Studies in Life from Jewish Proverbs

Consider the implication. The word “foundation” (usually rendered “beginning”) in Hebrew unites the notions both of “beginning” and “best”; and “fear,” of course, is to be interpreted religiously as “reverence” not as “terror.” Such awe of God (say the Wise) is to be reckoned the commencement of Wisdom and also Wisdom’s quintessence: it is both the root and the fruit of perfect living. Now Wisdom was the sublime source to which the Sages traced back even the simplest of their counsels, and the most practical of their observations on men and affairs; it was the creative sun, the derivative proverbs being, as it were, the rays by which its light is distributed over the whole of life. But now it appears that this sun and centre of all things itself was conceived as rising out of religious faith, for when the Sages considered this high Wisdom and asked what was its sum and substance, they answered, “The fear of the Lord,” and, when they wondered what might be its origin, again they answered, “God.” The fundamental importance of this one saying would therefore be obvious even if it stood alone as a solitary expression of faith. But other religious proverbs occur as we shall note in due course; for example, Ben Sirach’s opening words, All wisdom cometh from the Lord, and is ever with him (E. 11), or this—Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not on thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall make plain thy path (Pr. 35, 6). Such sayings may not be numerous in comparison with the secular sayings, but there are enough of them to show that the great proverb quoted above is not an isolated sentiment of formal piety thrust into a mass of worldly-wisdom for appearance’s sake. The soul of the Wise-men cannot accurately be gauged by deducting the few religious from the many non-religious proverbs, and drawing the inference that these men must have cared very little for God and overwhelmingly much for worldly prosperity. Human nature guards its secrets from such cynical or mechanical treatment. Rather will it be true that when, as here, even one earnest plea is made for the love of God as the ultimate inspiration of conduct, that will give us the heart of the whole matter to which all else is subsidiary and only to be interpreted in and through the underlying religious faith. Matter-of-fact, prudential, moralisms might be far more numerous than they are in these Jewish proverbs, and still it would not follow that the Wise-men were devoid of religious feeling or fervour. Some doubtless were, but others assuredly were not, and all (save an occasional sceptic) would have stoutly maintained the view that their counsel was derived from the ultimate, fundamental doctrine of “the fear of the Lord.”

The second obvious point of criticism is the indefiniteness apparent in this so-called Ideal of the Wise. Their ethic may justly be called redundant, or defective, or both; and in truth their Utopia, even in its broad outline, does seem too confused and too fragmentary to provide any coherent scheme. Contrast the relatively clear-cut work of the Hellenic thinkers who, starting also from similar vague popular notions of ethics, correlated, combined, and sifted the material until, as in the Stoic and other philosophies, precisely formulated systems were elaborated. Was not the Jewish lack of method fatal to effective teaching? No. The Wise did not, indeed could not, construct a strict unity out of their free-and-easy, uncorrelated aims. But they were not candidates for a degree in Moral Sciences, nor are their doctrines here exhibited as a satisfactory substitute for modern social philosophy. Their thinking, as a matter of fact, was definite enough to serve their day and generation. The position was not quite so serious as it may appear from a theoretical point of view. In reality, the Sages knew very well what they were aiming at, and had a reasonably clear idea of the type of character they wished to see developed in themselves and other men. Now it is fortunate that in the pages of Ecclesiasticus we possess not a little information about the thoughts, habits, and fortunes of its author, Jesus ben Sirach; for this man, though doubtless not a perfect embodiment of Wisdom, provides just what we most require at this point of our study—a historical figure, and an admirable and typical representative of his class. To envisage him will humanise our notion of the Wise-men and may give to their ideals a coherence which in the abstract they may seem to lack.

Jesus ben Sirach was a Jew of Jerusalem who lived about 250 to 180 B.C.; that is, well on in the period of Hellenic influence. By profession a scribe, he seems all his days to have been a man of earnest mind, naturally inclined to intellectual and literary pursuits. He was of good family, and presumably possessed of considerable means, to judge by his life-long leisure for study, the tone of his remarks on wealth, his easy and regular participation in social entertainment, and his foreign travels, which provided the one stirring episode in a placid career. From some remarks in his book we gather that his travels were undertaken whilst he was still a young man. Just when and where he journeyed is uncertain, but since he says that he came into touch with a foreign Court, in all probability he visited the great cities of Egypt and the Court of Alexandria. The important point is that his tour was not without excitement and real peril (E. 3412, 513ff). Through some lying and malicious gossip he had the misfortune to incur royal displeasure, suffered imprisonment, and, in his own firm opinion, was for a time in gravest danger of losing his life. Such an experience is inevitably a severe test of any man’s mettle, and is doubly sure to produce a deep impression on the mind of one so naturally unadventurous as Ben Sirach. His comments on the matter are therefore a valuable clue to his character. He took the view that his travels, notwithstanding the danger, had been a great and lasting benefit, an experience in which anyone who aspired to be counted wise would do well to imitate him. It had proved worth all the hardship and anxiety—a fine broadening influence: He that hath no experience knoweth few things, but he that hath travelled shall increase his skill. Many things, he reflects, have I seen in my wanderings (E. 3410). The other impression left by his adventures was the paramount value of Israel’s Wisdom. In the hour of his danger he would have perished but for the principles of discreet and honest conduct in which Wisdom had instructed him. (E. 3412).

