The relation of Ecclesiastes to Greek thought
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There are two regions in which traces of Greek influence might conceivably be detected in Qoheleth, viz.:—its language and its thought.
Language
The contention of Zirkel, Tyler, Plumtre, Siegfried and Wildeboer that Graecisms are to be found in the language of Qoheleth, has been ably answered by Delitzsch, Nowack, McNeile and others. Not more than one such linguistic characteristic can be detected in the book, and that belongs to the language of common life, and might be employed by anyone living in Palestine after the Macedonian conquest.
In ch. i3 the phrase תחת השׂמשׂ occurs. It is found also 28 times elsewhere in the book. Plumtre and Wildeboer (the latter hesitatingly) regard it as= υφ ηλιω. Kleinert and McNeile rightly hold that this is unnecessary. It alternates with תחת השׂמי×, v1.13 2.3 3.1 and צלה×דצ v8.14-16, 11.2. The phrase also occurs in two Phoenician inscriptions dating from about 300 B.C.—those of Tabnith and Eshmunazer (cf. CIS., I, 3 and G. A. Cooke, North Semitic Inscriptions, pp. 26, 30). It may easily have been a phrase characteristic of the period without any reference to the Greeks. Zirkel's claim that ×”×“Ö¼× in the phrase ×”×“Ö¼× ×¦×›×™×š דע in (ch. 1.13) corresponds to the Homeric use of the article as a demonstrative pronoun, has been deemed by none of his successors worthy of serious consideration.
בּדדס in ch. 2.6, although the same as paradeisos, is not derived from it. Both are derived from the Persian pairi-dieza, which furnished the word to Semitic-Babylonian, Aramaic, Arabic and Armenian as well. (See BDB.) It is also found in Cant. 4.13 and Ne. 2.8.
מקדה, ch. 2.14 3.19 9.2f, was by van der Palm connected with συμφοÏη, but it occurs in a kindred sense in 1 Sam. 6.9, where no Greek influence can be suspected.
×ו יחד ch. 2.15, Zirkel renders ετι μαλλον, but as rightly taken by Ginsburg, Wildeboer and McNeile ×ו="then," "under those circumstances," as in Jer 22:15.
צש×וח טב, ch. 3.12, is regarded by Kleinert, Tyler and Siegfried as a literal translation of ευ Ï€Ïαττειν. It is true that the context excludes an ethical meaning, and shows that it means "be prosperous," or "fare well," but since ??? ???; occurs in the , opposite meaning of "vex one's self" or "be in a bad way" in 2 Sam 12:18, Greek influence is not necessary to account for the usage.
???? ???? ch. 4.15, was explained by Zirkel from the Greek phrase deuteros tou Basileos, and by Delitzsch and Wright from heteros ton Matheton (Mt. 8.21). Bickell and Siegfried, however, regard ???? as a gloss. If genuine, it is used in a straightforward way to refer to a second youth who became king.
????? 5.9, was regarded by Zirkel as = φιλαÏγυÏος, but as McNeile has said one could as well take ???? ??? (Pr. 29.3) as a Gracism= philosophos.
??? ??? ??, ch. 5.17, is taken by Graetz, Plumtre, Pfleiderer, Siegfried and Wildeboer as a translation of Kalon Kagothon. That, however, would be ???? ???. Del., who is followed by Wr., McN., Ko. (§§414n, 393a), pointed to a parallel in ??? ??? ???, Ho. 12.9. There can be no suspicion of Greek influence in Hosea.
????, ch. 5.19, has, according to Zirkel, the sense of remunerari. The use of ??? in this sense he explained through the Gr. ameibesthai, which can mean both remunerari and respondere. ??? is, however, an Aramaic loan word="to occupy" (BDB., see note); but even if it were from ???, "answer," McN. points to a parallel usage in 1K. 18.24, for which Greek influence could not be responsible.
??? ???, ch. 6.9, Zirkel compares with 'οÏμε τες ψυχες in Marc. Aurelius 3.15. If there were influence here, it must have been from the Hebrew to the Greek. McN. has called attention to the fact that Ez. 11.21 and Job 3.1 use ??? in the same sense as Qoh.
?????, ch. 6.12, is the one instance wherein Zirkel was right, explaining it by the Greek poiein chronon. McN. would alter the text to avoid this explanation, but on the whole it seems most probable. See notes.
