Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Proverbs 9:17
There are 8 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 288, footnote 9 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Chapter XI.—A Compendious View of the Christian Life. (HTML)
... exhorts, saying, “Touch sweetly secret bread, and sweet stolen water;” meaning by this, clandestine love (from this point the Bœotian Pindar, coming to our help, says, “The clandestine pursuit of love is something sweet”). But the miserable man “knoweth not that the sons of earth perish beside her, and that she tends to the level of hell.” But says the Instructor: “Hie away, and tarry not in the place; nor fix thine eye on her: for thus shalt thou pass over a strange water, and cross to Acheron.”[Proverbs 9:13-18] Wherefore thus saith the Lord by Isaiah, “Because the daughters of Sion walk with lofty neck, and with winkings of the eyes, and sweeping their garments as they walk, and playing with their feet; the Lord shall humble the daughters of Sion, and will ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 322, footnote 16 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
Chapter XIX.—That the Philosophers Have Attained to Some Portion of Truth. (HTML)
... vineyard, and wandered in the tracks of his own husbandry.” Such are the sects which deserted the primitive Church. Now he who has fallen into heresy passes through an arid wilderness, abandoning the only true God, destitute of God, seeking waterless water, reaching an uninhabited and thirsty land, collecting sterility with his hands. And those destitute of prudence, that is, those involved in heresies, “I enjoin,” remarks Wisdom, saying, “Touch sweetly stolen bread and the sweet water of theft;”[Proverbs 9:17] the Scripture manifestly applying the terms bread and water to nothing else but to those heresies, which employ bread and water in the oblation, not according to the canon of the Church. For there are those who celebrate the Eucharist with mere ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1, page 63, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Prolegomena: St. Augustine's Life and Work, Confessions, Letters
The Confessions (HTML)
Of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth years of his age, passed at Carthage, when, having completed his course of studies, he is caught in the snares of a licentious passion, and falls into the errors of the Manichæans. (HTML)
Deceived by His Own Fault, He Falls into the Errors of the Manichæans, Who Gloried in the True Knowledge of God and in a Thorough Examination of Things. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 240 (In-Text, Margin)
... mercy on me when I had not yet confessed,—sought after Thee not according to the understanding of the mind, in which Thou desiredst that I should excel the beasts, but according to the sense of the flesh! Thou wert more inward to me than my most inward part; and higher than my highest. I came upon that bold woman, who “is simple, and knoweth nothing,” the enigma of Solomon, sitting “at the door of the house on a seat,” and saying, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”[Proverbs 9:17] This woman seduced me, because she found my soul beyond its portals, dwelling in the eye of my flesh, and thinking on such food as through it I had devoured.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 566, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
On Christian Doctrine (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
The Same Word Does Not Always Signify the Same Thing. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1888 (In-Text, Margin)
... the place where it is said, “The lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed;” and again, stands for the devil where it is written, “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.” In the same way the serpent is used in a good sense, “Be wise as serpents;” and again, in a bad sense, “The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty.” Bread is used in a good sense, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven;” in a bad, “Bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”[Proverbs 9:17] And so in a great many other cases. The examples I have adduced are indeed by no means doubtful in their signification, because only plain instances ought to be used as examples. There are passages, however, in regard to which it is uncertain in ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 375, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter XVI. 12, 13 (continued). (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1580 (In-Text, Margin)
... wickedness; and that honor may be given to Him, and fear and modesty of demeanor assumed by every one, who has either been kept from falling into such evils by His kingly power, or been raised out of them by His uplifting hand. Beware, with fear and prayer, of rushing into that mystery of Solomon’s, where “the woman that is foolish and brazen-faced, and become destitute of bread,” invites the passers-by with the words, “Come and make a pleasant feast on hidden bread, and the sweetness of stolen waters.”[Proverbs 9:13-17] For the woman thus spoken of is the vanity of the impious, who, utterly senseless as they are, fancy that they know something, just as was said of that woman, that she had “become destitute of bread;” who, though destitute of a single loaf, promises ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 525, footnote 6 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
For 335. Easter-day iv Pharmuthi, iii Kal. April; xx Moon; Ær. Dioclet. 51; Coss. Julius Constantius, the brother of Augustus, Rufinus Albinus; Præfect, the same Philagrius; viii Indict. (HTML)
5. For sin has her own special bread, of her death, and calling to those who are lovers of pleasure and lack understanding, she saith, ‘Touch with delight secret bread, and sweet waters which are stolen[Proverbs 9:17];’ for he who merely touches them knows not that that which is born from the earth perishes with her. For even when the sinner thinks to find pleasure, the end of that food is not pleasant, as the Wisdom of God saith again, ‘Bread of deceit is pleasant to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.’ And, ‘Honey droppeth from the lips of a whorish woman, which for a time is sweet ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 549, footnote 11 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life. (HTML)
The Festal Letters, and their Index. (HTML)
Festal Letters. (HTML)
(For 348.) Coss. Philippus, Salia; Præfect the same Nestorius; Indict. vi; Easter-day iii Non. Apr., viii Pharmuthi; Æra Dioclet. 64; Moon 18. (HTML)
... they drink with their companions, they lead astray and disturb the right mind, and turn away the simple from it. And what does he cry? ‘Wo unto him who causeth his neighbour to drink turbid destruction, and maketh him drunk, that he may look upon his caverns.’ But those who dissemble, and steal away the truth, quench their hearts. Having first drunk of these things, they go on to say those things which the whore saith in the Proverbs, ‘Lay hold with delight on hidden bread, and sweet stolen waters[Proverbs 9:17].’ They lay snares secretly, because they have not the freedom of virtue, nor the boldness of Wisdom, who praises herself in the gates, and employs freedom of speech in the broad ways, preaching on high walls. For this reason, they are bidden to ‘lay ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 147, footnote 2 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins, For the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All Heresies. (HTML)
Chapter XXI. Exposition of St. Paul's Words.--1 Tim. vi. 20. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 499 (In-Text, Margin)
... not know. For there are but few to whom it is granted to receive the secret of so great a mystery.” Are not these the words of that harlot who, in the proverbs of Solomon, calls to the passengers who go right on their ways, “Whoso is simple let him turn in hither.” And as for them that are void of understanding, she exhorts them saying: “Drink stolen waters, for they are sweet, and eat bread in secret for it is pleasant.” What next? “But he knoweth not that the sons of earth perish in her house.”[Proverbs 9:16-18] Who are those “sons of earth”? Let the apostle explain: “Those who have erred concerning the faith.”