RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Apocrypha
decrees are frustrated 'by God's miraculous intervention. The king now becomes a friend and benefactor of the Jews, whom he permits to kill the apostates, a privilege of which they make much use.
The style in which this narrative is written corresponds closely to the insipidity of the contents. The book is more bombastic and unnatural than II Maccabees. Since the narrative evinces its unhistorical character, it is necessary only to inquire what facts possibly form the basis of or induced its composition. To begin with, it is to be remembered here that Josephus transfers the story of the confinement of Jews in the Hippodrome to be trodden down by elephants to the reign of Ptolemy VII, Physcon (Apion ii, 5) ; like III Maccabees (vi, 36), he remarks that in remembrance of the deliverance experienced, the Alexandrian Jews annually celebrated a festival. According to this the narrative seems to have some historical foundation; and as concerns the chronology, Josephus is to be followed rather than III Maccabees. At all events this work is a late production. The author knows the Apocryphal additions to Daniel (cf. vi, 6). The book is mentioned by Eusebius (Chron., ed. Schone, ii, 122 sqq.) in the Canones Apostolorum (lxxxv), by Theodoret, and others (Grimm, in Fritzsche, Exegetisches Handbuch, p. 21). The abrupt beginning shows the book has not come down complete.
12. Jesus Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) : The Book of Proverbs by Jesus the son of Sirach is the extracanonical double of the canonical Book of Proverbs. Like that, it gives the results of practical wisdom in poetical form. It comprises the whole range of human life in all directions and relations, and aims at giving the correct point of view for all human enterprises so they may be correct as concerns conduct. The highest as well as the lowest, the greatest as well as the smallest, are brought within the sphere of the author's reflections and counsels. He speaks of the fear of God and of divine wisdom, of friendship and mercy, of self-control and moderation, and of other virtues; he speaks also of the contrary vices. He speaks of the special tasks which differences in age, sex, calling, and in civic and social position make obligatory upon the individual. He speaks of the mutual relations between parents and children, masters and servants, high and low, rich and poor. He gives maxims of prudence for social intercourse and political behavior. The form in which he clothes his thoughts is throughout that of Hebrew poetry. No plan for the book is discernible. The writer arranges his ideas in groups, but these groups are not arranged with reference to any scheme. The morality which runs through the whole is indeed somewhat homely, sometimes purely utilitarian. But on the whole there is a solid, seriously moral disposition expressed in the book, combined with a rational and practical contemplation of the world. What the author offers is the ripe fruit of a many-sided education and of a long experience.
Ine extant Greek text is, as may be seen from th Preface' 0IUV a translation. Jerome asserts that he had seen a Hebrew exemplar (cf . the Preface t0 bis translation of the Solomonic books, ed.
Vallarsi, ix, 1293 sqq.): " There is a right praiseworthy book of Jesus the son of Sirach and a pseudepigraphical one which is called the Wisdom of Solomon. The first I found in the Hebrew called ' Proverbs, ' and not ' Ecclesiasticus,' as among the Latins, to which are added Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs; so that they agreed with the books of Solomon not only in number, but also in the kind of matter."
Prior to 1896, only a few sayings of the Hebrew original, which are quoted in Rabbinic literature, were known (collected by Schechter in JQR, iii, 1891, pp. 682-706; still more completely by Cowley and Neubauer, The Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus, London, 1897, pp. xix-xxviii). Since 1896 large portions of the Hebrew text have been discovered. They all come from the genizah (" lumber-room ") of the ancient synagogue at Cairo. The fragments are remains of four different manuscripts, and supplement each other in such a way that, on the whole, two-thirds of the Hebrew text has been recovered. Of the flood of literature which these finds have induced the principal text-publications are mentioned below (especially important are The Book of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew, London, 1901, a facsimile of all the leaves; the condensed work of N. Peters, Der jiingst wiederaufgefundene hebraische Text des Buches Ecclesiasticus, Freiburg, 1902; and R. Smend, Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach erklart, 1906, and Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach hebraisch und deutsch herausgegeben, 1906). The denial of the originality of the Hebrew text by Margoliouth, Bickell, and formerly also by Levi, must be called an aberration. Almost all competent scholars regard this as beyond doubt. Besides the Greek versions and the Hebrew fragments, there is still another witness, the Syriac translation. This was not made from the Greek, like the other Syriac texts of the Apocrypha, but directly from the Hebrew. From the passage quoted above from Jerome, it is seen that the book was called " Proverbs " in the Hebrew. In Greek manuscripts the standing title is " The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach." In the Latin Church the title Ecclesiasticus has become customary since the time of Cyprian.
The author calls himself " Jesus the Son of Sirach the Jerusalemite " (1, 27). The preface of his grandson, the translator, gives his date. He says of himself that he came into Egypt " in the thirty-eighth year of King Euergetes." This can not mean the translator's thirty-eighth year of life, but the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes. Of the two Ptolemies who had the name " Euergetes " the first ruled only twenty-five years. Consequently, only the second, whose full name was Ptolemaeus VII, Physcon Euergetes II, can be meant. He ruled conjointly with his brother from 170 b.c. and was sole king from 145 b.c. But his regnal years were reckoned from the former date. According to this, the thirty-eighth year in which the grandson of Jesus Sirach came into Egypt was 132 B.C. The grandfather, the author of the book, may have lived and written about 190-170 b.c. It is singular that in the Latin Church
Apocrypha