But I must retrace my steps. One of my four critics has yet to be briefly characterised—S. D. Luzzatto of Padua, best known as the author of a Hebrew commentary on Isaiah, but also a master in later Hebrew and Aramaic scholarship. As a youth of twenty-four he wrote a deeply felt and somewhat eccentrically ingenious treatise on Koheleth, which he kept by him till 1860, when it appeared in one of the annual volumes of essays and reviews called Ozar Nechmad. In it he maintains, with profound indignation at the unworthy post-Exile writer, that the Book of Ecclesiastes denies the immortality of the soul, and recommends a life of sensuous pleasure. The writer’s name, however, was, he thinks, Koheleth, and his fraud in assuming the name of Solomon was detected by the wise men of his time, who struck out the assumed name and substituted Koheleth (leaving however the words ‘son of David, king in Jerusalem,’ as a record of the imposture). Later students, however, were unsuspicious enough to accept the work as Solomon’s, and being unable to exclude a Solomonic writing from the Canon, they inserted three qualifying half-verses of an orthodox character, viz. ‘and know that for all this God will bring thee into judgment’ (xi. 6b); ‘and remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth’ (xii. 1a); ‘and the spirit shall return to God who gave it’ (xii. 8b). This latter view, which has the doubtful support of a Talmudic passage,[[350]] appears to me, though from the nature of the case uncertain, and susceptible, as I think, of modification, yet in itself probable as restoring harmony to the book, and in accordance with the treatment of other Biblical texts by the Soferim (or students and editors of Scripture). Geiger may have fallen into infinite extravagances, but he has at any rate shown that the early Soferim modified many passages in the interests of orthodoxy and edification.[[351]] If so, they did but carry on the process already begun by the authors of the sacred books themselves; it may be enough to remind my readers of the gradual supplementing of the original Book of Job by later writers. To the three passages of Koheleth mentioned above, must be added, as Geiger saw,[[352]] the two postscripts which form the Epilogue. From the close of the last century a series of writers have felt the difficulties of this section so strongly that they have assigned it to one or more later writers, and in truth, although these difficulties may be partly removed, enough remains to justify the obelising of the passage.
There is no evidence that Luzzatto ever retracted the critical view mentioned above. To the character of the author, it is true, he became more charitable in his later years. I do not think the worse of him for his original antipathy. An earnest believer himself and of fiery temperament, he could not understand the cool and cautious reflective spirit of the much-tried philosopher;[[353]] and as a lover of the rich, and, as the result of development, comparatively flexible Hebrew tongue, he took a dislike to a writer so wanting in facility and grace as Koheleth.[[354]] It was an error, but a noble one, and it shows that Luzzatto found in the study of criticism a school of moral culture as well as of literary insight.
The adoption of Luzzatto’s view,[[355]] combined with Döderlein’s as to the epilogue, removes the temptation to interpret Koheleth as the apology of any particular philosophical or theological doctrine. The author now appears, not indeed thoroughly consistent, but at least in his true light as a thinker tossed about on the sea of speculation, and without any fixed theoretic conclusions. Without agreeing to more than the relative lateness of the epilogue, De Jong,[[356]] a Dutch scholar, recognises the true position of Koheleth, and in the psychological interest of the book sees a full compensation for the want of logical arrangement. De Jong indeed was not acquainted with the theory of Nachman Krochmal, which if sound throws such great light on the reason of the addition of the epilogue (see end of [Chap. VI.]) This has been accepted by Grätz and Renan, but, as I have ventured to think, upon insufficient grounds. The brevity of my reference to these two eminent exegetes must be excused by my inability to follow either of them in his main conclusions. The glossary of peculiar words and the excursus on the Greek translation given by the former (1871) possess a permanent value, and there is much of historical interest in his introduction. But I agree with Kuenen that the student who selects Grätz as his guide will have much to unlearn afterwards.[[357]] In order to show that Ecclesiastes is a politico-religious satire levelled against king Herod, with the special object of correcting certain evil tendencies among the Jews of that age, Grätz is compelled to have recourse to much perverse exegesis which I have no inclination to criticise.[[358]] Renan’s present view differs widely from that given in his great unfinished history of the Semitic languages. But I shall have occasion to refer to his determination of the date of our book later.
Among recent English students, no one will refuse the palm of acuteness and originality to Tyler (1874). His strength lies not in translation and exegesis, but in the consistency with which he has applied his single key, viz. the comparison of the book with Stoic and Epicurean teaching. He is fully aware that the book has no logical divisions. Antithesis and contradiction is the fundamental characteristic of the book. Not that the author contradicts himself (comp. the quotation from Ibn Ezra in Ginsburg’s Coheleth, p. 57), but that a faithful index of the contradictions of the two great philosophical schools gives a greater point to his concluding warning against philosophy. It is the ‘sacrificio dell’ intelletto’ which the author counsels. But Mr. Tyler’s theory or at least his point of view demands a separate consideration. It may however be fairly said here that by general consent Mr. Tyler has done something to make the influence of Greek philosophical ideas upon Ecclesiastes a more plausible opinion.
