Except that he puts the point in his own way, there is in matter or opinion little in Ben Sirach’s book that could not be paralleled from the _Book of Proverbs_. But in manner an interesting difference is observable. _Ecclesiasticus_ is far and away superior in point of literary charm. It has the merit of constant variety, and in places real grace of expression, for to a much greater degree than in the _Book of Proverbs_ Ben Sirach has developed the brief unit-proverb into epigrams and sonnets, short essays, eulogies and longer odes; and although the unit-proverb is still frequent, it is no longer the sum and substance of the book. Thus by the skilful use of the more elaborate forms, the almost unrelieved disjointedness that detracts so seriously from the pleasure of reading _Proverbs_ is triumphantly overcome. In criticism of Ben Sirach’s ethical attainments, one is inclined to call attention to the juxtaposition of great and little matters which he perpetrates in his book: a feature also to be observed in _Proverbs_. Questions of fundamental moral law and trivialities of etiquette are astonishingly conjoined, apparently without his feeling the least sense of the absurdity. Thus he bids his pupil be ashamed “of unjust dealing before a partner and a friend, of theft in the place where he sojourns, and of falsifying an oath and a covenant, and of _leaning on the table with the elbow when at meat_” (E. 41^{17-19})! Manners and morals, one is driven to suppose, had not been sufficiently differentiated in general opinion. Then also, just when our respect for Ben Sirach is quietly increasing, he is apt to dismay us by interjecting some most unideal observation, as when immediately after delivering a stinging censure on lying speech, he remarks (E. 20^{29}) that gifts which _blind the eyes of the Wise, and are a muzzle on the mouth_, are an effective way of appeasing influential persons. Nevertheless, as one reads his book, the conviction deepens that Ben Sirach was sincere and earnest in his profession of morality, and such falls from grace as the proverb just quoted are probably due to his anxiety to give an honest representation of the facts of life. It has been said in his favour that he was no platitudinarian, by which, of course, is not meant that his book contains no platitudes, but only that in face of the supreme problems of human existence he did not cravenly blink the facts, but faced them and sought to do justice to them; as for instance when, writing of death, he owns that to a healthy and prosperous man it is wholly a “bitter remembrance” (E. 41^{1}).