The Wise had not found the last secrets of Wisdom. There were ranges of human nature beyond their imagining, there were paths to salvation not visible from the highroad of respectability. Perhaps they suspected as much in moments when the sublimity of Wisdom towered over them. But usually no doubt they felt convinced that, given an unquestioning acceptance of their precepts, this world would be made perfect. Better it would have been, but that is all. Perfection is higher than climbing humanity believes, and short cuts to the summit prove delusive. Mechanical obedience to rules and regulations for our conduct will certainly not suffice, for character fails to ripen in that dry soil. So to reverence the past as to accept its thoughts as finished standards, requiring from us only the repetition of the lips and not the re-affirmation or re-statement of heart and intellect, is to exclude the possibility of progress; and that, racially, is the unpardonable sin. Tradition, an invaluable servant, is a fatal master. God means us to own no ultimate authority save His eternal and ever-present Spirit. There was room in the world for many a Ben Sirach, but there was even more room for men like St. Peter and St. Paul, who could break free from conventional standards of morality, and penetrate further into the exceeding great and precious promises of God. Moreover it would have been disastrous for the Wise themselves, had the world accepted their way of life as indis{179}putable truth. Think what would have happened to their characters, already inclined to superiority, if with one accord men had bowed down to their every word and received their maxims as beyond the breath of criticism. The point of course, is not one that the Sages would have appreciated. Few men can resist the impression (and those few must be cold-blooded, unenthusiastic souls) that all would be well, provided their lightest word was law. What a truly delightful world, where one’s judgments met only with reverent and grateful admiration! Yet were God to give us the desire of our hearts, we might construct a universe excellent according to our standard, and be left ourselves the only insufferable persons in it. “Sweet are the uses of adversity.”
There was, however, little danger of the Wise being spoilt by approbation. They may have had a sufficiently good conceit of themselves, but they cannot possibly have been ignorant that many of their neighbours held them in very different esteem; and whenever a Wise-man in old Jerusalem put his heart into the effort to guide his brethren into the path of understanding he can have been under few, if any, delusions regarding the obstacles in the way. In the last two chapters we have been picturing life as the Wise desired it to be, not as they actually found it. Our next duty is to descend from these heights to the plain where opposition waited to test what stuff the Wise-men’s dreams were made of. Not without courage, not without patience, were they able to keep these ideals in their hearts.
The discouragements they suffered are written large across the face of the literature. Consider first the reception accorded to their teaching. All the Jews were not lovers of Understanding, nor was Jerusalem a State wherein the dictates of celestial Wisdom ruled with unquestioned sway. No doubt the note of confidence which pervades Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus implies that many people{180} respected the Wise-men’s dignity and paid deference to their speeches. But the presence of outspoken hostility is not a whit less clear. They did not preach unchallenged at the entry of the Gates. On the contrary the number and severity of the proverbs denouncing “scorners” show that the irreverent were a vigorous section of the population. We have to bear in mind that the Gateway was open to all-comers, and Psalm 11 (Blessed is the man that sitteth not in the assembly of the scornful) supplies a hint that the scoffer (and his friends) may have had an inconvenient habit of claiming his own corner of the ground, and that not infrequently it pleased him to be merry at the Wise-man’s expense, now pretending he could not, or would not, hear the sermon (A scorner heareth not rebuke, Pr. 131), now deriding the doctrine (I have called and ye have refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded: Ye have set at nought all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, Pr. 124f); now encouraging others to make vexatious interruptions (Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out, Pr. 2210). Sage-baiting seems to have been a joke that waxed not stale with repetition: “How long,” asks one Wise man pathetically, “how long will scorners delight in their scorning” (Pr. 122)? He that reproveth a scorner getteth himself insult (Pr. 97)—behold a sage by the street-corner, wise in words but by no means so sharp in repartee, shaking a puzzled head and wondering what the laughter had been about and why his audience had so speedily melted away.
