STUDIES IN LIFE
FROM JEWISH PROVERBS

STUDIES IN LIFE
FROM
JEWISH PROVERBS

BY
W. A. L. ELMSLIE, M.A.,
Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge
LONDON
JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14 FLEET STREET, E.C.

To
MY WIFE
“Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit”

PREFACE

A writer of many books once said to me that he regretted every preface he had written. Seeing that I have the highest respect for his talents, I am constrained to take to heart the moral, which (particularly in a book on proverbs) would seem to be “least said, soonest mended.” But whatever else he may choose to leave unsaid, an author is expected to give away his secret in the preface, making known his intentions as discreetly as he can but still explicitly. That duty accomplished, he is at liberty to give thanks, and so conclude.

The greater part of this volume (Chapters [V]. to [XII].) is occupied with a study of the teaching of “Wisdom” among the Jews in Palestine during the Hellenistic Age, so far as the subject is represented in the two great collections of Jewish sayings, the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. It would be too much to claim that in these chapters the book breaks new ground, for the importance of the Hellenistic period is recognised by students of history, and there have been many commentaries on the Book of Proverbs, nor has Ecclesiasticus been without its expositors. But the historian devotes himself to the relation of events, and the commentator is busy with the thoughts of the several proverbs or with the textual difficulties they present, rather than with their precise historical setting. Here an endeavour has been made to bring the proverbs into close connection with the history, and it is hoped that not only do the proverbs thereby acquire fresh interest, but also that there emerges a picture of the men who made them and used them in the furtherance of morality and faith. Even to professed students of Jewish history the makers of the “Wisdom” proverbs are apt to remain distant and shadowy figures; but we cannot afford to neglect any of the makers of the Bible, and I venture to think that the method followed in this volume makes it possible to appreciate the outlook of these men, to realise their difficulties, and if not to sympathise wholly with their views, at least to feel that they were very human. Whether this brief sketch is successful in attaining its object or not, it is certain that the subject deserves more attention than it has hitherto received.

Besides the numerous maxims in Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, there are some interesting popular proverbs in the historical and prophetical books of the Old Testament. To these a part of [Chapter IV]. will be devoted. Occasional references will also be made, especially in the second half of the book, to proverbial sayings taken from the Rabbinical literature of the Jews. The titles of Chapters XIII. to XX. sufficiently indicate the nature of their contents, and require no further comment here.

In translating the proverbs the Revised Version has been used as a basis, but liberty has been exercised in making any alterations that seemed desirable on textual or literary grounds. Most of the changes thus introduced will readily explain themselves to those who are acquainted with the original texts or may care to consult modern commentaries, such as that of Professor Toy on Proverbs (International Critical Commentary) and of Dr. Oesterley on Ecclesiasticus (Cambridge Bible Series).

Any volume, such as this, that touches a wide range of subjects must have correspondingly many obligations. I welcome this opportunity of recording my gratitude to the authors whose writings are referred to in the following pages, and in particular I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Right Rev. E. L. Bevan’s illuminating work on the Hellenistic period, to the writings of Professor Toy and Dr. Oesterley mentioned above, and to Professor C. F. Kent’s short study and analysis of Proverbs in his book The Wise Men of Ancient Israel.

W. A. L. E.

Christ’s College, Cambridge.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
The Characteristics of Proverbs

Most writers on proverbs have thought it necessary to attempt a definition of their subject, but the task is difficult, and the phrase that will silence criticism has yet to be produced. Lord Russell’s epigram describing a proverb as “The wisdom of many and the wit of one” is as good as any, but it leaves so much unsaid that as a definition it is certainly inadequate. On the other hand, it is a true remark, and the facts it emphasises may conveniently be taken as the point from which to begin this study.

No saying is a proverb until it has commended itself to a number of men; the wisdom of one is not a proverb, but the wisdom of many. Countless fine expressions well suited to become proverbial have perished in the speaking, or lie forgotten in our books. To win wide acceptance and then to keep pace with the jealous years and remain a living word on the lips of the people is an achievement few human thoughts have compassed; for thousands that pass unheeded only one here or there, helped by some happy quality, or perhaps some freak of fortune, is caught from mouth to mouth, approved, repeated and transmitted. Every accepted proverb has therefore survived a searching test, all the more severe because judgment is not always passed upon the merits of the case. Popular favour is at the best capricious, and often an admirable saying has died out of use and a worse become famous. But of one thing we can be certain: general recognition is never won except by that which expresses the beliefs, or appeals to the conscience, or touches the affections of average men. However many the defects of any given proverb may happen to be, it is sure to possess some quality of human interest.

In the second place, it is generally true that, although proverbs have a sovereign right to utter commonplace, there is no such thing as a dull proverb. No matter how pedestrian may be its doctrine, somewhere in its expression will be manifest the “wit of one”—a flash of insight or imagination, a note of pathos or power. Of course, many sayings through age and the changes of fashion have lost their savour for us, but—the point is important—even these are not inevitably dull. All were once piquant. If we could but recapture the attitude of the men who made the phrase proverbial, its interest would be felt again. But although it thus appears that proverbs are essentially human and generally witty, the study of them is attended by certain difficulties. It is wise, therefore, to acknowledge at the outset the obstacles that will beset our path; to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Many proverbs have achieved popularity, not on account of what they say, but of the way they say it; the secret of their success has been some spice of originality or of humour in their composition. Originality, however, is a tender plant, and nothing fades more quickly than humour. A graphic or unexpected metaphor will delight the imagination for a little while, but how swiftly and inexorably “familiarity breeds contempt”; a phrase which is itself a case in point. Whenever therefore, in studying the Jewish proverbs, we come upon famous and familiar words, we must endeavour to let the saying for a moment renew its youth, by deliberately quickening our sympathy and attention, by counting it certain that words which have not failed through so many centuries to touch the hearts and minds of men deserve from us more than a passing glance of recognition.

Many proverbs speak truth, but a true word can be spoken too often. Every preacher in Christendom knows how little, through much iteration, the words “Hope” and “Love” may convey to his hearers, although most men are conscious that of the realities of Hope and Love they cannot possess too much. So also with the truths expressed in proverbs. For example, many excellent men have lacked only promptitude to win success, and we have need to be warned thereby; but when the fact is put before us in the words “Procrastination is the thief of time,” what copybook boredom rises in our indignant soul! We will not learn the lesson from so stale a teacher. Every effort to indicate the genius of proverbs is attended by this disadvantage of verbal familiarity; and, of course, it is the finest sayings that suffer most. But just here the tragedy of the great European War lends unwelcome aid. The intensity of human experience has been raised to a degree not known for centuries; and, as a recent writer in the Spectator admirably puts it, “In all times of distress dead truisms come to life. They confront the mind at every turn. We are amazed at the vividness of our thoughts, and confounded at the banality of their expression. We imagined that only fools helped themselves out with the musty wisdom of copybooks, but now it seems that even a fool may speak to the purpose. There is nothing so new as trouble, nothing so threadbare as its expression. ‘All is fair in love and war’.... How vividly that falsehood has been impressed upon us by our enemies. Yet how dull and indisputable it seemed such a little while ago. Even those of us who have least personal stake in the war grow terribly impatient at its slow movement. Almost every man who buys an afternoon paper thinks of the ‘watched pot.’ How many people have lately known the heart-sickness of ‘hope deferred’? ‘Dying is as natural as living’: that is a dull enough expression of fact, when death is far off: but, when it is near, it cuts like a two-edged sword.”[1] Life for the present generation has verily been transformed; it is both more terrible and more inspiring, more poignant in its sorrows, more thrilling in its achievements and its joys: all things are become new. Once we could say glibly, “The heart knoweth its own bitterness,” using the phrase to point a trivial trouble, but not now; and perhaps never again in our life-time. Thank God, it is not only the sorrowful sayings which rise in our heart with new meaning, but also those which speak of courage and strength, of loyalty and faith.

There is a third danger against which we require to be on guard. Proverbs cannot be absorbed in quantity. Like pictures in a gallery, they stand on their rights, each demanding a measure of individual attention and a due period for reflection. Many chapters in the Book of Proverbs are unpalatable reading, not because they are prosy, but because they are composed of independent maxims connected by no link of logical sequence or even of kindred meaning. To read consecutively through a series of these self-contained units is to impose an intolerable strain on the mind. The imagination becomes jaded, the memory dazed by the march of too swiftly changing images. The disconnected thoughts efface one another, leaving behind them only a blurred confusion. This will appear the more inevitable the more clearly we realise what a proverb is. For consider: not one nor two but countless observations of men and things have gone to the making of a single proverb; it is the conclusion to which a thousand premisses pointed the way; it is compressed experience. And further, a proverb usually gives not just the bare inference from experience, but the inference made memorable by some touch of fancy in the phrasing. Hence the meaning of a proverb is not always obvious, that it may seem the sharper when perceived. Some curious comparison, some pleasing illustration, is put forward to catch and hold attention until, from the train of thought thus raised, a truth leaps out upon us or a fact of life confronts us, familiar perhaps but now invested with fresh dignity. A proverb is not, as it were, a single sentence out of the book of human life, but is rather the epitome of a page or chapter; or, if you please, call it a summary, now of some drama of life, now of an epic or lyric poem, now again of a moral treatise. From a literary point of view proverbs are rich, over-rich feeding. They cloy. There is in the Book of Proverbs a remark that adroitly puts the point:

Hast thou found honey?
Eat so much as is convenient for thee (Pr. 2516).

It follows that frequent quotation of proverbs will be apt to fatigue the reader, yet the danger is one which cannot wholly be avoided in this volume. Something, however, can be done by setting limitations on the scope of our subject, and in the following pages no attempt will be made to present any systematic survey of the whole immense field of Jewish proverbs, ancient, mediæval, and modern. Attention will be given chiefly to two pre-Christian collections—the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus—and, even so, many good sayings in those books will be left unnoticed. Moreover, proverbs are not quite chaotic, for all their natural independence. They are like a forest through which many paths conduct; by following now one, now another topic it is possible to penetrate in various directions, as inclination prompts. But, even so, the peril of wearying the reader by over-many proverbs will only be lessened not removed; wherefore again—’tis a word of high wisdom—Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is convenient for thee.

Enough of difficulties and dangers! Woe to him who goes “supping sorrows with a long spoon”! A happier task, however, does remain, before we set sail upon our quest: we have still to count our blessings. What are the virtues of proverbs? What the interests we may hope to find in our subject?

The proverb does for human life something that science does for the world of Nature: it rouses the unseeing eye and the unheeding ear to the marvel of what seems ordinary. As for Nature, most of us who are not scientists are still deplorably blind to her perfections, but popular text-books have so far succeeded that we confess our ignorance with shame, and some are even penitent enough to desire that they might grow wiser. We are at least aware that there is nothing in the world not wonderful. We used to pass the spider’s web in our gardens with never a thought, but now—is not Le Fabre whispering to us of “rays equidistant and forming a beautifully regular orb,” of “polygonal lines drawn in a curve as geometry understands it.” “Which of us,” says he, pricking our human vanity, “would undertake, off-hand, without much preliminary experiment and without measuring instruments to divide a circle into a given quantity of sectors of equal width. The spider, though weighted with a wallet and tottering on threads shaken by the wind, effects the delicate division without stopping to think.”[2] The astronomer does not guard his secrets like the jealous astrologer of old; so that now-a-days many a man who possesses neither the higher mathematics nor a telescope knows more than his eyes can show him of the marvels of the stars and the mystery of space. Professor J. A. Thompson writes of The Wonder of Life, and behold! even he that hath no skill in biology may learn that the barren seashore is a teeming world, more strange than fairyland. Science does not make Nature marvellous; she lifts the veil of ignorance from our mind. Proverbs perform the same service for the life of man. Taking the common incidents of experience, they point out their meaning. Perceiving the principles in the recurrent facts of life, they discover and declare that the commonplace is more than merely common. That is a task greater and more difficult than at first sight may appear: as has been well said, “There is no literary function higher than that of giving point to what is ordinary and rescuing a truth from the obscurity of obviousness.”[3] Most men are slow, desperately slow, to perceive the significance of the experiences they encounter daily; yet from the iron discipline of these things none of us can escape. They are our life-long schoolmaster, and woe betide the man who from that stern teacher learns nothing or learns amiss. Nor is it sufficient that the facts should be brought before us. As a rule, the truth requires to be pushed home. Ask us not to observe that the reasoning faculties of the human being are seriously and sometimes disastrously perturbed by the impulses of affection; but tell us “Love is blind,” and—perhaps—we shall not forget.

Proverbs are superlatively human. Suffer the point to have a curious introduction. In certain ancient colleges it is the custom on one Sunday in each year to hold in the chapel a service of Commemoration, when the names of all those who were benefactors of the college are read aloud. Few ceremonies can convey more impressively the continuity of the generations, the actual unity between the shadowy past and the vivid present which seems to us the only real world. The roll may begin far back in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, commencing with the names of the Founder and a few mediæval Benefactors (some of them famous men), but steadily and swiftly the years move onwards as the roll is read, until, listening, we realise that in another moment what is called the past will merge into the present. Somehow the magical change takes place; the past is finished, and the record is telling now “the things whereof we too were part,” ending perhaps with the name of one whom we called “friend,” who sat beside us in the chapel—was it only a year ago to-day? On these occasions the lesson is usually taken from a chapter in Ecclesiasticus known as The Praise of Famous Men:—Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. The Lord manifested in them great glory, even his mighty power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms and were men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding; such as have brought tidings in prophecies; leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their understanding men of learning for the people—wise were their words in their instruction; such as sought out musical tunes, and set forth verses in writing; rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations: all these were honoured in their generations, and were a glory in their days. There be of them that have left a name behind them, to declare their praises. And some there be which have no memorial; who are perished as though they had not been and are become as though they had not been born. What! even of those who were famous men?... perished as though they had not been and become as though they had not been born. The verdict is too hard. Granting that they missed genius, did they not live nobly, speak wisely, make many beautiful things, do generous deeds, giving of themselves the best they had to give? But ... as though they had not been. Surely they merited some kinder fate than that? And what of the multitudes of the unrenowned? If the famous are nothing, then the rest of men are less than nothing and vanity, and, dying, they certainly can leave no trace behind them, no word to carry the tale of how once they laboured, loved, hoped, endured. All their exquisite human longings, all their pleasant thinking, must be for ever lost? No! for proverbs are the memorial of ordinary men; their very accents; record of their intimate thoughts and judgments, their jests and sorrowings, their aspirations, their philosophy. And this even from distant ages! There are proverbs old as the Iliad. Men of genius have not a monopoly of immortal words. Perhaps at the start one man of keen wit was needed to invent the happy phrase or the smart saying, but before it became a proverb countless ordinary folk had to give it their approval. We know that every popular proverb has seemed good to a multitude of men. Essentially therefore it has become their utterance, and is filled with their personality. And, of course, proverbs are not only a memorial of the unknown dead; they are equally a language of the unknown and unlearned living. The humblest of men experience deep emotions which, however, they cannot articulate for themselves. Proverbs, we repeat, come to the rescue of the unlettered, supplying words to fit their thoughts, unstopping the tongue of the dumb. Just what effects this simple treasury of speech has had in history who can calculate, but that it has not been slight is dexterously suggested by these words of anger and chagrin which Shakespeare makes Coriolanus speak:

“Hang ’em,
They said they were an hungry, sighed forth proverbs;
That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,
That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not
Corn for the rich men only; with these shreds
They vented their complainings.”

Poor wretches! with their “meat was made for mouths.” Doubtless they should have prepared for the most noble Coriolanus a treatise setting forth their preposterous economics, and humbly praying that in due course their petition might be brought before the Senate. But—“dogs must eat.” Faugh! “No gentleman,” said Lord Chesterfield, “ever uses a proverb.” Perhaps not, in an age of false gentility. But men of genius in many a century have taken note of their rich humanism and their value as a real, though undeveloped, science of life. Aristotle, Bacon, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Cervantes, Hazlitt, Goethe, thought fit to use them. Despite my Lord Chesterfield, let us continue the subject.

In the third place, proverbs are like a mirror in which the facts and ideals of society may be discerned. This is so obvious a truth that its importance may be under-estimated until it is realised how clear and detailed the reflection is. Proverbs prefer the concrete to the abstract. They contain many allusions[4] that are like windows opening on to the land of their birth and offering glimpses of its life and scenery—the rain and the sunshine ripening its fields and vineyards; the valleys and mountains, the open country, the villages, and towns. The activities and interests of the inhabitants are still more clearly disclosed. Manners and morals are laid bare, all the more faithfully because the witness is often unintentional. “Proverbs,” said Bacon, “reveal the genius, wit, and character of a nation.” In them Humanity, all reticence forgotten, seems to have cried its thoughts from the housetops and proclaimed its hidden motives in the market-place. Suppose that almost all other evidence for the history of Italy or Spain were blotted out but the national sayings were left us, there would still be rich material for reconstructing an outline of the characteristics and not a little of the fortunes of those peoples. In respect of national disposition how terribly would the lust for vengeance appear as the besetting sin of Italy: Revenge is a morsel fit for God—Revenge being an hundred years old has still its sucking teeth. From the copious store of Spanish proverbs could be substantiated such facts as the Moorish occupation of Spain, the power and pride of her mediæval chivalry, and the immense influence for good and evil which the Church of Rome has wielded in the length and breadth of the country.

Archbishop Trench lays stress upon this quality of proverbs. Speaking of Burchardt’s Arabic Proverbs of the Modern Egyptians, he remarks,[5] “In other books others describe the modern Egyptians, but here they unconsciously describe themselves. The selfishness, the utter extinction of all public spirit, the servility, which no longer as with an inward shame creeps into men’s lives but utters itself as the avowed law of their lives, the sense of the oppression of the strong, of the insecurity of the weak, and generally the whole character of life, alike outward and inward, as poor, mean, sordid, and ignoble ... all this, as we study these documents, rises up before us in truest, though in painfullest, outline. Thus, only in a land where rulers, being evil themselves, feel all goodness to be their instinctive foe, where they punish but never reward, could a proverb like the following, Do no good and thou shalt find no evil, ever have come to the birth”: altogether a black picture of Mohammedan society. It is a healthier, happier scene that the Jewish proverbs will unfold to us.

The last general characteristic of proverbs, to which we need pay attention, is their inexhaustible variety. The world is their province. Religion and ethics, politics, commerce, agriculture, handicrafts, riches and poverty, diligence and idleness, hope and contentment, unrest and despair, laughter and tears, pride and humility, love and hatred: what is there you can name that we cannot set you a proverb to match it? Proverbs enter the palace unsummoned, take stock of his Majesty, and then inform the world what they think of his doings. They sit with my Lord Justice on the bench, and he shall hear further of the matter if he judge with respect of persons. But lo and behold! they also keep company with highwaymen and thieves, and the tricks of most trades are to them no secret. Proverbs are at home with men of every degree: they dine at the rich man’s table, they beg with Lazarus by the gate; and shrewdly do they analyse the world from both points of view. Chiefly, however, they have dwelt in a myriad normal homes, where neither riches nor poverty is given, but where a hard day’s work, a sufficient meal, and a warm fire in the evening have loosened tongues and opened hearts. Whereupon these unconscionable guests proceed to criticise the family. They interfere between husband and wife, parents and children, and teach all of them manners with an unsparing frankness. They play with the children, counsel their parents, and dream dreams with the old. Again, proverbs are both country-dwellers and town-dwellers. Have they not observed the ways of wind and water, sunshine and silvery starlight, seen the trees grow green and the seeds spring into life, the flowers bloom and the harvest ingathered? Yet also they have spent the whole year in the city, walking its streets early and late, strolling through the markets and bargaining in the shops. Ubiquitous proverbs! There is nothing beyond their reach, nothing hid from their eyes.

