III. The Gnomic Wisdom

III. THE GNOMIC WISDOM
1. Jesus the Son of Sirach
There is nothing that shows so clearly the practical character of the Palestinian Jewish literature of our period as the fact that even in the merely theoretical speculations of the time there was always an eye to the practical aims and tasks of life. A theoretical philosophy strictly so called was a thing entirely foreign to genuine Judaism. Whatever it did happen to produce in the way of “philosophy” (= wisdom חָכמָה) either had practical religious problems as its theme (Job Ecclesiastes) or was of a directly practical nature being: directions based upon a thoughtful study of human things for so regulating our life as to ensure our being truly happy. The form in which those contemplations and instructions were presented was that of the מָשָׁל the apothegm which contained a single thought expressed in concise and comprehensive terms and in a form more or less poetical and in which there was nothing of the nature of discussion or argument. A collection of aphorisms of this sort had already found a place among the canonical writings of the Old Testament in the shape of the so-called proverbs of Solomon. We have a collection of a similar character in the book known as Jesus the Son of Sirach and which we now proceed to consider. This book takes that older collection as its model not only as regards the form but the matter as well though it contributes a large number of new and original thoughts. The fundamental thought of the author is that of wisdom. For him the highest and most perfect wisdom resides only in God who has established and who continues to govern all things in accordance with His marvellous knowledge and understanding. On the part of man therefore true wisdom consists in his trusting and obeying God. The fear of God is the beginning and end of all wisdom. Hence it is that the author living as he did at a time when the fear of God and the observance of the law were already regarded as one and the same thing inculcates above all the duty of adhering faithfully to the law and keeping the commandments. But besides this he also points out in the next place how the truly wise man is to comport himself in the manifold relationships of practical life. And accordingly his book contains an inexhaustible fund of rules for the regulation of one’s conduct in joy and sorrow in prosperity and adversity in sickness and in health in struggle and temptation in social life in intercourse with friends and enemies with high and low rich and poor with the good and the wicked the wise and the foolish in trade business and one’s ordinary calling above all in one’s own house and family in connection with the training of children the treatment of men-servants and maid-servants and the way in which a man ought to behave toward his own wife and the fair sex generally. For all those manifold relationships the most precise directions are furnished directions that are prompted by a spirit of moral earnestness which only now and then degenerates into mere worldly prudence. The counsels of the author are the mature fruit of a profound and comprehensive study of human things and of a wide experience of life. In entering as they do into such a multiplicity of details they at the same time furnish us with a lively picture of the manners and customs and of the culture generally of his time and his people. How far the thoughts expressed as well as the form in which they are expressed were the author’s own and how far he only collected what was already in current and popular use it is of course impossible in any particular instance to determine. To a certain extent he may have done both. But in any case he was not a mere collector or compiler the characteristic personality of the author stands out far too distinctly and prominently for that. Notwithstanding the diversified character of the apothegms they are all the outcome of one connected view of life and the world.
