Texts in Conversation
The epistle of Barnabas quotes the Wisdom of Solomon, describing a righteous figure opposed and condemned by the unrighteous. This represents one of the earliest known authoritative quotes of the Wisdom of Solomon in Christian tradition.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 2:12
Deuterocanon
10 Let’s oppress the righteous poor. Let’s not spare the widow, nor regard the gray hair of the old man. 11 But let our strength be a law of righteousness; for that which is weak is proven useless. 12 But let’s lie in wait for the righteous man, because he annoys us, is contrary to our works, reproaches us with sins against the law, and charges us with sins against our training. 13 He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. 14 He became to us a reproof of our thoughts. 15 He is grievous to us even to look at, because his life is unlike other men’s, and his paths are strange. 16 We were regarded by him as something worthless, and he abstains from our ways as from uncleanness. He calls the latter end of the righteous happy. He boasts that God is his father.
Barnabas 6:7
Epistle of Barnabas
Early Christian
4 And the prophet says again: ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the head and the corner.’ And again He says: ‘This is the great and wonderful day which the Lord has made.’ 5 I write to you more simply so that you may understand, I who am the outcast of your love. 6 What then does the prophet say again? ‘A gathering of evildoers surrounded Me; they encircled Me like bees around a comb, and they cast lots for My clothing.’ 7 Because He was about to appear in the flesh and to suffer, His suffering was foretold in advance. For the prophet speaks concerning Israel: ‘Woe to their souls, for they devised harmful plans against themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous man, for he is useless to us.’ 8 What does the other prophet, Moses, say to them? ‘Look, these are the words of the Lord God: enter into the good land which the Lord swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and inherit it, a land flowing with milk and honey.’
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Notes and References
"... Virtually a quotation from the LXX version of Isaiah 3:10, where the Hebrew is quite different. It is quoted by many of the Church Fathers, following its citation in Barnabas 6:7, as referring to Christ; compare Justin Martyr Dial. 17; Eusebius PE 13.13; Clement of Alexandria Stromata 5.14 (where Plato's Republic 361 is also quoted: 'The just man will have to endure the lash, the rock, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified'); Augustine City of God 17.20.1: 'In one of these books that is called the Wisdom of Solomon Christ's passion is most clearly prophesied. For surely it is his wicked slayers who are recorded as saying: 'Let us set an ambush for the righteous man ...' The seventeenth-century commentator C. Lapide saw in the 'shameful death' of verse 20 a direct allusion to the cross, and in the word achrestos ('ineffectual') of verse 11 an insulting play on the name Christos ..."
Winston, David
The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(p. 119) 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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