{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_41115/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_41115","id":"gutenberg_41115","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41115","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Hebrew literature -- History and criticism","Solomon, King of Israel"],"text":"SOLOMON\n                                  AND\n                          SOLOMONIC LITERATURE\n\n                                   BY\n                         MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY\n\n\n\n                                CHICAGO\n                   THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY\n            London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Tr\u00fcbner & Co., Ltd.\n                                  1899\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               INSCRIBED\n                         TO MY BROTHER OMARIANS\n                                 OF THE\n                           OMAR KHAYY\u00c1M CLUB\n                                 LONDON\n\n\n    \"Seek the circle of the wise: flee a thousand leagues from men\n    without wit. If a wise man give thee poison, drink it without fear;\n    if a fool proffer an antidote, spill it on the ground.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                           Page\n    Preface                                                   v\n\n    CHAPTER I\n\n    Solomon                                                   1\n\n    CHAPTER II\n\n    The Judgment of Solomon                                  12\n\n    CHAPTER III\n\n    The Wives of Solomon                                     24\n\n    CHAPTER IV\n\n    Solomon's Idolatry                                       30\n\n    CHAPTER V\n\n    Solomon and the Satans                                   34\n\n    CHAPTER VI\n\n    Solomon in the Hexateuch                                 41\n\n    CHAPTER VII\n\n    Solomonic Antijahvism                                    51\n\n    CHAPTER VIII\n\n    The Book of Proverbs and the Avesta                      59\n\n    CHAPTER IX\n\n    The Song of Songs                                        89\n\n    CHAPTER X\n\n    Koheleth (Ecclesiastes)                                 104\n\n    CHAPTER XI\n\n    Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus)                                 111\n\n    CHAPTER XII\n\n    The Wisdom of Solomon                                   118\n\n    CHAPTER XIII\n\n    Epistle to the Hebrews (A Sequel to Sophia Solomontos)  129\n\n    CHAPTER XIV\n\n    Solomon Melchizedek                                     150\n\n    CHAPTER XV\n\n    The Pauline Dehumanization of Jesus                     164\n\n    CHAPTER XVI\n\n    The Mythological Mantle of Solomon Fallen on Jesus      176\n\n    CHAPTER XVII\n\n    The Heir of Solomon's Godhead                           194\n\n    CHAPTER XVIII\n\n    The Last Solomon                                        207\n\n    CHAPTER XIX\n\n    Postscripta                                             234\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nAn English lady of my acquaintance, sojourning at Baalbek, was\nconversing with an humble stonecutter, and pointing to the grand\nruins inquired, \"Why do you not occupy yourself with magnificent work\nlike that?\" \"Ah,\" he said, \"those edifices were built by no mortal,\nbut by genii.\"\n\nThese genii now represent the demons which in ancient legends were\nenslaved by the potency of Solomon's ring. Some of these folk-tales\nsuggest the ingenuity of a fabulist. According to one, Solomon\noutwitted the devils even after his death, which occurred while he was\nleaning on his staff and superintending the reluctant labors of the\ndemons on some sacred edifice. In that posture his form remained for\na year after his death, and it was not until a worm gnawed the end\nof his staff, causing his body to fall, that the demons discovered\ntheir freedom.\n\nIf this be a fable, a modern moral may be found by reversing the\ndelusion. The general world has for ages been working on under the\nspell of Solomon while believing him to be dead. Solomon is very much\nalive. Many witnesses of his talismanic might can be summoned from\nthe homes and schools wherein the rod is not spared, however much\nit spoils the child, and where youth's \"flower of age\" bleaches in a\npuritan cell because the \"wisest of men\" is supposed to have testified\nthat all earth's pleasures are vanity. And how many parents are in\ntheir turn feeling the recoil of the rod, and live to deplore the\nintemperate thirst for \"vanities\" stimulated in homes overshadowed by\nthe fear-of-God wisdom for which Solomon is also held responsible? On\nthe other hand, what parson has not felt the rod bequeathed to the\nsceptic by the king whom Biblical authority pronounces at once the\nworldliest and the wisest of mankind?\n\nMore imposing, if not more significant, are certain picturesque\nphenomena which to-day represent the bifold evolution of the Solomonic\nlegend. While in various parts of Europe \"Solomon's Seal,\" survival\nfrom his magic ring, is the token of conjuring and fortune-telling\nimpostors, the knightly Order of Solomon's Seal in Abyssinia has been\nraised to moral dignity by an emperor (Menelik) who has given European\nmonarchs a lesson in magnanimity and gallantry by presenting to a\n\"Queen of the South\" (Margharita), on her birthday, release of the\ncaptives who had invaded his country. While this is the tradition\nof nobility which has accompanied that of lineal descent from the\nWise Man, his name lingers in the rest of Christendom in proverbial\nconnexion with any kind of sagacity, while as a Biblical personality\nhe is virtually suppressed.\n\nIn one line of evolution,--whose historic factors have been Jahvism,\nPharisaism, and Puritanism,--Solomon has been made the Adam of\na second fall. His Eves gave him the fruit that was pleasant and\ndesirable to make one wise, and he did eat. Jahveh retracts his\ncompliments to Solomon, and makes the na\u00efve admission that deity\nitself cannot endow a man with the wisdom that can ensure orthodoxy,\nor with knowledge impregnable by feminine charms (Nehemiah xiii.);\nand from that time Solomon disappears from canonical Hebrew books\nexcept those ascribed to his own authorship.\n\nThat some writings attributed to Solomon,--especially the \"Song of\nSongs\" and \"Koheleth\" (Ecclesiastes),--were included in the canon,\nmay be ascribed to a superstitious fear of suppressing utterances\nof a supernatural wisdom, set as an oracle in the king and never\nrevoked. This view is confirmed and illustrated in several further\npages, but it may be added here that the very idolatries and alleged\nsins of Solomon led to the detachment from his personal self of his\ndivinely-conferred Wisdom, and her personification as something apart\nfrom him in various avatars (preserving his glory while disguising\nhis name), an evolution culminating in ideals and creeds that have\nlargely moulded Christendom.\n\nThe two streams of evolution here suggested, one issuing from\nthe wisdom books, the other from the law books, are traceable\nin their collisions, their periods of parallelism, and their\nconvergence,--where, however, their respective inspirations continue\ndistinguishable, like the waters of the Missouri and the Mississippi\nafter they flow between the same banks.\n\nThe present essays by no means claim to have fully traced these lines\nof evolution, but aim at their indication. The only critique to which\nit pretends is literary. The studies and experiences of many years\nhave left me without any bias concerning the contents of the Bible, or\nany belief, ethical or religious, that can be affected by the fate of\nany scripture under the higher or other criticism. But my interest in\nBiblical literature has increased with the perception of its composite\ncharacter ethnically. I believe that I have made a few discoveries in\nit; and a volume adopted as an educational text-book requires every ray\nof light which any man feels able to contribute to its interpretation.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSOLOMONIC LITERATURE.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSOLOMON.\n\n\nThere is a vast Solomon mythology: in Palestine, Abyssinia, Arabia,\nPersia, India, and Europe, the myths and legends concerning the\ntraditional Wisest Man are various, and merit a comparative study they\nhave not received. As the name Solomon seems to be allegorical, it is\nnot possible to discover whether he is mentioned in any contemporary\ninscription by a real name, and the external and historical data\nare insufficient to prove certainly that an individual Solomon ever\nexisted. [1] But that a great personality now known under that name did\nexist, about three thousand years ago, will, I believe, be recognised\nby those who study the ancient literature relating to him. The\nearliest and most useful documents for such an investigation are:\nthe first collection of Proverbs, x-xxii. 16; the second collection,\nxxv-xxix. 27; Psalms ii., xlv., lxxii., evidently Solomonic; 2 Samuel\nxii. 24, 25; and 1 Kings iv. 29-34.\n\nAs, however, the object of this essay is not to prove the existence\nof Solomon, but to study the evolution of the human heart and mind\nunder influences of which a peculiar series is historically associated\nwith his name, he will be spoken of as a genuine figure, the reader\nbeing left to form his own conclusion as to whether he was such,\nif that incidental point interests him.\n\nThe indirect intimations concerning Solomon in the Proverbs and\nPsalms may be better understood if we first consider the historical\nbooks which profess to give an account of his career. And the search\nnaturally begins with the passage in the Book of Kings just referred\nto:\n\n\n    \"And God gave Solomon wisdom and intelligence exceeding much,\n    and largeness of heart, even as the sand on the seashore. And\n    Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the\n    East, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men;\n    than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the\n    sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. He\n    spake three thousand parables, and his songs were a thousand\n    and five. He spake of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the\n    hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts,\n    birds, reptiles, fishes. And there came people of all countries to\n    hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth,\n    which had heard of his wisdom.\"\n\n\nThis passage is Elohist: it is the Elohim--perhaps here the gods--who\ngave Solomon wisdom. The introduction of Jahveh as the giver, in\nthe dramatic dream of Chapter iii., alters the nature of the gift,\nwhich from the Elohim is scientific and literary wisdom, but from\nJahveh is political, related to government and judgment.\n\nAs for Mahol and his four sons, the despair of Biblical historians,\nthey are now witnesses that this passage was written when those\nmen,--or perhaps masculine Muses,--were famous, though they are unknown\nwithin any period that can be called historical. As intimated, they may\nbe figures from some vanished mythology Hebraised into Mahol (dance),\nEthan (the imperishable), Heman (faithful), Calcol (sustenance),\nDarda (pearl of knowledge).\n\nIn speaking of 1 Kings iv. 29-34 as substantially historical it is not\nmeant, of course, that it is free from the extravagance characteristic\nof ancient annals, but that it is the nearest approach to Solomon's\nera in the so-called historical books, and, although the stage of\nidealisation has been reached, is free from the mythology which grew\naround the name of Solomon.\n\nBut while we have thus only one small scrap of even quasi-historical\nwriting that can be regarded as approaching Solomon's era, the\ntraditions concerning him preserved in the Book of Kings yield\nmuch that is of value when comparatively studied with annals of the\nchroniclers, who modify, and in some cases omit, not to say suppress,\nthe earlier record. Such modifications and omissions, while interesting\nindications of Jahvist influences, are also testimonies to the strength\nof the traditions they overlay. The pure and simple literary touchstone\ncan alone be trusted amid such traditions; it alone can distinguish the\nnarratives that have basis, that could not have been entirely invented.\n\nIn the Book of Chronicles,--for the division into two books was by\nChristians, as also was the division of the Book of Kings,--we find\nan ecclesiastical work written after the captivity, but at different\nperiods and by different hands; it is in the historic form, but really\ndoes not aim at history. The main purpose of the first chronicler is to\nestablish certain genealogies and conquests related to the consecration\nof the house and lineage of David. Solomon's greatness and his building\nof the temple are here transferred as far as possible to David. [2]\nDavid captures from various countries the gold, silver, and brass,\nand dedicates them for use in the temple, which he plans in detail,\nbut which Jahveh forbade him to build himself. The reason of this\nprohibition is far from clear to the first writer on the compilation,\nbut apparently it was because David was not sufficiently highborn and\nrenowned. \"I took thee from the sheepcote,\" says Jahveh, but adds,\n\"I will make thee a name like unto the name of the great ones that are\nin the earth;\" also, says Jahveh, \"I will subdue all thine enemies.\" So\nit is written in 1 Chronicles xvii., and it could hardly have been\nby the same hand that in xxii. wrote David's words to Solomon:\n\n\n    \"It was in my heart to build an house to the name of Jahveh my\n    God; but the word of Jahveh came to me, saying: 'Thou shalt not\n    build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood\n    upon the earth in my sight; behold a son shall be born unto thee\n    who shall be a man of rest, and I will give him rest from all his\n    enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon [Peaceful],\n    and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days:\n    he shall build an house for my name: and he shall be my son,\n    and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his\n    kingdom over Israel for ever.'\"\n\n\nIn Chapter xvii. Jahveh claims that it is he who has subdued and\ncut off David's enemies; his long speech is that of a war-god;\nbut in the xxii. it is the God of Peace who speaks; and in harmony\nwith this character all the bloodshed by which Solomon's succession\nwas accompanied, as recorded in the Book of Kings, is suppressed,\nand he stands to the day of his death the Prince of Peace. To him\n(1 Chron. xxviii., xxix.) from the first all the other sons of David\nbow submissively, and the people by a solemn election confirm David's\nappointment and make Solomon their king.\n\nThus, 1 Chron. xvii., which is identical with 2 Sam. vii., clearly\nrepresents a second Chronicler. The hand of the same writer is found\nin 1 Chron. xviii., xix., xx., and the chapters partly identical in 2\nSamuel, namely viii., x., xi.; the offence of David then being narrated\nin 2 Samuel xii. as the wrong done Uriah, whereas in 1 Chron. xxi. the\nsin is numbering Israel. The Chroniclers know nothing of the Uriah\nand Bathsheba story, but the onomatopoeists may take note of the fact\nthat David's order was to number Israel \"from Beer-sheba unto Dan.\"\n\nThe first ten chapters of 2 Chronicles seem to represent a third\nchronicler. Here we find David in the background, and Solomon\ncompletely conventionalised, as the Peaceful Prince of the Golden\nAge. All is prosperity and happiness. Solomon even anticipates\nthe silver millennium: \"The king made silver to be in Jerusalem as\nstones.\" It is only when the fourth chronicler begins (2 Chron. x.),\nwith the succession of Solomon's son Rehoboam, that we are told\nanything against Solomon. Then all Israel come to the new king,\nsaying, \"Thy father made our yoke grievous,\" and he answers, \"My\nfather chastised you with whips, but I with scorpions.\"\n\nAll this is so inconsistent with the accounts in the earlier books\nof both David and Solomon, that it is charitable to believe that the\nthird chronicler had never heard the ugly stories about these two\ncanonised kings.\n\nIn the First Book of Kings, Solomon is made king against the rightful\nheir, by an ingenious conspiracy between a wily prophet, Nathan, and\na wily beauty, Bathsheba,--Solomon's mother, whom David had obtained\nby murdering her husband.\n\nIt may be remembered here that David had by Bathsheba a son named\nNathan (2 Sam. v. 14; 1 Chron. iii. 5), elder brother of Solomon,\nfrom whom Luke traces the genealogy of Joseph, father of Jesus,\nwhile Matthew traces it from Solomon. It appears curious that the\nprophet Nathan should have intrigued for the accession of the younger\nbrother rather than the one bearing his own name. It will be seen,\nhowever, by reference to 2 Samuel xii. 24, that Solomon was the first\nlegitimate child of David and Bathsheba, the son of their adultery\nhaving died. John Calvin having laid it down very positively that\n\"if Jesus was not descended from Solomon, he was not the Christ,\"\nsome theologians have resorted to the hypothesis that Nathan married\nan ancestress of the Virgin Mary, and that Luke gives her descent,\nnot that of Joseph; but apart from the fact that Luke (iii. 23)\nbegins with Joseph, it is difficult to see how the requirement of\nCalvin, that Solomon should be the ancestor of Jesus, is met by his\nmother's descent from Solomon's brother. It is clear, however, from\n2 Sam. xii. 24, 25, that this elder brother of Solomon, Nathan, is a\nmyth. Otherwise he, and not Solomon, was the lawful heir to the throne\n(legitimacy being confined to the sons of David born in Jerusalem),\nand Jesus would not have been \"born King of the Jews\" (Matt, i. 2),\nnor fulfilled the Messianic conditions. It is even possible that\nLuke wished to escape the implication of illegitimacy by tracing\nthe descent of Jesus from Solomon's elder brother. But the writer\nof 1 Kings i. had no knowledge of the Christian discovery that, in\nthe order of legal succession to the throne, the sons of David born\nbefore he reigned in Jerusalem were excluded. Adonijah's legal right\nof succession was not questioned by David (1 Kings i. 6).\n\nWhen David was in his dotage and near his end this eldest son (by\nHaggith), Adonijah, began to consult leading men about his accession,\nbut unfortunately for himself, did not summon Nathan. This slighted\n\"prophet\" proposed to Bathsheba that she should go to David and tell\nhim the falsehood that he (David) had once sworn before Jahveh that\nher son Solomon should reign; \"and while you are talking,\" says\nNathan, \"I will enter and fulfil\" (that was his significant word)\n\"your declaration.\" The royal dotard could not gainsay two seemingly\nindependent witnesses, and helplessly kept the alleged oath. David\nannounced this oath as his reason,--apparently the only one,--for\nappointing Solomon. The prince may be credited with being too young\nto participate in this scheme.\n\nIrregularity of succession and of birth in princes appeals to\npopular superstition. The legal heir, regularly born, seems to\ncome by mere human arrangement, but the God-appointed chieftain is\nexpected in unexpected ways and in defiance of human laws and even\nmoralities. David, or some one speaking for him, said, \"In sin did\nmy mother conceive me,\" and the contempt in which he was held by\nhis father's other children, and his father's keeping him out of\nsight till the prophet demanded him (1 Sam. xvi. 11), look as if he,\nalso, may have been illegitimate. Solomon may have been technically\nlegitimate, but in any case he was the son of an immoral marriage,\nsealed by a husband's blood. The populace would easily see the divine\nhand in the elevation of this youth, who seems to have been himself\nimpressed with the like superstition.\n\nUnfortunately, Solomon received his father's last injunctions as divine\ncommands. At the very time when David is pictured by the Chronicler\nin such a saintly death-bed scene, parting so pathetically with his\npeople, and giving such unctuous and virtuous last counsels to Solomon,\nhe is shown by the historian of Kings pouring into his successor's ear\nthe most treacherous and atrocious directions for the murder of certain\npersons; among others, of Shimei, whose life he had sworn should not\nbe taken. Shimei had once called David what Jahveh also called him,\na man of blood, but afterwards asked his forgiveness. Under a pretence\nof forgiveness, David nursed his vengeance through many years, and\nShimei was now a white-haired man. David's last words addressed to\nSolomon were these:\n\n\n    \"He (Shimei) came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by\n    Jahveh, saying, 'I will not put thee to death with the sword.' Now\n    therefore hold him not guiltless, for thou art a wise man, and\n    wilt know what thou oughtest to do unto him; and thou shalt bring\n    his hoar head down to the grave in blood.\"\n\n\nSuch, according to an admiring annalist, were the last words uttered\nby David on earth. He died with a lie in his mouth (for he had sworn\nto Shimei, plainly, \"Thy life shall not be taken\"), and with murder\n(personal and vindictive) in his heart. The book opens with a record\nthat they had tried to revive the aged king by bringing to him a\nbeautiful damsel; but lust was gone; the only passion that survived\neven his lust, and could give one more glow to this \"man of blood,\"\nwas vengeance. Two aged men were named by him for death at the hands of\nSolomon, who could not disobey, this being the last act of the forty\nyears of reign of King David. His dying word was \"blood.\" One would\nbe glad to believe these things mythical, but they are contained in\na record which says:\n\n\n    \"David did that which was right in the sight of Jahveh and turned\n    not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of\n    his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.\"\n\n\nThis traditional incident of getting Uriah slain in order to\nappropriate his wife, made a deep impression on the historian of\nSamuel, and suspicious pains are taken (2 Sam. xii.) to prove that the\nillegitimate son of David and Bathsheba was \"struck by Jahveh\" for his\nparents' sin, and that Solomon was born only after the marriage. Even\nif the youth was legitimate, the adherents of the king's eldest son,\nAdonijah, would not fail to recall the lust and murder from which\nSolomon sprang, though the populace might regard these as signs of\nJahveh's favor. In the coronation ode (Psalm ii.) the young king is\nrepresented as if answering the Legitimists who spoke of his birth\nnot only from an adulteress, but one with a foreign name:\n\n\n    \"I will proclaim the decree:\n    The Lord said unto me, 'Thou art my son;\n    This day have I begotten thee.'\"\n\n\n(It is probable that the name Jahveh was inserted in this song in\nplace of Elohim, and in several other phrases there are indications\nthat the original has been tampered with.) The lines--\n\n\n    \"Kiss the son lest he be angry\n    And ye perish straightway.\"\n\n\nand others, may have originated the legendary particulars of plots\ncaused by Solomon's accession, recorded in the Book of Kings, but\nat any rate the emphatic claim to his adoption by God as His son, by\nthe anointing received at coronation, suggests some trouble arising\nout of his birth. There is also a confidence and enthusiasm in the\nlanguage of the court laureate, as the writer of Psalm ii. appears\nto have been, which conveys an impression of popular sympathy.\n\nIt is not improbable that the superstition about illegitimacy, as\nunder some conditions a sign of a hero's heavenly origin, may have\nhad some foundation in the facts of heredity. In times when love or\neven passion had little connexion with any marriage, and none with\nroyal marriages, the offspring of an amour might naturally manifest\nmore force of character than the legitimate, and the inherited sensual\nimpulses, often displayed in noble energies, might prove of enormous\nimportance in breaking down an old oppression continued by an automatic\nlegitimacy of succession.\n\nIn Talmudic books (Moed Katon, Vol. 9, col. 2, and Midrash Rabbah,\nch. 15) it is related that when Solomon was conveying the ark into the\ntemple, the doors shut themselves against him of their own accord. He\nrecited twenty-four psalms, but they opened not. In vain he cried,\n\"Lift up your heads, O ye gates!\" But when he prayed, \"O Lord God,\nturn not Thy face from Thine anointed; remember the mercies of David\nthy servant\" (2 Chron. vi. 42), the gates flew open. \"Then the enemies\nof David turned black in the face, for all knew that God had pardoned\nDavid's transgression with Bathsheba.\" This legend curiously ignores\n1 Chron. xxii., which shows that Jahveh had prearranged Solomon's\nbirth and name, and had adopted him before birth. It is one of many\nrabbinical intimations that David, Bathsheba, Uriah, and Solomon, had\nbecome popular divinities,--much like Vulcan, Venus, Mars,--and as such\nrelieved from moral obligations. Jewish theology had to accommodate\nitself ethically to this popular mythology, and did so by a theory\nof divine forgiveness; but really the position of Hebrew, as well as\nChristian, orthodoxy was that lustful David and Bathsheba were mere\npuppets in the divine plan, and their actions quite consistent with\ntheir being souls after Jahveh's own heart.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.\n\n\nIt may occur to mythographers that I treat as historical narratives and\nnames that cannot be taken so seriously; but in a study of primitive\nculture, fables become facts and evidences. A grand harvest awaits that\nmaster of mythology and folklore who shall bravely explore the legends\nof David and Solomon, but in the present essay mythical details can\nonly be dealt with incidentally. Some of these may be considered at\nthe outset.\n\nIt is said in 1 Kings i.:\n\n\n    \"Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered\n    him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said\n    unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin:\n    and let her stand before the king, and cherish him; and let her\n    lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they\n    sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and\n    found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the\n    damsel was very fair; and she cherished the king and ministered\n    to him; but the king knew her not.\"\n\n\nThat this story is characteristic of lustful David cannot blind us to\nthe fact of its improbability. Whatever may be meant by \"the coasts\nof Israel,\" the impression is conveyed of a long journey, and it\nis hardly credible that so much time should be taken for a moribund\nmonarch. Many interpretations are possible of the name Abishag, but\nit is usually translated \"Father (or source) of error.\" However this\nmay be, the story bears a close resemblance to the search for a wife\nfor Isaac. When Abraham sent out this commission he also \"was old\nand well stricken in age,\" and of Rebekah it is said, \"The damsel\nwas very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known\nher.\" (Gen. xxiv.) Rebekah means \"ensnarer,\" and Abishag \"father\n(source) of error\"; and both women cause trouble between two brothers.\n\nThere is an Oriental accent about both of these stories. In ancient\nIndian literature there are several instances of servants sent out\nto search the world for a damsel fair and wise enough to wed the\nson and heir of some grand personage. Maya, the mother of Buddha,\nwas sought for in the same way. This of itself is not enough to prove\nthat the Biblical narratives in question are of Oriental origin, but\nthere is a Tibetan tale which contains several details which seem to\nbear on this point. The tale is that of Visakha, and it is accessible\nto English readers in a translation by Schiefner and Ralston of the\n\"Kah-Gyur.\" (Tr\u00fcbner's Oriental Series.)\n\nVisakha was the seventh son of Mrgadhara, prime minister of the\nking of Kosala. For this youth a bride was sought by a Brahman, who\nin the land of Champa found a beautiful maiden whose name was also\nVisakha. She was, with other girls, entering a park, where they all\nbathed in a tank,--her companions taking off their clothes, but Visakha\nlifting her dress by degrees as she entered the water. Besides showing\ndecorum, this maiden conducted herself differently from the others\nin everything, some of her actions being mysterious. The Brahman,\nhaving contrived to meet her alone, questioned her concerning these\npeculiarities, for all of which she gave reasons implying exceptional\nwisdom and virtue. On his return the Brahman described this maiden\nto the prime minister, who set forth and asked her hand for his son,\nand she was brought to Kosala on a ship with great pomp. The maiden\nthen for a long time gives evidence of extraordinary wisdom, one\nexample being of special importance to our inquiry. She determines\nwhich of two women claiming a child is the real mother. The king and\nhis ministers being unable to settle the dispute, Visakha said:\n\n\n    \"Speak to the two women thus: 'As we do not know to which of\n    you two the boy belongs, let her who is the strongest take the\n    boy.' When each of them has taken hold of one of the boy's hands,\n    and he begins to cry out on account of the pain, the real mother\n    will let go, being full of compassion for him, and knowing that\n    if her child remains alive she will be able to see it again; but\n    the other, who has no compassion for him, will not let go. Then\n    beat her with a switch, and she will thereupon confess the truth\n    of the whole matter.\"\n\n\nIn comparing this with the famous judgment of Solomon there appear\nsome reasons for believing the Oriental tale to be the earlier. In\nthe Biblical tale there is evidently a missing link. Why should the\nfalse mother, who had so desired the child, consent to have it cut\nin two? What motive could she have? But in the Tibetan tale one of\nthe women is the wife, the other the concubine, of a householder. The\nwife bore him no child, and was jealous of the concubine on account of\nher babe. The concubine, feeling certain that the wife would kill the\nchild, gave it to her, with her lord's approval; but after his death\npossession of the house had to follow motherhood of the child. If,\nhowever, the child were dead, the false claimant would be mistress of\nthe house. Here, then, is a motive wanting in the story of Solomon,\nand suggesting that the latter is not the original.\n\nIn the ancient \"Mahosadha Jataka\" the false claimant proves to be a\nYakshini (a sort of siren and vampire) who wishes to eat the child. To\nBuddha himself is here ascribed the judgment, which is much the same\nas that of the \"wise Champa maiden,\" Visakha. Here, also, is a motive\nfor assenting to the child's death or injury which is lacking in the\nBiblical story.\n\nHere, then, we find in ancient Indian literature a tale which may be\nfairly regarded as the origin of the \"Judgment of Solomon.\" And it\nbelongs to a large number of Oriental tales in which the situations\nand accents of the Biblical narratives concerning David and Solomon\noften occur. There is a cave-born youth, Asuga, son of a Brahman and\na bird-fairy, with a magic lute which accompanies his verses, and\nwho dallies with Brahmadetta's wife. A king, enamored of a beautiful\nforeign woman beneath him in rank, obtains her by a promise that\nher son, if one is born, shall succeed him on the throne, to the\nexclusion of his existing heir by his wife of equal birth; but he\npermits arrangements for his elder son's succession to go on until\ninduced by a threat of war from the new wife's father and country\nto fulfil his promise. A prime minister, Mahaushadha, travels, in\ndisguise of a Brahman, in order to find a true wife; he meets with\na witty maiden (Visakha), who directs him to her village by a road\nwhere he will see her naked at a bathing tank, though she had taken\nanother road. This minister was, like David, lowly born; a \"deity\"\nrevealed him to the king, as Jahveh revealed David to Samuel; he was\na seventh minister, as David was a seventh son, and Solomon also.\n\nAlthough the number seven was sacred among the ancient Hebrews,\nit does not appear to have been connected by them with exceptional\nwisdom or occult powers in man or woman. The ideas in which such\nlegends as \"The Seven Wise Masters,\" \"The Seven Sages,\" and the\nsuperstition about a seventh son's second-sight, originate, are\ntraceable to ancient Indo-Iranian theosophy. It may be useful here\nto read the subjoined extract from Darmesteter's introduction to the\n\"Vend\u00eed\u00e2d.\" Having explained that the religion of the Persian Magi is\nderived from the same source as that of the Indian Rishis, that is,\nfrom the common forefathers of both Iranian and Indian, he says:\n\n\n    \"The Indo-Iranian Asura (the supreme but not the only god) was\n    often conceived as sevenfold: by the play of certain mythical\n    formul\u00e6 and the strength of certain mythical numbers, the ancestors\n    of the Indo-Iranians had been led to speak of seven worlds, and\n    the supreme god was often made sevenfold, as well as the worlds\n    over which he ruled. The names and the attributes of the seven\n    gods had not been as yet defined, nor could they be then; after\n    the separation of the two religions, these gods, named Aditya,\n    'the infinite ones,' in India, were by and by identified there\n    with the sun, and their number was afterward raised to twelve, to\n    correspond to the twelve aspects of the sun. In Persia, the seven\n    gods are known as Amesha Spentas, 'the undying and well-doing one';\n    they by and by, according to the new spirit that breathed in the\n    religion, received the names of the deified abstractions, Vohu-man\u00f4\n    (good thought), Asha Vahista (excellent holiness), Khshathra Vairya\n    (perfect sovereignty), Spenta Arma\u00eeti (divine piety), Haurvat\u00e2t\n    and Ameret\u00e2ot (health and immortality). The first of them all\n    was and remained Ahura Mazda; but whereas formerly he had been\n    only the first of them, he was now their father. 'I invoke the\n    glory of the Amesha Spentas, who all seven have one and the same\n    thinking, one and the same speaking, one and the same father and\n    lord, Ahura Mazda,'\" (Yast xix. 16.) [3]\n\n\nIn Persian religion the Seven are always wise and beneficent. The vast\nfolklore derived from this Pars\u00ee religion included the Babylonian\nbelief in seven powerful spirits, associated with the Pleiades,\nbeneficent at certain seasons, but normally malevolent: they all\nmove together, taking possession of human beings, as in the case of\nthe seven demons cast out of Mary Magdalene. In Egypt the seven are\nalways evil. But neither of these sevens are especially clever. In\nBuddhist legends they are not so carefully classified, the seventh\nson or daughter manifesting exceptional powers, sometimes of good,\nsometimes of evil, but they are usually referred to for this wit or\nwisdom. In the Davidian and Solomonic legends these notions are found\nas if merely adhering to some importation, and without any perception\nof the significance of the number seven. David is an eighth son in\n1 Sam. xvi. 10-13, but a seventh son in 1 Chron. ii. 16. Solomon is\na tenth son in 1 Chron. iii. 1-6, but the seventh legitimate son\nin 2 Sam. xii. 24-25. The word Sheba means \"the seven,\" but the\nearly scribes appear to have understood it as shaba, \"he swears,\"\nas in Gen. xxi. 30-31, where after the seven ewe lambs have given\nthe well its name, Beersheba, it is ascribed the significance of\nan oath. Bathsheba is commonly translated \"Daughter of the Oath,\"\nbut there can be little doubt that the name means \"Daughter of the\nSeven,\" and that it originated in the astute tricks by which that\nfair foreigner made herself queen-mother and her son king, above the\nlawful heir, whom she was instrumental (perhaps purposely) in getting\nout of the way by furthering his wishes.\n\nMoral obliquities are little considered in these fair favorites of\ntranslunary powers. Visakha, in one Buddhist tale, gets herself chosen\nby the Brahman as bride of a great man by her care to veil her charms\nat the bath; in another tale she attracts a prime minister in disguise,\nand becomes his wife, partly by laying aside all of her clothing at\na bathing tank where she knows he will see her. Bathsheba's fame is\nsimilarly various. Her nudity and ready adultery with the king did\nnot prevent her from passing into Talmudic tradition as \"blessed among\nwomen,\" and to her was even ascribed the beautiful chapter of Proverbs\n(xxxi.) in praise of the virtuous wife! In the \"Wisdom of Solomon\"\nshe is described as the \"handmaiden\" of the Lord in anticipation of\nthe Christian ideal of immaculate womanhood.\n\nA similar development might no doubt be traced in the beautiful\nstory of Vi[']s[=]akh[=]a of Shravasti, the most famous of the\nfemale lay-disciples of Buddha. The queries put to her by Buddha\nand her explanations of her petitions, which had appeared enigmatic,\nare related in Carus's Gospel of Buddha, and in form correspond with\nthe very different questions and solutions that passed between the\nBrahman and the Tibetan Visakha, already mentioned. The name Visakha,\nfrom a Sanskrit root, meaning to divide, came to mean selection and\nintelligence, of all kinds, but in the matron of Shravast\u00ee wit becomes\nthe genius of charity, and cleverness expands to enlightenment.\n\nThe Queen of Sheba,--\"Queen of the Seven,\"--is a sister spirit of this\nlay-disciple. Whatever truth may underlie the legends of this lady,\nthere is little doubt of her legendary relation to the Wise Women of\nBuddhist parables,--to Visakha of the sevenfold wisdom; and of her who\ndecided between the rival claimants to the same child; to Ambapali,\nthe courtesan, who journeyed to hear Buddha's wisdom and presented\nto him and his disciples her park and mansion; and to the Queen of\nGlory, whose story belongs \"to a very early period in the history of\nBuddhism.\" Such is the opinion of Mr. Rhys Davids, whose translation of\nthe Mah\u00e1sudassana-Sutta, containing an account of the queen's visit to\nthe King of Glory, in his Palace of Justice, attended by her fourfold\narmy, may be read in Vol. XI., p. 276, of Sacred Books of the East.\n\nThis exaltation of human knowledge and wisdom, travelling to find it,\ntesting it with riddles and questions, belongs to the cult of the\nMagus and the Pundit.\n\nWith reference to the seventh son Visakha (all-potential) and\nhis all-wise bride Visakha, a notable parallelism is found in the\nsubstantial identity of \"Solomon\" and \"the Shunnamite,\" on account\nof whom he slew his brother Adonijah. Shunnamite is equivalent to\nShulamite, substantially the same as Solomon (peaceful), but here\nprobably meaning that she was a \"Solomoness,\" a very wise woman. That\nsuch was her reputation appears by the \"Song of Songs.\"\n\nAn equally striking comparison may be made between the naming of\nSolomon and the naming of Mahaushadha, the Tibetan \"Solomon\" already\nmentioned as having married a wise Visakha. Among the many proofs of\nwisdom given by this village-born youth was the discovery of the real\nhusband of a woman claimed by two men. One of the men being much the\nweaker, there could be no such trial as that proposed in the child's\ncase by Visakha. Mahaushadha questioned the two men as to what they\nhad last eaten, then made them vomit, and so found out which had\ntold the truth. Let us compare this Tibetan minister's birth with\nthat of Solomon:\n\n\n    \"When the boy came into the world and his birth-feast was\n    celebrated, the name of Mahaushadha (Great Remedy) was given\n    to him at the request of his mother, inasmuch as she, who\n    had long suffered from illness, and had been unable to obtain\n    relief from the time of the boy's conception, had been cured by\n    him.\" (Tib. Tales, p. 133)\n\n    \"And Jahveh struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David,\n    and ... on the seventh day [it was the seventh son] the child\n    died.... And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto\n    her, and lay with her; and she bare a son, and she called his name\n    Solomon. And Jahveh loved him; and he sent by the hand of Nathan\n    the prophet, and he called his name Jedidiah [Beloved of Jah]\n    for Jahveh's sake.\" (2 Sam. xii.)\n\n\nIn the Revised Version \"she called\" is given in the margin as \"another\nreading,\" but that it is the right reading appears by the context: it\nwas she that was \"comforted,\" and in her babe she found \"rest\"--which\n\"Solomon\" strictly means. Among the Hebrews the naming of a child\nwas an act of authority, and it is difficult to believe that in any\npurely Hebrew narrative a woman would be described as setting aside\nthe name given by Jahveh himself. But the high position of woman in\nthe Iranian and the Buddhist religions is well known.\n\nIn comparative studies the questions to be determined concerning\nparallel incidents are--whether they are trivial coincidences; whether\nthey are not based in such universal beliefs or simple facts that they\nmay have been of independent origin; whether the historic conditions of\ntime and place admit of any supposed borrowing; if borrowing occurred,\nwhich is the original? With regard to the above parallelisms I submit\nthat one of them, at least,--the Judgment of Solomon,--is neither\ntrivial nor based in simple facts, and could not have originated\nindependently of the Indian tale; that the others, though each, if it\nstood alone, might be a mere coincidence, are too numerous to be so\nexplained; that the time and conditions which rendered it possible that\nthe names of the apes and peacocks (1 Kings x. 22) imported by Solomon\nshould be Indian proves the possibility of importations of tales from\nthe same country. (See Rhys David's Buddhist Birth Stories, p. xlvii.)\n\nThe question remaining to be determined--which region was the\nborrower--cannot be settled, in the present cases, by the relative\nantiquity of the books in which they are found; not only are the ages\nof all the books, Hebrew and Oriental, doubtful, but they are all\nlargely made up of narratives long anterior to their compilation. The\nsafest method, therefore, must be study of the intrinsic character\nof each narrative with a view to discovering the country to whose\nintellectual and social fauna and flora, so to say, it is most related,\nand which of the stories bears least of the faults incidental to\ntranslation. I have applied this touchstone to the above examples, and\nbelieve that the Oriental stories are the originals. The Judgment of\nSolomon appears to me to have lost an essential link, a motif, which\nit retains in Buddhist versions. And I do not believe that any Hebrew\nBathsheba could have set aside a name given her child by a prophet,\nin the name of Jahveh, in order to celebrate by another name the\n\"rest\" she found from her sorrows.\n\nOn the other hand, the borrowings by other countries from the legend\nof Solomon appear much more numerous. In some cases, as the legend\nof Jemsh\u00eed, there appear to have been exchanges between the two great\nsages, but the Solomonic traditions seem preponderant in Vikramadatsya,\nthe demon-commanding hero of India. Solomon became a proverb of wisdom\nand liberality in Abyssinia, Arabia, and Persia. Ideal Sulaimans and\nSolimas abound. Solomon has influenced the legends of many heroes,\nsuch as Haroun-Alraschid and Charlemagne, and I will even venture\na suspicion that the fame, and perhaps the name, of Solon have been\ninfluenced by the legend of Solomon. Lexicographers give no account of\nSolon's name; he is assigned to a conjectural period before written\nGreek existed; his interviews with Croesus, given in Herodotus,\nare hopelessly unhistorical, and his moralisings to the rich man\nrecall the book of Proverbs. The Solon of Plato's Critias is already a\nmythological voyager, a Sindebad-Solomon, and his romance of the lost\nAtlantis is like an idealised rumour of the Wise Man's Kingdom. Solon's\n\"history\" was developed by Plutarch, seven centuries after the era\nassigned to the sage, out of poetical fragments ascribed to him,\nand he is represented as a great trader and traveller in the regions\nassociated with Solomon. It is doubtful whether this chief of the Seven\nSages, whose Solomonic motto was \"Know Thyself\" (cf. Prov. xiv. 8),\ncould he reappear, would know himself as historically costumed by\nwriters in our era, from Plutarch to Grote.\n\nAt any rate there is little doubt of a reference to the Seven Spentas\nor to the Seven Sages in Proverbs ix. 1:\n\n\n    \"Wisdom hath builded her house,\n    She hath hewn out her seven pillars.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE WIVES OF SOLOMON.\n\n\nAccording to the first book of Kings, Solomon's half-brother, Adonijah,\nafter the defeat of an alleged (perhaps mythical) effort to recover the\nthrone of which he had been defrauded, submitted himself to Solomon. He\nhad become enamored of the virgin who had been brought to the aged King\nDavid to try to revive some vitality in him; and he came to Bathsheba\nasking her to request her son the king to give him this damsel as\nhis wife. Bathsheba proffered this \"small petition\" for Adonijah,\nbut Solomon was enraged, and ironically suggested that she should\nask the kingdom itself for Adonijah, whom he straightway ordered to\nexecution. The immediate context indicates that Solomon suspected\nin this petition a plot against his throne. A royal father's harem\nwas inherited by a royal son, and its possession is supposed to have\ninvolved certain rights of succession: this is the only interpretation\nI have ever heard of the extreme violence of Solomon. But I have never\nbeen satisfied with this explanation. Would Adonijah have requested, or\nBathsheba asked as a \"small\" thing, a favor touching the king's tenure?\n\nThe story as told in the Book of Kings appears diplomatic, and several\ndetails suggest that in some earlier legend the strife between the\nhalf-brothers had a more romantic relation to \"Abishag the Shunammite,\"\nwho is described as \"very fair.\"\n\nAbishag is interpreted as meaning \"father of error,\" and though that\ntranslation is of doubtful accuracy, its persistence indicates the\nplace occupied by her in early tradition. According to Yalkut Reubeni\nthe soul of Eve transmigrated into her. She caused trouble between\nthe brothers, whose Jahvist names, Adonijah and Jedidiah,--strength of\nJah, and love of Jah,--seem to have been at some time related. However\nthis may be, the fair Shunammite, as represented in the Shulamite of\nthe Song of Songs, fills pretty closely the outlines set forth in the\nfamous epithalamium (Psalm xlv.) which all critics, I believe, refer\nto Solomon's marriage with a bride brought from some far country. I\nquote (with a few alterations hereafter discussed) the late Professor\nNewman's translation, in which it will be seen that several lines are\napplicable to the Shunammite, whose humble position is alluded to,\nseparated from her \"people,\" and her \"father's house\":\n\n\n   \"My heart boils up with goodly matter.\n    I ponder; and my verse concerns the King.\n    Let my tongue be a ready writer's pen.\n\n   \"Fairer art thou than all the sons of men.\n    Over thy lips delightsomeness is poured:\n    Therefore hath God forever blessed thee.\n\n   \"Gird at thy hip thy hero sword,\n    Thy glory and thy majesty:\n    And forth victorious ride majestic,\n    For truth and meekness, righteously;\n    And let thy right hand teach the wondrous deeds.\n    Beneath thy feet the peoples fall;\n    For in the heart of the king's enemies\n    Sharp are thy arrows.\n\n   \"Thy throne, O God, ever and always stands;\n    A righteous sceptre is thy royal sceptre.\n    Thou lovest right and hatest evil;\n    Therefore, O God, thy God hath anointed thee\n    With oil of joy above thy fellow-kings.\n    Myrrh, aloes, cassia, all thy raiment is.\n    From ivory palaces the viols gladden thee.\n    King's daughters count among thy favorites;\n    And at thy right hand stands the Queen\n        In Gold of Ophir.\n\n   \"O daughter, hark! behold and bend thy ear:\n    Forget thy people and thy father's house.\n    Win thou the King thy beauty to desire;\n    He is thy lord; do homage unto him.\n    So Tyrus's daughter and the sons of wealth\n        With gifts shall court thee.\n\n   \"Right glorious is the royal damsel;\n    Wrought of gold is her apparel.\n    In broidered tissues to the King she is led:\n    Her maiden-friends, behind, are brought to thee.\n    They come with joy and gladness,\n    They enter the royal palace.\n\n   \"Thy fathers by their sons shall be replaced;\n    As princes o'er the land shalt thou exalt them.\n    So will I publish to all times thy name;\n    So shall the nations praise thee, now and always.\"\n\n\nIn this epithalamium the name of Jahveh does not occur, and Solomon\nhimself is twice addressed as God (Elohim). This lack of anticipation\nwas avenged by Jahvism when it arrived; the Song was put among the\nPsalms and transmitted to British Jahvism, which has headed it:\n\"The majesty and grace of Christ's kingdom. The duty of the Church\nand the benefits thereof.\" Such is the chapter-heading to a song\nof bridesmaids,--described in the original as \"a song of loves\" and\n\"set to lilies\" (a tune of the time).\n\nThere are no indications in the Solomon legend, apart from some\nmistranslations, until the time of Ecclesiasticus (B. C. 180), that\nSolomon was a sensualist, or that there were any moral objections to\nthe extent of his harem, which indeed is expanded by his historians\nwith evident pride.\n\nAs to this, our own monogamic ideas are quite inapplicable to a\nperiod when personal affection had nothing to do with marriage,\nwhen women had no means of independent subsistence, and the size of\na man's harem was the measure of his benevolence. Probably there was\nthen no place more enviable for a woman than Solomon's seraglio.\n\nThe sin was not in the size of the seraglio but in its foreign and\nidolatrous wives. (Here our translators again get in an innuendo\nagainst Solomon by turning \"foreign\" into \"strange women.\") Before\na religious notion can get itself fixed as law it is apt to be\nenforced by an extra amount of odium. Solomon's mother had married\na Hittite, and presumably he would have imbibed liberal ideas on\nsuch subjects. The round number of a thousand ladies in his harem is\nunhistorical, but that the chief princesses were of Gentile origin\nand religion is clear. The second writer in the first Book of Kings\nbegins (xi.) with this gravamen:\n\n\n   \"Now King Solomon loved many foreign women besides the daughter of\n    Pharaoh,--Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Zidonian, and Hittite women,\n    nations concerning which Jahveh said to the children of Israel,\n    Ye shall not go among them, neither shall they come among you:\n    for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods:\n    Solomon clave to these in love.\"\n\n\nThe wisest of men could hardly attend to rules which an unconceived\nJahveh would lay down for an unborn nation centuries later. We\nmust, however, as we are not on racial problems, consent to a few\nanachronisms in names if we are to discover any credible traditions\nin the Biblical books relating to Solomon. As Mr. Flinders Petrie\nhas discovered something like the word \"Israel\" in ancient Egypt,\nit may be as well to use that word tentatively for the tribe we are\nconsidering. No Israelite, then, is mentioned among Solomon's wives,\nand one can hardly imagine such a man finding a bride among devotees\nof an altar of unhewn stones piled in a tent.\n\nAs our cosmopolitan prince had to send abroad for workmen of skill,\nhe may also have had to seek abroad for ladies accomplished enough\nto be his princesses. That, however, does not explain the number and\nvariety of the countries from which the wives seem to have come. The\ntheory of many scholars that this Prince of Peace substituted\nalliances by marriage for military conquests is confirmed in at\nleast one instance. The mother of his only son, Rehoboam, was Naamah\nthe Ammonitess (1 Kings xiv. 31), and the Septuagint preserves an\naddition to this verse that she was the \"daughter of Ana, the son of\nNahash,\"--a king (Hanum) with whom David had waged furious war. The\nreference in the epithalamium (Psalms xlv.) to \"Tyrus's daughter,\"\nin connexion with 1 Kings v. 12, \"there was peace between Hiram and\nSolomon,\" suggests that there also marriage was the peacemaker.