FOOTNOTES:

"as a harp,A gracious instrument on whose fair stringsWe learn those airs we shall be set to playWhen mortal hours are ended,"

that his plaintive minors pass into the frank, jocund tones appropriate to a sincere and well-grounded mirth.Nowhe can cease to "trouble heaven with his bootless cries" on the indiscrimination of death and the vanity of life. He can now say to his soul,

"What hast thou to do with sorrowOr the injuries of to-morrow?"

for he has discovered that no morrow can any more injure him, no sorrow rob him of his true joy. God is with him, observing all the postures and moods of his soul, and adapting all his circumstances to the correction of what is evil in him or the cultivation of what is good. There is no dark impassable gulf between this world and the next; life does not cease at death, but grows more intense and full; death is but a second birth into a second and better life, a life of ampler and happier conditions, and yet a life which is the continuation and consummation of that we now live in the flesh. All that he has to do, therefore, is to "fear God and keep his commandments," leaving the issues of his labour in the Hands which bend all things to a final goal of good. What though the clouds drop rainor the winds blew bitterly, what though his diligence a charity meet no present recognition or reward? All that is no business of his. He has only to do the duty of the passing hour, and to help his neighbours do their duty. So long as he can do this, why should he not be bright and gay? In this lies his Chief Good: why should he not enjoythat, even though other and lesser goods be taken from him for a time—be lent to the Lord that they may hereafter be repaid with usury? He is no longer "a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stop she please:" he has a tune of his own, "a cheerful tune," to play, andwillplay it, let fortune be in what mood she please. He is not "passion's slave," but the servant and friend of God; and because God is with him and for him, and because he will soon be with God, he is

"As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,"

and can take "fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks." His cheerful content does not lie at the mercy of accident; the winds and waves of vicissitude cannot prevail against it: for it has two broad and solid foundations; one on earth, and the other in heaven. On the one hand, it springs from a faithful discharge of personal duty and the neighbourly charity which hopeth all things and endureth all things; on the other hand, it springs from the conviction that God takes note ofall things, and will bring every secret and every deed into a judgment perfectly just and perfectly kind. The fair structure which rises on these sure foundations is not to be shaken by ought that does not sap the foundations on which it rests. Convince him that God is not with him, or that God does not so care for him as to judge and correct him; or convict him of gross and constant failures in duty and in charity; and then, indeed, you touch, you endanger, his peace. But no external loss, no breath of change, no cloud in the sky of his fortunes, no loss, no infirmity that does not impede him in the discharge of duty, can do more than cast a passing shadow on his heart. Whatever happens, into whatever new conditions or new worlds he may pass, his chief good and therefore his supreme joy is with him.

"This man is freed from servile bandsOf hope to rise or fear to fall:Lord of himself, though not of lands,And, having nothing, yet hath all."

Now, too, without fear or favour, without any prejudice for or against his conclusion because we find it in Holy Writ, we may ask ourselves, Has the Preacher satisfactorily solved the problem which he took in hand? has he really achieved his Quest and attained the Chief Good? One thing is quite clear; he has not lost himself in speculations foreign to our experience andremote from it; he has dealt with the common facts of life such as they were in his time, such as they remain in ours: for now, as then, men are restless and craving, and seek the satisfactions of rest in science or in pleasure, in successful public careers or in the fortunate conduct of affairs, by securing wealth or by laying up a modest provision for present and future wants. Now, as then,

"The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's,Is not to fancy what were fair in lifeProviding it could be,—but, finding firstWhat may be, then find how to make it fairUp to our means—a very different thing."

That the Preacher should have attacked this common problem, and should have handled it with the practical good sense which characterises his Poem, is a point, and a large point, in his favour.

Nor is the conclusion at which he arrives, in its substance, peculiar to him, or even to the Scriptures. He says: The perfect man, the ideal man, is he who addresses himself to the present duty untroubled by adverse clouds and currents, who so loves his neighbour that he can do good even to the evil and the unthankful, and who carries a brave cheerful temper to the unrewarded toils and sacrifices of his life, because God is with him, taking note of all he does, and because there is a future life for which this course of duty,charity, and magnanimity, is the best preparative. He affirms that the man who has risen to the discovery and practice of this ideal has attained the Chief Good, that he has found a duty from which no accident can divert him, a pure and tranquil joy which will sustain him under all change and loss. And, on his behalf, I am bold to assert that, allowing for inevitable differences of conception and utterance, his conclusion is the conclusion of all the great teachers of morality. Take any of the ancient systems of morality and religion—Hindu, Egyptian, Persian, Chinese, Greek, or Latin; select those elements of it in virtue of which it has lived and ruled over myriads of men; reduce those elements to their simplest forms, express them in the plainest words; and, as I believe, you will find that in every case they are only different and modified versions of the final conclusion of the Preacher. "Do your duty patiently; Be kind and helpful one to another; Shew a cheerful content with your lot; Heaven is with you and will judge you:"—these brief maxims seem to be the ethical epitome of all the creeds and systems that have had their day, as also of those which have not ceased to be. It is very true that the motive to obedience which Coheleth draws from the future life of man has been of a varying force and influence, rising perhaps to its greatest clearness among the Egyptians and the Persians, sinking to its dimmestamong the Greeks and the Romans, although we cannot say it did not shine even upon these; for, though the secret of their "mysteries" has been kept with a rare fidelity, yet the general impression of Antiquity concerning them was that, besides disclosing to the initiated the natural and moral truths on which the popular mythology was based, they "opened to man a comforting prospect of a future state." I am not careful to show how the Word of Inspiration surpasses all other "scriptures" in the precision with which it enunciates the elementary truths of all morality, in its freedom from admixture with baser matter, in its application of those truths to all sorts and conditions of men, and the power of the motives by which it enforces them. That is no part of my present duty. The one point to which I ask attention is this: With what an enormous weight of authority, drawn from all creeds and systems, from the whole ethical experience of humanity, the conclusion of the Preacher is clothed; how we stand rebuked by the wisdom of all past ages if, after duly testing it, we have not adopted his solution of the master-problem of life, and are not working it out. Out of every land, in all the different languages of the divided earth, from the lips of all the ancient sages whom we reverence for their excellence or for their wisdom, no less than from the mouths of prophet and psalmist, preacher and apostle, there come to us voiceswhich with one consent bid us "fear God and keep his commandments;"—a sacred chorus which paces down the long-drawn aisles of Time, chanting the praise of the man who does his duty even though he lose by it, who loves his neighbour even though he win no love in return, who breasts the blows of circumstance with a tranquil heart, who by a wise use and a wise enjoyment of the life that now is qualifies himself for the better life to be.