??? ???, ch. 7.14, Kleinert declared was connected with euemeria, but others, even those who hold to Graecisms in Qoh., regard it as doubtful. McN. pertinently asks: "What other expression could possibly be chosen as a contrast to ??? ????? ???, Zirkel claims, is equal to the Greek μεςην βαδιζειν, but as Del. and others point out ??? has here the sense of "be quit from" or "guiltless of," as in Mishna, Berakoth, 2.1, Sabbath, 1.3. This is, then, not a Greek idiom, but NH. ?????? Kleinert explains as to ti estin = the essence of the thing," but, as McN. notes, the expression is found in 1.9 3.15 6.9, in all of which such a meaning is impossible. It means simply "that which is."
???, ch. 7.28, Graetz takes as equal to ???, owing to the influence of the Greek anthropos, but as McN. notes it is simply opposed to ???? as in Gen. 2.22ff 3.8ff, and does not correspond to Greek usage at all.
????, ch. 8", which Zirkel takes for the Gr. phthegma and others for epitagma, is, as Delitzsch pointed out, a Persian word; see notes.
???, ch. 12.13, Tyler, who is followed by Sieg., compares with the formula of the Mishna, ?? ????="this is the general rule," and thinks there is "a pretty clear trace of the influence of Greek philosophical terminology." He compares to katholon or to olon, which in Plato is used in the sense of "the Universal." Such a view imports into the phrase a meaning foreign to the context. The word simply means "all," and means that either the whole book, or all that the editor wished to say, has been heard. These points are more fully discussed by McNeile, op. cit., pp. 30-43.
Thought
As to the possibility that Qoheleth was influenced by Greek philosophical thought, it can be shown that there is even less trace in Qoheleth of Greek philosophical, than of Greek linguistic, influence. Renan and McNeile are right in thinking that everything in Qoheleth can be accounted for as a development of Semitic thought, and that the expressions which have been seized upon to prove that its writer came under the influence of Greek schools of philosophy only prove at most that Qoheleth was a Jew who had in him the making of a Greek philosopher. (Cf. McNeile, op. cit., p. 44-)
Many attempts have been made to prove the contrary. Pfleiderer (Cf. Jahrbucher fur protestantische Theologie, 1887, 177-180, and his Die Philosophic des Heraklit van Eph., nebst einem Anhang uber heraklitische Einftusse im alttestamentlichen Koheleth, und besonders im Buck der Weisheit, 1886) tries to show that ch. 3.1-9 is dependent upon Heraclitus, not only for its thought, but for many of its expressions; but this view has been justly discarded by others. Friedlander (Griechische Philosophic im alien Testament, 1904) seeks to prove that Qoheleth was written in the Greek period, assuming that in that case Greek philosophy influenced it. He makes no specific argument for such influence beyond the contention that ch. 7.19 (= Pr. 21.22 24.5) is an echo of Euripides. Sellin (Spuren griechischer Philosophic im alten Testament, 1905) has answered him.
The attempt of Tyler, which is followed by Plumtre, Siegfried, and Haupt, to prove that Qoheleth was influenced by the Stoics, deserves more serious attention. Tyler (Ecclesiastes, p. 11ff) finds in the catalogue of times and seasons in ch. 3.1-9 a setting forth of the great principle of Stoic ethics, that one should live according to nature. He thinks that in vv. 2-8 we have a compendious statement that for every event of human life "Nature" has an appointed season. He finds confirmation of this in ch. 3.17 where the word "there" according to the Massoretic pointing seems to him to refer to nature. With reference to this last point it may be observed that ch. 3.17 in all probability is one of the Chasid glossator's interpolations to Qoheleth's work, and that the word "there" is a Massoretic mistake (see Commentary, ad loc., for reasons). The Stoic ethics, too, which Tyler sees in ch. 3.2-8. do not appear, on a close examination, to be there. Qoheleth is not in these verses expressing an ethical standard, but is rather breathing a sigh (see vv. 9, 11) over the fact that all human life with its varied activities is caught in the meshes of an inexorable fate. This consciousness of the iron grip of fate Qoheleth possesses in common with the Stoics, it must be confessed, but, as Zeller (Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, London, 1892, p. 332 ff.} perceived, the Stoics did not invent this conception, but shared it with nearly all the thinkers of the period. In an age when first the Persian, then the Macedonian, and finally the Roman conquerer quenched all over the civilized world the torch of freedom, and powerful nations were crushed like egg-shells, it is no wonder that the fact that man is powerless before the onward sweep of things should have impressed the thoughtful minds of the time regardless of nationality. The fact that this conception appears in Qoheleth is, therefore, a mark of date, rather than evidence of Stoic influence. Ch. 3.13-15, upon which Tyler relies for confirmation of his argument, is obviously open to the same explanation. The writer is simply saying: Man is powerless in the presence of God.
