There is no historical means of determining what writings of Solomon are preserved in the Bible and even in the apocryphal books. One may feel that Goethe recognised a brother spirit in that far epoch when he selected for his proverb: "Apples of gold in chased work of silver, A word smoothly spoken." Koheleth too appreciated this, and also (x. 12) uses almost literally Proverbs xii. 18, "The tongue of the wise is gentleness." (Compare Shakespeare's words, "Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.") The lines previously cited, "Rejoice O young man, etc.," are also probably quoted, as they are given in poetical quatrains. There are many of these quatrains introduced into the book, from the prose context of which they differ in style and sometimes in sense. In none of these metrical quotations (as I believe them to be) is there any belief in God, the only instance in which the word "God" is mentioned being an ironical maxim about the danger coming from monarchs because of their oaths to their God, with whom they identify their own ways and wishes. Such seems to me the meaning of the lines (viii. 2, 4) which Dillon translates-- "The wise man harkens to the king's command, By reason of the oath to God. Mighty is the word of the monarch: Who dares ask him, 'What dost thou?'" With this compare Proverbs xxi. 1, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord (Jahveh) as the water-courses; he turneth it whithersoever he will." This proverb is evidently by a Jahvist, and Koheleth quotes another which signifies rather "Jahveh is in the king's caprice." But he adopts the neighbouring proverb, "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to Jahveh than sacrifice." Koheleth says, and this is not quoted--"To draw near to (God) in order to learn, is better than the offering of sacrifices by fools."