The Project Gutenberg eBook of Job and Solomon; Or, The Wisdom of the Old Testament, by Thomas Kelly Cheyne

353. David Castelli, a cool and cautious scholar but not original, is naturally better fitted to appreciate Koheleth (see Il libro del Kohelet, Pisa, 1866).

354. ‘Die harte, ungefügige, tiefgesunkene Sprache des Buches entzog ihm in Luzzatto’s Auge den verklärenden Lichtglanz; er blickte mit einer gewissen Missachtung auf den Schriftsteller, der sowenig Meister der edlen ihn erfüllenden Sprache war’ (Geiger).

355. Not only Geiger, but the learned and fairminded Kalisch, has made this view his own (Bible Studies, i. 65); among Christian scholars it has been adopted by Nöldeke and Bickell (the latter includes iii. 17 among the inserted passages, and I incline to follow him).

356. De Prediker vertaald en verklaart door P. de Jong (Leiden, 1861).

357. Theologisch Tijdschrift, 1883, p. 114.

358. See however Kuenen’s condensed criticism in Theol. Tijdschrift, p. 127 &c.

359. Hitzig, for instance, has been passed over in spite of Nöldeke’s judgment that no modern scholar has done so much for the detailed explanation of the text. This may be true, or at least be but a small exaggeration. No critic has so good a right to the name as Hitzig, who, though weak in his treatment of ideas, has the keenest perception of what is possible and impossible in interpretation. But for the larger critical questions Hitzig has not done much; the editor of the second edition of his commentary (Nowack) has therefore been obliged to rewrite the greater part of the introduction. The historical background of the book cannot be that supposed by Hitzig, nor has he hit the mark in his description of Koheleth as ‘eine planmässig fortschreitende Untersuchung.’ Wright fails, I venture to think, from different causes. He is slightly too timid, and deficient in literary art; and yet his scholarly work does honour to the Protestant clergy of Ireland.

360. See especially her early sonnet ‘Vanity of Vanities,’ and her striking poem ‘A Testimony.’

361. L’Antéchrist, p. 101.

362. L’Ecclésiaste, pp. 24, 90.

363. Mordecai in Daniel Deronda.

364. See his funeral éloge, reprinted in Academy, Oct. 13, 1883, p. 248.

365. L’Antéchrist, p. 200.

366. Ecclesiastes, p. 8.

367. Grätz, Kohelet, p. 33.

368. Jewish Church, ii. 256.

369. Ecclesiastes, pp. 53, 259.

370. See the passage from Herder quoted in Appendix (end).

371. Comp. Jacobi’s confession (imitated by Coleridge?) that he was with the head a heathen, and with the heart a Christian.

372. Revue des études juives, i. 165-185. I do not myself see why Koheleth, who sought ‘pleasant words,’ should not have written poetry as well as prose.

373. L’Ecclésiaste, pp. 83, 84.

374. Dean Bradley, Lectures on Ecclesiastes (1885), p. 7.

375. See Der Prediger Salomo (1859). Hengstenberg misses, it is true, any direct reference to the Christian hope, but finds the idea of chastisement as a proof of divine love in iii. 18, vii. 2-4, an emphatic affirmation of eternal life in iii. 21, and the resignation of a faith like Job’s in iii. 11, vii. 24, viii. 17, xi. 5. Koheleth’s questionings are therefore according to him ‘eine heilige Philosophie.’

376. Preface to vol. iii. of S. Holdheim’s Predigten.

377. J. Derenbourg, Revue des études juives, No. 2, Oct. 1880.

378. Der Pessimismus, 1876, p. 8. Schopenhauer too calls the Jews the most optimistic race in history.

380. Wisd. ii. 6; comp. Plumptre, Ecclesiastes, p. 71 &c., Wright, Koheleth, pp. 69, 70.

381. Letters to Various Persons, p. 25.

382. See the extracts in Trench’s Household Book of English Poetry, p. 405.

383. I do not of course assent to the form in which Grätz puts this, to serve his hypothesis as to the age of Koheleth. See Appendix.

