CHAPTER I.

HEBREW WISDOM, ITS NATURE, SCOPE, AND IMPORTANCE.

We have studied the masterpiece of Hebrew wisdom before examining the nature of the intellectual product which the Israelites themselves graced with this title. The Book of Job is in fact much more than a didactic treatise like Ecclesiastes or a collection of pointed moral sayings like the Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. Its authors were more than thinkers, they were poets, ‘makers,’ great imaginative artists. But we must not be unjust to those who were primarily thinkers, and only in the second degree poets. The phase of Hebrew thought called ‘wisdom’ (_khokma_) can be studied even better in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes than in the poetry of Job. Let us then enquire at this point, What is this Hebrew wisdom? First of all, it is the link between the more exceptional revelations of Old Testament prophecy and the best moral and intellectual attainments of other nations than the Jews. ‘Wisdom’ claims inspiration (as we have seen already), but never identifies itself with the contents of oracular communications.[138] Nor yet does it pretend to be confined to a chosen race. Job himself was a non-Israelite (the Rabbis were even uncertain as to his part in the world to come); and the wisdom of the ‘wise king’ is declared to have been different in degree alone from that of the neighbouring peoples[139] (1 Kings iv. 30, 31; comp. Jer. xlix. 7, Obad. 8). It is to be observed next, that the range of enquiry of this ‘wisdom’ is equally wide, according to the Biblical use of the term.[140] ‘Wisdom,’ as Sirach tells us, ‘rains forth skill’ of every kind; ‘the first man knew her not perfectly: no more shall the last trace her out’ (Ecclus. i. 19, xxiv. 28). Nothing is too high, nothing too low for Wisdom ‘fitly’ to ‘order’ (Wisd. viii. I). Law and government (Prov. viii. 15, 16), and even the precepts of husbandry (Isa. xxviii. 23-29) are equally her productions with those moral observations which constitute in the main the three books of the Hebrew _Khokma_. The fact that the subject of practical ethics ultimately appropriated the technical name of ‘wisdom’ ought not to blind us to the larger connotation of the same word, which throws so much light on the deeply religious view of life prevalent among the Israelites. For religious this view of wisdom is, though it may seem to be so thoroughly secular. The versatility of the mind of man is but an image of the versatility of its archetype. ‘The spirit of man is a lamp of Jehovah,’ says one of the ‘wise men’ (Prov. xx. 27), by an anticipation of John i. 9. ‘Surely it is the spirit in man,’ says another (Job xxxii. 8), ‘and the breath of Shaddai which gives them understanding.’ Isaiah, too, says that the ‘spirit of wisdom’ is one of the three chief manifestations of the ‘Spirit of Jehovah’ (Isa. xi. 2), and the introductory treatise, which gives the editor’s view of the original Book of Proverbs, expressly declares that the ‘wise men’ are but the messengers of divine Wisdom (ix. 3).

The sages, whose collected wisdom we are about to study, are very different from those antique sages who like Balaam could be hired to curse a hostile people. A new kind of wisdom grew up both in Israel and in the neighbouring countries, as unlike its spurious counterpart as the spiritual lyric poetry both of Israel and of Babylonia is unlike the incantations which in Babylonia coexisted with it. Israel, never slow to adopt, received the higher wisdom, and assimilated it. The earthly elements can still be traced in it; the ‘wise men’ are not prophets but philosophers; indeed, the Seven Wise Men of Greece arose at precisely the same stage of culture as the Hebrew sages. It is true, the latter never (in pre-Talmudic times) attempted logic and metaphysics; they contentedly remained within the sphere of practical ethics. If a modern equivalent must be found, it would be best to call them the humanists, to indicate their freedom from national prejudice (the word ‘Israel’ does not occur once, the word _ādām_ ‘man’ thirty-three times in the Book of Proverbs), and their tendency to base a sound morality on its adaptation to human nature. We might also venture to call them realists in contradistinction to the idealists of the prophethood; they held out no prospect of a Messianic age, and ‘meddled not with them that were given to change.’[141] The sages whose ‘wisdom’ is handed down to us were not however opposed to the spiritual prophets. It is only ‘the fool’ (or, to employ a synonym from the proverbs, the ‘scorner’ or ‘mocker’) who ‘saith in his heart, There is no God.’ A mocking poet of a late period may demand the Creator’s name (Prov. xxx. 4), but the writer who (if I may anticipate) has perpetuated this strange poem indicates his own very different mental attitude; and though religious proverbs are less abundant than secular in the early anthologies, such as we do find are pure and elevated in tone. For instance,

