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The Christian theologian Gregory of Nyssa argues for sexual purity by quoting the Wisdom of Solomon, saying wisdom cannot live in a soul ruled by sin. He shows how early Christians used it as an authoritative source for theology and teaching.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE

Wisdom of Solomon 1:4

Deuterocanon
2 because he is found by those who don’t put him to the test, and is manifested to those who trust him. 3 for crooked thoughts separate from God. His Power convicts when it is tested, and exposes the foolish; 4 because wisdom will not enter into a soul that devises evil, nor dwell in a body that is enslaved by sin. 5 For a holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will depart from thoughts that are without understanding, and will be ashamed when unrighteousness has come in. 6 For wisdom is a spirit who loves man, and she will not hold a blasphemer guiltless for his lips, because God is witness of his inmost self, and is a true overseer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue.
Date: 100–50 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)

Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 15

Early Christian
Now let us suppose a lady, prepossessing and lovely above her peers, and on that account wedded to a king, but besieged because of her beauty by profligate lovers. As long as she remains indignant at these would-be seducers and complains of them to her lawful husband, she keeps her chastity and has no one before her eyes but her bridegroom; the profligates find no vantage ground for their attack upon her. But if she were to listen to a single one of them, her chastity with regard to the rest would not exempt her from the retribution; it would be sufficient to condemn her, that she had allowed that one to defile the marriage bed. So the soul whose life is in God will find her pleasure in no single one of those things which make a beauteous show to deceive her. If she were, in some fit of weakness, to admit the defilement to her heart, she would herself have broken the covenant of her spiritual marriage; and, as the Scripture tells us, into the malicious soul Wisdom cannot come. It may, in a word, be truly said that the Good Husband cannot come to dwell with the soul that is irascible, or malice-bearing, or harbours any other disposition which jars with that concord.
Date: 372–380 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References

#1653
"... While the nineteen chapters comprising this work provided a well of wisdom for the Fathers to plumb (Augustine alone refers to Wisdom of Solomon more than eight hundred times), Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-8:1 in particular proved to be a favorite text for early Christian writers. In this passage wisdom is personified and characterized by twenty-one attributes, including such theologically provocative statements as “For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness” and, “For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty”. On hundreds of occasions early Christian writers linked Wisdom 7 with such christologically significant New Testament passages as Colossians 1:15, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Hebrews 1:4, and John 14:9, 10. This christological correspondence became especially important in the fourth century with the rise of Arianism, and the Arian debate also raised pneumatological questions to which the Wisdom of Solomon could speak. For example, Ambrose linked Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-23 with 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 to explain the Holy Spirit’s role in dispensing and developing wisdom and discernment within the Church. The Donatist theologian Tyconius, a contemporary of Ambrose, made this same textual connection as well ..."
Kannengiesser, Charles Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity (pp. 305-306) Brill, 2004

* 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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