Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Ecclesiastes 10
There are 28 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 329, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
On the Opposing Powers. (HTML)
... deceive (Achab), and to work a lie, in order that the Lord might mislead the king to his death, for he deserved to suffer. In the first book of Chronicles also it is said, “The devil, Satan, stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number the people.” In the Psalms, moreover, an evil angel is said to harass certain persons. In the book of Ecclesiastes, too, Solomon says, “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for soundness will restrain many transgressions.”[Ecclesiastes 10:4] In Zechariah we read that the devil stood on the right hand of Joshua, and resisted him. Isaiah says that the sword of the Lord arises against the dragon, the crooked serpent. And what shall I say of Ezekiel, who in his second vision prophesies most ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 331, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen De Principiis. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
On the Opposing Powers. (HTML)
... confirmed by the testimony of holy Scripture. That, then, thoughts arise within ourselves, David testifies in the Psalms, saying, “The thought of a man will make confession to Thee, and the rest of the thought shall observe to Thee a festival day.” That this, however, is also brought about by the opposing powers, is shown by Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes in the following manner: “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for soundness restrains great offences.”[Ecclesiastes 10:4] The Apostle Paul also will bear testimony to the same point in the words: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowl edge of Christ.” That it is an effect due to God, nevertheless, is declared by David, ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 553, footnote 11 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. (HTML)
Book III. (HTML)
In Ecclesiasticus, in Solomon: “He that cleaveth firewood shall be endangered by it if the iron shall fall off.”[Ecclesiastes 10:9] Also in Exodus: “In one house shall it be eaten: ye shall not cast forth the flesh abroad out of the house.” Also in the cxxxiid Psalm: “Behold how good and how pleasant a thing it is that brethren should dwell in unity!” Also in the Gospel according to Matthew: “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.” Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “But I beseech you, brethren, by the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 403, footnote 4 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book II. Of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons (HTML)
Sec. III.—How the Bishop is to Treat the Innocent, the Guilty, and the Penitent (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2676 (In-Text, Margin)
... things; and then the wicked one, taking occasion from a single instance, works in others, which God forbid: and by that means the flock will be destroyed. For the greater number of offenders there are, the greater is the mischief that is done by them: for sin which passes without correction grows worse and worse, and spreads to others; since “a little leaven infects the whole lump,” and one thief spreads the abomination over a whole nation and “dead flies spoil the whole pot of sweet ointment;”[Ecclesiastes 10:1] and “when a king hearkens to unrighteous counsel, all the servants under him are wicked.” So one scabbed sheep, if not separated from those that are whole, infects the rest with the same distemper; and a man infected with the plague is to be avoided ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 425, footnote 5 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (HTML)
Book II. Of Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons (HTML)
Sec. VIII.—On the Duty of Working for a Livelihood (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2863 (In-Text, Margin)
... an evil traveller, and want as a swift racer. But if thou beest diligent, thy harvest shall come as a fountain, and want shall fly from thee as an evil runagate.” And again: “He that manageth his own land shall be filled with bread.” And elsewhere he says: “The slothful has folded his own hands together, and has eaten his own flesh.” And afterwards: “The sluggard hides his hand; he will not be able to bring it to his mouth.” And again: “By slothfulness of the hands a floor will be brought low.”[Ecclesiastes 10:18] Labour therefore continually; for the blot of the slothful is not to be healed. But “if any one does not work, let not such a one eat” among you. For the Lord our God hates the slothful. For no one of those who are dedicated to God ought to be idle.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 229, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the creation of angels and men, and of the origin of evil. (HTML)
What the Cause of the Blessedness of the Good Angels Is, and What the Cause of the Misery of the Wicked. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 530 (In-Text, Margin)
Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely is. And if we ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no such essence. And this vice, what else is it called than pride? For “pride is the beginning of sin.”[Ecclesiastes 10:13] They were unwilling, then, to preserve their strength for God; and as adherence to God was the condition of their enjoying an ampler being, they diminished it by preferring themselves to Him. This was the first defect, and the first impoverishment, and the first flaw of their nature, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 358, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel. (HTML)
Of David’s Reign and Merit; And of His Son Solomon, and that Prophecy Relating to Christ Which is Found Either in Those Books Which are Joined to Those Written by Him, or in Those Which are Indubitably His. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1126 (In-Text, Margin)
... “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of the simple in the house of feasting.” But I think that more worthy of quotation from this book which relates to both cities, the one of the devil, the other of Christ, and to their kings, the devil and Christ: “Woe to thee, O land,” he says, “when thy king is a youth, and thy princes eat in the morning! Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in season, in fortitude, and not in confusion!”[Ecclesiastes 10:16-17] He has called the devil a youth, because of the folly and pride, and rashness and unruliness, and other vices which are wont to abound at that age; but Christ is the Son of nobles, that is, of the holy patriarchs, of those belonging to the free ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 12, footnote 1 (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 I. 1–5. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 22 (In-Text, Margin)
... same. From the bee he led him to the locust; from the locust to the lizard; from the lizard to the bird; from the bird to the sheep; from the sheep to the cow; from that to the elephant, and at last to man; and persuaded a man that man was not made by God. Thus the miserable man, being troubled with the flies, became himself a fly, and the property of the devil. In fact, Beelzebub, they say, means “Prince of flies;” and of these it is written, “Dying flies deprive the ointment of its sweetness.”[Ecclesiastes 10:1]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 346, footnote 8 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3352 (In-Text, Margin)
... the demons that war under the devil: what single dragon then, whose head was broken, but the devil himself ought we to understand? What with him hath He done? “Thou hast broken the head of the dragon.” That is, the beginning of sin. That head is the part which received the curse, to wit that the seed of Eve should mark the head of the serpent. For the Church was admonished to shun the beginning of sin. Which is that beginning of sin, like the head of a serpent? The beginning of all sin is pride.[Ecclesiastes 10:13] There hath been broken therefore the head of the dragon, hath been broken pride diabolical. And what with him hath He done, that hath wrought Salvation in the midst of the earth? “Thou hast given him for a morsel to the Ethiopian peoples.” What is ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 504, footnote 5 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
His confession of faith is unsatisfactory. No one asked him about the Trinity, but about Origen's doctrines of the Resurrection, the origin of souls, and the salvability of Satan. As to the Resurrection and to Satan he is ambiguous. As to souls he professes ignorance. (HTML)
... also the Apostle says; “Such men I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.” He delivered to Satan as to a torturer, with a view to their punishment, those who, before they had been delivered to him learned to blaspheme by their own will. David also draws the distinction in a few words between the faults due to his own will and the incentives of vice when he says “Cleanse thou me from my secret faults, and keep back thy servant from alien sins.” We read also in Ecclesiastes[Ecclesiastes 10:4] “If the spirit of a ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place;” from which we may clearly see that we commit sin if we give opportunity to the power which rises up, and if we fail to hurl down headlong the enemy who is scaling our walls. As to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 239, footnote 4 (Image)
Athanasius: Select Writings and Letters
Apology to the Emperor. (Apologia Ad Constantium.) (HTML)
Apology to the Emperor. (Apologia Ad Constantium.) (HTML)
He never saw Constans alone. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1293 (In-Text, Margin)