(1) Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? (xx. 9.) (2) The eyes of Jehovah are in every place, observing the evil and the good (xv. 3). (3) Sheól and Abaddon[142] are before Jehovah, how much more then the hearts of the sons of men! (xv. 11.) (4) The hearing ear and the seeing eye, Jehovah has made them both (xx. 12). (5) A man’s steps are from Jehovah, and man—how can he understand his way? (xx. 24.)

One point in which the wise men agreed with Amos and Isaiah was the inferiority of a ceremonial system[143] to prayer and faithful obedience (xv. 8, xxi. 3, 27, xvi. 6), and the importance which one of the proverb-writers attached to prophecy is strikingly expressed (if only the text be sound) in the saying,

When there is no prophecy (lit., vision) people become disorderly, but he that observes precept, happy is he (xxix. 18).

The prophets seem to have returned the friendly feeling of the sages. In tone and phraseology they are sometimes evidently influenced by their fellow-teachers (see e.g. Isa. xxviii. 23-29, xxix. 24, xxxiii. 11), and if they do not often refer to the wise men,[144] yet they do not denounce them, as they denounce the priests and the lower prophets. It may perhaps be inferred from this that there was in the early times no opposition-party of sceptical wise men, such as Ewald supposes,[145] and such as not improbably did exist in later times (see below on xxx. 1-4); and I notice that Ewald himself does not attempt to strengthen his view by appealing to the phrase ‘men of scorn’ in Isa. xxviii. 14, which some, following Rashi and Aben Ezra, explain of wise men who misused their talent by making mischievous proverbs.[146] The inference mentioned just now commends itself to me as sound; but I admit that the saying on prophecy in Prov. xxix. 18 (already quoted) is isolated, and that the tone of the religious proverbs falls far short of enthusiasm. This is probably all that M. Renan means in a too French sentence of his work on Ecclesiastes. Religion, according to the wise men, was a necessary element in a worthy character, was even (I should say) the principal element, but the religion of these practical moralists has nothing of that delighted _abandon_ which we find in the more distinctly religious Scriptures. ‘Happy the man who dreadeth continually,’ says one characteristic proverb (xxviii. 14; contrast the ‘not caring’ of the ‘fool’ in xiv. 16). Later on, a more devout moralist writes that ‘the fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom’ (i. 7), and though ‘fear’ need not exclude ‘love’ yet there is nothing here to suggest their combination. The proverb of the Egyptian prince Ptahhotep,[147] ‘To obey is to love God; not to obey is to hate God,’ has no parallel, at any rate in the early anthologies; much less does the great saying in Ps. lxxiii. 25 strike a note congenial to any of the Hebrew sages. And yet it remains true that the wise men happily supplemented the more spiritual teaching of psalmists and prophets.

There is still another important point on which both prophets and ‘wise men’ were agreed. Whatever their inward religion may have been, they (like the Egyptian moralists) were outwardly utilitarians; i.e., they invite men to practise righteousness, not because righteousness is the secret of blessedness, but because of its outward rewards both for the man himself and for his posterity (Prov. xi. 21, xx. 7; comp. Jer. xxxii. 18). The form in which the doctrine of proportionate retribution is expressed in xi. 4 would have been completely acceptable to the prophets, whose conception of the ‘day of Jehovah’ (i.e., not the last great _dies ira_ but any providential crisis in the world’s history) is adopted in it,—

Wealth is of no profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

Proverbs expressing this idea in various forms abound in the first anthology. Not a hint is given that retribution loiters on the road; at most a warning not to envy the (temporary) prosperity of the wicked (xxiii. 17, xxiv. 1, 19; with regard to xxiii. 18 see above).

