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EBERS —ECCL ESIASTICUS
Ebers, Georg1 (1837-1898), German Egyptologist and novelist, was born in Berlin on the 1st of March 1837. He was a posthumous child, and was chiefly educated by his mother. The rupture of a blood-vessel, occasioned by a chill caught in returning lightly clad from a ball in the depth of winter, led him to turn his thoughts seriously to study. At Gottingen he studied jurisprudence, and at Berlin Oriental languages and archaeology. By the advice of Brugsch and Lepsius he devoted himself mainly to Egyptology. In 1865 he became docent in Egyptian language and antiquities at Jena, and in 1870 he was appointed professor in these subjects at Leipzig. He had made two scientific journeys to Egypt, and his first great work, Egypt and the Boohs of Moses, appeared in 1867-68. Having discovered the celebrated medical papyrus which bears his name, he edited it in 1874, and a translation was published in 1890 by H. Joachim. At an early period of his career Ebers conceived the idea of popularizing Egyptian lore through the medium of historical romances. An Egyptian Princess was published in 1864, and obtained great success. Ebers’s subsequent experiments in the same style—TJarda (1877), The Sisters (1880), Serapis (1885), Homo Sum (1887)—were also well received, and deservedly so, for, although not belonging to a very exalted class of literature, they did much to render the discoveries of Egyptologists common property throughout Europe. When this vein was exhausted Ebers turned to ordinary historical fiction, and many of his novels were translated into English and obtained considerable popularity ; but his efforts in this department, though not inferior in talent, lacked the special recommendation of his Egyptian romances. He also wrote the life of his old preceptor Lepsius, and an autobiography. The state of his health led him in 1889 to retire on a pension from his chair at Leipzig, without, however, interrupting his literary activity. He died in August 1898. EberswaSde, till 1877 named Neustadt-Eberswalde, a town of Prussia, 28 miles north-east of Berlin by rail; on the Finow Canal. The town has, besides the school of forestry, a gymnasium, a higher-grade girls’ school, and two schools of domestic economy. Population (1890), 16,114; (1900), 21,654. Eccles, a municipal borough (1892) in the Eccles parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 4 miles west of Manchester by rail. The Manchester Ship Canal passes the town. The chief additions comprise a townhall, magistrates’ court-house, sewage disposal works, town’s yard, electric light works, theatre, two recreation grounds (1892), and several open spaces; three Established churches, one Roman Catholic church; and the Wesleyan, Congregational, and Unitarian bodies possess handsome edifices. Eccles wakes, abolished in 1881, are held on private ground. Silk-throwing and the manufacture of fustians and ginghams are among the industries, and there are also large engine works. Area, 2008 acres. Population (1881), 21,850; (1901), 34,369. Ecclesfield, a township in the Hallamshire parliamentary division of Yorkshire, England, 5 miles north of Sheffield by rail. There are remains of a Benedictine priory. The parish church (about 1470) has been restored. Cutlery and tools are largely manufactured, and there are coal-mines, paper mills, and iron and fire-clay works. Area of township, 10,893 acres. Population (1881), 21,156; (1901), 34,153. Ecclesiasticus, or Ben Sira (Hebrew Fragments). —That the book called in Latin Ecclesiasticus, in Greek 2apdx, and by Jerome Jesu filii Sirach liber, was com-
posed in Hebrew was known to Jerome (d. a.d. 420), who testified “Hebraicum repperi.” Saadiah Gaon (f. circ. a. d. 930) of the Fay yum in the Sepher haggalui refers to Ben Sira’s work as written in pointed and accented Hebrew. After this all trace of a Hebrew Ecclesiasticus disappeared until Dr S. Schechter identified a loose leaf from Palestine, and published it in the Expositor for July 1896. More leaves were soon discovered at Oxford and at Cambridge, in the British Museum, and at Paris. Probably all these leaves came from the cellar (genizah) of the old synagogue at Cairo. The beginning of the book is still missing, but three colophons are preserved. The most ancient of these was attached to chap. 1., before the supplementary chap. li. was added to the original book. It runs: The Instruction of Understanding and the Proverbs fitly spohen of Simeon son of Jeshua son of Eleazar son of Sira. . . . Happy is the man who meditateth on these ; and he that layeth them to heart shall be wise : for the fear of Jehovah is life. From this colophon (and from the Sepher haggalui) we learn that the author’s name was Simeon son of Jeshua (Jesus), though the LXX and Syriac seem to call him Jesus. (The writer of the Greek prologue may be wrong in attributing the book he “found” in Egypt to his ancestor Jesus, and not to Simeon, perhaps his uncle.) This ancient colophon also tells us (in agreement with Jerome) that the title of the book was “Proverbs.” In Talmudic and Rabbinic literature it is called simply the Book of Ben Sira. G. Bickell, Israel Levi, and D. S. Margolioufh have argued that the Hebrew is only a retranslation from a Version. Most Hebrew scholars, however, believe that though the text has suffered much, especially by the addition of glosses, the fragments as a whole are a survival from the Hebrew original. The following portions have been published in Hebrew: Chaps, iii. 6-xvi. 26 a; [gap] ; xxv. 8-xxvi. 2 (text abbreviated); [gap]; xxx. 11-xxxiii. 3; [gap]; xxxv. 9-xxxviii. 27 a; [gap]; xxxix. 15 h-aA fin. These fragments were published by S. Schechter and C. Taylor (Cambridge, 1899); E. X. Adler, J.Q.R., April 1900; S. Schechter (ibid.)', G. Margoliouth, J.Q.P., October 1899; and by A. E. Cowley and A. Neubauer (Oxford, 1897). In addition to these, Isr. Levi published (B.E.J. tom. xl. No. 79) chaps, xxxvi. 24-xxxviii. 1 from a MS. which shows some variations from the text previously published. At the present time four different MSS. are known, of which the largest (called “ B ” by Schechter-Taylor) contains (with some gaps) chaps, xxx. 11—ad fin. A complete edition in collotype facsimile of all the above-mentioned fragments was published jointly by the two University Presses (Oxford and Cambridge, 1901). The Hebrew contains interpolations, but it also preserves original passages missing from the Versions. One of these is a Psalm of 15 verses found between verses 12 and 13 of chap. li. (This passage is doubtless pre-Maccabean, for it gives honourable mention to the priestly House of Zadok, which fell into disrepute during the Maccabean struggle.) The Hebrew often agrees strikingly with the Syriac; when it agrees with the Greek, it is more often with a cursive MS. (H. and P. No. 2481) than with the uncials. The English R.V., following the uncials, often disagrees with the Hebrew. “ The language is classical Hebrew,” wrote Cowley and Neubauer in 1897, “ though the vocabulary has an admixture of late or Aramaic words or expressions (preface, xiii). But the discovery of further fragments made a qualification of this verdict necessary. In 1899 Dr Schechter wrote, “ Strained as [Ben Sira’s] efforts were in imitating [the Scriptures], he failed in the end ” ; a tell1 Ecclesiasticus is published from this MS. by the Cambridge University Press, under the editorship of Mr J. H. A. Hart, St Johns College.
