Chapter IV: Preface (3)

At last three of Job's friends come from the uttermost ends of the earth to visit and console him. Travelling over enormous distances, and setting out from opposite points of the compass, they all contrive to reach the sufferer at the same moment; and at the sight of the deformed and loathsome figure of their friend are all three struck dumb with grief. Without any previous consultation among themselves, they sit silent and sad for seven days and seven nights, gazing with fascinated horror on the misshapen figure on the dunghill. This curious manifestation of friendship unmans the hero whose fortitude had been proof against the most cruel physical and moral suffering; utterly breaking down, he "fills with woes the passing wind," and bitterly curses his existence. Awe at first keeps him from censuring God's ways; truthfulness from condemning himself. He cannot understand why he suffers, whether there be any truth or none in the traditional doctrine of unfailing retribution upon earth; for he has certainly done everything to merit happiness and nought to deserve punishment. Society, however, is there in the person of his friends to dispel this delusion. They hold a brief for the cut-and-dried theology of the day which tells them that in Job there was a reservoir of guilt and sin filling up from youth to age, which now, no longer able to hold its loathsome charge, burst and overwhelmed with misery their friend and his family. They play their parts very skilfully, at first softly stroking, as it were, the beloved friend, as if to soothe his pain, and then vigorously rubbing the salt in the gaping wounds of the groaning victim.

The campaign is opened mildly by Eliphaz, a firm believer in the spooks and spectres of borderland, who, in reply to Job's complaint, assures his friend that no really innocent human being ever died in misery as he now seems to be dying, and gently reminds him that "affliction shooteth not from the dust, neither doth trouble sprout up from the ground;" they need the fertile soil of sin, which Job must have provided, unknown to his easy-going friends who, taking him at his own estimation, heretofore considered him a just man. But even if he were what he would have them believe he is, he has no ground for just complaint: for "happy is the man whom God correcteth." To this the hero replies, accentuating his innocence, and pouring forth his plaint in "wild words," for God "useth me as an enemy." He seeks not for mercy, he explains, but for justice, nay, he is magnanimous enough to be content with even less. He only asks of God,

"That it would please him to destroy me,
That he would let go his hand and cut me off;"[52]

and this request having been refused, suicide, the ever "open door" of the Stoics, invited him temptingly in, but he withstood the temptation, and comforted himself with the knowledge that all things in time have an end.

"My soul would have chosen strangling,
And death by my own resolve.
But I spurned it; for I shall not live for ever."[53]

The arbitrary and incomprehensible will of the deity may, in ultimate analysis, be the changeful basis of right and wrong, but, if so, divine justice differs from human not merely in degree but likewise in character, and not apparently to its advantage. The tuneful Psalmist had sung in ecstatic wonder at the mercy of God: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour."[54] Job, having looked upwards in the same direction, not for mercy but for simple justice, and looked in vain, parodies with bitter irony those same verses of the Psalm:

"What is man that thou shouldst magnify him?
And that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him?
That thou shouldst visit him every morning,
And try him every moment?"[55]

Bildad, the Traditionalist _par excellence_, then addresses a sharp reproof to the just man who refused to recognise as mercy in God the conduct which, were a man responsible for it, he must needs condemn as wickedness. He bids him inquire of bygone generations what they thought of the goodness of the Creator, and asks him to be guided by the wisdom of his fore-fathers, who lived and throve on the spiritual food of retribution which he now rejects with loathing. This attack provokes a new outburst on the part of Job, who ironically paraphrases and develops the ideas of his comforters, deriding the notion that the deity can change right into wrong or that true morality needs the divine will as a basis.

"How should man be in the right against God?
If he long to contend with him,
He cannot answer him one of a thousand."[56]

"Lo, he glideth by me and I see him not;
And he passeth on, but I perceive him not."[57]

His friends had recommended him to pray for pardon and repent, and had promised him the return of his happiness as a consequence. But Job scouts the idea. His righteousness, if he indeed possess it, is his own; no prayers can add to, no punishment can take from, that.

"I must make supplication unto his judgment,
Who doth not answer me, though I am righteous!"[58]

And as for a God who being almighty is yet unjust, prayer would be superfluous, no supplications would avail aught with Him; He would cause even incarnate holiness to appear wicked in its own eyes.

"Though I were just, my own mouth would condemn me;
Though I were faultless, he would make me crooked."

For even the will of a created being is in the hands of its Creator, and is not, cannot be, free. Job feels and knows that he is right-minded and good, and he puts the testimony of his own conscience above the decrees of any beings, human or divine, which, whatever else they may achieve, cannot shake the foundations of true justice and morality, which are eternal.

"Faultless I am, I set life at naught;
I spurn my being, therefore I speak out."[59]

And the outcome of his outspokenness is a solemn charge of injustice against God,[60] a sigh of profound regret that he was ever born into this miserable world, and a wish that his sufferings might "come to an end before he should return to the land of darkness and of gloom" whence he came.