He returned from abroad to settle for the rest of his days in beloved Jerusalem, where he became an honoured citizen, a man of considerable weight socially as well as intellectually, and a notable exponent of Wisdom, whose advice in the manifold affairs of daily life was sought and respected. There are grounds for thinking that for some years he may have conducted a regular school for instruction in the science of Wisdom. He was a thorough townsman, loving the busy life of his city, keenly observant of its varied occupations and appreciative of all opportunities of human intercourse. So far from thinking of him as a scholarly recluse, careless of all save his duties as a scribe or teacher, we have to picture a man who enjoyed dining out with his friends; no glutton, yet a frank connoisseur of food and wine. Feasting he considered a subject not to be trifled with, as is shown by the rules for polite behaviour, which he is careful in all seriousness to detail in his book. As for his faults, one suspects that in public he was inclined to be dictatorial and perhaps pompous, but he possessed a saving grace of humour. In his home, if we are to trust his own assertions, he must have been a strict disciplinarian. Many of his sayings are too worldly-wise to be commendable. Now and then he is cynical, and for the out-and-out fool he allows no hope: to essay teaching such an one is as futile as glueing a broken potsherd together (E. 227); and again, Seven days are the days of mourning for the dead, but for a fool all the days of his life (E. 2212)! Still, Ben Sirach was no pessimist about humanity, and his judgments of men for the most part are kindly and hopeful.

The outstanding feature of his personality was his breadth of interest. “Whether it is upon the subject of behaviour at table, or concerning a man’s treatment of a headstrong daughter, or about the need of keeping a guard over one’s tongue, or concerning the folly of a fool, or the delights of a banquet, or whether he is dealing with self-control, borrowing, loose women, slander, diet, the miser, the spendthrift, the hypocrite, the parasite, keeping secrets, giving alms, standing surety, mourning for the dead, and a large variety of other topics—he has always something to say, which for sound and robust common-sense is of abiding value.”[69]

Except that he puts the point in his own way, there is in matter or opinion little in Ben Sirach’s book that could not be paralleled from the Book of Proverbs. But in manner an interesting difference is observable. Ecclesiasticus is far and away superior in point of literary charm. It has the merit of constant variety, and in places real grace of expression, for to a much greater degree than in the Book of Proverbs Ben Sirach has developed the brief unit-proverb into epigrams and sonnets, short essays, eulogies and longer odes; and although the unit-proverb is still frequent, it is no longer the sum and substance of the book. Thus by the skilful use of the more elaborate forms, the almost unrelieved disjointedness that detracts so seriously from the pleasure of reading Proverbs is triumphantly overcome.

In criticism of Ben Sirach’s ethical attainments, one is inclined to call attention to the juxtaposition of great and little matters which he perpetrates in his book: a feature also to be observed in Proverbs. Questions of fundamental moral law and trivialities of etiquette are astonishingly conjoined, apparently without his feeling the least sense of the absurdity. Thus he bids his pupil be ashamed “of unjust dealing before a partner and a friend, of theft in the place where he sojourns, and of falsifying an oath and a covenant, and of leaning on the table with the elbow when at meat” (E. 4117-19)! Manners and morals, one is driven to suppose, had not been sufficiently differentiated in general opinion. Then also, just when our respect for Ben Sirach is quietly increasing, he is apt to dismay us by interjecting some most unideal observation, as when immediately after delivering a stinging censure on lying speech, he remarks (E. 2029) that gifts which blind the eyes of the Wise, and are a muzzle on the mouth, are an effective way of appeasing influential persons. Nevertheless, as one reads his book, the conviction deepens that Ben Sirach was sincere and earnest in his profession of morality, and such falls from grace as the proverb just quoted are probably due to his anxiety to give an honest representation of the facts of life. It has been said in his favour that he was no platitudinarian, by which, of course, is not meant that his book contains no platitudes, but only that in face of the supreme problems of human existence he did not cravenly blink the facts, but faced them and sought to do justice to them; as for instance when, writing of death, he owns that to a healthy and prosperous man it is wholly a “bitter remembrance” (E. 411).

From youth to his dying day this man loved and served Wisdom, and his volume is a storehouse of many noble and valuable thoughts. It may be charged against the authors of Proverbs that they paid scant regard to the peculiar national aspirations of their race. If so, Ben Sirach can be acquitted on that score. He had a thoroughly patriotic outlook, for he makes it quite clear that to his mind Judaism was the real home of Wisdom and the truly wise man is a loyal Jew obedient to the Law. His sense of the marvel of the world as a revelation of divine power, which he expresses in two chapters of considerable ability, shows that he was not without poetic feeling.[70] All his thinking rested on belief in a great and holy God, Source of all Wisdom, in whom he exhorts men to put their trust, from whom they must ever seek guidance.

A worthy citizen! Of whom does he remind us? Surely of such a man as was Horace, strolling on the Appian Way, pleased with himself and with his fortunes, much interested in the pageant of life, keenly observant both of the faults and the graces of his fellows, humorous, shrewd and kindly? Or of Chaucer, part courtier, part business man of London town, yet with a quick eye and swift sympathy for the deeper issues in the human drama? Or (to come nearer our own days) of Pepys, with his matter-of-fact ways, his sturdy, average morality, and his honest enjoyment of the good things of life? Or of Dr. Johnson, with his natural pomposity and his big, generous soul? Yes, of all these; but Ben Sirach had one great quality that perhaps none of these possessed to the same extent—a most earnest sense of duty in regard to his fellow men, a whole-hearted desire to give them the advantage of the lessons life had taught him.

Perhaps the reader is disappointed still. When the utmost has been said for these ideals, he may feel that there is no new insight into the mystery of things, and no irresistible appeal to conscience. But remember that even an imperfect Cause and an inadequate Ideal, provided the fundamental aim be generous and sound, may be the source of real and lasting benefits to men, for life is such that the goal we fain would reach instantaneously must, as a matter of fact, be approached by small advances, which therefore ought not be despised. The Wise, it is true, were neither perfect Saints nor complete Philosophers, but our subject is the Humanism of the Jewish proverbs, and if even this Ben Sirach, model pupil of Wisdom, is not a wholly inspiring figure—is he not very human? Moreover, the utmost has not yet been said on behalf of the Sages.

