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 WISDOM

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WISDOM

his own happy experience in the quest and possession of that Wisdom which is the Splendour of God and is bestowed by Him on earnest supphants (vi, 22- viiii. He subjoins the prayer (ix) by which he has himself begged that Wisdom and God's Holy Spirit might be sent down to him from heaven, and which concludes with the reflection that men of old were guided by Wisdom — a reflection which forms a natural transition to the review of Israel's ancient history, which constitutes the second part of his work. The author's line of thought in this historical part (ix-xix) may also easily be pointed out. He com- mends God's wisdom (1) for its dealings with the patriarchs from Adam to Moses (x-xi, 4); (2) for its just, and also merciful, conduct towards the idola- trous inhabitants of Egypt and Chanaan (xi, 5-xii); (3) in its contrast with the utter foolishness and con.sequent immorality of idolatry under its various forms (xiii, xiv); finally (4), for its discriminating protection over Israel during the plagues of Egypt, and at the crossing of the Red Sea, a protection which has been extended 'o all times and places.

III. Unity and Intehrity. — Most contemporary scholars admit the unit}' of the Book of Wi-sdom. The whole work is pervaded by one and the same general purpose, viz., that of giving a .solemn warning against the folly of ungodliness. Its two principal parts are intimately bound by a natural transition (ix, IS), which has in no way the appearance of an editorial insertion. Its subdivisions, which might, at first sight, be regarded as foreign to the primitive plan of the author, are, when closely examined, seen to be part and parcel of that plan: this is the case, for instance, with the section relative to the origin and the consequences of idolatry (xiii, xiv), inasmuch as this section is consciously prepared by the writer's treatment of God's wisdom in its dealings with the idolatrous inhabitants of Egypt and Chanaan, in the immediately preceding subdivision (xi, S-xii). Not only is there no break observable in the carrying- out of the plan, but favourite ex-pressions, turns of speech, and single words are found in all the sections of the work, and furni.sh a further proof that the Book of Wisdom is no mere compilation, but a Uterary unit.

The integrity of the book is no less certain than its unity. Every impartial examiner of the work can readily see that nothing in it suggests that the book has come down to us otherwise than in its primitive form. Like Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom has indeed no inscription similar to tho.se which open the Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes; but pilainly, in the case of Wisdom, as in the case of Ecclesiasticus, this absence is no necessarj' sign that the work is fragmentary at the beginning. Nor can the Book of Wisdom be rightly considered a.s mutilated at the end, for its la-st present ver.se forms a proper close to the work as planned by the author. As regards the few passages of Wisdom which certain critics have treated as later Clu-istian interpolations (ii, 24; iii, 13; iv, 1; xiv, 7), it is plain that were these pa.ssages such as they are claimed, their presence would not vitiate the substantial integrity of the work, and further, that closely examined, they yield a .sense perfectly consistent with the author's Jewish frame of mind.

IV. Language and .^nTHon.sHip. — In view of the ancient heading: "the Wisdom of Solomon", some scholars have surmised that the Book of Wisdom was composed in Hebrew, like the other works ascribed to Solomon by their title (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticle of Canticles). To substantiate this posi- tion they have appealed to the Hebraisms of the work; to its parallehsms, a distinct feature of Hebrew poetr>'; to its constant use of simple connecting parti- cles (koI, 5^, yip, Sti, etc.), the usual articulations of Hebrew sentences; to Greek expressions traceable, aa they thought, to wrong renderings from a Hebrew original, etc. Ingenioua as these arguments may ap-

pear, they prove no more than that the author of the Book of Wisdom was a Hebrew, WTiting Greek with a distinctly Jewish cast of mind. As far back as St. Jerome (Pnef . in hbros Salomonis), it has been felt that not Hebrew but Greek was the original language of the Book of Wisdom, and this verdict is so powerfully confirmed by the literary features of the entire Greek text, that one may well wonder that the theory of an ancient Hebrew original, or of any original other than Greek, should have ever been seriously maintained.

Of course the fact that the entire Book of Wisdom was coniposed in Greek rules out its Solomonic authorship. It is indeed true that ecclesiastical writers of the first centuries commonly assumed this authorship on the basis of the title of the book, appar- ently confirmed by those passages (ix, 7, 8, 12; cf. vii, 1, 5; viii, 13, 14; etc.) where the one speaking is clearly King Solomon. But this view of the matter never was unanimous in the Early Christian Church, and in the course of time a middle position between its total affirmation and its total rejection was sug- gested. The Book of Wisdom, it was said, is Solo- mon's inasmuch as it is based on Solomonic works which arc now lost, hut which were known to and utihzed by a heUenistic Jew centuries after Solomon's death. This middle view is but a weak attempt at saving something of the full Solomonic authorshi]) affirmed in eariier ages. "It is a supposition which has no po.sitive arguments in its favour, and which, in itself, is imprnliahli', since it assumes the existence of Solomonic writings of which there is no trace, and which would have been known only to the writer of the Book of VV'isdom" (Cornely-Hagen, "Introd. in Libros Sacros, Compendium," Paris, 1909, p. 361). At the present day, it is freely admitted that Solomon is not the writer of the Book of Wisdom, "which has been ascribed to him because its author, through a Uterary fiction, speaks as if he were the Son of David" (Vigouroux, "Manuel Biblique", II, n. 868. See also the notice prefixed to the Book of Wisdom in the cur- rent editions of the Douai Version). Besides Solo- mon, the writer to whom the authorship of the work has been oftencst ascribed is Philo, chiefly on the ground of a general agreement in respect to doctrines, between the author of Wisdom and Philo, the cele- brated Jewish philosopher of Alexandria (d. about A. D. 40). The truth of the matter is that the doc- trinal differences between the Book of Wisdom and Philo's writings are such as to preclude a common authorship. Philo's allegorical treatment of Scrip- tural narratives is utterly foreign to the frame of mind of the writer of the Book of Wisdom. His view of the origin of idolatry conflicts on several points with that of the author of the Book of Wisdom. Above all, his description of Divine wisdom bespeaks as to con- ception, st)de, and manner of presentation, a later stage of Alexandrian thought than that found in Wis- dom. The authorshi]! of the work has been at times ascribed to Zorobabel, as though this Jewish leader could have written in Greek; to the Alexandrian Aristobulus (second cent. B. c), as though this cour- tier could have inveighed against kings after the man- ner of the Book of Wisdom (vi, 1 ; etc.) ; and finally, to Apollo (cf. Acts, xviii, 24), as though this was not a mere supposition contrary to the presence of the book in the Alexandrian Canon. All these variations as to authorship prove that the author's name is really unknown (cf. the notice prefixed to Wi.sdom in the Douay Version).

V. Pi-ACE and Date of Composition. — Whoever examines attentively the Book of Wisdom can readily see that its unknowTi author was not a Palestinian Jew, but an .\lexandrian .lew. Monotheistic as the writer is throughout his work, he evinces an acquaint- ance with Greek thought and philosophical terms (he calls God "the ,\uthor of beauty": xiii, 3; styles Providence irpima: xiv, 3; xvii, 2; speaks of tXi