Siphmoth (Hastings' Dictionary)

One of the places, ' where David ami his men were wont to liaunt,' to which a portion of the spoil of the Amakkites was sent after David's return to Zikla^ (1 S 30=*). It is mentioned with Aroer, now 'Ararah, to tlie east of Beersheba, and Eshtemoa, now es-Semii'a, in the hill-country S. of Hebron. The site was unknown to Eusebius and Jerome (Onom. s. ^a(piifiu6, Sofamo(h), and it has not yet been recovered. It was probably in the Negeb to the S. of Eshtemoa.

Rielim {IlU'B) suggests that Zabdi, the Shiphmite (1 Ch 27='), was a native of Siphmoth and not of Shepham — the cliangc from ,S'A to S being easily made, and a few MSS reading Shijih- for Sijih- in 1 Samuel. See Shepuam. C. W. Wilson. 8IPPAI.— See Saph. 8IRACH (BOOK OF).— L History. ii. Importance. tii. Name and Place In the Bible. Iv. Name of ttie Autlior. V. Editions, vi. Orecli Text, vii. Versions and Quotationi. viii. The Svrioc Text ix. The Hebrew Text*. X. CoDtentA and Theology.

Literature. (Abbrevlationa In this article : — Ed. =s Edersheim, Commentary on Sirach in Wace, Apocrypha, ii. ; U-N = CowIcy-Neubauer, The ttri'jinal llebrew of a portion of Ecilftiiaglicu* ; R- Uyssel, Translation of Sirach %vith Notes in DU Apokryphrn ul><'ritflzl, . . ed. by E. Kautzsch (1900, i.)and In SK mtO, 1901 ; S-T=7Vii! WUdoiit o/ Ben Sira, Portiona oj the Look EcctesiwitictiS, ed.

by Schechter-Taylor (1S99) ; ^ the Orcelt, {g the Hebrew, g the Latin, & the Syriao Text, n the Syriac translation of Paul of Tellal. ^ i. History. — The history of the book, which in the English Bible retained the Latin name Ecclesi- astictis, while it is called in German the book (of) Jesus Sirach or, abbreviated, Sirach, falls into two periods, the second beginning on 13th May 18'JG, when S. Schechtcr, Tahnudic reader in the Uni- versity of Cambridge, wrote in a letter to Mrs. A. S.

Lewis there, that the fragment of a Hebrew MS of her.-), which he liad taken with him, represented ' a piece of the orif/imtl Hebrew of Ecclesiastic ms. It is the first time that such a thing was discovered ' (see .\. S. Lewis, In I fie Shadow of Sinai : A Story of Travel and Research from 18'J5 to 1897 ; Cam- bridge, 1898, p. 174).

Since that day, 39 out of the 51 chajiters of whicli the book consists have been recovered totally or in part in Hebrew from 4 dillorcnt MSS, and a new period in the history of this book has thus been opened. \Vhat we knew about it before that time or believed we knew, is, perhaps, best summed up in the Introduction and Commentary of A. Edcnsheim, in the Spcnhcr't Commentarij ('Apocrypha,' ed. by Henry Waca (London, 18SS), ii. I-l'39). ii. Importance.

— In many respects this book is the most important of the so-called Apocrypha. It is important for the student of history who wishes to trace the Jewish religion in its transition from the OT to the NT, and it is important on account of the influence it exercised and still exer- cises on the religious life of generations. Both the Jubilee lUiythm of St.

Bernard of Clairvaux (partially translated in Hi/mns Ancient and Modern, 178, 177), and what may be called the German Te Deum, S an dunket atle Gott (ih. 379), are taken from this book. How much has been lost bj- tlio.

se parts of the Church which excluded it from tlicir Bibles may be gathered from the use made of it in other parts, not only in the Greek and Roman, which place it on the same footing as the whole Bible, but also in the Lutheran, which placed it among the Apocrypha but made a verj' large use of it. On the Latin Church compare especially Auj^stine. When he culleeted from the Bible, tow;irds the end ot his life, his so- cilkHl Speculum, i.e.

those passages which he considered useful for the guidance of the religrioua life, he found in this book more for his puri^ose (.plura huic open necessana) than in any other book of the OT or NT (no fewer than 3C pages out of 2b."» in the edition of Weihrich [C.'^KL, vol xii. 1S67J ; from Proverbs 21 pafjes, from Matthew IS).

After the excerpts from those books 'quosetJudffii canonicos habent,' he goes on to say ' sed non aunt omittendi et hi quos quidem ante salvatoris adventum constat esse couscriptos, sed eos non receptos a Ju<l;uis recipit tanien ciusdem s.\lvatoris ecclesia. in his sunt duo qui Salonioriis appellantur a pluribus propter quandam sicut existiino eloquU sniiilitudinem. nam Salomonis non esse nihil dubit-iuit (|uique docliores. nee tamen eius qui Sapientife dicitur quisnani sit autor apparet.

ilium vcro alterum quem vocamus Ecclesi- asticum, quo<l Jesus quidam scripserit, qui co;,'nominatur Sirach, constat inter eos qui eundeni librum totum Icf^erunt.' As to the Lutiieiun Church it may be noted that tlie protocols of the Meistursini;jer of Niirnberg alone mention about 100 songb all bcpnning Mcsus Sirach' or 'Sirach (the wise man)'— see the Indexes published by K. Drescher in vol. 214 (1S97) of the Literarische Vercin.

In 1676 a preacher published the themes and dispositions of 170 sermons on this book,' and the Bible Society of llalle (founded by Francke-Caastein) circulated from 1712-1823 no fewer than 77,105 copies, t iii. Name and Place in the Bible.— (a) Place. (1) The book had at no time a place among the 24 (or 22) books of the Hebrew Bible, thou"li it is quoted in one passage of the Bab.

Talmud (ISerakh- oth, 48a) with the quotation-formula ^-nri ' as it is written,' which is used elsewhere only of the acknowledged books ; but in the parallel passages the name of the book is addeif. In two otlier passages two rabbinical authorities actually quote from our book, while believing themselves to be (luoting from Scripture (.see Strack, ' Kanon des AT ' in PllE^ ix. 753).

