[35] Detailed proof is impossible, and the question must be argued on general evidence, which any modern commentary on the Book of Proverbs will supply. Toy, _Proverbs_, § vi. is emphatic in his view that no authority whatever attaches to titles ascribing proverbs to Solomon. Volz (p. 95) is non-committal: “Whether small fragments of Solomon’s work have been transmitted to us cannot be determined.” Driver, _Literature of the Old Testament_, p. 406f, is of much the same opinion; but, remarking that the “proverbs in 10^{1{ff}} exhibit great uniformity of type,” he remarks that “perhaps this type was set by Solomon.” [36] Compare the way in which the Greeks tended to associate all fables with the name of Æsop. [37] _Ephesians_ 6^{12} (Weymouth’s translation). [38] Cp. the similar but more poetic description in _Psalm_ 1. [39] What follows is without reference to the ancient civilisation of the far East, India or China. The “world” we are here considering means the civilisation of the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea. A few pages later, the terms “Eastern” and “Western” will be used with similar latitude: “Eastern” or (“Oriental”) denoting the peoples of Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia; and “Western” the peoples of Greece, Macedonia, and the old Greek colonies of the Ægean islands and the coast of Asia Minor. [40] _Amos_ 5^{21f}. [41] Simonides (MacKail’s translation, _Greek Anthology_, pp. 149, 151.) [42] Bevan, _Jerusalem under the High Priests_, p. 35. [43] Bevan, _Stoics and Sceptics_, pp. 25, 26. [44] Stoicism, whilst it offered the thinker immunity from the fears of life, was also adapted to the needs of the generality of men whom it sought to provide with principles for the stable and successful conduct of ordinary life. Bevan (op. cit.) points out that the system shows signs of hasty construction, reflecting the urgency of the problems it sought to meet. Its strongly practical character is seen in the tendency to find expression in brief, pointed, _formulæ_, catch-words, and maxims, evidently designed to make its doctrines easy for the average man to comprehend. The resemblance to Hebrew Wisdom-teaching is interesting and obvious. [45] We have to use the term “worldly-wisdom” and not “wisdom,” because the Greeks also had their seekers after true wisdom at this period, as may be seen in the gnomic verses of Solon, Phocylides and Theognis, many of whose maxims, as well as the sayings of Stoic philosophers, might be quoted to show that Hellenism was not without the protest from within itself of noble souls. The contrast suggested above is therefore not one between Greek and Hebrew Wisdom-teaching, but between the Hebrew Wisdom and the _general_ “unwisdom” of ordinary Hellenic life. [46] See G. A. Smith, _Jerusalem_, vol. i., ch. i., where a beautiful description of night and dawn in Jerusalem may be found. [47] Mishna, _Yoma_, 3.^{1}