i. 8, 9 it is told how in Jerusalem the Jews offered sacrifice and

meal-offering, lighted the lamps, and set forth the shewbread; and it is enjoined that the feast of Tabernacles be kept in the month Chislev. As in 1 Maccabees apostate Jews are severely rebuked for following those who were unfaithful to the Law (iv. 11-17), the passage concludes with the words: “It is no light matter to act impiously against the laws of God; time will show that.” Another passage which illustrates the intense zeal for the Law is in chapter vii., where the story is told of the martyrdom of seven sons and their mother who “died for His laws” (vii. 9). The whole attitude towards the Law is that of the Pharisaic school of about the first century B.C. onwards; this also applies to 1 (3) Esdras.

In the document, Baruch iii. 9-iv. 4, where the Law and Wisdom are identified, exiled Israel is told that the reason of his punishment is the forsaking of God’s ways, the commandments of life, i.e. the Law:

Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life; Give ear to understand Wisdom. How happeneth it, O Israel, that thou art in thine enemies’ land, That thou art waxen old in a strange country...? Thou hast forsaken the fountain of Wisdom. For if thou hadst walked in the way of God, Thou shouldst have dwelled in peace for ever. Learn where is Wisdom, where is strength, Where is understanding; that thou mayest also know Where is length of days, and life, Where is the light of the eyes, and peace.

That the _Law_ is meant by Wisdom, strength, and understanding is clear from the words at the end of the piece, iv. 1 ff.:

This is the book of the commandments of God, And the Law that endureth for ever; All they that hold it fast are appointed to life, But such as leave it shall die....

The lasting endurance of the Law which is also taught here frequently finds expression in the Rabbinical literature. That the Law is for Israel alone seems to be implied in the words:

Turn thee, O Jacob, and take hold of it, Walk towards her shining in the presence of the light thereof; Give not thy glory to another, Nor the things that are profitable unto thee to a strange nation. O Israel, happy are we, For the things that are pleasing to God are made known unto us (iv. 3, 4).

Of the different portions which make up 2 (4) Esdras the most important in the present connection is the “Salathiel Apocalypse” which forms the bulk of the book (iii.—x.). A good instance of this writer’s attitude towards the Law together with a prophecy of the doom upon Israel for having rejected it by sinning is ix. 31-37; first these words are put into the mouth of God: “For behold, I sow my Law in you, and it shall bring forth fruit in you, and ye shall be glorified in it for ever”; then the writer continues: “But our fathers who received the Law observed it not, and the statutes they did not keep, and yet the fruit of the Law did not perish, nor could it, because it was Thine; but they who received it perished, because they kept not that which had been sown in them.... We who have received the Law, and sinned, must perish, together with our heart, which hath taken it in; the Law, however, perisheth not, but abideth in its glory.” In accordance with later Rabbinical teaching it is said in this book that the Law had originally been given to other nations, by whom it was rejected, while Israel alone accepted it: “And Thy glory went through the four gates of fire, earthquake, wind and cold, to give the Law to Jacob’s seed, and the commandment to the generation of Israel” (iii. 19); on the other hand, in vii. 72 it is said: “Therefore shall the sojourners in the earth suffer torture, because, having understanding, they yet wrought iniquity, and receiving precepts, they yet kept them not, and having obtained the Law they set at nought that which they received.” Both Israel and the Gentiles thus received, or had the chance of receiving, the Law, and both by sinning perished in spite of the Law; the inadequacy of the Law as a redemptive power here shown forth is very striking; the reason why the Law was ineffective was, according to iv. 30, because of “the grain of evil seed which was sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning.” We shall have to return to this when dealing with the doctrine of Sin (see next section). In the other portions of this book, so far as our present subject is concerned, the main stress is laid on veneration for the Law.

We turn now to the Book of Wisdom, representing the Judaism of the Dispersion, and here, as one would expect, there is very little on this subject to be noted. In ii. 12 words are put into the mouth of the ungodly which show that the writer, at any rate, recognizes the Law and its obligations:

But let us lie in wait for the righteous, for he is of disservice to us, And is opposed to our doings, And upbraideth us with sins against the Law, And layeth to our charge sins against our discipline.

In vi. 4 rulers are denounced for not keeping the Law:

Because being officers of his kingdom ye did not judge aright, Neither kept ye the Law, nor walked after the counsel of God.

