towards clothing abstract and collective terms in the warm language of personal life, and the books of _Proverbs_ and _Ecclesiasticus_ may fairly be considered a natural development of pure Hebrew tradition.[2a] And yet there are “signs of the times” about them. The description of Wisdom we are discussing would read strangely in pre-exilic Hebrew books; and so the question of Greek influence may still be pressed. In the opinion of the present writer the influence, if any, is confined to a slight unintentional colouring. Seeing that the Wise stood out against the pressure and menace of unscrupulous, secular Hellenism, and that they lived at a period when Greek intellectual prowess had not yet brought its full weight to bear on Palestinian, or at least on Judæan, thought, it is a reasonable conjecture that any trace of new philosophy in the proverbs has been introduced unwittingly and unwillingly. The general soundness of this opinion becomes vividly apparent, if the two passages quoted above are compared with the eulogy given in a Jewish work of considerably later date, the _Wisdom of Solomon_. There Wisdom, Artificer of all things, is described as _A spirit, quick of understanding, holy, Only-begotten, manifold, subtle, mobile, Pure, undefiled, clean, Inviolable, loving the good.... For Wisdom is more mobile than any motion, Yea, she pervadeth and penetrateth all things By reason of her pureness; For she is a breath of the power of God, And a pure effulgence of the Almighty._ (_Wisdom of Solomon_, 7^{22ff}). and in one verse (W.S. 9^{4}) Wisdom is actually called _She that sitteth beside Thee on Thy throne_, astonishing words from a Jew. The atmosphere of Hellenic philosophy being here unmistakable, the contrast between the language of this passage and the restrained phraseology of _Proverbs_ and _Ecclesiasticus_ is accordingly significant. As the _Book of Job_ is treated in another volume of this series, the reference to it must here be brief, but a chapter on the Exaltation of Wisdom must not close without some mention of the wonderful poem in that Book, where also confession is made of the sublimity of Wisdom, but it is insisted that Wisdom dwells far beyond the reach of mortals, unknown and unknowable, save to the inscrutable Deity who wills not to reveal its secrets unto suffering man. Each section of this great passage begins with the haunting question, _But Wisdom--whence cometh it, and where is the place of understanding?_ We quote the last stanza only.