cism--it is argued that because a large number of words
are found in this book, found elsewhere alone in the post-exilian
writers, (as Daniel or Nehemiah,) therefore the author of the book must
surely be post-exilian too. It would be unedifying, and is happily
unnecessary, to review this in detail--with a literature so very
limited as are the Hebrew writings cotemporary with Solomon: these few,
dealing with other subjects, other ideas, necessitating therefore
another character of words, it takes no scholar to see that any
argument derived from this must necessarily be taken with the greatest
caution. Nay, like all arguments of infidelity, it is a sword easily
turned against the user. As surely as the valleys lie hid in shadow
long after the mountain-tops are shining in the morning sun, so surely
must we expect evidences of so elevated a personality as the wise king
of Israel, to show a fuller acquaintance with the language of his
neighbors; and employ, when they best suited him, words from such
vocabularies--words which would not come into general use for many a
long day; indeed until sorrow, captivity, and shame, had done the same
work for the mass, under the chastening Hand of God, as abundant
natural gifts had done for our wise and glorious author.

Thus the argument of Zoeckler--"the numerous Aramaisms (words of Syriac
origin) in the book are among the surest signs of its post-exile
origin"--is really turned against himself. Were such Aramaisms
altogether lacking, we might well question whether the writer were
indeed that widely-read, eminently literary, gloriously intellectual
individual of whom it is said, "his wisdom excelled the children of the
East country and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all
men." Surely, that Solomon shows he was acquainted with words other
than his own Hebrew, and made use of such words when they best suited
his purpose, is only what common-sense would naturally look for. There
is no proof whatever that the _words themselves_ were of late date.
Christian scholars have examined them one by one as carefully, and
certainly at least as conscientiously, as their opponents; and show us,
in result, that the words, although not familiar in the Hebrew
vernacular, were in widely-current use either in the neighboring
Persian or in that family of languages--Syriac and Chaldaic--of which
Hebrew was but a member.

The verdict of impartiality must certainly be "not proven," if inde