CHAPTER IX

The Exaltation of Wisdom

Continuing the criticism of the ideal or ideals of the last chapter, it may be said that the morality commended is not unusual nor markedly superior to that of other peoples. Do not many of these proverbs state the merest a b c of ethical sentiment, for which any civilised nation could produce a parallel in its proverbs? The charge is not only true in a general way, it has special force in view of the circumstances of the fourth to the second centuries B.C. For there is evidence of a widespread tendency to sententious moralising in that period, and, had we so desired, this Jewish movement might have been considered only as part of a larger whole.[71] Among the Greeks, especially in Asia Minor, this was the age when several gnomic poets, such as Menander and Phocylides, won fame and popularity by their moral aphorisms, and indeed the Jewish proverbs have many opinions in common with contemporary Hellenic sayings. In Egypt also there was current a collection of ethical observations, the Precepts of Ptah-hotep and the Maxims of Aniy, so closely resembling the form and sentiment of the average Jewish proverb that it has been suggested that the Sages of Palestine were directly influenced by these Egyptian teachings. Certainly the resemblances are striking. These Egyptian books “inculcate the study of Wisdom, duty to parents and superiors, respect for property, the advantages of charitableness, peaceableness and content, of liberality, chastity, and sobriety, of truthfulness and justice; and they show the wickedness and folly of disobedience, strife, arrogance and pride, of slothfulness, interference, unchastity, and other vices. “What then? Is the idealism of the Jews decreased in value because other nations also had moral ambitions? Judging from the facts of history, the elements of morality, and of commonsense, too, need constant iteration in all languages and all periods, not excluding the present. To discover that most of the Jewish proverbs are far from unique is no real loss, indeed the danger lies rather in the other direction. If it could be shown that these maxims were unlike those current elsewhere among men, the accusation would be serious, for then this volume must needs be written, not on the humanism, but on the unhumanism of a part of the Bible. The charge that the Jewish maxims are not unusual is to be admitted and—dismissed.

More disquieting would be the contention, which the number of self-regarding maxims readily suggests, that the general moral tone of these proverbs is not merely normal but actually low. There is no denying the unblushing utilitarianism that at times crops out. It is said: I (Wisdom) walk in the paths of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgement, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance and that I may fill their treasuries (Pr. 821)—The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is riches and honour and life (Pr. 224). This sounds even more reprehensible than the famous definition of Christianity as “doing good for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” It seems suspiciously like doing good for the sake of the kingdoms of this earth! But, hear the defence. First it has already been urged that general judgments on the proverbs as a whole require most careful handling, if they are to be even moderately fair: let the utilitarian sage bear his own sin; his brother who said, “Love covereth all transgressions,” ought not to be implicated in his fall. Secondly, there is the sensible, though not lofty, argument that since the Wise were dealing with men tempted to throw off even ordinary moral restraint in the burning desire to get all possible prosperity and enjoyment out of life, if they had pitched their key much higher it is very probable they would have received no hearing at all. Modern students of ethics are well aware that pleasure, however often it may accompany good conduct, cannot be made the motive for virtue. But the Wise were less sophisticated than ourselves, and it was therefore easy for them to make the mistake of expressing in too commercial a fashion their conviction that “honesty is the best policy”[72]; and even if they did sometimes over-emphasise the thought of external reward, we should remember that perhaps it was the only way to catch the ear of certain men and draw them back from the hot pursuit of Folly. The third point will be surprising to those who are not aware how late in Jewish history was the development of a worthy conception of immortality and the just judgment of the soul after death. Compared with the Christian, who starts from the belief that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living”, and that the consequences of good or evil conduct reach onwards beyond the grave, the Wise-men of Israel were cruelly handicapped in their consideration of the moral problem. Oesterley with justice pleads in extenuation of Ben Sirach’s stress on the worldly advantages of Wisdom, “This is natural in a writer whose whole attention is concentrated on the present life, and who has nothing but the vaguest ideas about a life hereafter.”[73] Fourthly, the Wise were not conscious of their utilitarianism. Of course it is bad to be utilitarian at all, but it is better to be so unintentionally than deliberately. The ancients did not, could not, speak or write with that precise realisation of the implications of words, which often does, and certainly should, characterise a modern thinker. While therefore the Wise cannot be exonerated from blame in this respect, there is not a little to be said in mitigation of their offence.

But the last plea we have to advance on their behalf is the best; and indeed it is the main apology we wish to make for all their shortcomings—

A man’s utterances are often an inadequate expression of his soul. Our final estimate ought to be based, not on the proverbs themselves, singly or collectively, but on what is behind them, the character of the speakers. The question is, Were these sayings just verbal piety and respectable commonplace, or were they, so to speak, waves borne on the swell of an advancing tide, having beneath and behind them the deep impulse of a live enthusiasm? What manner of men were the Sages at heart—mere talkers, seeking the mental satisfaction of turning a neat phrase and sunning themselves in popular esteem, or men genuinely concerned for the moral welfare of their fellows? One we have already considered and not found him altogether wanting. Much can be forgiven if only the majority of the Wise were like Ben Sirach, in earnest about their task. We ventured to describe him as a typical Wise-man, but what ground is there for that assertion?