\n\nThe phrase in 1 Kings iii. 1, \"Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh and\ntook Pharaoh's daughter\" suggests, though less clearly, that some\nfeud may have been settled in that case also. That Solomon should\nhave espoused as his first and pre-eminent queen the daughter of a\nPharaoh is very picturesque if set beside the legend of the \"Land of\nBondage,\" but the narrative could hardly have been given without any\nallusion to bygones had the story in Exodus been known. Yet the words\n\"made affinity\" may refer to a racial feud in that direction. This\nprincess brought as her dowry the important frontier city of Gezer,\nand her palace appears to have been the first fine edifice erected\nin Jerusalem.\n\nThe commercial r\u00e9gime established by Solomon could hardly have been\npossible but for his intermarriages. Perhaps if the Christian ban\nhad not been fixed against polygamy, and European princes had been\npermitted to marry in several countries, there might have been fewer\nwars, as well as fewer illicit connexions. The intermarriages of the\nlarge English royal family with most of the reigning houses of Europe,\nhave been for many years a security of peace, and it is not improbable\nthat our industrial and democratic age, wherein the working man's\nwelfare depends on peace, may find in the undemocratic institution\nof royalty a certain utility in its power to be prolific in such ties\nof peace.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nSOLOMON'S IDOLATRY.\n\n\nBathsheba's function at Solomon's marriage is celebrated in the Song\nof Songs:\n\n\n   \"Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon,\n    With the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of\n    his espousals.\"\n\n\nBathsheba, as we have seen, was said to have written Proverbs\nxxxi. as an admonition or reproof to her son on his betrothal with the\ndaughter of Pharaoh. The words of David, \"Send me Uriah the Hittite\"\n(2 Sam. xi. 6), and the emphasis laid on Uriah's being a Hittite (a\nrace with which intermarriage was prohibited, Deut. vii. 1-5) might\nhave been meant as some legal excuse for David's conduct. He rescued\nBathsheba, Hebraised (1 Chr. iii. 5), from unlawful wedlock, it might\nbe said, and her exaltation in Talmudic tradition may have been meant\nto guard the purity of David's lineage. But the ascription to Bathsheba\nof especial opposition to her son's marriage with the daughter of\nPharaoh indicates that the gravamen in Solomon's posthumous offence\nlay less in his intermarriage with foreigners than in building for\nthem shrines of their several deities,--Istar, Chemosh, Milcom, and\nthe rest. Against Pharaoh's daughter the Talmud manifests a special\nanimus: she is said to have introduced to Solomon a thousand musical\ninstruments, and taught him chants to the various idols. (Shabbath,\n56, col. 2.)\n\nThere is a bit of Solomonic folklore according to which the Devil\ntempted him with a taunt that he would be but an ordinary person\nbut for his magic ring, in which lay all his wisdom. Solomon being\npiqued into a denial, was challenged to remove his ring, but no\nsooner had he done so than the Devil seized it, and, having by its\nmight metamorphosed the king beyond recognition, himself assumed\nthe appearance of Solomon and for some time resided in the royal\nseraglio. The more familiar legend is that Solomon was cajoled into\nparting with his signet ring by a promise of the demon to reveal\nto him the secret of demonic superiority over man in power. Having\ntransformed Solomon and transported him four hundred miles away,\nthe demon (Asmodeus) threw the ring into the sea. Solomon, after long\nvagrancy, became the cook of the king of Ammon (Ano Hanun), with whose\ndaughter, Naamah, he eloped. [4] One day in dressing a fish for dinner\nNaamah found in it the signet ring which Asmodeus had thrown into the\nsea, and Solomon thus recovered his palace and harem from the demon.\n\nThe connexion of this fish-and-ring legend,--known in several versions,\nfrom the Ring of Polycrates (Herodotus III.) to the heraldic legend\nof Glasgow,--with the Solomonic demonology, looks as if it may once\nhave been part of a theory that the idolatrous shrines were built for\nthe princesses while the Devil was personating their lord. In truth,\nhowever, all of these animadversions belong to a comparatively late\nperiod. Many struggles had to precede even the recognition of the\nidolatrous character of the shrines, and to the last the Jews were\ngenerally proud of the \"graven images\" in their temple,--including\nbrazen reproductions of the terrible Golden Calf. At the same time\nthere were no doubt some old priests and soothsayers to whom these\nnew-fangled things were injurious and odious, and superstitious\npeople enough to cling to their ancient unhewn altar rather than to\nthe brilliant cherubim, just as in Catholic countries the devotees\ncannot be drawn from their age-blackened Madonnas and time-stained\ncrucifixes by the most attractive works of modern art.\n\nAlthough there is no evidence that the God of Israel was known under\nthe name of either Jah or Jahveh in Solomon's time, there is little\ndoubt that the rudimentary forces of Jahvism were felt in the Solomonic\nage. The furious prophetic denunciations of the wise and learned which\nechoed on through the centuries, and made the burden of St. Paul,\nindicate that there was from the first much superstition among the\npeasantry, which might easily in times of distress be fanned into\nfanaticism. The special denunciation of Solomon by Jahveh, and his\nsuppression during the prophetic age, could hardly have been possible\nbut for some extreme defiance on his part of the primitive priesthood\nand the soothsayers. The temple was dedicated by the king himself\nwithout the help of any priest, and the monopoly of the prophet was\ntaken away by the establishment of an oracle in the temple. And the\nworst was that these things indicated a genuine liberation of the king,\nintellectually, from the superstitions out of which Jahvism grew. This\nwas especially proved by his disregard of the sanctuary claimed by\nthe murderer Joab, who had laid hold of the horns of the altar. The\naltar was the precinct of deity, and beyond the jurisdiction of civil\nor military authority; yet when the \"man of blood\" refused to leave\nthe altar our royal forerunner of Erastus compelled the reluctant\nexecutioner to slay him at the altar,--even the sacred altar of\nunhewn stone. As no thunderbolt fell from heaven on the king for this\nsacrilege, the act could not fail to be a thunderbolt from earth\nstriking the phantasmal heaven of the priest. The Judgment Day for\nsettlement of such accounts was not yet invented, and injuries of\nthe gods were left to the vengeance of their priests and prophets.\n\nThere is an unconscious humour in the solemn reading by English\nclergymen of Jahvist rebukes of Solomon for his tolerance towards\nidolatry, at a time when the Queen of England and Empress of India is\nprotecting temples and idols throughout her realm, and has just rebuilt\nthe ancient temple of Buddha at G\u00e2ya; while the sacred laws of Brahman,\nBuddhist, Parsee, Moslem, are used in English courts of justice. If\nany modern Josiah should insult a shrine of Vishnu, or of any Hindu\ndeity, he would have to study his exemplar inside a British prison.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nSOLOMON AND THE SATANS.\n\n\nWhen Solomon ascended the throne, Jerusalem must have been a wretched\nplace, without any art or architecture, with a swarming mongrel\npopulation, mainly of paupers. The holy ark was kept in a tent, and\nthe altar of unhewn stone accurately symbolised the rude condition of\nthe people, among whom Solomon could find no workmen of skill enough\nto build a temple. It is not easy to forgive him for compelling a\ngood many of them into the public works; but it was probably no more\nthan a national conscription of the unemployed paupers in Jerusalem,\nchiefly on fortifications for their own defence. There was apparently\nno slave-mart, and it seems rather better to conscript people for\npublic industries than, in our modern way, for cutting their neighbors'\nthroats. Most of them were the remnants of tribes that once occupied\nthe region, much despised by the Israelites, and probably they looked\non Solomon's plan of building Jerusalem into a city of magnificence,\ngiving everybody employment and support, as a grand socialistic\nmovement. An Ephraimite, Jeroboam, who tried to get up a revolt in\nJerusalem does not seem to have found any adherents. The only people\nwho complained of any yoke--and their complaint is only heard of after\nsome centuries--were the priest-ridden and prophet-ridden Israelites\nwho had become fanatically excited about the strange shrines built for\nthe king's foreign wives, and the splendid carvings and forms in the\ntemple itself. Probably the first two commandments in the decalogue\nwere put there with special reference to some Solomonic cult with an\n\u00e6sthetic taste for graven images and foreign shrines.\n\nThere can be little doubt that Solomon, by his patronage of these\nforeign religions, detached them from the cruel rites traditionally\nassociated with them. Among all the censures pronounced against\nhim none attributes to him any human sacrifices, though such are\nascribed to David and Samuel, (1 Sam. xv. 33, 2 Sam. xxi. 9). The\nearliest rebukes of sacrifice in the Bible are those attributed\nto Solomon. \"To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the\nLord than sacrifice\" (Prov. xxi. 3). \"By mercy and truth iniquity\nis atoned for\" (Prov. xvi. 6). \"Mercy and truth preserve the king;\nhe upholdeth his throne by mercy\" (Prov. xx. 28). \"Deliver them that\nare carried away to death: those that are ready to be slain forbear\nnot thou to save\" (Prov. xxiv. 11). \"Love covereth all transgressions\"\n(Prov. x. 12).\n\nSolomon may not indeed have written these and the many similar maxims\nascribed to him, but they are among the most ancient sentences in the\nBible, and they would not have been attributed to any man who had not\nleft among the people a tradition of humanity and benevolence. Had\nthe royal \"idolator\" or his wives stained their shrines with human\nblood the prophets would have been eager to declare it. Two acts of\ncruelty are ascribed to Solomon's youth, in the book of Kings: one of\nthese, the execution of Shimei, carried out his father's order, but\nonly after Shimei had been given fair warning with means of escape;\nwhile the other, the execution of Adonijah (Solomon's brother), if\ntrue, is too much wrapped up in obscurity to enable us to judge its\nmotives; but it cannot be regarded as historical.\n\nThe second historiographer of Kings, setting out to record Jahveh's\nanger about Solomon's foreign wives and shrines (1 Kings xi) says,\nwith unconscious humour, that Jahveh raised Satan against him,--two\nSatans. One of these was Hadad, an Edomite, the other Rezon,\na Syrian. The writer says that this was when Solomon was old, his\nwives having then turned away his heart after other gods. Fortunately,\nhowever, this writer has embodied in his record some items, evidently\nborrowed, which contradict his Jahvistic legend. One of these tells us\nthat Hadad had been carried away from Edom to Egypt, when David and his\nCaptain Joab massacred all the males in Edom; that he there married\nthe sister of Pharaoh; and that he returned to his own country on\nhearing of the death of David and Joab. When this occurred, Solomon,\nso far from being old, was about eighteen. The Septuagint (Vatican\nMS.) says that Hadad \"reigned in the land of Edom.\" We may conclude\nthen that on the return of this heir to the throne Edom declared\nits independence, nor is there any indication that Solomon tried to\nprevent this. Another contradiction of this writer is a note inserted\nabout Rezon the Syrian,--\"He was an adversary of Israel all the days\nof Solomon.\" Not, therefore, a Satan raised up by Jahveh against\nSolomon when in old age he had turned to other gods. Rezon \"reigned\nover Syria,\" and there is no indication of any expedition against him\nsent out by Solomon. Bishop Colenso (Pentateuch, Vol. III., p. 101),\nin referring to these points remarks that we do not read of a single\nwarlike expedition undertaken by Solomon. [5]\n\nThe remark (1 Kings xi.) about the Satans set against Solomon is more\napplicable to the Shiloh traitors, Ahijah and Jeroboam. Jeroboam,--a\nservant whom Solomon had raised to high office,--was instigated\nby Ahijah, a \"prophet\" neglected by Solomon, to his ungrateful\ntreason. Ahijah pretended that he had a divine revelation that he\n(Jeroboam) was to succeed Solomon on account (of course!) of the king's\nshrines to Istar, Chemosh, and Milcom. If the narrative were really\nhistoric nothing could be more \"Satanic\" than the lies and treacheries\nrelated of those self-seekers. Were the story true, the failure of\nthese divinely appointed \"Satans\" to overthrow the kingdom of Solomon,\nwho did not arm against them, must have been due to his popularity. In\nafter times this impunity of the glorious \"idolator\" would have to be\nexplained; consequently we find Jahveh telling Solomon that, offended\nas he was by the shrines, he would spare him for his father's sake,\nbut would rend the kingdom, save one tribe, from his (Solomon's)\nson. That this should be immediately followed by the raising up of\n\"Satans\" to harass Solomon and Israel, Jahveh having just said the\ntrouble should be postponed till after the king's death, suggests that\nthe whole account of these quarrels (1 Kings xi. 14-40) is a late\ninterpolation. Up to that point the old record is unbroken. \"He had\npeace on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely,\nevery man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba,\nall the days of Solomon\" (1 Kings iv. 24-25).\n\nJahveh, in his personal interview with Solomon (1 Kings xi. 11-13),\nsaid, \"I will surely rend the kingdom from thee and will give it\nto thy servant.\" That is, as explained by the \"prophet\" Ahijah,\nto Jeroboam. As a retribution and check on idolatry the selection,\nbesides violating Jahveh's promise to David (1 Chron. xxii), was not\nsuccessful: after the sundering of Israel and Judah into internecine\nkingdoms, Jeroboam, King of Israel, established idolatry more actively\nthan either Solomon or his son Rehoboam. On Jeroboam, his selected\nNemesis, Jahveh inflicted his characteristic punishment of visiting the\nsins of the fathers on the children; as David was left the seduced wife\nwhose husband he had murdered, while his son was executed; as Solomon\nwas left in peaceful enjoyment of his kingdom and none of the sinful\nshrines destroyed, while his son bore the penalty; so now Jeroboam,\nelect of Jahveh, built golden calves, surpassed Solomon's offences,\nand vengeance was taken on his son Abijah, who died. This Abijah left\na son, Baasha, who, undeterred by these fatalities, continued the\n\"idolatries\" with impunity for the twenty-four years of his reign,\nthe punishment falling on his son Elah, who was slain after only two\nyears' reign by his military servant, Zimri. And this Zimri, who thus\ncarried on Jahveh's decree against idolatry, himself continued \"in the\nways of Jeroboam,\" the shrines and idols themselves being meanwhile\nunvisited by any executioner or iconoclast until some centuries later.\n\nIn Josiah there arrived a king, of the line of David, who might\nseem by his fury against idolatry to be another \"man after God's\nown heart.\" He pulverised the images and the shrines, he \"sacrificed\nthe priests on their own altars,\" he even dug up the bones of those\nwho had ministered at such altars and burnt them. He trusted Jahveh\nabsolutely. He went to the prophetess, Hulda, who told him that he\nshould be \"gathered to his grave in peace.\" He was slain miserably,\nby the King of Egypt, to whom the country then became subject.\n\nJosephus ascribed the act of Josiah, in hurling himself against an\narmy that was not attacking him, to fate. The fate was that Josiah,\nhaving exterminated the wizards and fortune-tellers, repaired to\nthe only dangerous one among them, because she pretended to be a\n\"prophetess,\" inspired by Jahveh. Her assurances led him to believe\nhimself invulnerable, personally, and that in his life-time Jerusalem\nwould not suffer the woes she predicted. Josiah, \"of the house\nof David,\" seems to have thought that his zeal in destroying the\nshrines which his ancestor Solomon had introduced, mainly Egyptian,\nwould be so grandly consummated if he could destroy a Pharaoh,\nthat he insisted on a combat. Pharaoh-Necho sent an embassy to say\nthat he was not his enemy, but on his way to fight the Assyrian:\n\"God commanded me to hasten; forbear thou from opposing God, who is\nwith me, that he destroy thee not.\" Here, however, was the fanatic's\nopportunity for an Armageddon: Pharaoh had appealed to what Solomon\nwould have regarded as their common deity, but which to Josiah meant a\nchance to pit Jahveh against the God of Egypt. On Jahveh's invisible\nforces he must have depended for victory. So perished Josiah, and\nwith him the independence of his country.\n\nSolomon, the Prince of Peace, had made the house of Pharaoh the\nally of his country. Josiah carries his people back under Egyptian\nbondage. Solomon had built the metropolitan Temple, whose shrines,\nsymbols, works of art, represented a catholicity to all races and\nreligions,--peace on earth, good will to man. Josiah, panic-stricken\nabout a holy book purporting to have been found in the Temple,\nconcerning which the king by his counsellors consulted a female\nfortune-teller, makes a holocaust of all that Solomon had built up.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nSOLOMON IN THE HEXATEUCH.\n\n\n\"And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of\nJahveh, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of Jahveh given\nby Moses. And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have\nfound the book of the law in the house of Jahveh.\" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14,\n15.) The Chronicler adds to the earlier account (2 Kings xxii. 8) the\nwords \"given by Moses,\" which looks as if the authenticity of the book\n(Deuteronomy) had not been without question. The finding of the Book\nis set forth in a sort of picture, wherein are grouped the priest,\nthe theologian, the phantom prophet, the deity, the temple, and the\ncontribution-box. Every part of the ecclesiastical machine is present.\n\nOne is irresistibly reminded of the finding of the Book of Mormon by\nJoseph Smith, although it would be unfair to ascribe Deuteronomist\natrocities to the revelations of the American phantom, Mormon. Nor is\nthis a mere coincidence. There are lists of the early Mormons which\nshow a large proportion of them to have borne Old Testament names,\nderived from Puritan ancestors. When Solomon set up his philosophic\nthrone at Harvard University, and the parishes of the Pilgrims\nbecame Unitarian, and Boston became artistic, literary, and worldly,\nthe Jahvists began to migrate, carrying with them their Sabbatarian\nArk, in which so many frontier communities are imprisoned \"unto this\nday.\" Some of them have become conquerors of Hawaiian \"Canaanites,\"\nappropriating their lands. But the Vermont Hilkiah, Joseph Smith,\ndiscerned that a new Deuteronomy was needed to deal with the many\nAmerican sects, and was guided by an Angel of the Lord to a spot in\nOntario County, New York, where the Book was found (1827), which\nhe was enabled to translate by the aid of his \"Urim and Thummim\"\nspectacles, found beside the Book. In the Book were discussed the\nprinciples of all the sects, though not by name, as in Deuteronomy\nMoses is made to deal with the conditions which had arisen since\nthe time of Solomon. Unfortunately for these American Jahvists, they\nhad left the New English brains behind, with Channing and Emerson,\nand had not carried with them enough to produce a western Jeremiah\nto save their movement from ridicule and popular hatred.\n\n\"Thy words were found and I did eat them,\" says Jeremiah\n(xv. 16). Whether, as some scholars think, Jeremiah had any part in\nthe composition of the Book \"found,\" or not, his rage attests the\nexistence at the time of an important Solomonic School. \"How say you,\nWe are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Behold the lying\npen of the scribes has turned it to a fiction.\" (viii. 8.) \"They are\ngrown strong in the land but not for the faith.\" (ix. 3.) \"Thus saith\nthe Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the\nmighty man glory in his might.\" (ix. 23.)\n\nThe Deuteronomist especially aims at suppression of the Solomonic\ncult and r\u00e9gime. The law, not found in Exodus, against marriage with\nforeigners (Deut. vii. 3) is especially turned against Solomon's\nexample by the addition that such a marriage will \"turn away thy son\nfrom following me, that they may serve other gods.\" The wife, or other\nmember of a man's family, who entices him to serve other gods, is to\nbe stoned to death. (xiii. 6-11.) Moses is represented as anticipating\nthe setting up of kings, and even the particular events of Solomon's\nreign. Solomon's \"forty thousand stalls of horses\" (1 Kings iv. 26),\nhis horses brought out of Egypt (1 Kings x. 28), his wives, his silver\nand gold, are all foreseen by the ancient lawgiver, who provides that:\n\"He [your king] shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the\npeople to return to Egypt to the end that he should multiply horses\n... neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn\nnot away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and\ngold.\" (Deut. xvii. 16, 17.)\n\nThis Deuteronomist Moses foresaw, too, that some check on the divine\nappointments to the throne would be needed. \"Thou shalt in any wise\nset him king over thee whom thy God shall choose: one from among thy\nbrethren shalt thou set over thee: thou mayest not put a foreigner\nover thee.\" As all of these commandments were received by Moses from\nJahveh himself (Deut. vi. 1, and elsewhere), it is worthy of remark\nthat there should be no trace of that anger with which Jahveh met the\nproposal for a monarchy: \"they have rejected me, that I should not be\nking over them.\" (1 Sam. viii.) In 1776 Thomas Paine, in his Common\nSense, used this scriptural denunciation of kings with much effect, and\nit no doubt contributed much to overthrow British monarchy in America.\n\nThe special denunciations of sun-worship in Deuteronomy (iv. 19,\nxvii. 3) suggest a probability that Solomon's allusion to the sun,\nwhen dedicating the temple, may have been popularly associated with\nthe punishable practice alluded to in Job xxxi. 26, of kissing the\nhand to the sun and moon. The words of Solomon are cancelled in the\nMassoretic text, and do not appear in any English version, but they\nare preserved by the LXX., and there declared to be in the book of\nJasher. \"They are,\" says Dr. Briggs, \"recognised by the best modern\ncritics as belonging to the original text [of 1 Kings viii. 12, 13]\nwhich then would read:\n\n\n   \"The sun is known in the heavens,\n        But Jahveh said that he would dwell in thick darkness.\n        I have built up a house of habitation for thee,\n        A place for thee to dwell in forever.\n    Lo, is it not written in the book of Jasher?\" [6]\n\n\nThis suppression of the opening line of the Dedication, at cost\nof a grand poetic antithesis, reveals the hand of mere bigoted\nignorance. How many other fine things have been eliminated, how\nmany reduced to commonplaces, we know not, but the additions and\ninterpolations in the Old Testament have been nearly all traced. Many\nof these are novelettes more prurient than the tales forbidden in\nfamilies when found in the pages of Boccaccio and Balzac, and it is\na notable evidence of the mere fetish that the Bible has become to\nmost sects, that a chorus of abuse instead of welcome still meets the\nscholars who prove the quasi-spurious character of the most odious\nstories in Genesis.\n\nBishop Colenso seems to have found in such tales only the work of a\nJahvist with a taste for obscene details, but too little attention has\nbeen paid to the investigations of Bernstein, who discovers in many\nof these legends a late Ephraimic effort to blacken the character of\nthe whole house and line of Judah. [7] Bernstein does not deal with\nthe story of Adonijah and Jedidiah (Solomon), whose relative antiquity\nis shown, I think, in the fact that no shameful action is ascribed to\nthe elder brother to account for the deprivation of his primogenitive\nright. After Solomon's accession, however, Adonijah proposed to marry\nthe maiden Abishag, who technically belonged to his father's harem,\nand probably this tradition gave a cue to the inventor of the story\nof Absalom's having gone to his father's concubines in order to base\non the act a claim to the kingdom while his father was yet alive.\n\nAbsalom's shameful action is supposed to be a fulfilment of the\nsentence pronounced against David because of his crime against\nUriah. A close examination of that passage (2 Sam. xii. 10-14) must\nsuggest doubts about verses 11, 12, but at any rate the sentence is\nnot fulfilled by Absalom's alleged act: David's \"wives\" were not\ntaken away \"before his eyes,\" and given \"unto his neighbor,\" but\nsome of his concubines were appropriated by his son. Absalom's act\n(2 Sam. xvi. 20-23) and that of David's consigning the concubines to\nperpetual isolation or imprisonment (2 Sam. xx. 3) are not alluded\nto in David's mourning for Absalom, nor in Joab's rebuke of this\ngrief. In these strange incoherent items one seems to find the debris,\nso to say, of some masterly work, picturing a sort of Nemesis pursuing\nDavid and his family for the crime against Uriah. Ahithophel, who is\ndescribed as \"the word of God,\" was the grandfather of Bathsheba and\nthe chief friend and counsellor of David, yet it was he who suddenly\nbecomes a traitor to the King, foreshadowing Judas--as his sinister\nname (\"brother of lies\") implies--even to the extent of hanging\nhimself. It was Bathsheba's grandfather who moved Absalom to dishonor\nhis father's concubines. But were they only concubines in the original\nstory, or were they David's wives, as predicted in the verses 11, 12\n(2 Sam. xii.) which seem misplaced and unfulfilled? It may have been\nthat some of the details of the story were too gross for preservation,\nor too disgraceful to David, but I cannot think that we possess in its\noriginal form the tragedy suggested by the presence of an ancestor\nof seduced Bathsheba,--the sinister \"word of God\" Ahithophel,--and\nthe death of the child of that adultery, the deflowering of Tamar,\nDavid's daughter, the disgrace and violent death of Amnon, Absalom,\napparently of Daniel also, and finally of Adonijah. What became of\nthe eight wives of David? Was that prediction ascribed to Nathan,\nof their defilement, without any corresponding narrative?\n\nIn a previous chapter I have pointed out the improbability that the\nfatal wrath of Solomon against Adonijah could have been excited by\nhis brother's proposal of honorable wedlock with the maiden Abishag,\nand conjectured that there may have been a story, now lost, of rivalry\nbetween the brothers for this \"very fair\" damsel. Whatever may have\nbeen the real history there is little doubt that there was substituted\nfor it some real offence by Adonijah, perhaps such as that afterwards\nascribed to Absalom. Bathsheba herself is here the Nemesis, as her\ngrandfather is in the case of Absalom.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that we are dealing with the age which\nproduced the thrilling story of Joseph and his brothers, and Potiphar's\nwife, and the contrast with his chastity represented in the profligacy\nof Judah. Indications have been left in Gen. xxxv. at the end of\nverse 22 of the suppression of a story of Reuben and Bilhah, and no\ndoubt there were other suppressions. How very bad the story of Reuben\nwas we may judge, as Bernstein points out, by the severity of his\ncondemnation by Jacob (Gen. xlix.) and by the shocking things about\nJudah (Gen. xxxviii.) allowed to remain in the text. In the latter\nchapter Bernstein finds the same personages,--David, Bathsheba,\nSolomon,--acting in a similar drama to that presented in the Samuel\nfragments, and under their disguises may perhaps be discovered some\nof the details suppressed in the Davidic records. Bernstein says:\n\n\"In Genesis xxxviii. Judah, the fourth son of the patriarch, is shown\nin a light which is to lay bare the stain of his existence. Judah went\nto Adullam, where lived his friend 'Chirah.' He married a Canaanite,\nthe daughter of Shuah. [8] His eldest son was called Er. He (Er) was\ndispleasing in the eyes of Jahveh, therefore Jahveh slew him. His\nsecond son was called Onan: he died in consequence of his sexual\nsins. The third son's name was Shelah, and, as it is mysteriously\nstated after his name, 'he was at Chezib when his mother bare\nhim.' Chezib is certainly the name of a place, and the addition may\ntherefore signify that the mother had named the boy Shelah because the\nfather happened to be in Chezib at the time, absent from home. Chezib\nhas, however, a second meaning.... Chezib means 'deception, lie,' and\nis used by the prophet Micah in this sense (i. 4). Now as Shelah, in\nour narrative, serves to deceive Tamar's hopes, held out by Judah, the\nallusion to Chezib is appropriate. However this may be, Judah's sons\nare all represented as despicable. Even Judah himself fell into bad\nways and was trapped into the snares laid by his daughter-in-law Tamar,\nwho played the prostitute. Thus only did Judah found a generation,\nfrom which King David is said to descend, from a son of Judah called\nParetz, meaning 'breaking through,' in which manner he is supposed\nto have behaved towards his brother at his birth.\n\n\"Veiled as the libel is here, it becomes apparent as soon as we cast\na glance upon David's family. The picture which this libel draws of\nJudah hits David himself sharply. The 'Canaanite'--namely, whom Judah\nmarries [?]--is no other than the wife of Uriah the Hittite (murdered\nat David's command) whom David himself married adulterously. This\nwife of Judah is said to have been the daughter of a man named\nShuah. Therefore she is a Bath-shua, and is thus called (verse\n12). But Bathshua is also Bathsheba herself, as one may conclude from 1\nChron. iii. 5. The eldest son died, hateful in the sight of God, just\nlike the first son of Bathsheba (2 Sam. xii. 15). The son of Judah is\nalleged to have been called Er; why? because reading it backwards\n(rea, wrong) it means 'bad,' 'wicked.' The second son is called Onan,\nand dies for sexual sins. He is no other than David's son Amnon, who\nmeets his death on account of his sexual sins (2 Sam. xiii). The Tamar\nof Judah's story is the same as the Tamar dishonored by Amnon,--the\ndaughter of David, who, in spite of her misfortune and her purity, is,\nto the entire ruin of her good name, humiliated to a person who plays\nthe prostitute. And Shelah who does not die,--add to his name only the\nletter m, and you have Solomon.\"\n\nIf in the light of these facts, which reveal the mythical character\nof some of the worst things told of Judah and David, the blessings\nof Jacob (Gen. xlix.) be carefully read, the blessing on Judah will\nbe found rather equivocal. Colenso translates:\n\n\n   \"A lion's whelp is Judah,\n    Ravaging the young of the suckling ewes.\"\n\n\nIs this couplet related to Nathan's parable of the rich man taking away\nthe poor man's one little ewe lamb which smote the conscience of David?\n\n\n   \"The staff shall not depart from Judah,\n    Nor the rod from between his feet\n    Until Shiloh come.\"\n\n\nIs this merely a device of the Ephraimite rebels, Jeroboamites,\npretending to find in a patriarchal prophecy a prediction that Judah\nis to be superseded by the descendants of Joseph (on whom Jacob's\nencomiums and blessings are unstinted)? Shiloh was always their\nheadquarters.\n\nIt is probable, however, that there is here a play upon words. The\nwords \"Until Shiloh come\" are rendered by some scholars \"Till he\n(Judah) come to Shiloh,\" and interpreted as meaning \"Till he come\nto rest.\" The Samaritan version (\"donec veniat Pacificus\") seems to\nidentify Shiloh with Solomon. (Colenso, Pent. iii. p. 127.) But this\nis transparently Shelah over again. Shelomoh (Solomon), Shelah, and\nShiloh are substantially of the same etymological significance. It\nwill be observed that in Gen. xxxviii. Shelah is the only person\nwhose character is not blackened. The Ephraimic poem, the \"Blessings\nof Jacob,\"--each blessing a vaticinium ex evento,--could well afford\na half-disguised compliment to Solomon who had made no attempt to\nsuppress the rebels of Shiloh,--the city of Abijah, who originated\nthe Jeroboamic revolution which divided the Davidic kingdom. Jacob's\nblessing on Joseph is of course a blessing on Ephraim: it closes with\na transfer of the crown (from Judah) to \"him that is a prince among\nhis brethren.\" This is \"rest\" from the arrows of David, this is the\ncoming of Shiloh; it occurred under the reign of the Prince of Peace,\nSolomon, and it could not be undone by Solomon's son Rehoboam.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nSOLOMONIC ANTIJAHVISM.\n\n\nThe ferocities of Josiah and his Jahvists indicate the presence of\nan important Solomonist School. Their culture and tendencies are\nreflected, as we have seen, in the rage of prophets against them,\nand the continuance of their strength is shown in the preservation\nof Agur's Voltairian satire on Jahvism, and Job's avowed blasphemies:\n\n\n   \"If indeed ye will glorify yourselves above me,\n    And prove me guilty of blasphemy--\n    Know then, that God hath wronged me!\"\n\n\nThis translation from Job, quoted from Professor Dillon, need only\nbe compared with that of the authorised and the revised versions\nto show us the causa causans to-day which of old added four hundred\ninterpolations to the Book of Job to soften its criticism.\n\nIt appears strange, however, that Professor Dillon has not included\namong The Sceptics of the Old Testament three writers in the\ncomposite eighty-ninth Psalm, nor remarked its relation to the Book\nof Job. At the head of this wonderful composition the mythical wise\nman of 1 Kings iv. 31, Ethan, rises (\"Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite,\"\nperhaps meaning Wisdom of the Everlasting Helper) to attest the divine\nmercies and faithfulness in all generations. This is in two verses,\nevidently ancient, which a later hand, apparently, has pointed with\na specification of the covenant with David. After the \"Selah\" which\nends these four verses come fourteen verses of sermonising upon them,\nin which nearly all of the points made by Job's \"comforters\" are put\nin a nutshell. The sons of God who presented themselves, Satan among\nthem, in his council (Job i. 6) appear here also (Ps. lxxxix. 6):\n\n\n   \"Who among the sons of the gods is like unto Jahveh,\n    A God very terrible in the council of the holy ones.\"\n\n\nAfter the mighty things that \"Jah\" had done to his enemies have been\naffirmed an Elohist takes up the burden and a \"vision\" like that of\nEliphaz (Job iv. 13) is appealed to:\n\n\n   \"Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy ones.\"\n\n\nThe vision's revelation (Job v. 17) \"Happy is the man whom God\ncorrecteth\" is also in this psalm (32, 33): \"Then will I visit their\ntransgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes, but\nmy mercy will I not utterly take from him.\" And Eliphaz's assurance\n\"thy seed will be great\" (v. 25) corresponds with that in our psalm\n(verse 36), \"His seed shall endure forever.\"\n\nWhen the psalmist of the vision has pictured, as if in dissolving\nviews, the military renown of David, God's \"servant,\" and his \"horn,\"\npointing to Solomon, God's \"first-born,\" the transgressions of the\nlatter are intimated (30-33), but the seer continues to utter the\ndivine promises:\n\n\n   \"My covenant will I not break,\n    Nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips.\n    One thing have I sworn by my holiness;\n    I will not lie unto David:\n    His seed shall endure forever,\n    And his throne as the sun before me;\n    As the moon which is established forever:\n    Faithful is the witness in the sky. Selah.\"\n\n\nThen breaks out the indignant accuser:\n\n\n   \"But thou HAST cast off and rejected!\n    Thou hast been wroth with thine 'anointed';\n    Thou hast broken the covenant with thy 'servant,'\n    Thou hast profaned his crown to the very dust;\n    Thou hast broken down all his defences;\n    Thou hast brought his strongholds to ruin!\n    All the wayfarers that pass by despoil him;\n    He is become a reproach to his neighbors.\n    Thou hast exalted the right-hand of his adversaries,\n    Thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice.\n    Yea, thou turnest back the edge of his sword,\n    And hast not enabled him to stand in battle.\n    Thou hast made his brightness to cease,\n    And hurled his throne down to the ground.\n    The days of his youth thou hast shortened:\n    Thou hast covered him with shame! Selah.\"\n\n\nA sarcastic \"Selah,\" or \"so it is!\"--if Eben Ezra's definition of\nSelah be correct.\n\nThen follow four verses by a more timid plaintiff, who, almost in the\nwords of Job (e.g., x. 20), reminds Jahveh of the shortness of life,\nand the impossibility of any return from the grave, and asks how long\nhe intends to wait before fulfilling his promises. He also supplies\nKoheleth with a text by the pessimistic exclamation, \"For what vanity\nhast thou created all the children of men\"!\n\nAfter this writer has sounded his \"Selah,\" another rather more bitterly\nreminds Jahveh, in three verses, that not only his chosen people are\nin disgrace, but his own enemies are triumphant.\n\n(These two are much like the writer of Psalms xliv. 9-26, who almost\nrepeats the points made by the above three remonstrants, and asks\nJahveh, \"Why sleepest thou?\")\n\nFinally a Jahvist doxology, fainter than any appended to the other\nfour books, completes this strange eighty-ninth psalm:\n\n\n   \"Praised be Jahveh for evermore!\n    Amen, and Amen!\"\n\n\nGreat is Diana of the Ephesians! Or is this the half-sardonic\nsubmission of Job under the whirlwind-answer, which extorted from him\nno tribute except a virtual admission that when the ethical debate\nbecame a question of which could wield the loudest whirlwinds,\nhe surrendered!\n\nIn Job's case the only recantation is that of Jahveh himself, who\nadmits (xlii. 7) that Job had all along spoken the right thing about\nhim (Jahveh). The epilogue is a complete denial of Jahvist theology.\n\nJob's small voice of scepticism which followed the whirlwind was\nnever silenced. The fragment of Agur (Proverbs xxx. 1-4) appears to\nhave been written as the alternative reply of Job to Jahveh. Job had\nsaid, \"I am vile, I will lay my hand upon my mouth, I have uttered\nthat I understand not.\" Agur adds ironically, \"I am more stupid\nthan other men, in me is no human understanding nor yet the wisdom\nto comprehend the science of sacred things.\" Then quoting Jahveh's\nboast about distributing the wind (Job xxxviii. 24), about his \"sons\nshouting for joy\" (Ibid. 7), and giving the sea its garment of cloud\n(Ibid. 9), Agur, the \"Hebrew Voltaire,\" as Professor Dillon aptly\nstyles him, asks:\n\n\n   \"Who has ascended into heaven and come down again?\n    Who can gather the wind in his fists?\n    Who can bind the seas in a garment?\n    Who can grasp all the ends of the earth?\n    Such an one I would question about God: 'What is his name?\n    And what the name of his sons, if thou knowest?'\"\n\n\nThe stupid Jahvist commentator who follows Agur (Proverbs xxx. 5-14)\nand in the same chapter interpolates 17 and 20, has the indirect value\nof rendering it probable that there were a great many \"Agurites\" (a\n\"bad generation\" he calls them) and that they were rather aristocratic\nand distrustful of the masses. This commentator, who cannot understand\nthe Agur fragments, also shows us, side by side with the brilliant\ngenius, lines revealing the mentally pauperised condition into which\nJahvism must have fallen when such a writer was its champion.\n\nIt is tolerably certain that such fragments as those of Agur imply a\nliterary atmosphere, a cultured philosophic constituency, and a long\nprecedent evolution of rationalism. Such peaks are not solitary, but\nrise from mountain ranges. Professor Dillon, whose admirable volume\nmerits study, finds Buddhistic influence in Agur's fragments. [9]\nBut I cannot find in them any trace of the recluse or of the mystic;\nhe does not appear to be even an \"agnostic,\" for when he says \"I\nhave worried myself about God and succeeded not,\" the vein is too\nsatirical for a mind interested in theistic speculations. He is a man\nof the world,--more of a Goethe than a Voltaire; he regards Jahveh as\na phantasm, is well domesticated in his planet, and does not moralise\non the facts of nature in the Oriental any more than in the Pharisaic\nway. He appears to be a true Solomonic philosopher and naturalist. I\ncannot agree to Professor Dillon's omission of the \"Four Cunning Ones\"\n(Proverbs xxx. 24-28), because they are not of the same metrical form\nas the others, and lead \"nowhither.\" The lines\n\n\n   \"The ants are a people not strong,\n    Yet they provide their meat in the summer,\"\n\n\nno doubt led to the famous parable of Proverbs vi. 6-11, \"Go to the\nant, thou sluggard.\" Being there imbedded in an otherwise commonplace\neditorial chapter, they may have been derived from some commentator\non Agur.\n\nAgur apparently represents the Solomonic thinkers brought with\nthe rest of the people under the trials that made Israel the Job\nof nations. They are such as those who led astonished Jeremiah to\nask \"what kind of wisdom is in them?\" (Jeremiah viii.) They \"do not\nrecognise Jahveh's judgments\"; in \"shame, dismay, captivity, they have\nrejected Jahveh's word.\" The exquisite humor of Agur shows that these\nphilosophers did not lose their serenity. Agur sees man passing his\nlife between two insatiable daughters of the ghoul, \"the Grave and\nthe Womb,\"--Birth and Death,--and amid the inevitable evils of life\nhe will be wise to refrain from rage and lay his hand upon his lips.\n\nBut silence was just what the Jahvist omniscients could not attain\nto. Notwithstanding Jahveh's confession that Job was right in his\nposition, and the orthodox wrong in their theory that all evil is\nprovidential, the \"comforters\" rise again in the commentator who begins\n(Proverbs xxx. 5):\n\n\n   \"Every word of God is perfected.\n    He is a shield to them that trust in Him,\"\n\n\nand proceeds in verse 14 with his inanities. And these have prevailed\never since. Even Jesus, when he took up the burden of Wisdom, and\nrebuked the Jahvist superstition that those on whom a tower fell\nwere subjects of a judgment, must have his stupid corrector to add,\n\"Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.\" This simpleton's\nsuperstition has taken the place of the great successor of Solomon,\nand to-day, amid all the learning of Christendom, is proclaiming\nthat the Father is \"permitting\" all the Satans,--war, disease,\nearthquake, famine,--to harry his children just to test them or to\nchasten them. Why should omnipotence create a race requiring worse than\ninquisitorial tortures for its discipline? In all the literature of\nChristendom there is not one honest attempt to deal with the evils and\nagonies of nature; and at this moment we find theists apotheosizing the\n\"Unknowable from which all things proceed,\" without any appreciation\nof the fact that in the remote past Jahvism sought the same refuge,\nand that it was proved by Job a refuge of fallacies. In an awakening\nmoral and humane sentiment Job stands in this latter day upon the\nearth, and again steadily repeats his demand why one should respect\nan Unknowable from whom all things,--all horrors and agonies,--proceed.\n\nEthically we are required to do no evil that good may come;\ntheologically, to worship a deity who is doing just that all the\ntime. This is no doubt a convenient doctrine for the Christian\nnations that wish to preserve their own property and peace at home,\nwhile acting as banditti in remote continents and islands. All such\natrocities are enacted and adopted as part of the providential plan of\nspreading the Gospel, latterly \"civilisation\"; but it is very certain\nthat there can be no such thing as national civilisation until evil is\nrecognised as evil, good as good,--the one to be abhorred, the other\nloved,--and no deity respected whose government would wrong a worm.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE BOOK OF PROVERBS AND THE AVESTA.\n\n\nThe legend of the Queen of Sheba forms not only a poetic prologue\nto the epical tradition of Solomon's wisdom, but has a substantial\nconnexion with the character of that wisdom, to whose final\npersonification she contributed.\n\nThe corresponding Oriental stories do not necessarily deprive this\nlegend of historic basis, but point to the region of this \"Queen\nof the Seven (Sheba).\" Those Oriental pilgrimages of eminent women\nto great sages, however invested with magnificence, are natural;\neven such romances could not have been invented unless in accordance\nwith the genius of the country in which they were written. There is\nno antecedent improbability that a queen, belonging to a region in\nwhich her sex enjoyed large freedom, should have made a journey to\nmeet Solomon.\n\nThe Abyssinians, who regard her as the founder of their dynasty, at the\nsame time show how little characteristic of their country the legend\nwas, by their ancient tradition, that it was the Queen of Sheba who\nprovided that no woman should sit on the throne, forever! They claim\nthat this Queen is referred to in Psalm xlv.--\"At thy right hand\ndoth stand the Queen, in gold of Ophir.\" This psalm is Solomonic,\nbut the reference is no doubt to the Queen Mother, Bathsheba (whose\nthrone was on his \"right hand,\" 1 Kings ii. 19). Neither Naamah\nthe Ammonitess, mother of Solomon's successor, nor the daughter of\nPharaoh, who was his especially distinguished wife, is described as\na queen,--this indeed not being a Jewish title for a king's wife. The\npsalm indicates much glory to be conferred on a woman by wedlock with\nSolomon, but not that he was to derive any honor from either or all of\nthe \"threescore queens\" assigned him in later times (Cant. vi. 8). In\nanother Solomonic Psalm (lxxii.) it is said:\n\n\n   \"The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents:\n    The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts,\n    Yea, all kings shall fall down before him.\"\n\n\nNo glory is here supposed to be derivable from a woman, and an inventor\nwould probably have merely devised a saga on the last of the lines\njust quoted, which is adapted in 1 Kings iv. 34, to Solomon's wisdom,\nor he would have imagined some instance of a particularly illustrious\nmonarch coming to pay homage to Solomon. That the only example\nparticularized is that of a woman carries some signs of reality.\n\nAssuming that there was ever any King Solomon at all, this Psalm\nlxxii., whose Hebrew title is \"Of Solomon,\" might have been written\nin the height of his reign. The title of \"God\" given him in Psalm\nxlv. is here approximated in the opening line, \"Give the King thy\njudgments, O Elohim,\" and in the ascription to him of such virtues and\nsuch beneficent dominion, \"from the river (Euphrates) to the ends of\nthe earth,\" without any further reference to God, that an indignant\nJahvist expands the doxology (18, 19) to include a reclamation for\nJahveh. The ancient lyric closes with verse 17, which says of Solomon:\n\n\n    \"His name shall endure forever;\n    His name shall have emanations as long as the sun;\n    Men shall bless themselves in him;\n    All nations shall call him The Happy.\"\n\n\nThe Jahvist answers:\n\n\n   \"Blessed be Jahveh Elohim, the Elohim of Israel,\n    Who alone doeth wondrous things,\n    And blessed be His glorious name forever;\n    And let the whole earth be filled with His glory.\n    Amen, and Amen.\"\n\n\nNow in this beautiful poem (omitting the doxology) the elation is\nespecially concerning some connexion with Sheba. In verse 10 it is\nsaid \"The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts\"; in verse 15,\n\"To him shall be given of the gold of Sheba.\" These lines might have\nbeen written on the announcement of a royal visit, or meeting, which\nhad not mentioned a queen. But what country is indicated by Sheba (the\nSeven)? In India there are seven holy rivers, and seven holy Rishis,\nrepresented by the seven stars of the Great Bear. But these correspond\nwith the Seven Rivers of Persia which enter into the Persian Gulf, in\nthe Avesta called Satav\u00e6sa, a star-deity. In the Y\u00eer Yast 9 it is said:\n\n\n   \"Satav\u00e6sa makes those waters flow down to the seven Karshvares of\n    the earth, and when he has arrived down there he stands, beautiful,\n    spreading ease and joy on the fertile countries, thinking in\n    himself, 'How shall the countries of the Aryas grow fertile?'\"\n\n\nAs there are seven heavens, there are seven earths (Karshvares),\nand these, as already shown (ante II.), are presided over by the\n\"seven infinite ones\" (Amesha-Spentas). Of these seven the first is\nAhura Mazda himself, and of the others only one is female--Arma\u00eeti,\ngenius of the earth. Of this wonderful and beautiful personification\nmore must be said presently, but it may be said here that Arma\u00eeti\nwas the spouse of Ahura Mazda, and Queen of the Seven,--the seven\nAmeshi-Spentas who preside respectively over the seven karshvares of\nthe earth.\n\nThe function of Arma\u00eeti being to win men from nomadic life and warfare,\nto foster peace and tillage, she was a type of \"the eternal feminine\";\nand such an ideal could hardly have been developed except in a region\nwhere women were held in great honour, nor could it fail to produce\nwomen worthy of honor. That such was the fact in Zoroastrian Persia\nis proved by many passages in the Avesta, wherein we find eminent\nwomen among the first disciples of Zoroaster. There is a litany to the\nFravashis, or ever living and working spirits, of twenty-seven women,\nwhose names are given in Favard\u00een Yast (139-142). Among these was\nthe Queen Hutaosa, converted by Zoroaster, the wife of King V\u00eest\u00e2spa,\nthe Constantine of Zoroastrianism. Hutaosa was naturally a visible and\nroyal representative of Arma\u00eeti, \"Queen of the Seven,\" a princess of\npeace, a patroness of culture, to be imitated by other Persian queens.\n\nThat the sanctity of \"seven\" was impressed on all usages of life in\nPersia is shown in the story of Esther. King Ahasuerus feasts on the\nseventh day, has seven chamberlains, and consults the seven princes\nof Media and Persia (\"wise men which knew the times\"). When Esther\nfinds favor of the King above all other maidens, as successor to\ndeposed Vashti, she is at once given \"the seven maidens, which were\nmeet to be given her, out of the King's house; and he removed her\nand her maidens to the best place of the house of the women.\" Esther\nwas thus a Queen of the Seven,--of Sheba, in Hebrew,--and although\nthis was some centuries after Solomon's time, there is every reason\nto suppose that the Zoroastrian social usages in Persia prevailed\nin Solomon's time. At any rate we find in the ancient Psalm lxxii.,\nlabeled \"Of Solomon,\" Kings of Sheba (the Seven) mentioned along\nwith the Euphrates, chief of the Seven Rivers (Zend Haptaheando); and\nremembering also the \"sevens\" of Esther, we may safely infer that a\n\"Queen of Sheba\" connoted a Persian or Median Queen.