“The Scriptures are sufficient for instruction, but it is good for us to encourage each other in the faith.”
(St. Athanasius 296-373, quoting St. Antony of Egypt (c. 250-356) in The Life of Antony, ch. 16)
The holy and divinely inspired writings are sufficient of themselves alone to make known the truth. (St. Athanasius, Orat. Contr. Gent. Tom. I)
If you desire a new quotation, if you pretend to affirm anything besides what is written, why do you dispute with us, who are resolved to hear nothing, and to say nothing, besides what is written? (St. Athanasius, De Incarn. Chr.)
What the Scriptures have not declared, you will never find.
(St. Athanasius, De S. Trin. Dial.)
It is a mockery to ask questions, or to make discourses, on that which is not written. (St. Athanasius, Epist. Ad. Serap.)
In the Holy Scriptures alone is the instruction of religion announced—to which let no man add, from which let no man detract—which are sufficient in themselves for the enunciation of the truth.
(St. Athanasius, adv. Gentes init.)
These are the fountains of salvation, that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the oracles contained in them. In these alone the doctrine of salvation is contained. Let no man add to, or take from them.
(St. Athanasius, Ex Festali Epistola XXXIX. Tom. II)
Do not believe me simply, unless you receive the proof of what I say from Holy Scripture. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. A.D. 348)
Keep that faith only which the Church is now giving to you and which is
certificated out of the whole of Scripture. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech.)
Concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, even the most casual remark ought not to be delivered without the sacred Scriptures.
(St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. IV.12)
It is evidently a falling away from the faith, and a proof of great presumption, to neglect any part of what is written, or to introduce anything that is not written. (St. Basil c. 329-379, bishop of Caesarea, de Vera Fide)
What is written, believe; what is not written, seek not to discover.
(St. Basil, Homil. De Trin.)
We now proceed to their next position, after a short defining and confirmation of our own doctrine. For an inspired testimony is a sure test of the truth of any doctrine: and so it seems to me that ours may be well guaranteed by a quotation from the divine words. In the division of all existing things, then, we find these distinctions. There is, as appealing to our perceptions, the Sensible world: and there is, beyond this, the world which the mind, led on by objects of sense, can view: I mean the Intelligible: and in this we detect again a further distinction into the Created and the Uncreate: to the latter of which we have defined the Holy Trinity to belong, to the former all that can exist or can be thought of after that. But in order that this statement may not be left without a proof, but may be confirmed by Scripture, we will add that our Lord was not created, but came forth from the Father, as the Word with His own lips attests in the Gospel.
(St. Gregory of Nyssa 331-395, Against Eunomius, Book I)
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