There have been occasions when I have felt that if others
^ Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 233. PS. CXIX.-SONG OF SOL. — 13
194 TENDERNESS AND POWER
cared for me as I did for them, it would be not so much a solace of loss as an equivalent for it — a certain real thing in itself — a touching of that absolute ground among all the changes of phenomena, such as our philosophers of late have professed themselves quite unable to find. In the mere clinging of human creatures to each other, nay ! in one's own solitary self- pity, even amidst what might seem absolute loss, I seem to touch the eternal.^
» Walter Pater,
The Beginning of Wisdom.
>9S
Literature.
Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, vii. 1. Banks (L. A.), The Problems of Youth, 1. Benson (R. M.), The Wisdom of the So7i of David, 1. Goodwin (H.), Parish Sermons, ii. 258. Hart (H, M.), A Preacher's Legacy, 221. Horton (R. F.), The Book of Proverbs (Expositor's Bible), 9. Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Esther, etc., 71. Thomas (J.), Sermons (Myrtle Street Pulpit), ii. 177. Warschauer (J.), The Way of Understanding, 11.
Chv/rchmian's Pulpit: Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, iv. 150 (H Goodwin).
19«
The Beginning of Wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.— Prov. i. 7.
This proposition is by some commentators regarded as the motto, symbol, or device of the Book of Proverbs. Others regard it as forming part of the superscription. As a general proposition expressing the essence of the philosophy of the Israelites, and from its relation to the rest of the contents of this book, it rightly occupies a special and individual position. The proposition occurs again in Prov. ix. 10, and it is met with in similar or slightly modified forms in other books of the Wisdom literature. The Arabs have adopted it at the head of their proverbial collections.
I.
The Importance of Wisdom.
1. Knowledge, that is, true knowledge or wisdom, is the supremely important thing. " Wisdom " was the key- word of the East in general, as well as of the Greek philosophic systems of thought. In the different cases the force of the term and the content assigned to it were different, yet, in spite of the differences, the term marks a common ground on which all meet, and reveals the essential unity of human thought and aspiration. " Wisdom " may be differently conceived, but there is agreement on this, that there is a great world-secret which to know is to find life, that there is a sphinx riddle, which we must answer or die. In the general Oriental idea of " Wisdom " there was much superstition. The wise man was he who could read the secret of the world, and unfold for men's guidance the roll of destiny. This sometimes took the form of such superstitions as that of astrology ; yet there was a manifest effort to propound the right questions concerning human life, aiid to find the right answer. The result seems, from
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198 THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM
our point of view, to be meagre and inadequate enough, but there must have been a truth for them at the heart of it.
^ Prior to its contact with Hellenism, the Semitic mind had proceeded no farther in the path of Philosophy than the pro- pounding of enigmas, and the utterance of aphoristic wisdom. Detached observations of Nature, but especially of the life and fate of Man, form the basis of such thinking ; and where com- prehension ceases, resignation to the almighty and inscrutable will of God comes in without difficulty. By the side of this wisdom there was found everywhere the Magic of the sorcerer, — a knowledge which was authenticated by command over outward things. But it was only in the priestly circles of ancient Babylonia that men rose to a more scientific consideration of the world. Their eyes were turned from the confusion of earthly existence to the order of the heavens. They resembled rather the Greeks who came to understand the Many and Manifold in their sublunary forms only after they had discovered the harmony of the All in the unity and steadiness of the movement of the heavens. This Chaldaean wisdom, from the time of Alexander the Great, became pervaded, in Babylonia and Syria, with Hellenistic and later with Hellenistic-Christian ideas, or else was supplanted by them. Of more importance than any Semitic tradition was the contribution made by Persian and Indian wisdom. India was regarded as the true land of wisdom. In Arab writers we often come upon the view that there the birth- place of philosophy is to be found. By peaceful trading, in which the agents between India and the West were principally Persians, and next as a result of the Muslim conquest, acquaintance with Indian wisdom spread far and wide. Many a deliverance of ethical and political wisdom, in the dress of proverbs, was taken over from the fables and tales of India. The investigations of the Indians, associated with their sacred books and wholly determined by a religious purpose, have certainly had a lasting influence upon Persian Sufism and Islamic Mysticism. But the Greek mind was needed to direct the reflective process to the knowledge of the Keal. In Indian philosophy knowledge in the main continued to be only a means. Deliverance from the evil of existence was the aim, and philosophy a pathway to the life of blessed- ness. Hence the monotony of this wisdom, — concentrated, as it was, upon the essence of all things in its Oneness, — as con- trasted with the many-branched science of the Hellenes, which strove to comprehend the operations of Nature and Mind on all sides.*