At the close of the book chap. 50:27 the author calls himself Ἰησοῦς υἱὸς Σιρὰχ ὁ Ἱεροσολυμίτης. Many manuscripts insert Ἐλεάζαρ after Σιράχ; but this despite the strong testimony in its favour must be regarded as a gloss (see Fritzache’s edition and commentary). The name Σιράχ is equivalent to the Hebrew סִירָא “a coat of mail” (the accent being on the final syllable as in ἀκελδαμάχ Acts 1:19). The singular mistake of Syncellus (Chron. ed. Dindorf i. 525) who alleges that he was a high priest can only have arised from the fact that in the chronicle of Eusebius which Syncellus makes use of our Jesus the Son of Sirach is mentioned after the high priest Simon the son of Onias II. though not as a high priest but only as the author of the book now under consideration (Euseb. Chron. ad Ol. 137-38 ed. Schoene ii. 122). Again the notion that he was an ordinary priest is also entirely without foundation notwithstanding the fact that it has found expression in the text of the cod. Sinaiticus 50:27. The time at which he lived may be determined with tolerable precision. His grandson who translated the book into Greek states in the prologue prefixed to it that he (the grandson) came to Egypt ἐν τῷ ὀγδόῳ καὶ τριακοστῷ ἔτει ἐπὶ τοῦ Εὐεργέτου βασιλέως. By the “thirty-eighth year” he of course does not mean that of his own age but the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes. Now seeing that of the two Ptolemys who bore this surname the one reigned only twenty-five years it is only the second that can be intended and whose full name was Ptolemaeus VII. Physcon Euergetes II. This latter in the first instance shared the throne along with his brother (from the year 170 onwards) and subsequently reigned alone (from the year 145 onwards). But he was in the habit of reckoning the years of his reign from the former of those dates. Consequently that thirty-eighth year in which the grandson of Jesus the son of Sirach came to Egypt would be the year 132 B.C. That being the case his grandfather may be supposed to have lived and to have written his book somewhere between 190 and 170 B.C. This further accords with the fact that in the book (50:1-26) he pays a respectful tribute to the memory of the high priest Simon the son of Onias by whom we are to understand not Simon I. (in the beginning of the third century see Joseph. Antt. xii. 2. 4) but Simon II. (in the beginning of the second century see Joseph. Antt. xii. 4. 10). Jesus the son of Sirach passes an encomium upon the meritorious character of this personage who had just passed away from the world and the thought of whom was still so fresh in his memory.
The book has come down to us only in the form of the Greek translation which according to the prologue was executed by the author’s grandson. We further learn from this prologue what is also confirmed by the character of the diction that the work was originally composed in Hebrew by which we are to understand Hebrew strictly so called and not Aramaic (see Fritzsche Exeget. Handbuch p. 18). The Hebrew text was still in existence in the time of Jerome who tells us that he had seen it see Praef. in vers. libr. Salom. (Vallarsi ix. 1293 sq.): Fertur et πανάρετος Jesu filii Sirach liber et alius ψευδεπίγραφος qui Sapientia Salomonis inscribitur. Quorum priorem Hebraicum reperi non Ecclesiasticum ut apud Latinos sed Parabolas praenotatum cui juncti erant Ecclesiastes et Canticum Canticorum ut similitudinem Salomonis non solum librorum numero sed etiam materiarum genere coaequaret.
The fact that a Hebrew text was still extant in the time of Jerome is evidence of itself that the book was also prized within the circle of Rabbinical Judaism. Not only so but quotations from it are repeatedly met with in Talmudic literature. But it was prized far more highly still within the Christian Church. It is frequently quoted as γραφή by the Greek and the Latin Fathers alike and that too in the form in which it has come down to us in the manuscripts of the Bible. The restricting of the Christian canon to precisely the same number of books as was in the Hebrew Bible was in the early Church and that of the Middle Ages almost always a pure matter of theory and was only practically recognised and acted upon for the first time in the Protestant Church.
On the quotations from בן סירא in Talmudic literature see Wolf Bibliotheca Hebraea i. 257 sqq. Zunz Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden p. 101 sqq. Delitzech Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Poesie pp. 20 sq. 204 sq. Dukes Rebbinische Blumenlese p. 67 sqq. Fritzsche Exeget. Handbuch p. xxxvii. Joel Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte (1880) p. 71 sqq. Strack in Herzog’s Real-Enc. 2nd ed. vii. 430 sq. We must beware of confounding with those quotations the very late and apocryphal Alphabet of Ben Sira a collection of 44 (2 × 22) sayings arranged in alphabetical order. On this see Wolf Bibliotheca Hebraea i. 260 sqq. iii. 156 sq. Fabricius-Harles Biblioth. grace. iii. 726 sq. Steinschneider Catalogus librorum Hebraeorum in bibliotheca Bodleiana (1852-1860) col. 203-205. Fürst Biblioth. Judaica iii. 341. Modern edition Alphabetum Siracidis utrumque ed. Steinschneider Berlin 1858.
