The text in Codex Vaticanus pointed with collations in Swete's Old Testament in Greek, is on the whole the best, though both Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Ephraemi (which is incomplete) have good texts, Codex Alexandrinus being fairly trustworthy. The text is found also in fair preservation in many cursives.
1. Latin:
The Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) is identical with, but has slight variations from, the Old Latin Lagarde (Mittheilungen, 243-86) gives the Latin version of Sirach and Wisdom found in Codex Amiaut. This last is a literal rendering from the Greek.
2. Syriac:
The Syriac (Peshitta) version found in the London Polyglot and in Lagarde (Lib. Apocrypha Syr) was made immediately from the Greek, but apparently from the text in Codex Alexandrinus or in one like it.
LITERATURE.
Besides the works cited in the course of the foregoing article and the general works (commentaries, etc.) on the Apocrypha mentioned under APOCRYPHA (which see), the following are to be noted:
(1) Commentaries: Bauermeister, Commentary in Sap. Sol. libr., 1828; Grimm, Komm. uber das Buch der Weisheit, 1857, also his excellent commentary in the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch, series 1860; J.H. Schmid, Das Buch der Welsheit: Uebersetzt und erklart, 1857; Gutberlet, Das Buch der Weisheit, 1874; W. J. Deane, The Book of Wisdom, Greek Vulgate and the King James Version with "Commentary." (1881, full and fairly scholarly); Speaker's Apocrypha (Farrar) is interesting and often helpful; Siegfried's "Introduction" and "Commentary" in Kautzsch's Die Apocrypha is slight, but also often helpful; The Wisdom of Solomon by J. A. E. Gregg (the Revised Version (British and American) with "Introduction" and "Commentary," Cambridge Bible) is brief and popular, but trustworthy; A. T. S. Goodrick, The Book of Wisdom, 1913 (admirable); S. Holmes (in the Oxford Apocrypha, with Introduction and Comm.).
(2) Of the dict. arts., that in Encyclopedia Biblica (by C. H. Toy) is perhaps the best; that in HDB (Siegfried) is fair but defective.
(3) In addition to the works by Gfrorer and Dahne discussing the philosophy of the book, the following works may be mentioned: Bruch, Weisheits-Lehre der Hebraer, 1851 (322-78); Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen (1881), III, part 2, 271-74, 4th edition, 272-96; Kubel, "Die ethischen Grundanschauungen der Weisheit Salomos," in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1865, 690-722; Menzel, Der griechische Einfluss auf Prediger und Weisheit Salomos, 1889, 39-70; Bois, Essai sur les origines de la philosophic judeo-alexandrine, 1890, 211-309, 337-412. The work by Drummond, often quoted, has been carefully done and is interestingly written (Philo Judaeus, 1888, 2 volumes; see I, 177-229).
For detailed bibliography see Schurer,GJV 4, 1909,III , 508 ff;HJP , 1886,II , 3, pp. 236 f, is necessarily very defective.
T. Witton Davies