This was the ‘certitude of the golden age,’ to use Mr. Matthew Arnold’s expression; it is just what we might expect in a simple and stationary condition of society. The strange thing is that it should have lasted on when oppression within or hostile attacks from without had brought manifold causes of sorrow upon both good and bad.[148] That the teachers of the people should have held up the doctrine of earthly retribution—

Behold, the righteous hath a reward upon earth; much more the ungodly and the sinner (xi. 31)—

as long as it could reasonably be defended, was natural. But that shortly before the Maccabean rising a ‘wise man’[149] should still be found to write—

The gift of the Lord remains with the godly, and his favour brings prosperity for ever (Ecclus. xi. 17),

seems to contradict the usual correspondence between the received moral theory and the outward circumstances of society. All that we can say is that such inconsistencies are found to exist; old forms of doctrine do not, as a rule, ‘melt like frosty rime.’ There must have been circles of Jewish moralists averse to speculation, who would continue to repeat the older view of the providential government even at a time when the social state had completely exposed its shallowness.

Dean Plumptre, indeed, following Ewald, credits the ‘wise men’ of pre-Exile times with deeper views. According to him, certain proverbs, e.g. x. 25, xi. 4, xiv. 32, xxiii. 18 (Ewald adds xii. 28) imply the hope of immortality. None of these passages however can be held conclusive. x. 25, xi. 4 simply say that the righteous shall be unhurt in a day of judgment; in xiv. 32 the antithesis is between the ruin which follows upon wickedness and the safe refuge of integrity (read _b’thummō_ with the Sept.); in xxiii. 18, ‘there is a future,’ the reference is perfectly vague—it is natural to explain by comparing Job xlii. 12, xii. 28, no doubt, on Ewald’s view of the passage, seems conclusive,

In the way of righteousness is life, and the way of its path is immortality.

But this great word ‘immortality’ is unparalleled before the Book of Wisdom, and cannot fairly be extracted from the Hebrew.[150] The Septuagint has a different view of the pronunciation of the text, and renders ὁδοὶ δὲ μνησικάκων εἰς θάνατον. The easiest plan is to correct _n’thībhāh_ into _nith’ābh_, with Levy, and render,

but an abominable way (comp. xv. 9) leads unto death.

I do not deny that the idea of eternal life may have been conceived at the time of these proverbs. This may plausibly be inferred from the occurrence of the phrase ‘a tree of life’ in iii. 18, xi. 30, xiii. 12, xv. 4, and ‘a fountain of life’ in x. 11, xiii. 14, xiv. 27, xvi. 22,—phrases certainly borrowed from some traditional story of Paradise analogous to that in Gen. ii.[151] It is a singular fact however that in all these passages (even, I think, in iii. 18) these expressions are simply figurative synonyms for ‘refreshment,’ which suggests that the proverb-writers shrank from using them in their literal sense of the individual righteous man.

The importance of the ‘wise men’ as a class is too seldom recognised. To the hasty reader they are overshadowed by the prophets, between whom and the rude masses they seem to have occupied a middle position. Their popular style and genial manners attracted probably a large number of disciples; at any rate, in the time of Jeremiah the ‘counsel’ of the ‘wise men’ was valued as highly as the ‘direction’ (_tōra_) of the priests and the ‘word’ of the prophets (Jer. xviii. 18). By constantly working on suitable individuals, they produced a moral sympathy with the prophets, without which those heroic men would have laboured in vain. Thus that friendly relation must have sprung up between the prophets and the ‘wise men,’ of which I have spoken already, and which reminds us of the sanction said to have been given to the Seven Sages of Greece by the oracle of Delphi.[152]

It is a misfortune that our sources for the history of Israelitish ‘philosophy’ are so scanty. Were there ‘wise men’ in N. Israel? and if so, have any of their proverbs come down to us, besides the _mashal_ or fable of Jotham? Did they confine their activity to the capital city or cities, or did they also, like the ‘scribes,’ settle or itinerate in the provinces? (Matt. ix. 3, Targ. of Judg. v. 9.) Did their public instructions assume anything like the form of the proverbs of our anthologies? Did they teach without fee or reward?[153] At any rate, a post-Exile proverb-writer tells us with retrospective glance where the ‘wise men’ awaited their disciples—not in the quietude of the chamber, but either within the massive city-gates, or in the adjacent squares or ‘broad places’ on which the streets converged (i. 20, 21; comp. Job xxix. 7). No doubt they had a large stock of sayings in their memory, such as had been tested by the experience of past generations. Sometimes they would modify old proverbs, sometimes they would frame new ones, so that when their disciples gathered round them, they would ‘bring out of their treasure things new and old.’ From time to time they would commit their ‘wisdom’ to writing in a more perfect form, and such records must have formed the basis of the proverbial collections in the Old Testament.

