They were works written at the same time, and
by the same author: nay, I do not think it absurd to suppose, that the
chapters after the tenth were annexed by the writer himself, as a long
explanatory appendix; or, possibly, if they were once a separate work,
these nine concluding chapters were parts of a book composed during the
persecution in Egypt, the introduction and termination of which, being
personal and of local application, were afterwards omitted or expunged
in order not to give offence to the other Egyptians,--perhaps, to spare
the shame of such Jews as had apostatized through fear, and in general
not to revive heart-burnings. In modern language I should call these
chapters in their present state a Note on c. x. 15-19.
On a reperusal of this Book, I rather believe that these latter chapters
never formed part of any other work, but were composed as a sort of long
explanatory Postscript, with particular bearing on certain existing
circumstances, to which this part of the Jewish history was especially
applicable. Nay, I begin to find the silence of Philo and Josephus less
inexplicable, and to imagine that I discover the solution of this
problem in the very title of the Book. No one expects to find any but
works of authenticity enumerated in these writers; but to this a work,
calling itself the Wisdom of Solomon, both being a fiction and never
meant to pass for anything else, could make no pretensions. To have
approximated it to the Holy Books of the nation would have injured the
dignity of the Jewish Canon, and brought suspicion on the genuine works
of Solomon, while it would have exposed to a charge of forgery a
composition which was in itself only an innocent dramatic monologue.
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