Texts in Conversation
The Christian theologian Athanasius uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source when teaching the history of how art and power combined to create idolatry. He demonstrates how this Jewish text influenced early Christian tradition.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 14:21
Deuterocanon
19 for he, wishing perhaps to please his ruler, used his art to force the likeness toward a greater beauty. 20 So the multitude, allured by reason of the grace of his handiwork, now consider an object of devotion him that a little before was honored as a man. 21 And this became an ambush for life, because men, in bondage either to calamity or to tyranny, invested stones and wood with the Name that shouldn’t be shared. 22 Afterward it was not enough for them to go astray concerning the knowledge of God, but also, while they live in a great war of ignorance, they call a multitude of evils peace. 23 For either slaughtering children in solemn rites, or celebrating secret mysteries, or holding frenzied revels of strange customs, 24 no longer do they guard either life or purity of marriage, but one brings upon another either death by treachery, or anguish by adultery. 25 And all things confusedly are filled with blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury,
Athanasius, Against the Heathen 17
Early Christian
What inference then is left to us, save that while the panegyrics are false and flattering, the actions told of them are true? And the truth of this one can ascertain by common practice. For nobody who pronounces a panegyric upon anyone accuses his conduct at the same time, but rather, if men's actions are disgraceful, they praise them up with panegyrics, on account of the scandal they cause, so that by extravagant praise they may impose upon their hearers, and hide the misconduct of the others. Just as if a man who has to pronounce a panegyric upon someone cannot find material for it in their conduct or in any personal qualities, on account of the scandal attaching to these, he praises them up in another manner, flattering them with what does not belong to them, so have their marvellous poets, put out of countenance by the scandalous actions of their so-called gods, attached to them the superhuman title, not knowing that they cannot by their superhuman fancies veil their human actions, but that they will rather succeed in showing, by their human shortcomings, that the attributes of God do not fit them. And I am disposed to think that they have recounted the passions and the actions of the gods even in spite of themselves. For since they were endeavouring to invest with what Scripture calls the incommunicable name and honour of God them that are no gods but mortal men, and since this venture of theirs was great and impious, for this reason even against their will they were forced by truth to set forth the passions of these persons, so that their passions recorded in the writings concerning them might be in evidence for all posterity as a proof that they were no gods.
Date: 335 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Search:
Notes and References
"... For many Christian authorities the criterion for a book’s inclusion in the canon depended not on the language of composition, but on whether it was normative and authoritative for doctrine and public reading. Yet books that fell outside this category could still be canonical at a lower level, and used for private reading among Christians (compare Tertullian, Cult. fem. 1.3: Gallagher 2012: 20–1), and so were certainly not banned or ignored. Even Athanasius of Alexandria, whose festal letter of 367 ce is often held to demarcate a Christian canon, notes that though certain books are not canonical (οὐ κανονιζόμενα μέν), they were authorized by tradition (τετυπωμένα δὲ παρὰ τῶν πατέρων) for reading to recent converts. For Athanasius these works included Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, and also Esther, while with most other authorities he included both Esdras A and B in the Old Testament canon ..."
Salvesen, Alison G.
"Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal Books" in Salvesen, Alison, and T. M. Law (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint
(pp. 385-402) 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,