Chapter 27

The whole world was made, and existeth, by His will.

A stronger assertion of the divine governance of the world is added to xviii. 2:

Who guideth the world in the hollow of His hand,And all things are obedient unto His will;For He is the King of all kings, and they are in His power;He separateth among them the holy things from the common.

Who guideth the world in the hollow of His hand,

And all things are obedient unto His will;

For He is the King of all kings, and they are in His power;

He separateth among them the holy things from the common.

An example of the intimate relationship existing between God and men is the addition to xxiii. 27:

To follow after God is great glory,And length of days it is for thee to be accepted of Him.

To follow after God is great glory,

And length of days it is for thee to be accepted of Him.

And again in the addition to xxiv. 23:

Faint not, but be strong in the Lord,And cleave unto Him that He may strengthen you.Cleave unto Him, the Lord, the Almighty;He is the one and only God, and beside Him there is no Saviour.

Faint not, but be strong in the Lord,

And cleave unto Him that He may strengthen you.

Cleave unto Him, the Lord, the Almighty;

He is the one and only God, and beside Him there is no Saviour.

Although not explicitly stated it is men of Israel who aremeant in these quotations, but sometimes Israel is specially mentioned; so, for example, in the addition to xvii. 17:

Whom [i.e. Israel] He brought up as His first-bornWith severity, yet loving them,Imparting to them the light of love;And He forsook them not.

Whom [i.e. Israel] He brought up as His first-born

With severity, yet loving them,

Imparting to them the light of love;

And He forsook them not.

This teaching of the Divine governance of the world, involving as it does man’s dependence upon God, is balanced by the doctrine of human free-will; an example of this may be seen in the addition to xx. 31:

Better is persistent endurance (lit.patience) in seeking the Lord,Than a driver (lit.charioteer) of his own life without a master.

Better is persistent endurance (lit.patience) in seeking the Lord,

Than a driver (lit.charioteer) of his own life without a master.

In this couplet the Pharisaic doctrine of man’s free-will is maintained, while the Sadducæan denial of providence is combated.

Turning now to the teaching of the Pharisees concerning the future life, the following addition is found after xix. 17:

... The knowledge of the commandments of the Lord is life-giving instruction,And they who do the things that are pleasing unto Him shall pluck the fruit of the tree of immortality.

... The knowledge of the commandments of the Lord is life-giving instruction,

And they who do the things that are pleasing unto Him shall pluck the fruit of the tree of immortality.

The teaching of reward hereafter for the righteous may be instanced from xviii. 22 and the addition to this verse. The original text runs:

Delay not to pay thy vow in due time,And wait not till death to be justified.

Delay not to pay thy vow in due time,

And wait not till death to be justified.

Death is here regarded as a means of atonement, as in the later Rabbinical literature; but from the Pharisaic point of view these words seemed inadequate, so the following words were added:

For the reward of God abideth to eternity.

It has been stated above thatrepentancewas one of the watchwords of the Pharisees; for the Sadducees, with their cold doctrine of God, repentance could have had but littlemeaning; not that Ben-Sira did not teach the need of repentance (see xviii. 21; but in xliv. 16 the Greek text is corrupt), but it occupies an extremely modest place in his book, and therefore we shall not be surprised to find that it is insisted upon several times in the additions; thus after the words of the text of xvii. 22:

The righteousness of men is to Him as a signet,And the mercy of man He preserveth as the apple of an eye,

The righteousness of men is to Him as a signet,

And the mercy of man He preserveth as the apple of an eye,

the following addition is made:

Granting repentance to his sons and daughters.

Again, after xx. 2 this addition occurs:

How good it is when he who is reproved manifesteth repentance,For thus wilt thou escape wilful sin.

How good it is when he who is reproved manifesteth repentance,

For thus wilt thou escape wilful sin.

