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 CHAPTER XIII.

THE CANONICITY OF ECCLESIASTES AND ECCLESIASTICUS.

I.

It is not surprising that these strange Meditations should have had great difficulty in penetrating into the Canon. There is sufficient evidence (see the works of Plumptre and Wright) that the so-called Wisdom of Solomon is in part a deliberate contradiction of sentiments expressed in our book. The most striking instance of this antagonism is in Wisd. ii. 6-10 (cf. Eccles. ix. 7-9), where the words of Koheleth are actually put into the mouth of the ungodly libertines of Alexandria. The date of Wisdom is disputed, but cannot be earlier than the reign of Ptolemy VII. Physcon ( 145-117). The attitude of the writer towards Koheleth may perhaps be compared with that of the Palestinian teachers who relegated the book among the apocrypha on this among other grounds, that it contained heretical statements, e.g. 'Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth' &c. (xi. 9). Nothing is more certain than that the Book of Koheleth was an Antilegomenon in Palestine in the first century before Christ. And yet it certainly had its friends and supporters both then and later. Simeon ben Shetach and his brother-in-law, King Alexander Jannæus ( 105-79),