Antithesis.
Antithesis.
§ 217. Almost all the Papists reckon Ecclesiasticus among the canonical books. To furnish canonical authority for this book, Bellarmine (De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 14) urges: [I] The testimonies of the ancients who quoted some things from this book. Gregorius de Valentia (De eccles., p. 336) adds the testimonies of Euaristus, Fabianus, Sixtus I, etc., who also cite this book.
We respond. (1) They also draw testimonies from the apocryphal books, as we have shown in § 206. (2) Bellarmine says, “Basil quotes Ecclesiasticus and calls it ‘Holy Scripture’ in Contra Eunom., bk. 4.” Basil, however, quotes Proverbs, not Ecclesiasticus. He cites the passage Prov. 8:22: “The Lord created me at the beginning of His ways.” Thus Bellarmine is making the false claim that it was taken from Ecclesiasticus 24. Basil says, “These words ‘the Lord created me’ occur only once in the Scriptures, and that is in Proverbs.” If we are to have any confidence in Bellarmine, they are in Ecclesiasticus. Therefore Sirach is not a part of Holy Scripture. Moreover, it is quite evident that this is quoted from Proverbs, not Ecclesiasticus, because Basil and Epiphanius send us back to the Hebrew codex. Ecclesiasticus, however, is extant only in the Greek.
§ 218. [II] Bellarmine argues that Solomon is the author of this book. It is attributed to Solomon by Clement of Alexandria (Stromat., bk. 7), Cyprian (bk. 3, Epistle 9), Basil (Contra Eunom., bk. 4), Ambrose (on 1 Corinthians 7), Jerome (on Ecclesiastes 7), and Gregory (Moral., bk. 10, c. 14). But there has never been any doubt that the Books of Solomon have to be considered divine and canonical. Gretserus urges the same argument (Defens. Bellarm., bk. 1, c. 14, p. 264).
We respond. (1) If Solomon is the author of this book, then its title and prologue will be false. In the prologue the grandfather of the author is called Jesus, and the title bears the name Jesus, son of Sirach. The time when the book was written is also noted—in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes—and the place is added, Egypt. All of this refers to Solomon as much as the flowing waters of the Nile refer to Siloam.
(2) How could Solomon have related from the Books of Kings the histories of Elijah, Elisha, King Hezekiah, and the prophet Isaiah in Sirach 48 when they were not yet living at the time of Solomon? These things are not being foretold as future but are told as past. Chapter 50 mentions “Simon, the great priest, the son of Onias.” That may be the one who lived around the year of the world 3660 or another who served in the priesthood in the year 3772. It is certain that he lived under the reign of the Greeks. Thus the author of this book was his contemporary, or he lived after Simon the priest, whom he honors.
(3) Sirach 47:14[ff.] says many things about Solomon, but these are not set forth in his own person. How, then, can Solomon be the author of this book? In the Greek text of Sirach 51:13, the author says that he prayed to gain wisdom when he was young 
(“in the area of the temple”). Yet the temple did not exist when Solomon was still young. The Vulgate has rendered this ante tempus [“before the time”], but it is apparent from the Greek that this is a scribal error.
(4) The author speaks about Elijah by apostrophe, turning his talk to him: “[You] who were drawn up in the judgments of the times to still the wrath of the Lord, to turn the heart of the Father to His Son” (Sirach 48:10). Here the marginal notes, even in the Papist Bibles, send us back to the last chapter of Malachi, where we find this prophecy about Elijah. Yet Malachi lived five hundred years after Solomon. How, then, can Solomon be the author of this book?
(5) Epiphanius (Haeres. Anomaeorum), Jerome (preface on the Books of Solomon), Athanasius (Synopsis), Augustine, and others make the author of this book to be Jesus, son of Sirach, which agrees with the preface to the book. You see, the author says, “My grandfather Jesus, after devoting himself to the reading of the Law and the prophets and other books, himself wanted to write something of that which had to do with erudition and wisdom.”
(6) From this we also refute what Bellarmine suspects, that “Jesus, son of Sirach, is called the author of this book because he put into a single volume the statements of Solomon that he had collected.” You see, if the author had brought together only Solomon’s statements, he could not have made this claim about his grandfather.
