Sirach 1:1

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon

1 All wisdom is from the Lord, and with him it remains forever. 2 The sand of the sea, the drops of rain, and the days of eternity—who can count them? 3 The height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, the abyss, and wisdom —who can search them out? 4 Wisdom was created before all other things, and prudent understanding from eternity. 6 The root of wisdom—to whom has it been revealed? Her subtleties—who knows them?

Clement of Alexandria Stromata 1.4

Patristic

For sensibility finds and invents; since it persuasively exhorts to application. And practice will increase the application which has knowledge for its end. With reason, therefore, the apostle has called the wisdom of God" manifold," and which has manifested its power "in many departments and in many modes" -- by art, by knowledge, by faith, by prophecy -- for our benefit. "For all wisdom is from the Lord, and is with Him for ever," as says the wisdom of Jesus. For if thou call on wisdom and knowledge with a loud voice, and seek it as treasures of silver, and eagerly track it out, thou shalt understand godliness and find divine knowledge." The prophet says this in contradiction to the knowledge according to philosophy, which teaches us to investigate in a magnanimous and noble manner, for our progress in piety.

 Notes and References

"... The Hebrew of Ben Sira was not included in the Jewish biblical canon. Testimony to its survival, however, is found in the numerous quotations of the book in rabbinic literature. Of course, the medieval manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Genizah constitute prima facie evidence for its continued existence in Hebrew. The Greek translation seems to have been in uential in early Christianity, and it eventually was included in the Christian Old Testament (only to be excised by Protestants in the sixteenth century). Sirach is not cited explicitly in the New Testament, and scholars differ as to how much in uence it had on the New Testament writings. Those who see broad influence have argued for it primarily in Matthew, Luke, some of Paul’s letters and the Epistle of James (compare Harrington, Invitation, p. 90; Schürer, History, vol. III.1, pp. 205–208). In other early Christian literature, Didache 4:5 and Barnabas 19:9 bear a very close resemblance to, and perhaps are taken from, Sirach 4:31. If these texts do depend on Sirach, they would be the earliest examples of direct Christian use of the book. A healthy number of Greek and Latin church fathers, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, John Chrysostom, Tertullian, Jerome and Augustine, use Sirach in their writings, and as early as Clement of Alexandria Sirach is cited as scripture, demonstrating the high regard the book came to have in Christian tradition ..."

Ryan, Daniel "Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)" in Aitken, J. K. (ed.) T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (pp. 410-424) T&T Clark International, 2015

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