tions to the Books of Ezra, Esther, and Daniel, are examples of the free and facile mode in which, at that time, the earlier sacred books were "improved," modified, enlarged, and corrected, by the Alexandrian critics. Some, like the Books of the Maccabees, are attempts, more or less exact, at contemporary or nearly contemporary history; some, like the Psalter of Solomon, have never gained an entrance even into this outer court of the sacred writings; some, like the Second Book of Esdras and the Book of Enoch, have attained a Biblical authority, but only within a very limited range. But there are two which tower above the rest, and which, even by those who most disparage the others, are held in reverential esteem. The one is the recommendation of the theology of Palestine to Alexandria" the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach"; the other is the recommendation of the theology of Alexandria to Palestine" the Wisdom of Solomon."

They are both in the same class of literature. They both attach themselves in the Hebrew Scriptures, not to the Prophetical or Historical or Poetical portions, but to those writings on which the influence of the external world had already made itself felt the books which bear the name of Solomon. They both furnish the links which connect the earlier Hebrew literature with that final outburst of religious teaching which is recorded in the Gospels and Epistles. The Parables and Discourses beside the Galilean Lake, the Epistles of James, of John, and of the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, have hardly any affinity with the style of Daniel or Malachi, of Tobit or of the Rabbinical schools, but they are the direct continuation, although in a more exalted form, of those two Apocryphal Books of Wisdom.

1 See Lecture XXVII.

The

the Son of

B.C. 180.

The Wisdom of Joshua (or, as the Greeks called him, Jesus), the Son of Sirach, was the first of those writings which, from the sanction given Wisdom of to them by the Church, were called "Eccle- Sirach. "siastical" as distinct from "Canonical," and thus took to itself the name "Ecclesiasticus," which properly belonged to them all. It was for the Jews of Alexandria first, and then for the Christians, "The "Church Book;" "the favorite book of ecclesiastical "edification;" 2 "the Whole Duty of Man," "the Imi"tation"- the "summary of all virtues," as it was called in its original title.

B. C. 132.

It must have early acquired this reputation. The grandson of its author arrived in Alexandria in the close of the troubled reign of Ptolemy Physcon the second of those kings who were renowned amongst the Gentiles for bearing, seriously or ironically, the name of "benefactor" (Euergetes): When, amongst his countrymen in the foreign land, he discovered "no slight difference of education," and at the same time a keen desire to become instructed in the customs of their fathers, he found no task more worthy of his labor, knowledge, and sleepless study

1 It is strange that any doubt should have ever arisen on the date of Ecclesiasticus. The comparison of Haggai i. 1; ii. 1; Zech. i. 7, vii. 1, 1 Macc. xiii. 42, xiv. 27, makes it certain that ἐν τῷ ὀγδοῷ καὶ τριακοστῷ ἔτει ἐπὶ τοῦ Εὐεργέτον Βασιλέως in the Prologue can only mean "in the thirty-eighth year of King Euergetes;" and as the first Euergetes only reigned twenty-five years, the date of the translation is thus fixed to the thirty-eighth year of the second Euergetes, B. C. 132. The in

dication from the mention of Simon in chap. 1. 1, is less certain. But the great probability in favor of identifying him with Simon II. agrees with the conclusion to be drawn from the interval between the grandfather who wrote and the grandson who translated, and this would place the original work about B. c. 180.

2 A fierce attack upon it, as favoring Arianism, necromancy, and Judaic error, was published by Reynolds in 1666.

than to translate into Greek this collection of all that was most practical in the precepts and most inspiring in the history of his people.

It is, perhaps, the only one of the Deuterocanonical 1 books composed originally, not in Greek, but in Hebrew; and the translator well knew the difficulty of rendering the peculiarities of his native tongue into the fluent language of Alexandria. It is the first reflection which we possess on the Old Testament Scriptures after the commencement of the formation of the Canon. "The Law and the Prophets were already closed. "The other books" were, as the phrase implies, still regarded as an appendix, capable of additions, yet already beginning to be parted by an intelligible though invisible line, from those of later date.2 The Son of Sirach had given himself much to their perusal; he was, as we may say, the first Biblical student; but he felt that he had still something new to add, something old to collect. He was, like a great teacher of later times, as one born out of due time. He had awakened up "last of all, as one that gather"eth after the grape-gatherers; by the blessing of the "Lord he profited," and "filled his winepress like a gleaner of grapes." It was a noble ambition, alike of the grandfather and the grandson, to carry into the most minute duties of daily life the principles of their ancient law -"laboring not for himself only, but for "all who seek learning.'

