xlii. 7-17 of our English Bibles.
[52] Strophe xxxv.
[53] Strophe lii.
[54] Psa. viii. 4, 5.
[55] Strophe liii.
[56] Strophe lxv.
[57] Strophe lxix.
[58] Strophe lxxi.
[59] Strophe lxxiii.
[60] Strophe lxxiv-lxxviii.
[61] Strophe cxv. _Cf_. strophe clxix., where he dares his friend to
prove him guilty of blasphemy when he is merely giving expression
to the truth:
"If indeed ye will glorify yourselves above me,
And prove me guilty of blasphemy;
Know, then, that God hath wronged me!"
[62] Strophe ccxvii.
[63] Strophe ccxxx.
[64] As Professor Bickell rightly remarks: "At bottom what Job means is,
that God alone knows the meaning of our sorrowful existence, if,
indeed, He does know it" ("Das Buch Job," p. 5).
[65] Strophe cclxxvi.
[66] The mere circumstance that the Deity is no longer called by His
usual name when He appears in the whirlwind is of itself an
indication that the poet was not alluding to God.
[67] Strophe ccxxxiv.
[68] Strophe cccix.
[69] _Cf._ Bickell, _op. cit._ pp. 8-9.
[70] Strophe clvi.
KOHELETH
* * * * *
[Greek: Archaen men mae phynai epichthonioisin ariston Maed' eisidein
augas oxeos aeëliou. Phynta d'hopos okista pylas Aidao peraesai, Kai
keisthai pollaen gaen epamaesamenon.]
Theognis.
* * * * *
CONDITION OF THE TEXT
Of all the books of the Old Testament, not excepting the Song of Songs,
none offers such rich materials to the historian of philosophy or such
knotty problems to the philological critic as Koheleth[70] or
Ecclesiastes. This interesting treatise is, in its commonly received
shape, little more than a tissue of loose disjointed aphorisms and
contradictory theses concerning the highest problems of ethics and
metaphysics. The form of the work is characterised by an utter lack of
plan; the matter by almost impenetrable obscurity. So completely
entangled are the various threads of thought, that few commentators or
critics possessed the needful degree of hope and courage to set about
unravelling them. One paragraph, for instance, is saturated with
Buddhistic pessimism; another breathes a spirit of religious resignation,
of almost hearty hopefulness; this sentence lays down a universal
principle which is absolutely denied by the next; the thesis is followed
by proofs, in the very midst of which lurks the antithesis; a series of
profound remarks upon one subject is suddenly interrupted by bald
statements about another, the irrelevancy of which is suggestive of the
ravings of a delirious fever patient. Thus one verse begins[71] by
recommending men to make the most of their youth by following the bent of
their inclinations and the desire of their eyes, such enjoyment being a
gift of God,[72] and finishes by threatening all who act upon the advice
with condign punishment to be ultimately dealt out by God Himself; and
the very next verse proceeds to draw the logical conclusion, which oddly
enough, runs thus: "_therefore_ drive sorrow from thy heart, and put
away evil from thy flesh." In one place[73] the writer solemnly and sadly
affirms that the destiny of the upright and the wicked, the wise and the
foolish is wholly alike; in another[74] he seems to proclaim that the
unrighteous shall suffer for their evil-doing, while the God-fearing
shall be rewarded with long life, which again he stoutly denies shortly
before and immediately afterwards. It is impossible to read chap. ii. 11
and 12 without coming to the conclusion that we either have to do with
the incoherent ravings of a disordered mind, or else that the leaves of
the original manuscript were dislocated and then put together
haphazard.[75] The "for" that connects the seventh and eighth verses of
chapter vi. is forcibly suggestive of the line of argument which made
Tenterden Steeple the cause of Goodwin Sands, while the nexus between the
sixth and seventh verses of chapter xi. is scarcely more obvious than
that which is to be found between any two of the nonsense verses that
amuse intelligent children in "Alice in Wonderland." And yet this
production, in its present chaotic condition, has been, and is still,
gravely attributed to the pen of King Solomon in his character as the
ideal sage of humanity![76]
Footnotes:
[70] The most satisfactory translation of the word Koheleth is, the
Speaker. "Preacher" conveys a modern and incorrect notion.
[71] xi. 9.
