ECCLESIASTICAL. - The most remarkable of the wisdom books of the Old Testament, for the number and diversity of its teachings; it may well be called a fairly complete treatise on morals, for all states and circumstances of life (St. Augustine, Speculum de Scriptura Sacra: PL 34, 948); hence the appellation ἡ πανάρετος (St. Jerome, Comm. in Dan., 9: PL 25, 545) "collection of all the virtues" or "virtutum omnium capax" (Cassiodorus, De instit. div. litt., V: PL 70, 1117). After the Psalms, it is the Old Testament book most used by the liturgy.
The title E., taken from the Greek (ms. 348), goes back to the Latin version (2nd-3rd centuries); and already in St. Cyprian (Testim. adv. Iudaeos, 2, 1; 3, 1; etc.; PL 4, 696, 729). It expresses the use the Church made of it in worship, for the preparation of catechumens, as it were their official catechism
(Rufinus, In symbolum apostolicum, 38: PL 21, 374). Probably (the recovered manuscripts lack the beginning) the Hebrew title was sefakāna ("Proverbs of the son of Sira", cf. Heb. 50, 27). The Greek manuscripts have: Σοφία Ἰησοῦ υἱοῦ Σατρός or only Σοφία Σατρός (cod. B). Likewise the ancient Latin title Sapientia Salomonis, inasmuch as E. belongs to the wisdom literature, which that king cultivated (St. Jerome, Proof. in l. Salem.: PL 28, 1242; St. Augustine, De doctrina christ., 2, 8: PL 34, 41); and in the liturgy Liber Sapientiae (cf. St. Jerome, Contra pelag., 1, 33: PL 23, 527). Moderns like to cite E. with the simple patronymic of the author: "The Siracide".
E. takes its subject matter and division from Wisdom. Ten parts are distinguished in it, all of which begin with the praise of Wisdom or with a hymn to God its author.
I. Praise of Wisdom. Duties toward God, toward parents, toward one's neighbor: humility and meekness, compassion for the unfortunate (chaps. 1-4, 10).
II. Praise of Wisdom. Sincerity and frankness, not presumption; friendships (4, 11-6, 17).
III. Invitation to the practice of Wisdom. Against ambition; they contain [teachings] concerning various classes of persons. Duties of rulers; of the rich; do not trust in riches, but in God. Persons to be avoided. Against avarice (6, 18-14, 19).
IV. Fruits of Wisdom. Sin comes from free will, not from God, and is never to go unpunished (14, 20-18, 23).
V. Hymn to God the creator. Generosity and providence. To restrain the passions and make good use of the tongue: continence of the soul, discipline of the mouth (16, 24-23, 27).
VI. Hymn of Wisdom. Three things lovable, three hateful, three to be feared and two dangerous: on good and bad women. Loans, gifts and sureties; education of children; health and the vices that ruin it; temperance; conversation at table. Fear of God; divine providence (24, 1-33, 17).
VII. Invitation to listen. How to treat servants. Superstitions: good and bad religion. Prayer for the triumph of the religion of Israel (33, 18-36, 22).
VIII. Choice of the best: wife, friend, counselor. Care of health: how to conduct oneself in illnesses and toward the dead. The noblest profession: the study of Wisdom (36, 23-39, 11).
IX. Hymn to God the creator, who orders all things excellently for the good of the just, for the punishment of the wicked. Unhappiness of human life, especially for the impious. Shame: which is good and which is bad. The wonders of creation: another hymn (39, 12-23, 37).
X. Hymn of praise to the patriarchs, who lived according to the wisdom communicated to them by God, from Adam to Simon, son of Onias, high priest at the time of the author (44-50).
Two appendices follow: a hymn of thanksgiving to God for the deliverance obtained from many and grave evils (51, 1-12); an alphabetic poem in which the author describes the care he devoted to the study of Wisdom and invites others to imitate him (51, 13-30; cf. A. Vaccari, I libri poetici..., Rome 1925, p. 327 ff.). Between the two appendices, the Hebrew manuscript inserts a psalm similar to Ps. 135 (Heb. 136); however ancient, it is not genuine, but derived from liturgical use.
