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THE BOOK OF WISDOM

.

UNIVERSITY, a rrroRWy

London

HENRY FROWDE ~ .

* OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE

: 7 PATERNOSTER ROW

FS

SOOIA SAAQOMON

THE BOOK OF WISDOM aa

THE GREEK TEXT, THE LATIN VULGATE

AND

THE AUTHORISED ENGLISH VERSION :

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, CRITICAL APPARATUS AND A COMMENTARY “

BY

WILLIAM J. DEANE, M.A.

; quest | . : AABN

: UNIVERSITY

NS urFroR se ; P Oxford R ie AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

boa

1881

[ All rights reserved }

RY char

PREFACE.

WuEN I turned my attention many years ago to the Book of Wisdom, there was no Commentary in the English language that treated fully of this work, save that of Arnald. This was copious indeed, but cumbersome and often speculative and uncritical. I felt also the want of some better revision of the text than was offered by the editions of the Septuagint usually met with in England. Even Tischendorf, who had sung the praises of his Sinaitic Codex far and wide, had made scarcely any use of this MS. in his own editions of the Septuagint, contenting himself with noting the variations of the Alexandrian and the Codex Ephraemi rescriptus. Taking the Vatican text as a basis therefore, I collated it with the Sinaitic and the other uncial MSS., and with the cursives given in Holmes and Parsons’ work, with occasional reference to the Complutensian and Aldine editions. It was not till my own collation was just completed that I became acquainted with Fritzsche’s Libri Apocryphi Veteris Testamenti, a work of the utmost value, though not quite free from mistakes in recording the readings both of the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS. These errors have been noted by E. Nestle in an appendix to the last (eighth) edition of Tischendorf. In confirming the text by reference to the Fathers, I have derived great assistance from Observationes Criticae in Libr. Sap. by F. H. Reusch, who has carefully noted the passages of the Book quoted by early writers. Walton's Polyglot has provided me with the Armenian, Syriac, and Arabic versions. For the sake of comparison I have printed the Latin Vulgate, and the so-called authorised English Version, in parallel columns with the Greek. The former is particularly interesting as containing many unusual words or forms, which are duly noted in the Commentary. In elucidating the text I have endeavoured to give the plain grammatical and historical meaning of each passage, illustrating it by reference to the writings of Philo, Josephus, the Alexandrian writers, and early Fathers; but I have been sparing of quotations from Christian authors, not from want of materials, but because I did not wish my work to assume an homiletical form, or to be burdened by reflections which an educated reader is able to make for himself.

vi PREFACE. SS. ae

The importance of the Septuagint in the study of the New Testament cannot be overrated ; and I trust it will be found that I have not often omitted to note passages and words in the Book of Wisdom which illustrate the writings of the later Covenant. Many statements and allusions — in the Book are confirmed by traditions found in the Targums: these have been gathered from the works of Dr. Ginsburg and Etheridge. In preparing the Commentary great use has been 5

made of the works of C. L. W. Grimm and Gutberlet; the former is too well known and appreciated

to need commendation; the latter is useful, and the writer’s judgment can be trusted where it is : uninfluenced by the desire to condone the mistakes and interpolations of the Latin Vulgate. The great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide has of course been constantly consulted. The Rev.

Canon Churton kindly permitted me to inspect his MS. when my own notes were almost com- __

pleted; and I have availed myself of his paraphrase in some few passages. Dr. Bissell’s work reached me only as my own pages were passing through the press; but it does not afford any new light on obscure passages, and seems to be chiefly a compilation from German sources.

Viewing the Book of Wisdom as an important product of Jewish-Alexandrine thought, it seemed desirable to offer a brief sketch of the course taken by Greek philosophy in discussing the momentous questions with which it attempted to cope. An effort is made to define the position occupied by our Book in the Jewish-Alexandrian school, and some notion is given of the influence exercised by that phase of thought on the language, though not on the doctrine, of Christianity. The later development of this school, which led to many fatal errors, is barely noticed, as being beyond the scope of this work, which aims only at affording a help to the student of the period immediately antecedent to Christianity.

CONTENTS.

1. THe Book oF WISDOM: ITS CLAIMS ON ATTENTION. 2. SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS or Greek Paitosoppy. 3. THe JewisH-ALEXANDRIAN Puitosopny. 4. Its

INFLUENCE ON THE THEOLOGY OF THE NEw TESTAMENT . s : : ’

Tirte. Puan. Contents

LANGUAGE AND CHARACTER .

PLACE AND DATE OF Composition. AUTHOR . : ‘i ‘

History. Avruority. ReELatTion TO THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE

Versions, Epirions, AND COMMENTARIES

PROLEGOMENA.

1, The Book of Wisdom: its claims on attention.—2. Sketch of the progress of Greek Philosophy.—3. The Jewish- Alexandrian Philosophy.—4. Its influence on the Theology of the New Testament.

1. THE Book of Wisdom has many claims on our attention and respect. "Whatever views we may adopt as to its date and author (matters which will be dis- cussed later), we may confidently assert, that, occupying that period between the writing of the Old and New Testaments, when the more formal utterances of the Holy Spirit for.a season had ceased to be heard, and, as far as remaining records attest, God had for the time ceased to speak by the prophets, it possesses an absorb- ing interest for every student of the history of Christi- anity. In conjunction with other writings of the same period, this Book exhibits the mind and doctrine of the Jews, the progress of religious belief among them, and the preparation for Christianity which was gradually being effected by the development of the Mosaic creed and ritual. The gap between the two covenants is here bridged over. Herein is presented a view of the Hebrew religion, definite and consistent, which may well be re- garded as a necessary link in the chain of connection between the earlier and later revelations, Nowhere else can be seen so eloquent and profound an enunciation of the faith of a Hebrew educated away from the iso- lating and confining influence of Palestine, one who had studied the philosophies of East and West, had

learned much from those sources, yet acknowledged and exulted in the superiority of his own creed, and who, having tried other systems by that high standard, had found them to fail miserably. Nowhere else can be read so grand a statement of the doctrine of the im- mortality of the soul as the vindication of God's justice. The identification of the serpent who tempted Eve with Satan, the reference of the introduction of death into the world to the devil, the typical significance assigned to the history and ritual of the Pentateuch, the doc- trine of man’s freedom of will exerted in bringing upon himself the punishment of his sins, and the sure re- tribution that accompanies transgression,—in treating of all these subjects, the Book is unique among pre- christian writings, and its neglect or omission cannot be compensated by any other existing work.

It is remarkable how greatly this Book has been disregarded in England. While the Fathers have quoted it largely and continually, while commentators in old time delighted in plumbing its depths and in finding Christian verities underlying every page, while in later days Germany has poured forth a copious stream of versions and comments, England has been till lately? content with the single work of R, Arnald, and has

1 Lately the Rev. J. H. Blunt has published The Annotated Bible, London, 1879, vol. ii of which contains the Apocrypha, and

*"

the Rev. W. R. Churton has prepared an edition of the Book of Wisdom for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

B =

“ 4

left the Book unstudied and uncriticized. Familiar as some of its chapters are to all English churchmen from their forming some of the daily and festival lec- tions in the Calendar, no student of Holy Scripture has seemed to think the Book of Wisdom worth serious labour, and it has been left for other nations to bestow upon this remarkable work that diligence which it deserves and will well repay.

2. Before entering upon an examination of the text of the Book of Wisdom, some preliminary inquiries are necessary for determining its place in the history of religious development and its connection with preceding and subsequent systems. If, as we shall show reason hereafter for asserting, the work was produced at Alex- andria, and is a genuine offspring of the Jewish-Alex-

~ andrian school which took its rise in that celebrated centre of commerce and philosophy, a short space must be devoted to an investigation into the origin, tenets, and influence of that school. To trace at length its effects in producing gnosticism and other heresies in Christian times is beyond the scope of this outline, which aims only at recording its rise, and making a brief examination of the question, whether the Gospel owes any of its doctrines to this system.

If we make a distinction between Theology and Philosophy, we must say Theology has to do with faith, Philosophy with research. Philosophy claims to systematise the conceptions furnished by Theology and Science, and to provide a doctrine which shall explain the world and the destiny of man’. The basis of Theo- logy is revelation; this principle Philosophy ignores, and casting away the help thus offered endeavours and claims to elucidate the phenomena of the universe by analysis and generalisation.

Let us see first what progress the purely heathen

THE ‘BOOK OF WISDOM.

Greek Philosophy made tvwkrds vise the problems of being, and next how it fared when | bined with a belief in revelation. Ri

The history of Greek Philosophy may be divic into three periods, the Pre-Soeratic, the Socratic, a1 the Post-Socratic?. ;

around ikea by the agencies of the deities in Rie: m the poets had taught them to believe.

became in their view the cause of life and power, — ne the substance, as it were, of which all phenomena were — only the modes. The utmost development at which these Physicists arrived was to endow this primary _ element, be it air or other substance, with intelligence, — making it in fact equivalent to a soul possessed of reason and consciousness. Anaximander (B.c. 610) held that ‘The Infinite’ (75 dreipov) was the origin of — all things. What he meant exactly by thistermitis perhaps impossible to discover ; but being a mathema- tician, and ‘prone to regard abstractions as entities’ = = he was led to formulate a ‘distinction between all Finite Things and the Infinite All*’ But this ‘Tufinite — All’ was not developed into the idea of Infinite mind — till the school of the Eleatics arose. zy Meantime the interest of the history centres itself upon the mysterious and justly celebrated Pythagoras, the great founder of the Mathematicians. He was a lover of Wisdom for its own sake, not for the practical _ purposes to which it may be applied; hence it was perhaps that he adopted the study of numbers as best able to draw the mind away from the finite to the

= aft ine hen 4 Ss ae : oP wy,

1 Lewes, Hist. of Philosophy, I, xviii. ed. 1867. In the follow- ing brief sketch of Greek Philosophy I have chiefly followed Mr. Lewes.

2 Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, i. 111 ff.

3 'O rijs ro.adrns dpxnyos pirogopias, Aristot, Met. A. c, 3.

Thales is considered to have been born about 8.0. 636. Ritter,

Hist. of Ancient Phil. i. bk. ITI. chap. 3. pp. 195, ff. Eng. trans,

Mosheim’s trans, of Cudworth’s Intell. Syst. i. pp. 35, 147- * Lewes, Hist. of Philos. i. 15.

infinite, from the sensible to the ineorporéal. Tn them _he saw the principles of things, the cause of the material

existence of things’, All numbers resolve into one:

all parts can be reduced to unity. All that we see

around us are only copies of numbers, and numerical

existence is the only invariable existence. And as this

is the farthest point to which we can conduct our speculations, One is the infinite, the absolute, the dpy7 which is the object of the philosophers’ search. We must remember that with Pythagoras numbers were not, as with us, mere symbols, but real entities?; we can thus readily conceive the meaning of his little- known theory. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls attributed to him is based on the same prin- ciple. The soul is One and perfect. Conneeting itself with man it passes into imperfection; and according as one or other of its three elements, voiis, Gpyy, Oupis, rule, so is the man’s scale in creation, rational, intelli- gent, sensual, so are the bodies which it may succes- sively inhabit ; but these changes are merely phenomena of the monad, the one invariable essence.

Unsatisfied with the answer to the problem of exist- ence given by others, Xenophanes (B. c. 616) fixing his gaze on the vast heavens determined that the One is God’, The position which he maintained is found in a couplet of his which has been preserved * :

Els Oeds & re Oeoiot xat dvOpmroor péyoros, ovre Seuas Ovyrviow dpotios obre vénua.

He may be considered the apostle of Monotheism, the teacher, amid the corruptions of the prevalent belief in multitudinous gods, of a faith in one perfect Being, though he could not tell who or what this being was, and looked upon all things as manifestations of this

one self-existent, eternal God. His Monotheism was

in fact Pantheism. But his speculations opened the

way to scepticism, led men to think that nothing could be known as certain.

Parmenides * (B.c. 536) followed in his train, affirm- ing that the only truth is obtained through reason with- out the aid of the senses, and that nothing really exists but the One Being. These two distinct doctrines, the latter of which was but little in advance of his pre- decessors, compose his system. This was supported by his pupil and friend Zeno of Elea (B.c. 500), the inventor of Dialectics, who, indeed, added nothing new, but contributed a mass of arguments, sophisms, and illustrations, many of which are more ingenious than solid, but which are valuable and interesting as being the earliest instances of that formal logic which plays so important a part in all subsequent discussions.

The immediate precursors of Socrates and his school were the Sophists, but the intermediate tenets of some other philosophers, especially of Democritus and Hera- clitus, the so-called laughing and weeping philosophers, demand a passing notice. The men themselves may be mythical, but there is a germ of truth in all myths, and the story of these two represents doubtless a real step in the progress of inquiry. Heraclitus (B.c. 503) rejected the idea of reason being the sole criterion of truth, and held that the senses rightly educated are never deceived. Error springs from the imperfection of human reason, not from the falsity of the information or ideas derived from sensation. Perfect knowledge dwells with the universal Intelligence, and the more a man admits this into his soul, the more secure is he from error. The principle of all things is Fire, ever changing, moving, living, and out of the strife of contraries pro- ducing harmony. Democritus too (B.c. 460) upheld the truth of sensation, but sensation controlled by reflection (8:dvora)* ; and he was the first to answer the question of the modus operandi of the senses by the sup-

1 Tods dpiOpods elva ris ovcias. Aristot. Metaph. i. 6. ap, Lewes, i, p. 28; Grote, Plato, i. pp. 10, ff. (ed. 1865); Mosheim’s

_ Cudworth, i. pp. 567, 570, notes.

® See the point argued against Ritter by Lewes, Hist. of Phil.

i pp. 30, fh

3 Td & eivai gna tov edv. Aristot. Metaph. i. 5; Mosheim’s Cudworth, i. pp. 580, ff. * Xenoph. Colophon. Fragm. illustr. 8, Karsten. 5 Mosheim’s Cudworth, i. pp. 592, ff. * Lewes, i. p. 98. B2

—

24 a

position, that all things threw off images of themselves which entered the soul through the organs of the body. The primary elements were atoms which were self- existent and possessed of inherent power of motion, from which the universe received its form and laws. The notion of a supreme Being to control these elements is foreign to his system, which is the merest ma- terialism ; destiny, to which he attributed the forma- tion of things, being a term used to cloke ignorance, Differing somewhat from former philosophers, Anaxa- goras, while holding that all knowledge of phenomena came from the senses, regarded this information as delusive because it did not penetrate to the substance of things, and needed reason to correct it; and as regards cosmology, he taught that creation and de- struction were merely other names for aggregating or decomposing pre-existent atoms, the Arranger being Intelligence, voids, the Force of the universe, not a moral or divine power, but an all-knowing unmixed and subtle principle’. This principle Empedocles con- ceived to be Love, which was opposed by Hate, who however operated only in the lower world, for the one supreme power, which he termed Love, was a sphere above the world, ever calm, rejoicing, and restful. These forces are in some sort identical with good and evil; and it is the struggle between these powers that causes individual things and beings to come into exist- ence, Hate separating the elements which are combined by Love into one all-including sphere.

To this period of Greek Philosophy belong the Sophists.

The Sophists did not form a school or sect*. They taught the art of disputation, how best to use language so as to convince and persuade; but they were the natural successors of preceding speculators. Thought is sensation, said one*, ‘man is the measure of all

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

things,’ human knowledge is relative, truth is sub- jective ; therefore a wise man will regard all truth as opinion, and study only how to make what he considers true or expedient acceptable to others. It is easy to see how such sentiments might be perverted to the — overthrow of morality, and hence we can understand | the reason why Plato and others regarded the Sophists — with such repugnance ; but there is little evidence to show that the teachers who had the name ever pushed their opinions to such dangerous consequences. ae To contend against these unsatisfactory sceptics am opponent arose who in most respects was a perfect ; contrast to them. In his abnegation of self, in his contempt for riches and honours, in his denunciation of = abuses, in his proud humility, Socrates (B.c. 469) con- tradicted their most cherished principles and assaulted their most esteemed practices. No flow of words could persuade him to act contrary to his sober convictions ; no arguments, however speciously propounded, could confuse his sense of right and wrong; no spurious wisdom could withstand his subtle questioning. To make him the model of a sophist leader, as Aristo- phanes has done in his Clouds, is to confound his method with his principles. If his method was, in some sort, sophistical, his object was quite distinct from — that of the Sophists; for while they gave up the 4 o pursuit of abstract truth as hopeless, he never ceased his quest for it, showing men how ignorant they were of real knowledge and aiding them in its acquisition. But he founded no school, never set himself up as a teacher, left no system of philosophy behind him, — ; Physics he early surrendered as incapable of satis- = factory solution ; and he turned his attention to Ethics, and the right method of inquiry. In the latter subject he is properly judged to be the inventor of two im- portant processes, Inductive reasoning and Abstract

* Lewes, i. pp. 78, 79,83; Maurice, Ment. and Mor. Phil. pt. I. chap. vi. § 3.

? For the fairest view of the Sophists see Grote, Hist of Greece, viii. 463 ; Lewes, pp. 105, ff.; Maurice, Philosophy, pt. I. chap. vi.

div. ii. § 1. 3 Protagoras, Ritter, pp. 573, ff; Mosheim’s Cudworth, lib. II. cap, iii,

- PROLEGOMENA, 5

definition’; by the first of which ‘he endeavoured to discover the permanent element which underlies the changing forms of appearances and the varieties of opinion ; by the second he fixed the truth which he had thus gained.’ It was a great step to force men to free the mind of half-realised conceptions and hazy notions, and to see clearly what a thing is and what it is not. And this is what the method of Socrates aimed at effecting. That it led to the common error of mistaking explanation of words for explanation of things is as true of the ages since Socrates as it was then?. In his ethical deliveries he seems to have been somewhat inconsistent, maintaining at one time that virtue is knowledge, vice ignorance, and at another that virtue cannot be taught, and yet again that it is a matter of practice and natural disposition®. But he always affirmed that man had within him a faculty that discerned right from wrong; he upheld the su- ~premacy of conscience; he considered that happiness consisted in knowing the truth and acting in accord- ance with it. The immortality of the soul, a doctrine so beautifully propounded in his last discourses, rested, in his view, on the beneficence of Divine Providence +. In his own profoundly religious mind that a voice divine (Sazévdy 7) should seem to utter warnings and advice, is what we might have antecedently expected °.

The method of Socrates was followed in a greater or less degree by other philosophers who have been dis- tinguished as founders of three Schools, the Cyrenaic terminating in Epicurism, the Cynic combining to form Stoicism, and the Megarian, which contributed an important element to the speculations which in later times found their home at Alexandria °.

But the real successor of Socrates is Plato, his pupil,

friend, and biographer. To give an accurate description of Plato’s many-sided philosophy would be a difficult matter in any case; in this present necessarily brief sketch it is impossible. Only a few salient points can here be indicated—opinions rather than a system being enunciated. And even this is only partly feasible, as he so often changes his opinions, refutes at one time that which at another he had maintained, implies doubts where he had previously stated certainties, repudiates the process which he himself often has adopted, that we are seldom sure, when we produce the views set forth in one Dialogue, whether they have not been modified or denied in another. One thing however is well assured, and that is, that in his search for truth he was severely logical. Universal proposi- tions, abstract terms, were the materials with which he worked, and to discover these was the aim of all his teaching. To attribute to these general notions, or ideas, a substantive existence, to consider them not merely conceptions of the mind, but entities, nowmena of which all individual things were the phenomena’, is simply an explanation of a difficulty for which he was indebted to his imaginative faculty. The soul, in his grand view, was always immortal, and before it became clogged with the body had seen Existence as it is, and had had glimpses, more or less perfect, of those ideas, those great realities, of which material things were the defective copy. Man’s knowledge is a reminiscence of the verities seen in the disembodied state: sensation awakens the recollection: it is our business to en- courage this memory, to strengthen it, to guide it by reason. So that the teacher’s object is not so much to impart new information, as to recall previous impres- sions, dim and weak, but still not wholly effaced. This

1 Tods 7° éwaxricods Aéyous wal 7d Spitecdar wabdov. Arist, Metaph. xiii. 4; Dict, of Bible, Art. Philosophy, by Mr. Brooke

Foss Westcott.

? Lewes, i. p. 161.

* Compare Xen. Mem. I, ii. 19; III. ix. 1; Arist. Eth. Nic. VI. xiii. 3; Top. IIL. i. 4; Plato, Meno, xxxvi-xxxix. pp. 96, 97; Protagoras, xl, p. 361.

* Xen. Mem. I, iv.

5 Theages, x. xi. pp. 128, 129; Grote, Plato, i. pp. 433, 434-

® Maurice, chap. vi. § 3. Compare Ueberweg, Hist. of Phil, § 35, Eng. ed. 5; 2

7 Lewes, i. p. 241; Ritter, ii. pp. 265, ff; Grote, Plato, iii. p. 520.

THE

tendency to seek for the idea of everything led to the con- ception of the one Good, that is God ; and though Plato never set himself to oppose the religious belief of his countrymen, it is plain that his speculations pointed to Monotheism. Following up the manifold ideas, he ar- rived at the supreme essence of all, the great Intelligence. By this power he supposed the world to have been created, arguing however at one time that God created only types of individual things from which other things of the same class proceeded’, and at another that God fashioned Chaos after the model of these types which have an independent and eternal pre-existence. But however made, the world was an animal, and like other animals possessed a soul*, and God, who is all good, rejoiced to see the animated creature, rd may aor‘, and wished it to be all good likewise. Evil however dwells in this phenomenal world, which, being only a copy of the ideal world, must necessarily be imperfect, and which also, being composed of matter which is unintelligent, must be evil, for intelligence alone is good®, At the same time man, being endowed with free will, has his lot in his own hands, and may choose the evil or the good®. And on this choice depends the future destiny of the soul, which will have to pass into various bodies, undergo various transmigrations, till it return to its best and purest existence ’.

A new epoch begins with Aristotle (8.c. 384), who was born about a century before the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek and the formation of the Alexandrian library*®. From the calm stand-point of strict logic, this philosopher, uninfluenced by imagination, pronounced a judgment upon the specu- lations of his predecessors. Plato’s doctrine of ideas he unhesitatingly condemned, holding that these ab-

traction had a6 existence nope ‘ola their mena, and that error arose not from the falsit sensuous perceptions, but from wrong inter ! thereof*. So in his view the great object of stud to set forth the rules and conditions under which | é mind considers and discourses”, the formulas wh it makes known its judgments. But we cannot dwell — on his method and his dialectics. A few words ‘ult be said on his ethics and theology, and then we m pass on to the schools that followed, with which we bl i more concerned.

