INTRODUCTION
Sirach is the largest and most comprehensive example of Wisdom Literature and it has also the distinction of being the oldest book in the Apocrypha, being indeed older than at least two books (Daniel, Esther) which have found a place in the Canon alike of the Eastern and Western churches. It is quite impossible in the book as it stands to trace any one scheme of thought, for the author’s mind moves lightly from topic to topic, recurring frequently to the same theme and repeating the same idea. In harmony with other products of the “Wise Men,” Sirach sets chief value upon natural religion that revealed in the instincts, reason and conscience of man as well as by the sun, moon, stars, etc. Yet Sirach gives far more prominence than Proverbs to the idea that the Divine Will is specially made known in the Law of Moses (Sirach 24:23; 45:1-4).
The bulk of the book is poetical in form, abounding in that parallelism which characterizes Hebrew poetry, though it is less antithetic and regular than in Prov. Sirach mainly consists of a series of loosely related maxims and other sayings of a proverbial nature, much in the manner of the Book of Proverbs. Throughout, the author offers instruction on how to conduct oneself wisely in all areas of life. He identifies wisdom with the divine law (24:23), but his counsels are more concerned with ethics than they are with divine revelation. In addition to its numerous, diverse instructions, Sirach contains several long poems that celebrate wisdom (1:1-20, 24:1-22), praise God and his wonderful works (42:15-43:33), and praise the venerable patriarchs and prophets of Israel (chap. 44-49). Noteworthy is chapter 24, introducing uncreated wisdom speaking as a divine person. Early Christian writers considered it an anticipation or foreshadowing of the Logos, or word of God, in the opening chapter of John’s Gospel. Sirach is classified with the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament, which includes the Books of Ecclesiastes, Job, and Proverbs. However, this work is focused on bringing out the literary features in the book of Ecclesiasticus.
LITERARY FEATURES IN THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTICUS
Literary features are any specific aspect of literature, or a particular work, which we can recognize, identify, interpret and/or analyze. Both literary elements and literary techniques can rightly be called literary features. They are specific, deliberate constructions of language which an author uses to convey meaning. An author’s use of a literary technique usually occurs with a single word or phrase, or a particular group of words or phrases, at one single point in a text. Unlike literary elements, literary techniques are not necessarily present in every text.
Wisdom Literature in ancient Israel and the ancient Near East is not rendered by discursive prose but in experiential, personal and poetic language, often with an attempt to systematize its formulations. The literary embodiments include poems, narratives, instructions, and sayings. In addition, the rhetoric of each piece of literature participates with the content and form in shaping a minute aesthesis, a world of beauty and substance, that gives coherence and meaning to life. When speaking, the sages usually filled these texts with the content and images of organizing metaphors and metaphor clusters, and oftentimes personifying abstract concepts. These metaphors and metaphor clusters may be inferred from the linguistic construal of sapiential literature, for they are not always directly stated.
PERSONIFICATION
Personification is a form of metaphor that gives personal attributes to an animal, object or concept. This is the art of representing an abstract quality or idea as a person or creature. In other words, it treats the non-personal as personal. The power of personification is that it allows us to comprehend a wide variety of experiences with non-human entities in terms of human motivations, characteristics, and activities. Personification is a general category that covers a wide range of metaphors, each picking out different aspects of a person or ways of looking at a person. Personification is no stranger to the Hebrew Bible. But the personification of wisdom is simply unique in the Bible, both for its quantity and quality. This feature is visible in Sirach when Wisdom is referred to in the feminine gender. Woman wisdom is a feminine personification of the concept of wisdom. But the wisdom poem in Sirach presents more than a simple personification. Personification draws on the intrinsic or essential characteristics of the property personified or an attribute that a person who exhibits the property would be expected to have as a result. The figure of Woman Wisdom appears in several key poems in Sirach, namely Sir 1:1-10, 1:11-30,4:11-19,6:18-37,14:20-15:10,24:1-34 and 51:13-30.
1All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with him, and is before all time. 2Who hath numbered the sand of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of the world? Who hath measured the height of heaven, and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss? 3 Who hath searched out the wisdom of God that goeth before all things? 4 Wisdom hath been created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from everlasting. 5 The word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom, and her ways are everlasting commandments. 6 To whom hath the root of wisdom been revealed, and who hath known her wise counsels? 7 To whom hath the discipline of wisdom been revealed and made manifest? and who hath understood the multiplicity of her steps? 8 There is one most high Creator Almighty, and a powerful king, and greatly to be feared, who sitteth upon his throne, and is the God of dominion. 9 He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her, and measured her. 10 And he poured her out upon all his works, and upon all flesh according to his gift, and hath given her to them that love him.
Woman Wisdom is a metaphor that employs feminine imagery to speak of the tradition as taught by the sages and contained within the sacred writings of Judaism. Ben Sira uses it to show that the Jewish tradition is the pathway to genuine piety. The metaphor functions to reinforce the implicit claim of conservative scribal circles to be the legitimate interpreters of the tradition. The personification of wisdom is the basic. This feminine personification is then filled out with a number of metaphors, rendering Woman Wisdom an easily recognizable entity in the text despite the wide range of imagery applied to her. The wisdom personified includes both the content of the Jewish tradition and the disposition to live in conformity with that tradition, summed up in the fear of the Lord. This tradition is seen as the distillation of universal wisdom. The gender of Woman Wisdom is rhetorically important in those poems where wisdom is presented as a desirable goal to be passionately and zealously sought. But Ben Sira does not exploit the metaphor ‘wisdom as woman’ as a conceptual tool for reflection on wisdom in and of itself or in its relationship to God. In Sir 24 the feminine dimension of the Wisdom figure recedes; Wisdom is personified as an angelic figure and her gender becomes simply a fact of grammar. The metaphor ‘wisdom as angel’ may be an attempt to picture wisdom in the closest possible association with the Lord and in the most exalted position possible without compromising monotheism. Angels are also portrayed as mediators in Second Temple writings. The movement and action of Wisdom, God and human beings relative to each other in the Wisdom poems provides hints that the Jewish tradition plays a vital role in the relationship between God and humanity. God relates to human beings by revealing to them wisdom, which finds its most perfect expression in the Jewish written tradition. How a person relates to this tradition will determine how God relates to that person. Conversely, it is impossible to find wisdom if one does not have the correct attitude toward God and if one does not live according to the tradition. Since all wisdom is from God, there is no wisdom outside of what God gives, and the wisdom God has given is embodied in the traditions of Israel.
Sirach’s personification of wisdom is primarily developed from proverbs (prov. 1:20-33; 8:4-36; 9:1-6; cf. Deut 4:6), but Sirach develops this personification further by equating it with the Torah (Sir 24:23). In Sirach 24:23 the author identifies personified wisdom. However Sirach present the personified wisdom through a different metaphor. In 4: 11-20, wisdom is presented as a teacher in verse 14 (wisdom teaches her sons and exhorts those seeking her). However in 6:17-37 wisdom is describe from the perspective of a farmer working their field (6:19-20), and from the perspective of a hunted prey being placed under her bonds (6:23-30) which paradoxically leads not to subjugation but to a glorious robe and crown. Further, wisdom is presented as a house (14: 23-24), a luxurious tree (14: 25-27), a mother or young bride (15: 2-4), and a staff (15:4). These metaphors further explain how one must seek the secrets of wisdom (14:24-27) and in what ways will wisdom reward those who seek her (15:2-4).
24 He who looketh in at her windows, and hearkeneth at her door: 25 He that lodgeth near her house, and fastening a pin in her walls shall set up his tent nigh unto her, where good things shall rest in his lodging for ever. 26 He shall set his children under her shelter, and shall lodge under her branches: 27 He shall be protected under her covering from the heat, and shall rest in her glory.
By personifying Wisdom as a woman, the abstract idea becomes more immediate and attainable. The description, beautiful and poetic as it is, makes Lady Wisdom someone you want to know well, whose company you enjoy and long for. She is approachable to anyone and by everyone for it is attracted by the goodness of one’s heart and purity of one’s spirit. The desire and resolve to do what is right and just in the eyes of God are the first steps toward Wisdom that anyone and everyone can take, if they so choose.