In the Greek version, the translator — the grandson of the Siracide — prefixed a prologue, important for the information it offers on his grandfather, on the time of the composition and of the translation, and on the canon of the Old Testament, whose books he says were already for the most part translated into Greek.
E. is the only book of the Old Testament, excepting the prophetic ones, which, besides numerous indications about the person, gives with certainty the name of its author: Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sira (50, 29: cf. prologue). The name "Simeon" in the Hebrew (ibid.) is due to a gloss.
A native of Jerusalem (as his grandson specifies: 50, 27 Greek). Jesus spent a great part of his life there, and, toward the end, probably composed his work there (cf. his assiduity at the Temple: 50, 5 ff.; 51, 14). A man of profound faith, the Siracide, from childhood a diligent student of the sacred books (prologue; 38, 24) and a sagacious seeker of wisdom (51, 13-30), enriched his experience with travels; he observed men and things (cf. 34, 11; 51, 13); perhaps in his youth he was at the court of some foreign king (cf. 8, 8; 11, 1; 41, 17); he experienced human wickedness; but God saved him from every danger (34, 12; 51, 2-12). His ardent fidelity to Yahwism impels him to communicate his doctrine to others (24, 30-34). He gathers into his school (51, 23, 29) the aristocratic youth of Jerusalem, to whom he teaches the worship of God, the traditions, the Law, that is, religion, morals, jurisprudence, and the way of wisdom. This explains in the Siracide the perfect command of Hebrew, the profound knowledge of sacred literature, the breadth of views, the realistic sense of life, the magisterial tone of his teaching, and above all the multiplicity of subjects, treated according to revealed principles and human experience, which have as their aim to give young people the civil and moral education necessary for living well and pleasing God.
Two data allow us to establish when the Siracide lived: a) chap. 50 describes in so vivid and concrete a manner the high priest Simon, son of Onias, that all are agreed in considering him a contemporary of the author. There were two high priests with that name, one around 300, the other from 218 to 198 B.C.; the passage 50, 1-5 fits almost exclusively the pontificate of Simon II (Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Jud., 12, 4), which coincided with the youth of the Siracide, who saw him officiating in the Temple; b) in the prologue, the grandson says he came to Egypt in the 38th year of King Euergetes, that is, Ptolemy II (170-116 B.C.); for the first Ptolemy Euergetes reigned only 25 years (247-222). We are therefore in 132 B.C.; shortly afterward the Greek version of E. began; the author thus lived between the 3rd and 2nd centuries, at a distance of two generations, that is, of about 60 years; and [this was] the time of Simon II. Probably around 180 the Siracide finished his book.
He wrote it in Hebrew; not at one stretch, but according to circumstances he composed its various parts. The Siracide pursues the same aim as the prophets and the "wise": the moral and religious formation of the "remnant" that had returned to Judea, of the new Israel; with particular regard (as his grandson writes in the prologue) for the Jews of the diaspora, to preserve them from the influence of Hellenism. The Siracide meditates on and takes up the whole of previous Revelation and expounds it in his literary genre, exploiting the experience and the work of human reason (A. Robert, in Rev. bibl., 44 [1935], pp. 504-506; A. Drubbel, in Biblica, 17 [1936], pp. 414-28).