The advantages of this abundant variety are clear. Almost any topic of human interest will find sufficient illustration in proverbs. Frequently a saying will be found useful from more than one standpoint: vary the topic and the same material may appear in new and unexpected guise. On the other hand, whatever subject be chosen, a serious difficulty will be encountered. As soon as the proverbs bearing upon it have been gathered together, an extreme confusion of opinion will be apparent. The trumpet gives a most uncertain sound! Thus, let ethics be our starting-point. Many, no doubt, will be the maxims that breathe an easy, practical morality, and these, being careful not to be righteous overmuch, may seem tolerably compatible one with another; but then in violent contrast will be some that soar to the very heavens, and some also that surely emanate from hell. These will suffice from the devil’s forge: Dead men tell no tales—Every man has his price—or this Italian proverb, Wait time and place for thy revenge, for swift revenge is poor revenge. For the heavenly, here are two from ancient Greece, The best is always arduous[6]—Friends have their all in common[7]; or this tender English one, The way to heaven is by Weeping-Cross, or this strong Scottish phrase, The grace of God is gear enough[8]. Verily, proverbs do battle one against another. Trench quotes the following: The noblest vengeance is to forgive compared with the infamous He who cannot avenge himself is weak, he who will not is vile. Penny wise pound foolish is cried in our one ear; Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves in the other. Could anything be more disconcerting to our hope of investigating the ethical system of proverbs? But in like manner their social teaching at first sight seems a wilderness of contradiction, their theology a babel of conflicting tongues. The natural perplexity thus occasioned can, however, be resolved very simply. Two points must be kept in mind. First, that when with rough and ready justice men are classified as pious or wicked, clever or stupid, generous or miserly, hopeful or despondent, rich or poor, young or old, wise or ignorant, and so forth, these terms do represent real distinctions between persons, although perhaps no one category suffices fully to describe any given individual; and second, that a proverb necessarily expresses a sentiment shared by a number of people. It follows that what we ought to seek in proverbs is not one point of view but many. We shall find the attitude of various classes and types of men. We shall see life as it appears now in the eyes of the just and the merciful, now of the evil and the cunning. Here in one group of sayings will be the way the world looks to a lazy man, here again are the convictions of the unscrupulously shrewd. Here is some complacent merchant’s view of social questions, here the exhortations of an idealistic soul. When once this fact about proverbs is recognised, the difficulty of their contradictoriness instantly is removed. Instead of feeling that they speak in hesitating accents, we discover that they are answering our questions, not with one, but with many voices, far from uncertain in their tone. The confusion vanishes. We find ourselves listening to the speech of men who, differing sometimes profoundly one from another, have sharply defined ideas, and can utter their thoughts with brevity, force, and wit.

It will be seen that our object is wide and deep, and that there are many avenues of approach to it. One road, however, would seem to be impossible—proverbs as literature. That an occasional popular saying would have some touch of literary value, is, of course, to be expected. But a winged word now and then, a lovely image flitting once in a while across the plains, will not justify the topic, “Proverbs as literature.” The individual proverb failing, what hope is there that a collection of them will come nearer the mark? Suppose the very best of our English proverbs were gathered together, there might be much to interest, amuse, or edify our minds, but literature such an assemblage would assuredly not be. The vital element of unity would be lacking. As well string the interjections and conjunctions of our language into verse, and call the result a poem! And yet the incredible has happened. Once a collection of proverbs was so made as to be literature—but where and when must be left for the next chapter to relate.

CHAPTER II
The Proverbs of the Jews

Of the facts we have been considering one is specially relevant to the subject, not only of this volume but of the series in which it forms a part—namely, the intimately human quality of proverbs. Mr. Morley has called them “The guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without and to depart.[9]” The Humanism of the Bible ought therefore to be visible nowhere more clearly than in Israel’s proverbs, if these are to be found within its pages. But stay! What right have we to expect their presence? Surely little or none, if the Bible is what many persons conceive it to be—only a book of religious teachings. For consider the reasonable expectation, and contrast the extraordinary facts. In such a book we might reasonably expect to find a few proverbs: that a king should quote a saying to suit his purpose, a counsellor press home his wisdom with some well-known maxim, or a prophet edge his appeal by the use of a popular phrase—that would be quite natural, and indeed occurs. But actually (and here is the astonishing matter) there are proverbs by tens and by hundreds, gathered together in one Book of the Bible, following verse by verse, chapter by chapter, till they choke one another through sheer profusion, like flowers in an unkept garden. Thus in five chapters of the Book of Proverbs (13-17) there are 154 separate adages. So strange a phenomenon challenges attention. It might be supposed that the Hebrew language had been ransacked for proverbs, but that suggestion will not stand scrutiny. On investigation, the Book proves to be no deliberate, systematic, attempt to collect the Hebrew proverbs. Thus, when we look for the few, but famous, popular sayings that occur in the historical and prophetic writings of the Old Testament, we find that not one of them is included. As for system, a casual glance will demonstrate its absence. In most chapters of Proverbs not even an effort is made to classify the material. The Book cannot be explained as an anthology of Hebrew sayings—the most witty or worldly-wise, the most moral or religious. Whatever the explanation, here assuredly is something less artificial than an anthology. Good, bad, and indifferent proverbs alike are present. Many of the sayings unmistakably reflect a conception of morality more practical than exalted, and some appear grossly utilitarian. Time and again the consequences of sin are naïvely presented as the reasons for avoiding it, whilst the rewards of virtue are emphasised unduly. Later on we shall find reasons for holding that the utilitarian attitude is not fundamental, and therefore not so destructive of the ethical value of these proverbs as it might seem. But until both the circumstances which gave rise to the proverbs and the ends they were meant to serve are understood, until (as it were) we have seen the men who spoke the maxims and the people who repeated them, that more generous judgment is scarcely possible; and meantime, be it freely admitted, there are many things in the Book not agreeable to modern ethical taste. Religiously, too, the Book of Proverbs is on the surface disappointing. Neither the fire of the Prophets’ faith is visible, nor the deep passion of the Psalmists’ longing after God. Who amongst us, seeking spiritual help, would choose a chapter in Proverbs when the Gospels or the Letters of St. Paul are open to him? So then on literary, ethical, and religious grounds there are plain reasons why this Book has lost something of its former favour. Contrast the estimation in which it was held only two generations ago. Ruskin records that four chapters of Proverbs, the third, fourth, eighth and twelfth, were amongst those portions of the Bible which his mother made him learn by heart and “so established my soul in life”; they were, he declares, “the most precious and on the whole essential part of all my education.” Not so long ago, Proverbs was a text-book in many schools; probably it is nowhere so used to-day.[10]

Even if neglect of this part of the Scripture is partly chargeable to heightened standards of ethics or theology, the loss incurred is great. As a matter of fact, depreciation of its ethical temper is often based on inaccurate notions, often is exaggerated. In comparison with our fathers, who without commentaries read through their Bibles from cover to cover, we have not gained as we should; for, whilst we pride ourselves (with what measure of justice is uncertain) on being more sensitive to religious values, they were far better acquainted with the religious facts. They at least knew the contents of Scripture; we, who have at our disposal abundance of interpretative help whereby to learn the nature of the Bible and with instructed minds consider its spiritual worth, too often are ignorant both of text and commentary. Doubtless the fault is due to certain characteristics of our time. This is a feverish impatient age; if our mental fare is not served us like our daily information, put up into easy paragraphs, so that he who runs may read, we will not stay to seek it; and the Old Testament is not an easy book, though it answers patience with astonishing rewards. Candidly, how does it stand with knowledge of the Bible at the present time? In charity let the question be addressed only to those who have a genuine interest in the Christian religion, desiring to rule their lives by its ideals and cherishing its promises. Even to such persons what is the Bible? A few there are who have found or made opportunity for serious consideration of its Books, and these have certainly felt the fascination of the vast and varied interests that have won and retained for biblical study the life-long service of many brilliant scholars. But to the others, and obviously they are thousands of thousands, the Bible is essentially the book of religion. As such, the New Testament means the Gospel narratives, some immortal chapters from St. Paul, a few verses in Hebrews, and St. John’s vision of that City where death shall be no more. And what—religiously—in similar fashion is the Old Testament, except a few, comforting, beautiful Psalms; some childhood memories of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, generous David and brave Daniel; a tale or two of Elijah; a procession of Kings, and an uncharted sea of grand but most perplexing Prophets? Asked for a more general account, some would describe the Old Testament as a record of the laws, history, and religious ideas of the Hebrew people; others would answer that it is “part of the Word of God,” but they might all be at a loss to say what is the religious value of Leviticus, what the spiritual relation between Genesis and the Gospel, between Kings and Chronicles, between Job and Revelation. Probably the great majority of men at the present time would be quite willing to confess that their knowledge of the Bible is vague and insufficient, but few, we believe, would suspect that there is anything wrong with the basis from which their thinking proceeds: so firmly is it fixed in men’s minds that the Bible is merely the book of religion. The Bible is that, but more also, more and yet again more. And how easily we might have realised the fact! Ought not the presence of these surprisingly heterogeneous proverbs alone to have stirred our curiosity, and so compelled the enlargement of our thoughts about the Old Testament? Without needing to be urged, men should, of their own accord, have perceived the astonishing range of interest and the wealth of literature the Bible contains, and should have seen in this variety a clue that would lead them by pleasant paths to treasures artistic and intellectual as well as religious. Thereby no loss could ensue religiously, but on the contrary gain. The greater our recognition of the artistic qualities of the sacred literature, the more exact and full our understanding of the history of the Jews and of their beliefs and interpretation of life, so much the more wonderful will the actual development of religion in Israel be seen to be. This is the point to which the above remarks are meant to lead. If the Biblical proverbs compel as a first conclusion the recognition of how much more the Old Testament is than a text-book for theology, that is a minimum and an initial discovery; our appreciation of its meaning will assuredly not end there. The growth, in Israel, of the knowledge of God into a high and holy faith is an indisputable fact. Increase your comprehension of the circumstances attending this development, and your faith in the reality of a self-revealing God should increase also.

So much for the presence of these proverbs in the Bible. Now consider the affirmation with which the first chapter concluded: that proverbs have once been literature. That claim may be advanced on behalf of the sayings of the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. It is of course obvious that the difficulty which has to be overcome is the essential independence of proverbial sayings: each is so relentlessly complete in itself. How can they be so related to each other as to acquire the higher unity indispensable for literature? The lack of system in the Book of Proverbs has already been admitted frankly; but the point must again be emphasised. So far from the five chapters with the 154 maxims, referred to above, being exceptional they are typical of the greater portion of the Book. Continually we encounter the same astonishing disregard for consecutive, or even cognate, thought in the grouping of the proverbs. And yet, despite this fact, the attentive reader will become conscious of a subtle unity pervading the Book. The impression will grow that the confusion is not absolute; somehow it is being held within bounds, whilst here and there chaos has evidently yielded to the command of a directing purpose. Obstinate independents as proverbs are, one discovers that here their masses, unruly though they still may be, have nevertheless become an army, a host sufficiently disciplined to serve a common end. As with a complicated piece of music through the intricacies of the notes runs ever an underlying theme, so here through the medley of disparate sayings can be heard the preaching of one great thought—“Wisdom.” Behind the proverbs, behind the Book, we discover men, preachers and teachers of an Idea, enthusiasts for a Cause—“Wisdom.” Just what that phrase implied, just what manner of men those advocates of Wisdom were, we shall see in due course. The point for the moment is that these Jewish proverbs were not gathered haphazard, nor simply as a collection of Jewish proverbs; but for the express purpose of illustrating, developing, and enforcing the conception of Wisdom. Thus, through the influence of this specific intention, they received in sufficient measure the unity of literature. This fact is of the utmost importance for our subject, for it means that these proverbs may be considered not merely one by one but in their totality; that is, in their combination as text-books inculcating Wisdom. So regarded, they afford a glimpse of a remarkable class of men in the intensely interesting century or two when the intellectual foundations of Western civilisation were being laid down. No doubt each proverb bears the impress of reality and has its individual interest, is (as it were) a coin struck out of active experience; but the same may be said of the collected proverbs as a whole, and because the whole has its own significance, the parts acquire a meaning and value they would not otherwise possess. The Jews are an astonishing people. St. Paul perceived that they had a genius for religion, but they have had genius for many other things besides, as their strange fortunes testify. Their hand prospers, whithersoever it is turned. Who but the Jews can claim to have had a Golden Age in proverbs? In utilising their popular sayings for a definite purpose, and in thus making them literature, the Jews succeeded in a feat that other nations have scarcely emulated, far less equalled. Moreover in the process the Jews made their proverbs superlatively good. Some think that for wit and acuteness the ancient sayings of the Chinese are unsurpassed; for multitude and variety those of the Arabs and the Spaniards. But the Jewish proverbs of this “Wisdom” period excel all others in the supreme quality of being possession of all men for all time. They are marvellously free from provincial and temporary elements; and this is the more remarkable in that the Jews were intensely nationalistic, and their literature, as a rule, is steeped in racial sentiment. Of these proverbs, however, very few must be considered Hebraic in an exclusive sense, or indeed Oriental. The mass of them have been at home in many lands and many centuries, because they speak to the elemental needs of men. Again and again they touch the very heart of Humanity. They are universal. But that is the characteristic of genius. If therefore proverbs be our study, we could ask no better subject than these proverbs of the Jews.

Even so our theme is far from easy. Life, when visible before us, can with difficulty be portrayed. Harder by far is it to recall life from literature, translating the symbols of letters into the sound of speech and looking through words into the colour and movement of the scenes that by the magic of human language are there preserved, accurately enough, yet only like pale shadows of the reality. Hardest of all is it, when the documents to be studied are records of a far-past age and the life that of an alien people. But how well worth every effort is the task! “Many of us,” writes Mark Rutherford, “have felt that we would give all our books if we could but see with our own eyes how a single day was passed by a single ancient Jewish, Greek, or Roman family; how the house was opened in the morning; how the meals were prepared; what was said; how the husband, wife, and children went about their work; what clothes they wore, and what were their amusements.”[11] Information so detailed as Mark Rutherford desired will not be afforded by the Jewish proverbs. Nevertheless they are full of frank, intimate, comment on the ways of men and women, and of reflection on the experiences we all suffer or enjoy, and certainly should learn how best to encounter. If they yield less than might be wished for, still what they show is shown in the naïve and homely fashion that is so illuminating. Such being the difficulty of our task, and such the encouragement to pursue it, the reader will perhaps permit at the outset a short statement mentioning the writings where Jewish proverbs are to be found, and giving somewhat fuller information regarding the dates and composition of the two works from which the material of the following chapters will chiefly be derived.

THE SOURCES OF JEWISH PROVERBS

I. Occasional Proverbs. In the historical and prophetical Books of the Old Testament there are to be found some popular sayings current in early Israel. Though few in number, they possess considerable interest, and will therefore be discussed in [Chapter IV].

II. The Book of Proverbs. This Book is the principal “source” of the proverbs considered in this volume. Unlike modern writings, which are usually the work of one author and will rarely require a longer period than five or ten years for their composition, many of the Books of the Bible have reached their present form as the outcome of a protracted process of compilation and revision perhaps extending over many generations and involving the work of numerous writers. The words of earlier authors were utilised again and again in later times by others who, having somewhat similar ideas and purposes in view, exercised complete liberty in reproducing, or modifying, or adding to the material they found to hand.[12] Such a book is Proverbs. The consequence is that the question of date and authorship cannot be answered in a sentence. The problem of the structure of the Book rises as a preliminary subject.[13]

(a) Structure. The Book of Proverbs in its present form represents the combination of five originally independent collections of the single proverbs which are of course the ultimate material of the Book. There is some evidence that these five collections were themselves built out of still smaller groups of proverbs, but such subdivisions cannot be traced with certainty, and for our purpose may be neglected. The five main sections are as follows:—(a) In chs. 1-9, a number of epigrams, sonnets, and discourses in praise of wisdom. (b) In chs. 101-2216, a collection of two-line (“unit”) proverbs. (c) In chs. 2217-2422 and 2423-34, two very similar collections of four-line (“quatrain”) proverbs. (d) In chs. 25-29, a collection of two-line proverbs. (e) In chs. 30, 31, epigrams, sonnets, and an acrostic poem.

(b) Date and Authorship. Both in its component parts and as a composite whole the Book of Proverbs is an anonymous work. It is true that titles, such as “The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel” (Pr. 11), are prefixed to several portions of the Book[14], but they do not imply authorship, although to those unacquainted with the nature of ancient books that may seem the necessary meaning. Their significance will be considered later, on p. 71.

The date of origin and the authorship of single proverbs are seldom discoverable: a tantalising circumstance for those who would write about them. And yet, perhaps, their reticence is wise. It may be that some of the noblest sayings have sprung from the lips of a poor man in a peasant home; and there are fools who would thenceforth despise them for their birth. Of the individual sayings in the Book of Proverbs a few, in matter if not in exact phrase, may go back to ancient days; some may be due to Solomon himself or date from his period; but the vast majority[15], for cogent reasons of style, language, tone, ethical and social customs and so forth, are post-exilic—that is, not earlier than about 450 B.C.; nor on the other hand are they later than about 200 B.C., by which time the several sections had been combined to form substantially the present Book.[16]

Something may be said concerning the relative priority of the five sections of the Book. Internal evidence points to sections b and d as the oldest portions, then section c; sections a and e (i.e., chs. 1-9, 30, 31) being probably the latest groups. But of the precise date when these collections were severally formed and combined, and of the names of the men by whom the work was done, we are unaware. Fortunately our ignorance of detail is but a negligible trifle compared with our firm knowledge of the general fact that in their present form these proverbs belong to the period 350-200 B.C., and their authors and compilers were men who styled themselves “The Wise,” and were known in the Jewish community by that term. A hundred and fifty years may seem a wide margin, but it is a mistake to wish it less; if anything, it ought to be increased. For the point to be grasped is that Proverbs represents the thoughts and ideals of the Wise throughout that whole period (350-200 B.C.) and even longer. The exact dates of the combination and final revision of the component collections of sayings are therefore questions of minor importance. The Book is not to be treated as a fixed literary product of any one particular year, but as representative of the teachings of the Wise during very many years.

To the same class of men we owe, besides Proverbs, other famous writings, of which two, Job and Ecclesiastes, were also included in the Old Testament Canon, and two are to be found in the Apocrypha, namely, Ecclesiasticus (or, as it is often called, The Wisdom of Ben Sirach) and the Wisdom of Solomon. Of these four writings the two first, Job and Ecclesiastes, are considered in other volumes of this series,[17] and therefore, except for one or two quotations, will not be utilised here, although they both contain a number of proverbial sayings. The Wisdom of Solomon also will seldom be noticed in this book: it is much later in date than Proverbs, and is not a collection of proverbs, but a set of discourses in praise of Wisdom.

III. Ecclesiasticus. On the other hand, the book of Ecclesiasticus or The Wisdom of Ben Sirach, is—next to Proverbs—the source from which we shall derive most material. Like Proverbs it is a storehouse of sayings about Wisdom, but fortunately, unlike Proverbs, it is not anonymous, and can be dated with some exactitude. The author or compiler of the book was one, Jesus ben (i.e., Son of) Sirach, who lived in Jerusalem about 250-180 B.C., his volume being finished about 190 B.C. Some fifty years later his grandson, then living in Egypt, translated it into Greek, and until recently the book was known to us only in its Greek form. Now, however, a large part of the original Hebrew text has been recovered, with the happy result that the Greek version can frequently be checked and obscurities be removed by means of the Hebrew.

Besides the single, “unit,” proverbs, there are in Ecclesiasticus, and in Proverbs also though to a less extent, a number of short sonnets and essays. These longer passages will be freely referred to, but perhaps a word in justification will here be in place. It has been said with truth, that “often a parable is an elaborate proverb, and a proverb is a parable in germ.” That comment excellently indicates the nature of the passages in question; most of them are expansions of some brief gnomic phrase[18]. When, for example, in E. 2014f we read, “The gift of a fool shall not profit thee, for his eyes are many instead of one; he will give little and upbraid much and he will open his mouth like a crier; to-day he will lend and to-morrow he will ask it again: such an one is a hateful man....” it is obvious that the verse is only an elaboration and explanation of the enigmatic proverb printed in heavy type.

IV. The New Testament. Scattered through the pages of the New Testament are more allusions to popular sayings than one would readily expect. Almost all offer interesting comment on the life and manner of the times; but, unfortunately, they will fall outside the scope of this book, except for occasional references.

V. Finally, a great number of Jewish proverbs are mentioned in the post-Biblical Rabbinical writings—the tractates of the Mishna, the Midrashim, and Talmuds. Embedded in a vast and difficult literature (how difficult only those know who have attempted seriously to study it), these later Jewish sayings have been somewhat inaccessible to Gentile students. They are interesting in many ways, but the development of our subject in this volume will give opportunity for the mention only of a few. Should any reader desire to know more of these Rabbinic sayings, he can now be referred to a small but trustworthy collection recently made by A. Cohen and published under the title Ancient Jewish Proverbs.

The question is, What can the Jewish proverbs tell us about human life? The conclusion of the first chapter left us perplexed by indicating too many paths that might be followed. This chapter solves the difficulty by suggesting that these proverbs will have a great deal to say to us, if we choose to treat them in their historical aspect. To do so is to follow the king’s highway; but when the plain road promises an interesting journey, it is folly to search for bypaths. The human story seems naturally to divide into past and present; and, because the present immediately concerns us, we are all tempted to ignore the past and count it negligible. To the uneducated man the past is dead; and he fails to perceive that, if the facts of history are unknown, the present, though it may fascinate, will prove bewildering. The truth is that history is one and continuous, the present is organically related to the past, and the division between them in our thought is artificial and perilously misleading. Nothing is of greater practical value than to learn and ponder the narrative of the past, provided heart and mind are kept alert to discern the guidance it continually offers to ourselves. To neglect its lessons is to starve the power of judgment in the present. Much that by our own unaided trials can only be learnt slowly, painfully, and at great hazard, may be discovered swiftly and securely by observation of the experience of other men. In this spirit let our studies of the Jewish proverbs be first of the past: what glimpses of former days are discernible in their homely words?