[72] ii. 24.
[73] ix. 2.
[74] viii. 12, 13.
[75] The verses in question are: "11. Then I looked on all the works that
my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to
do: and, behold, all _was_ vanity and vexation of spirit, and _there
was_ no profit under the sun. 12. And I turned myself to behold
wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what _can_ the man _do_ that
cometh after the king _even_ that which hath been already done."
[76] Only, however, by the strictest of orthodox theologians, who
admiringly attribute to the Holy Spirit a hopeless confusion of
ideas which they would resent as insulting if predicated of
themselves. As a matter of historic fact, Solomon, so far from
meriting his reputation as a philosopher, was a rough-and-ready
kinglet, who ruled his subjects with a rod of iron and ground
them down with intolerable burdens.
* * * * *
PRIMITIVE FORM OF THE BOOK
The desperate efforts of professional theologians to smooth away,
explain, and reconcile all these incoherences and contradictions,
constitute one of the most marvellous exhibitions of mental acrobatics
recorded even in the history of hermeneutics. Many of these exegetes set
out on the assumption that a revelation vouchsafed to Solomon could not
possibly embody any statement incompatible with the truths of
Christianity which emanate from the same eternal source; and they all
firmly held that at the very least it must be in harmony with the
fundamental dogmas common to Judaism and the teachings of Christ. In
reality, what this generous hypothesis came to, whenever there was no
question of text criticism involved, was a substitution of the human
ideal for the divine execution. The best accredited contemporary
theologians however, Catholic and non-Catholic, have insight enough to
descry the stamp of true inspiration in a book which enshrines some of
the highest truths laid down in the Sermon on the Mount combined with a
good deal that obviously clashes with theological dogmas formulated at a
much later date for the behoof of a very different social organism. In
any case the original work, as it appears to have issued from the hand of
"Koheleth," was composed in a spirit as conducive to true morality as the
sublime eloquence of Isaiah or the absolute resignation of the author of
the 73rd Psalm. Critics who succeeded in satisfactorily solving many of
the philological, philosophical, and historical problems suggested by
Koheleth utterly failed to find therein any traces of an intelligible
plan. It was reserved to Professor Bickell, of Vienna, to point out what
seem to be the true lines on which alone it is possible to arrive at a
solution alike satisfactory to the reader and respectful to the author.
His theory[77]--it is, and it can be no more than a theory--which has
already received the adhesion of some of the most authoritative Bible
scholars on the Continent, may be briefly summed up as follows: The
present disordered condition of the book, Koheleth, is the result of the
shifting of the sheets of the Hebrew manuscript from their original
places and of the addition of a number of deliberate interpolations. The
latter are of two kinds: those which seemed necessary for the purpose of
supplying the cement required to join together the unconnected verses
which, in consequence of the dislocation, were unexpectedly placed side
by side, and the passages composed with the object of toning down, or
serving as a counterpoise to the very unorthodox views of the writer.
Professor Bickell's assumption involves no inherent improbability, runs
counter to no ascertained facts, and is therefore perfectly tenable. What
it supposes to have occurred to Koheleth has, in fact, often happened to
other works, religious and profane. It can be conclusively shown, for
instance, that certain leaves of the Book of Ecclesiasticus dropped, in
like manner, from the Greek Codex, whereby three chapters were transposed
from their original places; for the Latin and Syriac versions, which were
made before the accident, still exhibit the original and only
intelligible arrangement. An old Syriac manuscript of the poems of Isaac
of Antioch, now in the Vatican Library, suffered considerably from a
similar mishap, and various other cases in point have come under the
notice of orientalists and archaeologists.[78] In the present instance,
what is believed to have taken place is this. The Hebrew Codex, of which
no translation had as yet been made, consisted of a series of fascicules,
each one of which contained four sheets once folded, or four double
leaves, the average number of characters on each single leaf amounting to
about 525.[79] The Codex, which most probably included other treatises
preceding and following Koheleth, possessed an unknown number of
fascicules, Koheleth beginning on the sixth leaf of one and ending on the
third of the fourth following. According to the hypothesis we are
considering, the middle fascicules becoming loose, fell out of the Codex,
and were found by some one who was utterly unqualified to replace them in
position. This person took the inner half of the second,[80] folded it
inside out, and then laid it in the new order[81] immediately after the
first fascicule. Next came the inner sheet of the third fascicule,[82]
followed by the outside half of the second,[83] in the middle of which
the two double leaves, 13, 18, and 14, 17, had already been inserted.[84]
Although the fourth fascicule had kept its place, it was not on this
account preserved from the effects of the confusing changes caused by the
loosening of the ligature, for between its two first leaves the remaining
sheet of the third fascicule[85] found a place. Finally, leaf 17 becoming
separated from its new environment, found a definite resting-place
between 19 and 21.[86] The result of this dislocation was the utter
disappearance of all trace of plan in the work, the incoherences of which
would be still more numerous and glaring, had it not been for the
transitional words and phrases that were soon after interpolated for the
purpose of welding together passages that were never intended to
dovetail.[87]
Such is the ingenious theory. The degree of probability attaching to it
depends partly on the weight of corroborative evidence to be found in the
book itself, and partly on the completeness with which it explains the
many difficulties which the traditionalist view could but formulate.
