554 Luca Mazzinghi sight very different from that suggested in 7,13-14 with regard to relations with God: “man cannot discuss with the one who is stronger than he” (6,10). Such a presentation of God’s transcendence and of his absolute power looks like an implicit criticism of God’s conduct: arbitrary, despotic and, in the end, violent. More probably, what appears to us as an act of violence appeared to Qoheleth as the recognition of the appropriate status of creatures. In juxtaposing the figure of God and that of the Ptolemaic monarch, there is, in the language of Qoheleth a good dose of irony (37). For Qoheleth, the king is, in fact, a capricious despot from whom it is necessary to keep one’s distance (cf., again, 8,2-5, but also 10,20). Human authority is often rapacious (10,16-17), even stupid (10, 6-7); but is God really like this? Or is Qoheleth rather criticising precisely the wish to judge God according to wholly human criteria? Once again, then, an epistemological problem rather than a theological one. I would claim that, in emphasising the divine transcendence, Qoheleth really wants to highlight God’s freedom, as occurs in texts like Qoh 2,25; 3,14; 7,14 where God is described as one who acts on the basis of criteria which can seem even arbitrary to men but which are not necessarily so a priori. Even terms like hrqm or [gp, which could bring to mind a God exactly like the Greek Fate, are used, in reality, to safeguard the absolute divine freedom (38). 5. The God of Qoheleth in his historical context What Qoheleth writes in 4,1 becomes clearer in the light of the book’s historical context, that of the third century B.C. In this period Israel’s reflection on the problem of evil becomes especially pressing(39). The text of Qoh 4,1 shows how Qoheleth is engaged in an authentic and specific debate on the political, economic and social condition of Judaea between the fourth and the third century BC, (37) On irony in the book of Qoheleth, cf., above all, F.J. BACKHAUS, “Kohelet und die Ironie”, BZ 101 (2000) 29-55 and R. VIGNOLO, “La poetica ironica di Qohelet. Contributo allo sviluppo di un orientamento critico”, Teologia 25 (2000) 217-240. (38) On this aspect, cf. V. D’ALARIO, “Liberté de Dieu ou destin? Un autre dilemme dans l’interprétation du Qohélet”, Qoheleth in the Context of Wisdom (ed. A. SCHOORS) (Leuven 1998) 456-463. (39) Cf. P. SACCHI, Storia del Secondo Tempio (Torino 1994) 302-329.