To a subsequent chapter I must also beg to refer the reader for a notice of Gustav Bickell’s hypothesis (1884) relative to the fortunes (or misfortunes) of the text of Koheleth. This critic is not one of those who grant that the book had from the first no logical division, and his hypothesis is one of the boldest and most plausible in the history of criticism. Its boldness is in itself no defect, but I confess I desiderate that caution which is the second indispensable requisite in a great critic. The due admixture of these two qualities nature has not yet granted. Meantime the greatest successes are perhaps attained by those who are least self-confident, least ambitious of personal distinction. Upon the whole, from the point of view of the student proper, are there more thankworthy contributions to criticism not less than to exegesis than the books of Plumptre (1881), Nowack (1883), and above all the accomplished altmeister Franz Delitzsch (1875)? Whatever has been said before profitably and well, may be known by him who will consult these three accomplished though not faultless expositors. I would not be supposed to detract from other writers,[[359]] but I believe that the young student will not repent limiting himself, not indeed to one, but to three commentaries.
CHAPTER VIII.
ECCLESIASTES AND ITS CRITICS (FROM A LITERARY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW).
It is not every critic of Ecclesiastes who helps the reader to enjoy the book which is criticised. Too much criticism and too little taste have before now spoiled many excellent books on the Old Testament. Ecclesiastes needs a certain preparation of the mind and character, a certain ‘elective affinity,’ in order to be appreciated as it deserves. To enjoy it, we must find our own difficulties and our own moods anticipated in it. We must be able to sympathise with its author either in his world-weariness and scepticism or in his victorious struggle (if so be it was victorious) through darkness into light. We must at any rate have a taste for the development of character, and an ear for the fragments of truth which a much-tried pilgrim gathered up in his twilight wanderings. Never so much as in our own time have this taste and this ear been so largely possessed, as a recent commentary has shown in delightful detail, and I can only add to the names furnished by the writer that of one who perhaps least of all should be omitted, Miss Christina Rossetti.[[360]] But to prove the point in my own way, let me again select four leading critics, as representatives not so much of philology as of that subtle and variable thing—the modern spirit, viz. Renan, Grätz, Stanley, and Plumptre. The first truly is a modern of the moderns, though it is not every modern who will subscribe to his description of Ecclesiastes as ‘livre charmant, le seul livre aimable qui ait été composé par un Juif’[[361]] One might excuse it perhaps if in some degree dictated by a bitter grief at the misfortunes of his country; pessimism might be natural in 1872. But alas! ten years later the same view is repeated and deliberately justified, nor can the author of Koheleth be congratulated. He is now described[[362]] as ‘le charmant écrivain qui nous a laissé cette délicieuse fantaisie philosophique, aimant la vie, tout en en voyant la vanité,’ or, as a French reviewer condenses the delicate phrases of his author, ‘homme du monde et de la bonne société, qui n’est, à proprement parler, ni blasé ni fatigué, mais qui sait en toutes choses garder la mesure, sans enthousiasme, sans indignation, et sans exaltation d’aucune espèce.’ A speaking portrait of a Parisian philosophe, but does it fit the author of Ecclesiastes? No; Koheleth has had too hard a battle with his own tongue to be a ‘charming writer,’ and even if not exactly blasé (see however ii. 1-11), he is ‘fatigued’ enough with the oppressive burdens of Jewish life in the second century B.C. That he has no enthusiasm, and none of those visions which are the ‘creators and feeders of the soul,’[[363]] is cause for pity, not for admiration; but that he has had no visitings of sæva indignatio, is an unjust inference from his acquired calmness of demeanour. He is an amiable egoïst, says M. Renan; but would Koheleth have troubled himself to write as he does, if egoïsm were the ripened fruit of his life’s experience? Why does this critic give such generous sympathy to the Ecclesiastes of the Slav race,[[364]] and such doubtful praise to his great original? It is true, Koheleth seems to despair of the future, but only perhaps of the immediate future (iii. 21), and Turgenieff does this too. ‘Will the right men come?’ asks one of the personages of Turgenieff’s Helen, and his friend, as the only reply, directs a questioning look into the distance. That is the Russian philosopher’s last word; Koheleth has not told us his. His literary executors, no doubt, have forced a last word upon him; but we have an equal right to imagine one for ourselves. M. Renan ‘likes to dream of a Paul become sceptical and disenchanted;’[[365]] his Koheleth is an only less unworthy dream. M. Renan praises Koheleth for the moderation of his philosophising; he repeatedly admits that there was an element of truth in the Utopianism of the prophets; why not ‘dream’ that Koheleth felt, though he either ventured not or had no time left to express it, some degree of belief in the destiny of his country?