Now this vital question is not an easy one to investigate and answer, since concerning the individual Sages, except Ben Sirach, no personal information has been transmitted, and we have therefore only their sayings from which to draw a conclusion. Even so the material is perhaps sufficient. Surely there is a valuable hint to be found in the “strict attention to business” of Proverbs as well as Ecclesiasticus; both of these books preach at us incessantly from their text “Wisdom.” Why is it that every word they contain is directed to the end of moral improvement? Must there not have been a remarkable concentration on moral interests to account for the comparative absence of what one might describe as the neutral, non-moral observations on life, which are common in the proverbs of every other nation?[74] Fortunately however, there is one much stronger piece of evidence available. It has been explained that the abstract conception “Wisdom” represented the teaching of the Wise in epitome, and was the unification in thought of their manifold opinions. It follows that what they said, or left unsaid, about “Wisdom” furnishes an admirable test of their sincerity, revealing the presence or absence of enthusiasm for their work. Wisdom was the Cause they championed against Folly: it will be easy to tell whether they truly loved it. If they had been only clever people, content to parade their shrewdness, or comfortable upholders of law and order, proclaiming the maxims of respectability with a business eye to the security of their own possessions, then inevitably they would have betrayed themselves by giving an exposition of Wisdom coldly intellectual. But the opposite is what has happened, and the warmth and passion as well as the reverence, of their words in honour of Wisdom bear eloquent, unconscious testimony to the admiration and affection in which the Sages held their calling. Hear then the Praises of Wisdom—

Happy is the man that findeth Wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding; for the merchandise of it is better than silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and none of the things that thou canst desire are comparable unto her.... (Pr. 313-15): surely a disconcerting verse for upholders of the supposed utilitarianism of the proverbs? Again, How much better is it to get Wisdom than gold! Yea to get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver (Pr. 1616, cp. 810)—so much for the Sages’ notion of comparative values. In chapter 9 of Proverbs, by a touch of fine imagination, Wisdom is daringly pictured as a noble Lady, bidding guests to her banquet. She is the counterpart of Madam Folly, who also gives a banquet and who thus invites a passer-by: Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant, (to which the Wise add in caustic comment as they see the foolish one enter: But he knoweth not that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depth of Sheol, Pr. 917, 18). But, in contrast, Wisdom—Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: she hath killed her beasts, she hath made ready her wine, and furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens; on the highest parts of the city she crieth aloud, “Whoso is ignorant, let him turn in hither”; and to him that is void of understanding she speaketh, “Come, eat ye of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have made ready” (Pr. 91-5). Ben Sirach knew that Wisdom was high, and he does not disguise that only by long, unwearying efforts can her favour be attained. But the reward, says he, outweighs the toil, and he bids men seek her: At the first she will bring fear and dread upon a man and torment him with her discipline, until she can trust his soul and has tested him by her judgements (E. 417; cp. E. 619-25). Nevertheless, he says, Come unto her with all thy soul, and keep her ways with thy whole power. Search and seek, and she shall be made known unto thee, and when thou hast hold of her, let her not go. For in the end thou shalt find her to be rest, and she shall be changed for thee into gladness. Her fetters shall be to thee a covering of strength, and her chains a robe of glory (E. 626-29).

Wisdom is the source of all right and noble conduct, the principle that in all things ought to regulate men’s lives. Casting behind him the grim facts of Hellenistic courts, and perhaps of high society in Jerusalem also, one wise man, seeing in vision the world as it should be, put these glowing, optimistic words into the mouth of Wisdom: By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth (Pr. 815, 16).

But all these praises are slight compared with the thoughts inspired by the supreme conviction that Wisdom itself is derived from God and dwells in His Presence: “The Wisdom that illumines the lives of the good is a reflection of the full-orbed wisdom of God.”[75] It is the ineffable counsel of the Almighty, the power by which He created heaven and earth (Pr. 319f), the principle through which the universe is still sustained. In face of this belief praise rose into exultation, and Wisdom was reverently but enthusiastically conceived as that which had been ordained of God from eternity to be His counsellor in the work of Creation and His daily delight:

In similar language Ben Sirach imagines Wisdom proclaiming her glory in the very presence of God Himself:

Such words would have set the Greeks, as they set us, asking questions: “Is it implied that Wisdom is an entity distinct from God?”; “How far is it fair to see Greek influence in this apparent ascription of personality to Wisdom?” Both questions may be considered together. Too much stress cannot be laid on the firm hold which Monotheism had obtained in post-exilic Judaism; to the Jews of the Hellenic age the unity of God was a fundamental tenet. But the Jewish mind was as yet unphilosophical, not from lack of intelligence but from lack of inclination or initial suggestion. Hebrew thought started from the existence of God as an axiom, and was content to use the fact of conscience as the key to the interpretation of life, whereas Greek thought had naturally inclined towards making intellectual speculation the basis of its endeavour to attain through truth, morality, and beauty to the secret of life and the knowledge of God. Consequently many utterances that inevitably raise metaphysical questions in our minds, and would have philosophical meaning if spoken by a Greek, were put forward by the Jews most simply, without consideration of inherent intellectual problems. Of this character are the praises of Wisdom: although language is used that would fittingly be applied to a personal being, there was no intention to personify Wisdom as some kind of sub-divine Being other than God. The Wise intended only to declare their fervent belief that the Wisdom they studied, loved, and trusted, was transcendently great, was God’s Wisdom, was “from above.” Wisdom in these proverbs was not consciously deemed to be more than an attribute of God, and phrases that seem to us to overstep the bounds and confer personality are to be regarded as an enthusiasm of the heart not implying metaphysical conclusions as to the ultimate nature of Deity.[1a] This is the language not of philosophy but of affection and reverent esteem. From an early age there was a strong tendency in Hebrew thought towards clothing abstract and collective terms in the warm language of personal life, and the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus may fairly be considered a natural development of pure Hebrew tradition.[2a] And yet there are “signs of the times” about them. The description of Wisdom we are discussing would read strangely in pre-exilic Hebrew books; and so the question of Greek influence may still be pressed. In the opinion of the present writer the influence, if any, is confined to a slight unintentional colouring. Seeing that the Wise stood out against the pressure and menace of unscrupulous, secular Hellenism, and that they lived at a period when Greek intellectual prowess had not yet brought its full weight to bear on Palestinian, or at least on Judæan, thought, it is a reasonable conjecture that any trace of new philosophy in the proverbs has been introduced unwittingly and unwillingly. The general soundness of this opinion becomes vividly apparent, if the two passages quoted above are compared with the eulogy given in a Jewish work of considerably later date, the Wisdom of Solomon. There Wisdom, Artificer of all things, is described as

and in one verse (W.S. 94) Wisdom is actually called She that sitteth beside Thee on Thy throne, astonishing words from a Jew. The atmosphere of Hellenic philosophy being here unmistakable, the contrast between the language of this passage and the restrained phraseology of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus is accordingly significant.