On the title of our book see in particular the passage from Jerome quoted above. In the manuscripts it runs thus: Σοφία Ἰησοῦ υἱοῦ Σιράχ. In the Greek Church the designation ἡ πανάρετος σοφία which according to Euseb. Hist. eccl. iv. 22. 8 was in the first instance usually applied to the proverbs of Solomon came to be extended to our book as well. So for the first time Eusebius Chron. ed. Schoene ii. 422 (where the conformity on the part of Syucellus and Jerome with the Armenian text serves to show that the expression is peculiar to Eusebius himself). Demonstr. evang. viii. 2.71 ed. Gaisford: Σίμων καθʼ ὃν Ἰησοῦς ὁ τοῦ Σιρὰχ ἐγνωρίζετο ὃ τὴν καλουμένην πανάρετον Σοφίαν συντάξας. This designation does not occur as yet in connection with any of the numerous quotations in Clement and Origen. In the Latin Church Ecclesiasticus came to be adopted as the regular title of the book (Cyprian Testimon. ii. 1 iii. 1 35 51 95 96 97 109 110 111). Comp. the Latin translation of Origen In Numer. homil. xviii. 3 (ed. Lommatzsch x. 221): In libro qui apud nos quidem inter Salomonis volumina haberi solet et Ecclesiasticus dici apud Graecos vero sapientia Jesu filii Sirach appellatur.
The use of the book in the Christian Church begins with the New Testament itself. In the Epistle of Jamce above all there are unmistakeable reminiscences of it. See in general Bleek Stud. u. Krit. 1853 pp. 337 sq. 344-348. Werner Theol. Quartalschr. 1872 p. 265 sqq. The express quotations begin with Clement of Alexandria who quotes our book times without number and on most occasions using either the formula ἡ γραφὴ λέγει φησίν and such like (thirteen times: Paedag. i. 8. 62 8. 68 ii. 2. 34 5. 46 8. 69 8. 76 10. 98 10. 99 iii. 3.17 3. 23 4. 29 11. 58 11. 83) or ἡ σοφία λέγει φησίν and such like (nine times: Paedeg. i. 8. 69 8. 72 9. 75 ii. 1. 8 2. 24 7. 54 7. 58 7. 59; Strom. v. 3. 18); or further quoting passages now and again as the words of the παιδαγωγός (Paedag. ii. 10. 99 101. 109). He speaks of the book as the σοφία Ἰησοῦ only twice (Strom. i. 4. 27 10. 47). On one occasion he appears to call Solomon the author (Strom. ii. 5. 24); the quotation however is somewhat uncertain. In one instance again an expression in our σοφία is described as Sophoclean (Paedag. ii. 2. 24). It is very much the same with regard to the quotations in Origen only here it is impossible in many instances to make out the exact formulae made use of seeing that the majority of Origen’s writings are extant only in Latin translations. Like Clement he also appears to have quoted the book most frequently as γραφή. In the Latin text Solomon is several times spoken of as the author (In Numer. homil. xviii. 3 = Lommatzsch x. 221; In Josuam homil. xi. 2 = Lommatzsch xi. 108; In Samuel. homil. i. 13 = Lommatzsch xi. 311). But that this cannot be taken as representing the opinion of Origen himself in proved by the following passage in contra Cels. vi. 7 (ed. Lommatzsch xix. 312): παραδείξωμεν ἀπὸ τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων ὅτι προτρέπει καὶ ὁ θεῖος λόγος ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ διαλεκτικήν· ὅπου μὲν Σολομῶντος λέγοντος.…ὅπου δὲ τοῦ τὸ σύγγραμμα τὴν σοφίαν [l. τῆς σοφίας] ἡμῖν καταλιπόντος Ἰησοῦ υἱοῦ Σειρὰχ φάσκοντος. Cyprian uniformly quotes our book as being a work of Solomon’s quite as much as any of the rest of his writings (Testimon. ii. 1 iii. 6. 12 35 51 53 95 96 97 109 113; Ad Fortunatum chap. ix.; De opere et eleemosynis chap. v.; Epist. iii. 2). Similarly other Latin writers. See especially the passage quoted above from the Latin version of Origen In Numer. homil. xviii. 3 (Lommatzsch x. 221) and also Jerome who in his Comment. in Daniel. chap. ix. (Opp. ed. Vallarsi v. 686) reproduces the passage from Euseb. Demonstr. evang. viii. 2. 71 as follows: Simon quo regente populum Jesus filius Sirach scripsit librum qui Graece παναρετός appellatur et plerisque Salomonis falso dicitur. On the further history of the use of the book in this way comp. the works and dissertations devoted to the history of the Old Testament canon also Jahn’s Einleitung in die goal Bücher des A. B. 2nd ed. vol. ii. § 3 and 4 (1803) 1st and 2nd appendices as well as my article in Herzog’s Real-Enc. i. 485-489.