After this, Zophar, the third comforter, opens his lips for coarse vituperation rather than sharp rebuke, and regrets that God Himself does not feel moved to give a practical lesson of wisdom to the conceited "prattler," who persists in believing in his own innocence in spite of the unmistakable judgment of his just Creator and the unanimous testimony of his candid friends. Job's reply to this vigorous advocate of God is even more powerful and indignant than any of the foregoing. He repeats and emphasises his indictment against the Deity. No omnipotent being who was really just and good could approve, or even connive at, much less practise, the scandalous injustice which characterises the conduct of the universe and the so-called moral order, and of which his own particular grievances are a specimen. Not that the curious spectacle that daily meets our eye, wherein wickedness and hypocrisy are prosperous and triumphant while truth and integrity are trampled under foot, is necessarily incompatible with absolute and eternal justice; it is irreconcileable only with the attributes of a personal deity, an almighty and just creator, who would necessarily be responsible for these evils as for all things else, if he existed. If the world be the work of an omnipotent maker, its essential moral characteristic partakes of the nature of his attributes; and the main moral feature of our world is evil, and not good. This is the ever-recurring refrain of Job's discourses. Nor does he hesitate when occasion offers to proclaim his conviction in the plainest of plain language, for he entertains no fear of what may further befall him.

"Lo, let him kill me, I cherish hope no more,
Only I will justify my way before his face."[61]

The three friends return a second time to the charge, each one speaking in the same order as before, and each one eliciting a separate reply, in which Job reaffirms his innocence, reiterates his indictment against the Most High, and reproaches his comforters with their off-hand condemnation of an attitude resulting from sufferings which they are slow to realise and from knowledge which they are unable to grasp. In his rejoinder to Zophar, he lays special stress upon the prosperity and success of the wicked who scoff at the laws of God and yet "while away their days in bliss." If God will not punish them, is He just? If He cannot, is He almighty? As He does not, why speak of the moral order of His world or of the moral attributes of Himself?

Ehphaz opens the third series of speeches by accusing his friend of selfishness, dishonesty, hard-heartedness and avarice, on no better grounds than the assumption that God's justice warrants us in believing that where punishment is inflicted there also must sin have been committed. Job, instead of condescending to refute the charge, ironically admits it, and then bitterly remarks that he would like to know how God would justify His conduct and convict him of sin if only they both could argue out the question together on terms of equality. But in all the universe he looks for God in vain:

"Behold, I go forward, but he is not there,
And backward, but I cannot perceive him."[62]

Bildad then proceeds to emphasise the omnipotence of the Creator with whom the human worm, the maggot, dares to enter into judgment, and Job replies to all three, refuting them out of their own mouths. His conscience, he tells them, is proof sufficient of his right conduct, whereas his misery, by their own admission, proves nothing at all.

"Till I die, I will not yield up my integrity!
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go,
My heart doth not censure any one of my days."[63]

As for the argument from punishment to sin, all three friends had in the course of their speeches laid it down that the lines on which the universe is governed are known to no man. If this be so, who are they that have surprised the secret and found the clue to the enigma? Who revealed to them that retribution is the basis of the moral order? Man knows nothing, can never hope to know anything, of the inner working of the world, of the why and the wherefore of our miserable being and of the existence of all things. The Godhead alone could fathom these mysteries,[64] if He existed.

Job takes no notice of the succeeding brief remarks of Zophar in his final and longest discourse which, replete with sorrowful reminiscences of his past happy life, is less defiant than any of those that preceded. Wandering in thought through the necropolis of buried hopes, fears and achievements, he seems to inhale an atmosphere of soothing melancholy that softens and subdues his wild passion. The vibration of past efforts and of deeds long since done, trembling along his tortured frame, causes even saddest thoughts to blend with sweet sensations. Then turning from what once was to what now is, and missing the logical nexus between the two states, he solemnly calls upon God to produce it, if He can:

"Here is my signature; let the Almighty answer me,
And hear the indictment which my adversary hath written."[65]

Scarcely has Job finished speaking when Jahveh appears in a whirlwind and the heart of the clouds is cloven by a voice of thunder startling the silent air. The purpose of His coming is to prove men's ignorance, not to enlighten it, at least not beyond the degree involved by affixing the highest seal to the negative views expressed by the hero. He plies Job with a number of questions on cosmology, astronomy, meteorology, &c., with a view to show that we are ignorant of the ultimate reason of even the most familiar objects and phenomena, and practically know nothing about anything. The natural conclusion is that they are unknowable, and that intellect, knowledge, consciousness, is something secondary, accidental, and as transitory as the life it accompanies. To make an exception in favour of Jahveh Himself, would be to lose sight of the important fact that His apparition was never meant by the poet to be taken literally.[66]

It is neither more nor less than a symbol of the insight which Job obtains into the nature of things, of the light which enables him to see that there is naught but darkness now and for ever. He perceives by the simplest, clearest, and most conclusive of all mental processes, a direct intuition, the truth of the ideas to some of which he had but coldly assented before--viz., that things are but shadows and existence an evil; that underlying every being, animate and inanimate, there is a force existing outside the realm of time and space, and that it is at bottom identical with the human will; that eternal justice lies at the root of everything, is the ultimate basis of all existence; that the sufferings of men, innocent or guilty, and the prevalence of evil are incompatible with a personal creator; that intellect is secondary, and barely sufficient for the practical needs of life, after which it ceases to be an attribute of whatever of man may outlive his body; and, finally, that as we can know nothing beyond the bare fact that there is an absolute law of compensation from which there is no exemption, it behoves us to cultivate ethics rather than science, and to resign ourselves uncomplainingly to the inevitable.