WOMAN WISDOM: A METAPHOR IN SIRACH
Metaphor is that figurative way of speaking (and meaning) in which one reality, the subject, is depicted in terms that are more commonly associated with a different reality, the symbol, which is related to it by analogy. A metaphor, then, places in juxtaposition two terms that can be thought of as both similar and disimilar and invites the hearer to discover meaning by exploring the relationship between the two. Woman Wisdom in Sirach is usually treated either as a poetic personification or as a hypostasis. In other words, she is viewed as a poetic device, a distinct ontological entity, or something somewhere in between. However, a metaphor can only be understood and recognized within its wider context. The literary context enables one to pinpoint the precise nature of the wisdom being spoken of in the metaphor. If we are to understand what is being said about wisdom through its presentation as a feminine figure, we need to explore the system of associations connected with the vehicle - be it in terms of feminine characteristics, roles, or more vaguely in terms of attitudes toward the feminine - upon which Ben Sira’s audience drew. I do not believe that Ben Sira intended to say anything about women when he spoke of Woman Wisdom, nor that he intended his audience’s perception of women to be transformed through their engagement with his metaphor. Nevertheless, the metaphor leaves open the possibility of a reading which is dual-directional and thus subversive from the point of view of a patriarchal worldview. Metaphors always have a surplus of meaning. The recognition and interpretation of a metaphor is context-bound.
The imagery used to describe Wisdom includes plant and river imagery, and I will argue that Wisdom is also portrayed as a chief divine agent. Ben Sira moves abruptly from one image to the next, ‘mixing his metaphors’. And yet the overall impression created is a coherent one. Two metaphors are consistent only when they form a single image. But even where two metaphors are not consistent, they can nonetheless ‘fit together’ by virtue of being subcategories of a major category and therefore sharing a major common entailment. In Sir 15:2 we have the images of Wisdom as mother and Wisdom as virgin bride. These are not strictly compatible, and yet they function effectively enough together. This is because ‘mother’ and ‘virgin bride’ are subsumed under the larger category of ‘woman’ and one could perhaps expand that to ‘woman in relationship to the male’ and so the metaphor lending coherence here is wisdom is woman, with a loose use of wisdom as mother, lover, nurturer etc.
The clearest indication of the metaphorical character of the Wisdom figure is found in those discourses where Ben Sirach uses the metaphor and then decodes it later in the same text. (6:18-37 and 51:13-30).
13 Thou hast exalted my dwelling place upon the earth and I have prayed for death to pass away. 14 I called upon the Lord, the father of my Lord, that he would not leave me in the day of my trouble, and in the time of the proud without help. 15 I will praise thy name continually, and will praise it with thanksgiving, and my prayer was heard. 16 And thou hast saved me from destruction, and hast delivered me from the evil time. 17 Therefore I will give thanks, and praise thee, and bless the name of the Lord. 18 When I was yet young, before I wandered about, I sought for wisdom openly in my prayer. 19 I prayed for her before the temple, and unto the very end I will seek after her, and she flourished as a grape soon ripe. 20 My heart delighted in her, my foot walked in the right way, from my youth up I sought after her. 21 I bowed down my ear a little, and received her. 22 I found much wisdom in myself, and I profited much therein. 23 To him that giveth me wisdom, will I give glory. 24 For I have determined to follow her: I have had a zeal for good, and shall not be confounded. 25 My soul hath wrestled for her, and in doing it I have been confirmed. 26 I stretched forth my hands on high, and I bewailed my ignorance of her. 27 I directed my soul to her, and in knowledge I found her. 28 I possessed my heart with her from the beginning: therefore I shall not be forsaken. 29 My entrails were troubled in seeking her: therefore shall I possess a good possession. 30 The Lord hath given me a tongue for my reward: and with it I will praise him.
CONCLUSION
I refined my classification of Wisdom as metaphor by pointing to the personification of Wisdom as the basic trope underlying the presentations of Wisdom. The personification is then filled out with a number of metaphors. This explains why the figure of Wisdom is an easily recognizable entity in the text despite the wide range of imagery applied to her. Woman Wisdom is not restricted to the verses that explicitly refer to wisdom as a woman. When the feminine personification of wisdom is seen to be the constant factor behind the different metaphors a reading is achieved which highlights the affective impact of the discourse. For example the metaphors of Wisdom as field gains an erotic nuance (Sir 6: 19).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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www.academia.edu/42235516/Personification_and_Agency_in_Sirach_and_4_Maccabees
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