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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 35

Chapter 35 [XX.]—The Old Law; The New Law.
The one was therefore old, because the other is new. But whence comes it that one is old and the other new, when the same law, which said in the Old Testament, “Thou shalt not covet,” is fulfilled by the New Testament? “Because,” says the prophet, “they continued not in my covenant, I have also rejected them, saith the Lord.” It is then on account of the offence of the old man, which was by no means healed by the letter which commanded and threatened, that it is called the old covenant; whereas the other is called the new covenant, because of the newness of the spirit, which heals the new man of the fault of the old. Then consider what follows, and see in how clear a light the fact is placed, that men who bare faith are unwilling to trust in themselves: “Because,” says he, “this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” See how similarly the apostle states it in the passage we have already quoted: “Not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart,” because “not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.” And I apprehend that the apostle in this passage had no other reason for mentioning “the New Testament” (“who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit”), than because he had an eye to the words of the prophet, when he said “Not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart,” inasmuch as in the prophet it runs: “I will write it in their hearts.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ex. xx. 17.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 32.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 33.
* ↑ 2 Cor. iii. 3.
* ↑ 2 Cor. iii. 3.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 33.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 37

Chapter 37 [XXII.]—The Eternal Reward.
He then went on to state the reward: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This corresponds to the Psalmist’s words to God: “It is good for me to hold me fast by God.” “I will be,” says God, “their God, and they shall be my people.” What is better than this good, what happier than this happiness,—to live to God, to live from God, with whom is the fountain of life, and in whose light we shall see light? Of this life the Lord Himself speaks in these words: “This is life eternal that they may know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent,”—that is, “Thee and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent,” the one true God. For no less than this did Himself promise to those who love Him: “He that loveth me, keepeth my commandments; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him”—in the form, no doubt, of God, wherein He is equal to the Father; not in the form of a servant, for in this He will display Himself even to the wicked also. Then, however, shall that come to pass which is written, “Let the ungodly man be taken away, that he see not the glory of the Lord.” Then also shall “the wicked go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal.” Now this eternal life, as I have just mentioned, has been defined to be, that they may know the one true God. Accordingly John again says: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” This likeness begins even now to be reformed in us, while the inward man is being renewed from day to day, according to the image of Him that created him.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 33.
* ↑ Ps. lxxiii. 28.
* ↑ Ps. xxxvi. 9.
* ↑ John xvii. 3.
* ↑ John xiv. 21.
* ↑ Isa. xxvi. 10.
* ↑ Matt. xxv. 46.
* ↑ John xvii. 3.
* ↑ 1 John iii. 2.
* ↑ Col. iii. 10.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 38

Chapter 38 [XXIII.]—The Re-Formation Which is Now Being Effected, Compared with the Perfection of the Life to Come.
But what is this change, and how great, in comparison with the perfect eminence which is then to be realized? The apostle applies some sort of illustration, derived from well-known things, to these indescribable things, comparing the period of childhood with the age of manhood. “When I was a child,” says he, “I used to speak as a child, to understand as a child, to think as a child; but when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” He then immediately explains why he said this in these words: “For now we see by means of a mirror, darkly but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ 1 Cor. xiii. 11.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 36

Chapter 36 [XXI.]—The Law Written in Our Hearts.
What then is God’s law written by God Himself in the hearts of men, but the very presence of the Holy Spirit, who is “the finger of God,” and by whose presence is shed abroad in our hearts the love which is the fulfilling of the law, and the end of the commandment? Now the promises of the Old Testament are earthly; and yet (with the exception of the sacramental ordinances which were the shadow of things to come, such as circumcision, the Sabbath and other observances of days, and the ceremonies of certain meats, and the complicated ritual of sacrifices and sacred things which suited “the oldness” of the carnal law and its slavish yoke) it contains such precepts of righteousness as we are even now taught to observe, which were especially expressly drawn out on the two tables without figure or shadow: for instance, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt do no murder,” “Thou shalt not covet,” “and whatsoever other commandment is briefly comprehended in the saying, Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself.” Nevertheless, whereas as in the said Testament earthly and temporal promises are, as I have said, recited, and these are goods of this corruptible flesh (although they prefigure those heavenly and everlasting blessings which belong to the New Testament), what is now promised is a good for the heart itself, a good for the mind, a good of the spirit, that is, an intellectual good; since it is said, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their hearts will I write them,” —by which He signified that men would not fear the law which alarmed them externally, but would love the very righteousness of the law which dwelt inwardly in their hearts.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Rom. xiii. 10.
* ↑ 1 Tim. i. 5.
* ↑ See Retractations, ii. 37, printed at the head of this treatise.
* ↑ Ex. xx. 13, 14, 17.
* ↑ Rom. xiii. 9.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 33.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 42

