The paremiology, as interdisciplinary science, addresses the study of phenomena that develop different functions. The use of proverbs and aphorisms during the Golden Age of Spanish literature is not stable, as it happens with the exact definition of these and other types of paremies. The historical analysis allows us to assess the consequences textually. The different treatment that erasmism and tacitism give the proverbs affects not only the meaning and stylistic and literary approaches, but conditions the exploitation of these types of employees in different genres. The classifications rely on intralinguistic criteria are not practical for this type of analysis, given the doctrinal character devices of many of these texts, mostly related to the discourses of reason of state or the moralizing indoctrination. These assumptions require a serious review of an issue that involves many aspects of hermeneutical and philological interest.