Let us commence as if we had some leisure at our disposal, and let us use it by following up occasional traces of very ancient times. Then we shall proceed to the more strenuous and more rewarding task of recovering a picture of the stirring years when Wisdom was moulding the Jewish proverbs to her urgent needs. Always, however, as the records yield up these tales of byegone days we are to keep in mind ourselves and our own generation, striving so to interpret the fortunes of men of old that we in our turn may learn from them how to avoid folly, endure trials, use success, and discover the secret of content. Finally we shall gather such of the proverbs as may please our fancy, and briefly consider them in themselves for their perennial, as opposed to their original or historical, interest.

CHAPTER III
Forgotten Years

The past of human life offers an unimaginably long vista for our contemplation. Vastly many more are the years that have been forgotten than those that are remembered. Mr. Stephen Graham is therefore quite right when, in his book The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary, he insists that Christianity after nineteen hundred years is still a young religion, its doctrines imperfectly understood, its possibilities not yet unfolded. But for that matter history itself is young, since history knows at the most some six or seven thousand years of human history, and Man has been on earth hundreds of thousands of years. Glimpses of human life in those dim and distant ages are occasionally possible (as we are about to observe in the Jewish proverbs) and have a certain fascination; but their interest is apt to be overwhelmed by the disquieting ideas which the thought of so vast a stretch of time naturally raises in our mind. In comparison, our personal hopes seemed dwarfed into utter insignificance, and it is no comfort when a Psalmist (more than twenty centuries ago) suggests that to the Deity time may be a very little thing: Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. God may expend so many myriad years as seemeth good to Him in the making of sun, moon, and stars, earth and sea—what matter? But when the living bodies of men are racked with pain, when tyranny endures and love and liberty are delayed, then what is the millenial patience of God but terrifying? We cannot wait for its slow maturing. Does He not know that we who would see the salvation of the Lord in the land of the living are ready to faint?

Perhaps, however, our distress arises from the adoption of a mistaken standpoint. For, first, let the question be considered not from the point of view of God’s patience but of His greatness, and the infinitely long development will seem less dreadful. The immensity of time may then be regarded, not as a token of God’s indifference to man, but as a measure of His eternal majesty, and as evidence of an intention sublime beyond our present power to apprehend, yet not antagonistic to the value of the individual being—as indeed the author of Isaiah 40 perceived: Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from my God and my glory is forgotten by my God? Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His understanding. And, secondly, there is something to be said regarding the brevity of our bodily existence, to which an analogy will furnish the best introduction. Suppose that men were able to perceive the world of Nature only in its immensities, seeing the oceans but not the tumbling waves, seeing the plains but not each green or golden field, would they not fail to perceive an incalculably great portion of earth’s beauty? How unutterably more wonderful are all natural objects when the microscope reveals the marvel of every particle. The tree is loveliest to him who has an eye to see the perfection of each leaf or knows the miracle of its growth from a single seed or shoot. Is it not possible that something similar is true of the human spirit in its apprehension of reality? Suppose that our personality was unable to taste life except on the grand scale, so that for man a thousand years were only a passing moment, experienced only “as a watch in the night,” would not the half of life’s glory then be hidden from those who were ignorant of what one year can be? May not participation in reality on a small scale—time felt as a day, an hour, a minute—be indispensable if the human spirit is to grasp the amazing fulness of conscious life? Apparently circumscribed by the limit of our three score years and ten, are we here to learn that consciousness, even when measured in days and minutes, is of eternal worth and pure delight? For we do learn that lesson. We do discover that an instant of perfect and unselfish tenderness may be of immeasurable value. Perchance Man can never love God till he has loved his brother, never know with the Divine knowledge, until in faith, hope, and charity he has desired to win the knowledge which is in part. The cup of cold water must first be given lovingly unto the least of His brethren, or we shall never comprehend to give it into the hand of Christ Himself. “He that is faithful over a few things,” said Jesus, “shall be set over many.” Perhaps only to those who have sought to find Heaven in life sub specie temporis can life sub specie eternitatis be imparted; for to know life fully must be to know not only its infinite extension and its Divine splendour, but also the exquisite perfection of its fleeting moments.

I

Proverbs are one of the most ancient inventions of Man, far older than history. Four centuries before the birth of Christ, Aristotle, gazing as far into the past as his glance could reach, saw proverbs still beckoning him back. He spoke of them as “fragments of an older wisdom which on account of their brevity or aptness had been preserved from the general wreck and ruin.” Even the Book of Proverbs, late as it is in date, has features which, if we follow out their significance, will lead us back to the life of men in long forgotten years. The signs, of course, are slight, but they are none the less real; and even a faint trace may be a sure thread of guidance. Only some grooves upon the surface of the rock, but the lines were indubitably made by the movement of ice in the glacial age. Only a piece of jagged flint, but the edge we finger was chipped by human hands for an object conceived in a human brain. See how the conical marks where each stroke of the hammer fell are still as clear and purposeful as on the day when they were made. Flaking a flint is skilled work: the blows must be cunningly aimed and exactly struck, or the stone will be shattered instead of sharpened. This one, being well wrought, is doubtless a Neolithic weapon. But here is a specimen more rude and primitive. It is probably a thousand years older than the one we have just examined. Nevertheless, we know that it also was worked by man, and that human eyes chose it and human hands held it, and fashioned it, in days when man shared Europe with the mammoth.

What faint but real traces of a far antiquity can be seen in the Jewish proverbs?

(1) The first trace is to be found in the Numerical Sayings, a curious type of aphorism, half proverb and half riddle. Four of these occur in Proverbs 30.

Four Things Unsatisfied.

Three things there be unsatisfied,
Yea! four that say not “Enough”—
The land of death; the barren womb;
Earth unsated with water;
And fire that says not “Enough” (Pr. 3015b, 16).

Four Small Wise Things.

There be four things upon the earth small but exceeding wise:
The ANTS—a people little of strength, but in summer they store up food:
The CONIES—these be a feeble folk, but they make their homes in the rock:
The LOCUSTS—are they that have no king, but they march in an ordered host:
The LIZARDS—on which thou canst lay thine hand, though they dwell in his majesty’s court (Pr. 3024-28).

Four Things Unbearable.

Beneath three things the earth doth tremble,
Yea beneath four it cannot bear up—
Beneath a slave become a monarch;
Beneath a fool that is filled with meat;
Beneath an old-maid that hath found a husband;
Beneath a handmaid heir to her mistress (Pr. 3021-23).

Four Stately Things.

There be three things of stately step,
Yea, four of stately gait—
The LION, that is the strongest beast,
And flees before no foe;
The ...; the HE-GOAT too;
And the KING, when ...[19](Pr. 3029-31).

Simple as these riddles may be, they imply or make definite allusion to many things; a settled community, a king, an army trained and disciplined, economic foresight, dramatic changes in social rank, laws of natural inheritance, acute reflections on the fate of man and on human character—surely a picture too elaborate for pre-historic years? Certainly, and for these particular proverbs, no such claim is advanced: the lingering trace of a forgotten world is in their form, numerical proverbs. Those just quoted are, as it were, links in a long chain, which we may follow backwards or forwards. The former process will lead to the result we seek; but first, for convenience and in further illustration, let us notice some, still later, examples of these proverbs. Two more are included in the Book of Proverbs, one of which will be quoted below ([p. 51]): here is the other.

Seven Hateful Things.

There be six things Jehovah hates,
Yea, seven which he abominates—
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that innocent blood have shed,
A mind devising wicked plans,
Feet that be swift to do a wrong,
A witness false declaring lies,
And he who stirs up friends to strife (Pr. 616-19).

Though cast in the same mould, this saying with its insistence on justice, truth, honesty of purpose and humility of spirit, certainly reflects a later and more complex stage of thought than the naïve conundrums quoted above from Pr. 30. Indeed, it may be no earlier than the third century, the golden age of proverb-making, to which period belongs also the following sentence from Ben Sirach’s book: There be nine things that I have thought of and in my heart counted happy, and the tenth I will utter with my tongue—A man whose children give him joy: a man that liveth to see his enemies fall: happy is he whose wife hath understanding, and he that hath not slipped with his tongue, and he that hath not had to serve an inferior man: happy is he that hath found prudence: and he that discourseth in the ears of them that listen. How great is he that hath found wisdom! And above him that feareth the Lord is there none. The fear of the Lord surpasses all things; and he that holdeth it, to whom shall he be likened? (E. 257-11).[20]

Turn next to the Sayings of the Fathers, a treatise of Jewish ethical reflections, compiled in the first and second centuries A.D., and in the fifth chapter will be found a series of “numerical” observations. It must suffice to quote but one: There are four types of moral character. He that saith “Mine is mine and thine is thine” is a character neither good nor bad, but some say ’tis a character wholly bad.[21] He that saith “Mine is thine and thine is mine” is a commercially minded man.[22] He that saith “Mine and thine are thine” is pious: “Mine and thine are mine,” the same is wicked. For a last and latest example a modern saying current among the Jews and Arabs of Syria, can be cited: There are three Voices in the World—that of running water, of the Jewish Law, and of money.

So much for the later links in the chain, but what of its beginning? Why give thoughts in stated number? Is it a writer’s trick to catch our fancy? That it may be in the later, but certainly not in the early instances. There is only unconscious art in such an unsophisticated, child-like verse as the Four Stately Things. “Child-like,” that is the word we require to describe these riddles. True; but when were the Jews and their Semitic ancestors children? Before Abraham was called, when almost the world itself was young.

For a moment permit your thoughts to be drawn back a very great way, and consider the rude and inefficient life of early man. Unaided by the numberless resources, mental and material, that enrich our civilised life, dwelling in forests, caverns and rude huts of stone or earth, well-nigh defenceless against the larger animals, haunted and harried by a thousand perils real and imaginary, so man once lived and worked and thought, and by his thinking accomplished marvels. “From the moment,” writes A. R. Wallace, “when the first skin was used as a covering, when the first rude spear was formed to assist in the chase, when fire was first used to cook his food, when the first seed was sown or shoot planted, a grand revolution was effected in Nature, a revolution which in all the previous ages of the earth’s history had had no parallel; for a being had arisen who was no longer necessarily subject to change with the changing universe—a being who was in some degree superior to Nature, inasmuch as he knew how to control and regulate her action, and could keep himself in harmony with her, not by a change in body, but by an advance in mind.”[23] But it was not enough that the individual should think. The secret of human success has lain in the ability to communicate ideas. Yet, to this day, with what effort we find words to body forth our thoughts and feelings! Try to conceive how difficult was the formulation and transmission of ideas in those forgotten centuries. Imagine the tribesmen gathered home for the day and seated around their fire. Here is one who has had a thought when out hunting, which would amuse or interest the rest, if only it could be made articulate. But none can read, and none can write, and language is in its infancy. How then can he find a way to tell it, and they perceive his meaning, and all remember? By means of proverbs; not the neat epigram of later ages, but yet sayings which for all their simplicity were embryonic proverbs. Earliest and easiest type of all was the bare comparison—this is like that—a type which, it is interesting to note, may be illustrated by one of the oldest phrases in the Bible: Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord (Gen. 109). And the method of comparison never ceased to be a favourite mould for the formation of proverbs, as some polished examples from Proverbs will serve to show: As the swallow ever flitting and flying, so the curse that is groundless alighteth not (Pr. 262). The way of the wicked is like the darkness: they know not whereon they stumble (Pr. 419). Another device for communicating thought and storing wisdom was the riddle, and this also, under slight disguise, has its lineal descendants in the Biblical proverbs. Thus Pr. 1614, Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body, was once most probably a reply to the question, What is sweet as honey? Another example is Pr. 221: someone would ask, What is worth more than gold? and when the listeners had guessed in vain give his answer, A good repute. But better than any one comparison, more memorable than the single question, was the numerical riddle; for instance this—What four things are beyond our power to calculate?

There be three things too wonderful for me,
Yea, four which I do not comprehend—
The way of an eagle in the air;
The way of a serpent upon a rock;
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea;
And the way of a man with a maid.—(Pr. 3018, 19).

By sayings such as these were thought and experience acquired and transmitted in forgotten years. When complex thinking was impossible, when minds were dull and expression feeble, these primitive proverbs by the barb of their wit or fancy, fixed themselves deep in the memories of men.

(2). The last quotation has in early Indian literature a close parallel beginning thus:

The paths of ships across the sea,
The soaring eagle’s flight, Varuna knows....

and another of the numerical sayings from the same chapter of Proverbs has an even closer parallel:

There be three things unsatisfied,
Yea, four that say not “Enough”:
Death, and the barren womb,
Earth, never sated with water,
And fire that says not “Enough.” (Pr. 3015, 16),

compared with:

Fire is never sated with fuel;
Nor Ocean with streams;
Nor the God of death with all creatures;
Nor the bright-eyed one (i.e., woman) with man. (Hitopadeça 2, 113).

These resemblances of thought and phrase between India and Palestine provide another hint of far-past days by raising the question of the wandering of proverbs. Variations of the same tales and sayings occur among so many different peoples throughout Europe and Asia, that the possible rise of similar ideas, finding somewhat similar expression, in the various races, seems insufficient to account for the phenomena; rather we must suppose that tales and phrases circulated from tribe to tribe over an amazing stretch of territory and in very early times. What, for example, may be inferred from the correspondence between these Jewish and Indian sayings? Does it preserve a glimpse of some one man, interested in the reflections and questionings of his people, who once ages ago travelled out of India, following the immemorial trade-routes westwards across Arabia till he reached Palestine, and in the mind of some kindred soul left a memory of his wise words? Either that, or perhaps many minds were needed to transmit the thought from East to West or West to East; so that almost one might think of the words as having had wings on which they flew from camp to camp along the routes, alighting wherever men gathered for trade and found time for friendly intercourse. The subject might be developed at some length; but, try as we may, the details of these migrations hide themselves in the mists of a too distant past, and we catch but a glimpse of scenes we can never more make clear. It is better to give more time to certain general characteristics of the Jewish proverbs.

II

The abnormal aptitude of the Jews for proverb-making and their love of concrete expression are ultimately due to the conditions of early centuries. Of these two features it will be convenient to consider the second first.

The land of Palestine, home of the Jews from about 1200 B.C., lies between an ocean of water and an ocean of sand: on the west its coasts are washed, but not threatened, by the Mediterranean Sea; on the east and on the south it has to wage incessant warfare against the indrifting sands. The country is an oasis snatched from the great deserts and kept from their insidious grasp only by the toil and ingenuity of man. Behind Palestine looms Arabia, and beneath the Jew is the Arab. Throughout the last five thousand years the population of Palestine (excepting the Philistines on the coast) has been formed by layer after layer of Arabian immigrants, who have invaded the fertile lands, sometimes by the rush of sudden conquest, but also by steady, peaceful infiltration. Despite much intermarriage with the earlier Canaanites there was always a passionate strain of the desert in Jewish blood, and throughout its whole history in Palestine Israel had to live in uneasy proximity to its kinsfolk, the wild nomads who roamed the deserts to the east and south. Consequently the ultimate back-ground of the Old Testament writings is not Palestine but Arabia, a land which sets a deep and lasting impress on its children. A life wild yet monotonous in the extreme, rigid in its limitations but unbridled in its licence within those limitations: such is the rule imposed by the vast wilderness on the men who have to wander its blazing solitudes. Arabia produces four paradoxes in the intellect and characters of its nomadic tribes.[24] First, “the combination of strong sensual grossness with equally strong tempers of reverence and worship.” Second, “a marvellous capacity for endurance and resignation broken by fits of ferocity: the ragged patience bred by famine. We see it survive in the long-suffering, mingled with outbursts of implacable wrath, which characterises so many Psalms. These are due to long periods of moral famine, the famine of justice.” Third, ingenuity of mind and swift perception, but without that power or inclination for abstruse or sustained argument which the Western world has inherited from the Greeks. Fourth, a subjective attitude to the phenomena of nature and history, combined with an admirable realism in describing these phenomena.

For thousands of years before Israel entered Canaan and became a nation its ancestors were nomads of Arabia. It would be strange indeed if the great desert which so subtly and irresistibly sets its spell upon the human spirit had left no trace on Jewish proverbs. Yet the trace is not evident in points of detail. Most of the sayings we shall study in this volume represent the thoughts of certain post-exilic Jews. Where then does the mark of the desert linger? First in the peculiar concreteness of the proverbs. All proverbs tend to concrete expression, but in this respect the Jewish ones are only equalled by those of the Arabs themselves; and this quality is shown not only in the early but also in the later sayings. Let us illustrate the point before suggesting its ultimate cause. The Jew said, “Two dogs killed a lion,”[25] where we say, “Union is strength.” We say, “Familiarity breeds contempt”; they said, “The pauper hungers without noticing it.”[26] Our tendency is to consider riches and poverty, but they talked of the rich man and the poor. The most remarkable example of this tendency is the conception that gives unity to the Book of Proverbs, namely the idea of Wisdom. Here, if anywhere, one would expect the abstract to be maintained. But the individualising instinct has conquered, and in the loftiest passages of Proverbs we shall find Wisdom praised, not as an idea, but as a person, represented as a woman of transcendent beauty and nobility. Such abnormally concrete thinking may have its disadvantages, but at least it will have one satisfactory quality—humanism. Men who thought not in generalisations but in particular instances, who saw not classes but individuals, could not help being great humanists. If now we ask whence the Jewish mind received this tendency, our thoughts will have to travel back till we discern a group of black hair-cloth tents out in the Arabian Wilderness. In the tents are men who have learnt to pass safely across the deserts and are at home in them as a seaman on the seas; wild men and strong and confident, yet never careless, knowing that they can relax vigilance only at the risk of life. For these wastes are not empty but treacherous; apparently harmless, in reality full of peril. Security in the desert depends on acute and untiring observation. No amount of abstruse reasoning, no ability in speculative thought, will save life and property there, if the first sign of a lurking foe is passed unnoticed in the trying and deceitful light. Every faculty must be trained to the swift perception of concrete facts, faint signs of movement, the behaviour of men and beasts. The great sun in heaven may be trusted to rise and set: why speculate on the mystery? While we are lost in thought the sons of Ishmael may fall upon us. “The leisure of the desert is vast, but it is the leisure of the sentinel.... To the nomad on his bare, war-swept soil few things happen, but everything that happens is ominous.”

Keen observation, then, more than any other quality, is required by Arabia from its children. But observation is the quintessence of the art of proverb-making, provided it be combined with practice in the expression of one’s thoughts. As for practice in talk, one might readily suppose that the solitudes would have made their peoples tongue-tied. In point of fact the contrary is true, and the skill of the Jews in the devising of proverbs, no less than their love of concrete expression, goes back to habits engendered by this desert existence. Arabian life provided not only long leisure for reflection but also opportunity for social intercourse in the small tribal groups; so that the nomads came to have a passion for story-telling and for all manner of sententious talk, witness the customs of the Bedouin to this day and the immense collections of Arabian proverbs. Hour after hour, with Eastern tirelessness, the tribesmen, gathered at the tent of their sheikh, would listen approvingly to the eloquence bred of large experience and shrewd judgment. Here is the scene painted in the words of Doughty’s Arabia Deserta: “These Orientals study little else [than the art of conversation and narrative], as they sit all day idle in their male societies; they learn in this school of infinite human observation to speak to the heart of one another. His tales [referring to a Moorish rogue, Mohammed Aly], seasoned with saws which are the wisdom of the unlearned, we heard for more than two months; they were never-ending. He told them so lively to the eye that they could not be bettered, and part were of his own motley experience.” The Israelites carried this habit with them from Arabia into their settled homes in Canaan. Here is a similar scene in the hall of a modern Palestinian village-sheikh: “We were seated on mats, spread with little squares of rich carpet round three sides of a hollow place in the floor, where a fire of charcoal burned, surrounded by parrot-beaked coffee pots. This was the hearth of hospitality, whose fire is never suffered to go out; near it stood the great stone mortar in which a black slave was crushing coffee-beans. The coffee, deliciously flavoured with some cunning herb or other, was passed round. But the conversation which followed was the memorable part of that entertainment. In the shadow at the back the young men who had been admitted sat in silence. The old men, elders of the village community, sat in a row on stone benches right and left of the door. The sheikh made many apologies for not having called on us at the tents—he had thought we were merchantmen going to buy silk at Damascus. Then followed endless over-valuation of each other, and flattery concerning our respective parents and relations.... The elders sat silently leaning upon their staves, except now and then, when one of them would slowly rise and expatiate upon something the sheikh had said—perhaps about camels or the grain crop—beginning his interruption almost literally in the words of Job’s friends: “Hearken unto me, I also will show mine opinion. I will answer also for my part, I also will show mine opinion. For I am full of matter, the spirit within me constraineth me.”[27] So has it been in Palestine time out of mind, and it is in settings of this description that we must imagine the art of proverb-making developing in Israel.

