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81 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Eoohellends, Abraham Eoolesisstes Wisdom literature, cosmopolitan rather than na tional. The limits of data °^e 430-200 B.c. The age of Nehemiah exhibits many characteristics which fit the -datoric situation presented by $o heleth. On tile other hand the philosophy of the book shows Greek influence in its terminology and its agreement with Stoic and Epicurean thought. In iii. 11, v.18 the word yaphe occurs in the exact sense of the philosophic kalon; in iii. 12 "to do good " has the meaning of the Greek eu Prattein ; and these data involve a time when the Greek fer ment had had time to work. On the other hand, the niceties and fine distinctions of the two schools of thought find no echo, only the commonplaces and superficialities of the Greek are reproduced. Not even the allegory in chap. xii. makes against this conclusion, since the thought is clearly con veyed in an Egyptian piece of poetry found in the tomb of Neferhotep (Records of the Past, vi. 129, cf. the " Festal Dirge," idem, iv. 117-118). This, as well as many other items, speaks for the writing of the book in Egypt. For its compo sition in Jerusalem only one passage speaks (v. 1). The frequent mention (v. 8, viii. 2-5, x. 4-7, ll3 20) of the nearness of the king's house suite Egypt, since in the times in which the book falls no king resided in Jerusalem. Residence near the sea is implied in xi. 1, reminding one of 4. Egypt Alexandria, at the time the royal city, the Place and the seat of a great Jewish settle of Com- went. The expression " king in Je poaition. rusalem " is peculiar to this book in the Old Testament; thoroughly Egyptian is the designation of the grave as the " everlasting house " (xii. 5 " long home "). The time and the place are indicated as that of the Ptolemies and their court, and before the oppres sion of the Jews under Ptolemy IV. Philopator; or between 320 and 217 B.c., and at Alexandria (cf. viii. 2, 8, with Josephua, Ant., XII. i. 1). The coldness with which the author seta forth the worthlessness of wealth as an end for which to strive, the persistence with which he endures a mode of life which he would not choose and wishes to forget, the intensity with which he seta forth the humiliation to man from his zeal for knowl edge in the face of the ordering and ]imitations of fate, all speak for such a setting. It is entirely comprehensible from these expres sions how the newer exegesis comes to call the book " Skepticism's Song of Songs." But such a conception is a mistaken one. Beneath the ques tioning of the book .lie strong religious convictions, the assurance that God Almighty 5. The rules the world. He is the creator Author's (vii. 29, xii. 1), he is lord of life and Viewpoint. the beatower of life on man (viii. 8, 15), he has allotted to man the quest and its toil (i. 13, iii. 10, 18, viii. 17), so that entire existence, vanity as it is, must be accepted as of God's ordering (ii. 26), though in the labor and the quest of life he grants joy to man (ii. 24, v. 18, vii. 18). How tragic it is that though the con ception of eternity is in man's heart (iii. 11), yet its depths he can not fathom (vii. 23-24, viii. 17 ix. 1)1 The purpose of God was to plant in the

heart of man the fear of God (iii. 14, vii. 18), for God is the judge of compliance with the laws he has established (iii. 17, viii. 8,8). Things ethically good in the world are life (ix. 4-5), wisdom, companionship (iv. 7-12), success, and enjoyment of labor and its results (ii. 24, iii. 1-2, 22, ix. 7-8). Since issues are uncertain, the more urgent is the duty of constant striving (ix. 10, xi. 1-6). So that the sum to which a fading Judaism reduced the wealth of the prophetical faith is the certainty of one eternal God, creator and ruler of the world, and the certainty of his judgment. The method of reaching this conclusion is to put thesis and antithesis together so that the mean stands out from the very juxtaposition (iv. ", v. 7-S, vii. 16-18). Yet this method of composition gave rise to the earlier suppositions that this juxtaposition of contradictory theses pointed to a discussion between two persons, or to an anthology, or to a mistake of the binder (or copyist). Similarly, the moat opposite views of the teaching of the book have been held-that it involves the consequences of a sheer yet somewhat spiritual skepticism, and that it is a book of consolation.

It is not surprising therefore that its position in the canon should have been questioned, for ex ample, in the debate in the first century between the schools of Hillel and Gamalie]. The integrity of the book is rightly questioned so far as the epilogue is concerned. But the remark of Graetz that xii. 11 aqq. refer not to this book but to the entire third division of the canon, and its corollary, that Ecclesiastes stood at the end of the Old Tes tament, are both in error. Indeed Graetz thinks that the entire epilogue was affixed by the Synod at Jabneh, c. 90 A.D., a conclusion demonstrably wrong. The book was read by the Jews at the Feast of Booths. (P. I;LE1N)SRT.)

BrnLraa$wpa.r: For literature on Ecclesiastes consult: A. Palm, Die Qohekhlrakratur, Mannheim, 1888, and the work of C. H. H. Wright, below. On the text, $. Euringer, Der Maaeorahtext lea Kohekth, Leipai0. 1890. -English translations are found in moat of the commentaries; special and noteworthy are those by [N. Higgins], London, 1778, and P. Haupt, ib. 1905, both metrical. The Commentaries are very numerous, the beet are: J. H. van der Palm, Leyden, 1784; F. Hitsig, Leipeic, 1847; E. W. Hengetenberg, Berlin, 1859, Eng, travel., Edinburgh, 1889; C. Bridges, London, 1880; C. D. Ginsburg, ib. 1881 (noteworthy); M. Stuart, Andover, 1882 (philological): L. Young. Philadelphia, 1888; J. N. Coleman, Edinburgh, 1887; H. Greets, Leipaic, 1871; T. P. Dale, London, 1873; W. H. B. Proby, ib. 1874; T. H. Leale, ib. 1877 (homiletical); E. H. Plumptre, Cambridge, 1881; E. Renan, Paris, 1882; G. G. Bradley, Oxford, 1885, new ed., 1898: T. C. Finlsyeon, Meditationa. and Maxims of %hekN, London, 1887; W. Volek, Munich, 1889; M. J. Boileau, Paris, 1892; J. Strong, New York,' 1893; C. Siegfried, GSttingen, 1898; G. Wildeboer, Ttibingen, 1898; A. W. Streams, London, 1899; A. von Soho!:, Leipsic, 1901; J. F. Genung, Boston, 1904; G. A. Burton, New York, 1908.

The works cited under BIBLICAL Iarrnonvcrrox, I. generally treat of the book, especially Driver, Introdgdiqn. pp. 438-449. On questions of this nature consult: A. H. bicNeile, Introduction to Ecclesiastes, New York, 1904 (the beat); J. $. Bloch, Ursprung and Entekhunpesei6 lea Bathes Kohekt, Bamberg, 1872; A Treatise on the Authorship of Ecclesiastes, London, 1880; C. H. H. Wright, Book of Kohekth . . . in Relation to Modern Criticism sad . . . Pessimism, ib. 1883; T. K. Cheyne, Job sad Solomon, pp. 199-285, New York, 1889; P. Menzel, Dar pricchiaehe EinRuea a uf Prediper, Halle, 1880.