Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Wisdom of Solomon 4:9
There are 4 footnotes for this reference.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 119, footnote 4 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1735 (In-Text, Margin)
... the goodman of the house may bid you to go up higher. For what is there in me or what qualities do I possess that I should merit praise from a man of learning? that I, small and lowly as I am, should be eulogized by lips which have pleaded on behalf of our most religious sovereign? Do not, my dearest brother, estimate my worth by the number of my years. Gray hairs are not wisdom; it is wisdom which is as good as gray hairs. At least that is what Solomon says: “wisdom is the gray hair unto men.”[Wisdom of Solomon 4:9] Moses too in choosing the seventy elders is told to take those whom he knows to be elders indeed, and to select them not for their years but for their discretion. And, as a boy, Daniel judges old men and in the flower of youth condemns the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 127, footnote 1 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Heliodorus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1856 (In-Text, Margin)
... For the first and only time he was angry with his uncle, complaining that the burthen laid upon him was too heavy for him and that his youth unfitted him for the priesthood. But the more he struggled against it, the more he drew to himself the hearts of all: his refusal did but prove him worthy of an office which he was reluctant to assume, and all the more worthy because he declared himself unworthy. We too in our day have our Timothy; we too have seen that wisdom which is as good as gray hairs;[Wisdom of Solomon 4:9] our Moses has chosen an elder whom he has known to be an elder indeed. Nepotian regarded the clerical state less as an honour than a burthen. He made it his first care to silence envy by humility, and his next to give no cause for scandal that such ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 165, footnote 12 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Salvina. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2429 (In-Text, Margin)
6. Why do I farther postpone the end? “All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.” The dust has returned to the dust. He has fallen asleep in the Lord and has been laid with his fathers, full of days and of light and fostered in a good old age. For “wisdom is the grey hair unto men.”[Wisdom of Solomon 4:9] “In a short time he” has “fulfilled a long time.” In his place we now have his charming children. His wife is the heir of his chastity. To those who miss his father the tiny Nebridius shews him once more, for
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 313, 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 II. Second Conference of Abbot Moses. (HTML)
Chapter XIII. The answer concerning the trampling down of shame, and the danger of one without contrition. (HTML)
... good morals, so too we cannot find that all old men are equally perfect and excellent. For the true riches of old men are not to be measured by grey hairs but by their diligence in youth and the rewards of their past labours. “For,” says one, “the things that thou hast not gathered in thy youth, how shalt thou find them in thy old age?” “For venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years: but the understanding of a man is grey hairs, and a spotless life is old age.”[Wisdom of Solomon 4:8-9] And therefore we are not to follow in the steps or embrace the traditions and advice of every old man whose head is covered with grey hairs, and whose age is his sole claim to respect, but only of those whom we find to have distinguished themselves ...