Jesus ben Sirach

Ptolemy V Epiphanes, Macedonian ruler of Hellenistic Egypt for the past twenty-four years, retains existing alliances in Greece, but the Egyptian kingdom has declined in power and influence and has lost most of its empire outside Egypt other than Cyprus and Cyrenaica.

An able eunuch has been sent to recruit Greek mercenaries; but whatever the King's plans may have been, he dies suddenly in about May 181, possibly by poison, leaving two sons and a daughter.

His six-year-old elder son succeeds to the throne as Ptolemy VI (called Ptolemy Philometeor); his mother Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus III and Laodice, who had married Ptolemy V in 193, serves effectively as regent.

The Book of Sirach, also known as the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, is written in Hebrew by Ben Sirach, a Jew who had been living in Jerusalem, and who may have authored the work in Alexandria circa 180–175 BCE, where he is thought to have established a school.

The book, culminating in a long eulogy of the heroes of Israel, fuses traditional wisdom with the author’s esteem for Jewish law.

The book would later be included in the Septuagint; it is accepted as part of the biblical canon by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, but not by most Protestants, and is listed in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.

Although it was not accepted into the Tanakh, the Jewish biblical canon, The Wisdom of Ben Sira is occasionally quoted in the Talmud and works of rabbinic literature.

The Greek Church Fathers also called it The All-Virtuous Wisdom, while the Latin Church Fathers, beginning with Cyprian, termed it Ecclesiasticus because it was frequently read in churches, leading to the title liber ecclesiasticus (Latin and Latinized Greek for "church book").

Today it is more frequently known as Ben Sira or simply Sirach. ("Ben Sirach" should be avoided because it is a mix of the Hebrew and Greek titles.)

The Jews under the Syrian Seleucids are treated even more liberally than they had been under the Egyptian Ptolemids, being granted a charter to govern themselves by their own constitution, namely, the Torah.

Greek influence, however, is already becoming manifest.

Some of the twenty-nine Greek cities of Palestine attain a high level of culture.

The years from 188 BCE onward are lean years for the dynasty, because the war with Rome, which had ended in a complete Roman victory, had cost it not only almost the whole of Asia Minor but also a yearly indemnity of fifteen thousand talents.

Unsurprisingly, the first account of Seleucid rule in Palestine tells of an attempt by Heliodorus, the leading minister of Seleucus IV, to deprive the Second Temple in Jerusalem of its treasure.

His failure is soon ascribed to divine protection.

The apocryphal writer Jesus ben Sirach so bitterly denounces the Hellenizers in Jerusalem that he is forced by the authorities to temper his words.