Sirach 26:9
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
7 A bad wife is a chafing yoke; taking hold of her is like grasping a scorpion. 8 A drunken wife arouses great anger; she cannot hide her shame. 9 The haughty stare betrays an unchaste wife; her eyelids give her away. 10 Keep strict watch over a headstrong daughter, or else, when she finds liberty, she will make use of it. 11 Be on guard against her impudent eye, and do not be surprised if she sins against you.
Date: 195-175 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Clement of Alexandria The Instructor 3.11
Paedagogus
Patristic
As seems to me, says the comedy, it is time to abandon meretricious steps and luxury. And the steps of harlotry lean not to the truth; for they approach not the paths of life. Her tracks are dangerous, and not easily known. The eyes especially are to be sparingly used, since it is better to slip with the feet than with the eyes. Accordingly, the Lord very summarily cures this malady: If your eye offend you, cut it out, He says, dragging lust up from the foundation. But languishing looks, and ogling, which is to wink with the eyes, is nothing else than to commit adultery with the eyes, lust skirmishing through them. For of the whole body, the eyes are first destroyed. The eye contemplating beautiful objects (καλά), gladdens the heart; that is, the eye which has learned rightly (καλῶς) to see, gladdens. Winking with the eye, with guile, heaps woes on men. Such they introduce the effeminate Sardanapalus, king of the Assyrians, sitting on a couch with his legs up, fumbling at his purple robe, and casting up the whites of his eyes. Women that follow such practices, by their looks offer themselves for prostitution. For the light of the body is the eye, says the Scripture, by which the interior illuminated by the shining light appears. Fornication in a woman is in the raising of the eyes.
Date: 198 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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 ..."
Charles, R. H.
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
(p. 299) Oxford University Press, 1913
* 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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