As the reference here is to foreign rulers there is an advance in doctrine to be noted, for the Law is held to be obligatory on others as well as on the Jews, and Gentile rulers are regarded as having received their authority from God. (_c_) _The Doctrine of Sin._ The prevalence of Sin is often spoken of in Ecclesiasticus; Ben-Sira realizes its existence personally when he says in xxii. 27: O that one would set a watch over my mouth, And a seal of shrewdness over my lips.... And again in xxiii. 3 ff.: That mine ignorances be not multiplied, And that my sins abound not.... Its universal prevalence is witnessed to by the words in viii. 5: Reproach not a man who repenteth, Remember that we are all guilty. Punishment for every sin, Ben-Sira says, will assuredly overtake sinners: Do not wickedly continue in sin, For in respect of one sin thou art not without guilt; i.e. every single sin carries guilt with it, the implication being that it will therefore not go unpunished. Of great interest and importance is the teaching in this book on the origin of Sin; Ben-Sira mentions three theories; one of these he combats, namely that the existence of Sin is due to God; this is the belief, apparently, of certain freethinkers against whom the following words are spoken: Say not, “From God is my transgression,” For that which He hateth made He not. Say not, “It is He that made me to stumble,” For there is no need of evil men. Evil and abomination doth the Lord hate, And He doth not let it come nigh them that fear Him (xv. 11-13). But since Ben-Sira believed that God was the Creator of everything that exists, he sometimes comes perilously near to uttering the very untruth which he here combats. He says, for example, in xxxvii. 3: O base nature! Why then wast thou created To fill the world’s face with deceit? The words “base nature” are the rendering of the Hebrew which is literally, “evil Yetzer”; the “Yetzer” is the bias or natural inclination which is implanted in every man; there is, therefore, in the words quoted, an implication that this “evil Yetzer” was created by God. The same must be said of another passage, xxxiii. (xxxvi. in the Greek) 13-15: As the clay is in the power of the potter, To fashion it according to his good pleasure; So is man in the power of his Creator, To make him according to His ordinance. Over against evil stands good, and against death life; Likewise over against the godly stands the sinner. Even thus look upon all the works of God, Each different, one the opposite of the other.