Surely it is not going too far to say that with the finiling of these texts a new period begins in the historj' of our book. Where wo hitherto were hill (7^) to bow down th« ner/c of o<ir children from their J'outh {Kdp.-^ai t6v Tpdxri\ov avrdv — but rbv Tpixv'^o' ai-Tuv is correctly omitted by li and CliTiiens Alexandrinus (i. 180, 2, ed. Dind.t), — we are now advised to nwirnj tliem early (S }ljAO = con- fusion between n^ and nc).
It is neither possible nor ncccssafy to go on multiplying examples of this kind. A great field
• Baoher, Ryssel, Smcnd are not satisflod with 'wine and ■tronK drink.' Bacher, coniparin}; lix fiU, wishes lo read [v*; T5V'] ' who can Hlt-ep and has work * ; Ryssel with Smeud, lor I^C'i 'who has plenty, and lias paying work.'
t Tile aifreomont between X and Clement Is of great import- ance.
waits for patient workers. The task for futura editors of Sirach will be to conijiare most care- fully— (1) the witnesses for O (MSS,* Versions, Quotations t) ; (2) the witnesses for S — on the wliole, an easy task ; (3) the witnesses for JljABCD; and the quotations to be compared with each other, where there is more than one, then with C ?. Tlie text, in translation, would have to be given in parallel columns: in tlie middle what is common to all, at the right and the left the variations, at the bottom would be shown how the variations originated.
On the lang^tane of lb see in 0-N p. xxxi (I. the * Glocsar>' of Words not found in the Hebrew of the OT, or found in it only in the passages quoted or referred to ' ; and cf. Noldeke {ZA TW, 1900, p. 94), who was at first in favour of the Oxf. Ucb. Lex. beginning to take notice of Ben Sira, but aftenvards thought it a safer course that his words should he gathered into an Appendix. The Concordance to the Septuagint by Hatch- lic'dpalh promises for the second part of the Supplement ' A Short Confordance showing the Hebrew equivalents to the Greek in the lately discovered fragments of Ecclesiasticus.' lliis will be very welcome. To learn what interesting questions are raised, see, for instance, 1010 n^no |*ac'=^x/>ov ai,pfirryifjux.\X 18^'- (C) juyn j-DC=/m»^» tfi^'i; D'D3i!>=/t!/»i 3718 (cf. Gn48~); S'Sy (see I. Low, 'Marginalien zu Kohut's Aruch' in Semitic Stiidieg in M^'mori/ of A. Knhut, p. 374); D'OD.X 6027 with '33K 50^ and Pr 262. Xhe similarity to the language of tbe 'Pai- tanim,' tbe late Jewish hymn-writers, seems to militate against the originality of lb ; hut even Schechter cannot dfiiy it : 'If he thought like a Rabbi, he wrote like a Paitan' (ef. Toy in Enciic. tiilit. p. 1167 f.; D. Strauss, SpracfiL Stud, zu dm fieb. SirachJ'ni'juienten, Zurich, 1900 ; W. IJ;ujher, Die ulteste Ter- minal, derjiid. Schrijtauslegung, Leipzig, 1899, p. 207).
X. Contents and Tiikoi.ogy.— 1. It is clear that in many details our views about the contents of the book must be revised since the recent finds ; but on the whole the standpoint of the book has been correctly estimated. It li.as been considered as the clwf inoniiment of primitive Sadduceism, and this found corroboration in an unexiiected way.
C. Taylor wTote (1877) in the first edition of the Sayings oj the Jet'nsh Fathers : ' It has been suggested, with a certain plausibility, that the Book Ecclus. approximates to the stand- point of the primitive Qaduqim as regards its theology, its sacerdotalism, and its want of sympathy with tlie modern Soforim. The name of Ezra is significantly omitted frotn its Catalogue of Worthies.' At the same time he called attention to the fact that the Book of tbe Sadducees and the Book of Ben Sira are placed side by side on tbe 'Index Expurgatorius ' (5nn/(. 100^). It must have been gratifying to be able to publish twenty years later, at the end of the llehrew Ren Sira, a hymn, not to be found in the earlier texts, which ends with praise of the Sons of Sadok. See S-T p. 41, the hymn (after ch. 601'-)—
•O give thanks unto the I^ord, for he is good ; For his mercy endureth for ever.*
O give thanks unto him that maketh to bud a horn tor the house of David ; For his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto him that chose the sons of Sodok to be priests ; For his mercy endureth for ever."
I.idS pns 'J33 inu^.
* Special attention is due, amongst these, to those of the longer recension, called 'Alexandrian' by Ryssel ; cf. A. Schlatter, Das netiqc/uudntc hebruische Sliick drs Sirach. Dcr (ylusmttn- dfi grieehiscMcn Sirach und seine .'^teliung in der Geschicltte der jiidischen Theuivf/ie, OUtersloh, lb97 ( = ' Beitrage zur Fiirderung cbristliclier Theologie.' i. 5, 0). On the passage 20"*T', especially ' the tower of death ' (=2 Mac 13^^ ; Valerius Maximus, ix. 2), see Nestle, Marginalien, p 52.
t On tbe (piotations of Clement see csp. O. Stiihlin, Clement AlexaiuMnus und die Sepluaginta (Nurnberg, lUOl, I'rogr.), pp. 40-68 ; note in 18*2 puxpil.
J fjMMfii* afip. all Greek .SiSS ; most «:«ttii. four ««ttii or Uxeirrii, one rmoru ; instead of tarpit Ilitzig and the corrector of 8 ittrpiv ; AV ' The plivsician culU-'tli off a long disrase ' ; R V 'It is a long disease, the pliysifian mocketb'; %, combining both readings, ' Languor pro'lixior gravat medicum ; brevcin languorem pnecidit mediciis' ; S ' and bis bowels the physician tears ' (xnsi) ; but, with Ilerkeune, we may perhaps read KISJ ( = ^«*TTu>). Adler's translation of 13 ('of course ^uite tenl« tive ') is, ' A trace of disease that niaketii the physician serene (3'nx'). It seems best to combine the translation of Ilitzig with the reading /xmfit : ' A little disease bafHcs the physician