The book is therefore not mentioned in those lists of the canonical books which profess to give the Jewish Canon, as Melito, Origon, Cyril of Jeru.salcm, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ainpliilocliius, pseudo, Athanasius' Si/nopsis, Canon of Laodicea, capitulus (Zalin, Geschichte dr^ Kanons, vol. ii.) Epiphanius, de Mens. 4 (Lagarde, Symmicta, ii. li)7), says on tlie two books, mentioned above by Augustine, Wis- dom and Sirach : aiVoi x/xictM"' l'^" f'"'' "O' uxp^^'P-oi, d\y eli if)t$p.

6if Twv I)7jtujv ovk ai'a<p^jtofTai'X 3i' 6 ou5i ill TV dpiin (i"t<) li>eTiBr)(rai>, tout' iarlv iv rg T^s &o- (2) But Sirach had a sure and prominent place among the books of the Bible in the Greek and Sacrarwn U 'nniliariim Thejmiticarum e Sapuint'a llata- ^1T», tive EceleniOKlico Jem filii Sirach ctnlinn el septuw/inla digpogitioTva, atinfitati'milnm texluatibit itlxtgtratip, gxiiMi4 prajlxiu, lilier Siracidii 'jrttctu cum miriin leelionibtu . . autore . . W. M.

Stissoro, Lipsioi, 2 pts. (1U76). Ito. t On the use made of the book in the English Church see below, p. GPOi". t Compare with this assertion Luther's definition of the Apocrypna, as ' Bucbcr, so der HeiliKen Schrilt nlcht gleitl gehalteu, und doch uiitzlich uiid gut zu lesen siud.' 340 SIRACH (BOOK OF) SIRACH (BOOK OF) still more in the Latin Cliiirches. Tn the MSS of the (ireek Bibles it was most commonly jjronped with the other Poetical hooks (see the lists in Swetii's Introduction, pp.

108-214) ; the order being in cod. S: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecel., Cant., Wisd., Sirach, Job ; in B: Ps., Prov., Eccl., Cant., Job, AVisd., Sirach, Esth. ; in AN : Ps., Job, Prov., Eccl., Cant., Wisd., Sirach. On the question whether Clement of Alexandria had Wisdom and sirach as an .\ppendix to the NT, see, on the one side, Credner-\'olkniar, Gescltichte den nvritpKt. C'anomt, ji. ^87 ion the Btren^fth of Photius, cod.

109, e 3s i)A« (rtutrtoi [of his 'ExXaycct] rot/ dc/ou tlxd^u TAiv iTio-roXC/v xati 7^v K.xOu>jxui)/ xx'i rov "Exx\y:riitrTi7cevj, and H. Eiokhoff, Das ST del Clnnens (Proj^r. Schleswig, 1900, p. 22); on the other side Zahn, Ge^c/iichte dfs Kaitont; ii. 223. The 8.5th of the Apostolic Canons orders: l^uOev S^ vfiLf irpouiffTopiiaBii) ^avBdv^iv ii^idv toj>s viovs t^v 1.o^lav ToO 7ro\rna^oi}s Sctpdx- The Coptic Church counts 6 books of Wisdom (fjdffoi/ios) ; see I.

Guidi, ' II cauone biblico della chiesa copta' (Revue bililtmic, x. 2, 166, 169) = Job + Salonione51ibri (Prov., Wisd., Eccl., LaS.ipienza di Brij;or ben Bagy ( = np' p ^lj.^•), Cant.) ; after the Prophets follows La Sapienza di Gesii figlio di Sir.-M'h sr.riba di Salomone. (3) In the Western Church, too, it became at a very early date common to group these 5 books (Prov., Eccl., Cant., Wisd., and Sirach) together and presently to count them all as Solomonic.

One passage from Augustine has been already quoted [§ 1] : in de Doct. Christ, ii. 13 he says of Wisdom and Sirach : ' de quadam similitudine Salomonis esse dicuntur . . qui tamen quoniam in auctoritatem recipi meruerunt juxta pro- pheticos enumerandi sunt.' Innocent I. (Ep. ad Exsiiperiiim) counts expressly, after Prophetarum libri xvi., 'Salomonis libri v.,' then Psalterium ; 80 also Cassiodorius [de Inst. Div. litt. 14 ; but see Zahn, Gejieh. d. Kan. ii. 270, 271 n.

5, 272), the Council of Carthage, A.D. 397 (can. 47 = 39), the stichometrical list from Freisingen published by C. H. Turner (JThSt ii. 240), while, in the list of the MS of F. Arevalo (I.e. p. 241), in pseudo- Gelasius and in Isidore, ' Salomonis libri iii.' is followed by Wisdom and Sirach (in pseudo-Gelasius in the order Sirach, Wisdom).* The same arrange- ment is found in media?valBiblesand translations — for instance in the famous Wenzel Bible at Vienna (on which see Kurrelmeyer, Amer.

Journ. of Phil. \xi. 62, 69) ; and this custom of placing Sirach and Wisd. in company with Prov., Eccl., and Cant., and of reckoning all five as books of Solomon, became so prevalent that as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several .separate editions of this group were pulJished, not only in Latin but also in English, either with the express head- ing ' libri Salomonis ' or without it. See in the Catalo^e of the British Museum 'Bible' (OT) the remark before Haj^ioi^rapha (col.

323, comp. with 71S, 720, where Sirach by mistake is called 'the Book of Wisdom'). Latin editions cont,ainin;r these 6 books are in the Rrit. Mus. from Antw. 1537 ; Paris, 1537 ; Lyons, 1643 ; Paris, 1504 ; Antw. 1591 ; with Psalms, 1G29 ; Psalterium Davidis et Libri sapientiales (without Cant.), Leiden, 1G59. Of English editions the two oldest are : The Bakex of Salomon, namely, Proverbia.

Ecclesi- asUs, Sapientia, and Ecclcgianticiis or Jesua the Sonne of Sifraeh (The atory of Belt, whjch is the xiiij chapter of Daniel after the l.atin), E. Whytchuroh, London [1,1407], 8vo (in the copv of the Itr. Mus. a few MS notes by King Henry Tin.; the text follows that of the ISihle of l.iSS ; a reprint 154.'i. lOmo) ; J'he bokes of Salomon, namely, Proverbia, JtCccUsiastett, Cantica Canticorum, Ecdet-iagticus or lesxte the Sonne of Sirrach, W. Bonham, London (1.142 ?]

