§ 4. THE GREEK VERSION AND THE SECONDARY GREEK TEXT

Among the versions of Sirach this is the most important as being the earliest. As the Prologue tells us, the Greek translation was made from the original Hebrew by the author’s grandson; there was, therefore, not a long period of time between the original writing and its Greek translation. The Greek form of the book was that in which it was first officially received by the Church. Another fact which enhances the importance of this version is that in a number of instances the text represents a purer form of the original Hebrew than that contained in the manuscripts of the Hebrew text recently discovered. This fact makes the use of the Greek version extremely valuable, and indeed indispensable, for the reconstruction of the Hebrew text.

The text of this version, as the critical notes in the commentary will amply show, has come down to us in a bad condition; not infrequently it defies emendation. But in connexion with this two points must be taken into account when using the Greek text for the purpose of reconstructing the Hebrew. In the first place, there is in many cases of an apparently bad condition of the text the possibility that it was always so; that is to say, that it may be due to the initial inability of Ben-Sira’s grandson to give a proper translation, so that what appears now as a bad text was so from the beginning. ‘Ye are entreated, therefore,’ says the translator in his Prologue, ‘to make your perusal with favour and attention, and to be indulgent if in any parts of what we have laboured to interpret we may seem to fail in some of the phrases. For things originally spoken in Hebrew have not the same force in them when they are translated into another tongue.’ And, secondly, Ben-Sira’s grandson clearly does not consider it the duty of a translator to give anything in the shape of a literal translation of his original; he seeks, rightly, to present as far as possible a well-constructed Greek interpretation rather than a slavish reproduction of what he translates; and when, as in the present case, it is poetry which is in question, the translator’s freedom is of course increased. These two points must, therefore, not be lost sight of. But when all allowance is made for this, the fact still remains that the Greek text is in a far from satisfactory state; it has suffered greatly from corruptions made in transmission, it has often been inflated by the addition of glosses, inserted sometimes for explanatory, at other times for doctrinal purposes, and further, marginal notes, not originally intended to be additions, have been later on incorporated into the text. Before proceeding, mention may here be made of the great displacement in the Greek text; we quote from Dr. Swete:2 ‘A remarkable divergence in the arrangement of the Septuagint and Old Latin versions of Ecclesiasticus 30–36 calls for notice. In these chapters the Greek order fails to yield a natural sequence, whereas the Latin arrangement, which is also that of the Syriac and Armenian versions, makes excellent sense. Two sections, 30:25–33:13a (ὡς καλαμώμενος … φυλὰσἸακώβ) and 33:13b–36:16a (λαμπρὰ καρδία … ἔσχατος ἠγρύπνησα), have exchanged places in the Latin, and the change is justified by the result. On examination it appears that these sections are nearly equal, containing in B 154 and 159 στίχοι respectively, whilst א exhibits 160 in each.’ There can be little doubt that in the exemplar from which, so far as is certainly known, all our Greek MSS. of this book ‘are ultimately derived the pairs of leaves on which these sections were severally written had been transposed, whereas the Latin translator, working from a MS. in which the transposition had not taken place, has preserved the true order.’3

When the various MSS. of the Greek version are examined it is seen that they exhibit great divergences,4 and these divergences are further increased when the other versions and the patristic quotations are taken into consideration. For English readers the most instructive way of being brought face to face with these variations found in the Greek MSS. is to compare the Revised and Authorized versions together, for in the margin of the Revised version the following note occurs again and again: ‘Verse … is omitted by the best authorities’; by these ‘best authorities’ are meant the great Greek uncials of the fourth century a.d. (B א A). In the Authorized version, on the other hand, all the verses or parts of verses omitted by the Revised version find a place, the reason for this being that the Greek text of which the Authorized version is a translation is that represented by a number of cursives belonging to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a text which is also to a large extent represented in the Old Latin version, and in the quotations from Sirach in the writings of some of the Church Fathers. These great divergences, then, in the Greek MSS., all of which, as we have just seen, go back to one copy in which the great displacement was already present, occasion a difficult problem. Two points, however, emerge clearly; in the face of the striking and numerous divergences and additions it is evident that all the MSS. cannot ultimately all go back to one original form of text; and, again, since all the extant Greek MSS. are descended from one copy in which the displacement was already found, the divergences and additions must have been in existence at a very early period. The matter can be put in another way; Cod. B, for example, represents one type of Greek text, Codd. 248, 253 represent another type, that, namely, which contains the additions: both have the great displacement, and therefore both, presumably, must ultimately go back to one and the same copy, although in the actual dates of these two manuscripts there is a difference of, roughly speaking, a thousand years. But how can it be possible that these two manuscripts should go back to one original copy when one of them has so many variations and additions as compared with the other? Here let us note another factor which is of real assistance in helping to arrive at a solution of the problem—the Old Latin version, which is a translation of the Greek, has the additions, but has not got the displacement. Now the Old Latin version represents a condition of affairs which is older than either the great uncial codices or the cursives as we now have them; this, therefore, proves that the type of text represented by Codd. 248, 253 was extant in some MSS. before the existence of the archetypal MS. which contained the displacement.

