The last of the social failures is the Flatterer, oily and ingratiating, but treacherous and in the end exposed:
The Flatterer
The words of a flatterer are like dainty morsels
Going down to the innermost parts of the body (Pr. 188).
A man that flattereth his neighbour
Spreadeth a net for his feet (Pr. 295; cp. 2628).
He that rebuketh a man shall afterward find more favour
Than he that flattereth with the tongue (Pr. 2823).
Theophrastus, a Greek writer, has left us certain character-sketches of Athenian society about 300 B.C., many of which might profitably be studied in relation to these Hebrew epigrams. His essay on The Flatterer is a case in point. Here is the Greek conception:—
“Flattery may be considered as a mode of companionship, base but profitable to him who flatters. The flatterer is a person who will say as he walks with another, ‘Do you see how people are looking at you? This happens to no man in Athens but you.’... With these and the like words he will remove a morsel of wool from his patron’s coat; or, if a speck of chaff has been laid on the other’s hair by the wind, he will pick it off, adding with a laugh, ‘Do you see? Because I have not met you for two days, you have had your beard full of white hairs—although no one has darker hair for his years than you?’ Then he will request the company to be silent while the great man is speaking, and will praise him too in his hearing, and mark his approbation at a pause with ‘True’; or he will laugh at a frigid joke and stuff his cloak in his mouth as if he could not repress his amusement. He will request those who pass by to ‘stand still until His Honour has passed.’... When he assists at the purchase of slippers, he will declare that the foot is more shapely than the shoes. If his patron is approaching a friend, he will run forward and say ‘He is coming to you’; and then, turning back, ‘I have announced you.’... He is the first of the guests to praise the wine, and to say as he reclines next the host, “How delicate is your fare,’ and (taking up something from the table) ‘Now this—how excellent it is.’... He will take the cushions from the slave in the theatre and spread them on the seat with his own hands. He will say that his patron’s house is well built, his land well planted, and that his portrait is excellent.”[57] Even when full allowance is made for the unity of authorship and the conscious and careful artistry of the Greek writing, it must be felt that comparison between the Hebrew portrait and the Greek is scarcely possible, the advantage is so entirely with the latter. The Wise were perhaps unusually dull in their dicta concerning the Flatterer, but at their best they never come within sight of the brilliant detail that makes the Greek portrait live before our eyes. It is all the more significant therefore that the Hebrew has hit the one point that the Greek ignores or overlooks: the moral issues of flattery. Theophrastus, the artist, observes that flattery is a base employment; with its evil and disastrous consequences he does not trouble himself. The Wise miss almost everything except that: A man that flattereth his neighbour, said they, spreadeth a net for his feet. They offer an unadorned assertion; but, taken to heart, it would prove more useful to society than all the subtlety of the Athenian delineation. Note then in passing how the contrast is an epitome of the struggle between the two world-ideas, Hellenic and Jewish; on the one hand the overwhelming charm and skill of the Greek, and on the other the unfailing instinct of the Hebrew for the one thing the Greek world lacked.
The Lazy Man
In the lazy man the Wise found a subject that stirred not only their wit but also their eloquence. In two instances proverb has expanded to become a parable and a picture, both of which arrive at the same conclusion. The parable is very famous—
Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
Consider her ways and be wise,
Which, having no chief, overseer or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer
And gathereth her food in the harvest.
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?
When wilt thou arise from thy slumber?
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep—
So shall thy poverty come as a robber,
And thy want as an armed man (Pr. 66-11).