Annotatio CCXVIII
”Love justice,” etc. — Wisdom 1:1
Augustine, in the second book On Christian Doctrine, chapter 8, in which he enumerates the canon of the sacred Scriptures, said that the book which is entitled the Wisdom of Solomon had for [its] author Jesus, the son of Sirach, who wrote the book of Ecclesiasticus.1 This same thing he retracted, in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 3, in these words: “Concerning the author of the book which many call the Wisdom of Solomon — that it too, like Ecclesiasticus, [was written] by Jesus the son of Sirach — [I say that] it does not so stand as was said by me; for I afterward learned, and found [it] altogether more probable, that he is not the author of this book.”2