This, then, is the Hebrew solution of "the common problem." It is also the Christian solution. For when "the Fellow of the Lord of hosts," instead of "clutching at his equality with God," humbled Himself and took on Him the form of a servant, the very ideal of perfect manhood became incarnate in this "man from heaven." Does the Hebrew Preacher, backed by the consentient voices of the great sages of Antiquity, demand that the ideal man, moved thereto by his sense of a constant Divine Presence and the hope of God's future judgment, should cast the bread of his charity on the thankless waters of neighbourly ingratitude, give himself with all diligence to the discharge of duty whatever clouds may darken his sky, whatever unkindly wind may nip his harvest, and maintain a calm and cheerful temper in all weathers, and through all the changing scenes andseasons of life? His demand is met, and surpassed, by the Man Christ Jesus.Heloved all men with a love which the many waters of their hostility and unthankfulness could not quench. Always about his Father's business, when He laid aside the glory He had with the Father before the world was, He put off the robes of a king to don the weeds of the husbandman, and went forth to sow in all weathers, beside all waters, undaunted by any wind of opposition or any threatening cloud. In all the shock of hostile circumstance, in the abiding agony and passion of a life "short in years indeed, but in sorrows above all measure long," He carried Himself with a cheerful patience and serenity which never wavered, for the joy set before Him enduring, and even despising, the bitter cross. In fine, the very virtues inculcated by the Preacher were the very substance of "the highest, holiest manhood." And if we ask, What were the motives which inspired this life of consummate and unparalleled excellence? we find among them the very motives suggested by Coheleth. The strong Son of Man and of God was never alone, because the Father was with Him, as truly with Him while He was on earth as when He was in the heaven from which He "came down." He never bated heart nor hope because He knew that He would soon be with God once more, to be judged of Him and recompensed according to thedeeds done in the body of his humiliation. Men might misjudge Him, but the Judge of all the earth would do Him right. Men might award Him only a crown of thorns; but God would touch the thorns and, at his quickening touch, they would flower into a garland of immortal beauty and honour.

Nor did the Lord Jesus help us in our quest of the Chief Good only by becoming a Pattern of all virtue and excellence. The work of his Redemption is a still more sovereign help. By the sacrifice of the Cross He took away the sins which had rendered the pursuit of excellence a wellnigh hopeless task. By the impartation of his Spirit, no less than by the inspiration of his Example, He seeks to win us to the love of our neighbour, to fidelity in the discharge of our daily duty, and to that cheerful and constant trust in the providence of God by which we are redeemed from the bondage of care and fear. He, the Immanuel, by taking our flesh and dwelling among us, hasprovedthat "God is with us," that He will in very deed dwell with men upon the earth. He, the Victor over death, by his resurrection from the grave, hasprovedthe truth of a future life and a future judgment with arguments of a force and quality unknown to our Hebrew fathers.

So that now as of old, now even more demonstrably than of old, the conclusion of the whole matter is thatwe "fear God and keep his commandments." This is still the one solution of "the common problem" and "the whole duty of man." He who accepts this solution and discharges this duty has achieved the Supreme Quest; to him it has been given to find the Chief Good.

Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

FOOTNOTES:[1]The Quest of the Chief Good.A Popular Commentary on the bookEcclesiastes, with a New Translation. By Samuel Cox. London: Arthur Miall.[2]Rosenmüller, Ewald, Knobel, De Wette, Delitzsch, Ginsburg, with many other competent judges, are agreed on this point; and even those who in part differ from them differ only in assigning the Book to a date still farther removed from the time of Solomon. There are but few scholars who now contend for the Solomonic authorship, and hardly any of these are, I think, in the first rank.[3]3: ThefourthcenturyB.C.is, I think, its most probable date. In his recent exposition of Ecclesiastes, the Dean of Wells attempts to bring the date down to aboutB.C.240. But his arguments are so curious and fanciful, and his conclusion is based so largely on conjecture, and on dubious similarities of phrase in the language of the Hebrew Preacher, and of some of the later philosophers of Greece, that I suspect very little weight will be attached to his gallant attempt to breathe new life into the moribund hypothesis of the ingenious Mr. Tyler. Delitzsch, for example, a high and recognized authority, declares that there is "not a trace of Greek influence" in this Scripture, though Dr. Plumptre finds so many. But though neither his hypothesis nor his confessedly conjectural biography of the unknown author carries the force of "sober criticism," there is much in his Commentary which will be found very helpful.[4]Plumptre writes the word Koheleth, and Perowne Quoheleth. Which of the three initial letters should be used is of little consequence, and hence I retain the form in most common use.Ecclesiastesis simply its Greek equivalent.[5]See the commentary on these verses for a fuller exposition of his real claims and position.[6]Solomon could not have been more than sixty years of age when he died, yet it was not till he was "old" that his wives "turned away his heart from the Lord his God" (1 Kings xi. 4).[7]"It may be regarded as beyond doubt that it was written under the Persian domination" (Delitzsch).[8]The nearest analogy in English literature to this triumphant use of the proverb of which I can think is Pope's use of the couplet—in every way a much lesser feat, however; while its burlesque or caricature may be found in Tupper'sProverbial Philosophy.[9]In the Book of Proverbs, for instance, he would find, in addition to the incomparable personification of Wisdom to which I have already referred, many examples of the proverb proper, many detached sayings whose underlying thought is illustrated by a stroke of imagination; such as that (chap. xxv. 11) in which the enhanced beauty of an appropriate word when spoken at the opportune moment is compared with the golden fruit of the orange when set in its frame of silver blooms (Expositions, vol. iv.). He would also find some of those small picturesque descriptions produced by an artistic sequence of proverbs—the same theme being sometimes worked over by different artists, in different ages, one and the same moral being enforced by wholly different designs; as, for instance, where Solomon (chap. vi. 6-11) enforces the duty of a forethoughtful industry by a picture of the ant and her prudent ways; while an unknown sage of a later date (chap. xxiv. 30-34) appends precisely the same moral, expressed in the same words, to his graphic picture of the Sluggard's garden (The Expositor,Second Series, vol. vi.). Moreover, if he turn to chapter xxx. he will see how this form of art, which once soared so high, was capable of sinking into a kind of puerile conundrum—with its three too wonderful things, and its four little things which yet are wise—while its moral tone remained pure and high. And, finally, in the exposition of the Epilogue to Ecclesiastes he will find how, after sinking so low, it rose once more, in the hands of the later rabbis, into many beautiful forms of fable, and exhortation, and parable.[10]For this sketch I am largely indebted to Rawlinson'sFive Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, and his commentary onHerodotus.[11]Instead ofNebuchadnezzarJeremiah and Ezekiel use the formNebuchadrezzar, which is nearer to the originalNabu-Kuduri-utzur,i.e."Nebo is the protector against misfortune."[12]There is a curious allusion to these enamelled bricks, and the admiration the Jews conceived for them, in Ezekiel xxiii. 14-16.[13]SeeHerodotus, book i., chap. 199;Strabo, xvi., p. 1058; and theBook of Baruch, vi. 43.[14]Herodotus, ix. 62.[15]Æschyl.,Pers., 94.[16]"There is no nation which so readily adopts foreign customs as the Persians.... As soon as they hear of any luxury they instantly make it their own.... Each of them has several wives, and a still larger number of concubines."—(Herodotusbook i., chap. 135).[17]Their common root is the SanscritKshatra, a king; in the Persepolitan inscriptions this word appears as Ksérshé, and from this both the HebrewAchashuerash(Ahasuerus) and the GreekXerxeswould easily be formed.[18]"The political condition of the people which this Book presupposes is that in which they are placed under satraps" (Delitzsch).[19]It would be possible to collect from the Psalms of this date materials for a description of the wrongs and miseries inflicted on the Jews, and of their keen sense of them, quite as graphic and intense as that of the Preacher. Here are a few phrases hastily culled from them. The oppressors of Israel are described as being "clothed with cruelty as with a garment," as "returning evil for good, and hatred for good-will.""Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth;Render to the proud their desert.They prate, they speak arrogantly;All the workers of iniquity boast themselves.They break in pieces Thy people, O Lord,And afflict Thine heritage.They slay the widow and the stranger,And murder the fatherless.And they say, The Lord shall not see,Neither shall the God of Jacob consider" (xciv.)."I am bowed down and brought very low;I go mourning all the day long:Truly I am nigh unto falling,And my heaviness is ever before me" (xxxviii.)."My days consume away like smoke,And my bones are burned up like as a firebrand;My heart is smitten down and withered like grass,So that I forget to eat my bread" (cii.)."I am helpless and poor,And my heart is wounded within me" (cix.).Most of the "imprecatory" Psalms belong to this period; and the terrible wrongs of the Captivity, though they may not justify, in large measure explain and excuse, that desire for vengeance which has given so much offence to some of our modern critics.[20]Sonnets, LXVI.[21]Haug'sEssays, pp. 162-3, quoted by Rawlinson.[22]This helpful angel is by no means peculiar to the Persian faith. All the imaginative races of antiquity conceived of a being more divine than man, though originally not equal to the gods, who guided the departed soul on its lonely journey through the dark interspaces of death. Theut conducted the released spirit of the Egyptian to the judgment-seat. Hermes performed the same kind office for the Greeks, Mercury for the Romans. Yama was thenekropomposof the Hindus, and the Persians retained the legend. The Rig-Veda represents him as the first man who passed through death to immortality, and as therefore the best guide of other men. Nor is it doubted that the Persians derived their belief in a future life from the primitive Hindu creed. If their faith was, as I have said, a revolt from the degenerate forms of Hindu worship, it was also a return to its more ancient forms, as religious reformations are apt to be. The fathers of the Aryan stock had an unwavering assurance of a future life. In his Essay on theFuneral Rites of the Brahmans, Max Müller cites a sort of liturgy with which the ancient Hindu used to bid farewell to his deceased friend while the body lay on the funeral pyre, which is, surely, very noble and pathetic: "Depart thou, depart thou by the ancient paths, to the place whither our fathers have departed. Meet with the ancient ones (the Pitrs); meet with the Lord of Death; obtain thy desires in heaven. Throw off thine imperfections; go to thy home. Become united with a body; clothe thyself in a shining form. Go ye; depart ye; hasten ye from hence" (Rig-Veda x. 14).To which, as choral responses, might be added, "Let him depart to those for whom flow the rivers of nectar. Let him depart to those who through meditation have obtained the victory, who by fixing their thoughts on the unseen have gone to heaven.... Let him depart to the mighty in battle, to the heroes who have laid down their lives for others, to those who have bestowed their goods on the poor" (Rig-Veda x. 154).As the body was consumed on the pyre the friends of the dead chanted a hymn in which, after having bidden his body return to the various elements from which it sprang, they prayed, "As for his unborn part, do Thou, Lord (Agni), quicken it with Thy heat; let Thy flame and Thy brightness kindle it: convey it to the world of the righteous."It was from this pure and lofty source that the Persians drew their faith in the better life to be.Max Müller also quotes as the prayer of a dying Hindu woman, "Place me, O Pure One, in that everlasting and unchanging world where light and glory are found. Make me immortal in the world in which joys, delights, and happiness abide, where the desires are obtained" (Atharda Veda xii. 3, 17).Cremation itself bore witness to the Hindu faith in immortality, since they held that "the fire which set free the spiritual element from the superincumbent clay, completed the third or heavenly birth," the second birth having been achieved when men set themselves to a faithful discharge of their religious duties.[23]Just as we speak of this "sublunary world," so "under the sun" is the characteristic designation of the earth throughout this Book.[24]Dean Perowne, inThe Expositor, First Series, vol. ix.[25]Compare Horace (Od. iv. 7, 9):Pulvis et umbra sumus.[26]So Marcus Aurelius (Meditt., xi. 1): "They that come after us will see nothing new; and they who went before saw nothing more than we have seen."[27]Père Lacordaire has a fine passage on this theme. "Weak and little minds find here below a nourishment which suffices for their intellect and satisfies their love. They do not discover the emptiness of visible things because they are incapable of sounding them to the bottom. But a soul which God has drawn nearer to the Infinite very soon feels the narrow limits within which it is pent; it experiences moments of inexpressible sadness, the cause of which for a long time remains a mystery; it even seems as though some strange concurrence of events must have chanced in order thus to disturb its life; and all the while the trouble comes from a higher source. In reading the lives of the Saints, we find that nearly all of them have felt that sweet melancholy of which the ancients saidthat there was no genius without it. In fact, melancholy is inseparable from every mind that looks below the surface and every heart that feels profoundly. Not that we should take complacency in it, for it is a malady that enervates when we do not shake it off; and it has but two remedies—Death or God." Elsewhere, still quite in the spirit of the Preacher, he says: "Every day I feel more and more that all is vanity.I cannot leave my heart in this heap of mud."[28]So Goethe'sFaust, after having failed to solve the insoluble problems of life by study and research, "plunges deep in pleasure," that he "may thus still the burning thirst of passionate desire."[29]"One such pleasaunce as this there was at Etam, Solomon's Belvedere, as Josephus informs us (Antiq., VIII. 7, 3). Thither it was the custom of the king, he says, to resort when he made his morning excursions from the city, clad in a white garment, and driving his chariot, surrounded by his body-guard of young men in the flower of their age, clad in Tyrian purple, and with gold dust strewed upon their hair, so that their whole head sparkled when the sun shone upon it, and mounted upon horses from the royal stables, famed for their beauty and fleetness."—Dr. Perowne,The Expositor, First Series, vol. x.[30]In speaking of the Persian revenue, Rawlinson says that besides a definite money payment, "a payment, the nature and amount of which were also fixed, had to be made in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or those commodities, for which it was most celebrated,"—as, for example, grain, sheep, cattle, mules, fine breeds of horses, beautiful slaves.The Five Great Monarchies, vol. iv., chap. vii., p. 421.[31]Cicero,De Fin., Lib. II., Cap. 20.[32]This affirmation, so surprising at first sight, is also made by Job (chap. xxvii., vv. 15, 16), "This is the doom of the wicked man from God.... Though he heap up silver like dust, and gather robes as mire, that which he hath gathered shall the righteous wear, and the innocent shall divide his silver."[33]Xerxes, in his invasion of Greece, conceived the wish "to look upon all his host." A throne was erected for him on a hill near Abydos, sitting on which he looked down and saw the Hellespont covered with his ships, and the vast plain swarming with his troops. As he looked, he wept; and when his uncle Artabanus asked him the cause of his tears, he replied: "There came upon me a sudden pity when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by." This is one of the most striking and best known incidents in the life of the Persian despot; but the rejoinder of Artabanus, though in a far higher strain, is less generally known. I quote it here as an illustration of the Preacher's mood. Said Artabanus: "And yet there are sadder things in life than that. Short as our time is, there is no man, whether it be here among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy as not to have felt the wish—I will not say once, but full many a time—that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall on us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long.So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race."