384. Once Koheleth appears as a sharp critic of the female sex (vii. 26-29).

385. Lagarde describes Omar as ‘ein schlemmer, der die angst des irdischen daseins und die öde langeweile seiner noch in den anfängen stehenden wissenschaft hinwegzuschwelgen suchte’ (Symmicta, 1877, p. 9). Too hard a judgment perhaps on this changeful and impressionable nature. See Bodenstedt’s version as well as Fitzgerald’s.

386. The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, chap. i., sect. 3. Parts of this chapter remind us strongly of Koheleth, and are strange indeed in a book of Christian devotion.

387. Prose Works, ed. Bohn, ii. 69.

388. See the Midrasch Kohelet (ed. Wünsche, 1880), or Ginsburg, p. 38.

389. Comp. the glossary at the end of Grätz’s commentary.

390. Quoted by Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 197.

391. Die poetischen Bücher des Alten Bundes, Theil iv.

392. The ‘house of God’ must, I think, mean the temple of Jerusalem. That of Onias IV. was not built till 160 B.C. The synagogues would not be called ‘houses of God’ (on Ps. lxxiv. 8, see Hitzig).

393. History of Hebrew Nation and its Literature (ed. 2), p. 344.

394. He also published Der Prediger Salomon; ein Lesebuch für den jungen Weltbürger; übersetzt und erklärt (1792). The very title bears the mark of the century.

395. Opera, ii. (1699), 765 (Comm. in Ecclesiasten). Comp. the use made of Koheleth’s phraseology by the author of Wisdom (ii. 6-10).

396. See Sanhedrin, x. 1:—אלו שאין להם חלק לעולם הבא האומר אין תחית המתים מן התורה ואין תורה מן שמים ואפיקורום.—Comp. Aboth, ii. 14 (10 Taylor), and Genesis Rabbah, 19 (‘the serpent was Epicuros’).

397. Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, p. 46.

398. See his Ecclesiastes, a Contribution to its Interpretation, &c. (1874). The main results of this work were accepted by Prof. Siegfried, who reviewed it in the Zeitschrift f. wissenschaftl. Theologie, 1875, pp. 284-291.

399. This discrepancy I had noted down before observing that Dean Plumptre had quoted the very same passage of Lucretius as a parallel to Eccles. ii. 24. For my own view of Koheleth’s recommendations, see p. 253. Lucretius seems to me, in this strain, to soar higher than Koheleth; Omar Khayyâm to fall below him.

400. Ecclesiastes, p. 47.

401. Philo alludes, e.g., to the Stoic doctrine of revolutions (which some have found in Koheleth) and remarks that the Stoics think of God as of a boy who builds up sandhills, and then throws them down again.

402. Hilgenfeld, Jüdische Apokalyptik, p. 51, &c.

403. See Deut. viii. 18, and especially Gen. ii. 7 (Neubürger in Grätz’s Monatsschrift, 1873, p. 566).

404. For this criticism upon Mr. Tyler’s view of iii. 1-8, I am indebted to Dr. Hatch.

405. Path and Goal, p. 116. But see p. 92.

406. Ecclesiastes, p. 45.

407. Seneca, Ep. 89, quoted by Bruch, Weisheitslehre der Hebräer, p. 253, with reference to the teaching of Proverbs.

408. R. H. Stoddard, The Morals of M. Aurelius.

409. Comp. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, iii. 247.

410. The phrase is objectionably modern, but in this connection could not be avoided.

411. Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, ii. 1, p. 278.

412. Records of the Past, iv. 115-118; vi. 127-130.

413. ‘Cairo, the Old in the New,’ Contemp. Rev., xliii. 852.

414. Records of the Past, vi. 127.

415. Geiger, Urschrift, pp. 60, 61; Nöldeke, Die alttestamentliche Literatur., p. 175; Kuenen, Hist.-krit. Onderzoek., iii. 188. Theologisch. Tijdschrift, 1883, p. 143.

416. See reference, p. 280.

417. In the Theologisches Literaturblatt, Sept. 19, 1884.

418. Van der Palm first conjectured that passages had been misplaced, and Grätz has adopted the idea (Kohélet, pp. 40-43).