M. Renan, in fact, seems to me at once to admire Koheleth too much, and to justify his admiration on questionable grounds. It might have been hoped that the unlikeness of this book to the other books of the Canon would have been the occasion of a worthy and a satisfying estimate from this accomplished master. A critic of narrower experience represents Koheleth partly as a cynical Hebrew Pasquin, who satirises the hated foreigner, Herod the Great, and the minions of his court, partly as an earnest opponent of a dangerous and growing school of ascetics. I refer to this theory here, not to criticise it, but to call attention to its worthier conception of Koheleth’s character. The tendency of Ecclesiastes Dr. Grätz considers to be opposed to the moral and religious principles of Judaism and Christianity, but to the man as distinguished from his book he does full justice. It is a mistake when this writer’s theory is represented by Dean Plumptre as making Koheleth teach ‘a license like that of a St. Simonian rehabilitation of the flesh.’[[366]] Koheleth’s choice of language is not indeed in good taste, but it was only a crude way of emphasising his opposition to a dangerous spirit of asceticism. Such at least is Dr. Grätz’s view. ‘Koheleth is not the slave of an egoïstic eudemonism, but merely seeks to counteract pietistic self-mortification.’[[367]] Dr. Grätz thinks, too, and rightly, that he can detect an old-fashioned Judaism in the supposed sceptical philosopher: Koheleth controverts the new tenet of immortality, but not that of the resurrection. I am anticipating again, but do so in order to contrast the sympathetic treatment of the Breslau professor with the unsympathetic or at least unsuitable portraiture of Koheleth given by the Parisian critic.
Of all writers known to me, however, none is so sympathetic to Koheleth as Dr. Plumptre, in whose pleasing article in Smith’s Dictionary we have the germ of the most interesting commentary in the language. A still wider popularity was given to the Herder-Plumptre theory by Dr. Stanley, who eloquently describes Ecclesiastes as ‘an interchange of voices, higher and lower, within a single human soul.’ ‘It is like,’ he continues, ‘the perpetual strophe and antistrophe of Pascal’s Pensées. But it is more complicated, more entangled, than any of these, in proportion as the circumstances from which it grows are more perplexing, as the character which it represents is vaster, and grander, and more distracted.’[[368]] In his later work, Dr. Plumptre aptly compares the ‘Two Voices’ of our own poet (strictly, he remarks, there are three voices in Ecclesiastes), in which, as in Koheleth, though more decidedly, the voice of faith at last prevails over that of pessimism.[[369]] I fear, however, that Dr. Plumptre’s generous impulse carries him farther than sober criticism can justify. The aim of writing an ‘ideal biography’ closing with the ‘victory of faith’ seems to me to have robbed his pen of that point which, though sometimes dangerous, is yet indispensable to the critic. The theory of the ‘alternate voices,’ of which Dr. Plumptre is, not the first,[[370]] but the most eloquent advocate, seems to me to be an offspring of the modern spirit. It is so very like their own case—the dual nature[[371]] which a series of refined critics has attributed to Koheleth, that they involuntarily invest Koheleth with the peculiar qualities of modern seekers after truth. To them, in a different sense from M. Renan’s, Ecclesiastes is ‘un livre aimable,’ just as Marcus Aurelius and Omar Khayyâm are the favourite companions of those who prefer more consistent thinking.
Certainly the author of Ecclesiastes might well be satisfied with the interest so widely felt in his very touching confidences. It is the contents, of course, which attract so many of our contemporaries—not the form: only a student of Hebrew can appreciate the toilsome pleasure of solving philosophical enigmas. And yet M. Renan has made it possible even for an exigeant Parisian to enjoy, not indeed the process, but the results, of philological inquiry, in so far as they reveal the literary characteristics of this unique work; he has, indeed, in his function of artistic translator, done Koheleth even more than justice. In particular, his translations of the rhythmic passages of Koheleth which relieve the surrounding prose are real tours de force. These passages M. Renan, following M. Derenbourg,[[372]] regards as quotations from lost poetical works, reminding us that such poetical quotations are common in Arabic literature. To represent in his translation the character of the Hebrew rhythm, which is ‘dancing, light, and pretentiously elegant,’ M. Renan adopts the metres of Old French poetry. ‘Il s’agissait de calquer en français des sentences conçues dans le ton dégagé, goguenard et pru-d’homme à la fois de Pibrac, de Marculfe ou de Chatonnet, de produire un saveur analogue à celle de nos quatrains de moralités ou de nos vieux proverbes en bouts-rimés.’ Of the poem on old age he says that it is ‘une sorte de joujou funèbre qu’on dirait ciselé par Banville ou par Théophile Gautier et que je trouve supérieur même aux quatrains de Khayyâm.’[[373]] I should have thought the comparison very unjust to the Persian poet. To me, I confess, the prelude or overture (i. 4-8), though not in rhythmic Hebrew, is the gem of the book. Questionable though its tendency may seem, if we look at the context, its poetry is of elemental force, and appeals to the modern reader in some of his moods more than almost anything else in the Old Testament outside the Book of Job. I cannot help alluding to Carlyle’s fine application of its imagery in Sartor Resartus, ‘Generations are as the Days of toilsome Mankind: Death and Birth are the vesper and the matin bells, that summon mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for new advancement.’ How differently Koheleth,—