ECCLESIASTICUS
265
ECCLESIASTICUS
Professor D. S. Margoliouth, that is, the two men who
but shortly before the discovery of the Hebrew frag-
ments of Ecclesiasticus had attempted to retranslate
small parts of the book into Hebrew, declared them-
selves openly against the originality of the newly
found Hebrew text. It may indeed be admitted that
the efforts naturally entailed l)y their own work of re-
translation had especially fitted Margoliouth and
Biekell for noticing and appreciating those features
which even now appear to many scholars to tell in fa-
vour of a certain connexion of the Hebrew text with
the Greek and Syriac versions. It remains true, how-
ever, that, with the exception of Israel L^vi and per-
haps a few others, the most prominent Biblical and
Talmudic scholars of the day are of the mind that the
Hebrew fragments present an original text. They
think that the arguments and inferences most vigor-
ously urged by Professor D. S. Margoliouth in favour
of his view have been disposed of through a compari-
son of the fragments published in 1S99 and 1900 with
those that had appeared at an earlier date, and
through a close study of nearly all the facts now avail-
able. They readily admit in the M8S. thus far recov-
ered, scribal faults, doublets, Arabisms, apparent
traces of dependence on extant versions, etc. But to
their minds all such defects do not disprove the origin-
ality of the Helirew text, inasmuch as they can, and
indeed in a large nmiiber of cases must, be accounted
for by the very late character of the copies now in our
possession. The Hebrew fragments of Ecclesiasticus
belong, at the earliest, to the tenth, or even the elev-
enth, century of our era, and by that late date all kinds
of errors could naturally be expected to have crept into
the original language of the book, because the Jewish
copyists of the work did not regard it as canonical. At
the same time, these defects do not disfigure altogether
the manner of Hebrew in which Ecclesiasticus was
primitively written. The language of the fragments
is manifestly not rabbinic, but classical Hebrew ; and
this conclusion is decidedly borne out by a comparison
of their text with that of the quotations from Ecclesi-
asticus, both in the Talmud and in the Saadia, which
have already been referred to. Again, the Hebrew of
the newly found fragments, although classical, is yet
one of a distinctly late type, and it supplies consider-
able material for lexicographic research. Finally, the
comparatively large number of the Hebrew MHS. re-
cently discovered in only one place (Cairo) points to
the fact that the work in its primitive form was often
transcribed in ancient times, and thus affords hope
that other copies, more or less complete, of the original
text may be discovered at some future date. To ren-
der their study convenient, all the extant fragments
have been brought together in a splendid edition,
"Facsimiles of the Fragments hitherto recovered of
the Book of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew" (Oxford and
Cambridge, 1901). The metrical and strophic struc-
ture of parts of the newly discovered text has been
particularly investigated by H Grimme and N.
Schlogl, whose success in the matter is, to say the
least, indifferent; and by Jos. Knabenbauer, S.J., in a
less venturesome way, and hence with more satisfac-
tory results.
IV. Ancient Versions. — It was, of course, from a Hebrew text incomparably better than the one we now possess that the grandson of the author of Ecclesias- ticus rendered the book into Cireek. This translator was a Palestinian Jew, who came to Egypt at a certain time, and de.sired to make the work accessible in a Greek dress to the Jews of the Dispersion, and no doubt also to all lovers of wisdom. HLs name Ls lui- known, although an ancient, but little reliable, tradi- tion ("Synopsis Scriptura- Sacra;" in St. Athanasius's works) calls liiin Jesus, the son of Sirach. His literary qualifications for the task he undertook and carried out cannot be fully ascertained at the present day. He is commonly regarded, however, from the general char-
acter of his work, as a man of good general culture,
with a fair command of both Hebrew and Greek. He
was distinctly aware of the great difference which ex-
ists between the respective genius of these two lan-
guages, and of the consequent difficulty attending the
efforts of one who aimed at giving a satisfactory Greek
version of a Hebrew writing, and therefore begs ex-
pressly, in his prologue to the work, his readers' in-
dulgence for whatever shortcomings they may notice
in his translation. He claims to have spent much time
and labour on his version of Ecclesiasticus, and it is
only fair to suppose that his work was not only a con-
scientious, but also, on the whole, a successful, render-
ing of the original Hebrew. One can but speak in this
guarded manner of the exact value of the Greek trans-
lation in its primitive form, for the simple reason that
a comparison of its extant MSS. — all apparently de-
rived from a single Greek exemplar — shows that the
primitive translation has been very often, and in many
cases seriously, tampered with. The great imcial
codices, the Vatican, the Sinaitic, the Ephra'mitic, and
partly the Alexandrian, though comparatively free
from glosses, contain an inferior text; the better form
of the text seems to be preserved in the Venetus Codex
and in certain cursive MSS., though these have many
glosses. Undoubtedly, a fair number of these glosses
may be referred safely to the translator himself, who,
at times, added one word or even a few words to the
original before him, to make the meaning clearer or to
guard the text against possible misunderstanding.
But the great bulk of the glosses resemble the Greek
additions in the Book of Proverbs ; they are expansions
of the thought, or hellenizing interpretations, or addi-
tions from current collections of gnomic sayings. The
following are the best-ascertained results which flow
from a comparison of the Greek version with the text
of our Hebrew fragments. Oftentimes, the corrup-
tions of the Hebrew may be discovered by means of
the Greek ; and, conversely, the Greek text is proved to
be defective, in the line of additions or omissions, by
reference to parallel places in the Hebrew. At times,
the Hebrew discloses considerable freedom of render-
ing on the part of the Greek translator; or enables one
to perceive how the author of the version mistook one
Hebrew letter for another ; or, again, affords us a means
to make sense out of an unintelligible expression in the
Greek text. Lastly, the Hebrew text confirms the
order of the contents in xxx-xxxvi which is presented
by the Syriac, Latin, and Armenian versions, over
against the unnatural order found in all existing Greek
MSS. Like the Greek, the Syriac version of Ecclesi-
asticus was made directly from the original Hebrew.
This is wellnigh universally admitted; and a compari-
son of its text with that of the newly found Hebrew
fragments should settle the point forever: as just
stated, the Syriac version gives the same order as the
Hebrew text for the contents of xxx-xxxvi ; in particu-
lar, it presents mistaken renderings, the origin of
which, while inexplicable by supposing a Greek origi-
nal as its basis, is easily accounted for by reference
to the text of the Hebrew fragments. But the Hebrew
text from which it was made must have been very de-
fective, as is proved by the numerous and important
lacuna; in the Syriac translation. It seems, likewise,
that the Hebrew has been rendered by the translator
himself in a careless, and at times even arbitrary,
manner. The Syriac version has all the less critical
value at the present day, because it was considerably
revised at an unknown date, by means of the Greek
translation.
Of the other ancient versions of Ecclesiasticus, the Old Latin is the most important. It was made before St. Jerome's time, although the precise date of its ori- gin cannot now be ascertained; and the holy doctor apparently revised its text but little, previously to its adoption into the Latin Vulgate. The unity of the Old Latin version, which was formerly undoubted,
