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 THE WISDOM OF JESUS THE SON OF SIRACH.

CHAPTER I.

THE WISE MAN TURNED SCRIBE. SIRACH'S MORAL TEACHING.

The inclusion of Sirach within our range of study, as an appendix and counterpart to the canonical Book of Proverbs, requires no long justification. The so-called 'Wisdom of Solomon' is in form and colouring almost as much Greek as Hebrew, and has no place in a survey of the wisdom of Palestine. But the 'Wisdom' more modestly ascribed to the son of Sirach is a truly Israelitish production, though as yet none but the masters of our subject have recognised its intrinsic importance. Whence comes this prevalent neglect of a work still known as 'Ecclesiasticus' or a 'church-book'? Doubtless it has fallen in estimation from being combined with books more difficult to appraise fairly and consequently regarded with suspicion. The objection which some Jewish doctors entertained to recommending parts of the Hagiographa has been felt by many moderns with regard to the Apocrypha. The objection is too strong and general not to have some foundation, but it implies an unhistorical habit of mind. Granted that the Apocryphal writings of the Old Testament belong in the main to a period of outer and inner decadence (though the noble Maccabean days may qualify this); yet periods of decadence are often also periods of transition to some new and better thing, which cannot be understood or