Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Psalms 49:12
There are 15 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 466, footnote 8 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book IV (HTML)
Chapter IV.—Answer to another objection, showing that the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the city of the great King, diminished nothing from the supreme majesty and power of God, for that this destruction was put in execution by the most wise counsel of the same God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3842 (In-Text, Margin)
... his will, and with power over himself, is himself the cause to himself, that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff. Wherefore also he shall be justly condemned, because, having been created a rational being, he lost the true rationality, and living irrationally, opposed the righteousness of God, giving himself over to every earthly spirit, and serving all lusts; as says the prophet, “Man, being in honour, did not understand: he was assimilated to senseless beasts, and made like to them.”[Psalms 49:12]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 235, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XIII.—Virtue Rational, Sin Irrational. (HTML)
... will of necessity be the efficacious cause of duty? For virtue itself is a state of the soul rendered harmonious by reason in respect to the whole life. Nay, to crown all, philosophy itself is pronounced to be the cultivation of right reason; so that, necessarily, whatever is done through error of reason is transgression, and is rightly called, (ἁμάρτημα) sin. Since, then, the first man sinned and disobeyed God, it is said, “And man became like to the beasts:”[Psalms 49:12] being rightly regarded as irrational, he is likened to the beasts. Whence Wisdom says: “The horse for covering; the libidinous and the adulterer is become like to an irrational beast.” Wherefore also it is added: “He neighs, whoever may be sitting ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 537, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book IV (HTML)
Chapter XC (HTML)
But we have a few remarks to make, out of a larger number, in answer to these statements of Celsus, that we may show the ingratitude towards his Maker which is involved in his holding these false opinions. For Celsus, although a man, and “being in honour,”[Psalms 49:12] does not possess understanding, and therefore he did not compare himself with the birds and the other irrational animals, which he regards as capable of divining; but yielding to them the foremost place, he lowered himself, and as far as he could the whole human race with him (as entertaining lower and inferior views of God than the irrational animals), beneath the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 242, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
Letters of St. Augustin (HTML)
To Maximin (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1494 (In-Text, Margin)
... that you are not my bishop, and, I am not your presbyter. “Worthy of honour” I therefore willingly call you on this ground, that I know you to be a man; and I know that man was made in the image and likeness of God, and is placed in honour by the very order and law of nature, if by understanding the things which he ought to understand he retain his honour. For it is written, “Man being placed in honour did not understand: he is compared to the brutes devoid of reason, and is made like unto them.”[Psalms 49:12] Why then may I not address you as worthy of honour, inasmuch as you are a man, especially since I dare not despair of your repentance and salvation so long as you are in this life? Moreover, as to my calling you “brother,” you are well acquainted ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 246, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam’s sin. (HTML)
Whether Death, Which by the Sin of Our First Parents Has Passed Upon All Men, is the Punishment of Sin, Even to the Good. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 580 (In-Text, Margin)
... far as the origin of sin and death are concerned. For neither by sin nor its punishment was he himself reduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body and mind which we see in children. For God ordained that infants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin it, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in the fashion of their life and of their death; as it is written, “Man when he was in honor understood not; he became like the beasts that have no understanding.”[Psalms 49:12] Nay more, infants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of their limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the most tender offspring of other animals; as if the force that dwells in human nature were destined to surpass all other ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 161, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
After premising the difference between wisdom and knowledge, he points out a kind of trinity in that which is properly called knowledge; but one which, although we have reached in it the inner man, is not yet to be called the image of God. (HTML)
The Image of the Beast in Man. (HTML)
... power, man by his own bidding falls down to himself as to a sort of intermediate grade. And so, while he wishes to be as God is, that is, under no one, he is thrust on, even from his own middle grade, by way of punishment, to that which is lowest, that is, to those things in which beasts delight: and thus, while his honor is the likeness of God, but his dishonor is the likeness of the beast, “Man being in honor abideth not: he is compared to the beasts that are foolish, and is made like to them.”[Psalms 49:12] By what path, then, could he pass so great a distance from the highest to the lowest, except through his own intermediate grade? For when he neglects the love of wisdom, which remains always after the same fashion, and lusts after knowledge by ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 253, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
Difficulty of Believing Original Sin. Man’s Vice is a Beast’s Nature. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2038 (In-Text, Margin)
... punishes, this fatal flaw has so far prevailed, that men are born with the fault of original sin; but yet its influence has not extended so far as to stop the birth of men. Just so does it happen in persons of adult age: whatever sins they commit, do not eliminate his manhood from man; nay, God’s work continues still good, however evil be the deeds of the impious. For although “man being placed in honour abideth not; and being without understanding, is compared with the beasts, and is like them,”[Psalms 49:12] yet the resemblance is not so absolute that he becomes a beast. There is a comparison, no doubt, between the two; but it is not by reason of nature, but through vice—not vice in the beast, but in nature. For so excellent is a man in comparison with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 354, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in Augustin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2456 (In-Text, Margin)