A less devoutly religious man than Plato, Arisa’ seems scarcely to have believed in a personal God, ss though he uses language that may imply such belief. A first Cause is that which he seeks to find, and whose attributes he seeks to establish by logic. And having © demonstrated, with more or less success, the unity of — this First Principle, he, perhaps in deference to popular opinion, does not further pursue the investigation™, There is no recognition of the perfection of God as the — ground-work of morals, as in the Platonic doctrine ; ‘the absolute good’ is eliminated from his aystemty The rédos of mankind is Happiness, and this consists in the proper use of the highest faculties. Our faculties or energies have each their special excellence and virtue; the acts of virtue are exercised by voluntary ahold and these separate acts make habits, and habi form character. Now the best habit of the highest part of man’s nature, and that which makes his life most divine, is Contemplation. But to attain to this, there is need of restraint, discipline, and educatior which forces can only be properly and applied in the State.

* De Rep. X. i. ii. pp. 596, 597; -and v. vi. pp. 29, 30; Grote, Plato, iii. p. 248.

? Timaeus, xviii. p. 51.

8 Timaeus, vi. p. 30.

* Timaeus, x. p. 37.

5 Lewes, i. p. 262; Ritter, ii. pp. 275, 276.

® De Rep. X. xv. p. 619. ;

7 Timaeus, xiv. p. 42; Ritter, ii. p. 377.

® Lewes, i. pp. 271, 272.

® Aristot. De Anima, IIT. iii; Metaph. IV. v.

10 Maurice, Ment. and Metaph. Phil. pt. I. chap. vi. p. eapeh ed. 1834; Lewes, Aristotle, chap. vi. pp. 108, ff; Ueberweg, § 48.

» In Met. xii. p. 1074, Bekker, Aristotle conceives God to be eternal Thought, and that his thought is life and action. — ; Maurice, pt. I. chap vi. § 6; Mosheim’s edition of Cudworth,

i, pp. 639, ff.

ee lated about nature, that Socrates turned their investi- gations on man, that Plato, while not wholly neglecting __ Physics, made this study subordinate to that of Ethics. __., Aristotle systematized the method of inquiry, and applied it to Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics, paving __ the way for that invasion of Scepticism, which, using his instruments, exposed the vanity of philosophy ’. The Sceptics, who next come on the stage, took their _ stand on the uncertainty of all knowledge. What had 7 seemed determined in one age had failed to satisfy another: the truth of this philosopher had seemed the __-yainest error to that. What is the criterion of truth? fl Sensation? Reason? No, You cannot trust them abso- Intely; you cannot prove that they distinguish correctly. ‘There is no criterion of truth: the mystery of exist- i ~ ence cannot be penetrated ; all we cen do is to study appearances, to make a science of phenomena, Such a negative doctrine had little real influence; but in thus denying the certainty of all higher speculations it prepared the way for the coming Philosophy, which concerned itself with questions of practical morality. Of the Post-Socratic School the Epicureans occupy a foremost place. Their founder Epicurus (B.c. 342) looked upon Philosophy as the Art of Life, the in- structress in the method of securing happiness; and as to happiness, that, he said, is Pleasure—Pleasure regu- lated by common sense and experience ; not momentary gratification at the cost of future pain and trouble, but a life-long enjoyment. Now this can only be secured by virtue, and to live happily means really to live in ___ aecordance with justice, prudence, and temperance. It is easy to see how such teaching might be perverted, as we know it was, to fostering sensuality on the one side and a hard indifference on the other. Its basis was an enlightened selfishness, free from all high motive ; for there was no supreme Power to make men account for their actions, the gods, if there were gods, being too

PROLEGOMEN A.

cash wrapped up in their own happiness to interfere with the concerns of mortals.

In startling contrast to the softness of Epicurus, Zeno the Stoic (died B. c. 263) preached a stern, spiritual morality, a life of active virtue—a life in which man realises, his true manhood. Virtue is, as Socrates taught, the knowledge of good: knowledge is gained by sensation, and fashioned and utilised by reason, which is the God of the world. This, call it what you will, Reason, Fate, God, is that which gives its fourm to matter and the law to morals, Man bears within himself his ruling power: he should give free scope to this dominion, crush relentlessly every feeling that wars against it, rise superior to pain and suffering, and encourage that apathetic indifference which is the highest condition of humanity. If there was in this theory much that really tended to lower man’s standard and to confuse his view of the object of life, it possessed at least one element which was of vital importance. It put man face to face with his conscience, bared to his sight his responsibility, and taught him to aim at an object higher than mere pleasure *.

The New Academy, which evolved itself from Platonic elements, was what in modern times would be called an agnostic system. Beginning with distinctions be- tween probable and improbable perceptions, and be- tween assent simple, and assent reflective, it ended with denying the possibility of the existence of any satisfactory criterion of truth. Reason and Conception depend on Sensation for their knowledge, and the Senses are defective and convey only subjective effects, not the real nature of things. So neither Reason, Conception, nor Sensation can be the desired criterion. What remains? Nothing but Common Sense, or a system of Probabilities, or utter Scepticism.

Some influence in preparation for the coming religion was exerted by these philosophies : either in the way of

* Lewes, i. pp. 334, 335:

2 Lewes, i. pp. 342-348 ; Maurice, pt. 1. chap, 6, div. iv. § 2; Ueberweg, § 59. * Lewes, i. pp. 349-360; Maurice, pp. 241, 242, ed, 1854.

contrast or by their positive tenets they were in some sort a Praeparatio Evangelica. If on the one hand they had originated and encouraged that scepticism which springs from pride of intellect and the scornful denial of everything beyond and above nature, on the other hand they had fostered the need of something to believe, something which should have authority over the spirit of man and on which he might rest and be at peace. They had spiritualized to some extent the popular mode of regarding religion, they had restored a certain unity in the conception of the Divine essence, and had given man hopes of redemption from the blind power of nature and an elevation to a secure and higher life’; but here they stopped. They offered these as mere speculative opinions. The best of philosophies had yet to learn that humility which a better religion teaches ; and till this was received and acquiesced in, men might argue and criticize and theorize, but they would never arrive at the truth.

So that we may still sorrowfully ask, What had been the result of ages of speculation and keenest contro- versy? Had the problems been solved which philo- sophy had so long and so confidently discussed? No; baffled and defeated philosophy had almost ceased to prosecute its researches, and was ready to doubt if any adequate reward awaited further investigations. Whence comes this universe of things? What is the science of life? Is there any rule for virtue? Is there any method of happiness? What and whence is the soul? What will its future be? Is God one or many? Is there a God at all? Reason had attempted to answer these questions and had failed to afford any certain reply. Another element was needed to give assurance to inquiring minds ; and that element was faith *.

3. It was at Alexandria that Philosophy first came in contact with Revelation. Of its after struggle with Christianity we are not now to speak, Our sketch is

era and to the period in which it may have influenced _ the writers of the New Testament. No place in all the’ world could be more appropriate than Alexandria for — the comparison of the doctrines of various schools. The

population of this great city was mixed from the first, and owing to its extensive commerce, its world-famed _ 3 library, the liberality of its rulers, and the advantages of —

its situation, it attracted to its shores all that was great and famous, learned and ambitious, in the Eastand West = alike. The civilization of both quarters of the world here met at a common centre, and from this point sent = forth an influence that extended through all countries*. It was however only by slow degrees that the rigid and Sa PS, unbending Oriental deigned to examine the tenets of v "

-other peoples. And when this investigation took place,

the Greek did not absorb the Eastern philosophy, nor the Eastern the Greek ; but from the fusion of the two a new system arose, a combination of revealed truth and speculative opinion, which has received the name of Neo-Platonism, and of which Philo Judaeus was the most eminent supporter, if not the founder. If it was a new phase of opinion among the Jews thus to view with favour the guesses of heathen philosophers, if, based as their religion was on the sure word of Revela- tion, the endeavour to amalgamate it with alien specu- lations marks a certain change in sentiment ; we must remember that this people had been from the earliest times of their history always ready to introduce foreign superstitions into their religion. They never indeed fell into idolatry after their return from captivity; but short of such apostacy, the contact with other races and the intercourse with people of different faith, had influenced and modified their opinions and prejudices *. The Hebrew dwellers in Alexandria had been for some time gradually severing themselves from connection with their brethren in Palestine. The

1 Neander, Hist. of Christ, Relig. i. p. 46 (Bohn’s transl.) ? Lewes, i. p. 374; Ueberweg, § 62. ? Vacherot, Hist. Crit, de VEcole d’Alexandrie, vol. i.

p- 101; Neander, Hist. of Christ. Relig. i. pp. 68, ff. (Bohn's transl.). ; . * See Burton, Bampt, Lect. iii. pp. 70, ff. (ed. 1829).

“i, 2

‘ ‘PROLEGOMENA.

translation of the Scriptures into Greek raised the barrier of language between the two bodies’, and the separation was further strengthened by the policy of the Palestinians who, after the persecution of Ptolemy Philopator (z.c. 217), threw in their lot with the fortunes of Syria. The erection of a temple at Leonto- polis? by the Egyptian Jews (B.c. 161), laying them open to the charge of schism, widened the breach; and though these still paid a nominal respect to Jerusalem, its exclusive claims and isolating prejudices had lost their influence with them. And then the atmosphere in which they dwelt, the eclecticism which they saw around them °, the lectures of various philosophers, the restless activity of scholars and teachers, the magni- ficent library, produced a powerful effect. The con- servatism of the Oriental was not proof against the bold and energetic speculativeness of the Greek. The Hebrew became at first patient and then enamoured of Greek culture; he searched the best writings of the West with the view of discovering truths that squared with his own divine traditions; he examined the creeds of the heathen by the light of Revelation, and in Hellenic myths saw the remnants of a higher religion. The sacred books moulded and limited his faith; they did not restrain his thoughts; they did not prevent him from interpreting and developing their statements with a freedom which often approached rationalism*. As it was with Judaism that the first contact of Eastern and Western doctrine was concerned, so the medium, the connecting link between the two systems, was Pla-

tonism. The teachings of Aristotle and Zeno doubtless had some influence, but the assimilating principle was found in the tenets of Plato. The idealism, sublimity, richness of his philosophy struck a chord in the Hebrew breast that responded harmoniously, and from the union of these elements arose a strain which combined, more or less perfectly, the beauties of both. The writings of this period which have survived (of which the so-called ‘Apocrypha’ forms an important portion) are few in number, but they show unmistakable traces of Greek culture, and of the spirit of compromise which en- larged its own conceptions in order to embrace those of heathendom *,

Even in the Septuagint itself traces of this influence appear. Expressions that might have been misunder- stood and have conveyed wrong impressions to heathen minds have been softened or altered. -Thus, Exod. xxiv. 9-11, where it is said that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders, went up to the mountain, and they saw the God of Israel, ‘And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink ;’ the Greek renders: xai cidov tov témov ov clothe 6 Ccds rod "Iopand ... kat rav émdéxrav tod “Iopand od diehavncev ovde eis’ kat @POnoav ev TH tén@ TOU Ceod, Kal Epayor xal ézwov. Here there seems to have been a studied attempt to obviate the plain meaning of the text lest it should give occasion to anthropomorphic ideas of God®. In the Books of Maccabees it is studiously shown that the Lord interferes in the affairs of the world only through

1 The Jews of Palestine observed annually a three days’ fast in humiliation for the profanation offered to God's word by this version, the length of the fast being regulated by the duration of the plague of darkness in Egypt.

2 See Dillinger, The Gentile and Jew, ii. p. 396 (English transl).

3 Alexander the Great built temples to Egyptian divinities as

c _ well as to his own Grecian gods. Arr. Exped. Alex. iii. 1. The _ worship of Serapis, whose temple was one of the wonders of

_ Alexandria, was introduced from Pontus. See Gibbon, Decl. and _ Fall, chap. xxviii. and references there. S. Aug. De Civ. xviii. 5. * Vacherot, i. p. 127, and 106, ff.

5 Among these writings, besides those in the Greek Bible, may be mentioned the works of Aristobulus, who expounded the Pentateuch allegorically. Fragments of this production are to be found in Euseb. Praep. Ev. vii. 13, ff; viii. 9, ff.; xiii, 12. See Diahne, Jiidisch-Alexandr. Relig. Philos. ii. pp. 73, ff. Another document of this period is the collection called the Sibylline Books or Oracles. Diihne, pp. 228, ff.; Gfrérer, Philo, ii. pp. 71, ff. and 121, ff. These are spoken of further on.

© Gfrirer, Philo, ii. pp. 9, ff. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan paraphrase the passage in much the same way as the Septuagint. See Etheridge, pp. 400, 526. Other instances are given by Gfrérer. See too Ginsburg, The Kabbalah, p. 6, note.

c

His ministers and agents. When (2 Mace. iii.) Helio- dorus came to the temple at Jerusalem to pillage its treasures, the Lord émdveav peyddny émoincey; and though a little after it is said (ver. 30) that ‘the Almighty Lord appeared,’ the expression is used in reference to an angelic manifestation *.

Of philosophic connection is the expression applied to Almighty God, rv ddov, or drdvrwv, drpoaders in 2 Mace. xiv. 35 and 3 Mace. ii. 9; and not in accordance with the usage of the Old Testament, which speaks (1 Kings viii. 27) of the heaven of heavens not containing God, but never employs this term derived from Greek philo- sophy*. From the same source are derived the phrases about reason, the mind, etc., in the Fourth Book, e.g. 6 iepds tyyepav vods (ii. 23) ; Aoyropds adrodéomoros {i. 1) ; mabav ripavvos (xvi. 1); %) TOD Oeiov Aoyirpod maboxpdrea (xiii. 16); and the four cardinal virtues (i. 18), which are also named in Wisd. viii. 7°.

Of the Greek learning displayed in the Book of Wisdom we have spoken further on, when noting its character and language; we may here give an in- stance or two of the writer’s acquaintance with Western Philosophy. The term voepdv applied to the spirit of Wisdom (vii. 22) reflects the Stoic’s definition of God as mvedpa voepdv*, the enumeration of the four cardinal virtues (viii. 7), Justice, Temperance, Prudence, Courage, is quite Platonic®. That the world was created é€ dudp- hou vAns (xi. 17) is an orthodox opinion couched in Platonic language; it is a philosophical expression for that ‘earth without form and void’ from which this our

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

globe was evolved‘. The pre-existence of souls was a theory common to many systems of philosophy as well — as to Platonism; and the author, in saying (viii. 19, 20): ‘I was a witty child and had a good soul; yea, rather, being good, I came into a body undefiled, showed that™he was well acquainted with this opinion of the schools, while his statement was grounded on the language of Scripture ”.

If we cast our eyes upon writings outside the sacred

volume we shall find the same blending of Greek and — Hebrew notions. In spite of Valckenaer’s Diatribe*

there seems no good reason to doubt that Aristobulus, of whose works Eusebius and Clemens Alex. have preserved considerable fragments, is that Jewish priest, ‘king Ptolemaeus’ master’ (2 Macc. i. ro), who is addressed by Judas Maccabaeus as the repre- sentative of the Jews in Alexandria, The Ptolemy, whose teacher or counsellor (didcxados) he was, was Ptolemy Philometor (A.D. 150), and the work, remains of which have reached us, was an allegorical exposition of the Pentateuch, after the form with which we are familiar in the writings of Philo and the Alexandrian Fathers, Origen and Clement. In this treatise, per- haps with the hope of winning the king over to the Jewish faith, he labours to prove that the Law and the Prophets were the source from which the Greek philo- sophers, and specially the Peripatetics, had derived their doctrines. 'To this end he cites Orpheus, who, in one of his sacred legends (iepoi Aéyor), speaks of God as the Creator, Preserver, and Ruler of all things, accom-

1 Gfrérer, ii. p. 55. But see Grimm, Comment. in 2 Mace. iii. 30. Dihne, ii. pp. 181, ff. Compare 3 Mace, ii. 9.

? Dihne, ii. p. 187, andi. p. 120; Grimm, in 2 Mace. xiv. 35.

* See more, ap. Dihne, i. p. 194. The Fourth Book of Mac- cabees is not printed in Tischendorf’s edition of the Septuagint : it will be found, in Field, Apel, and Fritzsche.

* Plut. Plac. Philos. vi. (p. 535); Zeller, Phil. d. Griech, iii. p- 72.

® Plato, de Rep. iv. pp. 444, ff.; Ritter, Hist. of Philos. ii. p- 407 (Eng. transl.).

* See note on ch. xi, 17.

* Compare Isai. xlix. 1, 5; lvii. 16; Jer. i. 5, and notes on

ch, viii. 19, 20.

8 Diatribe de Aristobulo, 1806. See Dihne, ii. pp. 73, ff.; Gfrérer, Philo, ii. pp. 71, ff.; Vacherot, i. pp. 140, ff.; Art. Aristobulus, in Smith’s Dict, of Bible, by Professor Westcott ; Matter, Hist. de "Ecole d’ Alex. iii. pp. 153, ff.; Eusebius entitles Aristobulus’ work, BiBAous éényntiueds Tod Maoéws vépou (Hist. Eccl. vii. 32), or, Tiv TOv tepav vdpov épunvelay (Praep. Ev. vii. 13). The quotations in Clem. Alex. (Strom, i. p. 304; v. p. 5953 i. p. 342; vi. p. 632) are all found in Euseb. Praep. Ev. See Dihne, p. 89. Eusebius’ Fragments are found, vii. 13, 14; viii. 6, 8, 10; ix. 6; xiii. 12, pp. 663, ff. See also Dillinger, The Gentile and Jew, ii. p. 397 (Eng. transl.),

modating what is said of Zeus to the Lord of the Hebrews : in his view the letter of Holy Scripture is not to be pressed: Moses’ imagery is only figurative : the transactions on Mount Sinai are only emblematic statements of great truths. He unhesitatingly sacrifices the literal meaning of the sacred story, and explains and allegorises till nothing historical remains. In the same way he treats the Greek myths, making them symbolise revealed truths, and striving to find for them a divine origin and a place in the Biblical records.

The letter of Aristeas*, giving the well-known ac- count of the production of the Septuagint translation, seems to have been the work of an Alexandrian Jew living at this period, though the writer, the better to maintain his assumed character, professes himself to be of another nation. In it he speaks of the Jews worship- ping the same God as the Greeks adored under the name of Zeus, but is careful to guard against Pantheism by maintaining that God’s power and influence are through and in all things*; he explains away the peculiar laws concerning meats clean and unclean, as symbolising purity and separation; he shows that all vice and evil springs from man’s nature, all good from God, using the terms dperi, ddicia, éykpdreva, dxatoovvy, in a truly philosophic manner. These sayings are supposed to be answers of the seventy-two elders to questions of the king; but as the whole story is fictitious, the doc- trines asserted may well be taken to represent the views prevalent among the Jews in Alexandria in the century before Christ.

The Sibylline Books *, which have come down to us, seem, on the best evidence, to be the production of

PROLEGOMENA. 11

Alexandrian Jews, and contain signs of their place and time of birth. Thus in the Proémium we read‘ : Els Oeds, bs pév0s dpxer tmeppeyiGns, dyémqros, mavtoxparwp, ddparos, dpav pdvos aitds dravra, aitos 8 od Bdérerat Onis bd capkds amdons, tis yap oap& divara tov émovpdnov Kai adnOA 6POarpoicty ideiv Gedy duSporor, ds médov olkel ; . airy rov pdvov bvra a€Beo® rynropa Kéopov, ds pdvos els aldva, kal €£ aldvos érix6y, avtoyenys, dyévntos, dravra kparay dia mavrds maou Bporoiow évdy ré.xpirnpiov ev hder Kowg ... ovpavod iyeirat, yains Kparei, abrés imdpyet, Here the expressions about God are wholly in accord with the Alexandrian philosophy, and seem also to embody a protest against the idolatry of Egypt.

Thus we see the progress of the attempt to reconcile Hebrew doctrine with Greek philosophy, to accommo- date the one to the other, to read revealed truths in time-honoured myths, and to obtain, from a profound investigation into the inner sense of the sacred volume, ground for believing that the chief dogmas taught by the wisest of philosophers were contained therein.

But all these attempts are not comparable to what was effected by Philo Judaeus, whose voluminous works afford the most complete examples of the doctrine of the Jewish-Alexandrian school®. Himself a resident in Alexandria, and from his early youth a devoted student, he was admirably fitted to examine the tenets of the philosophers before him and to combine them, if such combination were loyally possible, with those which he had received from his fathers and which he had. no intention of disparaging or repudiating’. Studious

1 Gallandi, Bibl. Patr. ii. 771; Gfrérer, Philo, ii. pp. 61, f£.; Dithne, ii. pp. 205, ff.; Hody, De Bibl. Text. Orig.

? Mévos 6 eds tori, wal did wévrov 4 Sivas Tod abTod tort, pavepa yivera: [i advra aire], memAnpwpévov navrds rémov Tis dwaoreias. This seems to favour the theory of the Neo-platonists concerning the Anima Mundi.

* See Dahne, ii, pp. 228, ff. .

* Ap. Theophil. Ad Autol. ii. 36;/Gfrérer, Philo, ii. p. 123.

5 For Philo’s doctrine, see Gfrérer, Philo, i.; Diihne, i.; Vache- rot, i. pp. 142-167; Ritter, Hist, Phil. ivy. pp. 407, ff. (Eng. transl.),

Of Philo’s works the best edition is that by Mangey, 2 vols. fol., 1742; but this does not contain the treatises discovered by Mai and Aucher. That by Richter (Lips. 1828-1830) comprises all that is attributed to Philo. There is a translation of his works in Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library. For Philo’s influence on suc~ ceeding theology see Mosheim’s notes on Cudworth’s Intellec- tual System, translated by Harrison, 1845 ; Kingsley, Alex. and Her Schools, p. 79, ff.; J. Bryant, The Sentiments of Philo, Cambr. 1797.

® Vit. Mos. iii, 23 (ii. p. 163 M.): ob dyvo® ds wavra iat

c2

12 THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

rather than original, more fanciful than profound,

‘he was incapable of forming a complete system of

theology, and being led away by side issues and verbal niceties, he is often inconsistent with himself, fails to

convey a distinct impression, because he has but vague

notions or unrealised conceptions to offer. Of his piety and earnestness there can be no doubt ; equally certain it is that, owing to his want of logical method and division, his expressions are indefinite; and to frame any regular doctrine from his works is a matter of extreme difficulty, if it be possible.

The predominant idea of Philo was to present the Jewish religion in such a form as to make it acceptable to the Greek intellect. How to reconcile Revelation and Philosophy—this was the task to which he applied all the powers of his mind and all the stores of his learning. His great resource was allegory. In his hands the facts of history lost their reality and became only the embodiment of abstract truths, and the simple monotheism of Scripture was adapted to the refine- ments of Greek science’.

First, as to the knowledge of God: Philo maintains

that this is unattainable by man. He may know what God is not; he may know of His existence (Gapéis), he can know nothing of His proper existence (idia drapéts) or essence®. What we do know of God is that He is superior to the Good, more simple than the One, more _ ancient than the Unit *; He is unchangeable‘, eternal’, — uncompounded *, wanting nothing’, the source of all _

life ®, exclusively free® and exclusively blessed; He aa

fills all things", He is ever working ; His love, juan and providence are over all His works ™.

