This chapter does not lend itself to a Summary as in the case of the others. CHAPTER XI The Wisdom Literature; the Jewish Conception of Wisdom [LITERATURE.—Cheyne, _Job and Solomon, or The Wisdom of the Old Testament_ (1887); Stade, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, ii. pp. 292-309 (1888); Driver, _An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_, pp. 337-449 (1891); Toy, _Judaism and Christianity_, pp. 52-76 (1891); Cornill, _Einleitung in das Alte Testament_, pp. 216-279 (1896); Toy, _The Book of Proverbs_ (1899); Friedländer, _Griechische Philosophie in Alten Testament_ (1904); Briggs, _The Book of Psalms_ (1906); Barton, _The Book of Ecclesiastes_ (1908); Meinhold, _Die Weisheit Israels in Spruch, Sage und Dichtung_ (1908); Gregg, _The Wisdom of Solomon_ (1909); Oesterley, _The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus_ (1912); Oesterley and Box, _The Wisdom of Ben-Sira_, and Holmes, _The Wisdom of Solomon_, in Charles’ “Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament” (1913); Goodrick, _The Book of Wisdom_ (1913).] I. THE WISDOM LITERATURE The Wisdom Literature of the Jews which has come down to us comprises both canonical and uncanonical books[300]; but the distinction may be ignored, for all the books which belong to this Literature, though each has its particular characteristics, are clearly members of one family; they are all alike in possessing one outstanding and typical mark of differentiation from the rest of the Old Testament books, viz., in them religion has become philosophy. It was not, of course, philosophy in the Greek, any more than in the modern, sense of the word; “the wise men of Israel never approached their inquiries without theological presuppositions; they had no desire to investigate final causes; they started from a fundamental axiom, ‘In the beginning was God ...’; this postulate indicates the character of their studies, which were not so much speculative as practical: their desire was not so much to understand the works of God, as to acquaint themselves with their harmonies, beauties, and adaptations, and all this with the final object of knowing and doing the will of God.”[301] But while the fundamental Jewish monotheistic belief is taken for granted throughout the Wisdom Literature, the latter has other characteristics which are not wholly in accord with traditional Judaism. That the various writers differ in their teaching from each other, and that the same writer is not always consistent in his teaching, is not a cause for surprise; these men had entered upon new ways of thinking, and were grappling with new subjects of thought; it was natural that their speculations should sometimes be only tentative; they had, moreover, come into contact with new influences which would have affected one more than another. It must also be remembered that some of the books belonging to this literature, notably Proverbs and Job, are of composite authorship,