Texts in Conversation
Sirach describes wisdom existing before all things, a theme the Christian theologian Augustine echoes in the Confessions. His quotation often matches the Greek more than the Latin, showing a careful and authoritative reading of the text.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 1:4
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
2 Who can count the sand of the seas, the drops of rain, and the days of eternity? 3 Who will search out the height of the sky, the breadth of the earth, the deep, and wisdom? 4 Wisdom has been created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from everlasting. 6 To whom has the root of wisdom been revealed? Who has known her shrewd counsels? 8 There is one wise, greatly to be feared, sitting upon his throne: the Lord.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Augustine, Confessions 12.15
Early Christian
For, although we can find no time before it (for wisdom was created before all things), this is certainly not that Wisdom which is absolutely coeternal and equal with you, our God, its Father, the Wisdom through whom all things were created and in whom, in the beginning, you created the heaven and earth. This is truly the created Wisdom, namely, the intelligible nature which, in its contemplation of light, is light. For this is also called wisdom, even if it is a created wisdom. But the difference between the Light that gives light and that which is enlightened is as great as is the difference between the Wisdom that creates and that which is created. So also is the difference between the Righteousness that justifies and the righteousness that is made by justification. For we also are called your righteousness, for a certain servant of yours says, "That we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Therefore, there is a certain created wisdom that was created before all things: the rational and intelligible mind of that chaste city of yours. It is our mother which is above and is free and "eternal in the heavens"—but in what heavens except those which praise you, the "heaven of heavens"? This also is the "heaven of heavens" which is the Lord's—although we find no time before it, since what has been created before all things also precedes the creation of time. Still, the eternity of the Creator himself is before it, from whom it took its beginning as created, though not in time (since time did not yet exist), even though time belongs to its created nature.
Date: 397–400 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... As to Augustine’s use of the Book of Ecclesiasticus, it is striking that more than once he quotes a text that is somewhat different from the Vetus Latina, which for the Book of Ben Sira, serves as the traditional Latin text. Since Augustine’s quotations from the Book of Ben Sira have more than once been brought in line with the Greek translation, a thorough investigation into this phenomenon is needed in order to find out whether he had (some) knowledge of the Greek text of the Book of Ecclesiasticus. Apart from Speculum in which Augustine for his quotations from the Book of Ben Sira usually follows the Latin, in his other works he rather frequently appears to correct the Latin Ben Sira quotations according to the Greek. An investigation into this intriguing question would be very useful. Such an in depth inquiry should also take into full consideration whether, and to what extent, St. Augustine has been influenced by a text type of Ecclesiasticus that was already used by St. Cyprian and has even been given its own siglum (K) by Thiele ..."
Pancratius C. Beentjes, “Saint Augustine's Sermons 38-41 on the Book of Ben Sira,” in The Scriptures of Israel in Jewish and Christian Tradition: Essays in Honour of Maarten J. J. Menken, ed. Bart Koet, Steven Moyise, and Joseph Verheyden, NovTSup 148 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 81–94.
* 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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