Tyler then argues (op. cit., p. 14ff.) that the picture which Qoheleth draws in ch. i of the endless repetitions of nature clearly betrays the influence of the Stoic theory of cycles. Tyler overlooks, however, the fact that the differences between the Stoics and Qoheleth are really greater than their agreements. Qoheleth (ch. 1.4-11) alludes only to the fact that the generations of men, the sun, the winds, the rivers, and all human affairs, run again and again the same course. He betrays no consciousness of the Stoic theory of larger world-cycles, at the end of which everything would be destroyed by flood or fire only to be recreated and to start upon a new world-course, in which every detail of its former history would be repeated. (See Zeller, op. cit., ch. viii.) Indeed, it is clear that Qoheleth did not hold this view, for his constant plaint is that "man cannot find out what will be after him," or "know what God hath done from the beginning to the end" (cf. 3.11 6.12 7.14 11.5). Qoheleth's confession of ignorance is in striking contrast to the dogmatic certainty of the Stoics. When one notes these contrasts, it is hardly possible longer to maintain that Qoheleth betrays in ch. i any Stoic influence. He appears rather as an acute observer of life, whose bitter experiences have led him to look beneath the surface, and who has thus become conscious of the seemingly futile repetitions of life, and whose thirst for knowledge of life's mystery refuses, though baffled, to be satisfied by dogmatism.
Tyler further urges (op. cit., 15ff) that Qoheleth's oft repeated dictum "all is vanity" is best explained by Stoic influence, because Marcus Aurelius declares that "worldly things are but as smoke, as very nothingness." On any theory of the date of Ecclesiastes, however, it might with greater plausibility be urged that the stream of influence, if influence there was, was in the other direction. The coincidence that both Qoheleth and the Stoics regarded folly as madness is also to Tyler an argument for his theory. If, however, his other arguments are invalid, this fact can be regarded as no more than a coincidence.
Not only do these alleged evidences of Stoic influence appear to be unreal, but on many other points the positions of Qoheleth and the Stoics are in such striking contrast as to render the theory of Stoic influence most improbable. The Stoics were materialists, and most dogmatic in their materialism (Zeller, op. cit., ch. vi), but there is no trace in Ecclesiastes either of their materialism or their dogmatism. The Stoics regarded God as pure reason, and were as positive and dogmatic about the divine nature as about the universe; Qoheleth, on the other hand, regarded both God and his works as unknowable. God is infinitely above man (cf. 5.2), and even what he does man cannot hope to understand (cf. 11.5). The Stoics thought they understood how the soul was formed in the unborn child (Zeller, op. cit., pp. 212-213); Qoheleth, on the other hand, declared that the formation even of the bones of the unborn infant was a mystery the secret of which is undiscoverable (ch. 8.17 11.5). There is a great contrast, too, between the idea of good as presented by Qoheleth and the Stoics respectively. To Qoheleth there is no absolute good. A good is a relative thing; it consists of the satisfaction of the animal appetites during the period of life when such satisfaction gives enjoyment.
It has no absolute value, but there is in life nothing better (cf. ch. 2.24 3.12f 5.18f 9.7ff 11.9f). To the Stoics, on the contrary. nothing could be considered a good which did not have an absolute value. (Zeller, op. cit., pp. 231-233.) A similar contrast exists between Qoheleth's idea of the relative position of wise and foolish men and that entertained by the Stoics. Qoheleth has an innate liking for wisdom; he admires it, and at times follows it (ch. 1.13 7.25,116 9.16), but, on the other hand, he cannot rid himself of the feeling that the wise man toils in vain (9.16), that his labor is a fruitless endeavor, and that a foetus born dead is in reality happier than the wise man (ch. 6.3-8). It is true that in another mood he declares that it is better to know that one will die than to know nothing (ch. 9.5); but on the whole Qoheleth's verdict is that wisdom, like all other things mundane, is vanity. The wise man has no real advantage, except that he suffers what he suffers with his eyes open; in the end he dies like the fool, and goes to the same place (cf. 9.1ff. The Stoics, on the other hand, regarded the wise man as the only perfect man, free from passion and want and absolutely happy, falling short in no respect of the happiness of Zeus. (Zeller, op. cit., pp. 270-271.)
