comes his view of Wisdom. Already in Job, Wisdom is represented as the thought of God whereby the future creation was present with Him eternally (Job xxviii. 2028), and as developing the moral growth of man:—

"He saw it and He declared it,

He established and searched it out;

And unto man He said:

Lo, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,

And to depart from evil is understanding."

But a still

In the Book of Proverbs the idea is further advanced. Wisdom speaks of herself (viii. 22-31) as possessed by God in the beginning of his way, ordained from everlasting, with Him in creation, daily his delight, rejoicing always before Him, and having pleasure in the sons of men. This is an adumbration of the Divine Logos or Sophia. nearer approach to hypostatizing Wisdom is found in Ecclesiasticus. She is with God from everlasting, who formed (EKTIσE)1 her before all things, and hath revealed her in the works of creation and in the government and preservation of the world (i. 1, 4, 9, xxiv. 3, 9). He bestows her upon those who love and obey Him (i. 10, 26); but she is bidden especially to make her dwelling in Jacob and her inheritance in Israel (xxiv. 8). She speaks of herself:-—

I came forth from the mouth of the Most High,
And as a mist I covered the earth;

I tabernacled in the heights,

And my throne was on a pillar of cloud;
The circuit of heaven I compassed alone,

In the depths of abysses I walked;

In the waves of the sea and in all the earth,

And in every people and nation, I got a possession

1 Bp. Bull notes that Krit is used of any kind of production, Def. Fid. Nic., II. vi. 8. See Canon Liddon's Bampt. Lect., vol. ii. pp. 92 ff. ed. 1867. We may here note that the quotation (note t. p. 96), wŋyǹ σopías Nóyos coû, is spurious. 2 Comp. Bar. iii. 14, 29, 36, 37.

In the holy tabernacle I served before Him,
And so in Sion was I established

As a terebinth I spread forth my branches,
And

my

branches were branches of glory and grace.

We see Wisdom here in her two characters: as Divine, original, unlimited; and as human, derived, limited. In the latter notion she has her sphere in law, particularly the Law of Moses. "All these things," says the author (xxiv. 23), "are [authorised by] the book of the covenant of God, even the law which Moses commanded as an heritage unto the congregations of Jacob." This is her practical side. She teaches discipline and obedience, knowledge and right conduct. Hence are used the correlative expressions, παιδεία, σύνεσις, φρόνησις, ἐπιστήμη. And Wisdom becomes in effect equivalent to the fear of God, piety, and true religion. For "all wisdom," every kind and manner thereof, "is the fear of the Lord, and in all wisdom is the performance of the law" (xix. 25).

Before seeing how Wisdom guides man in various relations of life let us glance at the author's view of man's own position in the world. He was created by God, and endowed with various gifts, a definite time of life, power and strength, dominjon over all things, the faculty of appreciating objects around him, intelligence and prudence (xvii. 1-13). Some are placed in high position, sanctified and exalted; some are cursed and brought low; for "as the clay is in the potter's hand, to fashion it at his pleasure, so man is in the hand of his Creator" (xxxiii. 12, 13). But this foreordination of God does not deprive man of responsibility. He is possessed of free will, and if he sins it is his own act, and he cannot charge God with his faults. Very solemnly says Siracides:

The parallelism with Rom. ix. 20, 21 is obvious.

Say not thou, Through the Lord I fell away;

For thou oughtest not to do the things which He hateth..
He Himself made man from the beginning,

And left him in the hand of his free counsel;

If thou wilt, thou shalt keep the commandments,

And to act faithfully is a matter of good pleasure.
Before thee He hath set fire and water,

To whichever thou wilt thou shalt stretch forth thy hand.
Before man is life and death,

And whichever he liketh shall be given him (xv. 14–17).

1

Yet there is forgiveness for those who turn from sin. God is merciful; He knows that flesh and blood will imagine evil, that men are but earth and ashes, and to them that repent He granteth return (xvii. 24-32). Man's life is full of misery; great travail and a heavy yoke is the lot of every child of Adam. Present care, wrath, envy, trouble, unquietness, watching for coming woe, fear of death, these things appertain to him that sitteth on a throne, and to him that is humbled to the earth (xl. 1–7). The only happy man is the wise man, who fears God and keeps his law (xiv. 20-27). Man is rewarded or punished in this life according to his works; for there is no praise in Hades, there is no seeking of dainties in the grave. The penalty or the reward may come late, but will fall surely either on the man or his children (xi. 26; xvii. 27, 28; xli. 13). Of the doctrine of the Resurrection of the body there is no trace whatever in Ecclesiasticus; and even the references to a belief in a future state are ambiguous. Some of the passages which seem to support it are not genuine.

