Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Proverbs 1:7
There are 12 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 457, footnote 2 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Irenæus (HTML)
Against Heresies: Book III (HTML)
Chapter XXIII.—Arguments in opposition to Tatian, showing that it was consonant to divine justice and mercy that the first Adam should first partake in that salvation offered to all by Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3765 (In-Text, Margin)
5. The case of Adam, however, had no analogy with this, but was altogether different. For, having been beguiled by another under the pretext of immortality, he is immediately seized with terror, and hides himself; not as if he were able to escape from God; but, in a state of confusion at having transgressed His command, he feels unworthy to appear before and to hold converse with God. Now, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;”[Proverbs 1:7] the sense of sin leads to repentance, and God bestows His compassion upon those who are penitent. For [Adam] showed his repentance by his conduct, through means of the girdle [which he used], covering himself with fig-leaves, while there were many other leaves, which would ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 229, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter IX.—That It is the Prerogative of the Same Power to Be Beneficent and to Punish Justly. Also the Manner of the Instruction of the Logos. (HTML)
Upbraiding is censure on account of what is base, conciliating to what is noble. This is shown by Jeremiah: “They were female-mad horses; each one neighed after his neighbour’s wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” He everywhere interweaves fear, because “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of sense.”[Proverbs 1:7] And again, by Hosea, He says, “Shall I not visit them? for they themselves were mingled with harlots, and sacrificed with the initiated; and the people that understood embraced a harlot.” He shows their offence to be clearer, by declaring that they understood, and thus sinned ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 355, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter VII.—The Utility of Fear. Objections Answered. (HTML)
... is the beginning of wisdom; good understanding is to all that do it.” He calls wisdom a doing, which is the fear of the Lord paving the way for wisdom. But if the law produces fear, the knowledge of the law is the beginning of wisdom; and a man is not wise without law. Therefore those who reject the law are unwise; and in consequence they are reckoned godless (ἄθεοι). Now instruction is the beginning of wisdom. “But the ungodly despise wisdom and instruction,”[Proverbs 1:7] saith the Scripture.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 355, footnote 12 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter VII.—The Utility of Fear. Objections Answered. (HTML)
... instructed turns out wise, and an intelligent son is saved from burning. And an intelligent son will receive the commandments.” And Barnabas the apostle having said, “Woe to those who are wise in their own conceits, clever in their own eyes,” added, “Let us become spiritual, a perfect temple to God; let us, as far as in us lies, practice the fear of God, and strive to keep His commands, that we may rejoice in His judgments.” Whence “the fear of God” is divinely said to be the beginning of wisdom.[Proverbs 1:7]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 543, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XII.—The True Gnostic is Beneficent, Continent, and Despises Worldly Things. (HTML)
... heathen, there are those who, from the impossibility of obtaining what one sees, and from fear of men, and also for the sake of greater pleasures, abstain from the delights that are before them; so also, in the case of faith, some practice self-restraint, either out of regard to the promise or from fear of God. Well, such self-restraint is the basis of knowledge, and an approach to something better, and an effort after perfection. For “the fear of the Lord,” it is said, “is the beginning of wisdom.”[Proverbs 1:7] But the perfect man, out of love, “beareth all things, endureth all things,” “as not pleasing man, but God.” Although praise follows him as a consequence, it is not for his own advantage, but for the imitation and benefit of those who praise him.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 264, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Prescription Against Heretics. (HTML)
Loose Company Preferred by Heretics. Ungodliness the Effect of Their Teaching the Very Opposite of Catholic Truth, Which Promotes the Fear of God, Both in Religious Ordinances and Practical Life. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2294 (In-Text, Margin)
... of their conduct, may be estimated the quality of their faith. In their discipline we have an index of their doctrine. They say that God is not to be feared; therefore all things are in their view free and unchecked. Where, however is God not feared, except where He is not? Where God is not, there truth also is not. Where there is no truth, then, naturally enough, there is also such a discipline as theirs. But where God is, there exists “the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom.”[Proverbs 1:7] Where the fear of God is, there is seriousness, an honourable and yet thoughtful diligence, as well as an anxious carefulness and a well-considered admission (to the sacred ministry) and a safely-guarded communion, and promotion after good service, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 87, footnote 9 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book VI. (HTML)
Valentinus' Explanation of the Existence of Jesus; Power of Jesus Over Humanity. (HTML)