Chapter 42 [XXV.]—Difference Between the Old and the New Testaments.
I beg of you, however, carefully to observe, as far as you can, what I am endeavouring to prove with so much effort. When the prophet promised a new covenant, not according to the covenant which had been formerly made with the people of Israel when liberated from Egypt, he said nothing about a change in the sacrifices or any sacred ordinances, although such change, too, was without doubt to follow, as we see in fact that it did follow, even as the same prophetic scripture testifies in many other passages; but he simply called attention to this difference, that God would impress His laws on the mind of those who belonged to this covenant, and would write them in their hearts, whence the apostle drew his conclusion,—“not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart;” and that the eternal recompense of this righteousness was not the land out of which were driven the Amorites and Hittites, and other nations who dwelt there, but God Himself, “to whom it is good to hold fast,” in order that God’s good that they love, may be the God Himself whom they love, between whom and men nothing but sin produces separation; and this is remitted only by grace. Accordingly, after saying, “For all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them,” He instantly added, “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” By the law of works, then, the Lord says, “Thou shalt not covet:” but by the law of faith He says, “Without me ye can do nothing;” for He was treating of good works, even the fruit of the vine-branches. It is therefore apparent what difference there is between the old covenant and the new,—that in the former the law is written on tables, while in the latter on hearts; so that what in the one alarms from without, in the other delights from within; and in the former man becomes a transgressor through the letter that kills, in the other a lover through the life-giving spirit. We must therefore avoid saying, that the way in which God assists us to work righteousness, and “works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure,” is by externally addressing to our faculties precepts of holiness; for He gives His increase internally, by shedding love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 32, 33.
* ↑ 2 Cor. iii. 3.
* ↑ Josh. xii.
* ↑ Ps. lxxiii. 28.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 34.
* ↑ Ex. xx. 17.
* ↑ John xv. 5.
* ↑ Phil. ii. 13.
* ↑ 1 Cor. iii. 7.
* ↑ Rom. v. 5.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Spirit and the Letter/Chapter 34

Chapter 34.—The Law; Grace.
After saying, “Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt,” observe what He adds: “Because they continued not in my covenant.” He reckons it as their own fault that they did not continue in God’s covenant, lest the law, which they received at that time, should seem to be deserving of blame. For it was the very law that Christ “came not to destroy, but to fulfil.” Nevertheless, it is not by that law that the ungodly are made righteous, but by grace; and this change is effected by the life-giving Spirit, without whom the letter kills. “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” Out of this promise, that is, out of the kindness of God, the law is fulfilled, which without the said promise only makes men transgressors, either by the actual commission of some sinful deed, if the flame of concupiscence have greater power than even the restraints of fear, or at least by their mere will, if the fear of punishment transcend the pleasure of lust. In what he says, “The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe,” it is the benefit of this “conclusion” itself which is asserted. For what purposes “hath it concluded,” except as it is expressed in the next sentence: “Before, indeed, faith came, we were kept under the law, concluded for the faith which was afterwards revealed?” The law was therefore given, in order that grace might be sought; grace was given, in order that the law might be fulfilled. Now it was not through any fault of its own that the law was not fulfilled, but by the fault of the carnal mind; and this fault was to be demonstrated by the law, and healed by grace. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Accordingly, in the passage which we cited from the prophet, he says, “I will consummate a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah,”—and what means I will consummate but I will fulfil?—“not, according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Matt. v. 17.
* ↑ Gal. iii. 21, 22.
* ↑ Gal. iii. 23.
* ↑ Rom. viii. 3, 4.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 31.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 32.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 313

Letter CCCXIII.
[Commendatory of the interests of Sulpicius.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 314

Letter CCCXIV.
Without address.
[Commendatory.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 315

Letter CCCXV.
Without address.
[Commendatory of a widow.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 312

Letter CCCXII.
[Commendatory: short and unimportant.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 320

Letter CCCXX.
Without address.
[A salutation.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 311

Letter CCCXI.
[Commendatory: short and of no importance.]
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 310

Letter CCCX.
Without address.
[Commendatory on behalf of some kinsfolk, and of the people of Ariarathia, a place in the Sargaransene, about 60 m. E. of Cæsarea.]