As the Book of Job is treated in another volume of this series, the reference to it must here be brief, but a chapter on the Exaltation of Wisdom must not close without some mention of the wonderful poem in that Book, where also confession is made of the sublimity of Wisdom, but it is insisted that Wisdom dwells far beyond the reach of mortals, unknown and unknowable, save to the inscrutable Deity who wills not to reveal its secrets unto suffering man. Each section of this great passage begins with the haunting question, But Wisdom—whence cometh it, and where is the place of understanding? We quote the last stanza only.

“The Humanism of the Bible”—who would ask finer acknowledgment of one aspect of life, its profound mystery; who could fail to hear in those grand but desolate words the pathos of our mortal ignorance voicing its immortal longing? Happier than this poet, and more in accord with ordinary human experience, were the Wise-men of Proverbs; for theirs was the faith that, though Wisdom might dwell in the innermost light of God’s presence, the boon of its guidance was not wholly denied to men. They praised its exceeding great glory, acknowledging its transcendence, yet quietly rejoicing in the measure of knowledge they were conscious of receiving:

CHAPTER X

The Hill “Difficulty”

Moreover it would have been disastrous for the Wise themselves, had the world accepted their way of life as indisputable truth. Think what would have happened to their characters, already inclined to superiority, if with one accord men had bowed down to their every word and received their maxims as beyond the breath of criticism. The point of course, is not one that the Sages would have appreciated. Few men can resist the impression (and those few must be cold-blooded, unenthusiastic souls) that all would be well, provided their lightest word was law. What a truly delightful world, where one’s judgments met only with reverent and grateful admiration! Yet were God to give us the desire of our hearts, we might construct a universe excellent according to our standard, and be left ourselves the only insufferable persons in it. “Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

There was, however, little danger of the Wise being spoilt by approbation. They may have had a sufficiently good conceit of themselves, but they cannot possibly have been ignorant that many of their neighbours held them in very different esteem; and whenever a Wise-man in old Jerusalem put his heart into the effort to guide his brethren into the path of understanding he can have been under few, if any, delusions regarding the obstacles in the way. In the last two chapters we have been picturing life as the Wise desired it to be, not as they actually found it. Our next duty is to descend from these heights to the plain where opposition waited to test what stuff the Wise-men’s dreams were made of. Not without courage, not without patience, were they able to keep these ideals in their hearts.

The discouragements they suffered are written large across the face of the literature. Consider first the reception accorded to their teaching. All the Jews were not lovers of Understanding, nor was Jerusalem a State wherein the dictates of celestial Wisdom ruled with unquestioned sway. No doubt the note of confidence which pervades Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus implies that many people respected the Wise-men’s dignity and paid deference to their speeches. But the presence of outspoken hostility is not a whit less clear. They did not preach unchallenged at the entry of the Gates. On the contrary the number and severity of the proverbs denouncing “scorners” show that the irreverent were a vigorous section of the population. We have to bear in mind that the Gateway was open to all-comers, and Psalm 11 (Blessed is the man that sitteth not in the assembly of the scornful) supplies a hint that the scoffer (and his friends) may have had an inconvenient habit of claiming his own corner of the ground, and that not infrequently it pleased him to be merry at the Wise-man’s expense, now pretending he could not, or would not, hear the sermon (A scorner heareth not rebuke, Pr. 131), now deriding the doctrine (I have called and ye have refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded: Ye have set at nought all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, Pr. 124f); now encouraging others to make vexatious interruptions (Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out, Pr. 2210). Sage-baiting seems to have been a joke that waxed not stale with repetition: “How long,” asks one Wise man pathetically, “how long will scorners delight in their scorning” (Pr. 122)? He that reproveth a scorner getteth himself insult (Pr. 97)—behold a sage by the street-corner, wise in words but by no means so sharp in repartee, shaking a puzzled head and wondering what the laughter had been about and why his audience had so speedily melted away.

Besides these cynical persons—the scorners or intentional fools—there were fools-by-birth, whether dull-witted or coarse-natured or both, “Simpletons”, to whom the Wise were perhaps less charitable than is meet. But then “suffering fools gladly” belongs to the apostolic ethic; and it vexed the Wise to think how much breath they had wasted in seeking to teach these folk. Glorious Wisdom stirred no enthusiasm in their obtuse souls, and the shafts of morality seldom discovered a joint in the armour of their self-content. Wherefore, concerning these also went up the cry, “How long, ye simpletons, will ye love simplicity” (Pr. 122)? And when we read that the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit then seven men that can render a reason (Pr. 2616), who can fail to see a baffled Sage turning wearily and disgustedly away? Towards the dull-witted is due mercy and patience; but oh! those self-satisfied, petty persons, ignorant of their ignorance, into whose mental darkness no new illuminating thought can penetrate. These were the prime objects of the Wise-men’s indignation—and legitimately; for in all ages they have been the curse of society, the mainstay of old abuses, rocks which have to be blasted from the path of progress. Of your charity, then, bear in mind that the Wise did not lecture picked pupils only, but faced the contradictions and stupidities of the highway, and endured the disappointment of seeing men hostile or indifferent to their teaching.

