The Book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach)

Ecclesiasticus is the longest of the wisdom books of the Old Testament: fifty-one chapters of counsel on the fear of God, prayer, alms, humility, friendship, marriage, the raising of children, the use of riches and the government of the tongue, crowned by a hymn of Wisdom herself and a long praise of the fathers of Israel. Below we give the book's author and date as the Church received them, a summary by sections, the verses most often sought, and its place in the canon and the liturgy. Every chapter is open to read, with the Latin Vulgate beside the Douay-Rheims, from chapter 1 to chapter 51.

What is the Book of Sirach also called?

In Greek it is "the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach"; Jewish writers call it Ben Sira; St Jerome reports that the Hebrew copy he saw bore the title Parables (Mishle). The Latin Church, from at least the time of St Cyprian, called it Ecclesiasticus, the name kept by the Council of Trent and the Douay-Rheims. Challoner's preface explains it: "This Book is so called from a Greek word that signifies a preacher: because, like an excellent preacher, it gives admirable lessons of all virtues." The name also recalls the Church (ecclesia), where it was read to instruct the faithful. Modern editions usually print it as Sirach. It is not Ecclesiastes, "the Preacher" attributed to Solomon.

Who wrote the Book of Sirach?

The book signs itself. Near its close we read: "Jesus the son of Sirach, of Jerusalem, hath written in this book the doctrine of wisdom and instruction, who renewed wisdom from his heart" (Ecclesiasticus 50:29), and the final chapter opens, "A prayer of Jesus the son of Sirach" (51:1). His grandson, also named Jesus, wrote the Prologue printed before chapter 1: "My grandfather Jesus, after he had much given himself to a diligent reading of the law, and the prophets, and other books... had a mind also to write something himself, pertaining to doctrine and wisdom." He was a learned scribe of Jerusalem, and his portrait of the wise man reads like his own: "The wise man will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and will be occupied in the prophets" (39:1).

Because of its likeness to Proverbs, the book was sometimes counted among "the books of Solomon." St Augustine settles the point in On Christian Doctrine (II, 8): these books "are ascribed to Solomon from a certain resemblance of style, but the most likely opinion is that they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach. Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative."

When was the Book of Sirach written?

The Prologue gives the date of the translation: the grandson came into Egypt "in the eight and thirtieth year... when Ptolemy Evergetes was king," that is, about 132 B.C., and there rendered his grandfather's Hebrew into Greek. The book itself belongs, in Challoner's words, to a man "who flourished about two hundred years before Christ." The author writes as an eyewitness of the high priest "Simon... the son of Onias" (50:1); whether this was Simon I or Simon II is debated, and with it a precise date, but the common reckoning places the composition in the early second century B.C.

Ben Sira wrote in Hebrew; large parts of that original reappeared in manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah, identified in 1896, and in older fragments found at Masada. The Vulgate text is the Old Latin version made from the Greek, which St Jerome revised only lightly; it contains verses absent from the shorter Greek, so its numbering often differs from modern editions.

What is the Book of Sirach about? A summary

Ecclesiasticus is not a story but a school, its sayings addressed like a father's instruction: "Son..." It falls into a long body of maxims (1 to 42:14), a hymn to God in creation and history (42:15 to 50), and a closing prayer (51).

The fear of the Lord and the trial of the soul (chapters 1–2)

"All wisdom is from the Lord God," the book begins (chapter 1), and its keynote follows: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (1:16). Chapter 2 bids whoever comes "to the service of God" to "prepare thy soul for temptation" (2:1), for "gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation" (2:5).

Duties to parents, the poor and friends (chapters 3–13)

Chapter 3 is a long meditation on the Fourth Commandment and teaches humility and alms; chapter 4 pleads for the poor. Chapter 6 gives the famous counsel on friendship, and chapter 7 the remembrance of our last end. The following chapters treat women and the household, rulers, and above all pride (chapter 10), riches and the choice of company (13).

Free will, wisdom of speech and prayer against sin (chapters 14–23)

After a warning against avarice (chapter 14), chapter 15 sets before man "life and death, good and evil." Chapter 18 praises the Creator's mercy. Chapters 19 to 23 are a treatise on the tongue, on gossip, oaths and lies, ending in the heartfelt prayer of chapter 23: "O Lord, father, and sovereign ruler of my life, leave me not to their counsel."

The praise of Wisdom (chapter 24)

At the heart of the book, Wisdom speaks in her own voice (chapter 24): she came "out of the mouth of the most High," sought rest in all the earth, and was established in Sion, growing like the cedar of Libanus and the vine. She is found in "the book of life, and the covenant of the most High" (24:32), the Law of Moses, and invites all: "Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits" (24:26).

Household, society and the worship of God (chapters 25–42:14)

The counsels resume: the good wife (chapters 25–26), the forgiveness of injuries (chapter 28), lending (29), the correction of children (30), banquets and moderation (31–32), the vanity of dreams (34), true sacrifice and prayer (35), the prayer for the nations (chapter 36), the physician and mourning (38), the scribe (chapter 39), and death itself (chapter 41).

