BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 4 (Supplement)

BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES.

ITS DEBT TO GREEK THOUGHT. A NEW ZEALANDER'S SEARCH. The Rev. H. Ranston, M.A.. Litt.D., tutor at tho Methodist Theological College in Auckland, has published through the Epworth Press (J. Alfred Sharp), London, a study of " Ecclesiastes and the Early Greek Wisdom Literature." R is a markedly capable and discriminating piece of work, all the more praiseworthy because of its accomplishment in the midst of a life busily occupied with pastoral and tutorial duties, anil far away from the wealth of opportunity favouring literary researchers resident in Europe The task that Dr. Ranston set himself was a new approach to the question: "Can wo find in tho hook of Ecclesiastes any traces of Greek language, or thought ?" Some have claimed that its writer, Koheletli, exemplified nothing beyond a particular development of native Hebrew and Semitic wisdom. But that traditional view has met damaging criticism. To Heraclitus, to Stoic and Epicurean philosophy, and to the subtle influence of a pervading Hellenistic atmosphere, Koheleth has been variously held to be indebted-

The approaches to the problem are beset with entangled opinions. Dr. Ranston s research, bearing evidence of painstaking diligence, has led him to expound a new thesis. Scholars have been looking in the wrong direction, he suggests, for traces of Greek influence upon this non-charac-teristic book ol the Old Testament's wisdom literature. Not to abstract philosophies, but to popular aphorisms current in less pretentious Greek writings, in touch with the market-place rather than the cloistered thinker's sanctum of meditation and discourse, lvoheleth may be largely debtor,. Tho task of cutting a way through the thicket has been one evidently much to I)r. Ranston's liking.

Using all the re sources available in this land remote from the Old World, conning the published conclusions of recognised authorities, searching the pages of .GrCek lore from the time of Homer to that of Aeschylus, disdaining riot to examine even fragmentary writings, and keeping a close eye the while on Koheleth's musings and maxims, he has satisfied himself of the discovery of a surer trail of Greek influence than other students have found. In the course of his search he has steadily eliminated some possible contributors of that influence:, Solon, the ancient historians, the earliest comic and tragic writers. Menander, the so-called Sevei? Sages, the older lyric poets and the epic writers as far as they are known, and even that relentless critic of accepted Homeric theology, Xenophanes of Colophon. To nono of these did Koheleth owe anything. With growing cloarness, however, some positive conclusions emerge. A fragment of Archilochus may have been known to the Jew, and perhaps another written by Simcnides of Ceos, possibly somo proverbs of Phokylides. But the evidence of all this is necessarily ' slight. Ilesiod, however, was almost certainly used; aid about Thoog nis there is no reasonable room for doubt, for the parallels are those of language even more than of point of view. About a common indebtedness of Theognis and Koheleth to Babylonian thought Dr. Kanston has an open mind, but is very dubious.

Students in this ancient realm of literature will find this exposition of more than passing interest. Already some noted scholars have welcomed it as blazing a new and promising track, and their reviews have evinced gratitude for this New Zealand worker's joining of them in a difficult literary quest. Even the lesstutored reader of tho Bible will turn to Ecelesiastes with fresh interest as he pictures its writer, searching for proverbs of pious and practical sagacity, moving for a time among folk familiar with tSie wise maxims of popular Greek thinkers, and giving them place in his book of solemn comment upon practical life.