4 The Authorship of Ecclesiastes. The Testimony of History. It may further be admitted that to meet such critics with the assumption that they are setting up their own word against the Written Word of God, and ought therefore to be disregarded, might be viewed rather as a begging of the question than as a vindication of God's truth. Hence so illogical a mode of procedure ought to be avoided by those who wish to contribute to the conviction of the gainsayers and the proof of the trustworthiness of the Scripture narrative. This however may be specially noticed at the outset, that one of the distinguishing features of the destructive criticism is that it has no historical basis on which to rest. Whereas if the results of the criticism were founded in fact, we might expect to find. these results not disappearing as we go back a century or two, but becoming increasingly corroborated as we recede into the distant past, and trace the history of the text up to the times when the ancient languages were actually spoken. As the learned men of those days were far more intimately acquainted with oriental literature than men are now, and besides speaking in Hebrew or in Syriac, lived comparatively near the times when the books under discussion must have been written, the authorship said to be now disproved must then have been unacknowledged. And the so-called literary embellishments, which cannot persuade modern impugners that the books were written by the men whose names they bear, must have been The Testimony of History. 10 5 incapable of producing such persuasion in the minds of those who spoke the Hebrew or some kindred language as their vernacular. Surely, for instance, had Solomon not written the book of Ecclesiastes, there must have been some extant traces of this fact dating as far back as the time when Jesus the son of Sirach wrote Ecclesiasticus, and gave it forth, not covertly as the work of Solomon, but openly and honestly as a book which Solomon did not write, but which nevertheless was written and compiled in laudable imitation of Solomon's Proverbs. Surely the linguistic and historical features now alleged to be incompatible with the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes could not have been unknown and unnoticed then. Some doubts and controversies as to authorship are nearly as old as the writings which they concern; while others are of recent growth, having had their origin in the school of the rationalistic or destructive criticism already referred to. Eusebius, more than fifteen hundred years ago, suggested, from certain characteristics of the Apocalypse, that some other John than the author of the Gospel and Epistles of John may have written it; and at a still earlier date Origen, as already mentioned, represented the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews as involved in impenetrable obscurity-one of the chief arguments for these views being the absence of Paul's name from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the presence 6 The Authorship of Ecclesiastes. of John's name in the Apocalypse. On the other hand, while the books of Ecclesiastes and Isaiah in the Old Testament are in any case much older than Hebrews and Revelation in the New Testament, there is no trace of the authorship of Isaiah or Ecclesiastes having ever been disputed until comparatively recent times. So far as historical testimony goes, the Pentateuch, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Daniel were universally held to be the writings of the men to whom they are commonly ascribed. And the modern denial of this commonly accepted authorship is as if, now for the first time, some poem universally ascribed, in so far as extant testimony is concerned, to Chaucer, were to be variously represented by various critics as a poem of the time of Henry the Seventh, or Queen Elizabeth, or Charles the First, or George the Second; or rather as if at a distance of several centuries after the present time, a poem accepted now and heretofore and hereafter as Chaucer's were to have different dates long subsequent to the time of Chaucer, ascribed to it by different critics, each professing to have discovered, by his own canons of criticism, that the combined and uninterrupted testimony of former centuries was erroneous, and that the date assigned by himself is the true one-and all illustrating conjointly in their incompatible representations the telling words of the gospel narrative, Neither so did their witness agree together.' Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes compared. 7 Interests at stake. While the Epistle to the Hebrews affirms nothing as to its own authorship, the Books of Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes coincide in this important particular, that each of them professes to consist of the words of its reputed author, and to have been written by him-Deuteronomy by Moses, and Ecclesiastes by that son of David who was king over Israel in Jerusalem : Deut. 1. 1. 01737 These are the words which Moses spake unto all Israel, beyond the Jordan, in the wilderness. ECCLES. 1. 1. p 737 The words of Koheleth, son of David, king in Jerusalem. DEUT. 31. 9. Moses wrote this law, and gave it unto the priests. 22. Moses wrote this song on that day. 24. When Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, ... ECCLES. 12. 10. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words; and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. Throughout Ecclesiastes, the writer gives, in the form of an autobiography, his own experience, and his estimate of what he saw under the sun. In so doing, he speaks almost invariably in the first person of the preterite, using also the separate pronoun with a profusion eminently characteristic of his treatise: I nap was king-I gaveI builded-I made-I planted—I laboured—I saw -I knew—I said—I found,—and sundry others. In Deuteronomy likewise, Moses, after five introductory verses (1. 1-5), speaks in the first person, in an address extending from 1. 6 to 4. 40. Then, after a narrative of nine verses (4. 41-49), he gives a second and much longer address, extending continuously from 5. 1 to the 8 The Authorship of Deuteronomy. end of chapter 26. There then follow several shorter addresses, interspersed with brief historic statements, all explicitly declaring the Mosaic authorship of the words which they introduce : 27. 1-8; 9-10; 27. 12 to 28. 68; 29. 1 (2) to end of 30; 31. 2-6; 7-8; 10-13; 26-29; 32. 1-43; 46-47. 1. 5. Moses began to declare this law, saying, 5. 1; 29. 1. And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, 27. 11. And Moses commanded the people in that day, saying,... While the scope of Deuteronomy requires the frequent use of the historic imperfect, for which there is little occasion in an ethical treatise like Ecclesiastes, yet preterites in the first person singular, corresponding to those which abound in the Book of Ecclesiastes, are not uncommon throughout Deuteronomy also, as 'n in 3. 21, and лn in 30. 1, 15, 19. So likewise in chapters 4 to 30, the participial expression command thee, occurs in the mouth and in the pen of Moses 26 times, and the similar expression, I command you, eleven times-all emphatically attesting the Mosaic authorship of the book. I Whether Moses actually wrote the Blessing recorded in chapter 33, or simply spoke it, and left the writing of it to some one else, that it might be appended, along with the narrative of his death, to the volume which bears his name, is immaterial -its Mosaic authorship being vouched for by the introductory verse, as well as by the of verses 2 and 7, and by the 2 of verses 8, 12, 13, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24. 33. 1. And this is the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel, before his death. And he said,... |