Thoroughly to sift and weigh this evidence, much of which is of a purely
philological character, would require a book to itself; but it will not
be amiss to give one or two instances of the nature of the arguments
relied upon.
Chap. x. 1, in the present text, is wholly corrupt, owing to the
circumstance that several interpolations were inserted in it at a later
date. Now a little reflection suffices to show that these additions
consist of words taken from chap. vii. 1. But if the book had been
composed as it now stands, such a transposition would be practically
impossible, because chap. x. is separated from chap. vii. by too great an
interval. In the original sequence, however, which Prof. Bickell's theory
supposes and restores, there was no difficulty. There the leaf ix. 11-x.
1 was followed by two leaves containing vi. 8-vii. 22, so that the words
"precious," and "wisdom is better than glory," might have been easily
shifted to x. 1 from the margin of vii. 1.
Again, in the primitive sequence viii. 4 was immediately followed by x.
2. After the dislocation of the leaves it was erroneously placed before
viii. 6, a few words having been previously interpolated between the two,
solely in the interests of orthodoxy.[88] In order to bridge over the gap
between them, a transitional half verse was strung together, in an
absolutely mechanical manner, from words that precede or follow. And the
words that precede and follow are those which we find in the primitive
arrangement of the manuscript, not in the present sequence. Thus, at the
bottom of the leaf containing viii. 4, the first words, "leb
chakham,"[89] of the following verse (x. 2) were inserted, and then by
inadvertence repeated on the next leaf. Seeing these words, the author of
the transition made them the subject of his new verse. He selected the
grammatical objects of the sentence from the verse which follows in the
new sequence,[90] and took the verb from the preceding half verse, which
is itself an older interpolation.
Lastly, Koheleth's treatise, which in our Bibles is utterly devoid of
order or sequence, falls naturally, in its restored form, into two
distinct halves: a speculative and a practical, distinguished from each
other by characteristics proper to each, which there is no mistaking. The
former, for instance, contains but few metrical passages, whereas the
latter is composed of poetry and prose in almost equal proportions. The
ethical part continually addresses the reader himself in the second
person singular, while the discursive section never does. In a word,
internal evidence leaves no doubt that, whether the dislocation of the
chapters was the result of accident or design, this was the ground plan
of the original treatise.
Footnotes:
[77] Professor Cheyne discusses Bickell's theory with the caution
characteristic of English theology and the fairness of unprejudiced
scholarship ("Job and Solomon," p. 273 fol.).
[78] _Cf_. for instance, Cornill, "Theologisches Literaturblatt,"
Sept. 19, 1884.
[79] This mean estimate tallies with calculations made by the late
Professor Lagarde for another book of the Old Testament.
[80] The leaves 6, 7, 8, 9.
[81] The pages following each other thus: 8, 9, 6, 7.
[82] Leaves 15 and 16.
[83] 4, 5, 10, 11.
[84] So that the order was then: 4, 5, 13, 14, 17, 18, 10, 11.
[85] 12, 19.
[86] The sequence of the leaves was then; 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 6, 7, 15, 16, 4,
5, 13, 14, 18, 10, 11, 20, 12, 19, 17, 21, 22.
