronger in law and Gospel, sweeter in Psalms and Song.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.19.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Feed daily on Scripture so as to overflow with praise.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.20.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · We will give account for idle words; it is dangerous to talk of worldly things when Scripture offers so much.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.23.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Doctors forbid fasting and vigils; whoever seeks God’s salvation follows Christ and meditates on the law day and night.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.27.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Greek reads “seek your servant,” fitting the lost sheep sought by the shepherd.
Exposition of Psalm 118 22.33.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Only the church holds both Testaments, unlike the synagogue and the Manichees.
Against the Academics 2.5Augustine of Hippo · 386 (autumn) · Augustine tells how certain books of the Platonists set him on fire for philosophy and how he then turned back to the religion of his childhood and read the apostle Paul through.
Letter 21.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Valerius for leave to study the Scriptures, which he now sees he needs in order to minister the sacrament and the word.
Letter 21.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says he knows what is needed for his own salvation but not how to minister it to others, and asks for time until Easter to study the Scriptures.
Letter 25.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus, older in years but young in faith, asks Augustine to be his father in spiritual learning and to support him with his prayers.
Letter 28.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Jerome to translate the Greek commentators on Scripture, but not to make new Latin versions from the Hebrew, except with critical signs showing differences from the Septuagint.
Letter 28.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine objects to Jerome's commentary on Galatians, which explains the clash between Paul and Peter as a staged pretence, arguing that admitting any lie in Scripture would destroy its authority.
Letter 28.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that if Paul could lie in rebuking Peter, heretics could claim his teaching on marriage was also a lie, and that Paul himself treats falsehood about God as a crime.
Letter 28.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Jerome to reinterpret the texts used to justify useful lies, and asks him to read and frankly criticize the writings Profuturus brings.
Letter 36.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine gives his own view: fasting is commanded in the New Testament, but no days are fixed, and relaxing the fast on Saturday better signifies eternal rest.
Letter 40.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine objects that Jerome's view of Gal 2, that Paul's rebuke of Peter was a dutiful pretence, would destroy the authority of Scripture.
Letter 40.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that Paul's becoming 'as a Jew' was an act of compassion, not pretence, and that he kept the Jewish rites without hope of salvation in them.
Letter 40.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine holds that Paul truly rebuked Peter for compelling Gentiles to judaize, and that admitting a lie in Scripture would make it all doubtful.
Letter 40.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges Jerome to retract his interpretation, comparing the truth Christians die for with the Helen of the Greeks.
Letter 44.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine proposes a quiet conference on a jointly owned estate, with the canonical Scriptures and documents at hand.
Letter 54.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine tells Januarius that Christ gave few and simple sacraments, and that customs observed by the whole church come from the apostles or plenary councils.
Letter 55.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that figurative expressions kindle love more than plain statements, because the mind is quickened by passing from images to spiritual realities.
Letter 55.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that of the Ten Commandments only the sabbath is to be kept figuratively, as spiritual rest, while the others are kept literally.
Letter 55.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine deplores the multiplication of local observances not grounded in Scripture, councils, or universal custom, and would abolish them where possible.
Letter 55.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine disapproves of using the Gospels for fortune-telling by lot, though it is better than consulting demons.
Letter 55.38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rejects Januarius's flattery that nothing escapes him, confessing that he does not know far more of Scripture than he knows, but finds love in every passage.
Letter 64.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rebukes Quintianus for having non-canonical scriptures read in church and clarifies the council's rules on receiving clergy and monks.
Letter 68.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome tells Augustine that a letter attributed to him, urging Jerome to retract on Galatians, has circulated in copies, and asks whether it is genuine.
Letter 71.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Jerome why his new translation of Job from the Hebrew seems less exact than his earlier one from the Greek, marked with asterisks and obelisks.
Letter 71.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges Jerome to translate the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew, fearing that a version from the Hebrew will divide Latin from Greek churches.
Letter 71.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reports a riot at Oea over Jerome's rendering in Jonah, praises his revision of the Gospels from the Greek, and asks him to translate the Septuagint.
Letter 72.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome accuses Augustine of provoking an old man, hints that his commentaries on the Psalms differ from the Greek interpreters, and asks that future letters come to him first.
Letter 75.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome answers that his view of Peter and Paul at Antioch (Gal 2) was taken from Origen and other Greek commentators and left to the reader’s judgment.
Letter 75.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome insists that the Jewish ceremonies are deadly to all Christians, Jewish or Gentile, citing the Gospels, Jeremiah, Paul, and Ezekiel.
Letter 75.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome explains the asterisks and obeli of his earlier translation from the Hexaplaric Septuagint and defends his new translation from the Hebrew.
Letter 75.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome turns Augustine’s dilemma about the Septuagint against Augustine’s own commentary on the Psalms and defends his translation from the Hebrew.
Letter 75.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome defends his rendering ‘ivy’ for the plant of Jonah 4:6 and asks Augustine to leave an old man in peace.
Letter 82.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine states that he believes only the canonical Scriptures to be free of all error, while other writers, however holy, are to be judged by Scripture and reason.
Letter 82.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that if Paul’s account of rebuking Peter was a pretence, no statement of Scripture could be trusted.
Letter 82.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rejects the idea that it is better to think Paul wrote falsely than that Peter erred, since by that logic the Gospels and Kings would lie about Peter’s denial and David’s sin.
Letter 82.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine warns that admitting deliberate falsehood in the apostles would hand the Manichaeans an argument against Scripture.
Letter 82.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that either Paul lied in Galatians or Peter really acted wrongly, and he chooses to believe Paul wrote the truth.
Letter 82.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine insists that the authors of canonical Scripture never lie, and praises Paul’s just freedom and Peter’s humility in accepting correction as the better answer to Porphyry.
Letter 82.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine names Ambrose and Cyprian on his side but appeals above all to Paul’s own oath in Galatians that he does not lie.
Letter 82.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Jerome which Jews he meant had corrupted the text, and requests his translation from the Septuagint and his book on translation.
Letter 82.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that he opposes reading Jerome’s Hebrew-based translation in church only to avoid scandal, and would keep ‘gourd’ in Jonah.
Letter 93.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The writings of bishops such as Hilary, Cyprian and Agrippinus do not have canonical authority and may be disagreed with.
Letter 93.38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Cyprian's view on rebaptism is found only in his own writings, not Scripture; he may have corrected it, and some even think it forged.
Letter 95.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine finds Scripture hard to grasp and frank criticism among brothers easily misread as envy; he longs for the solitude of the wilderness.
Letter 102.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · One may ask what Jonah's story signifies, but first believe it happened; God speaks by deeds as well as words.
Letter 102.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Psalm 22's prophecy of the mocked worm and of the nations' conversion is fulfilled; other details of Jonah may be variously explained, but the three days must be read as Christ taught.
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 119.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Consentius writes to Augustine that divine truth must be grasped by faith rather than reason, as the errors of the Arians and Macedonians show.
Letter 120.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine sets out the rule of faith on the Trinity, tells Consentius to reject every bodily image of God, and urges him to love understanding.
Letter 121.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus of Nola sends Augustine a set of questions on difficult passages of Scripture.
Letter 121.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus asks for an explanation of Psalm 17:14 and its variant readings “pork” and “sons.”
Letter 121.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus asks about the “crown of the hair” and the “tongue of your dogs” in Psalm 68.
Letter 121.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus asks what Colossians 2:18 means by the “religion of angels,” suggesting it refers to heretics who teach doctrines of demons.
Letter 121.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus suggests that the sword of Simeon's prophecy is the word of God, and asks how it relates to the revealing of the thoughts of many hearts.
Letter 129.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The bishops hope that the Donatists, having searched the Scriptures, will see that they foretell a worldwide church and none confined to Africa.
Letter 132.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges Volusian to read the Scriptures, especially the apostles, and to write to him with any questions.
Letter 137.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine disclaims the reputation of knowing everything: the depth of Scripture is such that even a lifetime's study leaves one only beginning.
Letter 137.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The order of history from Abraham through Israel's story, foretelling Christ in all its promises and rites, should move the mind to believe.
Letter 137.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Scripture's style is lowly and accessible yet profound, feeding all with plain truth and exercising them with hidden truth.
Letter 138.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The change from Old to New Testament sacraments shows no change in God; it was foretold by the Psalms and by Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant.
Letter 140.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · God gave the Old Testament with its earthly promises to show that temporal goods too are his gifts, but the saints of old belonged to the New Testament, which was hidden in figures.
Letter 140.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The distinction between 'men' and 'sons of men' is not a fixed rule but follows the context; here 'But I' marks Christ off from the fathers delivered under the Old Testament.
Letter 140.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · James contrasts Job's endurance, rewarded with temporal goods, with 'the end of the Lord', teaching Christians to hope for eternal goods; the veil of the Old Testament is removed in Christ.
Letter 140.36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine expounds Psalm 22:12–14 of the passion: the bulls are the rulers, the scattered bones the apostles, and the melting heart either the fear and grief of Christ's weak members or the opening of the Scriptures.
Letter 140.47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · 'All the seed of Jacob' includes all who believe in Christ, the children of promise prefigured by Isaac, not Ishmael.
Letter 140.85Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine urges Honoratus to persuade such people that every good, even love of God, is God's gift, so that they may glory in the Lord; he closes by commending reading and prayer, for the inner light is the true teacher.
Letter 143.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says that his own books, unlike Scripture, may contain errors; he writes as he progresses and plans a work correcting whatever in them displeases him.
Letter 143.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine holds the soul immortal and created but admits uncertainty about its origin, inviting correction by sure reason or clear Scripture, which can never truly conflict.
Letter 143.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Whoever wants to defend one view of the soul's origin must offer unambiguous Scripture or undeniable reasoning; otherwise Augustine's hesitation should not be blamed.
Letter 147.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Paulina to listen with the inner self, which does not age, and to believe not his authority but the canonical Scriptures or the truth seen within.
Letter 147.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine distinguishes seeing with the body (the sun) from seeing with the mind (one's own life and will), and notes that we believe God will be seen only because Scripture says so.
Letter 147.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · What is not seen by body or mind can only be believed; the canonical Scriptures must be believed without doubt, while other testimony is weighed on its merits.
Letter 147.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Much ordinary knowledge (history, one's parentage) rests on others' testimony; errors there are harmless unless they touch the faith, but nothing should be rashly believed.
Letter 147.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Reading 'no one' as 'no one of men' explains how angels see God, but not how Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and others are said to have seen him.
Letter 147.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reminds Paulina that his and Ambrose's words carry far less weight than canonical Scripture, though he shares Ambrose's view.
Letter 147.40Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulina may hesitate over Augustine's interpretations, but she believes Scripture unconditionally; and she sees within herself her faith, doubt, and desire to learn.
Letter 147.54Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine closes: the views of Ambrose and Jerome are not Scripture but should restrain hasty critics; the essential lesson is to prepare a pure heart to see God.
Letter 148.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The Fathers' writings, though not canonical Scripture, agree with what Augustine firmly believes: God is incorporeal, indivisible, and invisible by nature, appearing only in assumed forms.
Letter 149.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reports the Greek readings of Psalm 17:14 ('destroying' or 'from a few') and interprets 'from a few' as the separation of unbelieving Israel from the believing remnant, the Church.
Letter 149.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine prefers the reading 'filled with sons' to 'filled with pork' in Psalm 17:14, taking 'sons' as works by which the wicked are known, as good works are the twin offspring of love.
Letter 149.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine confirms from Greek manuscripts the genitive 'of sons' in Psalm 17:14 and links 'left their remains to their little ones' with Matthew 27:25.
Letter 149.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · On Psalm 16:3 Augustine prefers 'in them' to 'among them' and takes God's 'wills' as the free gifts of grace, made wonderful in the saints.
Letter 149.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reads Psalm 59:11 ('Do not kill them … scatter them') as foretelling the preservation and dispersion of the Jews, who keep the Scriptures as witnesses to the prophecies of Christ.
Letter 149.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains Psalm 68:21 as hyperbole for overweening pride, and the 'tongue of your dogs' (68:23) as converted enemies who now bark in God's defense.
Letter 149.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine turns to 1 Timothy 2:1, noting that the Greek uses different words (παρακαλῶ, δεήσεις) where some Latin copies repeat 'beseech.'
Letter 149.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine discusses the Latin words for the kinds of prayer in 1 Timothy 2:1 and their Greek equivalents, rejecting 'adorations' as a rendering of προσευχάς.
Letter 149.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine notes that 'intercessions' and 'requests' both render the Greek ἐντεύξεις, the same word used of Christ interceding for us.
Letter 149.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reads 'Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle' (Colossians 2:21) as Paul's ironic quotation of false teachers, not his own command.
Letter 149.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine closes, noting that Scripture's obscurities allow varied interpretations consistent with sound faith, and sends greetings, including to a young Paulinus recently arrived after a storm.
Letter 180.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul's rebuke of Peter in Gal 2:14 is plain speech, not figure, and must be true.
Letter 190.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The proof-texts offered for the creation of new souls, including Eccl 12:7, can all be answered by the traducianists, so Scripture leaves the question open.
Letter 193.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine would welcome correction from more learned interpreters, since other texts suggest all must die before resurrection, and his own writings have no canonical authority.
Letter 194.47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Sixtus to report further Pelagian arguments and his own replies, since heresies rouse the Church to study Scripture more carefully.
Letter 198.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hesychius argues that the older reading of Acts 1:7 ("it is not yours to know") restricts the apostles' role rather than forbidding all knowledge of the times.
Letter 199.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that if the prophets had revealed the date, the apostles would have known and taught it, so God withheld the knowledge because it would not be profitable.
Letter 199.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that Paul told the Thessalonians only what they needed, namely that the Lord's hour will come like a thief, and so kept within Christ's words to the apostles.
Letter 199.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that the shortening of the days cannot mean that Daniel's numbered weeks would be falsified, since the prophecy itself would then be untrue.
Letter 199.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine compares the three Gospel accounts to show that Luke places the abomination of desolation at the Roman siege of Jerusalem.
Letter 199.42Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine notes that in Luke the Son of Man's coming in a cloud is followed by the words "the kingdom of God is near," suggesting it is not the final coming itself.
Letter 199.45Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine proposes that much of the Gospels' language about Christ's coming may refer to his continual coming in the Church, except for passages like Matthew 25 that clearly describe the final judgment.
Letter 199.50Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that Paul, like the prophets, used the past tense of things still to come, so Romans 10:18 does not mean the gospel had already reached the whole world.
Letter 204.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine answers the Donatists' appeal to Razis in 2 Maccabees by arguing that not every deed recorded in Scripture is to be imitated, and that Razis acted from pride.
Letter 204.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says Scripture narrates rather than praises Razis's suicide, and that by Sirach's standard he showed impatience rather than wisdom.
Letter 205.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine illustrates by the two senses of "temptation" how flesh in substance will inherit the kingdom while flesh as corruption will not.
Letter 213.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks the people to bring their business to Eraclius instead of him, so that he may devote himself to the Scriptures, as councils had earlier asked.
Letter 213.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine hands his routine duties to Eraclius so that he may give his remaining time to Scripture, and asks the people to sign the record, which they acclaim.
Letter 214.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks that the monk who caused the disturbance be sent to him, noting that Paul's teaching on grace was misunderstood even in apostolic times.
Letter 215.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine shows from Proverbs 4 that Scripture both commands the will and promises that God will make its paths straight.
Letter 226.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Hilary reports that the opponents reduce predestination to foreknowledge of faith, deny that perseverance is given irresistibly, and reject Wisdom 4:11 as non-canonical.
Letter 232.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues from fulfilled prophecy: the dispersion of the Jews, the spread of the gospel, heresies and schisms, and the fall of idolatry and conversion of the emperors.
Letter 237.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that the hymn ascribed to Christ comes from apocrypha shared by several heresies, which reject the Old Testament and parts of the New, as Manichees reject Acts.
Letter 237.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine refutes the Priscillianist claim that the hymn was kept out of the canon to hide it from carnal men, which implies the canon itself is unspiritual.
Letter 261.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says he does not have Jerome's Psalter from the Hebrew, and that he only corrected Latin Psalter manuscripts from the Greek.
Letter 265.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that the apostles had not yet received the baptism of the Spirit when Peter denied Christ, but that they had been baptized with water, as baptism is not to be despised.
Homilies on Matthew 1.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom opens his series: the Scriptures are a second-best remedy for hearts no longer written on by the Spirit; he contrasts Sinai with Pentecost, explains why Matthew's book is called a gospel, why there are four evangelists, and why their minor differences confirm their truth.
Homilies on Matthew 1.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The Gospels' harmony on essentials is proved by their reception throughout the world, in contrast with the contradictory philosophers and Plato's and Zeno's ideal states, which Chrysostom calls demonic inventions against nature.
Homilies on Matthew 1.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christian teaching is loftier and simpler than the philosophers' (virginity, the double love command), and its commonwealth is heavenly; Chrysostom then lists the questions raised by Matthew's genealogy and urges his hearers to attend as eagerly as they do at the theater.
Homilies on Matthew 2.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Joseph's Davidic genealogy proves Mary's, because the law forbade marrying outside one's tribe and family and Joseph was righteous; women's genealogies were not customary; Chrysostom summarizes and urges hearers to meditate on what they hear.
Homilies on Matthew 2.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Moral exhortation: worldly cares cloud the soul like smoke; Christians know theater songs but not psalms; lay people need Scripture more than monks; hearing God's word reforms, as it reformed the Corinthians and David.
Homilies on Matthew 3.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The birth of Perez and Zerah (Gen 38:27–30) is a riddle: Zerah's withdrawn hand figures the church's way of life, shown in Abraham's time, withdrawn under the law, and then revealed whole; the law is the 'fence'.
Homilies on Matthew 4.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The angel told Mary before the conception, lest she despair, and Joseph after his suspicion, so that the angel's knowledge of his secret thoughts would prove the message divine; Matthew and Luke do not conflict.
Homilies on Matthew 4.8John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom rebukes Christians whose vices make them like beasts and demons; they examine their hair in a mirror but not their souls, though Scripture and the lives of the saints are a spiritual mirror; one who tames lions should tame his own anger.
Homilies on Matthew 5.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Homily 5 opens with Matt 1:22–23: Chrysostom urges hearers to go home after the assembly and recall the sermon with their families, devoting one day a week to it, so that the teaching is not swept away.
Homilies on Matthew 5.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Matthew's 'all this took place' marks the fulfillment of Isa 7:14; the angel refers Joseph to Isaiah; 'Emmanuel' names what the event revealed, as Isa 8:3 and 1:26 show; against Jewish objections, the Septuagint's 'virgin' is more credible than later translations' 'young woman'.
Homilies on Matthew 8.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · God's deceiving of Herod, like his despoiling of Egypt, displays his power; the flight to Egypt fulfills Hos 11:1, signals the conversion of Egypt and Babylon, and teaches that spiritual service brings trials; God alternates joys and dangers; prophecy often finds fulfillment in later persons.
Homilies on Matthew 9.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Archelaus's reign explains the move to Nazareth; Chrysostom harmonizes Matthew with Luke (the return to Nazareth after the purification came before the flight); 'he shall be called a Nazarene' comes from lost prophetic books; Christ's lowly origins rebuke human pride.
Homilies on Matthew 10.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · John came from the wilderness as Isaiah foretold, preparing the way rather than giving remission; Luke's fuller quotation of Isa 40 figures the humbling of the proud, the ease of grace, and salvation for all flesh; Matthew adds the detail of John's dress.
Homilies on Matthew 16.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ left the boldest statements about his divinity and creative work to his disciples out of condescension to his hearers, and he fulfilled the prophets by his deeds and the law by keeping it and by enabling believers to fulfil it through faith.
Homilies on Matthew 16.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The new commandments intensify and fulfil the old law rather than abolish it; the Old Testament is good and akin to the New, though less perfect, and Christ, legislating with his own authority, begins with anger as the root of murder.
Homilies on Matthew 16.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Forbidding anger safeguards the law against murder; against the Manichees the law of an eye for an eye is shown to be an act of mercy and both covenants to have one lawgiver; anger is permitted only for others’ good, and even small insults are forbidden.
Homilies on Matthew 17.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ forbids oaths by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or one’s head because all belong to God, rejects excuses of compulsion, and teaches that the oath was a concession to past weakness, as weaning shows that the breast, once good, is outgrown.
Homilies on Matthew 17.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The concessions of the old law were not from the devil but a form of nurture now outgrown, as the same act can be good or bad according to time and purpose; Christians must exceed the old righteousness, though many fall short of it.
Homilies on Matthew 18.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The law of retaliation was a wise concession that restrained violence, but Christ, transferring blame to the evil one, teaches us to overcome evil by suffering it and to offer the other cheek.
Homilies on Matthew 30.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ calls Matthew straight from the tax office at the moment he knew he would obey; the evangelists’ frankness about their lowly trades and the shame of the cross shows that they wrote for truth, not display.
Homilies on Matthew 47.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Harvest and sowing name different things; the treasure and the pearl teach that the preaching must be preferred to everything, and the net warns that faith without a good life does not save; the scribe of the kingdom brings out old and new, and Chrysostom draws the members of virtue, whose head is humility.
Homilies on Matthew 48.7John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The poor should be fed for love and for Christ’s sake, not for the amusement of their insults; Chrysostom urges the rich to make their table companions helpers in good works and readers of Scripture, so that the house becomes a church.
On 1 Cor 7:2, section 1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom opens his sermon on 1 Cor 7:2 by praising the sweetness of Scripture and warning that shameful words, spoken or heard, feed evil desires and should be choked by silence.
Commentary on Ephesians 5:31Jerome · ca. 386 · Jerome notes how Paul quotes Gen 2:24 freely, warns against seeking such quotations in the apocrypha, and explains the union of Adam and Eve as a figure of Christ and the church, against Marcion.
Commentary on Ephesians 5:32Jerome · ca. 386 · Jerome holds that only Gen 2:24, not the whole story of Adam and Eve, is a prophecy of Christ and the church, and reports Gregory of Nazianzus's view of Paul's humility in interpreting it.
On Fleeing the World 5Ambrose · ca. 387-391 · The law’s cities of refuge for the involuntary slayer raise four questions to be answered spiritually.
On Fleeing the World 9Ambrose · ca. 387-391 · The six cities of refuge are the knowledge of the Word, the contemplation of God’s creative and royal power, his mercy, and the law’s commands and prohibitions.
Hexameron (Exameron) 2.3Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The works of creation must be judged by the rule of Scripture and the power of Christ, not by philosophy.
Hexameron (Exameron) 3.20Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose defends the Septuagint's added sentence in Gen 1:9, noting the Seventy's additions are not idle.
Hexameron (Exameron) 6.4Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose quotes Gen 1:24–26 and declares he will take the animals literally, not as allegories of vices.
Hexameron (Exameron) 6.6Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Like Elisha's barley loaves, Ambrose's plain words will suffice; Scripture's plain words should be understood plainly.
Hexameron (Exameron) 6.8Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Moses, though learned, wrote by the Spirit only what serves our hope and virtue, not astronomy.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.4.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · All Scripture breathes God's grace, but the Psalms are especially sweet; even Moses broke into song at the Red Sea.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.6.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Daniel, Habakkuk and Solomon each left one song.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.7.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The Psalms contain everything found in the other books and are a medicine for the soul.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.31.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Day and night mean prosperity and adversity, in both of which love must last.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.33.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Mystically, drink the Old Testament first, then the New.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.33.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · In both Testaments we drink Christ, who is vine, rock, fountain, river and peace.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.33.5Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Scripture is drunk when the Word enters the soul; first the Old, quickly then the New.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 35.18.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Mercy comes from heaven; God's truth is veiled in the prophets like clouds.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 35.18.6Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ is wisdom, justice, sanctification and redemption; deep calls to deep, Old Testament to New.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.1.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Scripture is natural, mystical or moral, as Genesis, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and Solomon's three books show.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.2.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The psalms include natural teaching, as Psalm 148 shows.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.2.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The psalms also hold mystical teaching about Christ's priesthood, passion and resurrection.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.2.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Psalms 33 (34) and 36 (37) are the chief moral psalms.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.80.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Another such ungodly man is the scribe who reads Scripture only by the letter.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.80.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Passing to the spiritual sense, the literalist is found to be nothing.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 36.80.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The letter kills; the literalist would not let himself be found and converted.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.7.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · God gave herbs for the body and Scripture for the soul.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.49.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Scripture's sense must be sought, which translation tends to weaken.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 38.15.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · There is a fire kindled by Scripture, the fire Christ came to cast on earth.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 38.25.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Shadow in the law, image in the gospel, truth in heaven; the church's mysteries were foreshadowed.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 39.16.6Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The reader of the gospel must read wisely, for Christ’s words cleanse, enlighten and give life.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.17.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Judas went out because he did not understand the Scriptures that foretold Christ’s rising and his own betrayal.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.23.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The “sweet food” always shared is the word of life, on which we can meditate day and night.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 40.38.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · As the one gospel has four books, so the one Psalter has five books.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.8.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The Greek “of many days” means living in the light of piety, as the law is to be read “all the days” of life.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.49.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Ambrose confesses his diffidence before Scripture’s mysteries; even Paul sought help that the word might run.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.52.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Gathering the crumbs of Scripture leads to the height of the mysteries, as Christ’s answer to her shows.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.56.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Israel’s history is a parable and figure for the believing nations, which the Jews did not understand.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.57.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Paul solved the parable of Abraham’s two sons: Hagar and Sarah are two covenants, Sinai meaning the measure of the law.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.57.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The unbelieving people, born according to the flesh, reads Scripture by the letter; the believing people is born through promise.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.59.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Paul solved the parable of the ox treading grain as written for us.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.59.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · We plough in hope and sow spiritual things; the law is a figure, the gospel the light of truth.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.61.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The praiseworthy shaking of the head is moving the mind’s senses by studying Scripture, unlike heretics who stir up unbelief.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.62.6Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Mixing false with true interpretation is spiritual adultery; Paul became all things to all, while remaining in the law of Christ.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.66.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The scribes lay the heavy burdens of a bodily reading on their hearers and will not move toward the spiritual sense.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 43.74.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The body of death is the place of affliction; we must look always to the lamp of God’s word.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 47.21.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Moses, with Joshua beside him, entered the cloud to learn hidden things, for no one grasps them without the true Jesus.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 47.24.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The lofty precepts are to be divided according to each one’s capacity, as Paul taught Christ crucified to some and wisdom to the perfect.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 48.5.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · All are called to the church: the sick find a physician, the captive a redeemer; Scripture builds up everyone.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 61.33.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · God spoke once, yet many things were heard, through visions, graces, law and gospel.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 61.33.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · God spoke once in his Son, and then the Old Testament too was understood.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 61.34.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · In the church the two Testaments are heard together, for Christ alone opened the sealed book of the prophets.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine explains that this book answers the two Manichaean lures, their attacks on the Scriptures and their show of chastity, by setting out the catholic teaching on life and morals from both Testaments.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Reason cannot gaze on God unaided, so God in his providence provides the authority of Scripture and the history of salvation, to which Augustine now submits his own reasoning.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine shows that the command to love God and Paul's text on being reckoned as sheep for slaughter both come from the Old Testament, and rebukes the Manichaean claim that such passages are interpolations.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine replies that the catholic Church does not read the Old Testament as describing a repenting, envious, cruel, or bodily God, and that it leads believers from childish to mature understanding of God.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine sets Old Testament texts, chiefly from Psalms and the Wisdom of Solomon, beside each New Testament text he has used on love, Christ as Power and Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, and the one God.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · The God of both Testaments is one; the Manichaeans misuse Scripture's humble and figurative language, while true understanding comes through love, as Christ's “ask, seek, knock” and the Wisdom of Solomon both teach.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine, once a Manichaean hearer himself, urges them to see the harmony of both Testaments in stirring up the love of God, and to listen to catholic teachers as he once listened to them for nine years.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Temperance also despises popular glory and curious, prideful study of the physical world; the New Testament forbids love of the world, and Ecclesiastes declares all such things vanity, to be used, not loved.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Discipline heals the mind by fear and love, the Old Testament stressing fear and the New love; the two great commandments the Manichaeans praise come from the Old Testament, which they therefore cannot consistently reject.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Since Christ says the whole Law and the Prophets hang on the two commandments of love, the Manichaeans cannot dismiss the passage as an interpolation without producing an uncorrupted manuscript, which they never do.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 2.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Augustine sets out the whole of Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 to show that Paul's counsel to abstain from meat and wine was for self-restraint, to avoid idol food, and out of love for the weak, not because meat is unclean.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Augustine explains that he writes in plain language so that even the unlearned can answer the Manichees' attacks on the Old Testament, and that God permits heresies to rouse believers to study Scripture.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Augustine answers the objection that “God saw that it was good” implies ignorance: like a craftsman approving a finished work, God's approval shows the work pleased him, and Scripture speaks to our weakness.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Augustine answers the mockery of God's rest on the seventh day: by a common figure of speech God is said to rest because he will give rest to us after our good works, which are themselves his gift.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 2.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Augustine states his method: a literal reading is welcome if it is consistent with the faith, but where that is impossible the passage must be read figuratively, as the apostles read the Old Testament.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 2.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Augustine reads the rain from the clouds as the teaching of Scripture needed by fallen man, whereas before sin God watered the soul from within like an inner spring.
