The date of origin and the authorship of single proverbs are seldom discoverable: a tantalising circumstance for those who would write about them. And yet, perhaps, their reticence is wise. It may be that some of the noblest sayings have sprung from the lips of a poor man in a peasant home; and there are fools who would thenceforth despise them for their birth. Of the individual sayings in the _Book of Proverbs_ a few, in matter if not in exact phrase, may go back to ancient days; some may be due to Solomon himself or date from his period; but the vast majority[15], for cogent reasons of style, language, tone, ethical and social customs and so forth, are post-exilic--that is, not earlier than about 450 B.C.; nor on the other hand are they later than about 200 B.C., by which time the several sections had been combined to form substantially the present Book.[16] Something may be said concerning the relative priority of the five sections of the Book. Internal evidence points to sections _b_ and _d_ as the oldest portions, then section _c_; sections _a_ and _e_ (_i.e._, chs. 1-9, 30, 31) being probably the latest groups. But of the precise date when these collections were severally formed and combined, and of the names of the men by whom the work was done, we are unaware. Fortunately our ignorance of detail is but a negligible trifle compared with our firm knowledge of the general fact that _in their present form these proverbs belong to the period_ 350-200 B.C., _and their authors and compilers were men who styled themselves “The Wise,” and were known in the Jewish community by that term_. A hundred and fifty years may seem a wide margin, but it is a mistake to wish it less; if anything, it ought to be increased. For the point to be grasped is that _Proverbs_ represents the thoughts and ideals of the Wise throughout that whole period (350-200 B.C.) and even longer. The exact dates of the combination and final revision of the component collections of sayings are therefore questions of minor importance. The Book is not to be treated as a fixed literary product of any one particular year, but as representative of the teachings of the Wise during very many years. To the same class of men we owe, besides _Proverbs_, other famous writings, of which two, _Job_ and _Ecclesiastes_, were also included in the Old Testament Canon, and two are to be found in the Apocrypha, namely, _Ecclesiasticus_ (or, as it is often called, _The Wisdom of Ben Sirach_) and the _Wisdom of Solomon_. Of these four writings the two first, _Job_ and _Ecclesiastes_, are considered in other volumes of this series,[17] and therefore, except for one or two quotations, will not be utilised here, although they both contain a number of proverbial sayings. The _Wisdom of Solomon_ also will seldom be noticed in this book: it is much later in date than _Proverbs_, and is not a collection of proverbs, but a set of discourses in praise of Wisdom.