—Herodotus, Book VII., c. 46.[34]So in Sophocles (Oed. Col., 1225) we read—I quote from Dean Plumptre's translation:"Never to be at allExcels all fame;Quickly, next best, to passFrom whence we came."[35]Ginsburg quotes a capital illustration of this verse from the dialogue of Pheraulas and Sacian (Xenophon,Cyrop., viii. 3); "Do you think, Sacian, that I live with more pleasure the more I possess?... By having this abundance I gain merely this, that I have to guard more, to distribute to others, and have the trouble of taking care of more; for a great many attendants now demand of me their food, their drink, and their clothes. Whosoever, therefore, is greatly pleased with the possession of riches will, be assured, feel much annoyed at the expenditure of them."[36]Compare Psalm xlix., vv. 16, 17:Be not afraid though one be made rich,Or if the glory of his house be increased;For he shall carry away nothing with him when he diethNeither shall his pomp follow him.[37]In commenting on Sections II. and III. of this Book I found that both the exposition of the sacred text and the application of its lessons to the details of modern life would gain in force by being handled separately. The second part of each of these chapters consists mainly, therefore, of an exhortation based on the previous exposition, the marginal notes indicating the passages of Holy Writ on which these exhortations are based.[38]Coheleth's description is so true and pertinent, it hits so many of our modern faults and sins, that I am obliged to cite my authority for every paragraph lest I should be suspected of putting a private and personal interpretation on these ancient words.[39]M. de Lamennais—the founder of the most religious school of thinkers in modern France, from whom such men as Count Montalembert, Père Lacordaire, and Maurice Guérin, drew their earliest inspiration—asks, "Do you know what it is that makes man the most suffering of all creatures?" and replies, "It is thathe has one foot in the finite and the other in the infinite, and that he is torn asunder, not by four horses, as in the horrible old times, butbetween two worlds."[40]Horace,Ep.6, Lib. I:"Virtutem verba putant, utLucum ligna."[41]"There are three crowns; of the law, the priesthood, and the kingship: but the crown of a good name is greater than them all."—Talmud.[42]So in the hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus, as rendered by the Dean of Wells:"Thou alone knowest how to change the oddTo even, and to make the crooked straight;And things discordant find accord in Thee.Thus in one whole Thou blendest ill with good,So that one law works on for evermore."[43]Not, however, that the sentiment was confined to the East. The Greek poets have many such sayings as, "A woman is a burden full of ills;" and, "Where women are, all evils there are found."[44]To cite only one instance out of many—other instances may be found in the Introduction—let the reader recall the Emperor Caligula, and refer, for example, to his reception of the Alexandrian Jews, as recorded by Philo,Legat ad Caium, cc. 44, 45; or by Merivale, in hisHistory of the Romans, chap. xlvii., pp. 47-50; or by Milman, in hisHistory of the Jews, Book xii., pp. 141-45. He will then know, to quote the phrase of Apollonius of Tyana, what "the kind of beast called a tyrant" is or may be.[45]What Coheleth means by the king being "a child" is best explained by Isa. iii. 12: "As for my people, their ruler is a wilful child, and women rule over him."[46]One of the most elaborate proverbs in the Talmud is on Charity:—"Iron breaks the stone, fire melts iron, water extinguishes fire, the clouds drink up the water, a storm drives away the clouds, man withstands the storm, fear unmans man, wine dispels fear, sleep drives away wine, and death sweeps all away—even sleep. But Solomon the Wise says, Charity saves from death." And there is hardly a finer passage in Shakespeare's Sonnets than that (CXVI.) in which he sings the disinterestedness of Love, and its superiority to all change:"Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.* * * * * *Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom."[47]Cicero,Tusc., lib. II., cap. 22.[48]Dum vivimus vivamus.—Doddridge.[49]It may be worth while to specify some of the gross and absurd conjectures, some also of the strange differences, into which what may be called themedicalreading of this passage has betrayed its advocates. Ginsburg has a marvellous collection of them in his "notes" to these verses. I select and combine only a few of them. The darkening of the light, the sun, the moon, and the stars (ver. 2) is taken by one great authority (the Talmud) to mean the darkeningof the forehead,the nose,the soul,and the teeth; by another (the Chaldee Paraphrast), the obscuring ofthe face,the eyes,the cheeks,and the apples of the eyes; by a third (Dr. Smith, in his "Portraiture of Old Age"),for the decay of all the mental faculties. That "the clouds return after the rain" signifies, according to Ibn Ezra,the constant dimness of the eyes; according to Le Clerc,a bad influenza, accompanied with unceasing snuffling. "The keepers of the house" (ver. 3) arethe ribs and the loins(Talmud),the knees(Chaldee), andthe hands and arms(Ibn Ezra). "The men of power" arethe thighs(Talmud) andthe arms(Chaldee). "The grinding maids" arethe teeth, and "the ladies who look out of the lattices" arethe eyes, by general consent. "The door closed on the street" isthe pores of the skin(Dr. Smith),the lips(Ibn Ezra), andthe eyes(Henstenberg). That "the noise of the mills ceases" or "grows faint" (ver. 4) means thatthe mastication of foodbecomes imperfect (Dr. Smith), thatthe appetitefails (Chaldee), thatthe voicegrows feeble (Grotius). That "the songbirds descend to their nests" signifies thatmusic and songs are a boreto the aged man (Talmud), that he isno longer able to sing(Chaldee), thathis ears are heavy(Grotius). The allusion to "the almond" (ver. 5) denotes thatthe haunch-bone shall come out from leanness(Talmud), or (Reynolds) it denotesthe hoary hair which comes quickly on a manjust as the almond-tree thrusts out her blossoms before any other tree; while at least half-a-dozen scholars and physicians take it as pointing tomembrum genitaleorglans virilis. That "the locust becomes a burden" means thatthe ankles swell(Chaldee),gout in the feet(Jerome),a projecting stomach(Le Clerc),the dry shrivelled frame of an old man(Dr. Smith). Almost all modern commentators take the reference to "the caper-berry" as marking the fact that condiments lose their power to provoke appetite with the aged, while many of the ancients took it as marking the failure of sexual desire. The "silver cord" and "golden bowl" of ver. 6 arethe tongue and the skull(Chaldee),backbone and brain(Dr. Smith),urine and bladder(Gasper Sanctius); while the "bucket" is eitherthe gallorthe right ventricle of the heart, and "the wheel" that draws the water stands forthe air-inspiring lungs.Now of course it would not be just to condemn any interpretation simply because it is weighted with absurdities and contradictions such as these, though it surely requires a very strong reading to carry them. But when an interpretation is so obviously forced and fanciful, when it is so remarkably ingenious and leaves to ingenuity so wide and lawless a scope, we shall do well to hesitate before accepting it. And if another interpretation be offered us, as in the text, which gives a literal rendering to every phrase instead of a figurative one, which bases itself on the common household facts of Eastern experience instead of on the technicalities of Western science, which instead of being so indeterminate and fanciful as at times to be self-contradictory and grotesque, is coherent and impressive, we really have no alternative before us. We cannot but choose the one and reject the other.[50]This locust (châgâb) is one of the four kinds which the Law of Moses marked out as fit for human food. To this day several kinds of locust are held to be an agreeable and nutritious diet. There are many ways of preparing them for the table. They may be pounded with flour and water, and made into cakes. They may be smoked, boiled, roasted, stewed, and fried in butter. They may be salted with salt; and thus treated are eaten by the Arabs as a great delicacy. Or they may be dried in the sun, and then steeped in wine: baskets of them, prepared in this way, are to be commonly seen in Eastern markets. Dr. Kitto, who often ate them, says that they taste like shrimps; Dr. Shaw says that they are quite as good as our freshwater crayfish.[51]The caper-plant grows abundantly in Asia, as it does also in Africa and Southern Europe. It commonly springs in the crevices of walls, on heaps of ruins, or on barren wastes, and forms a diffuse many-branched shrub. Its flowers are large and showy: the four petals are white, but the long numerous stamens have their filaments tinged with purple, and terminate in yellow anthers. As the ovary ripens it droops and forms a pear-shaped berry, which holds in its pulp many small seeds. Almost every part of the shrub has been used as a condiment by the ancients. The stalk and seed were salted, or preserved in vinegar or wine. Its buds are still held to be an agreeable sauce—we eat them with boiled mutton. And the berries possess irritant properties which win them high esteem among the Orientals as a provocative to appetite.[52]The fruit of the almond-tree is still reckoned one of the most delicate and delicious fruits in the East. We may fancy that we are acquainted with it, that we know "almonds" at least as well as we know "raisins." But, I believe, that the almond we eat is only the kernel of the stone in the true almond; the fruit itself is of the same order with apricots, peaches, plums.[53]Sir Henry Rawlinson says: "At the present day, among thebons vivantsof Persia, it is usual to sit down for hours before dinner, drinking wine, and eating dried fruits, such as filberts, almonds, pistachio-nuts, melon-seeds, etc. A party, indeed, often sits down at seven o'clock, and the dinner is not brought in till eleven. The dessert dishes, intermingled as they are with highly seasoned delicacies, are supposed to have the effect of stimulating the appetite."—Notes to Rawlinson'sHerodotus, vol. i., p. 274.[54]It should be borne in mind that the comparative rarity of thunderstorms in Syria and the adjacent lands makes them much more dreadful to the inhabitants of those countries. Throughout the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms, we find many traces of the dread which such storms inspired—a dread almost unaccountable to our accustomed nerves.[55]As the main ethical, literary, and historical interest of the whole Book is gathered up into this brief Epilogue, I offer no apology for the comparative length of my treatment of it.[56]In the Introduction, however, I have tried to give whatisknown of the history of this period. Roughly speaking, I believe the Jews owed their literary advance mainly to contact with the inquisitive and learned Babylonians, and their religious advance mainly to the sorrows of the Captivity and their contact with the pure faith of the primitive Persians.[57]Emmanuel Deutsch, whose premature death is still lamented by many as an irreparable loss. The passage will be found in his celebrated article onThe TalmudinThe Quarterlyof October 1867. "The Quest of the Chief Good" was published at the close of that year. And at this point in it, while Deutsch was still alive, but before I knew him personally, I gently complained of the loss he had unwittingly inflicted on me. I had for ten years been collecting the gnomic sayings of the Talmud from any quarter open to one to whom the Talmud itself was a sealed book, and had indeed printed some two score of them in theChristian Spectatorfor 1866. And here came one who "out of his profuse wealth carelessly flung down most ofmyspecial treasures." Only half-a-dozen of the sayings I had collected now had any stamp of novelty on them to the thousands who had revelled in the wit and learning of that famous article inThe Quarterly. And of these I ventured to call special attention to four which seemed to me of special value and beauty; viz., those on the four kinds of students, on new and old flasks, on not serving God for the sake of reward, and on doing God's will as if it were our will: they will all be found in this Section. But if I lost something, I also gained much by the appearance of that article, as those who read what follows will discover, although it only came into my hands as I was correcting the proofs of the final pages in my Book.[58]This partial anticipation of the Golden Rule will be found in the ConfucianAnalects, book xv., chap. xxiii. "Tsze-kung asked, saying, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?' The Master said, 'Is notreciprocitysuch a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.'" The same rule is given in another form in book v., chap. i of theAnalects. The other phrases put into the sage's mouth are quoted from Dr. Legge's translation of this work.[59]Maurice de Guérin in hisJournal.