But the point will bear further consideration. Two types of opponents may be distinguished. First, the actively hostile, whose manner of life was in violent contradiction to the Wise-men’s principles, men who must often have hated them for their moralising efforts. In the mirror of the sayings we observe the immoral, the cruel, the violent, plotters of mischief against their neighbours, whose deeds were evil, whose words scorched like a fire (Pr. 1627); dishonest dealers and pitiless usurers, who robbed the poor and crushed the defenceless (Pr. 2222); men who lured others into wickedness; bloodthirsty men, thieves, cut-throats, and reckless outlaws (Pr. 111ff). Against these Wisdom, for all its exaltation, must often have seemed powerless. Secondly, there was the mass of the indifferent, who, being neither very good nor very bad, did not think Wisdom mattered very much or that it was any special concern of theirs: a type with abundant representatives to-day. Why will they not comprehend that it is to them, almost more than to any others, that Wisdom is crying aloud; and that their co-operation is desperately needed for the advancement of mankind? Why do they saunter so carelessly down the streets of life, sometimes to fall into sore disaster from which a little Wisdom, had they sought it, would have saved them? Why do they always pass “the preacher for next Sunday” without a second thought? Ah! these are they that require a full church and good music and a first-rate sermon. But if they attended, the churches would be full and the choirs strong; and sermons have a way of winning home when men are out not for oratory, but to seek the truth of God.

Certainly the Wise were not ignorant of the problem of the inattentive. Something of disappointment and perplexity lies behind the reiterated appeals of the Book of Proverbs: Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings. ... My son, let them not depart from thine eyes. ... Hear, my son, the instruction of a father, and attend to know, for I give you good doctrine. Granted that the exhortation tended to become a set phrase, and that “my son” was often spoken to an eager pupil or an attentive class in the Wise-man’s house, it was also used in the market place, and for one man that stopped and responded how many passed by unheeding? Doth not Wisdom cry and Understanding put forth her voice? In the streets she takes her stand; beside the gates, at the portal of the city, at the entrance of the gates she cries aloud (Pr. 81-3)—frequently, we may suspect, with small result. See, yonder is Alexander ben Simeon, young, confident and well-to-do, proud to think that his parents have called him by the name of the great Greek conqueror. He comes strolling through the bazaar to the gate of the city. There two voices accost him. One, that of his friend Aristobulus: “Greeting, Alexander! Hast heard news of the boxing? ’Tis said that Aristonicus is beaten in the Olympic pankcration. ‘By whom?’ By Cleitomachus of Thebes.[79] But I swear it cannot have been by fair means. How sayest thou?” The other voice was that of Judah the Wise, who, perceiving the two young men in talk, approached them hopefully and earnestly, though of course with all necessary dignity. “A wise son,” said he, “maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is a heaviness to his mother. Now, therefore, my sons, hearken unto me, for blessed are they that keep my ways. Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness....” Unfortunately the last words were not heard by Alexander and Aristobulus. They were already some distance off, hunting for the man who had spread the rumour of the downfall of Egyptian athletics.

But others besides the young could be deaf to good counsel. Jerusalem had many confident citizens of middle life, into whose soul the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things had entered, choking the Word: the rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his imagination (Pr. 1811), said the Wise with a sigh. There is one proverb that suggests where the most grievous personal disappointment of the Wise lay: namely, in those, whether boy or man, who said “I go, Sir; but went not”: Cease, my son, to hear instruction, only to err from the words of knowledge (Pr. 1927). Surely there was sorrow in the heart of him who uttered those words of warning?

In the next place consider the hindrances that the general conditions of the age placed in the path of morality. These also are not difficult to perceive. The moral corruption of the luxurious Hellenic cities may have been perfectly obvious and the danger unmistakably clear, but dazzling opportunities, political, social, and commercial, also lay waiting there for the young and ambitious Jew. Is it to be wondered if many a lad was ready to make a bid for fortune, and let his morality take its chance? Important families of Jerusalem, with a handsome son who might perhaps win favour at the foreign courts or shekels in their markets, will have had little love for old-fashioned, moralistic Wiseacres, who forsooth were stupid enough to oppose “the onward march of progress.”

One passage (Pr. 110-19), addressed to “my son,” urges him not to take up highway robbery as a career: If they say, “Let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause” ... consent not thou, but there cannot have been much outlet for promising youths in that direction; it is perhaps a formal rather than a serious warning. Much more prominent were the sensual temptations to which prosperous persons were exposed, temptation to indulgence in gluttonous feasting and drunken revelry. Such vices were alluring to an extent unknown to us who live in an age when society is no longer slave-ridden, when the wealthy can have as many duties to occupy their energies as the poor, and when it is no longer gentlemanly to be drunk. You cannot make a drunken man wise until you have sobered him. But the evils of intoxication, though real enough, were less serious in old Jerusalem than in modern cities, and in wine the Wise saw an enemy only where pronounced abuse was present. Complete abstinence is unmooted, and even temperance is demanded in very temperate terms. Ben Sirach bestows an encomium on wine taken in moderation. Wine, says he, is as good as life to men, if thou drink it in its measure. What life is there to a man that is without wine? And it hath been created to make men glad. Wine drunk in season and to satisfy is joy of heart and gladness of soul (E. 3127f). He observes its quarrelsome tendencies, but thinks it necessary only to counsel tact! Rebuke not thy neighbour at a banquet of wine, neither set him at nought in his mirth. Speak not unto him a word of reproach, and press him not then for repayment of a debt (E. 3131). In like manner Proverbs 316, 7 is not suitable as a text for a Temperance address, even if (which is doubtful) it be partly metaphorical: Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul: let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more. Here’s a stick to beat the teetotallers withal! How one can imagine some foolish persons discovering that even a text is worth picking up (if it will serve to throw at an opponent), and pouncing gleefully upon these sayings. “Foolish persons”? Yes, “foolish”; for the effects of alcohol in the development of modern society have been, and are, calamitous to the material as well as the spiritual progress of the race. Moreover, even the Wise were insistent in denunciation of excessive drinking. Said Ben Sirach, Wine drunk largely is bitterness of soul with provocation and wrath.[80] Drunkenness increaseth the rage of a fool unto his hurt; it diminisheth strength and addeth wounds (E. 3129, 30; cp. Pr. 201, 2329ff, quoted pp. 138, 232). There is no possible doubt what their attitude would have been towards the facts of the modern Drink Question. Had they seen one thousandth part of the moral and material losses consequent upon drunkenness and heavy drinking in the great European or American cities, the book of their proverbs would have been replete with commands and entreaties for reform.