419. Comp. Rashbam’s interpolation theory (Ginsburg, Coheleth, p. 42).

420. See Budde’s review of Bickell’s work in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, Feb. 7, 1885.

421. On Aquila and his theory of interpretation, comp. Renan, L’Ecclésiaste, p. 54; and on his artificial vocabulary, Field’s remarks, Hexapla, Prolegomena, p. xxii.

422. Kohélet, Anhang. Before Grätz, Frankel was already inclined to think that the Septuagint version might be really Aquila’s (Vorstudien, p. 238, note w). So more positively Freudenthal. Renan inclines to agree with Grätz.

423. Grätz’s Monatsschrift, 1873, pp. 168-174.

424. Hexapla (1713), i., Præliminaria, p. 42. Montfaucon indicates vii. 23a as manifestly made up of a genuine version, and one interpolated from Aquila. Comp. Clericus’ note on Eccles iv. 1.

425. Plumptre, Ecclesiastes, pp. 71-74; Wright, Koheleth, pp. 67-70. It is plainly impossible in the light of the history of dogma to place Wisdom before Ecclesiastes. Yet Hitzig has done this. Nachtigal took a sounder view in 1799 when he published a book on Wisdom regarded als Gegenstück des Koheleth. It forms vol. ii. of a singular work called Die Versammlung der Weisen, of which Koheleth forms vol. i.

426. See Schiffer, Das Buch Kohelet nach der Auffassung der Weisen, part i., pp. 100-102.

427. Midrasch Koheleth, § 1, 3; comp. Pesikta of R. Kahana, § 8 (Schiffer, pp. 6, 7).

428. By Delitzsch; see Wright’s Koheleth, p. 471, and comp. Strack, art. ‘Kanon des A. T.’ in Herzog-Plitt, vol. vii.

429. I quote the characteristic closing words, תחילתו דברי תורה וסופו דברי תורה (Shabbath, c. 30b).

430. Gesch. der jüdischen Poesie, p. 20.

431. Koheleth, p. 46.

432. See the passage from Sanhedrin (Jer. Talm.), x. 28a, quoted at length in Wright’s Koheleth, pp. 467-468.

433. See Rosenthal, Vier apokryphische Bücher ans der Zeit und Schule Akiba’s (1885), pp. 6-12.

434. ‘Ist’s denkbar, dass ein solcher Dichter demjenigen Redner, dem et die Hauptrolle zugedacht, die Charakteristik jenes inferioren Redetypus zugewiesen haben könnte?’ Kleinert.

435. Das spezifisch-hebräische im Buch Hiob, Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1886, pp. 299-300.

437. Die alttestamentliche Literatur, p. 192.

438. See Eichhorn’s notice of Michaelis in vol. i. of his Allgemeine Bibliothek der biblischen Literatur.

439. Pp. 2076, 2077. Bernstein’s title is, Ueber das Alter, den Inhalt, den Zweck und die gegenwärtige Gestalt des Buches Hiob (in Keil and Tzschirner’s Analekten, 1813, pp. 1-137).

440. Beiträge sur Kritik des Buches Hiob (1876), p. 140.

441. Hiob (1869), Einleitung, pp. xxvii. xxix.

442. Die Grabschrift Escamunazar’s (1874), p. 8.

443. Blau, Zeitschr. der deutsch. morgenl. Ges., xxv. 540.

444. Wetzstein in Delitzsch’s Iob, p. 528.

445. On this, see Wright, Ecclesiastes &c. p. 127.

446. Strack, Lehrbuch der neuhebr. Sprache, p. 54.

447. Hoheslied und Koheleth, pp. 212-3.

448. Grammatica arabica, § 284 (i. 167). Comp. Wright, Arabic Grammar, i. 157 (§ 233).

449. The mistake was caused by the rarity of קהלת with the article.

450. Comp. British Quarterly Review, Oct. 1871.

451. Aboth, iii, 1 (ed. Strack); comp, Schiffer, Das Buch Kohelet nach der Auffassung der Weisen, part i., p. 49.

452. Kohelet, p. 29. Certainly this is not the view of Talmudic Judaism, at least not in the sense described by Dr. Grätz. See Weber, Altsynagogale Theologie, p. 323.

Transcriber’s Notes:
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.
- Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked for ease of reference.