[1]The Quest of the Chief Good.A Popular Commentary on the bookEcclesiastes, with a New Translation. By Samuel Cox. London: Arthur Miall.

[2]Rosenmüller, Ewald, Knobel, De Wette, Delitzsch, Ginsburg, with many other competent judges, are agreed on this point; and even those who in part differ from them differ only in assigning the Book to a date still farther removed from the time of Solomon. There are but few scholars who now contend for the Solomonic authorship, and hardly any of these are, I think, in the first rank.

[3]3: ThefourthcenturyB.C.is, I think, its most probable date. In his recent exposition of Ecclesiastes, the Dean of Wells attempts to bring the date down to aboutB.C.240. But his arguments are so curious and fanciful, and his conclusion is based so largely on conjecture, and on dubious similarities of phrase in the language of the Hebrew Preacher, and of some of the later philosophers of Greece, that I suspect very little weight will be attached to his gallant attempt to breathe new life into the moribund hypothesis of the ingenious Mr. Tyler. Delitzsch, for example, a high and recognized authority, declares that there is "not a trace of Greek influence" in this Scripture, though Dr. Plumptre finds so many. But though neither his hypothesis nor his confessedly conjectural biography of the unknown author carries the force of "sober criticism," there is much in his Commentary which will be found very helpful.

[4]Plumptre writes the word Koheleth, and Perowne Quoheleth. Which of the three initial letters should be used is of little consequence, and hence I retain the form in most common use.Ecclesiastesis simply its Greek equivalent.

[5]See the commentary on these verses for a fuller exposition of his real claims and position.

[6]Solomon could not have been more than sixty years of age when he died, yet it was not till he was "old" that his wives "turned away his heart from the Lord his God" (1 Kings xi. 4).

[7]"It may be regarded as beyond doubt that it was written under the Persian domination" (Delitzsch).

[8]The nearest analogy in English literature to this triumphant use of the proverb of which I can think is Pope's use of the couplet—in every way a much lesser feat, however; while its burlesque or caricature may be found in Tupper'sProverbial Philosophy.

[9]In the Book of Proverbs, for instance, he would find, in addition to the incomparable personification of Wisdom to which I have already referred, many examples of the proverb proper, many detached sayings whose underlying thought is illustrated by a stroke of imagination; such as that (chap. xxv. 11) in which the enhanced beauty of an appropriate word when spoken at the opportune moment is compared with the golden fruit of the orange when set in its frame of silver blooms (Expositions, vol. iv.). He would also find some of those small picturesque descriptions produced by an artistic sequence of proverbs—the same theme being sometimes worked over by different artists, in different ages, one and the same moral being enforced by wholly different designs; as, for instance, where Solomon (chap. vi. 6-11) enforces the duty of a forethoughtful industry by a picture of the ant and her prudent ways; while an unknown sage of a later date (chap. xxiv. 30-34) appends precisely the same moral, expressed in the same words, to his graphic picture of the Sluggard's garden (The Expositor,Second Series, vol. vi.). Moreover, if he turn to chapter xxx. he will see how this form of art, which once soared so high, was capable of sinking into a kind of puerile conundrum—with its three too wonderful things, and its four little things which yet are wise—while its moral tone remained pure and high. And, finally, in the exposition of the Epilogue to Ecclesiastes he will find how, after sinking so low, it rose once more, in the hands of the later rabbis, into many beautiful forms of fable, and exhortation, and parable.

[10]For this sketch I am largely indebted to Rawlinson'sFive Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, and his commentary onHerodotus.

[11]Instead ofNebuchadnezzarJeremiah and Ezekiel use the formNebuchadrezzar, which is nearer to the originalNabu-Kuduri-utzur,i.e."Nebo is the protector against misfortune."

[12]There is a curious allusion to these enamelled bricks, and the admiration the Jews conceived for them, in Ezekiel xxiii. 14-16.

[13]SeeHerodotus, book i., chap. 199;Strabo, xvi., p. 1058; and theBook of Baruch, vi. 43.

[14]Herodotus, ix. 62.

[15]Æschyl.,Pers., 94.

[16]"There is no nation which so readily adopts foreign customs as the Persians.... As soon as they hear of any luxury they instantly make it their own.... Each of them has several wives, and a still larger number of concubines."—(Herodotusbook i., chap. 135).

[17]Their common root is the SanscritKshatra, a king; in the Persepolitan inscriptions this word appears as Ksérshé, and from this both the HebrewAchashuerash(Ahasuerus) and the GreekXerxeswould easily be formed.