God's glory in creation (chapters 42:15–43)

"I will now remember the works of the Lord" (42:15): a hymn to the sun, moon and stars, snow, frost and the sea, all subject to His word (chapter 43).

The praise of the fathers (chapters 44–50)

"Let us now praise men of renown and our fathers in their generation" (44:1). Ben Sira walks through sacred history from Henoch and Noe to Abraham, Moses and Aaron (chapter 45), Josue, Samuel, David and Solomon (chapters 46–47), Elias and Eliseus (chapter 48), Isaias, Josias and the prophets, ending with the radiant portrait of the high priest Simon in the Temple (chapter 50). It is the history of Genesis through Kings and the prophets, read as one history of grace.

The prayer of Jesus son of Sirach (chapter 51)

The book closes with a thanksgiving for deliverance and an account of how its author sought wisdom from his youth "openly in my prayer" (chapter 51), with a last word to the reader: "Work your work before the time, and he will give you your reward in his time" (51:38).

Themes of Ecclesiasticus and the Catholic reading

Wisdom begins in the fear of God. Ben Sira's wisdom is piety lived out in daily duty; of the sapiential books, with Proverbs, Job and Wisdom, it is the most practical.

Free will and grace. "God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel" (15:14) is one of the classic texts on free will. St Augustine, in On Grace and Free Will, quotes it against those who blamed God for their sins, and shows from the same author, who prays "Who will set a guard before my mouth?" (22:33), that the will keeps the commandments only when helped by grace.

Alms, repentance and the last end. "Water quencheth a flaming fire, and alms resisteth sins" (3:33) agrees with the Archangel's words in Tobias: "alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins" (Tobias 12:9). The book presses conversion without delay (5:8) and the thought of the four last things: "In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin" (7:40).

Forgiveness and the Our Father. "Forgive thy neighbour if he hath hurt thee: and then shall thy sins be forgiven to thee when thou prayest" (28:2) anticipates the petition Our Lord placed in the Lord's Prayer in St Matthew 6:12. The rich man who says "I have found me rest, and now I will eat of my goods alone" and knows not "that death approacheth" (11:19–20) foreshadows the parable of the rich fool in St Luke 12.

Wisdom, Christ and Our Lady. Wisdom who comes "out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all creatures" (24:5) has been read by the Fathers as a figure of the eternal Word, through whom all things were made. The Church in her liturgy also applies chapter 24 to the Blessed Virgin, the seat of Wisdom, chosen "from the beginning, and before the world" (24:14) and called "the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope" (24:24).

Famous verses from Ecclesiasticus

• Sirach 1:16 (the fear of the Lord). "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (chapter 1).
• Sirach 3 (honour thy father and mother). "Honour thy father, in work and word, and all patience" (3:9); "he that honoureth his mother is as one that layeth up a treasure" (3:5); "The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God" (3:20) (chapter 3).
• Sirach 6:5–17 (a faithful friend). "A faithful friend is a strong defence: and he that hath found him, hath found a treasure. Nothing can be compared to a faithful friend" (6:14–15) (chapter 6). We gather these and others in What Does God Say About Friendship?
• Sirach 10:15 (pride). "Pride is the beginning of all sin" (chapter 10); see What Does God Say About Pride?
• Sirach 25 and 26:1–4 (a good wife). "man and wife that agree well together" (25:2); "Happy is the husband of a good wife: for the number of his years is double. A virtuous woman rejoiceth her husband" (26:1–2) (chapters 25 and 26). These verses are a frequent wedding reading in the newer rite; the traditional Nuptial Mass reads St Paul to the Ephesians.
• Sirach 35:21 (the prayer of the humble). "The prayer of him that humbleth himself, shall pierce the clouds" (chapter 35).
• Sirach 38:1–9 (the physician). "Honour the physician for the need thou hast of him: for the most High hath created him... in thy sickness neglect not thyself, but pray to the Lord, and he shall heal thee" (chapter 38), a text dear to the sick, with the Anointing of the Sick.
• Sirach 44:1 (famous men). "Let us now praise men of renown and our fathers in their generation" (chapter 44).

Is the Book of Sirach in the Bible? Its place in the canon

Yes. Ecclesiasticus is one of the seven deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Old Testament, with Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Baruch and the two books of Machabees. In the Douay-Rheims it stands after Wisdom and before Isaias, closing the wisdom books.

It came to the Church in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament of the Apostles. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St Cyprian and St Augustine quote it as Scripture, and Augustine notes that "of old the Church, especially the Western, received them into authority" (City of God XVII, 20). The Roman list attributed to Pope St Damasus (382), the African Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), the Council of Florence (1442) and finally the Council of Trent (Session IV, 8 April 1546) all name Ecclesiasticus among the sacred books, Trent anathematizing whoever does not receive them "entire with all their parts." Challoner sums it up: it "is received as canonical and divine by the Catholic Church, instructed by apostolical tradition."