\n\nWe may also fairly infer, from the emphasis laid on \"sevens\" in Esther,\nin connexion with her wit and wisdom, that a Queen of the Seven had\ncome to mean a wise woman, whether of Jewish or Persian origin, a\nwoman instructed among the Magi, and enjoying the freedom allowed by\nthem to women. There is no geographical difficulty in supposing that a\nPersian queen like Hutaosa, a devotee of Arma\u00eeti (Queen of the Seven,\ngenius of Peace and Agriculture), might not have heard of Salem, the\nCity of Peace, of its king whose title was the Peaceful (Solomon),\nand visited that city,--though of course the location of the meeting\nmay have been only a later tradition. [10]\n\nThe object of the Queen's visit to Solomon was \"to test him with hard\nquestions\" as to his wisdom. It was not to discover or pay court to his\nwisdom, though he received from her \"of the gold of Sheba\" spoken of\nin the psalm. As a royal missionary of the Magi her ability and title\nto prove Solomon's knowledge, and decide on it, are assumed in the\nnarrative (1 Kings x.). Several sentences in her tribute to Solomon's\n\"wisdom and goodness\" recall passages in the Psalm (lxxii.). There is\nhere an intimation of some prevailing belief that Solomon's wisdom\nwas harmonious with the Zoroastrian wisdom. Whether the visit of\nthe Queen be mythical or not, and even if both she and Solomon are\nregarded as mythical, the legend would none the less be an expression\nof a popular perception of elements not Jewish in Solomonic literature.\n\nOf course only Biblical mythology is here referred to. The Moslem\nmythology of Solomon and the Queen (Balkis) has taken from the\nAvesta Wise King Yima's potent ring, and his power over demons, and\nother fables, in most instances to be noted only as an unconscious\nrecognition of a certain general accent common to the narratives of\nthe two great kings. Yet it can hardly be said that the stories of Yima\nin the Avesta and of Solomon in the Bible are entirely independent of\neach other,--as in Yima's being given by the deity a sort of choice\nand selecting the political career, Ahura Mazda saying: \"Since thou\nwanted not to be the preacher and the bearer of my law, then make thou\nmy worlds thrive, make my worlds increase: undertake thou to nourish,\nto rule, and to watch over my world.\" Ahura Mazda requests Yima to\nbuild an enclosure for the preservation of the seeds of life (men,\nanimals, and plants) during a succession of fatal winters, and some\nof the particulars resemble both the legend of the ark and that of\nbuilding the temple. Yima was, like Solomon, a priest-king (he is also\ncalled \"the good shepherd\"); he was, like Solomon, beset by satans\n(da\u00eavas), and after a reign of fabulous prosperity he finally fell by\nuttering falsehood. What the falsehood was is told in the Bundahis:\nthe good part of creation was ascribed to the evil creator.\n\nSeveral other heroes of the Avesta have assisted in the idealisation\nof Solomon, notably King V\u00eest\u00e2spa, already mentioned. Like Solomon,\nhe is famous for his horses and his wealth. Zoroaster exhorts him,\n\"All night long address the heavenly Wisdom; all night long call for\nthe Wisdom that will keep thee awake.\" From Zoroaster the \"Young King\"\nlearned \"how the worlds were arranged\"; and he is advised \"have no\nbad priests or unfriendly priests.\"\n\nIt is now necessary to inquire whether there is anything corresponding\nto these facts in the ancient writings ascribed to Solomon. The\nlower criticism has little liking for Solomon, and makes but a feeble\nstruggle for the genuineness of his canonical books against the higher\ncriticism, which forbids us to assign any word to Solomon. But these\nhigher critics acquired their learning while lower critics, and it\nis difficult to repress an occasional suspicion of the survival of\nan unconscious prejudice against the royal secularist, apparent in\ntheir unwillingness to admit any participation at all of Solomon in\nthe wisdom books. Is this quite reasonable?\n\nIt is of course clear that Solomon cannot be described as the author of\nany book or compilation that we now possess. But neither did Boccaccio\nwrite Shakespeare's \"Cymbeline,\" nor Dryden's \"Cymon and Iphigenia,\"\nnor the apologue of the Ring in Lessing's \"Nathan the Wise,\" nor\nTennyson's \"Falcon,\" all of which, however, are his tales. I select\nBoccaccio for the illustration because his defiance of \"the moralities\"\nled to his suppression in most European homes, thus facilitating the\nutilization of his ideas by others who derive credit from his genius,\nthis being precisely what might be expected in the case of the great\nsecularist of Jerusalem. For no one can carefully study the Book\nof Proverbs without perceiving that a large number of them never\ncould have been popular proverbs, but are terse little essays and\nfables, some of them highly artistic, which indicate the presence\nat some remote epoch of a man of genius. And I cannot conceive any\nfair reason for setting aside the tradition of many centuries which\nsteadily united the name of Solomon with much of this kind of writing,\nor for believing that every sentence he ever uttered or wrote is lost.\n\nIt would require a separate work to pick out from the two Anthologies\nascribed to Solomon (the First, Proverbs x. i-xxii. 16; the Second,\nxxv-xxix), the more elaborate thoughts, and piece together those that\nrepresent one mind, even were I competent for that work. But this\nfine task awaits some scholar, and, indeed, the whole Book of Proverbs\nneeds a more thorough treatment in this direction than it has received.\n\nOf the last seven chapters of the Book of Proverbs, one (xxx.),\ncontaining the fragments of Agur and his angry antagonist, has been\n(vii.) considered. Chapters xxv., xxvi., xxvii., and xxxi. 10-31, may\nwith but little elimination fairly come under their general heading,\n\"These are also proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, King\nof Judah, copied out.\" Chapters xxviii. and xxix., with their flings\nat princes and wealth, contain many Jahvist insertions. The admirable\nverses in xxiv. 23-34, and those in xxxi. 10-29, 31, represent the\nhigh secular ethics of the Solomonic school.\n\nThe verses last mentioned (exaltation of the virtuous woman) are,\ncuriously enough, blended with \"The words of King Lemuel, the oracle\nwhich his mother taught him.\" The ancient Rabbins identify Lemuel\nwith Solomon, and relate that when, on the day of the dedication\nof the temple, he married Pharaoh's daughter, he drank too much at\nthe wedding feast, and slept until the fourth hour of the next day,\nwith the keys of the temple under his pillow. Whereupon his mother,\nBathsheba, entered and reproved him with this oracle. Bathsheba's\nown amour with Solomon's father does not appear to have excited any\nrabbinical suspicion that the description of the virtuous wife with\nwhich the Book of Proverbs closes is hardly characteristic of the\nwoman. She was the \"Queen Mother,\" a part of the divine scheme, her\nconception of the builder of the temple immaculate, predetermined in\nthe counsels of Jahveh.\n\nThe first nine verses of this last chapter in the Book of Proverbs\ncertainly appear as if written at a later day, perhaps even so late as\nthe third century before our era, and aimed at the Jahvist tradition\nof Solomon. Lemuel seems to be allegorical, and we here have an\nearly instance of the mysterious disinclination to mention the great\nKing's name. His name, Renan assures us, is hidden under \"Koheleth,\"\nbut he is not named in the text of that book or even in that of the\n\"Wisdom of Solomon.\" In Ezra v. 11 the mention of the temple as the\nhouse \"which a great king of Israel builded and finished\" seems to\nindicate a purposed suppression of Solomon's name, which continued\n(Jeremiah lii. 20 is barely an exception) until this silence was\nbroken by Jesus Ben Sira, and again by Jesus of Nazareth.\n\nThe removal of verse 30 (Proverbs xxxi.), clearly a late Jahvist\nprotest, leaves the praise of the virtuous woman with which the book\ncloses without any suggestion of piety. Yet we find here that \"her\nprice is far above rubies,\" \"she openeth her mouth with wisdom,\" and\none or two other tropes which probably united with some in the First\nAnthology to evolve more distinctly the goddess Wisdom. Some sentences\nof the First Anthology grew like mustard seed. \"Wisdom resteth in the\nheart of him who hath understanding\" (Proverbs xiv. 33), reappears\nin 1 Kings iii. 12, and in x. 24 it is definitely stated that it was\nthe wisdom which God had put into Solomon's heart that made all the\nearth seek his presence. It was a miracle they went to see; the glory\nis not that of Solomon, but that of God. [11]\n\nThe nearest approach to a personification of Wisdom in the First\nAnthology is Proverb xx. 15: \"There is gold and abundance of pearls,\nbut the lips of knowledge are a (more) precious jewel.\" This expands in\nJob to a long list of precious things--gold, coral, topaz, pearls--all\nsurpassed by Wisdom, and the similitudes journey on to the parables\nof Jesus, wherein the woman sweeps for the lost silver, and the\nman sells all he has for the pearl of price. This, however, was a\ncomparatively simple and human development. And the first complete\npersonification of Wisdom, growing out of \"the lips of knowledge,\" and\nperhaps influenced by the portraiture of \"the virtuous woman,\" is an\nexpression of philosophical and poetic religion. This personification\nis in Proverbs viii. and ix., which are evidently far more ancient\nthan the seven chapters preceding them, and no doubt constitute the\noriginal editorial Prologue to the so-called \"Proverbs of Solomon,\"\nwith the exception of some Jahvist cant about \"the fear of Jahveh.\" We\nhear from \"the lips of knowledge\" a reaffirmation of the \"excellent\nthings\" said in the Anthologies about the superiority of Wisdom to\ngems. (The word \"ancient\" given by the revisers in the margin to\nviii. 18 may possibly signify the antiquity of the Anthologies when\nthis Prologue was written.) The scholarly writer of the Prologue had\nclosely studied the ancient proverbs, and occasionally gives good hints\nfor the interpretation of some that puzzle modern translators. Thus\nWisdom, in describing herself as \"sporting\" (viii. 30), indicates the\nright meaning of x. 23 to be that while the fool finds his sport in\nmischief, the wise man finds his sport with wisdom. (This proverb may\nalso have suggested the laughter of the \"virtuous woman\" in xxxi. 25.)\n\nIn viii. 22-31, Wisdom becomes more than a personification, and takes\nher place in cosmogony. This passage, which contains germs of much\nof our latter-day theology, must be quoted in full, and comparatively\nstudied. Wisdom speaks:\n\n\n    22. Jahveh acquired me in the outset of his way,\n        Before his works, from of old.\n\n    23. From eternity was I existent,\n        From the first, before the earth.\n\n    24. When no deep seas I was brought forward,\n        When no fountains abounding with water.\n\n    25. Before the mountains were fixed,\n        Before the hills, was I brought forward:\n\n    26. When he had not fashioned the earth and the fields,\n        And the consummate part of the dust of the world.\n\n    27. When he established the heavens, I was there;\n        When he set a boundary on the face of the deep;\n\n    28. When he made firm the clouds above;\n        When the fountains of the deep became strong;\n\n    29. When he gave to the sea its limit,\n        That the waters should not pass over their coast;\n        When he marked out the foundation pillars of the earth:\n\n    30. Then was I near him, as a master builder:\n        And I was his delight continually,\n        Sporting before him at all times;\n\n    31. Sporting in the habitable part of his earth,\n        And my delight was with the sons of men.\n\n\nLet us compare with this picture of Wisdom that of Arma\u00eeti, genius of\nthe Earth, in the sacred Zoroastrian books. In the G\u00e2tha Ahunavaiti,\n7, it is said: \"To succor this life (to increase it) Arma\u00eeti came\nwith wealth, and good and true mind: she, the everlasting one,\ncreated the material world; but the soul, as to time, the first\ncause among created beings, was with thee\" (Ahura Mazda). Thus, like\nWisdom, Arma\u00eeti is everlasting: she was not created, but \"acquired,\"\nby the deity. When Ahura Mazda, as chief of the seven Amesha-spentas,\nideally designed the world, she gave it reality, as master-builder,\nand, like Wisdom, hewed out the foundation pillars he had marked\nout,--namely, the Seven Karshvares of the earth. The opening lines\nof Proverbs ix. read almost like a quotation from some G\u00e2tha:\n\n\n   \"Wisdom hath builded her house,\n    She hath hewn out her seven pillars.\"\n\n\nLike Wisdom, Arma\u00eeti was the continual delight of the supreme God. In\nan ancient P\u00e2li MS., it is said that Zoroaster saw the supreme being in\nheaven, with Arma\u00eeti seated at his side, her hand caressing his neck,\nand said: \"Thou, who art Ahura Mazda, turnest not thy eyes away from\nher, and she turns not away from thee.\" Ahura Mazda tells Zoroaster\nthat she is \"the house mistress of my heaven, and mother of the\ncreatures.\" [12] Like Wisdom, Arma\u00eeti has joy in the \"habitable part\"\nof the earth, and the \"sons of men,\" from whom she receives especial\ndelight (\"the greatest joy\"), are enumerated in the Vend\u00eed\u00e2d, also\nthe places in which she has such delight. They are the faithful who\ncultivate the earth morally and physically, and the places so watered\nor drained, and homes \"with wife, children, and good herds within.\"\n\nArma\u00eeti has a daughter, \"the good Ashi,\" whose function is to pass\nbetween earth and heaven and bring the heavenly wisdom (Vohu-Mano,\n\"Good Thought\") to mankind. The soul of the world thus reaches, and\nis reached by, heaven, and Arma\u00eeti thus becomes a personification\nof the combined human and superhuman Wisdom ascribed to great men,\nsuch as Solomon. At the same time the \"sons of men\" are all the\nchildren of Arma\u00eeti, and she finds delight among them. Even the\nrudest are restrained by her culture. \"By the eyes of Arma\u00eeti the\n(demonic) ruffian was made powerless,\" says Zoroaster. The spirit of\nthe Earth, laughing with her flowers and fruits, survived in Persia\nthe sombre reign of Islam, to sing in the quatrain of Omar Khayy\u00e1m:\n\"I asked my fair bride--the World--what was her dower: she answered,\n'My dower is in the joy of thy heart.'\"\n\n\"The sons of men\" is not an Avestan phrase, for to Arma\u00eeti her\ndaughters are as dear as her sons, but we find in the Vend\u00eed\u00e2d \"the\nseeds of men and women.\" These are sprung from those who were selected\nfor preservation in the Vara, or enclosure, of the first man, Yimi,\nmade by direction of the deity, when the evil powers brought fatal\nwinters on the world. The deformed, diseased, wicked, were excluded;\nthe chosen people were those formed of \"the best of the earth.\" From\nlong and prosperous life on earth, the Amesha of immortality, the\ngood angel of death, conducted them to eternal happiness; they are the\nimmortals, children of the demons being mortals. There was something\ncorresponding to this in the Jewish idea of their being a chosen\npeople, as distinguished from the Gentile world (see Deut. xxxii. 8),\nand no doubt the phrase \"sons of men\" represented a divine dignity\nafterwards expressed in the title, \"Son of Man.\" [13]\n\nThe Solomonic hymn of Wisdom at the creation (Proverbs viii. 22-31)\ncontains other Avestan phrases. \"From eternity was I existent,\" recalls\nZervan akarana, \"boundless time,\" and verse 26, relating to the earth,\nis still more significant: in it \"the sum\" has been suggested by the\nRevisers for (E. V.) \"the highest part\" (of the earth), but in either\nrendering it is near to the Avestan phrase, \"the best of Arma\u00eeti\"\n(Earth). This phrase is reproduced in the Bundahis (xv. 6), where the\ncreator, Ahura Mazda, says to the first pair, \"You are men (cf. Genesis\nv. 2, he 'called their name Adam'), you are the ancestry of the world,\nand you are created the best of Arma\u00eeti (the Earth) by me.\" (West's\ntranslation. Sacred Books of the East. Vol. V., p. 54, n. 2.) The\nword for Earth in Proverb 26 is adamah, and in the Septuagint (various\nreading) it is actually translated Armaith,--Arma\u00eeti's very name. We\nmay thus find in Proverb 26 (viii.) the idea of Omar Khayy\u00e1m, \"Man\nis the whole creation's summary.\"\n\nWhether there is any connexion between the Sanskrit Adima and\nHebrew Adam is still under philological discussion: probably not,\nfor their meaning is different, Adima meaning \"the first,\" and\nAdam relating to the material out of which he is said to have been\nformed. Adam is derived from Adamah: after all, man came from the\ngreat Woman--\"the Mother of all living.\" [14] Adamah, according to\nSale, is a Persian word meaning \"red earth,\" and in Hebrew also it\nconnotes redness. Arma\u00eeti might have acquired an epithet of ruddiness\nfrom her union with \u00c2tar, the genius of Fire (Fargard xviii. 51,\n52. Darmesteter. Introduction, iv. 30). In Hebrew adamah combines\nthree senses--a fortress, redness, and cultivated ground. In Proverbs\n(viii. 31) we have the fortress or enclosure, \"the habitable part of\nhis earth\"; in verse 26 the cultivated earth, \"the highest part (or\nsum, or best) of the dust of the earth.\" The \"delight\" in which Wisdom\ndwelt (verse 30) is Eden, the garden of delight, and in verse 31 this\ndelight associated with the human children of the earth. Here we have\nthe elements of the narrative of the creation of Adam in Genesis,\nand of the garden, though clearly not derived from Genesis. And in\nGenesis we find something like a personification of the earth, as in\nix. 13, \"It (the rainbow) shall be a token of a covenant between me\nand the earth.\"\n\nThe idea of a creative deity requiring, as in Proverbs viii., the\nassistance of another personal being, is foreign to Jahvism, but it\nis of the very substance of Zoroastrianism, and it reappears in the\nElohism of Genesis. Another important and fundamental fact is, that we\nfind in the prologue to Proverbs a deity contending against something,\ncircumscribing forces that need control, not of his creation. It is\nplain that the conception of monotheistic omnipotence had not yet\nbeen formed. There are higher and lower parts of the earth.\n\nAlthough there is no evidence that any such compilation as our\n\"Genesis\" existed at the time when the prologue (viii., ix.) to the\n\"Proverbs of Solomon\" was composed, the Elohistic opening of Genesis,\nespecially in its original form, harmonises with the Parsi conflict\nbetween Light and Darkness.\n\n\n   \"When of old Elohim separated heaven and earth--when the earth was\n    desolation and emptiness--darkness on the face of the deep, and\n    the spirit of Elohim brooding on the face of the waters,--Elohim\n    said, Be Light; Light was.\" [15]\n\n\nThe spirit of God \"brooding\" over the waters (Genesis i. 1) may\nbe identified with the Wisdom of Proverbs ix. 1, who \"builds her\nhouse\" as the Elohim built the universe, and \"hath hewn out her\nseven pillars\" like a true Arma\u00eeti, \"Queen of the Seven.\" She is\nthe Spirit of Light. And perhaps the darkness that was on the face\nof the abyss suggested the antagonistic personification in the next\nchapter (ix.) named by Professor Cheyne \"Dame Folly.\" Wisdom, having\nbuilded her house, spread her table, mingled her wine, sends forth her\nmaidens to invite the simple to forsake Folly, enjoy her feast, and\n\"live.\" Dame Folly,--who though she has \"a seat in high places\" is\n\"silly,\"--clamours to every wayfarer that even the bread and water\nof her table, being surreptitious, are sweeter than the luxuries\nand wine offered by Wisdom. This appears to be the meaning of Dame\nFolly's somewhat obscure invitation.\n\n\n  \"'Waters stolen are sweet!\n    Forbidden bread is pleasant!'\n    He knoweth not her phantoms are there,\n    That her guests are in the underworld.\"\n\n\nIn this contrast between Wisdom inviting all to enter her house,\ndrink her wine, and \"live,\" and Folly inviting them to her \"Sheol,\"\nwe have nearly a quatrain of Omar Khayy\u00e1m: \"Since from the beginning\nof life to its end there is for thee only this earth, at least live\nas one who is on it and not under it.\"\n\nIn the Avesta the good and wise Mother Earth (Arma\u00eeti) is opposed by\na malign female \"Drug\" (demoness), whose paramours are described in\nFargard xviii. (Vend\u00eed\u00e2d). These two are fairly represented by Wisdom\nand Folly as personified in Proverbs viii. and ix.\n\nThe Jahvist who in Proverbs i. 1-7 (excepting the first six verses)\nundertakes to edit the original and ancient editor as well as Solomon,\npresents the curious case of one of Dame Folly's phantoms interpreting\nthe words of Wisdom's guests. Unable to comprehend their portraiture\nof Dame Folly, he imagines that the allusion must be to harlotry,\nadmonishes his \"son\" that \"Jahveh giveth wisdom,\" which among other\nthings will \"deliver thee from the strange woman,\" whose \"house sinketh\ndown to the underworld and her paths unto phantoms.\" Which recalls\nthe pious lady who on hearing her ritualistic pastor accused by a\ndissenter of leanings toward the Scarlet Woman, anxiously inquired\nof a friend whether she had ever heard any scandal connected with\ntheir vicar's name!\n\nOur Jahvist editor seems to be one who would often say of laughter\n\"it is mad\"; and naturally could not imagine how Wisdom could \"sport\"\nbefore the Lord (viii. 30) unless she were in some sense mad. The\nsport before Jahveh could only be in mockery of some sinner's torment,\nlike the derision ascribed to Jahveh (Psalm ii. 4); consequently our\neditor represents Wisdom crying abroad in the streets:\n\n\n   \"Because I have called and ye refused....\n    I also will laugh in the day of your calamity,\n    I will mock when your fear cometh.\"\n\n\nBut Pliny mentions the Mazdean belief, confirmed by Parsi tradition,\nthat Zoroaster was born laughing. To him Ahura Mazda says: \"Do thou\nproclaim, O pure Zoroaster, the vigor, the glory, the help and the\njoy that are in the Fravashis (souls) of the faithful.\"\n\nHowever, we may see in these first seven chapters of Proverbs that\nWisdom had become detached from the sons of men, in whom she had\nonce found delight, was no longer in the human heart, but had finally\nascended to wield the heavenly thunderbolts. And yet it is probable\nthat we owe to this vindictive and menacing attitude of deified Wisdom\nthe preservation of so many witty and sceptical things in books\ntraditionally ascribed to Solomon. The orthodox legend being that\nthe Lord had put supernatural wisdom into Solomon's heart, and never\nrevoked it despite his \"idolatry\" and secularism, it followed that the\nnaughty man could not help continuing to be a medium of this divine\nperson, Wisdom, and that it might be a dangerous thing to suppress\nany utterance of hers through Solomon,--unwitting blasphemy. However\nprofane or worldly the writings might appear to the Jahvist mind,\nthere was no knowing what occult inspiration there might be in them,\nand the only thing editors could venture was to sprinkle through them\nplenteous disinfectants in the way of \"Fear-of-the-Lord\" wisdom.\n\nThe proverbs in which the name Jahveh appears are not, of course, to\nbe indiscriminately rejected as entirely Jahvist interpolations. It\nseems probable that little more than the word Jahveh has been supplied\nin some of these,--e. g., xix. 3, xx. 27, xxi. 1, 3, xxviii. 5,\nxxix. 26. But in a majority of cases the proverbs containing the name\nJahveh are ethically and radically inharmonious with the substance\nand spirit of the book as a whole, which is founded on the supremacy\nof human \"merits\" as fully as Zoroastrianism, in which salvation\ndepends absolutely on Good Thought, Good Word, Good Deed. In dynamic\nmonotheism (as distinguished from ethical) of which Jahvism is the\nancient and Islam the modern type, the doctrine of human \"merits\"\nis inadmissible: a man's virtues are not his own, and in Jahveh's\nsight they are but \"filthy rags,\" except so far as they are given by\nJahveh. But in the Solomonic proverbs the highest virtues, and the\nsupreme blessings of the universe, are obtained by a man's own wisdom,\ncharacter, and deeds. And in some cases the claims for Jahveh appear\nto have been inserted as if in answer or retort to proverbs ignoring\nthe participation of any deity in such high matters. I quote a few\ninstances, in which the antithesis turns to antagonism:\n\n\n    Solomon--By kindness and truth iniquity is atoned for.\n\n    Jahvist--By the fear of Jahveh men turn away from evil. (xvi. 6.)\n\n    Solomon--He who is skilful in a matter findeth good.\n\n    Jahvist--Whoso trusteth in Jahveh, happy is he! (xvi. 20.)\n\n\nIn several other cases entire proverbs seem to be inserted for the\ncorrection of preceding ones,--these being not always understood by\nthe interpolator:\n\n\n    Solomon--Treasures of evil profit not,\n    But virtue delivereth from death.\n\n    Jahvist--Jahveh will not suffer the righteous man to be famished,\n    But the desires of the unrighteous he thrusteth away. (x. 2, 3.)\n\n    Solomon--The tongue of the just is choice silver;\n    The heart of the evil is little worth:\n    The lips of the just feed many,\n    But fools die through heartlessness.\n\n    Jahvist--The blessing of Jahveh, that maketh rich,\n    And work addeth nothing thereto. (x. 20-22.)\n\n    Solomon--The virtuous man hath an everlasting foundation. (x. 25.)\n\n    Jahvist--The fear of Jahveh prolongeth days. (x. 27.)\n\n    Solomon--Hear counsel, receive correction,\n    That thou mayst be wise in thy future.\n\n    Jahvist--Many are the purposes in a man's heart,\n    But the counsel of Jahveh, that shall stand. (xix. 20-1.)\n\n    Solomon--The acceptableness of a man is his kindness:\n    Better off the poor than the treacherous man.\n\n    Jahvist--The fear of Jahveh addeth to life;\n    Whoso is filled therewith shall abide, he shall not be visited\n    by evil. (xix. 22-3.)\n\n    Solomon--The upright man considereth his way.\n\n    Jahvist--Wisdom is nothing, heart nothing,\n    Counsel nothing, against Jahveh. (xxi. 29, 30.)\n\n\nIn one instance the Jahvist has made a slip by which his hand is\nconfessed. In xvii. 3 we find:\n\n\n    The fining-pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold,\n    But Jahveh trieth hearts.\n\n\nBut he omitted to notice the repetition in xxvii. 21, where we find\nthe profound sentence which the Jahvist had reduced to commonplace:\n\n\n    The fining-pot for silver and the furnace for gold,\n    And a man is proved by that which he praiseth.\n\n\nThe Jahvist spirit is also discoverable in xx. 22:\n\n\n    Solomon--Say not \"I will retaliate evil\";\n\n    Jahvist--Wait for Jahveh and he will save thee.\n\n\nAlso in xxv. 21-2:\n\n\n    Solomon--If he that hateth thee be hungry, give him bread to eat,\n    If he be athirst give him water to drink.\n\n    Jahvist--For thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head,\n    And Jahveh shall reward thee.\n\n\nA similar mean and vindictive spirit is shown in xxiv. 18, following\na magnanimous proverb; but in verse 29, probably more ancient than 18,\nwe find the unqualified rebuke of retaliation:\n\n\n    Say not \"As he hath done to me, so will I do to him,\n    I will render to the man according to his work.\"\n\n\nIt was this generosity that Buddha exercised, [16] and Jesus; and it\nwas left to Paul to recover the Jahvist modifications of Solomon's\nwisdom in order to adulterate for hard Romans the humane spirit of\nJesus (Romans xii. 19, 20). The Solomonic sentences are normally so\nmagnanimous as to throw suspicion on any clause tainted with smallness\nor vulgarity. The pervading spirit is, \"The benevolent heart shall\nbe enriched, and he who watereth shall himself be watered.\"\n\nThere is one proverb (xiv. 32) which suggests a belief in immortality,\nor possibly in the Angel of Death:\n\n\n    By his evil deeds the evil man is thrust downward,\n    But the virtuous man hath confidence in his death.\n\n\nAccording to the Avesta every man is born with an invisible noose\naround his neck. When a good man dies the noose falls, and he passes\nto a beautiful region where he is met by a maid, to whom he says, \"Who\nart thou, who art the fairest I have ever seen?\" She answers, \"O thou\nof good thoughts, good words, good deeds, I am thy actions.\" The evil\nman meets a leprous hag, embodiment of his actions, who by his noose\ndrags him down through the evil-thought hell, the evil-word hell, the\nevil-deed hell, to the region of \"Endless Darkness\" (Yast xxii.). This\ndarkness may be metaphorically spoken of in Proverbs xx. 20:\n\n\n    He that curseth his father and mother,\n    His lamp shall be put out in the blackest darkness.\n\n\nBut generally the allusions to death in the Solomonic proverbs do not\nseem to allude to physical death. In x. 2 \"virtue delivereth from\ndeath\" is in antithesis to the unprofitableness of evil treasures,\nand in 16:\n\n\n    The reward of a virtuous man is life;\n    The gain of the wicked is sin.\n\n\nHere \"life\" and \"sin\" are in opposition. Other sentences to be\ncompared are:\n\n\n    The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life,\n    To avoid the snares of death. (xiii. 14, cf. the Jahvist xiv. 27.)\n    Understanding is a fountain of life to those who possess it,\n    But the snare of fools is Folly. (xvi. 22.)\n    He that hateth reproof shall die. (xv. 10.)\n    The way of life is upward to the wise,\n    So as to turn away from the grave (sheol) beneath. (xv. 24.)\n    Death and life are in the power of the tongue,\n    And they who love it shall eat its fruit. (xviii. 21.)\n\n\n(In the last clause \"it\" probably refers to \"life,\" unless the pronoun\nbe cancelled altogether.)\n\n\n    The getting of treasures by a tongue of falsehood\n    Is getting a fleeting vapour, delusions of death. (xxi. 6.)\n    In the way of virtue is life,\n    But the way of the by-path leadeth to death. (xii. 28.)\n    The man who wandereth from the way of instruction\n    Shall rest in the congregation of the phantoms. (xxi. 16.)\n\n\nThe two proverbs last quoted may be usefully compared with the ancient\nPrologue (viii. ix.) already referred to in this chapter, as they\nare there reproduced pictorially in Wisdom and Dame Folly sitting at\ntheir respective doors. Wisdom offers long life and happiness:\n\n\n    But he who wandereth from me doeth violence to his own life,\n    All who hate me love death. (viii. 36.)\n\n\nDame Folly tries to turn into her by-path those who are \"proceeding\nstraight in their course\" (ix. 15), but her victim--\n\n\n    He knoweth not her phantoms are there,\n    That her guests are in the underworld. (ix. 18.)\n\n\nThe same Hebrew word Rephaim (phantoms or shades) is used here and\nin xxi. 16.\n\nAll of these references to death and the underworld (sheol), except\nperhaps xiv. 32, refer to the living death, moral and spiritual,\nwhich is of such vast and fundamental significance in Zoroastrian\nreligion. In this religion the evil power is \"all death.\" The universe\nis divided by and into \"the living and the not living.\" [17] \"When\nthese two Spirits came together they made first Life and Death,\"--words\nsometimes used as synonymous with the \"Good and the Evil Mind.\" Ahura\nMazda representing all the forces that work for health and life,\nAngromainyu (Ahriman) all that work for disease and destruction, have\nranged with them all animals and plants, on one side or the other, in\nthis great conflict. The life of an Ahrimanian creature is \"incarnate\ndeath.\" (Darmesteter's Introduction to the Vend\u00eed\u00e2d, v. 11.) His\ndestructiveness is equally against virtue, wisdom, peace, health,\nhappiness, life, and all of these, not merely physical dissolution,\nare included in his Avestan title, \"The Fiend who is all death.\" He\nis the Abaddon of Revelation ix. 11, also he \"that had the power of\ndeath\" in Hebrews ii. 14, and probably came into both of these from\nProverbs xxvii. 20:\n\n\n    Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied,\n    And the eyes of man are never satisfied.\n\n\nDr. Inman (Ancient Faiths, i., p. 180) connects Abaddon with \"Abadan\n(cuneiform), the lost one, the sun in winter, or darkness,\" which\nconforms with the Avestan Ahriman, who is emphatically a winter-demon,\nhis hell being in the north (cf. Jeremiah i. 14 and elsewhere),\nand is the natural adversary of the Fire-worshipper.\n\nAmong the Zoroastrians there were not only Towers of Silence (Dakhma)\nfor the literally dead, but also for the confinement of those tainted\nby carrying corpses, or by any contact with the death-fiend's empire,\nsuch as being struck with temporary death. \"The unclean,\" says\nDarmesteter, \"are confined in a particular place, apart from all clean\npersons and objects, the Arm\u00east-g\u00e2h, which may be described, therefore,\nas the Dakhma for the living.\" Here then are the dead-alive guests of\nDame Folly (Proverbs ix. 15), who opposes Wisdom, as Ahriman created\nAkem-Mano (evil thought) to oppose Vohu-Mano (good thought), and here\nis the assembly that might give the Solomonic proverb its metaphor:\n\n\n    The man who wandereth from the way of instruction\n    Shall rest in the congregation of the phantoms (or shades,\n    Rephaim).\n\n\nThe Zoroastrian books from which I have been quoting contain passages\nof very unequal date, but it is the opinion of Avestan scholars that\nmost of them are from very ancient sources, pre-Solomonic, and there\nis no chronological difficulty in supposing that such institutions\nas the Arm\u00east-g\u00e2h, for the separation of the unclean, should not\nhave been well known in ancient Jerusalem before the corresponding\nlevitical laws concerning the unclean and the leprous existed.\n\nThe Book of Proverbs was also a growth, and although, as has been\nstated, there is reason to regard as later additions most of the\nproverbs containing the word Jahveh, as they are inconsistent with the\ngeneral ethical tenor of the book, there are several in which that\nname is evidently out of place. Even in the editorial Prologue we\ncan hardly recognize orthodox Jahvism in the conception of a being,\nWisdom, not created by Jahveh yet giving him delight and some kind\nof assistance at the creation; and nowhere else in the Old Testament\ndo we find such an idea as that of xx. 27, \"The spirit of a man is\nJahveh's lamp,\" or in xix. 17:\n\n\n    He who is kind to the poor lendeth to Jahveh,\n    And his good deed shall be recompensed to him.\n\n\nBut in the Zoroastrian religion men and women render assistance and\nencouragement to the gods, and we find the chief deity, Ahura Mazda,\nsaying to Zoroaster concerning the Fravashis, or souls, of holy\nmen and women: \"Do thou proclaim, O pure Zoroaster, the vigor and\nstrength, the glory, the help and the joy, that are in the Fravashis\nof the faithful ... do thou tell how they came to help me, how they\nbring assistance unto me.... Through their brightness and glory,\nO Zoroaster, I maintain that sky there above.\" Favard\u00een Yast, 1,\n2.) As Frederick the Great said, \"a king is the chief of subjects,\"\nso with Zoroaster Ahura Mazda is the chief of the faithful; or,\nas Luther said, \"God is strong, but he likes to be helped.\"\n\nThe similitude in Proverbs xx. 27 is especially important in our\ninquiry:\n\n\n    The spirit of man is the lamp of Jahveh,\n    Searching all the chambers of the body.\n\n\nThe word for \"spirit\" here is Nishma, which occurs in but one other\ninstance in the Bible, namely, in Job xxvi. 4. Job asks:\n\n\n    To whom hast thou uttered words?\n    And whose spirit came forth from thee?\n\n\nThis chapter of Job (xxvi.) is closely related to Proverbs viii. and\nix., both in thought and phraseology: the Rephaim, or phantoms,\nthe \"pillars,\" the ordering of earth and clouds, the boundary on\nthe deep; and there is an allusion to \"the confines of Light and\nDarkness,\" which point to the domains of Wisdom and Dame Folly. Job\nand the proverbialist surely got these ideas from the same source,\nand also the word nishma, translated \"spirit,\" which throughout the\nOld Testament is ruach, save in the two texts indicated. But there\nis no text in the Bible where ruach, spirit, or soul, is associated\nwith light like the nishma of the proverb, and in Job nishma evidently\nmeans a superhuman spirit. Now there is a Chaldean word, nisma, which\nin the Persian Bundahis appears as nism\u00f4, and is translated by West,\n\"living soul.\" The ordinary word for soul in the Parsi scriptures\nseems to be r\u00fbb\u00e2n, and West regards the two words as meaning the same\nthing, the breath, or soul, basing this on the following passage of\nthe Bundahis, representing the separation of the first mortal into\nthe first human pair, M\u00e2shya and M\u00e2shyoi:\n\n\n    \"And the waists of both were brought close, and so connected\n    together that it was not clear which is the male and which the\n    female, and which is the one whose living soul (nism\u00f4) of A\u00fbharmazd\n    (God) is not away (lacking). As it is said thus: 'Which is created\n    before, the soul (nism\u00f4) or the body? And A\u00fbharmazd said that\n    the soul is created before, and the body after, for him who was\n    created; it is given unto the body to produce activity, and the\n    body is created only for activity; hence the conclusion is this,\n    that the soul (r\u00fbb\u00e2n) is created before and the body after. And\n    both of them changed from the shape of a plant into the shape of\n    man, and the breath (nism\u00f4) went spiritually into them, which is\n    the soul (r\u00fbb\u00e2n).\" [18]\n\n\nWith all deference to the learned translator, I cannot think his\nexegesis here quite satisfactory. In the first sentence nism\u00f4 is the\nbreath of God; and although in the second the same word is used for\nthe human soul, the writer seems to have aimed in the last sentence\nat a distinction: the divine breath or spirit (nism\u00f4) creates a soul\n(r\u00fbb\u00e2n), to receive which the plant is transformed into a body fitted\nfor the \"activity\" of an imbreathed soul. West twice translates nism\u00f4\n\"living soul,\" but r\u00fbb\u00e2n only \"soul.\" Does not this indicate Ahura\nMazda as the source of divine life, as in Genesis ii. 7, where\nJahveh-Elohim breathes into man, who becomes a \"living soul,\"--a\nbeing within the domain of the god of life, not subject to the god of\ndeath? Is it not his r\u00fbb\u00e2n that is the image of nism\u00f4? (Cf. Genesis\nix. 5, 6.)\n\nTurning now to the Avesta, we find the famous Favardin Yast,\na collection of litanies and ascriptions to the Fravashis. \"The\nFravashi,\" says Darmesteter, \"is the inner power in every being that\nmaintains it and makes it grow and subsist. Originally the Fravashis\nwere the same as the Pitris of the Hindus or the Manes of the Latins,\nthat is to say, the everlasting and deified souls of the dead;\nbut in course of time they gained a wider domain, and not only men,\nbut gods and even physical objects, like the sky and the earth, had\neach a Fravashi.\" \"The Fravashi was independent of the circumstances\nof life or death, an immortal part of the individual which existed\nbefore man and outlived him.\"\n\nIn Yast xxii. 39, 40, it is said: \"O Maker, how do the souls of the\ndead, the Fravashis of the holy Ones, manifest themselves?\" Ahura\nMazda answered: \"They manifest themselves from goodness of spirit\nand excellence of mind.\"\n\nFavardin Yast, 9: \"Through their brightness and glory, O Zarathrustra,\nI maintain the wide earth,\" etc. 12: \"Had not the awful Fravashis\nof the faithful given help unto me, those animals and men of mine,\nof which there are such excellent kinds, would not subsist; strength\nwould belong to the fiend.\"\n\nIn other verses these Fravashis (the word means \"protectors\") help\nthe children unborn, nourish health, develop the wise. The imagery\nrelating to them is largely related to the stars, of which many are\nguardians. These are probably the origin of the Solomonic similitude\nof reason, \"The spirit (nishma) of man is the lamp of----?\"\n\nWith all of these correspondences between the Solomonic proverbs,\nnothing is more remarkable than their originality, so far as\nany ancient scriptures are concerned. While they are totally\ndifferent from the Psalms, in showing man as a citizen of the world,\nrelying on himself and those around him for happiness, and exalting\nnothing above human virtue and intelligence, without any religious\nfervor or wrath, the proverbialist is equally far from the ethical\nsuperstitions of Zoroastrian religion, which abounds in fictitious\n\"merits\" and anathematises fictitious immoralities. It is as if\nsome sublime Eastern pedlar and banker of ethical and poetic gems,\nwho had come in contact with Oriental literatures, had separated\nfrom their liturgies and prophecies the nuggets of gold and the\nprecious stones, polishing, resetting, and exciting others to do the\nlike. At the same time many of the sentences are the expressions of\nan original mind, a man of letters, neither Eastern nor Oriental,\nand these may be labelled with the line of the Persian poet Faizi:\n\"Take Faizi's D\u00edw\u00e1n to bear witness to the wonderful speeches of a\nfreethinker who belongs to a thousand sects.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE SONG OF SONGS.\n\n\nThe praise of the virtuous woman, at the close of the Proverbs,\nis given a Jahvist turn by verse 30: \"Favour is deceitful and beauty\nvain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.\" But the\nSolomonists also had their ideas of the virtuous woman, and of beauty,\nthese being beautifully expressed in a series of dramatic idylls\nentitled The Song of Songs. To this latter, in the original title,\nis added, \"which is Solomon's\"; and it confirms what has been said\nconcerning the superstitious awe of everything proceeding from Solomon,\nand the dread of insulting the Holy Spirit of Wisdom supernaturally\nlodged in him, that we find in the Bible these passionate love\nsongs. And indeed Solomon must have been superlatively wise to have\nwritten poems in which his greatness is slightly ridiculed. That of\ncourse would be by no means incredible in a man of genuine wisdom--on\nthe contrary would be characteristic--if other conditions were met\nby the tradition of his authorship.\n\nAt the outset, however, we are confronted by the question whether\nthe Song of Songs has any general coherency or dramatic character\nat all. Several modern critics of learning, among them Prof. Karl\nBudde and the late Edward Reuss, find the book a collection of\nunconnected lyrics, and Professor Cornill of K\u00f6nigsberg has added\nthe great weight of his name to that opinion (Einleitung in das Alte\nTestament. 1891). Unfortunately Professor Cornill's treatment is brief,\nand not accompanied by a complete analysis of the book. He favors as\na principle Reuss's division of Canticles into separate idylls, and\nthinks most readers import into this collection of songs an imaginary\nsystem and significance. This is certainly true of the \"allegorical\"\npurport, aim, and religious ideas ascribed to the book, but Professor\nCornill's reference to Herder seems to leave the door open for further\ntreatment of the Song of Songs from a purely literary standpoint. He\npraises Herder's discernment in describing the book as a string of\npearls, but passes without criticism or denial Herder's further view\nthat there are indications of editorial modifications of some of\nthe lyrics. For what purpose? Herder also pointed out that various\nindividualities and conditions are represented. This indeed appears\nundeniable: here are prince and shepherd, the tender mother, the cruel\nbrothers, the rough watchman, the dancer, the bride and bridegroom. The\ndramatis person\u00e6 are certainly present: but is there any drama?\n\nAdmitting that there was no ancient Hebrew theatre, the question\nremains whether among the later Hellenic Jews the old songs were\nnot arranged, and new ones added, in some kind of Singspiele or\nvaudeville. There seems to be a chorus. It is hardly consistent\nwith the general artistic quality of the compilation that the lady\nshould say \"I am swarthy but comely,\" or \"I am a lily of the valley\"\n(a gorgeous flower). Surely the compliments are ejaculations of the\nchorus. And may we not ascribe to a chorus the questions, \"Who is\nthis that cometh up out of the wilderness?\" etc. (iii. 6-10.) \"What\nis thy beloved more than another beloved\"? (v. 9.) \"Who is this that\ncometh up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved\"? (viii. 5).\n\nAs in the modern vaudeville songs are often introduced without\nany special relation to the play, so we find in Canticles some\nsongs that might be transposed from one chapter to another without\nmarring the work, but is this the case with all of them? The song\nin the first chapter, for instance, in which the damsel, brought by\nthe King into his palace, tells the ladies of the home she left,\nand of maltreatment by her brothers, who took her from her own\nvineyard and made her work in theirs, where she was sunburnt,--this\ncould not be placed effectively at the end of the book, nor the\ntriumphant line, \"My vineyard, which is mine own, is before me,\"\nbe set at the beginning. This is but one of several instances that\nmight be quoted. Even pearls may be strung with definite purpose,\nas in a rosary, and how perfectly set is the great rose,--the hymn\nto Love in the final chapter! Or to remember Professor Cornill's word\nScenenwechsel, along with his affirmation that the love of human lovers\nis the burden of the \"unrivalled\" book, there are some sequences\nand contrasts which do convey an impression of dissolving views,\nand occasionally reveal a connexion between separate tableaux. For\nexample the same words (which I conjecture to be those of a chorus)\nare used to introduce Solomon in pompous palanquin with grand escort,\nthat are presently used to greet the united lovers.\n\n\n   \"Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness like pillars of\n    smoke?\" (iii. 6.)\n\n    \"Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness\n    Leaning on her beloved?\" (viii. 5.)\n\n\nThese are five chapters apart, yet surely they may be supposed\nconnected without Hineininterpretation. Any single contrast of this\nkind might be supposed a mere coincidence, but there are two others\ndrawn between the swarthy maiden and the monarch. The tableau of\nSolomon in his splendor dissolves into another of his Queen Mother\ncrowning him on the day of his espousal: that of Shulamith leaning on\nher beloved dissolves into another of her mother pledging her to her\nlover in espousals under an apple tree. And then we find (viii. 11,\n12) Solomon's distant vineyards tended by many hirelings contrasted\nwith Shulamith's own little vineyard tended by herself.\n\nThe theory that the book is a collection of bridal songs, and that\nthe mention of Solomon is due to an eastern custom of designating\nthe bridegroom and bride as Solomon and Queen Shulamith, during\ntheir honeymoon, does not seem consistent with the fact that in\nseveral allusions to Solomon his royal state is slighted, whereas only\ncompliments would be paid to a bridegroom. Moreover the two--Shulamith\nand Solomon--are not as persons named together. It will, I think,\nappear as we proceed that the Shelomoh (Solomon) of Canticles\nrepresents a conventionalisation of the monarch, with some traits\nnot found in any other book in the Bible. A verse near the close,\npresently considered, suggests that the bride and bridegroom are at\nthat one point metaphorically pictured as a Solomon and Solomona,\nindicating one feature of the Wise Man's conventionalization.\n\nRenan assigned Canticles the date B. C. 992-952, mainly because in\nit Tirza is coupled with Jerusalem. Tirza was a capital only during\nthose years, and at any later period was too insignificant a town to\nbe spoken of as in the Song vi. 4:\n\n\n   \"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah,\n    Comely as Jerusalem,\n    Dazzling as bannered ranks.\"\n\n\nBut the late Russell Martineau, a thorough and unbiassed scholar,\npoints out in the work phrases from Greek authors of the third\ncentury B. C., and assigns a date not earlier than 247-222. [19]\nBut may it not be that the Alexandrian of the third century built on\nsome earlier foundation, as Shakespeare adapted the \"Pound of Flesh\"\nand the \"Three Caskets\" (Merchant of Venice) from tales traceable as\nfar back as early Buddhist literature? or as Marlowe and Goethe used\nthe medi\u00e6val legend of Faustus?\n\nThe several songs can hardly be assigned to one and the same\ncentury. The coupling of Tirza and Jerusalem points to a remote past\nfor that particular lyric, and is it credible that any Jew after\nJosiah's time could have written the figleafless songs so minutely\ndescriptive of Shulamith's physical charms? Could any Jewish writer of\nthe third century before our era have written iv. 1-7 or vii. 1-9,\nregarding no name or place as too sacred to be pressed into his\nhyperboles of rapture at every detail of the maiden's form, and\nhave done this in perfect innocency, without a blush? Or if such a\npoet could have existed in the later Jahvist times, would his songs\nhave found their place in the Jewish canon? As it was the book was\nadmitted only with a provision that no Jew under thirty years of age\nshould read it. That it was included at all was due to the occult\npious meanings read into it by rabbins, while it is tolerably certain\nthat the realistic flesh-painting would have been expunged but for\nsanctions of antiquity similar to those which now protect so many\nold classics from expurgation by the Vice Societies. These songs,\nsensuous without sensuality, with their Oriental accent, seem ancient\nenough to have been brought by Solomon from Ophir.\n\nOn the other hand a critical reader can hardly ascribe the whole book\nto the Solomonic period. The exquisite exaltation of Love, as a human\npassion (viii. 6, 7), brings us into the refined atmosphere amid which\nEros was developed, and it is immediately followed by a song that\nhardly rises above doggerel (viii. 8, 9). This is an interruption\nof the poem that looks as if suggested by the line that follows it\n(first line of verse 10) and meant to be comic. It impresses me as\na very late interpolation, and by a hand inferior to the Alexandrian\nartist who in style has so well matched the more ancient pieces in his\nliterary mosaic. Herder finds the collection as a whole Solomonic,\nand makes the striking suggestion that its author at a more mature\nage would take the tone of Ecclesiasticus.\n\nConsidered simply as a literary production, the composition makes\non my own mind the impression of a romance conveyed in idylls, each\npresenting a picturesque situation or a scene, the general theme and\nmotif being that of the great Solomonic Psalm.\n\nThis psalm (xlv.), quoted and discussed in chapter III., brings\nbefore us a beautiful maiden brought from a distant region to\nthe court, but not quite happy: she is entreated to forget her\npeople and enjoy the dignities and luxuries offered by her lord,\nthe King. This psalm is remarkable in its intimations of a freedom\nof sentiment accorded to the ladies wooed by Solomon, and the same\nspirit pervades Canticles. Its chief refrain is that love must not be\ncoerced or awakened until it please. This magnanimity might naturally\nconnect the name of Solomon with old songs of love and courtship such\nas those utilised and multiplied in this book, whose composition might\nbe naturally entitled \"A Song (made) of Songs which are Solomon's.\"\n\nThe heroine, whose name is Shulamith,--(feminine of Shelomoh,\nSolomon) [20]--is an only daughter, cherished by her apparently\nwidowed mother but maltreated by her brothers. Incensed against her,\nthey compel Shulamith to keep their vineyards to the neglect of her\nown. She becomes sunburnt, \"swarthy,\" but is very \"attractive,\" and\nis brought by Solomon to his palace, where she delights the ladies\nby her beauty and dances. In what I suppose to be one of the ancient\nSolomonic Songs embodied in the work it is said:\n\n\n   \"There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines,\n    And maidens without number:\n    Beyond compare is my dove, my unsoiled;\n    She is the only one of her mother,\n    The cherished one of her that bare her:\n    The daughters saw her and called her blessed,\n    Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.\" [21]\n\n\nThus far the motif seems to be that of a Cinderella oppressed by\nbrothers but exalted by the most magnificent of princes. But here\nthe plot changes. The magnificence of Solomon cannot allure from her\nshepherd lover this \"lily of the valley.\" Her lover visits her in\nthe palace, where her now relenting brothers (vi. 12) seem to appear\n(though this is doubtful) and witness her triumphs; and all are in\nraptures at her dancing and her amply displayed charms--all unless\none (perhaps the lover) who, according to a doubtful interpretation,\ncomplains that they should gaze at her as at dancers in the camps\n(vi. 13). [22]\n\nAlthough Russell Martineau maintained, against most other commentators,\nthat Solomon is only a part of the scene, and not among the dramatis\nperson\u00e6, the King certainly seems to be occasionally present, as in\nthe following dialogue, where I give the probable, though of course\nconjectural, names. The dancer has approached the King while at table.