We may speak much and not attain;
indeed to sum up, He is all (xliii. 27)—
has been misapprehended. The Bereshith Rabba says (c. 68), ‘Why is the Holy One also called Mākōm (place)? Because He is the place of the world; His world is not His place.’ This is all that Sirach means, and Philo, too, who uses similar words, accused by Keerl of heresy, and adds, ἅτε εἶς καὶ τὸ πᾶν αὐτὸς ὤν.
The doctrines of the Satan and the Resurrection, which Sirach probably regarded somewhat as we regard the ‘developments’ of the Papal Church, he appears studiously to ignore[[269]]—more especially the latter—and he thereby puts himself into direct opposition to the newer popular orthodoxy. For though not the invention (as M. Renan regards it) of the Maccabean period, there can be no doubt that the doctrine of the Resurrection became then for the first time an article of the popular creed. Instead of the ‘awakening to everlasting life’ (Dan. xii. 2), it is the peaceful but hopeless life of the spirits in Sheól to which he resignedly looks forward.
Weep for the dead, for he hath lost the light,
and weep for the fool, for he wanteth understanding:
make little weeping for the dead, for he is at rest,
but the life of the fool is worse than death.[[270]]
This, however orthodox (as former generations had counted orthodoxy), was rank Sadduceanism, and hence (for how otherwise to interpret the glosses of the Greek and Syriac versions of xlviii. 11b[[271]] it is difficult to see) very early readers of Sirach, especially perhaps well-meaning but unscrupulous Christian readers, effected an entrance for their cherished beliefs by violence.
Another point on which Sirach is equally—shall we say orthodox, or reactionary?—is the connection between piety and temporal prosperity. He really seems to be no more troubled by doubts on this ancient doctrine than the author of the beautiful, but in this respect naïvely simple, introduction to the Book of Proverbs. This perhaps was strange under Sirach’s circumstances. How striking and even painful is the contrast between Josephus’ vivid and truthful comparison of Judæa at this period to ‘a ship in a storm, tossed by the waves on both sides,’[[272]] and that proverb of Sirach, worthy, considering the times, of the ‘miserable comforters’ of Job—