ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES. ei7 ECCLESIASTICUS. coercive power tan be conferred ollierwise tlian tinder the authority of her Majesty." rei)ealed the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Act as ine.pe- dient. The result is that, while no prosecution can now be had for assuming such titles, this as- sumption is still treated by the law as an illegal act. ECCLESIASTICUS, ek-kle'zi-as'tl-kiis (Lat., from Gk. eKKr]<TiaiTTiKds, tkklCsiastikos, relating to an assembly, from ^xxXifafa. ekklCsia, assembly). The Latin title of a biblical book called, in the Greek version. The ^^'isdoln of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and, in the original Hebrew, sometimes The Wisdom of Ben Sira, sometimes The Prov- erbs of lien Sira. Books read in public, or re- garded as suitable for that purpose, and therefore kept in places of assembly, were designated as libri ecclesiastici, or 'church books.' by tlic Latin Christians. When, largely through the inlhience of Jerome, books found in the Greek Bible, but not in the generally recognized Hebrew canon, began to be looked ujjon as only deutero-canonical. or even apocry|)hal, the term "church books' was not improi)('rly confined to the works still read and cherished by the Church, though rejected by the Sj-nagogue. Among these, the Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach, being used as a text-book in the instruction of catechumens, naturally be- came known as the 'church book' par excellence ; hence the Tiame Erclcxiasticus. The Hebrew orig- inal was widely read and greatly revered as a holy book in the days preceding the limitation of the canon. (See the heading Canon of the liible, in the article Bibij:. ) So strongly was it intrenched that, even after the canon had been reduced to twenty-two or twenty-four books, it still continued to be used and quoted as Scrip- ture, particularly by the rabbis of Sora. Patri- otic and medi;eval writers, who, on the ground of its absence in the Hebrew Bible, regarded it as canonical only in a secondary degree, freely appealed to it.s authority in support of doe- trine. Its canonicity was rejected by the Re- formers, though it was still printed in their ver- sions. Until 1896 the Hebrew original was known only through quotations in rabbinic literature. Of these there were about eighty, amounting to perhaps one-twentieth of the entire text. Since the year mentioned fragments of four manu- scripts have been discovered. All of these have come from the qeniza, or hiding-place for worn- out copies of biblical books and esoteric or for- bidden works in the Synagogue of Cairo. They cover about four-fifths of the book, and furnish in some instances two or three witnesses to the text. Numerous marginal notes also supply variant readings and doublets. Probably no one of (he manuscripts is older than the eleventh cen- tury. One was evidently made by a Persian .Tew, who occasionally put into the margin remarks in his own vernacular. There can be no reason- able doubt that all these manuscripts in the main represent the Hebrew original. But it is equally manifest that the text has been greatly corrupted, and in some cases has been corrected, or at least shaped, iinder the influence of either the Syriac version itself or an Aramaic targvmi closely resembling it. The ancient versions there- fore remain of utmost importance. Of these, the Greek and the Syriac were made directly from the Hebrew; the Latin, the Syro-Hexaplaric, the Ethiopic, and the Coptic are the chief trans- lations of the Greek. A prologue to the GrccK version states that the author's grandson, who translated the work, came to Egypt in the thirty- eighth year of King Euergetes. Tliis can only be Ptolemy Euergetes IL, called Physcon, who was the only Euergetes reigning as long as thirty-eight years; the years of his reign are counted from the time wlien he first assumed the crown in B.C. 170. How long after the year D.c. 132 Ben Sira's grandson lived in Egii'pt be- fore he was able to undertake the task of trans- lating this book cannot be determined. But it is likely that the work was not com|)leted until the time of Ptolemy Soter IL, called Lathyrus^ the first period of whose reign extemled from B.C. 117-107. Another prologue of uncertain authority printed in the editio prinrcps. the Complutensian Polyglot, may not be older than the fourth century A.n., and draws its informa tion from the work itself. Not even its inde- pendent statement that the translator's name was Jesus can be accepted on so doubtful author- ity. We are far from possessing the original of this translation. The text presented by the great uncial codices is much inferior to that followed by a group of cursives and one late uncial. Particularly the manuscript printed in the Complutensian has preserved an older and better text. Yet no codex has sufl'ercd more by interpolations than this very one. A curious displacement is found in all manuscripts. With- out a single exception, they pass from xxx. 24 to xxxiii. 16. continue to xxx^'i. 11, and then go back to the section xxx. 25-xxxiii. 15. This could not well have found its way into all manu- scripts except through the authority and influ- ence of some universally recognized codex. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was Origen's Hexapla. The fact that the Syrinc version of Paul of Telia uses the asterisk and obolus to indicate differences from some recog- nized original, renders it possible that Origen actually compared the Greek text of his book with a Hebrew copy. The displacement may have taken place before his time, and a different arrangement of his small books forming the vol- ume even in this Hebrew copy may have facili- tated the error. In some places the Latin and in others the Ethiopic has preserved an earlier and better reading than that found in any manu- script. The Syriac version is a translation from the Hebrew. Its often startling agreement with the recovered Hebrew text corroborates this con- clusion. But it is evident that here and there it has suffered corruption. Originally made in all probability by a Jew. it subsequently passed through many Christian hands that have left their mark. And occasionally its agreement with the Hebrew seems to be due to the influence it has itself everted on the latter. Though the facilities for textual criticism have th>is been greatly enriched, considerable uncertainty still exists as to the original. By the discovery of the Hebrew text, new questions have been raised as to the name of the author and the integritj' of his work. The colophon (1. 27) designates as author Simeon. son of Jesus, son of Eleazar Ben Sira. The statement is repeated in chapter li.. and also given in the abbreviated form, "Simeon, son of .Tesus. who is called Ben Sira," Ben Sira is consequently the family name that might he adcj- ed to the proper name of father and son alike.