... entire Pleroma, caused the passions to depart from her, and he made these substantially-existent essences. He altered fear into animal desire, and (made) grief material, and (rendered) perplexity (the passion) of demons. But conversion, and entreaty, and supplication, he constituted as a path to repentance and power over the animal essence, which is denominated right. The Creator (acted) from fear; (and) that is what, he says, Scripture affirms: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[Proverbs 1:7] For this is the beginning of the affections of Sophia, for she was seized with fear, next with grief, then with perplexity, and so she sought refuge in entreaty and supplication. And the animal essence is, he says, of a fiery nature, and is also ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 107, footnote 3 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Hippolytus. (HTML)
The Refutation of All Heresies. (HTML)
Book VII. (HTML)
Whence Came the Gospel; The Number of Heavens According to Basilides; Explanation of Christ's Miraculous Conception. (HTML)
... through the Son, that was seated beside the Archon, to the Archon, and the Archon learned that He was not God of the universe, but was begotten. But (ascertaining that) He has above Himself the deposited treasure of that Ineffable and Unnameable (and) Non-existent One, and of the Sonship, He was both converted and filled with terror, when He was brought to understand in what ignorance He was (involved). This, he says, is what has been declared: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[Proverbs 1:7] For, being orally instructed by Christ, who was seated near, he began to acquire wisdom, (inasmuch as he thereby) learns who is the Non-Existent One, what the Sonship (is), what the Holy Spirit (is), what the apparatus of the universe (is), and what ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 514, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John. (HTML)
1 John IV. 17–21. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2443 (In-Text, Margin)
... desire what they do not believe. Some man has begun to believe in a day of judgment: if he has begun to believe, he has also begun to fear. But because he fears as yet, because he hath not yet boldness in the day of judgment, not yet is charity in that man made perfect. But for all that, is one to despair? In whom thou seest the beginning, why despairest thou of the end? What beginning do I see? (sayest thou.) That very fear. Hear the Scripture: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[Proverbs 1:7] Well then, he has begun to fear the day of judgment: by fearing let him correct himself, let him watch against his enemies, i.e. his sins; let him begin to come to life again inwardly, and to mortify his members which are upon the earth, as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 48, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm XV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 502 (In-Text, Margin)
... one hath been brought to nought in his sight” (ver. 4). This is perfection, that the malicious one have no force against a man; and that this be “in his sight;” that is, that he know most surely that the malicious is not, save when the mind turns itself away from the eternal and immutable form of her own Creator to the form of the creature, which was made out of nothing. “But those that fear the Lord, He glorifieth:” the Lord Himself, that is. Now “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[Proverbs 1:7] As then the things above belong to the perfect, so what he is now going to say belongs to beginners.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 392, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.) (HTML)
Discourse II (HTML)
Texts Explained; Sixthly, the Context of Proverbs viii. 22 Vz. 22-30. It is right to interpret this passage by the Regula Fidei. 'Founded' is used in contrast to superstructure; and it implies, as in the case of stones in building, previous existence. 'Before the world' signifies the divine intention and purpose. Recurrence to Prov. viii. 22, and application of it to created Wisdom as seen in the works. The Son reveals the Father, first by the works, then by the Incarnation. (HTML)
... world and in the works, think that ‘He created’ is said of the Substance of the Very Wisdom, lest, diluting the wine with water, he be judged a defrauder of the truth. For It is Creative and Framer; but Its impress is created in the works, as the copy of the image. And He says, ‘Beginning of ways,’ since such wisdom becomes a sort of beginning. and, as it were, rudiments of the knowledge of God; for a man entering, as it were, upon this way first, and keeping it in the fear of God (as Solomon says[Proverbs 1:7], ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’), then advancing upwards in his thoughts and perceiving the Framing Wisdom which is in the creation, will perceive in It also Its Father, as the Lord Himself has said, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 171, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2508 (In-Text, Margin)
... their humility. What compels them to come forth? Is it not their love for you? What draws together the scattered dwellers in the desert? Is it not the esteem in which they hold you? A parent ought to love his children; and not only a parent but a bishop ought to be loved by his children. Neither ought to be feared. There is an old saying: “whom a man fears he hates; and whom he hates, he would fain see dead.” Accordingly, while for the young the holy scripture makes fear the beginning of knowledge,[Proverbs 1:7] it also tells us that “perfect love casteth out fear.” You exact no obedience from them; therefore the monks obey you. You offer them a kiss; therefore they bow the neck. You shew yourself a common soldier; therefore they make you their general. ...