Texts in Conversation
Sirach warns that the fate of the ungodly is fire and worms, an image of judgment based on Isaiah. The Christian theologian Augustine quotes this in the City of God, showing how he reads it authoritatively and calls it scripture.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 7:17
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
15 Don’t hate hard labor or farm work, which the Most High has created. 16 Don’t number yourself among the multitude of sinners. Remember that wrath will not wait. 17 Humble your soul greatly, for the punishment of the ungodly man is fire and the worm. 18 Don’t exchange a friend for something, neither a true brother for the gold of Ophir. 19 Don’t deprive yourself of a wise and good wife, for her grace is worth more than gold.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Augustine, City of God 21.9
On the City of God Against the Pagans
Early Christian
Isaiah 51:8 But those who have no doubt that in that future punishment both body and soul will suffer, affirm that the body will be burned with fire, while the soul will be, as it were, gnawed by a worm of anguish. Though this view is more reasonable — for it is absurd to suppose that either body or soul will escape pain in the future punishment — still, for my own part, I find it easier to understand both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does; and I think that Scripture is silent regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not expressed, it is necessarily understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured with a fruitless repentance. For we read in the ancient Scriptures, “The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms.”
Date: 426 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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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 ..."
Jeremy Corley, “Sirach,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 284–305.
* 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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