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An early prediction said Christianity would last only 365 years. Augustine dismisses it with the language of Sirach's warning that divinations and omens are unreal and deceive people, pointing out that the 365 years had already passed.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 34:5
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
4 From an unclean thing what can be clean? And from something false what can be true? 5 Divinations and omens and dreams are unreal, and like a woman in labor, the mind has fantasies. 6 Unless they are sent by intervention from the Most High, pay no attention to them. 7 For dreams have deceived many, and those who put their hope in them have perished.
Augustine, City of God 18.54
On the City of God Against the Pagans
Early Christian
I might collect these and many similar arguments, if that year had not already passed by which lying divination has promised, and deceived vanity has believed. But as a few years ago three hundred and sixty-five years were completed since the time when the worship of the name of Christ was established by His presence in the flesh, and by the apostles, what other proof need we seek to refute that falsehood? For, not to place the beginning of this period at the nativity of Christ, because as an infant and boy He had no disciples, yet, when He began to have them, beyond doubt the Christian doctrine and religion then became known through His bodily presence, that is, after He was baptized in the river Jordan by the ministry of John.
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Notes and References
“... Perhaps because Church Fathers made wide use of the Greek and Latin versions of the book, the Hebrew work mostly dropped out of usage in rabbinic Judaism. [...] Within early Christianity, the Letter of Barnabas echoes Sir 5:12–14 about the danger of a double tongue, as well as the warning in Sir 4:31 against an ungenerous attitude (Barn. 19:7–9). Origen (d. 254 ce) quotes Ben Sira as scriptural when commenting on several OT passages (Gen 12:5; Josh 15:6; Jer 16:6). Clement of Alexandria (d. 215 ce) quotes about eighty Sirach verses, while John Chrysostom (d. 407 ce) includes about three hundred citations from the book. Augustine (d. 430 ce) not only cites Sirach about 300x, but also preached sermons on Sirach passages. Rabanus Maurus (d. 856 ce), abbot of Fulda in Germany, composed the earliest surviving Latin commentary on Sirach. ...”
Corley, Jeremy
"Sirach" in Oegema, Gerbern S. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha
(p. 300) Oxford University Press, 2021
* 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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