... Christian brother was not a man of so light a temper, nor was I a person of such a character, that we should communicate together on a subject like this, or that I should slander a brother to a brother, or speak evil of an emperor before an emperor. I am not so mad, Sire, nor have I forgotten that divine utterance which says, ‘Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter[Ecclesiastes 10:20].’ If then those things, which are spoken in secret against you that are kings, are not hidden, it is not incredible that I should have spoken against you in the presence of a king, and of so many bystanders? For I never saw your brother by myself, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 4, page 535, footnote 2 (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 339. Coss. Constantius Augustus II, Constans I; Præfect, Philagrius the Cappadocian, for the second time; Indict. xii; Easter-day xvii Kal. Mai, xx Pharmuthi; Æra Dioclet. 55. (HTML)
... against the ‘Word of the Father.’ For who that looks upon their dispersion, and the desolation of their city, may not aptly say, ‘Woe unto them, for they have imagined an evil imagination, saying against their own soul, let us bind the righteous man, because he is not pleasing to us.’ And full well is it so, my brethren; for when they erred concerning the Scriptures, they knew not that ‘he who diggeth a pit for his neighbour falleth therein; and he who destroyeth a hedge, a serpent shall bite him[Ecclesiastes 10:8].’ And if they had not turned their faces from the Lord, they would have feared what was written before in the divine Psalms: ‘The heathen are caught in the pit which they made; in the snare which they hid is their own foot taken. The Lord is known ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 33, footnote 10 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Eustochium. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 547 (In-Text, Margin)
... that you should refuse, and say: “I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?” Arise forthwith and open. Otherwise while you linger He may pass on and you may have mournfully to say: “I opened to my beloved, but my beloved was gone.” Why need the doors of your heart be closed to the Bridegroom? Let them be open to Christ but closed to the devil according to the saying: “If the spirit of him who hath power rise up against thee, leave not thy place.”[Ecclesiastes 10:4] Daniel, in that upper story to which he withdrew when he could no longer continue below, had his windows open toward Jerusalem. Do you too keep your windows open, but only on the side where light may enter and whence you may see the eye of the Lord. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 58, footnote 12 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Marcella. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 919 (In-Text, Margin)
... never stir abroad, and the wax tapers that we should look for the bridegroom’s coming with our lights burning. The cups also warn us to mortify the flesh and always to be ready for martyrdom. “How bright,” says the psalmist, “is the cup of the Lord, intoxicating them that drink it!” Moreover, when you offer to matrons little fly-flaps to brush away mosquitoes, it is a charming way of hinting that they should at once check voluptuous feelings, for “dying flies,” we are told, “spoil sweet ointment.”[Ecclesiastes 10:1] In such presents, then, as these, virgins can find a model, and matrons a pattern. To me, too, your gifts convey a lesson, although one of an opposite kind. For chairs suit idlers, sackcloth does for penitents, and cups are wanted for the thirsty. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 251, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Rusticus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3489 (In-Text, Margin)
... or associate with. Nor must you turn aside your heart unto words of evil lest the psalmist say to you: “Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son,” and lest you become as “the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows,” and as the man whose “words were softer than oil yet were they drawn swords.” The Preacher expresses this more clearly still when he says: “Surely the serpent will bite where there is no enchantment, and the slan derer is no better.”[Ecclesiastes 10:11] But you will say, ‘I am not given to detraction, but how can I check others who are?’ If we put forward such a plea as this it can only be that we may “practise wicked works with men that work iniquity.” Yet Christ is not deceived by this device. It ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 265, footnote 12 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3675 (In-Text, Margin)
8. In speaking thus I do not wish to utter an ill-omened prophecy against you but only to warn you as an apprehensive and prudent monitor who in your case fears even what is safe. What says the scripture? “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place.”[Ecclesiastes 10:4] We must always stand under arms and in battle array, ready to engage the foe. When he tries to dislodge us from our position and to make us fall back, we must plant our feet firmly down, and say with the psalmist, “he hath set my feet upon a rock” and “the rocks are a refuge for the conies.” In this latter passage for ‘conies’ many read ‘hedgehogs.’ Now the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 266, footnote 2 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Demetrius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3687 (In-Text, Margin)