However unpalatable these final conclusions may appear to pious readers accustomed to seek in the Book of Job for the most striking proofs of some of the principal teachings of the Christian dispensation, it is difficult, not to say impossible, to study the work in its restored form and arrive at any other. With Job, God and wisdom are synonymous. And of the latter he says:

"But wisdom--whence shall it come?
And where is the place of understanding?
It is hid from the eyes of all living,
Our ears alone have heard thereof."[67]

These words were uttered before he had obtained the insight which brought resignation in its train. He alludes to them in his last brief discourse.

"I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear,
But now mine eye hath beheld thee;
Therefore I resign and console myself,
Though in dust and ashes."[68]

Professor Bickell puts the matter very lucidly in his short but comprehensive introduction to the poem: "As long as Job, solicitous for his understanding, demanded an explanation of his unutterable suffering, whereby the mysterious, piteous condition of mankind is shadowed forth, his seeking was vain, and he ran the risk of loosing himself in the problems of eternal justice, the worth of upright living, and even the existence of God; for an unjust, ruthless, almighty being is no God. But by means of the theophany--which is to be understood merely as a process in his own heart, and which clearly shows him the impotence of feeble man to unravel the world-enigmas--he attains to insight; not, indeed, of a positive kind such as a knowledge of the ways of God would confer, but negative insight by means of that resignation which flows from excess of pain. It is thus that his own heroic saying is fulfilled about the reaction of unmerited suffering upon the just man."[69]

"But the righteous holds on his way,
And the clean-handed waxeth ever stronger."[70]

Footnotes:

[51] The prologue is contained in chaps. i.-ii.; the epilogue in chap.
xlii. 7-17 of our English Bibles.

[52] Strophe xxxv.

[53] Strophe lii.

[54] Psa. viii. 4, 5.

[55] Strophe liii.

[56] Strophe lxv.

[57] Strophe lxix.

[58] Strophe lxxi.

[59] Strophe lxxiii.

[60] Strophe lxxiv-lxxviii.

[61] Strophe cxv. _Cf_. strophe clxix., where he dares his friend to
prove him guilty of blasphemy when he is merely giving expression
to the truth:

"If indeed ye will glorify yourselves above me,
And prove me guilty of blasphemy;
Know, then, that God hath wronged me!"

[62] Strophe ccxvii.

[63] Strophe ccxxx.

[64] As Professor Bickell rightly remarks: "At bottom what Job means is,
that God alone knows the meaning of our sorrowful existence, if,
indeed, He does know it" ("Das Buch Job," p. 5).

[65] Strophe cclxxvi.

[66] The mere circumstance that the Deity is no longer called by His
usual name when He appears in the whirlwind is of itself an
indication that the poet was not alluding to God.

[67] Strophe ccxxxiv.

[68] Strophe cccix.

[69] _Cf._ Bickell, _op. cit._ pp. 8-9.

[70] Strophe clvi.

KOHELETH

* * * * *

[Greek: Archaen men mae phynai epichthonioisin ariston Maed' eisidein augas oxeos aeëliou. Phynta d'hopos okista pylas Aidao peraesai, Kai keisthai pollaen gaen epamaesamenon.]

Theognis.

* * * * *

CONDITION OF THE TEXT

Of all the books of the Old Testament, not excepting the Song of Songs, none offers such rich materials to the historian of philosophy or such knotty problems to the philological critic as Koheleth[70] or Ecclesiastes. This interesting treatise is, in its commonly received shape, little more than a tissue of loose disjointed aphorisms and contradictory theses concerning the highest problems of ethics and metaphysics. The form of the work is characterised by an utter lack of plan; the matter by almost impenetrable obscurity. So completely entangled are the various threads of thought, that few commentators or critics possessed the needful degree of hope and courage to set about unravelling them. One paragraph, for instance, is saturated with Buddhistic pessimism; another breathes a spirit of religious resignation, of almost hearty hopefulness; this sentence lays down a universal principle which is absolutely denied by the next; the thesis is followed by proofs, in the very midst of which lurks the antithesis; a series of profound remarks upon one subject is suddenly interrupted by bald statements about another, the irrelevancy of which is suggestive of the ravings of a delirious fever patient. Thus one verse begins[71] by recommending men to make the most of their youth by following the bent of their inclinations and the desire of their eyes, such enjoyment being a gift of God,[72] and finishes by threatening all who act upon the advice with condign punishment to be ultimately dealt out by God Himself; and the very next verse proceeds to draw the logical conclusion, which oddly enough, runs thus: "_therefore_ drive sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh." In one place[73] the writer solemnly and sadly affirms that the destiny of the upright and the wicked, the wise and the foolish is wholly alike; in another[74] he seems to proclaim that the unrighteous shall suffer for their evil-doing, while the God-fearing shall be rewarded with long life, which again he stoutly denies shortly before and immediately afterwards. It is impossible to read chap. ii. 11 and 12 without coming to the conclusion that we either have to do with the incoherent ravings of a disordered mind, or else that the leaves of the original manuscript were dislocated and then put together haphazard.[75] The "for" that connects the seventh and eighth verses of chapter vi. is forcibly suggestive of the line of argument which made Tenterden Steeple the cause of Goodwin Sands, while the nexus between the sixth and seventh verses of chapter xi. is scarcely more obvious than that which is to be found between any two of the nonsense verses that amuse intelligent children in "Alice in Wonderland." And yet this production, in its present chaotic condition, has been, and is still, gravely attributed to the pen of King Solomon in his character as the ideal sage of humanity![76]

Footnotes:

[70] The most satisfactory translation of the word Koheleth is, the
Speaker. "Preacher" conveys a modern and incorrect notion.

