Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ecclesiastes 9
There are 14 footnotes for this reference.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 435, footnote 4 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily XIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1596 (In-Text, Margin)
10. Therefore one gives this admonition; “Observe not the beauty of a strange woman, and meet not a woman addicted to fornication.[Ecclesiastes 9:3] For honey distils from the lips of an harlot, which at the time may seem smooth to thy throat, but afterward thou wilt find it more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.” For the harlot knows not how to love, but only to ensnare; her kiss hath poison, and her mouth a pernicious drug. And if this does not immediately appear, it is the more necessary to avoid her on that account, because she veils that destruction, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 9, page 435, footnote 4 (Image)
Chrysostom: On the Priesthood, Ascetic Treatises, Select Homilies and Letters, Homilies on the Statutes
The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch. (HTML)
Homily XIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1596 (In-Text, Margin)
10. Therefore one gives this admonition; “Observe not the beauty of a strange woman, and meet not a woman addicted to fornication.[Ecclesiastes 9:8] For honey distils from the lips of an harlot, which at the time may seem smooth to thy throat, but afterward thou wilt find it more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.” For the harlot knows not how to love, but only to ensnare; her kiss hath poison, and her mouth a pernicious drug. And if this does not immediately appear, it is the more necessary to avoid her on that account, because she veils that destruction, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2, page 152, footnote 6 (Image)
Socrates: Church History from A.D. 305-438; Sozomenus: Church History from A.D. 323-425
The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus. (HTML)
Book VI (HTML)
Of Sisinnius Bishop of the Novatians. His Readiness at Repartee. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 898 (In-Text, Margin)
... was asked by one of the friends of that bishop, ‘why he wore a garment so unsuitable for a bishop? and where it was written that an ecclesiastic should be clothed in white?’ ‘Do you tell me first,’ said he, ‘where it is written that a bishop should wear black?’ When he that made the inquiry knew not what to reply to this counter-question: ‘You cannot show,’ rejoined Sisinnius, ‘that a priest should be clothed in black. But Solomon is my authority, whose exhortation is, “Let thy garments be white.”[Ecclesiastes 9:8] And our Saviour in the Gospels appears clothed in white raiment: moreover he showed Moses and Elias to the apostles, clad in white garments.’ His prompt reply to these and other questions called forth the admiration of those present. Again when ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 260, footnote 10 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.) (HTML)
The Lord's hour and time. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1457 (In-Text, Margin)
... man, but that no one knows the end of that time is plainly intimated by the words of David, ‘Declare unto me the shortness of my days.’ What he did not know, that he desired to be informed of. Accordingly the rich man also, while he thought that he had yet a long time to live, heard the words, ‘Thou fool, this night they are requiring thy soul: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’ And the Preacher speaks confidently in the Holy Spirit, and says, ‘Man also knoweth not his time[Ecclesiastes 9:12].’ Wherefore the Patriarch Isaac said to his son Esau, ‘Behold, I am old, and I know not the day of my death.’ Our Lord therefore, although as God, and the Word of the Father, He both knew the time measured out by Him to all, and was conscious of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 49, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paula. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 791 (In-Text, Margin)
... always had in her hand a prophet or a gospel. As I think of her my eyes fill with tears, sobs impede my voice, and such is my emotion that my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. As she lay there dying, her poor frame parched with burning fever, and her relatives gathered round her bed, her last words were: “Pray to the Lord Jesus, that He may pardon me, because what I would have done I have not been able to do.” Be at peace, dear Blæsilla, in full assurance that your garments are always white.[Ecclesiastes 9:8] For yours is the purity of an everlasting virginity. I feel confident that my words are true: conversion can never be too late. The words to the dying robber are a pledge of this: “Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 162, footnote 13 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Oceanus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2382 (In-Text, Margin)
12. I give you this, Fabiola, the best gift of my aged powers, to be as it were a funeral offering. Oftentimes have I praised virgins and widows and married women who have kept their garments always white[Ecclesiastes 9:8] and who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Happy indeed is she in her encomium who throughout her life has been stained by no defilement. But let envy depart and censoriousness be silent. If the father of the house is good why should our eye be evil? The soul which fell among thieves has been carried home upon the shoulders of Christ. In our father’s house are many mansions. Where sin hath ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 210, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3000 (In-Text, Margin)
... burial her and her mother. Alas for the frailty and perishableness of human nature! Except that our belief in Christ raises us up to heaven and promises eternity to our souls, the physical conditions of life are the same for us as for the brutes. “There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the evil; to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good so is the sinner; and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath.”[Ecclesiastes 9:2] Man and beast alike are dissolved into dust and ashes.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 228, footnote 8 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3184 (In-Text, Margin)