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ramsay, Hist. Geog. A. M. p. 55.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 321

Letter CCCXXI.
To Thecla.
[Included among the Letters of Gregory of Nazianzus, who is assumed by the Ben. Ed. to be indubitably the writer.]

## Footnotes

* ↑ Vide Greg. Naz., Ep. lvii.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 31

Letter XXXI.
To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.
The death is still with us, and I am therefore compelled to remain where I am, partly by the duty of distribution, and partly out of sympathy for the distressed. Even now, therefore, I have not been able to accompany our reverend brother Hypatius, whom I am able to style brother, not in mere conventional language, but on account of relationship, for we are of one blood. You know how ill he is. It distresses me to think that all hope of comfort is cut off for him, as those who have the gifts of healing have not been allowed to apply their usual remedies in his case. Wherefore again he implores the aid of your prayers. Receive my entreaty that you will give him the usual protection alike for your own sake, for you are always kind to the sick, and for mine who am petitioning on his behalf. If possible, summon to your side the very holy brethren that he may be treated under your own eyes. If this be impossible, be so good as to send him on with a letter, and recommend him to friends further on.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in 369. cf. note on Letter ccxxxvi.
* ↑ Nothing more is known of this Hypatius. Gregory of Nazianzus (Ep. 192) writes to a correspondent of the same name.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/S. Cyril/Introduction
## Contents

* Life of S. Cyril
* Catechetical Instruction
* Special Preparation for Baptism
* Ceremonies of Baptism and Chrism
* Eucharistic Rites
* Effects of Baptism and of Chrism
* Eucharistic Doctrine
* Place of S. Cyril's Lectures
* The Time and Arrangement of S. Cyril's Lectures
* The Creed of Jerusalem
* S. Cyril's Writings
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/S. Cyril
## Contents

* Title Page
* Preface
* Introduction
* Procatechesis
* Lecture 1
* Lecture 2
* Lecture 3
* Lecture 4
* Lecture 5
* Lecture 6
* Lecture 7
* Lecture 8
* Lecture 9
* Lecture 10
* Lecture 11
* Lecture 12
* Lecture 13
* Lecture 14
* Lecture 15
* Lecture 16
* Lecture 17
* Lecture 18
* Lecture 19
* Lecture 20
* Lecture 21
* Lecture 22
* Lecture 23
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Orations of Gregory Nazianzen/Title Page

Select Orations
of
Saint Gregory Nazianzen,
Sometime Archbishop of Constantinople.
Translated by
Charles Gordon Browne, M.A.,
Rector of Lympstone, Devon;
and
James Edward Swallow, M.A.,
Chaplain of the House of Mercy, Horbury.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part I/Conference IV/Chapter 21

