The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur Part 11

[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.

AGUR'S PHILOSOPHY

Of the three Hebrew thinkers of the Old Testament who ventured to sift and weigh the evidence on which the religious beliefs of their contemporaries were based, Agur was probably the most daring and dangerous. He appealed directly to the people, and set up a simple standard of criticism which could be effectively employed by all. Hence, no doubt, the paucity of the fragments of his writings which have come down to us and the consequent difficulty of constructing therewith a complete and coherent system of philosophy. To what extent he a.s.sented to the theories and approved the practices which const.i.tute the positive elements of the Buddha's religion, is open to discussion; but that he was a confirmed sceptic as regards the fundamental doctrines of Jewish theology, and that his speculations received their impulse and direction from Indian philosophy, are facts which can no longer be called in question.

To the theologians of his day he shows no mercy; for their dogmas of retribution, Messianism, &c., he evinces no respect; nay, he denies all divine revelation and strips the deity itself of every vestige of an attribute. Proud of their precise and exhaustive knowledge of the mysteries of G.o.d's nature, the doctors of the Jewish community had drawn up comprehensive formulas for all His methods of dealing with mankind, and anathematised those who ventured to cast doubts upon their accuracy.

"Whatever sceptic could inquire for, For every why they had a wherefore,"

the unanswerable tone of which lay necessarily and exclusively in the implicit and tenacious faith of the hearer. Now, faith may be governed by conditions widely different from those that regulate scientific knowledge, but if its object be something that lies beyond the ken of the human intellect it must be based either upon a supernatural intuition accorded to the individual or upon a divine revelation vouchsafed to all.

In the former case it cannot be embodied in a religious dogma; in the latter it cannot--or should not--be accepted without thorough discussion and due verification of the alleged historical fact of the divine message.

This is the gist of Agur's reasoning against the allwise theologians of the Jewish Church.

These sapient specialists, whose intellects were nurtured upon the highest and most abstruse speculations and who could readily account for all the movements of the Deity with a wealth of detail surpa.s.sing that of a French police _dossier_, were utterly and notoriously ignorant of the rudimentary laws of science which every inquisitive mind might learn and every educated man could verify. Now, as truth is one, Agur reasoned, how comes it that the persons who thus lay claim to a thorough knowledge of the more difficult, are absolutely ignorant of the more simple?

Whence, in a word, did they obtain their perfect acquaintance with the mysteries of the divine nature and the mechanism of the universe, the elementary laws of which are yet unknown to them? Surely not from any source accessible to all; for Agur, possessing equally favourable opportunities for observation and quite as keen an interest in the subject, not only failed to make any similar discoveries, but even to find any confirmation of theirs. For this he sarcastically accounts by admitting that he must be considerably more stupid than the common run of mankind, in fact, that he is wholly devoid of human understanding--a confession which he evidently expects every reasonable man to repeat after him to those who a.s.sert that cra.s.s ignorance of fundamental facts is an aid to the highest kind of knowledge.

"I have worried myself about G.o.d, and succeeded not, For I am more stupid than other men, And in me there is no human understanding: Neither have I learned wisdom, So that I might comprehend the science of sacred things."

Still he is a very docile disciple, and, having failed to make any discoveries of his own, would gladly accept those of a qualified master--of one who endeavours to know before setting out to teach and who prefaces his account of the wonders of the unseen world by pointing out the bridge over which he pa.s.sed thither, from this. But does such a genuine teacher exist?

"Who has ascended into heaven and come down again?

Who can gather the wind in his fists?

Who can bind the waters in a garment?

Who can grasp all the ends of the earth?

Such an one would I question about G.o.d: 'What is his name?

And what the name of his sons, if thou knowest it?'"

And if even specialists do not fulfil these conditions, are we not forced to conclude that their so-called knowledge is a fraud and its subject-matter unknowable?

Agur's views of right conduct--if we may judge by the general tenour of his fragmentary sayings and by the principle embodied in his sixth and last sentence, in which he rejects as a motive for action "a high hope for a low heaven"--are marked by the essential characteristics of true morality. An action performed for the sake of any recompense, human or divine, transitory or eternal, is egotistic by its nature, and therefore not moral; and the difference between the man who, in his unregenerate days, cut his neighbours' throats in order to enjoy their property, and after his conversion gave all his goods to feed the poor, in order to enjoy eternal happiness in heaven, is more interesting to the legislator than to the moralist. But, were it otherwise, Agur holds that, even from a purely practical point of view, all the honours and rewards which mankind can bestow upon their greatest benefactor would be too dearly purchased by a ruffled temper; in other words, mere freedom from positive pain is a greater boon than the highest pleasure purchased at the price of a little suffering.

Agur's politics gave as much offence to the priests as his theology. Like most original thinkers, he is a believer in the aristocracy of talent, and he makes no secret of his preference of a hereditary n.o.bility to those upstarts from the ranks of the people who possess no intellectual gifts to recommend them. For the former have at least training and heredity to guide them, whereas the latter are devoid even of these recommendations. These views furnished the grounds for the charge of Sadduceeism preferred against him by his adversary.

To what extent Indian thought, and in particular the metaphysics and ethics of Buddhism, influenced Agur's religious speculations, it is impossible to do more than conjecture. Personally I am disposed to think that he was well acquainted and indeed thoroughly imbued with the teachings of the Indian reformer. In the third century B.C., as already pointed out, the spread of the new religion through Bactria, Persia, Egypt, and Asia Minor was rapid. Moreover, the turn taken by the speculations of cultured Hebrews of that epoch was precisely such as we should expect to find, if it stood to Buddhistic preaching in the relation of effect to cause. The scepticism of the philosophers of the Old Testament, not excepting that of Agur who may aptly be termed the Hebrew Voltaire, was not wholly destructive. Its sweeping negations in the spheres of metaphysics and theology were amply compensated for--if one can speak of compensation in such a connection--by the positive, humane, and wise maxims it lays down in the domain of ethics. And the cornerstone of the morality of all three--Job, Koheleth, and Agur--would seem to be virtually identical with that formulated in the Indian aphorism:

"Alone the doer doth the deed; alone he tastes the fruit it brings; Alone he wanders through life's maze; alone redeems himself from being."

Buddhistic influence in the case of Agur, therefore, is all the more probable that it admirably dovetails with all the circ.u.mstances of time and place known to us, even on the supposition, which I am myself inclined to favour, that Agur lived and wrote in Palestine. This probability is greatly enhanced by the striking affinity between the Buddhist conception of revealed religions, of professional priests and of practical wisdom, and that enshrined in the few verses of Agur which we possess. It is raised to a degree akin to certainty by the actual occurrence of Indian images, similes, and even concrete aphorisms in the short fragment of seven strophes preserved to us in the Book of Proverbs.

THE POEM OF JOB

TRANSLATION OF THE RESTORED TEXT