The apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon, which was probably written
at Alexandria during the first century B.C.E., is marked by the same
spirit. There again we meet with the glorification of the one true God
of Israel, and the denunciation of pagan idolatry; and while the
author writes in Greek and shows the influence of Greek ideas, he
makes the Psalms and the Proverbs his models of literary form. "Love
righteousness," he begins, "ye that be judges of the earth; think ye
of the Lord with a good mind and in singleness of heart seek ye Him."
His appeal for godliness is addressed to the Gentile world in a
language which they understood, but in a spirit to which most of them
were strangers. The early history of the Israelites in Egypt comes
home to him with especial force, for he sees it "in the light of
eternity," a striking moral lesson for the godless Egyptian world
around him in which the house of Jacob dwelt again. With poetical
imagination he tells anew the story of the ten plagues as though he
had lived through them, and seen with his own eyes the punishment of
the idolatrous land. He ends with a paean to the God who had saved His
people. "For in all things Thou didst magnify them, and Thou didst
glorify them, and not lightly regard them, standing by their side in
every time and place.
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