Such, then, is the significance of these features which we have been considering—the numerical proverbs, parallels with sayings of other nations, the love of the Jews for proverbs with their consequent skill in making them, and their remarkable penchant for concrete expression. Otherwise, antiquity has left few traces in the Jewish proverbs. That, however, is but natural, since proverb-making was a living art among the people. New maxims kept coming into use, and they crowded out of memory the favourites of byegone generations. Doubtless a few of the sayings in the Book of Proverbs are ancient, though just how old we cannot tell. For example, P. 2720, Sheol and Abaddon are never filled, and the eyes of man are never sated may be co-æval with the fear of death and the passion of greed. Cheyne discovers a relic of “that old nomadic love of craft and subtlety” in the saying (Pr. 223), A shrewd man sees misfortune coming and conceals himself, whereas simpletons pass on and suffer for it; but his interpretation of the verse seems somewhat forced. The following, however, in matter and perhaps in form also may be nearly as ancient as the settled occupation of the land:

Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers set up. (Pr. 2228).

Nothing could well be easier than the removal of those landmarks—insignificant heaps of stone, set at the end of a wide furrow. But from earliest times the East has counted them adequate guardians of the fields, and from generation to generation, by consent of all decent-minded men, they have stood inviolate. Other nations, as well as Israel, called them sacred. Greece, and Rome too, gave them a god for their protection, Hermes of the Boundary, beside whose shrine of heaped-up stones travellers would stay to rest, and, rested, lay an offering of flowers or fruit before the kindly deity:

“I, who inherit the tossing mountain-forests of steep Cyllene stand here guarding the pleasant playing-fields, Hermes, to whom boys often offer marjoram and hyacinths and fresh garlands of violet.”[28]

Even the thief and murderer, we are told, would hesitate before the wickedness of moving these simple, immemorial heaps of stone: such was their sanctity. What unutterable contempt for the laws of God and man is therefore revealed in the multiple witness of the Old Testament[29] against the rich and powerful in Israel, that they scrupled not to remove the landmarks of their poorer brethren? Thieves and murderers would have kept their hands clean from such pollution:

Remove not the landmark of the widow,
Into the field of the orphan enter not;
For mighty is their Avenger,
He will plead their cause against thee (Pr. 2310, 11).

CHAPTER IV
The Day of Small Things

Popular as the custom of making and of hearing “wise words” may have been in ancient Israel, it is not surprising that only five or six proverbial sayings are recorded in the early writings of the Old Testament. For proverbs are not likely to receive mention in literature. They are too plain for the poet, too vague for the historian, too complaisant for the law-maker. And even these five or six, it appears, have been preserved not for any merit they possess as proverbs: one is of local interest only, two are picturesque, but obscure, two are the merest truisms. The right question, therefore, is not “Why are there so few?”, but “Why have these sayings been rescued from oblivion?”; and, being preserved, “Why should they receive our attention?”

Suppose that in Britain fifty or a hundred years hence men should quote “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,” when they seek an expression for the pathos and heroism that mark the acceptance of a difficult and perilous task—if those words live, why will they live? Obviously for no intrinsic merit, but for the undying memory of men who counted not their lives dear unto themselves. So with these early proverbs in the Bible. Each of them came into quickening contact with a great personality, or played a part in one of those fateful moments when the fortunes of a people or the trend of human thinking has been determined this way or that. They have lived because each has been touched by the passion of humanity. Therefore we have to study them not in isolation from the context, but in close connection with the scene or circumstance that gave them unexpected immortality.

(1) In days when Jerusalem was not yet Jerusalem, City of David, but only Jebus, a stronghold of the Canaanites, there had been built in the limestone uplands of Judæa an Israelitish village, Gibeah, situated (as the name implies), on a hill-top, doubtless for such security as the rising ground afforded.

At the time we are concerned with, Israel stood in sore need of every protection her settlements could find. Baffled by the great Canaanite fortresses, the invading Hebrews had never become absolute masters of the land, and of recent years their fortunes had altogether failed under the counter-pressure of new invaders, the Philistines, who had seized the coast of Canaan and whose restless armies came sweeping up the valleys that lead to the highlands from the plain along the sea. The raiders harried the Judæan villages, slaying the men and carrying the women, children and cattle captive to the lowlands. The villages were an easy prey, and the spirit of the Israelites was broken by the miseries of these repeated ravages. Wandering bands of religious devotees, preaching remembrance of the power of Jehovah, kept the embers of corporate feeling from flickering out; but, at the best, their wordy warfare must have seemed a feeble answer to the mail-clad giants of the Philistine hosts.

Imagine that we are standing on the hill of Gibeah, looking down the steep pathway which leads up to the village. A few days ago a young man, accompanied by a servant, went out to search the countryside for some strayed animals. All in Gibeah know him well, Saul, the son of Kish, a proper man, tall and powerful, one who in happier days might have been a leader in Israel. Saul and his servant are returning and have almost reached the foot of the ascent to the village. Last night they were with Samuel at Ramah, and at day-break secretly the seer had anointed the youth to be king over Israel; but of these events we are ignorant as yet; we do not know that the Saul who went out will return no more. Idly watching from the hill-top, we observe a company of devotees, who have spent the night in Gibeah, descending the slope towards Saul. As they approach, Saul stops and, to our faint surprise, is seen to be in speech with them. Question and answer pass. Suddenly our listless attention changes to astonishment. Below, excitement is rising, and on none has it fallen more than on Saul! He begins to talk and gesticulate like a man inspired. We raise a shout and the folk come running, and, as they see beneath them Saul now in an ecstasy, the incredulous cry breaks forth Is Saul also among the prophets?

What is the interest of this famous scene? That a proverb was born that day in Israel? That it marked the commencement of a new stage in the national life of Israel? More than that. The real interest is in the transformation effected by the recognition of a personal duty. Young men like the Saul who went out to seek the lost animals are useful members of a State, but, had Saul remained unaltered, what waste of his latent, unsuspected power! Saul had met devotees many times before, but their words had roused no energies in him. One touch of the faith of Samuel, one illuminating moment of consciousness that to him God had spoken, and—Saul was a king, and Israel again a people; despair became hope, and hope achievement. It has always been so, whenever men have listened to the summons of personal religion. We go upon our ordinary path a hundred times and return as we went, uncomprehending; but if once God meets us on the way, whether He speak by the mouth of a prophet, or, as now, by the shock of war, the miracle is effected: we are changed into another man.

(2) The scene of the second of these early proverbs is the steep and rugged country that mounts from the floor of the Dead Sea valley near Engedi. But the setting of the incident matters little; its point is all in the play of character between two great personalities—Saul, now nearing the dark finish of his reign and haunted by the thought that at his death the throne will pass from his house; and David, with youth and a good conscience to support him but fleeing for his life from the jealous king and hard pressed by the royal soldiery. Saul has entered a cave, unaware that David is hiding in its recesses. David suffers him to go out unharmed and still ignorant of his peril; but quietly he follows Saul to the sunlight at the cave’s mouth, and standing there, as the King moves off, he calls, “O my lord the King!” At the clear, musical, voice of the man he half-loves, half-hates, and cannot kill, Saul in astonishment turns to hear these words: “Wherefore hearkenest thou to men’s words saying ‘Behold David seeketh thy hurt’? Behold this day the Lord had delivered thee into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee; but mine eye spared thee and I said ‘I will not put forth mine hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed.’ Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand: for in that I cut the skirt of thy robe and killed thee not, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in my hand, and I have not sinned against thee, though thou huntest after my soul to take it. The Lord judge between me and thee, and avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. As saith the proverb of the ancients, Out of the wicked cometh forth wickedness: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.” We can see how David meant it, that proverb of the ancients. It leapt to his lips in eager protestation. How could Saul deem him capable of a deed of foulest treachery? Why could he not see that only out of the basest of men could such dire wickedness proceed? But into the mind of Saul the saying sank with double edge. What had he done towards the making of this scene—that red mist of passion when he flung the javelin; those cold and cunning plots to lure David into adventure that would be his death; the unrelaxing hunt to catch and kill? Saul for an instant saw his soul laid bare by the ancient proverb: he at least was a man from whom great wickedness had come, and “A good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. And he said to David, “Thou art more righteous than I, for thou hast rendered unto me good, whereas I have rendered unto thee evil.” A few years later the King lay dead and vanquished on Mount Gilboa. From that day to this men have not ceased to find in him a text for moralising, with some justice but with strangely little sympathy, seeing that he sinned in one thing and paid a heavy penalty. Which was the real Saul? The King crazy with murderous hatred, or the man who answered David’s generosity in those noble words, who once “was among the prophets,” who had made Israel again a people and so long time had held the Philistines at bay? It does not greatly matter if men reply “the mad Saul, who died believing himself forsaken of God”; and so push their moralisings home. But on which Saul does the Divine judgment pass? One man, more than all others, had reason to condemn, and he did more than pardon. He sang of Saul slain on Gilboa, How are the mighty fallen?... Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.

(3) In the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel two popular sayings are mentioned, which may be considered together, for their burden is one.

(a) Behold, everyone that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee saying, As is the mother, so is the daughter (Ezekiel 1644).

(b) But it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grapes his teeth shall be set on edge (Jeremiah 3128-30); and to the same effect, this from Ezekiel, The word of the Lord came unto me saying, What mean ye that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have cause any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are Mine: as the soul of the father so also the soul of the son is Mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right ... hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment ... he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God (Ezekiel 181ff).

Heredity, the question at issue in these passages, presents a more complex and stringent problem to the modern mind than to the ancient. But it would be a great error to suppose that the Jewish thinkers were less concerned about it, or that its consequences seemed to them less bitter. Indeed for the Hebrews the problem had a sinister back-ground which for us has sunk far out of sight. The solidarity of the tribe or family was a fearsome reality in days when for the sin of one member vengeance would fall upon the whole community or household. Recollect the story of Achan, who stole from the sacred spoil a Babylonish mantle, silver, and a wedge of gold: Wherefore Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan AND his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and all that he had, and burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.[30] There was a grim wisdom in the ancient procedure. Man has had a stern fight for existence. How far can he tolerate “handicaps” in the contest? What can be expected from children of corrupt and vicious parents? Good citizens? “Men do not gather grapes of thorns.” Yet who could fail to see that the children were so far innocent; and therefore, whilst Achan died unpitied and forgotten, perhaps their young voices and terror-stricken looks remained an uneasy memory in the minds of those who stood consenting unto their death? Was it necessary that the child should be irretrievably ruined through his father’s guilt?

By the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as the quotations show, the problem had deepened and become general. In the perils, hardships, and disasters which marked the decline and fall of the Judæan kingdom men felt that the whole nation was suffering the consequences of their fathers’ iniquities, and bitterly they quoted the saying The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. That way lay despair: Let us too eat of the grapes and drink of their wine and be merry, since to-morrow we die! Even the prophets experienced the temptation to hopelessness; as when Ezekiel, wrestling with Judah sunk in the old sins, thinks that in future days men will still have to cast at her the charge of idolatries handed down from the ancient Canaanites: as is the mother so is the daughter. But Jeremiah and Ezekiel both fought their way through to a new conception of life, and this it is which is proclaimed in the two chief passages quoted above. Deliverance from the entail of evil is, they declare, possible; man is not immovably fastened in chains which his ancestors have forged.

So stands religion to-day, claiming power in the building of human character. Fuller recognition and much deeper comprehension of the works of heredity (as also of environment) are desirable and are not inimical to a religious interpretation of human nature. Religion lays stress on these two points. First, the fact that if there is an entail of evil there is also an entail of good, together with the judgement that the inheritance of good is the greater and ought to be made supreme: that as St. Paul insisted Where sin did abound, grace doth much more abound[31]. And, secondly, religion insists on the reality of that power of self-determination which would seem to be characteristic of every living being and in Man to be of primary importance. All that we may become does not follow inexorably from what we now are. What we have become was not wholly involved in what we were. Crude determinism is either an Eastern idleness or a pedant’s nightmare, and freedom, though it slips through the meshes of our clumsy analysis is a reality. To each in measure it is given, though one may misuse it into the atrophy of evil habit, whilst another may use it unto the liberty of the children of God. We inherit, but, inheriting, we also originate. We are created, but are also creators. We are pressed by our environment, but our environment may become Christ, whose service is perfect freedom.

(4) One other embedded proverb occurs in a passage of Ezekiel (1221, 22): And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, “Son of man, what is this proverb that ye have in the land of Israel saying, The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth?” Other lands besides Israel have echoed those despairing words. It is hard not to feel in a city-settlement that “the days are prolonged”; hard in a half-filled church not to wonder if “every vision faileth.” But a true man will still hold to the instinct that somehow his hopes are certainties, and will make answer with Israel’s prophet thus: Tell them therefore, “Thus saith the Lord God: I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but say unto them, ‘The days are at hand, and the fulfilment of every vision.’”

A man who finds himself without confidence in God or man might save himself from pessimism by a study of the intellectual, moral and spiritual achievements of the Hebrew prophets.[32] Looking back on Jewish history it is manifest that the spiritual longings of these great personalities were realised to a wonderful extent and in ways impossible for themselves or their contemporaries to perceive or anticipate. Things did work together for good to those Jews who sought to discover the will of God and, despite perplexity and hardship, refused to abandon their imperfect but advancing faith. Thus even the Exile, apparently the dissolution of Israel’s life, proved to be the very means of its preservation and subsequent extension to a position of world-wide influence. No one who has realised on the one hand the overwhelming difficulties against which the prophets had to contend, the frankness with which they faced the naked facts, their own agonising struggle of soul against doubt and despair, and on the other side the ultimate vindication of their faith; no one with that knowledge clear before him will find it easy wholly to despair of men, or to cast from him for ever the hope of God.

Besides these few incidental proverbs, the pre-exilic literature of the Old Testament fortunately has preserved occasional glimpses of the makers of proverbs in Israel, and to these we now turn. We shall then be prepared to study the special development of Jewish proverbs which furnishes the chief interest of our subject. It will be convenient first to set down the evidential passages consecutively, and afterwards to consider their significance.

(a) The narrative in 2 Samuel 141ff relating the stratagem by which Joab succeeded in reconciling King David to his son Absalom begins thus: Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s heart was towards Absalom. And Joab sent to Tekoa and fetched thence a wise woman.

(b) The second passage is in 2 Samuel 2016-22—Joab, as David’s general, having pursued the rebel Sheba into the North of Israel, has compelled him to take refuge in the town of Abel, and is on the point of breaching the wall and capturing the city, when there cried unto him a wise woman out of the city ... and she said unto him “There is a saying, To finish your business ask counsel at Abel.”[33] Thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother in Israel. And Joab answered and said, “Far be it from me that I should swallow and destroy. But ... Sheba the son of Bichri ... deliver him only, and I will depart from the city.” And the woman said unto Joab, “Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall.” Then the woman went unto all the people in her wisdom. ...

(c) The famous passage in which the wisdom of King Solomon is extolled, 1 Kings 429-34: And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore. And Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East (i.e. Arabia) and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men: than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all the nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; he spake also of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things and of fishes.

(d) Isaiah 2913, 14: And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw nigh with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me and their fear of me is a commandment of men which hath been taught them; therefore behold I will again do a marvellous work among this people ... and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.

(e) Jeremiah 1818 (cp. 88 and 923): Then said they, Come and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.

Of these passages the first two show that there was a “Wisdom” in Israel before Solomon, that it was concerned with prudential counsel as to the conduct of life, and was associated with the use of maxims, some of which had passed into well-known proverbs; and further that certain persons (often, perhaps generally, women) were recognised as of pre-eminent skill in this giving of advice; and that townships (doubtless with a shrewd eye to the increase of their commerce) vied one with another in vaunting their respective sages. Slight as this evidence may be, it is sufficient, because it is in accord with the facts of later periods and with that liking for sententious talk which we have noted as characteristic of the Semites from very early ages. Observe also how in the third passage the wisdom of Solomon is not regarded as a quality peculiar to himself. True, he possessed wisdom in a rare or superlative degree, but it was comparable with the “Wisdom of the East” (Arabia) and the “Wisdom of Egypt.” Nor was Solomon alone in his wisdom. To him the first place; but he had great rivals whose names posterity thought worth preserving. One suspects that the King’s reputation for sagacity may have been enhanced by his royal estate, and that in the passage quoted from the Book of Kings we see him through the haze of grandeur with which later generations encircled his reign. Even so, the tradition of his wisdom stands, and like all firm traditions has a basis in fact. What inferences should we draw? Not that the three thousand proverbs with which tradition credited Solomon are those preserved in the Book of Proverbs, despite the fact that the main sections of the Book are prefaced by titles ascribing them to him.[34] A few of the proverbs may have been spoken by Solomon himself or at his court by persons renowned for sagacity, but nothing more than that is probable.[35] Two positive conclusions seem tenable. First, that King Solomon made a profound impression on his contemporaries by reason of his subtle judgment, and his ability to express his thoughts in just such moralistic maxims, comparisons, parables, and fables, as the Wise were wont to use. In fact, the King was a Wise-man and a Wise-man was King.[36] No wonder that his renown grew until he became, so to speak, the patron saint of Wisdom in Israel, with whose authority any “Wise” words might fittingly be associated. But further in view of the aptitude shown by the King for the art of the Wise, it is reasonable to believe that their prestige at this period must have been greatly enhanced in the estimation of all classes. The man of Wisdom was persona grata at Court. And what more is needed to secure a reputation?

Hence it is not unexpected, though very interesting, to find two or three centuries later that when Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of the Wise they refer to them as an influence in the land ranking with the prophets and the ceremonial religion. To the true prophets it appeared to be an influence not always for good, or even inimical to their moral idealism. Thus Isaiah declares that in the glorious day when Jehovah reveals His truth the Wisdom of the wise men shall perish (Isaiah 2914); and Jeremiah gives as the reason why his enemies consider that his death or imprisonment would be small loss to the nation their belief that “the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet” (Jer. 1818).

This evidence might be augmented by passages in the Book of Job, where, for instance, the wisdom of Israel is described as an ancient, though living, tradition: it is that which wise men have told from their fathers (Job 1518.) But enough has been said. To sum up, it appears that the Hebrews, like their near kinsmen the Arabs, loved to listen to the conversation of those, who, having ripe experience, shrewd wits, and a sharp tongue, were able to cast their reflections on life into parables and maxims which the hearer could readily remember. Persons with an aptitude for such discourse were acknowledged among their fellows as “wise.” Anyone with the necessary intelligence and dignity might acquire this reputation. The Wise were never sharply differentiated from the rest of the community; they did not become a strict order or a caste like the priests, but remained a type or class; a class, however, of such importance that it could be spoken of in the same breath with the prophets and the priests. Egyptian analogies suggest that the Wise may have taken on themselves duties in the instruction of the young: but just what these early sages said and thought we cannot ascertain. Nor is it likely we have lost much in consequence. Some of their favourite sayings may eventually have been incorporated in the Book of Proverbs, but the antagonism of the great prophets shows that they were not enthusiasts for reform, and doubtless the bulk of their maxims were prudential counsels suitable to the standards of the age. In short, their teaching must have been desultory, lacking the inspiration of a definite purpose and a clearly conceived ideal. Thus far we find nothing that matters to the modern world, nothing to awaken more than a flicker of our interest. No reason has yet appeared to prompt the hope that Israel would make more of her Wisdom than Edom or Egypt of theirs, and that was little enough. In all this we find only “the Day of Small Things,” and need dwell no longer on its trifles. But equally we ought to avoid the folly of despising it. The Hebrews, after all, were not precisely as their neighbours of Philistia, Edom, or Egypt. Behind them they had, as a people, an astonishing history, and in their midst a succession of amazing men, the prophets who had prophesied to them words which it was not possible should die, seeds of the ultimate Wisdom. In Judah there was growing up a capacity for faith, a spiritual interpretation of life and an enlightenment of moral conscience unique in the ancient world. Hence Israel’s Wise-men were not as other Wise-men; they had great potentialities. At length, after the exile, circumstances came to pass which favoured the development of latent genius in these men. All that had been needed was an immediate stimulus, a liberating idea, a flash to kindle the flame.

CHAPTER V
Iron Sharpeneth Iron

Life is very jealous of its secrets, and it is only by irrepressible questioning that man has read what he has read of the truth. The insurgent “Why?” of our early years is perhaps the one childish thing we ought to cherish to our dying day. All sorts of evil things—surface-familiarity, routine, but above all self-satisfaction—combine to stifle and to end our curiosity; at length we acquiesce in and forget our ignorance, and thereafter stand with our prejudices cumbering the ground for those who would go further. Questioning is health to the soul, and perhaps success is to be measured not by the fulness of the answers we receive but by our eagerness in asking.

Almost everyone knows that there is in the Bible a Book of Proverbs. A few of its sayings are in daily use. Most men have read a chapter or two. But at that point knowledge is apt to flag. What lack of enterprise! It is like giving up an excursion at the first mile-stone. Why should there be a Book of Proverbs? Why did men think it worth transmitting, and why did they finally count it sacred literature? Why has it just the form it has? How comes it, for instance, that single sayings have sometimes blossomed into little essays, and brief comparisons grown into finished pictures? What is the note of clear intention which pervades the chapters and gives them a certain unity and individuality? Zeal and energy characterise the Book. Zeal for what? The previous chapter indicates that the answer to that last question may be stated concisely in the one word “Wisdom,” the meaning of which subsequent pages will unfold. The aim of the present chapter is to discover an adequate reason for the zeal.

