The question arises as to whether the Hebrew of these manuscripts is not a translation from the Greek or Syriac forms of the text which had been in existence for a number of centuries previously; and, further, it must be asked that even supposing Hebrew to have been the original language of the book, do these fragments present the original Hebrew, or a later form of this? The answer to these questions involves a detailed study of the text in its various forms, and a comparison of these with the Hebrew text; clearly a technical discussion of this kind would be out of place here; we can only give a _résumé_ of the results of such study. “As a general rule a text which is a translation betrays the fact by certain indications which are almost infallible; idiomatic expressions in the original, misunderstandings of words in the original and consequent mistranslation which interfere with the sense of a passage, clumsy diction owing to difficulties in giving a proper rendering of the original; these and other signs of the non-originality of a writing are almost certain to show themselves; but the Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus does not present signs of this kind. Its whole style stamps its language as the original one; the symmetry of the Hebrew, in the main, points in the same direction; moreover, there are a number of instances which could be given which exclude the possibility of translation from either Greek or Syriac; there are also many cases in which the Versions have no equivalent for the Hebrew; and lastly, the Hebrew often contains a text so obviously superior to that of the Versions that its originality cannot be disputed. When we add to this that both the Greek and Syriac frequently exhibit the well-known indications of translation, it may be taken as certain that the Hebrew was the original language in which Ecclesiasticus was written.”[352]