Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ecclesiastes 3:7
There are 8 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 59, footnote 6 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Two Epistles Concerning Virginity. (HTML)
The First Epistle of the Blessed Clement, the Disciple of Peter the Apostle. (HTML)
Perniciousness of Idleness; Warning Against the Empty Longing to Be Teachers; Advice About Teaching and the Use of Divine Gifts. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 394 (In-Text, Margin)
... they hearken not to that which the Scripture has said: “Let not many be teachers among you, my brethren, and be not all of you prophets.” For “he who does not transgress in word is a perfect man, able to keep down and subjugate his whole body.” And, “If a man speak, let him speak in the words of God.” And, “If there is in thee understanding, give an answer to thy brother but if not, put thy hand on thy mouth.” For, “at one time it is proper to keep silence, and at another thee to speak.”[Ecclesiastes 3:7] And again it says “When a man speaks in season, it is honourable to him.” And again it says: “Let your speech be seasoned with grace. For it is required of a man to know how to give an answer to every one in season.” For “he that utters whatsoever ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 506, footnote 3 (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 329. Easter-day xi Pharmuthi; viii Id. April; Ær. Dioclet. 45; Coss. Constantinus Aug. VIII. Constantinus Cæs. IV; Præfect. Septimius Zenius; Indict. II. (HTML)
... to celebrate it, lest when the time has passed by, gladness likewise may pass us by. For discerning the time is one of the duties most urgent on us, for the practice of virtue; so that the blessed Paul, when instructing his disciple, teaches him to observe the time, saying, ‘Stand (ready) in season, and out of season ’—that knowing both the one and the other, he might do things befitting the season, and avoid the blame of unseasonableness. For thus the God of all, after the manner of wise Solomon[Ecclesiastes 3:7], distributes everything in time and season, to the end that, in due time, the salvation of men should be everywhere spread abroad. Thus the ‘Wisdom of God,’ our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, not out of season, but in season, ‘passed upon holy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 69, footnote 1 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
It will not do to apply this conception, as drawn out above, of the Father and Son to the Creation, as they insist on doing: but we must contemplate the Son apart with the Father, and believe that the Creation had its origin from a definite point. (HTML)
It is clear, even with a moderate insight into the nature of things, that there is nothing by which we can measure the divine and blessed Life. It is not in time, but time flows from it; whereas the creation, starting from a manifest beginning, journeys onward to its proper end through spaces of time; so that it is possible, as Solomon somewhere[Ecclesiastes 3:1-11] says, to detect in it a beginning, an end, and a middle; and mark the sequence of its history by divisions of time. But the supreme and blessed life has no time-extension accompanying its course, and therefore no span nor measure. Created things are confined within the fitting measures, as within a boundary, with due regard ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 302, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
The Life of Paulus the First Hermit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4016 (In-Text, Margin)
... two disciples who had begun to wait upon him in his advanced age. Said they, “Where have you stayed so long, father?” He replied, “Woe to me a sinner! I do not deserve the name of monk. I have seen Elias, I have seen John in the desert, and I have really seen Paul in Paradise.” He then closed his lips, beat upon his breast, and brought out the cloak from his cell. When his disciples asked him to explain the matter somewhat more fully he said, “There is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”[Ecclesiastes 3:7]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 48, footnote 5 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Enumeration of the illustrious men in the Church who in their writings have used the word “with.” (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1340 (In-Text, Margin)
... untamable state, He will grant to us at least to bear with long suffering all that we have to bear at their hands. In short “to them that have in themselves the sentence of death,” it is not suffering for the sake of the Faith which is painful; what is hard to bear is to fail to fight its battle. The athlete does not so much complain of being wounded in the struggle as of not being able even to secure admission into the stadium. Or perhaps this was the time for silence spoken of by Solomon the wise.[Ecclesiastes 3:7] For, when life is buffeted by so fierce a storm that all the intelligence of those who are instructed in the word is filled with the deceit of false reasoning and confounded, like an eye filled with dust, when men are stunned by strange and awful ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 262, footnote 3 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
Against Eustathius of Sebasteia. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2878 (In-Text, Margin)
1. is a time to keep silence and a time to speak,[Ecclesiastes 3:7] is the saying of the Preacher. Time enough has been given to silence, and now the time has come to open my mouth for the publication of the truth concerning matters that are, up to now, unknown. The illustrious Job bore his calamities for a long time in silence, and ever showed his courage by holding out under the most intolerable sufferings, but when he had struggled long enough in silence, and had persisted in covering his anguish in the bottom of his heart, at last ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 2, footnote 9 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Duties of the Clergy. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter III. Silence should not remain unbroken, nor should it arise from idleness. How heart and mouth must be guarded against inordinate affections. (HTML)
9. What then? Ought we to be dumb? Certainly not. For: “there is a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”[Ecclesiastes 3:7] If, then, we are to give account for an idle word, let us take care that we do not have to give it also for an idle silence. For there is also an active silence, such as Susanna’s was, who did more by keeping silence than if she had spoken. For in keeping silence before men she spoke to God, and found no greater proof of her chastity than silence. Her conscience spoke where no word was heard, and she sought no judgment for ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 508, footnote 1 (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 XXI. The First Conference of Abbot Theonas. On the Relaxation During the Fifty Days. (HTML)
Chapter XII. The answer on the nature of things good, bad, and indifferent. (HTML)
... build; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to send away; a time to scatter and a time to collect; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace;” and below: “For there is a time,” it says, “for everything and for every deed.”[Ecclesiastes 3:1-8] None therefore of these things does it lay down as always good, but only when any of them are fittingly done and at the right time, so that these very things which at one time, when done at the right moment, turn out well, if they are ventured on at ...