first anthology. Not a hint is given that retribution loiters on the road; at most a warning not to envy the (temporary) prosperity of the wicked (xxiii. 17, xxiv. 1, 19; with regard to xxiii. 18 see above).
This was the 'certitude of the golden age,' to use Mr. Matthew Arnold's expression; it is just what we might expect in a simple and stationary condition of society. The strange thing is that it should have lasted on when oppression within or hostile attacks from without had brought manifold causes of sorrow upon both good and bad.[1] That the teachers of the people should have held up the doctrine of earthly retribution—[*should there be a — here?]
Behold, the righteous hath a reward upon earth;
much more the ungodly and the sinner (xi. 31)—
as long as it could reasonably be defended, was natural. But that shortly before the Maccabean rising a 'wise man'[2] should still be found to write—
The gift of the Lord remains with the godly,
and his favour brings prosperity for ever (Ecclus. xi. 17),
seems to contradict the usual correspondence between the received moral theory and the outward circumstances of society. All that we can say is that such inconsistencies are found to exist; old forms of doctrine do not, as a rule, 'melt like frosty rime.' There must have been circles of Jewish moralists averse to speculation, who would continue to repeat the older view of the providential government even at a time when the social state had completely exposed its shallowness.
Dean Plumptre, indeed, following Ewald, credits the 'wise men' of pre-Exile times with deeper views. According to him, certain proverbs, e.g. x. 25, xi. 4, xiv. 32, xxiii. 18 (Ewald adds xii. 28) imply the hope of immortality. None of these passages however can be held conclusive. x. 25, xi. 4 simply say that the righteous shall be unhurt in a day of judgment; in xiv. 32 the antithesis is between the ruin which follows upon wickedness and the safe refuge of integrity (read b'thummō with the