Footnote 138:

The heading ‘the oracle’ &c. in xxx. I is exceptional; so also is the oracle of Eliphaz (Job iv. 12-21).

Footnote 139:

The author of _Baruch_ (iii. 22, 23), however, expressly denies that the ordinary Semitic ‘wisdom’ was akin to that of Israel. This represents the Judaism of the Maccabean period.

Footnote 140:

Observe that ‘wisdom’ is called _khokmōth_ (plural form) in Prov. i. 20, ix. 11, all the forms of wisdom being viewed as one in their origin. So too Wisdom adorns her house with seven pillars (Prov. ix. 1).

Footnote 141:

xxiv. 21 A.V.

Footnote 142:

I.e. Perdition; a synonym for Sheól.

Footnote 143:

The author of the Introduction however writes, ‘Honour Jehovah with thy substance,’ i.e. by dedicating a part of it to the sanctuary (iii. 9), which the Septuagint translator carefully limits to substance lawfully gained (Deut. xxiii. 19).

Footnote 144:

As perhaps they do in Am. v. 10, Isa. xxix. 21 (‘him that rebuketh in the gate’). Observe again in this connection that the endowments of the Messiah include the spirit of wisdom as well as that of might (Isa. xi. 2), and that the wisdom of Jehovah is emphasised in Isa. xxxi. 2, comp. xxviii. 29.

Footnote 145:

_Die dichter des alten bundes_, ii. 12. Ewald refers to xiii. 1, xiv. 6, and other passages in which ‘scorners’ are referred to. But it is not clear that ‘a powerful school’ of wise men is here intended; the title may be given to those who opposed or despised the counsels of the wise men, and broke through the restraints of law and religion; comp. Prov. xv. 12, xxi. 24.’ (_The Prophecies of Isaiah_, ed. 3, i. 165). Among such persons were the politicians of Isaiah’s day, so far as they opposed the warnings of the prophet; they were popularly considered ‘wise men’ (xxix. 14; comp. Jer. viii. 9), but not in the technical sense with which our present enquiries are concerned.

Footnote 146:

Luzzatto renders, ‘o voi uomini insipienti, _poeti_ di questo popolo,’ taking _mōshēlīm_ in the same sense as in Num. xxi. 27 (similarly Barth, in his tract on Isaiah, p. 23, following Rashi and Aben Ezra), a view which receives some support from the parable offered by Isaiah in xxviii. 23-29 as if in opposition to the false parables of unsound teachers. But in Isa. xxix. 20 ‘scorner’ is clearly used, not as a class-name for certain wise men, but in a moral sense.

Footnote 147:

Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter_, p. 91.

Footnote 148:

Yet in Prov. iii. 11, 12 there is distinct evidence of deepened experience and progress of moral thought.

Footnote 149:

On the orthodoxy of Ecclesiasticus, see later on.

Footnote 150:

The Vulg. has, _iter autem devium ducit ad mortem_ (but this pregnant sense of _iter devium_, is too bold).

Footnote 151:

Analogous only, because apparently it had both a tree and a fountain of life, like a New Zealand myth mentioned by Schirren.

Footnote 152:

Curtius, _History of Greece_, ii. 52.

Footnote 153:

Ewald infers from xvii. 16 that even in early times it was customary to fee the ‘wise men’ for their advice (comp. Saul and Samuel). At a later time Sirach says, ‘Buy (instruction) for yourselves without money’ (Ecclus. li. 25, but comp. 28). The Rabbis were not allowed to receive fees from their pupils. R. Zadok said, ‘Make not (the Tora) a crown to glory in, nor an axe to live by’ (_Pirke Aboth_, iv. 9). So the Moslem teachers at the great Cairo ‘university’ (el Azhar).