, 8vo(text follows Great Bible of 1539 ; another ed. Wyllyam Copland, London, Jan. 1650 (1561], 8vo). The order in the present English editions of the Apocrypha (1 Es., 2 Es., Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, etc.) • On Mommsen's list, the Catalogs Clarmnontanu», the Liber tacramentorum of Bobbio, see Swete, Introd. p. 212 fT. See alBO the Damasine list published by 0. U. Turner, JThSt, i. 667.

seems to go back in the last instance to the German (Zurich) translation of Leo Jud (Ziirlch, 1529, fol. and 8vo ; Strassburg, 1529-30), which separated 'die Bio'hrr die by den alten onder Biblischi gesrhrill't nit rjezelt sind, auch bij den Ebreern nit gefiinden ' from tlierest of the Bible, and arranged them 1-2 Es., Tob., Jud., Bar., Wisd., 'das Buch Ecclesiasticus das man nennen mag die weisen Spriich Jesu des Suns Sirach,' 1-3 Mac, Sus., Bel and Dragon. The lir.

st Greek edition of the Bible, which separated 'AiruKpvtpot. at Trap' E3aLois [sie] 4k tov rCiv d^tOTriaruiV dptd^ou avyKaditXTavTat, is that of Lonicerus (Argentorati, Cephaleus, 1524, 26). Its order is : Tob., Jud.: Bar., Ep. Jer. ; Song of the Three Children, Esdras, 2o0la 2o\o/iai;'Tos, Zo^Ia 'IijiroO vioO -etpdx. The ground of Luther's (1534) arrange- ment (Judith, Wisd. ; Tob.

, Sirach) becomes clear only from his Prefaces, which are now omitted in almost all German Bibles : the story was made to be followed by the fabula docet. In Syriac Lexicographical Notes on the Bible the order is: Kings, Kuth, Wisd., Eccl., Cant., Sirach, Prophets (see Opuscula Nestoriana, ed. G. Hoffmann). (6) Name. — Luther saj's in his Preface : ' This book has been called hitherto in Latin Ecclesi- asticus, which has been rendered the spiritual discipline [die geistliche Zucht).

Elsewhere its true name is Jesus Sirach, after its master, as it is stykd in its own Preface and the Greek,* in the same way as Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, and all the books of the Prophets are styled after their masters.' In our documents it is styled (1) -o4>i.a ~etpax in codex B (inscr. ); (2) Zo(pia lri<xov viov Zeipax (or 2i-) in codd. ACS, and in the subscription of B. Ch. 50 has the inscription Upotreirxi} Irjo'ov vtou Zeipax, and occurs separately under tliis heading, e.g. in cod. Bodl.

misc. gr. 205 (xiv cent.) ; (3) -o0io 7j Traraperos lijaov I'tou ^eipax stands in the edition of Caraerariiis, 1551, before the so-called Prologus incerti auctoris. The expression iravdpeTos is applied to Proverbs (Eus. HE iv. 22), to Wisd. (Athan., Synops., Epiph., subscr. in codex SjTo-hexaplaris Ambrosianus), to Sirach (Eus. DE viii. 2, Jerome). Clement of Alexandria quotes : tprialv i] tou "Itj^ov "Zotpia, T) ypa<pr} {Str. ii. 180), i] ^o(pla, trapd rt^ ^oXoixuivTt (ii.

160), Trapd — oXo/tuJiros, nat5a7W76s. Origen (ii. 77) : toO t6 auyypafifjLa ri]v 1o(piav ri^tv KaTa\nr6vT0% 'IijffoD vlov 1.ipdx ; (iii. 48) (prjaif ycLp ij ^0(pLa, (1.39) \€'yotjfftjs t7)s ypa<pT]s. In the official editions of the Latin Bible the book has the heading Ecclesinsticus ; then follows, ' In Ecdesiasticum Je.su tilii Sirach Prologus.' Ch 50 has the heading ' Oratio Jesu lilii Sirach.'

In the codex Amiatinus the inscription and sub- scription is Liber Ecclesiastirum Halomonis ; the 8ubscrii>tion standing after 3 Kegn. 8, '", which follows in this MS immediately after ch. 51. The same arrangement is found in mediaeval Bibles, aa the Wenzel Bible, the hrstGerman Bible (Eggestein, Strassburg, c. 1461). Very strange is the heading 'Y,KK\r]in.auTiKis (be- cause hitherto found only in Latin and the pas- sage of Photius quoted above) t in cod.

248 before • Of printed Greek texts Luther knew probably only the edition of Lonicerus just mentioned, 1526 ; the other texts printed at that time wore in tlie Pulyplot Bible of Ximenes, 1514, and in the Greek Bible of Aldus, 1618 ; Melanchthon's edition of the Greek Hiblc appeared a few months before Luther's death, 1645. Frz. l>elitzsch {Studien zur Knlatehun'jsneschichte der Poly- gtttttentnhel des Cardinals Xirnenes, Leipzig, 1871, p.

5) states that Luther nowhere mentions the Bible of Ximenes, but that Melanclithon refers to it while Luther was living, and that the library of Wittenberg possessed the copy dedicated to the Elector ; two years after the death of Luther it passed into the library of Jena. t Besides the statement of Zahn, GesrJi. d. ffan. ii. 233, cL Oikononios, irifii raif e ifi,wri»iuraii, ii. 679. On the adjectlw ixMXr.ffiatrrtx^ see Clement. Str. vi 125 (ed. Dind. iii.

217) xavwt ixjAr,9-itifTixie, Origen, IL 97. 1, iii. 44. 1 ; Rufinus {Expo$, SIllACH (BOOK OF) SIRACH (BOOK OF) 511 the text of the book and the Prologus inceiti auctoris, the latter being inscribed 2o0io 'iTjffoi/ uioO The common Latin designation since Cyprian is Eeclesiaxtinis, and means, most probably, the Church-book kot' iioxri", from its frequent use in the Church, esijccially for the instruction of cate- chumens. Ecdisiaftiau U used in Cyprian once of Ecclesiastes {Tt*t. S, 88.