The most important manuscripts are: (1) The Vaticanus 1209 i.e. the famous Vatican manuscript of the Bible which however if we except the eclectic use made of it in the Sixtine edition has not as yet been made available for the criticism of the text in connection with any edition of our book not even that of Fritzsche (comp. p. 10). (2) The Sinaiticus in Fritzsche’s edition marked No. x. (3) The Alexandrinus in Fritzsche as in Holmes and Parsons before him marked No. iii. (4) The fragments of the Codex Ephraemi in Fritzsche = C. (5) A Venetian codex in Fritzsche who following Holmes and Parsons marks it No. xxiii. For further information regarding these manuscripts see Herzog’s Real-Enc. 2nd ed. i.489-491.
On the editions see p. 10 and Herzog’s Real-Enc. i. 494 sq. Separate edition: Liber Jesu Siracidae Graece ad fidem codicum et versionum emendatus et perpetua annotatione illustratus a C. G. Bretschneider Ratisb. 1806. For further separate editions see Herzog’s Real-Enc. i. 495.
Of the early translations the following may be specially mentioned: (1) The old Latin one which Jerome did not revise (praef. in edit. librorum Salmonis juxta Sept. interpretes [Vallarsi x. 436]: Porro in eo libro qui a plerisque Sapientia Salomonis inscribitur et in Ecclesiastico quem esse Jesu filii Sirach nullus ignorat calamo temperavi tantummodo canonicas scripturas vobis emendare desiderans). It found its way into the Vulgate and hence it came to be printed in all subsequent editions of this latter. The variations of four manuscripts (for Jesus the Son of Sirach as well as for the Wisdom of Solomon) are given by Sabatier in his Bibliorum sacrorum versiones antiquae vol. ii. Remis 1743. The text of the Codex Amiatinus has been published (for those two books also) by Lagarde in his Mitthelungen 1884. (2) The two Syrian versions: (a) The Peschito or the Syrian received text on the editions of which comp. p. 11; (b) the Syrus hexaplaris which for our book as well as for the Wisdom of Solomon was edited for the first time from a Milan manuscript by Cerini Codex Syro-Hexaplaris Ambrosianus photolithographice editus Mediol. 1874 (forming vol. vii. of the Monum. Sacra et prof.). For more on the early versions see Herzog’s Real-Enc. i. 491-494. Also texts in the London Polyglot vol. iv.
For the exegetical aids generally see p. 11. Commentaries: Bretschneider in the separate edition previously mentioned. Fritzeche Die Weisheit Jesus Sirach’s erklärt und übersetzt (Exegetisches Handbuch zu den Apokryphen 5 Thl.) Leipzig 1859. For the earlier literature see Fabricius Biblioth. graec. ed. Harles iii. 718 sqq. Fürst Biblioth. Judaica iii. 341 sq. Fritzsche p. xl. Herzog’s Real-Enc. i. 496.
