Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Proverbs 2
There are 24 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1, page 8, footnote 10 (Image)
Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus
Clement of Rome (HTML)
First Epistle to the Corinthians (HTML)
Chapter XIV.—We should obey God rather than the authors of sedition. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 58 (In-Text, Margin)
... the leaders of a detestable emulation. For we shall incur no slight injury, but rather great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so as to draw us away from what is good. Let us be kind one to another after the pattern of the tender mercy and benignity of our Creator. For it is written, “The kind-hearted shall inhabit the land, and the guiltless shall be left upon it, but transgressors shall be destroyed from off the face of it.”[Proverbs 2:21-22] And again [the Scripture] saith, “I saw the ungodly highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon: I passed by, and, behold, he was not; and I diligently sought his place, and could not find it. Preserve innocence, and look on equity: for ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 194, footnote 17 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
Exhortation to the Heathen (HTML)
Chapter VIII.—The True Doctrine is to Be Sought in the Prophets. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 946 (In-Text, Margin)
... matter is devoid of sensation. Once more he says, “The Lord will shake the cities that are inhabited, and grasp the world in His hand like a nest.” Why repeat to you the mysteries of wisdom, and sayings from the writings of the son of the Hebrews, the master of wisdom? “The Lord created me the beginning of His ways, in order to His works.” And, “The Lord giveth wisdom, and from His face proceed knowledge and understanding.”[Proverbs 2:6] “How long wilt thou lie in bed, O sluggard; and when wilt thou be aroused from sleep?” “but if thou show thyself no sluggard, as a fountain thy harvest shall come,” the “Word of the Father, the benign light, the Lord that ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 232, footnote 10 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter X.—That the Same God, by the Same Word, Restrains from Sin by Threatening, and Saves Humanity by Exhorting. (HTML)
... Ezekiel, “If ye return with your whole heart, and say, Father, I will hear you, as a holy people.” And again He says, “Come all to Me, who labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” and that which is added the Lord speaks in His own person. And very clearly He calls to goodness by Solomon, when He says, “Blessed is the man who hath found wisdom, and the mortal who hath found understanding.” “For the good is found by him who seeks it, and is wont to be seen by him who has found it.”[Proverbs 2:4-5] By Jeremiah, too, He sets forth prudence, when he says, “Blessed are we, Israel; for what is pleasing to God is known by us; —and it is known by the Word, by whom we are blessed and wise. For wisdom and knowledge are mentioned by the same prophet, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 299, footnote 1 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter I.—Preface—The Author’s Object—The Utility of Written Compositions. (HTML)
... manner. But he who proclaims the truth is to be prevented from leaving behind him what is to benefit posterity. It is a good thing, I reckon, to leave to posterity good children. This is the case with children of our bodies. But words are the progeny of the soul. Hence we call those who have instructed us, fathers. Wisdom is a communicative and philanthropic thing. Accordingly, Solomon says, “My son, if thou receive the saying of my commandment, and hide it with thee, thine ear shall hear wisdom.”[Proverbs 2:1-2] He points out that the word that is sown is hidden in the soul of the learner, as in the earth, and this is spiritual planting. Wherefore also he adds, “And thou shalt apply thine heart to understanding, and apply it for the admonition of thy son.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 305, footnote 6 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter IV.—Human Arts as Well as Divine Knowledge Proceed from God. (HTML)
"For if thou call on wisdom and knowledge with a loud voice, and seek it as treasures of silver, and eagerly track it out, thou shalt understand godliness and find divine knowledge.”[Proverbs 2:3-5] The prophet says this in contradiction to the knowledge according to philosophy, which teaches us to investigate in a magnanimous and noble manner, for our progress in piety. He opposes, therefore, to it the knowledge which is occupied with piety, when referring to knowledge, when he speaks as follows: “For God gives wisdom out of His own mouth, and knowledge along with understanding, and treasures up ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 312, footnote 15 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XI.—What is the Philosophy Which the Apostle Bids Us Shun? (HTML)
... “Prove all things,” the apostle says, “and hold fast that which is good,” speaking to spiritual men, who judge what is said according to truth, whether it seems or truly holds by the truth. “He who is not corrected by discipline errs, and stripes and reproofs give the discipline of wisdom,” the reproofs manifestly that are with love. “For the right heart seeketh knowledge.” “For he that seeketh the Lord shall find knowledge with righteousness; and they who have sought it rightly have found peace.”[Proverbs 2] “And I will know,” it is said, “not the speech of those which are puffed up, but the power.” In rebuke of those who are wise in appearance, and think themselves wise, but are not in reality wise, he writes: “For the kingdom of God is not in word.” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 370, footnote 2 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Chapter XIX.—The True Gnostic is an Imitator of God, Especially in Beneficence. (HTML)
