With some scholars one of the determining factors in assigning a very late date has been the assumed influence of Greek thought in gen eral, or specifically that of some of the philo sophical schools. Such an influence seems to have been felt by Luther. Zirkel pointed out what seemed to him translations of Greek phrases, and in the case of some of these he was probably right. Especially Tyler and Plumptre have endeavored to show the presence of ideas peculiar to the Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean schools, and Ed. Pfleiderer that of Heraclitian conceptions. The objection that some notions equally or more characteristic of these schools are absent, or that a somewhat strained interpretation has now and then been resorted to, is not altogether sufficient to off set the impression of their arguments. A cer tain eclecticism is to be expected; a grafting of new ideas on a traditional conception of life is unmistakable, and the author can scarcely be regarded as a logical thinker. Havet called at tention to some striking similarities between passages in Ecclesiastes and the Festal Dirge ascribed to a king of the 11th dynasty, published by Goodwin (Records of the Past,' 1st series, iv, 115ff) and the Song of the Harper from the 18th dynasty, published by Stern (id. vi, 127ff), and Grimme noted the analogy of senti ment and language to a cuneiform document of the Hammurapi period, published by Meissner OMitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesell schaft,' 1902), quoted also by Barton to show that Ecclesiastes developed motives early extant in Semitic thought. But such expressions of sen timents common not only to Semites and Egyp tians but to men of all lands and ages in certain moods do not constitute the most significant indicated ndicated by Tyler and Plumptre. Dillon finds analogies to Buddhist ideas; but Mar goliouth rightly queries why there should have been so little of this, if there had been any knowledge at all of the congenial thought of India. The moderate view of Kuenen, Kleinert, Cornill, and Cheyne, who find a general ac quaintance with Greek ideas that were in the air in the Hellenistic age rather than an attachment to a particular school, seems to commend itself.
The text of the book has been closely scrutinized for possible historical reference. that might throw light upon the real author and his time. Luther thought of Sirach as the author, Grotius of Zerubbabel, Von der Hardt of Joshua ben Joiada, Leimdorfer of Simon ben Shetach, Winckler of Alcimus and Grimme of Jehoiachin. But this search for his name is an unprofitable "chasing after wind.° Hitzig saw in iv, 13ff ; x, 16f allusions to Ptolemy IV and Ptolemy V; Gratz to Herod the Great and his son Alexander; Winckler to Antiochus IV and Demetrius I; Haupt to Antiochus IV and Alexander Balas; Barton to Ptolemy IV, Ptolemy V and Antiochus III (so already Boucher, Aehrenlese,> 1865). Haupt's conjecture is most probable. The little city saved by a poor wise man (ix, 14ff) was sup posed by Hitzig to be Dor, though the account in Polybius v, 66, would then have to be in im portant respects supplemented by that of Ec clesiastes. Ewald thought of Athens and The mistocles, Friedlander of Syracuse and Archi medes, though neither of these places could be spoken of as a little city, and neither of these men was soon forgotten. Haupt supposed
Bethsura was meant (1 Macc., vi, 31ff ; 2 Macc., xiii, 19f). This is not improbable, though in that case also the remark of Ecclesiastes that "no one remembered that poor man would be justified by the silence of the historians. While many scholars in the early part of the 19th century assigned the book to the Persian period, the great majority in recent times have reached the conclusion that it must have been written about 200 Etc. Zirkel, Renan, Kleinert, Winck ler, Leimd8rfer, Haupt, Schmidt, and Peters would descend still another century. To this the objection has been made that Jesus son of Sirach was familiar with Ecclesiastes. But none of the passages that led Noldeke somewhat hesi tatingly to change his former view on this point is at all conclusive, as Peters has shown, and those adduced by others in addition have little weight. Less probability attaches to the con jecture of Gritz, adopted by Havet and Cheyne, that the book was written in the time of Herod the Great. The scruples in regard to oath taking would be as characteristic of the Essenes in the time of Alexander Jannaeus as later. Ecclesiastes may have written his work c. 100 B.C.
That the book, though substantially written in prose, contains some scraps of poetry was seen by Desvoeux in 1760, and Lowth inclined to the same view in the second edition of his (Prmlectiones,> 1763. Nachtigall attempted to show a strophic structure throughout, and Koster assumed that the entire book was writ ten ih the parallelisms characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Ewald returned to the idea that certain parts only had this literary form. Derenbourg supposed that reminiscences of a rich apoph thegmatic literature were occasionally inter spersed by the author after the fashion of the poetic fragments introduced in their works by Arabic writers ; and Renan recognised the metrical character of these insertions and, in rendering them, imitated the style of the ancient quatrains and rhymed proverbs of Marculfe, Pibrac, and Chatonnet. Grimme (Zestschrif t der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 1897) assumed that the whole book (except xii, 13, 14) was written in metrical form. Schmidt (in The Coming Age, 1899) maintained that the (Song of Youth and Age> (xi, 7—xii, 7 except interpolations) nterpolations) was an elegiac poem in a regular metre quoted by the author. Sievers ('Metrische Studien> 1901) treated i and ii as poetry. Zapletal and, independently, Haupt in 1904 reached the conclusion that practically all parts of the book were written in metric form. The contention of Genung and many other scholars that the work is throughout written in prose can scarcely be maintained. While a large part seems to present to us a prose strug gling to free itself from the traditional vehicle of gnomic literature and create an instrument more suitable for philosophical discussion, the marks of poetic diction are unmistakable, not only when the author enriches his work with quotations, but also when he feels the demand of a more elevated style.