But let us turn back to the passage first quoted, “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place,” a sentence which is followed by these words: “for yielding pacifieth great offences.”[Ecclesiastes 10:4] The meaning is, that if the serpent finds his way into your thoughts you must “keep your heart with all diligence” and sing with David, “cleanse thou me from secret faults: keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins,” and come not to “the great transgression” which is sin in act. Rather slay the allurements to vice while they are still only thoughts; and dash the little ones of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 8, footnote 10 (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 501 (In-Text, Margin)
3. Yet thou art not the sole author of the evil, but there is also another most wicked prompter, the devil. He indeed suggests, but does not get the mastery by force over those who do not consent. Therefore saith the Preacher, If the spirit of him that hath power rise up against thee, quit not thy place[Ecclesiastes 10:4]. Shut thy door, and put him far from thee, and he shall not hurt thee. But if thou indifferently admit the thought of lust, it strikes root in thee by its suggestions, and enthrals thy mind, and drags thee down into a pit of evils.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 215, footnote 9 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2662 (In-Text, Margin)
... consequence, and so accessible, that we need but wish, and we would be wise?” “It would be utter folly to do so.” If we, or any learned and prudent man, were to say this to them, and try by degrees to cleanse them from their error, it would be sowing upon rocks, and speaking to ears of men who will not hear: so far are they from being even wise enough to perceive their own ignorance. And we may rightly, in my opinion, apply to them the saying of Solomon: There is an evil which I have seen under the sun,[Ecclesiastes 10:5] a man wise in his own conceit; and a still greater evil is to charge with the instruction of others a man who is not even aware of his own ignorance.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 220, footnote 4 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2767 (In-Text, Margin)
73. But this speed, in its untrustworthiness and excessive haste, is in danger of being like the seeds which fell upon the rock, and, because they had no depth of earth, sprang up at once, but could not bear even the first heat of the sun; or like the foundation laid upon the sand, which could not even make a slight resistance to the rain and the winds. Woe to thee, O city, whose king is a child,[Ecclesiastes 10:16] says Solomon. Be not hasty of speech, says Solomon again, asserting that hastiness of speech is less serious than heated action. And who, in spite of all this, demands haste rather than security and utility? Who can mould, as clay-figures are modelled in a single day, the defender of the truth, who ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 161, footnote 3 (Image)
Basil: Letters and Select Works
The Letters. (HTML)
To Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2224 (In-Text, Margin)
... requital.[Ecclesiastes 10:16] (a still further touch of trouble) and whose “Princes” do not “eat” after night but revel at mid-day, raging after other men’s wives with less understanding than brute beasts. This man must surely look for the scourges of the righteous Judge, repaid ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 146, footnote 4 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins, For the Antiquity and Universality of the Catholic Faith Against the Profane Novelties of All Heresies. (HTML)
Chapter XXI. Exposition of St. Paul's Words.--1 Tim. vi. 20. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 497 (In-Text, Margin)
... after another, and are constantly longing to add, change, take away, in religion, as though the doctrine, “Let what has once for all been revealed suffice,” were not a heavenly but an earthly rule,—a rule which could not be complied with except by continual emendation, nay, rather by continual fault-finding; whereas the divine Oracles cry aloud, “Remove not the landmarks, which thy fathers have set,” and “Go not to law with a Judge,” and “Whoso breaketh through a fence a serpent shall bite him,”[Ecclesiastes 10:8] and that saying of the Apostle wherewith, as with a spiritual sword, all the wicked novelties of all heresies often have been, and will always have to be, decapitated, “O Timothy, keep the deposit, shunning profane novelties of words and oppositions ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 304, footnote 12 (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 I. First Conference of Abbot Moses. (HTML)
Chapter XIX. Of the three origins of our thoughts. (HTML)
