Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1402

 When we give the name φιλοσοφία to the tendency of mind to which the Book of Proverbs belongs, we do not merely use a current scientific word, but there is an actual internal relation of the Book of Proverbs to that which is the essence of philosophy, which Scripture recognises (Act 17:27, cf. Rom 1:19.) as existing within the domain of heathendom, and which stamps it as a natural produce of the human spirit, which never can be wanting where a human being or a people rises to higher self-consciousness and its operations in their changing relation to the phenomena of the external world. The mysteries of the world without him and of the world within him give man no rest, he must seek to solve them; and whenever he does that, he philosophizes, i.e., he strives after a knowledge of the nature of things, and of the laws which govern them in the world of phenomena and of events; on which account also Josephus, referring to Solomon's knowledge of nature, says (Ant. viii. 2. 5), οὐδεμίαν τούτων φύσιν ἠγνόησεν οὐδὲ παρῆλθεν ἀνεξέταστον ἀλλ ̓ ἐν πάσαις ἐφιλοσόφησεν. Cf. Irenaeus, Cont. Her. iv. 27. 1: eam quae est in conditione (κτίσει) sapientiam Dei exponebat physiologice. The historical books show us how much the age of Solomon favoured philosophical inquiries by its prosperity and peace, its active and manifold commercial intercourse with foreign nations, its circle of vision extending to Tarshish and Ophir, and also how Solomon himself attained to an unequalled elevation in the extent of his human and secular knowledge. We also read of some of the wise men in 1Ki 5:11, cf. Ps 88-89, who adorned the court of the wisest of kings; and the משׁל, which became, through his influence, a special branch of Jewish literature, is the peculiar poetic form of the חכמה. Therefore in the Book of Proverbs we find the name חכמים דּברי (words of the wise) used for משׁלים (proverbs); and by a careful consideration of all the proverbs in which mention is made of the חכמים, one will convince