Considered initially in a universalistic sense (1:10, 25), Wisdom is identified with Yahwism; for Ecclesiasticus, as for Wisdom, salvation or wisdom is a privilege of Israel. For the same circumstances of political and cultural environment (the predominance of the Seleucids and the invasion of Hellenism: Spicq, p. 552 ff.), Ecclesiasticus teaches explicitly what is implicit and hinted at here and there in Proverbs, concerning the election of Israel, the covenant of Sinai, the particular relationship Yahweh-Israel. Wisdom is Yahwistic monotheism; its rules are contained in the sacred books, especially in the Tôrāh. Israel has the mission of enlightening the nations, which can participate in wisdom by adhering to Yahwism (cf. 17:1-17; 24; 36:1-17; etc.: Spicq, pp. 653, 684-86, 746 ff.; A. Vaccari, in DFC, IV, col. 1202 ff.). Furthermore, true worship is in Jerusalem (32:14 ff.; 50); the most Yahwistic figures are praised (44-50); the Philistines and Samaritans are cursed (50:25 f.). The new Israel is the heir of the Mosaic theocracy (50:13 f. Greek); and its passage into the Kingdom of the Messiah is hinted at (36:14-17). Other elements of the messianic hope: the perpetuity of Israel (37:25; 44:13); the Davidic lineage (47:11); the precursor of the Messiah (48:10 f.) typically announced in the prophet Elijah (v.).
Yahweh, who governs the universe with wisdom (cf. 39:12-40:27), searches consciences (42:18 f.), discerns his worshippers (cf. 16:16-23; 33:11 f.), helps them to remain faithful (2:17 f.; 22:27-23:6, etc.).
The fear of God brings heavenly blessings (23:1; 40:26) and forms the happiness of life (23:27). One must not let oneself be influenced by the prestige of the wicked (4:27 f.; 7:14 ff.; etc.), nor seek their friendship (9:16). God forgives those who have gone astray and do penance (17:24 ff.; 18:13), but he will punish the wicked and will have glory in defending his people (35:19-36:17; 50:23 f.).
Chapter 24, the culmination and doctrinal synthesis of the whole book, presents Wisdom as a reality that has always been with God the creator and supreme lawgiver; and that God communicated to Israel as his inheritance. A reality that speaks, almost as if it were a person; it dwells permanently among the Israelites, and produces its salutary effects in them.
The Jews, not at all speculative, also represent, personifying them, the Law, the Word, the Spirit of Yahweh — entities not seen as simple abstractions, but as concrete realities, to which, however, a personal existence is never attributed, that is, one effectively distinct and independent from that of the subject who possesses them. It is a matter of the poetic personification of a divine attribute or of the essential divine wisdom; which nevertheless orients the spirit toward the idea of an autonomous person (cf. Prov. 8; Wis. 7). After the coming of Christ, the eternal Word (Jn. 1:1-14; cf. 1 Cor. 1:24 f.; Col. 1:15 ff.), it was easy to recognize him in the characteristics of the eternal Wisdom described by Ben Sira, in the full sense (pleon). Finally, the application to the Virgin Mary, "seat of wisdom," of what is said of the Wisdom participated in by men, in a spiritual allegorical sense, came spontaneously.
The Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus (cf. the prologue), known to St. Jerome (Praef. in lib. Salom.: PL 28, 1242), cited in its Hebrew form and in Aramaic in Talmudic and rabbinic literature down to the 10th century, seemed definitively lost. Between 1896 and 1900, in the gĕnîzāh or storeroom of the old synagogue of Moses in Cairo, some fragments of the Hebrew text were rediscovered, previously used for worship in the synagogue and by then out of use.
The manuscripts found are classified as follows: ms. A (11th cent.), 6 ff.: 3:6-16:26; ms. B (12th cent.), 19 ff.: 30:11-33:3; 35:11-38:27; 39:15-51:30; ms. C (11th-12th cent.), 4 ff.: a florilegium of chapters 4-7, 18-20, 25-27; ms. D, 1 f.: 36:29-38:1. In 1930, among the manuscripts of the E. Adler collection, in New York, in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, a new leaf was found, a ms. of Ecclesiasticus: 32:16-33:32; 34:1. Thus three fifths of the original text have been discovered: 40 chapters out of 51, exactly 1090 verses out of the 1616 contained in the Greek version. The complete edition of all the aforementioned fragments was made by M. S. Segal (Liber Sapientiae filii Sira, Jerusalem 1933). The Hebrew text offered by these manuscripts is less perfect than that of the other sacred books. "Scribes and revisers allowed themselves with Ecclesiasticus far more freedom or negligence than with the Holy Scriptures of the Hebrew canon" (Vaccari). The Hebrew, the Greek, and the Syriac offer a threefold independent recension of the original text; for whose reconstruction they are precious and substantially reliable witnesses.