... and that of an animal. For the image of God is really the man who does good, in which also he gets good: as the pilot at once saves, and is saved. Wherefore, when one obtains his request, he does not say to the giver, Thou hast given well, but, Thou hast received well. So he receives who gives, and he gives who receives. “But the righteous pity and show mercy.” “But the mild shall be inhabitants of the earth, and the innocent shall be left in it. But the transgressors shall be extirpated from it.”[Proverbs 2:21-22] And Homer seems to me to have said prophetically of the faithful, “Give to thy friend.” And an enemy must be aided, that he may not continue an enemy. For by help good feeling is compacted, and enmity dissolved. “But if there be present readiness of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 245, footnote 6 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
On God. (HTML)
... an intellectual act by means of the power of intelligence. So also it is said to hear with the ears when it perceives the deeper meaning of a statement. So also we say that it makes use of teeth, when it chews and eats the bread of life which cometh down from heaven. In like manner, also, it is said to employ the services of other members, which are transferred from their bodily appellations, and applied to the powers of the soul, according to the words of Solomon, “You will find a divine sense.”[Proverbs 2:5] For he knew that there were within us two kinds of senses: the one mortal, corruptible, human; the other immortal and intellectual, which he now termed divine. By this divine sense, therefore, not of the eyes, but of a pure heart, which is the mind, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 381, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
IV (HTML)
Sections 24-End translated from the Latin. (HTML)
... also of themselves), a rational understanding also, advancing from small things to great, and from things visible to things invisible, may attain to a more perfect knowledge. For it is placed in the body, and advances from sensible things themselves, which are corporeal, to things that are intellectual. But lest our statement that things intellectual are not cognisable by the senses should appear unbecoming, we shall employ the instance of Solomon, who says, “You will find also a divine sense;”[Proverbs 2:5] by which he shows that those things which are intellectual are to be sought out not by means of a bodily sense, but by a certain other which he calls “divine.” And with this sense must we look on each of those rational beings which we have ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 416, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
I (HTML)
Chapter XLVIII (HTML)
... intelligent hearer of the Gospels?—although such an occurrence may be a stumbling-block to the simple, who in their simplicity would set the whole world in movement, and split in sunder the compact and mighty body of the whole heavens. But he who examines such matters more profoundly will say, that there being, as the Scripture calls it, a kind of general divine perception which the blessed man alone knows how to discover, according to the saying of Solomon, “Thou shalt find the knowledge of God;”[Proverbs 2:5] and as there are various forms of this perceptive power, such as a faculty of vision which can naturally see things that are better than bodies, among which are ranked the cherubim and seraphim; and a faculty of hearing which can perceive voices ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 625, footnote 13 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XXXIV (HTML)
... hand” of Jeremiah or of some other prophet; or when the expression is used, “the law by the hand of Moses,” or, “I sought the Lord with my hands, and was not deceived,” —no one is so foolish as not to see that the word “hands” is taken figuratively, as when John says, “Our hands have handled the Word of life.” And if you wish further to learn from the sacred writings that there is a diviner sense than the senses of the body, you have only to hear what Solomon says, “Thou shalt find a divine sense.”[Proverbs 2:5]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 233, footnote 5 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
The Epistles of Clement. (HTML)
The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. (HTML)
We Should Obey God Rather Than the Authors of Sedition. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4064 (In-Text, Margin)
... the leaders of a detestable emulation. For we shall incur no slight injury, but rather great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so as to draw us away from what is good. Let us be kind one to another after the pattern of the tender mercy and benignity of our Creator. For it is written, “The kind-hearted shall inhabit the land, and the guiltless shall be left upon it, but transgressors shall be destroyed from off the face of it.”[Proverbs 2:21-22] And again [the Scripture] saith, “I saw the ungodly highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon: I passed by, and, behold, he was not; and I diligently sought his place, and could not find it. Preserve innocence, and look on equity: for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 573, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
The Seventh Rule of Tichonius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1934 (In-Text, Margin)
