The outstanding feature of his personality was his breadth of interest. “Whether it is upon the subject of behaviour at table, or concerning a man’s treatment of a headstrong daughter, or about the need of keeping a guard over one’s tongue, or concerning the folly of a fool, or the delights of a banquet, or whether he is dealing with self-control, borrowing, loose women, slander, diet, the miser, the spendthrift, the hypocrite, the parasite, keeping secrets, giving alms, standing surety, mourning for the dead, and a large variety of other topics—he has always something to say, which for sound and robust common-sense is of abiding value.”[69]
Except that he puts the point in his own way, there is in matter or opinion little in Ben Sirach’s book that could not be paralleled from the Book of Proverbs. But in manner an interesting difference is observable. Ecclesiasticus is far and away superior in point of literary charm. It has the merit of constant variety, and in places real grace of expression, for to a much greater degree than in the Book of Proverbs Ben Sirach has developed the brief unit-proverb into epigrams and sonnets, short essays, eulogies and longer odes; and although the unit-proverb is still frequent, it is no longer the sum and substance of the book. Thus by the skilful use of the more elaborate forms, the almost unrelieved disjointedness that detracts so seriously from the pleasure of reading Proverbs is triumphantly overcome.
In criticism of Ben Sirach’s ethical attainments, one is inclined to call attention to the juxtaposition of great and little matters which he perpetrates in his book: a feature also to be observed in Proverbs. Questions of fundamental moral law and trivialities of etiquette are astonishingly conjoined, apparently without his feeling the least sense of the absurdity. Thus he bids his pupil be ashamed “of unjust dealing before a partner and a friend, of theft in the place where he sojourns, and of falsifying an oath and a covenant, and of leaning on the table with the elbow when at meat” (E. 4117-19)! Manners and morals, one is driven to suppose, had not been sufficiently differentiated in general opinion. Then also, just when our respect for Ben Sirach is quietly increasing, he is apt to dismay us by interjecting some most unideal observation, as when immediately after delivering a stinging censure on lying speech, he remarks (E. 2029) that gifts which blind the eyes of the Wise, and are a muzzle on the mouth, are an effective way of appeasing influential persons. Nevertheless, as one reads his book, the conviction deepens that Ben Sirach was sincere and earnest in his profession of morality, and such falls from grace as the proverb just quoted are probably due to his anxiety to give an honest representation of the facts of life. It has been said in his favour that he was no platitudinarian, by which, of course, is not meant that his book contains no platitudes, but only that in face of the supreme problems of human existence he did not cravenly blink the facts, but faced them and sought to do justice to them; as for instance when, writing of death, he owns that to a healthy and prosperous man it is wholly a “bitter remembrance” (E. 411).
From youth to his dying day this man loved and served Wisdom, and his volume is a storehouse of many noble and valuable thoughts. It may be charged against the authors of Proverbs that they paid scant regard to the peculiar national aspirations of their race. If so, Ben Sirach can be acquitted on that score. He had a thoroughly patriotic outlook, for he makes it quite clear that to his mind Judaism was the real home of Wisdom and the truly wise man is a loyal Jew obedient to the Law. His sense of the marvel of the world as a revelation of divine power, which he expresses in two chapters of considerable ability, shows that he was not without poetic feeling.[70] All his thinking rested on belief in a great and holy God, Source of all Wisdom, in whom he exhorts men to put their trust, from whom they must ever seek guidance.
A worthy citizen! Of whom does he remind us? Surely of such a man as was Horace, strolling on the Appian Way, pleased with himself and with his fortunes, much interested in the pageant of life, keenly observant both of the faults and the graces of his fellows, humorous, shrewd and kindly? Or of Chaucer, part courtier, part business man of London town, yet with a quick eye and swift sympathy for the deeper issues in the human drama? Or (to come nearer our own days) of Pepys, with his matter-of-fact ways, his sturdy, average morality, and his honest enjoyment of the good things of life? Or of Dr. Johnson, with his natural pomposity and his big, generous soul? Yes, of all these; but Ben Sirach had one great quality that perhaps none of these possessed to the same extent—a most earnest sense of duty in regard to his fellow men, a whole-hearted desire to give them the advantage of the lessons life had taught him.
Perhaps the reader is disappointed still. When the utmost has been said for these ideals, he may feel that there is no new insight into the mystery of things, and no irresistible appeal to conscience. But remember that even an imperfect Cause and an inadequate Ideal, provided the fundamental aim be generous and sound, may be the source of real and lasting benefits to men, for life is such that the goal we fain would reach instantaneously must, as a matter of fact, be approached by small advances, which therefore ought not be despised. The Wise, it is true, were neither perfect Saints nor complete Philosophers, but our subject is the Humanism of the Jewish proverbs, and if even this Ben Sirach, model pupil of Wisdom, is not a wholly inspiring figure—is he not very human? Moreover, the utmost has not yet been said on behalf of the Sages.
