Texts in Conversation
The Christian theologian Cyprian uses Sirach as an authoritative source to teach about integrity and speech, repeating its image of a clay pot refined in fire to describe how words reveal a person’s true nature.
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Sirach 27:5
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
3 If a person is not steadfast in the fear of the Lord, his house will be quickly overthrown. 4 When a sieve is shaken, the refuse appears; so do a person's faults when he speaks. 5 The kiln tests the potter's vessels; so the test of a person is in his conversation. 6 Its fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree; so a person's speech discloses the cultivation of his mind. 7 Do not praise anyone before he speaks, for this is the way people are tested.
Date: 195-175 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Cyprian Treatises 7:13
Early Christian
12 Thus Abraham pleased God, who, that he might please God, did not shrink even from losing his son, or from doing an act of parricide. You, who cannot endure to lose your son by the law and lot of mortality, what would you do if you were bidden to slay your son? The fear and faith of God ought to make you prepared for everything, although it should be the loss of private estate, although the constant and cruel harassment of your limbs by agonizing disorders, although the deadly and mournful wrench from wife, from children, from departing dear ones; Let not these things be offenses to you, but battles: nor let them weaken nor break the Christian's faith, but rather show forth his strength in the struggle, since all the injury inflicted by present troubles is to be despised in the assurance of future blessings. Unless the battle has preceded, there cannot be a victory: when there shall have been, in the onset of battle, the victory, then also the crown is given to the victors. For the helmsman is recognised in the tempest; in the warfare the soldier is proved. It is a wanton display when there is no danger. Struggle in adversity is the trial of the truth. The tree which is deeply founded in its root is not moved by the onset of winds, and the ship which is compacted of solid timbers is beaten by the waves and is not shattered; and when the threshing-floor brings out the grain, the strong and robust grains despise the winds, while the empty chaff is carried away by the blast that falls upon it.
Date: 245-260 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The eighty-fifth of the Apostolical Canons provides a list of the books in the Hebrew Canon and additionally includes the first three books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach. However, these last four books are not included in the Canon, although the Wisdom of Sirach is specially recommended for the instruction of the young. In the Apostolical Constitutions, specifically in sections vi. 14 and 15 (also known as the Didascalia), quotations from Sirach are given with the same formula as those from the books of the Hebrew Canon. Yet, in section ii. 57 of the same work, there is no mention of any of the books of the Apocrypha. On the other hand, at the Council of Hippo in A.D. 393, Sirach was specially mentioned as one of the canonical books. This was further supported at the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397, where the "five books of Solomon," namely Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, and Sirach, were reckoned among the canonical Scriptures. (Between the years A.D. 390 and 419 no less than six councils were held in Africa, and four of these at Carthage. For a time, under the inspiration of Aurelius and Augustine, the Church of Tertullian and Cyprian was filled with a new life before its fatal desolation ...) This decision was also confirmed by the Council of Carthage in A.D. 419. As we delve into what the Church Fathers have said regarding the canonicity of the book, our attention first turns to the Eastern Church ..."
Charles, R. H.
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
(p. 299) Oxford University Press, 1913
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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