Not seldom it happens that enthusiasm for a cause is first provoked by opposition. For example, belief that international relationships ought to be governed by ethical principles was generally and genuinely held by the vast majority of English-speaking people in 1914; but the belief lacked energising force. It seemed enough to entertain it. Of the existence of a fundamentally different conception—that Might is the ultimate right in national affairs—we were of course aware, but the knowledge did not disturb us greatly. We fondly imagined that after some more debate, and a little more reflection, so unenlightened and unneighbourly a notion must disappear. When, however, Germany suddenly put false theory into infamous practice, mark how our amiable opinion became not only an urgent and indispensable ideal, but a definite policy which must at all costs be upheld and made effective, if humanity was to be saved from the yoke of an utterly immoral tyranny. In a moment we realised the awful immediacy of the issue that had been at stake. The debate was not as we supposed, on paper. Here was no wordy strife. Nay! the battle at our gates was not confined even to the quick bodies of men; it penetrated to the very mind and spirit, so that almost St. Paul’s words seemed again in place: “Ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood, but with ... the spiritual hosts of evil arrayed against us in the heavenly places.”[37]

Similarly it was an insistent menace that roused the fervour of the Wise-men of Israel. Subtle but deadly opposition compelled them either to champion their cause or see it fall. Wisdom in consequence acquired a firmer outline. Because another Creed was in the air, it also became a definite “Way of life.” The issues were clarified, the trend of things revealed. It was felt there were but two paths for a man to choose, now sharply defined and seen to lead in opposite directions:

Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings,
And the years of thy life shall be many.
I have taught thee in the way of Wisdom,
I have led thee in paths of uprightness.
When thou goest thy steps shall not be straightened,
And if thou runnest thou shalt not stumble.
Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go:
Keep her, for she is thy life.
Enter not into the paths of the wicked,
And walk not in the way of evil men.
Avoid it, pass not by it;
Turn from it, and pass on.
For they sleep not except they have done mischief;
And their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall.
For they eat the bread of wickedness
And drink the wine of violence.
But the path of the righteous is as the shining light,
That shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The way of the wicked is as darkness
They know not at what they stumble. (Pr. 410-19)[38].

What then, was Wisdom’s opponent? Not Folly in the perennial sense, else where was the novelty of the situation? The foe was Folly masquerading as Wisdom, a specious spurious Wisdom which, said the Jewish moralists, despite appearances was No-Wisdom. But if it was not the reality, it was very like it; for the false Wisdom was beautiful, brilliant, and exceedingly effective, had all the rights of sovereignty save one, all the qualities of permanence save one—a firm basis in morality. It lacked only the “fear of the Lord,” which the Jew defined as “to depart from evil,” and which he held to be the one possible foundation for the truly wise life. Not having that, it was but the devil robed as an angel of light, Folly of Follies, a Temple of Wisdom founded upon the sand.

In order to do justice to the efforts made by the Jews of the third and second centuries B.C. to maintain an intellectual, moral and spiritual independence in face of the new learning, or rather the new manner of life we are about to describe, it is necessary to appreciate not only the force of the attack but also the limited resources of the defence. Let us begin therefore by striving to realise the position of the Palestinian Jews in the ancient world.[39] The overwhelming religious importance of the Jews has so distorted the proportions of that world that even the professed student of antiquity finds it difficult to recover the true perspective and realise their geographical and historical insignificance. Without pausing to reflect, answer this question, “Which were the chief nations of antiquity?” “The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans,” is perhaps the reply that would rise most readily to your lips. But as well might one classify the inhabitants of the modern Western world into Manxmen, Europeans, and Americans! “Which were the famous countries of the pre-Christian era?” “Palestine, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia,” might be our response. But the Egyptians and Babylonians did not hang with breathless interest on the fortunes of Palestine, as we are naturally prone to imagine. They cared no more for the fate of Jerusalem than modern Europe does for the fortunes of Monaco. Now and again a king of Egypt marching north along the Philistine plain, or a grand monarch of Babylon, sweeping south to the borders of Nile, might turn aside a fraction of his host to ravage and overcome the Judæan highlands. But, as a rule, Jerusalem, not being on the main track of conquest, was not vitally affected by the coming and going of the huge armies that issued periodically from the northern and southern Empires.

And next consider how unimportant even in Palestine were the Jews of post-exilic days. The history of that country is familiar to us only from the records of the Jewish Scriptures. If with the same fulness we could hear the story from the standpoint of Israel’s neighbours the proportions of things might seem immensely changed. How hard it is to remember that Solomon in all his glory had no authority in Philistine towns thirty miles away; and that Hiram of Tyre doubtless considered himself every whit as great a lord as the ruler of Jerusalem, and perhaps more highly civilised, certainly his superior in the matter of arts and crafts. In 722 B.C., with the capture of Samaria, the northern kingdom of Israel passed out of history, and with the influx of alien settlers into its desolated territory the district became semi-heathen. In 586 B.C. a like fate befell the little kingdom of Judah, the Temple of Jerusalem being burnt, the city walls destroyed and the upper classes carried off to Babylonia. Thereafter for a period of a century and a half Jerusalem existed only as an enfeebled, unfortified township. The return of exiles from Babylon in the reign of Cyrus (537 B.C.), though the fame of it bulked large in Jewish tradition, was no great increase of strength, perhaps little more than the accession of a few influential families. Not until a century later in the time of Nehemiah, about 432 B.C., did the Jews feel that their political history had recommenced; and, even so, the work of Nehemiah was not the creation of a kingdom for his people but the circumvallation of their one city. With its walls restored Jerusalem might again be said to exist, a defenced city, no longer dependent on the mercy of petty and jealous neighbours. But the territories of the Jews remained much as before; namely the fields and little villages to a distance of some ten or fifteen miles around Jerusalem. Nor was there any considerable extension of purely Jewish land until the successes of the Maccabees were gained in 166 B.C. To sum up. Even after the work of Nehemiah had been accomplished, the Jewish State in Palestine was still no more than an insignificant upland community, a drop in the ocean of pagan races enclosing it; a tract some fifteen miles in length and breadth with Jerusalem as its only city. Doubtless the Jews were encouraged by the prosperity of their kinsfolk in the great cities of Babylonia, Syria and Egypt. But that was a source only of moral or financial help, not of physical protection: and to the east were the wild nomadic tribes, and south of Jerusalem the treacherous Edomites, and to the north the worse than alien Samaritans, whose Temple on Mount Gerizim challenged Jerusalem’s last glory, its spiritual pre-eminence. Galilee was heathen land; on the west were the splendid heathen cities of the coast; and far to the distant south beyond mysterious Nile and away to the most distant north ranged the vast territories of heathen monarchs before whose military power and worldly splendour Jerusalem was altogether less than nothing and vanity.

In 332 B.C. a thunderbolt smote all the countries of the near East. In that year a European army, led by the young king of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, invaded Asia Minor—with such astonishing effects that the event marks the commencement of a distinct epoch in history, the Greek or Hellenic age. Military conquests prove sometimes to be of small consequence in the great movement of human affairs, and famous battles often have decided no more than that so many thousand men should die untimely deaths and that this royal house instead of that should hold the throne: an almost meaningless result. Only those wars are decisive which, like the present one, involve the dominance of one or other of two divergent conceptions or ideals of human life. Now the conquests of Alexander were of this latter character; and, that being so, their significance has to be measured not only from the standpoint of events but also from the history of ideas. At this point then—the coming of the Greeks to the East—let our narrative be checked for a moment that we may reach the same event by following up a different line of thought, namely the history of the development of human society. What is the significance of Alexander from that point of view? Our aim in examining the question will have to be threefold; to present (of course, in simplest outline) first, the ruling principles of the Eastern or Oriental manner of life; secondly, the Western—that is, the Greek or Hellenic—ideals; and thirdly, the attempt of Alexander and his successors to impose this Hellenic culture upon the Easterns and, in particular, upon the Jews in Palestine.

1. First, of ancient Oriental life. In a previous chapter it was said that behind Palestine looms Arabia and beneath the Jew is the Arab. From before the dawn of history the immense grass-lands of Arabia have been peopled by small nomadic tribes who derived a sufficient livelihood from the flocks they possessed and followed. All the organised life of the Semitic races, with whom alone we are here concerned, has its instincts rooted in this nomadic existence, about which much might profitably be said; but only one point is essential, and to that our remarks will be confined. It is that these pastoral communities have solved the problem of life under existing circumstances. The rigid limitations of their physical surroundings dictates a narrow circle of ambitions beyond which they do not pass, so long as the conditions remain unchanged. For not only have they discovered how to live, but they have found out the best way of living, within their simple, monotonous world. Therefore they continue, but they do not change. Progress was practically unthought of, certainly undesired; and in fact the life of the modern Bedouin of Arabia is still in its essentials the same as that depicted in the Book of Genesis. But about 3000 B.C., for the first time though not the last time in history, Arabia became overcrowded, in the sense that its pasturage was insufficient to sustain the population, and multitudes of nomads, hunger-driven, poured forth into the fertile territories bordering the deserts. There the arts of agriculture and of building were learnt, settled communities formed, tribal organisation yielded to larger groups, kingdoms arose, and eventually great empires. But the civilised life of the Semites proved to be as lacking in the instinct for progress, whether material, moral or intellectual, as in its simpler way the original pastoral existence has been. Life in Semitic towns became richer and more complex up to a certain point, but there ambition faded, and the ingrained habit of acquiescence in existing circumstances prevailed, hindering and preventing further growth. Thus, politically, this eastern civilisation was characterised by the mass of the people seeking no share in their own government. They were content to be ruled by authorities whom they seldom created and never effectively controlled. It has been truly said that the kings of the East fought over the heads of their subjects. The affairs of a baker in Jerusalem, a merchant in Gaza, a craftsman in Tyre (provided the victorious army left him alive) were unaltered by the rise and fall of his rulers. To the bulk of the inhabitants of the Palestinian towns it mattered little whether they were temporarily independent or were under the heel now of Babylon, now of Egypt, now of Persia. Men hoped for no more than that trade should be possible, food obtainable, and that the injustice in the realm should be—not abolished (no one was so mad as to entertain the notion) but—kept within tolerable bounds. For the rest, what more could a man desire than to live as had his father before him? Ancestral custom held the whole of life in its paralysing grasp, and choked initiative. The potter sought no new patterns; what was wrong with the old? Why devise a new method of ploughing, when the old way grew the crops? Innovation was an altogether hateful thing. Hence, however populous Eastern towns might grow, however active and prosperous their commerce, life in them was essentially stationary, its ambitions limited, its possibilities achieved. In all Palestine there was but one spark of unexhausted thought; namely, the conception of God which the great prophets of Israel had discovered and transmitted to their people. Evidently a nation which remembered such words as these: I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream[40]—that nation is not finished; it has living seed within its soil. Yes, but against this confident assertion recall how shrunken and enfeebled the Jewish community had become. Further, remember that in all things except their religion and their morality these Jews were part and parcel of the general Oriental civilisation. In their civil occupations, their commercial and agricultural methods, they also were just as much slaves of tradition and as content with their bondage, as were their neighbours. “Slaves of tradition,” how much the words cover! If even dimly we could realise the misery, disease and squalor of the poor, the degradation of womanhood, in those tradition-ridden Eastern towns; if we could taste like gall and bitterness in our own experience one thousandth part of the injustice and cruelties of those “contented” despotisms; “A stationary civilisation, having reached the limit of its ambitions”—how easily the phrase is framed!—if we could feel how much that meagre consummation left to be desired, the words would seem to be written in blood and blotted with tears!

2. Meanwhile in Europe, across the blue seas of the Eastern Mediterranean, a new thing had come to pass: an organisation of human life different in form and in intention because different in mind and spirit. By its means the intellectual powers and artistic achievements of man were swiftly to be raised to an unimagined splendour, and, even so, to remain unexhausted: we say “unexhausted” because the inspiring and energising ideas which Greek genius was the first to realise and accept have never ceased to operate, being in fact the intellectual principles upon which Western civilisation has been constructed, and providing the ideal towards which the development of society is still directed. Doubtless there is terribly much to deplore in modern life; we are far from wisdom, peace and true prosperity; it may be doubted whether the conditions of the poor under modern industrialism are not, in places, worse than anything even the East can show. And yet there is one incalculable difference revolutionising the whole prospect. Unlike the East, we do not acquiesce in existing evils. We are not exhausted, not apathetically willing to accept things as they are. We spurn as nonsense and cowardice any suggestions that the limit of human development has been attained. Vehemently and hopefully we insist on the achievement of better things. Not all the errors of the past and the resultant evils of the present daunt us. We are rebels against our failures, and our discontent is the measure of our vitality. This instinct for improvement, which is the characteristic of Western life, we owe—an infinite debt—to the people whose coming into history we have now, briefly, to relate.

As early as before 2000 B.C., the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, together with certain parts of the mainland of Greece, were the home of a vigorous sea-faring people, possessing remarkable artistic talent. Their civilisation is now known by the name Minoan. Somewhere between 1200 and 1100 B.C. catastrophic disaster befel this race. Out of the immense grass-lands which stretch from the plains of Hungary in Europe eastward right across central Asia there issued a multitude of men, moving southward with their wives and families. The invaders swept down into Thessaly and Greece, filling the mainland and pressing onwards across the sea to the Ægean Isles, massacring or enslaving the Minoan inhabitants. But if the newcomers at first brought ruin to a more highly developed race, they had their own virtues. They carried with them a fresh vigour, like a breeze from the north. Hardy and simple, they were not rude savages; they had learnt the use of wheeled vehicles, they had tamed the horse, and above all they possessed, as individuals, a certain sturdy independence and an uncommon open-mindedness. Fortunately, the older population was not extinguished; large numbers survived as slaves, and from these in time the “horse-tamers”—as the conquerors loved to style themselves—learnt for themselves the secrets of the Minoan arts and crafts. With astonishing rapidity they were to improve upon their teachers.

Owing to the mountainous character of Greece and the indentations of its coast, the invaders were split into many separate communities, each easily controlling the small plains and valleys in the immediate neighbourhood, but finding it difficult, if not unnatural, to extend its rule beyond the mountain passes. For defensive purposes the members of these small groups naturally tended to inhabit a single fortified town, which became the all-absorbing centre of the tiny state; the town being, as it were, a stronghold and its territories a garden round it. Thus there came into existence what is known as “the Greek City-State.” Like the Arabian tribes who also had passed from nomadism to settled life, each of these new communities fell for a time under some form of despotic government, now the rule of one man, a King or “Tyrant,” now of a clique of rich and powerful persons, an Aristocracy. But there was something in the character of the Greeks which proved intolerant of such organisation, and, unlike the Arabians, they passed beyond that experience and developed a novel and, as events were to prove, an invaluable social system to which they gave the name “Democracy.” The foundation principle of the democratic state lay in the conviction that every adult free-born citizen, being an integral part of the state, contributing to its prosperity and security, was entitled to a share in its government. Slaves were outside the franchise, but all others whether base-born or noble, rich or poor, clever or stupid, were citizens—each with a vote and a voice in the direction of public policy, internal and external. To this citizen-body belonged the power of electing from among themselves officers, both civil magistrates and military commanders, to whom administration was temporarily entrusted, and who were ultimately responsible for their actions to the citizen-body. Under happy fortune this system was adopted as the constitution of society in the leading Greek cities. Mark the mental and moral qualities thereby engendered. In the first place men became exhilaratingly conscious that they possessed individual freedom combined with corporate strength. Each citizen felt himself to be of political importance, an organic part of the state, entitled on the one hand to a share in its glory and its privileges, and on the other responsible himself for the general welfare. How can the epoch-making importance of this fact adequately be emphasised? In primitive patriarchal society the individual had been free but only within the narrow limits imposed by the rigidity of custom and the bare simplicity of rudimentary life. And civilised town-life of the Eastern type, as we have seen, was complex and magnificent in many ways, but nevertheless had missed the secret of advancing freedom. Intellectually it hated novelties. Politically it made men either kings or the slaves of kings, giving them either too great importance or none at all. Hence the larger the Eastern town, the more powerful and extensive the State, the less was the mass of the people personally concerned in their civil or military affairs. “Freedom” in an Eastern city meant anarchy. The Greeks succeeded in bringing freedom and civilisation into organic union. So far from choking liberty, the connection of each Greek citizen with his city was perceived to be the very cause of the freedom he enjoyed, the means by which his privileges were multiplied and secured. Hence the greater the organisation of society the greater the opportunities each citizen acquired for the development of personal talent and inclination. It is assuredly no exaggeration to describe such an achievement as “epoch-making.”

Along with political freedom went mental freedom. Interchange of opinion took place easily and continually between all grades of the free community. The general obligation to promote the social, commercial, and military well-being of the state stimulated discussion and gave to debate the piquancy and solemnity of serious issues. A Greek might be poor, but he could hold up his head with the richest as a member of the citizen army and the citizen electorate; and in the citizen assembly he need not be a gray-beard to be reckoned wise. Mental ability became the test of worth, and the benumbing tyranny of tradition was overthrown; at least its unquestioned rule was at an end. Custom must henceforth submit to criticism and seek to justify itself. Enterprise, enquiry, innovation became the order of the day. It was the emancipation of the human intelligence.

Moreover, since the rough work of society was performed by the slave population, Greek citizens found much leisure at their disposal. Herein was obviously a danger, but also an opportunity; and fortunately the genius of the people was not found wanting, so that, in the early days the Greeks turned their leisure to good purpose, physical and intellectual. Part of their leisure was devoted to physical exercises, running, wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus, chariot-racing; and in the healthful competition of these games in stadium and hippodrome they found continual pleasure. But their ardour for mental exercise was even keener. They began to think with restless energy and with brilliant results; men of genius, poets, historians, philosophers, and artists, by their matchless achievements raised the intellectual interests of their contemporaries to an extraordinary extent. In general, the Greeks acquired a wonderful feeling for proportion and natural rhythmic beauty. “Nothing in excess” became their motto, but what was meant thereby was no timid mediocrity, but an avoidance of extreme, wherever the extreme was grotesque or foolish. Men sought an equipoise of perfection, and felt infinite delight in the increasing measure of their success. Within a few hundred years the Greeks had produced masterpieces of art and literature which few nations have been able even to rival, none to surpass.

In short, three characteristics distinguished Greek or Hellenic civilisation: First, Emulation. Men vied one with another, vied with their own past efforts. They sought to excel and achieved excellence. Second, Intellectualism. The critical faculties of the mind were increasingly released from the trammels of tradition. Reason became the touchstone of life in all its aspects; and thus, just as in our own age, the immense destructive and constructive energies of the free intelligence were ceaselessly set to work. Third, Patriotism. This third quality calls for fuller comment, for it was the main source of Greek morality. Greek religion contributed something to the growth of moral principles, but less than one might imagine. Its ethical interest for the most part was limited to inculcating the fear lest Divine vengeance should follow gross outrage of the normal decencies of life. Doubtless also the artistic sense fostered love of the good, since, as a rule, what is wicked appears to men to be ugly; yet the fruits from this source also were not much to boast of. But from the intense patriotism fostered by the City-States came great moral consequences. The interests of the State claimed men’s allegiance, and the claim was nobly answered. Not only great-hearted leaders but also masses of ordinary men were willing to set the public weal above their individual prosperity or security. In striving to be noble citizens men became noble men. Thousands and thousands were conscious that they could not live unto themselves—without shame. Altruism was a searching reality in their lives, and its burdens were loyally, even gladly, accepted. Men were very zealous for their city, longing for its honour and renown, ready to toil for it, to face hardship and peril on its behalf, and for its safety to die unflinchingly. And no less measure of sacrifice was all too frequently required from the citizens of these ambitious and war-like little States. Let their own words tell how they met the supreme call: “Through these men’s valour, the smoke of the burning of wide-floored Tegea went not up to heaven, who chose to leave the city glad and free to their children, and themselves to die in the forefront of the battle.”[41] Or, best of all, take Simonides’ epitaph on the Athenians fallen at Plataea:—

“If to die nobly is the chief part of excellence,
To us of all men Fortune gave this lot;
For hastening to set a crown of freedom on all Hellas,
We lie possessed of praise that grows not old.”

Surely no one can fail to hear in those words and in the spirit of this Greek life the music of familiar things, things which we have taken to our heart. That is because the thoughts of Hellas are the source from which our own intellectual and social ideas have been derived.

But Hellenic life was not sunshine without shadow. For all its power and brilliance Greek society was exposed to many perils and was guilty of serious mistakes. These, however, we have here no need to discuss in full. It is enough to note that, when-and-where-soever the necessity for ardent patriotism was absent or unfelt the Greek conception of life lacked adequate moral incentive, and sinister conditions which were a very black shadow in a fair world could and did arise. Much might also be said regarding the jealousies of the petty cities, whence came warfare constant, embittered, and suicidal. Nevertheless it remains absolutely true, that compared with the stagnation of Eastern civilisation, Hellenism was life and health. Judge from one token, the epitaphs just quoted. Men could not write like that in Palestine or Babylon, because they never died for such a cause.

