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The Christian theologian Augustine uses the Wisdom of Solomon as an authoritative source of teaching, incorporating its reflection on human frailty and the limits of understanding in the City of God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Wisdom of Solomon 9:15
Deuterocanon
13 For what man will know the counsel of God? Or who will conceive what the Lord wills? 14 For the thoughts of mortals are unstable, and our plans are prone to fail. 15 For a corruptible body weighs down the soul. The earthy tent burdens a mind that is full of cares. 16 We can hardly guess the things that are on earth, and we find the things that are close at hand with labor; but who has traced out the things that are in the heavens? 17 Who gained knowledge of your counsel, unless you gave wisdom, and sent your holy spirit from on high?
Augustine, City of God 14.3
On the City of God Against the Pagans
Early Christian
But if anyone says that the flesh is the cause of all vices and bad conduct, since the soul lives wickedly only because it is moved by the flesh, it is certain he has not carefully considered the whole nature of man. For “the corruptible body, indeed, weighs down the soul.” For this reason, too, the apostle, speaking of this corruptible body, of which he had shortly before said, “though our outward man is perishing,” 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to put on over it our house which is from heaven: if indeed, being clothed, we shall not be found naked.
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Notes and References
"... In affirming the canonicity of the two ‘Solomonic’ books not written by Solomon, Augustine says of Wisdom and Sirach “the Church especially in the West has accepted them as authoritative from antiquity”; City of God 17.20). A survey of patristic comments on the liturgical use of what Rufinus called the ecclesiastical books bears out Augustine’s geographical distinction. Eastern sources restrict the liturgical use of documents to the books of the Jewish canon. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 4.36–38) emphatically asserts that only the 22 books accepted by the Jews find a place in Christian liturgy, and he advises catechumens to maintain this standard in their private reading. Athanasius (Festal Letters 39) assigns the ecclesiastical books the role of elementary instruction in the faith, as do the Apostolic Canons (canon 85); this position seems to discount their use in the liturgy. The Council of Laodicea is more explicit; in the same context in which it limits the OT canon to 22 books ... However, the matter stood differently among Latin writers: Jerome, Rufinus, and Augustine all affirm that the ecclesiastical books are used in the corporate worship of the Church ... if the Church reads a ‘scriptural’ book, it is a canonical book. Similarly, Augustine responds to the objection of some that the Book of Wisdom is not canonical by arguing that its employment in the liturgy implies its divine authority ..."
Gallagher, Edmon L.
Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text
(pp. 54-55) Brill, 2012
* 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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