Besides these cynical persons—the scorners or intentional fools—there were fools-by-birth, whether dull-witted or coarse-natured or both, “Simpletons”, to whom the Wise were perhaps less charitable than is meet. But then “suffering fools gladly” belongs to the apostolic ethic; and it vexed the Wise to think how much breath they had wasted in seeking to teach these folk. Glorious Wisdom stirred no enthusiasm in their obtuse souls, and the{181} shafts of morality seldom discovered a joint in the armour of their self-content. Wherefore, concerning these also went up the cry, “How long, ye simpletons, will ye love simplicity” (Pr. 122)? And when we read that the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit then seven men that can render a reason (Pr. 2616), who can fail to see a baffled Sage turning wearily and disgustedly away? Towards the dull-witted is due mercy and patience; but oh! those self-satisfied, petty persons, ignorant of their ignorance, into whose mental darkness no new illuminating thought can penetrate. These were the prime objects of the Wise-men’s indignation—and legitimately; for in all ages they have been the curse of society, the mainstay of old abuses, rocks which have to be blasted from the path of progress. Of your charity, then, bear in mind that the Wise did not lecture picked pupils only, but faced the contradictions and stupidities of the highway, and endured the disappointment of seeing men hostile or indifferent to their teaching.
But the point will bear further consideration. Two types of opponents may be distinguished. First, the actively hostile, whose manner of life was in violent contradiction to the Wise-men’s principles, men who must often have hated them for their moralising efforts. In the mirror of the sayings we observe the immoral, the cruel, the violent, plotters of mischief against their neighbours, whose deeds were evil, whose words scorched like a fire (Pr. 1627); dishonest dealers and pitiless usurers, who robbed the poor and crushed the defenceless (Pr. 2222); men who lured others into wickedness; bloodthirsty men, thieves, cut-throats, and reckless outlaws (Pr. 111ff). Against these Wisdom, for all its exaltation, must often have seemed powerless. Secondly, there was the mass of the indifferent, who, being neither very good nor very bad, did not think Wisdom mattered very much or that it was any special concern of theirs: a type with abundant representatives to-day.{182} Why will they not comprehend that it is to them, almost more than to any others, that Wisdom is crying aloud; and that their co-operation is desperately needed for the advancement of mankind? Why do they saunter so carelessly down the streets of life, sometimes to fall into sore disaster from which a little Wisdom, had they sought it, would have saved them? Why do they always pass “the preacher for next Sunday” without a second thought? Ah! these are they that require a full church and good music and a first-rate sermon. But if they attended, the churches would be full and the choirs strong; and sermons have a way of winning home when men are out not for oratory, but to seek the truth of God.
Certainly the Wise were not ignorant of the problem of the inattentive. Something of disappointment and perplexity lies behind the reiterated appeals of the Book of Proverbs: Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings. ... My son, let them not depart from thine eyes. ... Hear, my son, the instruction of a father, and attend to know, for I give you good doctrine. Granted that the exhortation tended to become a set phrase, and that “my son” was often spoken to an eager pupil or an attentive class in the Wise-man’s house, it was also used in the market place, and for one man that stopped and responded how many passed by unheeding? Doth not Wisdom cry and Understanding put forth her voice? In the streets she takes her stand; beside the gates, at the portal of the city, at the entrance of the gates she cries aloud (Pr. 81-3)—frequently, we may suspect, with small result. See, yonder is Alexander ben Simeon, young, confident and well-to-do, proud to think that his parents have called him by the name of the great Greek conqueror. He comes strolling through the bazaar to the gate of the city. There two voices accost him. One, that of his friend Aristobulus: “Greeting, Alexander! Hast heard news of the boxing? ’Tis said that Aristonicus is beaten{183} in the Olympic pankcration. ‘By whom?’ By Cleitomachus of Thebes.[79] But I swear it cannot have been by fair means. How sayest thou?” The other voice was that of Judah the Wise, who, perceiving the two young men in talk, approached them hopefully and earnestly, though of course with all necessary dignity. “A wise son,” said he, “maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is a heaviness to his mother. Now, therefore, my sons, hearken unto me, for blessed are they that keep my ways. Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness....” Unfortunately the last words were not heard by Alexander and Aristobulus. They were already some distance off, hunting for the man who had spread the rumour of the downfall of Egyptian athletics.