[71] xi. 9.

[72] ii. 24.

[73] ix. 2.

[74] viii. 12, 13.

[75] The verses in question are: "11. Then I looked on all the works that
my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to
do: and, behold, all _was_ vanity and vexation of spirit, and _there
was_ no profit under the sun. 12. And I turned myself to behold
wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what _can_ the man _do_ that
cometh after the king _even_ that which hath been already done."

[76] Only, however, by the strictest of orthodox theologians, who
admiringly attribute to the Holy Spirit a hopeless confusion of
ideas which they would resent as insulting if predicated of
themselves. As a matter of historic fact, Solomon, so far from
meriting his reputation as a philosopher, was a rough-and-ready
kinglet, who ruled his subjects with a rod of iron and ground
them down with intolerable burdens.

* * * * *

PRIMITIVE FORM OF THE BOOK

The desperate efforts of professional theologians to smooth away, explain, and reconcile all these incoherences and contradictions, constitute one of the most marvellous exhibitions of mental acrobatics recorded even in the history of hermeneutics. Many of these exegetes set out on the assumption that a revelation vouchsafed to Solomon could not possibly embody any statement incompatible with the truths of Christianity which emanate from the same eternal source; and they all firmly held that at the very least it must be in harmony with the fundamental dogmas common to Judaism and the teachings of Christ. In reality, what this generous hypothesis came to, whenever there was no question of text criticism involved, was a substitution of the human ideal for the divine execution. The best accredited contemporary theologians however, Catholic and non-Catholic, have insight enough to descry the stamp of true inspiration in a book which enshrines some of the highest truths laid down in the Sermon on the Mount combined with a good deal that obviously clashes with theological dogmas formulated at a much later date for the behoof of a very different social organism. In any case the original work, as it appears to have issued from the hand of "Koheleth," was composed in a spirit as conducive to true morality as the sublime eloquence of Isaiah or the absolute resignation of the author of the 73rd Psalm. Critics who succeeded in satisfactorily solving many of the philological, philosophical, and historical problems suggested by Koheleth utterly failed to find therein any traces of an intelligible plan. It was reserved to Professor Bickell, of Vienna, to point out what seem to be the true lines on which alone it is possible to arrive at a solution alike satisfactory to the reader and respectful to the author. His theory[77]--it is, and it can be no more than a theory--which has already received the adhesion of some of the most authoritative Bible scholars on the Continent, may be briefly summed up as follows: The present disordered condition of the book, Koheleth, is the result of the shifting of the sheets of the Hebrew manuscript from their original places and of the addition of a number of deliberate interpolations. The latter are of two kinds: those which seemed necessary for the purpose of supplying the cement required to join together the unconnected verses which, in consequence of the dislocation, were unexpectedly placed side by side, and the passages composed with the object of toning down, or serving as a counterpoise to the very unorthodox views of the writer.

Professor Bickell's assumption involves no inherent improbability, runs counter to no ascertained facts, and is therefore perfectly tenable. What it supposes to have occurred to Koheleth has, in fact, often happened to other works, religious and profane. It can be conclusively shown, for instance, that certain leaves of the Book of Ecclesiasticus dropped, in like manner, from the Greek Codex, whereby three chapters were transposed from their original places; for the Latin and Syriac versions, which were made before the accident, still exhibit the original and only intelligible arrangement. An old Syriac manuscript of the poems of Isaac of Antioch, now in the Vatican Library, suffered considerably from a similar mishap, and various other cases in point have come under the notice of orientalists and archaeologists.[78] In the present instance, what is believed to have taken place is this. The Hebrew Codex, of which no translation had as yet been made, consisted of a series of fascicules, each one of which contained four sheets once folded, or four double leaves, the average number of characters on each single leaf amounting to about 525.[79] The Codex, which most probably included other treatises preceding and following Koheleth, possessed an unknown number of fascicules, Koheleth beginning on the sixth leaf of one and ending on the third of the fourth following. According to the hypothesis we are considering, the middle fascicules becoming loose, fell out of the Codex, and were found by some one who was utterly unqualified to replace them in position. This person took the inner half of the second,[80] folded it inside out, and then laid it in the new order[81] immediately after the first fascicule. Next came the inner sheet of the third fascicule,[82] followed by the outside half of the second,[83] in the middle of which the two double leaves, 13, 18, and 14, 17, had already been inserted.[84] Although the fourth fascicule had kept its place, it was not on this account preserved from the effects of the confusing changes caused by the loosening of the ligature, for between its two first leaves the remaining sheet of the third fascicule[85] found a place. Finally, leaf 17 becoming separated from its new environment, found a definite resting-place between 19 and 21.[86] The result of this dislocation was the utter disappearance of all trace of plan in the work, the incoherences of which would be still more numerous and glaring, had it not been for the transitional words and phrases that were soon after interpolated for the purpose of welding together passages that were never intended to dovetail.[87]

Such is the ingenious theory. The degree of probability attaching to it depends partly on the weight of corroborative evidence to be found in the book itself, and partly on the completeness with which it explains the many difficulties which the traditionalist view could but formulate. Thoroughly to sift and weigh this evidence, much of which is of a purely philological character, would require a book to itself; but it will not be amiss to give one or two instances of the nature of the arguments relied upon.

