Read this if you…
- want a Jewish wisdom book that didn't make the Protestant cut but stayed in the Catholic Bible
- like practical advice from a 2nd-century-BCE sage on everything from dinner-party etiquette to handling grief
- care about the 'praise of famous men' finale — the literary ancestor of every 'great men of history' catalog
Skip this if you…
- don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts
Depicted in Art
The Virgin enthroned with the infant Christ in a niche of roses, lilies, palm, cypress, and plane trees, each plant labeled with a Latin tag — 'sicut lilium in campis,' 'quasi cypressus in monte Sion,' 'quasi palma exaltata' — drawn directly from Sirach 24.
Sandro Botticelli, 1485
The personification of Divine Wisdom enthroned in clouds hands a book down to Jesus Sirach, who kneels at the foot of a Corinthian colonnade with the underworld gaping open beside him.
Cornelis Galle the Elder, 1634
A stained glass figure of personified Wisdom robed in blue, set against a celestial backdrop, with the scrolled inscription of Sirach 24:4 — 'I dwelt in the highest places.'
1900
Recommended Editions
King James Version
Oxford University Press · 1611
The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.
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Notable Quotes
Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.
- Augustine of Hippo, Church Father, Bishop of Hippo, 354–430: "Still they are to be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have attained recognition as being authoritative."
- Athanasius of Alexandria, Church Father, Bishop of Alexandria, c. 296–373: "Other books not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read … the Wisdom of Sirach."
- Martin Luther, German theologian and reformer, 1483–1546: A useful book for the ordinary man — not held equal to Holy Scripture, yet profitable and good to read.
- Cyprian of Carthage, Church Father, Bishop of Carthage, c. 210–258: So constantly was it read aloud in the assemblies that the Latin Fathers, following Cyprian, named it simply Ecclesiasticus — the Church's Book.
- James Agee, American writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, 1909–1955: Took his book's title — Let Us Now Praise Famous Men — straight from Ecclesiasticus 44:1, hanging a modern American masterpiece on the ancient line.
- Babylonian Talmud (rabbinic tradition), Foundational rabbinic text, c. 500 CE: In Bava Kamma 92b the rabbis cite Ben Sira with 'as it is written' — the formula otherwise reserved for Scripture.