TRV
Augustine of Hippo
Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500
7,530 passages across 62 books of the Bible · Who was this?
On Ezekiel
20 of 72-
Ezekiel 16:52
It is one thing to have an action set forth as praiseworthy in itself and another to have it extolled in comparison with something worse than itself. We rejoice in one way when a sick person is cured and in another when he improves a little. Even in the sacred Scriptures, Sodom is spoken of as justified in comparison with the crimes of the people of Israel.
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Ezekiel 18:2
It was this new covenant that was prophesied about when it was said by Ezekiel that the children should not bear the iniquity of the parents, and that it should no longer be a proverb in Israel, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." Here lies the necessity that each person should be born again, that he might be freed from the sin in which he was born. For the sins committed afterwards can be cured by penitence, as we see is the case after baptism.
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Ezekiel 18:2
For the last and supposedly strongest argument for your case, you refer to the prophetic testimony of Ezekiel, where we read that there will no longer be a proverb in which they say the parents have eaten sour grapes and the teeth of the children are on edge; the child will not die in the sin of his parent or the parent in the sin of his child, but the soul that sins shall die. You do not understand that this is the promise of the New Testament and of the other world. For the grace of the Redeemer ensured that he cancelled the paternal decree, so that each person should account for himself.
AGAINST JULIAN 25:82
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Ezekiel 18:4
This whole passage is so constructed as to show that bad children are not given relief because of good parents or good children oppressed because of bad parents. So having first established this absolutely true and rock-firm principle on our own account, we go on now to examine what our obligations are in our relations with others; and here we must be very careful to distinguish between the effect of salvation, which we must seek for ourselves, and the consideration that we must show to our neighbors. If you are good, you are good with your own goodness, not with someone else’s. And yet through that goodness of yours with which you are good you also rejoice over another’s goodness together with him, not by exchanging goodnesses but by exchanging love.
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Ezekiel 18:4
The spiritual penalty always pertained only to the sinner.
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Ezekiel 18:21
Behold how God advises and arouses you so that you may be converted from your sins and be saved, though late. Behold how he urges one liable to death to live; how gently, how kindly he calls, not refusing his fatherly devotion even to sinners. He continues to call children those who have lost God their Father by their sins.
ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 2
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Ezekiel 18:21
There are people who, as soon as they begin to think about the evil things they have done, assume that they can not be pardoned; and on the assumption that they can not be pardoned, they give their souls over to destruction from that moment.… They perish from despair, whether before they come to believe at all or whether they are already Christians and have fallen by evil living into various sins and vicious forms of behavior.
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Ezekiel 18:23
Dearly beloved, if you are good, you must put up with the bad; if you are bad, you must imitate the good. The fact is, on this threshing floor grains can degenerate into chaff, and again grains can be resurrected from chaff. This sort of thing happens every day, my dear brothers and sisters; this life is full of both painful and pleasant surprises. Every day people who seemed to be good fall away and perish; and again, ones who seemed to be bad are converted and live. “God,” you see, “does not desire the death of the wicked but only that they may turn back and live.”
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Ezekiel 18:23
You have wished to die by sinning; he wishes you to live by being converted. O foolish, irreverent and ungrateful sinner, you do not yield in this respect to God, who wishes to have mercy on you, who prefers to save you because of his own goodness than to destroy you because of your sins.
ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 2
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Ezekiel 20:12
It is this truth that we shall realize perfectly when we shall be perfectly at rest and perfectly see that it is he who is God.
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Ezekiel 20:25
But, why should I not say that the requirements of ancient ceremonies are not good because people are not justified by them; they are figures that foreshadow the grace, by which we are justified.… They are not bad, because they were precepts of divine origin, adapted to times and people, although in this estimate I am supported by the prophetic statement in which God said that he had given to that people “statutes that were not good.” It happens that he did not say that they were bad but only that they were not good: that is, such that with them, people become good; without them, they do not. I would like your kind sincerity to inform me whether any oriental saint who comes to Rome and fasts on Saturday—except the eve of Easter—is acting deceitfully. If we say that is wrong, we shall condemn the Roman church and also many places near it and others somewhat further away, where the same custom continues to be observed.