Chapter XXI.
Of those who having made light of great things busy themselves about trifles.
For how can we show how absurd it is that we see that some men after their first enthusiasm of renunciation in which they forsook their estates and vast wealth and the service of the world, and betook themselves to the monasteries, are still earnestly devoted to those things which cannot altogether be cut off, and which we cannot do without in this state of life, even though they are small and trifling things; so that in their case the anxiety about these trifles is greater than their love of all their property. And it certainly will not profit them much that they have disregarded greater riches and property, if they have only transferred their affections (on account of which they were to make light of them) to small and trifling things. For the sin of covetousness and avarice of which they cannot be guilty in the matter of really valuable things, they retain with regard to commoner matters, and so show that they have not got rid of their former greed but only changed its object. For if they are too careful about their mats, baskets, blankets, books, and other trifles such as these, the same passion holds them captive as before. And they actually guard and defend their rights over them so jealously as to get angry with their brethren about them, and, what is worse, they are not ashamed to quarrel over them. And being still troubled by the bad effects of their former covetousness, they are not content to possess those things which the needs and requirements of the body compel a monk to have, according to the common number and measure, but here too they show the greediness of their heart, as they try to have those things which they are obliged to use, better got up than the others; or, exceeding all due bounds, keep as their special and peculiar property and guard from the touch of others that which ought to belong to all the brethren alike. As if the difference of metals, and not the passion of covetousness was what mattered; and as if it was wrong to be angry about big things, while one might innocently be about trifling matters: and as if we had not given up all our precious things just in order that we might learn more readily to think nothing about trifles! For what difference does it make whether one gives way to covetousness in the matter of large and splendid things, or in the matter of the merest trifles, except that we ought to think a man so far worse if he has made light of great things and then is a slave to little things? And so that sort of renunciation of the world does not attain perfection of heart, because though it ranks as poverty it still keeps the mind of wealth.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part I/Conference IV/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.
Of the value of the conflict which the Apostle makes to consist in the strife between the flesh and the spirit.
This conflict too we read in the Apostle has for our good been placed in our members: “For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh. But these two are opposed to each other so that ye should not do what ye would.” You have here too a contest as it were implanted in our bodies, by the action and arrangement of the Lord. For when a thing exists in everybody universally and without the slightest exception, what else can you think about it except that it belongs to the substance of human nature, since the fall of the first man, as it were naturally: and when a thing is found to be congenital with everybody, and to grow with their growth, how can we help believing that it was implanted by the will of the Lord, not to injure them but to help them? But the reason of this conflict; viz., of flesh and spirit, he tells us is this: that ye should not do what ye would.” And so, if we fulfil what God arranged that we should not fulfil, i.e., that we should not do what we liked, how can we help
believing that it is bad for us? And this conflict implanted in us by the arrangement of the Creator is in a way useful to us, and calls and urges us on to a higher state: and if it ceased, most surely there would ensue on the other hand a peace that is fraught with danger.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gal. v. 17.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part I/Conference IX/Chapter 1

Chapter I.
Introduction to the Conference.
What was promised in the second book of the Institutes on continual and unceasing perseverance in prayer, shall be by the Lord’s help fulfilled by the Conferences of this Elder, whom we will now bring forward; viz., Abbot Isaac: and when these have been propounded I think that I shall have satisfied the commands of Pope Castor of blessed memory, and your wishes, O blessed Pope Leontius and holy brother Helladius, and the length of the book in its earlier part may be excused, though, in spite of our endeavour not only to compress what had to be told into a brief discourse, but also to pass over very many points in silence, it has been extended to a greater length than we intended. For having commenced with a full discourse on various regulations which we have thought it well to curtail for the sake of brevity, at the close the blessed Isaac spoke these words.

## Footnotes

* ↑ See the Institutes Book II. c. ix.
* ↑ Isaac was, as we gathered from c. xxxi., a disciple of St. Antony, and is mentioned by Palladius Dial. de vita Chrysost. There are also a few stories of him in the Apophegmata Patrum (Migne, Vol. lxv. p. 223); and see the Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. iii. p. 294.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part I/Conference IV/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII.
A question, how it is that in the Apostle’s chapter, after he has spoken of the lusts of the flesh and spirit opposing one another, he adds a third thing; viz., man’s will.
Germanus: Although some glimmer of the sense now seems clear to us, yet as we cannot thoroughly grasp the Apostle’s meaning, we want you to explain this more clearly to us. For the existence of three things seems to be indicated here: first, the struggle of the flesh against the spirit, secondly the desire of the spirit against the flesh, and thirdly our own free will, which seems to be placed between the two, and of which it is said: “Ye should not do what ye will.” And on this subject though as I said we can gather some hints, from what you have explained of the meaning, yet—since this conference gives the opportunity—we are anxious to have it more fully explained to us.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part I/Conference IX

IX. The First Conference of Abbot Isaac.
On Prayer.

## Contents

* Chapter 1
* Chapter 2
* Chapter 3
* Chapter 4
* Chapter 5
* Chapter 6
* Chapter 7
* Chapter 8
* Chapter 9
* Chapter 10
* Chapter 11
* Chapter 12
* Chapter 13
* Chapter 14
* Chapter 15
* Chapter 16
* Chapter 17
* Chapter 18
* Chapter 19
* Chapter 20
* Chapter 21
* Chapter 22
* Chapter 23
* Chapter 24
* Chapter 25
* Chapter 26
* Chapter 27
* Chapter 28
* Chapter 29
* Chapter 30
* Chapter 31
* Chapter 32
* Chapter 33
* Chapter 34
* Chapter 35
* Chapter 36