Chap. x. 1, in the present text, is wholly corrupt, owing to the circumstance that several interpolations were inserted in it at a later date. Now a little reflection suffices to show that these additions consist of words taken from chap. vii. 1. But if the book had been composed as it now stands, such a transposition would be practically impossible, because chap. x. is separated from chap. vii. by too great an interval. In the original sequence, however, which Prof. Bickell's theory supposes and restores, there was no difficulty. There the leaf ix. 11-x. 1 was followed by two leaves containing vi. 8-vii. 22, so that the words "precious," and "wisdom is better than glory," might have been easily shifted to x. 1 from the margin of vii. 1.

Again, in the primitive sequence viii. 4 was immediately followed by x. 2. After the dislocation of the leaves it was erroneously placed before viii. 6, a few words having been previously interpolated between the two, solely in the interests of orthodoxy.[88] In order to bridge over the gap between them, a transitional half verse was strung together, in an absolutely mechanical manner, from words that precede or follow. And the words that precede and follow are those which we find in the primitive arrangement of the manuscript, not in the present sequence. Thus, at the bottom of the leaf containing viii. 4, the first words, "leb chakham,"[89] of the following verse (x. 2) were inserted, and then by inadvertence repeated on the next leaf. Seeing these words, the author of the transition made them the subject of his new verse. He selected the grammatical objects of the sentence from the verse which follows in the new sequence,[90] and took the verb from the preceding half verse, which is itself an older interpolation.

Lastly, Koheleth's treatise, which in our Bibles is utterly devoid of order or sequence, falls naturally, in its restored form, into two distinct halves: a speculative and a practical, distinguished from each other by characteristics proper to each, which there is no mistaking. The former, for instance, contains but few metrical passages, whereas the latter is composed of poetry and prose in almost equal proportions. The ethical part continually addresses the reader himself in the second person singular, while the discursive section never does. In a word, internal evidence leaves no doubt that, whether the dislocation of the chapters was the result of accident or design, this was the ground plan of the original treatise.

Footnotes:

[77] Professor Cheyne discusses Bickell's theory with the caution
characteristic of English theology and the fairness of unprejudiced
scholarship ("Job and Solomon," p. 273 fol.).

[78] _Cf_. for instance, Cornill, "Theologisches Literaturblatt,"
Sept. 19, 1884.

[79] This mean estimate tallies with calculations made by the late
Professor Lagarde for another book of the Old Testament.

[80] The leaves 6, 7, 8, 9.

[81] The pages following each other thus: 8, 9, 6, 7.

[82] Leaves 15 and 16.

[83] 4, 5, 10, 11.

[84] So that the order was then: 4, 5, 13, 14, 17, 18, 10, 11.

[85] 12, 19.

[86] The sequence of the leaves was then; 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 6, 7, 15, 16, 4,
5, 13, 14, 18, 10, 11, 20, 12, 19, 17, 21, 22.

[87] The most practical and simple way of realising Professor Bickell's
theory is to make a little book of four fascicules of four double
leaves each. On these leaves write the contents of the original
manuscript leaves in chapter and verse numbers. On each of the three
last leaves of the first fascicule (counting, as in Hebrew, from
right to left) write i. 1-ii. 11. On the first two leaves of the
second fascicule write v. 9-vi. 7 (this must be written on each of
the leaves, as it is not quite certain how they were divided). On
third and fourth leaves of the second fascicule write iii. 9-iv. 8;
on each of the fifth and sixth leaves, ii. 12-iii. 8. On the seventh
and eighth leaves, viii. 6-ix. 3. Then comes the third fascicule. On
the first leaf, write ix. 11-x. 1; on the second and third leaves,
vi. 8-vii. 22 on the fourth and fifth leaves, iv. 9-v. 8; on the
sixth leaf, x. 16-xi. 6; on the seventh leaf, vii. 23-viii. 5; on the
eighth leaf, x. 2-15. Lastly comes the fourth fascicule. On the first
leaf, ix. 3-10, on the second and third leaves, xi. 7-xii. 8.

[88] The first half of viii. 5: "Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel
no evil thing." This interpolation is older than the accident to
the MS.

[89] The heart of the wise.

[90] viii. 6.

