ECCLESIASTIC US

An apocryphal book of Scripture, distinguished by this name because it was read ( in ecclesia ) in the church as a book of piety and instruction, but not of infallible authority; or it is so called, perhaps, to distinguish it from the book of Ecclesiastes; or to show that it contains, as well as the former, precepts and exhortations to wisdom and virtue. The anonymous preface to this work informs us, that the author of it was a Jew, called Jesus, the son of Sirach, who wrote it in Hebrew; but it was rendered into Greek by his grandson of the same name. The Hebrew copy of this book, which St. Jerome saw, was entitled Proverbs . By many of the ancients it was styled Παναρετος , the book of every virtue : but the most common name among the Greeks is, The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach . This book was written under the high priesthood of Onias III., and translated in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, or Physcon. Some of the ancients have ascribed it to Solomon. The author, no doubt, had in his view the subject and thoughts expre ed in the Proverbs of that king, and has followed his method of teaching morality by sentences or maxims. This book begins with an exhortation to the pursuit of wisdom; after which follow many maxims of morality to the forty-fourth chapter, where the author begins to rehearse the praises of famous men, such as the patriarchs, prophets, and the most illustrious men of the Jewish nation. The Latin version of Ecclesiastic us has more in it than the Greek, several particulars being inserted in that, which are not in the other. These, Dr. Prideaux observes, seem to have been interpolated by the first author of that version; but now, the Hebrew being lost, the Greek, which was made from it by the grandson of the author, must stand for the original; and from that the English translation was made. Parts of Ecclesiastic us are strikingly like the style of Solomon, and truly Hebraic in their cast, as has been remarked by Bishop Lowth in his 24th Prelection; who subjoins a translation of the 24th chapter into Hebrew. He recognises however a considerable difference between its style and that of Solomon.