Tractates on Matthew 3.1Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius introduces the Sermon on the Mount: the Lord who gave the law on Sinai gives blessings on the mountain, the new covenant of grace.
Tractates on Matthew 5.4Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius identifies the lamp with God's commandment and grace, to be set in the church like the golden lampstand of Zechariah and the tabernacle, a type of the Holy Spirit.
Tractates on Matthew 6.1Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains how Christ, the author of the Law, fulfilled it by completing its prophecies and figures and confirming its precepts, and sees the cross in the iota and stroke.
Homily 1.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom contrasts the crowds that throng to athletes, musicians and sophists with the far greater attention owed to John the evangelist, the son of thunder, whose voice fills the world.
Homily 1.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · John speaks not as a fisherman but as the instrument of the Spirit, teaching even the angels, so his hearers must keep both outward and inward silence and free themselves of passions.
Homily 1.3 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The words of Scripture are more precious than pearls and sweeter than honey to the healthy soul, and anyone, like the penitent thief, can change his life at once if he wills it in earnest and shows it in works.
Homily 2.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom stresses John’s humble origins as a poor, unlettered fisherman of Galilee to show that the lofty teaching of his Gospel comes from God, not from him.
Homily 2.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom contrasts the shifting, obscure and absurd teachings of Plato and Pythagoras with the certainty, clarity and worldwide reach of John’s teaching, and begins on John 1:1, refusing to rank Father and Son as first and second.
Homily 2.4 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · John begins with the Son because the Father was already known as God, calls him “the Word” to exclude any passion in his begetting, and by “In the beginning was” points to eternal being; Chrysostom then urges his hearers to listen with cleansed and undivided souls.
Homily 3.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom praises his hearers’ eagerness and urges them to talk over the sermons at home and to teach their children Scripture while they are young, since a soul with God’s law written on it is safe from the devil.
Homily 4.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · John, unlike the other evangelists, begins with the Word’s eternal existence to lift up earthbound minds such as Paul of Samosata’s; “Word” means a subsisting divine person, eternal and co-eternal with the Father.
Homily 5.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · John comprises all creation, visible and invisible, in “all things came into being through him”; Chrysostom rejects the heretics’ punctuation “what has come into being, in him was life,” which they used to make the Spirit a creature, and explains “life” and “light” as the Son’s providence and enlightenment.
Homily 11.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom asks his hearers to read the coming Gospel passage at home beforehand, rejecting excuses of business and poverty, and then explains that the Word became flesh without ceasing to be what he was, so as to make men children of God.
Homily 13.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · After grieving that his preaching seems fruitless and recalling Moses’ refusal to abandon his people, Chrysostom explains why John the evangelist keeps citing the Baptist: the Jews revered him, and his witness, given before Christ appeared, prepared them to receive one whose outward appearance was lowly.
Homily 15.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Scripture must be read with understanding, not literally, as when it speaks of God’s bosom; the prophets’ visions of God were condescensions, since no creature, not even the angels, sees the divine essence, which only the Son and the Spirit see.
Homily 18.4 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ came down to take human nature as his bride; Chrysostom explains “the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world,” the conduct of John’s two disciples and Jesus’ question to them, and urges constant hearing of Scripture instead of talk about dancers and prostitutes.
Homily 23.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom explains why he varies his preaching to reach every hearer, comments on Cana as the first sign after Jesus’ baptism, and begins the cleansing of the temple.
Homily 26.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The wind’s unseen working shows that the Spirit’s birth cannot be bound by nature; Chrysostom rebukes Nicodemus’s simplicity and lists the Old Testament types of baptism and of the virgin birth.
Homily 30.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ appeals to the Father and the Scriptures out of condescension, not need; Chrysostom explains “no one receives his testimony,” warns that disbelieving Christ is disbelieving God, and interprets “God does not give the Spirit by measure” of Christ’s unmeasured share in the Spirit’s working.
Homily 30.3 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Scripture is a spiritual armory that profits only those who use it in its proper order; Chrysostom laments that his hearers are sharp in worldly affairs but sluggish in spiritual ones, though the Scriptures were written for them.
Homily 32.3 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Shamed by the Samaritan woman's zeal, Christians should read and know the Scriptures rather than prize fine books or the races and shows; the Bible shows the righteous wrestling with the devil.
Homily 33.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Faith is the anchor of doctrine; Christ tells the Samaritan woman that worship will no longer be bound to a place, while affirming that the Jews knew God and that salvation comes from them.
Homily 34.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ uses the images of food, fields and harvest to show that the prophets sowed and the apostles reap, both rejoicing together, as the Samaritans come out to believe.
Homily 37.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The paralytic's patient, gentle answer comforts those in long suffering; he is not the paralytic of Matthew, and Christ's command to carry his bed proves the cure, as other signs were proved.
Homily 40.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ's saying “if I testify about myself, my testimony is not true” is spoken according to the Jews' supposition; he then offers three witnesses: John, his works and the Father.
Homily 40.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · John's testimony, Christ's works and the Father's witness in the Scriptures testify to Christ; the Scriptures equip us completely, and love of money, the root of evils, must be cast out.
Homily 41.1 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ sends the Jews to search the Scriptures, which testify to him; he needs no human glory, and their readiness to receive the Antichrist will show that they do not love God.
Homily 41.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The Jews seek glory from one another rather than from God; Moses, whom they claim to follow, wrote of Christ and will be their accuser.
Homily 53.3 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom urges his hearers to read the Scriptures, above all the Gospels, with care and reverence, since even hearing without doing begins to bear fruit, and the story of Christ’s birth teaches contempt for wealth.
Homily 58.3 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The healed man argues that God does not listen to sinners, and is cast out; Chrysostom urges boldness for Christ and rebukes his hearers for flocking to shows and races while neglecting the Scriptures.
Homily 59.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ contrasts the shepherd, who enters by the door of the Scriptures and lays down his life for the sheep, with thieves, robbers, and hirelings, such as the rebels Theudas and Judas.
Homily 66.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Greeks come seeking Jesus, and he declares that the hour of his glorification on the cross has come, like a grain of wheat that dies; Chrysostom defends the bodily resurrection against heretics and pagan philosophers.
Homily 68.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The Jews’ unbelief fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy, which foretold it because they would not believe, not causing it; “they could not” means “they would not,” and God hardens only by permitting those who first turn away from him.
Homily 81.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ's commending of the disciples to the Father is said in a human way for their comfort; Judas perished by his own choice, not because Scripture had to be fulfilled.
Homily 84.3 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Remembering the mockery Christ bore should quench our anger; Chrysostom warns that faith without a matching life condemns, and urges daily use of Scripture and provision for death.
Homily 88.2 on JohnJohn Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ checks Peter's curiosity about John; John vouches for his own testimony as written without flattery; Chrysostom closes by urging Scripture reading, mourning for sin, and almsgiving free of greed.
The Teacher 5Augustine of Hippo · 389 · Augustine shows that “word” and “name” signify each other and differ only in their reason (from striking the ear and from knowing), and proves from Paul, from Greek equivalents, and from the logic of propositions that every part of speech is in some sense a name.
The Teacher 11Augustine of Hippo · 389 · Words only prompt us to seek things; what we know we know from the things themselves or from the inner Teacher, Christ, the truth within the mind, while what we receive only through words, like the story of the three young men, we believe rather than know.
On True Religion 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine explains that God's teaching is given both plainly and in figures and sacraments, and defends the unity of the Old and New Testaments, comparing God to a physician who prescribes differently for different conditions.
On True Religion 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine applies the old and new man to the whole human race, divided into the impious and the people of God, whose history in the Old Testament prefigures the New, until the resurrection and judgment.
On True Religion 50Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · God in his mercy has given humanity visible signs, Scriptures, and allegories as steps to the truth, and Augustine lists the questions about history, allegory, and biblical language that must be settled to read them rightly.
On True Religion 51Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Instead of theater and poetry, the mind should feed on the Scriptures and long to see the Wisdom that orders the whole world.
Homily 0Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390–394 · Gregory tells Olympias why he has written up his Lenten homilies on the Song of Songs and defends reading Scripture for a meaning beyond its surface sense.
Life of Hilarion 10Jerome · ca. 390–392 · Hilarion's austerities: a yearly haircut, the bare ground for a bed, an unwashed hair shirt, and the Scriptures known by heart.
Monastic Exercise, chapter 62Nilus of Ancyra · ca. 390-430 · Monks should be like Job's wild ass, free of the city's taxes, or like the ass loosed for the Lord's use, grazing on the words of Scripture.
Voluntary Poverty, chapter 20Nilus of Ancyra · ca. 390-430 · Scripture records these saints by name and deed; those who study it attentively find its words leading the mind on to contemplation.
Voluntary Poverty, chapter 61Nilus of Ancyra · ca. 390-430 · David meditated on God's statutes and works; contemplating sun, stars, plants and creatures fills the mind with gladness and teaches ethical and theological lessons.
Sermon 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine pays a promised debt: a reply to the Manichees, who claim that the openings of Genesis and of John contradict each other.
Sermon 1.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine answers that the "beginning" in which God made heaven and earth is the Son, as Christ himself says.
Sermon 1.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · "In him" and "through him" mean the same thing, as Paul's usage shows, so Genesis and John agree.
Sermon 1.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · All Scripture is at peace with itself; the heretics see conflict because of the fog of their own error.
Sermon 1.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even if "beginning" means the beginning of time, the Trinity is present in Genesis, and Scripture often speaks of God without naming the Son.
Sermon 2.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Against those who reject the Old Testament because God "tempted" Abraham, Augustine points out that Christ also "tempted" Philip, to bring out what was in him.
Sermon 2.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · "Now I know" means God made Abraham known to himself, just as what a prophet says by God's gift is said by God.
Sermon 2.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Before the figurative sense is explained, the story must be believed as history; but Abraham's life is both event and prophecy of Christ.
Sermon 4.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Old Testament's land, Jerusalem, circumcision, sabbath and sacrifices were temporal promises with spiritual meanings; those who take them only carnally belong to Esau.
Sermon 4.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 shows that the events of the exodus were figures for Christians, which the fathers experienced bodily without understanding.
Sermon 4.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · "Deceit" here is a figure, as Christ is called rock, lion and lamb without being them literally.
Sermon 4.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Jacob's "deceit" was a figure, not a lie: having bought the birthright, he truly was the firstborn, and Isaac confirmed the blessing.
Sermon 4.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · One thing, the Church, is signified by both the kids and the garment, just as Christ is both lion and lamb in figure.
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 5.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christians must imitate Christ or his imitators, bearing with the wicked inside the Church until judgment; the word must be constantly repeated.
Sermon 6.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God appeared to Moses not in his own substance but through a creature, an angel, as Acts 7:30 explains; God speaks through the angel as through a prophet.
Sermon 6.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The leprous hand restored in Moses' bosom signifies humanity, fallen in Adam and restored in Christ; the water turned to blood signifies Wisdom, the Word made flesh.
Sermon 7.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Two orthodox views exist on who spoke to Moses; the first is that it was Christ, called "Angel of great counsel" because he was sent with a message.
Sermon 7.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The second view: the speaker was a created angel called Lord because God spoke in him, as in prophets; this better fits the three visitors of Abraham, the two at Sodom, and the New Testament's statements that the Law came through angels.
Sermon 8.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The rod that becomes a serpent and swallows the magicians' serpents signifies God's people made mortal and the nations absorbed into Christ's body; the first plague, water to blood, opposes the first commandment, as idolatry changes God's glory into a human image.
Sermon 10.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine reads the story of Solomon's judgment between the two harlots and asks what the two women signify.
Sermon 10.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The two harlots are the Synagogue and the Church: the Synagogue killed Christ, and Judaizers tried to substitute the dead rite of circumcision for the Gentile Church's living faith, until Paul woke her up.
Sermon 10.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The greatest proof of love is to give up one's own honor rather than divide the Church; even hypocrites in the Church nourish believers with the milk of Scripture, and love will be rewarded at the last judgment.
Sermon 12.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Against the Manichee Adimantus, who argued from Job that the impure devil saw God, Augustine shows that Paul never said what Adimantus claims, and that "the princes of this world" are the proud or the devil, prince of sinners.
Sermon 12.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God speaks in many ways, through Scripture, signs, lots, prophets, angels, voices, dreams, ecstasy, understanding and conscience; so he could speak to the devil without being seen by him.
Sermon 17.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, silent when he came to be judged, will come manifestly to judge and not keep silent; even now he speaks through Scripture, readers, preachers and singers, but must be heard with the ears of the heart.
Sermon 22.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · "Let sinners perish like smoke and wax" frightens every conscience; but the Psalms often foretell the future in the form of a wish or of a past event, as with Christ's passion and Judas.
Sermon 23.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Scripture is always spiritual, yet like a mother or nurse it speaks to the carnal as if carnally so that they may grow.
Sermon 25.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The psalm’s “law” is above all the Gospel, the New Testament promised by Jeremiah; the Old Testament’s land of milk and honey stands spiritually for the land of the living and the sweetness of grace.
Sermon 26.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Against those who ascribe the Law to an evil power, Paul calls the Law holy, just, and good; it exposed the sin that held us, and Christ, who alone is not bound, sets us free.
Sermon 27.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s words “I have made known to you all that I heard from my Father” speak of the future as already done, as Scripture often does, just as we are “saved in hope.”
Sermon 32.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The day’s readings are medicines for preacher and hearers alike; Augustine will take only a few points from the psalm, since its secrets are many.
Sermon 32.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · David’s five stones signify the five books of the Law, the ten-stringed psaltery its ten commandments, and the one stone he threw the unity of love that fulfills the Law.
Sermon 32.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A rule for allegory: a figure such as a mountain, stone, lion, or river does not always mean the same thing, just as the letter D begins both Deus and Diabolus; its sense depends on its place.
Sermon 32.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Here the river signifies the old people that let the Law be passed over like stones in a stream; taking the stones into the milk vessel signifies the Law brought into grace by Christ.
Sermon 32.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · No one may excuse himself by not listening, since God will demand both the preacher’s giving and the hearer’s receiving of his word, which is preached everywhere.
Sermon 43.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Peter calls the prophetic word “more certain” than the voice at the Transfiguration, not because it is truer, but because prophecies made before Christ’s birth refute those who call him a magician.
Sermon 45.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · By God’s providence the reading from Isaiah ended with a promise and the reading from Paul began with “having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves,” so that the two readings form one.
Sermon 45.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Obscure passages of Scripture must be read by clear ones; the promised land is the land of the living, sown here by alms to the poor, whose bread is Christ.
Sermon 46.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The weak are those who do good but cannot bear suffering; the sick are those held back from doing good by worldly desire, like the paralytic let down through the roof, whom the shepherd must bring to Christ by opening the hidden sense of Scripture.
Sermon 46.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Without a true shepherd the sheep stray onto the “mountains” of proud heresiarchs like Donatus and Parmenian, where they may find Scriptures and sacraments but lose unity; even the good mountains, the apostles and Scripture’s authors, point beyond themselves to the Lord.
Sermon 46.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The mountains of Israel where God feeds his sheep are the authors of Scripture; from them flowed the streams of the Gospel into all the world, and in them the sheep find safe pasture and rest.
Sermon 46.32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Donatists cannot show from Scripture that the Church is the party of Donatus, while the Shepherd’s voice proclaims a Church spread to all nations.
Sermon 46.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Accusations against particular bishops as “traditors” prove nothing; Scripture, from Genesis to the Psalms, everywhere speaks of the Church spread through the world and nowhere of the party of Donatus or of the Church perishing.
Sermon 46.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Donatists cite Song 1:7, “where you lie down at noon,” taking “noon” (the South) as Africa; Augustine replies that obscure riddles must be read in the light of plain texts about the worldwide Church.
Sermon 46.36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Donatists misdivide Song 1:7–8: “at noon” belongs to the bride’s question, and the bridegroom’s answer, “Unless you know yourself, go out and feed your kids,” warns against the heretics, former table-companions who set up altar against altar.
Sermon 46.38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “Noon” can be read in many senses, but even taken as Africa it does not favor the Donatists; nor does Habakkuk’s “God will come from Africus,” since Christ came from Jerusalem and filled the world with the Gospel.
Sermon 46.40Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Habakkuk’s “from Africus” means from Jerusalem, which Joshua places to the south, and the “shady mountain” is the Mount of Olives, from which Christ ascended and sent the Gospel to all nations.
Sermon 47.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The he-goats who trample the pasture and muddy the water are those who learn Scripture calmly but teach it angrily, so that others understand less.
Sermon 47.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Rebuke of dullness is right when done in love; but teachers who keep knowledge from others out of envy trample the pasture and muddy the spring.
Sermon 47.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The evil beasts are the enemies of Scripture; the desert where the sheep dwell in hope is the good conscience, refreshed by streams of remembered Scripture.
Sermon 47.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The sheep who hear the shepherd will not be devoured by the heretics who twist Scripture; God plants peace in a Church spread through the world, while the Donatists starve beside the food of Scripture.
Sermon 49.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Believers are day compared with unbelievers but still night compared with the day of resurrection; until then they walk by the lamp of Scripture and must not judge one another’s hearts.
Sermon 49.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We judge ourselves by Scripture as by an honest mirror, and then judge our neighbor with love, hating the vice but loving the man, and leaving to God what we cannot see.
Sermon 50.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Manichees set Haggai’s “Mine is the gold and mine is the silver” against the Gospel’s “mammon of iniquity” and Paul’s warning against avarice, to make the two Testaments contradict each other.
Sermon 50.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In context Haggai speaks not of earthly metal but of the gold and silver of which Paul speaks, the treasure of the Church foretold by the prophet.
Sermon 50.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The old Scriptures everywhere condemn greed for gold; the Manichees deceive the unskilled by setting excerpts against each other, a method that could make any book seem to contradict itself.
Sermon 51.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · When critics claim the Gospels contradict each other on Christ’s birth, believers hold firmly to the faith and honor what is hidden, for the veils are lifted for those who honor them.
Sermon 51.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine recalls how as a youth he came to Scripture with pride instead of reverence and fell, until the Lord put him back in the nest of faith.
Sermon 51.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Heretics, though they mean harm, are useful: by stirring up questions, as Judas served the passion, they drive the faithful to search out the mysteries of Scripture.
Sermon 51.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The critics object that Matthew’s three sets of fourteen generations add up to only forty-one names; Augustine shows that Jechoniah ends the second set and also begins the third.
Sermon 51.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Because a man can have both a natural and an adoptive father, Joseph could have two fathers, Jacob in Matthew and Heli in Luke, and so two different lines of ancestors.
Sermon 51.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Levirate marriage was another way to have two fathers; Matthew says “begot” of Joseph’s natural father, while Luke says only “son of Heli,” fitting adoption or levirate descent.
Sermon 51.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Luke’s seventy-seven generations show reconciliation with God through the forgiveness of all sins, as Christ told Peter to forgive seventy-seven times; Scripture not yet understood should be honored, and what is understood held with love.
Sermon 53.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine sets two Isaiah texts side by side: if heaven is God’s throne and he also measures heaven with his palm, the bodily picture of God collapses.
Sermon 54.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s two commands, to let our light shine before men and not to do our justice before men, seem to contradict each other and trouble the weak.
Sermon 56.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Bodily bread God gives to good and bad alike; the children’s daily bread is the word of God, and also the eucharist the baptized receive, from whose altar we pray not to be separated.
Sermon 58.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Daily bread means all bodily necessities, the eucharist received by the faithful, from whose altar we pray not to be separated, and the word of God broken daily.
Sermon 59.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Daily bread is bodily food, the eucharist, and the word preached, all needed only in this life; daily sins are washed away by the Lord’s Prayer, provided we forgive those who ask our pardon.
Sermon 71.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A parallel: “they would not have sin” means not every sin but a certain sin, so the unforgivable blasphemy is a certain blasphemy.
Sermon 71.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Mark and Luke express the same saying in other words; the evangelists differ in wording so that we may seek the speaker’s intention, not the words.
Sermon 74.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The old things of Scripture are not discarded but understood through the new when one turns to Christ and the veil is removed.
Sermon 79.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A brief sermon on the transfiguration: the law and the prophets testify to Christ, and the voice from the cloud bids us hear him.
Sermon 82.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Proverbs and Paul command open rebuke while Christ commands private rebuke; there is no contradiction between the Testaments, for Christ speaks in both.
Sermon 82.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Both commands are true; we must discern when each applies.
Sermon 89.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Since it was not the season for figs and a tree cannot sin, the cursing of the fig tree must be a prophetic sign, not merely a miracle.
Sermon 89.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s seeking fruit was a figurative pretense like his “pretending to go farther” at Emmaus; in Scripture words and deeds may be proper, figurative, or both.
Sermon 89.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Jacob’s anointing of the stone is a figurative deed signifying Christ; Christ’s words to Nathanael recall Jacob’s ladder, for the Son of Man is both above as head and below in his members.
Sermon 89.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Some events are both real and figurative, like Abraham’s two sons; figurative fiction, like the parable of the sower or Christ seeking fruit, signifies truth and is not a lie.
Sermon 95.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Explaining Scripture is breaking bread for the people, from a storeroom in heaven that preacher and hearers share.
Sermon 105.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · When Scripture is obscure, the believer must knock in prayer to God, who delays so that we may desire more; the three loaves are the understanding of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, food that never runs out.
Sermon 109.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The adversary is the word of God, which opposes our sinful will by saying “do not,” but only for our good; agreeing with it by keeping the commandments loses nothing and finds oneself.
Sermon 116.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ showed the disciples himself, the head, and promised the body, the church; no longer mortal with them, he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures about him, as he can open the minds of doubters now.
Sermon 125.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine explains why he repeats a known exposition of the Gospel passage: repetition renews affection, reminds the forgetful, and safeguards memory.
Sermon 126.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Faith comes before understanding, as Isaiah says; the Scriptures read in church are lamps in a dark place until the day dawns.
Sermon 129.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine recalls the Gospel reading, John 5:39–47, and promises a few words on it.
Sermon 129.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Old Testament texts bear witness to both head and body: the seed of Abraham is Christ, and in him all nations are blessed; the psalms speak of Christ’s passion and of the Church spread through the whole world.
Sermon 130.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The feeding of the five thousand is a sign: the five barley loaves are the five books of Moses, in which Christ is hidden, and they grow when they are broken open in explanation.
Sermon 133.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Whoever says Christ lied relies on the Gospel to prove it, yet the Gospel is only the stream from the fountain, Christ; John, who drank truth from the Lord’s breast, calls him the true light, full of grace and truth.
Sermon 149.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The clean animals with divided hoof and cud-chewing signify sound conduct and meditation on God’s word; those lacking either do not belong to the fellowship of the saints.
Sermon 149.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The second question: how to reconcile “Let your works shine before men” with “Let your alms be in secret.”
Sermon 153.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine introduces the difficult passage Rom 7:5–13, reminding his hearers that God teaches within, and asks for their prayers.
Sermon 156.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Introducing Romans 8:12–17, Augustine recalls the hard passages already explained and their two conclusions: Paul is not guilty of all sins, and the Law is a help, but not like grace.
Sermon 169.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Introducing Philippians 3:3, Augustine compares the Latin “serve God in spirit” with the Greek manuscripts' “serve the Spirit of God,” and finds both true: the spirit rules the flesh well only when ruled by God.
Sermon 176.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine announces the three readings of the day, 1 Timothy 1:15–16, Psalm 95, and the ten lepers of Luke 17, and proposes to treat each briefly.
Sermon 179.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Taking James 1:22, Augustine notes that preachers too must be hearers, and that hearers stand in a safer place than preachers, who are told to be slow to speak.
Sermon 180.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul swore, as the Greek of 1 Corinthians 15:31 shows (νή, “by,” as in νὴ τὸν θεόν, “by God”), and elsewhere called God as witness, so truthful swearing is not sin.
Sermon 200.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Jewish leaders named Bethlehem from Scripture without seeking Christ; their Scriptures now serve as independent witness to the pagans that the prophecies were not invented by Christians.
Sermon 201.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine explains the survival of the dispersed Jews, like the mark of Cain, as God's way of preserving the Scriptures as witness to Christ for the Gentiles.
Sermon 212.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Creed, all of it drawn from Scripture, is to be learned by heart and never written down, as a sign of the new covenant written on the heart.
Sermon 232.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In Easter week the resurrection is read from all four Gospels; when Augustine once had the passion read from all four too, the congregation was upset.
Sermon 234.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · All four Gospels are read at Easter because each supplies what the others omit; Luke tells fully the Emmaus story that Mark only mentions.
Sermon 235.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The evangelists differ in what they include, but because one Spirit spoke in them, what even one reports is true; only Luke gives the Emmaus conversation.
Sermon 239.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Two of the evangelists, Mark and Luke, were not among the twelve, showing that the grace of the gospel flowed on beyond the apostles like a fountain.
Sermon 240.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The four Gospels agree in truth though each tells different things; showing their harmony is laborious and needed only by those who waver, not by believers.
Sermon 245.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Only John records “Do not touch me”; when John saw the empty tomb he believed, falsely, that the body had been taken, until the Lord appeared and planted the truth.
Sermon 246.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The evangelists, moved by one Spirit, differ without falsehood; the disciples barely believed the resurrection with eyes and hands, and we should thank God that we believe without seeing.
Sermon 247.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The resurrection has been read from all four Gospels; today John tells how the risen Lord came to the disciples behind shut doors on the evening of the Lord’s day.
Sermon 252.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The catch after the resurrection, compared with the earlier one in Luke 5, must be questioned for its inner meaning, since Christ, the Word, speaks by deeds as well as words.
Sermon 253.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “I want him to remain” may mean either that John would not be martyred as Peter was, or that John’s Gospel of the divine Word will be fully understood only when Christ comes.
Sermon 270.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · On Pentecost Augustine, as a fellow pupil of Christ the one teacher, takes up the question why the Spirit was sent on the fiftieth day after Easter.
Sermon 288.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · ‘He must increase, I must decrease’ means that all voices, prophets, apostles and Scriptures, fall away as we advance to seeing the Word as he is, which the deaths and birthdays of John and Christ also signify.
Sermon 291.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · ‘Blessed among women’ does not imply Mary was married: by a Hebrew idiom Scripture calls all females ‘women’, as with the virgins of Numbers 31 and Eve before her union with Adam.
Sermon 293.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · John stands at the boundary of the two Testaments: born of the old, a prophet in the womb; Zechariah’s silence is hidden prophecy, opened when the voice is born, as the veil was torn at the cross.
Sermon 300.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · To a Jewish objection that the Maccabees did not confess Christ, Augustine answers that Christ was then veiled in the Old Testament, a veil removed only in Christ, who fulfills the law; the cross is the key.
Sermon 300.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · At the cross, when all the prophecies were fulfilled, the veil was torn and the hidden Christ was revealed; the Maccabees died for Christ veiled in the law as later martyrs for Christ revealed, so Christians rightly keep their feast and should imitate them and their mother.
Sermon 306.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The death of the saints is precious in God’s sight though the foolish think it a punishment (‘malice’ in the biblical sense); their glory is hidden until revealed, so we must see it with the eyes of faith.
Sermon 328.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · If every man is a liar, how were the martyrs, whose name means witnesses, truthful?
Sermon 341.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine announces that Scripture presents Christ in three ways: as God before the incarnation, as God-man and mediator, and as the whole Christ, head and body.
Sermon 341.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Since God has no parts or qualities, the Son is equal to the Father in every way according to divinity and less only in the form of a servant: this is the rule for reading Scripture.
Sermon 350.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Love grasps and keeps the whole teaching of Scripture; Christ, who died in the flesh and rose, made a new man by the new commandment of love, which is the root of all goods.
Sermon 350.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Since the whole Law and the Prophets hang on love of God and neighbour, whoever holds love in his life holds both what he understands of Scripture and what he does not.
Sermon 352.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Unprepared, Augustine takes his theme from the psalm just sung, Psalm 51, and speaks on repentance as the yearly holy season approaches.
Sermon 352.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The crossing of the Red Sea, the manna, and the water from the rock were figures: believers among the Israelites who understood Christ in them ate and drank the same spiritual food as Christians, for Christ to come and Christ come are the same.
Sermon 352.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Moses' doubt when he struck the rock with the rod figured the disciples' doubt when the wood of the cross came to Christ the rock, and Joshua's leading the people into the land figured entry by grace through Jesus.
Sermon 356.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine introduces a sermon about his clergy by having the deacon Lazarus read Acts 4:31–35 on the common life of the first Christians, and then reads it again himself.
Sermon 358.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Catholic Church's title deed to the whole world is Psalm 2:8; unlike earthly litigants, Catholics go to law with the Donatists to bring them into the inheritance, asking not for division but for unity.
Sermon 361.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Mockers ask who has returned from the dead and argue that offerings at tombs benefit only the living; Augustine notes that funerary meals are a pagan custom, and that Tobit's instruction about the tombs of the just refers to Christian acts of charity at the memorials.
Sermon 363.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Obscure passages of Scripture are to be explained by its plain ones; Paul himself teaches that the exodus events were figures written for Christians.
Sermon 366.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The pastures of Psalm 23 are God's words and commandments, found in the catholic Church, where Christ is shepherd, gate, and pasture; they are watered by the water of baptism.
Sermon 374.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God had the magi ask the Jews, who pointed to Bethlehem but did not go; the Jews' dispersion with their Scriptures now shows pagans that the prophecies of Christ were not forged by Christians.
