On the whole, we may say that the older humanists were sincere optimists, while Koheleth, though theoretically perhaps an optimist (iii. 11), constantly relapses into a more congenial ‘malism.’ I use this word designedly. Koheleth can only be called a pessimist loosely. Bad as things are, he does not believe that the world is getting worse and worse and hasting to its ruin. He believes in revolutions, some for evil, some for good, some for ‘rending’ or ‘breaking down,’ others for ‘sewing’ or ‘building up.’ He believes, in other words, that God brings about recurrent changes in human circumstances. But (like another wise man, Prov. xxv. 21) he does not trust revolutions of human origin (‘evil matters’ he calls them, viii. 3); he is no carbonaro (x. 20). And so for the present he is a ‘malist,’ and having no imaginative faculty he cannot sympathise with the ‘Utopian’ prospects for the future contained in the prophetic visions.
Yet, in spite of appearances, Koheleth builds upon a true Israelitish foundation. It is already something that he cannot bear to plunge into open infidelity, that he is still (as we have seen) a theist, though his theism gives him but little light and no comforting warmth. Now and then he alludes to the religious system of his people (see v. 1-5, 17, viii. 10). A stronger proof of his Israelitish sympathies is his choice of Solomon as the representative of humanity; I say, of humanity, because the author evidently declines to place himself upon the pedestal of Israelitish privilege. (Perhaps, too, as Herzfeld thinks,[[291]] he would console his people by showing them that they have companions in misfortune everywhere ‘under the sun;’ and we have already seen Job snatch a brief alleviation of pain from the thought of suffering humanity.) Koheleth is not only a Jew, but a man of culture. He cannot perhaps entirely defend himself from the subtle influence of the Greek view of life, and is even willing to associate from time to time with the ministers of alien sovereigns. True, he has noted with bitter irony the absurd and capricious changes in the government of Palestine (x. 5-7), but he has no spark of the spirit of the Maccabees, unless indeed in viii. 2-5, x. 4, 20, beneath the garb of servile prudence we may (with Dr. Plumptre) detect the irony of indignation. To the simple-minded reader at any rate he appears to counsel passive obedience, and a cautious crouching attitude towards those in power. I suspect myself that either the advice is but provisional, or else Koheleth still feels the power of the prophetic Utopia: ce peuple rêve toujours quelque chose d’international.[[292]] Nay; shall we not carry our generosity even farther? That ‘last word,’ which he would have spoken had he lived longer, may possibly not have been that which the Soferim have forced upon him. Not a future judgment, but a return of prosperity to a wiser though sadder Israel, may have been his silent hope, and in this prosperity we may be sure that a wider and more philosophic culture would form a principal ingredient. This is by no means an absurd fancy. Koheleth firmly believed in recurrent historical cycles, and if there was ‘a time to break down,’ there was also ‘a time to build up’ (iii. 3). Sirach knows no future life and no Messiah; but he believes in the eternity of Israel; why, on the ground of his fragmentary remains, deny the same consolation to Koheleth? Much as I should prefer to imagine a far more satisfactory close for his troubled life (see [Chap. IX.]), I think we ought to admit the possibility of this hypothesis.
As an author, the characteristics of Koheleth are in the main Hebraic, though not without vague affinities to the Greek philosophic spirit. His work is without a model, but the dramatic element in it reminds us somewhat of the Book of Job. Just as the writer of that great poem delineates his own spiritual struggles—not of course without poetic amplification—under the assumed name of Job, so our author, with a similar poetical license, ascribes his difficulties to the imaginary personage Koheleth (or Ecclesiastes). There are also passages in which, like Job, he adopts the tone, style and rhythm[[293]] of gnomic poetry, though far from reaching the literary perfection of Job or of the proverbial collections. The attempt of Köster and Vaihinger to make him out an artist in the management of strophes is a sport of fancy. Unity and consistency in literary form were beyond the reach, if not of his powers, yet certainly of his opportunities; even his phraseology, as a rule, is in the highest degree rough and unpolished. This is the more striking by contrast with the elegant workmanship of Sirach. But the unknown author has very strong excuses. Thus, first, the negative tone of his mind must have destroyed the cheerful composure necessary to the artist. ‘The burden of the mystery’ pressed too heavily for him to think much of form and beauty. His harp, if he ever had one, he had long since hung up upon the willows. Next, it is highly probable that he was interrupted in the midst of his literary preparations. Nöldeke has remarked[[294]] that his object was not to produce ‘ein literarisches Schaustück.’ That is perfectly true; his primary object was ‘to scatter the doubts of his own mind.’ But he did not despise the literary craft; he was well aware that even ‘the literature of power’ may increase its influence by some attention to form. It seems to me that the ‘labour of the file’ has brought the first two chapters to a considerable degree of perfection; but the rest of the book, upon the whole, is so rough and so disjointed, that I can only suppose it to be based on certain loose notes or adversaria, written solely with the object of dispersing his doubts and mitigating his pains by giving them expression. The thread of thought seems to break every few verses, and attempts to restore it fail to carry conviction to the unbiassed mind. The feelings and opinions embodied in the book are often mutually inconsistent; in Ibn Ezra’s time, and long before that, the Jewish students of the book were puzzled by this phenomenon, so strange in a canonical Scripture. Not a few scattered remarks have absolutely no connection with the subject. The style, too, is rarely easy and natural, and sometimes (especially in viii. 16, 17) we meet with a sentence which would certainly not have passed an author’s final revision. The most obvious hypothesis surely is that from chap. iii. onwards we have before us the imperfectly worked-up meditations of an otherwise unknown writer, found after his death in proximity to a highly finished fragment which apparently professed to be the work of king Solomon. The meditations and the fragment were circulated in combination (for which there was much excuse, especially as some parts of the notes seemed to be in the narrative and even autobiographic style), and were received with much favour by the students of ‘wisdom,’ more, I should think, owing to the intrinsic interest of the book than to the literary fiction of Solomonic authorship. If this hypothesis be correct, we need not be surprised either at the author’s inconsistencies in opinion, or at the general roughness of his style. The book may not even be all one man’s work. Luther has already brought Ecclesiastes into connection with the Talmud.[[295]] Now the proverbial sayings which interrupt our thinker’s self-questionings on ‘vanity of vanities’ are like the Haggadic passages which gush forth like fountains in the weary waste of hair-splitting Talmudic dialectics. No one has ever maintained the unity of the Talmud, and no one should be thought unreasonable for doubting the absolute freedom of Ecclesiastes from interpolations.[[296]]
The third and last excuse which I have to offer is that the meditations of Koheleth partake of the nature of an experiment. He may indeed (as I have remarked) be a member of a school of writers, but his strikingly original manner compels us to regard him as a master rather than a disciple. No such purely reflective work had, so far as we know, as yet been produced in Hebrew literature. Similar moral difficulties to those which preoccupied our author had no doubt occurred to some of the prophets and poets, but they had not been sounded to their depths. Even in the Book of Job the reflective spirit has very imperfect scope. The speeches soon pass into a lyric strain, and Jehovah Himself closes the discussion by imposing silence. But the author of Ecclesiastes was a thinker, not a lyrist, and was compelled to form his own vehicle of thought. He ‘sought,’ indeed, ‘to find out pleasant words’ (xii. 10), but had to strain the powers of an unpliant language to the uttermost, to coin (presumably) new words, and apply old ones in fresh senses, till he might well have complained (to apply Lucretius) ‘propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem.’[[297]] He deserves great praise for his measure of success; Luzzatto in his early work failed to do him justice. He is not ambitious; as a rule, he abstains from fine writing. Once indeed he attempts it, but, as I venture to think, with but ill success—I refer to the closing description of old age (xii. 4-9), which has a touch of the extravagant euphuism of late Arabic literature.[[298]] From a poetical point of view, the prelude (i. 4-8) is alone worthy to be mentioned, though not included either by Renan or by Bickell among the passages poetical in form (for a list of which see below[[299]]). Let us mark this fine passage, that we may return to it again in another connection.
CHAPTER II.
‘TRUTH AND FICTION’ IN AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
Let us now take a general survey of this strange book, regarding it as a record of the conflicting moods and experiences of a thoughtful man of the world. The author is too modest to appear in his own person (at least in i. 1-ii. 12), but, like Cicero in his dialogues, selects a mouthpiece from the heroic past. His choice could not be doubtful. Who so fit as the wisest of his age, the founder and patron of gnomic poetry, king Solomon (1 Kings iv. 30-32)? After the preluding verses, from which a quotation has been given above, Ecclesiastes continues thus:—
I Koheleth have been[[300]] king over Israel in Jerusalem; and I gave my mind to making search and exploration, by wisdom, concerning all that is done under heaven; that is a sore trouble which God hath given to the sons of men to trouble themselves therewith! I saw all the works which are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and pursuit of wind.
That which is crooked cannot be straightened,
and a deficiency cannot be reckoned (i. 12-15).
The name or title ‘Koheleth’ is obscure. According to the Epilogue ‘Koheleth was a wise man’ (xii. 9)—a statement which confirms the explanation of the name as meaning ‘one who calls an assembly.’[[301]] The ‘wise men’ of Israel gathered their disciples together, and such an able teacher as Koheleth would fain gather all who have ears to hear around his seat. But Koheleth is also Solomon (though only for a short time—the author did not, I suppose, live long enough thoroughly to fuse the conceptions of king and philosopher[[302]]). The wise king is to be imagined standing on the brink of the grave, and casting the clear-sighted glance of a dying man on past life, somewhat as Moses in parts of Deuteronomy or David in 2 Sam. xxii., xxiii. 1-7. A subtle and poetic view of Solomon’s career is thus opened before us. He is not here represented in his political relation, but as a specimen of the highest type of human being, with a boundless appetite for pleasure and every means of gratifying it. But even such a man’s deliberate verdict on all forms of pleasure is that they are utterly unsubstantial, mere vanity (lit. a vapour—Aquila, ἀτμίς; comp. James iv. 14). Neither pure speculation (i. 13-18), nor riotous mirth (ii. 1, 2), nor even the refined voluptuousness consistent with the free play of the intellect[[303]] (ii. 3), could satisfy his longing, or enable him, with Goethe’s Faust, to say to the flying moment, ‘Ah! linger yet, thou art so fair.’ It is true that wisdom is after all better than folly; Solomon from his ‘specular mount’ could ‘see’ this to be a truth (ii. 13); but in the end he found it as resultless as ‘the walking in darkness’ of the fool.