Sirach

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

About this book

Chapter 10

1 A wise judge will instruct his people. The government of a man of understanding will be well ordered.⁠ 2 As is the judge of his people, so are his officials. As the city’s ruler is, so are all those who dwell in it. 3 An undisciplined king will destroy his people. A city will be established through the understanding of the powerful. 4 The government of the earth is in the Lord’s hand. In due time, he will raise up over it the right person at the right time.⁠ 5 A man’s prosperity is in the Lord’s hand. He will lay his honor upon the person of the scribe. 6 Don’t be angry with your neighbor for every wrong. Do nothing by works of violence. 7 Pride is hateful before the Lord and men. Arrogance is abhorrent in the judgment of both. 8 Sovereignty is transferred from nation to nation because of injustice, violence, and greed for money. [There is not a more wicked thing than a covetous man, for such a one offers his own soul for sale.]⁠ 9 Why are dirt and ashes proud? Because in life, my body decays.⁠ 10 A long disease mocks the physician. The king of today will die tomorrow. 11 For when a man is dead, he will inherit maggots, vermin, and worms. 12 It is the beginning of pride when a man departs from the Lord. His heart has departed from him who made him.⁠ 13 For the beginning of pride is sin.⁠ He who keeps it will pour out abomination.⁠ For this cause the Lord brought upon them strange calamities and utterly overthrew them. 14 The Lord cast down the thrones of rulers and set the lowly in their place.⁠ 15 The Lord plucked up the roots of nations and planted the lowly in their place. 16 The Lord overthrew the lands of nations and destroyed them to the foundations of the earth. 17 He took some of them away and destroyed them, and made their memory to cease from the earth. 18 Pride has not been created for men, nor wrathful anger for the offspring of women.

Honor, Humility, and Poverty

19 Whose offspring has honor? Human offspring who fear the Lord. Whose offspring has no honor? Human offspring who break the commandments. 20 In the midst of kindred he who rules them has honor. Those who fear the Lord have honor in his eyes. 22 The rich man, the honorable, and the poor all glory in the fear of the Lord. 23 It is not right to dishonor a poor man who has understanding. It is not fitting to glorify a man who is a sinner. 24 The prince, the judge, and the mighty man will be honored. There is not one of them greater than he who fears the Lord. 25 Free men will minister to a wise servant. A man who has knowledge will not complain. 26 Don’t flaunt your wisdom in doing your work. Don’t boast in the time of your distress. 27 Better is he who labors and abounds in all things, than he who boasts and lacks bread. 28 My son, glorify your soul in humility, and ascribe to yourself honor according to your worthiness. 29 Who will justify him who sins against his own soul? Who will honor him who dishonors his own life? 30 A poor man is honored for his knowledge. A rich man is honored for his riches. 31 But he who is honored in poverty, how much more in riches? He who is dishonored in riches, how much more in poverty?

Texts in conversation

Compare Sirach 10:4 and Origen, Contra Celsum 8.68

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

Summary

The Christian theologian Origen uses Sirach as an authoritative source for teaching, describing how government and justice depend on divine oversight. Jewish wisdom literature shaped Christian theology from its earliest centuries.

Passages

Sirach 10:4

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

2 As is the judge of his people, so are his officials. As the city’s ruler is, so are all those who dwell in it. 3 An undisciplined king will destroy his people. A city will be established through the understanding of the powerful. 4 The government of the earth is in the Lord’s hand. In due time, he will raise up over it the right person at the right time. 5 A man’s prosperity is in the Lord’s hand. He will lay his honor upon the person of the scribe. 6 Don’t be angry with your neighbor for every wrong. Do nothing by works of violence.

195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

Origen, Contra Celsum 8.68

Early Christian · Against Celsus

Next Celsus says that “one ought not to disbelieve an ancient man who long ago declared, ‘Let there be one king, to whom the son of crooked-counseling Cronus gave it.’” And he adds: “For if you undo this doctrine, the king will rightly punish you. For if all were to do the same as you, nothing would prevent him from being left alone and deserted, and the things on earth from falling into the hands of the most lawless and savage barbarians, and neither the fame of your worship nor of true wisdom would be left among human beings any longer.” Let there be one lord, then, one king, not the one “to whom the son of crooked-counseling Cronus gave it,” but the one to whom he gave it who sets up “kings and” removes them, “and raises up the useful man” on the earth at the right time; and it is not the son who, as Greek myths say, drove Cronus from power and cast him down into Tartarus, who sets up kings, not even if one allegorizes these passages; but God who governs all things knows what he does in the matter of the setting up of kings. We do, then, undo the doctrine,

248 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Origen, Contra Celsum 8

References

"... The Hebrew of Ben Sira was not included in the Jewish biblical canon. Testimony to its survival, however, is found in the numerous quotations of the book in rabbinic literature. Of course, the medieval manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Genizah constitute prima facie evidence for its continued existence in Hebrew. The Greek translation seems to have been influential in early Christianity, and it eventually was included in the Christian Old Testament (only to be excised by Protestants in the sixteenth century). Sirach is not cited explicitly in the New Testament, and scholars differ as to how much influence it had on the New Testament writings. Those who see broad influence have argued for it primarily in Matthew, Luke, some of Paul’s letters and the Epistle of James (compare Harrington, Invitation, p. 90; Schürer, History, vol. III.1, pp. 205–208). In other early Christian literature, Didache 4:5 and Barnabas 19:9 bear a very close resemblance to, and perhaps are taken from, Sirach 4:31. If these texts do depend on Sirach, they would be the earliest examples of direct Christian use of the book. A healthy number of Greek and Latin church fathers, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, John Chrysostom, Tertullian, Jerome and Augustine, use Sirach in their writings, and as early as Clement of Alexandria Sirach is cited as scripture, demonstrating the high regard the book came to have in Christian tradition ..."

Daniel Ryan, “Sirach (Ecclesiasticus),” in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint, ed. James K. Aitken, Bloomsbury Companions (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 410–424.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Honor, Humility, and Poverty

Sirach52 chapters

Compare Sirach 10:4 and Origen, Contra Celsum 8.68

Summary

Passages

Sirach 10:4

Origen, Contra Celsum 8.68

References

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