The sayings we have been quoting in this volume for the most part belong to the life of ordered and peaceful society. There is no tramp of armies, no sense of imminent death, no outrage of gigantic suffering and injustice, in the pages of Proverbs or Ecclesiasticus. To-day, however, the ordinary problems and interests of peace-time seem altogether irrelevant. Twenty million fighting men in Europe, asked what a maxim is, would talk to you of machine-guns; the maxims otherwise called proverbs belong to a different and forgotten world. For trifling moralisms we have to-day neither taste nor time.

But the Jewish proverbs range wide enough to have a word for everyone, for the grave or the gay, for pious or profane, for those in haste just as much as for those at leisure; and many of their comments on life are very far removed from being trifling. In our enquiry we have met not a few winged words worth capturing and holding fast even in war-time; great thoughts such as this assertion, He that followeth after righteousness shall attain unto life, but he that pursueth evil doeth it to his own death (Pr. 1119), or this reassuring hint of the fundamental goodness of human nature, When the righteous triumph there is great glorying, but when the wicked come to power men hide themselves (Pr. 2812; cp. 1110), or this grand medicine for a tempted people, Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any folk (Pr. 1434).

Moreover it ought to be recognised that, properly regarded, morality is never unimportant; moralisms being trifling only so long as they remain mere words, not when they are translated into deeds. Act upon the good that is found in these proverbs, and immense results would follow. But just there is the crux: “It is a small matter to get right principles recognised, the whole difficulty lies in getting them practised. We need a power which can successfully, contend against the storm of our passion and self-will.”[154]

Now there is one deeply significant fact which we have seen in our study of the Jewish proverbs, but on which we have not yet laid sufficient stress—the fact that they seemed to their authors to point beyond themselves to a Divine Source. They were not fortuitous atoms gathered no man knew whence or why, but part of a marvellous system inspired and originated by God, sustained by His inexhaustible power, and governed by His holy purposes. Whatever may be thought regarding particular proverbs, no sensible person can imagine that Wisdom itself is idle or unimportant talk. Wisdom remains wise even in such a war as this, though the nations rage and the kingdoms are moved.

But is there a Divine Wisdom? Or is the aspiring faith of men only an unsubstantial dream? From first to last the Jews believed that Wisdom is a reality, and, far from weakening as the years went on, their confidence even increased, and their thoughts of the wonder and glory of the Heavenly Wisdom became, if possible, more sublime and yet no less intimate. And high as they exalted Wisdom, her chiefest glory remained this, that she was willing to dwell with men. Let us take as a last quotation some beautiful and loving words from that late work, the Wisdom of Solomon, to which reference was made in Chapter IX:

Is there this Heavenly Wisdom? Century by century, Life is accumulating its patient answer to the question, building up its vast evidence that the word of God endures, generation by generation confirming the intuition that the visible is for man the least real and that it is the unseen things that are eternal. But out of the midst of history there has also come one finished and marvellous reply—the personality of Jesus Christ.

Wisdom, whence cometh it? And where is the place of understanding? cried one who had despaired to find an answer. But the day came when certain of the Jews declared that Wisdom was found, that the infinite Divine Wisdom in its full glory had dwelt amongst us. All, and more than all, that had been said or thought or hoped of the Heavenly Wisdom, they had discovered in Christ Jesus. For one who had been man among men to be thus by Jews identified as the Perfect Wisdom, which was but an aspect of God Himself, is clearly wonderful; but just how utterly amazing it is, perhaps only those can realise who are conscious of the innate and magnificent monotheism of the Jews, and who have listened with sympathy and understanding to these reverent and rapturous praises of Wisdom. That a human being could possibly be felt to be the incarnation of Wisdom’s Self is a miracle. But the miracle is precisely that which has happened, and it is explicable only by a cause as great as the effect; that is, by the miracle of what Jesus was and is.

Recognition of Christ as the Divine Wisdom, and of Wisdom as incarnate in Christ, permeates the tradition and theology of the New Testament. It is visible in almost every passage where His disciples have sought to express the mystery and majesty of Him whose human love they had known on earth, whose divine power they now felt from heaven. The idea of Wisdom is the basis of St. Paul’s great utterances regarding Christ in the Epistle to the Colossians; of the affirmations in Hebrews that by Christ were the worlds made and that He is the Radiance of the Divine Glory and the Reflection of the Divine Being; and behind the wonderful opening chapter of St. John’s Gospel there is a hymn to the Eternal Wisdom, which was in the beginning, and was with God, and was God.[155]

Who hath ascended into heaven and descended?—asked a sceptical questioner in the Book of Proverbs (Pr. 304). No man ascended into heaven, but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of Man, rings out the answer of the Gospel (John 313).

If any man lack Wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him, writes St. James. Surely God’s gift is Christ? There are now nineteen centuries to show that nothing that has set itself against His wisdom has endured and been accepted as the truth.

“We need a power which can successfully contend against the storm of our passion and self-will.”—St. Paul affirms that the need has been met and answered in Christ crucified, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, and the Gospel holds out the same promise: as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the children of God.

But are they many who throughout these centuries have sought to find Wisdom in Christ, and in His redeeming compassion, His perfect knowledge of human weakness and human need, His calm unfailing strength, His infinite holiness, His glorious ideal, His faith, His sacrifice, have declared that they have found that which they sought? They are very many. Already they are a multitude which no man can number—out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples—of whom some have sealed the confession with their life-blood, and some have given equal testimony in the unfaltering purity and patience of a quiet and unselfish life. Some of them have been learned and some unlearned in this world’s knowledge, but it is abundantly evident that all who have been faithful to His word have possessed in its fulness the deeper Wisdom which is from above.

The sum of it all is this. Christ has come. There are those who do not trouble to seek for Wisdom with their whole heart, but that is a foolish attitude which should be shunned. The miracle has happened, and we ought to face its challenge. What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He?