[18]"The political condition of the people which this Book presupposes is that in which they are placed under satraps" (Delitzsch).

[19]It would be possible to collect from the Psalms of this date materials for a description of the wrongs and miseries inflicted on the Jews, and of their keen sense of them, quite as graphic and intense as that of the Preacher. Here are a few phrases hastily culled from them. The oppressors of Israel are described as being "clothed with cruelty as with a garment," as "returning evil for good, and hatred for good-will.""Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth;Render to the proud their desert.They prate, they speak arrogantly;All the workers of iniquity boast themselves.They break in pieces Thy people, O Lord,And afflict Thine heritage.They slay the widow and the stranger,And murder the fatherless.And they say, The Lord shall not see,Neither shall the God of Jacob consider" (xciv.)."I am bowed down and brought very low;I go mourning all the day long:Truly I am nigh unto falling,And my heaviness is ever before me" (xxxviii.)."My days consume away like smoke,And my bones are burned up like as a firebrand;My heart is smitten down and withered like grass,So that I forget to eat my bread" (cii.)."I am helpless and poor,And my heart is wounded within me" (cix.).Most of the "imprecatory" Psalms belong to this period; and the terrible wrongs of the Captivity, though they may not justify, in large measure explain and excuse, that desire for vengeance which has given so much offence to some of our modern critics.

"Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth;Render to the proud their desert.They prate, they speak arrogantly;All the workers of iniquity boast themselves.They break in pieces Thy people, O Lord,And afflict Thine heritage.They slay the widow and the stranger,And murder the fatherless.And they say, The Lord shall not see,Neither shall the God of Jacob consider" (xciv.).

"I am bowed down and brought very low;I go mourning all the day long:Truly I am nigh unto falling,And my heaviness is ever before me" (xxxviii.).

"My days consume away like smoke,And my bones are burned up like as a firebrand;My heart is smitten down and withered like grass,So that I forget to eat my bread" (cii.).

"I am helpless and poor,And my heart is wounded within me" (cix.).

Most of the "imprecatory" Psalms belong to this period; and the terrible wrongs of the Captivity, though they may not justify, in large measure explain and excuse, that desire for vengeance which has given so much offence to some of our modern critics.

[20]Sonnets, LXVI.

[21]Haug'sEssays, pp. 162-3, quoted by Rawlinson.

[22]This helpful angel is by no means peculiar to the Persian faith. All the imaginative races of antiquity conceived of a being more divine than man, though originally not equal to the gods, who guided the departed soul on its lonely journey through the dark interspaces of death. Theut conducted the released spirit of the Egyptian to the judgment-seat. Hermes performed the same kind office for the Greeks, Mercury for the Romans. Yama was thenekropomposof the Hindus, and the Persians retained the legend. The Rig-Veda represents him as the first man who passed through death to immortality, and as therefore the best guide of other men. Nor is it doubted that the Persians derived their belief in a future life from the primitive Hindu creed. If their faith was, as I have said, a revolt from the degenerate forms of Hindu worship, it was also a return to its more ancient forms, as religious reformations are apt to be. The fathers of the Aryan stock had an unwavering assurance of a future life. In his Essay on theFuneral Rites of the Brahmans, Max Müller cites a sort of liturgy with which the ancient Hindu used to bid farewell to his deceased friend while the body lay on the funeral pyre, which is, surely, very noble and pathetic: "Depart thou, depart thou by the ancient paths, to the place whither our fathers have departed. Meet with the ancient ones (the Pitrs); meet with the Lord of Death; obtain thy desires in heaven. Throw off thine imperfections; go to thy home. Become united with a body; clothe thyself in a shining form. Go ye; depart ye; hasten ye from hence" (Rig-Veda x. 14).To which, as choral responses, might be added, "Let him depart to those for whom flow the rivers of nectar. Let him depart to those who through meditation have obtained the victory, who by fixing their thoughts on the unseen have gone to heaven.... Let him depart to the mighty in battle, to the heroes who have laid down their lives for others, to those who have bestowed their goods on the poor" (Rig-Veda x. 154).As the body was consumed on the pyre the friends of the dead chanted a hymn in which, after having bidden his body return to the various elements from which it sprang, they prayed, "As for his unborn part, do Thou, Lord (Agni), quicken it with Thy heat; let Thy flame and Thy brightness kindle it: convey it to the world of the righteous."It was from this pure and lofty source that the Persians drew their faith in the better life to be.Max Müller also quotes as the prayer of a dying Hindu woman, "Place me, O Pure One, in that everlasting and unchanging world where light and glory are found. Make me immortal in the world in which joys, delights, and happiness abide, where the desires are obtained" (Atharda Veda xii. 3, 17).Cremation itself bore witness to the Hindu faith in immortality, since they held that "the fire which set free the spiritual element from the superincumbent clay, completed the third or heavenly birth," the second birth having been achieved when men set themselves to a faithful discharge of their religious duties.

To which, as choral responses, might be added, "Let him depart to those for whom flow the rivers of nectar. Let him depart to those who through meditation have obtained the victory, who by fixing their thoughts on the unseen have gone to heaven.... Let him depart to the mighty in battle, to the heroes who have laid down their lives for others, to those who have bestowed their goods on the poor" (Rig-Veda x. 154).

As the body was consumed on the pyre the friends of the dead chanted a hymn in which, after having bidden his body return to the various elements from which it sprang, they prayed, "As for his unborn part, do Thou, Lord (Agni), quicken it with Thy heat; let Thy flame and Thy brightness kindle it: convey it to the world of the righteous."

It was from this pure and lofty source that the Persians drew their faith in the better life to be.

Max Müller also quotes as the prayer of a dying Hindu woman, "Place me, O Pure One, in that everlasting and unchanging world where light and glory are found. Make me immortal in the world in which joys, delights, and happiness abide, where the desires are obtained" (Atharda Veda xii. 3, 17).

Cremation itself bore witness to the Hindu faith in immortality, since they held that "the fire which set free the spiritual element from the superincumbent clay, completed the third or heavenly birth," the second birth having been achieved when men set themselves to a faithful discharge of their religious duties.

[23]Just as we speak of this "sublunary world," so "under the sun" is the characteristic designation of the earth throughout this Book.

[24]Dean Perowne, inThe Expositor, First Series, vol. ix.

[25]Compare Horace (Od. iv. 7, 9):Pulvis et umbra sumus.

[26]So Marcus Aurelius (Meditt., xi. 1): "They that come after us will see nothing new; and they who went before saw nothing more than we have seen."

[27]Père Lacordaire has a fine passage on this theme. "Weak and little minds find here below a nourishment which suffices for their intellect and satisfies their love. They do not discover the emptiness of visible things because they are incapable of sounding them to the bottom. But a soul which God has drawn nearer to the Infinite very soon feels the narrow limits within which it is pent; it experiences moments of inexpressible sadness, the cause of which for a long time remains a mystery; it even seems as though some strange concurrence of events must have chanced in order thus to disturb its life; and all the while the trouble comes from a higher source. In reading the lives of the Saints, we find that nearly all of them have felt that sweet melancholy of which the ancients saidthat there was no genius without it. In fact, melancholy is inseparable from every mind that looks below the surface and every heart that feels profoundly. Not that we should take complacency in it, for it is a malady that enervates when we do not shake it off; and it has but two remedies—Death or God." Elsewhere, still quite in the spirit of the Preacher, he says: "Every day I feel more and more that all is vanity.I cannot leave my heart in this heap of mud."

[28]So Goethe'sFaust, after having failed to solve the insoluble problems of life by study and research, "plunges deep in pleasure," that he "may thus still the burning thirst of passionate desire."

