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The Letter of Aristeas scorns Egyptians who worship wild beasts and creeping things. Wisdom of Solomon 11 uses the same Greek pairing of creeping things and beasts for Egyptian worship, then has God punish Egypt with swarms of such creatures.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Letter of Aristeas 1:138
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
the wisest of the Greeks. Why need we speak of other infatuated people, Egyptians and the like, who place their reliance on wild beasts and most kinds of creeping things and cattle, and worship them, and offer sacrifices to them both while living and when dead?' 'Now our Lawgiver being a wise man and specially endowed by God to understand all things, took a comprehensive view of each particular detail, and fenced us around with impregnable ramparts and walls of iron, so that we might not mingle at all with any of the other nations, but remain pure in body and soul, free from all vain imaginations, worshiping the one Almighty God above the whole
Wisdom of Solomon 11:15
Deuterocanon
14 For him who long before was thrown out and exposed they stopped mocking. In the end of what happened, they marveled, having thirsted in another manner than the righteous. 15 But in return for the senseless imaginings of their unrighteousness, by which they were led astray to worship irrational reptiles and wretched vermin, you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them, 16 that they might learn that by what things a man sins, by these he is punished. 17 For your all-powerful hand that created the world out of formless matter didn’t lack means to send upon them a multitude of bears, fierce lions,
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Notes and References
“... 11: 15. brute reptiles and worthless beasts. The collocution herpeta kai knodala is found in Ps-Aristeas 138: "What need even to speak of other infatuated (polymataion) people, Egyptians and their like, who have put their reliance in wild beasts and most creeping creatures and animals (herpeton . . . kai knodalon) and worship these, and to these offer sacrifice, whether alive or dead?" Cf. Ps-Aristeas 169; Sib Or Frag. 3:22-28, 30. ...”
Winston, David
The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(p. 231) Doubleday, 1979
* 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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