Sermon 384.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A sermon on the Trinity against the Arians opens by praising God as incomprehensible, greater than all the heavenly goods he has prepared and than everything he has made.
On the Profit of Believing 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine explains that the Manichaeans win the unlearned by attacking the Old Testament and professes his sincere purpose and his own weakness in beholding the truth.
On the Profit of Believing 5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine sets out four ways of expounding the Old Testament: history, aetiology, analogy, and allegory.
On the Profit of Believing 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Christ used history (David and the loaves) and aetiology (Moses’ permission of divorce given for hardness of heart).
On the Profit of Believing 7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine rejects the Manichaean claim that the Scriptures were corrupted and explains their rejection of Acts by their claim that the promised Spirit came through Mani.
On the Profit of Believing 8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Christ and Paul used allegory of the Old Testament: the sign of Jonah, the Exodus as a figure of the church, and Hagar and Sarah as the two testaments.
On the Profit of Believing 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine grants that the law was a temporary slavery for those not ruled by reason, but argues that grace removes not the Old Testament but the veil over its meaning.
On the Profit of Believing 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine asks in which kind of error the Manichaeans place the Catholic church and affirms his belief that the Old Testament writers were great and divine and that the law was given by God.
On the Profit of Believing 13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine declares the Old Testament wise and holy and argues that he and Honoratus rashly learned its meaning from its enemies, unlike the good will shown to Virgil.
On the Profit of Believing 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine rebukes those who judge the Scriptures without a teacher, noting that even pagan poets are read with guides and their offensive passages interpreted.
On the Profit of Believing 20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine recounts his doubts after leaving the Manichaeans, the influence of the bishop of Milan, and his decision to remain a catechumen, and urges Honoratus to follow Catholic teaching.
On the Profit of Believing 31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Heretics who urge belief in Christ contradict their own rejection of belief, since faith in Christ rests on the report of the Catholic peoples, who should therefore be asked what Christ taught.
On the Profit of Believing 36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine urges Honoratus to entrust himself to Catholic teachers and to pray, rejects the Manichaean account of evil and their charges against the Old Testament, and closes the book.
Commentary on Galatians 1.1John Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom explains the sharp tone of Galatians: Judaizers had undermined Paul as a mere disciple of the apostles and were imposing circumcision on the Galatians.
Commentary on Galatians 1.5John Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom explains 'the present evil age' and the doxology of Gal 1:5, then treats the Galatians' swift desertion, the oneness of the four Gospels against the Marcionites, and the danger of small innovations in doctrine.
Commentary on Galatians 1.7John Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom rebukes Christians who keep Jewish fasts and pagan omens, explains Paul's anathema on any other gospel even from an angel, and Paul's appeal to his sudden conversion from persecutor.
Commentary on Galatians 1.9John Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Paul's zeal as persecutor and his sudden conversion prove his gospel came from God; Chrysostom explains 'I did not confer with flesh and blood' by Paul's intention, and stresses Paul's humility and his honor for Peter and James.
Homily 12.4 on 1 TimothyJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · The end of Homily 12 argues that wealth is rooted in injustice and that God made the necessities of life common to all; the section then contains Homily 13, on teaching with authority, reading the Scriptures, correcting the old and young, honoring true widows, and the living death of the self-indulgent.
Homily 2.6 on 2 CorinthiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · The litany asks God to open the catechumens’ hearts and reveal the gospel of righteousness, and to give them a godly mind, sober reasoning, and a virtuous life grounded in constant attention to God’s law.
Homily 7.1 on 2 CorinthiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · The ministry of the Law, carved on stone and glorious in Moses’ face, ministered death by punishing sin without causing it; the ministry of the Spirit, who gives life, must be far more glorious.
Homily 7.2 on 2 CorinthiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · The ministry of righteousness far surpasses the fading glory of the Law; the veil on Moses’ face, which still lies on the hearts of the Jews when the Law is read, shows not a fault in the Law but their hardness, since the Law itself foretold its end in Christ.
Homily 8.1 on 2 CorinthiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Paul’s ministry is of mercy, carried on openly without craft; those who do not see the gospel are blinded by their own unbelief, God permitting it, and ‘the god of this age’ refers neither to an evil creator nor to the devil but to God, who leaves unbelievers in the darkness they chose.
Homily 21.4 on 2 CorinthiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom urges his hearers to imitate Paul, whose writings still overthrow error even when heretics like Marcion and Mani cut them in pieces, compares their misuse of Paul with the opposite errors about the created world, and commends constant reading of Paul's letters.
Homily 3.4 on 2 ThessaloniansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Those who come to church for display gain nothing; the Scriptures read are letters from God, not from the preacher, and are clear in Greek to all, so excuses for not knowing them are pretexts.
Homily 8.3 on 2 TimothyJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · On 2 Tim 3:12–15, Chrysostom teaches that the life of virtue is a contest that always brings affliction, explains why God punishes some wicked men in this life and not others, and praises the Scriptures Timothy learned from infancy as the root of firm faith.
Homily 8.4 on 2 TimothyJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom warns against prying into God's unsearchable ways, sets out “rules” (virtue alone is good, poverty and sickness indifferent, the righteous afflicted to be crowned, not all sinners punished here) by which the Scripture-taught Christian is never scandalized, and explains that soothsayers' predictions come true only because those who believe them have put themselves in the devil's power.
Homily 9.1 on 2 TimothyJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · On 2 Tim 3:16–4:3, Chrysostom explains that Paul offers the consolation of the inspired Scriptures, which make the man of God complete, before announcing his death, and teaches how to preach at all times, joining reproof and rebuke with exhortation, patience and love.
Homily 10.1 on 2 TimothyJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · On 2 Tim 4:9–16, Chrysostom explains why Paul, imprisoned and near death, calls Timothy to him, comments on Demas, Titus, Luke, Mark, the cloak and the books, and shows that Paul's mention of Alexander the coppersmith is a prophecy meant to strengthen the disciple, not a curse.
Homily 1.1 on ColossiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom places Colossians among Paul's prison letters, dates it, states its subject (worship through angels and Jewish and Greek observances), and comments on the greeting.
Homily 4.3 on ColossiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Answering the pagan question why Christ came so late, Chrysostom argues that success needs no defence of its timing, compares human history to one life growing toward maturity, and describes God's training of Israel in the desert as a school with Moses as teacher.
Homily 4.4 on ColossiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Chrysostom ends Homily 4 by arguing that the laws of retaliation and the promises made to Israel were suited to a people still like children, so that Christ's higher teaching came at the right time, and urges his hearers to give thanks rather than question God.
Homily 8.5 on ColossiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · This section ends Homily 8 (thanksgiving in suffering, against amulets and charms for sick children, and consolation for bereaved parents from Abraham, Jacob, David, and others) and contains all of Homily 9 (Col 3:16–17: lay people should read the Scriptures, teach their children psalms rather than worldly songs, and do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus).
Homily 12.1 on ColossiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Opening Homily 12, Chrysostom runs through Col 4:12–18: Epaphras's striving in prayer for the Colossians, Luke and Demas, Nymphas's house church, the exchange of letters with Laodicea, the charge to Archippus, and Paul's signature and bonds.
Argument 0 to the PhilemonJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · In the argument to the homilies on Philemon, Chrysostom tells the story of Onesimus, defends the inclusion of so short a letter in Scripture, and draws lessons from it: care for every soul, not despairing of slaves, and not drawing slaves away from their masters.
Homily 9.5 on PhilippiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Scripture's warnings against luxury and riches apply to all, not only to clergy; slandering priests harms the slanderer whether the charge is true or false; and Chrysostom begins to show from Peter and Paul that apostles did own sandals, cloaks, and lodgings.
Homily 11.1 on PhilippiansJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Paul counted the law loss not because it is bad by nature but by comparison with Christ: the law was a ladder and a bridge to grace, and becomes loss only when clinging to it keeps one from Christ.
Homily 1.1 on TitusJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Introducing his homilies on Titus, Chrysostom describes Titus as a trusted companion entrusted with Crete, dates the letter before 2 Timothy, and explains the greeting: Paul's apostleship as a trust given by grace for God's elect, eternal life promised before the ages, the herald's duty to preach boldly by command, and Titus as a true child in a common faith.
Homily 3.1 on TitusJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · On Titus 1:12–15, Chrysostom explains why Paul quotes the Cretan poet Epimenides (and elsewhere Aratus and the Athenian altar) without endorsing Zeus, shows that God condescends to people through their own customs, and teaches that sharp rebuke is needed for the Cretans and that nothing is unclean except sin.
Homily 3.3 on TitusJohn Chrysostom · ca. 392-397 · Concluding Homily 3, Chrysostom teaches that foods are not unclean by nature, that the Mosaic food laws curbed luxury and the purity laws were types of the soul's cleanness, and that true uncleanness is sin, especially greed and injustice, which is what makes sexual immorality and adultery unclean.
On Illustrious Men 1Jerome · 392–393 · Peter: bishop of Antioch, then of Rome for twenty-five years, crucified head downward under Nero; author of two letters; several books under his name are apocryphal.
On Illustrious Men 3Jerome · 392–393 · Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew; Jerome copied a Hebrew Gospel used by the Nazarenes and notes that Matthew quotes the Hebrew Old Testament.
On Illustrious Men 4Jerome · 392–393 · Jude's short letter, doubted because it quotes Enoch, is now accepted among the Scriptures.
On Illustrious Men 5Jerome · 392–393 · Paul: his origins, conversion, mission, imprisonment, release and martyrdom under Nero; his letters, and opinions on Hebrews and the letter to the Laodiceans.
On Illustrious Men 7Jerome · 392–393 · Luke the physician wrote the Gospel and Acts; the Acts of Paul and Thecla are apocryphal, written by a presbyter deposed for it.
On Illustrious Men 8Jerome · 392–393 · Mark wrote his Gospel from Peter's preaching, founded the church of Alexandria, and is the occasion of Philo's praise of the first Christians there.
On Illustrious Men 9Jerome · 392–393 · John the apostle wrote the last Gospel against Cerinthus and the Ebionites, one letter, and the Apocalypse on Patmos; the second and third letters are ascribed to John the presbyter.
On Illustrious Men 10Jerome · 392–393 · Hermas, perhaps the one greeted in Romans, is said to have written the Shepherd, read in Greek churches but almost unknown to the Latins.
On Illustrious Men 54Jerome · 392–393 · Origen: his youth, teaching at Alexandria, ordination in Palestine and conflict with Demetrius, his Hexapla and learning, and his suffering under Decius.
On Illustrious Men 59Jerome · 392–393 · Gaius of Rome disputed against the Montanist Proclus and did not count Hebrews as Paul's.
On Illustrious Men 63Jerome · 392–393 · Julius Africanus wrote a chronography, a letter to Origen doubting Susanna, and a letter to Aristides on the genealogies of Christ.
On Illustrious Men 77Jerome · 392–393 · Lucian of Antioch, whose recension of the Scriptures bears his name, was martyred at Nicomedia.
On Illustrious Men 135Jerome · 392–393 · Jerome lists his own works up to 392, including his Lives, letters, translations, commentaries and the Bible translation.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine lists four ways of interpreting Scripture: history, allegory, analogy, and aetiology.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine explores the senses of “in the beginning” (time, or the Son as Beginning), whether angels and time preceded heaven and earth, and whether “heaven and earth” means the whole creation or formless matter, affirming only that every creature, time included, has a beginning.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine defends Genesis 1:2 against the Manichees, reading “earth,” “abyss,” and “water” as names for the one formless matter God made from nothing, and weighs whether “the Spirit of God” is the Holy Spirit, a created vital spirit, or air.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine explains that God's “Let there be light” was spoken ineffably, distinguishes created light (bodily, sensory, or rational) from the begotten Wisdom of God, and treats darkness as a privation which God orders but does not make.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine asks what it means that God “called” light day and darkness night — whether the naming is the act of distinguishing — and how there could be day and night before the sun.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine considers whether the waters above the firmament are physical or a higher, incorporeal nature, reports a theory linking Saturn's slowness to cold waters above the sky, and suggests that the firmament was formed first in a rational creature and then in body.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine considers why the creation of plants, which propagate by seed and are rooted in the earth, is joined to the third day yet introduced by a fresh command of God.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine asks how there were days before the lights of the fourth day, suggesting that “morning” and “evening” may mark form and privation in created things, and how the lights divide day and night.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine interprets the lights as signs of seasons, days, and years — time as a trace of eternity — and explains “beginning of the day and night” as the rule of sun, moon, and stars, noting that the moon is always full though not always seen so.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine asks why birds come from the waters, suggesting that the moist lower air is called water while the purer upper air belongs to the firmament, and explains springs and rivers as arising from sea-vapor and rain.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · Augustine discusses the creatures of the fifth day and the blessing of fruitfulness, argues from the gestation of animals that the “days” cannot be ordinary days, and reads evening and morning as formless matter and imposed form.
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis 16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393 · On “Let us make man to our image and likeness,” Augustine distinguishes image from likeness, presents the Son as Likeness itself in which creatures participate, places the image in the human mind, and concludes that man was made to the image of the whole Trinity.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains “fulfilling” the Law first as adding what it lacks, and reads the iota and the stroke as the least commandments.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine interprets the judge, officer, prison, and last farthing of Matt 5:25–26, leans toward reading the punishment as eternal, and asks whether the adversary is the devil, a man, the flesh, God, or God’s commandment, preferring the last two.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains love of enemies as the summit of mercy, treats “hate your enemy” as an allowance for the weak, and argues that the imprecations of the prophets, of Christ, and of Paul are predictions, not wishes.
Letter 1.21Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore sends Ammonius the Old and New Testaments to compare with the pagan theogonies; a second letter tells a man who covets the priesthood to amend his life or give up the desire.
Letter 1.24Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Scripture must be studied with care and reverence; Uzziah's leprosy for rashly entering the sanctuary is a warning.
Letter 1.27Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · A palace eunuch who reads Scripture but covets others' goods is told to let his reading change his life.
Letter 1.107Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Christ added no new doctrine to the law and prophets but fulfilled them; everything in the New Testament is proclaimed in the Old.
Letter 1.268Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · The apostles' lack of learning shows the Gospel's power.
Letter 1.304Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore declines to explain holy things to a man of bad life until he reforms, since a defiled mind cannot grasp them.
Letter 1.369Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore commends the canonical Scriptures read in church above all other writings, leaving apocryphal books to others.
Letter 1.371Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Marcion's gospel cuts out Christ's genealogy and reverses "I came not to destroy the law", setting the Testaments at enmity.
Letter 1.467Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Scripture records punishments so that fear may keep us from the same sins.
Letter 1.494Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · The fire at Pentecost, like the fire at Sinai, shows one God in both Testaments; a second letter says wine in moderation gladdens, but excess is dissipation.
Letter 2.3Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Scripture is Wisdom's mixed bowl: divine teaching mixed with ordinary words and examples so that people can grasp it; outside learning is to be used like a bee gathering only what is useful.
Letter 2.4Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · The "treasure in earthen vessels" is either God's gifts in a mortal body or divine wisdom in Scripture's plain words; either way the weakness of the vessel shows God's power.
Letter 2.5Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · The apostles' miracles and authority show the treasure God placed in weak bodies, and Scripture's plain words hold depths that defeat the wisest.
Letter 2.73Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Reading Scripture provides examples that nourish virtue.
Letter 2.94Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Despair is worse than carelessness, and Isidore has not neglected Zosimus; Daniel was honoured the night Belshazzar died; a difficulty is solved from what is agreed; virtue must be pursued; John 21:25 is restrained hyperbole like that of the Old Testament, or refers to works beyond the world's capacity.
Letter 2.135Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · The beastly man of Ps 49 is worse than any beast, and Scripture is the mirror that can transform him; a governor should steer by piety; the prosperity of the wicked belongs to God's judgment; Paul became "as a Jew" and "as without law" by condescension, while keeping both the old law and Christ's higher law.
Letter 2.151Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Reporting how virtuous men speak of the four clerics' open vices, Isidore lays out a chain of steps from acknowledging their fault to looking continually to God.
Letter 2.249Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · God's commands are to be obeyed without argument, since he knows what is good for us.
Letter 2.254Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Deliberate distortion of Scripture is beyond pardon, since it springs from malice, not error.
Letter 2.299Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Scripture gives all people a firm faith in God as maker, provider and judge; his essence cannot and need not be searched out.
Letter 3.104Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore condemns Christians who wage spiritual civil war by scandalizing brothers; (3.105) rebukes ingratitude; (3.106) explains why Scripture was written down; (3.107) interprets the sower; (3.108) explains why involuntary killers lived among the Levites.
Letter 3.136Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Scripture must be interpreted from its context and occasion, not by tearing sayings out of it.
Letter 3.165Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Gal 1:8 guards the gospel against demons posing as angels; and (Letter 3.166) Christ's coming in the Father's own glory shows they share one essence.
Letter 3.292Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Interpreters must follow Scripture's meaning, not bend it to their own.
Letter 3.388Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore describes the inexhaustible delight of reading the inspired Scriptures, which makes earthly goods seem nothing.
Letter 4.28Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · The plain, ungrammatical style the Greeks mock in Scripture proves its power, since it conquered the world where Plato could not win over one tyrant.
Letter 4.30Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Plato's disdain for eloquence and Homer's claim to be taught by a god show that the apostles' lack of learning proves their message divine.
Letter 4.31Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore recounts silencing a pagan rhetor: the Gospels that record the crucifixion also record the resurrection and ascension, so one cannot accept the one and reject the other.
Letter 4.33Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Attentive reading of Scripture kindles love for its teachings, the foundation of a heavenly way of life.
Letter 4.40Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Two letters: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song are read in that order, from moral virtue to contempt of the world to divine love, and the young should not read the Song first; almsgiving done for praise is still better than none.
Letter 4.60Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Paul ranks approving sinners above sinning, because one who condemns his own sin can repent, while one who praises wickedness cuts himself off from repentance.
Letter 4.67Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Scripture's plain style, which the Greeks mock, shows its divine care for the salvation of all, while the eloquence of philosophers served their own glory.
Letter 4.88Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Even Paul urged constant reading, because memory of divine wisdom fades unless it is renewed daily.
Letter 4.89Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Three letters: the law's ban on favouring the poor in court checks abuse of poverty and still more the greed of the rich; learning from Scripture is needed daily; Scripture's plain clarity serves all people, unlike the quarrelling stylists and philosophers.
Letter 4.110Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Three letters: Ezekiel's moaning doves are the fugitives who grieve in fearful silence; Christ makes reconciliation with a wronged brother the condition of acceptable worship; Isidore defends 1 Tim 4:3 and several other passages as matters of one letter or of punctuation, and affirms that marriage and food are honourable.
Letter 4.113Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore resolves an apparent contradiction in Heb 9:17 by a one-letter reading ("not then" for "never") or by accenting the words to mean "not at all."
Letter 4.133Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Because bishops neglect Scripture and follow their passions, they wage war on one another, lose the respect of their flocks, and give them excuses for sin.
Letter 4.134Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · The law and the prophets prepare for the gospel, which governs the soul and intention, not only outward action.
Letter 4.139Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Ten letters: rebuke sin with love and bear abuse; Scripture serves salvation, not glory; the law's exclusions of the unclean restrain incontinence and figure sinners; John 1:1 teaches the Son's consubstantial and eternal begetting; rulers must govern in piety and justice; an untitled protest against a peace sworn with pagan oaths; the pastor's art of varied remedies; Christ freed us from fear of death by teaching judgment and resurrection; Hebrews' rest is heavenly; flattery of the wicked shares their guilt.
Letter 4.163Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Against Origen's teaching that souls fell from a prior existence: Scripture does not teach it, souls remember nothing of it, the body does not work as a punishment, and Scripture speaks against it; both sides agree that virtue is what matters.
Letter 4.175Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Moses began his law with creation and with the rewards and punishments of history so as to ground worship of the Creator and move his people to piety.
Letter 4.197Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Two letters: the Persian education and oath to truth and virtue shame those who will not read Scripture; in the age to come the incorruptible body will bear punishments both intense and unending.
Letter 4.208Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Contempt for hearing Scripture is the devil's trick to keep us from its riches and from the action it produces.
Letter 4.221Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Two letters: Alypius should drink from the everflowing springs of Scripture; God's naming himself by the patriarchs and saving Jerusalem for David's sake shows that virtue is remembered by God after death.
Letter 4.228Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Sirach compares Wisdom to many trees, taking from each only the feature that fits, because an example is a likeness, not an identity.
Letter 5.38Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · People who will not even listen to teaching about virtue will never labour for it; Isidore urges a bishop to keep them reading Scripture.
Letter 5.131Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · In a long letter Isidore laments that church leaders persecute the virtuous and reward the wicked, says that he himself has suffered for speaking frankly, and calls them to humility, honesty and repentance; a second letter refuses to answer a question until the questioner lays aside his hostility.
Letter 5.257Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Isidore tells Zosimus not to trust the approval of fellow sinners but the judgement of the sound and of Scripture.
Letter 5.281Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Scripture's plain words carry heavenly meaning, pagan eloquence the reverse; eloquence is good only as a servant of divine wisdom.
Letter 5.294Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Envy always attends virtue, so a deacon should not be troubled by slander; a second letter answers a pagan that Scripture is not to blame for those who do not live by it.
Letter 5.494Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · A young monk, though briefly with the holy Theodosius, has imitated him so closely that his master is evident in his conduct.
Letter 5.532Isidore of Pelusium · ca. 393-ca. 435 · Though Zosimus bought only the name of priesthood, obedience to Scripture could still make him a true priest.
Against Jovinianus 1.6Jerome · 393 · Jerome announces that he will answer Jovinian first with Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 7.
Against Jovinianus 1.21Jerome · 393 · Jerome reads Joshua's crossing of the Jordan, the circumcision at Gilgal, and the conquest as figures of the Gospel's victory over marriage and the senses.
Against Jovinianus 1.25Jerome · 393 · Jerome answers the examples of Elijah and Elisha, Hezekiah, Huldah, and Daniel.
Against Jovinianus 1.26Jerome · 393 · Jerome argues that the apostles' marriages belonged to the time before the Gospel, that 1 Cor 9:5 refers to women who served them, and that John, the virgin apostle, was specially loved by Christ.
Against Jovinianus 2.26Jerome · 393 · Jerome refutes Jovinian's claim that the Gospels promise "sevenfold" and defends the threefold yield as degrees of reward.
Poem 24, lines 259–290Paulinus of Nola · ca. 393–431 · When the skiff reached shore Martinianus found he had saved, without knowing it, the book of Paul's epistles, through which Paul again rescued men from the sea.
Poem 24, lines 633–664Paulinus of Nola · ca. 393–431 · Samson's jawbone gave water as fasting bodies receive the Spirit; the Old Testament figures are fulfilled in Christ, who has freed Christians from the shadow and yoke of the law.
Poem 24, lines 827–858Paulinus of Nola · ca. 393–431 · As Joseph stored grain in Egypt, the boy should store the food of eternal life by studying Scripture, and so feed his parents in their old age, as young eagles feed their aged parents.
Poem 27, lines 511–541Paulinus of Nola · ca. 393–431 · Paulinus shows Niceta the paintings of the porticoes: the Pentateuch, Joshua crossing the Jordan, and Ruth, whose choice of God against Orpah's return figures the world's division.
Poem 31, lines 347–376Paulinus of Nola · ca. 393–431 · Christ is the end of the law; the torn veil signifies that faith now unveils the law's hidden meaning, which remains veiled for the Jews, while believers see Christ by faith.
Letter 156Synesius of Cyrene · ca. 393-413 · Synesius declines a friend's request for a bishopric, all sees being filled; there follow two short Easter homilies, on the 'cup in the hand of the Lord' (Ps 75:8) as the one Word of both Testaments, and to the newly baptized, and the opening of a speech against the people of Leontopolis.
On the Twelve Stones 7 (Ligurion)Epiphanius of Salamis · 394 · Epiphanius cannot find the ligure in the ancient writers and suggests it is the hyacinth, whose kinds and fire-resisting properties he describes.
Letters 21.3Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus praises John’s Gospel as the last written but the highest, beginning from the eternal Word, and sets out the Son’s and the Spirit’s equality with the Father.
Letters 32.16Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Inscriptions mark one sacristy for liturgical vessels and the other for reading Scripture.
Letters 39.3Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus urges Aper to cultivate his soul as Christ’s field, with prayer, Scripture, the cross, and the fear of God.
Letters 43.3Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus declines to explain the blessings of Jacob that Desiderius asked about, urging him to seek the understanding from God himself.
Letters 43.5Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Mark’s note that it was not the season for figs shows that the fig tree was a figure: Christ sought the fruit of faith from the synagogue and received gall and vinegar.
Letters 46.3Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Prompted by reading Jacob’s blessing of Judah, Paulinus asks Rufinus to explain the blessings of the patriarchs, especially the foal bound to the vine.
Letters 47.2Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks Rufinus, who has already explained Judah’s blessing in a threefold sense, to explain the blessings of the other eleven patriarchs.
Letters 50.1Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · In haste, Paulinus puts a few questions on Scripture to Augustine.
Letters 50.2Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks the meaning of Ps 16:3–4 (15 in the Latin) and suggests that the ‘saints on earth’ are the Jews holy only by descent, like the self-righteous Pharisee.
Letters 50.3Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows that God rejects self-righteousness and justifies the humble by faith, as Paul says of the Jews who sought their own righteousness.
Letters 50.4Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · God made his will wonderful among Israel by the law and by the incarnation and miracles of Christ, yet their unbelief multiplied their infirmities.
Letters 50.5Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks whether ‘afterward they made haste’ means haste to repentance, as at Pentecost, or haste to demand Christ’s crucifixion.
Letters 50.6Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks the meaning of Ps 17:14 (16 in the Latin), which some psalters read as ‘filled with pork’ and others ‘filled with sons.’
Letters 50.7Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks why Ps 59 (58 in the Latin) prays that the Jews not be killed ‘lest they forget your law,’ and suggests reasons, including the elect of Israel sealed in Revelation.
Letters 50.8Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks the meaning of the ‘crown of the hair’ and ‘the tongue of your dogs’ in Ps 68 (67 in the Latin).
Letters 50.9Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks Augustine to distinguish apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in Eph 4:11, especially pastors from teachers.
Letters 50.10Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks how supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings in 1 Tim 2:1 differ.
Letters 50.11Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks how, according to Rom 11:28, the Jews can be both enemies for the Gentiles’ sake and beloved for the fathers’ sake, and how they can be beloved yet perish.
Letters 50.12Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks what ‘the religion of angels’ in Col 2:18 means, and suggests it refers to heretics teaching visions they have not seen.
Letters 50.13Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks Augustine to explain Col 2:21–23, puzzled that Paul ascribes a show of wisdom and humility to false teachers and that ‘not sparing the body’ sits beside ‘satisfying the flesh.’
Letters 50.15Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks why the risen Christ, in the same body, was sometimes not recognized by those who knew him.
Letters 50.16Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus suggests that Christ’s ‘Do not touch me’ refers to Mary Magdalene’s not yet having grasped by faith that he is God.
Letters 50.17Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus asks whether Simeon’s sword means a passion of Mary or her grief at the cross, and reads Christ’s giving her to John as showing she had no other son.
Letters 50.18Paulinus of Nola · ca. 394–413 · Paulinus suggests that the sword through Mary’s soul is the word of God, sharper than any sword, and asks Augustine how it served to reveal the thoughts of many hearts.
On Lying 7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Lies in the Old Testament are answered as figurative (and so not lies) or, like the midwives', approved only as progress relative to worse conduct.
On Lying 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · No lie may ever be told in the teaching of religion, even to make it easier to accept; one may conceal at times but never lie.
On Lying 26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Since Old Testament deeds may be figurative, the deeds of the saints in the New Testament should be used to show how the commands of Scripture are to be understood.
On Lying 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Christ and Paul, struck on the face, did not literally turn the other cheek, showing that the command concerns the readiness of the heart.
On Lying 28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Paul swore oaths in his letters, showing that Christ's 'do not swear at all' forbids loving or seeking oaths, not every oath.
On Lying 29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Christ's purse and the apostles' famine relief show that 'do not be anxious about tomorrow' forbids anxious love of temporal things, not provision.
On Lying 30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Paul's refusal of support shows that Christ's instruction to live by the gospel was a permission, not a command; the saints' deeds interpret the words.
On Lying 43Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Augustine rejects the claim that Paul lied in rebuking Peter in Galatians, since Paul swore he was not lying, and closes with 1 Corinthians 10:13.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 22Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · Christ was truly born of the virgin Mary, as the Gospel says; rejecting parts of Scripture at will leaves no rule for correcting error.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 23Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · As death came through a woman, life came through a woman; God's power is no more defiled in Mary's womb than in the saints in whom it dwells.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 37Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · The Manichees attack Old Testament expressions that have equally striking parallels in the New Testament; read with goodwill, the two Testaments agree.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 38Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · The Manichees allow figurative reading of the New Testament but not the Old, yet accept the Acts of Leucius, with its story of Maximilla deceiving her husband.
On the Faith against the Manichaeans 39Evodius of Uzalis · ca. 400-424 · The Old Testament already contains the miracles and moral precepts the Manichees admire in the New; they should accept all the canonical Scriptures.
Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental 5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · Augustine refuses to accept Mani’s claim to be an apostle: he believed the Gospel on the authority of the Catholic Church, which forbids him to believe Mani, and the Gospel and Acts name no such apostle.
Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · The Acts of the Apostles, which carries the same authority as the Gospel, plainly records the coming of the promised Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental 23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · Simple Catholics who picture God in human form think better of him than the Manichaeans, and can grow in the Church to understand Scripture’s bodily language spiritually; the Manichaeans claim Mani spoke without figures and so cannot reinterpret his picture.
Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental 39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · Both Testaments speak of God punishing (Isaiah, the Lord’s warning about Gehenna, Paul on the temple), and the Manichaeans, who explain Paul charitably, should read the Old Testament in the same spirit.
On Christian Doctrine 1.0Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine defends the usefulness of giving rules for interpreting Scripture against those who will not understand them, those who cannot apply them, and those who claim to need only a divine gift.
On Christian Doctrine 1.1Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The work has two parts, discovering the meaning of Scripture and expressing it, and Augustine trusts God to multiply what he shares as he multiplied the loaves.
On Christian Doctrine 1.35Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The sum of Book 1: the fulfillment of all Scripture is love of God and neighbor, and the temporal dispensation is to be used as a road to God.
On Christian Doctrine 1.36Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Whoever does not draw love of God and neighbor from Scripture has not understood it; one who misreads the author but builds up love errs harmlessly, yet should be corrected.
On Christian Doctrine 1.37Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Rash misreadings can lead one to oppose Scripture itself, undermining faith and so love; faith, hope, and love are what all knowledge serves.
On Christian Doctrine 1.39Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · One firmly grounded in faith, hope, and love needs the Scriptures only to teach others; love, the greatest, will remain forever.
On Christian Doctrine 1.40Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · With love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith as the goal, the reader may approach Scripture confidently; the next book treats signs.
On Christian Doctrine 2.2Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Given signs are those used intentionally to convey one's thoughts; Scripture's signs come to us through its human writers.
On Christian Doctrine 2.5Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Scripture began in one language and spread through translations; its readers seek the thoughts of its writers and through them the will of God.
On Christian Doctrine 2.6Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Scripture's obscurities were provided by God to humble pride and make discovery delightful, as the figurative reading of Song 4:2 shows; nearly everything obscure is stated plainly elsewhere.
On Christian Doctrine 2.7Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine sets out seven steps toward wisdom: fear, piety, knowledge (the study of Scripture), fortitude, counsel, purity of heart, and wisdom.
On Christian Doctrine 2.8Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine advises reading all the canonical books first, ranks disputed books by how many and how weighty the churches are that accept them, and lists the canon of the Old and New Testaments.
On Christian Doctrine 2.9Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The student should first know the books, then master what is plainly taught about faith and life, and then use clear passages to explain obscure ones.
On Christian Doctrine 2.10Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Scripture is not understood when its signs are unknown or ambiguous; signs may be literal or figurative.
On Christian Doctrine 2.11Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Knowledge of Hebrew and Greek is the remedy for unknown literal signs, especially because of the many varying Latin translations.
On Christian Doctrine 2.12Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Comparing Latin translations can clarify difficult passages, as with Isa 58:7 and 7:9, and can expose mistranslations arising from ambiguous Greek words.
On Christian Doctrine 2.13Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Knowledge of the original languages or very literal translations helps detect errors; mere solecisms and barbarisms in the Latin Bible matter little unless they create ambiguity.
On Christian Doctrine 2.14Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Unknown words and idioms are learned from speakers, study of languages, comparison of translations, and wide reading, after first correcting the manuscripts.
On Christian Doctrine 2.15Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine prefers the Itala among Latin versions, defends the authority of the Septuagint for the Old Testament even where it differs from the Hebrew, and has the New Testament corrected from the Greek.
On Christian Doctrine 2.16Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Figurative signs require knowledge of languages (such as the meaning of Hebrew names) and of things, including the natures of animals, stones, and plants, and of numbers and music.
On Christian Doctrine 2.41Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The student must remember that knowledge puffs up while love builds up; the Passover hyssop signifies humility, and the cross's dimensions describe the Christian life.
On Christian Doctrine 2.42Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · All useful pagan knowledge is small compared to Scripture, where everything harmful is condemned and everything useful is found, and more besides.
On Christian Doctrine 3.1Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The student, prepared in piety, languages, knowledge of things, and corrected texts, now turns to ambiguous signs, literal or figurative.
On Christian Doctrine 3.2Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Ambiguities of punctuation are resolved by the rule of faith, then by the context, and where neither decides, the reader may choose, as examples from John 1:1, Phil 1:22–24, and 2 Cor 7:1–2 show.
On Christian Doctrine 3.3Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Ambiguities of pronunciation are resolved in the same way, as examples from Rom 8:33–34, Rom 9:30, John 1:46, Ps 139:15, and Gal 5:21 show.
On Christian Doctrine 3.4Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Other ambiguities in literal words are resolved by the context, comparison of translations, or the original language, as with 1 Thess 3:7 and 1 Cor 15:31.
On Christian Doctrine 3.5Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Taking figurative expressions literally, such as “Sabbath” or “sacrifice,” is a carnal slavery of the soul that mistakes signs for things.
On Christian Doctrine 3.6Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The Jews' observance of signs bound them to the one God, though many rejected Christ for disregarding them; those who believed formed the Jerusalem church, which was ready for the Spirit.
On Christian Doctrine 3.10Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Whatever in Scripture cannot literally refer to good conduct or true faith is figurative; Scripture commands only love and condemns only desire, and readers must not judge it by their own customs.
On Christian Doctrine 3.11Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Harsh sayings in Scripture serve to destroy the reign of desire; if plainly expressed they are literal, as in Rom 2:5–9, though some, like Jer 1:10, are figurative.
On Christian Doctrine 3.12Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Seemingly shameful acts of holy persons in Scripture are figurative or must be judged by the customs of their time, such as the patriarchs' polygamy for the sake of offspring; what matters is not the thing used but the lust of the user.
On Christian Doctrine 3.15Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Figurative passages should be studied until their interpretation leads to the reign of love; passages that already do so literally are not figurative.
On Christian Doctrine 3.16Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · A precept that seems to command wrongdoing or forbid kindness is figurative, as with eating Christ's flesh, heaping coals of fire, and losing one's life.
On Christian Doctrine 3.17Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Precepts for lower stages of life, such as marriage, are not figurative just because some follow a higher calling; some commands apply to all, others to particular kinds of persons.
On Christian Doctrine 3.18Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Practices blameless in Old Testament times, such as polygamy, may not be adopted now; what matters is love or lust in the user, and the patriarchs used marriage only for procreation.
On Christian Doctrine 3.22Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Old Testament deeds foreign to Christian practice, though praised, should be understood figuratively and not imitated.
On Christian Doctrine 3.23Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The recorded sins of great men warn the reader against pride and self-righteousness.
On Christian Doctrine 3.24Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The first task is to determine whether an expression is literal or figurative, using the rules already given.
On Christian Doctrine 3.25Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The same thing may signify contrary or different things in different passages, as leaven, the lion, the serpent, bread, and water show.
On Christian Doctrine 3.26Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Obscure figures are explained by plainer passages, though the same image may carry several meanings, as with the shield.
On Christian Doctrine 3.27Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · When a passage admits several meanings, each confirmed by other Scriptures and agreeing with the faith, there is no danger, for the Holy Spirit foresaw and provided them, though the reader should seek the author's intention.
On Christian Doctrine 3.28Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Meanings supported only by reason, not by other Scripture, are dangerous; it is safer to settle disputed interpretations by Scripture itself.
On Christian Doctrine 3.29Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The biblical writers used all the rhetorical tropes, such as metaphor, catachresis, and irony, which even ordinary speech uses; knowing them helps resolve passages that would be absurd if taken literally.
On Christian Doctrine 3.30Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine introduces the seven rules of Tyconius, a Donatist, as useful but not all-sufficient keys to Scripture, to be read with caution.
On Christian Doctrine 3.31Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Tyconius's first rule: Scripture sometimes speaks of Christ and the Church as one person, passing between head and body.
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.
On Christian Doctrine 3.34Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Tyconius's fourth rule, on species and genus: Scripture passes from a part to the whole, as Ezekiel's prophecy to Israel passes to the spiritual Israel of all nations, the Church.
On Christian Doctrine 3.35Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Tyconius's fifth rule, on times, works by synecdoche (as with the six or eight days before the Transfiguration and Christ's three days in the tomb) and by symbolic numbers.
On Christian Doctrine 3.36Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Tyconius's sixth rule, recapitulation: Scripture sometimes returns to earlier events, as in the planting of paradise, the dispersion of nations before Babel, and Christ's warning about Lot's wife.
On Christian Doctrine 3.37Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Tyconius's seventh rule concerns the devil and his body; all the rules but one concern figurative expression, and students of Scripture must above all pray for understanding.
On Christian Doctrine 4.5Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Wisdom matters more than eloquence; the preacher speaks wisely in proportion to his understanding of Scripture, whose words he should use, and should learn eloquence from wise and eloquent Christian writers.
On Christian Doctrine 4.6Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The authors of Scripture are both wise and eloquent, with an eloquence fitting their divine authority, which serves wisdom without showing itself off.
On Christian Doctrine 4.7Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine shows the natural eloquence of Scripture through Paul (Rom 5:3–5; 2 Cor 11:16–30) and Amos (6:1–6), whose rhetorical figures serve wisdom without being sought.
On Christian Doctrine 4.8Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Preachers should not imitate Scripture's purposeful obscurity but strive above all to be understood.
On Christian Doctrine 4.20Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · Augustine illustrates the subdued style (Gal 4 and 3), the temperate style (1 Tim 5; Rom 12–13), with remarks on prose rhythm, and the grand style (2 Cor 6; Rom 8; Gal 4).
Confessions 3.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine turned to the Scriptures but despised their humble style in comparison with Cicero, being too proud to become a little one.
Confessions 5.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine was impressed by Elpidius's scriptural arguments against the Manichees, whose claim that the New Testament had been falsified seemed weak, but his materialist thinking still held him captive.
Confessions 5.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Through Ambrose's spiritual interpretation of the Old Testament, Augustine came to see that the catholic faith could be defended, though he did not yet think it proven.
Confessions 6.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Hearing Ambrose preach, Augustine learned that the church does not understand the image of God in man as a bodily form, and blushed that he had attacked a caricature of the catholic faith.
Confessions 6.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Through Ambrose's spiritual exegesis, based on the rule that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life, Augustine no longer found the Old Testament absurd, but he still withheld assent, wanting mathematical certainty.
Confessions 6.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine came to prefer catholic doctrine, recognizing that much of life rests on belief and that the Scriptures, received with such authority, are to be believed.
Confessions 6.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine came to believe that God had given the Scriptures their worldwide authority so that he might be believed and sought through them, their humble style serving all and their depth exercising the few.
Confessions 7.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Freed from astrology but still anguished over the origin of evil, Augustine held firm to faith in God, Christ, and Scripture, while his pride kept him bound to bodily images.
Confessions 7.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Reading Paul, Augustine found the truths of the Platonists together with grace, confession, and the way of Christ, which those books lack.
Confessions 8.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Hearing a child's voice chant "Take up and read," Augustine opens Paul at Romans 13:13-14 and his doubts vanish.
Confessions 9.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · At Cassiciacum Augustine is set on fire by the Psalms and wishes the Manichees could hear him read Psalm 4.
Confessions 9.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Psalm 4's "in peace, in the Selfsame" speaks to Augustine of God's unchanging rest; he grieves for Scripture's enemies.
Confessions 9.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine resigns his post and asks Ambrose what to read; Ambrose recommends Isaiah.
Confessions 11.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine has no time to tell everything; he wants to spend his free hours meditating on Scripture.
Confessions 11.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine prays for understanding of the hidden depths of Scripture, from the creation to the heavenly city.
Confessions 11.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine prays through Christ, the mediator, to understand Scripture, which speaks of Christ.
Confessions 11.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine cannot question Moses, but inner Truth, which spoke through Moses, can teach him.
Confessions 12.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Seeking to understand Scripture, Augustine trusts Christ's promise that those who seek will find.
Confessions 12.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Genesis mentions no day for the first creation because it means the timeless heaven of heaven and formless matter.
Confessions 12.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Scripture's depth is wonderful; Augustine turns to answer those who accept Genesis but interpret it differently.
Confessions 12.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Leaving deniers aside, Augustine longs for the heavenly Jerusalem and turns to those who accept Scripture but differ in interpretation.
Confessions 12.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Some say that "heaven and earth" in Gen 1:1 means the whole visible world, told simply for a rough people.
Confessions 12.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Others read "heaven and earth" as formless matter, or as the whole creation, with "earth" and "abyss" as bodily and spiritual matter.
Confessions 12.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Another reading takes "heaven and earth" as the still formless matter in which both creations were present confusedly.
Confessions 12.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · If a reader finds a true meaning in Scripture that the author did not intend, no harm is done, as long as it is true and serves love.
Confessions 12.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Five true interpretations of Gen 1:1 can be drawn from these agreed truths.
Confessions 12.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Five interpretations of Gen 1:2, "the earth was invisible and unformed."
Confessions 12.31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Genesis does not mention the making of formless matter, as it does not mention the angels or the waters; yet God made all these from nothing.
Confessions 12.32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Disagreements are either about the truth of things or about the author's intention; Augustine seeks God's intention through Moses'.
Confessions 12.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine is certain what is true but not which true meaning Moses intended.
Confessions 12.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Those who insist that only their reading is Moses' meaning love their own opinion, not the truth, which belongs to all.
Confessions 12.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Both readers see the truth in God, not in each other's minds; quarrels over Moses' intention offend the love for which he wrote.
Confessions 12.36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine would have wished, as author of Genesis, to write so that every true meaning could be found in his words; he credits Moses with this gift.
Confessions 12.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Genesis is like a small spring feeding many streams; simple readers are nourished by its plain sense as chicks in a nest.
Confessions 12.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Readers variously take "beginning" as Wisdom or as "first," and "heaven and earth" in several senses.
Confessions 12.41Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine does not know which true meaning Moses intended, but asks that all who see the truth love one another and honor Moses.
Confessions 12.42Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Why not grant that Moses meant every true sense, since God tempered Scripture for many readers?
Confessions 12.43Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The Spirit knew every true meaning; Augustine will now more briefly choose one true meaning, aiming at Moses' own.
Confessions 13.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The firmament is Scripture, stretched over us like a skin, its authority heightened by the death of its human authors.
Confessions 13.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · No other books so destroy pride and move the heart to confession as Scripture.
Confessions 13.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The angels above the firmament read God's will directly; we read it in Scripture until we see God as he is.
Confessions 13.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The gifts of the Spirit are like sun, moon, and stars: wisdom for the mature, knowledge and other gifts for the weaker.
Confessions 13.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The spiritual, men and women, rulers and subjects, judge spiritually, but not Scripture, nor the hidden state of souls, nor outsiders.
Confessions 13.36Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The blessing signifies that one meaning is expressed in many signs, and one text understood in many true ways.
Confessions 13.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Taken figuratively, the blessing means the power to express one truth in many signs and to understand one text in many ways.
Confessions 13.44Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · God tells Augustine that Scripture speaks in time, but God sees and speaks eternally.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 3.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that learned readers saw the difference between the genealogies but, trusting Scripture’s authority, sought and found its explanation.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 3.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains the two genealogies by adoption: Joseph could have had a natural father and an adoptive father, as adoption is common in Scripture and is central to the Christian faith.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 3.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says the deeper meaning of the genealogies, their order, placing, and numbers, can be found only by devout catholic study.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 3.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine concludes that the evangelists agree once adoption is understood, and calls on the Manichaeans to give way as Faustus promised.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 4.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus rejects the Old Testament because its promises, the land of Canaan, belong to the Jews who keep its law, and are earthly.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 4.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that the Old Testament’s temporal promises were figures of the New, that the patriarchs and prophets looked to the New Testament, and that the Manichaeans deny the bodily resurrection and imagine a land of light of their own.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 6.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that catholics, like Manichaeans, do not keep the Old Testament’s ceremonial laws, and accuses them of praising what they do not observe.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 6.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine distinguishes moral precepts from precepts that signified future things, and argues from Paul that the latter were figures, to be read but no longer observed.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 6.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that Old Testament sacrifices signified the one sacrifice of Christ, and contrasts them with the Manichaean belief that the elect’s food consists of living souls.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 6.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that the Old Testament called some animals unclean by signification, not by nature, illustrating with the pig that does not chew the cud as a figure of those who do not ponder wisdom.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 6.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains each ceremonial law Faustus mocked as a figure once binding and now fulfilled in a spiritual meaning, and charges Faustus with a docetic Christ who deceived.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 8.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues from the new patch on an old garment and from Galatians that Christians should not take up the Old Testament.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 8.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that catholics read the Old Testament in freedom as testimony, and turns the parable of the new patch against Manichaean fasting and myth.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 9.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that, born a Gentile, he should not take up the Old Testament, which the Jewish apostles themselves left.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 9.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers with Paul’s olive tree: the Gentiles are grafted into the holy root of Israel, in which Christ was always preached, and the Manichaeans remain in the wild olive of paganism.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 10.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus says the Old Testament’s earthly promises belong to the Jews who keep its law, and that the commandment against coveting forbids him to claim them.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 10.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that Christians keep the Old Testament’s moral precepts and hold its figurative precepts and earthly promises as testimony.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 10.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine turns the question back: the Manichaeans cannot answer for the New Testament, which they claim is falsified, and their own God coveted the land of darkness.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 11.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Paul’s statement that Christ was of David’s seed was either corrected by his later words in 2 Corinthians or is an interpolation.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 11.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine rejects the Manichaean claim that inconvenient passages are interpolations, and describes how real textual questions are settled by manuscripts, the original language, and the church’s authority.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 11.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine notes that all manuscripts and languages agree that Christ is of David’s seed, and rejects the idea that Paul corrected an earlier error.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 11.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine distinguishes the canonical Scriptures, whose truth may not be doubted, from the writings of later authors, which readers may judge freely.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 11.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that since both Pauline statements are canonical and textually secure, the apparent contradiction must lie in the reader’s understanding.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 11.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · From the context of 2 Cor 5 and parallels in Ephesians and Romans, Augustine shows that Paul speaks of Christ’s risen, immortal state and of believers’ hope, not of a denial of Christ’s flesh.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Christ needs no prophetic testimony, since the Father and his works testify to him, and that the Hebrew prophets lived unworthy lives.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine sets out to show that the prophets foretold Christ, that their testimony helps faith, and that they lived worthily, beginning with Paul’s words in Rom 1:1–3.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues from Rom 9:1–5 and 3:1–2 that the covenants, law, and oracles entrusted to Israel are praised by Paul and bear witness to Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says the Manichaeans, like unbelieving readers of Moses, have a veil over their hearts, and, as Christ’s parable warns, do not believe in his resurrection because they reject Moses and the prophets.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues from Paul that the law and the Israelite prophets bear witness to Christ, in whom all God’s promises are fulfilled.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine points to the promise that all nations would be blessed in Abraham’s seed, which Paul applies to Christ and which is now visibly fulfilled.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says that all the prophetic books speak of Christ, much of it in figures, and that the figures taken together testify plainly to him.
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 12.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Cain and Abel as a figure: Abel’s accepted sacrifice as the faith of the New Testament, and Cain, who killed his brother, as the unbelieving Jewish people who rejected Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine continues the figure: Cain’s denial that he knew where his brother was answers to the Jewish denial of Christ, and the voice of Abel’s blood to the “Amen” of the nations receiving Christ’s blood.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the curse on Cain as the church’s judgment on the unbelieving Jewish people, who keep the law’s outward observances without the grace of Christ hidden in them.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads God’s protection of Cain as meaning that the Jewish people would not be destroyed but would survive, scattered, through all time as a witness.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the mark of Cain as the Jewish law, which has kept the Jewish people distinct and preserved under pagan and Christian rulers, and applies Cain’s wandering also to the Manichaeans.
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 12.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the clean and unclean animals, the sevens and twos, and Noah as the eighth as figures of the mixed church, the Holy Spirit, and Christ’s resurrection.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the ark’s single cubit at the top, its side door, and its lower stories as figures of the church’s unity, of baptism from Christ’s side, and of the nations.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the seven days before the flood, the destruction outside the ark, and the forty days of rain as figures of baptism within the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the hundred years of the ark’s building and Noah’s six hundredth year as figures of the sixth age, in which the church is built.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the dates and numbers of the flood (27, 7, 15, 150) as figures of the Trinity in the soul, of the saints’ rest and resurrection, and of baptism.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the raven and the dove as figures of those lost through rebaptism outside the church and of those brought back to unity, and of the final rest of the saints.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine briefly lists further figures in the end of the flood narrative: the opened roof, the dry earth, the order of entering and leaving, and the clean sacrifices.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads God’s blessing of Noah, the gift of animals for food, the command about blood, and the rainbow as figures of the church, adding that the sun signifies Christ only by likeness.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Noah’s drunkenness and nakedness as Christ’s passion, Shem and Japheth as the believing peoples, and Ham as the Jewish people, who now carry the Scriptures as witnesses for the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine sees the blessing of Shem and Japheth fulfilled in the church of the nations dwelling in Israel’s heritage, and places Jews and heretics, including the Manichaeans, with Ham as unwilling servants of the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Abraham’s departure, Isaac carrying the wood, and the ram in the thicket as figures of Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Jacob’s wrestling, the anointed stone, and the ladder as figures of Christ, citing Christ’s own words to Nathanael, with the angels as preachers who ascend to his divinity and descend to his humanity.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine contrasts the delight of finding Christ throughout Scripture with the fables of the Manichaeans.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Joseph’s sufferings and exaltation and the rod of Moses turned into a serpent and back as figures of Christ’s passion and resurrection and of the church’s.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Following Paul, Augustine reads the exodus, the cloud, the sea, the manna, and the rock as figures of Christ and baptism.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the wilderness journey, the bitter waters, the springs and palms, Moses’ raised hands, the bronze serpent, the passover, and the giving of the law as figures of Christ, the cross, and the Spirit.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Joshua (in Latin “Jesus”), the cluster of grapes, Rahab’s scarlet cord, and the fall of Jericho as figures of Christ and the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Samson’s lion and honeycomb, Jael’s tent peg, and Gideon’s fleece as figures of Christ, the cross, and the passing of the gospel to the nations.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the changes of priesthood and kingship, David’s eating of the holy bread, and the division of the kingdom as figures of Christ, king and priest, and of the saved remnant.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the ravens feeding Elijah and the widow of Zarephath with her two sticks, flour, and oil as figures of Christ, the cross, and love.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the mockers of Elisha, the raising of the Shunammite’s son, and the floating axe head as figures of Christ’s cross, incarnation, descent, and resurrection.
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 12.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends figurative reading of the Old Testament on Paul’s authority, comparing its details to writing whose meaning one recognizes even before one can read it.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that details in the Genesis narratives that serve no practical necessity show that they were written to signify something.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine contrasts Philo’s allegory of the ark as the human body, which failed at the door in its side, with the Christian reading of the door as the sacraments flowing from Christ’s side.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.40Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine notes that pagans, who allegorize their own myths, cannot object to Christian figurative reading of Scripture.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.41Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine cites the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that all nations would be blessed in their seed as a plain prophecy now visibly fulfilled in Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.42Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Jacob’s blessing of Judah (Gen 49:8–12) clause by clause as a prophecy of Christ: his birth, passion, resurrection, the coming of Herod, the calling of the nations, and the church washed in his blood.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.43Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine lists plain prophecies of Christ needing no interpreter: Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Psalm 57, Psalm 2, and Baruch 3.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.44Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine cites Daniel’s Son of Man and seventy weeks, the cessation of the temple sacrifice and anointing, and the Jewish expectation of the Messiah as proof that Christ was prophesied.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.45Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that faith in Christ always comes through human witnesses, and that prophecy protected the apostles’ preaching from being dismissed as magic.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.46Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that the simple faith catholics require includes believing the prophets, as milk before solid food, until the mind can understand.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers Faustus’s charge against the prophets’ lives by pointing to Abraham, justified by faith and set by Paul as an example for believers.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.48Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine closes Book 12, promising to answer Faustus’s specific charges against the patriarchs and prophets when he makes them.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that the Hebrew prophets are of no use to Gentile converts, who come to Christ through his own fame, not through Jewish testimony.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that the name “Christ” itself comes from the Hebrews, and that all nations in fact believe in Christ through Hebrew prophecy.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine shows from Isaiah and Psalm 110, as used by Jesus, that Hebrew prophecy foretold Christ as God and not only as man.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine asks on what authority the Manichaeans believe Mani, a late self-styled apostle, and notes that the apostles' books speak against him.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that report, if trusted, testifies against the Manichaeans and for the Christ of the scriptures, whose authority rests on the churches' succession and fulfilled prophecy.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers Faustus's imagined Gentile: the persecutions, the conversion of kings and the fall of idols, all foretold in the psalms and Jeremiah, make the prophets credible.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine notes that Gentiles now hide their idols from the imperial laws, as Isaiah foretold.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the Jews, scattered everywhere and carrying the prophetic books, prove that the prophecies were not forged by Christians after the event.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says the Jews' rejection of the gospel was itself foretold, and that their blindness is a just punishment for hidden sins.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Jeremiah's partridge that gathers what it did not hatch as a prophecy of heretics who draw away Christians born of the church's gospel.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine concludes that fulfilled prophecy makes the prophets the most credible witnesses to Christ's divinity.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine allows that pagan seers' sayings about God may refute paganism, but says they carry no authority compared with the Hebrew prophets, whose whole kingdom was a prophecy of Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine shows that Faustus could not convert his imagined Gentile either, since Manichaeans win only people already believing in Christ, by claiming Mani is the promised Paraclete.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that by Faustus's logic all books, including the gospel and Mani's own, would be useless, and mocks the Manichaean books as prisons of their god; Christians read both Testaments for faith, hope and love.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 14.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus rejects Moses for cursing everyone who hangs on a tree, which he says curses Christ and the martyrs, and for cursing those who raise no offspring.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 14.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that Isaiah praises faithful eunuchs, and reads the curse on not raising seed as fleshly offspring under the Old Testament and spiritual offspring through preaching now.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus says the Manichaeans reject the Old Testament because the church, Christ's bride, needs nothing from the God of the Hebrews, whom he portrays as a poor and deceitful lover.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that Paul himself joins the gospel to the prophets, that the new and old wine signify two hopes, not two testaments, and that the Old Testament rightly understood prophesies the New.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends the stone tablets of the law as prophetic of the church's heart of flesh, of Christ the stone, and of Pentecost, and as containing the two commandments of love in ten precepts.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains, from Romans 7 and 2 Corinthians 3, that the law is holy and good and that it kills only as letter without grace, while with the Spirit it is fulfilled in love.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus says he would gladly accept any prophecy of Christ in Moses or elsewhere, as one takes fish from the sea, without accepting Moses' law.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus says he found no prophecy of Christ in Moses, and so judges the saying “Moses wrote about me” to be a scribe's forgery rather than call Jesus a liar.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus asks to be shown what Moses wrote about Christ, since appeal to Christ's word would not convince a Jew or Gentile.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus rejects Deuteronomy 18:15 as a prophecy of Christ, since Christ is God and holy while Moses was a man and a sinner.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Deuteronomy 28:66 refers to Israel's captivity, and that the curses and death penalty of the law cannot be about Christ without making Moses an enemy of Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Christ's teaching on the Sabbath, circumcision and clean foods contradicts Moses, so that Jews who believed Moses could not believe Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus notes that Catholics themselves keep none of the law of Moses, which shows that Christ and Moses taught contrary things.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus rejects the reply that a Christian must believe the saying because it is in the Gospel, pointing to Christ's patience with Thomas.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that everything Moses wrote concerns Christ, and turns Faustus's image of fish and sea water against Manichaean food laws.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that temple, altar, priest and sacrifice appear in the New Testament too, as figures fulfilled in Christ and the church, while the Manichaeans' worship of the sun and moon is the true likeness to paganism.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine undertakes to show that the very passages Faustus attacks foretell Christ, and argues that if the gospel is called falsified, nothing can be known of Christ at all.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that the Gospel which says “all who came before me were thieves” also says Moses wrote of Christ, and that “came before” means came unsent, as the Manichaeans did, not like Moses and the prophets.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that Christ's appeal to the law's two witnesses itself points to Moses' prophecy of the Father and the Son, and that the Jews' silence proves nothing.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says Faustus misses everything in Moses because he reads with hostility, and that by his own admission a professed Christian is bound by the gospel to believe Moses wrote of Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends Deuteronomy 18:15 as a prophecy of Christ, showing that likeness need not be in every respect and that Christ is both unlike and like Moses in different ways.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends Moses: his wavering at the rock was a sin like Peter's, but he remained among the saints, as the Transfiguration shows, and his death will prove to foretell Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Moses' doubt at the rock as a figure of the people under the law who doubted Christ crucified, and his death on the mountain as the death of fleshly unbelief in the exalted Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says Christ is rightly called a prophet, and turns to answer the Jew who denies that Moses wrote of Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that Moses' successor Joshua, whose name Moses changed to “Jesus” and of whom God said “my name is in him,” was a figure of Christ, the prophet foretold by Moses.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine invites the Jew to see in Joshua a figure of the living Jesus, and argues that a Gentile too would be moved by Hebrew books that named Jesus so long before.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the Jews, who keep the prophetic books while rejecting Christ, are unwilling witnesses that the prophecies were not forged by Christians, and that their unbelief was itself foretold.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends Deuteronomy 28:66 as a prophecy of Christ, the life of men hung before unbelieving Jews, noting that prophetic curses are foreknowledge, not ill wishes.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that even Caiaphas prophesied Christ unknowingly through the priestly anointing, so Moses, who founded that anointing, certainly prophesied Christ knowingly.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that Christ did not turn Israel from its God, since he proclaimed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, nor did he break Moses' commandments, but rebuked those who made them void.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the law's sentence of death on false prophets as a figure of the church slaying heresies, Mani's above all, with the two-edged sword of the two Testaments.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine exposes the gap in Faustus's argument: he never showed that no other passages of Moses concern Christ, and many have been given, so the Gospel saying stands.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that the whole world now believes Moses and Christ together, so belief in both was not impossible for the Jews.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that the Sabbath, circumcision and food laws were figures for their time, and that Christ called his hungry disciples innocent, while Manichaean teaching counts plucking grain as murder and gives their god no rest.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Christ's Sabbath rest in the tomb and his rising on the eighth day as fulfilling the Sabbath and circumcision, which signifies the stripping off of mortality, and explains the woe on the proselyte as about imitating the Pharisees.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers Faustus's mockery of the food laws: they figure those who are to be received into Christ's body or rejected, and the Manichaeans, who neither ruminate on wisdom nor rightly divide the two Testaments, are among the unclean.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine concludes that Catholics observe all that Moses wrote in the realities the figures foretold, as a reader voices what was written, while the Jews neglected even the plain commands.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus rejects Matthew 5:17 because Matthew was not present at the Sermon on the Mount, John does not record it, and the Gospel speaks of Matthew in the third person, as if written by someone else.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Jesus' warning “do not think I came to destroy” implies he did destroy the law by his conduct, and that adding to the law would equally break Deuteronomy's command.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that Mani was present at nothing he says of Christ, that Matthew could learn from John or from Christ, that John omitted much, and that John's Gospel itself affirms the prophets.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine shows that writers commonly speak of themselves in the third person, as Moses, John and Christ himself do, so Matthew's “he saw a man named Matthew” proves nothing.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that the Jews' misunderstanding explains Christ's warning, and that the following verses show he meant the very law the Pharisees taught but did not keep.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 17.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that Christ fulfils the law not by adding words but by giving the love that keeps its commands and by accomplishing what it prophesied.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 18.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Catholics, who neither keep the law nor deny that Christ founded a New Testament, are as bound as Manichaeans to reject “I came not to destroy the law.”