The Reformers, following the shorter canon of the later rabbis and the doubts of St Jerome, set it apart among the "Apocrypha"; it remains in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles.

In the liturgy. The 1962 Missal uses Ecclesiasticus generously, announcing it as Lectio libri Sapientiae. The Lesson of the Common of Our Lady (the Mass Salve, sancta Parens) and of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin is Ecclesiasticus 24:14–16.

The Mass of a Confessor Bishop, Statuit, takes its Introit from 45:30 and its Lesson from chapters 44–45, "Behold a great priest"; the Mass of a Confessor not a Bishop, Os justi, reads 31:8–11, "Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish"; and the Mass of Doctors, In medio Ecclesiae, takes its Introit from 15:5, "In the midst of the church she shall open his mouth." In the Roman Breviary, the book is begun at Matins in the fourth week of August, after Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Wisdom, and continued the following week (see The Breviary).

How to read the Book of Ecclesiasticus

Read it slowly, a chapter a day, as the early Church gave it to catechumens: not for a plot but for a rule of life. Begin with chapters 1–7 for the foundations, keep chapter 24 for a feast of Our Lady, and read the praise of the fathers with the historical books at hand. Where a counsel touches your own duties, turn it into a petition, as Ben Sira does in chapters 23 and 51; our Prayer for Wisdom is a fitting way to begin.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Book of Sirach?

The Book of Sirach, called Ecclesiasticus in the Douay-Rheims and the Latin Vulgate, is an Old Testament book of wisdom written in Hebrew by Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem about 200 B.C. and translated into Greek by his grandson. It teaches the fear of God, prayer, alms, humility, friendship and family duties, and praises the great men of Israel. The Catholic Church holds it as inspired Scripture; every chapter can be read in our Catholic Bible.

Who wrote the Book of Sirach?

It was written by Jesus the son of Sirach (Ben Sira), a scribe of Jerusalem, who signs the book in Ecclesiasticus 50:29; his grandson's Prologue tells how "my grandfather Jesus" composed it after long study of the Law and the Prophets. St Augustine already taught that it was his work, not Solomon's.

When was the Book of Sirach written?

Ben Sira wrote in the early second century before Christ; Challoner's Douay preface says he "flourished about two hundred years before Christ." His grandson translated it into Greek after coming to Egypt in the thirty-eighth year of King Ptolemy Euergetes, about 132 B.C.

Is the Book of Sirach in the Catholic Bible?

Yes. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Old Testament, listed among the sacred books by the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), the Council of Florence, and the Council of Trent in 1546. It has 51 chapters in the Douay-Rheims and stands between Wisdom and Isaias.

Why is the Book of Sirach not in the Protestant Bible?

The Protestant Reformers adopted the later Jewish canon, which did not include books such as Ecclesiasticus, and they classed it among the "Apocrypha." The 1611 King James Version still printed it in a separate Apocrypha section, but most later Protestant Bibles omit it. The Catholic Church, following the Apostles and the Fathers, has always received it as canonical.

Is the Book of Sirach the same as Ecclesiastes?

No. Ecclesiastes is a short book of twelve chapters attributed to Solomon, "the Preacher," meditating on the vanity of earthly things. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) is a much longer book of moral wisdom by Jesus the son of Sirach; the names are alike, the books distinct.

How many chapters are in the Book of Sirach?

Ecclesiasticus has 51 chapters, preceded by the grandson's Prologue. The Vulgate and Douay-Rheims contain some verses absent from modern translations, so verse numbers may differ.

How do you pronounce Sirach?

Sirach is usually pronounced SY-rak (some say SEER-ak), with the stress on the first syllable; the Hebrew form of the name is Ben Sira, "son of Sira." The Latin title, Ecclesiasticus, is pronounced ek-lee-zee-AS-ti-kus. Both names designate the same book of 51 chapters.

Read the whole Book of Ecclesiasticus verse by verse, in Latin and English, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. Holy Scripture, Douay-Rheims (Challoner) and Latin Vulgate: Ecclesiasticus with its Prologue and Challoner's preface; Tobias 12:9; Matthew 6:12; Luke 12:16–21. St Augustine, On Christian Doctrine II, 8; City of God XVII, 20; On Grace and Free Will. St Athanasius, Festal Letter 39. Decree of Pope St Damasus (Council of Rome, 382); Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397); Council of Florence, Cantate Domino (1442); Council of Trent, Session IV, Decree on the Canonical Scriptures (1546). Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "Ecclesiasticus." Missale Romanum (1962): Common of the Blessed Virgin, Presentation of the B.V.M., Commons Statuit, Os justi and In medio Ecclesiae. Breviarium Romanum, Matins of the fourth and fifth weeks of August.