CHAPTER IX
The Exaltation of Wisdom
Continuing the criticism of the ideal or ideals of the last chapter, it may be said that the morality commended is not unusual nor markedly superior to that of other peoples. Do not many of these proverbs state the merest a b c of ethical sentiment, for which any civilised nation could produce a parallel in its proverbs? The charge is not only true in a general way, it has special force in view of the circumstances of the fourth to the second centuries B.C. For there is evidence of a widespread tendency to sententious moralising in that period, and, had we so desired, this Jewish movement might have been considered only as part of a larger whole.[71] Among the Greeks, especially in Asia Minor, this was the age when several gnomic poets, such as Menander and Phocylides, won fame and popularity by their moral aphorisms, and indeed the Jewish proverbs have many opinions in common with contemporary Hellenic sayings. In Egypt also there was current a collection of ethical observations, the Precepts of Ptah-hotep and the Maxims of Aniy, so closely resembling the form and sentiment of the average Jewish proverb that it has been suggested that the Sages of Palestine were directly influenced by these Egyptian teachings. Certainly the resemblances are striking. These Egyptian books “inculcate the study of Wisdom, duty to parents and superiors, respect for property, the advantages of charitableness, peaceableness and content, of liberality, chastity, and sobriety, of truthfulness and justice; and they show the wickedness and folly of disobedience, strife, arrogance and pride, of slothfulness, interference, unchastity, and other vices. “What then? Is the idealism of the Jews decreased in value because other nations also had moral ambitions? Judging from the facts of history, the elements of morality, and of commonsense, too, need constant iteration in all languages and all periods, not excluding the present. To discover that most of the Jewish proverbs are far from unique is no real loss, indeed the danger lies rather in the other direction. If it could be shown that these maxims were unlike those current elsewhere among men, the accusation would be serious, for then this volume must needs be written, not on the humanism, but on the unhumanism of a part of the Bible. The charge that the Jewish maxims are not unusual is to be admitted and—dismissed.
More disquieting would be the contention, which the number of self-regarding maxims readily suggests, that the general moral tone of these proverbs is not merely normal but actually low. There is no denying the unblushing utilitarianism that at times crops out. It is said: I (Wisdom) walk in the paths of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgement, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance and that I may fill their treasuries (Pr. 821)—The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is riches and honour and life (Pr. 224). This sounds even more reprehensible than the famous definition of Christianity as “doing good for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” It seems suspiciously like doing good for the sake of the kingdoms of this earth! But, hear the defence. First it has already been urged that general judgments on the proverbs as a whole require most careful handling, if they are to be even moderately fair: let the utilitarian sage bear his own sin; his brother who said, “Love covereth all transgressions,” ought not to be implicated in his fall. Secondly, there is the sensible, though not lofty, argument that since the Wise were dealing with men tempted to throw off even ordinary moral restraint in the burning desire to get all possible prosperity and enjoyment out of life, if they had pitched their key much higher it is very probable they would have received no hearing at all. Modern students of ethics are well aware that pleasure, however often it may accompany good conduct, cannot be made the motive for virtue. But the Wise were less sophisticated than ourselves, and it was therefore easy for them to make the mistake of expressing in too commercial a fashion their conviction that “honesty is the best policy”[72]; and even if they did sometimes over-emphasise the thought of external reward, we should remember that perhaps it was the only way to catch the ear of certain men and draw them back from the hot pursuit of Folly. The third point will be surprising to those who are not aware how late in Jewish history was the development of a worthy conception of immortality and the just judgment of the soul after death. Compared with the Christian, who starts from the belief that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living”, and that the consequences of good or evil conduct reach onwards beyond the grave, the Wise-men of Israel were cruelly handicapped in their consideration of the moral problem. Oesterley with justice pleads in extenuation of Ben Sirach’s stress on the worldly advantages of Wisdom, “This is natural in a writer whose whole attention is concentrated on the present life, and who has nothing but the vaguest ideas about a life hereafter.”[73] Fourthly, the Wise were not conscious of their utilitarianism. Of course it is bad to be utilitarian at all, but it is better to be so unintentionally than deliberately. The ancients did not, could not, speak or write with that precise realisation of the implications of words, which often does, and certainly should, characterise a modern thinker. While therefore the Wise cannot be exonerated from blame in this respect, there is not a little to be said in mitigation of their offence.
But the last plea we have to advance on their behalf is the best; and indeed it is the main apology we wish to make for all their shortcomings—