Sirach 11:28

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon

27 An hour's misery makes one forget past delights, and at the close of one's life one's deeds are revealed. 28 Call no one happy before his death; by how he ends, a person becomes known. 29 Do not invite everyone into your home, for many are the tricks of the crafty. 30 Like a decoy partridge in a cage, so is the mind of the proud, and like spies they observe your weakness; 31 for they lie in wait, turning good into evil, and to worthy actions they attach blame.

Augustine City of God 13.11

On the City of God Against the Pagans
Patristic

Let us, then, speak in the customary way — no man ought to speak otherwise — and let us call the time before death come, before death; as it is written, Praise no man before his death. And when it has happened, let us say that after death this or that took place. And of the present time let us speak as best we can, as when we say, He, when dying, made his will, and left this or that to such and such persons,— though, of course, he could not do so unless he were living, and did this rather before death than in death. And let us use the same phraseology as Scripture uses; for it makes no scruple of saying that the dead are not after but in death. So that verse, For in death there is no remembrance of you. For until the resurrection men are justly said to be in death; as every one is said to be in sleep till he awakes.

 Notes and References

"... Within early Christianity, the Letter of Barnabas echoes Sirach 5:12–14 about the danger of a double tongue, as well as the warning in Sirach 4:31 against an ungenerous attitude (Barnabas 19:7–9). Origen (d. 254 ce) quotes Ben Sira as scriptural when commenting on several Old Testament passages (Genesis 12:5; Joshua 15:6; Jeremiah 16:6). Clement of Alexandria (d. 215 CE) quotes about eighty Sirach verses, while John Chrysostom (d. 407 CE) includes about three hundred citations from the book. Augustine (d. 430 CE) not only cites Sirach about 300x, but also preached sermons on Sirach passages. Rabanus Maurus (d. 856 CE), abbot of Fulda in Germany, composed the earliest surviving Latin commentary on Sirach ..."

Corley, Jeremy "Sirach" in Oegema, Gerbern S. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (pp. 284-305) Oxford University Press, 2021

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.