* * * * *

KOHELET'S THEORY OF LIFE

Read in its primitive shape, the book is a systematic disquisition on the questions, What positive boon has life in store for us? to which the emphatic answer is "None;" and How had we best occupy the vain days of our wretched existence? which the author solves by recommending moderate sensuous enjoyment combined with healthy activity. He begins his gloomy meditations with a general survey of the wearisome working of the machinery of the world, wherein is neither rest nor profit. Everything is vanity, and the pursuit of wind.[91] Existence in all its myriad forms is an aimless, endless, hopeless endeavour. The very clod of earth manifests its striving, in gravitation, for the attainment of a central point without dimensions, which, if realised, would entail its own annihilation; the solids tend to become liquids, the liquids to resolve themselves in vapour. The plant grows from germ through stem and leaf to blossom and fruit, which last is but the beginning of a new germ that again develops through flower to fruit, and so on for ever and ever. In animals, life is the same restless, aimless, unsatisfied striving, in the first place after reproduction, followed by the death of the individual and the appearance of a new one which in turn runs through all the stadia of the old. The very matter of all organisms is ever changing. As for man, his whole life is but one long series of yearnings after objects, each one of which presents itself to his will as the one great goal until attained, whereupon it is cast aside to make way for another. We know what we long for to-day, we shall know what we shall seek to-morrow; but what the human race supremely desires, its ultimate aim and end, no man can say. Existence is a futile beating of the air, a clutching of the wind. The living make way for the unborn, the dead nourish the living; no one possesses ought that was not torn from some other being; strife and hate, evil and pain are the commonplaces of existence; life and death follow each other everlastingly. All striving is want and therefore suffering, until it is satisfied, when it assumes the form of disappointment; for no satisfaction is lasting. In a word, the universe is a wheel that revolves on its axis for ever--and there is no ultimate aim or end in it all.[92] Knowledge, wisdom, and enjoyment, each of which Koheleth characterises by a distich, are likewise vain, or worse. What, then, is the secret of "happiness"? Surely not wealth, which the Preacher himself having possessed and applied to "useful" and "good" purposes, proved emptiness in the end.[93] Wealth, indeed, is nothing if not a means to happiness, yet experience tells us that the pains endured in striving for it, and the anxiety suffered in preserving it, effectually destroy our capacity for enjoying the bliss which it is supposed to insure, long before misfortune or death snatches it from our grasp.[94]

Vain as pleasure is, in a world of positive evils it is at least a negative good, in that it helps to make us forget the vanity of the days of our life.[95] For this reason, no doubt, it is well-nigh unattainable, the many being deprived of the means, the few of the capacity, of enjoyment.[96]

Passing on to the consideration of wisdom, the Hebrew philosopher finds it equally empty and vain, because subject to the same limitations and characterised by the same drawbacks. It is caviare to the million, and a fresh source of sorrow to the few. Man is tortured with a thirst for knowledge, and yet all the springs at which it might have been allayed are sealed up. Unreal shadows are the objects of human intuition, we are denied a glimpse of the underlying reality. For it is unknowable.

Even the little we can know is not inspiriting. Take our fellow-men, their ways and works, for instance, and what do we behold? Their own evil-doing, injustice, and violence, drag them down to the level of the brute; and that this is their natural level is obvious, if we bear in mind that the end of men is that of the beasts of the fields,[97] and that the ruling power within them, the mechanism, so to say, of these living and feeling automata is love of life. Consider men at their best--when cultivating such relative "virtues" as industry, zeal, diligence in their crafts and callings, and we find these "good" actions tainted at the very source: love of self and jealousy of others being the determining motives.[98] In any case we see that work is no help to happiness, for it is too evident that toil and moil--even that of the writer himself, who knows full well that he is labouring for a stranger--is but the price we pay, not for real pleasure, but for carking care and poignant grief.[99] Such being the bitter fruits of knowledge, the tree on which they flourish is scarcely worth cultivating.

Wisdom in its ethical aspect, as a rule of right conduct, is unavailing as a weapon to combat the Fate that fights against man. Nay, it is not even a guarantee that we shall be remembered by those who come after us, and whose lot we have striven to render less unbearable than our own. The memory of the dead is buried in their graves,[100] and the wheels of the vast machine revolve as if they had never lived. For a man's moral worth goes for nothing in the scale against Fate, whose laws operate with crushing regularity, unmodified by his virtues or his crimes.[101] Indeed, if there be any perceptible difference between the lot of the upright and that of the wicked, it is often to the advantage of the latter, who are furthered by their fierce recklessness and borne onwards by ambition.[102] The knowledge of this curious state of things serves but to encourage evil-doers.[103] The obvious conclusion is that instead of fighting against Fate which is unalterable--"I discovered that whatever God doeth is forever"[104]--we should resign ourselves to our lot and draw the practical inference from the fact that life is an evil.

Wisdom in its practical aspect is equally unpromising. In no walk of life is success the meed of merit or victory the unfailing guerdon of heroism.[105] Such wisdom as is within man's reach is often a positive disadvantage in life, owing to the modesty it inspires as pitted against the self-confidence of noisy fools. Besides, should it contrive to build up a stately structure, a small dose of folly, with which all human wisdom is largely alloyed, is capable, in an instant, of undoing the work of years.[106] In a word, the wise man is often worse off than the fool; and in any case, no degree of wisdom can influence the laws of the universe; what happens is foredoomed; a man's life-journey is mapped out beforehand, and it is hopeless to struggle with the Will which is mightier than his own. As we know not what is pre-arranged, we can never find out what will dovetail with our true interests or is really good for man.[107]

Footnotes:

[91] i. 2-11

[92] _Cf._ Schopenhauer, vol. i. 401-402, and _passim_.

[93] ii. 3-11.

[94] v. 9-16.

[95] Pain, then, for Koheleth, as for a greater than Koheleth, is
something positive; pleasure, on the contrary, negative. "We feel
pain, but not painlessness; we feel care, but not exemption from
it; fear, but not safety.... Only pain and privation are perceived as
positive and announce themselves; well-being, on the contrary, is
merely negative. Hence it is that we are never conscious of the three
greatest boons of life--health, youth, and freedom as such, so long
as we possess them, but only when we have lost them: for they too are
negations.... The hours fly the quicker the pleasanter they are; they
drag themselves on the slowlier the more painfully they are passed,
because pain, not enjoyment, is the something positive whose presence
makes itself felt."--Schopenhauer, ed. Grisebach, ii. 676, 677.

