Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ecclesiastes 7:29
There are 8 footnotes for this reference.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 271, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
Of the Fall of the First Man, in Whom Nature Was Created Good, and Can Be Restored Only by Its Author. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 724 (In-Text, Margin)
... anticipated both,—that is to say, both how evil the man whom He had created good should become, and what good He Himself should even thus derive from him. For though God is said to change His determinations (so that in a tropical sense the Holy Scripture says even that God repented), this is said with reference to man’s expectation, or the order of natural causes, and not with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown that He would do. Accordingly God, as it is written, made man upright,[Ecclesiastes 7:29] and consequently with a good will. For if he had not had a good will, he could not have been upright. The good will, then, is the work of God; for God created him with it. But the first evil will, which preceded all man’s evil acts, was rather a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 295, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. vii. 7, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you;’ etc. An exhortation to alms-deeds. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2141 (In-Text, Margin)
... Father, that we may not always continue evil. No evil man can make another man good. If no evil man can make another good, how can an evil man make himself good? He only can make of an evil man a good man, who is good eternally. “Heal me, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved.” Why then do those vain ones say to me in words vain as themselves, “Thou canst save thyself if thou wilt”? “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed.” We were created good by The Good; for “God made man upright,”[Ecclesiastes 7:29] but by our own free will, we became evil. We had power from being good to become evil, and we shall have power from being evil to become good. But it is He who is ever Good, who maketh the good out of the evil; for man by his own will had no power ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 7, footnote 3 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Against the Heathen. (Contra Gentes.) (HTML)
Contra Gentes. (Against the Heathen.) (HTML)
Part I (HTML)
Refutation of dualism from reason. Impossibility of two Gods. The truth as to evil is that which the Church teaches: that it originates, and resides, in the perverted choice of the darkened soul. (HTML)
... imagined evil for herself, and moving therein, knows not that, thinking she is doing something, she is doing nothing. For she is imagining what is not, nor is she abiding in her original nature; but what she is is evidently the product of her own disorder. 5. For she is made to see God, and to be enlightened by Him; but of her own accord in God’s stead she has sought corruptible things and darkness, as the Spirit says somewhere in writing, “God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions[Ecclesiastes 7:29].” Thus it has been then that men from the first discovered and contrived and imagined evil for themselves. But it is now time to say how they came down to the madness of idolatry, that you may know that the invention of idols is wholly due, not to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 38, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
The Incarnation of the Word. (HTML)
On the Incarnation of the Word. (HTML)
Our creation and God's Incarnation most intimately connected. As by the Word man was called from non-existence into being, and further received the grace of a divine life, so by the one fault which forfeited that life they again incurred corruption and untold sin and misery filled the world. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 205 (In-Text, Margin)
... of His becoming Incarnate we were the object, and for our salvation He dealt so lovingly as to appear and be born even in a human body. 4. Thus, then, God has made man, and willed that he should abide in incorruption; but men, having despised and rejected the contemplation of God, and devised and contrived evil for themselves (as was said in the former treatise), received the condemnation of death with which they had been threatened; and from thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but[Ecclesiastes 7:29] were being corrupted according to their devices; and death had the mastery over them as king. For transgression of the commandment was turning them back to their natural state, so that just as they have had their being out of nothing, so also, as ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 368, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4447 (In-Text, Margin)
... marriage: “Better,” he says, “is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” And he immediately adds: “Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.” And he gives the reason why the latter days are better than the former: “For wisdom with an inheritance is good.” Under the law carnal wisdom was followed by the sword of death; under the Gospel an eternal inheritance awaits spiritual wisdom. “Behold, this have I found,[Ecclesiastes 7:28-29] saith the Preacher, one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Behold this only have I found, that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” He says that he had found man upright. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 8, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On Repentance and Remission of Sins, and Concerning the Adversary. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 494 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Prophet says plainly in a certain place: Yet I planted thee a fruitful vine, wholly true: how art thou turned to bitterness, (and become) the strange vine? The planting was good, the fruit coming from the will is evil; and therefore the planter is blameless, but the vine shall be burnt with fire since it was planted for good, and bore fruit unto evil of its own will. For God, according to the Preacher, made man upright, and they have themselves sought out many inventions[Ecclesiastes 7:29]. For we are His workmanship, says the Apostle, created unto good works, which God afore prepared, that we should walk in them. So then the Creator, being good, created for good works; but the creature turned of its own free will to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 363, footnote 2 (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 VII. First Conference of Abbot Serenus. On Inconstancy of Mind, and Spiritual Wickedness. (HTML)
Chapter IV. The discourse of the old man on the state of the soul and its excellence. (HTML)
... ought to prepare, toward which it may bring back its unwearied flight and acquire strength for remaining, and thus may succeed in driving away the hostile suggestion of the enemy by which it is distracted, and in persisting in that state and condition which it yearns for. We ought not then to ascribe this wandering inclination of our heart either to human nature or to God its Creator. For it is a true statement of Scripture, that “God made man upright; but they themselves found out many thoughts.”[Ecclesiastes 7:29] The character of these then depends on us ourselves, for it says “a good thought comes near to those that know it, but a prudent man will find it.” For where anything is subject to our prudence and industry so that it can be found out, there if it ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 428, footnote 6 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII. (HTML)
Conference XIII. The Third Conference of Abbot Chæremon. On the Protection of God. (HTML)
Chapter XII. That a good will should not always be attributed to grace, nor always to man himself. (HTML)
... about men after the fall stand: “Behold, Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil?” For we cannot think that before, he was such as to be altogether ignorant of good. Otherwise we should have to admit that he was formed like some irrational and insensate beast: which is sufficiently absurd and altogether alien from the Catholic faith. Moreover as the wisest Solomon says: “God made man upright,” i.e., always to enjoy the knowledge of good only, “But they have sought out many imaginations,”[Ecclesiastes 7:29] for they came, as has been said, to know good and evil. Adam therefore after the fall conceived a knowledge of evil which he had not previously, but did not lose the knowledge of good which he had before. Finally the Apostle’s words very clearly ...