Against Faustus the Manichaean 18.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus asks whether Catholics would take up circumcision, the Sabbath, sacrifices and food laws, and concludes that Matthew 5:17 either means something else or was never said.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 18.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus says Manichaean faith frees him to test Gospel sayings for tares sown by an enemy, while Catholics, believing everything, must either keep the law, reject the passage, or deny Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 18.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine repeats that the rites of the law were figures to be removed when their realities came, and that their removal, foretold by the prophets, is itself a fulfilment of the law.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 18.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers the taunt of “Saturn's chains”: pagan names of days and months imply no worship, as the Manichaeans keep their Bema in March without worshipping Mars, and the Sabbath, meaning rest, was a shadow of things to come.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 18.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains the animal sacrifices as concessions to the people that also prefigured Christ, the bull, ram and goat, whose blood cleanses.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 18.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that the tares are evil men, not interpolations, that Catholics use reason against Manichaean error, and that by love and fulfilled prophecy they keep the law Christ came to fulfil.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 19.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the prophecies were fulfilled in Christ, so the figurative rites that foretold him are rightly no longer performed.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 19.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says the old rites ceased because they foretold Christ and he has come, and adds that every religion is held together by visible sacraments whose contempt is sacrilege.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 19.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine shows that Christ’s precepts on anger, harsh words, lust, non-retaliation, and love of enemies are already found in the Old Testament books.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 19.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine sums up that Christ fulfilled the law by grace and truth, and notes that the Old Testament teaches eternal life and resurrection but never names the “kingdom of heaven,” which belongs to the New Testament.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus denies that Manichaeans blaspheme the law and the prophets and argues that either the patriarchs were wicked or the writers who described them lied.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus lists the patriarchs' sexual and violent deeds recorded in Scripture and says either the deeds or the records must be condemned.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that the precepts of the law are fulfilled through grace by love, and its sacramental figures are fulfilled by being removed when the truth they promised came.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine shows that a pagan could attack the New Testament on the same grounds Faustus attacks the Old, citing Christ's words and deeds that resemble each accusation.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine recalls his earlier answer to the Manichaean claim that whatever in the New Testament contradicts them was interpolated.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine sums up his answer to each of Faustus's charges about God and concludes that both Testaments must be defended against the Manichaeans as against pagans.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine states that the lives as well as the words of the prophets, and the whole Hebrew kingdom, were a prophecy of Christ and the church.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.45Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says Scripture narrates the act of Lot's daughters without praising it, and that God made nations from that seed without approving the deed.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.51Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine begins a figurative interpretation of Jacob's four wives, noting that it must differ from Paul's allegory of Sarah and Hagar.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.60Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine distinguishes Lot from the three patriarchs and argues that Scripture, like a faithful mirror, records sins such as Judah's without approving them.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.62Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that Scripture often narrates sins without explicit judgment, as with Herod's massacre and the crucifixion, leaving readers to condemn them by its other teachings.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.65Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that Scripture, like a faithful mirror, records good deeds of bad men and bad deeds of good men, citing Saul, David, Pilate, and Peter.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.77Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine notes that Christ himself changed his commands about purse and sword, showing that God's precepts differ according to the times without inconsistency.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.79Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defends Moses' slaughter of the golden calf's worshippers as loving severity shown by his prayer for them, and turns against the Manichaeans the story in the apocryphal Acts of Thomas of the apostle cursing a man who struck him.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.83Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine prefaces his reading of Judah and Tamar by arguing that evil deeds narrated in prophetic Scripture can signify good things, as Caiaphas unknowingly prophesied Christ's death.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.94Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine concludes that all of Scripture speaks of Christ and his church, comparing passages without prophetic meaning to the frame of a lyre that holds the sounding strings.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.95Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says that even if his allegories are rejected, the patriarchs remain defended and Scripture remains blameless.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.96Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that Scripture usefully records both the falls of the good and the conversions of the bad, so that neither pride nor despair takes hold, and that seemingly superfluous details carry hidden meaning.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 23.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine holds that Mary was of David's line because canonical Scripture says Christ was of David's seed through a virgin, and that the apocryphal story of her father Joachim, even if true, could be reconciled with this.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 26.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says Christ could have had true flesh without being born, but Catholics believe in his virgin birth, crucifixion, and death because the gospel, which is truth, says so.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 27.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine answers that Christ could have suffered without being born but did not, as the gospel shows, and that Mani’s claim of falsehood in the gospel deserves no credence.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 28.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine appeals to the Church’s unbroken succession from the apostles as guarantee that Matthew’s Gospel, with its account of the birth, is Matthew’s, against Mani’s books and apocryphal writings.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 28.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine refers back to his explanation that Joseph had a natural and an adoptive father, which reconciles the two genealogies.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 28.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that Christ’s own words are known only through the apostles, that the Church’s succession guarantees Matthew’s Gospel, and that even Paul gained authority only by agreement with the apostles.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 28.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that Faustus’s reasoning leads only to the Manichaean myth of God’s war, contamination, and damnation, and that apparent contradictions in Scripture arise from misunderstanding.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 30.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Catholics, who urge virginity and honour Paul’s persuasion of Thecla and Christ’s praise of voluntary eunuchs, cannot charge Manichaeans with “forbidding to marry”, since they too only exhort and do not compel.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 31.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that no religion, including Catholic Christianity, holds that nothing is unclean, and so Titus 1:15 cannot be Paul’s.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Catholics accept only parts of the Old Testament, so Manichaeans may likewise accept only parts of the New.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus claims the Gospels were written long after the apostles by unknown men under apostolic names and are full of contradictions, so Manichaeans accept only what suits their faith.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus lists Old Testament laws—circumcision, sabbath, sacrifices, Passover rites, Pentecost offerings, food laws—that Catholics keep only in part or not at all.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus lists sexual conduct of the patriarchs and the levirate law of Deuteronomy as Old Testament examples and laws that Catholics neither imitate nor condemn.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that Catholics do not really believe Old Testament curses on the hanged, the childless, the uncircumcised, and sabbath-breakers, which would condemn Christ and Christians.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus claims that as Christ judges what to keep from the Old Testament, so the Paraclete teaches the Manichaeans what to keep from the New.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus lists what Manichaeans reject in the Gospels—Christ’s birth, circumcision, sacrifice, baptism, and temptation—and what they accept: the mystic cross, his precepts, parables, and teaching on the two natures.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine replies that Catholics hold all the Old Testament true and its unobserved precepts meaningful for their time, whereas the Manichaeans reject parts of the New Testament as false.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that the Old Testament itself foretold a new covenant, and that its rites, as shadows of things to come, are fulfilled rather than condemned.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine interprets the levirate law of Deuteronomy as a figure of preachers who beget children for Christ, their dead brother, and of the shame of refusing that ministry.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that Christians commemorate Christ’s Passover on the Lord’s day and keep the unleavened bread of sincerity every day, the bitter herbs signifying the labour of the narrow way.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains Pentecost as fulfilling the giving of the law fifty days after the first Passover, and why Christians commemorate the Passover differently from the Jews.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that Christians avoid food sacrificed to idols so as not to share with demons, and that the apostolic ban on blood was a temporary measure uniting Jews and gentiles which the Church no longer keeps.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine states his principle that all the Old Testament is true and useful, its unobserved commands being fitting signs for their time, as a physician changes his prescriptions.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine denies the parallel between Christ’s use of the Old Testament and the Manichaean Paraclete’s use of the New, since the true Paraclete was sent at Pentecost, as Acts records.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the Manichaeans cannot prove their Paraclete from Gospels they call corrupt, and that the Scriptures could not have been corrupted since older copies and versions in many languages would expose any change.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the Paraclete came immediately after Christ’s glorification, and that the Montanists, who used the same texts to condemn second marriage, show how any heresy can claim the Paraclete.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine interprets the Paraclete texts of the Gospel and 1 Corinthians 13 of the Holy Spirit and of eternal life, and says the Manichaeans reject Gospel passages only because they dislike them.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine charges that the Manichaeans make each man’s own mind the judge of Scripture, yet accept Mani’s fables on mere authority, and urges submission to the long-attested authority of the gospel.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the apostolic authorship of the New Testament is known through continuous succession, just as the Manichaeans know their books are Mani’s.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 32.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine contrasts the apostles’ preaching of Christ’s birth, circumcision, sacrifice, baptism, and temptation with Mani’s myth of God’s divided and defiled substance.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 33.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that because Matthew and Luke place the saying about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in different settings and tell the centurion story differently, it may not have been said by Christ at all.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 33.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus claims the Gospels were compiled long after the apostles by disagreeing “Semi-Jews” who added words to Christ’s sayings, but says the passage does not harm the Manichaeans whether true or false.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 33.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine points to Christ’s and Paul’s praise of Abraham in his own lifetime as proof that the patriarchs were righteous.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 33.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the apostolic writings are known to be genuine by continuous testimony and the succession of bishops, just as the works of Hippocrates, Plato, and Cicero are known, and spurious works rejected.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 33.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that differences between the Gospels are like those between historians, one summarizing and another detailing, and that Matthew’s centurion “came” to Jesus through intermediaries, as common speech allows.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 33.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that the centurion “came” to Christ by faith more truly than his messengers, as the woman touched him while the crowd pressed, and that any honest narrator telling a story twice varies without contradiction.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 33.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine closes by urging the Manichaeans to follow the authority of Scripture as handed down by apostolic succession, or at least to believe God’s nature unchangeable and incorruptible, and so cease to be Manichaeans.
Canon 47Anonymous · 397 · A list of the canonical Scriptures to be read in church, with a provision that the passions of martyrs may be read on their feast days.
Canon 21.8Anonymous · ca. 397–400 · Anathema on those who separate the God of the Old Testament from the God of the Gospels.
Canon 21.12Anonymous · ca. 397–400 · Anathema on those who give authority to scriptures not received by the catholic church.
Tractates 2Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · To the newly baptized: the Passover lamb was a figure of Christ, whose body and blood are given in the bread and wine; the rules for eating the lamb teach how to read Scripture and how to receive the Eucharist in faith.
Tractates 5Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · The shoes and staffs of the Passover meal: shoes are the commandments of Scripture that protect the soul's steps in this world's Egypt, to be loosed only in the holy land; the staff is the rod of correction that the apostolic pastor needs only for the unruly.
Tractates 18Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · A letter to Serminius on the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16:1–13): its plain lesson is almsgiving with goods entrusted by God; allegorically the steward is the devil, who 'lowers the debts' by weakening faith (wheat) and good works (oil) through heresy and vainglory.
Argument 1 to the HebrewsJohn Chrysostom · ca. 398-404 · Chrysostom asks why Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, wrote to the Hebrews, and explains their hostility to him and his care for the believers in Jerusalem and Judea.
Argument 2 to the HebrewsJohn Chrysostom · ca. 398-404 · Chrysostom describes the persecution of believers in Judea and outlines the letter’s purpose: to encourage weary Jewish Christians with Christ’s sufferings, future rewards, and the superiority of the New Covenant.
Homily 3.4 on HebrewsJohn Chrysostom · ca. 398-404 · On Heb 2:2–4, Chrysostom explains how the law was “spoken through angels,” why the gospel’s salvation is greater, and how God confirmed it through the apostles with signs and gifts of the Spirit.
Homily 6.1 on HebrewsJohn Chrysostom · ca. 398-404 · On Heb 3:7–13, Chrysostom distinguishes three rests (the Sabbath, Canaan, and the kingdom of heaven), retells Israel’s unbelief in the wilderness, and argues that Ps 95 points to the heavenly rest.
Homily 8.4 on HebrewsJohn Chrysostom · ca. 398-404 · Chrysostom warns that heresies err by excess or defect, urges Christians to hold the received faith and train their judgment by reading the Scriptures, recounts how God preserved the Scriptures, and rebukes ignorance of them.
Homily 14.2 on HebrewsJohn Chrysostom · ca. 398-404 · On Heb 8:5–13, Chrysostom calls the church’s worship heavenly, explains that the new covenant is better because it is written on hearts and brings knowledge of God to all, and that the old covenant was set aside not as evil but as old and insufficient.
Homily 15.1 on HebrewsJohn Chrysostom · ca. 398-404 · On Heb 9:1–9, Chrysostom interprets the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies as figures of the former time and of heaven, explains the contents of the ark as reminders of Israel’s ingratitude, and shows that the high priest’s yearly entry with blood foreshadowed Christ’s one sacrifice.
Homily 1.1 on the CreationSeverian of Gabala · ca. 400 · Severian opens his homilies on creation by saying that all Scripture aims at our salvation, that Genesis is the foundation of the law and the prophets, and that his additions stand beside, not against, what earlier Fathers said.
Homily 1.2 on the CreationSeverian of Gabala · ca. 400 · Moses wrote of creation as a prophet, not a historian, and began with God as Creator so that his law would be given by the Maker to his own, mentioning only visible things to cure Israel of Egyptian nature-worship.
Homily 1.3 on the CreationSeverian of Gabala · ca. 400 · Moses' “he made” and John's “was” share the opening “In the beginning” but distinguish creature from Creator, against those who say Christ came into being; the two Testaments are sisters with matching features.
Homily 4.5 on the CreationSeverian of Gabala · ca. 400 · God prepared food and dwelling before bringing in man, as the Scriptures went before Christ; he left the prophets with the Jews so that the Christian proof from them would be above suspicion; and “Let us make man” points to the Son, not to the angels.
Homily 5.1 on the CreationSeverian of Gabala · ca. 400 · Opening the fifth homily, Severian calls the Scriptures God's greatest gift and defends his use of natural philosophy against complaints, citing Paul, Job, the prophets, and Christ's own parables drawn from nature.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · A full narration runs from creation to the present Church, selecting the striking points and relating everything to love, since all Scripture before Christ foretold him and his body the Church, as Jacob's hand preceded his head at birth.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · Christ came chiefly to show God's love so that people might love him and their neighbour in return; all Scripture points to this love, and the catechist should narrate so that the hearer believes, hopes, and loves.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · If a candidate says God moved him by a sign or dream, the catechist should turn him to the surer guidance of Scripture, then narrate from creation to the Church, giving reasons that point to love without lengthy disputation.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · Educated candidates who have already read much should be handled briefly and modestly, asked what they have read, approved where their reading is sound, warned where it is heretical, and led to the way of love.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · Candidates from the schools of grammar and rhetoric must learn humility, value truth above eloquence, learn that Scripture's hidden meanings reward study, and not mock clergy whose Latin is faulty.
On Catechizing the Uninstructed 26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–405 · After the address the candidate is asked whether he believes, is signed with the cross and given the sacrament of salt, and is taught to read Scripture by the rule of love; Augustine then begins a shorter model address.
On the Trinity 1.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Augustine proves from Scripture that the Son is true God of the same substance as the Father, that texts such as 'who alone has immortality' refer to the whole Trinity, and that the Holy Spirit is not a creature, since he receives the service due to God alone.
On the Trinity 3.0Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · In the prologue to Book 3 Augustine explains why he writes on the Trinity, asks readers not to treat his books like Scripture and correctors to correct him from Scripture and sound reason, and recapitulates the questions about the sendings and the theophanies left from Book 2.
On the Trinity 3.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Augustine concludes from Hebrews, Acts and Galatians that the Old Testament theophanies and even the giving of the Law were done through angels speaking or acting in the person of God, never through God's own substance, and leaves for the next book the difference between these and the sendings of the Son and the Spirit.
On the Trinity 4.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Augustine shows that Christ's three days in the tomb were partial days, counts forty hours from his death to the resurrection and thirty-six from his burial, and relates these numbers to perfection and to the ratio of one to two, while allowing that others may find better explanations.
On the Trinity 12.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · From Gen 1:26–27 Augustine shows that man was made in the image of the whole Trinity, the one God, and that Scripture does not place that image in father, mother, and child.
On the Trinity 13.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · Using the prologue of John, Augustine shows that some truths belong to wisdom and others, done in time, to knowledge, and that faith is seen by each believer within himself.
On the Trinity 15.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · An enigma is an obscure allegory, so seeing “in an enigma” means seeing God through a likeness that is hard to make out, as our own thought is both seen and not seen.
On Baptism, against the Donatists 1.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · The church has always had natural and spiritual members; the natural belong to the old covenant and the spiritual to the new, and those who advance toward spiritual understanding belong to the new even before they attain it.
On Baptism, against the Donatists 2.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · Augustine distinguishes the canonical Scriptures, which cannot be questioned, from the letters of bishops and the decrees of councils, which can be corrected by wiser men, by plenary councils, and by later councils.
On Baptism, against the Donatists 2.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · If schismatics received without baptism did not defile Cyprian, unproved traitors could not defile the Donatists; Scripture shows schism punished more severely than idolatry or the burning of a sacred book.
On Baptism, against the Donatists 4.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · Cyprian’s denial that the apostles handed down the custom shows that others in his day claimed they had; the custom was strong and Agrippinus’s council a recent innovation, and seeing what Cyprian did not see does not make anyone his superior.
On Baptism, against the Donatists 5.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · Augustine praises Cyprian’s love of unity, which let him differ without schism; Cyprian now sees the truth in heaven, and Augustine sets against his opinion not his own but that of the Catholic Church, admitting that his own writings, unlike the apostles’, are not free from error.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The gospel excels all the holy writings, and of the apostles who preached it, Matthew and John also wrote it down.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Providence also gave Mark and Luke, followers of the apostles, authority to write the gospel, while other writers on Christ and the apostles were not received into the canon.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The four evangelists wrote in the order Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, so that the two who were apostles enclose the two who were not.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Each evangelist wrote with his own plan, Matthew on Christ's royal line with Mark as his abridger, Luke on his priestly line.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Augustine prefers the reading of the four living creatures that assigns the lion to Matthew, the man to Mark, the calf to Luke, and the eagle to John.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Augustine undertakes to answer those who attack the gospels by alleging that the four evangelists contradict each other.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.54Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Christ is the head and the evangelists his members, so what they wrote is as though written by his own hand; Augustine now turns to the alleged contradictions.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Having answered the pagans in Book 1, Augustine turns to showing how the four evangelists agree with themselves and each other.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Joseph had two fathers, one by birth (in Matthew, who says 'begot') and one by adoption (in Luke), as adoption was an ancient custom in Israel.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Each evangelist joins what he tells so that it seems continuous, leaping over what he omits; so the flight to Egypt fits after the presentation in the temple.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · All four evangelists begin their accounts of John the Baptist's preaching at this point; the harmony of the infancy narratives serves as a model for other passages.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Matthew's 'in those days' covers the whole span from Christ's return from Egypt to John's preaching, which Luke dates by the rulers of the time.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The presentation in the temple could take place before Herod's search, since Herod may have thought the magi deceived until the words of Simeon and Anna spread.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · It does not matter whose exact words the Baptist used, since the evangelists convey the same meaning, each as he remembered.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Differences in wording, order, fullness, or memory among the evangelists are not lies; what matters is the truth of the things and meanings, which they share.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Whether John said 'carry' or 'untie' the sandals, he may have said both, or each evangelist conveyed his one intention of humility; what counts is the speaker's meaning.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The disciples first met Jesus by the Jordan, as John says, and returned home; they were called to follow him later from their fishing, as the other three relate.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.42Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The first three Gospels pass over Jesus' first visit to Galilee, which John records, and narrate his later return after the Baptist's arrest.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.49Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Matthew says the centurion came to Jesus though Luke says he sent elders and friends, because in ordinary speech one approaches or reaches a person through others.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.51Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Matthew tells of Peter's mother-in-law out of order; each evangelist narrated in the order in which God brought things to his memory, where order does not affect the truth.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.52Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The Holy Spirit guided the evangelists' memory and allowed different orders; this work seeks only to show that they do not contradict each other where chronological order is clear.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.54Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Luke tells of the would-be followers at another point and without fixing the time, so there is no conflict with Matthew, who still keeps chronological order here.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.55Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · In the calming of the storm the evangelists word the disciples' cry and Jesus' rebuke differently, but the meaning is one, and several of the words may all have been spoken.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.61Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The variations in the Pharisees' objection and Christ's answer at Levi's feast convey one sense; Luke's 'to repentance' explains why Christ calls sinners.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.62Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The question about fasting was raised by several people at once, including John's disciples, which explains the different speakers in the three Gospels.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.63Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The sayings about the bridegroom's sons, mourning and fasting, and the new cloth and wine agree in sense, distinguishing a fast of sorrow from a fast of spiritual joy.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.66Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Matthew gives the father's real wish, that his dead daughter be raised, while Mark and Luke give his words when she was still dying; both are true.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.67Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · From such variations we learn to look for the speaker's intention, not the letter of his words.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.70Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The order of the mission of the twelve is uncertain; Luke's Judas son of James is Matthew's Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus, one man with several names.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.86Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Luke arranges the demand for a sign and Christ's reply differently and adds material, but order in reporting a discourse is no matter of truth.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.87Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Matthew's 'while he was still speaking' fixes the coming of Christ's mother and brothers in sequence; Luke tells it earlier and detached, with no conflict.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.92Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Luke anticipates John's imprisonment before narrating the baptism, and Matthew and Mark also tell it later than it happened, prompted by Herod's words.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.93Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · After John's death Christ withdrew to a desert place, where all four Gospels place the feeding of the five thousand.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.94Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · John reaches the feeding of the five thousand by another road, through the Samaritan woman, the official's son, and the healing at the pool, and meets the other three there.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.95Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · To examine the feeding of the five thousand, Augustine begins with John's account, which names Philip and Andrew.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.96Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The disciples' request, Jesus' question to Philip, and the answers of Philip and Andrew fit into one sequence; the others assign to 'the disciples' what John assigns to individuals.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.97Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The variety of words and agreement of meaning teach us to seek in words only the speaker's will.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.103Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The Canaanite woman came to Jesus in a house, as Mark says, and kept crying after him when he left in silence, as Matthew implies.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.119Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Matthew's discourse on greatness and forgiveness is partly paralleled in Mark and Luke; Christ said such things, such as the saying on binding and loosing, on several occasions.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.128Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Matthew's she-ass in the Zechariah quotation reflects the Hebrew, as the Septuagint's variations from the Hebrew, made by the same Spirit, keep God's meaning in different words.
The Harmony of the Gospels 2.132Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The question about Christ's authority agrees in all three; Luke's 'one of the days' is the same day the others mean.
The Harmony of the Gospels 3.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · From the Last Supper on, Augustine will weave all four accounts into a single narrative to show their agreement.
The Harmony of the Gospels 3.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Although some copies omit 'Jeremiah' and the prophecy is in Zechariah, the better and older manuscripts have 'Jeremiah,' which was removed by those troubled by the difficulty.
The Harmony of the Gospels 3.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Providence let Matthew write 'Jeremiah' for Zechariah to teach that all the prophets speak by one Spirit, so that each prophet's words belong to all.
The Harmony of the Gospels 3.43Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Augustine offers his solution until a better is found, insisting only that no evangelist lied or erred.
The Harmony of the Gospels 3.48Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The order of the evangelists' recollections was governed by God, whose hidden justice lets apparent contradictions blind some and exercise others.
The Harmony of the Gospels 4.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Book 4 examines what Mark, then Luke, then John have beyond Matthew, up to the Last Supper.
The Harmony of the Gospels 4.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · Luke's preface shows he also wrote Acts; 'all things' means a selection, and the 'many' who attempted gospels lack the church's authority, while Mark and Luke were approved by the living apostles.
Against the Letters of Petilian 1.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · The Testament promises blessing to all nations; those who refuse communion with the nations are the real heirs of the traitors who burned it.
Against the Letters of Petilian 2.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · The prophecy that foretold Judas also foretold the faith of the whole world, which Christ bought with his blood.
Against the Letters of Petilian 2.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · The Donatists, who claim to have kept the Testament, have lost the inheritance it promises, the Christian world; they are the true heirs of the betrayer.
Against the Letters of Petilian 2.33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · The real killers of the prophets are those who contradict the prophecies of a worldwide church that are visibly being fulfilled.
Against the Letters of Petilian 2.74Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · The gift of tongues at Pentecost foreshadowed a church speaking in all languages, visible to all, as Psalm 19 foretold.
Against the Letters of Petilian 2.113Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · Petilian says the Catholics know the law only as the devil does, quoting it while opposing it.
Against the Letters of Petilian 2.235Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · Jeremiah's 'deceitful water' refers to the wicked people who wounded him, not to baptism; water signifies peoples, and Christ's baptism is true even in liars.
Against the Letters of Petilian 3.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · Augustine's comfort under slander is a clear conscience and the truth of Christ, whose name is spread like ointment through all nations.
Against the Letters of Petilian 3.60Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · Petilian ignored most of Augustine's scriptural arguments.
Against the Letters of Petilian 3.61Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · Augustine recalls how he answered the texts Petilian had cited in the first part of his letter.
Against the Letters of Petilian 3.62Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–403 · Augustine lists the scriptural testimonies he gave for the church, which Petilian never addressed.
On the Work of Monks 3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · The monks' figurative reading of Paul could as easily be turned against their literal reading of the gospel; Paul's other letters make plain that he meant bodily work.
On the Work of Monks 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · The monks who cite the birds of the sky keep storehouses, grind, cook, and draw water, which birds do not do, and expect others to serve them as no one serves birds.
On the Work of Monks 28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · Taken literally, the example of the birds would require monks to forage daily in the fields, as the law allowed passers-by to eat, and would leave them nothing in seasons without food.
On the Work of Monks 30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · If storing for tomorrow is not contrary to the gospel, neither is earning a living by manual work.
On the Work of Monks 31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400–401 · The monks rightly cite Christ's purse, the famine relief, and Paul's collection to justify storing for tomorrow, and so cannot use Matt 6 to justify idleness.
Homily 1, section 1Eustathius Latinus · 5th cent. · Basil's first homily opens by commending Moses, the author of Genesis, as one who spoke with God face to face, and asks for hearers worthy of the subject.
Homily 3, section 9Eustathius Latinus · 5th cent. · Against allegorists who read the upper and lower waters as good and evil spiritual powers, the waters are real water, and creation praises God in the sense that its contemplation leads rational beings to glorify him.
Homily 4, section 5Eustathius Latinus · 5th cent. · God says 'dry land' before 'earth' because dryness is earth's defining property; each element has its own quality and is linked to its neighbours in a circle of shared qualities.
Homily 9, section 1Eustathius Latinus · 5th cent. · The ninth homily rejects allegory that turns water and animals into other things: Scripture is to be taken as written, and Moses rightly passed over useless questions about the earth's shape.
Opusculum 1.4Mark the Hermit · early to mid fifth century · The humble reader applies Scripture to himself.
Opusculum 1.24Mark the Hermit · early to mid fifth century · Seek the hidden sense of Scripture, written for our instruction.
Opusculum 1.61Mark the Hermit · early to mid fifth century · Hades and destruction in Proverbs signify ignorance and forgetfulness.
Opusculum 1.87Mark the Hermit · early to mid fifth century · Read Scripture by doing it, not by empty talk.
Opusculum 2.207Mark the Hermit · early to mid fifth century · Those who ignore Scripture are driven by harsher discipline.
Opusculum 6.21Mark the Hermit · early to mid fifth century · Beyond Scripture's verbal veils one must seek the Word himself, not his garments.