[87] The most practical and simple way of realising Professor Bickell's
theory is to make a little book of four fascicules of four double
leaves each. On these leaves write the contents of the original
manuscript leaves in chapter and verse numbers. On each of the three
last leaves of the first fascicule (counting, as in Hebrew, from
right to left) write i. 1-ii. 11. On the first two leaves of the
second fascicule write v. 9-vi. 7 (this must be written on each of
the leaves, as it is not quite certain how they were divided). On
third and fourth leaves of the second fascicule write iii. 9-iv. 8;
on each of the fifth and sixth leaves, ii. 12-iii. 8. On the seventh
and eighth leaves, viii. 6-ix. 3. Then comes the third fascicule. On
the first leaf, write ix. 11-x. 1; on the second and third leaves,
vi. 8-vii. 22 on the fourth and fifth leaves, iv. 9-v. 8; on the
sixth leaf, x. 16-xi. 6; on the seventh leaf, vii. 23-viii. 5; on the
eighth leaf, x. 2-15. Lastly comes the fourth fascicule. On the first
leaf, ix. 3-10, on the second and third leaves, xi. 7-xii. 8.
[88] The first half of viii. 5: "Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel
no evil thing." This interpolation is older than the accident to
the MS.
[89] The heart of the wise.
[90] viii. 6.
* * * * *
KOHELET'S THEORY OF LIFE
Read in its primitive shape, the book is a systematic disquisition on the
questions, What positive boon has life in store for us? to which the
emphatic answer is "None;" and How had we best occupy the vain days of
our wretched existence? which the author solves by recommending moderate
sensuous enjoyment combined with healthy activity. He begins his gloomy
meditations with a general survey of the wearisome working of the
machinery of the world, wherein is neither rest nor profit. Everything is
vanity, and the pursuit of wind.[91] Existence in all its myriad forms is
an aimless, endless, hopeless endeavour. The very clod of earth manifests
its striving, in gravitation, for the attainment of a central point
without dimensions, which, if realised, would entail its own
annihilation; the solids tend to become liquids, the liquids to resolve
themselves in vapour. The plant grows from germ through stem and leaf to
blossom and fruit, which last is but the beginning of a new germ that
again develops through flower to fruit, and so on for ever and ever. In
animals, life is the same restless, aimless, unsatisfied striving, in the
first place after reproduction, followed by the death of the individual
and the appearance of a new one which in turn runs through all the stadia
of the old. The very matter of all organisms is ever changing. As for
man, his whole life is but one long series of yearnings after objects,
each one of which presents itself to his will as the one great goal until
attained, whereupon it is cast aside to make way for another. We know
what we long for to-day, we shall know what we shall seek to-morrow; but
what the human race supremely desires, its ultimate aim and end, no man
can say. Existence is a futile beating of the air, a clutching of the
wind. The living make way for the unborn, the dead nourish the living; no
one possesses ought that was not torn from some other being; strife and
hate, evil and pain are the commonplaces of existence; life and death
follow each other everlastingly. All striving is want and therefore
suffering, until it is satisfied, when it assumes the form of
disappointment; for no satisfaction is lasting. In a word, the universe
is a wheel that revolves on its axis for ever--and there is no ultimate
aim or end in it all.[92] Knowledge, wisdom, and enjoyment, each of which
Koheleth characterises by a distich, are likewise vain, or worse. What,
then, is the secret of "happiness"? Surely not wealth, which the Preacher
himself having possessed and applied to "useful" and "good" purposes,
proved emptiness in the end.[93] Wealth, indeed, is nothing if not a
means to happiness, yet experience tells us that the pains endured in
striving for it, and the anxiety suffered in preserving it, effectually
destroy our capacity for enjoying the bliss which it is supposed to
insure, long before misfortune or death snatches it from our grasp.[94]
Vain as pleasure is, in a world of positive evils it is at least a
negative good, in that it helps to make us forget the vanity of the days
of our life.[95] For this reason, no doubt, it is well-nigh unattainable,
the many being deprived of the means, the few of the capacity, of
enjoyment.[96]
Passing on to the consideration of wisdom, the Hebrew philosopher finds
it equally empty and vain, because subject to the same limitations and
characterised by the same drawbacks. It is caviare to the million, and a
fresh source of sorrow to the few. Man is tortured with a thirst for
knowledge, and yet all the springs at which it might have been allayed
are sealed up. Unreal shadows are the objects of human intuition, we are
denied a glimpse of the underlying reality. For it is unknowable.