Such being the nature of God, so ineffable and un-

approachable, what communication can there be be- tween the Creator and the creature? It is true that man ought to strive with all his powers to know God, _ but of himself he cannot attain to this knowledge. He cannot rise to God: God must reveal Himself to him*™. Now there are two kinds of revelation which God uses in His communications with men. ‘The first and most perfect is bestowed only on some favoured seers, who, elevated above the condition of finite consciousness, be- come, as it were, one with Him whom they contemplate”. For the majority of men there remains only that in-

xpnopot boa év rais tepais BiBAos dvayéypanta, xpnodévres 5 avrot «.7.A. His views on inspiration are collected by Gfrérer, i. pp. 54, ff.

On Philo’s reference of all that was best in Greek Philosophy to Moses see Quod omnis prob. 8. (ii. p. 454); De Jud. 2. (ii. Pp. 245); Quis rer. div. haer. 43. (i. p. 503); De conf. ling. 20. (i. p. 419); De Vit. Mos. ii. 4. (ii. p. 137).

* De Praem. et Poen. 7. (ii. p. 415).

3 De Vit. Cont. 1. (ii. p. 472): 70 dv, & wat dyab0d xpetrrdév tott, wat évds eiArepivéctepoy, Kat povddos dpyeyorwrepoy, where we may observe, that, while exaltingGod above the conceptions of philosophers, Philo says nothing of His Personality, sub- stituting 7d dy for 6 dv of Exod. iii. 14.

* Quod Deus immut. § 5. (i. p. 276): 7 yap dv do€éBnya peifov yévaro Tod bmodapBavew 7d drperrov TpénecOat ;

5 De Caritate, 2. (ii. p. 386): yernrds yap obdels dAnBeig Ocds, GAAG 55Ep pdvov, 7d dvayxaioraroy dpypnutvos, dididryTa.

® Leg. Alleg. ii. 1: 6 58 @eds pdvos éort, nal ev, ob odyxpipa, quo amr... 008% é ToAAGY oUVeTTas, GAAA dwyhs GAAM (i. p. 66).

7 Quod det. potiori insid. 16. (i. p. 202): Sefrar yap odderds 6 mAnhpns Ocds. So Quod Deus immut. 12. (i. p. 281): 6 58 @eds Gre dyévyytos dy, kal rd ddA dyayaw els yéveow, odderds e707

Tay Trois yevvquact mpoodvTwy,

8 De Profug. 36. (i. P- 575): # ev ydp bAn, vexpdv: 5 Bt @cds mr€ov Th (or), myyh Tod (hv, ds abros elnev, devvaos.

® De Somn, 38. (i. p. 692): Kat yap 5 Qeds Exobaiov.

0 De Septenar. 5. (ii. p. 280): pedvos yap eddalpov wel pauls mavrov piv duéroxos Kaka, wAnpns St dyabadv TeAclow,

1 De Confus, ling. 27. (i. p. 425): ond 5e rod Ocod wemAhpwrat

7a. mdvra, wepiéxovTos, ov meprexondvou, @ @ mayraxod re kat ovdapod

ovpBéBnkev civaa pdvy.

% Leg. Alleg. i. 3. (i. p. 44): mavera ydp obdémore woidy 6 3 @cds, GAN’ Hawep Tov 7d Kalew mupds, eat xedvos 7d Yuya, obra

wal Qcod 7d rorety.

18 De Vict. offer. 3. (ii. p. 253): @cév. Fragm. ii. p. 685 M.: BactAeds fyepoy kal vépspov dynu- pévos Hyepoviay, pera Sixcaootvns Tov ovpravra obpaydy re Kal wéopov BpaBeva. Ib. dravray piv tov Aoyiopod pepoipapevar whdera, mpoundetrar 5% wal trav brains (vray, dua py waipdy els éravépOworw abrois d:bovs .7.A.

4 De Abrah. 17. (ii, p. 13): 8d Aéyerat, odx Srt 5 copds efde Ocdv, GAA’ rt 5 Oeds dipOn TSO copH Kal ydp jv adivarov Katada- Beiv twa 3¢ abrod 7d mpds dAfGaav dv, ui) wapapynvayros éxelvov tav7d Kat mapadeigavros,

45 De Abrah, 24. (ii. p. 19); De Poster. Cain, 5. (i. p. 229); .

tov ebepyérny wal owrijpa S

ferior apprehension of God’ derived: through some mediate existence or existences. This mediator in the first place is the Word (Adyos), the interpreter of God’s will, and the God to imperfect beings, as the Lord or true God is God only to wise and perfect men’. This “Logos is described as the image and firstborn of God *, the archangel and high priest of the world’, not the complete representative of the Supreme Being, but His figure and shadow‘, the ideal type of human nature, as it were, a celestial Adam *, and God’s instrument in the creation of the world. But there is a want of uni- formity in Philo’s doctrine of the Logos, the descrip- tion being sometimes of a personal, sometimes of an impersonal, beirg*®. He seems to have grasped the idea of a personal mediator, and yet to have shunned to enunciate it on every occasion, as though it were too earthly a conception for his soaring philosophy ; and he takes refuge in abstractions whenever, if his terms are precisely weighed, the concrete comes too prominently to the surface. The Logos, in Philo’s view, is not the direct organ of communication between the Supreme God and His creatures. This office is discharged by inferior minis-

PROLEGOMENA. ; 13

ers, angels, and incorporeal existences, who pass be- tween heaven and earth, and move in the minds of those who are still imperfect’. But his doctrine of angels is full of inconsistencies, as he calls by this name all the forces of nature, as well as divine powers, and introduces them on all occasions, and under various conditions, to suit his allegorising explanations of Holy Writ.

With regard to Creation, the simple cosmogony of the Hebrews was much modified and altered to bring it into harmony with philosophic speculations. In one place Philo says that God, who begat all things, not only, like the sun, brought to light hidden things, but even created what before had no existence, being not only the architect of the world, but the founder®. At another time he speaks of the impossibility of anything being generated out of nothing®, and assumes an un- formed and lifeless mass of matter, brought into shape and order by the spirit of God’. But he does not consider creation as a single act, that took place once for all; rather, God never ceases from making ; it is His property to be always creating™. Only, His act is limited to willing ; the act of creation is carried out by

48. (i. p. 258) ; Quis rer. divin. haer. 13 and 14. (i. p. 482). See Art. Philosophy by Professor Mansel in Kitto’s Cyclopaedia.

1 Leg. Alleg. iii. 73. (i. p. 128): obros yap [6 Eppnveds Adyos] paw trav aredav adv cin cds, TaY Bt copay Kal TeAElaw, 5 mpATOs.

? De Confus. ling. 28. (i. p. 427): Tis aidiou eixdvos airod, Aédyou Tod iepwrarov: Ocot yap elxdw Adbyos 5 mpecBUtaros. Ib. Tov mporéryovoy avrov Ad-yov, Tov ayyedov mpecBuTaroy, ws apxay- yehov modvévupov irapxovra.

* De Somn. i. 37. (i. p. 653): dpxsepeds, 6 mpwrdyovos abrov cios Adyos.

* Leg. Aleg. iii. 31. (i. p. 106): oma Ocod 5 Adyos abrod tory, & xabdnep dpydvy mpooxpnodpevos txoopomoie airy Bt oma kat 75 doavel dnendniopa érépow éorlv dpxérunov’ Honep yap b Ocds mapdberypa rijs elxdvos, Hy oxidy vert KéxryKev, obtws cindy Gddow ylverar wapaderypa.

* To the question why it is said, ‘in the image of God made He man’ and not ‘in His own image,’ Philo answers: 6vyrdv yap obdty aGrexovicbjva mpos Toy dywrarw Kal natépa Trav Show édivaro, GAAG mpds Tov Bedrepoy Ocdy, bs eorw exelvou Adyos. Fragm. ii. p. 625 M.

* See the question argued in Gfrérer, Philo, i. pp. 176, f£ ;

Dorner, Person of Christ, i. pp. 27, ff. (Engl. transl.) ; Jowett, Epp. of S. Paul, i.

7 De Somn. i. 22, 23. (i. p. 643) : rais 52 trav ér dwodovepévar, pire 8t ward 7d mavredts exvifaptvar Thy pumdow wal Kexndudw- pévnv ohpacs Bapér (ay, dyyeAot, Adyor Ocion [Epwepwarova), padspivovres aitds Tois kadoxdyabias supacw. See Vacherot, i. pp- 152, 153.

® De Somn. i. 13. (i. p. 632): GAAws re ds fAsos dvareiAas Ta kexpuppéva Tav cwparoy émbdeixvura, otrw xal 6 Oeds Ta wavta yervnoas, ob pbvoy els 7d éupavis fryayer, GAAG Kai & mpdérepor ode Iv, éxoinger, ob Snuovpyds pévoy GAA Kal eriatns abros dy.

® De Incorr. Mundi, 2. (ii. p. 488): & Tot yap obdapuh dvros dynyavev tor yevéc Ou Tt.

0 De Plantat. 1. (i. p. 829) ; De Cherub. 35. (i. pp. 161, 162); De Victim. offer. 13. (ii. p. 261): ef éxelvns yap [Ans] wavr” eyérqcer 5 Oeds, ob« Epawrépevos abrés- ob yap hy Céus drelpou wal nepuppévns bAns Yavew tov Tpova wal paxdpov, ddAd rais dowparas Suvdpeow, av érvpoy dvopa al ldéa, xarexphoato pds 70 yévos Exacrov Ti dppérrovaay AaBeiv poppny. Cf. De Mund. Opif. 2.

1 Leg. Alleg. i. 3. (i. p. 44): quoted above, p, 12, note 12,

14

the Word. As the pattern on which the world was formed Philo conceived the Platonic notion of a spiritual world composed of ideas or spiritual forms ; and the powers which operated in the sensible creation he likened to the rays that proceed from a central light, the nearer (including in this idea the Logos) being the brightest effulgence, and the more distant, fainter and more imperfect reflections. That this is one germ of the later Gnostic doctrine of Emanations seems undoubted. In pursuing his cosmology Philo now teaches that the world (6 vonrds xécpos) is nothing else but the Reason (Aéyos) of God the Creator?. Thus the Adyos évdiaberos, Thought, as embracing all ideas, becomes Adyos mpodopixds, Thought realised ; the living word, the power of Jehovah manifested, is the archetypal idea of things, ‘the supreme unity of the primitive forms of the created world.’ ‘Some persons affirm,’ he says *, ‘that the incorporeal ideas are an empty name, void of all reality, thus removing the most necessary of all essences from the number of existing things, while it is in fact the archetypal model of all things which have the distinctive qualities of essence, which are form and measure.’ This twofold notion of the Word com- bined with the belief in the Supreme God foreshadows, not the Christian Trinity, the three Persons in one God, where the Divine Three are equal and consubstantial, but the three Principles of the later Alexandrian school as they are found in Plotinus*. Tending to a similar result is the comment on the three mysterious visitants to Abraham in the plain of Mamre®. ‘The one in the centre is the Father of the Universe,’ he says, ‘ Who is

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

called in the Scriptures “I am that I am;” and the

beings on each side are those most ancient powers and .

nearest to Him Who is, one of which is called the creative, the other the kingly, power. And the creative power is God; for by this He made and arranged the universe; ‘and the kingly power is the Lord; for it is meet that the Creator should rule and govern the creature ®.’ But on this subject Philo is incoherent and inconsistent, and it is vain to attempt to construct a regular system from his bewildered speculations.

As to psychology, Philo, after Aristotle, distinguishes the three parts or characters of the soul, the rational, the vegetative, and the appetitive ’, sometimes dividing the rational part into ate@ots, \éyos, and vois, at another into Adyos, Ovpos, and émbvyia®. The soul is immaterial and pre-existent, dwelling in the upper air till it sojourns in a mortal body; and those souls only which are earthly in desires and have a love for mortal life are thus embodied; others of higher aims and nobler ambition never assume a corporeal nature, but soar upwards to the vision of the Almighty, being what men call angels or demons °®.

Such is a very brief account of the philosophical theology of Philo. The attempt to combine philosophy and faith, however skilfully executed, appears to have

been in his hands a failure: philosophy gained little by’

it, faith suffered great loss. The simple narrative of Genesis was not improved or explained by imagining a twofold Logos, as concerned in the creation, the one being the archetypal idea, the other the sensible world; and Plato’s cosmogony, which recognised three

* De Mund. Opif. 4, 6, 7. (i. pp. 4,5); De Somn. i. 19. (i. p. 638); Dihne, i. pp. 240, ff.; Burton, Bampt. Lect. iv. note 49.

? De Mund. Opif. 6. (i. p. 5): ef 5€ ris eAHTEE yupvorépos xpnoacba trois dvépaciv, ovdiv by Erepov eiror Tov vonrdy elvas «dapov, f Q€od Ad-yor i5n Kocpomaodvros. See Gfrérer, i. p. 177 ; Lewes, i. p. 379; Vacherot, i. pp. 158, 159.

5 De Vict. offer. 13. (ii. p. 261).

* For Plotinus see Vacherot, i. pp. 360, ff, and specially pp. 431, ff

5 De Abraham. 24. (ii. p. 19).

® See another analogous fancy, De Cherub. 9. (i. pp. 143, 144).

55 Aristot. Ethic. Nicom. I. xiii,; Philo, De congr. erud. grat. 6. (i. p. 523); Fragm. ii. p. 668; Leg. Alleg. i. 22. (i, p. 57). See Gfrirer, i. pp. 382, ff; Diihne, i. pp. 288, ff —-

8 De congr. erud. grat. 18. (i. p. 533); De Victim. 6. (ii. p. 243); De Concupise. 2. (ii. p. 350).

® De Somn. i, 22. (i. pp. 641, 642); Quaest. in Gen. iii. 10, (vii. pp. 14, 15, Richt.),

_ PROLEGOMENA. 15

independent existences, the Demiurge, Matter, and the Idea, was not corrected by a theory which left Matter as eternal as God, and merely assigned Scriptural ap- pellations to heathen notions.

4, It has been confidently asserted that Christianity owes its prominent doctrines to Philo and the Alex- andrian School; some writers have even not scrupled to maintain that the religion of Christ is simply a product of the allegories of Philo and his imitators’. The chief point with most of the writers who make such assertions is 8. John’s doctrine of the Logos, which is said to have been derived entirely from Philo’s writings. Now we must distinguish between a doc- trine and the language in which it is expressed. A writer may employ terms previously in existence to denote an opinion very different from that which other teachers have used it to signify. There are limits to language, especially to philosophic language, and without the invention of new words it would have been impos- sible for Christianity to avoid fixing a different sense to many of the words and phrases which it adopted. This has been the case with the term Aédyos. The Hebrew equivalent (Memra) had been employed in the Scriptures in a more or less personal sense: the angel of the Lord, the angel of the covenant, was identified in the popu- lar expositions of the Sacred Books with the Memra?: the Books of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom had further developed the idea of the Personality of the Word: the term Logos had been heard in the speculations of heathen and Jew: it contained a mighty truth which had been obscured by a mass of error; what wonder if S. John was directed to make use of this term in order to set forth the doctrine of our Lord’s Person, and at the same time to correct the mistakes and heresies which had gathered around it? Familiar with the true dogma, knowing the false notions of the

Alexandrian School, the apostle thus tacitly rebuked the error by assigning a correct idea to that term which had been the subject of so much disputation, and whose meaning had been so greatly distorted’. ‘In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. The language is philosophic and Alexandrian, the notion is solely Christian; and that notion, to use the words of Canon Liddon‘, is this: ‘The divine Logos is God reflected in His own eternal Thought ; in the Logos God is His own object. The infinite Thought, the reflection and counterpart of God, subsisting in God as a Being or Hypostasis, and having a tendency to self-communication,—such is the Logos. The Logos is the Thought of God, not intermittent and precarious like human thought, but subsisting with the intensity of a personal form.’ And He is eternal, é dpxj, and not merely mapa +O Ge@, but mpos toy @cdv, a phrase which implies not only ‘co- existence and immanence, but also perpetuated inter- communion.’ And more, the Logos is ‘not merely a divine Being, but He is in the absolute sense God,’ Gcds fy 6 Adyos.

Philo did not say this. He has certain vague notions of a personal mediator, and at times seems to state the doctrine without reserve ; but he is not stable in this opinion. He is always fluctuating and hesitating and modifying ; and is very far from holding in its full meaning 8, John’s simple enunciation, ‘The Word was God.’ There is a grave difference between one who is dimly feeling after a truth which he has not realised and could not define, and one who is finding language to denote a doctrine revealed to him and enshrined in his heart.

Judging from Philo’s language alone in certain pas- sages one would say, without hesitation, that he main- tained the Divinity and Personality of the Word, and

» Grossman, Quaest. Philon. p. 3, and among others of the German school, Ernesti, Liicke, De Wette, Straus; Gritz, Ges- chichte, iii, 217 ; Baur, Paul. u. Christenth.; Schwegler, Nachap. Zeitalt.

® See Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos, etc. on the Penta- teuch, Introd. pp. 17, ff.

* See Liddon, Bampton Lectures, v. pp 338, ff. (ed. 1866).

* Bampt. Lect. p. 341.

attributed to Him that nature and those offices and qualities which are assigned to Him by the New Testa- ment writers. Further investigation would considerably modify and correct this view. It would be seen that the teaching of the Jew and the Christian was similar in form only, not in substance: that while using the same language they held very different ideas. If Philo calls the Logos, the image of God’, His first-begotten Son 2%, the second deity Who is the Word of the Supreme deity *, he speaks of Him also, as we have seen, in quite other terms, which are not consistent with the belief in His perfect divinity’. Thus in stating that the world was made according to the image of the Word, the archetypal model, the idea of ideas®, he plainly cannot mean that this Word is of the same nature as Almighty God, otherwise he would be guilty of a materialistic conception, which would be entirely repugnant to his religious views; whereas, if the Word is merely an exemplar produced in the mind of the Supreme Being, this entirely evacuates the ex- pression of all personal meaning and reduces it to an architectural design subsequently carried out®. Besides this, the best and inmost part of God is regarded as in- communicable; in the inmost divine sphere the Abso- lute does not admit of distinctions, but has only a circle of rays in which it is reflected, so that in this sense also, the Logos, the revelation of God, is not itself partaker of divinity’.

Certainly, as we have before noticed, Philo has no fixed belief in His Personality ; he cannot conceive the

notion of His incarnation ; and the glorious hopes and — aspirations which surround the Messiah he completely _ ignores. Of Christ’s two natures he has no notion

whatever. He speaks indeed of the mediatorial cha- racter of the Logos *, but by this he means something very different from the Christian doctrine, as we shall see further on.

It was doubtless under divine guidance that S. Paul, S. John, and other writers of the New Testament em- ployed, in enunciating the truths which they had to promulgate, terms and expressions already used and partially understood. Here were already provided words which were capable of conveying the thought which they purposed to imprint on the mind of their hearers. The same terminology with which the con- verts had been familiarised in the Septuagint, the Greek philosophical writings, and the sapiential Books, needed only to receive a new modification of meaning to qualify it for the higher office of containing the form of Christian theology. The Greek language had al- ready been forced into the service of Jewish thought ®: it was now translated into a still nobler sphere, and under inspired manipulation learned to connote Chris- tian ideas and revealed mysteries.

In Christian hands the term Logos was employed to express two definite ideas, that the Word was a Divine Person, and that He became incarnate in Jesus Christ™, Thus the vague conception of pre-Christian teachers, which never advanced beyond the idea of the Logos as the undefined manifestation of the invisible God,

1 De Mund. Opif. 8. (i. p. 6), See Bryant, The Sentim. of Philo, p. 17, ff., who maintains that Philo derived many of his views from S, Paul.

? De Agric. 12. (i. p. 308); De conf. ling. 28 : rdv mpwrd-yovov abrod Adyov .. . px? kat dvopa @cod Kal Adyos.

5 Fragm. (ii. p. 625).

* De Leg. Alleg. iii. 73. (i. p. 128): quoted above, p. 13, note I.

5 Quaest. et Sol. (ii. p. 625): Ovnrdv ydp oddity drexon- oPiva wpds Tov dvwrdrw Kat marépa Tv Sow ebivaro, ddAA mpds tov dedrepov Ocdy, bs éorw éxelvou Adyos. “Eda yap Tov Aoy- nov év dvOphnov Yuxp Timo ind Oelou Ad-you xapaxOjvar’ ewecdi db mpd Tod Adyou Oceds xpelacaw éatlv maga oy) pias TS

5 imp rov Adyov, & TH BeAriory Kal Tin earpérw KabecTart l5éq, od58v Oéuis Hv yernrov eopoodcGa. Euseb, Praep. Ev, vii. 13.

® Cudworth, Intell. Syst. transl, by Harrison, ii. pp. 329, ff note.

™ Dorner, Person of Christ, vol. i., note A (Clarke's transl.). See also Introduction, pp. 22, 23.

® Quis rer. div. haer. 42. (i. p. 501): 6 3° abrds ixérns pév dort Tod Ovnrod Knpaivovtos det mpds 7d ApOaprov, mpecBevris 5& Tov tyyeudvos mpds 7d dwhxoov.

® Jowett, on Ep. to Galat. p. 452.

” Bishop J. B. Lightfoot, on Ep. to Coloss, i, 15.