\n\n\nSolomon--\n\n   \"I have compared thee, O my love,\n    To my steed in Pharaoh's chariot.\n    Thy cheeks are comely with plaits of hair,\n    Thy neck with strings of jewels.\n    We will make thee plaits of gold\n    With studs of silver.\"\n\n\nShulamith, who, on leaving the King, meets her jealous lover--\n\n   \"While the King sat at his table\n    My spikenard sent forth its odor.\n    My beloved is unto me as a bag of myrrh\n    That lieth between my breasts,\n    My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna-flowers\n    In the vineyards of En-gedi.\"\n\n\nShepherd Lover--\n\n   \"Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair;\n    Thine eyes are as doves,\n    Behold thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant:\n    Also our couch is green.\n    The beams of our house are of cedar,\n    And our rafters are of fir.\"\n\n\nShulamith--\n\n   \"I am a (mere) crocus of the plain.\"\n\n\nChorus, or perhaps the Lover--\n\n   \"A lily of the valleys.\"\n\n\nShepherd Lover--\n\n   \"As a lily among thorns\n    So is my love among the daughters.\"\n\n\nShulamith--\n\n   \"As the apple tree among forest trees\n    So is my beloved among the sons.\n    I sat down under his shadow with great delight,\n    And his fruit was sweet to my taste.\"\n\n\nThus we find the damsel anointing the king with her spikenard, but\nfor her the precious fragrance is her shepherd. Against the plaits of\ngold and studs of silver offered in the palace (i. 2) her lover can\nonly point to his cottage of cedar and fir, and a couch of grass. She\nis content to be only a flower of the plain and valley, not for the\nseraglio. Nevertheless she remains to dance in the palace; a sufficient\ntime there is needed by the poet to illustrate the impregnability of\ntrue love against all other splendors and attractions, even those of\nthe Flower of Kings. He however puts no constraint on her, one song,\nthrice repeated, saying to the ladies of the harem--\n\n\n   \"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,\n    By the (free) gazelles, by the hinds in the field,\n    That ye stir not up, nor awaken love,\n    Until it please.\"\n\n\nThis refrain is repeated the second time just before a picture of\nSolomon's glory, shaded by a suggestion that all is not brightness even\naround this Prince of Peace. The ladies of the seraglio are summoned\nto look out and see the passing of the King in state, seated on his\npalanquin of purple and gold, but escorted by armed men \"because of\nfear in the night.\" In immediate contrast with that scene, we see\nShulamith going off with her humble lover, now his bride, to his field\nand to her vineyard, and singing a beautiful song of love, strong as\ndeath, flame-tipped arrow of a god, unquenchable, unpurchaseable.\n\nThough according to the revised version of vi. 12 her relatives are\nprincely, and it may be they who invite her to return (vi. 13), she\nsays, \"I am my beloved's.\" With him she will go into the field and\nlodge in the village (vii. 10, 11). She finds her own little garden\nand does not envy Solomon.\n\n\n   \"Solomon hath a vineyard at Baalhamon;\n    He hath let out the vineyard to keepers;\n    Each for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of\n    silver:\n    My vineyard, which is mine, is before me:\n    Thou, O Solomon, shall have the thousand,\n    And those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.\"\n\n\nThere was, as we see in Koheleth, a prevailing tradition that Solomon\nfelt the hollowness of his palatial life. \"See life with a woman thou\nlovest.\" The wife is the fountain:\n\n\n   \"Bethink thee of thy fountain\n    In the days of thy youth.\"\n\n\nThis perhaps gave rise to a theory that the shepherd lover was Solomon\nhimself in disguise, like the god Krishna among the cow-maidens. It\ndoes not appear probable that any thought of that kind was in\nthe writer of this Song. Certainly there appears not to be any\npurpose of lowering Solomon personally in enthroning Love above\nhim. There is no hint of any religious or moral objection to him,\nand indeed throughout the work Solomon appears in a favourable\nlight personally,--he is beloved by the daughters of Jerusalem\n(v. 10)--though his royal estate is, as we have seen, shown in a light\nnot altogether enviable. Threescore mighty men guard him: \"every man\nhath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night,\" and the\nday of his heart's gladness was the day of his espousals (iii. 8, 11).\n\nIt is not improbable that there is an allusion to Solomon's magic seal\nin the first lines of the hymn to Love (viii. 6). The legend of the\nRing must have been long in growing to the form in which it is found in\nthe Talmud, where it is said that Solomon's \"fear in the night\" arose\nfrom his apprehension that the Devil might again get hold of his Ring,\nwith which he (Aschmedai) once wrought much mischief. (Gittin. Vol. 68,\ncol. 1, 2). The hymn strikes me as late Alexandrian:\n\n\n   \"Wear me as a seal on thy breast\n    As a seal-ring on thine arm:\n    For love is strong as death,\n    Its passion unappeasable as the grave;\n    Its shafts are arrows of fire,\n    The lightnings of a god. [Jah.]\n    Many waters cannot quench love,\n    Deluges cannot overwhelm it.\n    Should a noble offer all the wealth of his house for love\n    It would be utterly spurned.\"\n\n\nExcluding the interrupting verses 8 and 9, the hymn is followed by a\nsong about Solomon's vineyard, preceded by two lines which appear to\nme to possess a significance overlooked by commentators. Shulamith\n(evidently) speaks:\n\n\n   \"I was a wall, my breasts like its towers:\n    Thus have I been in his eyes as one finding peace.\n    Solomon hath a vineyard,\" etc. [as above.]\n\n\nThe word \"peace\" is Shal\u00f4m; it is immediately followed by Shelomoh\n(Solomon, \"peaceful\"); and Shulamith (also meaning \"peaceful\"), thus\nbrings together the fortress of her lover's peace, her own breast,\nand the fortifications built by the peaceful King (who never attacked\nbut was always prepared for defence). Here surely, at the close of\nCanticles, is a sort of tableau: Shal\u00f4m, Shulamith, Shelomoh: Peace,\nthe prince of Peace, the queen of Peace. If this were the only lyric\none would surely infer that these were the bride and bridegroom, under\nthe benediction of Peace. It is not improbable that at this climax of\nthe poem Shulamith means that in her lover she has found her Solomon,\nand he found in her his Solomona,--their reciprocal strongholds of\nShal\u00f4m or Peace.\n\nOf course my interpretations of the Song of Songs are largely\nconjectural, as all other interpretations necessarily are. The songs\nare there to be somehow explained, and it is of importance that every\nunbiassed student of the book should state his conjectures, these\nbeing based on the contents of the book, and not on the dogmatic\ntheories which have been projected into it. I have been compelled,\nunder the necessary limitations of an essay like the present, to omit\ninteresting details in the work, but have endeavoured to convey the\nimpression left on my own mind by a totally unprejudiced study. The\nconviction has grown upon me with every step that, even at the lowest\ndate ever assigned it, the work represents the earliest full expression\nof romantic love known in any language. It is so entirely free from\nfabulous, supernatural, or even pious incidents and accents, so human\nand realistic, that its having escaped the modern playwright can only\nbe attributed to the superstitious encrustations by which its beauty\nhas been concealed for many centuries.\n\nThis process of perversion was begun by Jewish Jahvists, but they have\nbeen far surpassed by our A. S. version, whose solemn nonsense at\nmost of the chapter heads in the Bible here reached its climax. It\nis a remarkable illustration of the depths of fatuity to which\nclerical minds may be brought by prepossession, that the closing\nchapter of Canticles, with its beautiful exaltation of romantic love,\ncould be headed: \"The love of the Church to Christ. The vehemency of\nLove. The calling of the Gentiles. The Church Prayeth for Christ's\ncoming.\" The \"Higher Criticism\" is now turning the headings into\ncomedy, but they have done--nay, are continuing--their very serious\nwork of misdirection.\n\nIt has already been noted that the Jewish doctors exalted Bathsheba,\nadulteress as she was, into a blessed woman, probably because of the\nallusion to her in the Song (iii. 2) as having crowned her royal Son,\nwho had become mystical; and it can only be ascribed to Protestantism\nthat, instead of the Queen-Mother Mary, the Church becomes Bathsheba's\nsuccessor in our version: \"The Church glorieth in Christ.\" And of\ncourse the shepherd lover's feeding (his flock) among the lilies\nbecomes \"Christ's care of the Church.\"\n\nBut for such fantasies the beautiful Song of Songs might indeed never\nhave been preserved at all, yet is it a scandal that Bibles containing\nchapter-headings known by all educated Christians to be falsifications,\nshould be circulated in every part of the world, and chiefly among\nignorant and easily misled minds. These simple people, reading the\nanathemas pronounced in their Bibles on those who add anything to the\nbook given them as the \"Word of God\" (Deuteronomy iv. 2, xii. 32,\nProverbs xxx. 6, Revelation xxii. 18), cannot imagine that these\nchapter-headings are not in the original books, but forged. And what\ncan be more brazenly fraudulent than the chapter-heading to one of\nthese very passages (Revelation xxii. 18, 19), where nothing is said\nof the \"Word of God,\" but over which is printed: \"18. Nothing may be\nadded to the word of God, nor taken therefrom.\" But even the learned\ncannot quite escape the effect of these perversions. How far they reach\nis illustrated in the fate of Mary Magdalen, a perfectly innocent woman\naccording to the New Testament, yet by a single chapter-heading in Luke\nbranded for all time as the \"sinner\" who anointed Jesus,--\"Magdalen\"\nbeing now in our dictionaries as a repentant prostitute. Yet there are\nhundreds of additions to the Bible more harmful than this,--additions\nwhich, whether honestly made or not originally, are now notoriously\nfraudulent. It is especially necessary in the interest of the Solomonic\nand secular literature in the Bible that Truth shall be liberated from\nthe malarious well--Jahvist and ecclesiastical--in which she has long\nbeen sunk by mistranslation, interpolation, and chapter-headings. The\nChristian churches are to be credited with having produced critics\nbrave enough to expose most of these impositions, and it is now the\nmanifest duty of all public teachers and literary leaders to uphold\nthose scholars, to protest against the continuance of the propaganda\nof pious frauds, and to insist upon the supremacy of truth.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nKOHELETH (ECCLESIASTES).\n\n\nIn the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1897, a writer, in giving his\npersonal reminiscences of Tennyson, relates an anecdote concerning the\npoet and the Rev. F. D. Maurice. Speaking of Ecclesiastes (Koheleth),\nTennyson said it was the one book the admission of which into the\ncanon he could not understand, it was so utterly pessimistic--of the\nearth, earthy. Maurice fired up. \"Yes, if you leave out the last two\nverses. But the conclusion of the whole matter is, 'Fear God and keep\nHis commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall\nbring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it\nbe good or whether it be evil.' So long as you look only down upon\nearth, all is 'vanity of vanities.' But if you look up there is a God,\nthe judge of good and evil.\" Tennyson said he would think over the\nmatter from that point of view.\n\nThis amusing incident must have caused a ripple of laughter in\nscholastic circles, now that the labors of Cheyne, Renan, Dillon,\nand others, have left little doubt that both of the verses cited\nby Maurice are later editorial additions. They alone, he admitted,\ncould save the book, and the charm of the incident is that the verses\nwere placed there by ancient Maurices to induce ancient Tennysons to\n\"think over the matter from that point of view.\" The result was that\nthe previously rejected book was admitted into the canon by precisely\nthe same force which continued its work at Faringford, and continues\nit to this day. Only one must not suppose that Mr. Maurice was aware\nof the ungenuineness of the verses. He was an honest gentleman,\nbut so ingeniously mystical that had the two verses not been there\nhe could readily have found others of equally transcendant and holy\nsignificance, without even resorting to other pious interpolations\nin the book.\n\nTennyson was curiously unconscious of his own pessimism. When any one\nquestioned the belief in a future life in his presence his vehemence\nwithout argument betrayed his sub-conscious misgivings, while his\nindignation ran over all the conditional resentments of Job. I have\nheard that he said to Tyndall that if he knew there was no future\nlife he would regard the creator of human beings as a demon, and\nshake his fist in His eternal face. This rage was based in a more\nprofoundly pessimistic view of the present life than anything even\nin Ecclesiastes,--by which name may be happily distinguished the\ndisordered, perverted, and mistranslated Koheleth.\n\nIt appears evident that the sentence which opens Koheleth,--in our\nBibles \"All is vanity, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all\nis vanity,\"--is as mere a Jahvist chapter-heading as that of our\nA. S. translators: \"The Preacher showeth that all human courses are\nvain.\" It is repeated as the second of the eight verses added at the\nend of the work. Koheleth does not label the whole of things vanity;\nin a majority of cases the things he calls vain are vain; and some\nthings he finds not vanity,--youth, and wedded love, and work that\nis congenial.\n\nRenan (Histoire du Peuple d'Isra\u00ebl, Tome 5, p. 158) has shown\nconclusively, as I think, that the signature on this book, QHLT,\nis a mere letter-play on the word \"Solomon,\" and the eagerness\nwith which the letters were turned into Koheleth (which really\nmeans Preacheress), and to make Solomon's inner spouse a preacher\nof the vanities of pleasure and the wisdom of fearing God, is thus\nnaively indicated in the successive names of the book, \"Koheleth\"\nand \"Ecclesiastes.\" We are thus warned by the title to pick our way\ncarefully where the Jahvist and the Ecclesiastic have been before us;\nremembering especially that though piety may induce men to forge\nthings, this is never done lightly. As people now do not commit\nforgery for a shilling, so neither did those who placed spurious\nsentences or phrases in nearly every chapter of the Bible do so for\nanything they did not consider vital to morality or to salvation. In\nEcclesiastes we must be especially suspicious of the very serious\nreligious points. Fortunately the style of the book renders it\nparticularly subject to the critical and literary touchstone.\n\nIs it necessary to point out to any man of literary instinct the\ninterpolation bracketed in the following verses? \"Rejoice, O young\nman, in thy youth, and let thy heart gladden thee in the flower of thy\nage, and walk in the paths of thy heart, and according to the vision\nof thine eyes [but know thou that for all these things God will bring\nthee into judgment], and banish discontent from thy heart, and put away\nevil from thy flesh; for youth and dawn are fleeting. Remember also\nthy fountain in the days of thy youth, or ever the evil days come or\nthe years draw nigh in which thou shalt say I have no delight in them.\"\n\nIt is only by removing the bracketed clause that any consistency can be\nfound in the lyric, which Professor Cheyne compares with the following\nsong by the ancient Egyptian harper at the funeral feast of Neferhotap:\n\n\n   \"Make a good day, O holy fathers!\n    Let odors and oils stand before thy nostril;\n    Wreaths and lotus are on the arms and bosom of thy sister\n    Dwelling in thy heart, sitting beside thee.\n    Let song and music be before thy face,\n    And leave behind thee all evil dirges!\n    Mind thee of joy, till cometh the day of pilgrimage,\n    When we draw near the land that loveth silence.\" [23]\n\n\nThere is no historical means of determining what writings of Solomon\nare preserved in the Bible and even in the apocryphal books. One may\nfeel that Goethe recognised a brother spirit in that far epoch when\nhe selected for his proverb:\n\n\n   \"Apples of gold in chased work of silver,\n    A word smoothly spoken.\"\n\n\nKoheleth too appreciated this, and also (x. 12) uses almost literally\nProverbs xii. 18, \"The tongue of the wise is gentleness.\" (Compare\nShakespeare's words, \"Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.\") The\nlines previously cited, \"Rejoice O young man, etc.,\" are also probably\nquoted, as they are given in poetical quatrains. There are many of\nthese quatrains introduced into the book, from the prose context of\nwhich they differ in style and sometimes in sense.\n\nIn none of these metrical quotations (as I believe them to be) is\nthere any belief in God, the only instance in which the word \"God\"\nis mentioned being an ironical maxim about the danger coming from\nmonarchs because of their oaths to their God, with whom they identify\ntheir own ways and wishes. Such seems to me the meaning of the lines\n(viii. 2, 4) which Dillon translates--\n\n\n   \"The wise man harkens to the king's command,\n    By reason of the oath to God.\n    Mighty is the word of the monarch:\n    Who dares ask him, 'What dost thou?'\"\n\n\nWith this compare Proverbs xxi. 1, \"The king's heart is in the hand\nof the Lord (Jahveh) as the water-courses; he turneth it whithersoever\nhe will.\" This proverb is evidently by a Jahvist, and Koheleth quotes\nanother which signifies rather \"Jahveh is in the king's caprice.\" But\nhe adopts the neighbouring proverb, \"To do justice and judgment is\nmore acceptable to Jahveh than sacrifice.\" Koheleth says, and this\nis not quoted--\"To draw near to (God) in order to learn, is better\nthan the offering of sacrifices by fools.\"\n\nAlthough the verses quoted by Maurice to Tennyson (xii. 13, 14) are not\ngenuinely in Koheleth they correspond with sentences in the genuine\ntext of very different import. Koheleth, though his quotations are\ngodless, believes there is a God, and a formidable one. Sometimes he\nrefers to him as Fate, sometimes as the unknowable, but as without\nmoral quality. \"To the just men that happeneth which should befall\nwrong-doers; and that happeneth for criminals which should be the lot\nof the upright\" (viii. 14), and \"neither (God's) love nor hatred doth\na man foresee\" (ix. 1). God has set prosperity and adversity side by\nside for the express purpose of hiding Himself from human knowledge\n(vii. 14); not, alas, as the Yalkut Koheleth suggests, in order that\none may help the other. God does benefit those who please him, and\npunish those who displease him; this is 'good' and 'evil' to Him; but\nit has no relation with the humanly good and evil (viii. 11-14). As\nit is evident that God's favor is not secured by good works nor his\ndisfavor incurred by evil works, a prudent man will consider that\nit may perhaps be a matter of etiquette, and will be punctilious,\nespecially \"in the house of God\"; he will not speak rashly and then\nhope to escape by saying \"it was rashness.\" His words had better be\nfew, and if he makes any vow (which may well be avoided) he should\nperform it. But as for practical life and conduct, God, or fate,\nis clearly indifferent to it, consequently let a man eat his bread\nand quaff his wine with joy, love his wife,--the best portion of\nhis lot,--and whatever his hand findeth to do that do with vigor,\nremembering that \"there is no work, nor thought, nor knowledge,\nnor wisdom, in the inevitable grave.\"\n\nSuch is Koheleth's conception of life, which, except so far as it\nis marred by a vague notion of Fate which is fatal to philanthropy,\nis not very different from the idea growing in our own time. \"The\nAll is a never-ceasing whirl\" (i. 8), and Koheleth advises that each\nindividual man try to make what little circle of happiness he can\naround him. \"O my heart!\" says Omar Khayy\u00e1m, \"thou wilt never penetrate\nthe mysteries of the heavens; thou wilt never reach that culminating\npoint of wisdom which the intrepid omniscients have attained. Resign\nthyself then to make what little paradise thou canst here below. As\nfor that close-barred seraglio beyond thou shalt arrive there--or\nthou shalt not!\"\n\nIt is, however, impossible for any church or priesthood to be\nmaintained on any such principles. Where mankind believe with Koheleth\nthat whatever God does is forever, that nothing can be superadded\nto it nor aught be taken away; and that God has so contrived that\nman must fear Him; they will have no use for any paraphernalia for\nsoftening the irrevocable decrees of a Judgment Day already past. But\nKoheleth's arrows, feathered with wit and eloquence, were logically\nshot from the Jahvist arquebus. It was Jahveh himself who proudly\nclaimed that he created good and evil, and that if there were evil in\na city it was his work. It was Jahveh's own prophet, Isaiah, who cried\n(lxiii. 17), \"O Lord, why dost Thou make us to err from Thy ways,\nand hardenest our heart from Thy fear?\"\n\nWhat then could Jahvism say when a time arrived wherein it must defend\nitself against a Jahveh-created world?\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nWISDOM (ECCLESIASTICUS).\n\n\nIt was necessary that Koheleth should be answered, but who was\ncompetent for this? A fable had been invented of a Solomonic serpent\nwho had tempted Eve to taste the fruit of knowledge which, when the\nman shared it, brought a curse on the earth, but the canonical prophets\ndo not appear to have heard of it, and at any rate it was too late in\nthe day to meet fact with fable. Nor had Jahveh's whirlwind-answer\nto Job proved effectual. However, some sort of answer did come,\nand significantly enough it had to come from Koheleth's own quarter,\nthe Wisdom school. Pure Jahvism had not brains enough for the task.\n\nThe apocryphal book \"Ecclesiasticus\" is the antidote to\nEcclesiastes. (These are the Christian names given to the two\nbooks.) This book, bearing the simple title \"Wisdom,\" compiled and\npartly written by Jesus Ben Sira early in the second century B. C.,\nis as a whole much more than an offset to Koheleth. It is a great\nthough unintentional literary monument to Solomon, and it is the book\nof reconciliation, or so intended, between Solomonism and Jahvism,--or,\nas we should now say, between philosophy and theology.\n\nThe newly discovered original Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus xxxix. 15,\nxlix. 11, published by the Clarendon Press in 1897, enables us to read\ncorrectly for the first time the portraiture of Solomon in xlvii.,\nwith the assistance of Wace and other scholars:\n\n\n    12. After him [David] rose up a wise son, and for his [David's]\n    sake he dwelt in quiet.\n\n    13. Solomon reigned in days of prosperity, and was honoured, and\n    God gave rest to him round about that he might build an house in\n    his name, and prepare his sanctuary for ever.\n\n    14. How wast thou wise in thy youth, and didst overflow with\n    instruction like the Nile!\n\n    15. The earth (was covered by thy soul) and thou didst celebrate\n    song in the height.\n\n    16. Thy name went far unto the islands, and for thy peace thou\n    wast beloved.\n\n    17. The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs, and proverbs,\n    and parables, and interpretations.\n\n    18. Thou wast called by the glorious name which is called over\n    Israel.\n\n    18a. Thou didst gather gold as tin, and didst gather silver\n    as lead.\n\n    19. But thou gavest thy loins unto women, and lettest them have\n    dominion over thy body.\n\n    20. Thou didst stain thy honour and pollute thy seed; so that\n    thou broughtest wrath upon thy children, that they should groan\n    in their beds.\n\n    21. That the kingdom should be divided: and out of Ephraim ruled\n    a rebel kingdom.\n\n    22. But the Lord will never leave off his mercy, neither shall\n    any of his words perish, neither will he abolish the posterity of\n    his elect, and the seed of him that loveth him he will not take\n    away: wherefore he gave a remnant unto Jacob, and out of him a\n    root unto David.\n\n    23. Thus rested Solomon with his fathers, and of his seed he left\n    behind him Rehoboam [of the lineage of Ammon], ample in foolishness\n    and lacking understanding, who by his council let loose the people.\n\n\nIn the last sentence I have inserted in crochets an alternative\nreading of Fritzsche for the three words that follow. (Rehoboam's\nAmmonite mother was Naamah.)\n\nIt will be noticed that early in the second century B. C. there\nremained no trace of the anathemas on Solomon for his foreign or\nhis idolatrous wives. He is now simply accused of being too fond of\nwomen,--a charge not known to the canonical books.\n\nThe verse 18 attests the correctness of the view taken of the\nforty-fifth Psalm in chapter III., written before this Clarendon\nPress volume appeared. It thus becomes certain that the Psalm was\nrecognised as written in Solomon's time, and that it was he who was\nthere addressed as \"God\" (\"the glorious name\").\n\nThe mention of this fact in \"Wisdom,\" and the enthusiasm pervading\nevery sentence of the tribute to Solomon, despite his alleged\nsensuality, supply conclusive evidence that the cult of Solomon had\nfor more than eight centuries been continuous, that it was at length\nprevailing, and that it had become necessary for a broad wing of\nJahvism to include the Solomonic worldly wisdom and ethics.\n\nJesus Ben Sira states that he found a book written by his learned\ngrandfather, whose name was also Jesus, who had studied many works of\n\"our fathers,\" and added to them writings of his own. The anonymous\npreface states that Sira, son of the first Jesus, left it to his son,\nand that \"this Jesus did imitate Solomon.\"\n\nIt is not said that Sira contributed anything to this composite work,\nyet there appear to be three minds in it. There is a fine and free\nphilosophy which savors of the earliest traditions of the Solomonic\nSchool; there is an exceptionally morose Jahvism; and there is also\nmysticism, an attempt to rationalise and soften the Jahvism, and to\nsolemnise the philosophy, so as to blend them in a kind of harmonious\nreligion. I cannot help feeling that Sira or some friend of his must\nhave inserted the Jahvism between the grandfather and the grandson.\n\nHowever this may be, it is evident that Jesus Ben Sira was too\nreverent to seriously alter anything in the volume before him,\nfor the contrast is startling between the hard Jahvism and the\nphilosophy of life. Their inclusion in one work is like the union\nof oil and vinegar. The Jahvism is curiously bald: fear Jahveh, keep\nhis commandments, pay your tithes, say your prayers, be severe with\nyour children (especially daughters), never play with them, guard\nyour wife vigilantly, flog your servants. The philosophy is quite\nincongruous with this formalism and rigidity, most of the maxims\nbeing elaborated with care, and only proverbs in form. Some of them\nare almost Shakespearian in artistic expression:\n\n\n    \"Pipe and harp make sweet the song, but a sincere tongue is above\n    them both.\"\n\n    \"Wisdom hid, and treasure hoarded, what value is in either?\"\n\n    \"The fool's heart is in his mouth, the wise man's mouth is in\n    his heart.\"\n\n    \"There is no riches above a sound body, and no joy above that of\n    the heart.\"\n\n    \"Whoso regardeth dreams is as one who grasps at his shadow.\"\n\n    \"The evil man cursing Satan is but cursing himself.\"\n\n    \"The bars of Wisdom shall be thy fortress, her chains thy robe\n    of honour.\"\n\n\nAbout the rendering of xli. 15 there is some doubt, and I give this\nconjecture:\n\n\n    Better the (ignorant) that hideth his folly, than the (learned)\n    who hideth his wisdom.\n\n\nIn the Bible which belonged to the historian Gibbon, loaned by\nthe late General Meredith Read to the Gibbon exhibition in London,\nI observed a pencil mark around these sentences in \"Wisdom\":\n\n\n   \"He that buildeth his house with other men's money, is like one\n    that gathereth stones for the tomb of his own burial.\"\n\n   \"He that is not wise will not be taught, but there is a wisdom\n    that multiplieth bitterness.\"\n\n\nTo Jesus Ben Sira we may, I believe, ascribe the following:\n\n\n   \"Glorifying God, exalt him as far as your thought can reach, yet\n    you will never attain to his height: praising him, put forth all\n    your powers, be not weary, yet ever will they fall short. Who hath\n    seen him that he can tell us? Who can describe him as he is? Let\n    us still be rejoicing in him, for we shall not search him out:\n    he is great beyond his works.\"\n\n\nThis has an interesting correspondence with the beautiful rapture of\nthe Persian S\u00e2di:\n\n\n   \"They who pretend to be informed are ignorant, for they who have\n    known him have not recovered their senses. O thou who towerest\n    above the heights of imagination, thought, or conjecture,\n    surpassing all that has been related, and excelling all that we\n    have heard or read, the banquet is ended, the congregation is\n    dismissed, and life draws to a close, and we still rest in our\n    first encomium of thee!\"\n\n\nTo Jesus Ben Sira may be safely ascribed the passages that bear\nwitness to the pressure of problems which, though old, appear in\nnew forms under Hellenic influences. They grow urgent and threaten\nthe foundations of Jahvism. It was no longer sufficient to say that\nJahveh rewarded virtue and piety, and punished vice and impiety in\nthis world. Job had demanded the evidence for this, and the centuries\nhad brought none. Job was awarded some recompense in this world,\nbut that happy experience did not attend other virtuous sufferers.\n\nThe doctrine of one writer in \"Wisdom\" is simply predestination. Paul's\npotter-and-clay similitude is anticipated, and the Parsi dualism\ncuriously adapted to Jahvist monotheism: \"Good is set against evil,\nlife against death, the godly against the sinner and the sinner\nagainst the godly: look through all the works of the Most High and\nthere are two and two, one against another.\" But the liberal son of\nSira is more optimist: \"All things are double, one against another,\nbut he hath made nothing imperfect: one thing establisheth the good of\nanother.\" Freedom of the will is asserted: \"Say not, he hath caused\nme to err, for he hath no need of the evildoer. He made man from the\nbeginning and left him in the hand of his (own) counsel.... He hath\nset fire and water before thee, stretch forth thy hand to whichever\nthou wilt. Before man is the living and the not-living, and whichever\nhe liketh shall be given him.\"\n\nBut the doctrine of human free agency is pregnant with polemics;\nit has so been in Christian history, as is proved by the Pelagian,\nArminian, Jesuit, and Wesleyan movements. There are indications in\nBen Sira's work that the foundations of Jahvism were threatened by\na moral scepticism. His own celebration of the Fathers was enough to\nbring into dreary contrast the tragedies of his own time and glories\nof the Past, when \"Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under\nhis vine and fig-tree, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, all the days\nof Solomon.\" What shelter now in the divine fig-tree, which could\nbear nothing but legendary or predictive leaves? The curse on the\nbarren tree was near at hand when Jesus Ben Sira uttered his pathetic\ncomplaint, veiled in prayer:\n\n\n   \"Have mercy on us, O Lord God of all, and regard us! Send thy\n    fear on all the nations that seek thee not; lift thy hand against\n    them, let them see thy power! As thou wast (of old) sanctified\n    in us before them, be thou (now) magnified among them before us;\n    and let them know thee, as we have known thee,--that there is, O\n    God, no God but thou alone! Show new signs, more strange wonders;\n    glorify thy hand and thy right arm, that they may publish thy\n    wondrous works! Raise up indignation, pour out wrath, remove\n    the adversary, destroy the enemy: hasten! remember thy covenant,\n    and let them witness thy wonderful works!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE WISDOM OF SOLOMON.\n\n\nSomewhat more than a century after Jesus Ben Sira's work, came\nan answer to his prayer, not from above but from beneath, in the\nso-called \"Psalter of Solomon.\" This is no wisdom book, and need not\ndetain us. It is mainly a hash--one may say a mess--made up out of\nthe Psalms; and though some of the allusions, apparently to Pompey\nand others, may possess value in other connexions, the work need\nonly be mentioned here as an indication of the fate which Solomon\nmet at the hands of Jahvism. The name of the Wisest of his race on\nthis vulgar production is like the doggerel on Shakespeare's tomb,\nand the fling at England's greatest poet written on the tomb of his\ndaughter,--\"Wise to salvation was good Mistriss Hall,\" etc.\n\nBefore passing, it may be remarked that the obvious allusions to Christ\nin this Psalter seem clearly spurious, and for one I cannot regard\nas other than a late interpolation verse 24 of Psalter-Psalm xvii.:\n\"Behold, O God, and raise up unto them their king, the Son of David,\nin the time which thou, O God, knowest, that he may reign over Israel\nthy servant.\" There is nothing in the literature of the time before or\nafter that would warrant the concession to this ranting Salvationist\n(B. C. 70-60) of an idea which would then have been original. The\nverse has the accent of a Second Adventist a century later. The title\n\"Son of David\" occurs even in the New Testament but sixteen times.\n\nThe Psalter is in spirit thoroughly Jahvist, narrow, hard, without\none ray of Solomonic wisdom or wit. It may fairly be regarded as\nthe sepulchre of the wise man whose name it bears (though not in its\ntext). Jahvism has here triumphed over the whole cult of Wisdom.\n\nBut Solomon is not to rest there. He is again evoked, though not\nyet in his ancient secular greatness, by the next work that claims\nour attention.\n\nThis last of the Wisdom Books bears the heading \"Wisdom of Solomon\"\n(Sophia Solomontos) and gives unmistakable identifications of the\nKing, though herein also the name \"Solomon\" appears only in the\ntitle. Perhaps the writer may have wished to avoid exciting the\nridicule or resentment of the Solomonists by plainly connecting the\nname of their founder with a retractation of all the secularism and the\nheresies anciently associated with him. The aristocratic Sadducees,\nwho believed not in immortality, derived their name from Solomon's\nfamous chaplain, Zadok.\n\nThis \"Wisdom of Solomon\" probably appeared not far from the first\nyear of our era. It is written in almost classical Greek, is full of\nstriking and poetic interpretations and spiritualisations of Jewish\nlegends, and transfused with a piety at once warm and mystical. Solomon\nis summoned much in the way that the \"Wandering Jew,\" Ahasuerus, is\ncalled up in Shelley's \"Prometheus,\" yet not quite allegorically,\nto testify concerning the Past, and concerning the mysteries of\nthe invisible world. He has left behind his secularist Proverbs\nand his worldly wisdom; but though he now rises as a prophet of\notherworldliness, not a word is uttered inconsistent with his having\nbeen a saint from the beginning, albeit \"chastised\" and \"proved.\" In\nfact he gives his spiritual autobiography, which is that of a Son\nof God wise and \"undefiled\" from childhood. His burden is to warn\nthe kings and judges of the world of the blessedness that awaits the\nrighteous,--the misery that awaits the unrighteous,--beyond the grave.\n\nThe work impresses me as having been written by one who had long\nbeen an enthusiastic Solomonist, but who had been spiritually\nrevolutionised by attaining the new belief of immortality. It does\nnot appear as if the apparition of Solomon was to this writer a\nsimple imagination. Solomon seems to be alive, or rather as if never\ndead. \"For thou (God) hast power of life and death: thou leadest to\nthe gates of Hades, and bringest up again.\" \"The giving heed unto her\n(Wisdom's) laws is the assurance of incorruption; and incorruption\nmaketh us near unto God: therefore the desire of Wisdom bringeth to\na Kingdom.\"\n\nThe Jewish people idealised Solomon's reign long before they idealised\nthe man himself; and indeed he had to reach his halo under personified\nepithets derived from his fame,--as \"Melchizedek,\" and \"Prince of\nPeace.\" The nation sighed for the restoration of his splendid empire,\nbut could not describe their Coming Man as a returning Solomon,\nbecause the priests and prophets,--a gentry little respected by\nthe Wise Man,--steadily ascribed all the national misfortunes to the\nshrines built to other deities than Jahveh by the royal Citizen of the\nWorld. Thus grew such prophetic indirections as \"the House of David,\"\n\"Jesse's branch,\" and finally \"Son of David.\"\n\nBut this idea of the returning hero does not appear to have been\noriginal with any Semitic people; it is first found among them in the\nOriental book of Job, who longs to sleep in some cavern for ages,\nthen reappear, and, even if his flesh were shrivelled, find that\nhis good name was vindicated (xiv.). This idea of the Sleeping Hero\n(which is traced in many examples in my work on The Wandering Jew)\nappears to have gained its earliest expression in the legend of King\nYima, in Persia,--the original of such sleepers as Barbarossa and\nKing Arthur, as well as of the legendary Enoch, Moses, and Elias, who\nwere to precede or attend the revived Son of David. Solomon, whose\nname probably gave Jerusalem the peaceful half of its name (Salem)\nwould no doubt have been central among the \"Undying Ones\" had it not\nbeen for the Parliament of Religions he set up in that city. But he\nhad to wait a thousand years for his honorable fame to awaken.\n\nIn the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" the Queen of Sheba is also recalled into\nlife. She is, as Renan pointed out, transfigured in the personified\nWisdom, and her gifts become mystical. \"All good things together came\nto me with her,\" and \"Wisdom goeth before them: and I knew not that\nshe was the mother of them.\" She is amiable, beautiful, and gave him\nhis knowledge:\n\n\"All such things as are secret or manifest, them I knew. For Wisdom,\nwhich is the worker of all things, taught me: for in her is an\nunderstanding spirit, holy, one only, manifold; subtle, lively,\nclear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that\nis good, quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good, kind to\nman, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing\nall things, and pervading all intellectual, pure, and most subtle\nspirits. For Wisdom is more moving than motion itself; she passeth\nand goeth through all things by reason of her pureness. For she is the\nbreath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory\nof the Almighty: therefore can no impure thing fall into her. For she\nis the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of\nthe power of God, and the image of his goodness. And alone, she can\ndo all things; herself unchanged, she maketh all things new; and in\nall ages, entering into holy souls, she maketh them intimates of God,\nand prophets. For God loveth only him who dwelleth with Wisdom. She\nis more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars;\ncompared with the light she is found before it,--for after light\ncometh night, but evil shall not prevail against Wisdom.\" (vii. 21-30.)\n\nIn Sophia Solomontos Solomon relates his espousal of Wisdom,\nwho sat beside the throne of God (ix. 4). But there remains with\nGod a detective Wisdom called the Holy Spirit. Wisdom and the Holy\nSpirit have different functions. \"Thy counsel who hath known except\nthou give Wisdom, and send thy Holy Spirit from above?\" This verse\n(ix. 17) is followed by two chapters (x., xi.) relating the work of\nWisdom through past ages as a Saviour. But then comes an account\nof the severe chastening functions of the Holy Spirit. \"For thine\nincorruptible Spirit is in all things (i. e., nothing is concealed\nfrom her), therefore chastenest thou them by little and little that\noffend,\" etc. (xii. 1, 2.)\n\nThere is here a slight variation in the historic development of the\nSpirit of God, and one so pregnant with results that it may be well\nto refer to some of the earlier Hebrew conceptions. The Spirit of\nGod described in Genesis i. 2, as \"brooding\" over the waters was\nevidently meant to represent a detached agent of the deity. The\nlegend is obviously related to that of the dove going forth over\nthe waters of the deluge. The dove probably acquired its symbolical\ncharacter as a messenger between earth and heaven from the marvellous\npowers of the carrier pigeon--powers well known in ancient Egypt--it\nalso appears that its cooing was believed to be an echo on earth\nof the voice of God. [24] We have already seen (viii.) that Wisdom,\nwhen first personified, was identified with this \"brooding\" spirit\nover the surface of the waters, and also that in a second (Jahvist)\npersonification she is a severe and reproving agent. But in the\nsecond verse of Genesis there is a darkness on the abyss, and both\ndarkness and abyss were personified. In the rigid development of\nmonotheism all of these beings were necessarily regarded as agents\nof Jahveh--monopolist of all powers. We thus find such accounts as\nthat in 1 Samuel 16, where the Spirit of Jahveh departed from Saul\nand an evil Spirit from Jahveh troubled him.\n\nAlthough the Spirit of God was generally supposed to convey miraculous\nknowledge, especially of future events, and superior skill, it is\nnot, I believe, in any book earlier than Sophia Solomontos definitely\nascribed the function of a detective. There is in Ecclesiastes (x. 20)\na passage which suggests the carrier: \"Curse not the King, no, not\nin thy thought; and curse not the rich even in thy bedchamber; for\na bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings\nshall tell the matter.\" [25] This was evidently in the mind of the\nwriter of Sophia Solomontos in the following verses:\n\nWisdom is a loving Spirit, and will not (cannot?) acquit a blasphemer\nof his words: for God is a witness of his reins, and a true beholder\nof his heart, and a hearer of his tongue; for the Spirit of the\nLord filleth the world, and that which containeth all things hath\nknowledge of the voice; therefore he that speaketh unrighteous things\ncannot be hid, neither shall vengeance when it punisheth, pass by\nhim. For inquisition shall be made into the counsels of the ungodly;\nthe sound of his words shall come unto the Lord for the disclosure\nof his wickedness, the ear of jealousy heareth all things, and the\nsound even of murmurings is not secret.\"\n\nHere we have the origin of the \"unpardonable sin.\" The Holy Spirit\ndetects and informs, Jahveh avenges, and if the offence is blasphemy,\nWisdom, the Saviour, cannot acquit (as the \"Loving Spirit\" of God\nit is for her ultra vires). This detective Holy Spirit appears to\nbe an evolution from both Wisdom and Satan the Accuser, in Job a Son\nof God. By associating with Solomon on earth, Wisdom was without the\nsevere holiness essential to Jahvist conceptions of divine government;\nin other words, personified Wisdom, whose \"delight was with the sons\nof men\" (Prov. viii. 31) was too humanized to fulfil the conditions\nnecessary for upholding the temple at a time when penal sanctions\nwere withdrawn from the priesthood. A celestial spy was needed, and\nalso an uncomfortable Sheol, if the ancient ordinances and sacrifices\nwere to be preserved at all under the rule of Roman liberty, and amid\nthe cosmopolitan conditions prevailing at Jerusalem, and still more\nat Alexandria. [26]\n\nWith regard to Wisdom herself, there is a sentence which requires\nnotice, especially as no unweighed word is written in the work\nunder notice. It is said, \"In that she is conversant with God,\nshe magnifieth her nobility; yea, the Lord of all things himself\nloved her.\" (viii. 3). [27] This seems to be the germ of Philo's\nidea of Wisdom as the Mother: \"And she, receiving the seed of God,\nwith beautiful birth-pangs brought forth this world, His visible Son,\nonly and well-beloved.\" The writer of Sophia Solomontos is very careful\nto be vague in speculations of this kind, while suggesting inferences\nwith regard to them. Thus, alluding to Moses before Pharaoh, he says,\n\"She (Wisdom) entered into the servant of the Lord, and withstood\ndreadful kings in wonders and signs\" (x. 16), but leaves us to mere\nconjecture as to whether he (the writer) still had Wisdom in mind\nwhen writing (xvii. 13) of the failure of these enchantments and the\ndescent of the Almighty Word, for the destruction of the first-born:\n\n\"For while all things are quiet silence, and that night was in the\nmidst of her swift course, thine Almighty Word leaped down from Heaven\nout of thy Royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of\na land of destruction; and brought thine unfeigned commandment as\na sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death; and it\ntouched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth.\" [28]\n\nThe Word in this place (ho pantodynamos sou logos) is clearly\nreproduced in the Epistle to the Hebrews (iv. 12). \"The Word of God\nis living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword;\" and\nthe same military metaphor accompanies this \"Word\" into Revelation\nxix. 13. This continuity of metaphor has apparently been overlooked\nby Alford (Greek Testament, vol. iv., p. 226) who regards the use of\nthe phrase \"Word of God\" (ho logos tou theou) as linking Revelation\nto the author of the fourth Gospel, whereas in this Gospel Logos is\nnever followed by \"of God,\" while it is so followed in Hebrews iv. 12.\n\nThis evolution of the \"Word\" is clear. In the \"Wisdom of Solomon\"\nWisdom is the creative Word and the Saviour. The Word leaping down from\nthe divine throne and bearing the sword of vengeance is more like the\nson of the celestial counterpart of Wisdom, namely, the detective Holy\nSpirit (called in i. 5 \"the Holy Spirit of Discipline\"). But in the\nera we are studying, all words by able writers were living things,\nand were two-edged swords, and long after they who wrote them were\ndead went on with active and sundering work undreamed of by those\nwho first uttered them.\n\nThe Zoroastrian elements which we remarked in Jesus Ben Sira's\n\"Wisdom\" are even more pronounced in the \"Wisdom of Solomon.\" The\nPersian worshippers are so mildly rebuked (xiii.) for not passing\nbeyond fire and star to the \"origin of beauty,\" that one may suppose\nthe author, probably an Alexandrian, must have had friends among\nthem. At any rate his conception of a resplendent God is Mazdean,\nhis all-seeing Holy Spirit is the Pars\u00ee \"Anahita,\" and his Wisdom\nis Arma\u00eeti, the \"loving spirit\" on earth, the saviour of men. [29]\nThe opposing kingdoms of Ahuramazda and Angromainyu, and especially\nZoroaster's original division of the universe into \"the living and\nthe not-living,\" are reflected in the \"Wisdom of Solomon,\" i. 13-16:\n\n\"God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of\nthe living. He created all things that they might have their being;\nand the generations of the world were healthful; and there (was)\nno poison of destruction in them, nor (any) kingdom of death on the\nearth: (for righteousness is immortal): but ungodly men with their\ndeeds and words evoked Death to them: when they thought to have it\ntheir friend they consumed to naught, and made a covenant with Death,\nbeing fit to take sides with it.\"\n\nIn the moral and religious evolution which we have been tracing it\nhas been seen that the utter indifference of the Cosmos to human good\nand evil, right and wrong, was the theme of Job; that in Ecclesiastes\nthe same was again declared, and the suggestion made that if God\nhelped or afflicted men it must depend on some point of etiquette or\nobservance unconnected with moral considerations, so that man need\nnot omit pleasure but only be punctilious when in the temple; that\nin Jesus Ben Sira's contribution to his fathers' \"Wisdom,\" the moral\ncharacter of God was maintained, moral evil regarded as hostile to God,\nand imaginary sanctions invented, accompanied by pleadings with God\nto indorse them by new signs and wonders. Such signs not appearing,\nand no rewards and punishments being manifested in human life, the\nnext step was to assign them to a future existence, and this step was\ntaken in \"Wisdom of Solomon.\"  There remained but one more necessity,\nnamely, that there should be some actual evidence of that future\nexistence. Agur's question had remained unanswered--\n\n\n   \"Who has ascended into heaven and come down again?\n    Such an one would I question about God.\"\n\n\nTo this the reply was to be the resurrection from death claimed for\nthe greatest of the spiritual race of Solomon.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nEPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS (A SEQUEL TO SOPHIA SOLOMONTOS).\n\n\nIn a Theocracy the birth of a new God was not the mere new\ngeneralization that it might be in our secularized century,--a\ndeification of the Unknowable, for instance,--of not the slightest\npractical or moral interest to any human being. Judea was the bodily\nincarnation, even more than Islam is now, of a deity who said,\n\"I am the Lord and there is none else; I form the light and create\ndarkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these\nthings.\" The denial of such a deity, the substitution of one who\nrequired neither prayers, sacrifices, nor intercessions, could not\nbe merely theoretical. It must involve the overthrow of a nationality\nwhich had no bond of unity except a book, and the institutions founded\non that book.\n\nNor did the theocratic principle admit of a mere philosophical\nopposition to its institutions. He who touched that system was dealing\nwith people who, in the language of \"Sophia Solomontos\" were \"shut up\nin a prison without iron bars.\" The natural advent of the anti-Jahvist\nwas in the Temple and with the words--\n\n\n    He hath sent me to herald glad news to the poor,\n    He hath sent me to proclaim deliverance to captives,\n    And recovering of sight to the blind,\n    To set at liberty them that are bruised.\n\n\nThese miseries had no real relation to the social or political\nconditions amid which their phrases and hymns were born, but to a\nburden of debts to a jealous and vindictive omnipotence; a burden\nnot of actions really wrong, but of mysterious offences, related to\nincomprehensible ordinances and heavenly etiquette. No human vices\nare so malignant as inhuman virtues.\n\nBunyan, in depicting Christian's burden, has, with a felicity\nperhaps unconscious, made it a pack strapped on. It is not a hunch,\nnot any part of the pilgrim, and had he possessed the courage to\nexamine it there must have been found many spiritual nightmares\nof the race, and many robust English virtues turned to sins when\nthe merry and honest tinker turned retrospective Rip Van Winkle,\nand dreamed himself back into the year One. The burden of sins on\nthe poor Israelites had been gradually getting lighter under the\nscepticism of the Wisdom school, in view of the failure of Jahveh to\nfulfil the menaces and sentences of the priesthood. Conformity was\nsecured mainly for actual advantages bestowed by the synagogue, or its\nterrors. But the discovery of the doctrine of a future life and a day\nof judgment, when all the mysterious \"sins\" were to be settled for,\nwhile smiled at by the Saducees, made the burden of the ignorant poor\nintolerable. Life was passed under suspended swords. The priesthood\nhad a cowering vassal in every ignorant human being. The time, the\nlabour, the flocks of the peasantry were devoted, but it was all a\n\"sweating\" process,--the debts were never paid, and there was always\nthat \"certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of\nfire which shall devour the adversaries.