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Sirach describes the universal burden of mortality placed on all of Adam's descendants. The Christian theologian Augustine quotes this in the City of God, highlighting how he reads it as an authoritative source for teaching and calls it scripture.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 40:1
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
1 Great toil is created for every man. A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their coming forth from their mother’s womb, until the day for their burial in the mother of all things. 2 The expectation of things to come, and the day of death, trouble their thoughts, and cause fear in their hearts. 3 From him who sits on a throne of glory, even to him who is humbled in earth and ashes,
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Augustine, City of God 21.14
On the City of God Against the Pagans
Early Christian
For he is said to have been the inventor of magical arts, though indeed they were unable to secure to him even the poor happiness of this present life against the assaults of his enemies. For, himself king of the Bactrians, he was conquered by Ninus king of the Assyrians. In short, the words of Scripture, “A heavy yoke is on the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb until the day that they return to the mother of all things,” — these words so infallibly find fulfillment that even the little ones, who by the washing of regeneration have been freed from the bond of original sin in which alone they were held, still suffer many ills, and in some instances are even exposed to the assaults of evil spirits. But let us not for a moment suppose that this suffering is harmful to their future happiness, even though it has so increased as to separate soul from body, and to end their life in that early age.
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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