The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
All Commentaries on Proverbs 1:7 Go To Proverbs 1
Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
There are things practiced in a vulgar style by some people, such as control over pleasures. For as among the heathen there are those who, from the impossibility of obtaining what one sees and from fear of men, and also for the sake of greater pleasures, abstain from the delights before them, so also, in the case of faith, some practice selfrestraint, either out of regard to the promise or from fear of God. [Indeed] such selfrestraint is the basis of knowledge, and an approach to something better, and an effort after perfection. For “the fear of the Lord,” it is said, “is the beginning of wisdom.”