[29]"One such pleasaunce as this there was at Etam, Solomon's Belvedere, as Josephus informs us (Antiq., VIII. 7, 3). Thither it was the custom of the king, he says, to resort when he made his morning excursions from the city, clad in a white garment, and driving his chariot, surrounded by his body-guard of young men in the flower of their age, clad in Tyrian purple, and with gold dust strewed upon their hair, so that their whole head sparkled when the sun shone upon it, and mounted upon horses from the royal stables, famed for their beauty and fleetness."—Dr. Perowne,The Expositor, First Series, vol. x.

[30]In speaking of the Persian revenue, Rawlinson says that besides a definite money payment, "a payment, the nature and amount of which were also fixed, had to be made in kind, each province being required to furnish that commodity, or those commodities, for which it was most celebrated,"—as, for example, grain, sheep, cattle, mules, fine breeds of horses, beautiful slaves.The Five Great Monarchies, vol. iv., chap. vii., p. 421.

[31]Cicero,De Fin., Lib. II., Cap. 20.

[32]This affirmation, so surprising at first sight, is also made by Job (chap. xxvii., vv. 15, 16), "This is the doom of the wicked man from God.... Though he heap up silver like dust, and gather robes as mire, that which he hath gathered shall the righteous wear, and the innocent shall divide his silver."

[33]Xerxes, in his invasion of Greece, conceived the wish "to look upon all his host." A throne was erected for him on a hill near Abydos, sitting on which he looked down and saw the Hellespont covered with his ships, and the vast plain swarming with his troops. As he looked, he wept; and when his uncle Artabanus asked him the cause of his tears, he replied: "There came upon me a sudden pity when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by." This is one of the most striking and best known incidents in the life of the Persian despot; but the rejoinder of Artabanus, though in a far higher strain, is less generally known. I quote it here as an illustration of the Preacher's mood. Said Artabanus: "And yet there are sadder things in life than that. Short as our time is, there is no man, whether it be here among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy as not to have felt the wish—I will not say once, but full many a time—that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall on us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long.So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race."—Herodotus, Book VII., c. 46.

[34]So in Sophocles (Oed. Col., 1225) we read—I quote from Dean Plumptre's translation:"Never to be at allExcels all fame;Quickly, next best, to passFrom whence we came."

[34]So in Sophocles (Oed. Col., 1225) we read—I quote from Dean Plumptre's translation:

"Never to be at allExcels all fame;Quickly, next best, to passFrom whence we came."

[35]Ginsburg quotes a capital illustration of this verse from the dialogue of Pheraulas and Sacian (Xenophon,Cyrop., viii. 3); "Do you think, Sacian, that I live with more pleasure the more I possess?... By having this abundance I gain merely this, that I have to guard more, to distribute to others, and have the trouble of taking care of more; for a great many attendants now demand of me their food, their drink, and their clothes. Whosoever, therefore, is greatly pleased with the possession of riches will, be assured, feel much annoyed at the expenditure of them."

[36]Compare Psalm xlix., vv. 16, 17:Be not afraid though one be made rich,Or if the glory of his house be increased;For he shall carry away nothing with him when he diethNeither shall his pomp follow him.

[36]Compare Psalm xlix., vv. 16, 17:

Be not afraid though one be made rich,Or if the glory of his house be increased;For he shall carry away nothing with him when he diethNeither shall his pomp follow him.

[37]In commenting on Sections II. and III. of this Book I found that both the exposition of the sacred text and the application of its lessons to the details of modern life would gain in force by being handled separately. The second part of each of these chapters consists mainly, therefore, of an exhortation based on the previous exposition, the marginal notes indicating the passages of Holy Writ on which these exhortations are based.

[38]Coheleth's description is so true and pertinent, it hits so many of our modern faults and sins, that I am obliged to cite my authority for every paragraph lest I should be suspected of putting a private and personal interpretation on these ancient words.

[39]M. de Lamennais—the founder of the most religious school of thinkers in modern France, from whom such men as Count Montalembert, Père Lacordaire, and Maurice Guérin, drew their earliest inspiration—asks, "Do you know what it is that makes man the most suffering of all creatures?" and replies, "It is thathe has one foot in the finite and the other in the infinite, and that he is torn asunder, not by four horses, as in the horrible old times, butbetween two worlds."

[40]Horace,Ep.6, Lib. I:"Virtutem verba putant, utLucum ligna."

[40]Horace,Ep.6, Lib. I:

"Virtutem verba putant, utLucum ligna."

[41]"There are three crowns; of the law, the priesthood, and the kingship: but the crown of a good name is greater than them all."—Talmud.

[42]So in the hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus, as rendered by the Dean of Wells:"Thou alone knowest how to change the oddTo even, and to make the crooked straight;And things discordant find accord in Thee.Thus in one whole Thou blendest ill with good,So that one law works on for evermore."

[42]So in the hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus, as rendered by the Dean of Wells:

"Thou alone knowest how to change the oddTo even, and to make the crooked straight;And things discordant find accord in Thee.Thus in one whole Thou blendest ill with good,So that one law works on for evermore."

[43]Not, however, that the sentiment was confined to the East. The Greek poets have many such sayings as, "A woman is a burden full of ills;" and, "Where women are, all evils there are found."

[44]To cite only one instance out of many—other instances may be found in the Introduction—let the reader recall the Emperor Caligula, and refer, for example, to his reception of the Alexandrian Jews, as recorded by Philo,Legat ad Caium, cc. 44, 45; or by Merivale, in hisHistory of the Romans, chap. xlvii., pp. 47-50; or by Milman, in hisHistory of the Jews, Book xii., pp. 141-45. He will then know, to quote the phrase of Apollonius of Tyana, what "the kind of beast called a tyrant" is or may be.

[45]What Coheleth means by the king being "a child" is best explained by Isa. iii. 12: "As for my people, their ruler is a wilful child, and women rule over him."

[46]One of the most elaborate proverbs in the Talmud is on Charity:—"Iron breaks the stone, fire melts iron, water extinguishes fire, the clouds drink up the water, a storm drives away the clouds, man withstands the storm, fear unmans man, wine dispels fear, sleep drives away wine, and death sweeps all away—even sleep. But Solomon the Wise says, Charity saves from death." And there is hardly a finer passage in Shakespeare's Sonnets than that (CXVI.) in which he sings the disinterestedness of Love, and its superiority to all change:"Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.* * * * * *Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom."

"Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.* * * * * *

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom."

[47]Cicero,Tusc., lib. II., cap. 22.

[48]Dum vivimus vivamus.—Doddridge.