Opusculum 6.22Mark the Hermit · early to mid fifth century · Fixation on Scripture's letter and passionate perception are scales on the soul's eyes.
Commentary on Daniel 3, scholion 9Polychronius of Apamea · ca. 400-430 · Polychronius notes that the Song of the Three is not in the Hebrew or Syriac and declines to comment on it.
Poem, lines 361–390Prudentius · ca. 400-405 · Abraham saw and believed in Christ, true God, whom the Law, pregnant with Christ, promised; the carnal observance of the Law misses him; every language, as on the title of the Cross, and all music proclaim Christ, whose name is the poet’s delight.
Poem, lines 121–150Prudentius · ca. 400-405 · Marcion assigns the Old Testament to a harsh god and the New to a good one; the poet answers that the father of crimes exists but is no God, and portrays this devil as a monstrous hunter, a Nimrod snaring souls.
Hymn 5, lines 161–192Prudentius · ca. 400-405 · The body is only a clay vessel; the inner man is subject to God alone. Datian demands that Vincent at least hand over the Christian books to be burned; Vincent answers that God’s sword will avenge the sacred volumes on him.
Exposition of the Right Faith 16Anonymous · early 5th century (probably Theodoret) · Faith resolves what reason cannot grasp; the author distinguishes what must be inquired into from what must be believed and worshipped.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 27Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Moses carried Joseph's bones despite the law against touching the dead because his oath to Joseph was the greater obligation; Scripture often excuses such necessary breaches, and need not explain everything.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 63–64Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Psalm 19's “tent in the sun” means the heavens are the sun's tent, as the Syriac rendering and Psalm 104 show; and Jonah's three days in the fish are a type of Christ's three days in the tomb, not of his death, since the reality must exceed the type.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 100–101Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Miracles continued in churches seized by heretics because they are worked by the orthodox saints and martyrs to whom those churches belong; and Christians learn in the right order, for the apostles preached Christ from the law, which is the Gospel foretold, as the Gospel is the law fulfilled.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 130–131Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · The heaven is a vault resting on the waters, the waters on the earth, and the earth on God's command, so Christians are not caught in the Greeks' difficulties about place; and Luke's genealogy does not contradict Matthew's, since only Heli was Joseph's father by law, all others being natural fathers.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 134–135Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Scripture calls the law “Moses” as we call a book by its author's name; and Christ is truly Emmanuel, as Matthew shows and the Church confesses, even if no one called him by that name during his life.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 142–143Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · Angels who appeared in God's rank, like men such as judges, were called gods for the sake of a task entrusted to them, and ceased to be so called when it was done; a further, garbled question about man called God is begun.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine sets out the questions raised by Genesis 1:1–2 when it is read as a record of events and not only figuratively.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 1.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine proposes that the first light may be the spiritual creation enlightened by Wisdom, sets aside an allegorical reading of evening and morning, and explains them as the end of one work and the sign of the next.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 1.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine reports a Syriac reading of Genesis 1:2 (“brooded over”) and warns against headlong assertion in obscure questions where the faith allows several opinions.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 1.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine sets out how to weigh rival readings against certain knowledge and warns that Christians who speak ignorantly about nature, claiming Scripture’s support, bring Scripture into contempt with unbelievers.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 1.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine explains why he has offered several interpretations and rebukes both learned critics of Scripture and weak believers who are overawed by them.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 1.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine states his rule: what is demonstrated about nature is not contrary to Scripture, what contradicts the faith is false, and the reader should seek first the author’s own meaning, then a meaning consistent with the context and with sound faith.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 2.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · On the second day, Augustine sets out the natural-philosophical objection to waters above the heavens and warns against using Psalm 136:6 against what is known of the weights of the elements.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 2.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine reports an argument that the coldness of Saturn shows waters above the heavens and affirms that, whatever their nature, the waters are there on Scripture’s authority.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 2.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine says the biblical authors knew the truth about the shape of the heaven but the Spirit did not teach such matters, and he shows how “skin” and “vault” can be reconciled with a spherical heaven.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 2.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine leaves open whether the heavenly bodies have ruling spirits and warns against rash belief in obscure matters.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 3.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine explains that birds come from the waters because the air they fly in is moist, and that they fly “along” the firmament, not in it.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 5.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The unusual wording of Genesis 2:4 brings all creation back to one day, confirming from the neighboring page that God made all things at once, while Scripture walks slowly with the weak.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 5.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Scripture records only what the Spirit judged sufficient; Augustine's conjectures aim only to show that it contains nothing absurd that would keep a reader from faith.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 5.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Whoever finds Augustine's conjectures impossible should seek another that shows Scripture true, for it is true even if not shown so; he then takes up an objection about the spring watering the mountains.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine adopts the view that paradise was both a real bodily place and figurative, and argues that Genesis is historical narrative, not figurative speech like the Song of Songs.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · Augustine recalls that his early books against the Manichees interpreted Genesis figuratively, quotes his earlier hope for a literal reading, and now attempts it.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The tree of life was a real tree and also a sacrament signifying Wisdom, as the rock was real and signified Christ; such events differ from parables, which need not have happened.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The four rivers of paradise are real rivers (Augustine identifies Geon with the Nile and Phison with the Ganges), which shows that the account of paradise is to be taken first literally.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 9.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The bringing of the animals to Adam really happened, but for a prophetic signification; Augustine's aim is to defend the literal history, not to expound the figures.
On Holy Virginity 17Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Those who read 'I spare you' as a hidden condemnation of marriage make Paul a liar and undermine the authority of Scripture.
On Holy Virginity 20Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Those who condemn marriage accuse all married people, as the elders falsely accused Susanna, and make Scripture a liar.
Letter 6 to Exsuperius, chapter 7Innocent I, bishop of Rome · 401–417 · Innocent lists the books of the canon, including Tobit, Judith, Maccabees and two books of Esdras, and condemns apocryphal books under the names of apostles; the letter is dated 20 February 405.
Apology against Rufinus 1.19Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome defends rendering Ps 2:12 as "Worship the Son" in his commentary and "Worship purely" in his translation, since Hebrew bar can mean both "son" and "pure."
Apology against Rufinus 2.24Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome complains that a forged letter in his name, circulated among African bishops, made him repent of translating from the Hebrew, and insists that he has always honoured the Septuagint.
Apology against Rufinus 2.25Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to Genesis, which defends translating from the Hebrew because the apostles quote Hebrew passages missing in the Septuagint, and rejects the legend of the seventy cells.
Apology against Rufinus 2.26Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to Samuel and Kings, where he compares his work to the humble goats' hair offered for the tabernacle.
Apology against Rufinus 2.27Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to Chronicles, which explains that the Septuagint circulated in three corrupted recensions and that his version from the Hebrew leaves the old edition intact.
Apology against Rufinus 2.28Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to Ezra, inviting critics to check his translation with the Hebrews and noting that the Greeks gratefully use Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion.
Apology against Rufinus 2.29Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to Job, which notes how much of Job was missing from the Greek and Old Latin and asks that a Christian translator be received as Aquila and Theodotion are.
Apology against Rufinus 2.30Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to the Psalter from the Hebrew, made to help Sophronius answer a Jew who disputed the Septuagint's Psalms.
Apology against Rufinus 2.31Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to the books of Solomon, which leaves readers free to use his corrected Septuagint version.
Apology against Rufinus 2.32Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to Isaiah, which suggests the Septuagint veiled Christian mysteries and asks readers to use his translation as the Greeks use Aquila and others.
Apology against Rufinus 2.33Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome defends his preface to Daniel: he reported the Jewish objections to Susanna, the Song of the Three Young Men, and Bel and the Dragon, and followed the churches in reading Theodotion's Daniel.
Apology against Rufinus 2.34Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome argues that Christ and the apostles quoted the Hebrew where it differed from the Septuagint, and challenges Rufinus to find a New Testament quotation from the Septuagint not in the Hebrew.
Apology against Rufinus 2.35Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome concludes Book 2: the Septuagint and the later translations are all useful, and he awaits Rufinus's full Apology.
Apology against Rufinus 3.25Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome replies to Rufinus's denial that he forged the letter of retractation circulated in Africa, and defends translating from the Hebrew to answer the Jews.
Apology against Jerome 1.12Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus says his prefaces declared his catholic faith and explained that he left out passages in Origen that contradicted Origen's own orthodox statements or had been interpolated.
Apology against Jerome 1.39Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus argues that Jerome's commentary makes souls and angels one nature to be reunited in one flock, the very view of the "little women" he ridicules, and mocks Jerome's claim that Paul only hinted at it.
Apology against Jerome 2.32Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus attacks Jerome's new Latin translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew as a graver offence than translating Origen, since it alters the Scripture the apostles handed down.
Apology against Jerome 2.33Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus protests that Jerome's version drops Susanna and the Song of the Three Young Men and sets one man's work against the Septuagint and the books handed down by Peter at Rome.
Apology against Jerome 2.34Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus argues that if the church's Old Testament were false, Paul at least would have corrected it, and pictures the church begging the synagogue for true jewels after four hundred years.
Apology against Jerome 2.35Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus says Jerome's changes to Scripture expose the church to pagan ridicule and contradict Jerome's own rule against novelty, citing Susanna, the Song of the Three, and Jonah's gourd.
Apology against Jerome 2.36Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus answers Jerome's appeal to Origen's Hexapla: Origen only marked differences between the Jewish versions and the church's text, without translating from the Hebrew or changing the church's Scripture.
Apology against Jerome 2.43Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 401 · Rufinus ends his summary with Jerome's attacks on clergy, monks, Ambrose, Didymus, and martyrs, and his alteration of the Scriptures.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 18Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · The Creed names Pontius Pilate to fix the time; 'he descended to hell', missing in the Roman and Eastern creeds, means the same as 'buried'; Scripture testimonies follow.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 19Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · The cross is a stumbling block to Jews, folly to Gentiles, and the power of God to believers, as the prophets foretold the faith passing to the Gentiles.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 36Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · The Creed says 'in' only of the three persons, not of the church, forgiveness, and resurrection; the Spirit inspired the Scriptures, whose books are now listed.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 37Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · Rufinus lists the books of the Old and New Testament canon as handed down by the fathers.
Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 38Rufinus of Aquileia · ca. 404 · Rufinus distinguishes 'ecclesiastical' books, read in church but not used to establish doctrine, from apocryphal books not to be read at all.
Against Felix the Manichaean 1.3Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Augustine reads Luke's account of the risen Christ promising to send the Father's promise, linking it to John's promise of the Paraclete.
Against Felix the Manichaean 1.10Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Augustine argues that Christ promised to make Christians, not astronomers, and challenges Felix, if he has the Spirit of all truth, to say how many stars there are.
Against Felix the Manichaean 1.17Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · On Mani's “bright and blessed land,” Felix reads Genesis 1:1–2 as two earths; Augustine explains that verse 2 describes the one earth God made and asks whether the land of light was made, begotten, or coeternal.
Against Felix the Manichaean 2.6Augustine of Hippo · December 404 · Augustine quotes the apocryphal Acts ascribed to Leucius, accepted by the Manichees, to show that man became worse by his own will through the devil's seduction.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · The dispute must be settled not by mutual charges of handing over the Scriptures but by the Scriptures themselves, which name neither Caecilian nor Majorinus' consecrators; on any supposition the schism had no cause.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · The church must be identified from Scripture: if Scripture placed it in Africa alone or in some sect, the Donatists or others might claim it, but Scripture marks it out among all nations.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Only plain passages of Scripture can decide the question; texts like Christ's rebuke of the Pharisees can be hurled by either side and prove nothing until the facts are shown.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Figurative readings, like a Donatist bishop's claim that the ark's pitch inside and out shows baptism cannot leave or enter the church, can be countered by other readings and so cannot settle the question.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Gideon's fleece plainly figures the gospel passing from Israel to the whole world, yet even such clear figures are set aside so that only open texts decide.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Let the Donatists show from Scripture that their opponents were traditors, as plainly as Genesis shows that all nations are blessed in Abraham's seed; Jacob's ladder, which Christ applied to himself, is not pressed.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · The Donatists cannot call the prophecies false, so they claim free human wills prevented their fulfilment; but God foreknows future wills, as the foretold betrayal of Judas and denial of Peter show.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Even if the Old Testament texts were obscure, Christ's own plain words about preaching to all nations from Jerusalem cannot be, and they mark out the church's beginning and extent.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · 'Beginning from Jerusalem' cannot be taken figuratively; Luke shows that the apostles waited for the Spirit in the city of Jerusalem itself.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Acts confirms from the risen Lord's last words that the church would begin in Jerusalem and spread through Judea and Samaria to the whole earth.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Christ's last words before his ascension, which no Christian may disregard, commend the worldwide church; no bishop's words, Donatist or catholic, outweigh them.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Acts narrates the ascension, the gathering in Jerusalem, Pentecost with its speaking in all tongues, and the baptism of three thousand: the church's beginning from Jerusalem toward all nations.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Acts traces the church's spread exactly as foretold: from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria through persecution and Philip, then to the Gentiles through Cornelius and Paul, the sheet with four corners signifying the whole world.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · The churches named in Acts, Paul's letters, 1 Peter and Revelation, far from Africa and ignorant of its quarrels, cannot have perished by African crimes; let the Donatists show their guilt from Scripture.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Even true charges against individuals in the church would not touch the wheat of the worldwide church; the Donatists must show their church not from records, councils or miracles but from the plain words of Scripture.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 49Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Miracles, answered prayers at Donatist shrines, and visions prove nothing, for God and even deceiving spirits grant requests to pagans, Jews and heretics; the church, like Christ its head, must be recognized from Scripture.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 50Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Neither Donatist crimes and Circumcellion violence nor Catholic bishops, councils, or miracles such as Ambrose's discovery of the martyrs settle the question; only Scripture, as Christ showed his disciples, identifies the church.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 51Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Let the Donatists bring one text needing no interpreter, as plain as the many cited for the worldwide church; their 'noon' text would favour the Maximianists of Byzacium rather than themselves.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 64Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Jeremiah's 'lying water' refers figuratively to the men who grieved him, not to the baptism given by heretics.
Letter to the Catholics on the Sect of the Donatists (On the Unity of the Church) 72Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405 · Augustine urges his people to hear the Shepherd's plain voice: the church is the city on a mountain, spread everywhere and growing until the harvest, not hidden in a desert or in secret.
Against Cresconius 1.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine says that where Scripture gives no example, one should consult the church that Scripture plainly commends, spread through all nations.
Against Cresconius 2.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine distinguishes Cyprian's writings from canonical Scripture and notes that Cyprian, while differing on rebaptism, never left the unity of the church.
Against Cresconius 2.40Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine declines to be bound by Cyprian's letter to Jubaianus, since only canonical Scripture binds, and challenges the Donatists to produce Cyprian's scriptural proofs.
Against Cresconius 3.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine defends turning the charge of handing over the Scriptures back on the Donatists, citing Elijah's reply to Ahab and the council of Cirta.
Against Cresconius 3.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine quotes the acts of the council of Cirta (305), where several future Donatist bishops admitted handing over sacred books and Secundus left them to God's judgment.
Against Cresconius 3.72Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine sets side by side prophecies that the Donatists accept of Christ and the verses next to them that foretell the church spread through the whole earth.
Against Cresconius 3.80Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine quotes the proconsul Aelianus's sentence (315) clearing Felix of Abthugni, Caecilian's ordainer, of handing over the Scriptures, and exposing Ingentius's forgery.
Against Cresconius 3.81Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine quotes Constantine's rescript to the proconsul Probianus confirming Felix's acquittal and summoning the forger Ingentius.
Against Cresconius 4.72Augustine of Hippo · ca. 405–406 · Augustine explains that his willingness to read Scripture from any copy shows confidence in the truth, not an admission that Catholics burned the books.
1 Corinthians 11:2Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Paul's precepts carry the authority of the Spirit who spoke in the law and prophets.
1 Thessalonians 2:13Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · They received Paul's message as God's word, which works in believers.
1 Thessalonians 5:22Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Prophecy is to be tested against the law and rejected if contrary.
2 Corinthians 3:6Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · The letter of the law kills sinners; Pelagius rejects reading the commandments allegorically.
2 Thessalonians 2:14Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Believers must hold the apostles' traditions, not add others; apostolic tradition is what the whole world keeps.
2 Timothy 2:14Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Timothy must avoid disputes without Scripture and confirm his teaching by example.
2 Timothy 3:8Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Heretics resist the truth as Pharaoh's magicians resisted Moses, who taught the truth, against the critics of the Old Testament.
2 Timothy 3:15Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · The Scriptures instruct for salvation, but only with faith in Christ.
2 Timothy 3:16Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · All inspired Scripture, the law included, teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains in righteousness.
2 Timothy 3:17Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · The law was given so that we may do just things justly.
Colossians 3:16Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Laypeople should know Scripture abundantly and sing spiritual songs from the heart.
Ephesians 6:17Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Without the word of God, the sword, every virtue is defenceless.
Galatians 4:24Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Allegory must keep the truth of the history and never turn sins into mysteries; the two covenants are of slavery and freedom.
Romans 15:4Pelagius · ca. 405–410 · Scripture's examples of patience give comfort and hope in temptation.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 1.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine admits the difficulty of expounding John 1:1 to a mixed congregation and says that even the inspired evangelist said only what a man could say about God.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 1.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We lift our eyes to the 'mountains', the human writers of Scripture, but our hope rests not in them but in the Lord who enlightens them.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The water at Cana signifies Old Testament prophecy read without Christ, insipid as water; when Christ is understood in it, the veil is removed and it becomes intoxicating wine.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Prophecy about Christ has run through all ages but was hidden like water, as the risen Christ showed when he opened the Scriptures to the disciples on the road to Emmaus and in Jerusalem.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ turned the water itself into wine, rather than pouring it out, to show that the Old Testament is from him but has its savor only when he is understood in it, as on the road to Emmaus.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The six jars signify the six ages of the world, from Adam to the present age that began with John the Baptist, all filled with prophecy that becomes wine when Christ is understood in it; in the sixth age, as on the sixth day, man is renewed in God's image.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 9.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · In another interpretation, the prophecy signified by the jars, though given through Israel, concerns the salvation of all nations, as promised to Abraham; Augustine will go through the ages as six jars.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 17.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's forty days after the resurrection and the sending of the Spirit ten days after the Ascension signify the same; meanwhile the Lord feeds his laborers with the mysteries of Scripture.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 18.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · John received the gift of speaking deep things of the Son that exercise mature minds; what is not yet understood must be held in faith, since heresies arise from misreading good Scriptures rashly.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 19.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Hearing the Son's word and believing the Father agree, because the Son is himself the Father's Word.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 23.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Like the wise builder, the hearer of Scripture must dig deep until he reaches the rock, which is Christ.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 23.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's works, the Father, John the lamp, and the Scriptures all bear witness to him; the Jews who trusted the Scriptures were directed by them to Christ.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 24.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The five barley loaves are the five books of Moses, whose kernel is hidden in husk; the boy is Israel, the two fish priest and king, both fulfilled in Christ.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 24.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The five thousand are the people under the Law; the grass is carnal understanding; the twelve baskets of fragments are deeper truths entrusted to the apostles; we who believe without seeing are fed by the kernel.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 25.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The ship of the church makes headway amid storms; the twenty-five and thirty stadia signify the Law (five times five) fulfilled by the gospel (five times six), to whom Jesus comes treading the waves.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 30.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We should hear the Gospel as if the Lord were present, for many who saw him killed him and many who have not seen him believe; his body is in one place, his truth everywhere.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 35.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christians answer pagans from the prophets, using the Jews' own books, which foretold the passion and the pure sacrifice offered among the nations.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 35.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Even Christians' day is night compared with the light to come, so we need the sure word of prophecy, which also refutes those who call Christ a magician.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 35.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · When Christ comes, Scripture's lamps will no longer be needed; we shall see the Word himself, the light from which every ray now reaches us.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 36.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · John, compared to the eagle, soared above the other evangelists to speak of Christ's divinity, which he had drunk from the Lord's breast.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 36.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's judgment is true because the Father is with him; John is the eagle among the four living creatures, which figure the four evangelists, soaring to Christ's divinity.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 40.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine introduces the next reading, recalling that John, the eagle among evangelists, speaks above all of Christ's divinity.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 48.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · If men to whom God's word came are called gods, how much more is the Word himself God; the Father sanctified the Son by begetting him holy.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 76.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Judas, author of the canonical Epistle, not Iscariot, asks why Jesus will manifest himself to the disciples and not to the world.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 96.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Without divine testimony no one may claim to know which things the Lord left unsaid; even later Scripture cannot be identified with them unless Scripture says so.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 96.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The things the disciples could not bear cannot simply be the later apostolic writings, which even catechumens now bear; only unbelievers and heretics cannot bear what refutes their errors.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 98.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · What remained to be taught was to be added to, not to overturn, what the disciples had learned; the forged Apocalypse of Paul presumes to reveal what Paul said may not be spoken.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 112.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · John's passion narrative begins; Augustine notes that the evangelists' accounts agree and that this question is treated elsewhere.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 118.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · John alone explains that the soldiers divided the other garments into four equal parts and cast lots only for the seamless tunic, as the psalm foretold.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 118.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine shows that Matthew, Luke, and Mark agree with John about the casting of lots for the tunic.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 124.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The closing words of John's Gospel, that the world could not contain the books, are a hyperbole, a figure found elsewhere in Scripture.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 2.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The risen Christ strengthened his disciples' faith from the Scriptures, which all speak of him and are our sure defence against heretics, since we cannot touch him as they did.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 3.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The newly born in Christ must grow by drawing milk from the two Testaments of the Church, from Christ humble to Christ equal to the Father.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 7.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Since Scripture says that God is love, to sin against love of the brother is to sin against God.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 9.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The 'chaste fear' that endures for ever is fear of losing God, which differs from the servile fear of punishment that love casts out; the two Scriptures, inspired by one Spirit, agree.
Dialogue 18Palladius of Helenopolis · ca. 408 · The bishop answers the objection that John could have accepted the Church's support and should have been more prudent with the powerful, arguing from Scripture that John's austerity set a pattern for his successors and that his open rebukes followed the prophets and apostles.
Commentary on Isaiah 50:1Jerome · ca. 408-410 · Jerome explains Isa 50:1: God did not give Jerusalem a bill of divorce out of harshness, but she left him by her own sins, and he let the adulteress go.
Commentary on Isaiah 54:1-3Jerome · ca. 408-410 · Jerome interprets Isa 54:1–3 of the church of the Gentiles, the barren woman who outnumbers the Synagogue, the wife who received a bill of divorce, and rejects a millenarian reading.
On the One Baptism, against Petilian 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 410–411 · True baptism can exist without true faith, as at Corinth; Scripture gives no explicit example either way, so the apostolic rule of keeping truth while correcting error decides.
Commentary on Ezekiel 44:22Jerome · 410-414 · Jerome explains Ezekiel's rule that priests marry only virgins or priests' widows, reading the widow and divorced woman as the Synagogue and heretics, and the virgin as the church's teaching.
Summary of the Collation with the Donatists 1.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 411–412 · The Donatists demand that the case be argued only from Scripture; the Catholics ask for their council’s mandate to be read, and the commissioner orders it.
Summary of the Collation with the Donatists 3.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 411–412 · The commissioner overrides the Donatist objections and orders the Catholic documents read, so that the real case finally begins.
Summary of the Collation with the Donatists 3.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 411–412 · The Donatist council’s letter is read; Augustine notes that it ignores the Scripture proofs of a worldwide church and misreads the parables of the nets, the weeds, the threshing floor, and the sheep and goats.
Summary of the Collation with the Donatists 3.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 411–412 · The Catholics begin their reply on the parables of the threshing floor and the weeds; the Donatists interrupt, disputing whether “world” can mean the church.
Summary of the Collation with the Donatists 3.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 411–412 · The Donatists read Mensurius’s letter to Secundus of Tigisi about hiding the Scriptures in persecution and Secundus’s reply, to charge Mensurius with betrayal.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.13Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Death reigned even over those who had not sinned personally as Adam did, because they drew original sin from him; Augustine notes a Latin variant of Romans 5:14 and prefers the Greek reading.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.33Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Augustine sums up: Scripture teaches that all are under sin and that only Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of infants too, frees from it, so no salvation is to be promised to infants apart from baptism.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.50Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Though some doubt Hebrews, Augustine accepts it with the Eastern churches and cites its texts on Christ's purification of sins, his priesthood, and his once-for-all sacrifice.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 1.53Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Augustine explains that the Old Testament hides under earthly promises what the New reveals, as Christ himself taught of the Law, Prophets, and Psalms.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 3.7Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Scripture plainly teaches that no one is saved apart from Christ and no one is unjustly condemned; since unbaptized infants are not in Christ's body, they must bear original sin.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 3.14Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · The church has always held original sin, and Scripture teaches it plainly; the sin is called “another's” only because all were contained in Adam before living their own lives.
To the Donatists after the Collation (Against the Party of Donatus after the Proceedings) 10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 412 · Texts promising a pure church describe the age to come, and texts about sons bearing parents’ sins apply only to imitators; the Donatists set Scripture against itself.
To the Donatists after the Collation (Against the Party of Donatus after the Proceedings) 39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 412 · Augustine asks what bribe could have made the Donatist bishops undermine their own case so thoroughly at the conference.
To the Donatists after the Collation (Against the Party of Donatus after the Proceedings) 47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 412 · The Catholics offered to argue the church question from Scripture alone, but charges against men like Caecilian could only be tried by documents, which the Donatists feared.
On the Spirit and the Letter 6Augustine of Hippo · 412 · “The letter kills” refers not only to figurative texts taken literally but chiefly to the law's command “You shall not covet,” which without the Spirit only increases desire.
On the Spirit and the Letter 7Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine proposes to show that “the letter kills” refers to the law without the Spirit, and that righteousness is God's work in the human will.
On the Spirit and the Letter 8Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Romans shows that the letter of the law kills when the Spirit is absent, because it makes sin known and adds transgression.
On the Spirit and the Letter 9Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Paul's teaching that the law came in to increase the offense shows humanity its sickness so that it will seek God as helper, not only as teacher.
On the Spirit and the Letter 12Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Paul, himself a persecutor who received grace, defends God's grace above all, especially in Romans.
On the Spirit and the Letter 14Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The law that cannot justify is not only the ceremonial law but the moral law that gives knowledge of sin, including “You shall not covet.”
On the Spirit and the Letter 17Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine gives two readings of “boasting is excluded” (Rom 3:27): good boasting is brought into prominence, or proud boasting is thrown out by the law of faith.
On the Spirit and the Letter 20Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine restates his aim: God helps us to righteousness not merely by giving the law but by the Spirit of grace, without which knowledge of the law, like pagan knowledge of God, does not save.
On the Spirit and the Letter 21Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The difference between the law of works and the law of faith is not that between Judaism and Christianity, since the gospel too says “You shall not covet.”
On the Spirit and the Letter 23Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The law that cannot justify includes the Decalogue, which Christians keep except for the literal Sabbath, since it contains “You shall not covet.”
On the Spirit and the Letter 24Augustine of Hippo · 412 · In 2 Cor 3 the letter that kills is the whole Decalogue engraved on stone, not merely the Sabbath command.
On the Spirit and the Letter 25Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine quotes Rom 7:6–25 in full to show that Paul's argument concerns the law that forbids sin, not ceremonial observances.
On the Spirit and the Letter 27Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The Sabbath, the only figurative command of the Decalogue, signified the hidden grace of sanctification later revealed in Christ.
On the Spirit and the Letter 28Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The Holy Spirit, the “finger of God,” who wrote the law on stone, came at Pentecost fifty days after Christ's Passover, as the law came fifty days after the first Passover.
On the Spirit and the Letter 30Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Paul's “letter of Christ” written on hearts contrasts the law written outside to terrify with the Spirit working within to justify; the veil is removed when one turns to Christ.
On the Spirit and the Letter 31Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Paul calls the law the ministry of death and the gospel the ministry of the Spirit and righteousness; he preaches grace received by mercy, and “the righteousness of God” is the righteousness God gives.
On the Spirit and the Letter 33Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine introduces Jeremiah's prophecy of the new covenant, the only Old Testament passage that names it.
On the Spirit and the Letter 34Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The old covenant failed through Israel's fault, not the law's; the law was given so that grace might be sought, and grace so that the law might be fulfilled.
On the Spirit and the Letter 35Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The new covenant is new because the Spirit writes the same law on the heart, as Jeremiah foretold and Paul echoed in 2 Cor 3.
On the Spirit and the Letter 36Augustine of Hippo · 412 · God's laws written on hearts are the presence of the Holy Spirit, who pours out love; the new covenant promises not earthly goods but the good of the heart and mind.
On the Spirit and the Letter 42Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Jeremiah's new covenant differs from the old not in rites but in that God writes his law on hearts and gives himself as reward; God helps us not by outward commands but by pouring out love within.
On the Spirit and the Letter 43Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine raises the question how the new covenant's law written on hearts differs from the gentiles' having the law written on their hearts by nature (Rom 2:14–15).
On the Spirit and the Letter 44Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Following Paul's argument in Rom 1–2, Augustine argues that the gentiles with the law written on their hearts are gentile believers who belong to the gospel.
On the Spirit and the Letter 45Augustine of Hippo · 412 · “The doers of the law will be justified” means that justification makes people doers of the law, or that they will be counted righteous; it does not mean justification by works.
On the Spirit and the Letter 46Augustine of Hippo · 412 · The gentiles of Rom 2:14–15 are believing gentiles, grafted into God's people, in whose hearts the Spirit writes the law, as Jeremiah promised.