It seems clear that there existed at a very early period, probably as early as the last century b.c., two types of the Greek text, a primary text, which lies at the back of all the Greek MSS., and which represents the original translation of Ben-Sira’s grandson, and a secondary text. The former of these, the primary text, is represented by the great uncials B א A and the group of cursives 68, 155, 157, 296, 307, 308, as well as in the Aldine and Sixtine editions. The secondary text is represented in varying degrees by the group of cursives 55, 70, 106, 248, 253, 254, and in the MS. used by the seventh-century corrector of Cod. Siniaticus, אc•a; of these the foremost representative is 248; this type of text is also reflected in the Old Latin and the Syriac versions, as well as in the Syro-Hexaplar (in this latter many of the passages belonging to the secondary text are marked with the asterisk), and in the Complutensian text; it also has the support of Clement of Alexandria and Chrysostom in their quotations from our book. This secondary Greek text was, like the primary one, translated from the Hebrew.1 In the Talmud, and in some other Jewish writings, there are Rabbinical Hebrew quotations from Sirach which vary from the text of the great uncials (the primary text), but which are represented in the secondary Greek text. Again, in some cases the secondary Hebrew text, remnants of which are preserved in the recently-found Hebrew MSS., is represented in the ‘248 group’, but not in the uncials and their followers. And there is this further fact that many of the additions found in the ‘248 group’ can, on account of their form, only be explained on the supposition of their having been translated direct from a Hebrew original. These points go to show that the additions which belong to the secondary Greek text are not interpolations, but are based in the main upon a secondary Hebrew original.

To come back again, then, to the question with which we started; how are the two (apparently contradictory) following facts to be explained? There are great divergences in our Greek MSS., and yet all go back to one archetype, because all have the same great displacement. The most probable hypothesis would seem to be that the archetype responsible for the displacement was a Greek MS. which contained the primary text represented by the uncials. From this MS. the uncials were directly derived, but at the same time other Greek MSS. were in existence which contained the secondary text and were without the displacement.2 As copies were multiplied of the former group the distorted order was adhered to, while in some cases the variant text of the MSS. representing the secondary recension was adopted and embodied; hence two varieties of text, both of which contain the displacement, come into existence. The purest extant form of the text of the secondary recension is represented apparently by the Old Latin version; the text of Cod. 248 only partially embodies the variants and additions of the Greek MSS. behind the Old Latin.

But although there are some half-dozen Greek MSS., in addition to the Syriac and Old Latin versions and the Syro-Hexaplar, in which the secondary Greek text is represented, it is certain that no one of these actually contains that text as such; all that can be said is that these authorities have to a greater or less extent been influenced by it. Thus, apart from a great many minor additions, the ‘248 group’ of MSS. (including אc•a and the Syro-Hexaplar), taken altogether, have about a hundred and fifty stichoi which are not found in the MSS. representing the primary Greek text;1 of these additions thirty-two are found in the Syriac version, which has, besides these, thirty-seven more of its own; the Old Latin version has a much larger number of its own, together with thirty-three of those found in the ‘248 group’.2 The other group of cursive MSS., mentioned above, which with the uncials represent the primary Greek text, were originally based on the secondary text, for they still contain traces of this latter, and must therefore be regarded as the descendants of manuscripts representing the secondary text which were corrected on the basis of the uncials.

