believe in immortality and a future judgment, and is thus partly an exception to the rule of Lucretius,
. . . nam si certam finem esse viderent
Aerumnarum homines, aliqua ratione valerent
Religionibus atque mineis obsistere vatum.
(De rerum naturâ, i. 108-110.)
He mentions God twenty-seven times, but under the name Elohim, which belonged to Him as the Creator, not under that of Yahveh, which an Israelite was privileged to use; and his one-sided supernaturalism obscured the sense of personal communion with God. He accepts only the first part of the great proclamation concerning the dwelling place of God in Isa. lxvii. 15 (see Eccles. v. 2). It is no doubt God who 'worketh all' (xi. 5), but there are nearer and almost more formidable potentates, an oppressive hierarchy of officials ranging from the taxgatherer to the king, 'a high one watching above the high, and high ones over both' (v. 8). True, our author seems to admit—at least if the text be sound (iii. 17; comp. viii. 12, 13)—that 'God will judge the righteous and the wicked' (i.e. in this life, for he does not believe in another), but the comfort of this thought is dashed with bitterness by an unspoken but distinctly implied complaint, which may perhaps be well expressed in the language of Job (xxiv. 1), 'Why are judgments laid up (so long) by the Almighty,[1] and (why) do they that know him not see his days?' or in other words, Why is divine retribution so tardy? It is, in fact, this extreme tardiness of God's judicial interpositions which our author considers one of the chief causes of the prevalence of wickedness;—
'Because sentence against the work of wickedness is not speedily
executed, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them
to do evil' (viii. 11).
On the whole, we may say that the older humanists were
sincere optimists, while Koheleth, though theoretically perhaps
an optimist (iii. 11), constantly relapses into a more congenial
'malism.' I use this word designedly. Koheleth can only be
- ↑ I follow Sept. and Dr. Merx. The received reading is very harsh.