[96] v. 17-vi. 7; iii. 9, 12-13.

[97] iii. 19-iv. 3.

[98] iv. 4-6.

[99] iv. 7, 8; ii. 18-23.

[100] ii. 13-16.

[101] iii. 1-8, viii. 6-8.

[102] viii. 9-14.

[103] viii. 14, ix. 3.

[104] iii. 14.

[105] ix. 11-12.

[106] ix. 13-18, x. 1.

[107] vi. 8, 10-12.

* * * * *

PRACTICAL WISDOM

Having thus cleared the ground in the first part of the treatise, Koheleth proceeds to erect his own modest system in the second. As life offers us no positive good, those who, in spite of this obvious fact, desire it, must make the best of such negative advantages as are within their grasp. Although so far from being a boon, it is an evil, yet it may, he points out, be rendered less irksome by following certain practical rules; and warming to his subject, he winds up with an exhortation to snatch such pleasures as are within reach, for when all accounts have been finally cast up and everything has been said and done, all things will prove vanity, and a grasping of wind.

The ethics open with six metrical strophes composed, so to say, in the minor key, which harmonises with the disheartening conclusions of the foregoing. The theme is the Horatian _Levius fit patientia quicquid corrigere est nefas._ Death is better than life, grief more becoming than mirth, contemplation preferable to desire, deliberation more serviceable than haste.[108] The fleeting joys and the abiding evils of existence, are to be taken as we find them, seeing that it is beyond our power to alter the proportions in which they are mixed, even by the practice of virtue and the application of knowledge. Hence even in the cultivation of righteousness the rule, _Ne quid nimis_, is to be implicitly followed: "Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise."[109] On the other hand, wisdom is not to be despised, for it hardens us against the strokes of Fate, and renders us insensible to the insults of our fellows.[110] It also teaches us the drawbacks of isolation, the benefits of co-operation, and the advantage of being open to counsel.[111] The basis of all practical wisdom being resignation to the inevitable, obedience to God is better than sacrifices destined to influence His action. What He does, is done for ever, and our efforts are powerless to alter it, or to induce Him to change it.[112] God is far off, unknowable, inaccessible, and man is here upon earth, and such prayers as we feel disposed to offer, had best be short and few; vows too, although to be carried out if once made, serve no good purpose, and are to be avoided. In a word, wild speculations and many words in matters of religion and theology are vain and pernicious.[113] That work and enterprise are beneficial in public and private life is obvious from a study of the results engendered by their opposites.[114] Simple individuals, no less than rulers, may benefit by enterprise and initiative, provided that prudence, by multiplying the possibilities of profit, leaves as little as possible to the vagaries of chance.[115] But prudence is especially needed in order to avoid the seductive wiles of woman, against whom one must be ever on one's guard.[116] It also enjoins upon us submission to the political ruler of the day, who possesses the power to enforce his will, and is therefore a living embodiment of the inevitable.[117] In a word, this practical wisdom assumes the form of a careful adjustment of means to the end in all the ups and downs of existence.[118]

After this follows the recommendation of the negative good: the sensuous joys within our reach. Seeing that no man knows what evil is before him, nor what things will happen after him, he cannot go far astray, supposing him to be actuated by a desire to make the best of life, if he tastes in moderation of the pleasures that lie on his path, including those of labour.[119] The young generation should, in an especial manner, take this to heart and pluck the rosebuds while it may, for old age and death are hurriedly approaching to prove by their presence that all is vanity and a grasping of wind.[120]

Footnotes:

[108] vii. 1-6, vi. 9, vii. 7-9.

[109] vii. 10, 13-14, 15-18.

[110] vii. 21-22.

[111] iv. 9-16.

[112] iii. 14.

[113] v. 1-7.

[114] v. 7-8, x. 16-20.

[115] x. 1-3, 6, 4, 5.

[116] vii. 26-29.

[117] viii. 1-4, x. 2-7.

[118] x. 8-14a, 15.

[119] x. 14b, ix. 3-10, xi. 7-10.

[120] xi. 9, xii. 8.

* * * * *

KOHELETH'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Koheleth, who agrees with Job in so many other essential points, is likewise at one with him in his views on human knowledge, or, as he terms it, wisdom, which is the source of the highest good within the reach of man. The only light which we have to guide us through the murky mazes of existence, is at best but a miserable taper which serves only to render the eternal darkness painfully visible. "I set my heart to learn wisdom and understanding. And my heart discerned much wisdom and knowledge.... I realised that this also is but a grasping of wind."[121] The scenes it reveals in the moral as well as the material order are of a nature to make us hate existence. "Then I loathed life."[122] Indeed, the so-called moral order which, were it, in theory, what it is asserted to be in truth, might reconcile us to our lot and kindle a spark of hope in the human breast, is but the embodiment of rank immorality. "All things come alike to all indiscriminately; the one fate overtaketh the upright man and the miscreant, the clean and the unclean, him who sacrifices and him who sacrifices not, the just and the sinner."[123] What then is life?

