Ecclesiasticus Quotes

We read in Ecclesiasticus also: “In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin.

If pain and injustice and undeserved misery are part of the package, and God knows they are, then surely the life of Christ is God's own answer to Ecclesiasticus! Redeem the suffering. Embrace it. Make it mean something.

...Bud forth as the rose planted by the brooks of waters. Give ye a sweet odor as frankincense. Send forth flowers, as the lily...and bring forth leaves in grace, and praise with canticles, and bless the Lord in his works." —Ecclesiasticus 39:17-19

The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them.

Forgive your neighbor’s injustice. Then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven. —Ecclesiasticus 28:2

He sprinkles snow like birds alighting, It comes down like locusts settling. The eye marvels at the beauty of its whiteness, And the mind is amazed at its falling.

Those who sail the sea tell of its dangers, Their accounts fill our ears with amazement: For there too there are strange and wonderful works, Animals of every kind and huge sea creatures.

Call no man fortunate before his death; It is by his end that a man will be known.

There are no marks in these books which would attest a divine origin. . . . both Judith and Tobit contain historical, chronological and geographical errors. The books justify falsehood and deception and make salvation to depend upon works of merit. . . . Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon inculcate a morality based upon expediency. Wisdom teaches the creation of the world out of pre-existent matter (11:17). Ecclesiasticus teaches that the giving of alms makes atonement for sin (3:30). In Baruch it is said that God hears the prayers of the dead (3:4), and in I Maccabees there are historical and geographical errors.17 It was not until 1546, at the Council of Trent, that the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the canon (with the exception of 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh). It is significant that the Council of Trent was the response of the Roman Catholic Church to the teachings of Martin Luther and the rapidly spreading Protestant Reformation, and the books of the Apocrypha contain support for the Catholic teaching of prayers for the dead and justification by faith plus works, not by faith alone

Do not travel with a reckless fellow, in case he imposes on you; he will act as the whim takes him, and you will both be ruined by his folly.

There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them. — ECCLESIASTICUS 44:8–9 Barn

The blow of the whip raises a welt, but a blow of the tongue crushes bones.