Again, the Stoics made distinctions between degrees of goodness. Virtue was an absolute good; other goods were secondary, and certain things were indifferent. (Zeller, op. cit., ch. XI) Of such distinctions we find no trace in Ecclesiastes. The one kind of good which he knows is to eat and drink and enjoy the full round of physical life while it lasts. This is not an absolute good — Qoheleth knows none — but it is to him the only good within the reach of man. The Stoics also developed theories of applied morals, in which political theories and the duties of the individual were set forth. These culminated in the Roman period in the conception of a citizenship of the world. (Zeller, op. cit., ch. XII.) None of these ideas finds expression in Qoheleth, though it would, of course, be unfair to look for some of them, as they were later developments of Stoicism. The Stoics, too, were great allegorizers (cf. Zeller, op. cit., p. 355ff). and made much of divination (cf. Zeller, op. cit., p. 370ff.), traces of neither of which appear anywhere in Ecclesiastes.
Upon a candid comparison of the thought of Ecclesiastes, then, with the philosophy of the Stoics, the supposed dependence of the one on the other turns out to be unreal. The resemblances are not really likenesses but surface coincidences, and the differences are fundamental.
Tyler (op. cit., 18ff.) endeavors to show that Qoheleth also exhibits traces of Epicurean thought. In this argument he relics mainly upon two passages: 3.8-22 and 5.18-20. The former of these teaches, he holds, the Epicurean doctrine of the mortality of the soul, and the latter the Epicurean doctrine of pleasure, or tranquility, as the essential principle of life. With reference to the first of these points it should be noted that Qoheleth's denial of immortality differs from the Epicurean denial. His is but a passing doubt: it is not dogmatically expressed, and at the end (12.7) his doubt has vanished and he reasserts the older Jewish view (Gen 2:7). This older view was not an assertion of immortality, but the primitive conception that the breath comes from God and goes back to him. The Epicureans, on the other hand, dogmatically argued for the non-immortality of the soul, and possessed well-assured theories about it. (Cf. Zeller, op. cit., pp. 453-456.) As to Tyler's second point, it will be presently shown that this is a Semitic point of view older than Epicurus by many centuries.
Siegfried confesses that neither thorough-going Stoicism not Epicureanism can be found in the book, but he, nevertheless, distinguishes two authors in the book, the one of whom shows, he thinks, kinship to the Stoics, and the other to the Epicureans.
Haupt, on the other hand, believes that the original Qoheleth was strongly imbued with the Epicurean philosophy. He says (The Book of Ecclesiastes, 1905, p. 6), "Like Epicurus (341-270 B.C.), Ecclesiastes commends companionship (4.9), and cheerfulness (9.7), but also contentment (6.9), and moderation in sensual pleasures to avoid painful consequences (11.10). He warns against wrong-doing, since it entails punishment (7.17, 5.6). He does not deny the existence of God (5.2), but he disbelieves a moral order of the universe: divine influence on this world where there is so much imperfection and evil seems to him impossible. In the same way he doubts the immortality of the soul (3.21); death ends all consciousness (9.10). He by no means commends nothing but eating and drinking and pleasure (8.15 2.24 5.18, cf. 3.12); he also preaches the gospel of work (3.22 9.10)."
The part of this argument which relates to immortality has already been considered. Unfortunately for the Epicurean theory, an old Babylonian parallel to Eccl. 9.7ff — a parallel which contains the heart of this supposed Epicurean philosophy—has been discovered. It occurs in a fragment of the Gilgamesh epic found on a tablet written in the script of the Hammurabi dynasty (about 2000 B.C.), and was published by Meissner in the Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 1902, Heft i. On p. 8, col. iii, 1. 3, we read:
Since the gods created man, Death they ordained for man, Life in their hands they hold, Thou, O Gilgamesh, fill indeed thy belly, Day and night be thou joyful, Daily ordain gladness, Day and night rage and make merry, Let thy garments be bright, Thy head purify, wash with water, Desire thy children which thy hand possesses, A wife enjoy in thy bosom, Peaceably thy work (?)...
