carry on the process already begun by the authors of the sacred books themselves; it may be enough to remind my readers of the gradual supplementing of the original Book of Job by later writers. To the three passages of Koheleth mentioned above, must be added, as Geiger saw,[1] the two postscripts which form the Epilogue. From the close of the last century a series of writers have felt the difficulties of this section so strongly that they have assigned it to one or more later writers, and in truth, although these difficulties may be partly removed, enough remains to justify the obelising of the passage.
There is no evidence that Luzzatto ever retracted the critical view mentioned above. To the character of the author, it is true, he became more charitable in his later years. I do not think the worse of him for his original antipathy. An earnest believer himself and of fiery temperament, he could not understand the cool and cautious reflective spirit of the much-tried philosopher;[2] and as a lover of the rich, and, as the result of development, comparatively flexible Hebrew tongue, he took a dislike to a writer so wanting in facility and grace as Koheleth.[3] It was an error, but a noble one, and it shows that Luzzatto found in the study of criticism a school of moral culture as well as of literary insight.
The adoption of Luzzatto's view,[4] combined with Döderlein's as to the epilogue, removes the temptation to interpret Koheleth as the apology of any particular philosophical or theological doctrine. The author now appears, not indeed thoroughly consistent, but at least in his true light as a thinker tossed about on the sea of speculation, and without
- ↑ Jüdische Zeitschrift, iv. 9 &c.
- ↑ David Castelli, a cool and cautious scholar but not original, is naturally better fitted to appreciate Koheleth (see Il libro del Kohelet, Pisa, 1866).
- ↑ 'Die harte, ungefügige, tiefgesunkene Sprache des Buches entzog ihm in Luzzatto's Auge den verklärenden Lichtglanz; er blickte mit einer gewissen Missachtung auf den Schriftsteller, der sowenig Meister der edlen ihn erfüllenden Sprache war' (Geiger).
- ↑ Not only Geiger, but the learned and fairminded Kalisch, has made this view his own (Bible Studies, i. 65); among Christian scholars it has been adopted by Nöldeke and Bickell (the latter includes iii. 17 among the inserted passages, and I incline to follow him).