(7) Even if the author of the book had collected some of Solomon’s statements, the book would not consequently be canonical, unless we want to make the same concession about 3 Ezra.
(8) If Bellarmine acknowledges Solomon as the author of Ecclesiasticus because the ancients quote it under Solomon’s name, he must also admit that Ezra wrote 3 and 4 Ezra and that those are canonical books because the ancients quote them everywhere under Ezra’s name.
§ 219. [III] Bellarmine argues that many doctrines of faith can be proved clearly from this book. We respond. Bellarmine appears to depend especially on the fact that in c. 43[:25] the name “Jesus” is used concerning our Savior, something that occurs nowhere else in the entire Scripture of the Old Testament. The words of the Vulgate version read as follows: “The wind keeps silent as He speaks, and the deep is calmed by His thought, and the Lord Jesus planted it.” But who can be persuaded that the son of Sirach knew, so many years before the birth of Christ, the name “Jesus,” since none of the prophets called Christ by this name before He came and since an angel came from heaven to give that name? In the Greek original of Benedictus Arias Montanus, we read the following: 
(“and He planted, or scattered, islands in that deep”). This also is the way the Greek Bible published in Frankfurt reads. Although in an alternate reading there is added, “In certain versions, it is read 
” [“Jesus planted it”], the context, nevertheless, shows that by scribal error 
[“Jesus”] was written for 
[“islands”].
§ 220. [IV] Sixtus Senensis (bk. 8, Haeres. 9) tries to prove that Sirach is in the canon from the notion that “in the first chapters of their epistles, Peter and James offer testimony from Sirach 14.” We respond. (1) James 1:10 reads: “Like the flower of the grass he will pass away.” 1 Pet. 1:24 reads: “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man like the flower of the field.” Sirach 14:18 reads: “All flesh grows old like a cloak,” and in the Greek [v. 17], 
. There is, however, a far greater agreement of the statements of Peter and James with Isa. 40:[6]—”All flesh is grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field”—than with the passage from Sirach. (2) As a consequence, Bellarmine has omitted this argument of Sixtus Senensis. (3) In the Index biblicus of the Vulgate edition, no testimony is taken from Wisdom nor from Sirach, though in that index the rest of the passages of the Old Testament that are quoted in the New Testament are collected. These words of Peter and James, however, are cited in that index as being from Isa. 40:7. (4) If this argument of Sixtus Senensis were of any weight, Menander would be much more canonical. In fact, the apostle cites his words in 1 Cor. 15:33.
§ 221. [V] Genebrardus (Chronol., anno mundi 3983) tries to prove that Ecclesiasticus is canonical because:
When Josephus mentions the laws of Moses in Contra Apion., bk. 2, he has this statement: “But woman is inferior to man in every respect. The corruption of man is more excellent than the virtue of woman. Therefore let her obey.” The Greek reads thus:
. There the middle words are similar to those of Sirach 42:14: “A man’s wickedness is better than a beneficent woman, a woman bringing reproach.”
From this Genebrardus infers that Sirach is in the canon. We respond. (1) With clear language Josephus acknowledges only twenty-two canonical books and omits the Book of Ecclesiasticus (Contra Apion., bk. 1). (2) He also cites this statement from Plato (loc. cit.): “Do not pick up what someone has not set down.” The book of Plato will not consequently be canonical, will it? (3) From a comparison of the passages, it is clear that those words have been twisted wretchedly so that somehow it can become likely that Josephus quoted Sirach as canonical. It is Josephus’s aim to gain a fine and excellent antiquity for the Mosaic laws, but how could he have achieved this with testimony taken from Ecclesiasticus? Josephus is speaking about women in general; Ecclesiasticus, about corrupt women in particular. How, then, are we to say that Josephus is quoting from Ecclesiasticus? In Ecclesiasticus 
means “worse”; in Josephus, “inferior.” The words do not fit together, nor is their sense in agreement if we insert the words that Genebrardus wants to be quoted from Ecclesiasticus. You see, the argument of Josephus is this: Woman is inferior to man in every respect; therefore she should obey. If we were to add the rest of the words—”A man’s wickedness is better than a beneficent woman; therefore the woman should obey the man”—this reasoning is patently absurd, so it seems to some people quite correctly that those words have crept into the text from a marginal gloss.