The pictures of society they draw are chiefly of city life, with its temptations and vices, and they closely resemble those which Jesus the son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) paints about 200 B.C. Monotheism is taken for granted; among the many follies the sages condemn, the folly of polytheism and idolatry does not appear. The national particularism of the Jewish religion is nowhere in evidence; the cultus is hardly referred to, except to say that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, or that justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.
These features are doubtless due in part to the distinctive tendencies of the moralists, but they also reflect the times. We find them in Job, in Sirach, and in Ecclesiastes, other products of Jewish "Wisdom" which date from the later Persian or Greek period; and we have every reason to believe that this peculiar development, of which we have no trace earlier, was characteristic of that age. With this the evidence of language accords.
Of the several parts of the book, Prov. x. 1-xxii. 16 seem to be the oldest, and may be from the Persian period; the following chapters are later. So also is Prov. 1-9, which may well have been written under Ptolemaic rule (say 320-200 B.C.), when the Jews enjoyed times of peace and prosperity. The latter author treats his topics more sustainedly, though without logical disposition or connection, in a warm and friendly tone such as an experienced elder might use toward a youth. The style is easy and flowing, and sometimes rises to poetic inspiration. The personifications of wisdom and folly in c. 9 give a good example of his manner. A more philosophical mind is recognized in c. 8, with its personification of the divine wisdom, first of God's creations, the skilled artificer who was by his side at the making of the world, rejoicing in God's habitable earth and the sons of men who people it. Here the author comes near the conceptions of the Greek "Wisdom of Solomon," and prepares the way for the theological hypostases of Wisdom and the divine Reason and Word (Logos).
Even among the aphorisms of the older collections, there are few that have the stamp of true popular proverbs, the wisdom of the generations finding the pregnant phrase in the mouth of the people; they are, what indeed they profess to be, maxims of the sages, fashioned with conscious art for a didactic end. And these sages seem to have been, like the Greek sophists, professional teachers of the youth of the well-to-do classes.
