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The Christian theologian Augustine uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source for teaching, repeating its description of how the body weighs down the soul and intellect, showing how it influenced early Christian tradition.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE

Wisdom of Solomon 9:15

Deuterocanon
13 For what man will know the counsel of God? Or who will conceive what the Lord wills? 14 For the thoughts of mortals are unstable, and our plans are prone to fail. 15 For a corruptible body weighs down the soul. The earthy tent burdens a mind that is full of cares. 16 We can hardly guess the things that are on earth, and we find the things that are close at hand with labor; but who has traced out the things that are in the heavens? 17 Who gained knowledge of your counsel, unless you gave wisdom, and sent your holy spirit from on high?
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)

Augustine, City of God 19.4

On the City of God Against the Pagans
Early Christian
We can scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears, when we think of or see the actions and words of such deranged persons, and consider how different from and even opposed to their own sober judgment and ordinary conduct their present demeanor is. And what shall I say of those who suffer from demonic possession? Where is their own intelligence hidden and buried while the malignant spirit is using their body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite sure that no such thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then, as to the perception of truth, what can we hope for even in this way while in the body, as we read in the true book of Wisdom, “The corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle presses down the mind that muses upon many things?”
Date: 426 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References

#1459
"... 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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