§ 2. THE TITLE OF THE BOOK

As the fragments of the Hebrew text of our book which are extant only begin with the concluding words of chap. 3:6, 3 we do not know how the title ran, but the third line of the subscription reads: ‘The Wisdom of Simeon, the son of Jeshua, the son of Eleazar, the son of Sira’; and the last line of the subscription in most of the Syriac manuscripts has: ‘The writing or the Wisdom of Bar Sira is ended.’ Jerome, however, says in his Praef. in Libr. Sal., ‘Fertur et πανάρετος Iesu filii Sirach liber, et alius ψευδεπίγραφος qui Sapientia Salomonis inscribitur; quorum priorem Hebraicum reperi, nec Ecclesiasticum, ut apud Latinos sed Parabolas praenotatum’; this title = מִשְלֵי,4 i.e. the Hebrew title for the Book of Proverbs, but that this was a title, in the ordinary sense, of our book is very improbable; it is more likely to have been a general title, descriptive of the contents, which was applied to the three books Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles, for Jerome (in the context of the passage quoted above) says that these two latter were joined to Ecclesiasticus. In the Syriac Version the title is ‘Wisdom of Bar Sira’, while in most manuscripts of the Septuagint it runs: Σοφία Ἰησοῦ υἱοῦ Σειράχ, or abbreviated in Cod. B, Σοφία Σειράχ.5 The probability is that the original title of the book was חבמת ישוע בן־סירא (‘The Wisdom of Jesus Ben-Sira’).6 The title ‘Ecclesiasticus’ of the English Versions comes from the Vulgate, though it is one which has been in use in the Western Church ever since the time of Cyprian (d. a.d. 258). It meant the ‘Church Book’ par excellence among the ‘Libri Ecclesiastici’. Among the early Greek Fathers the book is referred to as Πανάρετος Σοφία; see, e.g., Eusebius (Chronicon, ed. Scheone, 2:122); and Jerome (Comm. in Dan. 9) speaks of it as ἡ Πανάρετος; Clement of Alexandria calls it Παιδαγωγός (Paed. 2:10. 99, &c.), and sometimes quotes from it with the words ἡ σοφία λέγει.1 In the Talmud it is called ‘The Book of Ben-Sira’ (Ḥagigah 13 a, Niddah 16 b, Berakhoth 11 b);2 and Sa‛adya speaks of it as ספר מוסר, ‘The Book of Instruction,’ while other Rabbis call it מוסר בן־סירא, ‘The Instruction of Ben-Sira.’ Schechter (JQR, 12:460 f., 1900) quotes the words of a Rabbi Joseph that the ‘Proverbs of Ben-Sira’ (משלי בן־סירא) must be read because they contain useful matter.