Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/905

Rh PROVERBS 881 (many examples of the period of most subtle analysis in the last-named collection), while the period of synthesis and what comes near to be a science of wisdom is represented in the passage i.-ix. Naturally along with this advance in thought there appeared a corresponding advance in the forms of expression in which the wisdom clothed itself : the wise acquired a method ; a particular spirit began to animate their circles ; their phraseology showed the impress of a particular mint, and ultimately assumed a form almost technical. Perhaps some of the things which failed to attract the attention of the wise are more suggestive than those things with which they occupied themselves. Though sacrifice, for example, be once or twice alluded to, no importance is attached to the ritual system ; the priest is not once mentioned, and the external exercises of worship appear to have little significance. But, what is more remarkable, the wise man differs as much from the prophet as he does from the lawgiver. All those ideas around which prophecy revolves, such as the idea of the kingdom of God, of a chosen people, of a Messiah or future king of the house of David, and the like, are entirely absent. The distinction between &quot; Israel &quot; and the &quot; nations &quot; has no place. The darling phraseology of the prophets &quot;Israel,&quot; &quot;Jacob,&quot; &quot;Zion,&quot; &quot; my people,&quot; &quot; the latter day &quot; and the whole terminology of particu larism characteristic of prophecy and many even of the Psalms nowhere occurs. The conflict between the worship of Jehovah and that of false gods, with which the pages of prophetic writers are filled, does not receive even a pass ing reference. Conclusions have been drawn from these peculiarities which, though not unnatural, are scarcely warranted. It has been inferred that the wise were men whose way of thinking placed them outside of their dis pensation and in antagonism to the circle of beliefs cherished in Israel and represented by the prophets and other public teachers in short, that they took up a humanistic or naturalistic position. A position to which the name naturalistic could be given is inconceivable in Israel. There were no doubt men called wise who pursued false directions (Jer. xviii. 18), as there were false prophets; but there is nothing in the Proverbs to indicate any antagonism between their authors and either priest or pro phet. On the contrary the passage iii. 9 a solitary one no doubt &quot; Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase,&quot; shows their friendliness to the ritual. If they say on the other hand that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord (xv. 8), and that by mercy and truth iniquity is atoned for (xvi. 6), this is nothing but what the prophets proclaim in a body, and means merely that obedience is better than sacrifice and the moral higher than the ritual. And even Sirach, a fervent supporter of priesthood and sacrifice (Ecclus. vii. 29 &amp;lt;?)&amp;gt; enunciates the same doctrine: &quot; He that keepeth the law multiplieth offerings ; he that taketh heed to the commandments sacrificeth a peace- offering. To depart from wickedness is a thing pleasing to the Lord, and to depart from unrighteousness is a pro pitiation &quot; (Ecclus. xxxv. 1 sq.). And that the wise men feel themselves within the circle of the revealed religion is evident from their use of the name Jehovah, their frequent references to the &quot;law,&quot; that is, torah or revelation, the &quot;commandment,&quot; the &quot;word,&quot; and the like; and such a sentence as this, &quot; Where there is no vision (prophetic revelation, 1 Sam. iii. 1) the people cast off restraint&quot; (xxix. 18), shows no unfriendliness to the prophets. The wise men had no quarrel with the institutions of Israel, nor with the public teachers and their operations ; they occupied themselves more, however, with the life of the individual than the community, and sought to distil from the particularistic thought in Israel principles which, both in morals and religion, should be universal and applicable wherever men lived. Still this very universalism is a remarkable thing, and a different attempt has been made to explain it. It has been suggested that the wisdom, though some beginnings of it may have appeared during the prophetic period and while the autonomy of Israel as a state continued, must be in the main elements of its literature a thing posterior to the downfall of the state and the cessation of prophecy. Only in this way it is thought is it possible to explain the complete absence of all those ideas regarding Israel as a people, its relation to the heathen, and its future destiny, which fill the pages of the earlier literature. That inspira tion and exaltation of mind which marked the prophetic age has disappeared and reflexion has ,taken its place. Enthusiasm for the state has died out because the state has perished, and is now represented by care for the individual. Prophecy has fulfilled its mission ; it has lodged its principles in men s minds ; it has seen itself fulfilled in the overthrow of the kingdom, but the hour of its triumph has been the hour of its death. Now follows the time of reflexion upon the prophetic truths, when the mind has accepted principles and risen through prophetic teaching to universal conceptions of God and the world, and an effort is made to apply them to the individual life. In short the age of the wisdom is the period of the return from exile, when. Israel was no more a nation but a com munity of people, when it had no king of its own but obeyed a foreign ruler, and when prophecy speedily became dumb, partly because its mission had been fulfilled and partly because the chief condition of its exercise, the exist ence of the state, was awanting. In this condition of things the wise arose and exercised their functions ; they do not allude to prophetic conceptions because, so far as these concerned the people in its nationality, they had in the meantime lost their meaning, and so far as they belonged to the general region of religious and ethical truth they had been accepted at least by the better minds among the people, and it is the aim of the wise to per suade every individual in the community to receive them and live by them. The wise indeed are the successors of the prophets ; they inculcate the same truths as they did, but the subject whose ear they seek to gain is the individual and no more the state. Such a theory, should it come to be accepted, would carry its compensations with it. It would fill with the liveliest activity a period in the life of Israel where a silence almost of death seems at present to reign. The centuries after Malachi are a great blank ; if we could suppose them filled with the life and thought reflected in the charming literature of the wisdom, they would yield in interest to no period of the nation s history. And beyond doubt the wisdom continued to flourish in this age, for Ecclesiastes and later down the extra- canonical wisdom of Sirach are the fruits of it. If we consider Ecclesiastes, however, we find that it is the proper successor to the book of Job ; it reflects the natural exhaustion of speculation on the great mysteries of God and providence which could not but follow the stormy conflict exhibited in Job. But in the two great collections of Solomonic proverbs such doubts regarding providence do not at all appear, and even in the other collections (except chap, xxx.) they are touched on lightly. The Proverbs appear to signalize the stage of Hebrew thought anterior to the book of Job. It may be said that Sirach does not debate such questions. This is true, but the reason is that he consciously declines to entertain them, &quot;Seek not things that are too hard for thee&quot;; &quot;None shall say, what is this? wherefore is that 1 ? &quot; (Ecclus. iii. 21, xxxix. 16), while to the proverbialists they XIX. in