SOPHOCLES SOULE. 



551 



post-exilic books. Differing from both these views, 

 Dr. Davidson's article on this book holds that prob- 

 ably chaps, xxv.-xxix. are the oldest part of the book, 

 and are a genuine collection made in Hezekiah's 

 time by combining several earlier collections; that 

 chaps, i.-ix were written " not very long anterior to 

 the destruction of Jerusalem, possibly about a cen- 

 tury after the men of Hezekiah made their col- 

 lection ; " that chaps, x.-xxii. 16, and the two 

 smaller collections, xxii. 17-xxiv. are likewise, per- 

 haps, pre exilic ; and that xxx. and xxxi. are very 

 likely post-exilic. 



There is no reason directly connected with the 

 question of the divine authority of the Scriptures to 

 prevent our accepting views like these, provided 

 they are well grounded ; but the question whether 

 they are well grounded is itself important. The 

 grounds ursjed for them are such as the following : 

 " The headings cannot be absolutely relied upon." 

 It is sufficient to reply that there is no proof 

 that the headings in Proverbs are unreliable. Dr. 

 Davidson regards the heading in xxv. 1 as trust- 

 worthy, and observes that it presupposes the col- 

 lection of proverbs in the previous chapters. Henco 

 he infers that the heading cannot have been written 

 by the men of Hezekiali who made the collection, 

 but must have been added by the later editor who 

 put the several collections together. The alterna- 

 tive inference is quite as probable, namely, that the 

 heading was written by the men who made the col- 

 lection, and that the collections in the previous 

 chapters had thon already been made. But it is said 

 of these men : " They can hardly have been acquainted 

 with x.-xxii., otherwise their code would not havo 

 contained so many duplicates of maxims in that col- 

 lection." But, if these duplicated maxims prove that 

 the first of the two collections was written later than 

 the second, they equally prove that the second was 

 written later than the first ; that is to say, they prove 

 nothing. 



It is naid that the general preface, at the open- 

 ing of the book, " extends at least to xxii. 16 ; but 

 . . . a new inscription ' The Proverbs of Solo- 

 mon,' heads x. This implies that i.-ix. were not con- 

 sidered Solomonic." But this implication is not dis- 

 tinct enough to compel recognition from most minds. 

 It is said that " the conjecture that Solomon himself 

 put forth any collection of his proverbs has little to 

 support it." But the conjecture that he did not put 

 forth such a collection has still less to support it. 

 It is argued that neither the whole nor any part of 

 Prov. x.-xxii. 16 can have been collected in its pros- 

 ent shape by any person who was the author of any 

 great number of the proverbs contained in it, bo- 

 cause the collection is confused, one of the proverbs 

 being repeated, while there are several instances in 

 which one member of a proverb also does duty in 

 another proverb. But it is difficult to see that repe- 

 titions or confused arrangement are impossible for 

 an author of proverbs any more than for any other 

 man. 



It is further said, in regard to Solomon: "Such 

 maxims cannot be regarded as wholly or even in a 

 very large degree the production of an individual 

 mind. . . . Though the stream of wisdom began 

 to flow in his day, its beginnings were then compara- 

 tively small ; as the centuries advanced it gathered 

 volume " But the Book of Proverbs is not a very 

 extensive work, if compared, for example, with Poor 

 Richnrd Almnnnc, or with such a collection as 

 might be made of the pithy sayings of Matthew 

 Henry or John Bnnyan. Why should not most of 

 the proverbs have come from Solomon himself? 

 Why should it require centuries to accumulate the 

 rest? 



It is also argned that the " nniversalistic ideas of 

 God and providence," so characteristic of the Prov- 



erbs, cannot have existed in Israel till the Israelites 

 had come in " contact with the great empires of the 

 world." But wide ideas of God and providence do 

 not necessarily depend on contact with great political 

 powers ; and if they did, Israel's contact with these 

 powers was as real at certain earlier periods as during 

 the later invasions by Assyria and Babylonia. 



The alleged proofs that Prov. xxx. is post-exilic 

 are its likeness to Job xxviii. and Ecclesiastes, and 

 the suggestion that ver. 6 may perhaps contain an 

 allusion to " canonical writings." The proof that 

 xxxi. is of late origin is that some of the products 

 mentioned in this chapter are not mentioned in Ezek. 

 xxvii. 17, and also that the alphabetic arrangement 

 of the verses, beginning with ver. 10, is regarded as 

 a late style of writing. Of course, none of these 

 considerations have any decided strength. 



On the whole, it is safe to affirm these two things 

 in regard to the Book of Proverbs : Its contents are 

 mainly Solomonic ; the strongest evidence as to 

 when the collections were made is that found in the 

 titles, the order of the parts, and the presumption 

 that a man like Solomon would have something to do 

 with editing his own published works. fw. j. B.) 



SOPHOCLES, EVANGSXINUS AVOSTOLTDES (1807- 

 1883), classicist, was born near Mount Pelion, in 

 Thessaly, March 8, 1807. He was educated in the 

 convent on Mount Sinai, but afterward came under 

 the influence of American missionaries at Athens. 

 In 1829 he came to Massachusetts, entered Amherst 

 College, and afterward taught Greek at Hartford 

 and New Haven. In 1840 he was made a tutor at 

 Harvard College, in 1849 assistant professor of 

 Greek, and in 1860 professor of modern and Byzan- 

 tine Greek. He was an excellent teacher, and ren- 

 dered valuable service to scholarship in the United 

 States by his grammars both of ancient and modern 

 Greek, and various text-books. His most important 

 work is his Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzan- 

 tine Periods (Boston, 1870). In his modest apart- 

 ments at Harvard he lived like a hermit, seeming 

 to the youth of the Western Republic himself a 

 picturesque fragment of the ancient civilization he 

 strove to elucidate. He died at Cambridge, Dec. 

 17, 1883. 



SORGHUM. See Aoracn/ruKE, Chap. V. 4. 



8OUI.E, PIERRE (1801-1870), senator, was born 

 nt Castillon, France, in 1801. His father had been 

 a lieutenant-general in the French republican army. 

 The son was educated at Toulouse and Bordeaux. 

 While at college in the latter city ho joined in a 

 conspiracy against the Bourbon government. On 

 its discovery lie fled, and concealed himself in tho 

 guise of a shepherd for a year. Going to Paris, he 

 became a journalist, and soon was prosecuted and 

 imprisoned for an attack on the government. Ha 

 escaped to England, thenco went to tho West In- 

 dies, and soon removed to the United States. In 

 1825 he began his career at New Orleans, and was 

 soon prominent as a lawyer and politician. He was 

 sent to the U. S. senate in 1847, and there advocated 

 extreme Southern views. In 1853 he was sent as 

 U. S. minister to Spain, where his conduct was 

 marked throughout with insolence to the govern- 

 ment and his fellow-diplomats. He fought a duel 

 with the French ambassador, encouraged a revolu- 

 tionary outbreak, withheld a trade-treaty which had 

 been negotiated, and joined in the Ostend mani- 

 festo which declared the purpose of the U. S. gov- 

 ernment to take Cuba, if not by purchase, then by 

 force. He returned in 1855, and was interested in 

 the Tehuantepec canal project. Though he op- 

 posed the secession craze in 1860, he went with his 

 State, and in 1861 was a Confederate agent in 

 Europe. In 1862 he was captured in New Orleans 

 by the Union troops, and was sent to Fort Lafayette. 

 Being released on condition of leaving the country, 



