ECCLESIAS'TES (Eng. the Preacher), the title (taken from the Septuagint) of a canoni cal book of the Old Testament; its Hebrew name is Koheleth, which signifies nearly the same. The inscription with which it commences is: "The words of Koheleth, the son of David, king in Jerusalem." Its authorship is commonly ascribed to Solomon. In support of this opinion, however, there is not a vestige of internal evidence except what arises from the dramatic use of his name, an expedient in all probability resorted to by the writer to give force and emphasis to his own reflections, inasmuch as Solomon was held by the Jews to be the perfection of human wisdom. The first who doubted the Solomonian authorship of the book was Grotius. Later critics have advanced further than Grotius. The actual writer probably flourished, according to Dr. Davidson, in the later period of the Persian government, not long after the time of Malachi, i.e., 350-340 c. Such is also substantially the opinion of Rosenintiller, Knobe], Ewald, and De Wette. Hengstenberg, unquestionably the ablest critic of the orthodox German school, considers that the contents of the book may best be explained by supposing the author to have lived in a period like that of Malachi, in which there prevailed a pharisaical self-right eousness, and melancholy murmurings against the providence of God. The dates assigned to it by Hartmann (viz., the period of the Maccabees)and by.Hitzig (204 p.c.) cannot well be sustained, as there is no trace in the book either of Grecian philosophy or language.
The chief arguments against the Solomonian authorship are three. 1. The writer indicates unconsciously his own posteriority in point of time by making Solomon say: "I was over Israel in Jerusalem" (chap: i. verse 12); a thing which Solomon could not have said during his life, for he was king to the end of it. 2. The condition of the
country in the time of the writer, the oppression, judicial injustice, the elevation of fools and slaves to high offices, etc., do not fit the reign of Solomon at all, nor any preceding period. 3. The language is post-exilian. Ewald, the greatest of recent orientalists, asserts that "the Hebrew is so strongly penetrated with Aramman, that not only single often recurring words are Aram can, but the foreign influence is infused into the finest veins of the language."—(Dr. Davidson iu vol. ii. of Horne's Introduction, to the Holy Scripture.) It is extremely difficult to ascertain the stand-point of He is deeply con vinced that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit," but whether this conviction springs wholly from a religious view of life, or is in part caused by personal disappointments, we have not sufficient internal evidence to determine. There is much in E. that, if it stood by itself, might be thought to be a mere product of cynical epicureanism, but it is mixed up with so much that is nobler, with a faith in God that rises high above the crushing considerations of the vanity of all mortal life, and the book terminates so• grandly, that it seems more reasonable to believe that the aim or intention of the writer was moral and religious, and not cynical; that he painted the folly, weakness, and help lessness of men in such strong colors, only that he might destroy their self-righteousness, and cure them of that inability to read the laws of God, which self-righteousness always. produces. For what is the conclusion of the whole matter? " Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."