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 author was Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem, who
flourished about two hundred years before Christ. As it was written
after the time of Esdras, it is not in the Jewish canon; but is
received as canonical and divine by the Catholic Church, instructed by
apostolical tradition, and directed by the spirit of God. It was first
written in the Hebrew, but afterwards translated into Greek, by another
Jesus, the grandson of the author, whose prologue to this book is the
following: