Part 11 (1/2)

[179] The word ”barren” added in our Bibles (Hebrew _'oczer_, ”barrenness”) is not only excluded by the metre, but is also wanting in the Septuagint version--conclusive proofs that it is a later interpolation.

[180] _Cf_. Schopenhauer, ”Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” herausg.

v. E. Grisebach, ii. p. 585. Grisebach's is the only correct edition of Schopenhauer's works.

[181] Prov. x.x.x. 11.

[182] _Ib_. x.x.x. 18, 19.

[183] _Ib_. x.x.x. 11.

[184] _Ib_. x.x.x. 17.

[185] _Cf_. Schopenhauer, ”Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,” vol. ii.

p. 583 fol.; also vol. i. pp. 424-426; and Bickell, ”Wiener Zeitschrift fur Kunde des Morgenlandes,” 1891.

[186] Prov. x.x.x. 19.

[187] _Ib_. x.x.x. 24-28.

[188] For example, Prov. x.x.x. 15:

”There are three things that are never satisfied, Yea, four things say not, 'It is enough!'”

[189] _Cf_. Bickell, ”Wiener Zeitschrift fur Kunde des Morgenlandes,” 1891.

DATE OF COMPOSITION

The sayings of Agur cannot possibly be a.s.signed to a date later than the close of third century B.C. The ground for this statement is contained in the circ.u.mstance that Jesus Sirach found the Book of Proverbs in existence, with all its component parts and in its present shape, about the year 200 B.C. He mentions a collection of proverbial sayings when alluding to Solomon and his proverbs. Jesus Sirach's canon--if we can apply this technical term to the series of scriptures in vogue in his day--comprised the books contained in our Bibles from Genesis to Kings, further Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, the twelve Minor Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. Moreover, it is no longer open to doubt that the arrangement of the various parts of the Book of Proverbs which he read was identical with that of ours. For the last part of this Book contains an alphabetical poem in praise of a good housewife,[190] and Jesus Sirach concluded his own work with a similar poem upon wisdom, in which he imitated this alphabetical order. It is obvious, therefore, that Proverbs in their present form could not have been compiled later than the date of Jesus Sirach's work (about 200 B.C.). This conclusion is borne out by the circ.u.mstance that the final editor of Proverbs in his introduction,[191]

mentions the Words of the Wise, which occur in chapters xxii. 17-xxiv., and ”their dark sayings,” or riddles, by which he obviously means the sentences of Agur. For Proverbs and for Agur's fragment, therefore, the latest date is the beginning of the second century B.C. Chapter x.x.x., in which, on the one hand, Agur develops very advanced philosophical views, some of them of Indian origin, and, on the other, his anonymous antagonist breathes the narrow, fanatic spirit so thoroughly characteristic of the later ”Mosaic” Law, is among the very latest portions of Proverbs. For it is in the highest degree probable that the sayings of Agur are of a much later date even than the promulgation of the Priests' Code;[192] and the circ.u.mstance that the anonymous stickler for strict orthodoxy already begins to accentuate the political and religious opposition between the two great parties known as Pharisees and Sadducees, as well as other grounds of a different order, disposes me to a.s.sign the fragment of Agur to the third century B.C. This conclusion would be borne out by the influence upon Agur's scepticism of comparatively recent foreign speculation. Some of his sayings have an unmistakable Indian ring about them. A few are even directly traceable to the philosophical sentences of the Hindoos. The enumeration of the four insatiable things, for instance, is but a slight modification of the Indian proverb in the Hitopadeca which runs: ”Fire is not satiated with fuel; nor the sea with streams; nor death with all beings; nor a fair-eyed woman with men.”[193] Still more striking and suggestive is the correspondence between the desire of life, personified in Agur's fragment by the beautiful Ghoul, and the thirst of existence denoted by the Buddha and his countrymen as _tanha_--the root of all evil and suffering.

”Through thirst for existence (_tanha_),” the Buddha is reported to have said to his disciples, ”arises a craving for life; through this, being; through being, birth; through birth are produced age and death, care and misery, suffering, wretchedness and despair. Such is the origin of the world.... By means of the total annihilation of this thirst for existence (_tanha_) the destruction of the craving for life is compa.s.sed; through the destruction of the craving for life, the uprooting of being is effected; through the uprooting of being, the annihilation of birth is brought about; by means of the annihilation of birth the abolition of age and death, of care and misery, of suffering, wretchedness and despair is accomplished. In this wise takes place the annihilation of this sum of suffering.”[194] The same doctrine is laid down by the last accredited of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputto: ”What, brethren, is the source of suffering?” he is reported to have said. ”It is that desire (_tanha_) which leads from new birth to new birth, which is accompanied by joy and pa.s.sion, which delights now here, now there; it is the s.e.xual instinct, the impulse towards existence, the craving for development. That, brethren, is what is termed the source of suffering.”[195]

Footnotes:

[190] Prov. x.x.xi. 10-31.

[191] Prov. i. 6.

[192] 444 B.C.

[193] _Cf_. Hitopadeca, book ii. fable vi.; ed. Max Muller, vol. ii.

p. 38.

[194] Samyuttaka-Nikayo, vol. ii. chap. xliv. p. 12; _cf_. Neumann ”Buddhistiche Anthologie,” Leiden, 1892, pp. 161-162.

[195] Majjhima-Nikayo; _cf_. Neumann, _op. sit.,_ p.25.