“... As La Bonnadiére observed, the OT was used much more in Augustine’s polemics just as the example here. But did Wisdom belong to the OT? Augustine would certainly repeat certain select verses from Wisdom the better to engrain them on the minds of catechisand and catechised. [...] Thus, as La Bonnadière notes, Wisdom was used against the Manicheans and the Pelagians to safeguard divine transcendence in creation and salvation. In all these, texts from Wisdom are not merely illustrative. In polemical battle with heretics they were the jumping-off points. They inspired Augustine to think more loftily of God than his enemies did. Wisdom 9:15 (‘for a perishable body weighs down the soul’) is the verse most used, to prove that evil is caused by us, not by cosmic powers. Nevertheless she thinks the most creative contribution by Wisdom to Augustine’s theology was that made by Wisdom 7:27, that Wisdom herself in animas sanctas se transfert, which is a very strong assertion of the all-sufficiency of grace for Christians. Wisdom is rarely quoted in chunks – the best example is De trin. III 10 (21) where human frailty is associated with human ignorance: this passage does not seem to be about sin, but rather about human limitation, although elsewhere (En. Ps. 127.16 and Ad Simplicianum I, qu. 1,13) Wisdom 9:15 is used to show how corruption is the state of fallen humankind [...] So the fact of the matter is that for issues of doctrine and practice Wisdom did carry authority for Augustine in the sense that the book shaped these two. ...”