Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ecclesiastes 7:16
There are 6 footnotes for this reference.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 369, footnote 9 (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. 8–11. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1547 (In-Text, Margin)
... he is a sinner, will any one imagine that a righteous man is also to be reproved because he is righteous? Surely not. For if at any time a righteous man also is reproved, he is rightly reproved on this account, that, according to Scripture, “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” And accordingly, when a righteous man is reproved, he is reproved of sin, and not of righteousness. Since in that divine utterance also, where we read, “Be not made righteous over-much,”[Ecclesiastes 7:16] there is notice taken, not of the righteousness of the wise man, but of the pride of the presumptuous. The man, therefore, that becomes “righteous over-much,” by that very excess becomes unrighteous. For he makes himself righteous over-much who says ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 51, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
He did wrong, when mentioning the Doctrines of Salvation, in adopting terms of his own choosing instead of the traditional terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (HTML)
... space, when the intellectual and spiritual is under discussion. Local position is a property of the material: but the intellectual and immaterial is confessedly removed from the idea of locality. What, then, is the reason why he says that the Father alone has supreme being? For one can hardly think it is from ignorance that he wanders off into these conceptions, being one who, in the many displays he makes, claims to be wise, even “making himself overwise,” as the Holy Scripture forbids us to do[Ecclesiastes 7:16].
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 67, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pammachius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1038 (In-Text, Margin)
... to their wives whom they have renounced, or, if they persist in living apart from them, they will have to confess—by their lives if not by their words—that, in preferring virginity to marriage, they have chosen the better course. Am I then a mere novice in the Scriptures, reading the sacred volumes for the first time? And is the line there drawn between virginity and marriage so fine that I have been unable to observe it? I could know nothing, forsooth, of the saying, “Be not righteous overmuch!”[Ecclesiastes 7:16] Thus, while I try to protect myself on one side, I am wounded on the other; to speak more plainly still, while I close with Jovinian in hand-to-hand combat, Manichæus stabs me in the back. Have I not, I would ask, in the very forefront of my work ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 70, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Pammachius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1094 (In-Text, Margin)
8. In the sequel we go on to speak thus: “The apostle, in concluding his discussion of marriage and of virginity, is careful to observe a mean course in discriminating between them, and, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, he keeps to the King’s highway, and thus fulfils the injunction, ‘Be not righteous overmuch.’[Ecclesiastes 7:16] Moreover, when he goes on to compare monogamy with digamy, he puts digamy after monogamy, just as before he subordinated marriage to virginity.” Do we not clearly show by this language what is typified in the Holy Scriptures by the terms right and left, and also what we take to be the meaning of the words “Be not righteous ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 358, footnote 3 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4339 (In-Text, Margin)
14. He has ended his discussion of wedlock and virginity, and has carefully steered between the two precepts without turning to the right hand or to the left. He has followed the royal road and fulfilled the command[Ecclesiastes 7:16] not to be righteous over much. Now again he compares monogamy with digamy, and as he had subordinated marriage to virginity, so he makes second marriages inferior to first, and says, “A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. But she is happier if she abide as she is, after my ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 465, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5252 (In-Text, Margin)
A. Do you expect me to explain the purposes and plans of God? The Book of Wisdom gives an answer to your foolish question: “Look not into things above thee, and search not things too mighty for thee.” And elsewhere,[Ecclesiastes 7:16] “Make not thyself overwise, and argue not more than is fitting.” And in the same place, “In wisdom and simplicity of heart seek God.” You will perhaps deny the authority of this book; listen then to the Apostle blowing the Gospel trumpet: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out! For who hath ...