\" No doubt even the learned\nsupposed these superstitions useful to keep the \"masses\" in order.\n\nBut one day a scholarly gentleman, a man of genius, was moved with\ncompassion for these poor lost and priest-harried sheep: he turned\naside from his college and his rank, and became their shepherd;\nhe declared they owed no duties to any deity, and that the heavenly\ndespot they so dreaded had no existence.\n\nA modern gentleman in a fine mansion and estate may be amused at\nBunyan's quaint pilgrim, reading in a book and discovering that he\nwas in a City of Destruction, fleeing with a burden on his back, and\nrejoicing when it rolls off at the cross. But if this gentleman should\nsuddenly receive from some distant personage papers showing that his\nestate had been entirely mortgaged by his father, that it would soon\nbe claimed and his family reduced to beggary, he might understand\nthe City of Destruction. And if, soon after, some visitor arrived to\nstate that the holder of the mortgages was dead; that those claims had\nall legally fallen into his own hands, and that he had burnt them,\nthe rolling off of Christian's burden might be appreciated,--also\nthe enthusiasm of the personal followers of Jesus.\n\nBut one might further imagine a host of hungry lawyers, living on\nlarge retainers, not being quite happy at such easy settlements,\nespecially if the generous visitor were found wealthy enough to go\nabout buying up and burning claims, and ending litigation. This, to\nus hardly imaginable, was, however, actually the condition of things\nreflected in parts of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therein the bond\nunder which man suffers is clearly to him who hath the Power of Death,\nthe Devil: Jesus ransomed man from the Devil.\n\nThe anonymous tractate superscribed solely \"To the Hebrews,\" though\nthe last admitted into the New Testament, is probably the earliest\ndocument it contains. It has no doubt been tampered with, but the\nevidences of the early date of its conception of Christ remain. Not\nonly was it evidently written before the destruction of the temple\n(anno 70), but before there was any thought of a mission to the\nGentiles, who, with Paul their apostle, are ignored. Some of its\nphrases and illustrations are found in epistles of Paul, but, as\nDr. Davidson pointed out in his Introduction to the New Testament,\nthe general doctrine of this treatise is far from Pauline, and\nit is difficult to find any reason for supposing that the few\nborrowings were not by Paul, other than a preference for Paul, and\ndisinclination to admit that there is any anonymous work in the New\nTestament. The treatise is without Paul's egotism, or his fatalism,\nand its conception of the new movement seems decidedly more primitive\nthan that in the recognised Pauline epistles. The sagacious Eusebius,\n\"father of church history,\" connects the Epistle \"To the Hebrews\"\nwith the \"Wisdom of Solomon,\" and it seems clear that we have here the\nbridge between the last abutment of philosophic or \"broad\" Jahvism,\nand its \"new departure\" as Christism.\n\nIt is not of especial importance to the present inquiry to determine\nthat Paul might not at some youthful period have written this work,\nthough I cannot see how any critical reader can so imagine; but\nit will bear indirectly on that point if we read successively the\nfollowing corresponding passages:\n\n\n    Wisdom of Solomon.--\"For Wisdom, which is the worker of all things,\n    taught me ... she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure\n    influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty; therefore can\n    no unclean thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of\n    the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God,\n    and the image of his goodness. And alone she can do all things;\n    herself unchanged, she maketh all things new: and in all ages\n    entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God and\n    prophets.\"--(vii. 25-27.) \"And Wisdom was with thee: which knoweth\n    thy works, and was present when thou madest the world.\" (ix. 9.)\n\n    Epistle to the Hebrews.--\"God, having in time past spoken to the\n    fathers by many fragments and divers ways in the prophets, at the\n    end of these days spake unto us in Son whom he constituted heir\n    of all things, by whom also he fashioned the ages; who, being the\n    brightness of his light and the image of his substance, and guiding\n    all things by the word of his authority, having made purification\n    of sins, sat on the right of majesty in high places.\" (i. 1-3.)\n\n    Epistle to the Colossians.--\"Who (the Father) delivered us out of\n    the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his\n    son of love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of\n    our sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of\n    all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens\n    and above the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether\n    thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have\n    been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things,\n    and in him all things hold together.\" (i. 13-17.)\n\n    Fourth Gospel.--\"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was\n    with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning\n    with God. All things were made through him, and without him was\n    not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him,\n    and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh\n    and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory--glory as of an only\n    begotten of a Father full of grace and truth.\" (i. 1-15.)\n\n\nIt appears to me that the evolution is represented in the\norder given. Paul's phrase, \"first-born of all creation,\"  is an\namplification of the word \"first-born\" used in the Epistle to the\nHebrews, but there used in another connection,--and not solely,\nas we shall see, relating to Christ. Paul's phrase corresponds with\n\"the only-begotten,\" etc., of John, and with the \"son constituted\nheir\" of the Epistle to the Hebrews, though the latter is a different\nChristological conception. When this writer's doctrinal statement is\nfinished, and after his argument is begun, he says (i. 6), \"But when\nof old bringing the first-born into the inhabited earth, he saith,\nAnd pay homage to him all angels of God.\" The word \"first-born\" here is\nprobably the seed from which Paul develops his full flower of doctrine,\ngiven above. Paul's conception of a creative Christ seems later than\nthe \"guiding\" Christ (Heb. i. 3), which recalls the function of Wisdom\nas \"director\" at the creation (Prov. viii. 30); and the idea in this\nepistle to the Hebrews of a previous and historical Christophany,\nwhile harmonious with that of the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" (vii. 27),--that\nshe (Wisdom) \"in all ages enters into holy souls,\"--is so primitive,\nunique, and so foreign to Paul, that the writer may have been one of\nthose accused by him of preaching \"another Jesus\" (2 Cor. ii. 4). [30]\n\nAlthough this Epistle contains the principle ascribed to Jesus,\n\"charity and not sacrifice\" (xiii. 9) and substitutes for beasts the\n\"sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips harmonious with his good\nname\" (verse 15), the letter that killeth brought forth from the same\nchapter the fatal doctrine that the body of Jesus was a sacrifice to be\neaten. And although this emphasizes the completeness of his humanity\nto an extent inconsistent with his deity, it is on the letter of this\nEpistle that the deification of Christ is founded.\n\n\n    V. 7-9. \"Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up\n    entreaties with vehement crying and tears to him able to save\n    him out of death, and although inclined to because of his piety,\n    yet, albeit a son, learned obedience by the things he suffered;\n    and having been made perfect, became unto all that follow him\n    the author of eternal salvation.\" [31]\n\n\nHe is represented as \"made perfect through sufferings,\" as \"tempted\nin all points like (?others) without sin,\" and as having without\nassistance of temple or sacrifices, \"obtained eternal redemption\"\n(ix. 12). Thus he also needed redemption.\n\nThe new covenant of which Jesus was the founder is described in the\nwords of Jeremiah (xxxi.):\n\n\n    I will put my laws into their mind,\n    And on their heart will I write them\n    And I will be to them a God,\n    And they shall be to me a people:\n    And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,\n    And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:\n    For all shall know me,\n    From the least unto the greatest.\n\n\nIn quoting this the writer to the Hebrews adds: \"In that he saith,\n'A new (covenant) he hath made the first old. But that which is\nbecoming old and waxeth aged is near unto vanishing entirely.'\" Here\nis a primitive Quakerism, but more conservative; not like George Fox\nat once sweeping away priesthood sacraments and ecclesiastical laws\nbefore the Inner Light, but pointing to their near vanishing.\n\nThe writer of this Epistle is a philosophical conservative; he shudders\nat the idea of a swift and complete overthrow of the traditional\nsystem, and even borrows its old thunders against levitical sin\nto menace offences against the new moral God. \"Our God [also] is\na consuming fire.\" It is evident by his very warnings that a great\nanti-sacerdotal and anti-levitical revolution had taken place, and\nthat the free spirit was burgeoning out in excesses. But such is\nhis culture that one may suspect his thunders of being theatrical,\nand that he thinks some superstition necessary for the masses.\n\nThe fatal and subtle character of the detective Holy Spirit is imported\ninto this Epistle from the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" (i. 6), though not\nso distinctly personified. The sin afterwards called \"unpardonable\"\nis here a sin against Christ for which repentance, not pardon, is\nimpossible. We may perhaps find in some of the expressions germs of\nthe legend of Judas. \"As touching those who were once enlightened,\nand tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy\nSpirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age\nthat is come, and fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to\nrepentance, seeing they individually impale the Son of God afresh\nand put him to open shame\" (vi. 5, 6). The believers are \"not of\nthem that shrink back into perdition\" (x. 39); and they are warned\nto look carefully \"whether there be any man that falleth back from\nthe grace of God,... like Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own\nbirthright\" (xii. 15, 16). The words \"tasted,\" \"perdition,\" \"sold,\"\nmight start a legend of the betrayal, first alluded to by Paul (if 1\nCor. xi. 23 be genuine, which is doubtful), though had the legend of\nJudas then existed this writer would naturally have alluded to him\nalong with Esau.\n\nThis Epistle is the nursery of the titles of Christ; he is Apostle,\nSon of God, Son of Man, Great Shepherd, Captain of Salvation, Mediator,\nGreat High Priest; and here alone is found the now familiar endearing\nphrase \"Our Lord.\" These titles represent the functions of different\nbeings in the Avesta. The conception of the work of Jesus on earth\nis largely Zoroastrian. The Majesty on high has a colony and a people\non earth, which otherwise is under the supremacy of the Evil One. As\nwe have seen the Avestan definitions of Ahuramazda and Angra Mainyu,\n\"the Living and the Not Living,\" are reflected in the phrases of this\nEpistle,--the \"Power of Imperishable Life\" (vii. 16) and the \"Power of\nDeath\" (ii. 14). Ahuramazda, when his \"habitable earth\" was prepared,\nbrought into it his \"first-born,\" Yima, and wished him to propagate\nthe divine law which should destroy the power of Angra Mainyu on earth\nand confine him in the underworld. Yima replied, \"I was not born,\nI was not taught, to be the preacher and the bearer of thy law.\" He\nengaged, however, to enlarge and nourish the garden of God on earth,\nof which he was king, and entitled \"the good shepherd.\" He obtained\nfrom the Holy Spirit, An\u00e2hita, the powers thus enumerated in Ab\u00e2n\nYast 26: \"He begged of her a boon, saying, 'Grant me this, O good,\nmost beneficent Ardvi S\u00fbra An\u00e2hita, that I may become the sovereign\nlord of all countries, of the d\u00e6vas [devils] and men, of the Y\u00e2tus\n[sorcerers] and Pairkas [seducing nymphs], of the oppressors [who\nafflict] the blind and the deaf; and that I may take from the d\u00e6vas\n[devils] both riches and welfare, both fatness and flocks, both weal\nand glory\" [hvaren\u00f4, \"the glory from above which makes the king an\nearthly god\"]. [32] This \"firstborn\" reigned a thousand years, but\nthen, having ascribed his \"glory\" to the demons from whom he obtained\nwealth and material benefits, his \"glory\" was lost, and secured by\nthe Devil, who reigned in his place a thousand years, blighting the\nworld, when Zoroaster was born to undertake the establishment of the\ndivine Law on earth. Yima was ultimately developed into the Jamshid\nof Persian mythology, whose power over demons, fabulous wealth, and\nultimate fall (through declaring himself a god, according to Firdusi)\ninvested the legend of Solomon.\n\nFrom the legend of Solomon and the Solomonic Psalms the Epistle to\nthe Hebrews brings its exaltation of Christ. From Ps. lxxxix. 26-7,\nas reproduced in 2 Sam. vii. 14, is quoted (i. 5) the divine promise,\n\"I will be to him (Solomon) a Father and he shall be my Son,\" along\nwith the manifesto at Solomon's enthronement (Ps. ii. 7), \"Thou art\nmy Son; this day have I begotten thee.\" Solomon is the \"first-born\"\nalluded to in Heb. i. 6: \"When of old bringing the first-born into\nthe inhabited earth (oikoumen\u00ean) he saith, And pay homage to him all\nangels of God?\"\n\nAnd here we have an interesting example of evolution in the Solomon\nlegend. The term \"first-born,\" as indicating the relation of a human\nbeing to the deity, occurs but once in the Old Testament, namely, in\nPsalm lxxxix. 27. It occurs in a strange passage that must be quoted:\n\n\n    19. Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy ones,\n        And saidst, I have laid help upon a youth;\n        I have raised one elected out of the people.\n    20. I have discovered David, my servant:\n        With my holy oil have I anointed him,\n    21. By whom my hand shall be established,\n        Whom also mine arm shall strengthen.\n    22. The enemy shall not do him violence,\n        Nor the son of evil afflict him.\n    23. I will beat down his adversaries before him\n        And smite them that hate him.\n    24. But my faithfulness and my mercy end not with him,\n        And in my name shall his horn be exalted.\n    25. I will extend his hand on the sea also,\n        And his right hand on the rivers:\n    26. He shall address me, \"Thou, my father,\n        My God, and the rock of my support\";\n    27. In answer I constitute him first-born,\n        Elyon of the kings of the earth.\n\n\nAlthough in all of these verses the Davidic royalty is exalted, the\nreference to David's own reign passes at verse 24 into a celebration of\nSolomon. Here, as in Psalm cxxxii. 17, Solomon is the \"horn\" of David:\nhe was distinctively the power on sea and river, phrases inapplicable\nto David, and there is a contrast between the anointed \"servant\"\n(verse 20) and the \"first-born\" (verse 27). The next title, \"Elyon\"\n(Most High), comes very near to that of the deity (El Elyon) of the\nmysterious priest-king of Salem, Melchizedek, whose mythical character\nand identity with the legendary Solomon will be hereafter considered.\n\nHere we have no doubt the germs of the narrative in 2 Sam. vii. of\nthe formal adoption of Solomon as Jahveh's son, with the addition of a\nmetaphysical connotation of the sonship not found in the Psalm. In the\nPsalm the fatherhood is that of support, the position of \"first-born\"\nis that of chieftainship among kings; and it is further said (31,\n32) that if any of the sons of the Davidic line profane the divine\nstatutes, \"Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and\ntheir iniquity with stripes.\" But in 2 Sam. vii. 14, Jahveh applies\nthis warning to Solomon alone, and with a remarkable modification:\n\"I will be his father and he shall be my son: if he commit iniquity\nI will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of\nthe sons of men; but my mercy shall not depart from him.\" That is,\nthough a son of God he may be chastened like the sons of men,--an\nintimation of a difference between Solomon and ordinary human nature\nnot intended in the words of the Psalm.\n\nThe Epistle to the Hebrews, finding in this Psalm an introduction of\n\"first-born\" into the world, for there is no article preceding the\nword, follows it so closely as to omit any article before \"son\"\n(i. 2). He finds this in an address of the deity to his angels\n(\"holy ones\" or saints), and understands verse 27 of the Psalm to\nmean that they, the angels, are to worship the \"first-born\" as the\nElyon, or Most High on earth. From 2 Sam. vii. the Epistle gets\nsufficient authority for ascribing an eternal personality to the\nsonship, anciently represented by Solomon, and we may thus see that\nthe gesture of Hebrew religion towards a doctrine of incarnation was\nmuch earlier than is generally supposed. And this, too, is the Hebrew\ncontribution to a Psalm which, in the nine verses above quoted, imports\nideas foreign to Judaism. The reciprocal help of the deity and the king\n(19-21) is Avestan, and inconsistent with monotheism. Elyon is the\nname of an ancient Phoenician god, slain by his son El, no doubt the\n\"first-born of death\" in Job xviii. 13, and the violent \"son of evil,\"\nin verse 22 of our Psalm. The exaltation of both David and Solomon in\nthe Psalm is primarily in reference to service and deeds, not majesty,\nessence, or title; of these Avestan religion made little, but Hebraism\nmade much, and the deification of Solomon, though warranted by other\nPsalms, is added to this eighty-ninth by Samuel and the Epistle to\nthe Hebrews.\n\nIn Ecclesiasticus it is written: \"In the division of the nations of the\nwhole earth he set a ruler over every people; but Israel is the Lord's\nportion: whom, being his first-born, he nourisheth with discipline,\nand giving him the light of his love doth not forsake him.... For all\nthings cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal. What\nis brighter than the sun? Yet the light thereof faileth; and flesh\nand blood will imagine evil\" (xvii.). Now in the Zoroastrian theology\nthere could be no direct contact of God with matter: the devil's\nempire could be invaded and death conquered only by a perfectly\n\"blameless\" MAN. (Cf. \"Wisdom of Solomon,\" xviii. 21, with the\n\"sinless\" of Heb. iv. 15, the \"guileless\" of vii. 26, and \"without\nblemish,\" ix. 14). The spotless one can use no carnal weapon. In\nthe Zoroastrian theology the divine potency is that of the Word, and\nformulas exist to be wielded against every variety of demon. So in\nthis Epistle the supremacy of the Son is by \"the word of his power\",\n(i. 3), and \"the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword\"\n(iv. 12).\n\nThe enterprise of the Son of God was to fulfil these conditions. He\nmust become a complete man, share all the infirmities of man, all his\nliabilities to temptation, receive no assistance from his Father,\nno angelic help,--placed lower than the angels,--and confront the\npowers of Death and Hell without any material weapon. If he succeeded\nin remaining sinless, faithful to the divine law, even unto death,\neven while in hell, unshaken by threats, sufferings, or seductions,\nit must be a purely human achievement. There was no miracle; even the\nsuspicion of using supernatural power would have tainted the whole\nwork of Jesus as conceived in this Epistle.\n\nThis undertaking was not simply for the sake of mankind. All things\nare not yet subjected to the divine sway (Heb. ii. 8). Heaven itself\nwas shaken, when the old covenant failed, and trembled for the result\nof the tremendous conflict of the Son of Man on earth with its Prince\nand his hosts (Heb. xii. 25-29). This was \"the joy in front of him\"\n(xii. 2), as well as the rescue of men.\n\nThus was the man left entirely to the devil, not even his life\nbeing reserved, as in the case of Job. He loudly cries for help,\neven with tears, at the sight of Death; he is heard, pitied, but no\nhelp comes. He must trust to his human merits, and not miracles,\nfor his Sonship is of no value in this conflict. By his obedience\nlearned in his sufferings, by his sinlessness under all trials and\ntemptations, he fulfilled the conditions of deathlessness. By his\nown heart's blood, not by offerings of bloody sacrifices, not by\nsupernatural power, he reached the place of holiness, \"having obtained\neternal redemption.\" From first to last there was no divine aid. His\nunanswered loud cries (Heb. v. 7) may be connected with the legend\nof his expiring cry, \"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?\"\n\nMuch of the thought here is similar to the \"Wisdom of Solomon\"\n(ii. 22-4, iii. 1-9), where however the ideas are conflicting. It is\nsaid, \"God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of\nhis own eternity: nevertheless, through the devil's envy came death\ninto the world, and they that hold of his side do find it.\" But then\nJahvism puts in with the declaration that the seeming destruction\nof the righteous is God's chastisement and probation of them. The\nEpistle to the Hebrews does not regard the sufferings and death of\nJesus as God's work at all, but all from the devil. Though God spoke\nby him there is no suggestion that he sent Jesus, or that his coming\nwas not voluntary.\n\nWith this reservation, and a large one it is, that Jesus was not\ndelivered up to Satan by God, but left to confront his torments in an\neffort to subdue him, \"bring him to nought,\" the central idea of the\nEpistle is a doctrinal transfiguration of Job, who being delivered up\nto Satan, triumphs over the tempter and tormentor, and through all\npreserves his sinlessness and loyalty to God. The result being that\nthose who had denied Job's merits, his sinlessness, had to secure Job's\nintercession in order to escape the penalty of having ascribed his\nsufferings to God (Job xlii. 8). [33] This relationship of ideas is all\nthe more interesting because apparently unconscious in the writer of\nthe Epistle, and thus revealing the extent to which Oriental religion\nhad remoulded Judaism among the educated Jews of his time. Monotheism\nis strictly inconsistent with the supremacy of \"merits\" which is the\nvery soul of Oriental religion. The sacred books of India contain\nrecords of saints or Rishis who by extraordinary austerities,\nsacrifices, and virtues so piled up their \"merits\" that the gods\nwere frightened, as they were at the tower of Babel; and sometimes\nthe gods tempted these powerful saints to commit some sin that would\nreduce their \"merits.\" The Solomonic \"Proverbs\" are pervaded by the\nOriental doctrine of \"merits\": a man is proved by test of his merits,\nas gold passing through the furnace (xxvii. 21); the perfect inherit\ngood (xxviii. 10); and perhaps that sublime pedlar of transcendent\ngems imported along with the gold of Ophir some version of the Puranic\nlegend of Harischandra, \"the Hindu Job.\" All the Jahvist adulterations\nof the biblical version do not conceal the fact that when Jahveh,\nby delivering the meritorious man up to Satan, delivered himself also\ninto the hands of Satan, he (Jahveh) was compelled to surrender before\nthe merits on which the man had planted himself. Jahveh reclaimed his\nsovereignty, but agreed that Job, who had said \"God hath wronged me,\"\nhad spoken of him \"the thing that is right\" (xlii. 8). In the same\nway the storm-god Indra (the Hindu Jahveh) accompanied by all the\ngods, headed by Dharma (Justice), appears to Harischandra after his\ntrials, and tells him that he, his wife and son, had, by their merits,\n\"conquered heaven\" (Markandeya Purana). The completion of these merits\nwas when Harischandra resolved with his wife to die on the funeral\npyre of their son, who, as a result of their torments, had died by a\nserpent's bite. It was then that the god Indra appeared to restore\nthe son, and admit that the just and faithful king, his wife and\nson, had \"conquered heaven.\" We are thus carried to the Solomonic\naffirmations that \"when the whirlwind passeth the just man is on\nan everlasting foundation\" (Prov. x. 25), that \"justice delivereth\nfrom death\" (x. 2), that \"the just man finds a refuge in death\"\n(xiv. 32); and we are carried forward to the Epistle to the Hebrews,\nwhere, after the last ordeal, death, the son of the heavenly king\nis restored to life, and Satan, who had over him the power of death,\n\"brought to nought\" (ii. 14). But further, in the Puranic legend, which\nfrom time immemorial has been a passion-play in India, Harischandra,\nwhen told that he, his wife and son, had \"conquered heaven,\" refused\nto ascend to heaven without his \"faithful subjects.\" \"This request\nwas granted by Indra, and after Viswamitra had inaugurated Rohitaswa,\nthe king's son, to be his successor, Harischandra, his friends and\nfollowers, all ascended to heaven.\" Thus, in our Epistle, the son,\nhaving \"learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and having\nbeen made perfect, became unto all them that obeyed him the author\nof eternal salvation.\" \"For in that he hath himself suffered being\ntempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.\" The subjects of\nKing Harischandra who remained faithful to him after he was reduced\nto beggary, ascended with him. Faith is declared in our Epistle to be\n\"the testing of things not seen\" (xi. 1), and faithfulness is to \"run\nwith patience the course that is set before us, looking unto Jesus,\nthe captain and perfector of faithfulness, who for the joy set before\nhim endured the stake (stauron), despising shame, and hath sat down\nat the right hand of the throne of God\" (xi. 1, xii. 1, 2).\n\nAnd there is also, I believe, in the scheme of redemption set forth\nin this Epistle, an influence from the story of King Usin\u00e1ra in the\nMah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata, of which there were various versions which must have\nbeen familiar to the Buddhists in Alexandria. A dove pursued by a\nfalcon takes refuge in the bosom of Usin\u00e1ra; the falcon demands its\nsurrender. The King quotes the law of Manu that it is a great sin to\nabandon any being that has taken asylum with one. The falcon urges that\nit is the law of nature that falcons shall feed on doves, and that\nunless this dove is surrendered its little falcons must starve. The\nKing offers other food, but the only substitute that is adapted to\nthe falcon's nature is a quantity of Usin\u00e1ra's own flesh equal to the\nweight of the dove. To this the King agrees. Balances are produced,\nand the dove placed in one scale, in the other a piece of the King's\nflesh, which seems large enough, but is insufficient. Though the\nKing cuts off piece by piece all of his flesh, the dove outweighs it,\nuntil at length Usin\u00e1ra gets into the scale HIMSELF. That outweighs\nthe dove, which is really Agni, the falcon being Indra. The gods\nwho had assumed these forms in order to test Usin\u00e1ra's fidelity\nto the law of sanctuary, resume their shape, and the King ascends\ntransfigured to paradise. In one version a King (Givi) sacrifices\nhis son, Vrihad-Gasbha in obedience to sacred requirements, the story\nresembling that of Abraham and Isaac. Alford calls attention to the\nemphasis on the word \"himself\" in the Epistle of the Hebrews ix. 14:\n\"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal\nSpirit offered HIMSELF, without blemish, unto God, cleanse our\nconscience from dead works to serve the living God.\"\n\nWithout blemish! That was the great point. The champion of the Good\nconfronts the champion of Evil, his purpose being to conquer the last\nenemy, Death, by unarmed human virtue. This was the central idea\nin the Passion, a drama gone to pieces in the Gospels. Therefore,\nhe did not summon legions of angels, and said to Peter, \"Sheath\nthy sword.\" Therefore, the mere lynching of Jesus, for such it was,\nis given the formalities of judicial procedure, in order to impress\nan official character on the testimonies to his innocence: Pilate,\nCaiaphas, Pilate's wife, Judas, Herod, all bear witness that no evil\nis in him, and he challenges the High Priest's court, \"If I have\nuttered evil bear witness of the evil.\" [34] In this passion-drama\nJesus Barabbas is set beside Jesus the Christ,--officially proclaimed\nguilt beside officially proclaimed innocence,--and Wrath selects guilt,\ncondemns innocence. But it was thus the first-born of Life prevailed\nover the first-born of Death. In that crisis the blameless man swerving\nnot from his rectitude, established the \"assembly of the first-born,\"\nwho can dwell with the living God because they have learned from their\nCaptain how to get rid of the defilement of mortality. There is nothing\nvicarious in his service. The Captain represented the human race in\na single combat with Satan, and he discovered for all the vulnerable\npoint of that Adversary,--that he could not hold in sheol a perfectly\nsinless human being. But it still remained that without holiness no\nman could see the Lord. Another advantage secured by Jesus for men\nwas that after his victory was achieved the heroic man, on resuming\nhis previous position as Son of God, was able to add thereto what\nhe had won as Son of Man,--the office of high priest or intercessor,\nwho could take good care that every man who fulfilled the condition\nof holiness got his reward. Satan should not cheat. Nevertheless\nJesus had been his own saviour, and every man must be his own saviour.\n\nPulpit ignorance has wrested from the Epistle to the Hebrews\nfragments of texts, in support of a dogma of atonement which only\na fortunate lack of logic prevents from amounting to a doctrine of\nhuman sacrifice. A favorite clause is, \"Without the shedding of blood\nthere in no remission,\"--which is really this epistle's stigma on\nthe system it is abolishing! The sacredness of the blood of Jesus\nwas that it was the price he had to pay to the devil in order to\npreserve his sinlessness, and so rise from death, and demonstrate to\nothers that they also could rise by sinlessness to eternal life. It\nmight cost their blood also, but would be lost if they \"resisted unto\nblood.\" Jesus thus brought life and incorruption, as distinguished\nfrom living-death in sheol, to light. And the devotion to Jesus for\nthis was due to the belief that he had laid aside his heavenly glory\nand become a complete man, and had thus risked his all, his greatness,\nhis very immortality, to make for both heaven and earth the tremendous\nventure; the slightest misstep, the least sin, or wrath, or impatience,\nand he would have had his abode in sheol, in bonds of Satan, through\nall eternity.\n\nWhen this Epistle was written the believers already found immortality\nin such faith; with such hope and joy before them they were able to\ndespise sensual joys, to conquer temptations, and to fulfill those\nduties and conditions of personal holiness which are described in this\nEpistle,--\"Peace with all men, and holiness without which no man can\nsee the Lord.\" The ecstasy did not last long, but it was a marvellous\nphenomenon while it lasted, and the most complete reflection of it may\nbe found in this Epistle to the Hebrews, especially if it be approached\nby its prologue,--the \"Wisdom of Solomon,\"--but it is subtle, and\ncan only be comprehended by patient and comparative studies.\n\nAt the heart of this earliest and swiftly lost Christianity was a\nsublime effort to humanize God.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nSOLOMON MELCHIZEDEK.\n\n\nIt is possible that the genealogies of Jesus started from no other\nbasis than Hebrews vii. 14: \"It is clear beforehand that our Lord\nhath arisen out of Judah.\" [35] Yet nothing could be more subversive\nof the Epistle than a claim of any hereditary authority or advantage\nfor Jesus.\n\nThe author of the Epistle, if he ever heard the phrase \"Son of David,\"\navoided it, for David is here in the background, and in a quotation\nfrom one of his Psalms his name is passed over, with the vague words,\n\"one hath testified somewhere, saying,\" etc. It is an essential part\nof the writer's argument that Christ is \"without genealogy\" of that\nkind. To some it was no doubt grateful to be told that Jesus was not\nof the priestly tribe, not of that \"apostolic succession,\" so to say;\nbut it was more important to convince the conservative that their\nsacred history sanctioned faith in a high priest approved as such not\nby carnal descent, but by his sinlessness and by his resurrection. But\nit was not agreeable to any Jewish party to suppose that the new\ndominion was to be altogether in the heavens, or detached from the\nSolomonic Golden Age for whose return they were hoping. The writer\ntherefore connects Jesus with a \"first-born\" forerunner, namely, with\nMelchizedek, concerning whom he \"has many things to say, and hard\nof interpretation.\" So Christian commentators have to this day found\nwhat he does say, and Melchizedek is not surrounded by any dogmatic\nfence that can turn a new hypothesis into a trespass.\n\nThe Epistle applies to Jesus lines from Psalm cx.:\n\n\n    Thou art a priest for ever,\n    After the order of Melchizedek.\n\n\nBut in this anonymous Psalm there is reason to believe that Melchizedek\nis not a proper name at all. It is admittedly a combination of\nmalki'-tzedek, \"king of justice,\" and in the Jewish Family Bible\n(Deusch) the above lines are translated, \"Thou art my priest for ever,\nmy king in righteousness, by my word.\" The Septuagint, regularly\nfollowed by the Epistle to the Hebrews, has Melchizedek in this Psalm\ncx., which was also messianized by the LXX. in its very first line,\n\"The Lord said unto my Lord,\" Kyrios being the word for Lord in\nboth cases, whereas in the original the words are different (\"Jahveh\ndeclared to my Adonai\"). And it is notable that Matthew xxii. whose\nHebraic character is so marked, and Mark xii., both make Jesus follow\nthe Septuagint in quoting these words.\n\nIn both of these Gospels the incident is evidently, in Mark clumsily,\ninterpolated, and it would appear to have belonged to some legend\nof the Infancy, such as that of the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy,\nwhere it occurs naturally:\n\n\n   \"And when he was twelve years old they took him to Jerusalem\n    to the feast. But when the feast was over they indeed returned,\n    but the Lord Jesus remained in the temple among the doctors and\n    elders and learned men of Jerusalem, and he asked them sundry\n    questions about the sciences and they answered him in turn. Now\n    he said to them, Whose son is Messiah? They answered him, The son\n    of David. Wherefore, then, said he, Doth he in spirit call him\n    Lord, when he saith the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my\n    right hand, that I may bring down thy enemies to the footprints\n    of thy feet?\"\n\n\nIt is probable that this anecdote had floated down from an early\nperiod when the notion of a royal descent of Jesus had not arisen.\n\nObviously a tremendous question arises here as to how a story should\nbe found in Genesis xiv. about Melchizedek, which as a proper name\nreally occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, [36] and the mystery\nis increased by the absence of any allusion to such a personage\nin Jesus Ben Sira's enumeration of \"famous men\" (Ecclus. xliv.),\nor elsewhere. It almost looks as if Jesus Ben Sira had not read, or\nelse had cancelled as spurious, the strange passage in Genesis--which\nis as follows:\n\n\n   \"And Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine;\n    and he was priest of El-Ely\u00f4n. And he blessed him and said,\n    Blessed be Abram of El-Ely\u00f4n, purchaser of heaven and earth;\n    and blessed be El-Ely\u00f4n, which hath delivered thine enemies into\n    thy hand. And he (Abram) gave him a tenth of all.\"\n\n\nProfessor Max M\u00fcller, in his third lecture on the \"Science of\nReligion,\" gives some useful information concerning this peculiar\nname, \"El-Ely\u00f4n,\" after consulting his contemporaries at Oxford and\nin Germany:\n\n\"One of the oldest names of the deity among the ancestors of the\nSemitic nations was El. It meant Strong. It occurs in the Babylonian\ninscriptions as Ilu, God, and in the very name of Bab-il, the gate\nor temple of Il.... The same El was worshipped at Byblus by the\nPhoenicians, and he was called there the Son of Heaven and Earth. His\nfather was the son of Eliun, the most high God, who had been killed\nby wild animals. The Son of Eliun, who succeeded him, was dethroned,\nand at last slain by his own son, El, whom Philo identifies with the\nGreek Kronos, and represents as the presiding deity of the planet\nSaturn.... Ely\u00f4n, which, in Hebrew, means the Highest is used in the\nOld Testament as a predicate of God.... It occurs in the Phoenician\ncosmogony as Eliun, the highest God, the Father of Heaven, who was\nthe father of El.\"\n\nAccording to Sanchunvaton (Euseb. Proep. i. 10) the Phoenicians called\nGod Elioun.\n\nThe combination El Ely\u00f4n occurs in but two chapters in the\nBible,--Genesis xiv. and Psalm lxxviii. (The Revisers translate it\nin Genesis, \"God Most High,\" but in the Psalm (verse 35), \"Most High\nGod.\") That the name was imported from the earlier into the later\nchapter is suggested by a similar association of each with the idea of\npurchase or redemption: \"God Most High, purchaser of heaven and earth\"\n(Genesis), \"God Most High, their redeemer\" (Psalm). But which is the\nearlier? Probably the Psalm; for it is a long r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of the traditional\nhistory of Israel, but contains no allusion to Abraham. Had its unique\nname, \"El Ely\u00f4n,\" been derived from any such traditional source surely\nsome mention of Abraham would have been made.\n\nThe Psalm is Elohistic. Possibly the Phoenician name for God, Elioun,\nwas used in order to set \"El\" above it. Or it may be that as Solomon\nhad been declared \"Ely\u00f4n of Kings\" (Psalm lxxxix. 27) it was important\nto recall that he at the same time said, \"My Elohim,\" and to place \"El\"\nbefore his title. This conjecture is warranted by the fact that in\nboth of the Psalms, and in the corresponding passages, God is spoken\nof as a \"Rock.\" There are other resemblances between the two Psalms,\none very striking:\n\nPsalm lxxviii. 70--\"He chose David also, his servant, and took him\nfrom the sheepfolds.\"\n\nPsalm lxxxix. 19, 20--\"I have raised one elected out of the people;\nI have discovered David, my servant.\"\n\nThe Psalm in which the Septuagint personalises malki'-tzedek (cx.) into\n\"Melchizedek\" is a fragmentary little piece, with two incomprehensible\nverses at the end which seem to allude to some legend or folklore\nnow lost. These verses (6 and 7) are incongruous with the preceding\nones and must be detached, and perhaps verse 5 also, as this seems an\nanti-climax. These closing verses look as if they may have been added\nby some admirer of Joshua's slaughter of kings, and it is probable\nthat the legend of Joshua's making his captains tread on the necks\nof the five kings (Joshua x.) was developed out of the opening verse\nof this Psalm:\n\n\n   \"Jahveh said to my lord [Adonai], Sit thou at my right hand,\n    Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.\"\n\n\nThe leader of these kings was Adonai-Zedek, who, like Melchizedek, was\nKing of Jerusalem; they are certainly mythical relatives, their names\nmeaning \"Lord of Justice\" and \"King of Justice.\" It is philologically\nimpossible that any persons with those proper names could have existed\nin Jerusalem before the invasion of the Hebrews. And \"Adonai-bezek,\"\nthe \"radiant lord,\" whose thumbs and toes Joshua cut off when he\ncaptured Jerusalem, is a transparent variant of Adonai-zedek.\n\nWhen the city, originally named Jebus, began to be called Salem (see\nPsalm lxxvi. 2), the aboriginal people who continued to dwell there\nmight naturally dream of their ancient kings, as the Welch and Bretons\nso long did of Arthur, \"flower of kings,\" and perhaps similarly expect\ntheir return to restore their ancient freedom; and it may have become\na useful political device to find beyond the ugly legends of Joshua's\ncruelty to their \"just\" and \"shining\" lords a prettier one, made out\nof an old song, of an earlier \"King of Justice,\" whose bread and wine\nAbraham had eaten, to whom he had paid tithes, whose deity, El Ely\u00f4n,\nthe father of Israel had recognized as his own, and with whom he had\nmade a treaty of salem, or peace,--Jebus thus becoming Jebus-Salem\n(Jerusalem).\n\nJosephus records the legend as it was no doubt generally accepted among\nthe Jews in the first century of our era: \"Now, the King of Sodom met\nhim (Abram) at a certain place which they called the King's Dale,\nwhere Melchizedek, King of the City of Salem, received him. That\nname signifies the righteous king, and such he was without dispute,\ninsomuch that on that account he was made the priest of God. However,\nthey afterward called Salem Jerusalem.\" (Antiq. Bk. i. ch. 10.)\n\nJosephus is careful to identify Salem as Jerusalem, and in vi. ch. 10\nof the same work states that the King's Dale (identified as the Shaveh\nwhere Abraham met Melchizedek, Genesis xiv.) is \"two furlongs distant\nfrom Jerusalem.\" This carefulness may have been intended to distinguish\nMelchizedek's Salem from the northern Shalem (Genesis xxxiii. 18), a\nplace associated with Jacob, and apparently representing an attempt to\nset up a rival temple to that in Jerusalem. It was an old competition\nabout tithes. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, King of Salem,\nbut Jacob, after his vision at Bethel, recognized that as the \"house\nof God,\" and vowed to give to God a tenth of all that was given him\n(Genesis xxviii). [37] This quarrel between rival towns and temples,\ntrying each to draw all tithes to themselves, harmonized in the later\nlegends of the Bible, need not detain us, but it is of importance\nto remark that the story of Abram meeting the King of Justice and\nPeace near Jerusalem, and establishing the sanctity of that city,\ncorresponds with, and is counterbalanced by, Jacob's meeting with\nangels, and wrestling with a mysterious \"man,\" who, it is hinted, was\nsome form of God himself. This reply to the story of Abram suggests\nthat at the time of that tithe controversy between Bethel and Sion\nMelchizedek was not thought of as a flesh-and-blood king or a mere\nman, but as a shadowy shape, evoked from actual conditions for certain\npurposes, and named in accordance with the history or traditions out\nof which the conditions and the aims were evolved.\n\nIn investigations of this kind, concerned with ages really prehistoric,\nit is necessary to remember at every step that our search is amid eras\nwhen words and names were at once counters of actual forces and factors\nof history. How serious a play on words may be even in historic times\nis illustrated by a Papacy founded on the double meaning of Peter--a\nman's name and a rock,--and as we approach earlier epochs, whose\nissues and struggles have long passed away, and their once antagonistic\nleaders harmonised by pious legends, it is largely by the aid of words\nand names that we are enabled to reach even historic probabilities.\n\nAs to Melchizedek, my inference above stated, derived from the two\ntithe legends, that his supernatural character is reflected in that\nof the corresponding phantoms met by Jacob may not be generally\naccepted, but that he (Melchizedek) was so understood by the writer\nto the Hebrews can hardly be disputed. Melchizedek is there (Hebrews\nvii.) declared to have been \"without father, without mother, without\ngenealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, being\nassimilated unto the Son of God.\"\n\nIn the third century the Melchizedekian sect maintained that\nMelchizedek was not a man but a heavenly power superior to Jesus,\nand the Hieracites held similar views. Some eminent theologians have\nbelieved that Melchizedek was Christ himself. Most of the Christian\ntheories concerning the mysterious king are virtual admissions that\nonly the eye of faith can see in him any actual being at all. How\nthen was this mythical being formed? [38]\n\n1. A suitable nest for the Melchizedek Saga existed near Jerusalem,\nin a vale called the King's Dale. It seems to have been a royal\nracing ground (Targum of Onkelos, Gen. xiv. 17) or hippodrome\n(lxx. xlviii. 7), and its name in Hebrew was Emek-ham-Melech.\n\n2. In the ancient Psalm cx. 1 we have Adonai (Lord), and in verse 4\nMelchi-Melech (or Moloch) king, combined with tsedek, justice.\n\n3. Tzedek (Tsaydoc or Zadok), the priest who anointed Solomon to\nbe king. Tsaydoc supplanted the legitimate High Priest Abiathar\nwho had taken the side of the legitimate heir to David's throne,\nAdonijah, supplanted by Solomon. The deprivation of Abiathar, and\nexaltation of Tsaydoc to be High Priest is said (1 Kings ii. 27)\nto have been in fulfillment of \"the word of Jahveh, which he spake\nconcerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.\" The reference is to the\nsentence passed on Eli and his house, to which Abiathar belonged,\nwhen Jahveh said, \"And I will raise me up a faithful priest, etc.,\"\n(1 Sam. ii. 35). Faithful priests were called \"sons of Zadok,\" the\nphrase having apparently become proverbial (Ezek. xliv. 15).\n\n4. In 1 Chron. iii. there appear, among the descendants of Solomon,\n\"Amaziah, Azariah his son, Jotham his son.\" In 1 Chron. vi. we\nfind among descendants of Zadok, Ahimaaz, Azariah his son, Johanan\nhis son. Johanan is also among Solomon's descendants, and among the\ndescendants of both Solomon and Zadok is Shallum,--written by Josephus\nSalloumos (Bk. x. ch. 8). Josephus also says that Zadok was the first\nHigh Priest of Solomon's Temple. But Solomon himself, without the\nassistance of any priest, dedicated the Temple, offered the sacrifices\non that occasion, and so continued: \"three times in a year did Solomon\noffer burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar which he built\nto Jahveh.\" (1 Kings ix. 25). These statements establish a probability\nthat no such person as Zadok existed at all, and that the development\nof this personification of justice (zedek) into a priestly personage\nwas due to an ecclesiastical necessity of introducing a priest among\nthe provisions of Solomon for the temple. Zadok is thus a detachment\nfrom King Solomon of the priestly functions he had discharged in the\ntemple, according to the book of Kings; and in 1 Chron. vi., where this\npersonification is completed, the Solomonic family names are found,\nas above, recurring as descendants of the personification,--Zadok.\n\nThese names are the fossil remains of controversies with Shilonite\nand Samaritan pretensions, which ended in consecrating the throne and\naltar at Jerusalem, and they prove that the consecration was that of\njustice and peace. Of these the Wise Man was typical. Solomon was the\nmodel from whom all of these ideals were painted. His title, Adonai,\nand his equity (Psalm xlv. 7, 11) are combined in Adonizedek, his glory\n(Psalm xlv. 3, 4) is in Adonibezek; his high priesthood is allegorized\nin Zadok; and in \"Melchizedek, King of Salem,\" his supreme characters\nare summed up, \"King of Justice, Prince of Peace.\"\n\nIn a warlike age this peacefulness of a monarch was the great and\nsupernatural phenomenon. It is the very central idea of the whole\nSolomonic legend. Solomon got his name from it, even the name with\nJahveh in it (Jedediah) being set aside; he was preferred above David\nto build the temple, because David was a warrior; in building the\ntemple the peace was not broken even by the noise of a hammer, the\nstones being all in shape, it seems by supernatural power, when taken\nfrom the quarry, so as to be noiselessly fitted together; he would not\nfight even those who were rending parts of his kingdom away. He was\nthe hero of the Beatitudes,--the gentle one who inherited the earth,\nthe one who hungered and thirsted for justice and was filled, the\npeacemaker called the Son of God. It was he who first said, If thine\nenemy hunger give him food, if he thirst give him drink. And all this\nwas allegorized in Melchizedek, who, when his country was invaded,\ninstead of joining the five kings who resisted, loved his enemy,\ngave the invader food and drink.\n\nWe thus find Solomon,--the glorious cosmopolitan and secularist,\nwhose name Jahvism could not utter without a shudder,--distributed in\nfable, legend, psalm, through Hexateuch and Hagiographa, and finally\ntransfigured into a type of divine and eternal Sonship. Thus he\nappears in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to which we now return.\n\nIn the Epistle to the Hebrews Christ is invested with the mystical\nrobes of Solomon. To Christ are applied the words, \"I will be to him\na Father, and he shall be to me a Son,\" quoted from Jahveh's promise\nto David concerning Solomon (2 Sam. vii. 14). To Christ are twice\napplied the words, \"Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee,\"\nquoted from Psalm ii. 7, admittedly Solomonic. From Psalm xlv.,\nverses 6 and 7, ascriptions to Solomon, are applied to Christ in\nthis Epistle. And Melchizedek is here declared to be \"a great man,\"\n\"assimilated unto the Son of God.\"\n\nWe may here recall the words of Josephus, a contemporary of our\nwriter, who says that Melchizedek was made the priest of God on\naccount of his righteousness (Ant., Bk. i. ch. 10). It may have\nbeen that there was a popular belief in the time of Josephus that\nMelchizedek received his ordination from Abram himself, but there is\nno doubt that the mysterious king's priesthood was believed to rest\nupon his righteousness and above all his peacefulness.\n\nWith these preliminaries we may find the Epistle's argument about\nMelchizedek less \"hard of interpretation\" than the writer says it\nis. After speaking of Abraham as having \"obtained\" the promise,\nnot merely because it was God's promise, but because he \"patiently\nendured,\" having argued that Christ, \"though he was a Son, yet learned\nobedience by the things that he suffered\", this Epistle maintains\n(vi. 20) that this is the believer's hope, whereby he enters within\nthe veil, \"whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having\nbecome a high priest forever after the manner of Melchizedek.\" (The\nsense of this is lost in the E. V. by rendering genomenos \"made\":\nthe argument is that though he was a Son of God even that could not\nmake him a high priest; this he had to \"become\" by his own merits,\nuninheritable even from God, as was the case with Melchizedek.) \"For\nthis Melchizedek, being of Salem, priest of God Most High, who met\nAbraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him,\nto whom also Abraham divided a tenth part of all (being first by\ninterpretation King of Righteousness, and next also King of Salem,\nthat is Prince of Peace; being without father, without mother,\nwithout genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life,\nbut assimilated (ech\u00f4n aph\u00f4moi\u00f4menos) unto the Son of God), abideth\na priest perpetually\" (vii. 1-3).\n\nThe mystical clauses of verse 3 have for centuries been an unsolved\nenigma to exegetists; and Alford, after summing up the many conjectures\nas to their meaning, expresses his feeling that the writer had\na thought which he did not intend us to comprehend! Probably,\nhowever, the writer was using language understood in his time, and\nwhich may be interpreted by comparison with expressions familiar\nin Jewish folklore. Some of these are preserved in the apocryphal\ngospels. Thus, in the Pseudo-Matthew, Levi, the teacher of Jesus,\nastounded by the Child's learning, says, \"I think he was born before\nthe flood.\" In the gospel of Thomas, the teacher Zacch\u00e6us says,\n\"This child is not of earthly parents, he is able to subdue even\nfire. Perhaps he was begotten before the world was made.