Good doctrine! Sound therapeutics and sound theology are allies, not enemies.
Reference to the special trades may be few, but some of those few are memorable. Thus the only allusion in Proverbs to the unskilled labourer is one of the poignant sayings of the Book:
The labourer’s appetite laboureth for him,
For his mouth constrains him to toil (Pr. 1626):
Hunger! that unwearying goad of men, so beneficial to the race, so pitilessly cruel to the individual.
Ben Sirach gives us a glimpse of many men in some graphic verses—the ploughman, the cattle-driver, the engraver, the smith, the potter:
The wisdom of the scribe cometh by opportunity of leisure,
And he that hath little business shall become wise.
How shall he become wise that holdeth the plough,
That glorieth in the shaft of the goad,
That driveth oxen, and is busied in their labours,
And whose discourse is of the stock of bulls?
He will set his heart upon the turning of furrows,
And his wakefulness is to give his heifers their fodder.
So is every artificer and workmaster
That passeth his time by night as by day,
Cutting gravings of signets,
And his diligence is to make great variety:
He will set his heart to preserve likeness in his portraiture,
And will be wakeful to finish his work.
So is the smith sitting by the anvil
And considering the unwrought iron;
The vapour of the fire will waste his flesh,
And with the heat of the furnace will he contend;
The noise of the hammer will be ever in his ear
And his eyes upon the pattern of the vessel:
He will set his heart upon perfecting his works,
And he will be wakeful to adorn them perfectly.
So is the potter sitting at his work,
And turning the wheel about with his feet;
Who is alway anxiously set at his work,
And all his handicraft is by number;
He will fashion the clay with his arm,
And bend its strength in front of his feet;
He will apply his heart to finish the glazing,
And he will be wakeful to make clean the furnace.
All these put their trust in their hands,
And each becometh wise in his own work.
Without these shall not a city be inhabited
And wherever they sojourn they will not hunger.
They shall not be sought for in the council of the people,
And in the assembly they shall not mount up on high;
They shall not sit on the seat of the judge,
Nor understand the covenant of judgement,
Neither shall they declare instruction and judgement,
And among them that speak proverbs they shall not be found.
But they will maintain the fabric of the world,
And in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer (E. 3824-34).
The passage is so interesting an illustration of the attitude of the educated Jews towards manual labour that a digression is irresistible. Among the Greeks all humbler forms of labour were heartily despised. In ancient society so much of the rough work was performed by slaves that the fortunate classes could and, as a rule, did find occupation in military, political, commercial, and literary or artistic affairs. Even the farmer was reckoned of small account, because, despite the honest worth of his occupation, his busy life and practical interests denied him the intellectual leisure of the town population. The Romans had certain incidents in their historical traditions that gave to agriculture a measure of honour, at least in theory. Otherwise their standpoint was much the same as that of the Greeks. But the Jews maintained a more generous and a very sensible attitude, as is exemplified by this quotation from Ben Sirach. They recognised the limitations imposed by hard toil, but at the same time they saw that it had an essential part to play in the economy of the whole, and therefore they freely acknowledged its merits:
Hate not laborious work,
For toil hath been appointed of God (E. 715).
Nevertheless Ben Sirach is well pleased that God had not made him a farmer or a smith. It is evident that he did not deem the art of the craftsman compatible with learning; and, since he loved his scribe’s life, his satisfaction at having full leisure to prosecute the search for Wisdom is very human and pardonable. All the same, some may feel there is a touch of intellectual snobbery in his tone. If so, his successors, the Rabbis of later Judaism, did not follow him in the fault. They took the view that the degrading tendencies of certain occupations must be frankly recognised, but that there were many trades requiring manual toil which ought to be highly esteemed.[50] In that most interesting work of the first and second century A.D., The Sayings of the [Jewish] Fathers, we read that Shemaiah said, Love work. Rabbi Meir, however, said cautiously, Have little business, and be busy in the Law. It is said in the Talmud (Kidd, 99a) that Whosoever doth not teach his son work, teacheth him to rob. These remarks scarcely carry the question beyond Ben Sirach’s view. But many of the Rabbis went much further and urged that religious and intellectual studies were not profitably undertaken unless accompanied by some acquaintance with manual labour. Thus, said Rabbi Gamaliel (about 90 A.D.), An excellent thing is study of the Law combined with some worldly trade ... but all study of the Law apart from manual toil must fail at last and be the cause of sin. Another, and a powerful, saying is this: Flay a carcase in the street and earn a living, and say not, “I am a famous man, and the work is beneath my dignity.” St. Paul will doubtless occur to many as an instance of a great scholar who was proud to know and to exercise the trade of tent-making. Recall how earnestly he protested to the Christians of Corinth his independence of their monetary help (cp. Acts 181-3; 1 Cor. 412, 2 Cor. 119). This admirable association of labour and learning persisted among the Jews, and their history contains many examples of splendid men who combined the virtues of great scholarship with the pursuit of some humble means of livelihood. Some of the best-known Rabbis of the Middle Ages supported themselves by labouring as carpenters, shoemakers, builders, bakers, and so forth.