As the reference here is to foreign rulers there is an advance in doctrine to be noted, for the Law is held to be obligatory on others as well as on the Jews, and Gentile rulers are regarded as having received their authority from God.

(_c_) _The Doctrine of Sin._

The prevalence of Sin is often spoken of in Ecclesiasticus; Ben-Sira realizes its existence personally when he says in xxii. 27:

O that one would set a watch over my mouth, And a seal of shrewdness over my lips....

And again in xxiii. 3 ff.:

That mine ignorances be not multiplied, And that my sins abound not....

Its universal prevalence is witnessed to by the words in viii. 5:

Reproach not a man who repenteth, Remember that we are all guilty.

Punishment for every sin, Ben-Sira says, will assuredly overtake sinners:

Do not wickedly continue in sin, For in respect of one sin thou art not without guilt;

i.e. every single sin carries guilt with it, the implication being that it will therefore not go unpunished. Of great interest and importance is the teaching in this book on the origin of Sin; Ben-Sira mentions three theories; one of these he combats, namely that the existence of Sin is due to God; this is the belief, apparently, of certain freethinkers against whom the following words are spoken:

Say not, “From God is my transgression,” For that which He hateth made He not. Say not, “It is He that made me to stumble,” For there is no need of evil men. Evil and abomination doth the Lord hate, And He doth not let it come nigh them that fear Him (xv. 11-13).

But since Ben-Sira believed that God was the Creator of everything that exists, he sometimes comes perilously near to uttering the very untruth which he here combats. He says, for example, in xxxvii. 3:

O base nature! Why then wast thou created To fill the world’s face with deceit?

The words “base nature” are the rendering of the Hebrew which is literally, “evil Yetzer”; the “Yetzer” is the bias or natural inclination which is implanted in every man; there is, therefore, in the words quoted, an implication that this “evil Yetzer” was created by God. The same must be said of another passage, xxxiii. (xxxvi. in the Greek) 13-15:

As the clay is in the power of the potter, To fashion it according to his good pleasure; So is man in the power of his Creator, To make him according to His ordinance. Over against evil stands good, and against death life; Likewise over against the godly stands the sinner. Even thus look upon all the works of God, Each different, one the opposite of the other.

In this case, indeed, there is something more than an implication, for the words seem to impute the origin of evil directly to God. Yet it can hardly be that Ben-Sira believed this; for in view of what he says in the first passage quoted he regarded this as altogether wrong. The fact is that as soon as he begins to grapple with this subject he involves himself in difficulties; he tries another solution of the problem, but as will be seen, this is no real solution; in XXV. 24 he says:

From a woman did sin originate [lit. “is the beginning of sin”], And because of her we all must die.

But this only traces the history of Sin in the human race, and does not touch upon its creation; moreover, it has to be remembered that Ben-Sira usually regards Sin as something external to man, something which comes to him from outside (though exceptions to this will be referred to presently); thus in xxi. 2, 3, for example, it is said:

Flee from sin as from the face of a serpent; For if thou come nigh it, it will bite thee. Like the teeth of a lion are the teeth thereof, It slayeth the souls of men. Like a two-edged sword is all iniquity, From the stroke thereof is no healing.

If Sin is external to man, as is so often said and implied in this book, it must have existed somewhere before it was appropriated by Eve, and thus originated in the human race.[329] Nevertheless, in connection with what appears to be a third theory, it is possible that Ben-Sira believed Sin to be not external to man. For this third theory we must consider first xxi. 27, 28:

When the fool curseth his adversary [lit. “Satan”], He curseth his own soul; The whisperer defileth his own soul, And is hated whithersoever he sojourneth.

The meaning of this passage is no doubt difficult to determine; but, to begin with, it seems clear that by the words, “The whisperer defileth his own soul,” Ben-Sira meant to express the truth that the evil in man is of his own making; it is also evident that the words are intended to be an illustration of the truth enunciated in the preceding couplet. Whatever is meant by “adversary”—whether “Satan” in the sense of the Devil, or an adversary in a more general signification—the words which follow (“He curseth his own soul”) show that what Ben-Sira intends to teach is that the “adversary” is synonymous with the ungodly man’s own self; i.e. he, and he alone, is responsible for his sins. So that the gist of the passage would seem to be that man is his own “Satan”; in other words, that the origin of Sin is to be sought in man since the initiative lies with him. Another passage which may be quoted in this connection is xvii. 31:

What is brighter than the sun? Yet this faileth; And how much more man who hath the inclination of flesh and blood!