“ PROLEGOMENA. 17

received precise and exact signification; and it seems impossible to resist the conclusion that, although the Jewish and the Christian writers use the same language and have certain: ideas: in common, their doctrines are very far from being identical, and that 8. John may be regarded rather as one who is correcting and defining the vague notions of the Alexandrian school, than as one who is influenced by that philosophy and dependent upon its teaching. * To tum for a moment to another portion of the same subject, the interpretation of Scripture, and to compare the treatment to which Philo subjected the _ historical statements of Holy Writ with the method pursued, for instance, by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and 8. Paul: can any two processes be more distinct? In one case you have always a strain- ing after allegorical interpretation, far-fetched and fanci- ful, a verbose exposition of details without regard to consistency or truth; in the other you find the chief attention concentrated on principles involved with little special reference to-words and terms. Philo deals with the facts of revelation and history as media for mystical, spiritual, and allegorical interpretation, and as in a _ great measure not real history, but parables of heavenly or moral truths. The Christian writer treats his facts as events that happened in the sphere of God’s Provi+ dence, that were transacted on the stage of this world in the fulfilment of the Creator’s will and carrying out His plans, leading on to the Incarnation of the Divine Son and His exaltation to the heaven of heavens. __ Let us take one instance where Philo and S. Paul have treated the same subject, and compare the method employed on either side. 8. Paul, Gal. iv. 22-31, has expounded the history of Hagar and Sarah allegorically. _ In doing this he first gives the facts, states them as true records of events that really happened, and then elicits from them a spiritual sense, shows what is their spiritual

signification. ‘It is written,’ he says, ‘that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman, the other by the freewoman ; but he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the freewoman was by the promise.’ This is the history. Then follows the allegorical interpretation’. These women represent two different covenants, the first given from Mount Sinai, which brings forth children unto bondage, inasmuch as itis Hagar. For Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the earthly Jerusalem, which with all her children is still in boudage. But the other covenant, inasmuch as it is Sarah, bears free children and answers to the heavenly Jerusalem, which with all her children is free. Philo® takes many pages to alle- gorise the history, and he executes his purpose in a verbose, pointless, unauthorised way, as different as possible from the terseness, strictness, and directness of S. Paul. Sarah, ‘my princedom,’ is the wisdom, justice, temperance, and all the other virtues which govern me, he says. She indeed is always bringing forth good reasonings, blameless counsels, and praiseworthy actions, but she does not bring them forth for me unless I first call in the aid of her handmaid which is the encyclical knowledge of logic and music obtained by previous instruction. For Hagar is the emblem of grammar, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, music, and all other rational objects of study, which one must pass in order to arrive at virtue. And these are, as it were, infantile food prepared for the soul, till it is ready for the virtues of the perfect man, The handmaid is an Egyptian, that is, ‘earthly,’ because the man who delights in encyclical learning has need of all his external senses to profit by what he learns; and her name is Hagar, that is, ‘emigration,’ because virtue is the only native citizen of the universe, and all other kinds of instruc- tion are strangers and foreigners. ‘The same relation that a mistress has to her handmaiden, or a wife, who

_ *"Arwa torw dddryopotueva. Not ‘which things are an allegory,’ but as Vulg. ‘Quae sunt per allegoriam dicta.’ The narrative contains an inner meaning. See Wordsw. in loc.;

Picon. Tripl. Expos.; Dr. J. B. Lightfoot, Ep. to Galat. pp. 189, ff. 2 De congr. erad. grat. 1-5. (i. pp. 519, ff.). D

te

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18

is a citizen, to a concubine, that same relation has virtue, i.e. Sarah, to education, i.e. Hagar; so that very naturally, since the husband, by name Abraham, is one who has an admiration for contemplation and know- ledge, virtue, i.e. Sarah, would be his wife, and Hagar, i.e. all kinds of encyclical accomplishments, would be his concubine. Whoever, therefore, has acquired wis- dom from his teachers, would never reject Hagar. For the acquisition of all the preliminary branches of education is necessary’.’ This is really a favourable specimen of Philo’s allegorising treatment of Holy Scripture ; and it is obvious that the arbitrary, fanciful transference of plain facts to force a moral lesson which has no connection with the history, is an extreme con- trast with the method of S. Paul, where the history is the framework on which the allegory depends for its applicability, coherence, and usefulness. The fancy (for it is nothing more) that the apostle derived his method of treating Holy Scripture from the Alexandrian school is very far from .the truth, and could hardly have been upheld by any one who had studied the two systems with common attention or a mind free from prejudice *.

Take another doctrine which Philo is said to have taught the Christian Church. In a certain passage * he calls the Son of God zapdxAnros, and herein is seen the source where 8. John (1 Ep. i. 2) derived the term as applied to Christ. But what are the facts ? ‘Tt was necessary,’ says Philo, ‘that one ministering to the Father of the world should use as Advocate the Son most perfect in virtue both for the forgiveness of sins and the supply of the richest blessings.’ He is speaking of the dress of the high-priest, and explains the vestment as representing the world which was thus,

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

as it were, brought into the temple whenever the priest entered to perform his sacred offices. And then he pro- ceeds as above, thus showing that by the Son he means the world‘, and implies, as does likewise the author of the Book of Wisdom (xviii. 24), that the very sacri- ficial garments themselves were regarded as a means of intercession. What is there in this ceremonial figure _ to teach §. John the doctrine of the Advocacy of Jesus — Christ the righteous, the propitiation for man’s sin? © There is another passage in Philo® bearing on the same subject, where he says, that the Father has given to His archangel and most ancient Logos a pre- eminent gift to stand on the confines and separate the created from the Creator. And this Logos is con- = tinually a suppliant to the immortal God in behalf of = the mortal race, and is also the ambassador sent by the Ruler of all to the subject man. There is a similarity here to the verse of 8. Paul (1 Tim. ii. 5). ‘There is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus ;’ but the coincidence is not essential. = In Philo the Logos is a mean between the good andthe = evil, as the cloud between Israel and the Egyptians, — neither being uncreated as God, nor created as man, but being like a hostage to both parties, a pledge to God that the whole race would not rebel entirely, and to man that God will never overlook the work of His hands. That Christ partakes of both natures, and is the only Mediator between God and man, is quite beyond the Jew’s idea, who has mingled the particle of truth which he possessed with the Aristotelian notion of the mean and the Pythagorean theory of contrasts. There is throughout all such occasional coincidences the fundamental distinction between the ideal Logos of the Jewish philosopher and the one Christ, God and

1 Bohn’s transl., ii. p. 162.

® See The Apostle Paul and the Christian Church at Philippi. By Rev. J. F. Todd, London, 1864. Here will be found a pains- taking endeavour to show the contrast between the teaching and method of Philo and 8. Paul. Burton’s Bampton Lectures, note 93, &c.; Dorner, Person of Christ, i. 22-41 (Clarke’s ed.).

> De Vit. Mos. iii. 14. (ii. p. 155): dvayxatov ydp hv Tov Lepo-

pévoy TH Tod Kécpou warpt wapakAnTyY xpHcOa TeAaoTaTY Ti dperiy vid, mpés Te dpynorelay dpaprnparey Kat xopryiay dpPova- Tatov dyabdr.

* Philo calls the Logos xécpos adrés. De Mund. Opif. 48. (i. p33).

5 Quis rer. diy. haer, 42. (ii. p. 501). See Jowett, Ep. to Galat. p. 482.

man, of the Christian. With a writer who saw in matter the source of all evil, the idea of the Incarnation was inconceivable, was indeed repugnant to his concep- tion of God and God’s relation with the world. That _ the term Logos was well understood is evident, e. g. from the abrupt commencement of 8. John’s Gospel ; but none of the philosophers or theologians who were familiar with the expression would have admitted the statement that ‘The Logos became flesh.’ Such an assertion was utterly irreconcilable with their principles. With Philo the Logos is rather ‘ Reason’ than ‘ Word,’ metaphysical rather than personal, speculative rather than moral. With the Apostle the reverse is the case. _ The Personality of the Word, His historical manifest- ation, are the points brought out. And in the full _ Christian doctrine we trace the truth for which pre- __ eeding revelations had prepared the way, that the Son ef God is that Angel of the Covenant who guided the __ ancient patriarchs, that Word who executed the Father's will, that Wisdom which was with God and was over all His works. es Besides Philo and his school there are other sources __ whence Christianity is said to have derived its tenets and practices. Not satisfied with the opinion that _ Christianity is the ordained religion for which Judaism prepared the way, being itself the proper development of the earlier form, critics have, with a perseverance that might be better employed, sought to trace Christ’s doctrines to human opinions prevalent in the age pre-

ceding his own, and to state precisely whence they were borrowed or adopted.

___ Among the heralds of Christianity have been reckoned _ the Essenes’, many of whose tenets and practices are _ said to have prepared the way for the reception of a

purer and more definite faith. They were indeed the Q,

saintly livers among the Jews in all ages of their’ history. From the time of Moses to the captivity, from the return to the era of the Maccabees and thence onward to Christian days, there had always been holy men, led by the Spirit of God, who, whether living in communi- ties or solitary, kept in many respects to the strictest traditions of their faith, and by purity, unworldliness, and the practice of many virtues anticipated no few of the Christian doctrines. Doubtless there were many excesses in their religion : they often showed as mere fanatics, often espoused philosophical tenets alien from and inconsis- tent with revelation ; but as their name connects them with the Chasidim, the holy*, so all their rules and tenets and practices were intended to produce holiness. Of the analogy between their precepts and many of Christ’s commands or of the usages of the early Christians, it is easy to judge*. Thus, the Essenes commended the poor in spirit, peacemakers, the mer- ciful, the pure in heart; they contemned the laying up riches; they had all things in common, called no man master, sold their possessions and divided them among the poor; they swore no oaths, but their com- munication was yea, yea, nay, nay. They believed that by prayer and fasting they could cast out devils ; that a man should abstain from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; that by living a life of holiness and purity their bodies would become temples of the Holy Ghost and they would be able to prophesy (1 Cor. xiv. 1, 39). That Christianity derived any of its doe- trines and practices from the Essenes is an unproved assertion ; but that finding their principles and customs prevailing, Christ and His Apostles recognised what was good and right in them, while rejecting their excesses,

so

1 The accounts of the Essenes are found in Philo, Quod omn. _ prob. lib. 12, 13. (ii. pp. 457-460) ; Fragm. ii. pp. 632, ff., Mang.; _ Joseph. Bell. Jud. ii. 8; Antiq. xiii. 5; xv. 10; xviii. 1; Solinus, Polyhist. xxv. 7, ff; Porphyr. wept dwoy. rav éapiy., p. 381, ed. 1620; Epiphan. Adv. Haer. i. 10. p. 28, ed. 1682 ; i. 19. p. 39;

ward "OconvGy; Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. 17. See Dr. Ginsburg’s Essay, The Essenes: their History and Doctrines, London,

1864; Gfrirer, Philo, ii. pp. 299, ff; Diihne, i. pp. 469, ff.

2 See Art. Chasidim, in Kitto’s Bibl. Cyclop. This derivation is the subject of much dispute. See Lightfoot’s Essay.

3 The following comparison is based on Dr. Ginsburg’s most complete and interesting Essay, where the whole literature of the subject is fully treated, and Dr. J. B. Lightfoot’s Essay in his edition of S. Paul’s Ep. to Coloss.

D2

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20

is certainly possible’. And the very existence of this sect, if it was a sect, or of these saintly persons, was doubtless one of those providential preparations for the triumph of the Gospel which the Christian student has at all times loved to trace. But much more has been made of the importance of these religionists than is warranted by their history or the tenets which are attributed to them.

The fact is that the Essenes were an insignificant body, and played no prominent part in the national life of the Jews. There is no evidence that any intercourse existed between Essenism and Christianity, and to assume that Christ Himself, John the Baptist, and James the Lord’s brother were members of this sect, as some authors do, is to read into history preconceived views, not to base theories on well-established facts. The coincidences of practice and teaching between the two are only so far connected as all high morality may be said to be derived from one source, or as the special points mentioned may be considered as the growth of the same country, climate, and circumstances. In many of their opinions and customs they directly contravened the Mosaic law, as for instance in their abstention from animal sacrifices”, and no more marked opposition to Christianity could be found than in their persistent denial of the Resurrection of the body.

From what has been said we may gather these inferences. The Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy was not the origin of any of the doctrines of the New Testament ; nor was the allegorical method of inter- preting certain parts of the historical Scriptures derived from or identical with that employed by Philo and his school, The two allegations to the contrary are based on verbal similitudes, sometimes accidental, sometimes in- tentional, but with no affinity in thought. But using the

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language current at the time as the vehicle of Christian ie truth, the Apostles explained their meaning intelligibly, —

suggested the origin of the erroneous speculations then prevalent, and at the same time corrected these mis-

a ,

‘San

takes, For it was indeed incumbent on them to

notice the prevailing theories which were to become

the parents of future heresies in the Christian Church. |

It is beyond our design to trace the course of these de-

clensions from the faith, but we may state briefly the effect of this Judaic-Alexandrian philosophy on one or —

two points of Christian dogma. The Arian heresy may reasonably be referred to the Logos doctrine of the Alexandrian school. This

error gathered into one view all that had hitherto tended to lower the divinity of the Second Person of the

Divine Trinity. The Logos, regarded by Philo often as not personal, sometimes as personal, but not so per se ; the denial of any duality of Divine Persons; the separ- ation of the Logos from the divine sphere, His sub- ordination to God, and His creation in time; these and such-like opinions were a preparation for the notion that the Son was a creature begotten not eternally and not consubstantial with the Father.

Again, the Sabellian doctrine which substituted three names or conceptions of God in place of three Persons, which regarded the Trinity as different modes of the

existence of God, had its prefigurement in the dream of at

Philo concerning the threefold perfections of God, T trinity of Plato, as it is called, the discussions of philo- sophers respecting the three great principles of things, with which the schools of Alexandria had familiarised him, led to a theory, which, while it retained the great

dogma of Monotheism, embraced the idea of a triad of — a

operations or virtues in the divine nature*®, Vague and indeterminate as was Philo’s conception of this

1 That S. John the Baptist belonged to this order is argued from his ascetic life, and from the fact that Christ announced him to be Elias, which would be equivalent to saying that he had arrived at the highest degree among the Essenes, See Dr. Ginsburg’s Art. The Essenes, Ap. Kitto’s Cyclop.; Gritz, Gesch. d. Jud. iii, p. 217. The same opinion has been held con- cerning James, the Lord’s brother, and even Christ Himself.

See the refutation in Lightfoot.

2 This has been denied by Neander, Hist. of Christ. Relig. i. p. 67 (Bohn’s transl.) ; but see Lightfoot, p. 134.

% Cudworth, Intell. Syst. ii. 333, note (transl. by Harrison) ; Philo, De Cherub. 9 (i. p. 143); De Abrah, 24 (ii. p.19); De Mut. Nom, 4 (i. p. 582).

PROLEGOMENA, 21

trinity, it was the germ of that error which used the term while it destroyed the Christian connotation.

And once more, that Judaizing Platonism, which with certain additions merged into Gnosticism, derived some of its chief elements from these Alexandrian theo- logasters, as Erasmus would have called them. This widely penetrating system, which formed the chief dan- ger of early Christianity, was the natural offspring of Oriental mysticism. Gnosticism furnished no essentially new speculations; it gave a new emphasis to truths already held, it combined them in new relations, but it did not create or invent novel theories and produce an altogether fresh system. Of the elements that con- tributed to this philosophy Alexandrian Judaism was one of the most important. If we may trace some of its factors to oriental Pantheism or Parsism, we are con- strained to acknowledge the supreme influence of the school of Alexandria, and to look upon this as the medium by which the tenets of the various religion- isms which composed it were held together and con- solidated. The distinction between the highest God and the Demiurgus, the derivation of evil from an evil principle called matter (#7), the doctrine of emanation, the representation of the visible world as an image of the world of light, the arbitrary allegorising of Scripture, and the notion of a secret doctrine which belonged only to the highest intellects, all these were the direct pro- duct of the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy.

To this school also we may trace many of the opinions and much of the method of the early Christian Fathers. In defending and developing Christian doc- trines they were necessarily brought face to face with Alexandrian teachers, and were constrained either to accept or oppose their statements. With the writings of Philo Justin Martyr was well acquainted, and he adopts many of the Jew’s opinions and uses his lan- guage. In his idea of God he is much more in accord-

ance with Philo than with the Catholic Creed, con- ceiving the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, not as three Persons of one divine substance, but as three Principles of differing rank*. After Philo’s example also he endeavours to reconcile the cosmogony of Plato with that of Moses ; and at another time he introduces thoughts concerning the soul from the Stoics and other Greek philosophers *.

Of the deep influences of the Graeco-Jewish philosophy upon the Alexandrian Fathers every student is aware. ‘Any one,’ say Vacherot*, ‘who desires to understand Clement and Origen, must keep in mind the three sources from which they drew their thoughts, Gnosti- cism, Philoism, and Platonism.’

Clemens Alexandrinus regarded Greek Philosophy as a mere plagiarism from the Jewish Scriptures‘. In his Stromata his chief object is to furnish materials for the construction of a Christian philosophy on the basis of faith in revealed religion; and in carrying out this design he shows how in various particulars the heathens were indebted to Hebrew sources for their wisdom, thus following up the investigation in which Philo had led the way. Nor does he confine himself simply to the truths which philosophy has to teach: from her he borrows his method of inquiry; he calls to his aid dialectics, geometry, arithmetic and other sciences, to contribute their support to his theological speculations. All, in his view, have their part in this supreme science, which is Knowledge, Gnosis®; and the end and object of this is union with God through the Word.

In Origen we see the allegorising method of inter- preting the Scriptures reduced, as we may say, to a system. This great teacher seems to revel in the ob- scurities and dark sayings of the divine oracles. He finds in them subjects worthy of his deepest thought. It was in his opinion an error fraught with much evil to adhere to the external, the carnal part of Scripture ;

. Prim, p. 51; Vacherot, i. p. 230. ie te 78; Cum Tryph. Dial. p. 221.

* Strom. xi. 1. 5 Strom. vi. 10; Vacherot, i, p. 251.

THE BOOK

22

in every portion we should seek hidden and mystic meanings which are the spirit of the Word of God and its veritable substance. The letter leads astray and brings little benefit’. Consistently with this theory he lays comparatively little stress on the historical facts con- nected with Christ’s life, and seeks to rise to the contem~ plation of the essence of the Logos, as He is in Himself, using the life and character of the historical Jesus as a symbol of the agency of the Divine Logos, seeing in all Scripture the incarnation of the Word *. Like Philo, he explained the earthly events narrated in the Bible and the temporary enactments recorded there as sym- bolical veils of spiritual mysteries. The outer husk he deemed to be suitable food for the uninstructed multitude; the higher truths were to be reserved for those who had arrived at the most perfect condition. If there were any persons standing between these two states, for them the allegorical sense was suitable, as best conveying to their capacities moral instruction and edification. There are many other points in which both Origen and Clement exhibited remarkable affinity in doctrine to Philo. In their language concerning God and the Word and the Holy Spirit and the destiny of man they are in close accord with the Jewish writer. They also owed much to Greek Philosophy; in their cosmology, their psychology, their ethics they intro- duced the ideas of Stoics and Platonists ; and although, in the case of Origen, these foreign elements were de- veloped into formal heresy, yet they were on the whole serviceable to the cause of Christianity, and formed a part of that Providential arrangement which prepared the way for the acceptance and dissemination of the true faith °,

These writers and their followers had the high merit of introducing Christianity in the only form in which it would be likely to find acceptance with cultivated and scientific intellects ; and if they exhibited a tendency to merge practice in speculation, to make men think

rather than set, still both of these elements are nese

sary for all education, and we must not decry the — merits of those who taught the one if they failed — sufficiently to supply the other. The argumentum ad hominem which they were thus enabled to use was — eminently serviceable to them in conciliating opponents — and in establishing the doctrines which they laboured to disseminate. They could show how philosophers had long been feeling after a Trinity in the Divine nature, how the Word of God had been an object of abundant

speculation for many a day. The very terms with which their adversaries were familiar could convey the instruction which they desired to give ; the very dogmas which heathen sages had announced were echoes of re-

vealed truths; and those who had set these forth were ©

guided by that Holy Spirit whom Christians adored. Before concluding this brief and necessarily imper- fect sketch there is one other result of the Jewish- Alexandrian teaching which we must mention. An earnest pagan, when he turned his attention to the conclusions attained by his most eminent philosophers, and saw how empty, unsatisfactory and barren of issue were their speculations, naturally longed for

something better, some completer solutions of the — a

questions by which his mind was agitated. And, look-

ing around on the varying faiths of the nations, he en- or deavoured to calm his disquiet and quench his longing __ by elaborating an eclectic philosophy which should

combine in one the best points of heathenism and Oriental religion. In this connection it was impossible _ to avoid following in the steps of Philo and his school. —

In attempting to breathe into the expiring heathen-

dom a new breath of life, a method, which had already more or less successfully glorified and exalted ancient myths and philosophic theories by conceding to them

a place in the shrine of revealed religion, was the very

element needed to inspire new zeal in behalf of the old rites, and to form the basis of polemical and apologetic

1 Orig. in Ep. ad Rom.

® See Neander, Hist. of Christ. Relig. ii. p. 257, ff. (Bohn’s transl.)

lib. viii. 8. p. 633 Ben. 3 Vacherot, i, p. 294, ff

discussion. Successful opposition to Christianity could only be offered by a spiritualizing of the polytheistic religion which would conceal its grossness and soften the contrast between the popular superstitions and the pure doctrines by which they were being undermined and supplanted. This antagonistic system is known as the later Neo-Platonism. Its struggles with Christianity and its utter defeat form an interesting episode in Church history which it is beyond our scope to describe.

_ If then we allow that there is token of immediate

PROLEGOMENA.

a Oe Fe Magee

23

connection between the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy and the early Fathers, and if we concede that the at- tempt to conciliate philosophy and religion led the way to that new phase of doctrine which was so bitterly hostile to Christianity, we have shown that we dissent heartily and altogether from the opinion that any prominent doctrines of Christianity are derived from any alien sources, and we can see no ground for such opinion but certain verbal similarities which are capable of another and more reasonable explanation.

Il.

Title—Plan.—Contents,

Tue Book which we are about to consider has generally gone by the name of The Wisdom of Solo- mon. It is so entitled in the earliest Manuscripts. Thus the Sinaitic Codex calls it Sopia Sadopwvros, the Vatican Sogia Saropor, and the Alexandrian Zoq¢ua ZoAopwvros: the early translations have usually given it the like appellation, the Syriac terming it ‘The Book of the Great Wisdom of Solomon,’ and the Arabic *The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, the son of David’ But by many of the Greek Fathers, and by Western writers since the time of SS. Jerome and Augustine, the name of Solomon has been dropped. Epiphanius and Athanasius cite it under the designation of Havdperos So¢pia, ‘ All-virtuous Wisdom,’ a title also applied to Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. Olement of Alexandria’ and Origen? called it ‘H cia Sofia, The Latin Vulgate prefixes the title ‘Liber Sapientiae,’ and

Augustine*® names it ‘Liber Christianae Sapientiae,’ and says it is improperly termed Solomon’s. That it had no claim to be considered a production of the royal author whose name it bore was generally felt, though some few writers in uncritical times main- tained the contrary. Jerome, in his preface to the Books of Solomon, says: ‘Fertur et Panaeretos Jesu

- Filii Sirach liber, et alius pseud-epigraphus, qui Sa-

pientia Salomonis inscribitur,’ intending probably by this epithet to shew merely that in his judgment it was wrongly attributed to King Solomon. Elsewhere he refers to it as ‘The Wisdom that is ascribed to Solomon, if any one thinks proper to receive the Book.’ Augustine in his Retractations* remarks: ‘Salomonis duo hi libri a pluribus adpellantur propter quamdam,

ome we:

sicut existimo, eloquii similitudinem. Nam Salomonis’

non esse nihil dubitant quique doctiores.’ That the

+ Strom. iv. 16. p. 515. ? In Ep. ad Rom. vii. 14.

* Ep. 130; De Doctr. Christ. ii. 8; Specul. p. 1127, C. D.; De Civitat. Dei, xvii. 20: ‘Alii vero duo, quorum unus Sa- pientia, alter Ecclesiasticus dicitur, propter eloquii nonnullam

similitudinem, ut Salomonis dicantur, obtinuit consuetudo; non autem esse ipsius, non dubitant doctiores; eos tamen in auctori- tatem, maxime occidentalis, antiquitus recepit Ecclesia.’

* ii. 4. Cf. Spec. de lib. Sap.