61), once ot WisU. (3, 112 cod. A), ot our book (3, 1. 95. lia 111): it is asi-ribed to Solomon in 3, 8. 12. 20. 53. 113, Op. 5, Sent 27, Bp. 3, 2 ; it is both ascribed to Solomon and called Hcclcsi- BSticus in 2, 1. 3. 35. 61. fW. 97. 109 (see Ronsch, "die Alttest. CiUtc bei C.\-prian' in Zcitschri/t JiXr hittor. Theot. 1S76, Oo). Ambrose writes ; ' In Ecclesiastico S>Tach, in libro S^picntia Syrach ' ; Lact-iritius (£./).

25), In Ecclesiastico per Salomonem ' ; it is referred to Solomon also by Viprilius of Thapsus, Anicctus of Buruch ; Hilary ('qui nobiscum Salomonis inscribitur, apud Gneco6 atfitu llehrceon [!) Sapicntia Sirach babetur'X Jerome ■ays, In Sapientia qua Sirach inscribitur.* The (wrongly) abbreviated inscription of codex B and the editio Si.\tina have become prevalent in modem books, even in those of lioman Catholic authors. (r) Kame of the original work.

— Jerome (in the Preface to the books of Solomon) writes : ' Fertur et irai'dpeTos Jesu lilii Sirach liber, et alius tj/evS- trriypa<j>oi qui Sapientia Salomonis inscribitur ; qrio- rum priorcm. Hcbraicum reperi, nee Ecclcsiasticum, ut apud Latinos sed Parnimlas pncnotatuni ; cui juncti rraiit Ecclesia.stes et Canticum Canticorum, ut similitudincra Salomonis non solum libiorum numero, sed etiara materiarum genere adu'ijuaret,* Kecundus apud Hebioeos nusquam est.' This rai.

ses the question, What was the original title of the work ? The Syriac version, wliioh is based (see § viii.) on the Hebrew, is in Lagarde's edition (frnm cod. 12,142 of the Brit. Mus., vi cent.) in- scribed NTa -ill nn-DH ' Wisdom of Bar Sira'; in Walton's Polyglot, N:n3 i.t NnpnCT ntdk pyscn kzhd KTDK -i:i n,T::n ' Book of Simeon Asira, w-liich book is called tlie Wisdom of Bar Asira.' At the end we read {'i) Hitherto the words of Je-m bar Simeon, irho is rriU:d linr .l.

sirat and (i) ' Eiideth to write t he Wl-idum of 15:u- Sira.' Walton has (seo Lagarde, 1'. ix) ' Endeth the Wisdom of Bar Asira. In 2t) ihaiiters and to (lod glory in eternitj'.' The MSS of rococke and U.s>her add after (a) instead of (i) ' Endeth the book of the Widom of Jesus the son of Simeon who is called Bar .Asira (cod. Usslier 2, •SiV'f/.) in which are iJ.jilO words.' In the Ilibirw text we read at the end, ' Ilitlierto the words of Simeon ben Jeshua who is called ben Sirii.

The Wisdom (n2:n) of Simeon ben Jeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira. Tlie name of Jahweh be blessed from now and till eternity.' From these Greek, Syriac, and Hebrew state- ments it would apjx-ar that the title of the book was ■ Wisiloin,' '^oipia, in Heli. -"rri (or ic'") ; tut how is this to be recuncilud with the statinient of Jerome that the title was in Hebrew Parabolcc (i.e. "^fp)? Is this a confusion with Proverbs, a solution recommended by the fact that in the Hebrew seen by .

lerome Keel, and Cant, followed ; or was tin.' copy seen Ijy .Jerome not a copy of the original, hut a retranslation from the (ireek, as already Scaliger suggested ? And then, Jewish i| notations from Sirach, where they mention not only the name of the author as ktd [3 nax, or in in Sj/mh.), after the canonical books of the OT, amonp which he mentioned '.

Salomonis vero tres': 'Sciendum tamcn est, <l(iod et alii liliri sunt, qui non canonici sed ecclvtdailici a maiuribus ap)>ellati sunt, ut est Sapientia Salomonis et alia .Sapientia qviro dicitur fllii Syrach, qui liber apud latinos hoc i|M*o jfenerali vocabulo I-Jccleifiastiatji appcllatur, quo vocabuto non auctor libri, sed Scriptural qualitas co^^nominata est.' • How are these words to be understood ? Just as there are three liooksof Solomon (I'rov., EccL, Cant.)

, so there were cxtra- «nonical books equal In number and contents (Siraeh-l-Eccl.-f Oant. T). t Thus also Opiucula I'atoriana, p. 107, and after a remark, enilctti Bar Sira.' Aramaic kto id, or ntd p nsD, have twice "v'k 'ri'in ' the Parabolint said,' or kto p tsn nSna ' a, proverb said ben Sira' (see C-N, p. xxiv n. v. liv and p. xx n. X.) The same word x^nD ' proverbs ' occurs in the Syriac VS at 50-'' ; the Heli.

text has there ^za noio, and the book is quoted as i:i3 "iSD by Saadia (C-N, p. ix n. 4). The question of the original title is, after all, a puzzle, and new puzzles as to the author's name arise from the newly discovered texts. iv. The Name of the Author.— (a) Hitherto it has been generally held that the author's name was Jesus the son ot Sira (Jesus lilius Sirach, Jesus Siracida).

Especially subsequent to the Reforma- tion this name became current instead of the Latin book, name Ecclesiasticus. Compare the title of the first separate edition of the book in Greek by Joachim Camerarius (Basilea;, 1551), ' Senti'ntiae Jesu Siracidje Gnece.'* But now new difficulties arise.