In the years between 359 and 338 B.C. the independent Greek cities were all forced to admit the suzerainty, first of Philip II., king of Macedon, and, after his assassination in 336, of his son Alexander, who was to be remembered throughout history as Alexander the Great. The humiliation was not in any way a crushing blow to the spirit of Greece. To the yoke of Philip and Alexander the city-states could submit with a good grace, for the Macedonians were of the same ancestry as the Greeks, and for years had been to all intents and purposes a part of the Greek world; and Alexander was wholly Hellenic in his upbringing and his ideas. Had he not been educated by the great philosopher, Aristotle? In 334 B.C., the young king organised an army of Macedonians and Greeks and set forth to make a grand assault upon the nations of the East: a stupendous task, but the enterprise appealed to the Greeks as a poetic requital of the awful peril one hundred and fifty years before when Xerxes of Persia at the head of a horde of Orientals had crossed to Greece and almost blotted out its rising life. If the task was colossal and the force to achieve it tiny, the results staggered the imagination of the world. The huge Persian Empire crumbled at the touch of Greek military prowess, directed by the genius of Alexander. In three years the young Macedonian had become absolute master of Western Asia Minor, of Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, and Persia. In 326 B.C. he pushed his conquests to the Punjab, and in 325 he died; but Hellenism did not die with him. The East had seen many conquerors rise and sweep through its lands in triumph, and had continued to dream its long dreams. But the military achievements of Alexander were only the beginning of his work. What stirred the East to its depths was the fascination of the ideas that had accompanied him and that he deliberately sought to establish among the conquered peoples; with what measure of success it now remains to consider.

3. A stormy period followed Alexander’s death. Eventually his Eastern dominions were divided between two of his generals; Ptolemy, who took possession of Egypt, and Seleucus, who became ruler of Syria and the Mesopotamian territories. Happily it is not necessary to follow the confused struggles that ensued between them and their successors—struggles in which Palestine, situated between the rival kingdoms, was continually involved. The point to be observed is that both Ptolemy and Seleucus were Hellenes, as also were most of their leading men, and both they and their successors prosecuted, with all possible energy, Alexander’s policy, the Hellenising of the East. Consider the forces directed to the attainment of that object.

The powerful influences of the royal courts in Egypt and Syria saw to it that throughout the length and breadth of their kingdoms places of honour were reserved for Greeks and such Orientals as might show themselves capable of appreciating and adopting Hellenic culture. To be a Greek, if not by race, then by imitation, became the only avenue to wealth or fame or royal favour.

Alexander, however, had seen that if Hellenism was permanently to subdue and recreate the East it must touch not only the interests of such as are clothed in soft raiment and in kings’ courts live delicately, it must be made a reality daily affecting the life of common folk; and with the foresight of genius he himself pointed the way to secure that end. Realising the organic connection between the Greek ideals and the Greek city, he established at strategic points of his Empire new cities planned on the Hellenic model. The Ptolemaic and Seleucid kings persevered in this scheme. New cities of the Grecian type were founded in their realms, and the old towns were conformed to the new order of things so far as might be. In all important centres the essential accompaniments of Hellenic life were introduced: new political organisation for the election of magistrates, and buildings to meet the system; a hall for the Senate, shady pillared galleries where the free citizens might gather to lounge and talk, baths and gymnasia, a stadium and a hippodrome for the games, and for the drama a theatre. With such interests and amusements the imagination of the common folk was stirred and pleased. The youth of the cities became enthusiastic for the gaieties and glories of the competitive games. Guilds of athletes were formed and received the privilege of wearing a special dress, “a broad-brimmed hat, a fluttering cloak broached about the shoulders, and high laced boots.”[42] In great public processions these young men marched as a special class, wearing crowns of gold, and bearing witness to the wealth and pride of their respective cities by the colours and rich embroideries of their attire. But staider folk than the young and fashionable were also caught in the wide-spread nets of Hellenism. The wealth of the Greek cities and the royal favour shown them attracted commerce, and sleepy Eastern merchants discovered that if they wished to do business they must conform to the prevailing tastes; so that Greek became the language of the market-place as well as of the Court. Finally, the learning and skill of the East confessed its conqueror. Greek art and Greek literature, Greek science and philosophy made the older Eastern styles seem worthless in comparison. Within two centuries following the death of Alexander the near East had been transformed. Hellenism had cast its spell over the whole of life.

The period is one of profound interest for the study of humanity. On the one hand it did much to secure the perpetuation of the intellectual methods of the Greeks, which might have perished had they not been extended beyond the frontiers of the small Greek States in Europe; and on the other hand it showed that the East can change. Human nature is not, as some would have us believe, divided for ever into irreconcilable sections. There are no unbridgeable gulfs between the Eastern and the Western mind. If the modern Westernising movements in China or India should fully succeed, they will but demonstrate anew what was proved long ago in Asia Minor during the three critical centuries before Christ. The challenge these facts present to those who suppose that Christianity cannot become a universal faith is obvious. We must not attempt to give a detailed picture of Hellenism. But even these outlines are enough to show how thoroughly and dramatically the immemorial fashions of the East had been upset and new ambitions kindled, so that men must have felt as if they had been emancipated from the dead past and told to make trial of a new form of life, one that was already brilliant and delightful, but was most of all thrilling in its unknown possibilities. The peoples that walked in darkness thought they had seen a great light.

One fact, however, and that of prime importance, has been left out of count in this description of the situation. Hellenism in the East had a fatal deficiency; it lacked the keen patriotism that inspired the life of the old Greek cities. In Athens men had known that only by the maintenance of their best ideals could Athens lead the intellect of Greece, only by discipline and self-sacrifice could the foe be driven from Athenian fields, could Athens rule the seas, could Athens be free and Athens glorious. But citizens of some Hellenised city of Syria experienced no such sentiments. Their politics were urban not imperial, academic not matter of life and death. To be a captain in the armies of Ptolemy or Seleucus might be a convenient way of gaining a livelihood and might lead to fame, fortune and favour; but after all, to fight in those ranks was to fight for kings’ glories, not for hearth and home. The ambitions of the petty states of Greece had had certain evil aspects; strifes, jealousies, envyings were ever present among them, bleeding the higher interests of their common civilisation. Nevertheless the need for passionate devotion to one’s city had been the root of Hellenic virtue, and that not even Alexander’s genius could transplant to Asiatic soil.

Moreover, even such faint assistance as Greek religion gave to morality failed the Hellenism of the East. By Alexander’s time the early conceptions of the gods had been riddled by criticism, and as yet neither philosophy nor mysticism had discovered for morality a basis intelligible and acceptable to ordinary men. The earnest spirits of the day were aware of the danger ahead. They foresaw that, if society continued on its present course unchecked, its moral bankruptcy must bring disaster. For not all the Greeks were eating, drinking, and making money: some were asking questions about life to which a demoralised Hellenism could give no satisfying answer. And the problem was more than merely intellectual. The perils and pains of actual life made the enigma a personal agony for many men, who saw that “they were being carried onward into a future of unknown possibilities, and whatever might lie on the other side of death, the possibilities on the hither side were disquieting enough. Even in our firmly ordered and peaceful society, hideous accidents may befall the individual, but in those days when the world showed only despotic monarchies and warring city-states, one must remember that slavery and torture were contingencies which no one could be sure that the future did not contain for him.” In the old days it had been possible to appeal for succour to deities not wholly inhuman in their ways and thoughts. “If now that hope faded into an empty dream, man found himself left naked to fortune. With the mass of passionate desires and loves he carried in his heart, the unknown chances of the future meant ever-present fear.”[43] The situation called for remedy. Hellenism itself evolved the Stoic philosophy as a possible solution for its urgent problems.[44] Our contention is that in their own sphere and in their own fashion the Jewish proverbs, as used at this period by the Wise in Jerusalem, were, like Stoicism, an answer to the moral instability which contemporary Hellenism had spread abroad.

But even if Hellenism could have entered Syria in its purest form, it would have needed all its nobility to overcome the vices ingrained in the East. When it came to the task with faith in the high gods shaken and falling, with the spur of patriotism left behind in Greece, no wonder that the ugly elements hitherto held in check in the city-states fed themselves fat amid the ancient evils of the Oriental world. Particularly in Syria did the baser tendencies of Hellenism run riot. Life there did indeed become richer, richer in iniquity. If facts have any meaning, then the history of Syria and Egypt in the Hellenic age cries aloud in witness of the futility of a civilisation, however brilliant, that lacks a basis of moral idealism: “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid.” The fine culture of the Hellenised lands was dependent on the wrongs and miseries of countless slaves; the cities were filled with glittering, venal women; and the general population sank deeper and deeper in corruption, gluttony, and license. Even the games in Syria were made to pander to the base side of human nature; and, although ideally the cult of athletics might be an excellent thing, “in its actual embodiment it could show all degrees of degradation.” Life in the Syrian towns became for the most part a studied gratification of the grosser senses. Here is the accusation of an eye-witness, a Syrian Greek named Poseidonius, who lived about 100 B.C.: “The people of these cities are relieved by the fertility of their soil from a laborious struggle for existence. Life is a continual series of social festivities. Their gymnasiums they use as baths, where they anoint themselves with costly oils and myrrhs. In the public banqueting halls they practically live, filling themselves there for the better part of the day with rich foods and wines; much that they cannot eat they carry away home. They feast to the prevailing music of strings. The cities are filled from end to end with the noise of harp-playing.”

And yet it was a great and wonderful age. Although the nobler qualities of the Greek cities could not be made to grow in the new soil, the genius of the Greek intellectual attitude to life was rescued from the bickerings and fatal factions of the little states and was successfully communicated to the larger world, to become in time the priceless heritage of Western civilisation. Rightly conceiving that the spiritual aspect of human life is the supreme thing, we are accustomed to divide history into the period before and the period after the birth of Christ; but were attention to be confined solely to the mental development of mankind, the dividing line would be found in the coming of the Hellenic methods of thought.

The bearing of these facts upon our subject is not far to seek. In face of the subtle influences that were transforming their environment how fared it with the Palestinian Jews? Jerusalem was sheltered by its outlying position from the full tide of Hellenism. Had it not been so, its special characteristics could scarcely have been preserved; it would have become as one of the cities of the coast. But if Jerusalem was not swept away by the flood, that does not imply that the rain of new ideas was not falling in its streets and markets. From 300 to 200 B.C. Palestine was controlled by the Ptolemaic Kings of Egypt, from 198 B.C. by the Syrian Seleucids. This change of authority imposed no check upon the progress and vigour of the Hellenistic movement. Greek cities sprang up throughout the land, and older towns were eager to adapt themselves to the new models. Shortly after the death of Alexander, Samaria and Ptolemais (Acco) had already become centres of Greek influence, and there was a group of Greek cities beyond Jordan. Imagine too how quickly and how effectively the ideas of the Jews in Jerusalem would be affected by intercourse with the flourishing colonies of their brethren now thoroughly at home in the great centres of Greek dominion in Egypt, Syria and Babylon. It is not surprising therefore to find a Greek writer about 250 B.C. observing that “many of the traditional ordinances of the Jews are losing their hold.” And if any reader wishes further confirmation, he need only turn to the works of Josephus, and note the relish with which that writer tells the story of Joseph the son of Tobiah, nephew of the High-Priest, who by his insolent wit won favour at the Egyptian Court, and battened for a while on the extortionate taxes he wrung from the towns of southern Syria: a repulsive character but quite evidently a popular hero in the estimation of many of his Jewish contemporaries. Picture the coming and going of Greek traders in the bazaars of Jerusalem, and the journeying of Jewish merchants to and from the markets of the Hellenic cities. Consider what it meant that the immense mercantile centre of Alexandria, with its tempting opportunities to the acute and enterprising Jew, lay only a few days’ journey to the south. In short, Hellenism was swiftly becoming the very atmosphere men breathed. Certainly its manifold allurements were only too visibly and temptingly displayed before the eyes of the young and ambitious in Jerusalem. And yet Hellenism had met its match in the strange city of Zion. Greek met Jew, and in the struggle the Wise-men of Israel played no insignificant part. For they marshalled and moulded their proverbs till they represented the Wisdom of Israel set over against the worldly-wisdom[45] of Greece. They counselled a way of life which was not the seductive Greek way. They sturdily opposed another doctrine to the fashionable immorality of Hellenism with its overwhelming prestige and ostensible success. For several generations the attack of the new civilisation came by way of peaceful penetration, which was perhaps harder to resist than open enmity, since nobody could deny the good in Hellenism, its beauty, and its cleverness, if only it had been pure in heart. Later, as we shall see, the campaign was to be conducted with all the devices of reckless and inhuman violence. Hebraism against Hellenism! All Egypt, Syria, and Persia had made scarcely an effort to resist the spell of the new learning and the new ways. At first sight then how unequal the contest! A stiff moralism preaching against the pleasures of sin to hot-blooded, able, and ambitious men. A clique of obscurantists arrayed not against a kingdom or an empire but against a magnificent, world-conquering civilisation. The Jews maintain their ground? Impossible! No, not wholly so; for this battle, like another which touches us more closely, was ultimately spiritual; and because the Jews held a conception of the nature and destiny of man deeper, truer, than even the Greeks had found, Hebraism in the end proved stronger than Hellenism with all its genius and all its works.

CHAPTER VI
A Sower went forth to Sow

Let us imagine two of the Wise-men meeting in the streets of Jerusalem and conversing. That is easier proposed than effected: bold words, to be followed by small performances. For the outlines of ancient Jerusalem are none too clear, and again in what tongue shall our Wise-men converse? In ancient Hebrew or in modern English? Modern English from their lips will seem incongruous, and Hebrew is not so widely known as it deserves. Before we can make so much as a beginning we are compelled to compromise: let them talk in Hebraic English. But the difficulties need not discourage us overmuch, for in this case even a half-done task will be worth the doing, and there are some circumstances in our favour. The topography of old Jerusalem may be uncertain, but our knowledge of the influences, events and tendencies of the period in question is considerable. Therefore although the conversation between the Wise-men must be imaginary, it need not be fancy-free. We can make them say such things as can be inferred from the historical situation, and the talk can be so directed as to help our immediate purpose, discovering what were the dominant fears and ambitions of the Wise. Moreover, however imperfectly this aim be realised, the picture can hardly fail to help us across the gulf which divides the abstract or general conception from the concrete or particular embodiment, a matter of vital importance for the comprehension of these Jewish proverbs. It is not sufficient to imagine the Wise as a class. Doubtless most Wise-men conformed to a type, and they were a class in the community in that they shared a general attitude towards life; but this bond of union was loose enough to leave room for great variety of interest, beliefs, and moral qualities. And just this diversity within the unity is the point on which stress should be laid; for it explains the individualism of the Jewish proverbs, and is the secret of their broad humanity.

It is the month of June in the year 203 B.C. Ptolemy Philopator, the ruler of Egypt, has died the previous year, and is succeeded on the throne by Ptolemy Epiphanes, a child of four years old. The situation points to the renewal of warfare between the great Empires. Embarrassed by the weakness of its young king, Egypt is in obvious danger from the restless ambition both of Philip of Macedonia and of Antiochus III of Syria. But although the East is uneasy, the storm has not yet broken. Palestine is still controlled by the Egyptians, and a garrison of Ptolemy’s soldiers lives at ease in the citadel of Jerusalem. Zion is at peace; her harvests of barley and wheat have been gathered in; the first-ripe figs have fallen and already are on sale in the markets, and there is prospect of a plentiful later crop. Imagine that we are watching the city, as the day is about to break. The last hour of the night is ending. Low down in the Eastern sky a faint tinge of blue appears, with shades of purple and pink above it, fading upwards into the dark of the night sky overhead. Soon the horizon flushes into red, changing swiftly to deep yellow as the first rays of the sun rise over the hills.[46]

The guard of the Levites on duty at the Temple stands watching for the dawn, and as soon as the sunlight touches Hebron, just visible to the south, they raise a shout, heralding the day and summoning the people to hasten to the celebration of the morning sacrifice.[47] From the citadel the trumpets of the soldiers take up the sound and call the garrison from sleep. Soon the whole city is astir. Day has begun, and its hours are precious before the sun grows hot beyond endurance. The gates open, and first the cattle-dealers and money-changers begin to pass along the narrow lanes, hurrying ahead of the people to the Temple-court. Shopmen appear and busy themselves preparing their booths in the bazaars. From his house in one of the narrow streets a dignified man of rather more than middle age, Judah ben Zechariah, comes out and, turning in the direction of the Temple mingles, with the stream of worshippers who purpose to be present at the offering of the sacrifice. Let us keep him in sight. When the ceremony at the temple is ended, he makes his way without haste through the tangle of streets towards the Northern wall and the Fish gate. There in the open space near the gate, just inside the city, he stops, and stands watching the passers by. A company of Tyrians, pagans all of them, files in through the gate, bringing fish for Jerusalem from the Phoenician markets. They are followed by a long caravan of forty or fifty mules laden with wheat from the north, and their drivers, like the Tyrians, are also pagan. Judah is Hebrew of the Hebrews, and the sight does not please him. After a while as he stands there a friend approaches and gives him greeting—Joseph ben Abijah, one who, like Judah, had reputation as a Wise-man. “Peace be to thee, Judah.” “And may Jehovah bless thee, my brother,” answered Judah, “and may He increase thee to a multitude; for truly there be few this day in Israel such as thou, who keepest faith before God and before men. Behold now this long time stand I here, Joseph, to see them that pass by, and I swear unto thee that for one man of Israel there be nine from the ends of the earth, worshippers of strange gods. Men call this city Zion; but where are Zion’s children? From end to end the streets are full of these Gentiles. Moreover, look yonder!” (a company of the garrison came swinging down to change guard at the Gate)—“these soldiers of Ptolemy! Mark well their heathen insolence, their pride and their contempt for us. Are we not the bondservants of Egypt, even as our fathers were? I tell thee, Joseph, it is not well with Israel.”

“Nay! thou art over-anxious, Judah. The land is at peace. The harvests are good, trade prospers and extends; we and our wives and our children dwell in safety. None hinders us in our worship. Why then take so sore to heart these Gentiles? They are the slaves, who in their folly worship dumb and senseless images. Is not Israel free in her God? Moreover—a word in thine ear—how thinkest thou, Judah? Will Ptolemy much longer lord it over us in Zion? Or are his times come near to an end?”

“Hush! see that none hear thee. I also think his day is at an end. But for what then shall we look? For the dreams of the prophets? For the Day of the Lord? Ah, would that the Lord might rend the heavens and come down, but I, for one, do not look for these things to come to pass at this time, Joseph. And except the Lord deliver us wherein shall we hope? Nay, Zion, is still far from salvation. We shall change the bondage of Egypt for the yoke of Syria, and her little finger will be thicker than the loins of Egypt. Antiochus is ten times more Greek than Ptolemy. Verily, the whole world becometh Greek. Traders and talkers, how they throng in our streets and multiply in our midst! And whether they be rich and noble or poor and the servant of servants, behold how they despise us and make mock of us, the people of the one true God! And how with their vainglory and their wicked wisdom—for, as the Lord liveth, ’tis not the wisdom of God—they do bewitch fools and entice them away. Thou sayest, ‘Israel is free in its God’; but I say ‘How long shall God find faith in Israel?’ If then Ptolemy be cast down and Antiochus be lifted up over us, wherein is our advantage? How wilt thou save this people from following wholly after the thoughts and customs of the Greeks? Again, thou speakest of peace and good harvests, but how long shall peace and prosperity be permitted us? If that whereof we speak should come to pass, it shall not be without war and desolation. Who knows but that Jerusalem shall soon be a besieged and captured city? As for the Day of the Lord, the prophet hath said ‘The Lord will hasten it in His time’ and his word is good; but alas! I fear that ours is better: Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”

Said his friend, “I also—thou knowest it, Judah—am not of the dreamers, and know well that they who in our days see visions are prophets in name and not in truth. And the true prophets did not live for ever. Nevertheless their word liveth; and have not we that are Wise learnt from them that fear of Jehovah which is to turn from evil and do good, so that in measure their mantle is fallen upon us and we are become their successors, and according to their commandments so we teach? Yea, I say that their word hath overtaken this people, not for evil but for good; since of all the Jews who is there that doth not from the heart know that the Lord our God is one God, and that the gods of the heathen are nought and their images wood and stone? Wherefore, Judah, I fear not the Greeks so much as thou. For if a Jew from among us go forth unto them and learn their skill and follow their fashions, yet he will not reverence their gods. Moreover, remember, Judah, those that fight for us in the strife. If God hath not raised up a prophet in Israel these many years, are not the Priests and Levites become a strong tower of defence? In all their interpretation of the Law of Moses, they do well: for they seek to establish justice and mercy between a man and his brethren, and to confirm the fear of Jehovah’s Name. It is written, The Law of the Lord is perfect, making clean the heart; and these men love its statutes wholly. Thou dost not think that they will become Greeks?”

