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The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria uses Sirach as an authoritative source to teach about maintaining appearance as a sign of character, demonstrating how the Jewish wisdom text influenced early Christian teaching and tradition.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 19:29
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
26 There is one who does wickedly, who hangs down his head with mourning; but inwardly he is full of deceit, 27 bowing down his face, and pretending to be deaf in one ear. Where he isn’t known, he will take advantage of you. 28 And if for lack of power he is hindered from sinning, if he finds opportunity, he will do mischief. 29 A man will be known by his appearance. One who has understanding will be known by his face when you meet him. 30 A man’s attire, grinning laughter, and the way he walks show what he is.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3.3
Paedagogus
Early Christian
What, then, will not women with strong propensities to lust practice, when they look on men perpetrating such enormities? Rather we ought not to call such as these men, but lewd wretches (βατάλοι), and effeminate (γύνιδες), whose voices are feeble, and whose clothes are womanish both in feel and dye. And such creatures are manifestly shown to be what they are from their external appearance, their clothes, shoes, form, walk, cut of their hair, look. For from his look shall a man be known, says the Scripture, from meeting a man the man is known: the dress of a man, the step of his foot, the laugh of his teeth, tell tales of him.
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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