Although the fragments of the secondary Greek text now extant are considerable, they are but fragments, and, as the sequel will show, it is reasonable to assume that at one time the divergences between the two types of text must have been considerably greater. The question, therefore, naturally arises why it was that a secondary type of text (in the first instance, as we have seen, existing in Hebrew) should ever have come into existence? The additions found in the ‘248 group’ and other authorities are so considerable that they cannot be accounted for by the assumption that they are merely arbitrary expansions of the text or explanatory glosses; they must have some more specific purpose. We believe that Mr. Hart is right in saying that these additions are ‘Fragments of the Wisdom of a Scribe of the Pharisees, and contain tentative Greek renderings of many of the technical terms and watchwords of the sect. As Jesus ben Sira dealt with the earlier Scriptures, so some unknown disciple dealt with his master’s composition. He received the deposit and added to it;’ the additions are ‘traditional accretions, which—so far as external evidence testifies—descended from an immemorial antiquity’, though ‘they do not necessarily proceed from the hand of one individual’.3 In fact, the secondary Greek text represents a Pharisaic recension of the original work of Ben-Sira. But before we deal more fully with the subject of this Pharisaic recension, it is important as well as instructive to indicate the standpoint represented by Ben-Sira himself in his work; this will help to explain and justify the existence of the later recension.

Dr. Taylor, in his edition of Pirqe Aboth (1897), p. 115, says in reference to the books of the Sadducees: ‘We have no authentic remains of Sadducee literature, but it has been suggested with a certain plausibility that the book Ecclesiasticus approximates to the standpoint of the primitive Çaduqin as regards its theology, its sacerdotalism, and its want of sympathy with the modern Soferim.’ The name of Ezra is significantly omitted from its catalogue of worthies. ‘It remains sigular’, remarks Kuenen, ‘that the man whom a later generation compared, nay, made almost equal, to Moses, is passed over in silence.… Is it not really most natural that a Jesus ben Sirach did not feel sympathy enough for the first of the Scribes to give him a place of honour in the series of Israel’s great men?’ The modern Scribe was to Ben-Sirach an unworthy descendant of the primitive Wise, in accordance with Eli‛ezer ha-Gadol’s lament over the degeneracy of a later age:

מיום שחרב בית המקדש שרו הכימיא למהוי כספריא כו׳׃

‘Ex quo Templum devastatum est, 4 coepere Sapientes similes esse Scribis; Scribae aedituis; Aeditui, vulgo hominum; Vulgus vero hominum in peius indies ruit, nec quis rogans, aut quaerens, superest. Cui ergo innitendum? Patri nostro coelesti?’ Dr. Taylor points out, further, the important fact that in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 100 b) the Books of the Sadducees and the Book of Ben-Sira are placed side by side on the ‘Index expurgatorius’:

תנא בספרי צדוקים רב יוסף אמר בספר בן סירא נמי אסיד למיקרי׃

What Dr. Taylor says receives confirmation from the Hebrew text of the Canticle following 50:12, which was discovered subsequently to the publication of his book: ‘Give thanks unto Him that chooseth the sons of Zadok to be priests; for His mercy endureth for ever.’5 It is also in accordance with the Sadducean theology contained in the book. There is no mention of the existence of angels, and only the scantiest reference to demons (and even this is not certain), the central idea being that of a personified Wisdom.6 Then, again, special prominence is given to the Law; here we may be permitted to quote again from Dr. Taylor’s book, especially as in connexion with what he says a further Sadducean tenet, the denial of a resurrection, is included (in Sirach belief in a hereafter is restricted to the Sheol-conception): ‘The Sadducees said, μὴ εἶναι ἀνάστασιν (Matt. 22:23), and our Lord answers by an indirect argument from the Pentateuch, instead of bringing proofs of a more obvious and direct kind from other parts of Holy Scripture. Hence it has been inferred that they accepted the Pentateuch only, and rejected the Nebiim and Kethubim. On the other side, it is asserted that this inference is wholly inaccurate; that they accepted the three divisions of the Old Testament, and rejected only the extra-scriptural ‘Tradition’ and scribe-law. The truth, perhaps, lies in medio. The Jews in general esteemed, and still esteem, the Pentateuch more highly than the Prophets and the Hagiographa:

‍ובאין מימות משה ומכל מקום אינן שוין1‍ ]נהב[ נילבוקם ויהש הלבק ירבד מיבותכו מיאיבן וארקנש ׳מוא ינא ככלו

לחמשה ספרים שכולן מצות וחוקים כו׳׃

‘And therefore I say that the Prophets and Hagiographa are called words of Qabbalah, because they were received by διαδοχή, and they came from the days of Moses; and by no means are they equal to the Five Books, which are all precepts and ordinances, &c.’ If the Sadducees were of the number of those who insisted most strongly upon the superior authority of the Pentateuch, it might in certain cases be nearer to the truth to say that they rejected the Prophets and Hagiographa than to say that they accepted them. If a prophet were quoted in opposition to Moses they would have questioned the authority of the prophet.’2 The antagonism between the Sadducees and the Pharisees on this point is clearly indicated by Josephus (Ant. 13. 10. 6), where he says: ‘The Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession [cp. Dr. Taylor’s quotation above] from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and it is for this reason that the Sadducees reject them, and say, that we are to esteem as obligatory (only) those observances that are in the written word, but are not to observe those things that are derived from the traditions of our forefathers.’ The prominence given to the Law in Sirach may, therefore, well indicate the Sadducean attitude. Again, the very meagre reference to the Messianic hope, which is also characteristic of our book, likewise points to its emanating from a Sadducean milieu, for the Sadducees did not share the Messianic hopes of the Pharisees; the latter, following the teaching of the Prophets, looked to God to guide the destinies of the nation, while the Sadducees disbelieved in such divine guidance; they ‘take away fate, affirming that there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal, but they hold that all our actions are in our own power’ (Josephus, Ant. 13. 5. 9; cp. Bell. Iud. 2. 8. 14). Further, Ben-Sira shows himself to be a Sadducee by his comparatively favourable attitude towards the heathen world; it is true that one of the main objects of his book is to show the superiority of Jewish wisdom over that of the Greeks, but he does not show that contempt for non-Jews which was so characteristic of the Pharisees.

What has been said is sufficient to show that our book, in its original form, represented the Sadducean standpoint; and this fact offers a prima facie presumption that with the growth of Pharisaic influence a book which enjoyed so much popularity as Sirach should have been later on moulded, as far as possible, into a form more in accordance with the ideas of the dominant party, and that therefore the additions which constitute the main feature of the secondary Greek text should reflect specifically Pharisaic teaching. As an active movement Pharisaism emerges from the Maccabean conflict with surrounding heathenism and only becomes quiescent after the annihilation of the Jewish national life in the reign of Hadrian (from about 150 b.c.–a.d. 130). The work which the teachers of the Law had begun—viz. the application of the Torah to the practical affairs of everyday life—was continued and made effective by the Pharisees. Elbogen, in his Religious Views of the Pharisees, p. 2, says: ‘The Pharisees are usually described as the party of narrow legalistic tendencies, and it is forgotten how strenuously they laboured, against the Hellenizing movement, for the maintenance of Monotheism; it is forgotten that they built up religious individualism and purely spiritual worship; that it was through them more especially that belief in a future life was deepened; and that they carried on a powerful mission propaganda. They are represented as merely the guardians of the Pentateuch, and the fact is overlooked that they no less esteemed the Prophets and the Hagiographa, and were not less careful to make it their duty, in the weekly expositions of the Scriptures, to preach to the people the truths and hopes of religion out of these books.’ Fully in accordance with these religious views of the Pharisees are the three great watchwords in reference to practical religion to be found in Pharisaic literature, viz. תשובה ותפלה וצדקה, i.e. repentance, prayer, and almsgiving (lit. ‘righteousness’); these three are mentioned together as the three things which ‘avert the evil doom’.3 In illustration of these Pharisaic religious views we will take a few examples from the additions found in the secondary Greek text in order to show the high probability of their having been put in by a Pharisaic scribe or scribes for the purpose of bringing the book more into harmony with the views of what had become the dominant religious party in Palestine.

We have seen that in contra-distinction to Sadducean teaching the Pharisees believed strongly in the divine governance of the world and in a close relationship between God’s children and their heavenly Father; in illustration of this we may turn first to 16:10, where the Hebrew text has:

Thus (did it happen) to the six hundred thousand footmen,

Who were destroyed in the arrogancy of their heart.