On the Spirit and the Letter 50Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Righteousness comes from Christ's gifts, not the law; Israel failed not because of ceremonies but because it claimed to fulfill God's moral commands by its own power.
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Preface, part 1Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · Cyril opens by explaining that prophecy is obscure and needs both historical and spiritual exposition, and begins to describe the kings in whose reigns Isaiah prophesied, Ozias and Jotham.
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Discourse 1, part 1Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · On Isa 1:1–3 Cyril explains that the prophets sometimes saw future events, and that Isaiah calls heaven and earth to witness and ascribes his words to God so that his hearers might know them to be true.
Commentary on Isaiah 3, Tome 2, part 14Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · The stupor sent on the leaders is a hardening of mind, so that those who once saw the law's hidden meaning dimly lost even that; the whole of Scripture, one book of the one Spirit, became sealed to them, learned and unlearned alike, because they did not seek Christ in it (Isa 29:10–13).
Commentary on Isaiah 3, Tome 2, part 27Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · The rain is the gospel and the Spirit's comfort, making the faithful fruitful, while the works of the unholy come to nothing; the cattle are simple believers fed on Scripture, the oxen the preachers fed on solid teaching, and the mountains running with water are the apostles and bishops (Isa 30:23–25).
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Discourse 4, part 11Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · Cyril reads Isa 49:8–10 as Christ’s establishing of the nations as his inheritance, releasing them from sin and darkness and feeding them in the paths of the Scriptures.
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Discourse 4, part 12Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · Cyril reads the springs, shelter, and levelled mountains of Isa 49:10–12 as the living water of Christ, the teaching of prophets and apostles, and the easy path of virtue opened to believers gathered from every quarter of the earth.
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Discourse 4, part 24Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · Cyril finishes Isa 50:2–3 with the wonders of the Exodus, then applies Isa 50:4 to the apostles and believers, who received a “tongue of instruction” to teach each hearer fittingly and “ears” to read the law spiritually.
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Discourse 5, part 4Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · Cyril reads the threat of the moth (Isa 50:9) as the ruin awaiting Christ’s persecutors, and the call to hear “the voice of his Servant” (Isa 50:10) as an invitation to the believing remnant to accept the gospel, which confirms rather than abolishes the law.
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Discourse 5, part 9Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · Cyril reads Isa 51:4 as Christ addressing the gathered believers, “taught of God” with the law written on their hearts, and calls the apostles and their successors who lead the peoples the “kings” of the passage.
Commentary on Isaiah 1, Discourse 5, part 10Cyril of Alexandria · before ca. 428 (probably 420s) · Cyril reads the “law” and “judgment” that go out to the nations (Isa 51:4) as the gospel, which fulfils rather than abolishes the law, and the righteousness that “draws near quickly” (Isa 51:5) as Christ, through whom believers are justified by mercy.
Commentary on Luke 10:34Cyril of Alexandria · ca. 412-444 · Allegorically the Samaritan is Christ, who carries fallen humanity in his own body to the inn of the Church open to all nations, leaving the two denarii of the two Testaments, from one God against Mani and Marcion, to the Church’s pastors; literally, mercy, not office or learning, makes one a neighbour.
Commentary on Luke 11:51Cyril of Alexandria · ca. 412-444 · Zechariah was killed for fear of the king he foretold; the blood of all the prophets will be required of every murderous generation; the lawyers took away the key of knowledge—the law that leads to Christ and faith in him—by turning the people from believing, and then tried to trap him with questions.
Letter 41 (Cyril to Acacius of Melitene (second))Cyril of Alexandria · ca. 412-444 · Answering Acacius of Melitene, Cyril rejects the view that the scapegoat of Lev 16 was sent to a demon and reads the two goats, and the two birds of Lev 14, as a double picture of the one Christ who dies in the flesh and lives as God.
Book 1, preface of the author (to Eutychianus)Hesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · In his preface to the deacon Eutychianus, Hesychius explains that he has been asked to interpret all of Leviticus in order according to the Spirit, and argues from Christ's parables, Ezekiel and Paul that the law must be read by anagogy to be seen as useful.
Book 1, chapter 1Hesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · Hesychius expounds Lev 1: the burnt offerings of the herd, the flock and the birds stand for the doer of the law's righteousness, the simple and innocent (including converted sinners), and the contemplative, and every rite of the sacrifice is read of self-offering in imitation of Christ, who is the altar.
Book 1, chapter 2Hesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · Hesychius reads the grain offerings of Lev 2 as offerings of the knowledge of God: the fine flour as the gentiles' faith, oil and frankincense as almsgiving and prayer, the oven, pan and gridiron as Christ's birth from the Mother of God, his cross and his death, leaven and honey as foreign and pagan teaching, and salt as apostolic wisdom.
Book 3, chapter 11Hesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · On the clean and unclean animals of Lev 11, Hesychius argues that nature is not unclean, since God made all things good, but that the animals figure kinds of people: those who chew the cud and divide the hoof meditate on the law, practise it and distinguish letter from spirit; fish with fins and scales are converted gentiles; the forbidden birds are false contemplatives; the creeping things are the earthly-minded; and the carcasses are sinful actions, from which one is cleansed by repentance.
Book 5, prefaceHesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · The scan text of this preface also holds the end of the commentary on Leviticus 14 (the summary of the law of leprosy, with a doxology); the preface itself praises meditation on Scripture as the way to fruitfulness and salvation.
Book 6, prefaceHesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · In the short preface to Book 6 Hesychius praises meditation on the law, which makes us more truly human, and says that Moses' commandments, rightly interpreted, agree with the Gospel.
Book 7, chapter 26Hesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · On Lev 26, Hesychius reads the ban on idols as a ban on the hidden idolatry of greed, the Sabbath as rest from evil, and fear of the sanctuary as chastity and careful self-examination before communion; the thirty blessings are spiritual goods of the gospel; the curses describe the fate of the Jews who rejected Christ, read both of the Roman destruction (with Josephus) and of their loss of the spiritual sense of Scripture; the chapter ends with the promise that a remnant will be saved and that 'all Israel will be saved' (Rom 11).
Homily 2 (On the third and sixth hours of the crucifixion (fragment))Hesychius of Jerusalem · ca. 412-450 · Mark's third hour is the hour of Pilate's sentence, John's sixth the hour of the crucifixion itself, with the scourging, mocking and second hearing in between.
City of God 2.28Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine contrasts pagan festivals with Christian worship, where the sexes are separated and Scripture and moral teaching are proclaimed to all.
City of God 7.32Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine explains that the mystery of redemption in Christ was always proclaimed by signs, and that the whole worship of Israel foretold what is fulfilled in Christ.
City of God 8.10Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine explains that a Christian, warned by Paul against worldly philosophy yet told that some knew God from creation, rightly prefers the Platonists for what they grasped of the one God.
City of God 8.11Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine corrects his earlier view that Plato met Jeremiah, but suggests Plato may have learned of the Scriptures through an interpreter, citing likenesses to Genesis 1 and to God's name 'I am who am.'
City of God 8.24Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine seizes on Hermes' admission that idol-making arose from his ancestors' error and unbelief, and sets his lament beside the psalm's joyful 'new song' of the church built in all the earth.
City of God 9.19Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine notes that Scripture and common usage speak of good and bad angels but never of good demons, so he will use the name 'angels' for the good spirits.
City of God 9.23Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine allows the Platonists to call the blessed immortals 'gods' as Scripture calls angels and even men gods, but insists that such beings are not mediators and want worship given only to the one God.
City of God 10.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine defends the reliability of the scriptural miracles and teaches, from Psalm 73, that the good of man is to cleave to God.
City of God 11.3Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The canonical Scripture, given through prophets, Christ, and apostles, is the witness we must believe about things beyond our own perception.
City of God 11.19Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · God's dividing of light from darkness on the first day may signify his separation of the holy from the fallen angels, whose fall he foreknew.
City of God 11.31Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The seventh day's rest, which has no evening, signifies fullness; seven stands for the whole and for the Holy Spirit, and rest belongs to perfect knowledge, as the angels enjoy it.
City of God 11.32Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · If some place the angels' creation before heaven and earth, Augustine will not dispute it, gladly noting the Trinity in Genesis 1:1–2, provided the angels' secure happiness is held.
City of God 12.11Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Egyptian chronologies of many thousands of years, as in Alexander's letter to Olympias, disagree even with Greek history and deserve no credit against Scripture's reckoning of under six thousand years.
City of God 13.21Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Paradise may be read spiritually, of virtues or of the church and Christ, but only while its literal history as a real place is also believed, as with Hagar and Sarah or the rock that was Christ.
City of God 15.2Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Using Paul's allegory of Hagar and Sarah, Augustine explains that part of the earthly city served as an image of the heavenly city.
City of God 15.10Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine sets out how the figures of Genesis 5 differ between the Hebrew and the Greek-based Latin manuscripts, while the lifespans largely agree.
City of God 15.11Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine discusses the famous problem that the Septuagint figures make Methuselah outlive the flood by fourteen years, which the Hebrew figures do not.
City of God 15.12Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine rejects the theory that antediluvian 'years' were a tenth of ours, pointing out that the Hebrew figures would make fathers of children seven to eleven years old.
City of God 15.13Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine attributes the systematic hundred-year differences in Genesis 5 to an early copyist of the Septuagint and concludes that, on historical figures, the original Hebrew should be preferred.
City of God 15.14Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine proves from the dated months of the flood narrative that the years of the patriarchs were as long as ours, and holds that the Septuagint's differences may be prophetic rather than errors.
City of God 15.15Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that the sons named in Genesis 5 need not have been firstborn, just as Matthew's genealogy names only those in the line to David.
City of God 15.23Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that the 'angels of God' who married the daughters of men (Gen 6) were men of Seth's line, not spirits, and rejects the Enoch literature's account of giants as apocryphal.
City of God 15.25Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · God's 'anger' and 'repentance' in Scripture are figures of speech for his unchanging judgment, used to reach all kinds of readers.
City of God 15.27Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine insists that the flood narrative is both true history and a figure of the Church, answering objections about Mount Olympus, the ark's capacity, and the animals' food.
City of God 16.9Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine rejects belief in inhabited antipodes as unsupported and contrary to Scripture's account of one human race, and turns to seek the city of God among the 72 nations.
City of God 16.26Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · In Gen 17 God promises Isaac, renames Abraham and Sarah, and institutes circumcision, which signifies regeneration, and the eighth day Christ's resurrection.
City of God 16.40Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The seventy-five who 'entered Egypt' with Jacob include descendants born later, since his entry covers the whole of Joseph's lifetime.
City of God 17.1Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Book 17 covers the age of the prophets from Samuel to the return from exile, whose writings foretell Christ and the city of God more than they record history.
City of God 17.3Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Prophecies refer to the earthly Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, or both; Augustine rejects both purely literal and wholly allegorical reading.
City of God 17.14Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · David's psalms are almost all his prophecy; Augustine holds that David wrote all 150, some headed with other names for figurative reasons.
City of God 17.15Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine declines to list all the psalms' prophecies of Christ, since each should be read in its whole context, and refers readers to fuller expositions of the psalms.
City of God 17.20Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine praises David's repentance, notes Solomon's fall, and finds prophecies of Christ and the Church in Wisdom, Sirach, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.
City of God 17.23Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The divided kingdoms, alternately blessed and punished, went into captivity; after the return, prophecy ceased with Malachi, Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra until the prophets of the Gospel and John the Baptist.
City of God 18.11Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine dates the exodus, the giving of the law, and the deaths of Moses and Joshua, explaining why the Old Testament of earthly promises came before the New.
City of God 18.26Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine dates the return under Cyrus, the delayed rebuilding of the temple until Darius, and the end of the seventy years to the expulsion of the Roman kings, and introduces the writing prophets.
City of God 18.27Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine dates Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, Jonah, and Joel to the time when the Assyrian empire ended and Rome began, so that written prophecy for the nations arose with the city that would rule them.
City of God 18.36Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine treats Ezra and Esther as historical books, reads the contest of the three young men as pointing to Christ the truth, and notes that the church, not the Jews, holds the books of the Maccabees as canonical because of their martyrs.
City of God 18.37Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that the Hebrew prophets, and above all Moses, are older than every Greek philosopher and even than the wisdom of Egypt.
City of God 18.38Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine explains that writings attributed to Noah, Enoch, and other early prophets were excluded from the canon because their authenticity could not be trusted, and distinguishes prophets' historical writing from inspired Scripture.
City of God 18.40Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine rejects the Egyptian claim of a hundred thousand years of astronomy, citing Varro and the biblical chronology of fewer than six thousand years since Adam.
City of God 18.41Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine contrasts the endless disagreements of the philosophers, all tolerated by the earthly city, “Babylon,” with the concord of the canonical Scriptures, through which God himself taught Israel.
City of God 18.42Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine recounts how Ptolemy Philadelphus obtained the Hebrew Scriptures and had them translated by seventy-two elders whose separate translations miraculously agreed, a gift of God for the future faith of the nations.
City of God 18.43Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine defends the church's preference for the Septuagint, holding that the same Spirit spoke through the Hebrew prophets and the seventy translators, so that differences between the Hebrew and the Greek are both inspired.
City of God 18.44Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine explains the Hebrew “forty days” and the Septuagint “three days” of Jonah's warning to Nineveh as both pointing to Christ's resurrection and ascension, and resolves to use both the Hebrew and the Septuagint as authoritative.
City of God 19.18Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine rejects the universal doubt of the New Academy, affirming the certainty of reason, the senses, and the canonical Scriptures, while allowing reasonable doubt about matters none of these establishes.
City of God 20.4Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine will cite the New Testament first and then the Old, since the new come first in dignity.
City of God 20.28Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Those who read the law of Moses carnally murmured that serving God was useless; the last judgment will openly show the misery of the wicked and the happiness of the righteous.
City of God 20.29Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Elijah, who is still living, will come before the judgment and, by expounding the law spiritually, will bring the Jews to believe in Christ.
On Faith and Works 11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · The apostles' letters, written to the baptized, contain both faith and morals; putting faith first reflects that good life follows faith, not that morals should be taught only after baptism.
On the Good of Widowhood 2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 414 · Augustine will teach nothing beyond Scripture, but will set out and discuss the apostle's words.
Commentary on Jeremiah 4.61Jerome · ca. 414-419 · False prophets steal God's words from one another; so heretics borrow Scripture to spread their poison and promise great things to deceive (Jer 23:30–32).
Commentary on Jeremiah 5.64Jerome · ca. 414-419 · False prophets and diviners in Babylon are not to be believed; figuratively they are those who twist Scripture, guess at the future, and sleep in error (Jer 29:8–9).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.18Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Matthew quotes Rachel's weeping in his own words from the Hebrew; though the verse concerns the ten tribes, it fits the massacre at Bethlehem because Rachel is buried at Ephrathah, near which the infants were killed (Jer 31:15).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.25Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God will rebuild and replant Israel and Judah, fulfilled in part at Christ's first coming and fully at his second, not in a millennial kingdom; each will die for his own sin. The new covenant written on the heart, quoted in Hebrews, was fulfilled in the gospel, offered first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles (Jer 31:27–34).
On Nature and Grace 71Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine begins answering the patristic testimonies Pelagius cited, holding that they neither support nor refute his case, and interprets an unnamed author's words on Christ's victory over sin and the desires of the flesh.
Apologetic Book 2.1Orosius · ca. 415–416 · The fathers counter the heresy with Scripture and prayer.
Apologetic Book 17.12Orosius · ca. 415–416 · We have only the lamp of the prophetic word.
Apologetic Book 21.9Orosius · ca. 415–416 · Scripture speaks according to human judgment.
Apologetic Book 21.10Orosius · ca. 415–416 · Such praise is not God's final verdict.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 1.1.7Orosius · ca. 417–418 · He will draw briefly on the Scriptures, whose prophecies were proved true.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 1.8.6Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Moses' own account is more trustworthy than Justin's.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 1.10.7Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Orosius will tell the Exodus from Moses' account.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.27.2Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The Exodus as a figure of the church.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 13Augustine of Hippo · 417 · The fifth charge, that the kingdom of heaven was promised in the Old Testament, is defended by Pelagius from Daniel and approved.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 14Augustine of Hippo · 417 · Augustine explains two senses of “Old Testament”: strictly, the Sinai covenant of earthly promises; loosely, all the Scriptures before Christ, in which the kingdom of heaven is indeed promised.
On the Proceedings of Pelagius 15Augustine of Hippo · 417 · Pelagius's statement was rightly approved in the broad sense of “Old Testament,” though it blurs the apostolic distinction between the covenants.
Letter 2, chapter 8Zosimus, bishop of Rome · 417–418 · Zosimus urges the African bishops to submit their minds to the Scriptures as received by tradition, and dates the letter 417.
On Adulterous Marriages 1.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Augustine explains that he quoted Matt 5:32 from the Sermon on the Mount, notes the variant Latin renderings, and observes that some manuscripts lack its final clause.
On Adulterous Marriages 1.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · The exception clause of Matt 19:9, spoken to the Pharisees, must be read in the light of Mark and Luke: everyone who dismisses his wife and remarries commits adultery.
On Adulterous Marriages 1.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Paul's counsel is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and so is from the Lord in a real sense, though it is not a command.
On Adulterous Marriages 2.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Augustine reports that some removed the story of the woman taken in adultery from their manuscripts, fearing it licensed sin, and rebukes husbands who condemn adulterous wives while committing adultery themselves.
Against Gaudentius, Bishop of the Donatists 1.37Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Scripture praises Razis for love of his city and his reputation, but merely narrates his death without commending it.
Against Gaudentius, Bishop of the Donatists 1.38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · The books of Maccabees are not held by the Jews like the Law, Prophets, and Psalms, but are received by the church with profit if read soberly; not every deed of praised men is to be imitated.
Against Gaudentius, Bishop of the Donatists 1.39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Not everything done by praised figures is to be imitated (David, Solomon, Peter, Noah, Judah); Samson’s death came from the Spirit’s prompting, like Abraham’s sacrifice at God’s command.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · The Dinocrates story is not canonical and does not say the boy was unbaptized; he may have lapsed after baptism.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Isaiah 42:5 shows God gives breath, but not whether by propagation or new inbreathing, just as God gives bodies that come from seed.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Isaiah’s “breath” and “spirit” may be parallelism referring to the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · The Greek word pnoē, translated variously, often signifies the Spirit or divine inspiration; even a plain “gives a soul” would not settle the soul’s origin.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Other readings of Isaiah 42:5 are orthodox, but none decides whether the soul is given by propagation or by new inbreathing.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Isaiah 57:16 shows God makes every soul but not how.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Zechariah 12:1 says God forms man’s spirit within him, as he forms the eye, without deciding how.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Paul’s “all things are from God” in 1 Cor 11:12 covers bodies too, so “from God” does not exclude propagation.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · “From one blood” (Acts 17:26) may stand for the whole man by synecdoche, just as “in whom all sinned” may; neither text decides the question.
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Genesis 2:23 is argued both ways: the propagationists note that no breath was breathed into Eve, their opponents that Adam said only “flesh of my flesh.”
On the Soul and Its Origin 1.30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Scripture’s silence about Eve’s soul decides nothing either way.
On the Soul and Its Origin 2.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Victor’s texts on God giving, making, or forming souls do not decide how, since God also gives bodies through seed.
On the Soul and Its Origin 2.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Texts naming a part (blood, flesh) or the whole (man, woman) cut both ways by synecdoche; unambiguous testimonies are needed.
On the Soul and Its Origin 3.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Neither the thief nor Dinocrates proves that unbaptized infants are forgiven; either may have been baptized, and the Dinocrates account is not canonical.
On the Soul and Its Origin 4.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · If knowledge of the soul’s origin comes from Scripture, Victor should not have made it a mark of human nature distinguishing us from beasts.
On the Soul and Its Origin 4.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Scripture shows that God gives souls but not how; the psalm about beasts concerns those who hope for nothing after death, not those who confess ignorance.
On the Soul and Its Origin 4.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–420 · Likenesses of bodies in dreams and prophetic visions, as in Revelation, are truthful signs, not bodies.
The Institutes 2.6John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · The fathers adopted the twelve-psalm rule and added two Scripture readings, both from the New Testament on Saturdays, Sundays, and in Eastertide.
The Institutes 5.33John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Abba Theodore, nearly unable to speak Greek, understood the Scriptures through purity of heart and once prayed seven days for the answer to a question.
The Institutes 5.34John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Theodore taught that the Scriptures are understood not through commentaries but by purifying the heart, which removes the veil of the passions.
The Institutes 7.16John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Some monks misuse "it is more blessed to give" to keep their wealth, against Christ's command to sell everything.
The Institutes 8.2John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Some excuse anger against erring brothers by citing God's anger in Scripture, thereby attributing a passion to God.
The Institutes 8.3John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · If God's anger is taken literally, so must his sleeping, sitting, drunkenness, and bodily limbs, which is absurd.
The Institutes 8.4John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Scripture's language of God's limbs and anger is figurative; God's "anger" means his just judgment, which the guilty experience as wrath.
The Institutes 8.21John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Cassian holds that "without cause" in Matt 5:22 is a later addition meant to excuse anger; the text forbids anger altogether.
The Institutes 10.21John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Solomon condemns idleness as the source of poverty, rags, thorns, and desires; the idle misuse sayings about spiritual food to excuse themselves.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 1.1.1Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · Julian explains why the prophets date their books by kings, sketches the fall of the northern kingdom, and argues that Hosea was the first of the writing prophets.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 1.1.2Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · Julian sets out the dispute over whether Hosea literally married a prostitute, prefers the view that it was seen in prophetic vision, and explains the name Jezreel and the judgment on Jehu’s house.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 1.1.5Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · Julian reads the promise of countless ‘children of the living God’ as both the return from Babylon and, by theoria, the Gospel’s call of the nations, and insists that prophecy does not remove the value of repentance and prayer.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 1.11.1Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · Israel’s kingdom vanished like the dawn; Julian contrasts this with God’s love in calling Israel his son out of Egypt, a verse Matthew rightly applied to Christ, and with Israel’s ready lapse into idolatry.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 2.0.1Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · In his preface to Joel, Julian explains that he follows the translation ‘according to the Hebrew,’ whose order of the Twelve Prophets differs from the common edition, and that Joel, having no title, is taken to belong to Hosea’s time.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 2.1.4Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · Julian takes Joel’s locusts literally as successive plagues of insects and rejects the reading that makes them the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Macedonians, and Romans.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 2.2.11Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · Julian holds that Peter used Joel only for the Gospel and that the prophecy also has its historical sense: the outpouring of the Spirit, dreams, and darkened sun and moon describe Judah’s terror and deliverance under Hezekiah, and are fulfilled more fully at Christ’s passion and the end of the world.
Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 2.3.2Julian of Eclanum · ca. 420-440 · God rebukes Tyre, Sidon, and the Philistines for joining Assyria against Judah and selling its children, and promises a like recompense; Julian insists that such passages are to be read historically and not forced into a spiritual sense.
Lausiac History 64Palladius of Helenopolis · ca. 419-420 · The virgin Juliana of Caesarea sheltered Origen during a persecution, as a note in Origen's hand records.
Against Lying 21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Lot's offer, made in fear, and David's rash oath against Nabal, made in anger, are recorded in Scripture but are not examples to imitate.
Against Lying 23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Concealing the truth by silence is not lying, as Christ's words in John 16:12 and Abraham's calling Sarah his sister show.
Against Lying 24Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Jacob's deception of Isaac was not a lie but a prophetic figure, just as metaphors, antiphrasis, and parables are not lies, since what they signify is true.
Against Lying 25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Augustine urges Consentius to refute the Priscillianist doctrine that one may lie, even deny Christ, to conceal one's religion, by a threefold argument about the scriptural examples of lying.
Against Lying 26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · The supposed scriptural examples of lying come from the prophetic books, where deeds are figures; no apostle is shown lying, for Peter's pretense at Antioch was rebuked and Paul's becoming all things to all was compassion, not deceit.
Against Lying 27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Christ's questions about the woman with the flow of blood and about Lazarus were not lies but figures signifying the gentiles and those cast out from God's sight.
Against Lying 28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Christ's making as though to go farther at Emmaus was a figure of his ascension, not a lie, just as parables, the fables of Horace and Aesop, and Jotham's fable of the trees are not lies.
Against Lying 29Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Where people in the Old Testament lied without meaning to prophesy, they did lie, and Scripture records their deeds, good and evil, not always for imitation.
Against Lying 30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · If Tamar's lie is taken as a model, Judah's sexual immorality would have to be too, and allowing compensating sins would open the way to every crime.
Against Lying 31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Since a sin is by definition contrary to justice and every lie is contrary to truth, no lie can be just, and scriptural examples of lying are either not lies or not to be imitated.
Against Lying 32Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · God rewarded the Hebrew midwives and Rahab for their mercy, not for their lies, and pardoned the lies on account of the mercy; but one may not sin deliberately in order to do good.
Against Lying 35Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Every example of lying in Dictinius's Libra is to be treated by the rule that it is either not a lie or not to be imitated, and lies that creep in call for pardon, not justification.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine explains that the ritual laws of the Old Testament were signs now fulfilled, but its moral precepts, above all the Ten Commandments apart from the literal Sabbath, bind Christians.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine distinguishes the common sense of 'Old Testament' (the Hebrew Scriptures) from Paul's sense (the covenant of slavery), and concludes that the ancient righteous belong to the New Covenant.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine announces that, besides Scripture, he will cite earlier Catholic writers to show that the doctrine he defends is ancient, while ranking them below the canonical books.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 0Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · Eucherius explains to his son Veranius that Scripture has literal, moral and anagogical senses and promises a list of its figures.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 1Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The first chapter of figures explains the bodily members and weapons ascribed to God in Scripture.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 2Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The second chapter explains heavenly and weather figures (heavens, clouds, sun, moon, winds, seasons, times of day).
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 3Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The third chapter explains earthly figures: land, mountains, crops, vines, plants, waters and the sea.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 4Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The fourth chapter explains the figures of birds, beasts, cattle and reptiles in Scripture.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 5Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The fifth chapter explains names of persons and relationships (man, woman, bride, child, rich, poor, living, dead) as figures.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 6Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The sixth chapter explains the parts and clothing of the body as figures of the inner man.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 7Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The seventh chapter explains figures of food, drink, household objects, tools and metals, with examples of words having many meanings.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 8Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The eighth chapter explains verbs and terms of movement, posture and health as figures.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 9Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The ninth chapter explains Jerusalem, the tabernacle, sacrifices, feasts, the city, music, and their opposites as figures, ending with the crown.
Formulae of Spiritual Understanding 10Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 420-430 · The tenth chapter explains the symbolic meaning of sacred numbers in Scripture, from one to a hundred.
On Care for the Dead 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–422 · The dead may learn of earthly things from those who die after them, from angels, or by revelation, and Scripture shows some of the dead sent to the living, such as Samuel and Moses.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Laurentius asked for a handbook on what to follow and avoid, the relation of reason and faith, the beginning and end, the sum of doctrine, and the foundation of the faith; all are answered by knowing what to believe, hope for, and love.
Discourse 1.61Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · It is far more just to believe the prophets and apostles than the poets.
Discourse 2.111Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · These truths are learned from Scripture by grace.
Discourse 2.112Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · Reading both prophets and apostles reveals their harmony and exposes atheists.
Discourse 3.108Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · Reading Scripture would show how far it surpasses human reasoning.
Discourse 4.72Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · The whole of Scripture teaches one Maker of the universe.
Discourse 4.73Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · Theodoret urges his readers to embrace Scripture's truth and worship God.
Discourse 5.49Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · All the biblical writers agree about human nature.
Discourse 5.60Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · The unlettered prophets and apostles filled the world with teaching on virtue.
Discourse 5.66Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · Scripture has been translated into all the world's languages.
Discourse 6.88Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · Prophecies and Gospels confirm each other.
Discourse 8.7Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · The apostolic writings are plain in style and in subject.
Discourse 9.5Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · The great treasure of truth comes in plain words.
Discourse 9.34Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · The Persians honor the apostolic writings as from heaven.
Discourse 9.73Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · Theodoret urges readers to accept the God-given laws of the gospel.
Discourse 10.49Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · Theodoret will cite biblical prophecies for comparison.
Discourse 10.100Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · The psalms foretell the whole story of Christ and the church.
Discourse 10.101Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 437 · The prophecies cited suffice to show the truth of all.
Sermon 44Peter Chrysologus · ca. 425-450 · On Psalm 1:1, Chrysologus calls the psalm the key to the Psalter and explains the counsel of the ungodly (turning from God from the beginning), the way of sinners (the present life, which all enter but the blessed do not linger on), and the chair of pestilence (pagan philosophy, Pharisaic tradition, and heresy).
Sermon 99Peter Chrysologus · ca. 425-450 · Chrysologus explains the parable of the leaven as a pair with the mustard seed: man and woman, Adam and Eve, are restored through Christ and Mary; the woman is the church, the leaven heavenly teaching, and the three measures the Law, Prophets and Gospels.
Sermon 112Peter Chrysologus · ca. 425-450 · Expounding Rom 5:17–21, Chrysologus contrasts Adam and Christ and explains that the law, like a surgeon's knife, exposed and enlarged the wound of sin to send the sick to the physician; the passage also contains Sermon 113, on Rom 6:1–14, rejecting the idea of remaining in sin so that grace may abound.
Sermon 126Peter Chrysologus · ca. 425-450 · Explaining why the master praised the unjust steward (Luke 16:1–8), Chrysologus reads the steward as the gentile people turned Christian, who, by the numbers fifty (mercy, jubilee) and eighty (law and grace), leads the Jewish debtor to repentance rather than fraud.
