and he who rolls a stone, upon himself it shall return
(Prov. xxvi. 27).
He who casts a stone on high, casts it on his own head;
He who digs a pit shall fall therein (Sir. xxvii. 25a, 26a).
(h) The crucible for silver, and the furnace for gold,
and a man is tried by his praise (Prov. xxvii. 21).
The furnace proves the potter’s vessels,
the trial of a man is in his discourse (Sir. xxviii. 5).
It will be seen from these examples that, though Sirach adapted and imitated, he did so with much originality. His style has colour, variety, and vivacity, and though Hengstenberg accuses the author of too uniform a mode of treatment, yet a fairer judgment will recognise the skill with which the style is proportioned to the subject; now dithyrambic in his soaring flight, now modestly skimming the ground, the author of the πανάρετος σοφία (for so Sirach, no less than Proverbs, was called[[264]]) is never feeble and rarely trivial. ‘Its general tone,’ says Stanley, ‘is worthy of that first contact between the two great civilisations of the ancient world.’ ‘Nothing is too high, nor too mean,’ says Schürer, ‘to be drawn within the circle of Sirach’s reflections and admonitions.’ I have elsewhere spoken of his comprehensiveness. This quality he partly owes to his being so steeped in the Scriptures. One result of this is that he is more historical than his predecessors, and connects his wisdom with those narratives of early times, which were either but little known to or valued by the proverb-writers of antiquity. The earlier psalmists and prophets indeed show the same neglect of the traditions of the past: they lived before the editing and gradual completion of any roll of ‘Scriptures.’ Sirach on the other hand (see his preface) had ‘the Law and the Prophets, and the rest of the books,’ the latter collection being a kind of appendix, still open to additions. He was a true ‘scribe,’ and gloried in the name (xxxviii. 24), not in the New Testament sense, but in one not unworthy of a religious philosopher; he gave his mind to the wisdom both of the Scriptures and of ‘all renowned men,’ and travelled through strange countries, trying the good and evil among men. If parts at least of the Book of Job probably contain an autobiographical element, it is still more certain that the chapter (xxxix.) which closes the book before us expresses the ideal of the author’s life. And if he does sometimes take delight in his own attainments, yet why is this to be censured as mere ‘böse Selbstgefälligkeit?[[265]] A deep consciousness of moral imperfection is not equally to be expected in the Old Testament and in the New, nor should the philosophic writings in the former be appealed to for striking anticipations of fundamental Gospel ideas. Sirach does no doubt in some sense claim inspiration (xxiv. 32-34, l. 28, 29), and place his own work in a line with the prophecies (xxiv. 33), but why should this be set down to arrogant inflation? Lowth, with more charity, quotes similar language of Elihu (Job xxxii. 8, xxxvi. 4) in proof of the speaker’s modesty (Prælect. xxxiv.) It was probably a characteristic of the later ‘wise men’ so to account for their wisdom (see above, p. [43]), and surely in that wide sense recognised by the Anglican Prayerbook he was ‘inspired,’ he was a ‘son of the prophets.’ I am only sorry that he forgot the lesson of Ex. xxxi. 2 when he wrote so disparagingly of trades (xxxviii. 25 &c.), and agree with Dr. Edersheim[[266]] that the Jewish teachers of the time of Christ and afterwards were more advanced on this point than the son of Sirach.
It is true enough that there are sayings in this book which offend the Christian sentiment, and which serve to show how great was the spiritual distress which the Gospel alone could relieve. For instance,