As Hubert Grimme pointed out (Orientalische Literaturzeitung, Vol. VIII, col. 432 ff.), this is a most striking parallel to Eccl. 9.6ff.
- Also their (the dead's) love as well as their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have again no portion in all that is done under the sun. Come eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a glad heart, for already God hath accepted thy works. At all times let thy garments be white, and let not oil be lacking on thy head. Enjoy life with a woman whom thou lovest all the days of thy vain life which he gives thee under the sun, for it is thy lot in life and thy toil which thou toilest under the sun.
These passages are not only strikingly similar, but in parts the Hebrew seems to be a translation of the Babylonian (see Commentary). The existence of the influential Jewish colony called the "Gouliouth" in Babylonia and its great influence on the Jews of Palestine is well known. There can be little doubt that it was through this channel that this Babylonian philosophy of life became known to Qoheleth and influenced him.
This old Babylonian philosophy, too, it should be noted, contains the heart of all that has been considered Epicurean in Qoheleth. The eating and drinking, the enjoyment of one's labor, the cheerfulness, the delight in pleasure, the feeling that death ends all—all these are contained in it. The script in which it is written attests the existence of these sentiments as early as 2000 B.C., at a time when there is no reason to doubt that they are a product of purely Semitic thought. Qoheleth was, in all probability, acquainted with the Babylonian poem. It is not likely that his whole point of view came from Babylonia, but he adopted the sentiment of the poem, because it expressed a point of view which he had himself reached, while his own thought was made possible by some phases of Jewish thought in the particular period when he lived. Semitic thought in Babylonia had, almost two millennia before Qoheleth, traversed the cycle which Jewish thought was in his person treading.
The point of immediate interest is that the discovery of this parallelism effectually disposes of the theory that Qoheleth was indebted to the thought of Epicurus. Epicurean influence was exceedingly problematical even before this discovery, for Epicureanism was in its way as dogmatic and austere as Stoicism. Qoheleth betrays no trace of the Epicurean dogma that all knowledge comes from sensation, no trace of Epicurean canonic, or natural science, or theology, or morals. Such likenesses as may be discovered are cast in a thoroughly Semitic mould of thought, and are mere coincidences. It may, of course, be urged that it would not be necessary for Qoheleth to adopt the peculiarly Greek characteristics of either Stoicism or Epicureanism in order to be influenced by some of the fundamental conceptions of these systems; but it may be said in reply that no Hebrew could probably be influenced by them without adopting on some points their peculiar methods or dogmatism. St. Paul, Philo, and Justin Martyr, for example, adopted the allegorizing method, and probably Qoheleth would betray some non-Semitic trait were such influence real.
McNeile (Ecclesiastes, pp. 44 ff.) has pointed out that Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was of Phoenician stock, and that, though Ecclesiastes contains some of the seed-thoughts of Stoicism, it only means that another Semite under the influences of the same period in the world's history developed under a somewhat different environment some of the same ideas. Our present knowledge makes it possible to contend concerning the resemblances between Qoheleth and Epicurus, not that the former borrowed from the latter, but that Epicurus was indebted for his seed-thought to Qoheleth's great forerunner, the Babylonian poet, and that this thought he worked up metaphysically and dogmatically, thus giving it a setting in accordance with the prevailing genius of the Greek philosophy of the period. In favor of such a thesis a strong argument could be made without harboring any of the extravagant fancies of the contemporary pan-Babylonian school of Germany, but the problem belongs rather to the history of Greek philosophy than to a commentary on Ecclesiastes.
For full descriptions of the teachings and influence of Epicurus, see Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics, London, 1892; Wallace, Epicureanism, London, 1880; and Guyan, La Morale d'Epicure, Paris, 1878. The name Epicurus appears in the Talmud as Apikoros. It is equivalent to "free-thinker" and is used in a way which shows that the writers of the Talmud had only the vaguest notions of his philosophy. Cf. Jewish Encyc. I, 665 ff.