... into an angel of light to us: as when the evangelist tells us: “And when supper was ended, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray” the Lord: and again also “after the sop,” he says, “Satan entered into him.” Peter also says to Ananias: “Why hath Satan tempted thine heart, to lie to the Holy Ghost?” And that which we read in the gospel much earlier as predicted by Ecclesiastes: “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place.”[Ecclesiastes 10:4] That too which is said to God against Ahab in the third book of Kings, in the character of an unclean spirit: “I will go forth and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” But they arise from ourselves, when in the course of nature ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 313, footnote 1 (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 II. Second Conference of Abbot Moses. (HTML)
Chapter XI. The words of Abbot Serapion on the decline of thoughts that are exposed to others, and also on the danger of self-confidence. (HTML)
... manifest. And so, as the old man declared, said he, the sway of that diabolical tyranny over me has been destroyed by the power of this confession and stilled for ever so that the enemy has never even tried to force upon me any more the recollection of this desire, nor have I ever felt myself seized with the passion of that furtive longing. And this meaning we see is neatly expressed in a figure in Ecclesiastes. “If” says he “a serpent bite without hissing there is no sufficiency for the charmer,”[Ecclesiastes 10:11] showing that the bite of a serpent in silence is dangerous, i.e., if a suggestion or thought springing from the devil is not by means of confession shown to some charmer, I mean some spiritually minded person who knows how to heal the wound at once ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 361, 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 VI. Conference of Abbot Theodore. On the Death of the Saints. (HTML)
Chapter XVII. That no one is dashed to the ground by a sudden fall. (HTML)
... sudden collapse, but only when there is some flaw of long standing in the foundation, or when by long continued neglect of its inmates, what was at first only a little drip finds its way through, and so the protecting walls are by degrees ruined, and in consequence of long standing neglect the gap becomes larger, and break away, and in time the drenching storm and rain pours in like a river: for “by slothfulness a building is cast down, and through the weakness of hands the house shall drop through.”[Ecclesiastes 10:18] And that the same thing happens spiritually to the soul the same Solomon thus tells us in other words, when he says: “water dripping drives a man out of the house on a stormy day.” Elegantly then does he compare carelessness of mind to a roof, and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 367, footnote 5 (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 XIV. An objection, as to how we ought to believe that devils see into the thoughts of men. (HTML)
Germanus: In this way, which you describe, those spirits cannot possibly see into our thoughts. But we think it utterly absurd to hold such an opinion, when Scripture says: “If the spirit of him that hath power ascend upon thee;”[Ecclesiastes 10:4] and again: “When the devil had put it into the heart of Simon Iscariot to betray the Lord.” How then can we believe that our thoughts are not open to them, when we feel that for the most part they spring up and are nursed by their suggestions and instigation?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 488, footnote 4 (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 XVIII. Conference of Abbot Piamun. On the Three Sorts of Monks. (HTML)
Chapter XVI. On the perfection of patience. (HTML)
... charmer, because as they are tormented not by the faults but by the prosperity of those of whom they are jealous, they are ashamed to display the real truth and look out for some external unnecessary and trifling causes of offence: and of these, because they are altogether false, vain is the hope of cure, while the deadly poison which they will not produce is lurking in their veins. Of which the wisest of men has fitly said: “If a serpent bite without hissing, there is no supply for the charmer.”[Ecclesiastes 10:2] For those are silent bites, to which alone the medicine of the wise is no succour. For that evil is so far incurable that it is made worse by attentions, it is increased by services, is irritated by presents, because as the same Solomon says: “envy ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 13, page 228, footnote 8 (Image)
Gregory the Great II, Ephriam Syrus, Aphrahat
Selections from the Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian and from the Demonstrations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. (HTML)
Ephraim Syrus: Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh. (HTML)
Hymn II. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 398 (In-Text, Margin)
Let us praise Him, Who prevailed and quickened us by His stripes! Praise we Him, Who took away the curse by His thorns! Praise we Him Who put death to death by His dying! Praise we Him, Who held His peace and justified us! Praise we Him, Who rebuked death that had overcome us! Blessed He, Whose helpful graces cleansed out the left side![Ecclesiastes 10:2]