... absurd and unreasonable that a man should be a stranger to himself; or that a person who is supposed to have acquired the knowledge of all things, should regard himself as unknown to his very self. For what difference is there between a man and a brute beast, if he knows not how to discuss and determine his own quality and nature? so that there may justly be applied to him the statement of Scripture: ‘Man, although he was in honour, understood not; he is like the cattle, and is compared with them.’[Psalms 49:12] For when the good and gracious God created everything with reason and wisdom, and produced man as a rational animal, capable of understanding, endowed with reason, and lively with sensation,—because by His prudent arrangement He assigns their place ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 360, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
We Must Not Be Wise Above What is Written. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2476 (In-Text, Margin)
... without it, we should not be different from brute beasts, so far as our souls are concerned), understand, I beg of you, what it is that you do not understand, lest you should understand nothing: and do not despise any man who, in order that he may truly understand, understands that he does not understand that which he does not understand. With regard, however, to the passage in the inspired psalm, “Man, being in honour, understandeth not; he is compared to the senseless cattle, and is like unto them;”[Psalms 49:12-13] read and understand these words, that you may rather with a humble spirit guard against the opprobrium yourself, than arrogantly throw it out against another person. The passage applies to those who regard only that as a life worth living which they ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 370, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin. (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word 'Spirit.' (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2516 (In-Text, Margin)
... enlivened by sensibility, so as to be able to distribute in a wise arrangement all things that are void of reason.” In these words of yours you have plainly asserted what is certainly most true, that man is endowed with reason and capable of intelligence, which, of course, animals void of reason are not. And you have, in accordance with this view, quoted a passage of Scripture, and, adopting its language, have compared men of no understanding to the cattle, which, of course, have not intellect.[Psalms 49:12] A statement the like to which occurs in another passage of Scripture: “Be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding.” This being the case, I want you also to observe in what terms you have defined and described the spirit when ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 177, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XLIX (HTML)
Part 2 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1671 (In-Text, Margin)
But wherefore this? What he hath written in the middle of the Psalm,[Psalms 49:12] the same also he hath writ at the end: “Man, though he was in honour, understood not, was compared to the beasts without sense, and was made like to them” (ver. 20). But ye, brethren, consider that ye be men made after the image and likeness of God. The image of God is within, is not in the body; is not in these ears which ye see, and eyes, and nostrils, and palate, and hands, and feet; but is made nevertheless: wherein is the intellect, wherein is the mind, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 325, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3153 (In-Text, Margin)
... breaketh the commandment, he hath shaken off from his neck the yoke of discipline, uplifted with high spirit he hath broken in sunder the reins of guidance: where is he now? Truly captive he crieth, “O Lord, who is like unto Thee?” I perversely willed to be like unto Thee, and I have been made like unto a beast! Under Thy dominion, under Thy commandment, I was indeed like: “But a man in honour set hath not perceived, he hath been compared to beasts without sense, and hath been made like unto them.”[Psalms 49:12] Now out of the likeness of beasts cry though late and say, “O God, who is like unto Thee?”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 102, footnote 7 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Hexæmeron. (HTML)
The creation of terrestrial animals. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1700 (In-Text, Margin)
... a celestial growth, rises superior to them as much by the mould of his bodily conformation as by the dignity of his soul. What is the form of quadrupeds? Their head is bent towards the earth and looks towards their belly, and only pursues their belly’s good. Thy head, O man! is turned towards heaven; thy eyes look up. When therefore thou degradest thyself by the passions of the flesh, slave of thy belly, and thy lowest parts, thou approachest animals without reason and becomest like one of them.[Psalms 49:12] Thou art called to more noble cares; “seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth.” Raise thy soul above the earth; draw from its natural conformation the rule of thy conduct; fix thy conversation in heaven. Thy true country is the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 28b, footnote 11 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Concerning earth and its products. (HTML)
... him more readily than it did other living creatures, and held intercourse with him with delightful motions. And hence it was through it that the devil, the prince of evil, made his most wicked suggestion to our first parents. Moreover, the earth of its own accord used to yield fruits, for the benefit of the animals that were obedient to man, and there was neither rain nor tempest on the earth. But after the transgression, when he was compared with the unintelligent cattle and became like to them[Psalms 49:12], after he had contrived that in him irrational desire should have rule over reasoning mind and had become disobedient to the Master’s command, the subject creation rose up against him whom the Creator had appointed to be ruler: and it was appointed ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 43b, footnote 6 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Concerning Prescience and Predestination. (HTML)
... Paradise, at least as much as it was in our power to say. And with this command He gave the promise that, if he should preserve the dignity of the soul by giving the victory to reason, and acknowledging his Creator and observing His command, he should share eternal blessedness and live to all eternity, proving mightier than death: but if forsooth he should subject the soul to the body, and prefer the delights of the body, comparing himself in ignorance of his true dignity to the senseless beasts[Psalms 49:12], and shaking off His Creator’s yoke, and neglecting His divine injunction, he will be liable to death and corruption, and will be compelled to labour throughout a miserable life. For it was no profit to man to obtain incorruption while still untried ...