(11th cent.), 6 ff.: 3, 6-16, 26; ms. B (12th cent.), 19 ff.: 30,
The Syriac version, made directly from the Hebrew, but with little care and intelligence, presupposes a text less perfect than the preceding one; it has omissions and paraphrases, harmonizes readings with the less pure form of the Greek.
In the Vulgate the Old Latin version is preserved, not even retouched by St. Jerome; it derives from a Greek codex of the second form, fairly interpolated. In time it underwent additions, duplicates, glosses. Emended, however — and the citations of the Fathers help toward this — it not infrequently offers excellent readings (Vaccari).
Ecclesiasticus is among the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, that is, among the few sacred books about whose canonicity, at a given moment, there were doubts: for there was lacking in that regard a definition on the part of the Church. The cause of such doubts was the exclusion of Ecclesiasticus from the Jewish canon, fixed by the Pharisees toward the end of the 1st century A.D., because it was later than the men of the "Great Synagogue," after whom, once prophecy had ceased, there would have been no more sacred books. A futile and arbitrary reason, since Ecclesiastes, for example, is from the 3rd-2nd century B.C., while the cessation of prophecy had been conventionally placed in the 4th century. The attitude of the Protestants, who stop at the Jewish canon, is therefore unjustified. Ben Sira himself presents himself as a prophet and inspired (cf. 24:33; 39:12; 51:16; etc.), and in the prologue the translator places Ecclesiasticus close to the other sacred books and attests the use that the Jews of Palestine made of it.
Furthermore, Ecclesiasticus is used as a divine book by Enoch, by the Psalms of Solomon, by the Jewish liturgy (in the Eighteen Benedictions, in the Hymn for the end of the Sabbath), and especially by the Talmud, which cites it even with the solemn formula "it is written" (Bĕrākhōth, 48a). Someone has, but without foundation, discovered in Ecclesiasticus a Sadducean tinge (cf. Spicq, p. 536 f.) and opines that the Pharisees excluded it also for this reason.
Il Nuovo Testamento non cita esplicitamente l'E.,
ma ad esso ha importanti riferimenti: cf. Mt. 11, 25-50 =
Eccl. 51, 13 sgg.; I Cor. 15, 8-10 = Eccl. 53, 16 sg.;
I Cor. 7:36 = Eccl. 42:9; etc. (Spicq, p. 546); likewise also in the Epistola Barnabae or Didache (cf. S.-M. Zarb,
De historia canonia, Roma 1934, p. 130 sg.). I Padri
pongono esplicitamente l'E. tra i Libri Sacri, eccettuati
i pochi (s. Anatasio, s. Cirillo di Gerusalemme [sec. IV],
s. Girolamo [sec. V]), che riconoscono il valore dottrinale
e morale dell'E., anzi lo citano come Scrittura Sacra
(s. Atanasio, Contra arianos, 2, 79; PG 26, 313; s. Girolamo, Epist. ad Iulian.: PL 22, 961; In It., 3, 13;
PL 24, 67), ma quando si tratta di dare ai catecamenti
un elenco indiscusso dei libri sacri (o, per s. Girolamo,
sotto l'influsso dei suoi rabbini), danno la lista dei soli
protocanonici, confermata dal canone giudaico. Questi
dubbi, sorti al sec. IV nelle chiese più a contatto con i
Giudei, presto svanirono.
I moderni son d'accordo sulla non ispirazione del
prologo (fa eccezione lo Spicq).