[49]It may be worth while to specify some of the gross and absurd conjectures, some also of the strange differences, into which what may be called themedicalreading of this passage has betrayed its advocates. Ginsburg has a marvellous collection of them in his "notes" to these verses. I select and combine only a few of them. The darkening of the light, the sun, the moon, and the stars (ver. 2) is taken by one great authority (the Talmud) to mean the darkeningof the forehead,the nose,the soul,and the teeth; by another (the Chaldee Paraphrast), the obscuring ofthe face,the eyes,the cheeks,and the apples of the eyes; by a third (Dr. Smith, in his "Portraiture of Old Age"),for the decay of all the mental faculties. That "the clouds return after the rain" signifies, according to Ibn Ezra,the constant dimness of the eyes; according to Le Clerc,a bad influenza, accompanied with unceasing snuffling. "The keepers of the house" (ver. 3) arethe ribs and the loins(Talmud),the knees(Chaldee), andthe hands and arms(Ibn Ezra). "The men of power" arethe thighs(Talmud) andthe arms(Chaldee). "The grinding maids" arethe teeth, and "the ladies who look out of the lattices" arethe eyes, by general consent. "The door closed on the street" isthe pores of the skin(Dr. Smith),the lips(Ibn Ezra), andthe eyes(Henstenberg). That "the noise of the mills ceases" or "grows faint" (ver. 4) means thatthe mastication of foodbecomes imperfect (Dr. Smith), thatthe appetitefails (Chaldee), thatthe voicegrows feeble (Grotius). That "the songbirds descend to their nests" signifies thatmusic and songs are a boreto the aged man (Talmud), that he isno longer able to sing(Chaldee), thathis ears are heavy(Grotius). The allusion to "the almond" (ver. 5) denotes thatthe haunch-bone shall come out from leanness(Talmud), or (Reynolds) it denotesthe hoary hair which comes quickly on a manjust as the almond-tree thrusts out her blossoms before any other tree; while at least half-a-dozen scholars and physicians take it as pointing tomembrum genitaleorglans virilis. That "the locust becomes a burden" means thatthe ankles swell(Chaldee),gout in the feet(Jerome),a projecting stomach(Le Clerc),the dry shrivelled frame of an old man(Dr. Smith). Almost all modern commentators take the reference to "the caper-berry" as marking the fact that condiments lose their power to provoke appetite with the aged, while many of the ancients took it as marking the failure of sexual desire. The "silver cord" and "golden bowl" of ver. 6 arethe tongue and the skull(Chaldee),backbone and brain(Dr. Smith),urine and bladder(Gasper Sanctius); while the "bucket" is eitherthe gallorthe right ventricle of the heart, and "the wheel" that draws the water stands forthe air-inspiring lungs.Now of course it would not be just to condemn any interpretation simply because it is weighted with absurdities and contradictions such as these, though it surely requires a very strong reading to carry them. But when an interpretation is so obviously forced and fanciful, when it is so remarkably ingenious and leaves to ingenuity so wide and lawless a scope, we shall do well to hesitate before accepting it. And if another interpretation be offered us, as in the text, which gives a literal rendering to every phrase instead of a figurative one, which bases itself on the common household facts of Eastern experience instead of on the technicalities of Western science, which instead of being so indeterminate and fanciful as at times to be self-contradictory and grotesque, is coherent and impressive, we really have no alternative before us. We cannot but choose the one and reject the other.

Now of course it would not be just to condemn any interpretation simply because it is weighted with absurdities and contradictions such as these, though it surely requires a very strong reading to carry them. But when an interpretation is so obviously forced and fanciful, when it is so remarkably ingenious and leaves to ingenuity so wide and lawless a scope, we shall do well to hesitate before accepting it. And if another interpretation be offered us, as in the text, which gives a literal rendering to every phrase instead of a figurative one, which bases itself on the common household facts of Eastern experience instead of on the technicalities of Western science, which instead of being so indeterminate and fanciful as at times to be self-contradictory and grotesque, is coherent and impressive, we really have no alternative before us. We cannot but choose the one and reject the other.

[50]This locust (châgâb) is one of the four kinds which the Law of Moses marked out as fit for human food. To this day several kinds of locust are held to be an agreeable and nutritious diet. There are many ways of preparing them for the table. They may be pounded with flour and water, and made into cakes. They may be smoked, boiled, roasted, stewed, and fried in butter. They may be salted with salt; and thus treated are eaten by the Arabs as a great delicacy. Or they may be dried in the sun, and then steeped in wine: baskets of them, prepared in this way, are to be commonly seen in Eastern markets. Dr. Kitto, who often ate them, says that they taste like shrimps; Dr. Shaw says that they are quite as good as our freshwater crayfish.

[51]The caper-plant grows abundantly in Asia, as it does also in Africa and Southern Europe. It commonly springs in the crevices of walls, on heaps of ruins, or on barren wastes, and forms a diffuse many-branched shrub. Its flowers are large and showy: the four petals are white, but the long numerous stamens have their filaments tinged with purple, and terminate in yellow anthers. As the ovary ripens it droops and forms a pear-shaped berry, which holds in its pulp many small seeds. Almost every part of the shrub has been used as a condiment by the ancients. The stalk and seed were salted, or preserved in vinegar or wine. Its buds are still held to be an agreeable sauce—we eat them with boiled mutton. And the berries possess irritant properties which win them high esteem among the Orientals as a provocative to appetite.

[52]The fruit of the almond-tree is still reckoned one of the most delicate and delicious fruits in the East. We may fancy that we are acquainted with it, that we know "almonds" at least as well as we know "raisins." But, I believe, that the almond we eat is only the kernel of the stone in the true almond; the fruit itself is of the same order with apricots, peaches, plums.

[53]Sir Henry Rawlinson says: "At the present day, among thebons vivantsof Persia, it is usual to sit down for hours before dinner, drinking wine, and eating dried fruits, such as filberts, almonds, pistachio-nuts, melon-seeds, etc. A party, indeed, often sits down at seven o'clock, and the dinner is not brought in till eleven. The dessert dishes, intermingled as they are with highly seasoned delicacies, are supposed to have the effect of stimulating the appetite."—Notes to Rawlinson'sHerodotus, vol. i., p. 274.

[54]It should be borne in mind that the comparative rarity of thunderstorms in Syria and the adjacent lands makes them much more dreadful to the inhabitants of those countries. Throughout the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms, we find many traces of the dread which such storms inspired—a dread almost unaccountable to our accustomed nerves.

[55]As the main ethical, literary, and historical interest of the whole Book is gathered up into this brief Epilogue, I offer no apology for the comparative length of my treatment of it.

[56]In the Introduction, however, I have tried to give whatisknown of the history of this period. Roughly speaking, I believe the Jews owed their literary advance mainly to contact with the inquisitive and learned Babylonians, and their religious advance mainly to the sorrows of the Captivity and their contact with the pure faith of the primitive Persians.

[57]Emmanuel Deutsch, whose premature death is still lamented by many as an irreparable loss. The passage will be found in his celebrated article onThe TalmudinThe Quarterlyof October 1867. "The Quest of the Chief Good" was published at the close of that year. And at this point in it, while Deutsch was still alive, but before I knew him personally, I gently complained of the loss he had unwittingly inflicted on me. I had for ten years been collecting the gnomic sayings of the Talmud from any quarter open to one to whom the Talmud itself was a sealed book, and had indeed printed some two score of them in theChristian Spectatorfor 1866. And here came one who "out of his profuse wealth carelessly flung down most ofmyspecial treasures." Only half-a-dozen of the sayings I had collected now had any stamp of novelty on them to the thousands who had revelled in the wit and learning of that famous article inThe Quarterly. And of these I ventured to call special attention to four which seemed to me of special value and beauty; viz., those on the four kinds of students, on new and old flasks, on not serving God for the sake of reward, and on doing God's will as if it were our will: they will all be found in this Section. But if I lost something, I also gained much by the appearance of that article, as those who read what follows will discover, although it only came into my hands as I was correcting the proofs of the final pages in my Book.

[58]This partial anticipation of the Golden Rule will be found in the ConfucianAnalects, book xv., chap. xxiii. "Tsze-kung asked, saying, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?' The Master said, 'Is notreciprocitysuch a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.'" The same rule is given in another form in book v., chap. i of theAnalects. The other phrases put into the sage's mouth are quoted from Dr. Legge's translation of this work.

[59]Maurice de Guérin in hisJournal.

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