To this 55 70 248 add:

Chastising, showing mercy, smiting, beating,

The Lord guarded them in mercy and in discipline.

This addition is quite inappropriate where it stands, and has evidently got out of place, but it must evidently have been inserted for the purpose of emphasizing God’s activity among His people. A similar emphasis is found in the addition to 17:17, where 70 248 insert:

Whom (i.e. Israel) He brought up as His firstborn with severity,

Yet loving them, imparting to them the light of love, and He forsook them not.

Further, in order to assert more strongly the divine guidance in the world, which, as we have seen from the words of Josephus above, the Sadducees denied, the Pharisaic scribe inserts in the middle of 16:19 (as preserved in 248), The whole world was made, and existeth, by His will; the fine passage in which Ben-Sira describes the transcendent might of Jahveh scarcely seems to require this insertion, but, as a matter of fact, it does afford a better answer to the words of the supposed sceptic which Ben-Sira uses; the point cannot be grasped unless the passage is quoted; in 16:17 it is said:

Say not: ‘I am hidden from God,

And in the height who will remember me?

I shall not be noticed among so illustrious a people;

And what is my soul among the mass of the spirits of all the children of men?’

These are the words which a sceptic is supposed to utter, and Ben-Sira answers the objector thus, 16:18, 19:

Behold the heavens and the heavens of the heavens,

And the deep, and the earth;

When He treadeth upon them they stand firm,

And when He visiteth them they tremble;

Yea, the bottoms of the mountains, and the foundations of the world,

When He looketh upon them they tremble greatly.

Ben-Sira’s reply is a fine one; it is probably true to say that he was a better Scribe than Sadducee in spite of the main tendency of his book (see the exegetical notes in the commentary for the Biblical references echoed in the lines above), but his answer was not sufficiently to the point for the practical Pharisee, whose added words offer in reality a more direct and pointed argument against the erroneous view expressed. Again, for practical purposes, as Hart well points out, ‘it was necessary to guard against the tendency towards the Sadducean position, and to assert against them the fact that God governed the world’; and so the Pharisaic glossator adds after 18:29 (248):

Better is trust (lit. ‘boldness’) in a single Master (i.e. God),

Than with a dead heart to cling to dead things (i.e. idols).1

With a similar object the following addition is made after 18:2 (70 248): Ben-Sira says, The Lord alone shall be justified; then comes the addition:

And there is none other beside Him,

Who guideth the worm in the hollow of His hand,

And all things are obedient unto His will;

For He is king of all things, and they are in His power;

He separateth among them the holy things from the common.

And with the same purpose these striking words are added after 20:31 (248):

Better is persistent endurance (ὑπομονή) in seeking the Lord

Than a driver (τροχηλάτης, ‘charioteer’) of his own life without a master.

Hart (op. cit., p. 280) has some interesting remarks on these passages. ‘The description of the typical Sadducee’, he says, ‘as clinging with dead heart to dead things goes little beyond the account of Jcsephus. It is true he never identifies the sect formally with the Epicureans, but he describes them both in similar terms, and indicates his conviction that their denial of Providence leads to virtual atheism. A God who has no oversight of the universe is equivalent to a dead idol. Epicureans and Sadducees might acknowledge the distant existence of the gods of their respective nations,1 but this formal acknowledgement could not save them from the lash of the orthodox. The Rabbis employ the word Epicurus to denote the fool who said in his heart, There is no God. And such were dead even in their lifetime, as the righteous live on even in death.2 The picture of the charioteer, who drives his life, which is his chariot, at random, directed by no master, corresponds closely enough with one of the metaphors employed by Josephus: “The Epicureans”, he says, “expel Providence from life, and do not admit that God oversees events, nor yet that the universe is guided by the blessed and incorruptible Essence for the permanence of the whole; they say that the world is borne along lacking a charioteer and uncared for.” ’3

The divine unity, together with the belief in God as the unique Saviour, is brought out by the addition in 70 248 (with slight variations) to 24:23:

Faint not, but be strong in the Lord,

And cleave unto Him that He may strengthen you.

Cleave unto Him; the Lord, the Almighty, is the one and only God;

And beside Him there is no Saviour.