Even the little we can know is not inspiriting. Take our fellow-men,
their ways and works, for instance, and what do we behold? Their own
evil-doing, injustice, and violence, drag them down to the level of the
brute; and that this is their natural level is obvious, if we bear in
mind that the end of men is that of the beasts of the fields,[97] and
that the ruling power within them, the mechanism, so to say, of these
living and feeling automata is love of life. Consider men at their
best--when cultivating such relative "virtues" as industry, zeal,
diligence in their crafts and callings, and we find these "good" actions
tainted at the very source: love of self and jealousy of others being the
determining motives.[98] In any case we see that work is no help to
happiness, for it is too evident that toil and moil--even that of the
writer himself, who knows full well that he is labouring for a
stranger--is but the price we pay, not for real pleasure, but for carking
care and poignant grief.[99] Such being the bitter fruits of knowledge,
the tree on which they flourish is scarcely worth cultivating.
Wisdom in its ethical aspect, as a rule of right conduct, is unavailing
as a weapon to combat the Fate that fights against man. Nay, it is not
even a guarantee that we shall be remembered by those who come after us,
and whose lot we have striven to render less unbearable than our own. The
memory of the dead is buried in their graves,[100] and the wheels of the
vast machine revolve as if they had never lived. For a man's moral worth
goes for nothing in the scale against Fate, whose laws operate with
crushing regularity, unmodified by his virtues or his crimes.[101]
Indeed, if there be any perceptible difference between the lot of the
upright and that of the wicked, it is often to the advantage of the
latter, who are furthered by their fierce recklessness and borne onwards
by ambition.[102] The knowledge of this curious state of things serves
but to encourage evil-doers.[103] The obvious conclusion is that instead
of fighting against Fate which is unalterable--"I discovered that
whatever God doeth is forever"[104]--we should resign ourselves to our
lot and draw the practical inference from the fact that life is an evil.
Wisdom in its practical aspect is equally unpromising. In no walk of life
is success the meed of merit or victory the unfailing guerdon of
heroism.[105] Such wisdom as is within man's reach is often a positive
disadvantage in life, owing to the modesty it inspires as pitted against
the self-confidence of noisy fools. Besides, should it contrive to build
up a stately structure, a small dose of folly, with which all human
wisdom is largely alloyed, is capable, in an instant, of undoing the work
of years.[106] In a word, the wise man is often worse off than the fool;
and in any case, no degree of wisdom can influence the laws of the
universe; what happens is foredoomed; a man's life-journey is mapped out
beforehand, and it is hopeless to struggle with the Will which is
mightier than his own. As we know not what is pre-arranged, we can never
find out what will dovetail with our true interests or is really good for
man.[107]
Footnotes:
[91] i. 2-11
[92] _Cf._ Schopenhauer, vol. i. 401-402, and _passim_.
[93] ii. 3-11.
[94] v. 9-16.
[95] Pain, then, for Koheleth, as for a greater than Koheleth, is
something positive; pleasure, on the contrary, negative. "We feel
pain, but not painlessness; we feel care, but not exemption from
it; fear, but not safety.... Only pain and privation are perceived as
positive and announce themselves; well-being, on the contrary, is
merely negative. Hence it is that we are never conscious of the three
greatest boons of life--health, youth, and freedom as such, so long
as we possess them, but only when we have lost them: for they too are
negations.... The hours fly the quicker the pleasanter they are; they
drag themselves on the slowlier the more painfully they are passed,
because pain, not enjoyment, is the something positive whose presence
makes itself felt."--Schopenhauer, ed. Grisebach, ii. 676, 677.
[96] v. 17-vi. 7; iii. 9, 12-13.
[97] iii. 19-iv. 3.
[98] iv. 4-6.
[99] iv. 7, 8; ii. 18-23.
[100] ii. 13-16.
[101] iii. 1-8, viii. 6-8.
[102] viii. 9-14.
[103] viii. 14, ix. 3.
[104] iii. 14.
[105] ix. 11-12.
[106] ix. 13-18, x. 1.
[107] vi. 8, 10-12.
* * * * *
PRACTICAL WISDOM