Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Ecclesiastes 10:11

Western Saints

Jerome

"If the snake bites because it has not been charmed, then there is no advantage to the charmer's art. "The meaning of this is very apparent: the serpent and the disparager are of the same ilk. For just as the hidden snake bites and injects its poison, so too the other disparages in private, and he pours out the poison of his heart against his brother, and there will be nothing between him and the serpent. …

Commentary on Ecclesiastes ↗

Bonaventure

If it bites etc. Here he shows fourthly that one ought not secretly detract from such a prelate, and he shows the magnitude of the fault of detraction through a comparison in bodily things. Therefore he says: If a serpent bites in silence, which is proper to the serpent itself, because it secretly infuses venom, he who secretly detracts has nothing less than it, because, just as that is fraudulent, so also is this, because this is to curse the deaf: Leviticus 19: "You shall not curse the deaf, nor place a stumbling block before the …

Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Chapter 10 ↗