... as much as I thought enough, students of these venerable documents ought to be counselled not only to make themselves acquainted with the forms of expression ordinarily used in Scripture, to observe them carefully, and to remember them accurately, but also, what is especially and before all things necessary, to pray that they may understand them. For in these very books on the study of which they are intent, they read, “The Lord giveth wisdom: out of His mouth cometh knowledge and understanding;”[Proverbs 2:6] and it is from Him they have received their very desire for knowledge, if it is wedded to piety. But about signs, so far as relates to words, I have now said enough. It remains to discuss, in the following book, so far as God has given me light, the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 555, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)
In which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of Petilianus, as though disputing with an adversary face to face. (HTML)
Chapter 39 (HTML)
... tried in the furnace, so also are the just tried by the harassing of tribulation.’ Cruelty is not a part of gentleness, nor religion a part of sacrilege; nor can the party of Macarius in any way be part of us, because he pollutes the likeness of our rite. For the enemy’s line, which fills up an enemy’s name, is no part of the force to which it is opposed; but if it is truly to be called a part, it will find a suitable motto in the judgment of Solomon, ‘Let their part be cut off from the earth.’"[Proverbs 2:22]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 556, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy. (HTML)
Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist. (HTML)
In which Augustin replies to all the several statements in the letter of Petilianus, as though disputing with an adversary face to face. (HTML)
Chapter 39 (HTML)
... all the countries of the nations worship? Therefore the party of this Macarius, that is to say, of this Blessed One, feels no apprehension at your last curse, distorted from the words of Solomon, lest it should perish from the earth. For what is said by him of the impious you endeavor to apply to the inheritance of Christ, and you strive to prove that this has been achieved with inexpressible impiety; for when he was speaking of the impious, he says, "Let their portion perish from off the earth."[Proverbs 2:22] But when you say, with reference to the words of Scripture, "I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance," and "all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord," that the promise contained in them has already perished from ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 151, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Nature and Grace. (HTML)
God Enjoins No Impossibility, Because All Things are Possible and Easy to Love. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1356 (In-Text, Margin)
... and then it is not grievous. But he possesses love if he does what is there enjoined on Israel, by returning to the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his soul. “A new commandment,” says He, “do I give unto you, that ye love one another;” and “He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law;” and again, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” In accordance with these sayings is that passage, “Had they trodden good paths, they would have found, indeed, the ways of righteousness easy.”[Proverbs 2:20] How then is it written, “Because of the words of Thy lips, I have kept the paths of difficulty,” except it be that both statements are true: These paths are paths of difficulty to fear; but to love they are easy?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 170, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness. (HTML)
The Fourth Passage. In What Sense God Only is Good. With God to Be Good and to Be Himself are the Same Thing. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1508 (In-Text, Margin)
... oppose to it sundry other passages which seem to contradict it, which he adduces to show that man, too, is good. Here are his remarks: “We must answer this text with another, in which the same Lord says, ‘A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things.’ And again: ‘He maketh His sun to rise on the good and on the evil.’ Then in another passage it is written, ‘For the good things are created from the beginning;’ and yet again, ‘They that are good shall dwell in the land.’”[Proverbs 2:21] Now to all this we must say in answer, that the passages in question must be understood in the same sense as the former one, “There is none good, save one, that is, God.” Either because all created things, although God made them very good, are yet, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 461, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
The Ignorance of the Pelagians in Maintaining that the Knowledge of the Law Comes from God, But that Love Comes from Ourselves. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3185 (In-Text, Margin)
... the love which prevents the possibility of this infla tion of knowledge springs from ourselves? And again, when the apostle speaks of “the love of Christ as surpassing knowledge,” what can be more insane than to suppose that the knowledge which must be subordinated to love comes from God, while the love which surpasses knowledge comes from man? The true faith, however, and sound doctrine declare that both graces are from God; the Scripture says, “From His face cometh knowledge and understanding;”[Proverbs 2:6] and another Scripture says, “Love is of God.” We read of “the Spirit of wisdom and understanding.” Also of “the Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” But love is a greater gift than knowledge; for whenever a man has the gift of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 543, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance. (HTML)
