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 ECCLESIASTICUS

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ECCLESIASTICUS

Professor D. S. Margoliouth, that is, the two men who but shortly before the discovery of the Hebrew frag- ments of Ecclesiasticus had attempted to retranslate small parts of the book into Hebrew, declared them- selves openly against the originality of the newly found Hebrew text. It may indeed be admitted that the efforts naturally entailed l)y their own work of re- translation had especially fitted Margoliouth and Biekell for noticing and appreciating those features which even now appear to many scholars to tell in fa- vour of a certain connexion of the Hebrew text with the Greek and Syriac versions. It remains true, how- ever, that, with the exception of Israel L^vi and per- haps a few others, the most prominent Biblical and Talmudic scholars of the day are of the mind that the Hebrew fragments present an original text. They think that the arguments and inferences most vigor- ously urged by Professor D. S. Margoliouth in favour of his view have been disposed of through a compari- son of the fragments published in 1S99 and 1900 with those that had appeared at an earlier date, and through a close study of nearly all the facts now avail- able. They readily admit in the M8S. thus far recov- ered, scribal faults, doublets, Arabisms, apparent traces of dependence on extant versions, etc. But to their minds all such defects do not disprove the origin- ality of the Helirew text, inasmuch as they can, and indeed in a large nmiiber of cases must, be accounted for by the very late character of the copies now in our possession. The Hebrew fragments of Ecclesiasticus belong, at the earliest, to the tenth, or even the elev- enth, century of our era, and by that late date all kinds of errors could naturally be expected to have crept into the original language of the book, because the Jewish copyists of the work did not regard it as canonical. At the same time, these defects do not disfigure altogether the manner of Hebrew in which Ecclesiasticus was primitively written. The language of the fragments is manifestly not rabbinic, but classical Hebrew ; and this conclusion is decidedly borne out by a comparison of their text with that of the quotations from Ecclesi- asticus, both in the Talmud and in the Saadia, which have already been referred to. Again, the Hebrew of the newly found fragments, although classical, is yet one of a distinctly late type, and it supplies consider- able material for lexicographic research. Finally, the comparatively large number of the Hebrew MHS. re- cently discovered in only one place (Cairo) points to the fact that the work in its primitive form was often transcribed in ancient times, and thus affords hope that other copies, more or less complete, of the original text may be discovered at some future date. To ren- der their study convenient, all the extant fragments have been brought together in a splendid edition, "Facsimiles of the Fragments hitherto recovered of the Book of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew" (Oxford and Cambridge, 1901). The metrical and strophic struc- ture of parts of the newly discovered text has been particularly investigated by H Grimme and N. Schlogl, whose success in the matter is, to say the least, indifferent; and by Jos. Knabenbauer, S.J., in a less venturesome way, and hence with more satisfac- tory results.

IV. Ancient Versions. — It was, of course, from a Hebrew text incomparably better than the one we now possess that the grandson of the author of Ecclesias- ticus rendered the book into Cireek. This translator was a Palestinian Jew, who came to Egypt at a certain time, and de.sired to make the work accessible in a Greek dress to the Jews of the Dispersion, and no doubt also to all lovers of wisdom. HLs name Ls lui- known, although an ancient, but little reliable, tradi- tion ("Synopsis Scriptura- Sacra;" in St. Athanasius's works) calls liiin Jesus, the son of Sirach. His literary qualifications for the task he undertook and carried out cannot be fully ascertained at the present day. He is commonly regarded, however, from the general char-

acter of his work, as a man of good general culture, with a fair command of both Hebrew and Greek. He was distinctly aware of the great difference which ex- ists between the respective genius of these two lan- guages, and of the consequent difficulty attending the efforts of one who aimed at giving a satisfactory Greek version of a Hebrew writing, and therefore begs ex- pressly, in his prologue to the work, his readers' in- dulgence for whatever shortcomings they may notice in his translation. He claims to have spent much time and labour on his version of Ecclesiasticus, and it is only fair to suppose that his work was not only a con- scientious, but also, on the whole, a successful, render- ing of the original Hebrew. One can but speak in this guarded manner of the exact value of the Greek trans- lation in its primitive form, for the simple reason that a comparison of its extant MSS. — all apparently de- rived from a single Greek exemplar — shows that the primitive translation has been very often, and in many cases seriously, tampered with. The great imcial codices, the Vatican, the Sinaitic, the Ephra'mitic, and partly the Alexandrian, though comparatively free from glosses, contain an inferior text; the better form of the text seems to be preserved in the Venetus Codex and in certain cursive MSS., though these have many glosses. Undoubtedly, a fair number of these glosses may be referred safely to the translator himself, who, at times, added one word or even a few words to the original before him, to make the meaning clearer or to guard the text against possible misunderstanding. But the great bulk of the glosses resemble the Greek additions in the Book of Proverbs ; they are expansions of the thought, or hellenizing interpretations, or addi- tions from current collections of gnomic sayings. The following are the best-ascertained results which flow from a comparison of the Greek version with the text of our Hebrew fragments. Oftentimes, the corrup- tions of the Hebrew may be discovered by means of the Greek ; and, conversely, the Greek text is proved to be defective, in the line of additions or omissions, by reference to parallel places in the Hebrew. At times, the Hebrew discloses considerable freedom of render- ing on the part of the Greek translator; or enables one to perceive how the author of the version mistook one Hebrew letter for another ; or, again, affords us a means to make sense out of an unintelligible expression in the Greek text. Lastly, the Hebrew text confirms the order of the contents in xxx-xxxvi which is presented by the Syriac, Latin, and Armenian versions, over against the unnatural order found in all existing Greek MSS. Like the Greek, the Syriac version of Ecclesi- asticus was made directly from the original Hebrew. This is wellnigh universally admitted; and a compari- son of its text with that of the newly found Hebrew fragments should settle the point forever: as just stated, the Syriac version gives the same order as the Hebrew text for the contents of xxx-xxxvi ; in particu- lar, it presents mistaken renderings, the origin of which, while inexplicable by supposing a Greek origi- nal as its basis, is easily accounted for by reference to the text of the Hebrew fragments. But the Hebrew text from which it was made must have been very de- fective, as is proved by the numerous and important lacuna; in the Syriac translation. It seems, likewise, that the Hebrew has been rendered by the translator himself in a careless, and at times even arbitrary, manner. The Syriac version has all the less critical value at the present day, because it was considerably revised at an unknown date, by means of the Greek translation.

Of the other ancient versions of Ecclesiasticus, the Old Latin is the most important. It was made before St. Jerome's time, although the precise date of its ori- gin cannot now be ascertained; and the holy doctor apparently revised its text but little, previously to its adoption into the Latin Vulgate. The unity of the Old Latin version, which was formerly undoubted,