the comfortless view of Hades running through the Book of Koheleth is thoroughly surmounted by a wonderful rising above the O.T. standpoint by the author of the Book of Wisdom, and that hence there is in it an incomparably more satisfying Theodicee (cf. Wisd. 12:2-18 with Ecc 7:15; Ecc 8:14), and a more spiritual relation to this present time (cf. Wisd. 8:21; 9:17, with Ecc 2:24; Ecc 3:13, etc.). The “Wisdom of Solomon” has indeed the appearance of an anti-Ecclesiastes, a side-piece to the Book of Koheleth, which aims partly at confuting it, partly at going beyond it; for it represents, in opposition to Koheleth not rising above earthly enjoyment with the But of the fear of God, a more ideal, more spiritual Solomon. If Koheleth says that God “hath made everything beautiful in his time,” Ecc 3:11, and hath made mad upright, Ecc 7:29; so, on the other hand, Solomon says that He hath made all things εἰς τὸ εἶναι, Wisd. 1:14, and hath made man ἐπ ̓ ἀφθαρσίᾳ, 2:23. There are many such parallels, e.g., Ecc 5:9, cf. Koh. Ecc 8:13, Ecc 8:5, cf. Koh. Ecc 7:12; Ecc 9:13-16, cf. Koh. Ecc 3:10., but particularly Solomon's confession, 7:1-21, with that of Koheleth, Ecc 1:12-18. Here, wisdom appears as a human acquisition; there (which agrees with 1Ki 3:11-13), as a gracious gift obtained in answer to prayer, which brings with it all that can make happy. If one keeps in his eye this mutual relation between the two books, there can be no doubt as to which is the older and which the younger. In the Book of Koheleth the Old Covenant digs for itself its own grave. It is also a “school-master to Christ,” in so far as it awakens a longing after a better Covenant than the first.[1]
But the Book of Wisdom is a precursor of this better covenant. The composition of the Book of Koheleth falls between the time of Malachi, who lived in the time of Nehemiah's second arrival at Jerusalem, probably under Darius Nothus (423-405 b.c.), and the Book of Wisdom, which at the earliest was written under Ptolemy Physkon (145-117), when the O.T. was already for the most part translated into the Greek language.[2]
Hitzig does not venture to place the Book of Koheleth so far back into the period of the Ptolemies; he reaches with his chain of evidence only the year 204, that in which Ptolemy Epiphanes (204-181), gained, under the guardianship of the Romans, the throne of his father, - he must be the minor whom the author has in his eye, Rom 10:16. But the first link of his chain of proof is a falsum. For it is not true that Ptolemy Lagus was the first ruler who exacted from the Jews the “oath of God,” Ecc 8:2, i.e., the oath of fidelity; for
Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/2357
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