18. Page 178 (Aids to the Student).—Add, Les sentences et proverbes du Talmud et du Midrasch. Par Moïse Schuhl. Par. 1878.
19. Page 180.—On the date of Jesus son of Sirach, comp. Hody, De Bibliorum Textibus Originalibus (Oxon., 1705), pp. 192-194.
20. Page 189, note 1 (Sirach xxi. 27).—Fritzsche weakens the proverb by taking 'Satan' as equivalent to 'accuser' (Ps. cix. 6, Zech. iii. 1). The wise man says that it is no use for the ungodly man to disclaim responsibility for his sin. 'The Satan' either means the depraved will (comp. Dukes, Rabbin. Blumenlese, p. 108) or the great evil spirit. In the latter case the wise man says that for all practical purposes the tempter called Satan may be identified with the inborn tempter of the heart. Comp. Ps. xxxvi. 2, 'The ungodly man hath an oracle of transgression within his heart.'
21. Page 193 (The Hymn of Praise).—Frankel suspected xliv. 16 to be an interpolation, on the ground that the view of Enoch as an example of is Philonian (Palästinische Exegese, p. 44). Against this see Fritzsche, who explains the passage as a characteristically uncritical inference from Gen. v. 22. Enoch was a pattern of because he walked with God after begetting Methuselah.
22. Page 195 (Ancient Versions of Sirach).—The Peshitto version deviates, one may venture to assume, in many points from the original Sirach. Geiger has pointed out some remarkable instances of this (Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenl. Ges. xii. 536 &c.), and if the Greek version is to be regarded as absolutely authoritative, the number of deviations must be extremely great. Fritzsche goes so far as to say that in the latter part of the Syriac Sirach (from about chap. xxx.) the original is only hazily traceable ('durchschimmert'). He describes this version as really no version, but 'eine ziemlich leichtfertig hingeschriebene Paraphrase' ('a rather careless paraphrase'). This, as fairer judges of the Syriac are agreed, is not an accurate statement of the case. It can be readily disproved by referring to some of the passages in which the Greek translator has manifestly misrendered the original (e.g. xxiv. 27; see above, p. 196). Dr. Edersheim, who is working upon both versions, agrees with Bickell that the Syriac often enables us to restore the Hebrew, where the Greek text is wrong. This is not placing the Syriac in a superior position to the Greek, but giving it the subsidiary importance which it deserves. Doubtless, the Hebrew text which the Syriac translator employed was in many places corrupt. The best edition of the Peshitto, I may add, is in Lagarde's Libri Vet. Test. Apocryphi Syriaci (1861). It is from Walton's Polyglot, but 'codicum nitriensium ope et coniecturis meis hic illic emendatiorem' [one sixth-century MS. of Ecclesiasticus is used].
