Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Proverbs 13:8
There are 9 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 281, footnote 3 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Instructor (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Chapter VII.—Frugality a Good Provision for the Christian. (HTML)
... frugality with chaste gravity. And as the foot is the measure of the shoe, so also is the body of what each individual possesses. But that which is superfluous, what they call ornaments and the furniture of the rich, is a burden, not an ornament to the body. He who climbs to the heavens by force, must carry with him the fair staff of beneficence, and attain to the true rest by communicating to those who are in distress. For the Scripture avouches, “that the true riches of the soul are a man’s ransom,”[Proverbs 13:8] that is, if he is rich, he will be saved by distributing it. For as gushing wells, when pumped out, rise again to their former measure, so giving away, being the benignant spring of love, by communicating of its drink to the thirsty, again increases ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 391, footnote 10 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2523 (In-Text, Margin)
... collegistis; nudus, et me vestiistis;” deinde subjungit: “Quatenus fecistis uni horum minimorum, mihi fecistis.” Nunquid easdem quoque tulit leges in Veteri Testamento? “Qui dat mendico, fœneratur Deo.” Et: “Ne abstinueris a benefaciendo egeno,” inquit. Et rursus: “Eleemosynæ et fides ne te deficiant,” inquit. “Paupertas” autem “virum humiliat, ditant autem manus virorum.” Subjungit autem: “Qui pecuniam suam non dedit ad usuram, fit acceptus.” Et: “Pretium redemptionis anima, propriæ judicantur divitiæ.”[Proverbs 13:8] Annon aperte indicat, quod sicut mundus componitur ex contrariis, nempe ex calido et frigido, humido et sicco, ita etiam ex iis qui dant, et ex iis qui accipiunt? Et rursus cum dixit: “Si vis perfectus esse, vende quæ habes, et da pauperibus,” ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 620, footnote 7 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XXI (HTML)
... knowledge.” And in this sense we “charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.” For, as Solomon says, “riches” are the true good, which “are the ransom of the life of a man;” but the poverty which is the opposite of these riches is destructive, for by it “the poor cannot bear rebuke.”[Proverbs 13:8] And what has been said of riches applies to dominion, in regard to which it is said, “The just man shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.” Now if riches are to be taken in the sense we have just explained, consider if it is not ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 277, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Peter of Alexandria. (HTML)
The Canonical Epistle, with the Commentaries of Theodore Balsamon and John Zonaras. (HTML)
Canon XII. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2326 (In-Text, Margin)
... sacrifice of their goods that they might not hurt or destroy their soul, which others for the sake of filthy lucre have not done; and yet the Lord says, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” and again, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” In these things, then, they have shown themselves the servants of God, inasmuch as they have hated, trodden under foot, and despised money, and have thus fulfilled what is written: “The ransom of a man’s life are his riches.”[Proverbs 13:8] For we read also in the Acts of the Apostles that those who in the stead of Paul and Silas were dragged before the magistrates at Thessalonica, were dismissed with a heavy fine. For after that they had been very burdensome to them for his name, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 36, footnote 2 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 580 (In-Text, Margin)
... merely by refusing to seize upon what belongs to others, for that is punished by the laws of the state, but also by not keeping your own property, which has now become no longer yours. “If have not been faithful,” the Lord says, “in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” “That which is another man’s” is a quantity of gold or of silver, while “that which is our own” is the spiritual heritage of which it is elsewhere said: “The ransom of a man’s life is his riches.”[Proverbs 13:8] “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” Riches, that is; for in the heathen tongue of the Syrians riches are called ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 153, footnote 16 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Lucinius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2246 (In-Text, Margin)
... unrighteousness that they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Such conduct deserves praise and merits to be compared with the virtue of apostolic times. Then, as you know, believers sold their possessions and brought the prices of them and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: a symbolic act designed to shew that men must trample on covetousness. But the Lord yearns for believers’ souls more than for their riches. We read in the Proverbs: “the ransom of a man’s soul are his own riches.”[Proverbs 13:8] We may, indeed, take a man’s own riches to be those which do not come from some one else, or from plunder; according to the precept: “honour God with thy just labours.” But the sense is better if we understand a man’s “own riches” to be those hidden ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 480, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5342 (In-Text, Margin)
... this publican: I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.” Yet he merely thanks God because, by His mercy, he is not as other men: he execrates sin, and does not claim his righteousness as his own. But you say, “Now Thou knowest how holy, how innocent, how pure from all deceit, wrong, and robbery are the hands which I spread out before Thee.” He says that he fasts twice in the week, that he may afflict his vicious and wanton flesh, and he gives tithes of all his substance. For[Proverbs 13:8] “the ransom of a man’s life is his riches.” You join the devil in boasting, “I will ascend above the stars, I will place my throne in heaven, and I will be like the Most High.” David says, “My loins are filled with illusions”; and “My wounds stink ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 470, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose. (HTML)
Epistle LXIII: To the Church at Vercellæ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3779 (In-Text, Margin)
92. But riches themselves are not blameable. For “the ransom of a man’s life are his riches,”[Proverbs 13:8] since he that gives to the poor redeems his soul. So that even in these material riches there is place for virtue. You are like steersmen in the vast sea. If a man steers his course well, he quickly passes over the sea so as to attain to the port, but one who knows not how to direct his property is drowned together with his freight. And so it is written: “The wealth of rich men is a most strong city.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 324, footnote 10 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X. (HTML)
Conference III. Conference of Abbot Paphnutius. On the Three Sorts of Renunciations. (HTML)
Chapter IX. Of three sorts of possessions. (HTML)
... poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;” and in the Psalm: “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,” and again: “The poor and needy shall praise thy name.” Those riches are good, to acquire which is the work of great virtue and merit, and the righteous possessor of which is praised by David who says “The generation of the righteous shall be blessed: glory and riches are in his house, and his righteousness remaineth for ever:” and again “the ransom of a man’s life are his riches.”[Proverbs 13:8] And of these riches it is said in the Apocalypse to him who has them not and to his shame is poor and naked: “I will begin,” says he, “to vomit thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest I am rich and wealthy and have need of nothing: and knowest not ...