WISDOM LITERATURE. The extant writings of the Jewish sages are contained in the books of Job, Proverbs, Ben Sira, Tobit, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom of Solomon, Fourth Maccabees, to which may be added the first chapter of Pirke Aboth (q.v.), certain of the Elephantine Papyri and isolated sections (e.g., the parable of Jotham) and verses in the historical prophetical Books, as well as Pss. xix. 2-7; xxix. 3-10 xxxvii., xlix., lxxiii., xc. xcii. 6-8 (5-7), cvii. 17-32, cxix., cxxxix., cxliv. 3 f., cxlvii. 8 f. The climax of the intellectual element in this movement is to be found in Philo.
Most of the extant literature doubtless dates only from the post-exilic period. But the Book of Proverbs (q.v.) contains minor collections of proverbs which are now recognized as pre exilic in origin, while individual maxims contained in this and other books may be part of the heritage of post-exilic days from a comparatively hoary antiquity. The Wisdom Movement among the Hebrews was, in fact, no isolated phenomenon, and at no period in its development did it exist, as it were, in a watertight compartment. As the mythology of the Hebrews, their earlier religious ideas in general, many of their deities and several ele ments in their ecclesiastical calendar were shared with and mostly derived by them from neighbouring peoples, so too it was with the aspect of their culture comprised under the general term "Wisdom." From Mesopotamia to Egypt there existed an "inter national" stock of traditional Wisdom which passed and repassed from nation to nation, each adding its quota to the common stock, and each adapting to the needs and the requirements of its own culture what it received from those of others. Edom was a famous centre of such "Wisdom" activity in Palestine, and the Hebrew Humanists more than once admit their indebtedness to those of Edom. But the great creative centres of "Wisdom" activities were to be found in Babylonia and Egypt.
Doubtless the early Hebrew exponents of Wisdom at times did more than merely borrow, Hebraise, and conserve the proverbs of other nations. Hebrew tradition, at any rate, points to the reigns of Solomon and Hezekiah as epochs of outstanding im portance in the development of Hebrew Wisdom literature. Cer tainly by the reign of Hezekiah the "wise men" formed a definite stratum in Jerusalem society, and like the priests, prophets and military leaders sought to shape, in accordance with their own economic and political ideals, the fortunes of the Jewish state.
But, as the post-exilic period advanced, and Jewish history and theology unfolded themselves, new problems arose for which no satisfactory explanation could be given by the old religion of the pre-exilic type, the new priestly development, the new scribism, and the still newer "Chasidaean" piety. Prophecy of the pre
exilic and exilic type was dead, and the principle of inspiration for which it stood found its expression more especially in Apocalyptic (q.v.). The latter, however, made its greatest appeal to the masses. It remained for the exponents of Wisdom to attempt to solve these problems in a form acceptable to men of culture and to specialize in the instruction of the youth of aristocratic families.
Their intellectual instincts led them to not to Persia whence Apocalyptic took so much of its imagery and some of its central ideas, but to the new world of the Mediterranean. With this world they were becoming increasingly familiar owing to the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors, the rise of Greek cities in Palestine and the spread of Greek culture in Palestine and elsewhere, particularly in Egypt where the Jew ish community mostly prospered and kept in close touch with their co-religionists in Jerusalem. The book of Wisdom (q.v.) emanated from this Alexandrian centre of Wisdom in the first Christian century, just as Egyptian Jewry in pre-hellenistic days had produced the book of Tobit (q.v.). Ecclesiastes and Proverbs (qq.v.) chs. i.—viii., on the other hand, are examples of the hel lenizing Wisdom literature of Palestine, while Ecclesiasticus be longs to the period before Hellenism had contributed much of moment to the sages of Palestine.
The new problems which confronted these later sages were numerous, both in the practical and in the theoretical sphere. In the former, general looseness of life had to be combated. In the latter, they had to face questions such as the following : If God is transcendent, how can He still be held to intervene in mundane matters? If God is the ruler of the whole universe, is it possible, in the face of facts, still to maintain that His government of it is moral? In particular, what is the bearing of the problem of suffer ing upon this question? If He is the God of the individual soul, does He abandon that individual at death? Each Wisdom writer gave his own answer to these questions. Sometimes there is sub stantial agreement : sometimes they contradict each other. The answers of the authors of Proverbs i.—viii., Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom were constructive. In Ecclesiastes, in its original form, and in Prov. xxx. 2-4 instances have been preserved of a sceptical element in the Wisdom Movement.