Special disquisitions: Gfrörer Philo vol. ii. (1831) pp. 18-52. Dähne Geschichtl. Darstellung der jüdisch-alexandrinischen Religionsphilosophie vol. ii. (1834) pp. 126-150. Winer De utriusque Siracidae aetate Erlang. 1832. Comp. also Winer’s Realwörtb. art. “Jesus Sirach.” Zunz Die gottesdienstl. Vorträge der Juden (1832) pp. 100-105. Ewald “Ueber das griech. Spruchbuch Jesus’ Sohnes Sirach’s” (Jahrbb. der bibl. Wissensch. vol. iii. 1851 pp. 125-140). Bruch Weisheitslehre der Hebräer 1851 pp. 266-319. Geiger Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenländ Gesellsch. xii. 1858 pp. 536-543. Ewald Gesch. des Volkes Israel iv. 340 sqq. Horowitz Das Buch Jesus Sirach Breslau 1865. Fritzsche in Schenkel’s Bibellex. iii. 252 sqq. Grätz Monatsschr. für Gesch. und Wissensch. des Judenth. 1872 pp. 49 sqq. 97 sqq. Merguet Die Glaubens- und Sittenlehre des Buches Jesus Sirach Königsberg 1874. Seligmann Das Buch der Weisheit des Jesus Sirach (Josua ben Sira) in seinem Verhältnis zu den salomonischen Sprüchen und seiner historischen Bedeutung Breslau 1883. The various introductions of Jahn Eichhorn Bertholdt Welte Scholz Nöldeke De Wette-Schrader Reusch Keil Kaulen Kleinert Reuss (see p. 12).
2. The Pirke Aboth
Nor did the gnomic wisdom become extinct in the period following that of Jesus the son of Sirach. Jesus Christ Himself indeed frequently clothed His teaching in this aphoristic form. But besides the work we have just been considering there is still extant and that in Hebrew a collection of such proverbial sayings as we have referred to above and which so far at least as its substratum is concerned belongs to our period we mean the so-called Pirke Aboth (פִּרקֵי אָבוֹת sayings of the fathers) known also under the abbreviated form of Aboth. This collection was inserted among the tractates of the Mishna (among those of the fourth division) though strictly speaking it is quite out of place there. For while the rest of the Mishna is simply a codification of Jewish law our tractate contains a collection of aphorisms after the manner of Jesus the son of Sirach. The only difference is that the Pirke Aboth is not the work of a single individual like that book but a collection of sayings by some sixty learned doctors who are mentioned by name. The majority of these latter are also otherwise known as distinguished doctors of the law. As a rule each doctor is represented in the work by a couple or more of his characteristic maxims such as he had been in the habit of inculcating upon his disciples and contemporaries as rules of life well worthy of special consideration. Many of those maxims are of a purely utilitarian character but the most of them are related in some way or other to the domain of religion; and it is extremely significant as regards the characteristic tendency of this later age that here the importance and necessity of the study of the law are inculcated with quite a special emphasis (comp. the specimens given at ). The authorities whose utterances were collected in this fashion belong for the most part to the age of the Mishna i.e. to the period extending from the year 70 to 170 A.D. Besides these a few but only a few of the authorities belonging to earlier times are also taken notice of. The tractate consists of five chapters. In many editions a sixth chapter is added but it is of much later origin.
Our tractate is given in every edition of the Mishua (on this see § iii. above). In the edition of the Mishna published under Jost’s supervision by Lewent in Berlin 1832-1834 there is an excellent German translation printed in the Hebrew character. There is also a Latin version in Surenhusius Mishna etc. vol. iv. 1702 pp. 409-484. Of the numerous separate editions (some of them accompanied with translations) the following may be specially mentioned: P Ewald Pirke Aboth oder Sprüche der Vater übersetzt und erklärt Erlangen 1825. Cahn Pirke Aboth sprachlich und sachlich erläutert erster Perek (all that has been published) Berlin 1875. Taylor Sayings of the Jewish Fathers comprising Pirke Aboth and Pereq R. Meir in Hebrew and English with critical and illustrative notes etc. Cambridge 1877 (where the text is given exactly in accordance with a Cambridge manuscript University Addit. 470. 1). Strack פרקי אבות Die Sprüche der Väter ein ethischer Mischna-Traktat mit kurzer Einleitung Anmerkungen und einem Wortregister 1882 (where additional literature is to be found in the introduction).