In the Greek text the author himself (50'-'') gives his name as 'Iijcrovj i/ios -apax 'EXeaj'ap 6 'IfpoaoXv/uirris ; t instead of the last word the first hand of codex S had Upeui 6 ZoXup-eirris ; the name 'EXeofap is omitted by cod. 248 and the Complutensian and Sixtine editions ; 'EXcafapou is written in cod. 68 and the Aldine Bible, 'EXcdfapot in V 253. The Syriac Hexapla has 'Jesus son of Sirach of Eliezer' (^IV■^N^) ; the Pesh. omits the iw.

ssage altogether ; in the Latin Vulgate it runs, ' Jesus lilius Sirach .Jerosoljinita ' ; and now in the Hebrew in the twice-repeated colophon, p \vjau'7 NTO p -wiihtt p yiB" ' by Shimeon son of Jesus son of Eleazar son of Sira.' And .so the author is called also by Saadia (see S-T, p. 65). Many recent writers thiiiK the Hebrew pedigree Simeon — Jesus — Eleazar — Sira a mere clerical error for the sequence Jester — Simeon — Eleazar — Siru.

But it must be pointed out that the name Simeon is firmly attached to the author of this book in the S3'riac Church. There he was identified with the -rp.(iiv 6 0(000X0! of the NT, the author of Nunc iliinittis. On this identification see especially Geor", bishop of the Arabs (Brieft iind Oedichte, ed. llyssel, p. 59 f., 80 f., 159 f.)

, who ojiposes the identification for chronological reasons, the author of the book having lived, according to Georg, 244 years before Christ, in the 65th year of the Greek era, under Euergetes. Cf. furtlier, Gregory Bar- hebneus (Scholien, cd. Kaatz), who identifies hira at the same time with Simeon (II.) son of Onias; Opiiseula Nestoriana (ed. G. Holl'mann, p. 107, J 139 §); History oj I he Blessed Virgin Mary, ed. Budge (p. 36), where cod.

B for 'Simeon the old ' has ' Simeon Asira ' — he becomes priest after • There Is a Rood story told by Slelanchthon, which, whether It refers to this edition or not, on^jlit not to he suppressed : '(^liilam sacriticulus cum in bibliopolio vidis-^et S^racidem cditnm dixit: c^uam uiali liomines sunt Luthcrani ; etiam Christo nomen aliud afflngrunt : antea vocabatur (.'hristus Jesus, nunc illi vocant eum Jesus Syrach' (see GGN, 1S94, ISO).

t AV 'Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem ' ; KV ' Jesms the son of Sirach Eleazar of Jerusalem.' Note the Grecized form of the name (instead of ' \%fiauirtt>.v,u.) t ' That be was called bar Sirft ; they relate that he called hia father NTDx, because he is the Simeon whose tongue wai bound (KI.'CN) by the Holy Ghost, till he should see the Christ, and when he had seen Him, he spoke. Let me now part in jcace to my fathers.

* 5 "The He])Luagint is said here to have been made 'sixyeorf after the return of the cliil<lrcn of Israel from Babel, which was the 17th year of the death of Alexander the Greek, and 1400 years after the Law was jfiven to .Moses. Simeon the old (K3D), the father of Je.

sus bar Sira, the Wise, was one of the seventy-two old men just mentioned ; and he was the Simeon bar Xe'thaniah bar Chonja ( = Sir 60'), and Simeon was brother of the priest Eleazar ; and it was lie who carried our Lord in liif arms, and his life was stretched over 210 years, and he called himself with a contemptible name (KTCD N2i;'3), like Abraham, who called himself dust and ashes, and David, who said, I am a worm and no man, KTO, i.e.

dust from the white-waaluny, which is beaten off the walls. Instead of Sira th« Greek aayi ./l»ira(K-)'CK).' 542 SIRACH (BOOK OF) SIRACH (BOOK OF) Zecliariah the father of John the Baptist, Protev. Jnrobi, ch. 24 ; 'I'/te Book of the Bee (p. 71) : ' Simeon the son of Sira died in peace in his own town.' In one Greek recension of the Lives of the Prophets, ^vneCiv 6 lepevs found a place towards the end between Zechariah the son of Barachiali and Nathan (see Nestle, M(ir(j. unci Mat. p. 33).

That Simeon Beodoxot was one of tlie Seventy, is stated, among Greeli writers, by Euth3'mius Zigabenus, Kedrenns, Ni ;eiihorus Kallisti. The pedigrees we tlius obtain are — lb Simeon. Jesua I Eleozar. Sira. Jesus. I Sirach. I [Eleozar]. S Jesua SimeoD. I Sita. Jesus Bar-Sira. I Simeon. It lias been suggested by Blan that ' the two traditions, that of the Greek and that of the Syriao, are mutually complementary.'

Thus we should have in 5{) a combination of both, what textual critics call a conflation. The decision depends on the general question of the value of |S, see § ix. As to whether Simeon or Eleazar can be identified with one of the known bearers of these names, see below. (i) The name Sirach. — The latest contribution to Hebrew lexicography, M. Jastrow's Di.iliunary of the Targitmim, etc.

, contains the following words which come into consideration for the explanation of this name: (1) to 'pot'; (2) ntd = Heb. rrny 'coat of mail'; (3) ntd 'thorn'; (4) xTD=the present proper name : (5) ii";"?, sy:i. (a) '[degenerate growth],' 'thorn,' ' thornbush,' (6) 'refuse,' 'foul matter'; (6) n-i'P, N-i-pf. 'sur- rounded place,' 'court,' 'prison.' From Thes. Syr. we may add (7) -i'2 = avp, ' Sir' ; (8) Kfz = tTet.

pa ; and (9) the explanation of the name given by the Syriac lexicographers =k'v?' 'thin dust from the walls.' If there was not the constant tradition that the initial letter was o, the Greek 1 might correspond also to other letters, as i, or s, or a, and the name might be connected with .^TiM, xyi'S, 'small,' 'little,' 'lesser,' i";.] or ntv! being, in fact, the name of several Jewish Amoraim. Tlie X ^t tlie end of the Greek form may corre- sjwnd to: (cf. Tlepovx, <!

>a\epc), n(Ka\ax, '*''"''f3ax), to T| (many names In -fieXex). to i'(Ba\ox), to p {'A/juiXtjx, Bapax), to still other letters, as i {KecEX. Maux) or r {BaiOafax, Aeirax) ; but it is most probably a mere representation of the mater lectiotus k ; cf. 'AkeX- SffAax, "iwarix Lk 3-" = 'cv, the spelling 'AXXax = Allah [Schlatter takes it for u=i)iijs]. A. Meyer {Miittersprrirhe Jesu, p. 39) takes the word (o mean coat of mail or irns oculi; I?yssel (p.