“Not all of them, Joseph; yet of the great priests many are evil. They live for place and power, not for the pure service of their God, and if the day come when it shall profit them these would surpass the Greeks in the fashions of the Greeks. But concerning the Levites and the Scribes thou sayest right; for they truly have set their hearts upon their work: albeit zeal for the Law will not save Israel. If only the ritual be observed and the services in the Temple maintained, if the feasts be duly kept, they deem all things are well. They would have all men more Levite than themselves. But what answer is that to the young who crave for fortune, favour, and fulness of pleasures like the unbridled heathen? Some it may satisfy, but thou knowest that more turn empty away; and all of them understand that the Greeks will feed their desires full. Come now: tell me, I pray thee: this very year how many are gone hence to seek fortune in the markets of Ptolemais? How many to the court of Antiochus, aye! from the noblest of our families? How many to be made captains in his armies and in Ptolemy’s? Perchance it is well for thee, Joseph, whose son is a scribe well spoken of and one day will be counted a Wise-man and a fearer of God even as thou, his father, art: but my son, my son, is in Alexandria, though I besought him with tears that he would not go.”

“Judah, I verily knew that it was for this cause thine heart was sad. Nevertheless I would comfort thee, my friend. Hear now my words. They are not all lost to Zion that are gone forth from Zion’s gates. Thou knowest there is no evil in thy son. Take heart. Are not the families of our people there in Egypt many and prosperous? Thy son will be a loyal Jew in Egypt, not forsaking his father’s faith. I am persuaded he will send his tribute to the Temple when the time comes round. Aye! and thine eye shall see him again ere long returning to keep the feast at Jerusalem and to make glad thine heart. My brother, hear thou the thought which the Lord hath given me concerning this thing. It is written that all flesh shall come to worship before the Lord in His holy hill; but how shall this thing come to pass? They chant in the Temple of His outstretched arm and His mighty acts. What if the stretching out of His arm is in the going forth of these His children unto the ends of the earth; seest thou not how that already praise is offered to His Name in many lands, and His glory is exalted among the heathen? In the Temple they sigh for the day when all peoples shall come crouching to Zion; but what if thy son, and others even as he, have gone to prepare the way of the Lord and to make straight His paths, and in Alexandria, Babylon, and Antioch are beginning the victory of our God, a victory which shall be (as saith Zechariah) ‘not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ saith the Lord? So shall thy son’s going be turned to God’s glory, and perchance it hath happened in accordance with His will. Saith not Isaiah that His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts? And when thou sayest of the priests and scribes that all their care is for the Law and the Temple, and that they know not how to speak unto the heart of these young men, in truth thy reproach is just. But herein is our work. We have the answer for this need in Israel. Have we not counsel for success in life with allegiance to our God; so that our words are from the Lord, though we praise not the Law daily neither make mention of the prophet’s hopes? If then we be found faithful and our task well done, none in Israel shall reckon that Wisdom is of the Greeks only, but rather that their Wisdom is found folly in the latter end. Honour, long life, and riches are in our words and they that hearken unto us shall find them and yet shall not depart from justice nor hate mercy. He that heareth our words and learneth our Wisdom shall even dwell with the Greeks and be wiser than they, being delivered from the snares of their iniquities and the vanity of their faiths. So shall it be with thy son, my brother. He will not forget thy instruction. And like him there shall be many who, though they go forth from Jerusalem, will yet give diligent heed unto our precepts, and with them shall go Wisdom to be a guide unto their feet that they shall not stumble. Yea, even of those that in Zion seem to heed us not, some perchance shall remember in a distant land, and so be saved from falling. But, come, thou knowest this even as I, though sorrow for a moment had hidden it from thine eyes. With the blessing of God we do not labour in vain.”

“Friend, thou comfortest well; and in my soul I know that these thy words are true, and that our work is of God, and that our children’s children shall see the reward of all our labours. But as for this generation many there be that scorn and few that hear.”

“Be our zeal the greater then!” responded Joseph, “What saith the prophet?—Precept on precept, line upon line; and for us therefore ‘Proverb on proverb,’”

The older man smiled at him gently, pleased by the words and spirit of his friend: “Thou art a true friend and wise counsellor, ben Abijah. And now let us leave this place, and, if it seem good to thee, let us pass through the streets and take note of them that buy and sell; for the heat is not yet upon us and the markets are full this day. Comest thou with me?”

“I come gladly. Thou shalt see—we shall find one here, one there, that hath need of our wisdom; and perhaps to-day we shall even catch the ear of the multitude, and many will give heed both to hear and to receive our teaching.”

CHAPTER VII
Men and Manners

Students of the Old Testament do not require to be told that the universalism of the Book of Proverbs is a remarkable fact. But even those whose knowledge of Jewish history is not exact, and who have not made a comparative study of the post-exilic writings, need have no difficulty in perceiving how strange it is, if they will give the briefest consideration to the following points. Just how free are these sayings from indications of the national aspirations or religious peculiarities of the Jews? Never once in the whole Book of Proverbs is mention made of Israel or of any synonym for Israel! Not a word is said of the nation’s past history or present fears and hopes; the word “prophet” never once occurs, although the influence of prophetic teaching is frequently manifest; Priests, Levites, Temple and even Jerusalem are absolutely ignored; “sacrifice” is mentioned four times in disparagement; To do justice and judgement is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice (Pr. 213; cp. 158; 17{1{(mg)}}; 2127): and “offerings” once incidentally: I have peaceofferings with me (Pr. 714). Even the divinely appointed Law is passed silently by; it is neither commended nor condemned. True, the word “law” is often found in Proverbs, but the law which men are there bidden to observe is not the precepts, ritual or moral, of the great Pentateuch, not the Law of Moses, but the doctrine laid down by the Sage and his confrêres! Ben Sirach differs from the Sages represented in Proverbs to this extent that once or twice he identifies the Law of Moses with the Divine Wisdom, and asserts that Wisdom has chosen Zion for her resting-place.[48] Otherwise his book has precisely the same broadly humanistic and super-national character.

Clearly one need not be an expert in Jewish history to see that all this is startling; but it seems little less than astounding as soon as it is brought into comparison with the passionate patriotism and religious exclusiveness that characterise other books of the Old Testament, not only those that set forth the Law, but also such prophecies as Isaiah 40-66, or again the Psalms. For example, contrast the ecclesiastical version of Israel’s history given in the Books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, which in its present form is the work of a Levite of Jerusalem writing about 350-250 B.C., i.e., at the very period of this Wisdom preaching. A glance will show that the narrative of the Chronicler is consistently intended to set forth the praises and virtues of the holy city, Jerusalem, and its inhabitants, the true “Israel.” From first to last his work burns with national devotion, and the events of history are by him so related as to make prominent the honours due to the divine Law of Moses, wherein he sees the nation’s eternal hope and sure defence. Greater contrast there could scarcely be. The seeming indifference of Proverbs and Ben Sirach would be explained if the Sages had been irreligious or mere worldly-wise men, contemptuous of altruistic, national sentiment. But their doctrine is in no way anti-national: there is absolutely no whisper of polemic against Judaism or even depreciation of its special tenets. Neither were they irreligious; that is quite certain. Although on the surface there is no warm glow of religious zeal, again and again “the fear of Jehovah,” said they, “is the foundation of Wisdom.” The Sages, at least the majority of them, were respectable, earnest, and God-fearing Jews. It seems to the present writer psychologically incredible to suppose that such persons in Jerusalem of 300-200 B.C. were, in their heart of hearts, unmoved by the extraordinary distinctive sentiments of their race. Why then the apparent apathy shown in their proverbs?

It is true that a taste for aphoristic ethical teaching was manifesting itself at this period in various countries besides Judæa, and that such moralistic teaching always tends to be cosmopolitan, but we find therein no adequate explanation of the astonishing facts just mentioned. It is more to the point to follow up a hint suggested by the conversation of the two Wise-men depicted in the preceding chapter. Hellenism seemed to be in the ascendant, as no observant person in Jerusalem of the third century could fail to perceive; equally, no sober-minded pietist of the old school could be blind to its demoralising tendencies, and no patriot fail to dread its disintegrating effect on Judaism. How to encounter the insidious and attractive force that threatened the overthrow not only of Jewish nationality but of Jewish virtue: that was the problem for every loyal Jew. The Priests and Levites of the Law of Moses were fighting the foe in one way. The Wise had chanced on another weapon for the fray. In the old, common-sense maxims of their fathers, which being rooted in Israel’s religious faith and enriched by the ethical idealism of the great prophets presented a general moral standard, or at least a moral ardour, clearly superior to the normal tone of the neighbouring Hellenic cities, the Wise perceived they had an instrument for countering the peril on its more mundane side. Their duty was to teach men that in order to get on in life it was not necessary, even in the clamorous confident Hellenic atmosphere, to fling morality overboard and laugh at the fear of Jehovah. To suppose that all, or even the majority, of the Wise-men consciously formulated this point of view is of course not essential: many of them may have been actuated by an instinctive rather than a reasoned antagonism to the spirit of the age. The point is that, viewing the teaching of wisdom on the one part and the circumstances of the period on the other, this is the rôle the Wise in actual fact fulfilled. Now it is evident that the nature of the work presented to them was such as to make the advocacy of nationalism or even of the duty of conformity to the Law somewhat irrelevant for them. It was for others to enjoin these things. The Wise kept to their own path. Broad-minded yet loyal Jews, they were engaged on a task that happened to be naturally independent of the ritual injunctions of the Law and of any immediate political concerns.[49] It was their business to urge morality, and to be very practical in so doing; to tell men how to get on and not be blackguards; to persuade men that the wages of sin is not victory but death—a noble task, however matter-of-fact the means they used for its achievement.

We believe, then, that the universalism of these proverbs is to be explained chiefly as the mark of the Wise-men’s ability to keep to the point, not as evidence either of lack of patriotism or of indifference to the national faith. They were speaking to the heart on the common things of daily life that men of all races necessarily share with one another. Consequently—perhaps without their knowing or intending it—what they said transcended time and country. It was none the less work for their people. As we hope to show later, there is good reason to believe that the plain, common-sense morality of the Wise preserved for Judaism the respect and affection of many ordinary men, whom the Levites, with all their enthusiasm for the specific forms of the national worship, would have lost. Religion has no right to despise or overlook even the least of its advocates. There was One who said, “He that is not against us is on our part.”

Reviewing the argument of these pages and the suggestions of the last chapter, we conclude that, whilst the ranks of the Wise were wide enough to include men of diverse character and outlook, they must be credited with having had a definite standpoint and a method of their own well suited to the circumstances of their times.

Let us now turn our attention from the Wise themselves to the men they observed. Let us walk with Judah and Joseph through the busy streets, and take our stand with them in the open spaces by the city-gates, and overhear their comments on the scenes of human intercourse which met their eyes. Let us, as it were, join some group that has gathered round to enjoy their talk, to applaud their maxims and their morals, to laugh as the characteristics of this man or of that are hit off in some shrewd epigram, and perhaps—if need be—to take to heart the lesson.

In the popular talk there were doubtless many sayings concerning the habits of the various craftsmen and traders—the potter, the sandal-maker, and so forth—but (perhaps because the purpose of the Wise was so broadly humanistic in its outlook) such specialistic sayings are rare in the literature the Sages have left us. A few, however, do occur in which men are pictured from the standpoint of their external relationships, and with these we may conveniently begin.

First, then, an observation so faithful to human nature that it has never lost its spice and is appropriate in all countries, although it must always have had peculiar pungency in the deceitful, haggling, Eastern marts. Behold the bargain-hunter drawn to the life:

“It is nought, it is nought,” saith the buyer;
But when he is gone on his way then he boasteth (Pr. 2014).

Not a man in old Jerusalem but must have felt the dry humour and the accusing truth. But here is the other side of the transaction:

A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doing wrong,
And a huckster shall not be acquitted of sin.
Many have transgressed for the sake of gain,
And the fortune-hunter requires a blind eye.
As a nail will stick fast between the joinings of stones,
So will sin thrust in between buying and selling (E. 2629-272).

Six of one and half a dozen of the other, but perhaps neither buyer nor seller were such rogues as they are painted! Let us allow a discount for the epigram.

Of the man in debt, a problem for society in all periods, the Sages said plainly but sufficiently:

The rich man lords it over the poor,
And the borrower is the lender’s slave (Pr. 227).

Ben Sirach, however, was much more graphic; says he,

Many have treated a loan as a windfall,
And have been a plague to those that helped them.
Till the loan is lent, he will kiss a man’s hand,
And for his neighbour’s money will speak right humbly;
But when payment falls due, he prolongs the days,
And girds and grumbles and says, “Hard times” (E. 294, 5).

Support for Ben Sirach’s description might still be obtained.

The rendering of assistance to unfortunate members of the community has always been a prominent and admirable feature of Jewish society, and quotations to be given later on will bear witness to the esteem in which the Sages held the practice of charity. But the alms-giving was not wide enough, or else not deep enough or (it may be) not wise enough—as our own is not yet—to succour the lowest stratum of society. Remember Lazarus at the rich man’s gate: apparently there were such as he in Ben Sirach’s time, whether brought low by misfortune or by fault:

My son, lead not a beggar’s life;
It is better to die than to beg.
A man that looketh unto the table of another,
His life is not to be counted life (E. 4028-29).

In E. 38, Ben Sirach discusses an ancient and unsettled controversy—subject, the doctor. As he devotes half a chapter to the matter, we may reasonably assign it a paragraph.

It would seem that in those days the medical profession was under a slight cloud. Some people (and for these we have no mercy: they were doubtless prescribing for others, not for themselves) were of opinion that all sorts of healing were an invention of iniquity and an attempt to thwart God’s will. Ben Sirach enters a healthy-minded protest against these fanatical obscurantists, insisting on the healing properties of plants: Was not water made sweet with wood to acquaint every man of God’s power? (E. 385); an allusion to Exod. 1525. More damaging is the unspoken but obvious implication of the sober-minded Chronicler when he records concerning King Asa that in the thirty and ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet; his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa ... died in the one and fortieth year of his reign (2 Chron. 1612). But to this the physician may make a weighty answer. Until later times than Asa’s it seems possible that orthodox medical practice was in the hands of the priestly classes, and therefore it may be suspected that Asa is censured for having committed the unpardonable wickedness of daring to call in one of the non-priestly practitioners, dealers in herbs and incantations, outsiders, quacks, charlatans, impostors all of them. But unfortunately, whatever the rights and wrongs of Asa’s case, it must be admitted that the profession did not wholly succeed in quelling the doubts about its merits. Physician, heal thyself—so ran the proverb in our Lord’s time (Luke 423), and is it not written of a certain poor woman that she had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing better, but rather worse (Mark 526)? Moreover, reluctantly, we have to notice that the Mishna, still later, gives utterance to the disconcerting opinion that the best of physicians is deserving of Gehenna (Kidd, 414). Well, well, it is a vexed question. With relief let us turn, in conclusion, to Ben Sirach’s altogether cheerier view. The Lord, says he, created medicines out of the earth, and a prudent man will not despise them. Wherefore, honour a physician as thou needest him with the honours due; for verily the Lord hath created him. For from the Most High cometh his healing, and from the king he shall receive a gift.... My son, in thy sickness be not negligent, but pray unto the Lord, and He shall heal thee. Put away wrong-doing, and order thine hands aright, and cleanse thine heart from all manner of sin. Offer a sweet offering and a memorial, set in order a fat offering as best thou art able. Then give place to the physician, and let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands is the issue for good: they also shall beseech the Lord that He may prosper them to find out what is wrong and to save the life (E. 381-15)—then, as the conclusion of the passage, in the Greek text come these words which read like a very doubtful compliment,

He that sinneth before his Maker—
Let him fall into the hands of the physician.

But Ben Sirach must be acquitted of malice, for the Greek text turns out to be a mistranslation of the original Hebrew which fortunately has here been recovered; and all ends happily thus:

He that sinneth before his Maker
Will behave himself proudly before a physician.

Good doctrine! Sound therapeutics and sound theology are allies, not enemies.

Reference to the special trades may be few, but some of those few are memorable. Thus the only allusion in Proverbs to the unskilled labourer is one of the poignant sayings of the Book:

The labourer’s appetite laboureth for him,
For his mouth constrains him to toil (Pr. 1626):

Hunger! that unwearying goad of men, so beneficial to the race, so pitilessly cruel to the individual.

Ben Sirach gives us a glimpse of many men in some graphic verses—the ploughman, the cattle-driver, the engraver, the smith, the potter:

The wisdom of the scribe cometh by opportunity of leisure,
And he that hath little business shall become wise.
How shall he become wise that holdeth the plough,
That glorieth in the shaft of the goad,
That driveth oxen, and is busied in their labours,
And whose discourse is of the stock of bulls?
He will set his heart upon the turning of furrows,
And his wakefulness is to give his heifers their fodder.
So is every artificer and workmaster
That passeth his time by night as by day,
Cutting gravings of signets,
And his diligence is to make great variety:
He will set his heart to preserve likeness in his portraiture,
And will be wakeful to finish his work.
So is the smith sitting by the anvil
And considering the unwrought iron;
The vapour of the fire will waste his flesh,
And with the heat of the furnace will he contend;
The noise of the hammer will be ever in his ear
And his eyes upon the pattern of the vessel:
He will set his heart upon perfecting his works,
And he will be wakeful to adorn them perfectly.
So is the potter sitting at his work,
And turning the wheel about with his feet;
Who is alway anxiously set at his work,
And all his handicraft is by number;
He will fashion the clay with his arm,
And bend its strength in front of his feet;
He will apply his heart to finish the glazing,
And he will be wakeful to make clean the furnace.

All these put their trust in their hands,
And each becometh wise in his own work.
Without these shall not a city be inhabited
And wherever they sojourn they will not hunger.
They shall not be sought for in the council of the people,
And in the assembly they shall not mount up on high;
They shall not sit on the seat of the judge,
Nor understand the covenant of judgement,
Neither shall they declare instruction and judgement,
And among them that speak proverbs they shall not be found.
But they will maintain the fabric of the world,
And in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer (E. 3824-34).

The passage is so interesting an illustration of the attitude of the educated Jews towards manual labour that a digression is irresistible. Among the Greeks all humbler forms of labour were heartily despised. In ancient society so much of the rough work was performed by slaves that the fortunate classes could and, as a rule, did find occupation in military, political, commercial, and literary or artistic affairs. Even the farmer was reckoned of small account, because, despite the honest worth of his occupation, his busy life and practical interests denied him the intellectual leisure of the town population. The Romans had certain incidents in their historical traditions that gave to agriculture a measure of honour, at least in theory. Otherwise their standpoint was much the same as that of the Greeks. But the Jews maintained a more generous and a very sensible attitude, as is exemplified by this quotation from Ben Sirach. They recognised the limitations imposed by hard toil, but at the same time they saw that it had an essential part to play in the economy of the whole, and therefore they freely acknowledged its merits:

Hate not laborious work,
For toil hath been appointed of God (E. 715).

Nevertheless Ben Sirach is well pleased that God had not made him a farmer or a smith. It is evident that he did not deem the art of the craftsman compatible with learning; and, since he loved his scribe’s life, his satisfaction at having full leisure to prosecute the search for Wisdom is very human and pardonable. All the same, some may feel there is a touch of intellectual snobbery in his tone. If so, his successors, the Rabbis of later Judaism, did not follow him in the fault. They took the view that the degrading tendencies of certain occupations must be frankly recognised, but that there were many trades requiring manual toil which ought to be highly esteemed.[50] In that most interesting work of the first and second century A.D., The Sayings of the [Jewish] Fathers, we read that Shemaiah said, Love work. Rabbi Meir, however, said cautiously, Have little business, and be busy in the Law. It is said in the Talmud (Kidd, 99a) that Whosoever doth not teach his son work, teacheth him to rob. These remarks scarcely carry the question beyond Ben Sirach’s view. But many of the Rabbis went much further and urged that religious and intellectual studies were not profitably undertaken unless accompanied by some acquaintance with manual labour. Thus, said Rabbi Gamaliel (about 90 A.D.), An excellent thing is study of the Law combined with some worldly trade ... but all study of the Law apart from manual toil must fail at last and be the cause of sin. Another, and a powerful, saying is this: Flay a carcase in the street and earn a living, and say not, “I am a famous man, and the work is beneath my dignity.” St. Paul will doubtless occur to many as an instance of a great scholar who was proud to know and to exercise the trade of tent-making. Recall how earnestly he protested to the Christians of Corinth his independence of their monetary help (cp. Acts 181-3; 1 Cor. 412, 2 Cor. 119). This admirable association of labour and learning persisted among the Jews, and their history contains many examples of splendid men who combined the virtues of great scholarship with the pursuit of some humble means of livelihood. Some of the best-known Rabbis of the Middle Ages supported themselves by labouring as carpenters, shoemakers, builders, bakers, and so forth.