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Ezekiel 28:3
Can anyone claim to be without sin, when Daniel confesses his own sins? I mean, some proud person or other was asked through the prophet Ezekiel, “Are you wiser than Daniel?” Again, the prophet also placed this Daniel among the three holy men in whom God signifies the three sorts of human beings he is going to deliver when the great tribulation comes on the human race.
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Ezekiel 28:3
Could we be better than Daniel himself, concerning whom the Lord said to the prince of Tyre by the prophet Ezekiel: “Are you wiser than Daniel?” He is unique in being included among the three just men whom God says he will deliver, doubtless showing three special types of just people, when he says he will so deliver them as not to deliver their sons with them, but they only shall be delivered: namely, Noah, Daniel and Job.
LETTERS 111
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Ezekiel 28:3
This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, why in the prophet Ezekiel a certain most haughty person is asked, “Are you then wiser than Daniel?” Nor on this point can that be possibly said that some contend for in opposition to the Lord’s Prayer: “For although,” they say, “that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became holy and perfect and had no sin whatever, it was not on behalf of their own selves but for imperfect and still sinful people that they said, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ They used the word our, they say, “in order to show that in one body are contained both those who still have sins and themselves, who were already altogether free from sin.” Now this certainly cannot be said in the case of Daniel, who (as I suppose) foresaw as a prophet this presumptuous opinion when he said so often in his prayer, “We have sinned” … he expresses himself in language so distinct and precise … and wanted above all things to commend it to our notice: “My sins,” says he, “and the sins of my people.” Who can contradict such evidence as this, but one who…
This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, why in the prophet Ezekiel a certain most haughty person is asked, “Are you then wiser than Daniel?” Nor on this point can that be possibly said that some contend for in opposition to the Lord’s Prayer: “For although,” they say, “that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became holy and perfect and had no sin whatever, it was not on behalf of their own selves but for imperfect and still sinful people that they said, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ They used the word our, they say, “in order to show that in one body are contained both those who still have sins and themselves, who were already altogether free from sin.” Now this certainly cannot be said in the case of Daniel, who (as I suppose) foresaw as a prophet this presumptuous opinion when he said so often in his prayer, “We have sinned” … he expresses himself in language so distinct and precise … and wanted above all things to commend it to our notice: “My sins,” says he, “and the sins of my people.” Who can contradict such evidence as this, but one who is more pleased to defend what he thinks than to find out what he ought to think?ON THE MERITS AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND ON INFANT BAPTISM 2:13.10
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Ezekiel 28:13
The Manichaeans do not understand that if the devil is evil by nature, there can be no question of sin at all. They have no reply to the witness of the prophets, for example, where Isaiah, representing the devil figuratively in the person of the prince of Babylon, asks, "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of the dawn?" or where Ezekiel says, "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering." These texts indicate that the devil was for a time without sin.
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Ezekiel 33:2
Do you see how dangerous it is to keep silent? He dies, and rightly dies; he dies in his own wickedness and sin; his own heedlessness kills him. Yes, the one who says “I live, says the Lord,” would like to find a living shepherd. But since he has been heedless, not being warned by the one who was given charge and made a watchman for this very purpose of warning him, he will die justly, and the other will be justly condemned.… It is our business not to keep quiet; it is your business, even if we do keep quiet, to listen to the words of the shepherd from the holy Scriptures.
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Ezekiel 33:6
For this reason, overseers or rulers are set over the churches to reprimand sin, not to spare it. Nor is a person fully free from blame who is not in authority but who notices in those persons he meets in social life many faults he should censure and admonish. He is blameworthy if he fails to do this out of fear of hurting feelings or of losing such things as he may rightfully enjoy in his life but to which he is unduly attached.
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Ezekiel 33:11
You though, standing there, having made no decision to put yourself right—let me speak like this as though to a single person. Whoever you are, you do not want to put yourself right; what are you promising yourself?
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Ezekiel 34:2
You see, we whom the Lord has deigned, thanks to no merits of ours, to set in this high station (about which a very strict account indeed has to be rendered) have two things about us that must be clearly distinguished: one, that we are Christians, the other, that we are placed in charge. Being Christians is for our sake; being in charge is for yours. It is to our advantage that we are Christians, only to yours that we are in charge.
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Ezekiel 34:3
In the same way, everyone who leads a bad life for all those to see whom he has been put in charge of, as far as he is concerned is killing even the strong ones. Any who imitate him die; whoever does not imitate him lives.