Page:Job and Solomon (1887).djvu/208

 CHAPTER II.

SIRACH'S TEACHING (continued). HIS PLACE IN THE MOVEMENT OF THOUGHT.

Passing now from Sirach's moral statements to those which are concerned with doctrine, an honest critic must admit that the author is here even less progressive. The Messianic hope, in the strict sense of the word, has faded away. In xlv. 25 (comp. xlviii. 15) the 'covenant with David' is described as being 'that the inheritance of the king should be only from father to son;' similarly in xlvii. 22 the 'root of David' denotes Rehoboam and his descendants. But this want of a definite Messianic hope is characteristic of the age; it is no special defect of Sirach. But what shall we say of another charge brought against our author, viz. that he has unbiblical conceptions of the Divine nature? One of these (xi. 16; see A.V.) may be dismissed at once, the passage having insufficient critical authority. Another—

We may speak much and not attain; indeed to sum up, He is all (xliii. 27)—

has been misapprehended. The Bereshith Rabba says (c. 68), 'Why is the Holy One also called Mākōm (place)? Because He is the place of the world; His world is not His place.' This is all that Sirach means, and Philo, too, who uses similar words, accused by Keerl of heresy, and adds, [Greek: hate eis kai to pan autos ôn].

The doctrines of the Satan and the Resurrection, which Sirach probably regarded somewhat as we regard the 'develop-*