In respect of the relations of the sexes, the morale of the post-exilic Jewish state was high. Monogamy was the custom, and the virtuous wife received a degree of honour unequalled in the old Oriental world. There are, however, in the proverbs frequent warnings against adultery; but, as the Hebrews were more outspoken than ourselves on such matters, it may be that the prominence of the subject points not so much to the prevalence of the offence as to the indignation with which it was regarded. Yet it must be borne in mind that the crowded city life of the period increased temptations to that sin. More serious socially was the evil of venal women. Schechter[81] is of opinion that the repeated denunciations of “strange women” exaggerate the low state of morality in Jerusalem, but, with all reasonable allowance for rhetoric, it is certain that the peril was never absent from the streets of Jerusalem, and in the brilliant cities of Egypt and Syria, so close at hand, licence walked unrestrained and unrebuked. The Wise knew only too well how powerful and deadly a foe this evil could prove to their hopes for men.[82]

The arch-enemy, not only of Idealism, but of the mildest proposals for reform has ever been the selfish individual. Turn to the proverbs, many of which have already been quoted, about rich men, about money-lenders, false-witnesses, slanderers, oppressive rulers and unjust judges; and it becomes easy to realise how strong was the opposition confronting the preachers of Wisdom.[83]

Finally, recollect the gulf between a reform in words and its translation into fact. With all our political machinery designed to yield better legislation, how difficult it is to give effect to the will of the wiser and nobler members of the community. Ancient society found it incalculably harder to redress its wrongs. Grievances were not always stifled; they might be aired in moderation and provided the charge was vague. But, short of revolution, how was it possible to bring adequate pressure to bear on the guilty, strongly entrenched in their high offices by birth and wealth and autocratic might? These and similar considerations will suggest the external difficulties of the life in which the Wise were placed.

To the “fightings without,” however, must next be added a tale of “fears within.” The Old Testament writers were not unconscious of the intellectual problems of religion. It is true that they do not debate, or often doubt, the existence of God. But the question of the Being of God is, in a sense, academic; the question of His character and relation to men is vital; and this problem the Jews felt as acutely and faced as honestly as any modern men can do. Many of them had encountered realities of experience sterner than most modernists have known—at least until 1914. Some of the Sages, no doubt, were unspeculative persons, content with traditional beliefs. But others there were not blind to any of the poignant elements of life. All may have assumed God as a fact, but some realised that only if God be just and holy and merciful, was the ground of morality solid beneath their feet. Men who maintained that in the fear of the Lord and honourable conduct is found the key to a successful career, could not ignore the fact that in reality the wicked were frequently prosperous and the good subject to misfortune, injustice, pain, and bitter hardships. How could such things be in the world of a righteous God? Not until the post-exilic period was it vividly realised by a number of Jewish thinkers how obdurate these facts are to an optimistic interpretation of life, and how they menace not only belief in a gracious God, but also the whole structure of morality. In many of the later Psalms, and in portions of the Wisdom literature, to which the Book of Proverbs belongs, the stringency of the problem is clearly recognised, and the struggle for faith grows correspondingly severe. Men cried to God to sustain their trust despite the awful enigmas of suffering and wrong. They wrestled agonisingly with the facts, turning now to one, now to another, explanation, if in any wise hope in God might be preserved.

Our consideration of the great subject must here be confined to considering the proverbs of the period. From these it appears that the rank and file of the Wise-men either did not feel the problem in its acutest form or failed to reach those heights of spiritual insight that some of the Jews attained. In the proverbs a variety of sensible but unsatisfactory arguments are put forward. One method of defence was to challenge or deny the reality of the facts alleged: There shall no mischief happen to the righteous, but the wicked shall be filled with evil (Pr. 1221)—Say not thou, “I will recompense evil.” Wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee (Pr. 2022)—The Lord is far from the wicked but he heareth the prayer of the righteous (Pr. 1529)—The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, and he thrusteth away the desire of the wicked (Pr. 103). No one capable of sympathy with human perplexity will dismiss such assertions as merely stupid. Pathetically insufficient they may be, but these are the words of men convinced that somehow their instinct for God and the moral life is sound; and there is grandeur in the unyielding defiance. Another favourite reply was to insist on the solid rewards of virtue or to maintain that in the end it is honesty that pays best: The wicked earneth deceitful wages, but he that soweth righteousness hath a sure reward (Pr. 1118)—He that soweth iniquity shall reap calamity (Pr. 228). The Wise liked also to dwell on the fear of retribution which is likely to haunt the evil-doer: His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden in the cords of his sin (Pr. 522), a retort to the power of which many a villain, dogged by the thought of exposure, could bear witness. After all, there generally is human justice to be considered, although the divine seem far away. Sometimes The Wise had recourse to the suggestion that the fear of the Lord prolongeth life, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened (Pr. 1027). Some, more daringly, declared that the agony of a single day or hour might redress the balance; thus Ben Sirach: It is an easy thing in the sight of the Lord to reward a man in the day of his death according to his ways. The affliction of an hour causeth forgetfulness of delight, and in the last end of a man is the revelation of his deeds. Call no man blessed before his death[84]; and (yet another suggestion) a man shall be known in his children (E. 1126-28). This further possibility that Justice, if nowhere manifest in a man’s own life, will certainly appear in the fortunes of his descendants, is emphasised also in several Psalms and in passages of the Book of Job (e.g., Job 54), and apparently was more satisfying to the Jews than it would be to ourselves. A new argument, too vague to be consoling, is hinted in Pr. 164, where it is declared that God hath made everything for its own end, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

