14.  The book was originally composed in Greek by an Alexandrine Jew, who is generally placed by biblical scholars somewhere in the second century before Christ.  Though possessing no canonical authority, it is very interesting and valuable for the view which it gives of the progress of Jewish thought in both religion and philosophy.  This writer is the first who expressly identifies the serpent that deceived Eve with the devil:  “Through envy of the devil came death into the world.”  Chap. 2:24.  He teaches also the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and of a future judgment.  In a passage of great beauty he personifies Wisdom, after the example of the book of Proverbs, as the worker of all things, and the teacher and guide, of men.  “She is the breath of the power of God, and a pure efflux from the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled can find entrance into her.  For she is the effulgence of the everlasting light, and the unspotted mirror of the divine might, and the image of his goodness.  And being but one she can do all things; and remaining in herself [unchanged] she makes all things new.  From age to age entering into holy souls, she makes them friends of God and prophets.”  Chap. 7:25-27.  But along with this true development of doctrine on the basis of the Old Testament he holds the unscriptural doctrine of the preexistence of souls (chap. 8:20), whether borrowed from the Platonists, or taken from some other source.  Some have thought that he also holds matter to be eternal.  But when he speaks of God’s almighty hand as having “created the world out of formless matter” (chap. 11:17), he may have reference simply to the chaotic state described in Gen. 1:2.

Jerome left the Latin translation of this book unrevised.  The text, therefore, of our Latin Bibles is that of the “Old Latin” version, as it existed before his day.

VI.  ECCLESIASTICUS.

15.  The Greek title of this book is, The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, or more briefly:  The Wisdom of Sirach.  The Latin title, Ecclesiasticus, that is, Ecclesiastical book, designates it as a book that was read for edification in the churches, though not included in the Hebrew canon.  We give, mainly from Keil, the summary of its contents:  This copious book is rich in its contents, embracing the whole domain of practical wisdom, and, what is inseparable from this, the fear of God.  These virtues it describes, commends, and inculcates according to their origin and nature, their characteristics and results, and their realization in life, in a rich collection of proverbs, with rules and counsels for the regulation of life in all its manifold relations.  The whole is after the manner of the Proverbs of Solomon, only with much greater particularity of details, extending to all the spheres of religious, civil, and domestic life, and giving rules of conduct for the regulation of the same.