This passage offers one of the most striking instances of the Pharisaic doctrine of God, both as regards the Divine personality as well as the relationship between Him and His true worshippers. This double aspect of Pharisaic doctrine, which has not always been adequately recognized, has been insisted upon with some emphasis by a recent writer. ‘It is well’, he says, ‘to lay stress upon the Pharisaic belief in the nearness of God and the directness of access to Him; also to make clear the fact that emphatic resistance was offered by the Pharisees to any idea of a plurality of Divine persons.… Of course it was never denied that God was the Almighty, the Lord of all worlds, supreme over everything. Indeed, that was affirmed over and over again, and is one of the axioms of Pharisaic belief. But, whatever other Jews may have done under the influence of Hellenism, the Pharisees never doubted for a moment that God Himself, the one supreme God, was actually near to every one of His people; “near in every kind of nearness,” as it was said (Jer. Berak. 13 a).’4

The cleaving unto the Lord so strongly emphasized in the last-quoted addition leads us on to illustrate the Pharisaic characteristic of pietism; personal religion, that religious individualism which did so much to foster spiritual worship, is brought out in a number of the additions found in the secondary Greek text. Not that Ben-Sira was himself wanting in deep piety, but as compared with the Pharisaic ideal it is not surprising to find that the book was considered in some respects wanting, and that it seemed to the more ardent religious temperament of the Pharisees as not sufficiently expressive of the close relationship between God and His pious ones. For example, Ben-Sira says in 1:12:

The fear of the Lord delighteth the heart,

And giveth gladness, and joy, and length of days;

but the Pharisee deepens the sentiment by adding (70 253):

The fear of the Lord is a gift from the Lord,

For it setteth [men] upon paths of love.

In the same way, a few verses further on (16 f.), Ben-Sira’s words:

To fear the Lord is the fullness of wisdom,

And she satiateth men with her fruits;

are supplemented by the similar thought (70 248):

And bath are gifts of God unto peace.

Few better examples could be given illustrative of the trust which a pious Pharisee had in the mercy of God than the words added to 17:20. Ben-Sira says:

Their iniquities are not hid from Him,

And all their sins are [inscribed] before the Lord.

To this the Pharisaic glossator adds (70 248):

But the Lord, being merciful, knowing also (that they are made in) His own image,

Spared them, and for sook them not, nor cast them off.

The closeness of God to those who love Him—a characteristic Pharisaic doctrine, as we have seen—receives illustration from the following addition in 70 248 to 17:26 a:

For He Himself will lead (thee) out of darkness unto the light of salvation.

The religious individualism of the Pharisee is brought out again in the addition of these words to 23:5 in 248:

And Him that desireth to serve Thee

Do Thou ever hold up.

This is added in spite of the fact that the passage 23:1–6 is one of the most striking ones expressive of personal religion in the whole book. One more example of this characteristic trait of the best Pharisaic spirit may be given; Ben-Sira says in 25:11:

The fear of the Lord surpasseth all things,

He that holdeth it, to whom shall he be likened?

The addition in 70, 248 breathes a deeper personal religion:

The beginning of the fear of the Lord is to love Him;

And the beginning of faith is to cleave unto Him.

Among the characteristic watchwords of the Pharisees few, if any, occupied a more prominent position than ‘repentance’ (תשובה); ‘in their efforts to confirm the faith of their own people and to effect the conversion of those without, the Pharisees, like the Prophets and the Rabbis, were concerned to insist upon the paramount importanee of repentance. For the latter it was the condition of reception, and for the former it was the means of restoration. It was the function of the Pharisee to convict all men everywhere of their need of repentance.’1 A good illustration of this occurs in the Pharisaic addition to 20:2; Ben-Sira (according to the Syriac version, which has preserved the best text here,—the Hebrew is wanting) says:

He that reproveth a sinner getteth no thanks;

But let him that maketh confession be spared humiliation.

