(6) Misunderstandings. Within the Christian Church the Divine inspiration of Koheleth, the Proverbs, and the Song of Solomon was denied by Theodorus of Mopsuestia. In recent times, the ac cusers of Koheleth have been Augusti, De \Vette, and Knobel; but their accusations are based on mere misunderstandings. They are especially as follows:—( I) The author is said to incline to wards a moral epicurism. All his ethical admoni tions and doctrines tend to promote the comforts and enjoyments of life. But let us consider above all what tendency and disposition it is to which the author addresses his admonition, serenely and contentedly to enjoy God's gifts.
(a) He addresses this admonition to that specu lation which will not rest before it has penetrated the whole depth of the inscrutable councils of God; to that murmuring which bewails the bad ness of times and quarrels with God about the sufferings of our terrene existence; tothat gloomy piety which wearies itself in imaginary good works and external strictness, with a view to wrest salvation from God; to that avarice which gathers, not knowing for whom; making the means of existence our highest aiin; building upon an uncertain futurity which is in the hand of God alone.
(b) When the author addresses levity he speaks quite otherwise. For instance, in chapter vii 41. 'It is better to go to the hotise of mourning than to the house of feasting ; for that is the end of all men ; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter ; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise man is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the heart of mirth.' The nature of the joy recommended by the author is also misunderstood. Unrestrained merriment and giddy sensuality belong to those vanities which our author enumerates. He says to laughter, thou art mad, and to joy, what art thou doing? He says, chapter vii :5, 6, 'It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool; this also is vanity.' That i joy which he recommends is joy in God. It is not the opposite, hut the fruit of the fear of God. How inseparable these are is shown in passages like chapter v:6, vii:tS; iii :12, know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life ;' and in many similar pas sages, but especially chapter xi :9, to, and xn 'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,' etc.
(e) In reference to these passages Ewald says, 'Finally, in order to remove every doubt, and to speak with perfect clearness, he directs us to the eternal judgment of God, concerning all the doings of man, and inculcates that man, in the midst of momentary enjoyment, should never forget the whole futurity. the account and the consequences of his doings, the Creator and the Judge.' Ewald adds, in reference to the con clusion, 'In order to obviate every possible mis understanding of this writing, there is, verse 13, once more briefly indicated that its tendency is not, by the condemnation of murmuring to recom mend an unbridled life; but rather to teach, in harmony with the best old books, the fear of God, in which the whole man consists; or that true singleness of life, satisfying the whole man, and which comprehends everything else that is truly human. It is very necessary to limit the principle
of joy which this book recommends again and again in various ways and in the most impressive manner; and to refer this joy to a still higher truth,since it is so liable to be misunderstood.' (2) It is objected that in his views concerning the gov ernment of the world the author was strongly in clined to fatalism, according to which everything in this world progresses with an eternally un changeable step; (3 ) and that he by this fatalism was misled into a moral skepticism, having at tained on his dogmatical basis the conviction of the inability of man, notwithstanding all his ef forts, to reach his aim. However, this so-called fatalism of our author is nothing else but what our Lord teaches Mau. vi :25: 'Take no thought,' etc. And as for the moral skepticism, our author certainly inculcates that man with all his endeav ors can do nothing ;but at the same time he recom mends the fear of God, as the never-failing means of salvation. Man in himself can do nothing; but in God he can do all. It is quite clear from chapter vii :16, t8, where both self-righteousness and wisdom, when separated from God, are de scribed as equally destructive, and opposite to them is placed the fear of God, as being their common antithesis, that our author, by pointing to the sovereignty of God. did not mean to undermine morality: 'He that feareth God comes out from them all.' If our author were given to moral skepticism, it would be impossible for him to teach retribution, which he inculcates in numerous pas sages, and which are not contradicted by others, in which he says that the retribution in individual circumstances is frequently obscure and enig matical. Where is that advocate for retribution who is not compelled to confess this as well as our author ? (4) This book has given offense also, by chapter iii :21, and similar passages, concern ing immortality. But the assertion that there is expressed here some doubt concerning the im mortality of the soul is based on a wrong gram matical perception. The r) cannot, according to its punctuation, be the interrogative, but must be the article; and our author elsewhere asserts positively his belief in the doctrine of immortality (ch. xii :7). How it happens that he did not give to this doctrine a prevailing influence upon his mode of treating his subject has lately been in vestigated by Heyder, in his essay entitled Ec clesiastce de I mmortalitate •nimi Sententa-, Er langen, 1838. (Sec Skeptics of the Old Testa ment, Prof. E. J. Dillon.) E. W. H. ECCLESIASTICIIS (ek-kla'zi-as'ti-kns). See