Council of Carthage of 411 : Our adversaries argue against us who defend the purity of the church that it will have mixed within it at the same time good and bad up to the end of the age. For this reason we demonstrate that the church of the Lord is called nearly everywhere in the divine Scriptures "holy" and "without spot." In Isaiah, "say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your Savior comes bringing his reward and work with him, and he will call that people holy and redeemed by the Lord; and you will be called a desired city and not an abandoned one." … For Paul clearly shows this: "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it that he might sanctify it, washing it in the water of the word and joining it to himself, not having a spot or stain or anything like that, but holy and spotless." — ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE (411) 3:258 Procopius of Gaza : He rewarded the confession of the thief on the cross when he said, "Today you will be with me in paradise." "He comes" to those who believed "and will call a people who have been ransomed by the Lord." For it was not an elder or an angel but the Lord himself who has saved us. He says "the city shall be called 'sought out,' that is, worthy of memory. For it was formerly abandoned. So Jeremiah says, "I have abandoned my house and lost my inheritance." And the Savior says, "Behold, your house will be left deserted." — COMMENTARY ON Isaiah 62:1-12