234), 'more probably thorn or thorn-hedge than mail-coat,' referring to Le^'y, NHWB iii. 519, 520. Ryssel takes bar-Sira as name of the family ; we should thus have only three generations: Jesus, Simeon, Eliezer — not four as in JIJ.* In view of the Pro- logue, '6 iriTTTTos /aoy 'It/o-oPs,' it seems certain that the author was Jesus (the .son of Simeon), and not Simeon the son of Jesus.

Whether the translator, loo, bore the name of his grandfather, as is stated by the Prologus incerti auctoris, is not certain. This second Prologue, which was first printed from cod. 248 in the Complutensian Polyglot, and was first shown by Hoeschel (1604) to be part of the BO-called pseudo-Athanasian Synopsis, begins — • . e «t/» vutTT^t ttiiTou . . ^tkevovt! Tl yiy6t eivxp iv 'E^fixiOi; . . iTlJ »t/» Tr.v ^'i^Xoy TaCTr,v 6 trp-jjTot ' \nffou! ffX'^^* ■" cvvti?.

ly- lu'rnr SdcToAiirw ii tcnQpai^mt Zxi^». -'^^X «?T«( /ait' «^t«v ir(K>.i» This is possible ; cf. Joseplius, Vita, 1 : i wpirxwvu nf^ '.'m^it ivrljb' TtvTain iffTi/ MxToieu i 'Hfee^sv (v.2. 'H^A/cv) Ai>^ tS tfz!.'w vetiii xttriXfTti' Imii ' at 3n cti^.s }.et^iuttis lit ]• eiret^Kv tteceucnot a^i-vvayuec o'v^zyayi Sa^<«v Er/ TC ixv'«v xeti rm r«u fretrfac a^Aie /^r.l' tuti -rot ^as-^df iycfjutri (j:)ueXt;x^;.

Thus we have the pedigree : Jesus [11, the trans- latorJ^Sirach [11] — Jesus [I, the author]— Sirach [I, Eleazar]. Another enlargement has taken place in the translator's Preface, as it seems, in Latin MSS, though it is known to the present wTiter only from the pre-Lutheran German Bible. There it is stated that the 'anherre' (aims, Trawiros) was a son of Josedek (see ch. 49'-), and one of the Seventy, and that the grandson Jesus the son of Sirach pursued higher studies.

Finally, Euergetes is stated in the same connexion to have reigned after Philadelphus, his brother, under whom the Bible had been translated from Hebrew into Greek (see Nestle, ' Zum Prolog des Ecclesiasticus ' in ZA T IV, 1897, p. 123 f.) Already Isidore of Seville identihes Jesus the son of Sirach with Jeshua the son of Jozedek. This is of course impossible.

For the translator states : ^i^ yap raJ dydoip /cat TpiaKoirri^ Itru iirl ToO Ei'e/ry^Toi' /^afftX^ajs wapayevriOeU fls Atyvwrop Kal (Tuyxpovicras eupov ov fitKpds TratScias d(p6fioLoy. This date is not to be understiood of the 38th year of the life of the translator (Camerarius) nor of any unknown era, but of the reign of Euergetes (see especially Deissmann, Bibelstudien, i. 255 [Eng. tr. 339 tt.]; R 235; Ed. 4 ft". As only Euergetes II. reigned more than 38 years (from B.C.

170 with his brotlier, from 145 alone, reckoning his years from 17U),t it is the year B.C. 132 ; and as he states that he stayed some time in Egypt (avyxpoi>iixii%) before he undertook his task, we may place the translation about 180, and the original some forty or hfty years earlier (B.C. 190-170). Then we must understand the high priest Simon, who is so highly praised in Sir 50"-, from personal knowledge as it seems, to be Simon II.

Others, taking TroTTTros in the sense of ' ancestor,' prefer to place the author more than a hundred years earlier, under Simon I. In the former case it would be possible to identify our author 'l-qaovs with the high priest 'liauv (,175- 172) ; but beyond the identitj' of the time and name nothing leads to this identification. That the author of our book was high priest is stated by Syncellus (Chron., ed. Dindorf, i. 525) ; the reading Ifpei's 6 ^oXvi/elTTi!

by the hrst hand of S cannot be more than a clerical error. J V. Editions.— (n) The hrst editions of the Greek text are in the Complutensian Polyglot (c) 1514, from cod. 248 § (see below, p. 544"), in the Aldine Bible (a) 1518, which has been taken for this book * The word rawwet used liere and in the Preface may have the more general meaning ' ancestor,' but in tliis connexion it will be 'gi-andfather.'

In the Concordance of Hatch-B«lpath it is quoted from SjTnmachue on Zee 1^, where it seems to belong to t On the reign of Euergetes we are well informed through the inscriptions of the temple of Edfu (see Dumichen, Die ergte bis jetzt au/ge/undcne gicJiere Angabe uber die Regierungs- zeit eines Agi/pti^chen KSnig8 aus dem alten Reiche, Leipzig, 1874, p. 20 ff. ; and Xlschr. /. dg. Sprachf, 1870).

There the years 28, 30, 46, 48, 54 (as the last of this king) are mentioned ; the first Toth of his 2Stb year fell on the '^Sth Seiit. B.C. 143, the first Payni (rise of Sirius) on the 20th-19th July 142. J Here it may be mentioned that in a late compilation (see C-N, I'p. xivf., xxix) Hen-Sira is made the son or grandson of Jeremiah, and has a son Uziel and a grandson Joseph. See Procerbia lien-Sirce Auturis antiquigsimi, qui creditur /uiste neitits leremitr prophetOB, Opera J. Dmeii.

Franeker, 1697. In the Preface Drusius thinks it a ]>robable inference, ' interpretem Orsecum Ecclesiastici Josephum fuis-se Vzielis filiunL' Cf. on this literature the edition of Steiuschneider, Ali/habetum Siraei- dis ulnimque, BeroHni, 18.S8 ; and Schiircr, GJV^ ii. 181. In other legends he has been brought into connexion with Solomon as his wezlr or secretary ; see above, p. 540* : a legend about Aphkia (the wife of Sir.ich) and Solomon has been pub. lislied in Arabic by Mrs. M. 1).

