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Monday, July 12, 2010

Where did Wisdom of Solomon "fit"?

For St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, North Africa, it is mentioned half-way in during a discussion of "the complete canon of scripture" (On Christian Teaching, translated by R.P.H. Green for the Oxford World Classics edition, pages 36-7):

The five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) and the single books of Joshua son of Nave and of Judges, and the little book known as Ruth. . .all this is historiography. . .There are others, forming another sequence, not connected with this class or each other, like Job, Tobias/Tobit, Esther, Judith, and the two books of Maccabees and the two of Ezra (Ezra & Nehemiah), which seem to follow on from the chronologically ordered account which ends with Kings and Chronicles. Then comes the prophets, including David's single book of Psalms, and three books of Solomon, namely Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. The two books entitled Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus (a.k.a. Sirach) are also said to be by Solomon, on the strength of a general similarity. . .These are all the books in which those who fear God and are made docile by their holiness seek God's will. The first rule is to know these books; not necessarily to understand them but to read them so as to commit them to memory or at least make them not totally unfamiliar. Then the matters which are clearly stated in them, whether ethical precepts or articles of belief, should be examined carefully and intelligently. The greater a person's intellectual capacity, the more of these he/she finds. In clearly expressed expressed passages of scripture one can find all the things that concern faith and the moral life (namely hope and love)

from De Doctrina Christiana (Latin title of this work from a great Christian thinker at his prime in the 390's and 400's C.E.) Book two, VIII, 13

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