CHAPTER XI
WISDOM (ECCLESIASTICUS).
It was necessary that Koheleth should be answered, but who was competent for this? A fable had been invented of a Solomonic serpent who had tempted Eve to taste the fruit of knowledge which, when the man shared it, brought a curse on the earth, but the canonical prophets do not appear to have heard of it, and at any rate it was too late in the day to meet fact with fable. Nor had Jahveh's whirlwind-answer to Job proved effectual. However, some sort of answer did come, and significantly enough it had to come from Koheleth's own quarter, the Wisdom school. Pure Jahvism had not brains enough for the task.
The apocryphal book "Ecclesiasticus" is the antidote to Ecclesiastes. (These are the Christian names given to the two books.) This book, bearing the simple title "Wisdom," compiled and
## partly written by Jesus Ben Sira early in the second century B. C.,
is as a whole much more than an offset to Koheleth. It is a great though unintentional literary monument to Solomon, and it is the book of reconciliation, or so intended, between Solomonism and Jahvism,--or, as we should now say, between philosophy and theology.
The newly discovered original Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus xxxix. 15, xlix. 11, published by the Clarendon Press in 1897, enables us to read correctly for the first time the portraiture of Solomon in xlvii., with the assistance of Wace and other scholars:
12. After him [David] rose up a wise son, and for his [David's] sake he dwelt in quiet.
13. Solomon reigned in days of prosperity, and was honoured, and God gave rest to him round about that he might build an house in his name, and prepare his sanctuary for ever.
14. How wast thou wise in thy youth, and didst overflow with instruction like the Nile!
15. The earth (was covered by thy soul) and thou didst celebrate song in the height.
16. Thy name went far unto the islands, and for thy peace thou wast beloved.
17. The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs, and proverbs, and parables, and interpretations.
18. Thou wast called by the glorious name which is called over Israel.
18a. Thou didst gather gold as tin, and didst gather silver as lead.
19. But thou gavest thy loins unto women, and lettest them have dominion over thy body.
20. Thou didst stain thy honour and pollute thy seed; so that thou broughtest wrath upon thy children, that they should groan in their beds.
21. That the kingdom should be divided: and out of Ephraim ruled a rebel kingdom.
22. But the Lord will never leave off his mercy, neither shall any of his words perish, neither will he abolish the posterity of his elect, and the seed of him that loveth him he will not take away: wherefore he gave a remnant unto Jacob, and out of him a root unto David.
23. Thus rested Solomon with his fathers, and of his seed he left behind him Rehoboam [of the lineage of Ammon], ample in foolishness and lacking understanding, who by his council let loose the people.
In the last sentence I have inserted in crochets an alternative reading of Fritzsche for the three words that follow. (Rehoboam's Ammonite mother was Naamah.)
It will be noticed that early in the second century B. C. there remained no trace of the anathemas on Solomon for his foreign or his idolatrous wives. He is now simply accused of being too fond of women,--a charge not known to the canonical books.
The verse 18 attests the correctness of the view taken of the forty-fifth Psalm in