Of the numerous sayings concerning wealth and poverty we may mention some that bring before us the concrete picture of men rich and poor. Here is one that is eloquent of the bitterness of the contrast:

The rich man’s wealth is his strong city;
The poor man’s poverty is his undoing (Pr. 1015).

Even to-day, in a land where Justice is designed to be even-handed, but must needs be approached through the lawyer, who imagines that the rich and the poor stand on level terms? Even among the well-to-do the majority of men would think twice before engaging in legal warfare with a millionaire or a railway company.

Of the friendlessness of the poor there are these pathetic proverbs:

Wealth addeth many friends,
But the poor is separated even from the friend he hath (Pr. 194).

The poor is hated even of his own neighbour,
But the rich hath many friends (Pr. 1420).[51]

And this from Ben Sirach:

My son, deprive not the poor of his living,
And make not the needy eyes to wait long (E. 41).

Do not those eyes stare hungrily from the proverb, and seem to gaze after us as we hurry on?

A sterner note is heard in this almost ironical observation:

A rich man toileth in gathering money, and when he resteth he is filled with his good things:
A poor man toileth in lack of substance, and when he resteth he cometh to want (E. 313).

Two beautiful passages in the Book of Proverbs recognise that the problem of success goes deeper than riches:

Better a dinner of herbs where love is,
Than a fatted ox and hatred therewith (Pr. 1517).

Remove far from me vanity and lies:
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is needful for me:[52]
Lest I be full, and deny Thee, and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or lest I be poor, and steal,
And use profanely the name of my God (Pr. 308, 9).

Both grand sayings. The last is a really noble prayer for the Golden Mean, and at the same time an effective accusation which we know to be only too true of many self-confident rich men on the one hand, and many embittered poor men on the other.

Finally, let us ruminate on the fact that wealth and dyspepsia are old acquaintances: Better is a poor man, being sound and of good constitution, than a rich man that is plagued in his body, says Ben Sirach (E. 3014); and doubtless he had plenty of shocking examples to confirm his opinion, if there be any truth in Poseidonius’ description of the Hellenic cities whose citizens “practically lived in the banqueting halls,” and were wont to pocket what they could not there devour.

In the next place we may turn to proverbs dealing with character. Fastening upon one outstanding quality, for the moment they identify the personality with it. And if that is never entirely fair to any human being—because even the best of us is, for instance, never perfectly brave, nor the worst of us wholly mean—nevertheless it is good to be told bluntly whither the bias of our nature tends. To isolate the Virtues and the Vices and to hold them up for praise or blame has ever been a favourite and a successful method of moral education.

The quotations that follow are, as it were, swift portraits, some of them only lightning sketches, seizing in outline some obvious feature; but others (for all their brevity) are so full of life and colour, and often so tellingly correct, that no comment is needed to enforce the justice or importance of what is said. They have been compared to “Meissonier pictures: minute, graphic, realistic, unromantic; pictures drawn not by Fancy but by Observation”[53]:—

The Mean Man

Riches are not comely for a niggard,
And what shall a covetous man do with money?
He that gathereth by miserliness gathereth for others,
And others shall revel in his goods (E. 143, 4).
The miser hasteth after riches
And knoweth not that want shall come upon him (Pr. 2822).

And the Generous

There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet more;
And there is that withholdeth, and it tendeth only to want.
The liberal man shall prosper the more,
And he that nourisheth others shall himself be nourished (Pr. 1124, 25)—

But appearances are sometimes deceptive:

There is that feigneth himself rich, yet hath nothing;
And there is that feigneth poverty, yet hath great wealth (Pr. 137).

There are numerous sayings dealing with the tale-bearer and the mischief-maker, for slander was a prominent evil of the crowded Oriental cities:

The Slanderer

The liar disseminates strife:
The whisperer parteth friends (Pr. 1628).
For lack of wood the fire goes out,
And where there is no whisperer, contention ceaseth (Pr. 2620).

The Mischief-Maker

An evil man digs a pit of mischief
And on his lips is a fire that burns[54] (Pr. 1627).
An evil man, a sinful man, deals always in crooked speech.
He winks his eyes and shuffles his feet,
And his fingers make secret signs:
His thoughts are all plots,
He plans ceaselessly mischief;
A spreader of discord.
Wherefore, his ruin shall come in an instant.
Like a flash he’ll be broken, and that beyond mending (Pr. 612-15).

The Boaster

As clouds and wind that yield no rain,
So is he who brags of gifts ungiven (Pr. 2514).

The Self-Confident Man.

The fool is quite certain his way is right,
But the wise man listens to counsel (Pr. 1215).
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit?
There is more hope of a fool than of him (Pr. 2612).

—the last, a saying that increases in force when a little later we come to note just what the Wise-men thought of a fool! With these proverbs on the Proud we may conveniently group some sayings on the man whose tongue runs away with his discretion:

The Garrulous Man

The tongue of the Wise distils knowledge,
But the mouth of fools poureth out folly (Pr. 152).
A fool’s mouth is his destruction,
His lips are the snare of his soul (Pr. 187).
A fool’s vexation is instantly known,
But a prudent man ignores an affront (Pr. 1216).

How true! Most normal persons have acquired the power to delay or suppress the answer that rises to the lips in anger, but which of us would not confess that it was hard to learn this wisdom and that it is never easy to observe its teaching? The temptation to blurt out all our thought in time of trouble or vexation is always with us. In the hot-tempered East restraint was even more necessary than it is amongst ourselves, and one is therefore not surprised to find the absence of this virtue receiving the same fearsome condemnation as self-confidence:

Seest thou a man that is hasty of speech?
There is more hope of a fool than of him (Pr. 2920).

Next, a group of proverbs concerning certain persons who to their own great surprise have missed success in society. The list may begin with a character one scarcely expects to meet in Scripture:

The Practical Joker

As a madman that casteth firebrands, arrows and death,
So is he who deceives his neighbour and cries, “I was only in jest” (Pr. 2618, 19).

Then some advice to

The Boor in Society[55]

When thou sittest to eat with a ruler
Bear in mind his lordship’s presence;
And if thou be a hearty eater,
Put a knife to thy throat (Pr. 231-3).

And, thirdly, in two proverbs,

The Inopportune Man

As one that taketh off a garment in cold weather,
And as vinegar upon a wound;
So is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart (Pr. 2520)[56].

He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning;
It shall be counted a curse unto him (Pr. 2714).

The last saying prompts the thought that Mr. E. V. Lucas is also among the Sages, for has he not given it as his opinion that “early rising leads to self-conceit, intolerance, and dulness after dinner”? “The old poet,” says he, “was right—

‘When the morning riseth red
Rise not thou but keep thy Bed;
When the Dawn is dull and gray
Sleep is still the better way:
Beasts are up betimes, but then
They are beasts and we are men.’”

The last of the social failures is the Flatterer, oily and ingratiating, but treacherous and in the end exposed:

The Flatterer

The words of a flatterer are like dainty morsels
Going down to the innermost parts of the body (Pr. 188).

A man that flattereth his neighbour
Spreadeth a net for his feet (Pr. 295; cp. 2628).

He that rebuketh a man shall afterward find more favour
Than he that flattereth with the tongue (Pr. 2823).

Theophrastus, a Greek writer, has left us certain character-sketches of Athenian society about 300 B.C., many of which might profitably be studied in relation to these Hebrew epigrams. His essay on The Flatterer is a case in point. Here is the Greek conception:—

“Flattery may be considered as a mode of companionship, base but profitable to him who flatters. The flatterer is a person who will say as he walks with another, ‘Do you see how people are looking at you? This happens to no man in Athens but you.’... With these and the like words he will remove a morsel of wool from his patron’s coat; or, if a speck of chaff has been laid on the other’s hair by the wind, he will pick it off, adding with a laugh, ‘Do you see? Because I have not met you for two days, you have had your beard full of white hairs—although no one has darker hair for his years than you?’ Then he will request the company to be silent while the great man is speaking, and will praise him too in his hearing, and mark his approbation at a pause with ‘True’; or he will laugh at a frigid joke and stuff his cloak in his mouth as if he could not repress his amusement. He will request those who pass by to ‘stand still until His Honour has passed.’... When he assists at the purchase of slippers, he will declare that the foot is more shapely than the shoes. If his patron is approaching a friend, he will run forward and say ‘He is coming to you’; and then, turning back, ‘I have announced you.’... He is the first of the guests to praise the wine, and to say as he reclines next the host, “How delicate is your fare,’ and (taking up something from the table) ‘Now this—how excellent it is.’... He will take the cushions from the slave in the theatre and spread them on the seat with his own hands. He will say that his patron’s house is well built, his land well planted, and that his portrait is excellent.”[57] Even when full allowance is made for the unity of authorship and the conscious and careful artistry of the Greek writing, it must be felt that comparison between the Hebrew portrait and the Greek is scarcely possible, the advantage is so entirely with the latter. The Wise were perhaps unusually dull in their dicta concerning the Flatterer, but at their best they never come within sight of the brilliant detail that makes the Greek portrait live before our eyes. It is all the more significant therefore that the Hebrew has hit the one point that the Greek ignores or overlooks: the moral issues of flattery. Theophrastus, the artist, observes that flattery is a base employment; with its evil and disastrous consequences he does not trouble himself. The Wise miss almost everything except that: A man that flattereth his neighbour, said they, spreadeth a net for his feet. They offer an unadorned assertion; but, taken to heart, it would prove more useful to society than all the subtlety of the Athenian delineation. Note then in passing how the contrast is an epitome of the struggle between the two world-ideas, Hellenic and Jewish; on the one hand the overwhelming charm and skill of the Greek, and on the other the unfailing instinct of the Hebrew for the one thing the Greek world lacked.

The Lazy Man

In the lazy man the Wise found a subject that stirred not only their wit but also their eloquence. In two instances proverb has expanded to become a parable and a picture, both of which arrive at the same conclusion. The parable is very famous—

Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
Consider her ways and be wise,
Which, having no chief, overseer or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer
And gathereth her food in the harvest.
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?
When wilt thou arise from thy slumber?
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep—
So shall thy poverty come as a robber,
And thy want as an armed man (Pr. 66-11).

But the picture deserves to be no less familiar:

I passed by the field of the slothful,
By the vineyard of the witless man:
And lo! it was all grown over with thorns,
Its surface was covered with nettles,
Its stonewall was broken down.
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep—
So shall thy poverty come as a robber,
And thy want as an armed man (Pr. 2430-34).

Besides these longer sketches there are several brief and pithy words about the lazy man. First, a delightful “hit” at him to whom any excuse for idleness is better than none:

The sluggard saith, “There is a lion outside. I shall be slain in the streets!” (Pr. 2213).

And here are two beautiful verses which breathe the very air of indolence:

As the door turneth upon its hinges,
So doth the sluggard upon his bed.
The sluggard burieth his hand in the dish;
It wearyeth him to bring it to his mouth again (Pr. 2614, 15).

The verse immediately following (Pr. 2616) will serve to conclude this topic, for it shows the sluggard to be own cousin to the type of man whom next we shall consider:

The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit
Than seven men that can render a reason.

As the Wise went through the streets of Jerusalem and stood to teach in its open spaces, they observed certain men of various occupations, differing one from another both in social rank and in mental ability, whom nevertheless they classed under one category—THE SONS OF FOLLY. There were, of course, distinctions in the nature of their folly. The Authorised and Revised Versions are content to differentiate only three types, namely—Simpletons[58] (whether from lack of brain or lack of instruction, “Dullards”), Scorners[59], and Fools. The Hebrew text goes further and classifies the last named, the Fools, into (1) Ivvillim, those whose folly is due chiefly to the unrealised weakness of their nature—ignorant, vain, confident, headstrong, infatuate persons: in a word, “stupid fools”; and (2) Kesilim, whose is the folly of a gross and sensual nature, men who are morally, rather than mentally, unresponsive to the finer aspects of life—insensate, brutish persons, “coarse fools”; and (3) the Nabal, the man who is deliberate in his wrong-doing, the “Fool of Fools,” but whose folly is only folly, provided the moral instinct of Humanity is sound and the law of the Universe is ultimately against evil and Man was meant for God and goodness. He it is of whom a Psalmist, getting to the very root of the problem, says The fool hath said in his heart: “There is no God.” Having made the fundamental error, his whole judgment of life has become perverted. Probably he is an astute person; but the greater his ability, the greater and more pernicious will be his folly. Naturally, this fool and the scorner were often one and the same person. The Wise speak little of him, except in his capacity as a scorner; but they recognise that he is terrible. One of the four things that cause the earth to tremble, say they, is when a man of this sort is filled with meat (Pr. 3022). Elsewhere (Pr. 177) they remark sarcastically that Honest words do not become a fool—decency would be out of keeping with his character. So much for “the Fool par excellence.”

The rest of the sayings about “fools” are concerned with those of the first and second types. If it were our intention to go into the teaching fully, the nice distinctions of the Hebrew would have to be observed with care.[60] But now that the Nabal has been considered, it will be sufficient to follow the classification of the English Bible—scorners, simpletons, and fools—allowing the precise distinction between the weak and the coarse fool to lapse.

The Simpleton is one type; his folly may, and should be, cured by instruction. But he is disappointingly dull of hearing and “slow at the uptake”: How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? cries Wisdom to them (Pr. 122). Nevertheless, although the teacher may fail to give them efficient brains, he can perhaps save them from evil and, in a quiet, humble way they may learn that fear of the Lord which is a sufficiency of true Wisdom. Wherefore on the whole the Wise spoke to these men sympathetically and hopefully: so in the exordium which states the purpose of the Book of Proverbs we are told that it is meant to give prudence to the simple (Pr. 14).

To the average fool the Wise were severe. Were they fair in being so? Surely many of these fools were either weak-willed or coarse, as the case might be, because they were just uninstructed “simpletons?” No! These are they who have opportunity but refuse or neglect it. Therefore their condition is culpable, and the Wise do well not to mince matters concerning the folly of their conduct. Such persons require to be kicked into sense, and the Wise were of opinion that in some instances the kicking might with advantage begin by being physical. Hold! Of whom are we speaking? Of the inhabitants of Jerusalem? Yes, but, suppose we were analysing the population of our own times, would there not be more than a few found guilty of just such folly—men and women undisciplined in mind and soul? Possessing plenty of wits and much capacity for moral feeling, they fling their chances aside. It is a perilous attitude towards the realities of life, for refusal to learn grows ever easier as life goes on. What chance do thousands give themselves of acquiring Christian faith, or even of maintaining or improving their intellectual and moral qualities? Do they seek for the good in the Christian Churches, or for the faults, and so miss the good? How much study have they given to the knowledge of God in Christ? Many have consulted their Bradshaw more often than their Bible. What efforts do they make to apprehend the meaning and value of Christianity in face of modern knowledge and in view of modern conditions? “Last Sunday you managed to evade the message which God sent you: that makes it much easier to evade the message He sends you to-day. Next Sunday you will be almost totally indifferent. Soon you will get out of reach of His word altogether, saying it does you no good. Then you will deny that it is His word or His message.”[61] This reference to Church-going is of course but one point out of many: the principle at issue is one which vitally concerns the whole of a man’s attitude to life. The fool is almost unteachable, and that of course is his supreme peril. He is so self-confident, so unreasonable, so certain he is right and others wrong. He does not dream of becoming wiser, because already he knows himself to be as wise as Solomon. Therefore the Sages are justified in their unsparing rebukes. What is wrong with the fool, is primarily his moral condition; and accordingly for the moment we need not trouble to distinguish between the weak fool and the coarse. What is censured in them both is neither their present silliness nor their grossness, but their unwillingness to learn. They have what amounts to an error of moral vision, and they desperately need to realise the fact. Mr. Chesterton has somewhere said, “The fool is one who has an impediment in his thought. It is not, as the modern fellows say, put there by his grandmother. I have wandered over the world (so to speak) trying to find some faithful, simple soul who really believed in his own grandmother. He does not exist. The first act of the fool, when he is articulate, is to teach his grandmother how to suck eggs. Fools have no reverence. Fools have no humility.” Doubtless a man must not be blamed for the initial quality of his mind, and possibly the Wise were too caustic to the congenitally stupid. But then the Wisdom they were teaching was not intellectually difficult to acquire; it was not book-learning but that Wisdom which is from on high and can be revealed to babes and sucklings.

As for the third class, the Scorner or Chief Fool; he too suffers from corruption of moral vision. But with him the distortion is desperate: he calls white black and black white. For this alert, deliberate Fool, the Wise had little hope or none at all; he has chosen the path of Folly with his eyes open. All they can do is to meet his scorn with a greater scorn, and make their appeal in his hearing. One does not wonder that the Wise were baffled by this type of man. There is hope of such a person, but the hope is in the fact of Christ. This Fool has wit enough to rethink the situation, if he chose. He may some day have imperative cause to reconsider his view of life, and so may discover first that Christ is truth, and then learn that Christ can pardon.

We turn now to the sayings themselves, or rather to a selection from them, for the sons of Folly provoked very many proverbs.

A number are humorous and spicy—the sort of phrases that might catch the ear of a crowd, raise a laugh at the fool’s expense, and remain fixed in the hearer’s memory by the barb of wit. Think, for instance, of the feeble, vacillating eyes that so often accompany and reflect a weak intellect or character:

Wisdom stands ever before the mind of a prudent man,
But the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth (Pr. 1724).

and for comment on the mind behind the eyes, this will do:

The mind of a fool is like a cartwheel,
And his thoughts like a rolling axle-tree (E. 335).

The Wise laid their finger with much accuracy on the salient features of the foolish character. Thus in the dullard they point to his credulity, The simpleton believeth every word, but the prudent looketh well to his going (Pr. 1415). The fool is apt to be greedy of reward, The fool will say “I have no friend and I have no thanks for my good deeds (E. 2016); and grudging in his charity, To-day he will lend but to-morrow he will ask it again (E. 2015), although himself a spendthrift, Precious treasure abides in the Wise man’s house, but a foolish man swallows it up (Pr. 2120, cp. Pr. 141). He is a blusterer, A Wise man is cautious and avoids misfortune, but the fool rageth and is confident (Pr. 1416); shallow and frivolous, As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool (Ecclesiastes 76); garrulous, saying what he thinks before he thinks what he says, The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the mouth of wise men is in their heart. (E. 2126); changeable and unreliable, The foolish man changeth as the moon (E. 2711); Take not counsel with a fool, for he will not be able to conceal the matter (E. 817). He is a bully often, but his courage is unstable, Pales set on a high place will not stand against the wind; so the cowardice in a foolish heart will not bear up against any fear (E. 2218). He aspires to be witty, but seldom has wit enough, The legs of the lame hang loose: so does a parable in the mouth of fools (Pr. 267).

Nevertheless the fool’s pride and self-confidence is complete, The way of the foolish is right in his own eyes (Pr. 1215; cp. 143, 2826); so that he loses sense of the awfulness of evil and even enjoys it, It is as sport to a fool to do wickedness (Pr. 1023, cp. 1319); sneering at those who fain would give him guidance, A fool despiseth his father’s correction ... a fool scorns his mother (Pr. 155, 20); and hating information, A fool hath no delight in understanding (Pr. 182). Thus it is almost useless to attempt to instruct a fool—here is a counsel of despair, Speak not in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words (Pr. 239)—and here is the sigh of the weary teacher, Wherefore is there a price in the hands of the fool to buy wisdom, seeing that he hath no wits? (Pr. 1716). The inward parts of a fool are like a broken vessel, and he will hold no knowledge (E. 2114). He that teacheth a fool is as one that glueth a potsherd together (E. 227). The fool, in fact, is in uttermost peril of being incorrigible, He that discourseth to a fool is as one discoursing to a man that slumbereth; at the end thereof he will say “What is it?” (E. 228). Altogether it is hard to suffer fools gladly:

A stone is heavy and the sand weighty,
But a fool’s vexation is heavier than both (Pr. 273).

Wherefore the Wise dealt them some shrewd blows, being well aware that the skin of the dullard and the scornful was tough:

A whip for a horse, a bridle for an ass,
And a rod for the back of fools (Pr. 263).

As a dog returneth to his vomit,
So a fool repeateth his folly (Pr. 2611).

A rebuke entereth deeper into a sensible man
Than a hundred stripes into a fool (Pr. 1710).

Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar,
Yet will his folly not depart from him (Pr. 2722).

It may be thought that some of these words are over-bitter and even savage. If so, the plea can be advanced that there was probably much provocation. The Scorner seems to have been a familiar figure, and he was doubtless clever enough to upset with his mockery many an audience to which the Wise-man was holding forth. He that correcteth a scorner getteth to himself insult, and he that reproveth a wicked man getteth himself reviling (Pr. 97)—that sounds like the fruit of experience, and there is much that is suggestive in this saying also—The proud and haughty man, scorner is his name, he worketh in the arrogance of pride (Pr. 2124). But if the Wise suffered at times, one gathers that they found no small consolation for their hurt dignity in such reflections as these:

Answer not a fool according to his folly
Lest thou be like unto him (Pr. 264).

Judgements are prepared for scorners,
And stripes for the back of fools (Pr. 1929).

CHAPTER VIII
The Ideal