\" These\nideas, which correspond somewhat to the Teutonic superstition of\nthe \"changeling,\" are traceable in the Fourth Gospel (viii. 56-59),\nwhere Jesus is stoned for saying, \"Before Abraham was I am.\"\n\nIt will be seen that by this early writer \"to the Hebrews\"  Jesus was\nnot thought of in connection with David, but bore Solomon's pre\u00ebminent\ntitle, King of Peace, and that conferred on him by the Queen of\nSheba, King of Justice. In the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" the Prince of the\nGolden Age, historically associated with idolatrous shrines, had been\nrehabilitated, even apotheosized; he was now a sort of rival of Jesus\nin divine sonship. The writer of our Epistle therefore artistically,\nnot to say artfully, utilizes a composite word made into a proper name\nunder which Solomon's combined royalty and priesthood, his peace and\njustice, had been detached from his personality and personified. The\nnew exaltation of Solomon personally was thus ignored, while his\nessential glories, his wisdom, and his reclaimed virtues, were woven\ninto the celestial mantle of mysterious Melchizedek, and through him\npassed to the shoulders of the risen Christ.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nTHE PAULINE DEHUMANIZATION OF JESUS.\n\n\nThe Queen of Sheba certainly deserved her exaltation as the Hebrew\nAthena, and the homage paid to her by Jesus, for journeying so\nfar simply to hear the wisdom of Solomon. In Jewish and Christian\nfolklore are many miraculous tales about the Queen's visit, but in\nthe Biblical records, in the books of \"Kings\" and \"Chronicles,\" the\nonly miracle is the entire absence of anything marvellous, magical,\nor even occult. The Queen was impressed by Solomon's science, wisdom,\nthe edifices he had built, the civilization he had brought about;\nthey exchanged gifts, and she departed. It is a strangely rational\nhistory to find in any ancient annals.\n\nThe saying of Jesus cited by Clement of Alexandria, \"He that hath\nmarvelled shall reign,\" uttered perhaps with a sigh, tells too\nfaithfully how small has been the interest of grand people in the\nwisdom that is \"clear, undefiled, plain.\" They are represented rather\nby the beautiful and wealthy Marchioness in \"Gil Blas,\" whose favour\nwas sought by the nobleman, the ecclesiastic, the philosopher, the\ndramatist, by all the brilliant people, but who set them all aside\nfor an ape-like hunchback, with whom she passed many hours, to the\nwonder of all, until it was discovered that the repulsive creature\nwas instructing her ladyship in cabalistic lore and magic.\n\nThere is much human pathos in this longing of mortals to attain\nto some kind of real and intimate perception beyond the phenomenal\nuniverse, and to some personal assurance of a future existence; but\nit has cost much to the true wisdom of this world. Some realization\nof this may have caused the sorrow of Jesus at Dalmanutha, as related\nin Mark. \"The Pharisees came forth and began to question with him,\nseeking of him a sign from heaven, testing him. And he sighed deeply\nin his spirit, and saith, Why does this people seek a sign? I say\nplainly unto you no sign will be given them. And he left them, and\nre\u00ebntering the boat departed to the other side.\"\n\nThey who now long to know the real mind of Jesus are often constrained\nto repeat his deep sigh when they find the most probable utterances\nascribed to him perverted by the marvel-mongers, insomuch that to the\nprotest just quoted Matthew adds a self-contradictory sentence about\nJonah. That this unqualified repudiation by Jesus of miracles should\nhave been preserved at all in Mark, a gospel full of miracles, is a\nguarantee of the genuineness of the incident, and of the comparative\nearliness of some parts of that gospel. The period of sophistication\nwas not far advanced. Miracles require time to grow. But the deep sigh\nand the words of Jesus, taken in connection with the entire absence\nfrom the Epistles--the earliest New Testament documents--of any hint of\na miracle wrought by him, is sufficient to bring us into the presence\nof a man totally different from the \"Christ\" of the four Gospels. [39]\n\nThose who seek the real Jesus will find it the least part of their\ntask to clear away the particular miracles ascribed to him; that is\neasy enough; the critical and difficult thing is to detach from the\nanecdotes and language connected with him every admixture derived\nfrom the belief in his resurrection. To do this completely is indeed\nimpossible.\n\nPaul, probably a contemporary of Jesus, knew well enough the\nvast difference between the man \"Jesus\" and the risen \"Christ\";\nhe insisted that the man should be ignored, and supplanted by the\nrisen Christ, as revealed by private revelations received by himself\nafter the resurrection. The student must now reverse that: he must\nignore those post-resurrectional revelations if he would know Jesus\n\"after the flesh\"--that is, the real Jesus.\n\nIn an age when immortality is a familiar religious belief we can hardly\nrealize the agitation, among a people to whom life after death was a\nvague, imported philosophy, excited by the belief that a man had been\nraised bodily from the grave. Immortality was no longer hypothesis. If\nto this belief be added the further conviction that this resurrection\nwas preliminary to his speedy reappearance, and the world's sudden\ntransformation, a mental condition could not fail to arise in which\nany ethical or philosophical ideas he might have uttered while \"in\nthe flesh\" must be thrown into the background, as of merely casual\nor temporary importance. Such is the state of mind reflected in the\nPauline Epistles. In them is found no reference whatever to any moral\ninstructions by Jesus. And when after some two generations had passed,\nand they who had expected while yet living to meet their returning Lord\nhad died, those who had heard oral reports and legends concerning him\nand his teachings began to write the memoranda on which our Synoptical\nGospels are based, it was too late to give these without adulterations\nfrom the apostolic ecstasy. His casual or playful remarks were by this\ntime discoloured and distorted, and enormously swollen, as if under a\nsolar microscope, by the overwhelming conceptions of a resurrection, an\napproaching advent, a subversion of all nationalities and institutions.\n\nThe most serious complication arises from the extent to which the\npretended revelations of Paul have been built into the Gospels. The\nso-called \"conversion of Paul\" was really the conversion of Jesus. The\nfacts can only be gathered from Paul's letters, the book of \"Acts\"\nbeing hardly more historical than \"Robinson Crusoe.\" The account in\n\"Acts\" of Paul's \"conversion\" is, however, of interest as indicating\na purpose in its writers to raise Paul into a supernatural authority\nequivalent to that ascribed to Christ, in order that he might set\naside the man Jesus. The story is a travesty of that related in the\n\"Gospel According to the Hebrews,\" concerning the baptism of Jesus:\n\"And a voice out of the heaven saying, 'Thou art my beloved Son,\nin thee I am well pleased': and again, 'I have this day begotten\nthee.' And straightway a great light shone around the place. And\nwhen John saw it he saith to him, 'Who art thou, Lord?'\" John fell\ndown before Jesus as did Paul before Christ. \"At midday, O King,\nI saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the\nsun, shining round about me, and them that journeyed with me. And\nwhen we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me\nin the Hebrew language, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is\nhard for thee to kick against the goad.' And I said, 'Who art thou,\nLord?'\" (Precisely what John said to Jesus at the baptism.)\n\nThis story (Acts xxvi. 13-15), quite inconsistent with Paul's\nletters, is throughout very ingenious. Besides associating Paul\nwith the supernatural consecration of Jesus, it replies, by calling\nhim Saul, to the Ebionite declaration that Paul had been a pagan,\nwho had become a Jewish proselyte with the intention of marrying the\nHigh Priest's daughter. There is no reason to suppose that Paul was\never called Saul during his life, and his salutation of two kinsmen in\nRome with Latin names, Andronicus and Junias (Romans xvi. 7), renders\nit probable that he was not entirely if at all Hebrew. The sentence,\n\"It is hard for thee to kick against the goad,\" is a subtle answer\nto any who might think it curious that the story of the resurrection\ncarried no conviction to Paul's mind at the time of its occurrence by\nsuggesting that in continuing his persecutions he was going against\nhis real belief--kicking against the goad.\n\nPaul, however, knows nothing of this theatrical conversion in his\nletters. But in severe competition with other \"pre\u00ebminent apostles,\"\nwho were preaching \"another Christ\" from his, he pronounces them\naccursed, supporting an authority above theirs by declaring that he had\nrepeated interviews with the risen Christ, and on one occasion had been\ntaken up into the third heaven and even into Paradise! The extremes\nto which Paul was driven by the opposing apostles are illustrated\nin his intimidation of dissenting converts by his pretence to an\noccult power of withering up the flesh of those whom he disapproves\n(1 Cor. v. 5). He tells Timothy of two men, Hymenoeus and Alexander,\nwhom he thus \"delivered over to Satan\" that \"they may be taught not\nto blaspheme\"--the blasphemy in this case being the belief (now become\northodoxy) that the dead were not sleeping in their graves but passed\ninto heaven or hell at death. In the book of \"Acts\" (xiii.) this claim\nof Paul's seems to have been developed into the Evil Eye (which he\nfastened on Bar Jesus, whose eyes thereon went out), and may perhaps\naccount for the similar sinister power ascribed to some of the Popes.\n\nIn this story of Bar Jesus, Christ is associated with Paul in\nstriking the learned man blind (xiii. 11), and the development of\nsuch a legend reveals the extent to which Jesus had been converted\nby Paul. In 1 Cor. ii. he presents a Christ whose body and blood,\nbeing not precisely discriminated in the sacramental bread and wine,\nhad made some participants sickly and killed others, in addition to\nthe damnation they had eaten and drank. He does not mention that any\nwho communicated correctly had been physically benefited thereby;\nonly the malignant powers appear to have had any utility for Paul.\n\nThat this menacing Christ may have been needed to intimidate converts\nand build up churches is probable; that such a being was nothing like\nJesus in the flesh, but had to come by pretended posthumous revelation,\nas an awful potentate whose human flesh had been but a disguise,\nis certain. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that nearly\neverything pharisaic, cruel, and ungentlemanly, ascribed to Jesus in\nthe synoptical Gospels, is fabricated out of Paul's Epistles. Paul\ncompares rival apostles to the serpent that beguiled Eve (2 Cor. xi. 3,\n4), and Christ calls his opponents offspring of vipers. The fourth\nGospel, apostolic in spirit, degrades Jesus independently, but it also\nborrows from Paul. Paul personally delivered some over to Satan, and\nthe intimation in John xiii. 27, \"after the sop, then entered Satan\ninto Judas,\" accords well with what Paul says about the unworthy\ncommunicant eating and drinking damnation (1 Cor. xi. 29).\n\nThe Eucharist itself was probably Paul's own adaptation of a Mithraic\nrite to Christian purposes. There is no reason to suppose that there\nwas anything sanctimonious in the wine supper which Jesus took with his\nfriends at the time of the Passover, and Paul's testimony concerning\nthe way it had been observed is against any   over with you?\" [40]\nHad it been other than a pleasant Epiphanius from the Gospel according\nto the Hebrews show that he desired to draw his friends away from\nthe sacrificial feature of the festival: \"Where wilt thou that we\nprepare for the passover to eat?\" ... \"Have I desired with desire to\neat this flesh, the passover with you?\" [41] Had it been other than a\npleasant wine supper it could not in so short a time have become the\njovial festival which Paul describes (1 Cor. xi. 20), nor, in order\nto reform it, would he have needed the pretence that he had received\nfrom Christ the special revelation of details of the Supper which\nhe gives, and which the Gospels have followed. Having substituted a\nhuman for an animal sacrifice (\"our passover also hath been sacrificed,\nChrist,\" 1 Cor. v. 7), he restores precisely that sacrificial feature\nto which Jesus had objected; and in harmony with this goes on to show\nthat human lives have been sacrificed to the majestic real presence\n(1 Cor. xi. 30). He had learned, perhaps by \"pagan\" experiences,\nwhat power such a sacrament might put into the priestly hand. [42]\n\nIt is Paul who first appointed Christ the judge of quick and dead\n(1 Tim. iv. 1). He describes to the Thessalonians (2 Thes. i.) \"the\nrevelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power\nin flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God,\" and\nthe \"eternal destruction\" of these. Hence, \"I never knew you\" becomes\na formula of damnation put into the mouth of Christ. \"I know you not\"\nis the brutal reply of the bridegroom to the five virgins, whose lamps\nwere not ready on the moment of his arrival. The picturesque incidents\nof this parable have caused its representation in pretty pictures,\nwhich blind many to its essential heartlessness. It is curious that\nit should be preserved in a Gospel which contains the words, \"Knock,\nand it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth,\nand he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be\nopened.\" The parable is fabricated out of 1 Thes. v., where Paul warns\nthe converts that the Lord cometh as a thief in the night, that there\nwill be no escape for those who then slumber, that they must not sleep\nlike the rest, but watch, \"for God hath appointed us not unto wrath.\"\n\nThe Christian dogma of the unpardonable sin, substituted for the\nearlier idea of an unrepentable sin, was developed out of Paul's\nfatalism. He writes, \"For this cause God sendeth them a strong delusion\nthat they should believe a lie\" (2 Thes. ii). Although this is not\nconnected in any Gospel with the inexpiable sin, we find its spirit\nanimating the Paul-created Christ in Mark iv. 11: \"Unto them that are\nwithout all these things are done in parables, that seeing they may\nsee and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand:\nlest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should\nbe forgiven them.\" This is imported from Paul (Rom. xi. 7, 8):\n\"That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the elect\nobtained it and the rest were hardened; according as it is written,\nGod gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see,\nand ears that they should not hear, unto this very day.\"\n\nWhence came this Christ who, in the very chapter where Jesus warns\nmen against hiding their lamp under a bushel, carefully hides his\nteaching under a parable for the express purpose of preventing some\noutsiders from being enlightened and obtaining forgiveness?\n\nJesus could not have said these things unless he plagiarized from\nPaul by anticipation. Deduct from the Gospels all that has been\nfabricated out of Paul (I have given only the more salient examples)\nand there will be found little or nothing morally revolting, nothing\nheartless. Superstitions abound, but so far as Jesus is concerned\nthey are nearly all benevolent in their spirit.\n\nBut even after we have removed from the Gospels the immoralities of\nPaul and the pharisaisms so profound as to suggest the proselyte, after\nwe have turned from his Christ to seek Jesus, we have yet to divest\nhim of the sombre vestments of a supernatural being, who could not\nopen his lips or perform any action but in relation to a resurrection\nand a heavenly office of which he could never have dreamed. Was he\n\n\n    \"The faultless monster whom the world ne'er saw\"?\n\n\nDid he never laugh? Did he eat with sinners only to call\nthem to repentance? Did he get the name of wine-bibber for his\n\"salvationism,\"--or was it because, like Omar Khayy\u00e1m, he defied the\nsanctimonious and the puritanical by gathering with the intellectual,\nthe scholarly, the Solomonic clubs?\n\nTo Paul we owe one credible item concerning Jesus, that he was\noriginally wealthy (2 Cor. viii. 9), and as Paul mentioned this to\ninculcate liberality in contributors, it is not necessary to suppose\nthat he alluded to his heavenly riches. At any rate, the few sayings\nthat may be reasonably ascribed to Jesus are those of an educated\ngentleman, and strongly suggest his instruction in the college of\nHillel, whose spirit remained there after his death, which occurred\nwhen Jesus was at least ten years old.\n\nTo a pagan who asked Hillel concerning the law, he answered: \"That\nwhich you like not for yourself do not to thy neighbour, that is the\nwhole law; the rest is but commentary.\" It will be observed that Hillel\nhumanizes the law laid down in Lev. xix. 18, where the Israelites\nare to love each his neighbour among \"the children of thy people\" as\nhimself. Even Paul (Rom. xiii. 8, Gal. v. 14) quotes it for a rule\namong the believers, while hurling anathema on others. But Jesus\nis made (Matt. vii. 12) to inflate the rule into the impracticable\nform of \"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you,\neven so do ye also unto them.\" By which rule a wealthy Christian would\ngive at least half his property to the first beggar, as he would wish\nthe beggar to do to him were their situations reversed. This might\nbe natural enough in a community hourly expecting the end of the\nworld and their own instalment in palaces whose splendour would be\nproportioned to their poverty in this world. But when this delusion\nfaded the rule reverted to what Hillel said, and no doubt Jesus also,\nas we find it in the second verse of \"Didache,\" the Teaching of the\nTwelve Apostles. It is a principle laid down by Confucius, Buddha,\nand all the human \"prophets,\" and one followed by every gentleman, not\nto do to his neighbour what he would not like if done to himself. But\nit is removed out of human ethics and strained ad absurdum by the\nsecond-adventist version put into the mouth of Jesus by Matthew. I\nhave dwelt on this as an illustration of how irrecoverably a man\nloses his manhood when he is made a God.\n\nIrrecoverably! In the second Clementine Epistle (xii. 2) it is said,\n\"For the Lord himself, having been asked by some one when his kingdom\nshould come, said, When the two shall be one, and the outside as the\ninside, and the male with the female neither male nor female.\" Perhaps\na humorous way of saying Never. Equally remote appears the prospect\nof recovering the man Jesus from his Christ-sepulchre. Even among\nrationalists there are probably but few who would not be scandalized\nby any thorough test such as Jesus is said, in the Nazarene Gospel,\nto have requested of his disciples after his resurrection, \"Take, feel\nme, and see that I am not a bodiless demon!\" Without blood, without\npassion, he remains without the experiences and faults that mould\nbest men, as Shakespeare tells us; he so remains in the nerves where\nno longer in the intellect, insomuch that even many an agnostic would\nshudder if any heretic, taking his life in his hand, should maintain\nthat Jesus had fallen in love, or was a married man, or had children.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nTHE MYTHOLOGICAL MANTLE OF SOLOMON FALLEN ON JESUS.\n\n\nIt is no part of my aim to prove miracles impossible, nor to consider\nwhether one or another alleged wonder might not be really within\nthe powers of an exceptional man. In the absence of any apostolic\nallusion to any extraordinary incident in the life of Jesus, and his\nown declaration (for the evangelists could not have invented a rebuke\nto their own narratives) that miracles were the vain expectation of\na people in distress and degradation, such records have lost their\nhistoric character. As Gibbon said in the last century, it requires\na miracle of grace to make a believer in miracles, and even among the\nuncritical that miracle is not frequent. In the New Testament belief\nin miracle has its natural corollary in a miraculous morality,--a\ndissolution of earthly ties, a severance from worldly affairs, a\nnon-resistance and passiveness under wrongs, which are in perfect\naccord with persons moving in an apocalyptic dream, but not with a\nworld awakened from that dream.\n\nBut at the root of the unnatural miracles is the natural miracle--the\nheart of man. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, as the\nmiracle-working poet reminds us; our little life is surrounded with a\nsleep, a realm of dreams,--visions that give poetic fulfilment to hopes\nborn of hard experience. No biblical miracle in its literal form is so\nbeautiful and impressive as the history of its origin and development\nas traced by the student of mythology. The growth, for example, of\na simple proverb ascribed to Solomon \"He that trusteth in his riches\nshall fall, but the just shall flourish as a green leaf\" into a hymn\n(Ps. lii.); the association of this Psalm, by its Hebrew caption,\nwith hungry David eating the shewbread of the temple, and the king's\nslaying the priests who permitted it; the use of this legend by Jesus\nwhen his disciples were censured for plucking the corn on the Sabbath\n(with perhaps some humorous picture of a great king in Heaven angry\nbecause hungry men ate a few grains of corn, crumbs from his royal\ntable) pointed with advice that the censors should learn that God\ndesires charity and not sacrifice; the development of this into an\nearly Christian burden against the rich, which took the form of an\nold Oriental fable, [43] to which a Jewish connotation was given by\ngiving the poor man in Paradise the name of Lazarus (i.e. Eleazar,\nwho risked his life to obtain water for famished David, a story that\nmay have been referred to by Jesus along with that of the shewbread);\nthe transformation of this parable into a quasi-historical narrative\nrepresenting the return of Lazarus from Abraham's bosom, his poverty\nomitted; the European combination of the parable and the history\nby creating a St. Lazarus (\"one helped by God\"), yet appointing him\nthe helper of beggars (lazzaroni): these items together represent a\ncontinuity of the human spirit through thousands of years, surmounting\nobstructive superstitions, holding still the guiding thread of humanity\nthrough long labyrinths of legend.\n\nTo fix on any one stage in such an evolution, detach it, affirm it,\nis to wrest a true scripture to its destruction. Few can really\nbe interested in Abimelech and the shewbread; no one now believes\nthat a rich man must go to hell because he is rich, nor a pauper to\nParadise because of his pauperism; and none can intelligently believe\nthe narrative of the resurrection of Lazarus without believing that\nin Jesus miraculous power was associated with the unveracity and\nvanity ascribed to him in that narrative. But take the legends all\ntogether, and in them is visible the supersacred heart of humanity\nsteadily developing through manifold symbols and fables the religion\nof human helpfulness and happiness. The study of mythology is the\nstudy of nature.\n\nThe theory already stated (ante I), that illegitimacy or irregularity\nof birth was a sign of authentication for \"the God-anointed,\" finds\nsome corroboration in the claim of the Epistle to the Hebrews that\nJesus, like Melchizedek, was without father, mother, or genealogy. His\ndouble nature is suggested: \"Our Lord sprung out of Judah\" (vii. 14),\nyet (verse 16), as priest, he has arisen \"not after the law of a\ncarnal commandment, but after the power of an indissoluble life.\" The\nwriter admits that what he writes about Melchizedek is \"hard of\ninterpretation,\" and perhaps it so proved to the genealogist (Matt,\ni.) who apparently was animated by a desire to make out a carnal-law\ninheritance of the throne, yet not so legitimate as to exclude divine\ninterference at various stages. In the forty-two generations only\nfive mothers are named,--all associated either with sexual immorality\nor some kind of irregularity in their matrimonial relations. Tamar,\nthrough whose adultery with her father-in-law, Judah, his almost\nextinct line was preserved, is already a holy woman in the book of\nRuth (iv. 12), and the association there of Ruth's name with this\nparticular one of the many female ancestors of her son, and her mention\nin Matthew, look as if some editor of Ruth as well as the genealogist\ndesired to cast suspicion on her midnight visit to Boaz. \"The Lord\ngave Tamar conception, and she bore a son\"--grandfather of David. It\nis also doubtful whether Rahab, who comes next to Tamar in Matthew's\nlist, is called a harlot in the book of Joshua: Zuneh is said to mean\n\"hostess\" or \"tavern-keeper.\" But in the Epistle to the Hebrews and in\nthat of James she becomes a glorified harlot. The next female ancestor\nof Jesus mentioned is \"her of Uriah.\" The name of the woman is not\ngiven,--the important fact being apparently that she was somebody's\nwife. Our translators have supplied no fewer than five words to save\nthis text from signifying that Bathsheba was still Uriah's wife when\nSolomon was born.\n\nThe next ancestress named after the mother of Solomon is the mother of\nJesus, Mary, in whom Bathsheba finds transfiguration. The exaltation\nof the adulterous mother of Solomon has already been referred to\n(ante II.), and the traditional ascription to her of the authorship\nof the last chapter of Proverbs. She was also supposed to be the\noriginal or model of \"the Virtuous Woman\" therein portrayed! Now,\nin that same chapter she is pronounced \"blessed,\" and excelling all\nthe daughters who have done virtuously (Cf. Luke i. 28, 42). In the\n\"Wisdom of Solomon\" (ix. 5) a phrase is used by Solomon which is also\nused by his mother (Bathsheba) when she conjured from David the decree\nfor his succession,--\"thine handmaiden\" (1 Kings i.). Solomon says,\n\"For I, thy servant, and son of thy handmaiden,\" etc. This was written\nin a popular work about the time of the birth of Jesus. We find the\n\"blessed\" of Proverbs xxxi. 28, and the \"handmaiden\" of the \"Wisdom\nof Solomon\" both in Mary's magnificat: \"For he hath regarded the low\nestate of his handmaiden; for behold, from henceforth all generations\nshall call me blessed.\"\n\nIn Ecclesiasticus (xv. 2) we find the enigmatic clause concerning\nSolomonic \"Sophia,\" personified Wisdom: kai hypant\u00easetai aut\u00f4 h\u00f4s\nm\u00eat\u00ear, kai h\u00f4s gyn\u00ea parthenias prosdexetai auoton.\n\nThe Vulgate translates: \"Et obviabit illi quasi mater honorificata,\net quasi mulier a virginitate suscipiet illum.\"\n\nWycliffe translates the Vulgate: \"And it as a modir onourid schal\nmeete hym, and as a womman fro virgynyte schal take him.\"\n\nThe Authorised Version has: \"And as a mother shall she meet him,\nand receive him as a wife married of a virgin.\"\n\nIn the Variorum Teacher's Bible the reading \"maiden wife\" is suggested,\nand reference is made to Leviticus xxi. 13, \"And he shall take a wife\nin her virginity.\" But the Septuagint, which Jesus Ben Sira would\nfollow were he quoting, uses simple words there: hautos gynaika\nparthenon [ek tou genous autou] l\u00eapsetai.\n\n(The words in crochets are added by the LXX.)\n\nThe clause in Ecclus. xv. 2, taken with the chapter it continues,\nconveys to me an impression of rhapsodical paradox, as when Dante\napostrophises Mary: \"O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy son!\" The Semitic\ngoddess is born, Wisdom, sister of virginal Athena of the Parthenon,\nyet fulfilling the Solomonic exaltation of the Virtuous Woman, who\nis also a wife. She is therefore the Virgin Bride.\n\nBut whether this interpretation is correct or not, it cannot be\ndoubted that this strange phrase in a household book might easily\nconvey that impression, and that to believers in the resurrection\nof Jesus the feeling that he must also have entered the world in a\nsupernatural way might naturally have associated Miriam his mother\nwith the virgin bride, Wisdom.\n\nThe evolution of Wisdom into the Holy Spirit has been traced (ante\nXII.), and it is sufficient to mention here that in the \"Gospel\naccording to the Hebrews,\" Jesus uses the phrase \"My mother the\nHoly Spirit.\"\n\nIn the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" the resurrected Solomon says, \"I was\nnursed in swaddling clothes, and that with cares\" (vii. 4, cf. Luke\nii. 7). This might be said of every babe, but the King, having begun by\nsaying \"I myself also am a mortal man,\" mentions the swaddling clothes\nas a sign of lowliness; and the impression made by this item in the\nBirth-legend of Jesus is shown by a passage in the Arabic Gospel of\nthe Infancy. It is said that when the Wise Men came, in obedience to\na prophecy of Zoroaster, Mary rewarded their gifts with one of the\nchild's \"Swaddling bands,\" which on their return to their own land\nwithstood the power of fire, in which it was tested.\n\nThe infant Jesus receives gifts of the Wise Men, traceable to the gold,\nsilver, and spices brought by the Queen of Sheba (afterwards \"Sophia\")\nto Solomon. (Cf. also Psalm lxxii. 8-11.) As Solomon to the Queen,\nso Jesus gives proofs of astounding wisdom to the woman of Samaria.\n\nIn the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" the returned king proceeds: \"I was a witty\nchild, and had a good spirit. Yea rather, being good, I came into a\nbody undefiled\" (viii. 19, 20). In Luke it is said, \"And the child\ngrew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom.\" \"And Jesus\nincreased in wisdom and stature.\"\n\nThe word \"undefiled\" was a special title of Wisdom. In the \"Wisdom of\nSolomon\" (vii.) the King, having described his birth, \"like to all,\"\nand his \"swaddling clothes,\" follows this immediately by saying,\n\"I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called, and the spirit\nof Wisdom came to me.\" This is the new and the spiritual birth. Among\nthe titles ascribed in the same chapter to Wisdom is \"Undefiled,\" this\nbeing emphasized three verses lower by the declaration that being a\npure emanation from God \"no defiled thing can fall into her.\" These\nideas, so far as Solomon is concerned, are referable to his prayer\nfor wisdom (1 Kings iii. 9) and to Jahveh's adoption of him (Psalm\nii. 7). \"Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.\"\n\nThese ideas all reappear at the baptism of Jesus, as related in the\n\"Gospel according to Hebrews\":\n\n\n   \"Behold the mother of the Lord and his brethren said to him,\n    'John the Baptist baptizeth for remission of sins: let us go and\n    be baptized by him.' But he said to them, 'Wherein have I sinned\n    that I should go and be baptized by him? except perchance this very\n    thing that I have said is ignorance.' And when the people had been\n    baptized Jesus also came and was baptized by John. And as he went\n    up the heavens were opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit in shape\n    of a Dove descending and entering him. And a voice out of heaven,\n    saying, 'Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased';\n    and again, 'I have this day begotten thee.'\" (Cf. Jahveh's promise\n    concerning Solomon, 1 Chron. xvii. 13, \"I will be his father and\n    he shall be my son.\")\n\n\nIt is important to recall that this all occurred before baptism. The\nsuggestion that he should be baptized for remission of sins, is met by\nJesus as a challenge of his sinlessness. It is submitted to the test,\nand before he enters the water the \"Undefiled\" (the dove) enters\nhim, and the deity announces him as then and there begotten. When\n\"straightway a great light shone around the place\"--ultimately the Star\nof Bethlehem. John the Baptist is here the shepherd: seeing the light,\nhe asks, \"Who art thou, Lord?\" The heavenly voice replies, \"This is my\nbeloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.\" Then John fell down before\nhim and said, \"I pray thee, Lord, baptize thou me.\" But he prevented\nhim, saying, \"Let be; for thus it is becoming that all things should\nbe fulfilled.\" Then follows the baptism, and the account continues:\n\n\n   \"And it came to pass, when the Lord had come up from the water,\n    the entire fountain of the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon\n    him and said to him, 'My Son, in all the prophets did I await thee,\n    that thou mightest come and I might rest in thee; for thou art\n    my rest; thou art my first-born Son that reignest forever.'\" [44]\n\n\nThe phrase \"entire fountain of the Holy Spirit\" is Pars\u00ee. An\u00e2hita\nis the Holy Spirit; her influence is always described as a fountain\ndescending on the saints or heroes to whom she gives strength. It\nwill be remembered that in this Gospel the Holy Spirit is also\nfeminine. The use of the words \"fountain\" and \"rest in thee\" are\ninteresting in connection with the account of John the Baptizer\nand Jesus in the fourth gospel, which differs so widely from the\nSynoptical narratives. It is in John (iii.) left doubtful whether\nJesus accepted any baptismal rite at all. John was baptizing at\na large pool called \u00c6non-by-Saleim,--probably allegorical, meaning\n\"Fountain of Repose.\" Jesus and his friends came there and plunged in\n(ebaptixonto), but they seem to have been a distinct party from\nthat of John.\n\nAfter the supposed resurrection of Jesus everything he did, even\ntaking a bath, became mystical. Jerome says that in his time there\nwas a place called Salumias, and he maintained that it was there that\nMelchizedek refreshed Abraham. There are various readings of this\nSaleim in the New Testament, all, no doubt, variants of Solomon,\nall meaning \"rest\"; and the fourth Gospel supplies in 'Ain\u00f4n engys\nSal\u00eam' the basis of the legend in the Aramaic Gospel of the \"rest\"\nwhich the Holy Spirit found in her son, on whom her \"entire fountain\"\nwas poured. And with this legend may also be read the words of \"Wisdom\nof Solomon,\" vii. 27, 28: \"She (Wisdom) maketh all things new; and in\nall ages entering into holy souls she maketh them friends of God and\nprophets. For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with Wisdom.\" The\nrepresentation in this Aramaic Gospel of the Holy Spirit as \"entering\ninto\" Jesus is especially interesting in connection with the use of\nthe same phrase in \"Wisdom of Solomon,\"--into whose heart Wisdom was\nput by God (1 Kings x. 24).\n\nIt is only after Wisdom has entered into Jesus that the voice is\nheard, \"This is my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.\" This\naccords with Solomon's words, \"God loveth none but him that dwelleth\nwith Wisdom.\" The angelic song at the birth (Luke ii. 14) preserves\nthe heavenly voice at the baptism concerning \"peace.\" The \"peace\"\nis Solomon's own name, associated with the \"rest\" given to his reign\nin order that he might build the temple (1 Kings v. 4, Ecclesiasticus\nxlvii. 13). \"My Son,\" says the spirit from within Jesus, \"Thou art\nmy rest.\"\n\nIt is remarkable that the title pre\u00ebminently belonging to Solomon,\n\"Prince of Peace,\" and unknown to the Gospels as a title of Jesus,\nshould be traditionally given to one said to have declared that\nhe had come on earth to bring not peace but a sword, and bids his\ndisciples arm themselves. No doubt the religious instinct tells true\nin this; it is tolerably plain that the warlike words were ascribed\nto Jesus not because he said them, but to adapt him to the \"Word\"\nas described in the \"Wisdom of Solomon\": \"While all things were in\nquiet silence ... thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out\nof thy royal throne as a fierce man of war ... and brought thine\nunfeigned commandment as a sharp sword,\" etc. The fierce metaphor\nwas, as we have seen, caught up and spiritualized in the Epistle to\nthe Hebrews, and passed on to be literalized for the risen Christ,\nso that the consecration of the sword by the Prince of Peace is writ\nlarge in the Christian wars of many centuries.\n\nTo the tests and proofs of Solomon's wisdom recorded in 1 Kings\niii. and x. many additions were made by rabbinical tradition, mostly\nderived from Pars\u00ee scriptures. The famous Ring of Solomon is the symbol\nof sovereignty over the part of the earth owned by God given by him to\nthe first man King Yima--\"Then I, Ahura Mazda, brought two implements\nunto him, a golden ring and a poniard inlaid with gold. Behold,\nhere Yima bears the royal sway!\" (Vend\u00eed\u00e2d, Farg. ii. 5). When Yima\npressed the earth with this ring, the genius of the Earth, Arama\u00eeti,\nresponded to his wish and order. The ring represented Yima's \"glory\"\n(in Avestan phrase), his divine potency, lost when he yielded to a\ntemptation of the devil, and Solomon also lost his ring with which,\nas we have seen (ante IV.) his \"glory\" and royal sway passed to the\n(Persian) devil Asmodeus. This occurred in a trial of wits, Asmodeus\npropounding hard questions, which Solomon was able to answer until,\nproudly thinking he could answer by his unaided intellect, he laid\naside his ring, at the challenge of Asmodeus. These hard questions\nare found in an ancient legend of a similar contest between the devil\nand Zoroaster, and are alluded to as \"malignant riddles.\" Zoroaster\nmet the devil \"unshaken by the hardness of his malignant riddles,\"\nand swinging \"stones as big as a house,\" which he had obtained from\nthe Maker,--tables of the divine law, and possibly origin of the\nstones which the devil challenged Jesus to turn into bread.\n\nThere are Avestan elements in the legend of the temptation of Jesus\nthat do not appear in the legends of Solomon. In Pars\u00ee belief the land\nof demons on earth is M\u00e2zana. From that region they issue to inflict\ndiseases, especially blindness and deafness. In that region is an\n\"exceeding high mountain,\" Dam\u00e2vand, to which the great demon Azi\nDah\u00e2ka was bound by Feridun who overcame him. This demon was called\n\"the murderer,\"--the epithet mysteriously applied by Jesus to the\ndevil (John viii. 44). After tempting and supplanting King Yima he\nruled over the world for a millennium in great splendour, and the\nchief of devils tempts Zoroaster with that glory.\n\n\"Renounce the good law of the worshippers of Mazda, and thou shalt\ngain such a boon as the Murderer gained, the ruler of nations.\" Thus\nin answer to him said Zoroaster, \"No, never will I renounce the good\nlaw of the worshippers of Mazda, though my body, my life, my soul,\nshould burst.\" Again said the guileful one, the Maker of the evil\nworld, \"By whose word wilt thou strike, by whose word wilt thou\nrepel, by whose weapon will the good creatures (strike and repel)\nmy creation?\" Thus, in answer, said Zoroaster, \"The sacred mortar,\nthe sacred cup, the Haoma [the sacramental juice] the Words taught\nby Mazda, these are my weapons.\" [45]\n\nAfter this, Zoroaster \"on the mountain\" conversed with Ahura Mazda,\nand invoked the beneficent beings who preside over the seven Karshvares\nof the earth. We thus have here the mountain, the stones, the Word\nfrom the mouth of God, the offer of the kingdoms of the world, and\nthe ministering angels, which reappear in the temptation of Jesus.\n\nAfter his baptism, Jesus repudiates his human parentage (\"who is my\nmother?\" etc.), and was led up by his new mother--the Spirit--into\nthe wilderness to be tested by the devil. To this no doubt relate\nthe words of Jesus preserved by Origen from the \"Gospel according\nto the Hebrews\": \"Just now my mother the Holy Spirit took me by one\nof my hairs and bore me up on the great mountain Tabor.\" [46] Here\nthe Solomonic kingdom and glory were offered by the devil if Jesus\nwould worship him. According to Luke iv. he was tempted forty days\n(the number of the years of Solomon's reign). The first incident\nthereafter was his announcement that the Spirit of the Lord was\nupon him, and the second was an exhibition of his Solomonic power\nover devils. This, in Luke, is his first miracle. His first titular\nrecognition was this surrender of the devil, who cried, \"I know thee\nwho them art, the Holy One of Israel!\"\n\nIn Matthew also the devils first give him the divine title \"Son of God\"\n(vii. 29). In the next chapter he gives his twelve disciples authority\nover demons. That this was well understood by the people is shown\nin Matthew xii. 23, where, on seeing demons mastered, they cry,\n\"Is this the Son of David?\" that is, is this Solomon, the famous\nenslaver of demons?\n\nIt may be noted in passing that in the three miracles in Matthew of\nexorcising a blinding demon the title \"Son of David\" is used. Alford\nspeaks of this as remarkable; but vision is the especial promise of\nWisdom, therefore of Solomon, son of David.\n\nIt may be remembered in this connection that in \"Wisdom\"\n(Ecclus. iv.) the trial by Wisdom is set forth:\n\n\n   \"Whoso giveth ear unto her shall judge the nations. * * *\n    If a man commit himself unto her, he shall inherit her. * * *\n    At the first she will walk with him by crooked ways and bring\n    fear and dread upon him, and torment him with her discipline,\n    until she may trust his soul, and try him by her laws. Then\n    she will return the straight way unto him, and comfort him, and\n    shew him her secrets. But if he go wrong she will forsake him,\n    and give him over to his own ruin.\"\n\n\nThis, which reappears in the parable of the broad and the narrow ways,\nseems to have determined the part which the Holy Spirit performs in\nthe temptation of Jesus. According to Matthew he was by the Spirit\ncarried involuntarily, \"driven,\" says Mark, the Hebrew Gospel says,\n\"borne by the hair\" into the wilderness: as Jahveh \"raised a Satan\nunto Solomon,\" and left Job to Satan, the Holy Spirit carries Jesus to\nSatan, the same Evil One; and after his triumph the promise in \"Wisdom\"\n(she will \"comfort him\") is fulfilled: \"Angels came and ministered unto\nhim.\" Luke says he \"returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee;\nand a fame went out concerning him through all the region round about:\nhe taught in their synagogues and was glorified of all.\"\n\nNevertheless it may be remarked that the peculiar language in Luke\n(iv. 1) \"led in the spirit\" suggests that the whole story is a late\nliteralization of some vision, partly based on v. 7 of the Epistle\nto the Hebrews, but originally on Solomon's dream (1 Kings iii.),\nin which Jahveh offers him any gift, and he asks only for Wisdom. Or,\nas he (Solomon) says in \"Wisdom of Solomon,\" \"I preferred her before\nsceptres and thrones\" (vii. 8). But all of these were remotely\ninfluenced by the trial of Zoroaster, and the attempts of the devil\nto terrify Zoroaster before tempting him may be hinted in Mark i. 13,\n\"He was with the wild beasts.\" These, however, are more prominent in\nthe temptation of Buddha.\n\nPaul appears to have considered it an important apostolic credential\nto have had to contend with a Satan (2 Cor. xii. 7-10), and Peter\nwas honoured by a special request made by Satan, and conceded, that\nhe should be for a time under his diabolical control. (Luke xxii. 31.)\n\nAs in the case of Solomon, the tests and trials of the superhuman\nwisdom and power of Jesus are found chiefly in tradition and\nfolklore. The apocryphal gospels contain many, and some are\npreserved by Persian and Arabian poets. In the New Testament a few\nexamples appear in which his utterances are given a quasi-judicial\ntone. There are several points of resemblance between the famous\njudgment of Solomon on the two harlots contending for the child, and\nthe sentence of Jesus in favour of \"sinful Mary,\" sister of Martha,\naccused by Simon the Pharisee. In both cases the decision was made\nat a feast, and in favour of the one who \"loved much.\" It is not,\nhowever, the incident in itself that is now referred to, but only\nthe formality ascribed to it in the narrative. And this adheres to\nthe entire story. The anointing of Jesus may have occurred, but the\nscenic touches recall lines in the Solomonic \"Song of Songs\":\n\n\n   \"While the King sat at his table,\n    My spikenard sent forth its fragrance.\"\n\n\nIt is not impossible, by the way, that it was from chaste Shulamith\nof the Song ascribed to Solomon that a bad reputation was fixed on\nMary Magdalene, against whose virginal purity no word is said in the\nBible, the chapter heading to Luke vii. alone identifying her, in\ncontradiction to John xi. 2, as the woman who anointed Jesus. This\nlibel seems to come from a far antiquity,--as far probably as\nthe Talmudic \"Miriam Magdala\" (i. e., Braided-hair Mary); and\nthis epithet might have been derived from Shulamith's \"ringlets\"\nwhich were \"tied up in folds,\" and whose spikenard sent forth its\nodours while Solomon was at the table. The later Jahvism must have\nconsidered such attention by ladies to their hair as an evidence of\nwickedness. Paul, while recognizing that long hair is a woman's \"glory\"\n(1 Cor. xi.) dangerously fascinating even to the angels, testifies\nagainst \"braided hair\" (1 Tim. ii.), an instruction repeated in 1\nPeter iii. Whether this lady of means who helped to support Jesus was\nfrom Magdala or not, it is nearly certain that her legend was derived\nfrom another sense of \"Magdalene,\" and it is not improbable that the\nfriendship of Jesus for her was in keeping with his Solomonic defiance\nof the Pharisaic.\n\nThe Eastern tales of monarchs in disguise, derived from a legend\nof Solomon, may have prepared the popular mind for the double r\u00f4le\nperformed by Jesus in the Gospels, for the earlier writers do not\nsuggest any lowliness in his position beyond the humiliation of taking\non human flesh and dying. In the Gospels we find him now an hungered,\nnow dining with the Pharisee and anointed with precious ointment,\nagain multiplying food; an humble-son of man who has not where to lay\nhis head, a son of God with legions of angels at his command; purifying\nthe temple with violence, and predicting its destruction; a peacemaker\nbringing a sword; telling his disciples to resist not evil, and arming\nthem; enjoining secrecy about his miracles, presently parading them;\nprostrate with anguish in a garden, presently shining with unmasked\nsplendour. Solomon never arrayed himself in any such brilliant\nraiment as that of the transfiguration, nor was his environment finer\nthan the scenes imaged in some of these parables,--the prodigal's\nring and robe, the king going to war and sending his ambassadors,\nthe masters of fields and vineyards, the momentous wedding dress,\nthe importance of rank and precedence at a feast. In miracles, too,\nwe have the grand wedding at Cana, and the homage of the centurion\ndeferentially rewarded. [47]\n\nIn the Hebrew Gospel Jesus says, \"I will that ye be twelve apostles\nfor a testimony to Israel\"; with which we may compare the \"twelve\nofficers over all Israel\" appointed by Solomon (1 Kings iv. 7). In\nMark the first bestowal on Jesus of his Solomonic title \"Son of\nDavid\" (x.) is immediately followed by his Solomonic entry into\nJerusalem. In Matthew the blind man's tribute is followed by the cry\nof multitudes, \"Hosanna to the Son of David\"; and the whole scene\nis obviously from the narrative in 1 Kings i. of the procession of\nSolomon, seated on David's mule, on the occasion of the anointing\nwhich made him the model Messiah, in virtue of which he was King\nand Priest in combination. Solomon dedicated the temple himself, as\nHigh Priest, and to him, as King-Priest, the privilege of sanctuary\nwas subordinate. Wherefore he had an offender executed while holding\nthe horns of the altar. The titular Son of David, on the morrow of\nhis triumphal entry, assumes authority in the temple, and scourges\nout of it the sellers of things used in the sacrifices,--especially\nDoves. These his human mother had sacrificed after his birth for\npurification, but by this time they symbolized his divine mother,\nthe Holy Spirit, and were not to be sold.\n\nWho can suppose that this violence, which were as if one assaulted\nthose who sell holy candles and pictures in a church vestibule,\nreally occurred? At Oberammergau the whole tragedy of the Passion\nPlay hinges on the resentment of these merchants, who appeal to the\nSanhedrim for protection from the violence of one man armed with a\nwhip! The story (John ii.) is an epitaph of the primitive Christ,\nthe value of whose blood was its proof that his victory over the\nAdversary was that of a Man, unaided by a divine, unblemished by a\ncarnal, weapon: triumph by either would have been defeat.\n\nThe bread and wine offered to Abraham by the mythical king-priest\nof Salem (Solomon disguised as Melchizedek) may have been suggested\nby the bread and wine offered by Wisdom to her guests, in Proverbs\nix. However this may be, there is clearly discoverable at the Last\nSupper of Jesus the Satan that Jahveh raised up against Solomon in\nthe presence of mythical Judas (\"Satan entered into him,\" says John),\nand in the whole scene the table of Wisdom. \"She hath mingled her wine,\nshe hath furnished her table,\" and cries--\n\n\n    \"Come, eat ye of my bread,\n    And drink of the wine which I have mingled.\"\n\n\nThat Jesus supped with his disciples, at the Passover time, is very\nprobable, but that the bread and wine alone should have been selected\nfor symbolical usage (a point unknown to the fourth gospel) conforms\ntoo closely with the Solomonic prologue to be a mere coincidence. The\nwords \"Take, eat,\" \"Drink ye all of it,\" recall also the Song of\nSongs--\n\n\n    Eat, O friends!\n    Drink, yea abundantly, O beloved!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nTHE HEIR OF SOLOMON'S GODHEAD.\n\n\nThe anger of Jahveh against Solomon (1 Kings xi.) is, of course, the\noutcome of late theological explanations of how the ancient and much\nidealised kingdom could have been divided after divine promises of its\nprotection. The interview with Solomon is a sort of dramatization,\nin which the anachronism of making Jahveh a historic contemporary\nof the Wise King represents the fact that when the tribal deity was\nevolved it was in antagonism to a Solomon who, though his body had long\nmouldered, was still \"marching on.\" That Solomon had to contend with\nthe hard and fanatical elements afterwards consolidated in Jahvism is\npretty clear, and we may see in him a primitive Akbar. A century after\nAkbar's death the Rajah of Joudpoor said to the emperor Aurungzebe:\n\"Your ancestor Akbar, whose throne is now in heaven, conducted the\naffairs of his empire in equity and security for the period of fifty\nyears. He preserved every tribe of men in repose and happiness, whether\nthey were followers of Jesus or of Moses, of Brahma or Mohammed. Of\nwhatever sect or creed they might be, they all equally enjoyed his\ncountenance and favour, insomuch that his people, in gratitude for\nthe indiscriminate protection which he afforded them, distinguished\nhim by the appellation of The Guardian of Mankind.\" Moslem fanaticism\ncould not tolerate such toleration, and Akbar's reign was followed\nby conflicts very similar to those which followed Solomon's reign,\nleading to the Mogul empire, but ultimately to the reign of an \"Empress\nof India,\" under whom we now see the same toleration of all religions\nwhich prevailed in the fifty years of Akbar.\n\nThe Moslem saw in Akbar's liberality and toleration the supreme\noffence of putting other gods--Jesus, Brahma, Ahuramazda--beside\nAllah. The Jahvist saw retrospectively in Solomon's liberality the\nputting of Moloch, Ashera, and other gods beside Jahveh. It was\ntherefore recorded that Jahveh determined to rend all the tribes\nsave one from Solomon's son (a vaticinium ex evento). But that one\nwas enough to preserve the Solomon cult.\n\nAnank\u00ea oude Theoi machontai. This Necessity, which the Greeks saw\nworking above all the gods, is man himself, and worked also above Jah\nand Jahvism, nay, by means of them. Gradually they seemed to prevail\nover Solomonism. The Proverbs and Solomonic Psalms were transfused with\nJahvism, but by this process the heavenly and the terrestrial kings\nwere confused, and the idea of a human heir to the throne of Jahveh\nwas conceived. As when, in our own era, Islam swallowed Zoroaster,\nwith the result of bringing forth the great literary age of Persia,\nwith Parsaism rationalized under a transparent veil of Moslem phrase\nand fable, so anciently arose the Hebrew Faizis and Saadis and Omar\nKhayy\u00e1ms. Of these was the Isaiah who, with pigments of the Solomonic\nsunset, painted the sunrise of a new day, and a new earth-born God.