It is, if not the largest book in the whole Bible (for the Psalms, and, possibly, the Book of Isaiah's Prophe

1 The first book of Maccabees may be another exception, and perhaps Judith.

2 Ecclus., Prologue. See Lecture XLVIII.

8 1 Cor. xv. 8.

4 Ecclus., xxxiii. 16.

cies, exceed it), yet certainly the largest of one single author. It contains the first allusions to the earlier records of the Jewish race. The Psalms, and occasionally the Prophets, had touched on the history of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel. But neither in Psalms or Prophets, neither in Proverbs or history, is there the slightest reference to the mystic opening of the Book of Genesis, which in Christian times has been the battlefield of so many a strife, theological, scientific, and critical. It is the Son1 of Sirach, in his passing allusions to the creation of Adam, and to the old giants, who is the first precursor of the Pelagian controversy, of the "Paradise Lost," of the Elohistic and Jehovistic theories.

Jerusalem is still the centre, and Palestine the horizon, of his thoughts. The Priesthood, with their offerings, their dues, and their stately appearance, are to him the most prominent figures of the Jewish community. Nor is the modern institution of the Scribes forgotten. He draws his images of grandeur from the cedars of Lebanon and the firtrees that clothe the sides of Hermon, from the terebinth with its spreading branches his images of beauty from the palmtrees in the tropical heat of Engedi, or from the roses and lilies and fragrant shade by the well-watered gardens of Jericho. The drops of bitterness which well up amidst his exuberant flow of patriotic thanksgiving are all discharged within that narrow range of vision which fixed his whole theological and national animosity on the three hostile tribes that penned in the little Jewish

1 Ecclus., xiv. 17; xvi. 7; xvii. 1; xxxiii. 10; xliv. 16, 17.

2 Ecclus., xxiv. ii.; xxxvi. 13; 1. 26.

8 Ecclus., vii. 28, 30; xiv. 11; xxi. 1, 18; xxviii. 11; xxxii. 1; xlv. 7–20. 4 Ecclus., x. 6.

6 Ecclus., xxiv. 13-19; l. 8-12.

colony -the Edomites on the south, the Philistines on the west, and Samaritans on the north. And in accordance with this local and almost provincial limitation is the absence of those wider Oriental or Western aspects which abound in other Canonical or Deuterocanonical books of this period. It is, after Malachi, the one specimen of a purely Palestinian treatise during this period.

But the grandson, through whose careful translation alone it has been preserved, was not wrong in thinking that it had a sufficiently universal character to make it suitable for the vast complex world in which he found himself in the capital of Alexander's dominions. Even although hardly any direct Alexandrian influence can be detected in its style, yet it is evident that the breath of the Grecian spirit has touched it at the core, and raised it out of its Semitic atmosphere. The closed hand of the Hebrew proverb has opened (thus to apply a well-known metaphor) into the open palm of Grecian rhetoric. The author, although his birthplace and his home were Jerusalem, was yet a traveller in foreign lands he knew the value, even if he had not had the actual experience, of "serving among great men and "before princes;" he had "tried the good and the "evil among men.'

2

In some respects the Book of the Son of Sirach is but a repetition of the ancient writings of Solomon. In some of its maxims it sinks below the dignity of those writings by the homeliness of its details for guidance of behavior at meals," of commercial specula

1 Ecclus., 1. 26. For Samaria read Seir, and possibly for "the foolish "people" (μwpós) read "the Amo"'rites" (Grimm, ad loc.).

2 See especially Ecclus., xxxviii. 24; xxxix. 11.

4

8 Ecclus., xxxix. 4; li. 13.

4 Ecclus., viii. 11-19; xi. 10; xiii. 2; xix. 1; xxix.; xxxvii. 11. 5 Ecclus., xxxi. 16.