As regards the Pharisaic teaching concerning the Law much stress cannot be laid on the few examples of its mention in the additions, for at the time when these were made[369]it is improbable that the antagonism between Pharisees and Sadducees on this point had fully developed; if it had, we should rightly expect to find it more strongly reflected in the additions; whereas, as a matter of fact, quite a few examples of the mention of the Law (or the commandments) occur in the additions; nevertheless, since the Law played such a very important part in Pharisaic teaching, its mention in the additions would naturally point to the hand of a Pharisee. In the addition which has been put in after xi. 14, the Law is referred to as a divine gift, and therefore (so it is implied) he who observes it by walking uprightly is making use of a Divine gift; on the other hand, to live without the Law is folly and darkness which is characteristic of sinners:

Wisdom and insight and discernment of the LawCome from the Lord;Love and upright waysCome from the Lord;Folly and darkness have been formed for sinners,And as for evil-doers, evil abideth with them.[370]

Wisdom and insight and discernment of the Law

Come from the Lord;

Love and upright ways

Come from the Lord;

Folly and darkness have been formed for sinners,

And as for evil-doers, evil abideth with them.[370]

Again, in xxix. 19, after the first clause:

The sinner falleth in his suretyship,

occurs the addition: “Transgressing the commandments of the Lord.”[371]

The reference is to evil men who, as the second line of the verse shows, are ruined because they become surety for evil purposes, i.e. for the sake of usurious practices; the addition was, therefore, made in order to emphasize the fact that this was a transgression of the Law.

Finally, what Josephus says about the asceticism of the Pharisees is illustrated by the addition to xix. 5. The original text here runs:

He that hath pleasure in wickedness shall be brought to destruction;

an ascetic tendency is clearly discernible in the Pharisaic addition which says:

And he that averteth his eye from pleasures crowneth his life.

These examples will suffice, it may be hoped, to substantiate the contention that the numerous later additions which have for the most part been preserved in the cursive manuscripts mentioned above are the work of a Pharisee, or Pharisees.

That these additions are post-Maccabæan goes without saying; but closer indications of date are not forthcoming, so that we cannot do more than say that they belong in all probability to the last centuryB.C.

The main value of the books of the Apocrypha for the study of the New Testament—it may be said here once for all—lies in their doctrinal teaching. This we have already dealt with in the last chapter of Part I. But there are some other ways, also useful, though of less importance, whereby these books can be utilized for New Testament study. Some of them, and above all Ecclesiasticus, throw much light on the customs and manner of life of the Jews which helps us in a number of particulars to understand the Gospels better; others, such as Judith, illustrate the intensely national feeling of the Jews which helps to explain much that we read in the Acts, especially St. Paul’s treatment by the Jews; or, again, the early part of Baruch gives us some insight into the long prayers which were in vogue among the Jews; Wisdom shows us, among other things, the Hellenistic spirit whereby not a few Jews, especially those of the Dispersion, were animated; this is important for the understanding of much that we read in the Pauline epistles. Other points will suggest themselves to thoughtful readers of these books. It is not, however, with matters of this kind that we can deal here, for space would not permit of it. What we intend to touch upon briefly in the final section of each of these introductions to the Apocryphal books, when called for, is chiefly (though not exclusively) their use for the study of the New Testament from a literary point of view, the main purpose being to try and show that the writers of the New Testament books had read and studied those of the Apocrypha; not, of course, that these writers were as familiar with them as with the canonical books of the Old Testament, but that they valued them and utilized them, some more than others. This is to be expected from the outset, both because theOld Testament they used contained these books as integral parts of the “Scriptures,” and because the early Church Fathers held them in high estimation; this latter is not likely to have been the case unless that attitude towards these books had been handed down.

There are, firstly, a few examples, among many, of parallel thoughts between Ecclesiasticus and the Gospels which may be pointed out:

The verbal identity between the two passages here suggests either direct influence, or else that a current saying (from Mal. iv. 6) has been adopted in each.

Cp. also Ecclesiasticus xxxi. 3 with the Lucan passage last quoted.

Examples of other small details illustrative of the usefulness of Ecclesiasticus for this purpose are i. 1-20, which offers an interesting commentary on Matthew xi. 19: “Wisdomis justified by her works” (cp. the various reading in Luke vii. 35). The visitation of the sick referred to in Matthew xxv. 39 is illustrated by Ecclesiasticus vii. 35:

Forget not to visit the sick,For thou wilt be loved for that.

Forget not to visit the sick,

For thou wilt be loved for that.

Evidently this was a duty laid upon all good Jews. And, once more, the custom of wagging the head in sign of mockery mentioned in Matthew xxvii. 39 is also referred to in Ecclesiasticus xii. 18. Numbers of similar, small but interesting, points offer themselves to students of the book.

But the most striking fact in this connection is that of the many parallel thoughts and passages between Ecclesiasticus and the Epistle of St. James; these are of such a nature as to justify belief in the direct influence of the former on the latter. A few examples are appended[372]:

A large number of other examples could be given; among them the following will be found instructive:

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