Ecclesiastes - GA Barton - 1908.pdf

. dictum
matic_ogrtaintv of the_Stoics.
ECCLESIASTES
When one notes these contrasts, it
in ch. i
isliardly possible longer to maintain that Qoheleth betrays
any Stoic influence. He appears rather as an acute observer of
life, whose bitter experiences have led him to look beneath the sur-
face, 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., i$ff-) that Qoheleth's oft repeated
"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,
that the stream
however, it might with greater plausibility be urged
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, how-
ever, 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
I
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. n 8
).
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 undis-
coverable (ch. 8 17 n 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.