+ sig ote Va

24

author assumes the name of Solomon is of course ap- parent. Such a use of fiction has been common in all ages without any suspicion of fraud being attached to the writer. Plato and Cicero in their Dialogues in- troduce real characters as vehicles for supporting or opposing their own views. If it could be proved that any of the Psalms ascribed to David were written after his time, we might reasonably suppose that they had his name prefixed to them, as being composed in his spirit or in that form of sacred poetry employed by him. So all the Sapiential Books, though some of them were confessedly of much later date, were com- monly attributed to Solomon, as being himself the ideal of the personification of Wisdom and the author par excellence of works on this subject. And when the writer introduces Solomon himself speaking, this is not done with any intention of leading his readers to be- lieve that the work was a genuine production of the Son of David. Written, as we shall see, at a period many centuries removed from the palmy days of Israel, at a place far distant from Jerusalem, in a language and style unfamiliar to the Hebrew king, the Book could never have claimed for itself the authority of that royal name except by a fiction universally understood and allowed. An analogous use of fiction is found in the Books of Tobit and Judith, where under cireum- stances professedly historical, but which in many par- ticulars do violence to history, moral and _ political truths are forcibly enunciated. There is this further reason for the use of the name of Solomon in the title of the Book, namely, that many of the sentiments and much of the language found therein are derived from the genuine works of the royal author, as will be seen in the Commentary.

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

The plan and contents of the Book have next to be considered. And first we must ask, What is meant by Wisdom (2o¢ia) of which it treats? Dismissing from — our minds later definitions of the term, and taking our stand on the Old Testament Scriptures, we see that it

is used chiefly in two pregnant senses. First, it signi- y

fies that quality, so named, which is an attribute of the

Godhead, or the thought of God which has its ex- — a

pression in the Logos, the Son; secondly, it denotes

the habit of mind infused in angels and menby God Himself, and the rules and dictates of religion and =

practical godliness. In the latter sense it is equivalent

to what is elsewhere called the knowledge of God,a __

term which includes the high contemplation of glorified

saints and angels, as well as the religious culture and =

practice of devout men on earth. As to the Divine Wisdom, this originally resides in God. As Job says (xii. 13), ‘with Him are Wisdom and strength ;’ ‘God understandeth the ways thereof, and He knoweth its place’ (xxviii. 23). And then more definitely in the Book of Proverbs it is said of Wisdom: ‘The Lord possessed mein the beginning of His way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth was. I was by Him, as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, re- joicing always before Him’ (ch. viii). Though we do not here see Wisdom actually distinguished asa Person of the — Godhead, yet it is shown as more than a mere abstrac- tion or poetical personification; it is shown at least as uncreated and as coeternal with God. Thus much we may gather from the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament’. In the Book of Ecclesiasticus a further advance is made, ‘Wisdom comes from the Lord and is with Him for ever’ (i. 1); She is indeed said to be

1 See Liddon, Bampton Lectures, ii. pp. 89-95, ed. 1867. Christ ‘is stated, according to His earthly nature, to be “the firstborn of every creature” ; a passage which bears out the opinion of S. Athanasius [Orat, II Contr. Arian. 47], that the reference to the creation of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is designed, among other things, to set forth the Incarnation of our Lord, as the head and pattern of humanity. S. Athanasius, following the Septuagint [Kvpios éxricé we dpxiy bday abrod els Epya abrod),

and expressing the Hebrew with more exactness than is done in our translation, renders Prov. viii. 22, “The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,” which is equivalent, he observes, to the assertion that the Father prepared me a body, and He created me for man, on behalf of their salvation.’ Wilberforce, Incarnat. chap. ii. pp. 24, 25. ed. 1852. The Revised Bible translates, ‘The Lord possessed (or, prepared, marg.] me in the beginning of His way.’

A

created, ‘created before all things’ (i. 4), but she is also said to be ‘poured out upon all God’s works’ (ver. 9), ‘and never to fail’ (xxiv. 9), ‘but to have her habitation in Jacob, and to take root in the inheritance of the Lord’ (i. 8, and 12), And thus we are led on to the doctrine of the Logos, the expression of the thought of God, and the manifestation of Wisdom among man- kind and in all creation. In the Book of Wisdom this idea has become more definite and precise. The nature and sphere and operation of Wisdom are clearly stated. She is the breath of the power of God and a pure in- fluence flowing from the glory of the Almighty, the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness. Being One she can do all things, remaining immutable herself she maketh all things new, and in all ages entering into holy souls she maketh them friends of God and prophets. She is privy to the mysteries of God, sits by His throne, loves His works, was present when He formed the world, and gives to men all the virtues which they need in every station and condition of life’.

As regards Wisdom in its human aspect we may say generally that, as used in the Sapiential Books, the term expresses the perfection of knowledge showing itself in action, whether in the case of king or peasant,

statesman or artisan, philosopher or unlearned. Its

contradictory is Folly (évoa), which signifies all wilful ignorance, sinfulness and carelessness, every act and habit opposed to the love of God and the practice of holiness. Professor Huxley remarks in one of his essays: ‘The only medicine for suffering, crime, and

4 e Z 7 ; _ PROLEGOMENA. 25

all the other woes of mankind, is Wisdom.’ And though his notion of wisdom is very different from that of him who is called ‘Pseudo-Solomon,’ and involves no principle of divine revelation, yet taken as it stands the statement contains a great truth. The habit of making a right choice, of using aright the knowledge and powers given, is enforced alike by the Jewish teacher and the modern philosopher. That gift of God the Holy Spirit which is called Wisdom directs men to seek God as the end and object of their life and faculties, to give themselves up to His guiding hand, to know and to do His will. The Jew was not a specu- lative philosopher; he did not employ his mind on abstruse theories concerning the mutual connection and interdependence of nature and spirit. Abstract investigation had little charm for him. All his views were based on revealed truths; it was from refiection on past revelations that his literature arose. Thus with him Wisdom embraces what a Greek would call virtue, a habit of choosing the good and excellent way ; but it comprises also the notion of a deep knowledge, an appropriation of the history of God’s dealings with His people, and a thorough trust in the divine aid which is never refused to the prayer of the faithful.

In the Book before us Divine Wisdom is presented under two aspects: somctimes as the Spirit, sometimes as the Word of God, different operations being at- tributed to each®. As the Spirit of God, Wisdom fills the world, is the means by which the Divine omni- presence is effectuated and expressed, and inspires men to be prophets; as the Word of God, Wisdom made the world, and is the executor of God’s commands both

1 Wisd. vii, viii, ix; Vacherot, i. pp. 134, 135; Dahne, pp. 154, ff; Gfrérer, Philo, i. pp. 243, ff. ; ii. pp. 216, ff.

2 Thus, chap. i. 4-6: ‘Into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in the body that is subject to sin. For the holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and remove from thoughts that are without understanding. Wisdom is a loving spirit.’ ‘For the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world; and that which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice,’ ver. 7. Com- pare also ix. 17. Here Wisdom is identified with the Holy Spirit. In the following passages it assumes the character of the Word:

vii. 22, ‘Wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me;’ xviii. 15, ‘Thine Almighty word leaped down from heaven out of Thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war... and brought Thine unfeigned commandment ;’ ix. 1,2, ‘O God of my fathers, Who hast made all things with Thy Word, and ordained man through Thy Wisdom.’ In Philo also the conception of Wisdom is not consistent or uniform. Some passages expressly identify the Logos and Wisdom; elsewhere Wisdom is represented as the spouse of God, and again as the mother of the Logos.

P eens i” <a?

in the reward and punishment of His creatures. By personifying Wisdom in the former view the author prepares the way in a most remarkable manner for the full doctrine of the Personality of the Holy Ghost, which was not plainly revealed till later times ; and by his personification of the Word he adumbrates the true Christian doctrine expressed by 8. John.

Human Wisdom is portrayed as that gift of God to men which is the guide and aim of all good conduct in life, and which leads to a happy immortality. This gift contains all virtues, moral, physical, and intellec- tual, holy living, manual dexterity, cultivated under- standing. In developing this principle the author is in advance of many of the books of the Old Testament in regard to the Providence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the future judgment, thus lighting the way to the full knowledge of Christianity. Inci- dentally, or it may be formally, he refutes the per- nicious doctrines of Epicureans and materialists; hé shews the superiority of the Hebrew religion to heathen philosophy in its purity and strictness, in its faith in a future life, in its trust in Divine Providence, and tacitly confutes many of those arguments alleged by Pagans both then and afterwards against Hebraism. And, further, as in the inspiration of his genius, and fired by the majesty of his subject, a poet is often led to give utterance to thoughts which have a meaning and a fulness far beyond anything that he intended, so the author of the Book of Wisdom, if not directly in- spired by God as were the writers of the earlier Scrip- tures, has exhibited a deep knowledge of divine things, and a forward reach into mysteries still unrevealed, which seem greater than have been elsewhere displayed beyond the limits of Scripture. Those magnificent en- comiums of Wisdom wherein our Book abounds seem to illustrate and glorify Him Who is the Wisdom of God. Nothing can be more appropriate to Christ than the grand personification of this attribute of Deity. In such passages as the following the writer seems to

pas i Gado a n rig Rae sie a = : ita vs te ee 26 THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

have been guided beyond his own thought to indicate — the operations and attributes of the second Person of — the Holy Trinity. ‘O God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy, Who hast made all things by Thy Word’ (ix. 1). ‘For it was neither herb, nor mollifying plaister that restored thém [the people bitten by fiery serpents] to health; but Thy Word, O Lord, which healeth all things.” ‘That Thy children, O Lord, whom Thou lovest, might know that it is not the growing of fruits that nourisheth man ; but that it is Thy Word which pre- serveth them that put their trust in Thee’ (xvi. 12, 26). ‘While all things were in quiet silence, and night was in the midst of her swift course, Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of Thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war in the midst of a land of destruction, — and brought Thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp

‘sword’ (xviii, 14-16). As regards the second passage

here quoted, our Lord Himself has explained the alle- gorical import of the ‘serpent lifted up in the wilder- ness. The last passage has for ages been applied by the Latin Church to the Incarnation, and is interwoven into her offices for Christmas and Epiphany. And once more, that language which the author puts into the mouth of the wicked persecuting the righteous is more true of the mockery heaped upon the Saviour as He hung upon the Cross'. ‘ He professeth to have the knowledge of God, and he calleth himself the child of God...He maketh his boast that God is his Father. Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. For if the just man be the Son of God, He will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.’

The Book itself may be broadly divided into two parts, the first nine chapters treating of Wisdom under its — more speculative aspect, exhorting men to strive after it, and describing its origin, and its moral and intel- lectual effects; the last ten chapters being confined to the historical view, showing how Wisdom has dis- played its power in the lives of the Fathers and in its

} Wisd. ii. 13, 16-18; S. Matt. xxvii. 42, 43. The words in Ps, xxii, 8, are not so full or so similar,

dealings with the Israelites in connection with Egypt. Herein incidentally are answered many of the heathen cavils against Hebraism; and that problem which Job found impossible to explain, the difficulties which occur to any one who reflects upon the moral government of the world, is in a measure resolved, and the faith- ful believers are comforted with the assurance that

PROLEGOMENA. 27

although they suffer here and the wicked prosper, yet a day of retribution is at hand, and in another life all shall be adjusted and rectified,—a fact, the truth of which, as regards individuals, may be inferred from God’s dealings with nations which have no future, but are rewarded and punished in this world.

III.

Language and Character.

Tue language and style of the Book are very re- markable. Compared with the Septuagint version of the canonical Scriptures, it is seen at once to be no mere translation from the Hebrew, but an original work of high character and of marked peculiarity. 8S. Jerome was quite justified in the opinion expressed in his Preface to the Books of Solomon: ‘Secundus apud Hebraeos nusquam est, quin et ipse stylus Graecam eloquentiam redolet.’ It is indeed written in the purest form of Alexandrian Greek, free from the Hebraisms and ano- malies of the Septuagint, and full of passages which combine the richest vocabulary with genuine rhetorical eloquence. The originality of the work is seen in many particulars. We may remark the many unusual compound words and novel and combined expressions with which it abounds; such are, xaxdpox6os (xy. 8) ; tméppaxos (xvi. 17); dxndidaros (iv. 9); dvarodiopds (ii.

5); «ldéxBea (xvi. 3); yeveoudpyns (xiii. 3); eddpavera

(xiii. 19) ; vpmoxrdvos (xi. 7); Bpaxuredns (xv. 9). Many

ft expressions in this Book have become, as it were, house-

hold words among us, others exhibit a remarkable felicity which has given them a general currency.

Mediaeval illuminations on the walls of Churches or in devotional manuals show how deeply the heart of the religious had imbibed the notion that ‘the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God’ (iii. 1). Ma- terialistic and rude as such representations may seem to modern eyes, they preach a great truth which is clearly set forth in Wisdom. Many a man quotes or hears the words ‘a hope full of immortality’ (iii. 4) without knowing the source of this noble expression. ‘They are Thine, O Lord, Thou Lover of souls,’ 8éarora pidd- Woxe (xi. 26). Here is an old term with a new and beautiful sense affixed to it, the classical notion of ‘loving life too well,’ and hence of being cowardly, being elevated into an attribute of Almighty God Who hateth nothing that He hath made. Modern science is fond of talking about Protoplasm and the Protoplast, little imagining that it is indebted to Wisdom for the word’: ‘I myself am a mortal man... the offspring of him that was first made of the earth,’ yyyevots axéyovos mpo- romddorov (viii. 1; x. 1). That saying of our Lord, Whoso committeth sin is the servant of sin,’ and still more that of S. Paul, ‘We are debtors not to the flesh

1 Forgetting this, Wilberforce writes (Doctr. of Incarnat.

chap. iii. p. 49, ed. 1852): ‘Wherein did the Protoplast, as

Bishop Bull calls him, after S. Irenaeus, differ from us all?’ as

though the latter were the originator of the expression in its application to Adam,

E: 4

to live after the flesh,’ had already been shadowed forth by our author where he speaks of Wisdom not dwell- ing in the body pawned, pledged, bound over to sin, xardype duaprias', Classical Greek knows a verb péuBa, péuBoua, to roam, be restless or unsteady ; it remained with the author of the Book of Wisdom (iv. 12) to use the noun fepuBacpds to express the wandering desire of map, the restlessness of unchecked concupiscence, the giddiness and moral vertigo caused by passion,

As we have already seen, the author shews many traces of acquaintance with Greek thought and philo- sophy, and many of his expressions are couched in the phraseology of Plato and the Stoics. The phrase ap- plied to the material of which the world was formed, tAn dpophos (xi. 17), is Platonic, so are the terms mpévoua (xiv. 3), mveipa voepdr (vii. 22).

To Greek literature and customs are owed many allusions and terms. Thus the manna is called am- brosial food (xix. 21); revellers are crowned with garlands (ii. 8); victors in athletic games are rewarded with a wreath (iv. 2); men have their household gods and ships their tutelary divinities (xiii. 15; xiv. 1).

From these circumstances the treatise presents a closer analogy to profane writings than any other book contained in the Greek Bible, and its language is con- sequently richer and more varied.

There are other points to remark in the form and character of the work. It is modelled in some degree on the ancient Hebrew poetry. That rhythm of thought, and parallelism of members, which are the distinguish- ing form of Hebrew poetry, are also conspicuous features in Wisdom. This is more carefully managed in the first portion, the latter part of the book being more rhetorical in construction. But that the whole was written in what has been called ‘verse rhythm’ is obvious, and the Alexandrian MS. has transmitted it

to us in this form, in which it will be found printed in the text. Epiphanius? too speaks of Wisdom as written stichometrically, and crities* have ascertained that itis divided in our present Greek MSS. into 1098 stiches,

while Nicephorus found 1100 verses in his codices. Hence it is argued‘ that one or two of the Vulgate additions are probably grounded on ancient authority, Be this as it may, the writer of Wisdom, while employ- ing the familiar parallelism to give force and emphasis to his periods, has also availed himself of some other ap- _

pliances more or less foreign to Hebrew poetry. Some- times he seems to have adopted almost the strophe and antistrophe of the Greek poets; at other times he has

condescended to paronomasias, alliterations, and asso- — < nances for the sake of giving greater effect to his con-

trasts or prominence to his verbal expressions. Some of these forms of parallelism may be observed in the very beginning of the Book.

*Ayamnaate Stxatocvvyy of Kpivovres Thy yay, pornoare rept rod Kupiou év ayabérnrt, -kal é€v dmddryte apdias (yrnoare avrdv* Gre etpioxerat Trois pi) metpafovow adrov, euhaviferar 5€ trois yu) dmurrovew aiT@. Here are seen the verbal artifice in the words dyamj- care, Cyrncate, ppovncate, ayabdrnrt, amddrnt, and the

parallelism of thought in the various members of the " sentence ; pi) dmorodo. and i) weipagovor are parallel to —

év amAdryte and éy dyabdrntt, cipioxerar answer to (yrA- care, euaviferar to ppovncare.

Take the noble passage descriptive of Wisdom, vii. 24 ff. -— .

‘More active than all action is Wisdom ;

And she passes and goes through all things by reason of her purity,

For a vapour is she of the power of God,

And a pure effluence of the glory of the Almighty,

_1 §, John viii. 34; Wisd. i. 4; Rom. vi. 16, 20; viii, 12.

? Epiph. De Mens. et Pond. iv: al yap orixhpes B00. BIBAo, Hre Tov Zoropudyros, mavdperos Aeyouévn, wat } Tod "Ingo rod viod Spay K.7.A,

* Credner, Geschichte. des Kanon, pp. 108, 120; Thilo, Speci-

“men exercit, crit. P- 34-

* See Grimm on ch, i, 15.

PROLEGOMENA. 29

Therefore falleth unto her naught defiled ;

For a reflection is she of Eternal Light;

And a mirror unspotted of the majesty of God, And an image of His goodness.’

Or again, mark the delicate balancing of sentences in the language put into the mouth of the sensualist, (ch. ii) :-—

‘Short is our life and full of pain,

And there is no healing for the death of man,

And none was ever known to have returned from the

grave.

For we were born at all adventure,

And hereafter shall be as though we never had been; For smoke is the breath in our nostrils,

And thought is a spark at the beat of our heart, And when this is quenched the body shall turn to ashes, And the spirit shall be dispersed as empty air;

And our name shall be forgotten in time,

And no man shall remember our works;

And our life shall pass away as track of cloud,

And shall be scattered abroad as a mist

Chased away by the beams of the sun

And by his heat oppressed.

For the passage of a shadow is our life,

And, there is no return of our death,

For it is fast sealed, and no man cometh back.’

As an instance of another kind of parallelism ex- hibiting great ingenuity may be mentioned the famous Sorites in chap. vi, whereby the writer proves that the desire of Wisdom leads to a kingdom !:—

‘The desire of Wisdom is the beginning of Wisdom, And the truest beginning of Wisdom is the desire for instruction,

And the care for instruction is love,

And love is the keeping of her laws,

And attention to her laws is assurance of immortality, And immortality maketh us to be near unto God, Therefore the desire of Wisdom leadeth unto a kingdom.’

_ The first member of the argument is not expressed, but is virtually contained in the preceding verse, and the

final premiss before the conclusion might be, ‘To be near unto God is to reign.’ The wording of some of the clauses is a little varied, otherwise the Sorites is complete, and the predicate of the last of the premisses is predicated of the subject of the first in accordance with the rules of Logic.

Instances of verbal refinement meet us in every page. Thus, of duddgavres dois ra dora dowbynoovra (vi. 11); ods—Opods (i. 10); marolv—eprarypiv—rai- yrios (xii. 25, 26); dpya—épya (xiv. 5), are examples of artificial adornment which, though not so frequent in other Greek authors, are not without example in either of the Testaments*. But it must be confessed that the straining after such effects sometimes degenerates into turgidity, and seems to be below the dignity of the subject. But while the contrasts are occasionally forced and the treatment is unequal, the general tenour of the work is highly pleasing, rising often into grand eloquence and expressing the noblest thought in the choicest diction.

There is another connection in which the language of the Book is most interesting and valuable. Its utility in the study of the New Testament is undoubted. Many phrases that are commonly found in the later Scriptures can be traced to, or are illustrated by their use in, the Book of Wisdom. ‘These are mentioned in the Commentary as they occur, but a few may be noticed here. When the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews would express the co-eternity and consub- stantiality of the Son with the Father, he uses the remarkable term dravyacpa ris 86fs—a phrase which is not found in the Old Testament elsewhere but in Wisdom vii. 26, where Wisdom is called dravyacpa doris didiov. The expression xdpis kat @eos, familiar to us in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Tim. i. 2), is used more than once in our Book®; so onpeia cal répara (S. John iv. 48) occurs viii. 8, and x. 16. That mysterious

? See note on vi. 18.

2 Cf. 2 Cor. i. 3, 4, where S. Paul accumulates wapaxadeiy and its derivatives. For such verbal refinements in Wisdom see Grimm, Einleit., p.7. For examples of play on words in the New Testament see Phil. iii. 2, 3, sxararoph, mepiroph: Gal. v.

II, 12, wepcrophy, dwoxdpovra: Rom. i. 29, 30, 31, St novnpig ; pOdvou, pévov; dovvérous, dovrGérovs. Comp. notes

Bishop Wordsworth’s Greek Test., Matt, xxvi. 2, and 2 Sen. iii. 11; and Jowett, on Rom. i. 28.

5 Chap. iii. 9; iv. 15.

—

THE BOOK

phrase, of which so much has been made in modern controversy, «ls rév aiéva (1 John ii. 17) is used (ch. v. 15) in speaking of the just man’s life beyond the gate of death. More than once in the Revelation we meet with the words, dé: yap «ioc: these are illus- trated by the text in Wisdom: ‘God proved them and found them worthy of Himself, dgiovs éavrod. ‘The

OF WISDOM.

day of visitation,’ ¢v nuépg émoxonijs, of 1S. Peter (ii. 1

is explained by the similar phrase in Wisd. iii. 7, é xaip@ éemucxorjs. The New Testament expressions, ¢fo80s _ meaning ‘death’; ma:deia ‘ suffering’; wapdrrepa ‘trans- gression’; dyiavros ‘undefiled’; émriuia ‘punishment’ ;

are all illustrated by their use in this Book.

IV.