(jibson in number viii. of the Studia Sinaitica, Londcn, 1001. § Sirach was committed with the rest of the ' libri Sapien- tiale.s' to the care of Johan de Vergara, who, at the end of bis life, bad no greater wish than to illustrate Sirach by note- (Alvarus Gomex, de rebus gettie a Franc. Ximenio, lib. 2). SIHACH (BOOK OF) SIRACH (BOOK OF) 543 1 without any doubt from cod. 68; and cod. 68 it.self is, to all appearance, for this book a copy of cod. B, so that a represented the text of cod.

B in many passage.-i more faithfully than tlic Sixtine of 1.SS7.* A reprint of a is the edition of Lonicerusf i.-Vrpent. 1526); but the editor introduced many changes: for instance, in 3', where a has ifioO roC rar^iit, riOnicerus put (from the Latin) Kpl/ia tov irarpos. That Loniierus changed his text has Vieen over- looked bj' sul>sei|ui'nt editors and commentators, hence in later books a number of misstatements a-s to the text of a ; J I.

onicerus in turn was followed by Melanchtlion (Hasle, 154j), Melanchthon by the eclition of Wechel (1597, see art. Septuagixt, p. 440).§ The editors of the Sixtine {/>) made use not only of B, but of c a I.onicerus, jlelanchthon, and the coild. V 106, l.'i.i, 2531! (see on 6, above, p. 44U) ; on Grabe's edition, see p. 440''. (A) Separate etlilions i if the. ApKi-ryph/i are men- tioned, p. 441''. The edition of Fritz.

sche (1871) is the best, but for our partic\dar book quite un- satisfactory (see Nestle, Marg. 1892, pp. 48-58). (e) Of separate editions of Sirach alone the oldest is: Sentcntice Jesu Siraci</ir, Grtrci summa (iilifjeniia et stm/io singulari cditm, ivm nercs- tariis Annotalionihu.i, Joachimo Camerario, Pabe- pergen., autore, Basileae, 1551, 8vo.

1I It has both Prolopuea, is the first which numbers the verses, and lias u»t;ful notes, especially parallels £roni the classics, but also various readiii;rs. In the Prolujcue, Canierarius writes i;«9ia, (or the doubtml etiiiuio* (v. I. liruoiot and ct^csur.i), which reading; has been mentioned in ttie notes of b and other editions and received into the text by Grabe. Then comes -o^ia Seipox, sive Ecclexiastinis Greece ad exemplar Eomanum, et Latine ex inter- pretatione J.

Drusii, cum castigationibus sive notls eiusdem, Ad Keverendissimuni in Christo palrem D. Johannem Whitgiltum archiepiscopum Cantuariensem, etc., Franekene, 1.596, 4to ; with a double appendix, ' Proverbia-Bensine ' and ' Ad- agiorum Ebraicorum Decuri» aliquot nunquam antehac cdita;.' Besides the previoue printed editions — among them * Biblia R, Stephani 'fucB fui(io t'fl/o6toot(rt6uu)i/wr,' apparently the edition (Geneva, Ist .March] 1557-5S— Dnisius ni.ide use from ch.

20 on- ward of a collation sent to him through .Ian Gruter from Heidel- ber(?. ' Huius enini hortatu Jacobus Kiinedontius iunior . . crKlioem Paiatiuio bibliotheca) vetustissiniuni membranaccum cvim editione Camenirii anno 1678 [nic ; in liis nota) he writes 1.^70] Lipsi.-e cusa Hiligentissime contulerau' This is apparently the codex 286 of HP.

A most conscientious edition is that of Hoeschel : Snpicntia Sirar/ii sive Ecclesitisticus, Collatis lecti- onil»i-f vnriantibus membranartim Auguslanarum vetiixtisximanim et xiv prnlerea exemplarium. Addita versione Lntina vulgntn, ex editione Ho- niaiifi, rum notis Davidis Hueschelii Augustani. In quihiis multa SS. Patrum loca illustrantur, Augustje, 1604. His codex Au[ni8tanus (' H ' in the edition of Fritzsche, p.

xxii) is api>arently codex 70 of UP, now at Munich 651, and deserves the more a fresh collation, as HP gave it only for the • More than thirty readings quoted by Holmes-Parsons as singular from a turn out to be in reality readings of B. How did tin really read In these passaf^esV it seems very badly col. lated, for Hulnies-Parsons. t See ntjove. pjt. 44i>, t>W^. i Comp. Hretsctineider on :jl ' Aldina, Melanth. et Has. minor: mp4fut jtl T(t7fioi quwi et codd. qxiidam Hoeschelii.'

The first and last statements are cpiite incorrect. % 0. Moeschcl quotes amongst the editions used by him fre. quently liiblia Parisiis impressa a R. Stephano, A 1."».'5.' From his quotations it would appear that it is in Greek and Latin with notcH. Is there such an eilition? a Tliis follows from a comjiarison of the scholia and the Notes of Nohilius in the edition of I.'>8$ ; com)>. on :il ' in aliquibus libriH est v0-( rtv waTfiti ' I s:cod.

263], ' in aliquibus aliis xpi/Mt ' I =3 Loniccnis]. Nobillus quot^-s at least a dozen readings from a and MSS which are not found in HP. •I Kolde (art. 'Canierarivis' in PRE^ iii. 689) mentions only the (tecond edition (Lipsiie, 16118); the same year is given l)y lloesrhel (inM): but lirusius (1696) and the Caulogue of the British Museum give 1570, 2 vols. first chapter, and as the code.x is closely reL-ited to 253 and the •Syriae Ilexapla.

Tile source and present place of another MS use<l by Hoe.schel (■Fnignientuin AI.S v.iri:i'lectionisaliciuol capitumescidis Fr. Sylburgii') are unliiiown to the present writer. From Hoe.schel till Fritzsclie not much was done for the text mil criticism of a book which needed it greatly.

We have — Senteniice Jesu Siracidm, Grfe- ct(m texttim ad fidem codirum ct verxionuvi, emen- davit et illustravit, Linde (Gedani, 1795) ; and Liber Jesu Siracidce Greece, Ad fidem codicum et versionum emendatus et perpelna annotntione illns- trtitiis, a C. G. Bretschneider (Ratisbonae, 1S04), xvi. 758 pp. Br. is not accurate enough, but he has the merit of having called attention to a witness in textual criticism, tlie Florilegitnn of .

