Texts in Conversation
The Christian theologian Ambrose draws on the book of Judith, where she prepares to meet Holofernes and kill him, praising her beauty and composure in the face of danger. Judith became a model of courage and faith in early Christian theology.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Judith 12:16
Deuterocanon
14 Judith said to him, “Who am I, that I should contradict my lord? For whatever would be pleasing in his eyes, I will do speedily, and this will be my joy to the day of my death.” 15 She arose, and decked herself with her apparel and all her woman’s attire; and her servant went and laid fleeces on the ground for her next to Holofernes, which she had received from Bagoas for her daily use, that she might sit and eat upon them. 16 Judith came in and sat down, and Holofernes’ heart was ravished with her. His passion was aroused, and he exceedingly desired her company. He was watching for a time to deceive her from the day that he had seen her. 17 Holofernes said to her, “Drink now, and be merry with us.” 18 Judith said, “I will drink now, my lord, because my life is magnified in me this day more than all the days since I was born.”
Date: 100 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Early Christian
82 See! Judith presents herself to you as worthy of admiration. She approaches Holophernes, a man feared by the people, and surrounded by the victorious troops of the Assyrians. At first she makes an impression on him by the grace of her form and the beauty of her countenance. Then she entraps him by the refinement of her speech. Her first triumph was that she returned from the tent of the enemy with her purity unspotted. Her second, that she gained a victory over a man, and put to flight the people by her counsel.
Date: 390–395 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Not all the works that were excluded from the canon were deemed heretical. Some were merely 'of the second rank' or 'among the apocrypha' (works that were 'to be hidden away' because they were not to be read, at least not in the liturgy). For most church fathers, 'the apocrypha' was not a fixed selection but a fluid category for books of dubious status. In modern parlance, the phrase 'the Apocrypha' (or 'the Apocrypha of the Old Testament') is often used to designate those Jewish books (Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, etc.) that are included in the Greek or Latin Old Testament of the church but are absent from the Hebrew Tanak of the Jews ..."
Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 168.
* 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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