Place and date of Composition.—Author,

BErorE we attempt to investigate the authorship of the Book of Wisdom, it will be necessary to settle the place and approximate date of its com- position, With regard to the former we can have no hesitation in assigning it to Alexandria. In no other locality could a Jew, as the author confessedly is, have written such a work. A Palestinian Hebrew, at the era when we shall shew reason to suppose it to have been composed, would scarcely have possessed so thorough a command of the Greek language as the author displays. Such a passage as that in chap. xiii. 3, which speaks of the beauty of material objects and calls Almighty God ‘the first author of beauty,’ is essentially different from purely Hebrew thought and points to a Hellenistic writer®. Josephus himself confesses * that his countrymen had no taste for the study of foreign tongues, and were especially averse from Greek culture and education. The intimate acquaintance with Greek thought and philosophy displayed in this Book is su-

perior to anything found at Jerusalem. The dogmas.

of the Old Testament were never developed in the form herein exhibited till the Jewish system came in con- tact with western philosophy, and thence drew terms,

modifications, and contrasts before unknown. Where — 4

could this close contact have occurred but at Alex- andria? and who but an Alexandrian Jew could have clothed the results in the only language that could adequately express them? Alexandria in the time of

the Ptolemies was filled with Jews. It is computed —

that they numbered nearly one third of the whole population.

speculations and manifold traditions which were pre-

sented to their notice by the heathens among whom

they dwelt. Here they saw that Epicurean indiffer-

ence, that luxurious selfishness, that gross materialism, _ that virtual denial of Providence, which are so sternly — a

and eloquently rebuked in the Book of Wisdom. Here they witnessed that bestial idolatry, and that debased

Living thus in the very centre of heathen — culture they could not fail to be influenced by the spirit _ of the place, and to compare their own imperishable — belief and their own divine revelation with the restless)

revolt against the pure worship of God, which meet. 4

with such severe handling in this work. A man who

had these things daily before his eyes, whose righteous a ;

soul was continually vexed with this opposition to all

his cherished beliefs, would naturally thus deliver his

1 Rev. iii. 4; xvi. 6; Wisd. iii. 5.

/

? Gfrérer, Philo und die Alexandr. Theosophie, ii, p. 212.

3 Ant, xx. 12,

testimony, and brand the surrounding heathenism with the fire of his words. The modes of worship thus assailed, the local colouring of details, the political allusions, are distinctively Egyptian, point conclusively to an Alexandrian author, are too personally antagon- istic, and shew too familiar an acquaintance with the whole subject, to be the word of one who, living at a distance, merely described past events and gave an unbiassed judgment upon them. They lead irresistibly to the conclusion that the writer composed his work amid the people and the scenes to which he continually refers. Some persons’ have thought that the Book ends abruptly, and that the present is only a portion of a larger treatise which carried on the author's historical view of the operations of divine wisdom down to the latest times of the Jewish commonwealth. But if we consider that the author is writing in Egypt, and partly with the purpose of exposing the cor- ruptions of its idol worship in contrast with the pure religion of the Israelites, it is seen at once that in bringing his comparison down to the time of the Exodus and the judgment executed on the gods of Egypt, he leaves his subject at the most appropriate conclusion, and that a survey of succeeding events, in which that country had no concern, would rather have diminished than increased the effect of the contrast.

As we can assume Alexandria to be the birthplace of our Book, so by internal evidence we can approach the date of its production. Disregarding the fictitious name of Solomon adopted merely for literary purposes, we have two facts which limit the period during which it must have been composed. First, it contains evident

traces of the use of the Septuagint version of the _ Scriptures, and must therefore have been written sub- sequently to that translation. Thus in ch. ii. 12 the ungodly are made to use the words of Isa. iii. ro:

dioopy [eve8pevowpw Wisd.] rov Sixaov, Se dbexpnotos jpiv éort, where the Hebrew has something quite dif- ferent ; and in xv. ro the author writes omodds 4 xapdia airod, which is a quotation from the Septuagint of Isai. xliv. 20 where the variation from the Hebrew is

remarkable*. Now the Septuagint version was begun at least in the time of the earlier Ptolemies about B.C. 280, and was continued at various intervals. When it was concluded is quite uncertain, For our purpose it is enough to fix a date earlier than which Wisdom could not have been written, and this limit we may set at B.c. 200. The second limitation is derived from the fact that the Book contains no trace of distinctively Christian doctrine. The Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Resurrection of the body, find no place in its teaching. It is true that some comment- ators ® have satisfied themselves that there are passages which could only have come from a Christian hand, but as these are allowed by them to be interpolations, (though there is no evidence of the fact and the pas- sages themselves are in accordance with the rest of the work), we may leave this opinion out of our considera- tion.

But in addition to these data, there is another fact to be inferred from the treatise which defines the period during which it could have been composed. Its language in many places points to a time of op- pression wholly inappropriate to the era of Solomon. Such statements as these: ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them’ (iii. 1); ‘Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him’ (v. 1); seem to be the utterances of one who was consoling himself and others under persecu- tion and affliction. Hence the author inveighs against unrighteous rulers, and threatens them with heavy

____-1 Eichhorn, Einleit. in d. Apokryph. ; Grotius, Annot. in libr.

4 Other instances of reference to the Septuagint version are found in the following : vi. 7; xi. 4; xii. 8; xvi. 22; xix. 21.

3 Noack, Der Ursprung des Christenthums, i. p. 222, ff.; Kirschbaum, Der Jiid, Alex. p. 52; Grotius, in Comm. ; Griitz, Gesch. der Jud. iii. p. 495; Erasmus, De Ratione Concion. iii. (vol, v. p. 1049).

judgment (vi. 5, 9); speaks of present sufferings and chastisements (xii. 22, 23); and connects these things with the diatribe against idolatry and the deification of man (xiv. etc.).

Now under the earlier Ptolemies the Jews in Alex- andria enjoyed the utmost peace and prosperity, had all the privileges of Macedonian citizens, were in high favour at court, and exercised their own peculiar wor- ship without restraint’. Such too was their condition under the later kings down to the time of the Christian era. The only persecutions which they suffered took place in the reigns of Ptolemy Philopator (B.c. 221- 204), and Ptolemy VII or Physcon (B,0. 170-117). The sufferings of the Jews under the latter are men- tioned by Josephus*» They had their rise in the inhuman and sanguinary temper of the king, and ex- tended not merely to the Hebrews, but to all the inhabitants, insomuch that the populace in general fled from the scene of blood, and the city was almost deserted. The only special persecution of the Jews in the period of which we are speaking was that which raged under Ptolemy Philopator. This monarch on his return from the defeat of Antiochus (B.c. 217) passed through Jerusalem, and being repulsed in an attempt to penetrate, against the High Priest’s remon- strances, into the Most Holy Place of the Temple, conceived an implacable hatred for the Jews, and on his return to Egypt revenged himself for his humilia-

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

~ 5 ae tion by the most atrocious persecutions. It is thought that the highly coloured account in the third Book of Maccabees refers to this occurrence. But be that as it may, without any undue assumption, and leaving un- decided the special tribulation to which the writer of — Wisdom refers, we may safely date the production of the Book between B.c. 217 and B.c, 145, that is be-

tween the epoch marked by the religious oppression — 2

under Philopator, and that rendered memorable by the enormities of the bloated sensualist Physcon.

If we come now to consider the question of the author of the Book, we are at once launched into a controversy which, with our present information, knows no possible settlement. It is easy to find objections to all the writers to whom the work has been attributed: _ to fix on a more probable name is beyond our power. We can here only very briefly indicate the line which this fruitless inquiry has taken.

We have seen already that the name of Solomon was assumed by the author for literary purposes *, but many in old time* and some in later years® have contended for the Solomonic authorship. However, the language, the style, the development of doctrine, the local colour- ing, the quotations from the Septuagint, entirely pre- clude the notion of the writer being David’s son. And as to the work being a translation from the Hebrew, — or (as the critic’ who attributes it to Zerubbabel suggests,) the Chaldee, considerations have already

1 Joseph. Ant. xii. 1; Contr. Ap. ii. 4.

2 Contr. Ap. ii. 5. See also Athenaeus, iv. p. 184; vi. p. 252, ed. Casaub.; Justin. Hist. xxxviii. 8, 9.

* Thus Eusebius, quoting vi. 24, says: «at radra 5é mn ef avrod Aéyerat Tov mpoowmrov (i.e. personifying Solomon) ; Praep. Evang. vii. 12. (xxi. p, 544, Migne).

* E.g. Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 11 (p. 786, Pott.), quoting xiv. 2, 3, says: érerta 8% ode dvéyvmoar 7d mpds Tod Yodopavros elpnpuévor, 8. Cypr. Exh. Mart. xii. ; Orig. Hom. in Jer. viii. (xiii. p. 337, M.): gna % Sopia h emvyeypappévn Yoropavros. So Holkot in his Commentary. Didymus attributes the book to Solomon, De Trin, ii. 6. (xxxix, p. 536, M.): ds SoAopd Aéyer* Heldy 5e mavrow, xi, 26; and De Spir. § 54, he refers to vii. 18, 20, as showing that Solomon knew ‘ violentias spirituum, rapidos ventorum flatus.’” De Trin. i. 16, (xxxix. p. 337, M.): Sodopay ydp Aéya dvaddyas Tov

wrioparov 6 yev, Oewp., xiii. 5. Eusebius, Hist, Eccl. iv. 13, blames Clem. Alex. because in his Stromata he cites as Scripture ‘some books which are impugned by many, dmd ray dyrTiAcyouévaw ypapav, as the Book of Wisdom which is attributed to Solomon, the epistles of Barnabas and Clement, etc. Hippol. Rom. Demonstr. adv. Jud. p. 67. (ed. Lagarde): méAw Sodropdw rept Xpicrod Kai "lovdaiew pyoly bri Ste orhoerat d Sixacos... évTa as oxd, Tertullian, De Praescript. 7, refers to a passage in Wisdom thus: ‘Nostra institutio de porticu Salomonis est, qui et ipse tradiderat Dominum in simplicitate cordis esse quaeren- dum.’ (i. 1).

5 Schmidt, Das Buch der Weisheit; Azariah de Rossi, Meor Enajim, p- 281 b. ed. 1829.

© Faber, Ap. Grimm, Einleit., pp. 8, 18. See Huetius, Demonstr. Evangel. p. 250, ed. 1722.

been adduced which render this theory untenable. §8. Jerome, in his Preface to the Books of Solomon’, asserts that some ancient writers consider the author to be Philo Judaeus; and many in later times have adopted this opinion, referring the persecutions of which the text gives intimations to the oppressive acts of the Romans, culminating in Caligula’s attempt to erect his statue in the Temple at Jerusalem, which was the occasion of Philo’s legation to the Emperor*. But this idea fails to command assent on internal evidence, even if there were not many reasons already mentioned which render the date of that learned Jew inapplicable. Roman Catholics, who are bound by the decrees of the Council of Trent to believe in the inspiration of the Book of Wisdom, have a summary method of dismiss- ing Philo’s claim. Living at the time of our Lord he must be regarded as one of the unbelieving Jews, and to suppose such a man inspired by the Holy Spirit would be sacrilegious. ‘Quis enim credat,’ asks Corn. a Lapide, ‘hominem Judaeum, jam abrogato Judaismo, infidelem et perfidum, esse auctorem libri canonici et sacri*? But without adopting this very formidable argument, there are such great differences in style, in doctrine, in treatment, that we cannot for a moment acquiesce in the theory which identifies Philo with the author of the Book of Wisdom. Leaving the question

_of style, which is a matter more to be felt by readers

than discussed on paper, we will notice a few dis- crepancies which are found in these two writers, In Wisdom* the serpent who tempted Eve is identified

‘ __ with the devil; but Philo ignores that:evil power, and

“ Py

terms the serpent a symbol of pleasure, which speaks

PROLEGOMENA. 93

with seductive voice to men, and draws them away from temperance and obedience to law. In the same way the latter interprets the Brazen Serpent as cappo- civn or xaprepia: in Wisdom the matter is treated in its plain historical sense®. And in general the treatment of Scriptural narratives by the two authors presents a very marked contrast, Philo always straining after spiritual, anagogical, recondite interpretations, and losing the reality of the history in the fanciful lessons evolved from it, the author of Wisdom taking the facts as they stand and meditating religiously upon them, with no attempt to explain away their obvious meaning. It would be entirely alien to the method and treatment of the latter to introduce the Pythagorean doctrine of numbers in speaking of the six days of creation, as Philo does *, or to resolve the four rivers of Paradise into the four cardinal virtues’, or to explain the manna as God’s word*. Philo scarcely ever refers to the Psalms and Prophets ; in Wisdom the allusions to these writings and especially to Isaiah are numerous and im- portant. In his desire to maintain the absolute per- fection of God, and looking on matter as the source of evil, Philo conceives the Logos as the mediate cause of the world, assisted by other powers, angels and demons. The Book of Wisdom enters into none of these abstruse speculations, and is satisfied with the avowal that God made all things by His word (ix. 1). Where, if he held the opinion, the author might naturally have introduced the doctrine of ideas*, which forms so prominent a feature in Philo’s philosophy, we find no trace of the same. The Egyptian darkness is said in Wisdom (xvii. 14) to have ‘come upon them out of the bottoms

1*Nonnulli Scriptorum veterum hune esse Judaei Philonis affrmant.’ This opinion has been maintained by Lyranus, Postill.; Luther, in the introduction to his translation of the Book; Cosin, Hist. of the Canon; and many others. See an in- genious conjecture by Dr. Tregelles in reference to a corrupt passage of the Muratorian Canon, where the Latin text reads, ‘Sapientia ab amicis Salomonis scripta,’ and which he imagines may have been in the original b1d iAqvos instead of id Piday ; Journal of Philol., 1855, p. 37.

2 Joseph. Ant. xviii. 8,1; Philo, De Leg. ad Caium. $ In Sap. libr. xv. 14. . * Chap. ii. 24; Philo, De Mund. Opif. 56. (i. p. 38); De Agric. 22. (i. p. 315).

Wisd. xvi. 5, 7; Philo, Leg. Alleg. ii. 20; De Agric. 22. 6 De Mundi Opif. 3. (i. p- 3). - T Philo, De Poster. Caini 37. (i. p. 250). * Philo, Leg. Alleg. iii. 60. (i. p. 121). ® Eig. i. 3; vii. 22; viii, 19, ff. ; ix. 15.

PF

34 eect 3 THE BOOK OF wine

of inevitable hell ;’ whereas Philo! attributes it to an eclipse of the sun. The description of the origin of idolatry in Wisdom and in Philo’s works could never have been written by the same author, as there are many points discrepant and contradictory *.

Such differences might be greatly extended, but enough has been said to show that the opinion which makes Philo the author of the Book of Wisdom is untenable; if indeed more proofs of the same were wanting, they might be found in contrasting the ideas of the two authors as to divine Wisdom, which will be found to be irreconcileable.

The theory * which assigns the work to Aristobulus, the favourite of Ptolemy Philometor, fails to satisfy for these reasons: the little that is known of his writings is quite different in style and treatment from Wisdom, and at any rate is too insignificant, even if we grant its genuineness, to support the notion; secondly, in his time the Jews were in great prosperity, and not suffer- ing from the persecutions to which we have seen allusions in our Book; and thirdly, being a courtier and a king’s favourite minister, Aristobulus is not likely to have inveighed against kings and tyrants, and to have proffered unpalatable advice.

Despairing of finding a single author to whom to at- tribute the Book, some writers * have impugned its unity. That perverse criticism which is always straining after startling effects, and which is never satisfied except it evolve new theories, and on very insufficient grounds up- root long-established convictions, has seen in the struc- ture of this Book evidence of the handiwork of two or more authors, Solomon and his translators, according to Houbigant, have shared the work between them. Four Jews of varying sentiments, and one of them belonging

to Christian times, seem to Bretschneider to have cor posed the treatise. Nachtigal finds herein a collection of sentences, or a kind of Psalm in praise of Wisdom, which two sets of Rabbis sung antiphonally at three — separate sittings of the sacred company. Eichhorn, if he is not quite clear as to the work being the produe- tion of two different writers, assures himself that it was — composed in-a most peculiar fashion, the second paré (from chap. xi.) being the offspring of the author’s — ¥ 4 younger days, before he had learned to free himself

from the shackles of Jewish prejudices and had enlarged his mind by the study of Greek Philosophy, the first. = portion giving token of riper years and maturer know- — ledge. For these theories of a plurality of authors — By there is really no evidence of any weight *. Uncertain rv %

as all such subjective criticism must be, it is remark- y ably ill-placed on this occasion, as we have seen that i: the Book presents an unity of design and an identity of treatment which imply the work of a single author, and = which indeed would be marvellous if it were the pro- duction of two or more writers composing at different periods and under different circumstances. A theory — 4 started by Noack®*, attributing the authorship to q Apollos, has recently been maintained by Professor — a Plumptre, who in two articles in The Expositor’ claims a this apostle as the writer of Wisdom and of the-Epistle to the Hebrews, the former being the production of the __ author while unconverted, the latter the fruit of hisma- __ ture Christianity. The hypothesis is attractive, but it rests on no secure basis, there being nothing initsfavour except that Apollos was an eloquent Jew of Alexandria and might have written the Book. The argument is sup- ported chiefly by a certain coincidence of phraseologyin the two writings ; and it is certain that there are many __

1 Vita Moys. i. 21. (ii. p. 100): Tows pev wat HAlov -yevopévns terelvews rav év Ee TeAeavorépas, Ginsburg, ap. Kitto’s Cyclop., Art. Wisdom of Solomon.

? Comp. Wisd. xii. xiii. and Philo, De Monarch. i, 1-3. (ii. pp. 212-216).

5 Lutterbeck, Die Neutest. Lehrbegr. i. 407, ff.

* Houbigant, Proleg, in Not. Crit. i. pp. ecxvi, cexxi; Eichhorn,

Einleit. in d. Apokr. p. 142, ff.; Bretschneider, De libr. Sep. parte priore; Nachtigal, Das Buch Weisheit. ‘a is ° The refutation of these dreamings seriatim may be seen in Grimm, Einleit. See also Migne, Script. Sacr. Curs, Compl. — Prolegom. in libr. Sap. ; Diihne, ii. p. 154, ff ® Der Ursprung des Christenth. i. p. 222, 7 Vol. i. pp. 329, ff. and 409, ff.

ey : | PROLEGOMENA. | 35

b. words sid expressions common to both. But this cor- ‘respondence may prove nothing more than the fact that the Christian author was acquainted with the Alex- andrian work, or that they both drew from some com- mon source. To any unprejudiced mind the contrast between the two is most marked ; the difference of style ai is too great to be reasonably attributed to different _ phases of the same intellect. There is nothing in Wisdom like the continuous interweaving of Old Testa- ment Scriptures which is found in the Epistle; there ES is no exhibition in the Epistle of the acquaintance with

_ pagan learning which is so prominent a feature of the

“S _ earlier work. The resemblances in language may be 4 paralleled from Philo, and might be equally well used to support his claim to the authorship of either. For those who hold the Pauline origin of the Epistle to the Hebrews, no other argument is needed to discredit this

Sacer: for those who leave the question about the Epistle doubtful, it is enough to say that the date of Apollos does not coincide with what we have shown to be the probable date of our Book, that we know abso- lutely nothing of that apostle’s writings, that the verbal similarities are capable of another explanation, and that the scope and objects of the two writings are wholly different.

The authorship of the Book of Wisdom is a problem which will never be solved; and we may be well con- tent to let it rest. The name of the writer could add little to the importance of the work; and we may believe that he, like the author of De imitatione Christi, would pray: ‘Da mihi omnibus mori quae in mundo sunt, et propter Te amare coutemni, et nesciri in hoc saeculo.”

5s

: : History, authority, and relation to the Canon of Scripture.

We must now speak of the history of the Book, of its recognition as inspired, and its relegation to those

Ee De quoted by no pre-christian writer’. Neither Philo _ nor Josephus notice or refer to it. There is however,

with, if they did not quote, its language. Allusions to its phraseology are frequent in S. Paul’s Epistles. That

Christian’s armour in Ephesians (vi. 13-17). ‘He shall take to him his jealousy for complete armour,’ Anwera mavordlay: ‘Take unto you the whole armour of God,’ dvadafere ryv tavorXiay rod Ccov, ‘He shall put on righteousness as a breastplate,’ évdicera: Odpaxa dixaocivny: ‘Having on the breastplate of righteous- ness,’ évSvedpevor tov Owpaxa tis dixasoowns. ‘And true judgment instead of a helmet. He shall take holiness for an invincible shield:’ ‘above all taking the shield of faith ...and take the helmet of salvation.’ The passage too about the potter in Rom. ix. is an echo

1 Vacherot (Hist. de I'Ecole d’Alexandr. i. p. 134) says that a - Wisdom is quoted by Aristobulus, but I have not been able _ to identify the passage. The author has probably misappropriated s _— acitation from Clemens, which occurs in Eusebius, immediately

contiguous to a passage from Aristobulus.

2 Prolegom. § iii. A copious list of supposed citations or references is given in Grimm, Einleit. p. 36, note 2. See also an article by Bleek, in Theol. Stud. und Krit. 1853, pp. 339, ff.

F2

of a similar sentiment in Wisd. xv. ‘Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour ? says St. Paul. ‘The potter tempering soft earth,’ we find in Wisdom, ‘fashioneth every vessel with much labour for our service ; yea, of the same clay he maketh both the vessels that serve for clean uses and likewise all such as serve to the contrary; but what is the use of either sort, the potter himself is the judge.’ We have already spoken of the remarkable expression dravyaopa applied (Heb. i. 3) to the divine Son, being the ‘brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image (xapaxrjp) of His Person, which is found no- where else in Scripture but, in the description of Wisdom (chap. vii. 26), ‘She is the brightness (dmav- yacua) of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness.’ The similarity here is too close to be accidental. Desiring to indicate the consubstantiality and co- equality of the Son with the Father, the writer was guided to use the language with which he was familiar in the Book of Wisdom, and which has now been formulated in the Nicene Creed, cis ék Ccov, pas éx garos. It seems very probable’ that St. Paul in writing to the Ramans has many references to Wisdom. Thus, when he is showing the wilful wickedness of the Gentiles in not understanding the invisible things of God from the things that are made, he had, it may be, in his mind the passage in Wisdom, ‘Surely vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things that are seen know Him that is?.’ 8. Paul’s words in verses 24-27 of the same chapter, when he describes the iniquities of the heathen, read like a commentary on Wisd. xiv. 21: ‘The worshipping of

the end of all evil.” Rom. ii. 4, rod whovrov tis xpnoréry-

Tos avrod Kal ris dvoxis Kai tis paxpoOupias, is like Wisd. XV. I, od -8é 6 Oeds rudy xpyords Kal ddnOqjs, paxpdOvpos — kal év edéet dtouxdv ra mévra; Rom. xi. 32, wa rods mévras éAenoy, corresponds with Wisd. xi. 24, éAecis mavras, drt

mavra Sivacat, Kal mapopGs ayaprnpata dvOpmmey eis petd-

voav. The passage Rom. ix. 22, 23 has many striking parallelisms with Wisd. vii. 22-24; and these coinci-

dences of thought and expression might be largely multiplied*; but enough has been said to show that there is great probability that some of the New Testa- ment writers were well acquainted with our Book. a

The first direct quotation with which we are ac- —

quainted (though in this case the writer himself does — not name the author whose words he cites), is found in — Clemens Rom. Ep. I. ad Cor. xxvii. 5, where we read: tis épei ait’ ti émoinoas ; i) tis avtictncerae TH Kpdrer TIS icxtos airod ; Now although the words ris ¢pet air@* ri éroincas are found in Job xi. 12, the second question ris dvtistnoerat occurs nowhere but Wisd. xi. 22 and xii. 12; and Clement, quoting from memory, has mingled the two passages together *. That Irenaeus made use __ of the Book is testified by Eusebius (Hist. v. 8), who tells us that he cited certain passages therefrom, viz.: Gpacis Qcod wepurrointixy apOapoias, which does not occur, and dpéapcia 8é éyyds elvar moet Gcod, which is found in Wisd. vi. 20°. He also adds (v. 26) that he has seen

another work of Irenaeus; B:Sdiov re diadétewv Siahspav, — '

in which are inserted quotations from the Epistle to the Hebrews and rijs Neyoperns Sodias SoAonavros, From the time of Clemens Alexandrinus it is cited continually by the Fathers, often under Solomon’s name, and often as inspired. With Clemens Alexandrinus ° it is usually

1 See Bleek, ubi supr. p. 340, ff.

2 Rom. i. 20: éparahOnoay éy rots Sadoyopois abrav. Wisd. xiii. 1: paracon yap wavres dyOpomot .7.A.

3 Compare also 1 Cor. vi. 2 with Wisd. iii. 8; 2 Cor. v. 4 with Wisd. ix. 15; 8S. John xvii. 3 with Wisd. xv. 1, 3; S, Matt, xiii. 43 with Wisd, iii. 7; Rev. ii. 10 with Wisd. v. 16,

* Wisd. xi. 22: «pare: Bpaxlovds cov tis dvtiorhoeras ; xii, 12; tis ydp épei, ri énoincas, tis dyticticera, TS Kpipari cov, Grimm, Einleit. p. 36.