Further Development of the Foregoing Argument. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3665 (In-Text, Margin)
And in order that I may more openly unfold this for the sake of those who are somewhat slow of apprehension, let those who are endowed with an intelligence that flies in advance bear with my delay. The Apostle James says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.” It is written also in the Proverbs of Solomon, “Because theLord giveth wisdom.”[Proverbs 2:6] And of continency it is read in the book of Wisdom, whose authority has been used by great and learned men who have commented upon the divine utterances long before us; there, therefore, it is read, “When I knew that no one can be continent unless God gives it, and that this was of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 552, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance. (HTML)
Conclusion. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3717 (In-Text, Margin)
Let those who read this, if they understand, give God thanks, and let those who do not understand, pray that they may have the inward Teacher, from whose presence comes knowledge and understanding.[Proverbs 2:6] But let those who think that I am in error, consider again and again carefully what is here said, lest perchance they themselves may be mistaken. And when, by means of those who read my writings, I become not only wiser, but even more perfect, I acknowledge God’s favour to me; and this I especially look for at the hands of the teachers of the Church, if what I write comes into their hands, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 374, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3607 (In-Text, Margin)
... them and pitying them through His grace, He called them back Himself, because of themselves they could not return. For how doth flesh return, “a spirit walking and not turning back,” while a weight of evil deserts doth weigh it down unto the lowest and far places of evil, save through the election of grace?…For thus also is solved this no unimportant question, how it is written in the Proverbs, when the Scripture was speaking of the way of iniquity, “all they that walk in her shall not return.”[Proverbs 2:19] For it hath been so spoken as if all ungodly men were to be despaired of: but the Scripture did only commend grace; for of himself man is able to walk in that way, but is not able of himself to return, except when called back by grace.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 274, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Arian History. (Historia Arianorum ad Monachos.) (HTML)
Arian History. (Historia Arianorum ad Monachos.) (HTML)
First Arian Persecution under Constantius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1553 (In-Text, Margin)
... the friend of Governors, than of Bishops and Monks. Whenever, therefore, our Father Antony wrote to him from the mountains, as godliness is an abomination to a sinner, so he abhorred the letters of the holy man. But whenever the Emperor, or a General, or other magistrate, sent him a letter, he was as much overjoyed as those in the Proverbs, of whom the Word has said indignantly, ‘Woe unto them who leave the path of uprightness who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked[Proverbs 2:13-14].’ And so he honoured with presents the bearers of these letters; but once when Antony wrote to him he caused Duke Balacius to spit upon the letter, and to cast it from him. But Divine Justice did not overlook this; for no long time after, when the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 220, footnote 21 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2784 (In-Text, Margin)
... promise of my mother, afterwards confirmed in the hour of danger: and my longing grew up with it, and my reason agreed to it, and I gave as an offering my all to Him Who had won me and saved me, my property, my fame, my health, my very words, from which I only gained the advantage of being able to despise them, and of having something in comparison of which I preferred Christ. And the words of God were made sweet as honeycombs to me, and I cried after knowledge and lifted up my voice for wisdom.[Proverbs 2:3] There was moreover the moderation of anger, the curbing of the tongue, the re straint of the eyes, the discipline of the belly, and the trampling under foot of the glory which clings to the earth. I speak foolishly, but it shall be said, in these ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 542, footnote 3 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXIV. Conference of Abbot Abraham. On Mortification. (HTML)
Chapter XXIV. Why the Lord's yoke is felt grievous and His burden heavy. (HTML)
... with thee, saith the Lord.” How then is it that the wondrous sweetness of the Lord’s yoke is felt to be bitter, but because the bitterness of our dislike injures it? How is it that the exceeding lightness of the Divine burden becomes heavy, but because in our obstinate presumption we despise Him by whom it was borne, especially as Scripture itself plainly testifies to this very thing saying: “For if they would walk in right paths, they would certainly have found the paths of righteousness smooth”?[Proverbs 2:20] It is plain, I say, that it is we, who make rough with the nasty and hard stones of our desires the right and smooth paths of the Lord; who most foolishly forsake the royal road made stony with the flints of apostles and prophets, and trodden down ...