\n\n\n   \"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the\n    government shall rest on his shoulder; and his name shall be\n    called Counsellor of Wonders, God-hero, Father of Spoil, Prince of\n    Peace. Enlarged shall be dominion, and without cessation of peace,\n    on the throne of David, and throughout his kingdom, to establish\n    it and uphold it by justice and righteousness from henceforth\n    and forever.\"\n\n\nEvery title, every tint, in this gorgeous vision is taken from the\nnuptial song for Solomon (Ps. xlv.) and Solomon's Psalm (lxxii.) The\n\"delightsomeness poured over (Solomon's) lips\" (Ps. xlv. 2) makes\nthe Counsellor of Wonders; his deification (verses 6, 7) makes the\nGod-hero; the tributes of Tarshish, and Sheba make him father of\nspoil (Ps. lxxii.); his \"mildness\" (Ps. xlv. 4) his abundant \"peace\"\n(Ps. lxxii. 3, 7) make the Prince of Peace; and the rest is a general\nrefrain for both of the Psalms.\n\nPsalm xlv. opens with the words, \"My verse concerns the King,\" and\nthere is a fair consensus of the learned that the king is Solomon. It\nhas been found impossible to fix upon any other monarch to whom the\neulogia would be applicable, and the resemblance of the theme to the\nSong of Solomon proves that at an early period writers connected the\nPsalm with Solomon and one of his espousals.\n\nIn quoting Professor Newman's translation of this Psalm (ante II)\nI alluded to my slight alterations. These are few and verbal, but\nmomentous, and were not made without consultation of many critical\nauthorities and versions. Professor Newman was unable to believe\nthat the poet really meant to address Solomon as God, and in verse\n6 translates \"Thy throne divine,\" in verse 7, \"Therefore hath God,\nthy God, etc.\" Others, with similar theistic bias, have shrunk from\nwhat, according to the balance of critical interpretation, is the\nclear sense of the original:\n\n\n   \"Thy throne, O God, ever and always stands;\n    A righteous sceptre is thy royal sceptre:\n    Thou lovest right and hatest evil;\n    Therefore, O God, hath thy God anointed thee\n    With oil of joy above thy fellow-kings.\"\n\n\nWhen these verses were written--and verse 11, where after Adonai\nthe Vulgate has Elohim, \"He is thy Lord God, worship thou him\"--the\nrigid Jewish monotheism did not exist; and the apostrophe might have\ncontinued without special notice had not the psalm been included in\nthe Jewish hymnology and thus given the solemnity and consecration\nascribed by Jahvism to its canonical Book of Psalms. But ultimately\nit made a tremendous and even revolutionary impression; and that the\nverses were interpreted as bestowing the divine name on Solomon, by\nthose most jealous of that name, is proved, I think, by the following\nconsiderations:\n\n1. Isaiah, in his vision quoted above (Is. ix.) combines the\nphraseology of Ps. xlv. with that of Ps. lxxii. (which bears Solomon's\nname as its author), and ascribes to a new-born child the title\n\"God-hero.\"\n\n2. The recently discovered original of a fragment of Ecclesiasticus\nincludes the passage about Solomon in xlvii., and it is said in\nverse 18: \"Thou (Solomon) wast called by the glorious name which\nis called over Israel.\" This seems to be a plain reference to the\nascriptions in Ps. xlv., where alone the divine name is applied to\nany individual mortal. Ecclesiasticus was compiled early in the second\ncentury before our era, and on the basis of much earlier compilations,\nas its prologue states.\n\n3. In the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" the monarch is represented as a mortal\nwho by the divine gift of supernatural Wisdom had gained immortality;\nhe had become privy to the mysteries of God, was his Beloved, his\nSon. This was written about the first year of our era.\n\n4. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews translates the Psalm\nxlv. as it is translated above, interpreting the words of deification\nas meant for the Firstborn of God at his ancient appearance on earth\n(i. 6), and applicable to his reappearance as Christ; arguing from\nsuch language of deification the superiority of the Son of God over\nthe angels, who were never so addressed.\n\nA court poet addresses a princely bridegroom as Elohim, as a god--as\nit were, an Apollo. Had more songs of like antiquity by poets of his\nrace been preserved, no doubt other instances of such rhapsody might\nbe found, but it happens that this is the only instance in Hebrew\nliterature where an individual man is clearly addressed as God (for\nExod. vii. 1 and 1 Sam. xxviii. 13 are not really exceptions). As in\nthe Psalm that is the only instance in which an individual man is,\nin the Old Testament, addressed as God, so is its application in the\nEpistle to the Hebrews the only indisputable instance in which an\nindividual is addressed as God in the New Testament.\n\n\"Thy throne, O God.\" Fateful words! The word of God, says this Epistle,\nis sharper than any two-edged sword, but its writer himself unwittingly\nunsheathed from a courtier's compliment just such a sword. One edge\nhas slaughtered innumerable Jews, Moslems, Arians, Socinians, mingling\ntheir blood with that of the humane Jesus himself on the sacrificial\naltar he tried so hard to exchange for mercifulness. The other edge\nturned against the moral heart of Jesus himself, lowering the tone of\nall narratives and utterances ascribed to him after his connection\nwith Jahveh, and consequently lowering all Christendom under its\ndishonourable burden of accommodating human veracity and kindness to\nthe bad heavenly manners that were acquired by the deified Christ. For\nthere was no other God to adopt him but a particularly rude one.\n\nTheological scholars who have compared the Epistle to the Hebrews\nwith the Epistles of Paul have dwelt on the theological differences,\nbut the moral differences are greater. In the Epistle to the Hebrews\nthe emphasis is laid on the service of Jesus to mankind: it is this\nthat makes him, as it made Solomon, worthy of worship as a God,\nand the ancient God with his sacrifices is virtually represented as\ntransforming himself and his government to the measure of Jesus. Jesus\nis complete and perfect man, no part or power of his divine nature\naccompanying him on earth. But we see in Philippians ii. 7, and other\npassages, the primitive idea fading away, and Jesus pictured as a\ndivine being in the mere semblance and disguise of a man, no real man\nat all; a theory which prevails in the story of the transfiguration,\nwhere the disguise is for a moment thrown aside. The earlier idea of\nhis genuine humanity was still strong enough to prevent any stories\nof miracles wrought by Jesus from arising, the resurrection being a\nmiracle wrought by God after the work of Jesus was \"finished,\" as he\nis said to have proclaimed from the stake. But legends of miracles\nbecame inevitable after the theory of his disguise was diffused,\nand also stories of the vituperation, anathemas, and attitudinizings,\nwhich are so offensive in a man, but so characteristic of the whole\nhistory of Jahveh, with whom he was gradually identified. A gentleman\ndoes not call his opponents vipers and consign them to hell, but\nJahveh is not under any such obligations. And, alas, disregard of\nthe humanities did not, as we have seen, stop there even in Paul's\ntime. In the further development, that of Jesus the magician, the\npersonal character of Jesus was sadly sacrificed, and it is only\ndue to the superstition that prevents the New Testament narratives\nfrom being read in a common sense way that people generally are not\nshocked by some of the representations.\n\nWhen the second Solomon was born in Bethlehem, as the Gospel carols\ntell, Wise Men came to worship him, but Jahveh had already fixed\nhis own star above the cradle, and his angels contended for the\ngreat man, as for centuries the wisdom of the first Solomon had been\njahvized. It was, however, the opinion of some ancient commentators\nthat the cry of the angels, \"Glory to God in the highest\" meant that\nthe birth of Jesus was to operate in the heavenly heights, and work\nchanges there also. One may indeed dream of a deity longing for a human\nlove,--grieving at being through ages an object of fear, personified as\nWrath,--rejoicing in the birth of any new interpreter who should free\nhim from the despot glory, \"I create evil,\" and reconcile the human\nheart to him as eternal love--love ever burdened with the griefs of\nhumanity, ever seeking to be born of woman, and to struggle against the\ndark and evil forces of nature. So one may dream, and it is a pathetic\nfact that the contention between humanity and heaven for the new-born\nSaviour is traceable in varying versions of the Angels' song. While\nhalf of Christendom sing \"On earth peace, good will toward men,\" the\nother half sing, \"On earth peace to men of good will.\" Our Revisers\nfind the balance of authorities on the side of authority, and translate\n\n\n    Glory to God in the highest,\n    And on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.\n\n\nAlthough the \"higher criticism\" appears to treat with a certain\ncontempt the birth-legends and carols in Matthew and Luke, and\nthe genealogies, beyond the letter of these is visible more of the\nvanishing Jesus \"after the flesh,\" the real and great man, than of\nthe risen Christ in whom his humanity was lost. The \"shepherd of my\npeople,\" he who is to absolve them from their nightmare \"sins,\" make\ncrooked ways straight, rough places smooth, and free them from fear,\nis remembered in these rhapsodies of the Infancy, in the terrors of\nHerod, and gifts of the Wise. They have a certain evolution in the\nbenevolent teachings and healing miracles of the Synoptics, easily\ndiscriminated from the competing Jahveh-Christ. (Think of a teacher\nurging his friends to forgive offenders seventy times seven and then\npromising them a \"Comforter\" who will never forgive the slightest\noffence, though merely verbal, either in this world or in the next!)\n\nThe extent to which the man was lowered and lost in the risen Lord is\nespecially revealed in the fourth Gospel. Except for the story of the\nwoman taken in adultery, admittedly interpolated from another Gospel,\nthe fourth Gospel may be regarded as perhaps the only book in the\nBible without recognition of humanity. \"I pray not for the world,\nbut for those whom thou hast given me,\" is the keynote. In this work\nthere is no text for the reformer and the philanthropist, unless\nperhaps the retreat of Jesus from a prospect of being made king. What\ninferences of benevolence might be made even from the miracles related\nhave to be strained through the arrogance, self-aggrandizement,\nattitudinizing, as of a showman, with which they are wrought. [48] A\nrudeness to his mother precedes the turning of water to wine (ii. 4);\nthe nobleman's son is healed because the aristocrat will not believe\nwithout a miracle (iv. 48); the infirm man at Bethesda is healed only\nafter a sham question, \"Wouldest thou be made whole?\" and threatened\nafterwards (v. 6, 14); feeding the multitude is attended with another\nsham question (vi. 5), and a parade of the fragments (13); the man\nborn blind is declared to have been so born solely for the sign and\nwonder manifested in his cure (ix. 3).\n\nBut the supremacy of a new Jahveh over all moral obligations and all\ntruthfulness is especially displayed in the resurrection of Lazarus\n(xi.). Here Jesus is represented as staying away from the sick man, in\norder that he may die; he affects to believe Lazarus is only asleep,\nbut finding his disciples pleased with the prospect of recovery, in\nwhich case there would be no miracle, he becomes frank (parrh\u00easia)\nand assures them Lazarus is dead; he tells his disciples privately he\nis glad Lazarus is dead; he tells Martha, when she comes out to him\nalone, that her brother shall rise; but when her sister Mary comes out,\naccompanied by her Jewish consolers, Jesus breaks out into vehement\ngroans and lamentations, lashing himself (etaraxen eauton) into this\nsham grief over a man at whose death he has connived and who would\npresently be alive! Even in his prayer over Lazarus the pretence is\nkept up, and his Father is informed, in an aside, \"I know that thou\nhearest me always, but because of the multitude around I said it,\nthat they may believe that thou didst send me.\" Thus does the fourth\nGospel sink Jesus morally into the grave of Lazarus, leaving in his\nplace an embodiment of the Jahveh who had lying spirits to send out\ninto his prophets on occasion.\n\nThe resurrection of Lazarus is a transparent fabrication out of\nthe parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Abraham's words to the rich\nman,--\"neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead,\"--were\nnot adapted to a faith built on a resurrection, so that parable is\nsuppressed in the fourth Gospel. The resurrection of a supernatural\nman is not quite sufficient for people not supernatural. Those who\nhad been looking for a returning Christ had died, just like the\nunbelievers. There was a tremendous necessity for an example of the\nresurrection of an ordinary man. Shocking as are the immoral details\nof the story, there is audible in it the pathetic cry of the suffering\nhuman heart, and the demand that must be met by any Gospel claiming\nthe faith of humanity. \"Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had\nnot died!\" Through what ages has that declaration, not to be denied,\nascended to cold and cruel skies? It is found in the Vedas, in Job,\nin the Psalms. If there is a Heart up there why are we tortured? To the\nmany apologies and explanations and pretences which imperilled systems\nhad given, Christianity had to support itself by something more than\nEgyptian dreams and Platonic speculations. A dead man must arise;\nit must be done dramatically, amid domestic grief and neighbourly\nsympathy; it must be done doctrinally, with funeral sermon turned to\nrejoicings. And this was all done in the story of Lazarus in such a way\nthat it might surround every grave with illusions for centuries. For\nwho, while tears are falling, will pause to handle the wreaths, and\nfind whether they are genuine? Who, while the service is proceeding,\nwill analyze the details, and ask whether it is possible that the good\nJesus could have practiced such deception and assumed such theatrical\nattitudes? [49]\n\nThe indifference of the fourth Gospel to such moral considerations as\nthose found in the Synoptics is so apostolic that I am inclined\nto place much of it nearer to the first century than I once\nsupposed. Paul's rage against the \"wisdom of this world,\" and his\nfulminations against the learned because they are not \"called,\"\nare fully adopted by the Johannine Christ, who says to the blind man\nwhose eyes he had opened, and who was worshipping him: \"For judgment\ncame I into this world, that they that see not may see, and they that\nsee may become blind.\" And these ideas are represented in a legend\nrelated in the book of Acts which is really allegorical, though our\ntranslators have manipulated it into serious history.\n\nA persecutor of Christians, on whom the spirit \"came mightily,\" as\non King Saul, so that he was a new \"Saul among the prophets,\" sought\nto convert to his new faith a Roman Proconsul, Sergius Paul. But\nwith this Consul was a learned man of the Jewish Wisdom School,\nBar-Jesus Elymas,--i. e., Dr. Anti-Jesus Wise Man. Like Michael and\nSatan contending for the body of Moses, Prophet Saul and Anti-Jesus\nWise Man contended for the Roman Paul's soul. Prophet Saul prevailed\nby calling Anti-Jesus Wise Man a child of the devil, and striking\nhim blind. Thereupon Consul Paul believed, being \"astonished at the\nteaching of the Lord.\" Whereupon Prophet Saul triumphantly carries\noff the Roman's name as a trophy. [50]\n\nBeginning in this conclusive way, by striking human Wisdom sightless\n(\"that they that see may become blind,\" John ix. 39), the Anti-Wisdom\npropaganda, which began with identifying Wisdom with the serpent\nin Eden, passed on to inspire the Church Fathers who gloated over\nthe eternal tortures of the poets and philosophers of Greece and\nRome. Alas for the philosophers not in their graves, but in their\ncradles, or in the womb of the future! For torments are nearest\n\"eternal\" when they begin at once on earth.\n\nOne may readily understand how it was that personal traditions of Jesus\nand his teachings remained unwritten until his contemporaries were\ndead (although this may not have been the case with the suppressed\n\"Gospel according to the Hebrews\"); the hourly expected return of\nChrist rendered such memoirs unimportant until it became clear that\nthe expectation was erroneous. The age of John, of whom Jesus was\nrumoured to have predicted survival till his return (John xxi. 22),\nwas stretched out to a mythical extent; he became an undying sleeper\nat Ephesus, and finally a pious \"Wandering Jew\"; but when at length\nsuch fables lost their strength, some imaginative impersonator brought\nforth an apocalyptic bequest of John postponing the second advent\na thousand years. The conventicles had thus no resource but to turn\ninto orthodoxy the heresy of Hymenoeus and Alexander, for which Paul\ndelivered them over to Satan, that the resurrection occurs at death;\nto collect the traditional sayings of Jesus; and to adapt these to the\nnew situation. A thousand years later, when the expected catastrophe\ndid not occur, the substantial churches and cathedrals were built,\nas the Gospels had been built after the first-century disappointment.\n\nThese Gospels contain things from which some of the real teachings\nof the wise man of Nazareth may be fairly conjectured. That the\nsynoptical records are palimpsests, though denied by the prudent, is\na truth felt by the unsophisticated who, in their use of such words\nas \"Christian\" and \"a Christian spirit,\" quite ignore the fearful\nanathemas and damnatory language ascribed to Jesus.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTHE LAST SOLOMON.\n\n\nEvery race has a pride in its great men which ultimately prevails over\nany pious taboo imposed on them in life or by tradition. Some years\nago it was announced that a German scholar was about to publish proofs\nthat Jesus was not of the Hebrew race, and while Christendom showed\nlittle concern, all Israel sat upon that German almost furiously. It\nis an old story. Banished Buddha becomes an avatar of Vishnu, and\nhis image now appears in India beside Jagenath. For the heresiarch\nmust be adapted before adoption. So Solomon returns as a preacher of\northodox Jahvism, in the \"Wisdom of Solomon,\" but so rigid had been\nthe taboo in his case that the writer did not venture to insert the\nname of so famous a liberal and secularist.\n\nThat was about the first year of our era. But presently we hear about\nthe \"Son of David.\" Was that because of David himself? Interest in\nDavid had so receded that in the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" the resuscitated\nWise Man barely alludes (once) to his \"father's seat.\" Was it because\nof any popular interest in the legendary throne or house of David? That\nold \"covenant\" is not alluded to by the resuscitated monarch, and in\nthe apostolic writings nothing is said about it. In the Gospels the\ntitle \"Son of David\" is generally connected with certain alleged\nmiracles of Jesus, which recalled legends of Solomon, and it is\nonly in the account of the entry into Jerusalem that it carries any\nconnotation of royalty corresponding to the genealogies afterwards\nelaborated. Unless these narratives are accepted as historical\nthey must be regarded as phenomena, and, taken in connection with\nwhat may be reasonably regarded as genuine teachings of Jesus, the\nphenomena point to a probability that he had reawakened interest in\nthe Wise Man's teachings, and that this interest, by a compromise\nwith Jahvist prejudices, coined the expression \"Son of David\" as an\nalias of Solomon.\n\nHowever this may be, it appears certain that there was in the\nteachings of Jesus some substantial recovery of the ancient and\nunconverted Solomon, the proverbial philosopher, the man of the\nworld. How much Jesus may have said to revive interest in Solomon,\nand how many of his secular utterances have been hidden in the grave\nof his humanity, can only be conjectured; but there are two direct\nsayings concerning Solomon ascribed to him which may be regarded\nas the only unreserved tributes to the Wise Man that had ever been\nuttered since his idealization in Chronicles. And our own Protestant\nJahvism has tried so hard to manipulate these tributes into partial\ndisparagements that we may easily imagine early Christian Jahvism\ndestroying similar testimonies altogether.\n\nA. S. V. Luke xi. 31: \"The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment\nwith the men of this generation and condemn them: for she came from\nthe uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,\nand behold a greater than Solomon is here.\"\n\nTrue rendering: \"The Queen of the South shall stand in the judgment\nwith the men of this [Abrahamic]  brood, and condemn them; for she came\nfrom the farthest parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and\nbehold something more than Solomon is here.\" (pleion Solom\u00f4nos h\u00f4de)\n\nThe word mistranslated \"greater,\" pleion, is neuter and cannot be\napplied to a man. Jesus is not speaking of himself, but of the new\nSpirit animating a whole movement.\n\nThe word \"generation\" as a translation of genea is, in this connection,\nmisleading. No one English word can convey the satire on people who\nregarded themselves as holy by generation from Abraham (cf. Luke\niii. 8), which is in the vein of Carlyle's ridicule of English\n\"Paper Nobility.\" Above these self-satisfied claimants of inherited\nwisdom Jesus sets the Gentile Queen journeying to sit at the feet\nof Solomon. At the feet of Solomon Jesus also was sitting, and he\ncertainly did not call himself personally greater than Solomon.\n\nThe other allusion to Solomon (Matt. vi. 28, 29) is rendered thus:\n\"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not,\nneither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in\nall his glory was not arrayed like one of these.\"\n\nHere \"glory,\" which when applied to a man has a connotation of pride\nand pomp, is made to translate dox\u00ea, which means honour in its best\nsense, as preserved in \"doxology.\" Jesus really says, \"Solomon amid all\nhis honours never arrayed himself (periebaleto) like one of these.\" The\ngreatest and wisest of men did not affect display in dress. [51]\n\nThe apparent slightness of these English changes reveals their\ndeliberate subtlety. Puritanism, taking its cue from King James's\ntranslators, has bettered the instruction, and steadily pictured\nJesus pointing to a lily,--white emblem of purity,--and censuring\n(implicitly) the ostentation of Solomon. Even in rationalistic\nhymn-books is found the pretty hymn of Agnes Strickland, beginning:\n\n\n    \"Fair lilies of Jerusalem,\n        Ye wear the same array\n    As when imperial Judah's stem\n        Maintained its regal sway:\n    By sacred Jordan's desert tide\n        As bright ye blossom on\n    As when your simple charms outvied\n        The pride of Solomon.\"\n\n\nVery sweet! But the \"lilies of the field\" in Palestine are not \"fair,\"\ntheir charms are not \"simple\"; they are large and gorgeous combinations\nof red and gold; and Solomon, so far from being proud in the contrast,\n\"outvied\" in simplicity the pride of the lily.\n\nJesus may not indeed have said these things concerning Solomon, but\nthe probability that he did say something of the kind is suggested\nby the adroit mistranslations. The same puritanical spirit, the\nsame prejudice against human wisdom and love of beauty, prevailed\neven more when the Gospels were written. The Jahvist jealousy of\nthe wisdom of the world which in a Targum added to Jeremiah ix. 23\na fling at Solomon,--\"Let not Solomon the Son of David, the Wise\nMan, glory in his Wisdom,\"--screamed on in Christian anathemas\non science, and laudations of the silly. (For \"silly\" is of pious\nderivation, from German selig--blessed.) Solomon had not been named\nin any canonical scripture for centuries, and even in apocryphal\n\"Wisdom\" (Ecclesiasticus) he appears as if a brilliant but fallen\nLucifer. The cult of Solomon continued no doubt, in a sense, among the\nSadducees (respectfully treated, by the way, by Jesus), but they were\ncomparatively few, and like the rationalists of the English Church,\ncautious about outside heresies. It was probably characteristic that\ntheir name is derived from Solomon's priest, Zadok, instead of from\nSolomon himself. As for the Gentile Queen, she is not named in the\nBible after the record of her visit to Solomon until the homage of\nJesus was given her. It appears, therefore, very unlikely that such\nhomage and the unqualified tributes to Solomon, would have been put\ninto the mouth of Jesus.\n\nBut why, it may be asked, were not these tributes suppressed? There is\nin one case a recognition of a Gentile lady which would recommend the\ntext to the writer of Luke, and in the other a lesson against luxury\nwhich would recommend this to all believers. At any rate, whatever may\nhave been the suppressions, and no doubt there were many, two of the\nGospels have preserved these sentences, which, so far as the glorious\n\"idolator\" is concerned, neither of them would have invented. There\nare the words; somebody uttered them; and the question arises, who\nwas that daring man who broke the severe silence or reservations of\ncenturies and did honour to the king who built shrines to gods and\ngoddesses? [52]\n\nAs Solomon said, \"A man is proved by what he praises.\" That Jesus did\nappreciate the greatness of the Solomonic literature is not a matter\nof conjecture. The sayings ascribed to him in the Gospels--apart from\nPauline importations and quotations from Jahvist scriptures--are\nlargely pervaded by the spirit and even by the phraseology of the\nSolomonic books. Remembering that the phrases \"kingdom of heaven,\"\n\"kingdom of God,\" are post-resurrectional, and that Jesus could not,\nunless by miraculous foresight, use those phrases for any external\ndominion connected with himself, there is reason to believe that his\nconception was of a sway of Wisdom, and that Wisdom was to him the\nSaviour, as to Jesus Ben Sira, her realm \"within,\" her leaven hid in\nthe world, her advance without observation.\n\nOf course those who read the Bible in the light of a supernatural\ntheory, see these things very differently, but considering the\nrecords as if they were those of uninspired people, one may say that\nsome of the sayings ascribed to Jesus are, in their present form,\nmeaningless. For example, what should we think if we found an ancient\nrecord of some poor Egyptian reported as saying, \"Come unto me, all\nye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my\nyoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and\nye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden\nis light.\" How incongruous the \"I am meek\" with \"learn of me\"! How\ncould he give the heavy laden rest? And what rest? what yoke? But we\nwould surely feel enlightened should we presently discover an Egyptian\nbook of \"Wisdom,\"  with proof of its popularity when the mysterious\nwords were orally repeated, containing such language as this from\npersonified Wisdom: \"Come unto me, all ye that be desirous of me,\nand fill yourselves with my fruits.\" And if we found in the same\nbook a teacher saying: \"I directed my soul unto Wisdom, and I found\nher in pureness.... Draw near unto me, ye unlearned, and dwell in\nthe house of Wisdom.... Buy her for yourselves without money. Put\nyour neck under her yoke, and let your life receive instruction:\nshe is near at hand to find. Behold with your eyes that I have had\nbut little labour, and have gotten unto me much rest.\"\n\nHere is sense. These are the words of Wisdom in Jesus Ben Sira\n(Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 19, li. 23-27). Can any unbiased mind fail to\nrecognize in Matthew xi. 28-30 a mangled quotation from this Hebrew\nbook of the second century, before Jesus of Nazareth was born, but\nin his time cherished in many Jewish households as much as any Gospel\nis cherished in Christian households?\n\nConsider the Sermon on the Mount. In the Proverbs ascribed to\nSolomon is found the beatitude pronounced by Jesus on the lowly,\nno doubt literally quoted by him: \"With the lowly is wisdom\"\n(Prov. xi. 2). The blessing of those who hunger for righteousness\n(justice) is in Prov. x. 24, where it is said their desire shall be\ngranted. The blessing of the peacemakers is joy (Prov. xii. 20). The\nmerciful man doeth good to his own life (Prov. xi. 17). The pure in\nheart shall have the King for his friend (Prov. xxii. 11). The house\nthat stands and the house overthrown (Prov. x. 25; xii. 7; xiv. 11);\nthe two ways (Prov. xii. 28, xiv. 12, xvi. 17); the tree known by\nits fruits (Prov. xi. 30, xii. 12); give and it shall be given you\n(Prov. xxii. 9); the sower (Prov. xi. 18, 24, 25); taking the lower\nplace so as to be placed higher and not moved down (Prov. xxv. 6-8);\nsearching for and buying Wisdom as the precious silver, the pearl,\nthe treasure (Prov. vi. 11, 12, 17, 19, 35; xx. 15; xxiii. 23); the\nprodigal (Prov. xxix. 3); those who wrong parents (Prov. xx. 20;\nxxviii. 24; cf. Matt. xv. 5; Mark vii. 11). The lamps of the wise\nand foolish virgins are found in Prov. xiii. 9; also xxiv. 20.\n\nIn Proverbs xx. 9, we have the words, \"Who can say, 'I have made\nmy heart clean, I am pure from sin?'\" In Ecclesiastes iii. 16, it\nis said, \"Moreover, I saw under the sun, in the place of judgment,\nthat wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness that\nwickedness was there.\" (Cf. also vii. 20.) In the \"Gospel according\nto the Hebrews\" Jesus, declaring that an offender should be forgiven\nseventy times seven, adds: \"For in the prophets likewise, after they\nwere anointed by the Holy Spirit, utterance of sin was found.\"\n\nAlthough in the language ascribed to Jesus in the fourth Gospel\n(iii. 1-10) there are post-resurrectional phrases, whatever he\nmay have said about birth and about the wind-like spirit seems to\nhave been what he expected Nicodemus, as a teacher in Israel, to\nunderstand. We may therefore suppose that it was substantially a\nquotation from Ecclesiastes xi. 5: \"As thou knowest not the way of\nthe wind, nor the growth of the bones in the mother's womb, even so\nthou canst not fathom the work of God, who compasseth all things.\"\n\nIn relation to Woman Jesus seems to have appealed to Solomon against\nEcclesiastes, where (vii. 25-29) it is said:\n\n\n    I have turned my heart to know,\n    And to explore, and search out wisdom and the reason of things;\n    And to know that wickedness is Folly, and Folly madness:\n    And I have found what is more bitter than death--\n    The Woman who is a snare, her heart nets, her hands chains:\n    He who pleases God shall be delivered from her,\n    But the offender shall be captured by her.\n        See, this have I found (saith the Speaker).\n    Adding one to another, to find out the account,\n    Which I am still searching after, but have not found--\n    One man in a thousand I have found,\n    But a woman among all these I have not found.\n    Look you, only this have I found--\n    That God made man upright,\n    But they have sought out many devices.\n\n\nIn the first seven lines of this passage we may recognize the\npersonification in Proverbs ix. 13-18. The Woman of the fifth line\nis \"Dame Folly\"; but the last eight lines relate to womankind. The\nassurance in the eighth line that it is Koheleth who speaks raises\na suspicion that the last eight lines are commentary,--a suspicion\nfurther confirmed by the awkwardness of the writing. Strictly read,\nit is left uncertain whether no woman is ever captured by Dame Folly,\nor not one escapes. However, as commentators are generally men,\nthe interpretation has been adverse to woman.\n\nBut Jesus, perhaps remembering that Wisdom is as much a woman as Folly,\nis reported (Matthew xi. 19) to have said: \"Wisdom is justified by\nher works.\" In Luke vii. 35 it is, \"Wisdom is justified of all her\nchildren.\" Both of these readings appeal to the Solomonic portrait of\nthe virtuous woman, in Proverbs xxxi. the last line of which says,\n\"Let her works praise her,\" and verse 28, \"her children rise up and\ncall her blessed.\"\n\nIn Luke the sentence is a verse by itself, and the word \"all\" renders\nit probable that the sentiment has a bearing on the story that follows\nof the anointing of Jesus by a sinful woman. [53] Some such incident\nmay have occurred, but the address to Simon the Pharisee making him\nto be the offender, and the woman one delivered from Dame Folly by\nher faith (\"pleasing God\") looks like a criticism on the \"fling\" at\nwoman in Ecclesiastes, with a proverb taken for text. This rebuke of\nthe Pharisee, who thought \"the prophet\" ought to abhor the \"sinner,\"\nimmediately precedes an account of the eminent women who supported\nJesus by their means,--Mary, called Magdalene; Joanna, the wife of\nHerod's steward; Susanna, \"and many others.\" They \"ministered to him of\ntheir substance,\" and possibly the Pharisee and others might naturally\nsuspect him of being among \"the ensnared.\" The fact is strange enough\nto be genuine, and Luke thinks it important to say that Jesus had\nhealed these ladies of bad spirits and infirmities. Of course it\nis necessary to divest Gospel anecdotes of much post-resurrectional\nvesture, and in this case it cannot be credited that Jesus said that\nthe woman's sins were \"many,\" which he could not have known, or that\nhe gave her formal absolution.\n\nThe indications of the study of Ecclesiasticus by Jesus are very\nremarkable. This book appears to have been a sort of nursery in\nwhich proverbs were trained for their fruitage in the last Solomon's\nreligious testimonies. What those testimonies were we cannot easily\ngather, but it is useful for comparative study to remark the sentences\nin Ecclesiastictus which correspond, either in thought or phraseology,\nwith those ascribed to Jesus. The broad and the narrow ways barely\nsuggested in \"Proverbs\" are here developed (Ecclesiasticus iv. 17,\n18). \"Hide not thy wisdom\" (iv. 23, xx. 30). \"Say not, 'I have enough\n(goods) for my life'\" (v. 1, xi. 24). \"Extol not thyself\" (vi. 2). We\nfind the exhortation to judge not (vii. 6); rebuke of much speaking in\nprayer (14); warning against the lustful gaze (ix. 5, 8); the night\ncometh when no man can work (xiv. 16-19; cf. Eccles. ix. 10); the\nproud cast down, the humble exalted (x. 14, xi. 5); one only is good\n(xviii. 2); swear not (xxiii. 9); forgiven as we forgive (xxviii. 2);\ntreasure rusting and treasure laid up according to the commandments\nof the Most High (xxix. 10, 11); \"Judge of thy neighbor by thyself\"\n(xxxi. 15); the altar-gift and the wronged brother (xxxiv. 18-20);\nhe that seeks the law shall be filled (xxxii. 15); charity and not\nsacrifice (xxxv. 2).\n\nThese resemblances, of which more might be quoted, between teachings\nascribed to Jesus and passages in the Wisdom Books, are so important\nthat by the aid of these books some of the confused utterances\nattributed to him may be made clear. [54] Apart from the importations\nof Paul, and one or two from the epistle to the Hebrews, no reference\nby the Jesus of the Gospels to Jahvist books can be shown of similar\nsignificance. Combined as his Solomonic ideas are with his homage\nto Solomon and the Gentile Queen, and followed, as we shall see,\nby a resuscitation of Solomonic legends in connection with him, it\nappears clear that Jesus was of the Solomonic and anti-Jahvist school.\n\nIt would, however, be a great mistake to suppose that Jesus\nwas simply a philosophical and ethical teacher. He cannot be so\nexplained. The fragmentary sayings, so far as discoverable amid their\npost-resurrectional perversions, have the air of obiter dicta from a\nman engaged in a local propaganda of subversive principles. What the\npropaganda really was is but dimly discernible under its own subsequent\nsubversion by his ghost, but there are a few sayings not traceable\nto his predecessors, and beyond the capacity of his contemporaries\nor his successors, which bring us near to an individual mind, and\nsuggest the general nature of the agitation he caused.\n\nThe story of the woman taken in adultery, known to have been in the\nsuppressed \"Gospel according to the Hebrews,\" and by some strange\nchance preserved in the fourth gospel (viii), I believe to have really\noccurred. It would have required a first-century Boccaccio to invent\nsuch a story, and I cannot discover anything similar in Eastern or\nin Oriental books. Augustine says that some had removed it from their\nmanuscripts, \"I imagine, out of fear that impunity of sin was granted\nto their wives.\" It is not likely that any of the earlier fathers,\nany more than the later, would have invented so dangerous a story.\n\nAnother anecdote, preserved only in the fourth Gospel, probably\ncontains some elements of truth, namely, the words uttered to the\nSamaritan woman. Who would have been bold enough, even had he been\nliberal enough, to invent the words: \"Neither in this mountain, nor\nin Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father\"? Even in the one Gospel\nthat ventures to preserve it this noble catholicity is immediately\nretracted (John iv. 22) in a verse which obviously interrupts the\nidea. That the story is an early one is also suggested by the fact\nthat no reproach to the woman on account of her many husbands is\ninserted. It is remarkable to find such a story related without any\nword about sin and forgiveness.\n\nThe so-called \"Sermon on the Mount\" is well named: it is evidently\nmade up of reports of sermons in amplification of sayings of Jesus\nin the style of the Wisdom Books, among which probably were:\n\n\n   \"Let your light shine before men. A lamp is not lit to be put\n    under a bushel.\"\n\n   \"The lamp of the body is the eye. If thine eye be sound the whole\n    body is illumined; if the eye be diseased the whole body is in\n    darkness. If the inner eye be darkened how great is the darkness.\"\n\n   \"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.\"\n\n   \"By their fruits both trees and man are known.\"\n\n   \"Each tree is known by its own fruit.\"\n\n   \"Put not new wine into old wine-skins, lest they burst.\"\n\n   \"Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.\"\n\n   \"Wisdom is justified by her children.\"\n\n   \"If any man will be great, let him serve.\"\n\n   \"The lowly shall be exalted, the proud humbled.\"\n\n   \"Blind guides strain out the gnat, and swallow a camel.\"\n\n   \"Give and it shall be given you.\"\n\n   \"The measure ye mete shall be measured to you.\"\n\n   \"Cast the beam from thine eye before noticing the mote in that\n    of thy neighbour.\"\n\n\nThe following sentences in the \"Gospel according to the Hebrews\" do not\nappear to have been very seriously influenced by post-resurrectional\nideas.\n\n\n   \"He is a great criminal who hath grieved the spirit of his\n    brother.\"\n\n   \"No thank to you if you love them that love you, but\n    there is thank if ye love your enemies and them that hate\n    you.\" (Cf. Prov. xxix. 17, 29.)\n\n   \"Be ye never joyful save when you have looked upon your brother\n    in charity.\"\n\n   \"Be as lambkins in midst of wolves.\"\n\n   \"The son and the daughter shall inherit alike.\"\n\n   \"It is happy rather to give than to receive.\"\n\n   \"No servant can serve two masters.\"\n\n   \"Out of entire heart and out of entire mind.\"\n\n   \"What is the profit if a man gain the entire world, and lose\n    his life?\"\n\n   \"Seek from little to wax great, and not from greater to become\n    less.\"\n\n   \"Become proved bankers.\"\n\n   \"If ye have not been faithful in the little who will give you\n    the great?\"\n\n\nThese instructions have no connotations of the end of the world. They\nappear like the words of a man of the world, but not a man of the\npeople. There is a certain unity in them, indicating a mind more\ndeveloped than the semi-Jahvist Alexandrian philosophers of the later\nWisdom cult, as represented by Jesus Ben Sira's \"Wisdom,\" and by the\n\"Wisdom of Solomon\"; also a mind more practical.\n\nBut these wise sayings do not convey the full idea of a man whose\nexecution the Sanhedrim would require, nor a man whose resurrection\nfrom the grave would be looked for by the populace. These two\nphenomenal facts imply some strong antagonism to the priesthood and\ntheir system. Martyrdoms do not occur for ethical generalizations,\nmuch less for philosophical affirmations. The faith that strikes deep\nis that which speaks in great denials.\n\nTrying to follow his advice to \"Become proved bankers,\" we may detect\nin some probable sayings of Jesus a transitional ring, e. g., \"The\nSabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.\" The effort\nat self-emancipation is still more traceable in certain incidents\nrelated in the \"Gospel according to the Hebrews\":\n\n\n   \"He saith, 'If thy brother hath offended in anything and hath\n    made thee amends, seven times in a day receive him,' Simon his\n    disciple said unto him, 'Seven times in a day?' The Lord answered\n    and said unto him, 'I tell thee also unto seventy times seven;\n    for in the prophets likewise, after that they were anointed by\n    the Holy Spirit, utterance of sin was found.'\"\n\n   \"The same day, having beheld a man working on the Sabbath, he said\n    to him, 'Man, if thou knowest what thou dost, blessed art thou: but\n    if thou knowest not, thou art under a curse, and a law-breaker.'\"\n\n\nThat a man should regard the Holy Spirit as unable to make men\ninfallible; that he should have discovered immoral utterances in\nthe prophets; that he should regard it as a sign of enlightenment to\ndisregard the Sabbath deliberately and intelligently--this is surely\nall very striking.\n\nWho, in the second century, could have invented these anecdotes\nabout Jesus? They are not harmonious with the Pauline Epistles;\ntheir heretical character is proved by the repudiation of the Gospel\ncontaining them, while their genuineness is implicitly confessed\nby the ultimate suppression of that Gospel. For surely it cannot be\nsupposed that such a work, well known in the fifth century, was lost;\nnor is there much doubt that any learned rationalist, if permitted\nthe free range of all the libraries in Rome, without the presence of\npolite librarians, could bring to light that first-century Gospel,\nthe only one written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.\n\nBut, when we come to consider the mature and positive teachings of\nJesus, there may be placed in the front a sentence preserved from\nthe suppressed Gospel by Epiphanius, who writes (Haer. xxx. 16):\n\"And they say that he both came, and (as their so-called Gospel has\nit) instructed them that he had come to dissolve the Sacrifices:\n'and unless ye cease from sacrificing the wrath shall not cease\nfrom you.'\" Dr. Nicholson is shocked at this threat, and suspects\nthe Ebionites of having altered what Jesus said. But surely it\nis a true and grand admonition by one superseding a phantasm of\nheavenly Egoism, demanding gifts from men for pacification, with\nthe idea of a Father. Dr. Nicholson connects it, no doubt rightly,\nwith Luke xiii. 1-3, which should probably read: \"There were some\npresent at that very season who told him of the Galileans whose\nblood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered,\nThink ye these Galileans were sinners rather than all other Galileans\nbecause they suffered these things? I tell you, No! And unless ye\ncease from sacrificing, the Wrath will not cease from you.\" That is,\nthey would always be haunted by the delusion of a bloodthirsty god,\na god of Wrath, and see a judgment, not only in every accident,\nbut in every calamity wrought by fiendish men.\n\nIn his quotation from Hosea--\"I desire charity, and not\nsacrifice\"--Jesus speaks as if with a transitional accent,\nas compared with the declaration that sacrifices imply deified\nWrath. The contempt of Ecclesiastes for \"the sacrifice of fools\nwho know not that they are doing evil\" (v. 1), has here become\na great and far-reaching affirmation, which must have impressed\nthe orthodox Jews as atheism. For, although there are passages in\nseveral psalms and in the prophets which disparage sacrifice, they\nwere all interpreted by the Rabbins, as now by Christian theologians,\nas meaning their purification and spiritualization--by no means their\nabolition. Indeed, this higher interpretation of sacrifices appears\nto have given them fresh lease; and in the time of Jesus, when to\nthe priesthood remained only control over their religious ordinances,\nthe sacrifices were apparently preserved with increased rigour. Jesus\nhimself, unless the gospeller (Matt. v. 23, 24) has softened his\nlanguage, had at one time only demanded that none should offer a gift\nat the altar until he had done justice to any who had aught against\nhim. But a remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 5)\nrepresents Jesus as going to the world with a quotation from Psalm\nxl. 6, 7, for a clause of which a parenthesis is given, saying:\n\n\n   \"Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not\n    (Thou hast furnished me this body)--\n    In whole burnt offerings and sin offerings thou delighted not:\n    Then said I (in that chapter of the book it is written for me),\n    'Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.'\"\n\n\nThe sentence preserved by Eusebius, however, shows that his attitude\ntoward sacrifices was not merely to \"lift\" from men (Heb. x. 9,\nanairei) the burden of sacrifice, but to denounce it as an offering\nto the devil. \"Unless ye cease from sacrificing, the Wrath shall not\ncease from you.\"\n\nIn this sentence \"the Wrath\" (h\u00ea org\u00ea) is clearly a personification. It\ndoes not in the same form occur elsewhere in the Bible. Matthew and\nMark report John the Baptist as speaking of \"the impending wrath,\"\nand Paul occasionally gives \"Wrath\" a quasi-personification (e. g.,\n\"children of Wrath,\" Eph. ii. 1-3). These expressions, and the\n\"destroyer\" Abaddon or Apollyon, of Revelations ix. and (xii. 12)\nthe devil \"in great temper\" (thymon), all show that the Jewish mind\nhad become familiar with the idea of a dark and evil power quite\ndetached from official relation to Jahveh, no longer \"the wrath of\nGod\" executing divine judgments, but organized Violence, eager to\nafflict mankind as the creation of his enemy.\n\nIn the \"Wisdom of Solomon\" (xviii.) there is a complete picture of\nthe two opposing Destroyers. The divine destroyer (\"thine Almighty\nWord\") leaps down with his sword and slays the firstborn of Egypt; the\nantagonist Destroyer begins the same kind of work among the Israelites\nin Egypt, but Moses by prayer and the \"propitiation of incense\" sets\nhimself \"against the Wrath\" and overcomes him,--\"not with physical\nstrength, nor force of arms, but with a word.\" The incense used by\nMoses to put the demon to flight recalls the \"perfume\" used by Tobit,\non the advice of the angel, to put to flight Asmodeus; and Asmodeus is\nnotoriously the Persian A\u00eashma, a name meaning \"Wrath,\" who occupies\nso large space in the Pars\u00ee scriptures. [55] The especial antagonist\nof A\u00eashma \"of the wounding spear,\" is Sraosha, \"the incarnate Word,\na mighty-speared god.\" (Farvardin Yast, 85.) As Moses overcomes \"the\nWrath\" \"with a word,\" Zoroaster is given a form of words to conquer\nA\u00eashma (\"Praise to Arma\u00eeti, the propitious!\") and the Vend\u00eed\u00e2d says,\n\"The fiend becomes weaker and weaker at every one [repetition] of\nthose words.\" The Zamy\u00e2d Yast says, \"The Word of falsehood smites,\nbut the Word of truth shall smite it.\" A\u00eashma is the child of Ahriman,\nthe Deceiver of the World, and a Pars\u00ee would recognize him in the\ndeclaration ascribed to Jesus, \"The devil is a liar and so is his\nfather.\" (John viii. 44.)\n\nThat Jesus regarded the whole realm of evil as absolutely antagonistic\nto the Good is reflected in the epistle \"To the Hebrews.\" There his\nmission is to abolish the devil (ii. 14), which is very different\nfrom abolishing death (2 Tim. i. 10). For a long time the devil was\nsuppressed in the \"Lord's Prayer,\" but in that brief collection of\nTalmudic ejaculations the only original thing is, \"Deliver us from the\nevil one.\" In the Clementine Homilies Jesus is quoted as having said,\n\"The evil one is the tempter,\" and \"Give not a pretext to the evil\none.\" Nay, the single clause preserved in Matthew, that it is an enemy\nthat sows tares,--these being as much parts of nature as corn,--is\na sentence that divides the Ahrimanic creation from the Ahuramazdean\ncreation as clearly and profoundly as anything ascribed to Zoroaster.\n\nTheological harmonists have for centuries been at work on the\ncontrarious doctrines of all scriptures, and even among the Pars\u00ees\nsome kind of metaphysical alliance has taken place between the Kingdoms\nof Good and Evil. Devout Christians find it quite consistent that one\nperson of the trinity should say, \"I create good and I create evil,\"\nand another person of the trinity should say of natural evil, \"An\nenemy hath done this.\" But no such harmony existed in the Jerusalem\nof Jesus. Under a teaching that symbolized the deity as the Sun,\nshining alike on the thankful and thankless, individually, desiring no\nsacrifices, and concentrating human effort against the forces of evil\nin nature, in society--the evil principle--Jahveh falls like lightning\nfrom heaven. Like \"the blameless man\" of the \"Wisdom of Solomon,\" Jesus\n\"sets himself against the Wrath,\" however sanctified as the Wrath of\nGod, and sees all sacrifices as eucharists of the Adversary. He not\nonly repudiates the name \"Jahveh,\" but tells the official agents of\nJahvism that their god is his devil. (John viii. 44).\n\nOf course one can only refer cautiously to anything in the fourth\nGospel, for it is a composite book, but it contains, as I believe,\npassages or fragments of the early apostolic theology, wherein dualism,\nuntil crushed by Paul, was prominent, and the good God represented\nin hard struggle with Satan for the rescue of mankind.\n\nThis aspect of the teaching of Jesus cannot be dealt with here as its\nimportance deserves. We live in an age whose clergy deal apologetically\nwith the prominence of the Adversary of Man in the teachings of\nJesus. For this fundamental principle of Jesus Jewish monotheism\nhas been substituted. But there are many records to attest that the\nmoral perfection and benevolence of the deity, which is certainly\ninconsistent with his omnipotence, or his \"permission\" of the tares in\nnature, was the only new principle of religion affirmed by Jesus; and,\nalso, that it was so subversive of sacrifices, priesthood, and the very\nfoundations of the temple--all dependent on Jahveh's menaces--that\nthe execution of Jesus appears more rationally explicable by this\ndualistic propaganda than by any other ascribed to him.\n\nIt was the birth of a new God that moved Jerusalem: a unique God\nin Judea--and almost unknown in modern Christendom--namely, a GOOD\nGod. As the Arabian gospel significantly relates, the Eastern Wise\nMen came to the cradle of Jesus as that of a saviour \"prophesied\nby Zoroaster,\"--the one prophet who separated deity from the realm\nof evil.\n\nIt is now even unorthodox to deny that the agonies of nature are part\nof the providence of God: but herein orthodoxy is in direct antagonism\nto what it maintains as the authentic teaching of Jesus. \"Then was\nbrought unto him one possessed of a devil, blind and dumb; and he\nhealed him, insomuch that the dumb man spake and saw. And all the\nmultitudes were amazed and said, Is this the Son of David? But when\nthe Pharisees heard it, they said, This man doth not cast out devils\nbut by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. And knowing their thoughts he\nsaid, Every dominion divided against itself is brought to desolation;\nand every city or house divided against itself shall not stand; and\nif Satan casteth out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then\nshall his dominion stand?