Texts in Conversation
The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria uses Sirach as an authoritative guide to teach about self-control and temperance, showing how the Jewish wisdom text influenced early Christian tradition.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 31:25
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
23 People bless him who is liberal with his food. The testimony of his excellence will be believed. 24 The city will murmur at him who is a stingy with his food. The testimony of his stinginess will be accurate. 25 Don’t show yourself valiant in wine, for wine has destroyed many. 26 The furnace tests the temper of steel by dipping; so does wine test hearts in the quarreling of the proud. 27 Wine is as good as life to men, if you drink it in moderation. What life is there to a man who is without wine? It has been created to make men glad.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.2
Paedagogus
Early Christian
Be not mighty, he says, at wine; for wine has overcome many. The Scythians, the Celts, the Iberians, and the Thracians, all of them warlike races, are greatly addicted to intoxication, and think that it is an honourable, happy pursuit to engage in. But we, the people of peace, feasting for lawful enjoyment, not to wantonness, drink sober cups of friendship, that our friendships may be shown in a way truly appropriate to the name.
Date: 198 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The eighty-fifth of the Apostolical Canons gives a list of the books of the Hebrew Canon, and adds the first three books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach; these last four are not, however, included in the Canon, though the Wisdom of Sirach is specially recommended for the instruction of the young. Again, in the Apostolical Constitutions, 6:14, 15, quotations from Sirach are given with the same formula as those from the books of the Hebrew Canon, but in the list given in 2:57 of the same work, there is no mention of any of the books of the Apocrypha ... The evidence of Clement of Alexandria is conflicting; in his Paedagogus he quotes very often from Sirach, and speaks of it as 'scripture', from which it would evidently appear that he regarded it as canonical Scripture; but, according to Eusebius, Clement reckoned Sirach among the 'Antilegomena', for in speaking of Clement's works he mentions the Stromateis, or 'Medleys', and says: 'He quotes in them passages from the disputed Scriptures, the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, for example, and of Jesus the son of Sirach, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and those of Barnabas, Clement, and Jude ..."
R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford University Press, 1913), 299.
* 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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