To this question the answer is, in effect, "The shadow of a thing which is not." The sights and sounds of the universe are the only materials upon which the human intellect can work; and they are all alike empty, shadowy, unreal. They are the creation of the mind itself, the web it weaves from its own gossamer substance; and beyond this are nothing. Space and time, or, as Koheleth expresses it, the universe and eternity, were placed in our consciousness from the very first, and are as deceptive as the mirage of the desert.[124] Kant would define them to be functions of the brain. A projection of the organ of human thought, the world is woven of three threads--space, time, and causality--which, being identical with the mind, appear and vanish with it. The one underlying reality, whether we term it God, Nature, or Will, is absolutely unknowable,[125] and everything else is Maya or illusion.

Strange as this doctrine may sound in orthodox ears, it contains, so far, nothing incompatible with Christianity, which teaches that time and space will disappear along with this transitory existence, and that the one eternal and incomprehensible Will is outside the sphere of both and exempt from the operation of the law of cause and effect. The only difference between the two is that Christianity admits the existence of many beings outside the realm of space and time, whereas without space and time multiplicity is inconceivable, impossible.

We cannot hope to know the one reality which is and acts underneath the appearances of which our world is made up, because knowledge is for ever formed, coloured and bounded by time, space, and causation, and all three are unreal. They alone constitute succession and multiplicity, which are therefore only apparent, not existent. We can conceive nothing but what is, was, or will be (and therefore in time), nothing outside ourselves but what is in space, and absolutely nought that is not a cause or an effect. "Far off is that which is, and deep, deep, who can fathom it?"[126]

But we possess insight and understanding enough to enable us to perceive that life is a positive evil, as, indeed, all evil, pain, and suffering are positive; that pleasures are few, and being negative by their nature, merely serve to make us less sensible of the evils of existence; that happiness is a chimaera, birth a curse, death a boon,[127] and absolute nothingness (Nirvana) the only real good. The hope of improvement, progress, evolution, is a cruel mockery; for the present is but a rehearsal of the past; the future will be a repetition of both;[128] everything that is and will be, was; "what came into being had been long before, and what will be was long ago."[129] In a word, what we term progress is but the movement of a vast wheel revolving on its axis everlastingly.

But may we not hope for some better and higher state in the future life beyond the tomb where vice will be punished and virtue rewarded? To this query Koheleth's reply, like that given by Job, is an emphatic negative; and yet the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of the resurrection were rapidly making headway among the writer's contemporaries. But he descries nothing in the material or moral order of the world to warrant any such belief. What is there in material man that he should be immortal? "Men are an accident, and the beasts are an accident, and the same accident befalleth them all; as these die even so die those, and the selfsame breath have they all, nor is there any preeminence of man above beast; for all is nothingness."[130] Nor can any such flattering hope be grounded upon the moral order, because there are no signs of morality in the conduct of the world. "To righteous men that happeneth which should befall wrong-doers, and that betideth criminals which should fall to the lot of the upright."[131] Nay, "there are just men who perish _through_ their righteousness, and there are wicked men who prolong their lives _by means_ of their iniquity."[132] Of divine promises and revelations Koheleth--who can hardly claim to be considered a theist, and whose God is Fate, Nature, eternal Will--knows nothing. The most favourable judgment he can pass upon such theological speculations is far from encouraging: "in the multitude of fancies and prattle there likewise lurketh much vanity."[133] In eternal justice, however, he professes a strong belief, and, like Job, he formulates his faith in the words: "Fear thou God."[134]

To accuse Koheleth of Epicureanism is to take a one-sided view of his philosophy. His conception of life, its pleasures and pains, is as clearly and emphatically expressed as that of the Buddha or of Schopenhauer. He is an uncompromising pessimist, who sees the world as it is. Everything that seems pleasant or profitable is vanity and a grasping of wind; there is nothing positive but pain, nothing real but the eternal Will, which is certainly unknowable and probably unconscious. These truths, however, are not grasped by every one; they are the bitter fruits of that rare knowledge, increase of which is increase of sorrow. The few who taste thereof cling too tenaciously to life, though life be wedded to sorrow and misery, to renounce such deceitful pleasures as are within their reach; and the bulk of mankind revel in the empty joys of living. To all such, Koheleth offers some practical rules of conduct to enable them to make the best of what is to be had; but the gist of his discourse is identical with those of Jesus, of the Buddha, of Schopenhauer--renunciation.

Human pleasures, whatever their origin, are limited in degree by man's capacity for enjoyment; and this is an inborn gift, varying in different individuals but unchanging in each. Some dispositions, cheerful and sanguine by nature, tinge even the blackest clouds of misfortune with the rainbow hues of hope; others impart a sombre colour to the most auspicious event, and descry cause for dread in the most complete success, just as the bee sucks honey from the flower which yields only poison to the adder. All joys, although produced by the chemistry of our consciousness, are drawn either from within its inner sphere or from without. The former, known as intellectual pleasures, are relatively lasting because they emanate from what man is; the latter are fleeting because their source is either what he has or what he seems. These are never free from alloy; preceded by the pain of desire, they are accompanied by that of disenchantment and followed by tedium, the worst pain of all; those are exempt from all three, because instead of gratifying passing whims they free the intellect from drudging for the will and afford it momentary glimpses of truth. Wisdom therefore, for Koheleth as for Job, is the greatest boon that can fall to man's lot.[135] And yet the law of compensation, operating here as in all other spheres, sensibility to pain is always proportionate to capacity for intellectual enjoyment.