Texts in Conversation
Augustine’s use of the Wisdom of Solomon reveals how early Christian tradition incorporated Hellenistic Jewish writings through the Latin Bible. His quote shows how he used Wisdom as an authoritative source for his teaching.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 7:27
Deuterocanon
25 For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty. Therefore nothing defiled can find entrance into her. 26 For she is a reflection of everlasting light, an unspotted mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness. 27 Although she is one, she has power to do all things. Remaining in herself, she renews all things. From generation to generation passing into holy souls, she makes friends of God and prophets. 28 For God loves nothing except one who dwells with wisdom. 29 For she is fairer than the sun, and above all the constellations of the stars. She is better than light.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Augustine, Confessions 9.10
Early Christian
And when our conversation had brought us to the point where the very highest of physical sense and the most intense illumination of physical light seemed, in comparison with the sweetness of that life to come, not worthy of comparison, nor even of mention, we lifted ourselves with a more ardent love toward the Selfsame, and we gradually passed through all the levels of bodily objects, and even through heaven itself, where the sun and moon and stars shine on the earth. Indeed, we soared higher yet by inward reflection, speaking and marveling at your works. And we came at last to our own minds and went beyond them, so that we might climb as high as that region of unfailing plenty where you feed Israel forever with the food of truth, where life is that Wisdom by whom all things are made, both those that have been and those that are to be. Wisdom is not made, but is as she has been and forever will be; for "to have been" and "to be hereafter" do not apply to her, but only "to be," because she is eternal and "to have been" and "to be hereafter" are not eternal. And while we were thus speaking and straining after her, we just barely touched her with the whole effort of our hearts. Then with a sigh, leaving the first fruits of the Spirit bound to that ecstasy, we returned to the sounds of our own tongue, where the spoken word had both beginning and end. But what is like your Word, our Lord, who remains in himself without becoming old, and "makes all things new"?
Date: 397–400 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... the West, further from the home of the Hebrew canon, and knowing the Old Testament chiefly through the Latin version of the LXX, did not scruple to mingle non-canonical books with the canonical. Hilary and Ruffinus were doubtless checked, the one by the influence of Eastern theologians, the other by the scholarship of Jerome; but Hilary mentions that there were those who wished to raise the number of the canonical books to twenty-four by including Tobit and Judith in the canon. From the end of the fourth century the inclusion of the non-canonical books in Western lists is a matter of course. Even Augustine has no scruples on the subject; he makes the books of the Old Testament forty-four (de doctr. Chr. ii. 13 "his xliv libris Testamenti Veteris terminatur auctoritas"), and among them Tobit, Judith, and two books of Maccabees take rank with the histories; and the two Wisdoms, although he confesses that they were not the work of Solomon, are classed with the Prophets. His judgement was that of his Church ("sunt canonicae scripturae Salomonis libri quinque ... Tobias, Judith ... Machabaeorum libri duo"). The African Church had probably never known any other canon, and its belief prevailed wherever the Latin Bible was read ..."
Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek: With an Appendix Containing the Letter of Aristeas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900).
* 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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