These answers, of course, do not cut deep enough, and their inadequacy reflects adversely on the value of the Wise-men’s judgments of life. But three important points must be noted in extenuation. First, the best that Israel’s Wisdom had to say on the sore problem was not said in the proverbs to which we are here limiting attention. If anyone desires to know how unflinchingly certain Wise-men and other Jews could face the facts and uphold their faith, he must turn to the Book of Job, to the Psalms, to Daniel and the daring aspirations of Apocalyptic writers. Secondly, there was as yet among the Jews no active belief in the continuance of personal consciousness after physical death, and thus the moral problem raised by the suffering of good men was immensely harder for them than it is for ourselves. The Hebrews from earliest times had believed vaguely that a phantom-like continuation of individuality awaited good and bad alike in the underworld of Sheol; but that existence was not reckoned to be “life” in any real sense; certainly it was not thought that a man could receive the reward of his merits in Sheol, the land of shades. Sheol offered no solution, or even alleviation, of the moral enigma confronting the Wise. If there was to be a Divine vindication of morality, in their opinion it must needs be shown on earth, either in the life-time of the sufferer himself or in that of his children. In the period we are considering, reason and intuition were already pointing the Jewish thinkers to a higher doctrine of human immortality; but no traces of the great liberating conception have made their appearance in the proverbs.[85] The attitude of the Wise towards death may be grasped from Ben Sirach’s words: When a man is dead he shall inherit creeping things and beasts and worms (E. 1011)—Thanksgiving perisheth from the dead, as from one that is not; he that is in life shall praise the Lord (E. 1728). Death to Ben Sirach is a great silencing fact, not a mystery provoking thought. Sometimes he speaks of it very quietly: All things that are of the earth turn to the earth again, and all things that are of the waters return to the sea (E. 4011), and he bids men fear it not, seeing that death comes to us all: Fear not the sentence of death. Remember them that have been before thee and that come after. This is the sentence from the Lord over all flesh, and why doest thou refuse when it is the good pleasure of the Most High? Whether thou livest ten or a hundred or a thousand years, there is no inquisition of life in the grave (E. 413, 4). The same unquestioning acquiescence appears in the helpless commonplace of the following: O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that is at peace in his possessions, unto the man that is at ease and hath prosperity in all things, and that still hath strength to enjoy luxury. O death, acceptable is thy sentence to a man that is needy and that faileth in strength, that is in extreme old age and is distracted about all things, and is perverse and hath lost patience (E. 411, 2); and still more grimly in his unconsciously brutal counsel to beware of long sorrow for the dead: My son, let thy tears fall over the dead, and as one that suffereth grievously begin lamentation, and wind up his body according to his due, and neglect not his burial. Make bitter weeping and passionate wailing, and let thy mourning be according to his desert, for one day or two, lest thou be evil spoken of; and so be comforted for thy sorrow. For of sorrow cometh death, and sorrow of heart will bow down the strength. Set not thy heart upon him, forget him, remembering thine own last end. Remember him not, for there is no returning again: him thou shalt not profit, and thou wilt hurt thyself (E. 3816ff).

This great difference of outlook would of itself incline one to a lenient judgment on the imperfections of the proverbs. But thirdly, and chiefly, remember that the Wise-men lived in a world that knew not Jesus, a world in which the supreme moral fact had not yet appeared. Therefore they lacked what we possess—the assurance that nothing, tribulation or anguish or persecution, or famine, nakedness, peril or sword, can sunder the spirit of Man from the love of Him whom to know is life eternal. To them it was not possible, as it is for us, to confront the reality of evil with the greater reality of good, to answer the mystery of present suffering with the deeper mystery of the peace of Christ.

Lastly, the noblest of the proverbs has been kept in reserve till now. Said one of the Sages, perceiving that suffering (be it justly or unjustly incurred) is at least an efficient teacher: My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary at his reproof. For whom the Lord loveth he reproveth, and paineth the son in whom he delighteth (Pr. 311, 12). The author of Hebrews 12, writing to men enduring great distress but with the fact of Christ before them, thought fit to quote those words; and we also will do well to ponder them. It is reasonable to believe that hardships (which judged from certain aspects often are unjust), even such terrible hardships as men sometimes endure, are inevitable in a world where moral personality is in the making: not otherwise could God Himself make man “in His own image”; not otherwise could even He create beings who should learn to seek the Truth, and to will the Good, in freedom. It is easy to see that courage, to take one instance, cannot be disciplined in sham fight, but only in the hazard of real risks. So also, it may be, all other fruits of the Spirit will grow for men nowhere save on the rugged slopes of the hill called “Difficulty.” The Wise, therefore, despite their perplexities, were not pessimistic. But, though they resolutely drove out despair, they knew depression: Even in laughter the heart may be sorrowful, and the end of mirth be heaviness (Pr. 1413), and A faithful man who can find? (Pr. 206)? To at least one of the Sages God seemed far distant, silent and inscrutable. Thus Pr. 301-4—The Words of Agur, ... I have wearied myself, O God, I have wearied myself, and am consumed, I surely am more foolish than other men, and no wisdom have I acquired to give me knowledge of the Holy One. Who hath ascended up into heaven and descended?... What is his name and his son’s name, if thou knowest? The sturdy rebuke that immediately follows, (Pr. 305-6)—Every word of God is tried. He is a shield to them that trust in Him. Add not thou unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar, is the sentiment of another and a happier man than Agur.

Such was the world in which the Wise had to labour and to think. How like our own! How sobering in the discipline it imposes on the idealist! To one who reads without consideration of the back-ground the sententiousness of these Jewish proverbs may soon prove irksome. But the fault becomes bearable, and the Wise grow very human, when we recognise that for all their bold words, they were not always confident of their creed, and that to many an earnest man among them the preaching of morality must at times have seemed a weary and a fruitless task.