Provérbios 1
Didymus the Blind · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
Provérbios 1:1-2
A proverb is a saying such as, "War is pleasant to the inexperienced," or "A drop constantly falling hollows a stone." The name proverb derived from the fact that once roads were marked off with no signs. Now there are signs, which are called miliaria (milestones) by the Romans, while they were just called signs before. Ancient people set them in certain places and then inscribed them with certain information and questions. So they fulfilled two purposes. On the one hand, they indicated to the traveler the length of the journey. On the other, when one read the inscription and kept busy comprehending it, one was relieved of weariness. Therefore a road is called in Greek oimos, from which is derived the word paroimia, which means "proverb." — COMMENTARY ON THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON, FRAGMENT 1:1
Provérbios 1:7
To know goodness is not sufficient to reach blessedness, if one does not put goodness into practice with works. Piety toward God is actually the beginning of knowledge. — COMMENTARY ON THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON, FRAGMENT 1:7
Provérbios 1:8-9
God is Father of the righteous. Whoever practices justice was born from God. Our mother is the church, whose bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ. Our laws are the apostolic constitutions. Even though the concepts expressed above have a sublime meaning, they also apply to earthly parents when they educate their children in how to live piously before God. Since that teacher, who generates his children through the gospel, is a man, his wife and mother of his children is the church, or rather the ecclesiastical doctrine and way of life. If you, he says, listen to me as the author of the Proverbs—first in my role as the narrator of the father, and then as the narrator of wisdom and virtue (that is, of the mother)—you will be encircled with a crown of grace and your neck will be adorned with a necklace fashioned of intellectual gold and jewels. The material of the crown, with which the head of the interior man is encircled, is the circle of virtues, which are called graces. Accordingly, the golden necklace put around the neck of the soul (that is, around one's obedience) must be understood as a part of the intellectual crown. — COMMENTARY ON THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON, FRAGMENT 1:8