1 Comp. James i. 13, 14.

2 This is the reading of the Compl. and some uncials; the alternative is, evil man considers flesh and blood."

"an

3 There is one passage, viz. xlviii. 11, which seems to contradict this statement. We read there: "Blessed are they that see thee and have been adorned (keμooμnμévoɩ not keμoμnμévo) with love, for we also shall surely live." But the author is most probably merely expressing his confident hope that he shall live to see the happy time when Elijah shall return and restore glory to Israel.

Thus the words in xix. 19: "They that do things that please Him shall receive the fruit of immortality," are found only in one very untrustworthy late uncial and in the cursive on which the Complutensian is based, and are owing doubtless to an annotator with a remembrance of a passage in the Revelation in his mind. It has been held that the words in vii. 17: "The punishment of the ungodly is fire and worms," shew that the author believed in the future. punishment of the wicked. I am not prepared to say that he did not; but this expression does not necessarily bear this interpretation. The terms are of course derived from Isaiah Ixvi. 24; and we, regarding the passage by the light cast upon it by later Scriptures (St. Mark ix. 44), see in it a reference to the torments of hell fire. To a Jew of that age it would more probably appear to be an allusion to the abominations of the valley of Hinnom, and to the dishonoured burial of an evil man with all its horrid circumstances.1 Certainly the expressions of Siracides, though capable of being parallelised by citations from canonical Scripture, are very far from hopeful touching a future life.

Who will praise the most High in Hades,

Instead of them who live and give thanks?

Thanksgiving perisheth from the dead as from one that is not: The living and whole shall praise the Lord (xvii. 27, 28).

Any reward in the future that a man may expect must be derived from the prosperity of his children and the fame of his good deeds (xliv. 10-15). As to the inquisition and verdict in the other life, which shall set right all anomalies in this world, and which is so bountifully and beautifully put forth in the Book of Wisdom, nothing is openly expressed in Ecclesiasticus. The author appears to take his stand upon the Law in its most literal and limited

1 There is a similar expression in Judith xvi. 17, where the enemies of the Jews are doomed to punishment: "the Lord putting fire and worms into their flesh;" but here the doctrine of retribution in another world is more marked.

sense; and although he may intimate a more liberal view, yet his dogmatic statements are confined to the letter of the earlier Scriptures. But he is something better than a mere Sadducee. The yearnings of the immortal soul are not satisfied by the thought that death closes the history, cuts short the hope, seals up the account. Injustice and wrong shall soon pass away, but true dealing shall endure for ever (xl. 12); a good life hath but a few days, but a good name endureth for ever (xli. 13); God shall reward them that wait for Him (xxxvi. 16). Such utterances are capable of a wider interpretation than mere literalism allows; and beneath the language that tells of the hopelessness of death and the finality of the grave, there is an undertone of dissatisfaction with the present and confidence in God's eternal justice, which tends to confirm the idea that the writer had reached beyond the narrow tenets of sect and party and was prepared to accept higher and purer teaching.

Let us now see the advice which Wisdom, by the mouth of Siracides, gives to man in his social relations. As parent he has full authority over his children, and it is his duty to instruct them and bow down their neck from their youth. Ile must not "cocker" them, or give them too much liberty, or wink at their follies, but teach them to labour at an honest calling, and to reverence their parents (iii. 2, vii. 23, xxx. 1-13). Daughters especially should be most carefully guarded, and suitable husbands found for them (xxii. 3, 5, xxvi. 10, 12, xlii. 9-11). Sad as it is to be childless, it is far better to have no children at all than ungodly ones (xvi. 1-4). On the other hand it is the duty of children to honour and to help their parents in their need, to bear with their infirmities, never to grieve them; for he that forsaketh his father is as a blasphemer, and he that angereth his mother is cursed of the Lord (iii. 1-16). The husband who is blest with a good wife should prize