To this is added in 70 248 (the Old Latin version also has the words, but in a wrong place):

How good it is when he who is reproved manifesteth repentance,

For thus wilt thou escape wilful sin.2

The phrase φανερῶσαι μετάνοιαν certainly connotes more fullness of meaning than the one Ben-Sira uses in this connexion, δεῖξον ἐπιστροφήν (28:21); the former, as Hart well puts it, ‘includes all forms of outward manifestation of the inner change of mind.’ Again, in 17:22, Ben-Sira says:

The righteousness of men is to Him as a signet,

And the mercy of man He preserveth as the apple of an eye;

but according to the Pharisaic glossator the real preciousness of man in God’s sight lies in the fact that repentance, divinely accorded, is manifested; therefore he adds:

Granting repentance to His sons and daughters (70 248).

There are at least two of the additions in the secondary Greek text which contain a reference to the future life, a doctrine the development of which the Pharisees did much to foster. In 16:22, where Ben-Sira puts the following words into the mouth of a supposed sceptic:

My righteous dealing, who declareth it?

And what hope (is there), for the decree is distant?

The Pharisaic glossator adds what is evidently intended to be a reference to future judgement in saying:

And the trying of all things is not until the end (70 106 248).1

But more pointed is the longer addition found in 70 248 after 19:17:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of acceptance (by Him),

And wisdom will gain love from Him.

The knowledge of the Lord is life-giving instruction;

And they who do the things that are pleasing unto Him shall pluck the fruit of the tree of immortality.

There are also, as Hart points out (op. cit., p. 312), one or two references among the additions to the Future Life under the term ‘Holy Age’, but as the references occur only in the Old Latin version ‘they are perhaps to be relegated to a lower place in the succession of scribes who followed Ben-Sira … but their contexts contain nothing that is demonstrably Christian’. Thus in 18:27 the Old Latin has this addition:

Go to the lot of the Holy Age

With the living and them that offer thanksgiving to God.

And in 24:32:

I will leave it to them that seek wisdom,

And I will not leave their progeny until the Holy Age.

‘Speaking generally, there does not appear to be any definite demarcation of the future from the present in these fragments. The mercy which rewards the faithful here differs in degree perhaps, but not in kind, from that which awaits them hereafter.’

We have dealt only with some examples of the additions found in Greek MSS. which represent to a greater or lesser degree the secondary Greek text; the character of this text could be still further illustrated by taking the Old Latin version into consideration, for this version has retained a number of the additions belonging to the secondary Greek text which have disappeared from all extant Greek MSS.;2 but enough has been said to show that this text, translated originally from the Hebrew, has with every justification been called the Pharisaic recension of Sirach. For illustrations from the Old Latin version reference may be made to Hart’s book, pp. 289 ff., 313, in connexion with which should be read Herford’s Pharisaism, pp. 267–281.

Turning now once more to the original translation of Ben-Sira’s grandson, there are some special points to be noticed. His knowledge of the Septuagint is very considerable; as Smend has pointed out, he frequently utilized this for the purposes of a lexicon. But his use of the Septuagint varies with the different divisions of the Old Testament; thus, he appears to be most familiar with the Greek text of the Pentateuch, of which he makes a far greater use than of the two other divisions; for example, the words in 20:29 δῶρα ἀποτυφλοῖ ὀφθαλμοὺς σοφῶν are a verbal quotation from the Septuagint of Deut. 16:19; the same is the case in 24:23, which contains an exact quotation from Septuagint of Deut. 33:4; cp. also 24:15 with the Septuagint of Exod. 30:23 f., 34; 49:1 with the Septuagint of Exod. 35:28, &c. His use of the Greek version of the prophetical books is considerably less, though in a variety of instances he shows his knowledge of this (e.g. with 48:10 cp. Mal. 3:14, and 49:7 with Jer. 1:10). But he does not seem to have had any acquaintance with a Greek translation of the Hagiographa.

It is very probable that in his desire to attain a more than ordinary knowledge of Greek Ben-Sira’s grandson was to some extent versed in the general literature of the Greeks; he uses over two hundred words which do not occur elsewhere in the Septuagint;3 he is fond of using compound verbs instead of the simple forms, and he shows his liking for variety by rendering the same Hebrew word by different Greek ones. Not infrequently he expands his translation of the Hebrew by adding an explanatory word or two (see e.g. the Hebrew and Greek of 8:12, 40:19, 41:9); he also often renders concrete words and expressions by abstract ones. The difference between the Greek of the Prologue and that of the book itself is so marked that Smend is justified in believing that Ben-Sira’s grandson was helped in composing the former.1