Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Psalms 78:39

There are 3 footnotes for this reference.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 51, footnote 3 (Image)

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

The Confessions (HTML)

Commencing with the invocation of God, Augustin relates in detail the beginning of his life, his infancy and boyhood, up to his fifteenth year; at which age he acknowledges that he was more inclined to all youthful pleasures and vices than to the study of letters. (HTML)

He Delighted in Latin Studies and the Empty Fables of the Poets, But Hated the Elements of Literature and the Greek Language. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 166 (In-Text, Margin)

20. But what was the cause of my dislike of Greek literature, which I studied from my boyhood, I cannot even now understand. For the Latin I loved exceedingly—not what our first masters, but what the grammarians teach; for those primary lessons of reading, writing, and ciphering, I considered no less of a burden and a punishment than Greek. Yet whence was this unless from the sin and vanity of this life? for I was “but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again.”[Psalms 78:39] For those primary lessons were better, assuredly, because more certain; seeing that by their agency I acquired, and still retain, the power of reading what I find written, and writing myself what I will; whilst in the others I was compelled to learn about the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 76, footnote 7 (Image)

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

The Confessions (HTML)

Then follows a period of nine years from the nineteenth year of his age, during which having lost a friend, he followed the Manichæans—and wrote books on the fair and fit, and published a work on the liberal arts, and the categories of Aristotle. (HTML)

While Writing, Being Blinded by Corporeal Images, He Failed to Recognise the Spiritual Nature of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 337 (In-Text, Margin)

... for me, with a marvellous madness, to assert myself to be that by nature which Thou art? For whereas I was mutable,—so much being clear to me, for my very longing to become wise arose from the wish from worse to become better,—yet chose I rather to think Thee mutable, than myself not to be that which Thou art. Therefore was I repelled by Thee, and Thou resistedst my changeable stiffneckedness; and I imagined corporeal forms, and, being flesh, I accused flesh, and, being “a wind that passeth away,”[Psalms 78:39] I returned not to Thee, but went wandering and wandering on towards those things that have no being, neither in Thee, nor in me, nor in the body. Neither were they created for me by Thy truth, but conceived by my vain conceit out of corporeal ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 12, page 166, footnote 1 (Image)

Leo the Great, Gregory the Great

The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great. (HTML)

Sermons. (HTML)

On the Passion, III.; delivered on the Sunday before Easter. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 975 (In-Text, Margin)

... conscience, those holy mysteries, at least, might have rescued thee from thy headlong fall, which at the Paschal supper thou hadst received, being even then detected in thy treachery by the sign of Divine knowledge. Why dost thou distrust the goodness of Him, Who did not repel thee from the communion of His body and blood, Who did not deny thee the kiss of peace when thou camest with crowds and a band of armed men to seize Him. But O man that nothing could convert, O “spirit going and not returning[Psalms 78:39],” thou didst follow thy heart’s rage, and, the devil standing at thy right hand, didst turn the wickedness, which thou hadst prepared against the life of all the saints, to thine own destruction, so that, because thy crime had exceeded all measure ...

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