\"\n\nThose therefore who believe these to be the words of Jesus, and yet\nbelieve blindness, dumbness, and other physical diseases to be in\nany sense of divine providence or even permission, are believing in\na God whom Jesus implicitly pronounced to be Satan.\n\nAnd those who do not believe that Jesus healed such diseases, nor\nbelieve in a personal Satan, may still regard the above legend as\ncharacteristic. The separation of Good and Evil into eternally\nantagonistic dominions could not have been affirmed by any Jew\nother than Jesus (or John the Baptist, probably however an Oriental\ndervish). Though the Jews popularly believed in Beelzebub and other\ndevils, they were all regarded as under the omnipotence and control\nof Jahveh, who proudly claimed that he was the creator of all evil,\nand who even had lying spirits in his employ.\n\nWhether Jesus believed in the personality of the evil principle, in\nany strict sense, may be questioned. He may have meant no more than\nEmerson, who pictured ill health as a ghoul preying on the heart and\nlife of its victims. Memories of similar teachings may have given\nrise to the tales of healing afterwards associated with Jesus. But\nthe personality of evil is a more philosophical generalization than\nthe personification of a power representing both the good and the\nevil phenomena of nature. Evil acts in concrete forms, and often\nin combinations of forces which can not be analysed and distributed\ninto particular causes. History records instances of moral epidemics\ndriving whole peoples as if down a steep place into seas of blood,\nas if by some pandemoniac possession, impressing the ordinarily humane\nalong with the vindictive, the lawless and destructive. A great deal\nof crime seems disinterested, and still more is due to the fanatical\ninspiration of cruel deities, whose names become in other religions\nthe names of devils. Out of manifold experiences in the tragical\nannals of mankind came the terrible Ahriman.\n\nThat Jesus did not adopt the Zoroastrian theology is shown in his\nhostility to sacrifices which are of vital importance in the Pars\u00ee\nsystem, though they were not of the cruel kind; nor, as we have\nseen, were they to propitiate gods, but to assist them. Moreover,\nbelief in Ahriman had naturally evoked a militant spirit in the war\nagainst evil, and Jesus seems to have for this reason separated himself\nfrom the dervish, John the Baptist, whose violence had landed him in\nprison. The incident (Matt. xi.) is so wrapped in post-resurrectional\nphraseology that any rational interpretation must be conjectural;\nbut there is a certain accent about it which can hardly be explained\nas part of the evangelical doctrine that the Baptist was a mere\npreface to Christ. Jesus seems to regard John the Baptizer as the\nablest man of his time (verse 11), but as of a revolutionary spirit,\nas if the reformation were a siege against some political kingdom or\nthrone. Violent people had been pressing around John, and the cause of\nspiritual liberation had suffered. There was too much of the old law\nwith its thunders, too much of fiery Elijah, surviving in John. The\nideal is not a thing to be clutched at, or taken by force, but all\nof the conditions--every tittle--must be fulfilled. (Luke xvi. 17.)\n\nThis is in substance a doctrine of evolution as opposed to revolution,\nand my interpretation may be suspected of rationalistic anachronism;\nbut it must be remembered that the Golden Age behind Israel was an\nepoch of Peace, which was represented in the ancient name of their\ncity (Salem), and of its greatest monarch, Solomon. The prophets had\nlong been painting the visionary dawn with pigments of that glorious\nsunset. Solomon, true to his name, had allowed dismemberment of his\nkingdom rather than go to war against rebellion; and it is noticeable\nthat in the apostolic age there was a principle against carnal\nweapons, the Epistle to the Hebrews (xii. 3, 4) especially reminding\nthe brethren of the patient endurance of Jesus, and commending their\nnot having \"resisted unto blood.\" This peacefulness of Jesus had indeed\nbecome a basis of the doctrine that the triumph of Jesus over Satan was\nconditioned on his not using any force, or other satanic weapon. Those\nwho took to the sword would perish thereby--i. e., remain in sheol.\n\nBut in a realm of practically oppressive and cruel superstitions,\nestablished and consecrated, an absolute appeal to the moral sentiment\ncannot escape being revolutionary. The American Anti-Slavery Society\nwere non-resistants; their great leader, William Lloyd Garrison,\nthus apostrophised his \"elder brother\" of Jerusalem:\n\n\"O Jesus! noblest of patriots, greatest of heroes, most glorious of\nall martyrs! Thine is the spirit of universal liberty and love--of\nuncompromising hostility to every form of injustice and wrong. But not\nwith weapons of death dost thou assault thy enemies, that they may be\nvanquished or destroyed; for thou dost not wrestle against flesh and\nblood, but against 'principalities, against powers, against the rulers\nof the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high\nplaces'; therefore hast thou put on the whole armor of God, having\nthe loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of\nrighteousness, and thy feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of\npeace, and going forth to battle with the shield of faith, the helmet\nof salvation, the sword of the Spirit! Worthy of imitation art thou,\nin overcoming the evil that is in the world; for by the shedding of\nthine own blood, but not even the blood of thy bitterest foe, shalt\nthou at last obtain a universal victory.\"\n\nSo, across the ages, does deep answer unto deep. But all the same\nGarrison's feet were unconsciously shod with the preparation of the\ngospel of war, even as those of Jesus were. In a realm of consecrated\nwrong every appeal to the moral sentiment is necessarily revolutionary;\nfar more so than physical rebellion, against which preponderant moral\nforces combine with the immoral, as being a greater evil than the\norderly wrong assailed. Satan cannot be cast out by Beelzebub. A\ngod of wrath, enthroned on reeking altars, could better stand the\naxe of the Baptist than the sunbeam of Jesus, the arrow feathered\nwith gentleness and culture. John the Baptist was not a religious\nmartyr; he suffered from a ruler quite indifferent to his religion,\nwith whose personal affairs he had interfered. But Jesus suffered\nbecause he proclaimed, with irresistible eloquence, a new religion,\none involving practically the existing institutions of the priesthood,\nand their whole moral system. It was virtually the setting up of\na new deity in place of Jahveh, reason in place of the Bible, the\nheart worshipping in spirit and in truth in place of the temple, and\nhumanizing the moral sentiment--turning the conventional morality to\n\"dead works\" (Heb. vi. 1). He expected the reform to be peaceful!\n\nRousseau's remark that Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus like\na god, has in it a truth more important than those who often quote\nit recognise. Jesus died, legendarily, so much like a god that it is\ndifficult to make out just what happened to the man. Strong arguments\nhave been made to prove that he did not die at all on \"the cross\"\n(a word unknown to the New Testament), [56] and that Pilate not only\n\"set himself\" to save Jesus (John xix. 12), but succeeded. There may\nhave been from the stake a despairing cry, afterwards shaped after a\nline from a psalm, but it can hardly be determined whether this may\nnot have been part of the first post-resurrectional doctrine that the\nSon must be absolutely left by his divine Father, and pass unaided\nthrough the ordeal of Satan, in order to fulfil the conditions of a\nreturn from death. It is true, however, that this primitive idea had\nalmost vanished when the earliest Gospel was written, and, although a\nrelic of it may have been preserved by tradition, there is an equal\nprobability that Jesus did utter at the stake a cry of despair. The\nwhole miserable murderous affair, unforeseen and disappointing, must\nhave appeared to him a horrible display of diabolism; and even after\nhis friends believed in his resurrection, and saw in the tragedy\na sacrifice, they regarded it a sacrifice hateful to his Father,\nand exacted only by the Devil.\n\nDid he pray, \"Father forgive them, they know not what they do\"? Only\nLuke reports this; its suppression by the other Gospels suggests\nthat its doctrinal significance was perceived. I heard a preacher\nin the church of the Jesuits at Rome argue that Judas himself is\nnow in Paradise, because Jesus thus prayed for those who slew him,\nand the prayer of the Son of God must have been answered. There is\nno apparent dogmatic purpose in this incident, and it may be true.\n\nThe story of his confiding his mother to the disciple \"whom he loved,\"\ntold only by John, is evidently meant to complete the assumption of a\nspecial favoritism towards that disciple, who is the type of the good\nSpirit on one side of Jesus in contrast with Judas, Satan's agent,\non the other. The two are equally unhistorical and allegorical. John\nand Judas became the good and evil Wandering Jews of medi\u00e6val folklore.\n\nThe first Solomon had perished as a teacher of wisdom when he was\nsummoned from his tomb to utter the Jahvism of the \"Wisdom of Solomon\":\nthe second and last Solomon was forever buried on the day when Mary\nMagdalene saw his apparition, and cried, \"My master!\" From that time\nmay be dated the loss of the man Jesus, and restoration in Christ of\nthe Jahvism whose burden the wise teacher had endeavored to lift from\nthe heart and mind of the people. Vicisti Jahveh!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nPOSTSCRIPTA.\n\n\nEarly in the year 1896 a company of Jews performed at the Novelty\nTheatre, London, in the Hebrew language, a drama entitled \"King\nSolomon.\" It was an humble affair, and only about three score\nin the audience--I and one very dear to me being apparently the\nonly \"Gentiles\" present. The drama was mainly the legend of the\nJudgment of Solomon and that of the visit of the Queen of Sheba, both\nconventionalized, and performed in an automatic way, no spark of human\npassion or emotion animating either of the women claiming the babe,\nor the Queen of Sheba. The part of Solomon was acted by a fine-looking\nman, who went through it in the same perfunctory way that characterized\nJoseph Meyer, the Oberammergau Christ, as he appears to the undevout\ncritical eye. Such has the biblical Solomon become in Europe.\n\nIn the same week I attended a matin\u00e9e of \"Aladdin\" in Drury Lane\nTheatre, which was crowded, mainly with children, who were filled\nwith delight by the fairy play. The leading figures were elaborated\nfrom Solomonic lore. A beautiful being in dazzling white raiment\nand crown appears to Aladdin; she is a combination of the Queen\nof Sheba and Wisdom; she presents the youth with a ring (symbol of\nSolomon's espousal with Wisdom, or as the Abyssinians say, with the\nQueen of Sheba); by means of this ring he obtains the Wonderful Lamp\n(the reflected or terrestrial wisdom). An Asmodeus, well versed in\nmodern jugglery, charms the audience with his tricks and antics,\nbefore proceeding to get hold of the magic ring of Aladdin, and\ncommanding the lamp, which he succeeds in doing, as he succeeded with\nSolomon. This is what legendary Solomon has become in Europe.\n\n\n\nIn European Folklore, Solomon and his old adversary, Asmodeus, now\nbetter known as Mephistopheles, have long been blended. Solomon's seal\nwas the medi\u00e6val talisman to which the demon eagerly responds. The\nWisdom involved is all a matter of magic. It is wonderful that\nso little recognition has been given in literature to the epical\ndignity and beauty of the biblical legends of Solomon. In early\nEnglish literature there was at one time a tendency to ascribe to\nSolomon various proverbs not in the Bible. In one old manuscript he\nis credited with saying:\n\n\n   \"Save a thief from the gallows and he'll help to hang thee.\"\n\n\nAlso,\n\n\n   \"Many a one leads a hungry life,\n    And yet must needs wed a wife.\"\n\n\nIn Chaucer's \"Melib\u00e6us\" there are ten proverbs ascribed to Solomon\nwhich are not in the Bible. But generally it is Solomon the magician\nwho has interested the poets. In the old work, \"Salomon and Saturn,\"\nthe wise man informs Saturn that the most potent of all talismans is\nthe Bible:\n\n\n   \"Golden is the Word of God,\n    Stored with gems;\n    It hath silver leaves;\n    Each one can,\n    Through spiritual grace\n    A Gospel relate.\"\n\n\nAnd it is further said, \"Each (leaf) will subdue devils.\" In a\nprofounder vein Solomon says: \"All Evil is from Fate; yet a wise-minded\nman may moderate every fate with self-help, help of friends, and the\ndivine spirit.\"\n\n\n\nIn Prospero burying his Book, Shakespeare seems to have followed\nthe rabbinical legend that after Solomon by his written formulas had\nmade the devils serve him, in building the temple and other works,\nhe resolved to practice magic no more, and buried his book. But the\ndevils said to the people, \"he only ruled you by his book,\" and pointed\nout where it was hidden; so they left the prophets and followed magic.\n\nAt what time the notion arose that Solomon had demonic familiars does\nnot appear, but the story in 1 Kings iii. of the gift of wisdom has\nsome appearance of a reclamation for the deity of a credit that was\npopularly ascribed to a rival power. However this may be, there is\na popular habit of tracing unusual human performances to Satan. As I\nwrite this paragraph (in Paris) I note a theatrical placard announcing\n\"les sataniques devins\" of Williany de Torre, a man who cries out the\nname and address you secretly select in the Paris Directory. Why not\nadvertise the divinations as \"angelic\" instead of satanic? The heavenly\nbeings have somehow no great reputation for cleverness. Probably\nthis is due to the long association of intellectuality and science\nwith heresy.\n\n\n\nThe late Lord Lytton (\"Owen Meredith\") wrote a brief poem on a\nversion given him by Robert Browning of the story in my Preface,\nof Solomon leaning on his staff long after he was dead: a worm gnaws\nthe end of the staff and Solomon falls, crumbled to dust, and nothing\nleft visible but his crown. A poem by Leigh Hunt, \"The Inevitable\"\n(in some editions, \"The Angel of Death\"), tells of a man who, in\nterror of Death, entreats Solomon to transport him to the remotest\nmountain of Cathay. Solomon does so.\n\n\n   \"Solomon wished and the man vanished straight;\n    Up comes the Terror, with his orbs of fate:\n    'Solomon,' with a lofty voice said he,\n    'How came that man here, wasting time with thee?\n    I was to fetch him ere the close of day,\n    From the remotest mountain of Cathay.'\n    Solomon said, bowing him to the ground,\n    'Angel of death, there will the man be found.'\"\n\n\nThe story of the Fall of Man, in Genesis, so fascinated Schopenhauer\nthat he was ready to forgive the Bible all its blunders. The whole\nworld, said the great pessimist, looks like a vast accumulation of\nevil developed from some absurdly small misstep. And this misstep\nwas precisely in accord with the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who says\nthat the great mistake of the universe is \"consciousness.\"\n\nThat there were Schopenhaueresque ideas among some of the Solomonic\nschool may be seen in Koheleth (Ecclesiastes), who says, \"Be not\noverwise; why commit suicide?\" (vii. 16.) I have remarked elsewhere\nthat the story of the serpent in Eden may have been put there as a\nfling at Solomon and the scientific people, but on the other hand it\nmay be argued that it was a fable devised by the Solomonic school\nto show how Jahveh was outwitted in his attempt to breed a race of\nidiots, for fear mankind might become as clever as himself. For it\nwas not the serpent that deceived Adam and Eve, but Jahveh, in saying\nthe forbidden fruit was fatal; the serpent told them the truth.\n\nThe folk-tale that Solomon's staff was gnawed by a worm, and his\ncrowned body reduced to dust, suggests the idea of grandeur laid low\nby some insignificant form, and in the same way Jahveh's creation was\noverthrown by a worm. This humiliation of Jahveh has been now somewhat\nlessened by the theory that Satan took the form of the serpent,\nwhich Dante calls the worm, but nowhere in the Bible is there any\nconfusion of the reptile in Eden with any devil. \"If,\" says Kalisch,\n\"the serpent represented Satan it would be extremely surprising that\nthe former only was cursed, and that the latter is not even alluded\nto.\" In Genesis the extreme cleverness of the serpent is recognized,\nand the truth of his statement to Eve admitted, while Jahveh is shown\nin the ridiculous light of having his deception about the fruit exposed\nby a worm, and betaking himself to curses all round. These be thy gods,\nO Christians--for the Jews absolutely ignored the tale in all their\nscriptures, and in the New Testament Paul alone alludes to it. [57]\n\nThe serpent in Eden is evidently the symbol of wisdom, of medical\nart--Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek--lifted in the wilderness by Moses,\nand recognised by Jesus (\"Be wise as serpents\"), with whom as an\nuplifted healer of mankind the serpent-symbol was associated. But all\nof this is in contradiction to the curses of Jahveh on the serpent,\nand on those to whom the serpent brought wisdom. The fable, therefore,\nseems to be composed of two antagonistic parts; it is a Solomonic\nanti-Jahvist fable with an anti-Solomonic moral.\n\nIn the Pars\u00ee religion the fall of man was due to the first man\nhaving been deceived by the Evil One into ascribing the good things\nin creation to him--the Evil One.\n\nIn the same way the Christian ascribes to the Evil One man's first\ntaste of wisdom--the knowledge of good and evil--and believes his\nfirst step above the brute to be a fall.\n\nIn the Pars\u00ee religion that fall of man, by a lie, was recovered from\nby the creation of a new man. But in Christendom man has not recovered\nfrom his fall, nor can he ever recover from it so long as he disregards\nthe new man's word, \"Be wise as serpents,\" and continues to confuse\nhis wisdom with diabolism.\n\nOnly through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and of the\neternal antagonism between them, can the tree of Life be reached.\n\n\n\nIn a Gnostic legend Solomon was summoned from his tomb and asked,\n\"Who first named the name of God?\" He answered, \"The Devil.\"\n\nDid reason permit belief in a personal devil, one might recognise\nhis supreme artifice in thus sheltering all the desolating cruelties\nof men, all the discords and wars that have degraded mankind into\nnations glorying in their ensigns of inhumanity, under a divine\norder. Thenceforth the enemy of man became God's Devil, and whoso\naccuses the scourges of man accuses the scourges of God.\n\nUnder the teaching of the Second Solomon his personal friends could see\nin his tragical death a blow of the Devil aimed at God, who was trying\nto subdue that lawless one, for whose existence or actions God was in\nno sense responsible. But this was a transient glimpse. The Devil's\nGod was soon seen on his throne above the murderers of the great man;\nthe stake set up by the lynchers was shaped into a symbolical cross;\nand all the cowardly, treacherous, murderous leaders, and the vile\nlynchers, are raised into agents and priests of God, presiding at a\nsolemn rite and sacrifice for the salvation of mankind.\n\nInstead of salvation a curse fell on mankind with that lie, and there\nare no signs of recovery from it. By the combination of Church and\nState there has been evolved a new man--a Christian restoration of\ndeceived Yima--and no theological development touches that misbeliever\nin every believer. The Unitarian, the Theist, in their doctrine of a\ndivine cosmos, the optimist, the pantheist, do but rehabilitate and\nphilosophically reinvest the lie that the diseases and agonies in\nnature and in history are parts of a divinely ordered universe. They,\ntoo, must see Judas and the lynchers carrying out the plans of\nGod. What then can they say of our contemporary betrayers of justice,\nthe national lynchers, who are crucifying humanity throughout the\nworld? These, too, carrying along their missionaries, are projecting\nGod into history! But it is the God who was first named by the Devil,\nas the risen Solomon said, not the \"Eloi,\" the source only of good,\nwhom the great friend of man saw not in all that wild chaos of violence\namid which he perished, and his sublime religion with him.\n\nWhen Jahveh swears \"by his holiness\" (as in Ps. lxxxix. 35, Amos\niv. 2), this holiness is not to be interpreted as moral, or in any\nhuman sense. It relates to ancient philosophical ideas concerning\nthe spiritual and the material worlds. The supreme head of the\nspiritual world is so far above the material world in majesty that\nhe cannot come in contact with matter, though this august \"holiness\"\nhas nothing to do with his moral character. Indeed deities were in all\ncountries considered quite above the moral obligations of men. Jahveh's\n\"holiness\" required the employment of mediators in creation--the Spirit\nof God brooding over the waters, Wisdom the \"undefiled\" master-builder,\nthe Word--in each of whom is some image of his quasi-physiological\n\"holiness,\" his transcendent immateriality.\n\nIt was amid these ancient conceptions that the various cults arose\nwhich attempt to please and conciliate gods by ceremonial observances,\nrunes, recited formulas of petition or adulation, all based on the\nawful \"holiness\" that doth hedge about a god, and concerned with\npoints of heavenly etiquette, without any implication of a moral\nnature in those distant celestial beings. In Euripides' \"Iphigenia\"\n(line 20) it is said: \"Sometimes the worship of the gods, not being\nconducted with exactness, overturns one's life.\" In the same vein\nKoheleth (Ecclesiastes, v. 1, 2): \"Keep thy foot when thou goest into\nthe house of God; for to draw nigh to him with attention is better\nthan to bring the sacrifices of fools who know not that they are\n(? may be) doing wrong. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy\nheart be hasty to utter a word before God; for God is in heaven,\nand thou on earth; therefore let thy words be few.\"\n\nBut in every race ethical development reaches a stage in which\nthese majestic beings, concerned only about their worship according\nto etiquette, are challenged. Thus in the \"Cyclops\" of Euripides\n(xxxv. 3-5), Ulysses says: \"O Jove, guardian of strangers, behold\nthese things; for if thou regardest them not, thou, Jove, being nought,\nart vainly esteemed a god.\"\n\nFrom the first Solomon to the last, the whole intellectual development\nin Judea, which I have called Solomonic, means the subjection of\nall conceptions of the divine nature and laws to the moral sentiment\nand the reason of man. It was no denial of invisible beings, or of\nman's relation to the universe, but a demand that all definitions\nand conceptions should be approached through science, experience\nand wisdom.\n\nSolomon, and the Second Solomon, rest in their unknown graves; their\nwisdom is corrupted; but their genius survives in the earth. Of old\nit was said God looked down from heaven on the children of men, and\nfound that there was \"none that doeth good, no not one.\" But it is\nnow man who, with eyes illumined by the brave and cultured Solomons\nof all lands and ages, looks upon the gods to see if there be one\nthat doeth good. The best of them are defended only by a plea that\nevil is the mask of their benevolence. But it is not humanly moral\nto do evil that good may come.\n\nOur great Omar Khayy\u00e1m, by Fitzgerald's help, says:\n\n\n   \"O Thou, who Man of baser earth didst make,\n    And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:\n    For all the Sin wherewith the face of Man\n    Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!\"\n\n\nThe agreement may be fair enough so far as it concerns Sin, in the\ntheological sense, but no Omnipotence, with unlimited choice of means\nto ends, could be forgiven for the agonies of nature, even did they\nresult in benefits,--as generally they do not, so far as is known to\nthe experience of mankind.\n\nIt may be, as the American orator said, \"An honest god's the noblest\nwork of man\"; and innumerable hearts enshrine fair personal ideals\nunder uncomprehended names for deity; but each such private ideal is\nunconsciously antagonistic to every \"collectivist\" deity to whom the\ncreation or the government of the world is ascribed.\n\nThe human heart kneels before its vision, and with Mary Magdalene\ncries Rabboni, My Master; but Theology recognizes only the perfunctory\nRabbi, and carries her beloved off into union with thunder-god,\nwar-god, or with a deified predatory Cosmos. Yet will not the heart\nbe bereaved of its vision; it still sees a smile of tenderness in the\nuniverse. And philosophy, though it regard that smile as a reflection\nof the heart's own love, may with all the more certainty itself find\na religion in this maternal divinity in the earth, ever aspiring to\nits own supreme humanity.\n\nSolomon passes, Jesus passes, but the Wisdom they loved as Bride,\nas Mother, abides, however veiled in fables. She is still inspiring\nthe unfinished work of creation, and her delight is with the children\nof men.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n[1] The name given to him in 2 Sam. xii. 25, Jedidiah (\"beloved of\nJah\"), by the prophet of Jahveh, is, however, an important item in\nconsidering the question of an actual monarch behind the allegorical\nname, especially as the writer of the book, in adding \"for Jahveh's\nsake\" seems to strain the sense of the name--somewhat as the name\n\"Jesus\" is strained to mean saviour in Matt. i. 21. Jedidiah looks\nlike a Jahvist modification of a real name (see p. 20).\n\n[2] This was continued in rabbinical and Persian superstitions, which\nattribute to David knowledge of the language of birds. It is said\nDavid invented coats of mail, the iron becoming as wax in his hands;\nhe subjected the winds to Solomon, and also a pearl-diving demon.\n\n[3] Sacred Books of the East. Edited by F. Max M\u00fcller. Vol. IV. The\nZend-Avesta. Part I. The Vend\u00eed\u00e2d. Translated by James\nDarmesteter. P. lix., et seq.\n\n[4] \"Ammon\" probably developed the name \"Am\u00eena,\" given in the Talmud\nas the name of a favorite concubine of Solomon, to whom, while he\nwas bathing, he entrusted his signet ring, and from whom the Devil,\nSakhar, obtained it by appearing to her in the shape of Solomon. This\nis the version referred to in the Koran, chapter xxxviii. (Sale.)\n\n[5] The marriage of Hadad with Pharaoh's sister and that of Solomon\nshortly after with Pharaoh's daughter might naturally, Colenso says,\nlead to some amicable arrangement between these two young princes,\nrepresenting respectively the ancient domains of Jacob and Esau, and\nthe Bishop adds the pregnant suggestion: \"Thus also would be explained\nanother phenomenon in connexion with this matter, which we observe\nin the Jehovistic portions of Genesis--viz., the reconciliation of\nEsau and Jacob\" (Gen. xxxiii). That Solomon was on good terms with\nEdom appears by the fact that his naval station was in that land\n(1 K. ix. 26).\n\n[6] The Bible, the Church, and the Reason, p. 137, n. Dr. Briggs\npoints out citations from the book of Jasher in Num. xxi., Jos. x.,\nand 2 Sam. 1, where a dirge of David is given, and adds: \"The book\nof Jasher containing poems of David and Solomon could not have\nbeen written before Solomon.\" The bearing of this on the age of the\nHexateuch, in its present form, is obvious.\n\n[7] Ursprung der Sagen von Abraham, Isaak und Jakob. Kritische\nUntersuchung von A. Bernstein. Berlin. 1871.\n\n[8] The marriage is doubtful: \"He took her and went in to her\"\n(Gen. xxxviii. 2).\n\n[9] The Sceptics of the Old Testament, pp. 149, 155.\n\n[10] It may be mentioned that the Moslem name for the Queen of Sheba\nis Balkis, which points to the great Zoroastrian city of Balkh, near\nwhich are the Seven Rivers (Saba' Sin), whose confluence makes the\nBalkh (Oxus), with whose sands gold is mingled. (Cf. Psalm lxxii. 15.)\n\n[11] In many places in the Avesta (e. g., S\u00eer\u00f4zah i. 2) a distinction\nis drawn between \"the heavenly wisdom made by Mazda, and the acquired\nwisdom through the ear made by Mazda.\" Darmesteter says: \"Asnya khratu,\nthe inborn intellect, intuition, contrasted with gaosh\u00f4-sr\u00fbta khratu,\nthe knowledge acquired by hearing and learning. There is between the\ntwo nearly the same relation as between the par\u00e2vidy\u00e2 and apar\u00e2vidy\u00e2 in\nBrahmanism, the former reaching Brahma in se (parabrahma), the latter\nsabdabrahma, the word-brahma (Brahma as taught and revealed).\" (Sacred\nBooks of the East, Vol. XXIII., p. 4.)\n\n[12] Sacred Books of the East. Vol. XVIII. Pahlavi Texts tr. by\nWest. The text quoted above (from p. 415) is of uncertain age, but it\nis harmonious with the more ancient scriptures, and no doubt compiled\nfrom them.\n\n[13] Among the cultured Jews, just before our era, there was a\nrecognition of the equality of men, as is seen in the Wisdom of Solomon\nvii. 1, \"I myself am a mortal man, like to all, and the offspring of\nhim that was first made of the earth.\" Solomon ascribes his superiority\nonly to the divine gift of wisdom. This idea of human equality was in\nthe preaching of John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 9)--probably a Parsi\nheretic, at any rate an apostle of purifying water and fire--and it\nunderlay the title of Jesus, \"Son of Man.\" That in Arma\u00eeti there was\na conception of a humanity not represented by race but by character\nand culture will appear by a comparison with the Vedic Aramati, a\nbride of Agni (Fire) to whom she is mythologically related, on the\none hand, and on the other to the spirit of the earth who came to the\nassistance of Buddha. This story, related in many forms, is that when\nthe evil M\u00e2ra, having tempted Buddha in vain, brought his hosts to\nterrify him, all friends forsook him, and no angel came to help him,\nbut the spirit of the earth, which he had watered, arose as a fair\nwoman, who from her long hair wrung out the water Buddha had bestowed\nwhich became a flood and swept away the evil host. Watering the Earth\nis especially mentioned in the Avesta as that which makes her rejoice,\nand marks the holy man.\n\n[14] Even in the legend in Genesis ii. the \"rib\" is a\nmisunderstanding. Eve (Chavah) was the female side of Adam, which was\nthe name of both male and female (Gen. v. 2). The \"rib\" story arose no\ndoubt from the supposition that Adam's allusion to \"bone of my bone\"\nhad something to do with it. But Adam's phrase is an idiom meaning only\n\"Thou art the same as I am.\" (Max M\u00fcller's Science of Religion, p. 47.)\n\n[15] These two, darkness and the brooding spirit, may seem to be\nrelated to the raven and the dove sent out of the ark by Noah, but\nthis account only indicates the origin of the story of the Deluge;\nfor the raven was in Persia an emblem of victory, and in the Biblical\nlegend it was the only living creature that defied the Deluge and was\nable to do without the ark. In the corresponding legend in the Avesta,\nwhere King Yima makes an enclosure (Vara) for the shelter of the seeds\nof all living creatures, the heavenly bird Karshipta brings into that\nrefuge the law of Ahura Mazda, and as the song of this bird was the\nvoice of Ahura Mazda, it may have been an idealised dove\n\n\n    (\"For lo, the winter is past,\n    The rain is over and gone....\n    The voice of the turtle is heard in the land.\")\n\n\nBut when Yima lent himself to the lies of the Evil One his (Yima's)\n\"glory\" left him in the form of a raven (Zamb\u00e2d Yast, 36). But both\nthe raven and the dove were tribal ensigns, and it is not safe to\nbuild too much on what is said of them in Eastern and Oriental books.\n\n[16] See my Sacred Anthology, p. 240.\n\n[17] Gaya and ajy\u00e2iti, translated by Haug \"reality and unreality\"\n(Parsis, p. 303). The translation \"living and not living\" was sent\nme by Prof. Max M\u00fcller in answer to a request for a careful rendering.\n\n[18] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V., pp. 16, 53-54. Text and notes.\n\n[19] American Journal of Philology. Vol. III.\n\n[20] In 1 Chron. iii. 19 Shelomith is a descendant of Solomon. In these\nstudies \"Abishag the Shunamith,\" 1 Kings i. 2, has been conjecturally\nconnected with Psalm xlv., and the identity of her name with Shulamith\nhas also been mentioned. This identity of the names was suggested by\nGesenius and accepted by F\u00fcrst, Renan, and others. Abishag is thus\nalso a sort of \"Solomona.\" In 1 Kings i. there is some indication of\na lacuna between verses 4 and 5. \"And the damsel (Abishag) was very\nfair; and she cherished the King and ministered to him; but the King\nknew her not. Then\"--what? why, all about Adonijah's effort to become\nking! David did not marry Abishag; she remained a maiden after his\ndeath and free to wed either of the brothers. The care with which\nthis is certified was probably followed by some story either of her\ncleverness or of her relations with Solomon which gave her the name\nShunamith--Shulamith--Solomona. Of the Shunamith it is said they found\nher far away and \"brought her to the King,\" and in the beginning of the\nSong Shulamith says \"The King hath brought me into his chambers.\" This\nsuggests a probability of legends having arisen concerning Abishag,\nand concerning the lady entreated in Psalm xlv., which, had they\nbeen preserved, might perhaps account for the coincidence of names,\nas well as the parallelism of the situations at court of the lady of\nthe psalm, of Abishag the Shunamith, and of Shulamith in the \"song.\"\n\nThe \"great woman\" called Shunamith in 2 Kings 4 was probably so\ncalled because of her \"wisdom\" in discerning the prophet Elisha,\nand the reference to the town of Shunem (verse 8) inserted by a\nwriter who misunderstood the meaning of Shunamith. This story is\nunknown to Josephus, though he tells the story of the widow's pot of\noil immediately preceding, in the same chapter, and asserts that he\nhas gone over the acts of Elisha \"particularly,\" \"as we have them set\ndown in the sacred books.\" (Antiquities. Book ix. ch. 4.) The chapter\n(2 Kings iv.) is mainly a mere travesty of the stories told in 1 Kings\nxvii., transparently meant to certify that the miraculous power of\nElijah had passed with his mantle to Elisha. There is no mention of\nShunem in the original legend. (1 Kings xvii.)\n\n[21] Compare Psalm xlv. 12-15.\n\n[22] 1. \"Why will ye look upon Shulamith as upon the dance of\nMahanaim?\" The sense is obscure. Cf. Gen. xxxii. 2, where Jacob names\na place Mahanaim, literally two armies or camps; but it was in honor\nof the angels that met him there, and it is possible that Shulamith\nis here compared to an angel. If the verse means any blush at the\ndancer's display of her person it is the only trace of prudery in\nthe book, and betrays the Alexandrian.\n\n[23] Job and Solomon, or the Wisdom of the Old Testament. By\nT. K. Cheyne. (1887.) Those who wish to study the Solomonic literature\nshould read this excellent work. It is very probable, although\nProfessor Cheyne does not suggest this, that a dramatic \"Morality\"\nfrom which Job was evolved, was imported by Solomon along with the\ngold of Ophir from some Oriental land.\n\n[24] Bath Kol,--\"daughter of a voice.\"\n\n[25] This may, however, have been flotsam from the Orient. Mahanshadha,\na sort of Solomon in Buddhist tales (see ante chap. ii), had a\nwonderful parrot, Charaka, which he employed as a spy. It revealed\nto him the plot to poison King Janaka, whose chief Minister he\nwas. (Tibetan Tales, p. 168.)\n\n[26] M. Didron (Christian Iconography, Bohn's ed., i., p. 464) mentions\na picture of the thirteenth century in which the dove moving over\nthe face of the waters (Gen. 1) is black, God not having yet created\nlight. It may be, however, that the medi\u00e6val idea was that the Holy\nGhost, as a heavenly spy, was supposed to assume the color of the\nnight in order to detect the deeds done in darkness without itself\nbeing seen. In later centuries this dark dove was shown at the ear\nof magicians and idols, the inspirer of prophets and saints being\nthe white dove.\n\n[27] The amorous relations between Ahuramazda, the deity, and Arma\u00eeti,\ngenius of the earth, are referred to ante Chap. VIII., in a passage\nfrom West's Palahvi Texts. In the Vend\u00eed\u00e2d she is sometimes called\nhis daughter.\n\n[28] Cf. Gospel of Peter: \"They behold three men coming out of the\ntomb, and the two supporting the one, and the cross following them,\nand the heads of the two reached to the heavens, and that of him who\nwas being led went above the heavens.\"\n\n[29] Invoke, O Zoroaster, the powerful Spirit (Wind) formed by\nMazda (Light) and Spenta Arma\u00eeti (earth-mother), the fair daughter\nof Ahuramazda. Invoke, O Zoroaster, my Fravashi (deathless past),\nwho am Ahuramazda, greatest, fairest, most solid, most intelligent,\nbest shapen, highest in purity, whose soul is the holy Word.\n\n\"Invoke Mithra (descending light), the lord of wide pastures, a god\narmed with beautiful weapons, with the most glorious of all weapons,\nwith the most fiend-smiting of all weapons.\n\n\"Invoke the most holy glorious word.\"--Zendavesta. (Vend. Farg. xix. 2)\n\n[30] Since this work was sent to the press the world has been enriched\nby Dr. McGiffert's \"History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age.\" He\npronounces the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews \"without\ndoubt the finest and most cultured literary genius of the primitive\nchurch,\" but believes the Epistle to be somewhat later than those of\nPaul. He thinks its detailed description of proceedings in the temple\nmight have been written after its destruction, as Clement's account\nwas, and remarks that the writer always calls it the \"tabernacle.\" This\npeculiarity I attribute to the emphasis in the \"Wisdom of Solomon\"\non the temple being \"a resemblance of the holy tabernacle which thou\nhast prepared from the beginning\" (ix. 8). It seems unlikely that\nthe Epistle could have said \"the priests go in continually\" etc.,\nhad the temple not existed. Dr. McGiffert finds in some expressions\nindications that there were Gentiles among those to whom the Epistle\nwas addressed, but even admitting this it is natural to suppose that\nthere must have been some fellowship of this kind among educated people\nbefore Paul's propaganda. The passages referred to by Dr. McGiffert,\nif they imply what he supposes, render it all the more improbable\nthat if Paul and his mission to the Gentiles preceded this Epistle,\nthere should be no allusion to them in it.\n\n[31] Thus spake Angra Mainyu, the guileful, the evil-doer, the\ndeadly, \"Fiend rush down upon him, destroy the holy Zoroaster!\" The\nfiend came rushing; along, the demon B\u00fbiti, the unseen death,\nthe hell-born. Zoroaster chanted loudly the Ahuna-Vairya: \"The\nwill of the Lord is the law of holiness; the riches of Vohu-man\u00f4\n(heavenly wisdom) shall be given to him who works in this world\nfor God (Mazda), and wields according to the all-knowing (Ahura)\nthe power he gave him to relieve the poor. Profess (O Fiend) the law\nof God!\" The fiend dismayed rushed away, and said to Angra Mainyu\n\"O baneful Angra Mainyu, I see no way to kill him, so great is the\nglory of the holy Zoroaster.\" Zoroaster saw all this from within his\nsoul: \"The evil-doing devils and demons take counsel together for\nmy death.\" Up started Zoroaster, forward went Zoroaster, unshaken\nby the evil spirit. \"O evil-doer, Angra Mainyu. I will smite the\ncreation of the Evil One (Daeva) till the fiend-smiter Saoshyant\n(Saviour) come up to life out of the lake Kasava, from the region\nof the dawn.\"--Vend\u00eed\u00e2d, Farg. xix, 1-5. (Sacred Books of the East,\nVol. iv. pp. 204-6.)\n\n\n    The Ahuna-Vairya, recited by Zoroaster, was the prayer by which\n    Ormazd in his first conflict with Ahreinan drove him back to hell.\n\n\n[32] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. xxiii. p. 59.\n\n[33] It is even doubtful whether they were not ordered to offer burnt\nofferings to Job as a deity.\n\n[34] It is, I think, an indication of the nearness of the \"Gospel\naccording to the Hebrews\" to the Apostolic Age that a sort of\ncaveat is there recorded against the possible implication that\nthe baptism of Jesus was for remission of sins. \"He said to them,\nWherein have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him?\" The\nwhole passage is quoted on a farther page, but it may be stated here\nthat the descending dove certifies the sinlessness of Jesus before\nhis baptism. The Synoptics introduce the dove after the baptism. The\nsignificance of the scene was thus lost.\n\n[35] It is doubtful whether this can be regarded as historical. The\n\"clear beforehand\" (prod\u00ealon) renders it more probable that it is\na reference to Ps. lxxviii. 67, 68. \"He refused the tent of Joseph,\nand chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah,\" etc.\n\n[36] The King of Sodom came out to Abram at the same time, but no\nproper name is assigned him.\n\n[37] The \"Salem\" of Gen. xiv. 18, and the \"Shalem\" of Gen. xxiii. 18,\nare evidently competitive. Also Jacob's naming his altar\n\"El-Elohe-Israel\" seems an answer to Abraham's \"El-Ely\u00f4n,\" as if saying\nthat the latter was not the God of Israel. It is even possible that\nthe name \"Luz\" (Gen. xxviii. 19) changed to Beth-El, after Jacob's\nvision of the Ladder and setting up the pillar there, is meant to\ncorrespond with the \"oaks of Mamre\" (Gen. xiv. 13), where Abram dwelt\nwhen he was met by the priest of El Ely\u00f4n. For Abram had also built\nan altar at some place called Beth-El (Gen. xiii. 3) where he called\non the name of the Lord and received a promise that his seed should be\n\"as the dust of the earth,\" which is verbatim the promise made to Jacob\nat his Beth-El (Gen. xxviii. 14). Now Abram next moves his tent to the\n\"oak of Mamre\" in Hebron (Gen. xiii. 18), and the Hebrew word for oak\nis Elah, or Eylon. The unusual name for the deity of both Abram and\nMelchizedek, El-Elyon, was probably selected because of its resemblance\nto the sacred oak or Elah of that place, and Jacob's El-Elohe-Israel\nwas no doubt meant to invest his deity with the same sanctity. Now\n\"Luz\" also means a tree,--almond-tree,--and was also a name of the\nAssyrian goddess Ishtar. The oak was associated also with Jacob,\nwho buried beneath it the idols of his household (Gen. xxxv. 1-9)\nimmediately before setting up his altar at Luz (the almond).\n\n[38] It may be said in passing, that the legend in Gen. xiv., as was\nfirst pointed out in Calmet, bears some resemblance to the Hindu myth\nof Soma, a lunar being, who discovered the juice of the sacred Soma\nplant (Asclepias acida), called \"the king of plants.\" Soma was the\nmost sacred sacrifice to the gods, as a juice; it had the intoxicating\neffect of wine; and the lunar being, Soma, was believed to be still\nalive, though invisible, and is the chief of the sacerdotal tribe\nto this day. In the Vishnu Purana, Soma is called \"the monarch of\nBrahmans.\" He was the Hindu Bacchus, and is regarded as the guardian of\nhealing plants and constellations. Melchizedek, offering wine to, and\nas priest of God Most High receiving tribute from, the \"High Father\"\n(Abram), thus bears some resemblance to Soma, the sacerdotal moon-god;\nand those who care to study the matter further may be reminded that in\nBabylonian mythology Malkit seems to be a \"Queen of Heaven\" (moon),\nand is connected by Goldziher (Heb. Myth.) with Milka (Abram's\nsister-in-law), whom he supposes to have the same meaning. It\nis remarkable, by the way, that the writer of the Epistle to the\nHebrews, in telling the story of Abram and Melchizedek minutely and\ncritically, omits the offering of bread and wine. This is not only\nan indication that the Epistle was written as already said, before\nPaul's institution of the eucharist (1 Cor. x., xi.), but suggests\nthat the writer may have suspected the offerings as pagan. The Soma\njuice was sacred also in Persia, and is the H\u00f4m of the Avesta. Ewald\nsays of the story in Gen. xiv., \"The whole narrative looks like a\nfragment torn from a more general history of Western Asia, merely on\naccount of the mention of Abraham contained in it.\" (Hist. of Israel,\np. 308. London, 1867.) And finally it may be noted that among the\nkings Abram smote, just before meeting Melchizedek, was Chedorlaomer,\nKing of Elam. Elam is south of Assyria and east of Persia proper; if\nhe fought Abram near Jerusalem, Chedorlaomer was about one thousand\nmiles from his kingdom, Elam. Probably it was not he but a name and\nlegend of his kingdom that drifted into Jewish folklore.\n\n[39] The name Jesus is used in these pages for the man, Christ being\nused for the supernatural or risen being.\n\n[40] About 1832 the Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson notified his congregation\nin Boston (Unitarian) that he could no longer administer the \"Lord's\nSupper,\" and near the same time the Rev. W. J. Fox took the same\ncourse at South Place Chapel, London. The Boston congregation clung\nto the sacrament, and gave up their minister to mankind. The London\ncongregation gave up the sacrament, and there was substituted for\nit the famous South Place Banquet, which was attended by such men as\nLeigh Hunt, Mill, Thomas Campbell, Jerrold, and such women as Harriet\nMartineau, Eliza Flower, Sarah Flower Adams (who wrote \"Nearer, My\nGod, To Thee\"). The speeches and talk at this banquet were of the\nhighest character, and the festival was no doubt nearer in spirit to\nthe supper of Jesus and his friends than any sacrament.\n\n[41] Dr. Nicholson's \"The Gospel According to the Hebrews,\" p. 60. In\nall of my references to this Gospel I depend on this learned and very\nuseful work.\n\n[42] It has always been a condition of missionary propagandise that\nthe new religion must adopt in some form the popular festivals,\ncherished observances and talismans of the folk. It will be seen\nby 1 Cor. x. 14-22 that Paul's eucharist was only a competitor with\nexisting eucharist, with their \"cup of devils,\" as he calls it.\n\n[43] Ormazd entrusted Zoroaster for seven days with omniscience, during\nwhich time he saw, besides many other things, \"a celebrity with much\nwealth, whose soul, infamous in the body, was hungry and jaundiced\nand in hell ... and I saw a beggar with no wealth and helpless,\nand his soul was thriving in paradise.\"--Bahman Yast. Sacred Books\nof the East, Vol. V. p. 197.\n\n[44] Nicholson's \"Gospel According to the Hebrews,\" pp. 36-43.\n\n[45] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. iv, p. 206.\n\n[46] In the apocryphal book, \"Bel and the Dragon\" (verse 36), the angel\nthus bore by the hair Habakkuk to Babylon, and set him over the lion's\nden where Daniel was confined. Habakkuk means the \"embrace of love.\"\n\n[47] I observed in the play at Oberammergau that while the disciples\nwere barefoot, Jesus wore fine white silk stockings, and was otherwise\nin richer costume.\n\n[48] On a very ancient sarcophagus in the Museo Gregoriano, Rome,\nis represented in bas-relief the raising of Lazarus. Christ appears\nbeardless and equipped with a wand in the received guise of a\nnecromancer, while the corpse of Lazarus is swathed in bandages\nexactly as an Egyptian mummy.--King's Gnostics, p. 145.\n\n[49] Renan suggested that Jesus and his friends at Bethany arranged a\npretended death and resurrection of Lazarus. This seems inconsistent\nwith the absence of any allusion to it or to Lazarus in the Epistles,\nand also with the evident relation of the narrative to the parable. It\nlooks more as if the parable of Lazarus and the rich man had been\ndramatized and the return of Lazarus from \"Abraham's bosom\" added. At\nevery step in the narrative (John xi.) there is a suggestion of some\nold \"mystery-play\" fossilized into prosaic literalism.\n\n[50] This is the genuine sense of the story in Acts xiii. There\nis no evidence in Paul's writings that he ever bore the name of\nSaul. Bar-Jesus has a double meaning,--\"Son of Jesus\" and \"Obstruction\nof Jesus.\" The antithesis may have been suggested by the words of\nPilate, in many ancient versions of Matt, xxvii. 16, 17: \"Whether of\nthe twain will ye that I release unto you? Jesus Bar Abbas, or Jesus\nthat is called the Christ?\" Elymas, commonly used as a proper name,\nmeans Wise Man. The word magoi denotes Wise Men in Matt. ii. 1, where\nthey bring gifts to the infant Christ, but the same word is made by\ntranslators to denote a \"sorcerer\" when the wise man is opposing\nPaul! Nobody named Sergius Paulus was known before the Consul of\nA.D. 94, who must have been long enough dead for this legend to form\nbefore it was written.\n\n[51] \"Boast not of thy clothing and raiment, and exalt not thyself in\nthe day of honor: for the works of the Lord (in nature) are wonderful,\nand his works among (wise) men are hidden.\"--Ecclus. xi. 4; cf.,\nin same, xvi. 26-27, where it is said the beautiful things in nature\n\"neither labor, nor are weary nor cease from their works.\"\n\n[52] Ewald compares the omission of the name of Moses for so many\ncenturies with the omission of Solomon's name. (Geschichte des Volkes\nIsrael, Bk. ii.). Such omissions do not, he says, cast doubt on the\nhistoric character of either. The descriptive references to Solomon\nduring the time when his name is suppressed are more continuous,\nand more historical. The utterance of Solomon's name was probably at\nfirst avoided through Jahvist horror of his supposed idolatry and\nworldliness, but as he was addressed in a psalm as \"God,\" and as\nsuperstitions about his demon-commanding power grew, it seems not\nimprobable that there was some fear of using his name, akin to the\nfear of uttering the proper name of God or of any evil power.\n\n[53] It is shocking to find this woman named as Mary Magdalene in\nthe \"Harmony of the Gospels,\" appended to the Revised Bible. This\ndeliberate falsehood is carefully elaborated by separating the story\nas told in Matthew and Mark as another incident, under the heading,\n\"Mary anoints Jesus.\"\n\n[54] In the newly-found tablet to which English editors give the title\n\"Logia Jesou,\" the 5th \"Logion,\" so far as it can be made out, reads:\n\"... saith where there are ... and there is one alone ... I am with\nhim. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me, cleave the wood\nand there am I.\" The last sentence seems to be based on Eccles. x. 9:\n\"Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth\nwood shall be endangered thereby.\" The first sentence may be an\nallusion to the poor man who alone saved the city (Eccles. ix.). There\nis no such word as \"Jesus\" in this \"Logion,\" and perhaps it is Wisdom\nwho speaks.\n\n[55] Asmodeus (identified as A\u00eashma by West, Bundahis xxv. 15, n. 10)\nhas (Tobit vi. 13) slain seven men who successively married Sara,\nwhom he (and Tobit) loved, and in Bundahis A\u00eashma has seven powers\nwith which he will slay seven Kayan heroes. But one is preserved, as\nTobit is. (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V, p. 108.) Darmesteter says:\n\"One of the foremost amongst the Drvants (storm-fiends), their leader\nin their onsets, is A\u00eashma, 'the raving,' 'a fiend with the wounding\nspear.' Originally a mere epithet of the storm fiend, A\u00eashma was\nafterwards converted into an abstract, the demon of rage and anger, and\nbecame an expression for all moral wickedness, a mere name of Ahriman.\"\n\n[56] The word translated \"cross\" is stauros, a stake. The christian\ncross began its development by the carving of a figure of Jesus on\nthe stake, which required a support for the arms. Protestantism,\nby removing the figure, has left the wooden fetish, which, however,\nhas been invested with Symbolical meanings, some derived from the\nvarious crosses held sacred in many countries long before Christ.\n\n[57] Paul (1 Tim. ii. 14), supposing him to have written the passage,\nuses the story simply to justify the subordination of woman to man,\nbut a witty lady remarked to me that according to the story in Genesis\nno harm came to the world by Eve's eating the fruit of knowledge. It\nwas only by the man's eating it that the thorns sprang up.","title":"Solomon and Solomonic Literature","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":70579}