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The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job Koheleth Agur

E >> Emile Joseph Dillon >> The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job Koheleth Agur





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?

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