The discouragements they suffered are written large across the face of the literature. Consider first the reception accorded to their teaching. All the Jews were not lovers of Understanding, nor was Jerusalem a State wherein the dictates of celestial Wisdom ruled with unquestioned sway. No doubt the note of confidence which pervades _Proverbs_ and _Ecclesiasticus_ implies that many people respected the Wise-men’s dignity and paid deference to their speeches. But the presence of outspoken hostility is not a whit less clear. They did not preach unchallenged at the entry of the Gates. On the contrary the number and severity of the proverbs denouncing “scorners” show that the irreverent were a vigorous section of the population. We have to bear in mind that the Gateway was open to all-comers, and _Psalm_ 1^{1} (_Blessed is the man that sitteth not in the assembly of the scornful_) supplies a hint that the scoffer (and his friends) may have had an inconvenient habit of claiming his own corner of the ground, and that not infrequently it pleased him to be merry at the Wise-man’s expense, now pretending he could not, or would not, hear the sermon (_A scorner heareth not rebuke_, Pr. 13^{1}), now deriding the doctrine (_I have called and ye have refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded: Ye have set at nought all my counsel and would have none of my reproof_, Pr. 1^{24^{f}}); now encouraging others to make vexatious interruptions (_Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out_, Pr. 22^{10}). Sage-baiting seems to have been a joke that waxed not stale with repetition: “_How long_,” asks one Wise man pathetically, “_how long will scorners delight in their scorning_” (Pr. 1^{22})? _He that reproveth a scorner getteth himself insult_ (Pr. 9^{7})--behold a sage by the street-corner, wise in words but by no means so sharp in repartee, shaking a puzzled head and wondering what the laughter had been about and why his audience had so speedily melted away.