5 This passage is found in Irenaeus’ work, Adv, Haer. iv. 38, 3.

® Strom. iv. 16. p. 609 Pott.; v. p. 699; vi. p. 795.

‘PROLEGOMENA.

ealled 4 6cia copia; S. Athanasius calls it 4 Sopia, but cites it as Scripture’; thus too Eusebius’, after tran-

and Alexandrian Codices it stands between the ‘Song of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, in the Vatican MS. Job ©

scribing the passage vii. 22—viii. 1, ends with the words ratra pév j Tpagpy. 8. Cyprian ® introduces Wisd. y. 1-9 with the words: ‘Secundum Scripturae sanctae fidem.’ §. Augustine* too on some occasions classes it with Scripture. The high regard in which it was held may be inferred from the frequent use made of it by Origen, Didymus, Ephraem Syrus, Hippolytus Ro- manus, Chrysostom *, and other Fathers, who appeal to it in proof of doctrine as to the rest of the Bible. For those writers who knew the Word of God only as pre- sented to them in the Greek language, it was natural to accord to the Book of Wisdom this high position.

_ If we may judge from the Manuscripts that have come _ down to us, it would be impossible for anyone, looking

merely to the Septuagint version and its allied works, to distinguish any of the Books in the collection as of less authority thah others, There is nothing whatever to mark off the canonical writings from what have been called the deutero-canonical. They are all presented as of equal standing and authority, and if we must make distinctions between them, and place some on a higher platform than others, this separation must be made on grounds which are not afforded by the ar- rangement of the various documents themselves. The place which the Book of Wisdom occupies in the MSS. which contain it is not in all cases identical, but in none is it relegated to a position apart from the universally allowed canonical Books. In the Sinaitic

stands next before it; and it must be observed that Isaiah and the other prophets are arranged after these, the Sapiential Books holding an intermediate position between the Historical and the Prophetical. The copies of the Greek Scriptures in use among the Jews at the time of our Lord contained the Books thus arranged without any distinctive mark; and, as far as we know, neither Christ nor His Apostles, in citing the Septuagint (which they continually do)*, ever gave any warning against what we call the Apocryphal writings, many of which formed an integral part of the volume,

That the Book of Wisdom was not included among the twenty-two volumes of the Hebrew canon is ob- vious’. Its language alone would render its admission impossible. The first public recognition of its claims is said to have been made by a canon of the Council of Carthage, A.D. 397, though the same canon had already appeared in a provincial Council at Hippo four years previously *. This verdict is not confirmed by the Apostolic Canons, which place Ecclesiasticus in a secondary rank, but omit all mention of Wisdom. Very few of the private catalogues of Scripture class our Book with the canonical writings. §. Augustine ® includes it in his list, but seems elsewhere to speak some- what apologetically thus: ‘ Liber Sapientiae, qui tanta numerositate annorum legi meruit in Ecclesia Christi :’ it is also found in the catalogues of Innocentius”,

1S. Athan. Apol. de Fuga, 19. (p. 262 Ben.): ds vey Sopia, quoting Wisd. iii. 5,6; Contr. Gent. 11. (p. 9) he intro-

duces Wisd. xiv. 12-21 with 4 Ipaq?) Aéyouoa. But in the Fest.

Ep. 39, he excludes it from the Canon. 2 Praep. Ev. vii. 12. (p. 322 Ben.) and xi. 14. (p. 532).

® Ad Demetr. p. 224 (ed. Paris, 1726); so, quoting Wisd. iii. 4-8, he calls it ‘Scriptura divina,’ Ep. 81.

* De Civit. Dei, xi. 10, 1, he quotes ‘Spiritus sapientiae mul- ___ tiplex’ (Wisd. vii. 22), as being ‘in Scriptura sacra.’ See also in is ys lvii. 1

or: * Numerous quotations will be found in the Commentary. To

have inserted half that I have collected would have indeed enriched my notes, but at the same time would have swelled their di ions unr bly.

® See Grinfield, Nov. Test. ed. Hellen.

7 Joseph. Contr. Ap. i. 8; Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 26.

® Cosin, Hist. of Canon, § 82; Smith’s Bible Dict., Art. Canon; Labb. Cone. iii. p. 891, wherein are enumerated as canonical *Salomonis libri quinque.’ Hefele, Hist. of Counce. ii. p, 400 (Clarke).

* De Doctr. Christ. ii.8. Compare De Praedest. i. 27. (x.p.807).

10 Ep. ad Exsup, ap. Galland. viii. pp. 56, ff.

38

Cassiodorus!, and Isidorus*, But individual writers continued to deny its claims to canonicity, while they maintained its importance and utility in moral teach- ing. Thus S. Jerome’, after naming the twenty-two Books of the Hebrew Canon, proceeds: ‘ Hic prologus, Scripturarum quasi galeatum principium, omnibus libris quos de Hebraeo vertimus in Latinum, convenire potest, ut scire valeamus, quidquid extra hos est, inter apocrypha esse ponendum. Igitur Sapientia, quae vulgo Salomonis inscribitur, et Jesu filii Sirach liber, et Judith, et Tobias, et Pastor *, non sunt in Canone.’ And of the two Sapiential Books he says®: ‘Sic et haec duo volumina legat [Ecclesia] ad aedificationem plebis, non ad auctoritatem ecclesiasticorum dogmatum confirmandam.’ Similar sentiments are to be found in various authors down to the time of the Council of Trent, which put an end to all differences of opinion among the members of the Roman Catholic Church by decreeing the canonicity of this Book®. This hasty and uncritical enactment ordered all the Books of which a list was given, including Wisdom, to be received ‘pari pietatis affectu,’ on pain of incurring anathema. The early Greek Church was naturally influenced by the use of the Septuagint version in its reception of the Book of Wisdom. But later the Confession of Cyril Lucar” confirmed the Catalogue of the Council of Laodicea *, held between A. D. 343 and 381, in which our Book is wanting®. The same verdict is given in the Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, the friend of Lucar, who enumerates the twenty-two books of the Hebrew Canon, and then adds: ra Aomra S€ BiBAla, dep twés Bovdovrar ovyxaradéyew TH dyig ypapy olov . . . Sopiav

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

rod Zodoudvros ... droSdijjrous piv ody FyodpeOa’ woddd yap 70nd, mrciorov énaivov agua, eumeptéxerat ravras, os kavovixas 8¢ Kal aldevrixds obdémor’ dmédetaro 4 Tou XpwrroD . Aud ob8e ra Séypara Hay wetpdpeba ex robrav mapaornoa?®, The Orthodox Confession, which was ro ; put forth with authority a.p. 1643, merely refers the Canon to thé decision of Oecumenical synods, but does : not name the volumes which compose it", On the — other hand, the Synod of Jerusalem, A.D. 1672, intro- duced Wisdom and the other deutero-canonical Books to a place in Holy Scripture, and, following the lead of the Patriarch Dositheus, inveighed strongly against the . Confession of Cyril Lucar which was of no authority in the Oriental Church. Having endorsed the Laodi- cean Canon of Scripture, the Council says: xal mpds Tovros dep dovvérws Kai duabads cir’ ody éOchoKaxotpyos — dmdxpupa xarevdpace [6 Képiddos}" thy Sopiay dyad} rob Zoropavros . . . jets yap pera tov Grow ris Ocias ypapas — a ynelov BiBr{iwv kai radra ynowa tis ypapas wépy kpivopev ®, In the Longer Catechism of the Russian Church, which gives the Catalogue of the Old Testament according to the Hebrew Canon, the question is asked, Why are not the Books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus mentioned in this list? The answer is: Athanasius says, that they i have been appointed by the Fathers to be read by proselytes who are preparing for admission into the — Church, but they are excluded from the catalogue — ‘¥ because they do not exist in the Hebrew™. The pre- sent view of the rest of the Greek Church is in accord- ance with the verdict of the Synod of Jerusalem.

From the time of the Reformation Protestant — Churches have always, following the example of

éxkAnoia . .

1 De Instit. Div. Litt. xiv. . ? De Orig. vi. 1.

° Prol. Galeat. in libr. Reg. See Bleek, Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1853, pp. 270, ff.

* The Shepherd of Hermas is meant. This is found at the end of the Codex Sinaiticus.

5 Praef. in libr. Salom.; Orig. wept ’Apy. iv. 33, says: ‘Qui utique liber non ab omnibus in auctoritate habetur’ (p. 193 Ben.).

® Concil. Trid. Seas. iv.; Sarpi, p. 139, ff. (ed. 1655).

7 Kimmel, Monum. Fid. Eccles, Orient. P. Ixxxviii; Bleek, ubi supr. p. 277. _

8 Kimmel, ib. i. p. 42. a

* Hefele, Hist. of Counce. ii, p. 323 sr oe

10 Kimmel, ii. pp. 105, 106. 4

4 Kimmel, i. p. 159, and Proleg. p. lv; Blackmore, Doctr. of Russ, Ch. pp. xvi, ff.

2 Kimmel, ii p. 467; Migne, Dict. des Conc.

48 Blackmore, Doctr. of Russ. Church, pp. 38, 39.

_ Imther', separated the so-called Apocryphal Books from the rest of the Scripture. The verdict of the _ Anglican Church is found in her Sixth Article; at the same time, with an inconsistency occasioned doubtless a "by the general use of the Latin Vulgate, she continually in her authorised Homilies quotes Wisdom as Pgh ture. Thus in the Homily Of Obedience, pt. i.*, she introduces a citation with the words, ‘ the infallible and undeceivable word of God ;’ and in another place, ‘as the word of God testifieth *.’

With regard to the position and authority of the Book of Wisdom we may sum up our opinion in the following terms. Written anterior to Christianity, it is entirely in accordance with the mind of the Spirit as expressed in the Canonical Scriptures: many co- incidences of thought and expression, designed or un- designed, exist between it and the writings of the New Covenant: it exhibits views and doctrines in advance

of those found in the Old Testament: it shows in a marked manner the effect of the union of Jewish and Greek ideas, and in many respects anticipates the dogmas and the language which Christianity introduced. _ And further, it has been commonly quoted as Scripture __ by some Fathers and Councils, and is considered in

-- PROLEGOMENA. 39

this light by the Eastern and Roman Churches, On the other hand, it is certain that Wisdom was never in- cluded in the Hebrew Canon, was distinctly repudiated by many early writers, is wanting in evidence of general reception, and is rejected by the Anglican and all

reformed Churches as inspired. We therefore regard

as probable and safe the dictum of the Sixth Article, at the same time acknowledging that the absence of sufficient proof of canonicity, and not any internal marks of error or inferiority, is the chief ground for assigning to this work a lower place than the other writings of the Old Testament. Whether we consider its high tone, its moral and religious teaching, its devotional spirit, its polished diction, and its perfect accordance with the word of God‘, or whether we

regard it as supplementary to the Old Testament, as

filling a gap in the intellectual and religious history of God’s people, as bridging over a space which would otherwise be left unoccupied, it is worthy of all respect, and claims an honour and a reverence which, with perhaps the exception of Ecclesiasticus, no other book, exterior to those universally acknowledged as divine Scripture, can be said to possess.

- Tux authorities for the Text of the Book of Wisdom are chiefly the following Uncial Manuscripts.

1. The Codex Sinaiticus (S), discovered by Tischen- dorf at the Monastery on Mount Sinai in 1844 and

VI.

The Text.

1859, written, as he supposes, (though others have seefi reason to doubt this opinion,) in the middle of the fourth century, now in the possession of the Emperor of Russia, and of which a facsimile edition was published in 1862.

__* Luther, in his translation of ‘The Apocrypha,’ assigned an inferior position to these Books, See Credner, Gesch. d. Kan.

pp. 291, ff. 2 P. 97. ed. Oxf. 1844.

3 Peril of Idolatry, pt. iii. p. 220; comp. p. 216 and pt. i. p. 164.

* The charges of Platonism, heathenism, and false teaching, brought against the Book by various writers, are noticed in the Commentary on the various passages referred to-

‘Sete Ged Oe!

40

It contains the whole of Wisdom, but has not been used by Tischendorf, except in a chapter or two, in his own latest edition of the Septuagint. Since his death an edition (the sixth) has been published (1880) containing a collation of § and V by E. Nestle. The corrections in the MS. are in my edition noted S' and 8%.

2. The Codex Alexandrinus (A), written about the middle of the fifth century, presented to King Charles I in 1628 by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, and now preserved in the British Museum. It contains the whole of the Book of Wisdom. A facsimile edition was published by Baber, Lond. 1816-1828. The various readings of this MS. are very accurately given by Tischendorf. It forms the foundation of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge edition of the Lxx, ed. Field, though the learned editor has in some instances admitted doubtful corrections of the text, even where the reading of the original was quite intelligible. As above, A? and A? denote corrections in the MS. by first or second hand. So in V below.

3. The Codex Vaticanus (V), the most valuable of all the MSS. for antiquity and accuracy, now in the Vatican Library, written about the middle of the fourth century. It contains the whole of our Book. It was published, but very incorrectly, by Cardinal Mai in 1857; and has now been re-edited with great care by Vercellone and Cozza (Romae, 1868-1874), the types used in the magnificent facsimile of the Sinaitic Codex being employed. ‘Tischendorf’s last edition of the Septuagint gives a fairly accurate reprint of this text.

4. The Codex Ephraem rescriptus (C). This is a MS. of certain portions of the text over which a work of S. Ephraem had been written. The original has been restored by a chemical process. Its date is prob- ably the middle of the fifth century, and it contains the following portions of Wisdom: viii. 5—xii. 10; xiv. 19—xvii. 18; xvili. 24—xix. 22. Its readings are noted by Tischendorf.

5. Codex Venetus Marcianus (Ven.). This is a MS. of the eighth or ninth century in the library of S. Mark at Venice. It was collated for Holmes and

THE BOOK OF WISDOM. |

Parsons’ edition of the Lxx, and numbered by the: (23) on the erroneous supposition that it was written in cursive characters. Its readings in the majority of instances support the Vatican. ae The cursive MSS. which contain the Book of Wisdom : collated by Holmes and Parsons are of later age and much inferior authority. They are numbered 55, 68, 106, 155, 157, 248, 253, 254, 261, 296. The best of these is 68. The Complutensian edition chiefly follows — 248. Besides the above, a partial collation of some Paris MSS. was published by I. C. Thilo in his Specimen __ exercitation. critic. in Sapient. Sal. Halis, 1825. These — are numbered A; Aa, B, OC, D, E, F, H, 1; they are of — little critical value. + The two first editions of the Lxx have a peculiar i interest though founded on inferior MSS. They are the Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes, 1517, and the Aldine; 1518. The former seems to have been the text generally used by the translators of the English Version. Sa A valuable assistance to the criticism of our Book i has been put forth by F. H. Reusch, Observationes — Criticae in Librum Sapientiae. Friburgi in Bringer 1861. In this little work (which he designed as a companion volume to his edition of the Greek and a Latin texts), he not only gives a selection of various readings, but a copious account of the passages quoted by the Fathers and early writers, which are of manifest utility in the confirmation and correction of the text. The best edition of the text is that by O. F. Fritzsche, _ Libri Apocryphi Veteris Testamenti Graece. Lipsiae, 1871. This text is an original one, formed from a careful review of all attainable sources, the various readings being accurately given with a fulness to be g found in no other edition of these Books. “J The edition by Apel (Libri Vet. Test. Apocryphi Graece. Accurate recognitos brevique diversarum lectionum delectu instructos, ed. H. E. Apel. Lipsiae, 1838) is of little critical value. ay 2 The groundwork of the present edition is the Vatican MS. as edited by Vercellone and Cozza, from which I

, lees departed in very few ATE which are duly noted. The stichometrical arrangement of the text is from the Alexandrian MS. The critical apparatus con-

tains the variations of the uncial MSS.: those of the cursive, given by Holmes and Parsons, and partially reprinted by Fritzsche, as of less importance, I have not thought it necessary to exhibit in their entirety. The references to the Septuagint are to Tischendorf’s last edition. This is mentioned as in some Books the

chapters and verses are differently numbered. The references to the Old Testament are chiefly to the Greek text. In quoting from Philo I have added in brackets the volume and page of Mangey’s edition. In the references to the Fathers, where any difficulty was likely to arise, I have generally given the volume and page of the Benedictine editions. The editions of other writers used are mentioned as they occur.

VO.

Or the Versions, the Latin contained in the Vulgate

is the most important for antiquity and literalness. It

is really the old Italic rendering of the second or third century, and was left untouched by S. Jerome when he re-edited the rest of the Bible. In his Preface to the Books of Solomon he says: ‘In eo libro, qui a pleris- que Sapientia Salomonis inscribitur . . . calamo tem- peravi, tantummodo canonicas Scripturas vobis emen- dare desiderans.’ Although this version has been authorized by the Council of Trent, and declared to be

) the very Word of God, impartial criticiam will detect

eee wie eae,

<a 2 *

in it many errors arising from misunderstanding of the

original, and many obscurities of expression which only _ tend to ‘darken knowledge.’

There are also some ad- ditions to the text which are plainly not sanctioned by the original. But, with due allowance for these defects, it probably represents the reading of MSS. earlier than

i any that have come down to us, and in this respect, at

any rate, is of great critical value, while its language is interesting as presenting proyincialisms and phrases

Versions, Editions, and Commentaries.

which point to an African origin. These are noted in the commentary as they occur. In their elucidation much use has been made of a work by H. Rénsch, Itala und Vulgata. Marburg, 1875.’

Other versions are the Syriac and Arabic, given in Walton’s Polyglot, and the Armenian. The former

‘(Peschito) has been republished by Lagarde. (Libri

Veteris Testamenti Apocryphi e recognitione P. Ant. de Lagarde. Lips., 1861.) It is too free and paraphrastic to be of much critical use, but it often supplies a traditional rendering which is serviceable in the exe- gesis of the text. Much the same account may be given of the Arabic, which however seems not to be older than the seventh century. The Armenian Ver- sion is of higher antiquity and of much greater ac- curacy. So close is it to the original that it is easy to see what reading the translator has followed. The variations are noted by Reusch in his Obsery. Crit, The Book of Wisdom in Armenian, Greek, and Latin was published by the Mechitarists in 1827. (Reusch).

42 THE BOOK OF WISDOM,

COMMENTARIES.

The following is a fairly complete list of the chief Commentaries on the Book of Wisdom, wherein Germany, as usual, is very copious, and England, till quite lately, has contributed scarcely anything. In early times we have these :

Rabanus Maurus: Commentariorum in Libr, Sap. libri tres. Migne, Patrol. Lat. cix.

Walafrid Strabo: Glossa Ordinaria. Migne, 113, 114.

Anselm, Episc. Laudunensis: Glossa interlinearis. Basil., 1502, etc.

Matthaeus Cantacuzenus: Scholia in Libr. Sap. Migne, Patrol. Graec. clii. The fragments are given in Tom. ¢. pp. 395, 411, 418, 447, 489.

Bonaventura: Expositio in Libr. Sap. Opp. vol. i. Romae, 1588; Venetiis, 1574.

Hugo a Sancto Caro: Postillae, sive breves commentar. in univ. Bibl. Basil. 1487, 1504; Lugd. 1669.

Nicolas Lyranus: Postillae in univ. Bibl. Romae, 1471-1472.

Robert Holkot (+1340), an English Dominican: In Libr. Sap. Praelectiones cexiii, pub. in 1481, 1511, 1586, 1689.

Since the Reformation, among Roman Catholics, the following are the chief Commentaries :

Dionysius Carthusianus: In quisque Libr. Sapient. Salom., Paris,.1548.

P. Nannius: Sap. Salomonis una cum Scholiis, Petro Nannio interprete. Bas, 1552.

Corn. Jansen, Bishop of Ghent: Adnotationes in Libr. Sap. Sol. Duac. 1577, 1660. Paraphrasis in omnes Psalmos David, etc. ac in Sapientiam Notae. Anty. 1614. This Comm. is given in Migne’s Script. Sacr. Curs. Compl. Tom. xvii.

Hier. Osorius: Paraphrasis in Salomonis Sapientiam. Boulogn. 1577.

Joann. Lorinus: Commentar. in Sap. Lugd. 1607, 1624.

De Castro: Comm. in. Sap. Sal. Lugd. 1613. Corn. a Lapide: Commentar. in Libr. Sap. Anty. 1638. Often reprinted. E Joh. Maldonatus: Comm. in Sap. Sal. Paris. 1643. Pet. Gorsius: Explicatio in Lib. Sapientiae, Par. — 1655. ot Joh. Menochius: Brevis Explicatio sensus literalis to- tius Scripturae. Ant. 1678. De Sacy: La Sainte Bible. Par. 1692. tains a commentary on Wisdom.) ; Augustin Calmet : Commentaire littéral. Par. 1724. - Jac. Tirinus: Comment. in 8. Scripturam, in the Biblia Magna of De la Haye, where are also the notesof __ Estius, Sa, and others. — Duguet et d’Asfeld: Explication du livre de la Sa- gesse. Paris, 1755. = Weitenauer: Job, Psalm., Salom., Siracides . . . explic. 1768. F F. W. Smets: Sapientia Vulg. edit. Vers. Belgica notis Grammat. ete. Antv. et Amst. 1749. " Du Hamel: Salomonis Libri tres... item Liber Sap. et Ecclesiasticus. Par. 1703. ee C. F. Houbigant : Notae criticae in univ. Vet. Test. libros, ete. Francof. 1777. ‘ Fr. Boaretti: Il Libro della Sapienza recato ...con— avalisi, annotazioni, etc. Venezia, 1792. ; T. A. Dereser: Die Spriichworter...das Buch der Weisheit . . . tibersetzt und*erklirt. Frankf. 1825. _ J. A. Schmid: Das Buch der Weisheit iibersetzt und erklirt. Wien, 1858, 1865. C. Gutberlet: Das Buch der Weisheit tibersetzt und erklirt. Minster, 1874. This forms part of the new ‘edition of the Old Testament by Roman Catholic ex- positors, under the title: Die heiligen Schriften des. alten Testamentes nach katholischen Prinzipien iibersetzt und erklirt von einem Verein befreundeter Fachgenossen.