... other; there is no middle term. Yet penitence can knit death to life. The prodigal son, we are told, wasted all his substance, and in the far country away from his father “would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.” Yet, when he comes back to his father, the fatted calf is killed, a robe and a ring are given to him. That is to say, he receives again Christ’s robe which he had before defiled, and hears to his comfort the injunction: “let thy garments be always white.”[Ecclesiastes 9:8] He receives the signet of God and cries to the Lord: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee;” and receiving the kiss of reconciliation, he says to Him: “Now is the light of thy countenance sealed upon us, O Lord.”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 265, footnote 18 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3681 (In-Text, Margin)
... of virginity and the lilies of chastity grow for us out of the brambles and briers which have formed the lot of women since the day when it was said to Eve, “in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” We are told that the bridegroom feeds among the lilies, that is, among those who have not defiled their garments, for they have remained virgins and have hearkened to the precept of the Preacher: “let thy garments be always white.”[Ecclesiastes 9:8] As the author and prince of virginity He says boldly of Himself: “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.” “The rocks” then “are a refuge for the conies” who when they are persecuted in one city flee into another and have no fear that ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 368, footnote 5 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4448 (In-Text, Margin)
... What really happened is plain enough,—that they who in Paradise remained in perpetual virginity, when they were expelled from Paradise were joined together. Or if Paradise admits of marriage, and there is no difference between marriage and virginity, what prevented their previous intercourse even in Paradise? They are driven out of Paradise; and what they did not there, they do on earth; so that from the very earliest days of humanity virginity was consecrated by Paradise, and marriage by earth.[Ecclesiastes 9:8] “Let thy garments be always white.” The eternal whiteness of our garments is the purity of virginity. In the morning we sowed our seed, and in the evening let us not cease. Let us who served marriage under the law, serve virginity under the Gospel.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 441, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5066 (In-Text, Margin)
... Origen in every detail, but to disclose the mysteries of your insincere “Apol ogy.” I have, however, tarried long in maintaining the opposite to your position, and am afraid that, in my eagerness to expose fraud, I may leave a stumbling-block in the way of the reader. I will, therefore, mass together the evidence, and glance at the proofs in passing, so that we may bring all the weight of Scripture to bear upon your poisonous argument. He who has not a wedding garment, and has not kept that command,[Ecclesiastes 9:8] “Let your garments be always white,” is bound hand and foot that he may not recline at the banquet, or sit on a throne, or stand at the right hand of God; he is sent to Gehenna, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. “The hairs of your head ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 152, footnote 9 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril. (HTML)
On the Mysteries. IV: On the Body and Blood of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2465 (In-Text, Margin)
8. Therefore Solomon also, hinting at this grace, says in Ecclesiastes, Come hither, eat thy bread with joy (that is, the spiritual bread; Come hither, he calls with the call to salvation and blessing), and drink thy wine with a merry heart (that is, the spiritual wine); and let oil be poured out upon thy head (thou seest he alludes even to the mystic Chrism); and let thy garments be always white, for the Lord is well pleased with thy works[Ecclesiastes 9:7-8]; for before thou camest to Baptism, thy works were vanity of vanities. But now, having put off thy old garments, and put on those which are spiritually white, thou must be continually robed in white: of course we mean not this, that thou art always to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 342, footnote 3 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
On the Words of the Gospel, 'When Jesus Had Finished These Sayings,' Etc.--S. Matt. xix. 1. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3833 (In-Text, Margin)
... that is, not of him that willeth only, nor of him that runneth only, but also of God. That sheweth mercy. Next; since to will also is from God, he has attributed the whole to God with reason. However much you may run, however much you may wrestle, yet you need one to give the crown. Except the Lord build the house, they laboured in vain that built it: Except the Lord keep the city, in vain they watched that keep it. I know, He says, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,[Ecclesiastes 9:11] nor the victory to the fighters, nor the harbours to the good sailors; but to God it belongs both to work victory, and to bring the barque safe to port.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 50, footnote 2 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
De Spiritu Sancto. (HTML)
Exposition of the present state of the Churches. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1352 (In-Text, Margin)
78. So, since no human voice is strong enough to be heard in such a disturbance, I reckon silence more profitable than speech, for if there is any truth in the words of the Preacher, “The words of wise men are heard in quiet,”[Ecclesiastes 9:17] in the present condition of things any discussion of them must be anything but becoming. I am moreover restrained by the Prophet’s saying, “Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time,” a time when some trip up their neighbours’ heels, some stamp on a man when he is down, and others clap their hands with joy, but there is not one to feel for the ...