^ntonius and Maxiinus, neglected by most workers in this field. Hart's edition must find its place among the MSS (see below). vi. Thi: Grf.kk Text.— The problem of textual criticism in this book is of exceptional interest.

Luther declares in the Preface to his translation (what pains it had taken him to translate this book may be jud^'ed from a comparison with all other coj)ies, Greek, Latin, or German, old or new): ' There have come so many " Kliig/ingc " over this book, that it would be no wonder if it were totally disligured, not to be understood, without any u.se. Like a torn, trampled, and scattered letter, we have gathered it, wiped oH" the dust, and brought it as far as can be seen.' Some idea of this m.

ay be gathered bj'the F.ngli.sh reader from a glance at the margins of KV. There are about eighty mar- ginal notes ; fifty times it is stated that a verse or ijart of a veise or even a series of verses is omitted by many or by the best or the oldest authorities (cf. P- "*• ^') ; once only (17'") ' this line is added by the best authorities'; at other places we read, 'The Greek text here is probably corrui)!.' 'the Greek text is here very confused.'

The numbering of verses and even of the chapiters does not agree. The latter is caused by the misplacement of some leaves (Rys.sel says 'two'; and it may have been two, which must have been the inner leaves of a layer, and somewhat more closely written than A and still more tlian l!S') in the coiiy from wliich all the Greek MSS hitherto known have been derived. This fact, (irst i>ointed out by O. F. Fritzsche {Ausleg. 169, 170), who was led to his discovery by a similar observation of H.

Sauppe on a Heidelberg MS of Lysiast, would not have been recognized with such certainty but for the Latin and Syriae texts, m lucli have the dillerent order. J Already Nobilius declared the Latin order to be the better, calling attention especially to the reading KaraKXrjpoi'iij.ricroi' ' in noli nullia (libris),' ' quod optime convenit, si conjungatur cum illis qua; in vulg. c.

36' (a reading received into the text by Grabe, but not to be found elsewhere in HP, quoted by Hoeschel from his codex Augustanus ; Camerarius put KaTaK\■qpovtl^L■r}(ra^). Where did the llimian editors get it from? and which is the ' un\is vetustus codex,' which accord- ing to their repeated statement has, like the Com- plutensian, the Latin order? It isnut the cod. 248, • Toy i,Encyc. [lihl vol. ii. col.

1173) siieaks of the displace- ment of roUs of the »B MS, or possibly of tlie Hebrew JIS from whicli the Gr. translation was ma<le. ( This accident occurs very often in ancient MSS. In the British Mus. there is a German Bible which has Mt 11-5'* after Deuteronomy ; at Gotha there is another with the same mis- placement. On a misplacement in co(L S see Swete. Introd p.

131 ; in a MS of ecclesiastical cjinons see Turner, JThSt ii 2(19 ; in the Church History of Zacharios of Mitylene see the edition of Brook. Hamilton ;"in tlio llouiilicsol Origenon .Icr. see E. Klostemiann (Or. ill. p. xiii). For other examples (Plautus, Mostetlaria, etc.) see Ed. p. 154. The strange confusion Melanchthon produced in his edition, by placing the verse xai x«rix>.r,e«*ca<ir« in the middle of i-h. 33 and liauTpi KrfTt.it in the middle of ch.

SO, ho« been partially amended in the edition of 1697. 544 SIEACH (BOOK OF) SlRACn (HOOK OF) in spite of the definite statement of Edci'srieiii: and others* (see Nestle, ilnriiinnlu-n, Vi'yi, p. i%; J. K. Zenner, ' Ecdesiasticus nach Cod. Vat. 3;B ' mZ.f. Kath. T/ieol. 1895; Kyssel, p. xxviii ; and now the edition of Haitj.t Parsons nsed for this Ijook fourteen MSS ; the two nncials iii. and '23, i.e. AV, but eod. 70 (Hoeschel's Angustanus) only for the Prologue and th. 1. In the .

Addenda is to be found for the Prologue the collation of a fifteenth MS {2;)4). Fritzsche ex- cerpted the ap])aratus of Par.soiis, but in an in- suliicient waj*, and added the collation of C, S, and Hoeschel's Augustanus from his edition of l()04.t In Swete's 01' in Greek we have a faithful repre- .sentation of the readings of BACS ( = N); but it is now generally acknowledged that the text of these uncials is a ver3- bad one in Sirach.

§ It is therefore a great boon that the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press are to publish shortly an edition of the lodex Vaticanus 346 ( = HP 248, the basis of c) by J. H. A. Hart, who, with the assent of the Syndics, had the kindness to communicate to the present writer, for the benefit of this article, the proofs before publication.il Of MSS not .vet laid under contribution there are known to the present writer : — (1) A palimpsest of the 6th or 7th cent. at St.

Petersburg, written in three ookimns (see Urtrxt, p. 74 ; Swete, Introd. p. 147 n. 12). (2) Two paHmpsest leaves belonging to cod. 2 in the Patriarchal Library at Jerusalem, ascribed to the Gth cent , containing Prol and li-i* 129-311, published by J. R. Harris, Biblical Fragments from Mount Sitiai. No. 5. (.•!) The <,fcirivzr, (ch. 51) is to be found in Cod. Bodl. ilise. 205 (xiv saec.) ■ see Coxe. Catalovis, i. 762.

This chapter is missing in the MSS 296 and ;i08* of' HP and (at present) in the codex S>ro-Hexaplaris Anibrosianus ; but there only through the de- plorable loss Df a leaf. Of minuscles, two Vienna MSS, Cod. Tlieol. Gr. xi. and cxlvii., both of which were brought by Busbecq from Const.antinople, h.ave been partiail.v collated i)y Edw. Hatch and quoted as Vienna 1 and 2 in his Essay on the text of Eoclesiasticus (t'.wai'fi in Bi'dical Greek, p. 247 ff.)

On the confusion al)outthe 308 (or 308*) in HPsee Hatch, I.e. 24S ; and Swete, Introd. p. lo9. No. 141). Now comes the strange fact that our Greek