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The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria cites Baruch’s call to hear the commandments of life, treating this Jewish source as part of an authoritative wisdom tradition he used for his own moral teaching.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Baruch 3:9
Deuterocanon
7 For this cause, you have put your fear in our hearts, to the intent that we should call upon your name. We will praise you in our captivity, for we have called to mind all the iniquity of our fathers who sinned before you. 8 Behold, we are yet this day in our captivity where you have scattered us, for a reproach and a curse, and to be subject to penalty according to all the iniquities of our fathers who departed from the Lord our God. 9 Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life! Give ear to understand wisdom! 10 How is it, O Israel, that you are in your enemies’ land, that you have become old in a strange country, that you are defiled with the dead, 11 that you are counted with those who are in Hades?
Date: 200–50 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 1.10
Paedagogus
Early Christian
By Jeremiah, too, He sets forth prudence, when he says, Blessed are we, Israel; for what is pleasing to God is known by us; — and it is known by the Word, by whom we are blessed and wise. For wisdom and knowledge are mentioned by the same prophet, when he says, Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life, and give ear to know understanding. By Moses, too, by reason of the love He has to man, He promises a gift to those who hasten to salvation. For He says, And I will bring you into the good land, which the Lord swore to your fathers. And further, And I will bring you into the holy mountain, and make you glad, He says by Isaiah. And still another form of instruction is benediction. And blessed is he, He says by David, who has not sinned; and he shall be as the tree planted near the channels of the waters, which will yield its fruit in its season, and his leaf shall not wither (by this He made an allusion to the resurrection); and whatever he shall do shall prosper with him. Such He wishes us to be, that we may be blessed.
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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