Sermon 132Peter Chrysologus · ca. 425-450 · Arguing that God hides meaning in Scripture as nature hides gold, Chrysologus expounds Christ's promise to those who agree in prayer (Matt 18:19–20) to defend common worship against those who prefer solitary prayer, and to warn that life is found only in the unity of the Church, Christ's body.
Sermon 169Peter Chrysologus · ca. 425-450 · On the parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8–10), Chrysologus reads the woman as the Church, who after Pentecost lit her lamp and swept the house of the Synagogue to find the lost coin, Christ, hidden in the ten commandments, beginning with “the Lord your God is one God.”
1.1Philostorgius · ca. 425-433 · Philostorgius's judgment on the four books of Maccabees: the first trustworthy, the second an epitome of Jason of Cyrene, the third fanciful, the fourth a eulogy by Josephus.
2.5Philostorgius · ca. 425-433 · Philostorgius's account of Ulfilas: the Gothic captives' conversion, his ordination by Eusebius, his Gothic alphabet and Bible (without Kingdoms), and his Arian sympathies.
3.9Philostorgius · ca. 425-433 · Philostorgius explains how the Tigris and Euphrates flow underground from Paradise, citing Psalm 24.
3.10Philostorgius · ca. 425-433 · Philostorgius locates Paradise in the east and traces the rivers Pishon (the Hyphasis) and Gihon (the Nile) from it.
7.9Philostorgius · ca. 425-433 · Julian's attempt to rebuild the Jerusalem temple to disprove Christ's prophecy is stopped by fire and earthquake.
7.14Philostorgius · ca. 425-433 · During Julian's attempt to rebuild the temple a workman finds in a cave a pristine copy of John's Gospel; on the earlier history of Jerusalem as Jebus.
12.10Philostorgius · ca. 425-433 · Philostorgius argues that earthquakes come from God's will alone, citing the Red Sea, the water from the rock and Naaman's cleansing.
Retractations 1.21Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Reviewing Against Adimantus, Augustine says he should have written that “almost” nothing in the New Testament is lacking in the Old, corrects his list of the senses of “son,” and explains that the power to change one's will is given by God.
Retractations 2.4Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Augustine explains that he completed On Christian Teaching, withdraws his attribution of the Wisdom of Solomon to Jesus Sirach, and corrects remarks on the Old Testament and on Ambrose.
Retractations 2.20Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Reviewing his answers to Januarius on church customs, Augustine notes that his statement about the taste of the manna rests only on the book of Wisdom, which the Jews do not accept as canonical.
Retractations 2.54Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Augustine describes his Expressions in the Heptateuch, a study of unusual idioms in Genesis through Judges, and corrects one comparison.
Retractations 2.58Augustine of Hippo · 426-427 · Augustine describes his two books against an anonymous Marcionite-type tract that denied that the God of the Law and Prophets is the true God.
The Conferences 3.6John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The three renunciations, of possessions, of former vices, and of all visible things for the invisible, are figured in God's call to Abraham, in Ps 45, and in the three books of Solomon.
The Conferences 3.14John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The saints ask God himself to teach them the knowledge of his law.
The Conferences 7.21John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Demons too labor and suffer shame in defeat; the psalms that curse enemies must be read as prayers against these spiritual foes, not against human beings, whom the saints loved.
The Conferences 8.3John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Scripture is like a field: some passages nourish plainly by the letter, some must be “cooked” by allegory, some serve in both senses, and the simple historical narrative feeds the simple; literal crosses carried by some monks show the danger of misreading.
The Conferences 8.4John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Plain teachings may be stated firmly, but obscure passages allow more than one reasonable interpretation, as with Elijah in John the Baptist and the abomination of desolation.
The Conferences 8.23John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · God implanted the knowledge of the law in human nature from creation; the written law was given later as a help when it had been corrupted, and the patriarchs kept its commands before it was written.
The Conferences 9.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Isaac turns to the four kinds of prayer named by Paul in 1 Timothy 2:1 and asks what each means and whether they are offered together, in turn, or by different people according to their progress.
The Conferences 9.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Isaac sets out three questions about the four kinds of prayer, insisting that the Holy Spirit did not arrange the apostle’s order without reason.
The Conferences 10.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Holding to this one verse makes the monk poor in spirit, a beggar before God; from there he rises to the mysteries of Scripture, praying the psalms as if he had written them from his own experience, and reaches pure, wordless prayer.
The Conferences 11.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus objects that Scripture praises the fear of God and shows David and Moses acting in view of reward, so how can fear and hope be imperfect?
The Conferences 13.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Scripture speaks both of human choice and of God’s initiative, so both grace and free will are declared: a person can sometimes by nature begin to desire the good, but always needs God’s help to accomplish it.
The Conferences 13.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Chaeremon sets pairs of Scripture texts side by side, each affirming human free will and at the same time its weakness and need of God.
The Conferences 14.1John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Abba Nesteros explains that spiritual knowledge, like every art, has its own order, and is twofold: practical knowledge, which cleanses from vices, and contemplative knowledge of divine things.
The Conferences 14.8John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Contemplative knowledge divides into historical and spiritual understanding, the latter threefold, tropology, allegory, and anagogy, so that Jerusalem can mean the Jewish city, the church, the heavenly city, or the soul; Nesteros links these to Paul’s revelation, knowledge, prophecy, and teaching.
The Conferences 14.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Nesteros tells Cassian (John) that spiritual knowledge requires purity of heart and practical discipline; he must keep silent, learn from the elders, act before teaching, and not mistake eloquence for spiritual knowledge.
The Conferences 14.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · True knowledge of Scripture requires humility and constant meditation, which makes the mind like the ark of the covenant; memorized Scripture guards against evil thoughts and yields its meaning later, even in sleep.
The Conferences 14.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Scripture’s meaning deepens as one grows: the command against sexual immorality applies literally to the carnal, and spiritually to idolatry and pagan superstition, to Judaizing observance, to heresy, and finally to any wandering thought away from God.
The Conferences 14.13John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Nesteros tells Cassian to replace the poems with equally diligent study of Scripture, since the mind cannot be empty, and to receive even familiar teachings eagerly; the Scripture thus stored will become a spring flowing from his heart.
The Conferences 14.14John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Only experience qualifies one to teach, and an impure soul, like a foul jar, cannot receive or keep spiritual knowledge however much it reads.
The Conferences 14.15John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus objects that many impure people, Jews, heretics, and sinful catholics, are learned in Scripture, while many holy men are not.
The Conferences 14.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Nesteros replies that the impure have only skill in words, “knowledge falsely so called”; true knowledge follows the order of practical virtue, above all chastity, as the prophet, the psalmist, and Paul show, and may flourish even in the unlettered.
The Conferences 14.17John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The mysteries of Scripture should not be thrown before the impure or taught for vainglory, but given to penitents who are weighed down by sorrow; teaching for human praise is lending the Lord’s money at usury.
The Conferences 14.18John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Spiritual teaching fails either because the teacher lacks experience or because the hearer’s heart is hardened.
The Conferences 17.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Abba Joseph argues that the Old Testament accounts of saints' “dispensations” must not be denied or allegorized away merely because some misuse them.
On the Predestination of the Saints 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Defending Wis 4:11 (“he was snatched away lest wickedness should change his understanding”), long read in the church with divine authority, Augustine shows with Cyprian's On Mortality that the righteous who die early are spared, and that no one is judged for deeds he would have done.
Instructions 1.0Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · Eucherius dedicates his Instructions to his son Salonius, educated at Lérins, and explains the plan of the work.
Instructions 1.1Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · The seven spirits of the Apocalypse are the seven gifts listed in Isaiah 11, all the work of the one Spirit.
Instructions 1.15Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · “Abyss calls to abyss”: the Old and New Testaments bear witness to each other.
Instructions 1.27Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · The silvered dove with golden back: the Spirit, and the literal (silver) and inner (gold) senses of the two Testaments.
Instructions 1.56Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · “Perhaps” in Psalm 124:5 renders the Greek ἄρα, “do you think,” making the verse a question.
Instructions 2.0Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · Eucherius introduces Book 2, a classified list of explanations, beginning with Hebrew names.
Instructions 2.1Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · A list of Hebrew and other names with their traditional meanings, ending with the point that names in Scripture fit their bearers.
Instructions 2.2Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · Meanings of liturgical and biblical words such as Alleluia, Amen, Diapsalma, Hosanna, Maranatha, Seraphim and Cherubim.
Instructions 2.3Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · Meanings of obscure biblical words for plants, weapons, vessels, instruments, measures, and terms of the tabernacle and temple, comparing old and new Latin translations.
Commonitorium 5Marius Mercator · 429-431 · Marius distinguishes original from natural sin against Julian, and answers Julian's claim that reason must judge Scripture by pointing to the virgin birth and the incarnation.
On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius 6.3John Cassian · ca. 430–431 · Cassian now refutes Nestorius from the baptismal creed of Antioch in which he was baptized, quoting it and explaining that the creed (symbolum) gathers the whole of Scripture into a short word.
On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius 6.4John Cassian · ca. 430–431 · The creed carries both divine and human authority, since God shortened his word in it through the apostles; Cassian quotes it again.
On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius 6.23John Cassian · ca. 430–431 · By synecdoche Scripture names the whole by a part, as in the four hundred years, the three days and nights, and John the Baptist’s words; so whatever is said of the Son of God or son of man is said of the one Christ.
On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius 7.16John Cassian · ca. 430–431 · Nestorius quoted Heb 7:3 selectively, as the devil quoted Ps 91 to Christ while omitting the verse about trampling the serpent.
Celestine, ACO I.2, letter 7.2Celestine I, bishop of Rome · 430-432 · The bishops have inherited the apostles' commission to teach and must guard what was handed down, as Paul warns.
Cyril, Twelve Anathemas, Anathema IVAnonymous · 430–433 · Fourth anathema: the sayings about Christ in Scripture may not be divided between two persons.
Oration 2.7Proclus of Constantinople · ca. 430-446 · The seven lamps are seven laws (natural law, creation, the command in Eden, Noah's covenant, circumcision, the written law, and grace), the seven pourers the seven gifts of the Spirit, and the two olive trees the two Testaments.
Oration 14.3Proclus of Constantinople · ca. 430-446 · The Passover rites were types, like a sculptor's clay model, to be set aside when Christ, the truth and the true Lamb, appeared; Proclus urges the Jews to leave the old leaven and keep the feast with the church.
Oration 15.3Proclus of Constantinople · ca. 430-446 · Neither John's lake, trade, father, village, nor the law and prophets could have taught him to say “In the beginning was the Word”; faith gave him wings to rise above the angels to God's throne.
Part 2Eutherius of Tyana · ca. 431-440 · The author defends the study of Scripture against those who would forbid it, and then, in a new chapter, argues that 'the Word became flesh' means union with flesh, not change into flesh, so that two natures must be confessed.
Part 9Eutherius of Tyana · ca. 431-440 · The author rejects the demand to accept scriptural words without examining their meaning, citing Paul's call to trained discernment and comparing such hearers to animals that do not chew the cud.
Part 16Eutherius of Tyana · ca. 431-440 · The author argues against blind acceptance of words, showing that apparently contrary texts about Christ (only-begotten and firstborn, eternal and recent, without genealogy and with one) agree only when referred to his two natures.
Letter to Valerian, paragraph 26Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 432 · Scripture shines from within like a gem and feeds the soul; Valerian should turn to God in all he says and does, trusting God to give him strength, for God already gives light and sun to good and bad alike.
Psalm 103, from v. 1Prosper of Aquitaine · after 432, before 455 · Psalm 104 (103) is read both literally of creation and figuratively of the church, Scripture, preachers, love, and Christ the foundation.
Psalm 118, NunProsper of Aquitaine · after 432, before 455 · Psalm 119:105–112 (118) is read of Scripture as a lamp in the night of persecution, the martyr as God's witness by grace, and the inclined heart as both God's gift and the believer's will.
Psalm 126Prosper of Aquitaine · after 432, before 455 · Psalm 127 (126), titled for Solomon despite his fall, is read of God alone building and guarding the church, humility before exaltation, and the apostles as arrows sent from the prophets.
Commonitory 2Vincent of Lérins · 434 · Vincent's rule: the faith is guarded by Scripture and by the church's tradition, holding what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.
Commonitory 22Vincent of Lérins · 434 · Vincent expounds 'guard the deposit': the faith is something received and to be handed on unchanged, though it may be explained more clearly.
Commonitory 25Vincent of Lérins · 434 · Heretics use Scripture constantly, as wolves in sheep's clothing, and are revealed by their new interpretations, as Paul says of false apostles disguised as true.
Commonitory 26Vincent of Lérins · 434 · The devil quoted Scripture to tempt Christ, and heretics do the same, promising a special grace to their followers.
Commonitory 27Vincent of Lérins · 434 · Catholics distinguish truth from error in Scripture by interpreting it according to the church's tradition: universality, antiquity, and consent.
Commonitory 28Vincent of Lérins · 434 · The consent of the fathers is to be used chiefly on the rule of faith and against new heresies, holding what all or most taught and setting aside any one teacher's private opinion.
Commonitory 29Vincent of Lérins · 434 · Vincent recapitulates his rule and recalls how the Council of Ephesus (431) condemned Nestorius by reading the agreeing opinions of the fathers.
Tome to the Armenians 10Proclus of Constantinople · ca. 435-437 · The faith confessed in baptism may not be altered even by an angel, as Paul says.
Tome to the Armenians 11Proclus of Constantinople · ca. 435-437 · Proclus summarizes what Scripture teaches: creation, the natural law, the commandment, the fall, and God's training of humanity through the patriarchs, law, and prophets.
Epigram 8: De doctrina apostolicaProsper of Aquitaine · ca. 435-450 · The apostles' teaching feeds every kind of person according to capacity, milk for the little and bread for the strong, and gives life through the one faith.
Epigram 13: De bono intellectuProsper of Aquitaine · ca. 435-450 · True understanding of Scripture means doing what one has learned, just as wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.
Epigram 26: De scrutandis mandatis DeiProsper of Aquitaine · ca. 435-450 · God's commandments can be searched only by a quiet mind, free of quarrels and the world's noise, as the temple was built in silence.
Epigram 70: De divinis Scripturis (Migne also numbers it LXVII)Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 435-450 · The obscurities of Scripture are good: they keep its mysteries precious, exercise the reader, and in the end feed him, for God who gives the seeking gives the finding.
Preface (Prothéōria)Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Theodoret explains why he comments on the Psalms, rejects both excessive allegory and purely Jewish-historical readings, and discusses the authorship of the psalms, their titles, the diapsalma, and their order.
Psalm 1:2Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 1:2–3: the one who meditates on God's law is like a well-watered tree; the water is the teaching of the Spirit, and God prospers those whose will agrees with his law.
Psalm 11:7Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 12:6: God's words are pure; "seven times" means many times.
Psalm 18:1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 19 (Greek 18) teaches three laws in Paul's order: the law of creation, the law of Moses, and the law of grace.
Psalm 18:8–11Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 19:7–10: the law of Moses under its five names (law, testimony, ordinances, commandment, judgments) and what each does.
Psalm 36:30–31Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 37:30–33: meditation on God's law keeps the righteous steady, and God rescues them from plots, as he did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
Psalm 44:2Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 45:1: the prophet speaks of the King, Christ, and his tongue is only the pen with which the Spirit writes.
Psalm 62:6Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 63:5: praising God and studying his words feed the soul like rich food.
Psalm 62:7–8Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 63:6-7: David meditates on God through the night watches under the shelter of his wings; an addition makes the wings the two Testaments.
Psalm 64:1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 65, title: Theodoret rejects the added title naming Jeremiah and Ezekiel and assigns the psalm to the captives in Babylon.
Psalm 67:14Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 68:13: the dove's silver wings and golden back are the Spirit's grace, giving simple and deep teaching through the two Testaments to those who stay with them.
Psalm 67:27Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 68:26: the many churches replace the one temple and praise God from the springs of Israel, the prophetic and apostolic writings.
Psalm 72:1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 73, title and verse 1: the psalm answers the exiles' doubts about providence when they saw the wicked Babylonians prosper; God is good to the upright in heart.
Psalm 77:1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 78, title and verse 1: as the law commanded, the psalm teaches later generations God's benefits and their fathers' ingratitude.
Psalm 77:5Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 78:5: God gave the law and the tabernacle of testimony and commanded the fathers to teach their sons.
Psalm 87:19Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 88:18: bereft of friends, the psalmist laments; the prayer fits all who suffer, since Scripture was written for our instruction.
Psalm 91:12Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 92:11: the Septuagint's past tense expresses the certainty of prophecy; the righteous will see and hear of the downfall of their enemies.
Psalm 97:6Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 98:6: the trumpets are a figure for teaching; as the Jews' lamb gave way to the Lamb of God, their trumpets give way to the living trumpets, the apostles, prophets, and teachers.
Psalm 101:5Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 102:4–5: the exile's grief wasted his body; an added passage reads the forgotten bread as the word of God, without which the soul withers.
Psalm 118:2Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 119:2–3: Theodoret recalls the distinction of law, commandments, ordinances, judgments, and testimonies; blessed are those who seek God wholeheartedly, unlike the lawless who make their own road.
Psalm 118:9Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 119:9–10: the divine word bridles and guides unstable youth; the lover of God seeks him with an undivided heart.
Psalm 118:18Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 119:18: only those enlightened from above see the wonders of Scripture; as Paul says, the veil is removed by turning to the Lord.
Psalm 118:34Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 119:34: searching the Scriptures, as Christ commanded, requires light from God.
Psalm 118:82Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 119:82: 'saying' means both God's promise and Scripture; longing for the meaning of Scripture is also a kind of 'failing,' and finding it brings comfort.
Psalm 118:103Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 119:103: meditating aloud on God's words delights the soul more than honey delights the tongue.
Psalm 118:130Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Psalm 119:130: God's word enlightens the ignorant as it enlightened the psalmist.
On the Governance of God 3.1Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · Book 3: the argument so far rests on Scripture and so cannot be overthrown.
On the Governance of God 3.3Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · God’s reasons are hidden, but whatever God does must be confessed as just.
On the Governance of God 3.4Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · God’s word is its own witness and needs no further proof.
On the Governance of God 3.5Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · Salvian addresses Christians, to whom Scripture is proof.
On the Governance of God 3.8Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · God’s goods entrusted to Christians are Scripture, baptism, and the chrism.
On the Governance of God 5.5Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · Salvian turns to the heretical barbarians, who have the same Scriptures.
On the Governance of God 5.6Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · The heretics’ Scriptures are corrupted; only catholics have them whole.
On the Governance of God 5.7Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · Even where the barbarians’ Scripture is less corrupt, they follow corrupt tradition.
On the Governance of God 7.46Salvian of Marseilles · ca. 439-451 · The Vandals met the Romans with the book of Scripture, and won.
Church History 1.9Socrates Scholasticus · ca. 439-443 · Socrates gives the synodal letter of Nicaea to the Alexandrians (on Arius, the Melitians, and Easter) and Constantine’s letters on Nicaea, against Arius, on Easter, on church building, on fifty copies of Scripture, and to Macarius on the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Church History 2.21Socrates Scholasticus · ca. 439-443 · Socrates defends Eusebius of Caesarea against the charge of Arianism, quoting his assent at Nicaea and his works against Marcellus on Prov 8:22 (“created” as “appointed”).
Church History 3.16Socrates Scholasticus · ca. 439-443 · The Apollinarii rewrite Scripture in classical forms when Julian bans Christian education; Socrates argues that Christians may rightly study Greek learning, as Paul did, testing all things.
Church History 4.33Socrates Scholasticus · ca. 439-443 · After Valens helps Fritigern, many Goths accept Arian Christianity; Ulfilas translates the Scriptures into Gothic, and Athanaric's persecution makes martyrs of Arian Goths.
Church History 6.3Socrates Scholasticus · ca. 439-443 · Socrates sketches John Chrysostom's family, education, ascetic life under Diodore, early writings and ordinations at Antioch, and his severe and outspoken character.
Church History 6.7Socrates Scholasticus · ca. 439-443 · The Anthropomorphite controversy: Theophilus, threatened by monks who believe God has human form, condemns Origen's books, then turns the monks against the Tall Brothers, whom he had come to hate.
Church History 7.32Socrates Scholasticus · ca. 439-443 · Nestorius's presbyter Anastasius denies that Mary is Theotokos, and Nestorius defends him; Socrates, from Nestorius's writings, judges him ignorant of the older authorities rather than a follower of Paul of Samosata, and cites 1 John, Eusebius and Origen for the title Theotokos.
Church History 1.1Sozomen · ca. 439-450 · Sozomen asks why the Hebrews were slower to believe than the nations, cites Josephus and the Sibyl on Christ, explains his sources and method, and warns that partisan collections of documents distort the history of the Arian controversy.
Church History 3.15Sozomen · ca. 439-450 · Didymus the Blind teaches at Alexandria and is praised by Antony; Hilary, Eusebius and Lucifer are distinguished in the West, and Aetius among the Arians; Sozomen explains why he praises the eloquence of men he does not follow in doctrine.
Church History 6.37Sozomen · ca. 439-450 · Driven out by the Huns, the Goths cross the Danube; Fritigern, helped by Valens, adopts his Arian faith, as does the Gothic bishop Ulfilas, translator of the Bible into Gothic; Athanaric persecutes Gothic Christians, and the Goths turn on Thrace.
Church History 7.12Sozomen · ca. 439-450 · Theodosius convenes the heads of the sects (383); on the Novatian Sisinnius’s advice they are asked to accept the pre-schism Fathers as authorities, and when they disagree each submits a creed, of which only the Nicene and Novatian are approved; laws against heretics follow.
Church History 7.19Sozomen · ca. 439-450 · Sozomen lists differences of church custom: the Paschal dispute settled by Victor and Polycarp, bishops in villages, seven deacons at Rome, the Alleluia, preaching, Gospel reading, the length of Lent, Saturday assemblies, and the reading of the Apocalypses of Peter and Paul.
Church History 8.2Sozomen · ca. 439-450 · At Nectarius’s death John (Chrysostom), the eloquent presbyter of Antioch, pupil of Libanius and of Diodore, who had recalled Theodore of Mopsuestia to the monastic life, is chosen bishop of Constantinople, spirited away from Antioch, and consecrated despite Theophilus’s preference for Isidore.
Canon 18Anonymous · 441 · The Gospel is to be read to catechumens in all the churches of the provinces.
Church History 1.15Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 449-450 · Constantine orders Eusebius to have fifty copies of the Scriptures made for the churches of Constantinople; Theodoret then introduces the emperor's work at the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem.
Church History 4.26Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 449-450 · Ephrem the Syrian, untrained in Greek learning, counters the hymns of Harmonius son of Bardaisan with orthodox hymns still sung at martyrs' festivals, and Didymus the Blind masters the liberal arts and Scripture by ear.
Part 1, section 4Prosper of Aquitaine · ca. 445-455 · The Chronicle runs from the Babylonian captivity through the Persian kings, the return under Ezra and Nehemiah, Alexander, and the early Ptolemies, ending with the Greek translation of the Scriptures under Ptolemy Philadelphus.
Part 3, chapter 10Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Isaiah’s “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” is fulfilled when Jesus reads it and declares it fulfilled, to the amazement of his hearers.
Antony 3Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Antony gives three rules: keep God before your eyes, act on the testimony of Scripture, and do not leave your place quickly.
Antony 26Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Antony prays for Moses to explain a passage of Leviticus, and a voice speaks to him.
Ammon of Nitria 2Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Poemen advises that if one must talk, the sayings of the elders are safer than discussing Scripture.
Gelasius 1Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Gelasius silently lets a thief sell his Bible, and the thief, moved by his goodness, returns it and stays.
Epiphanius of Cyprus 8Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Epiphanius commends owning Christian books, whose very sight discourages sin.
Epiphanius of Cyprus 9Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Reading Scripture guards against sin.
Epiphanius of Cyprus 10Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Ignorance of Scripture is a precipice.
Epiphanius of Cyprus 11Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Ignorance of God’s laws betrays salvation.
Zeno 4Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Zeno explains Job 15:15; then he is guided home by an angelic boy, and tests himself in the heat rather than steal a cucumber.
Cronius 1Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Cronius reads Elisha and the Shunammite as the barren soul that bears fruit when the Spirit visits it in stillness.
Cronius 2Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Cronius uses the ark and Dagon to show that a mind turning to God makes the passion fall.
Cronius 4Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Cronius uses Moses at the bush to teach that bodily labor is the field where the treasure is found.
Poemen 136Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Poemen ascribes the psalm verse about companionship with the God-fearing to the Holy Spirit.
Poemen 183Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Poemen speaks Greek miraculously to Syrian visitors, comparing God’s word to water wearing away stone.
Pambo 9Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Pambo would not readily explain Scripture, professing ignorance.
Sisoes 17Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Sisoes tells Ammon not to prepare clever answers from Scripture but to gain purity of mind.
Sisoes 35Anonymous · compiled ca. 450-500 (sayings 4th-5th century) · Sisoes answers that he reads the New Testament and returns to the Old.
Life of Syncletica 21Anonymous · 5th–6th century · As her fame spread, women came to ask how to be saved; after long silence and tears, and protesting that all have one Teacher in Scripture, she yielded to their pleas to speak.
Life of Syncletica 84Anonymous · 5th–6th century · Fatalists twist Scripture: Matthew’s “genesis” of Christ means birth, the star announced Christ, Isaiah’s “evils” are corrective hardships from God, and “ways” are life and death, not vices.
PrologueTheodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Theodoret dedicates the work to Hypatius and explains that he will answer both hostile and sincere questions about Scripture, beginning with creation.
Genesis Question 61Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Theodoret suggests that Hebrew was a sacred, learned language given through Moses, and derives the name “Hebrew” from Abraham's crossing of the Euphrates rather than from Eber.
Genesis Question 87Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Scripture records the words of impious speakers, like Leah's “good fortune,” as history, not as its own teaching.
Leviticus Question 9Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Nadab and Abihu's strange fire teaches Christians to keep the Spirit's gift alive and to add nothing foreign to Scripture, as heretics do.
Leviticus Question 11Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Theodoret reads the clean and unclean animals as figures of human types, judging by meditation on Scripture, discernment, faith, and virtue, and adds that the distinction also kept Israel from deifying animals.
Deuteronomy Question 1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Deuteronomy is not a second law but Moses' recapitulation of the law for the new generation; Theodoret surveys Deut 1–5, stressing the ban on images and the humane purpose of the Sabbath.
Deuteronomy Question 39Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · The law was to be read every seventh year, when Israel had leisure from war and settlement.
Joshua Question 14Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · The citation of an older book for the sun's standing still shows that Joshua was written later from sources; the event prefigures the darkness at the crucifixion.
Judges Question 1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Judges is named for the period of the judges; its opening recapitulates events of Joshua's time.
Judges Question 2Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · The Jebusites rebuilt Jerusalem after its burning; the name Jerusalem shows Judges was written later.
2 Kingdoms Question 4Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · The reference to the Book of the Upright shows that Kingdoms was compiled from earlier prophetic books.
2 Kingdoms Question 43Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Old David, saved by Abishai, was kept from further battles; his song of victory (Psalm 18) foretells Christ, his last words show him a prophet, and his refusal of the Bethlehem water shows the self-mastery discipline had taught him.
3 Kingdoms Question 29Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · The “book of the song” is one of the many prophetic books used by the historian.
3 Kingdoms Question 38Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · God's “will” for David is his choice of David's line to reign in Jerusalem; Solomon's reign and death are recorded with Josephus's figures.
3 Kingdoms Question 41Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · The historian repeats and reorders events because he narrates two kingdoms; Ahijah's oracle against Jeroboam's son and house came after Jeroboam's impiety.
3 Kingdoms Question 49Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · The reference to the royal annals shows that both Kings and Chronicles drew on earlier written records.
4 Kingdoms Question 45Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Jonah's prophecy about Jeroboam II's borders is not in the book of Jonah, which records only the Nineveh episode.
4 Kingdoms Question 54Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Jerusalem would suffer Samaria's fate because of Manasseh's idolatry and bloodshed (including, by tradition, Isaiah's martyrdom); Josiah's repentance on hearing the book of the law spared him, and he destroyed the idols.
1 Chronicles, exposition (before question 1)Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Theodoret surveys 1 Chronicles: its purpose as a supplement to Kingdoms written after the exile, the genealogies (Nathan, Judah's leadership pointing to Christ, the priests and singers), the Nethinim, the temple service, Saul's death and the medium, the Spirit called Lord Almighty, and the moving of the ark.
1 Chronicles, question 1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · On 1 Chronicles 15–29: David's ephod was not priestly; the psalms are David's; his altar on Ornan's floor was accepted by fire from heaven; he was not to build the temple because Christ, his son, would build the churches and Solomon prefigured his peace; the singers prophesied; the Spirit who gave the temple plan is Lord.
2 Chronicles, exposition (before question 1)Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · On 2 Chronicles 1–9: Solomon's confession that no house can contain God, the agreement of Chronicles and Kings on the temple's measurements, Zion as David's city, the psalms as David's, and the prophetic books of Nathan, Ahijah and Joel (whom Theodoret identifies with the man of God of 1 Kings 13).
2 Chronicles, question 1Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 453 · Theodoret's running commentary on 2 Chronicles 10–36 supplements Kings: God divides the kingdom and spares Judah for David's sake; pious kings (Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah) are rewarded and their lapses punished; impious ones (Joram, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Ahaz) are disciplined; Manasseh repents; the book was compiled from prophetic sources after the exile.