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The Christian theologian Augustine uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source for teaching and theology, adopting its description of divine wisdom as the creative and animating force that moves through all things.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 7:22
Deuterocanon
20 the natures of living creatures and the raging of wild beasts; the violence of winds and the thoughts of men; the diversities of plants and the virtues of roots. 21 All things that are either secret or manifest I learned, 22 for wisdom, that is the architect of all things, taught me. For there is in her a spirit that is quick to understand, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, freely moving, clear in utterance, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving what is good, keen, unhindered, 23 beneficent, loving toward man, steadfast, sure, free from care, all-powerful, all-surveying, and penetrating through all spirits that are quick to understand, pure, most subtle. 24 For wisdom is more mobile than any motion. Yes, she pervades and penetrates all things by reason of her purity.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Augustine, City of God 11.10
On the City of God Against the Pagans
Early Christian
According to this, then, those things which are essentially and truly divine are called simple, because in them quality and substance are identical, and because they are divine, or wise, or blessed in themselves, and without anything added from outside. In Holy Scripture, it is true, the Spirit of wisdom is called “manifold” because it contains many things in it; but what it contains it also is, and it being one is all these things. For there are not many wisdoms, but one, in which are untold and infinite treasures of things intellectual, in which are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of things visible and changeable which were created by it. For God made nothing unwittingly; not even a human workman can be said to do so. But if He knew all that He made, He made only those things which He had known. From this follows a very striking but true conclusion, that this world could not be known to us unless it existed, but could not have existed unless it had been known to God.
Date: 426 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In affirming the canonicity of the two ‘Solomonic’ books not written by Solomon, Augustine says of Wisdom and Sirach “the Church especially in the West has accepted them as authoritative from antiquity”; City of God 17.20). A survey of patristic comments on the liturgical use of what Rufinus called the ecclesiastical books bears out Augustine’s geographical distinction. Eastern sources restrict the liturgical use of documents to the books of the Jewish canon. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 4.36–38) emphatically asserts that only the 22 books accepted by the Jews find a place in Christian liturgy, and he advises catechumens to maintain this standard in their private reading. Athanasius (Festal Letters 39) assigns the ecclesiastical books the role of elementary instruction in the faith, as do the Apostolic Canons (canon 85); this position seems to discount their use in the liturgy. The Council of Laodicea is more explicit; in the same context in which it limits the OT canon to 22 books ... However, the matter stood differently among Latin writers: Jerome, Rufinus, and Augustine all affirm that the ecclesiastical books are used in the corporate worship of the Church ... if the Church reads a ‘scriptural’ book, it is a canonical book. Similarly, Augustine responds to the objection of some that the Book of Wisdom is not canonical by arguing that its employment in the liturgy implies its divine authority ..."
Edmon L. Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text, VCSup 114 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 54–55.
* 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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