The fact that the Babylonian influence reached some Greek philosophical thinkers has been made evident by the discovery that the mystic number of Plato's Republic, Book viii, is of Babylonian origin. This was first shown by Aures, Recueil de Travaux, XV, 69-80, who, after examining the interpretations which Le Clerc in 1819, Vincent in 1839, Martin in 1857, and Tannery in 1870, had put upon Plato's language, finally adopted the explanation of Dupuis (1881) that the number was 21,600 and claimed that in the mathematical tablet of Senkereh this number represented 6 shars=30 US. = 1 kasbu. James Adam, in his Republic of Plato, Cambridge, 1902, Vol. II, p. 206 ff., argued with great acuteness that the number contemplated by Plato was 12,960,000. The factors of this number Hilprecht (Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series A, Vol. XX, Pt. i) found on Babylonian exercise tablets in such a way as to show that it was regarded by the Babylonians as a mystic number. He holds this to be a confirmation of Adam's calculation and also of the Babylonian origin of the numbers. Even Georg Albert admits (Die Platonische, Zahl als Prazessionszahl, Leipzig and Wien, 1907), that the Babylonian origin is possible, although he differs from Dupuis and Adam in the interpretation of the Greek, reiterating a view which he set forth in 1896 (Die Platonische Zahl) that the number intended is 2592, one of the factors of 12,960,000, and referred to the procession of the equinoxes.
Epicurus lived through the period of the conquests of Alexander the Great. He began teaching in Athens in the year 306 B.C., seventeen years after the death of Alexander, at a time when the channels through which Babylonian influences might pour into Greece were all open.
It is scarcely necessary to refute Dillon's statement that Qoheleth was influenced by Buddhism (see above, p. 27). Dillon supports his statement by no extended argument, and it seems clear that such parallels between Ecclesiastes and Buddhistic teaching as might be cited are in all probability due to independent, though parallel, developments of thought.
The fact is, as Edward Caird (Lectures on the Evolution of Religion; Vol. I, ch. vii, x, xiii, xiv) observed, that in various centres positive and theoretical religions have been developed out of primitive nature religions, and that wherever this has been the case, a similar course of evolution, independent though parallel, may be observed. The instances noted by Caird are Buddhism, Judaism, and Stoicism. That the primitive, and, to some extent, the prophetic conceptions of religion were to Israel's thinking minds proving inadequate, even before Qoheleth, the Book of Job attests. McNeile (op. cit., p. 44Jf.) has already made good use of Caird's principle in showing that Qoheleth represents a stage in the de¬velopment of Jewish religious thought parallel in some respects to Stoicism, though independent of it.
The principle may be applied with justice, though in a less ex¬tended way, to the likenesses between Ecclesiastes and Epicurus. Where primitive types of religious conception were beginning to be regarded as inadequate, it was natural for men to find a kind of satisfaction for a time in the effort to make the most out of the present life and its temporary pleasures. We have already seen how Babylonian thought passed through this phase, and Herodotus tells us (Bk. 278) that Egyptian thought passed through a similar phase, which gave birth to the custom of carrying a mummy around the table at a feast and exhorting each guest to make the most of his opportunity, for one day he would, like the mummy, be unable to participate in such joys. This point of view is also exhibited in native Egyptian poetry. See W. Max Muller's Liebespoesie der alien Agypter, 30-35.
Qoheleth represents such a stage in Hebrew thought. He did not invent the conception of Sheol, which appears in his book, as a place of dismal half-consciousness. It is the old Semitic conception, set forth in the Babylonian poem of Ishtar's Descent (KB., VI), and in the OT. in Isa 14:9ff Ez 32:18ff, and is even reiterated by some late Psalmists (cf. Ps 8810 Ps 11517)- Qoheleth's point of view is a natural evolution, therefore, from Israel's earlier thought —as natural as that which took place in Babylonia or in Egypt. The evolution of thought in Greece may as naturally have produced Epicurus. If either Qoheleth or Epicurus was in any way indebted to the Babylonian poet, it was because the development of thought in their respective countries made his conceptions of life welcome to many Hebrew and Greek minds.
The book of Ecclesiastes represents, then, an original development of Hebrew thought, thoroughly Semitic in its point of view, and quite independent of Greek influences.
McNeile has pointed out (Ecclesiastes, pp. 45 ff., 50 f.) that more real affinity of thought exists between Qoheleth and Xenophanes of Colophon, or Qoheleth and Pyrrho and the Sceptics, than between Qoheleth and the Stoics. McNeile, however, rightly declares that no contact on the part of Qoheleth with either of these philosophies can be maintained. The Sceptics were in their way as dogmatic and as Greek as the Stoics or Epicureans (cf. Zeller, op. cit., 514-563), while Qoheleth is thoroughly Semitic.