(Vol. 14 con-

Anglican :

R. Arnald: A critical commentary upon the Apocryphal Books, 1744-1752. It is usually printed with the Commentaries of Patrick, Lowth, and Whitby.

J. H. Blunt: The Annotated Bible, vol. ii. Apocrypha. London, 1879.

The Wisdom of Solomon, edited for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, by the Rev. W. R. Churton, B.D. 1880.

Protestant :

Critici Sacri. Amst. 1698-1732. contains the notes on ‘Libri Apocryphi.’ are comprised the Annotations of Grotius.

Conr. Pellicanus: In Libros quos vocant Apocryphos vel potius Ecclesiasticos...commentarii. Tiguri, 1572.

Nic. Selneccerus: Lib. Sap. ad tyrannos, ete. Lips. 1568.

Vict. Strigel: Sapientia Sirach...Sapientia. Francof. et Lips. 1691.

J. G. Hasse: Salomos Weisheit, neu iibersetzt mit Anmerkungen und Untersuchungen. Jena, 1785. Brochmannus: Comm. in iv. capp. Sapientiae. Hafn.

1656.

Wilh. Petersen: Petachia, od. schriftmissige Erk- lirung der Weish. Sal. Biidingen, 1727.

Gottfr. Schuband: Das Buch der Weish, Sal. Magdeb. 1733-

J. A. Steinmetz: Leipz. 1747.

Herein

Das Buch der Weish. Magd. und

~PROLEGOMENA.

Of this ed. vol. v.

43

J. F. Kleuker: Salom. Denkwiirdigkeiten, Als An- hang: Das Buch der Weish. ete. Riga, 1785.

Jac. Wallenius: Salomos Vishet. Greifswald, 1786. Annotationes philologico-criticae in Libr. qui inscri- bitur Sodia Satwpor. Gryphisw. 1786.

J.C. C. Nachtigal: Das Buch der Weish. Halle, 1799.

K. G. Kelle: Die heiligen Schriften in ihrer Urgestalt, i. Band. Salom. Schriften. Freib. 1815.

A. L. C. Heydenreich : Uebersetzung und Erliuterung des Buches der Weish., in Tzschirner’s Memorabilien.

W. F. Engelbreth: Librum Sap. Sal. interpretandi specimina. Hafniae, 1816.

J. Schulthess: Exegetisch. Ziirich, 1820.

J. P. Bauermeister: Comment. in Sap. Sal. 1828.

C. L. W. Grimm: Commentar iiber das Buch der Weish, Leipz. 1837.

Fritzsche und Grimm: Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zu den Apocryphen des Alt. Test. Leipz. 1851-1860. vi. Lieferung: Das Buch der Weish. erklirt von C. L. W. Grimm.

Edwin Cone Bissell, D.D.: The Apocrypha of the Old Testament, with Historical Introductions, a Revised Translation, and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. Ediuburgh, 1880.

Though not a Commentary, here must be added, Clavis

Librorum Veteris Testamenti Apocryphorum Philo-

logica, Auctore Christ. Abrah. Wahl. Lipsiae, 1853.

theolog. © Forschungen.

Gotting.

3

THE GREEK TEXT AND CRITICAL APPARATUS, WITH THE ANGLICAN VERSION AND THE LATIN VULGATE.

LIBER SAPIENTIAE. CAPUT I. 1 Dixicrre justitiam, qui judica- tis terram. Sentite de Domino

in bonitate, et in simplicitate

2 cordis quaerite illum; quoniam |

invenitur ab his, qui non ten- tant illum, apparet autem eis qui fidem habent in illum. 3 Perversae enim cogitationes se- parant a Deo; probata autem - 4 Virtus corripit insipientes. Quo- niam in malevolam animam non introibit sapientia, nec habita- bit in corpore subdito peccatis. 5 Spiritus enim sanctus disciplinae effugiet fictum, et auferet se a

cogitationibus quae sunt sine in-

ZO®IA FAAQMON. KE®AAAION A’.

1’ APATHSATE dixatooteny of Kpivovtes tTHV yiv, hpovhoare mept tod Kupiov év ayabdrnrt, kal év GmAdryte Kapdlas Cyr7n= cate avrdv’ 2 Ort evpioxerae Tols pi) Teipa~ Covow avrov, euavicerar b& Tols pi) am arotow airy. 3 oKoALol yap Aoywrpol xwplov- ow and Ocod, ~ BoxtaCouevn Te 7 Sdvapts edr€y- xXet TOS Adppovas.

4 /, ‘ > 4 6re els Kaxdtexvov Wuxiv ovK_}.. > , , eloeActoerat copia,

ovde KaTouKyoe. ev copate Taxpem dpuaprias. 5 dywv yap mvedua maidelas pedferar Sddov, kal dmavacticerar amd doyt- opev dovverer,

-

THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON. CHAPTER I.

1 Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth: think of the Lord with a good (heart), and in simplicity of heart seek

2him. For he will be found of them that tempt him not; and sheweth himself unto such as do

3 not distrust him. For froward thoughts separate from God:

and his power, when it is tried,

4 reproveth the unwise.

shall not enter; nor dwell in ad the body that is subject unto For the holy spirit of discipliné will flee deceit, and

5 sin.

remove from thoughts that are

Titulus: Sopra Sarwpoy V. %. Sodopovros A. . Sadopowtos S. 8. re V.A.

Tos morevovow 261 et fors. Vulg. Syr. 42, 378. Vulg. Syr.

be 8.

I. 2. pn amorovow avty 8. V. pn morevovow a. A. 4, apaprias Omnes Codd. apapriats Eus. in Ps, 159; Ath. ii, 5, madeas V,S, Ven, Vulg. Syr, Ar, cogias A. Arm, dravagrhoerat, anoorncera 8%,

For : or, maketh

» into a malicious soul wisdom ™@"/%

ae

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

without understanding, and * will not abide when unrighteousness 6 cometh in. For wisdom is a loving spirit; and will not ac- quit a blasphemer of his *words: for God is witness of his reins, and a true beholder of his heart, and a hearer of his 7 tongue. For the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world: and that which *containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice. 8 Therefore he that speaketh un- righteous things cannot be hid : neither shall vengeance, when it punisheth, pass by him. 9 For inquisition shall be made into the counsels of the un- godly: and the sound of his words shall come unto the Lord for the manifestation‘ of 10 his wicked deeds. For the ear of jealousy heareth all things : and the noise of murmurings 11 is not hid. Therefore beware of murmuring, which is 1 profitable; and refrain } tongue from backbiting: for there is no word so secret, tha shall go for nought: and the mouth that belieth * slayeth the

kal édeyxOjoerar éemeAPovons ddixlas. 6 piddvOpwrov yap mvedua copia, kal otk d0mdoe. BAdopnpov and xetk€wr aidrod, ort Tv vedpGv adirod pdprus 5 Ocds, kal ris Kapdias adtod énloxomos adn Oijs, kal Tis yAéoons axovaris* 7 Ort mvedua Kupiov memArjpoxe Thy oixovuperny, kal TO ovvéxov Ta TavTA yrdou éxet povijs. 8 1a Totro pbeyyduevos ddika ovdels 7) AGOn, odd? =n tapodeton €d€yxovea 7 dixn. 9 év yap siaBovdrlos doeBods eféraois éorat, Adywv BF adrod ako apds Kvpuov i€ee eis €Aeyxov dvopnpdrwr adrod’

abrov

10 Ort ovs (nAdoews axpoarar Ta Tata, Kal Opots yoyyvopaGv ovK dmo- kpbnrerat. 11 guddgacbe rolvyy yoyyvopov avaedn, kal dnd xaradadias heloacbe yAdoons*

Topevoerat, ordua «688 ~~ Karawevdduevor

dvaipet ox.

1o tatum_illius.

P 8r Heya Aabpaioy Kevdy od

tellectu, et corripietur a super- 6 veniente iniquitate. Benignus est enim spiritus sapientiae, et — non liberabit maledicum a labiis suis, quoniam renum illius testis

est Deus, et cordis illius seru-

tator est verus, et linguae ejus 7

7 auditor. Quoniam spiritus Do- mini replevit orbem terrarum;

et hoc, quod continet omnia,

8 scientiam habet vocis, Propter 4 = ,

hoe qui loquitur iniqua non potest latere, nec praeteriet il- glum corripiens judicium. In cogitationibus enim impii in- terrogatio erit; sermonum au-

tem illius auditio ad Deum

veniet, ad correptionem iniqui-

Quoniam auris zeli audit omnia, et tumultus

murmurationum non absconde-

~

tur. Custodite ergo vos a mur-

muratione quae nihil prodest, — “a

et a detractione parcite linguae, quoniam sermo obscurus in va- cuum non ibit, os autem quod mentitur occidit animam.

5. abimcas Codd. avoysas Compl. 248.

abowce S.A.V'. adnOns S.V. A. Ven. erAnpwoev A, mapodevor S?.

aAnbivos 106, 261.

6. mvevpa copia S.V. coguas A. Ven, Vulg. Syr. Ar. Arm. Didym. 299. adwwoe V.

11, wevov V. A. al. «awov S. ov mopevoerat om. 8. add. cor.

Ts yAwoons avrov ax, A. Ar. Arm, 8. ovde pny V. ovde py 8S. A. Ven, ovdes ov py 106, 253. 261. mapodevoy S,V. al. mapedevonrat Compl. 9. avrov axon V.A. al. ax. avteS. avopnyarow 8, V. al. aceBnparov 248.

7. wewAnpane S. V.

10, ovs (nrwoews S',

.

te i ee

<1. 1]

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

AA! f eS ee AS ee 7 45 ; ren ae re rae Fi seciie ye 4: OS os Sree pe ee ue

= 2 3

47

12 Nolite zelare mortem in er- rore vitae vestrae, neque acqui- ratis perditionem in operibus

13 manuum vestrarum. Quoniam ‘Deus mortem non fecit, nec laetatur in perditione vivorum.

14 Creavit enim, ut essent omnia ; et sanabiles fecit nationes orbis terrarum; et non est in illis medicamentum exterminii, nec inferorum regnum in terra.

15 Justitia enim perpetua est, et

16 immortalis. Impii autem ma- nibus et verbis accersierunt il- lam ; et aestimantes illam ami- cam, defluxerunt, et sponsiones posuerunt ad illam ; quoniam

- digni sunt qui sint ex parte illius.

CAPUT II.

1 Dixerunt enim cogitantes apud se non recte: Exiguum, et cum taedio est tempus vitae nostrae, et non est refrigerium in fine hominis, et non est qui

agnitus sit reversus ab inferis.

12

13

14

15 16

My) (pAodre Odvaroy év mAdry Cans tudr,

pndt emiomacbe dAcOpov Epyots XelpGv tuav*

bru 6 Ocds Odvaroy ovx éroln- oer,

ovdt répmetat én’ dmwrela (rTwv.

éxtuve yap els 1rd elvar Ta mayra,

kal owtypior ai yevéoers Tod Kdopov,

kal ovx éotiy ey adrais pdp- paxov 6d€Opov,

ovre Gov Bacidrevoy emi yijs.

dixaroovvn yap abdvards éariv*

doeBeis 3% trails xepol Kal rots Adyos TpoceKadr€oavto av- Tov,

prov tynodpevor abrov érd- Knoay,

kal ouvOjxnv @evto mpos ad- Tov,

ort Gévol eiot ris éxelvov pepl- dos elvat.

KE®AAAION B’.

Efmov yap éy éavtois Aoyiod-

pevot ovK 6p0Gs*

dAlyos éott kal AvTnpds 6 Blos . i

Hpov,

kat odk éotw taois éy rehevTy av0pdrov,

kal ok éyvdcbn 6 dvadvoas

e€ ddov.

12 soul.

Seek not death in the error of your life: and pull not destruction with the works of your hands.

upon yourselves

13 For God made not death: nei

ther hath he pleasure in the}

14 destruction of the living. For

he created all things, that they might have their being: and the generations of the world were healthful; and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon

15 the earth: (For righteousness is 16 immortal:) But ungodly men

with their works and words called i¢ to them: for when they thought to have it their friend, they consumed to nought, and made a covenant with it, because they are worthy to take part with it.

CHAPTER II.

or the wngodly said, reasoning h themselves, but not aright, r life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave.

12. epyos 8, V. 14. ov yap exnicer as yap «is To evar St. A.V.S. al. 81, Se 248, Compl. 16

ev epyos A. Vulg,

ovre adov'V.S. ovdea A. Compl, » Aoyos SS A.V. Aoyiopous 248.

13. en’ anwrag 8. V. al.

ew ayyedag A. em yns V.S. II. 1. ev eavr, A. S, V. Ven. Ald. Compl.

ev anwhkeg Ald, Orig. iii. 137.

em rns yns A. 15. Sue. yap

r

48 “THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

2 rt aitocyxediws eyerviOnyer, kal peta todro éoducda as ovx trdp£avres* 8rt xanvos mvon ev fprolv yar, ‘ Kal 6 Adyos omwwOhp ev Kwwjoer xapdlas Hyer, 3 08 cBerbértos réppa anoBjce- Tat TO copa, kal 7d mvedpa d1axvOjoera as xabvos dip. 4 kal 7d dvona Huav émAnoOn- oerat év xpdvg, kal ovfels pvnuovedoe. TOV Epywv jyav' kal mapedetvoerat 6 Blos judy os txvn vepérns, Kat @s dulydn diacKedac6y- oeTal, diy Oeioa bd axtlvav HAlov kal i7d Oepudrntos avrod Ba-

2 For we are born at all adven- ture : and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been : for the breath in our nostrils is as smoke, and a little spark

' in the moving of our heart:

3 Which being extinguished, our body shall be turned into ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as

, moist. 4 the soft? air, And our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, that is driven away with the beams of the sun, and

m4 9 overcome? with the heat thereof. povdeioa. 5 For our time is a very shadow 5 oKias yap mdpodos 6 Kaupds that passeth away; and after jar, ; , kal ovx €or dvaTodicpos Tis our end there is no returning : SRS ee TEAEUTIS NOV, 2 Or, he. for it® is fast sealed, so that no Sr xarerppaylodn, Kai oddels 6man cometh again. Come on avaotpepet. therefore, let us enjoy the goog 6 dedre oty Kal droAatowpmer at TOv dvtwv ayabdr, kal xpnoéyucOa tH Ktice os ‘ Or, vedtnt. oTovdatws.

7 olvov moAvtedods Kal ptpwv TAncOGper,

7 tures like as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine

J)

fuerimus ; quoniam fumus flatus: est in naribus nostris, et eermo scintilla ad commovendum cor 3 nostrum; qua extincta, pes erit corpus nostrum, et spiritus diffundetur tanquam mollis aér, + et transibit vita nostra tanquam . vestigium nubis, et sicut nebula dissolvetur, quae fugata est rt: radiis solis, et a calore illius 4 4 aggravata ; et nomen nostrum oblivionem accipiet per tempus, 4 et nemo memoriam habebit ope- _ 5 rum nostrorum. transitus est tempus nostrum,

et non est reversio finis nostri; _

Umbrae enim —

quoniam consignata est, et nemo 6 revertitur. Venite ergo, et 4 fruamur bonis quae sunt, et — utamur creatura tanquam in : 7 juventute celeriter. Vino pre ,

tioso et unguentis nos implea-

2. ws ovx Vulgo. ws yn 157. vmapgavres Vulgo, vmapyxovres S'. 7 mvon ev p.S'. 0 Aoyos Vulgo. oAvyos Compl. C. Par. diaxvvOncera A. S:adrvOnoera 55. 248. 254. mopevoera 106. 261. BapyvOaca Vulgo. papavOcca 106 A.V. al. avranodicpos 8. 6. oby wal. A. om, Kat, al, Athan. ad Matt. ii. 8.

xanvos n mvonn A. V.al. xamvos ev prow 7 mv0n nye S. 3. oBeoSevros V. oBevobevros A. oBevevros S.

4. pynpovevoa V. A. al. pynpovever S. panpovevoe S', 5. wapos Al, S. V*, Compl. Ald. Vulg. veornrt V. Ven. veornros A. S. veornre S*. ev veornts Compl. —

daxvOnoera V.S.

maper, Vulgo. Bus V. Vulgo. avan,

J

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

49

mus; et non praetereat nos flos 8 temporis. Coronemus nos rosis, antequam marcescant; nullum pratum sit quod non pertrans- 9 eat luxuria nostra. Nemo nos- trum exsors sit luxuriae nos- trae; ubique relinquamus signa laetitiae ; quoniam haec est pars 1o nostra, et haec est sors. Op- primamus pauperem justum, et non parcamus viduae, nec vete- rani revereamur canos multi 11 temporis. Sit autem fortitudo nostra lex justitiae ; quod enim infirmum est inutile invenitur. 12 Circumveniamus ergo justum, : quoniam inutilis est nobis, et ; contrarius est operibus nostris, __ et improperat nobis peccata legis, 3 et diffamat in nos peccata 7 13 disciplinae nostrae. Promittit __-—s se :«sscientiam Dei habere, et 4 filium Dei se nominat. Factus 4 est nobis in traductionem cogi- ee 15 tationum nostrarum. Gravis 4 est nobis etiam ad videndum,

kal pi) Tapodevoedrw juas dv- Oos éapos. 8 oreYopeba pddwrv kddvé. mplv 7) papavOjjva* 9 pndels juGv Gpyowpos ctw rijs hyetépas ayepwx las, mavtaxh Katadlizwpev otp- Boda rijs edppootyys, Ste airy 7 pepls juav Kal 6 KAjjpos ovTos. Io karadvvactetowpev Tévnta di- Kauoy, ph pecodpeba x7pas, pnd? mpecBtrov éeévtpamdpev Todtas ToAvxpovious. 11 €otw 8% judy H loxis vopos THs dixaroctyns, TO «yap dodeves dyxpnorov eddyxerat. 12 évedpedowpev tov Slxacov, Sri dvoxpnoTos Hyiv éort, kal évaytioiras ois épyous par, cal dvedlCer qyiv ayapripara vdpov, kal émnulCer qyiv apapry- para twradelas jar. 13 émayyé\AeTar ~yrGow exew cod, kal maida Kuplov éavrdy dvo-

pacer

14 ¢yévero jyiv els edeyxov ev-

VOLGY par. 15 Bapts éorw nyiv cal Brend- evos,

and ointments: and let no flower of the spring pass by 8us: Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be

9 withered: Let none of us go

without his part of our’ volup-1 or,jovvity,

tuousness: let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place : for this is our portion, and our 10 lot is this, Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient grey hairs of the 11 aged. Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing 12 worth. Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; be- cause he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and ob- jecteth to our infamy the trans- 13 gressings of our education. He professeth to have the know- ledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. 14 He was made to reprove our 15 thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life

xpoviov Ven. 12, eveBp. de V.

madias S.A.

om, 5¢ A. S, (S' addit.) .

10. mpecBurov V.S. mpecBurepov A. Ta apapr. vou. S.

age apis. pe S. sed cor qyas eapos A. 55. 106.157. 261. 296. Arm. Vulg. aepos VS. al. 9. éorw. eoreS, xarahim. 8.V. xatademwpey A. ovros S.V. quo A.

moduxpovious S. A.V, -wohv- Tapanropara 248. nadaas V.

H

"waa .

50

a

mi Hh mM

THE BOOK OF WISDOM.

is not like other men’s, his 16 ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed of him as counter- feits’: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he

1 Or, false coin,

pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father. 17 Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. 18 For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of 19 his enemies. Let us examine him with despitefulness and tor- ture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his pa- ao tience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be re- 21 spected. Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath 22 blinded them. As for the mys- _ steries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor dis-

2 Gr. pre- cerned? a reward for blameless Serred, or, . esteemed th 23 souls. For God created man to

Sr. dvdpoios rots GAdows 6 Blos abrod, kal @&pAAaypévae ab rtplBor avrod. 16 els K(BdnAov edoyloOnnev aire, kal améxerar tév 6d6v hudv os amd dxabapo.ov" paxapl(er €oxara dixalov, kal ddaCoveverar mdtepa Ocdv. 17 Weper ef of Adyot adrod adnOets, kal treipdowpev Ta ev exBdoer avrod. 18 el ydp éotw 6 dlxatos vids Ocod, dvrirj erat adrod kal poeta, adrov ex xeupds av0eornkoTwv. 19 UBper cal Bacdve éerdowper avrov, twa yvOpuev Ti emelkevav adrod kal doxipdowpev tiv dvek.- kaxlav adrod. 20 Oavdr@ doxjpor KaradiKdow- pev avtov* éorar yap adtod émuoxomy ék Adywv adrod. 21 Tatra édoyloayto, kal émAari- Onoav" aneriphoce yap adrods 7 Ka- kla abrév* 22 Kal ovx éyvwoary pvoTnpia Ocod, ovde picOdv FATLoay dotdTyTOS,

ovde expway yépas oxo

dudpov. 23 Ort 6 Oeds extice Tov GvOpwrov én apOapota,

quoniam dissimilis est aliis vi illius, et immutatae sunt viae 16 ejus. Tanquam nugaces aesti- mati sumus ab illo; et abstinet se a viis nostris tanquam ab

<

immunditiis, et praefert novis- sima justorum, et gloriatur pat- 17 rem se habere Deum. Videa- mus ergo si sermones illius veri ; sint, ét tentemus quae ventura sunt illi, et sciemus quae erunt — 18 novissima illius. Si enim est 3 verus filius Dei, suscipiet illum, _ et liberabit eum de manibus : . Contumelia et a tormento interrogemus eum, ut a

19 contrariorum.

sciamus reverentiam ejus, eb patientiam _illius. — 20 Morte turpissima condemnemus

probemus

eum ; erit enim ei respectus ex — sermonibus illius. nee: 2t Haee cogitaverunt, et errave- runt; excaecavit enim illos ma- _ 22 litia eorum, Et nescierunt sa- ‘ cramenta Dei, neque mercedem a speraverunt justitiae, nec judi : caverunt honorem animarum 23 sanctarum. Quoniam Deus crea- “i

16. edoyioOnuey V. A. 83,

yuxyav. yuxay S.

even nner 8, 18. avriAnyera: V. al. avriAnupera S. A.

ofav 8, A.V. epyor Ven.

éoxara, epya row 8. 155. 19. donip. A.S. Suagapev V. Vercell, 68. Ald. AopaOncay 8. (edoyioavro §*.) addunt 55. 106. 261. al. o: appoves. anerupd, A.V. ervpdwcer S. Orig. ii. 712.

17. nar edoperS 21, eAoyoavro V. A, 22. expewav Ve

THE