Ecclesiasticus 2: (1-6) 7-11

Ecclesiasticus is one of the Apocryphal books not contained in the Hebrew Bible as it was finally canonized by the Rabbis at the Council of Jamnia in 90 AD. However, they are found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint ("LXX") of about 200 BCE, although the underlying Hebrew original versions have survived, if at all, only fragmentarily. When St. Jerome made his translation of the Bible into Latin around 390-400 AD, he yielded to pressure from others, and reluctantly included the Apocryphal books, and they remained as part of Western Christian Bibles until they were rejected by Luther and the continental Reformers. They remain in Roman Catholic Bibles, and, in typical Anglican fashion, were not rejected outright, but relegated to a sort of secondary status, as stated in Article VI of the 39 Articles (BCP p. 868). Thus selections from these books still occasionally appear in Anglican lectionaries.

Ecclesiasticus, a Latinization of the Greek word referring to church, and conventionally abbreviated as "Ecclus" is easily confused with Ecclesiastes (abbreviated "Eccles"), but they are entirely different books. Ecclesiastes is in the Hebrew canon, and its Hebrew title is "Qoheleith". This is derived, to be sure from a Hebrew root meaning "congregation" (and hence, "church"), but in this form is more properly translated as "the Preacher".

Ecclesiasticus also has the title of "The Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach", often shortened to "Sirach", and is clearly an example of Wisdom Literature.

Our Lectionary gives an alternative set of Lessons for the Feast of All Saints Day. I have chosen to comment on the second, and probably less frequently chosen one. In both, the Old Testament selections are from Ecclesiasticus. The more familiar one begins with the oft-quoted verse, "Let us now praise famous men..." The one commented on here from the second chapter exhorts the reader to "fear the Lord" in the first six verses, and goes on to enumerate the benefits one may expect to derive from doing so in verses 7-11. The Greek verb translated "fear" certainly does meant that (we derive 'phobia" directly from it, yet from the context it seems that our writer does not so much mean to refer to the psychological or emotional experience we usually understand that word to connote, but as something more like "trust', "rely on", "obey", or "stand in awe of". The rewards of "fearing the Lord", he tells us, are in exclusively secular terms. This is characteristic of Wisdom Literature. Israel's sages have little to say about an after life, or even what we would call a spiritual life.

Our sage's assertion in verse 10 (compare Ps. 37:26) seems to me to be highly questionable, simply as a matter of the actual experience of humankind. Or, could one argue (does the sage mean to say) that no one has actually adequately and totally "feared the Lord" in the sense he means it?