But others besides the young could be deaf to good counsel. Jerusalem had many confident citizens of middle life, into whose soul the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things had entered, choking the Word: the rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his imagination (Pr. 1811), said the Wise with a sigh. There is one proverb that suggests where the most grievous personal disappointment of the Wise lay: namely, in those, whether boy or man, who said “I go, Sir; but went not”: Cease, my son, to hear instruction, only to err from the words of knowledge (Pr. 1927). Surely there was sorrow in the heart of him who uttered those words of warning?
In the next place consider the hindrances that the general conditions of the age placed in the path of morality. These also are not difficult to perceive. The moral corruption of the luxurious Hellenic cities may have been perfectly obvious and the danger unmistakably clear, but dazzling opportunities, political, social, and commercial,{184} also lay waiting there for the young and ambitious Jew. Is it to be wondered if many a lad was ready to make a bid for fortune, and let his morality take its chance? Important families of Jerusalem, with a handsome son who might perhaps win favour at the foreign courts or shekels in their markets, will have had little love for old-fashioned, moralistic Wiseacres, who forsooth were stupid enough to oppose “the onward march of progress.”
One passage (Pr. 110-19), addressed to “my son,” urges him not to take up highway robbery as a career: If they say, “Let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause” ... consent not thou, but there cannot have been much outlet for promising youths in that direction; it is perhaps a formal rather than a serious warning. Much more prominent were the sensual temptations to which prosperous persons were exposed, temptation to indulgence in gluttonous feasting and drunken revelry. Such vices were alluring to an extent unknown to us who live in an age when society is no longer slave-ridden, when the wealthy can have as many duties to occupy their energies as the poor, and when it is no longer gentlemanly to be drunk. You cannot make a drunken man wise until you have sobered him. But the evils of intoxication, though real enough, were less serious in old Jerusalem than in modern cities, and in wine the Wise saw an enemy only where pronounced abuse was present. Complete abstinence is unmooted, and even temperance is demanded in very temperate terms. Ben Sirach bestows an encomium on wine taken in moderation. Wine, says he, is as good as life to men, if thou drink it in its measure. What life is there to a man that is without wine? And it hath been created to make men glad. Wine drunk in season and to satisfy is joy of heart and gladness of soul (E. 3127f). He observes its quarrelsome tendencies, but thinks it necessary only to counsel tact! Rebuke not thy neighbour at a banquet of{185} wine, neither set him at nought in his mirth. Speak not unto him a word of reproach, and press him not then for repayment of a debt (E. 3131). In like manner Proverbs 316, 7 is not suitable as a text for a Temperance address, even if (which is doubtful) it be partly metaphorical: Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul: let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more. Here’s a stick to beat the teetotallers withal! How one can imagine some foolish persons discovering that even a text is worth picking up (if it will serve to throw at an opponent), and pouncing gleefully upon these sayings. “Foolish persons”? Yes, “foolish”; for the effects of alcohol in the development of modern society have been, and are, calamitous to the material as well as the spiritual progress of the race. Moreover, even the Wise were insistent in denunciation of excessive drinking. Said Ben Sirach, Wine drunk largely is bitterness of soul with provocation and wrath.[80] Drunkenness increaseth the rage of a fool unto his hurt; it diminisheth strength and addeth wounds (E. 3129, 30; cp. Pr. 201, 2329ff, quoted pp. 138, 232). There is no possible doubt what their attitude would have been towards the f............