It appears evident that the sentence which opens Koheleth,--in our Bibles "All is vanity, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all is vanity,"--is as mere a Jahvist chapter-heading as that of our A. S. translators: "The Preacher showeth that all human courses are vain." It is repeated as the second of the eight verses added at the end of the work. Koheleth does not label the whole of things vanity; in a majority of cases the things he calls vain are vain; and some things he finds not vanity,--youth, and wedded love, and work that is congenial. Renan (Histoire du Peuple d'Israël, Tome 5, p. 158) has shown conclusively, as I think, that the signature on this book, QHLT, is a mere letter-play on the word "Solomon," and the eagerness with which the letters were turned into Koheleth (which really means Preacheress), and to make Solomon's inner spouse a preacher of the vanities of pleasure and the wisdom of fearing God, is thus naively indicated in the successive names of the book, "Koheleth" and "Ecclesiastes." We are thus warned by the title to pick our way carefully where the Jahvist and the Ecclesiastic have been before us; remembering especially that though piety may induce men to forge things, this is never done lightly. As people now do not commit forgery for a shilling, so neither did those who placed spurious sentences or phrases in nearly every chapter of the Bible do so for anything they did not consider vital to morality or to salvation. In Ecclesiastes we must be especially suspicious of the very serious religious points. Fortunately the style of the book renders it particularly subject to the critical and literary touchstone. Is it necessary to point out to any man of literary instinct the interpolation bracketed in the following verses? "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart gladden thee in the flower of thy age, and walk in the paths of thy heart, and according to the vision of thine eyes [but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment], and banish discontent from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh; for youth and dawn are fleeting. Remember also thy fountain in the days of thy youth, or ever the evil days come or the years draw nigh in which thou shalt say I have no delight in them." It is only by removing the bracketed clause that any consistency can be found in the lyric, which Professor Cheyne compares with the following song by the ancient Egyptian harper at the funeral feast of Neferhotap: "Make a good day, O holy fathers! Let odors and oils stand before thy nostril; Wreaths and lotus are on the arms and bosom of thy sister Dwelling in thy heart, sitting beside thee. Let song and music be before thy face, And leave behind thee all evil dirges! Mind thee of joy, till cometh the day of pilgrimage, When we draw near the land that loveth silence." [23]