BIBLI: Introduzioni: A. Vaccari, Institutiones bibl. Vet. Test.,
II, 2ª ed., Roma 1935, pp. 44 sg., 54-65; H. Höpfl, Intr. spec.
in Vet. Test., 5ª ed., ivi 1946, pp. 371-81; C. Spicq, L'Ecclésiastique (La S. Bible, ed. L. Firot-A. Clamer, 6), Parigi 1946,
pp. 531-56. - Per il testo ebraico: N. Peters, Liber Iesu filii
Sirach, sive Ecclesiasticus hebraica, Friburgo in Br. 1905; R.
Smend, Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach, hebräisch und deutsch,
Berlin 1906; I. Lévy, Un nouveau fragment de Bon Sira, in Revue
des études juives, 95 (1932), pp. 136-45; G. R. Driver, Hebrew
notes of the wisdom of Jesus Bon-Sirach, in The journal of biblical
literature, 53 (1934), p. 273 sgg. - Versione greca: J. H. A. Hart,
Ecclesiasticus. The Greek text of Codex 448, Cambridge 1900;
A. Rahlfs, Septuaginta, II, Stoccarda 1935, pp. 377-471. - Versione latina: D. de Bruyne, Etude sur le texte latin de l'Ecclésiastique, in Revue bénédictine, 40 (1928), pp. 5-48. Ottima
la versione italiana dall'originale: A. Vaccari, I libri postici...
Roma 1925, pp. 327-408. - Tra i commenti: R. Smend, op.
cit.; N. Peters, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, Münster 1912; G. H.
Box e W. O. E. Oesterley, in R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and
Pseudopigrapha of the Old Testament, Oxford 1913, pp. 268-317;
A. Eberharter, Bonn 1925; B. Alfrink, Brugge 1935; A. D. Power,
Londra 1939; C. Spicq, op. cit., pp. 557-841. - Per il cap. 24: A.
Vaccari, Il concetto della Sapienza nell'Ant. Test., in Gregorianum,
1 (1920), pp. 219-51; B. Bette, La Sousse dans les livres sapientiaux, in Revue de sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 10 (1930), pp. 83-94; P. von Imschoot, La Sousse dans l'Ant. Test, est-elle une hypnotie?, in Coll. Gondarennes, 21 (1934), pp. 80-92; id., Sousse et esprit dans l'Ant. Test, in Revue biblique, 47 (1938), pp. 34-49; P. Campens, De conceptus Sapientiae divinae in libris didactici Ant. Test, in Angelicum, 12 (1935), pp. 332-34; H. Renard, Le livre des Proverbes (S. Bible, ed. L. Pitre-A, Clamet, 6), Parigi 1943, p. 78 sp. - Altri studi: W. Baumparthor, Die literarischen Gattungen in der Weisheit des Jesus Strauch, in Zeitschrift f. d. nitros. Wissenschaft, 34 (1912), pp. 164-98; S. Liebermann, Ben-Sira à la lumière du Jernachalmi, in Rev. des et. livres, 97 (1934), pp. 50-57; T. Vargha, De Psalmo hebraico Ecclesiastici, in Antoninum, 10 (1935), pp. 1-10; P. Szczypick, Daniel et Judith in libre Strauch, in Praeglad Bibl., 1 (1937), pp. 117-47; K. Fruhstorfer, Des Weisen curriculum vitae nach Strauch (39, 1-15), in Theologisch-publishe Quartalschrift, 94 (1941), pp. 140-42; T. Gallus, A malirex julius peccati et per illum omnes mortum (Str. 25, 24-75), in Verbum Domini, 23 (1943), pp. 272-77; C. Selmer, Traces of the Sapiens of the Seven Sages in the Liber Ecclesiasticus, in The Catholic Bibl. Quarterly, 8 (1943), pp. 264-74; id., A study of Eccl., 22, 10-19, ibid., 8 (1946), pp. 368-14; L. Santoro, L'inno al Creatore di Gesù Ben Sirae, in Città di Vita, 2 (1947), pp. 253-61.
Francesco Spadafora