Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/572

 PROVERBS

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PROVERBS

and warnings to an imagined pupil or disciple. He warns him against evil company (i, 8-19); describes to him the advantages attending the pursuit of wis- dom, and the evils to be avoided by such course (ii); exhorts him to obedience, to trust in God, to the pay- ment of legal offerings, to patience under the Divine chastisements, and sets forth the priceless value of wisdom (iii, 1-26). After some miscellaneous pre- cepts (iii, 27-35), he renews his pressing exhortation to wisdom and virtue (iv), and gives several warnings against unchaste women (v; vi, 20-35; vii), after the first of which are inserted warnings against surety- ship, indolence, falsehood, and various vices (vi, 1-19). At several points (i, 20-33; viii; i.x) Wisdom herself is introduced as speaking and as displaying her charms, origin, and power to men. The style of this first part is flowing, and the thoughts therein expressed are generally developed in the form of connected discourses. The second part of the book (x-xxii, 16) has for its distinct heading: "Mishle Shelomoh", and is made up of disconnected sayings in couplet form, arranged in no particular order, so that it is impossible to give a summary of them. In many instances a saying is repeated within this large collection, usually in identical terms, at times with some slight changes of expression. Appended to this second part of the book are two minor col- lections (xxii, 17-xxiv, 22; xxiv, 2:3-34), chiefly made up of aphoristic quatrains. The opening verses (xxii, 17-21) of the first appendix request attention to the "words of the wise" which follow (xxii, 22- xxiv, 22), and which, in a consecutive form recalling that of the first part of the book, set forth warnings against various excesses. The second appendix has for its title: "These also are words of the wise", and the few proverbs it contains conclude with two verses (33, 34), apparently taken over from vi, 10, 11. The third part of the book (xxv-x.xix) bears the in- scription: "These are also Mishle Shelomoh, which the men of Ezechias, king of Juda, copied out." By their miscellaneous character, their couplet form, etc., the proverbs of this third part resemble those of x-xxii, 16. Like them also, they are followed by two minor collections (xxx and xxxi, 1-9), each supplied with its respective title. The first of these minor collections has for its heading: "Words of Agur, the son of Takeh", and its principal contents are Agur's meditation on the Divine transcendence (xxx, 2-9), and groups of numerical proverbs. The second minor collection is inscribed: "The Words of Lamuel, a king: the oracle which his mother taught him." In it the queen-mother warns her son against sen- suality, drunkenness, and injustice. Nothing is known of Agur and Lamuel; their names are possibly symbolical. The book concludes with an alphabetical poem descriptive of the virtuous woman (xxxi, 10-39). III. Hebrew Text and Ancient Versions. — A close study of the present Hebrew Text of the Book of Proverbs proves that the primitive wording of the pithy sayings which make up this manual of Hebrew wisdom has experienced numerous alterations in the course of its transmission. Some of these imperfec- tions have, with some probability, been assigned to the period during which the maxims of the "wise men" were preserved orally. Most of them belong undoubtedly to the time after these sententious or enigmatic saj-ings had been written down. The Book of Proverbs was numbered among the "Hagio- grapha" (writings held by the ancient Hebrews as less sacred and authoritative than either the "Law" or the "Prophets"), and, in con.'ic(iuonce, copyists felt naturally less bound to transcribe its text with scrupulous accuracy. Again, the copjists of Proverbs knew, or at least thought they knew, by memory the exact words of the pithy sayings they had to write out; hence arose involuntary changes which, once introduced, were perpetuated or even added to by

subsequent transcribers. Finally, the obscure or enigmatic character of a certain number of maxims led to the deliberate insertion of glosses in the text so that primitive distichs now wrongly appear in the form of tristichs, etc. (cf. Knabenbauer, "Comm. in Proverbia", Paris, 1910). Of the ancient versions of the Book of Proverbs, the Septuagint is the most valuable. It probably dates from the middle of the second century B. c, and exhibits very important differences from the Massoretic Text in point of omissions, transpositions, and additions. The trans- lator was a Jew conversant indeed with the Greek language, but had at times to use paraphrases owing to the difliculty of rendering Hebrew pithy sayings into intelligible Greek. After full allowance has been made for the translator's freedom in render- ing, and for the alterations introduced into the primi- tive wording of this version by later transcribers and revisers, two things remain quite certain: first, the Septuagint may occasionally be utilized for the discovery and the emendation of inaccurate readings in our present Hebrew Text; and next, the most important variations which this Greek Version pre- sents, especially in the line of additions and trans- positions, point to the fact that the translator ren- dered a Hebrew original which differed considerably from the one embodied in the Massoretic Bibles. It is well known that the Sahidic Version of Proverbs was made from the Septuagint, before the latter had been subjected to recensions, and hence this Coptic Version is useful for the control of the Greek Text. The present Peshito, or Syriac Version, of the Book of Proverbs was probably based on the Hebrew Text, with which it generally agrees with regard to material and arrangement. At the same time, it was most likely made wath respect to the Septuagint, the pecu- liar readings of which it repeatedly adopts. The Latin Version of Proverbs, which is embodied in the Vul- gate, goes back to St. Jerome, and for the most part closely agrees with the Massoretic Text. It is prob- able that many of its present deviations from the Hebrew in conformity with the Septuagint should be referred to later copyists anxious to complete St. Jerome's work by means of the " Vetus Itala", which had been closely made from the Greek.

IV. Authorship and Date. — The vexed questions anent the authorship and date of the collections which make up the Book of Proverbs go back only to the sixteenth century of our era, when the Hebrew Text began to be studied more closely than previously. They were not even suspected by the early Fathers who, following implicitly the inscriptions in i, 1; x,l; xxiv, 1 (which bear direct witness to the Solomonic authorship of large collections of proverbs), and being misled by the Greek rendering of the titles in xxx, 1 ; xx,xi, 1 (which does away altogether with the references to Agur and Lamuel as authors distinct from Solomon), regarded King Solomon as the author of the whole Book of Proverbs. Nor were they real questions for the subsequent writers of the West, although these medieval authors had in the Vulgate a more faithful rendering of xxx, 1 ; xxxi, 1, which might have led them to reject the Solomonic origin of tlie sections ascribed to Agur and Lamuel respectively, for in their eyes the words Agur and Lamuel were but symbolical names of Solomon. At the present day, most Catholic scholars feel free to treat as non- Solomonic not only the short sections which are ascribed in the Hebrew Text to Agur and Lamuel, but also the minor collections which their titles attribute to "the wise" (x.xii, 16-xxiv, 22; xxiv, 23- 34), and the alphabetical poem concerning the vir- tuous woman which is appended to the whole book. With regard to the other parts of the work (i-ix; x-xxii, 16; xxv-xxix). Catholic writers are wellnigh unanimous in ascribing them to Solomon. Bearing distinctly in mind the statement in III (A. V. I.)