no

There is no cynicism in the Hebrew proverbs. The Hebrew satirizes the unfaithful friend, but his experience of a friend's unfaithfulness does not make him skeptical concerning friendship. Contrast with the cynical proverb of the French: "God save me from the friends I trust in," or of the Spanish, "A reconciled friend is a double enemy," with the carefully defined comparison of an unfaithful friend to a broken tooth. The Hebrew satirizes the contentious woman, but nowhere does he treat woman with the cynical contempt of Pope: "Every woman is at heart a rake; where do we find in this collection of Hebrew proverbs the contempt for woman's intelligence expressed in the old English proverb "When an ass climbs a ladder one may find wisdom in women." On the contrary, it would be difficult to find in literature a more appreciative portraiture of the faithful housewife than in the last chapter of Proverbs; I say housewife, for the portrait is not, and does not profess to be, an ideal; there are no ideals in the Book of Proverbs; it is a realistic picture of an industrious woman at her housewifely work for her husband and her children; not a "Dream of Fair Women," not a Raphael's Madonna, but a Dutch artist's photographic reproduction from daily life, a Mrs. Primrose in the "Vicar of Wakefield"; common, prosaic, realistic, but not cynical. Nowhere in the Book of Proverbs do we find aphorisms analogous to these taken, almost at random, from modern collections: :

"We all have strength enough to bear other people's troubles."

"The poorhouses are filled with the honestest people."

"The worst pig gets the best acorn."

"No camel ever sees his own hump."

"Gratitude is a lively sense of favors to come."

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Repentance is fear of ill yet to come upon us." "Love of justice is the fear of suffering injustice." "The public! How many fools does it take to make the public?"

"Celebrity is the advantage of being known to people who do not know you."

Cynicism involves contempt for man and generally contempt for the common virtues, and neither contempt for man nor contempt for the common virtues is to be found in the Book of Proverbs. Even the satire of the Hebrew Proverbs is a kindly satire; they are pervaded by a spirit of cheerfulness and good-fellowship; they are keyed to a high standard of ethics; among them are maxims which in their spirit suggest, though they do not equal, those of the New Testament. Compare, for example, these counsels of the Hebrew wise men with the later counsel of Christ. They are almost identical, not only in the advice given, but in the prudential foundation on which the advice is based.

THE HEBREW WISE MAN.

"Put not thyself forward in the presence of the king

And stand not in the place of great men :

For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither;

Than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the

prince,

Whom thine eyes have seen." 1

CHRIST.

"When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him. And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher; then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee."

"2

Or again compare the ethical instruction of Paul with that of the Book of Proverbs from which he quotes it:

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PROVERBS.

"If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat;
And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink :
For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head,
And the LORD shall reward thee." 3

PAUL.

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." 994

1 Prov. xxv. 6, 7.

8 Prov. xxv. 21, 22.

2 Luke xiv. 8-10.

4 Rom. xii. 20.

The counsel is the same; but the Wise Man in the Proverbs promises a reward to those who follow it; Paul promises nothing; and Christ who calls to his followers to give a like treatment to their enemies, summons to love as well as to service, and for motive appeals to the highest aspiration of the soul: "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." 1

God speaks to us with many voices. To men whose conscience is alert he speaks through law, saying: "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me ; to the men whose imagination is receptive he speaks through poetry, declaring that in his temple everything saith "Glory;" to the man of broad observation he speaks in history, showing in the course of Israel's history how Jehovah is revealed in his dealing with the sons of men; to the man who is a ceremonialist he speaks through the Levitical code, pointing out justice on the one hand and mercy on the other; and to the man whose horizon is limited by this world, who has no clear hope beyond the grave and no clear vision of the Eternal Father, he speaks through the Book of Proverbs, saying in effect: If there were no God, and if there were no life to come, still sin would be folly and virtue would be wisdom.

1 Matt. v. 43-48.

CHAPTER XII

A SCHOOL OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY

II

THE Book of Ecclesiastes is like the Book of Proverbs in that it is an interpretation of life from the point of view of experience; 1 it differs from

1 The difficulties which attend the interpretation of the Book of Ecclesiastes are illustrated by the following summary of opinions which have been expressed respecting it by different scholars : "We are positively assured that the book contains the holy lamentations of Solomon, together with a prophetic vision of the splitting up of the royal house of David, the destruction of the temple, and the captivity; and we are equally assured that it is a discussion between a refined sensualist and a sober sage. Solomon publishes it in his repentance, to glorify God and to strengthen his brethren; he wrote it when he was irreligious and skeptical during his amours and idolatry. The Messiah, the true Solomon, who was known by the title of son of David, addresses this book to the saints; a profligate who wanted to disseminate his infamous sentiments palmed it upon Solomon. It teaches us to despise the world with all its pleasures and flee to monasteries; it shows that sensual gratifications are men's greatest blessing upon earth. It is a philosophic lecture delivered to a literary society upon topics of the greatest moment; it is a medley of heterogeneous fragments belonging to various authors and different ages. It describes the beautiful order of God's moral government, showing that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord; it proves that all is disorder and confusion and that the world is the sport of chance. It is a treatise on the summum bonum; it is a chronicle of the lives of the kings of the house of David from Solomon down to Zedekiah. Its object is to prove the immortality of the soul; its design is to deny a future exist