STUDIES IN LIFE FROM JEWISH PROVERBS STUDIES IN LIFE FROM JEWISH PROVERBS BY W. A. L. ELMSLIE, M.A., Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge LONDON JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14 FLEET STREET, E.C. To MY WIFE “Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit” PREFACE A writer of many books once said to me that he regretted every preface he had written. Seeing that I have the highest respect for his talents, I am constrained to take to heart the moral, which (particularly in a book on proverbs) would seem to be “least said, soonest mended.” But whatever else he may choose to leave unsaid, an author is expected to give away his secret in the preface, making known his intentions as discreetly as he can but still explicitly. That duty accomplished, he is at liberty to give thanks, and so conclude. The greater part of this volume (Chapters V. to XII.) is occupied with a study of the teaching of “Wisdom” among the Jews in Palestine during the Hellenistic Age, so far as the subject is represented in the two great collections of Jewish sayings, the _Book of Proverbs_ and _Ecclesiasticus_. It would be too much to claim that in these chapters the book breaks new ground, for the importance of the Hellenistic period is recognised by students of history, and there have been many commentaries on the _Book of Proverbs_, nor has _Ecclesiasticus_ been without its expositors. But the historian devotes himself to the relation of events, and the commentator is busy with the thoughts of the several proverbs or with the textual difficulties they present, rather than with their precise historical setting. Here an endeavour has been made to bring the proverbs into close connection with the history, and it is hoped that not only do the proverbs thereby acquire fresh interest, but also that there emerges a picture of the men who made them and used them in the furtherance of morality and faith. Even to professed students of Jewish history the makers of the “Wisdom” proverbs are apt to remain distant and shadowy figures; but we cannot afford to neglect any of the makers of the Bible, and I venture to think that the method followed in this volume makes it possible to appreciate the outlook of these men, to realise their difficulties, and if not to sympathise wholly with their views, at least to feel that they were very human. Whether this brief sketch is successful in attaining its object or not, it is certain that the subject deserves more attention than it has hitherto received.