The text here is uncertain; the Hebrew is not extant and the Versions differ, so that one cannot be sure about its meaning. Dr. Tennant paraphrases the Greek thus: “Even the sun darkens itself—the brightest thing in the world; how much more, then, frail man!” And, in commenting on the words, he says that if Ben-Sira offers any excuse for man’s depravity “it is that of his natural and essential frailty ... but [that he] never [attributes it] to an external cause.” Difficult as the verse is, it is quite possible that what was in Ben-Sira’s mind was that the origin of Sin was to be found in man, for it is extremely doubtful whether he differentiated between Sin as an abstract conception and actual deeds of Sin committed by individuals. The idea that seems to be adumbrated here as to the origin of Sin is, in any case, true from one point of view, for it accords with the facts of experience if human free-will is believed in, and Ben-Sira does believe in this (see next section); for every sin committed originates, so far as any particular sin is concerned, in man, whatever be the origin of the sinful tendency. This can be illustrated by one other quotation:

But the sinner is ensnared through his lips, And the fool stumbleth through his mouth (xxiii. 8).

Ben-Sira’s teaching concerning the origin of Sin may, then, be summed up thus: He implies, though he hardly goes so far as to make the definite assertion, that the origin of Sin is due to God; yet in one important passage he strongly combats this. He teaches, further, that so far as the human race is concerned the origin of Sin is to be sought in the fall of Eve, but he does not attempt to trace its history further back; this was, however, from his point of view unnecessary if, in accordance with his third theory, sin originates in the individual; nevertheless, he involves himself in a contradiction here in saying that because of Eve’s sin all men must die. In addition to this, however, there is a further inconsistency regarding this third theory, for while teaching that Sin originates _in_ man, he sometimes speaks of it as something external to him. These contradictory thoughts bring into clear relief Ben-Sira’s inability to formulate a consistent and logical doctrine as to the origin of Sin; and in this he but shows himself the forerunner of the Rabbis, from whose writings it can be seen that these later thinkers were involved in precisely the same inconsistencies as soon as they attempted to construct a working theory on the subject.

There is one other point connected with this subject to which brief reference must be made, namely, the means whereby sins are atoned for; the importance here lies in the fact that the teaching of this book concerning atonement for sins is the same as that of the later Rabbinical literature; it is, therefore, a great development upon Old Testament teaching. Ben-Sira follows the teaching of the Old Testament in so far that he believes in the need of the sacrificial system provided that sacrifices are offered in the right spirit; he says, for example, in one place:

Give a meal-offering with a memorial, And offer a fat sacrifice to the utmost of thy means (xxxviii. 11);

but it depends upon the spirit of him who offers as to whether the sacrifice is acceptable or not:

The sacrifice of the unrighteous man is a mocking offering, And unacceptable are the oblations of the godless. The Most High hath no pleasure in the offerings of the ungodly, Neither doth He forgive sins for a multitude of sacrifices (xxxiv. 18, 19, in the Greek xxxi. 21-23).

That sacrifices atoned for sins is a fundamental Old Testament doctrine, but the other means of atonement which Ben-Sira mentions show a development; these are as follows; (one quotation in support of each must suffice for illustration). Concerning Almsgiving it is said in iii. 30:

A flaming fire doth water quench, So doth almsgiving atone for sin.

That Fasting is an atonement is implied in the following:

... So a man fasting for his sins And doing the same again,— Who will listen to his prayer, And what hath he gained by his humiliation? (xxxiv. 26; in the Greek xxxi. 31).

Another means of atonement is Death; this is seen, or at any rate adumbrated, in the words in xviii. 22:

Delay not to pay thy vow in due time, And wait not till death to be justified.

This last assumed ever-increasing importance with the growth of the belief in the resurrection; in Ecclesiasticus it is perhaps no more than adumbrated, for where there was as yet no belief in the resurrection nor in punishment for unatoned sins hereafter there was no inducement to formulate a doctrine as to the atoning efficacy of death; the above-quoted passage is, however, worth giving as illustrating a tendency. One other means of atonement must be mentioned because it teaches the truth of mediatorship; this is in