Solomon And Solomonic Literature Part 19

But in a realm of practically oppressive and cruel superst.i.tions, established and consecrated, an absolute appeal to the moral sentiment cannot escape being revolutionary. The American Anti-Slavery Society were non-resistants; their great leader, William Lloyd Garrison, thus apostrophised his "elder brother" of Jerusalem:

"O Jesus! n.o.blest of patriots, greatest of heroes, most glorious of all martyrs! Thine is the spirit of universal liberty and love--of uncompromising hostility to every form of injustice and wrong. But not with weapons of death dost thou a.s.sault thy enemies, that they may be vanquished or destroyed; for thou dost not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against 'princ.i.p.alities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places'; therefore hast thou put on the whole armor of G.o.d, having the loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and thy feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and going forth to battle with the s.h.i.+eld of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit! Worthy of imitation art thou, in overcoming the evil that is in the world; for by the shedding of thine own blood, but not even the blood of thy bitterest foe, shalt thou at last obtain a universal victory."

So, across the ages, does deep answer unto deep. But all the same Garrison's feet were unconsciously shod with the preparation of the gospel of war, even as those of Jesus were. In a realm of consecrated wrong every appeal to the moral sentiment is necessarily revolutionary; far more so than physical rebellion, against which preponderant moral forces combine with the immoral, as being a greater evil than the orderly wrong a.s.sailed. Satan cannot be cast out by Beelzebub. A G.o.d of wrath, enthroned on reeking altars, could better stand the axe of the Baptist than the sunbeam of Jesus, the arrow feathered with gentleness and culture. John the Baptist was not a religious martyr; he suffered from a ruler quite indifferent to his religion, with whose personal affairs he had interfered. But Jesus suffered because he proclaimed, with irresistible eloquence, a new religion, one involving practically the existing inst.i.tutions of the priesthood, and their whole moral system. It was virtually the setting up of a new deity in place of Jahveh, reason in place of the Bible, the heart wors.h.i.+pping in spirit and in truth in place of the temple, and humanizing the moral sentiment--turning the conventional morality to "dead works" (Heb. vi. 1). He expected the reform to be peaceful!

Rousseau's remark that Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus like a G.o.d, has in it a truth more important than those who often quote it recognise. Jesus died, legendarily, so much like a G.o.d that it is difficult to make out just what happened to the man. Strong arguments have been made to prove that he did not die at all on "the cross"

(a word unknown to the New Testament), [56] and that Pilate not only "set himself" to save Jesus (John xix. 12), but succeeded. There may have been from the stake a despairing cry, afterwards shaped after a line from a psalm, but it can hardly be determined whether this may not have been part of the first post-resurrectional doctrine that the Son must be absolutely left by his divine Father, and pa.s.s unaided through the ordeal of Satan, in order to fulfil the conditions of a return from death. It is true, however, that this primitive idea had almost vanished when the earliest Gospel was written, and, although a relic of it may have been preserved by tradition, there is an equal probability that Jesus did utter at the stake a cry of despair. The whole miserable murderous affair, unforeseen and disappointing, must have appeared to him a horrible display of diabolism; and even after his friends believed in his resurrection, and saw in the tragedy a sacrifice, they regarded it a sacrifice hateful to his Father, and exacted only by the Devil.

Did he pray, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do"? Only Luke reports this; its suppression by the other Gospels suggests that its doctrinal significance was perceived. I heard a preacher in the church of the Jesuits at Rome argue that Judas himself is now in Paradise, because Jesus thus prayed for those who slew him, and the prayer of the Son of G.o.d must have been answered. There is no apparent dogmatic purpose in this incident, and it may be true.

The story of his confiding his mother to the disciple "whom he loved,"

told only by John, is evidently meant to complete the a.s.sumption of a special favoritism towards that disciple, who is the type of the good Spirit on one side of Jesus in contrast with Judas, Satan's agent, on the other. The two are equally unhistorical and allegorical. John and Judas became the good and evil Wandering Jews of mediaeval folklore.

The first Solomon had perished as a teacher of wisdom when he was summoned from his tomb to utter the Jahvism of the "Wisdom of Solomon": the second and last Solomon was forever buried on the day when Mary Magdalene saw his apparition, and cried, "My master!" From that time may be dated the loss of the man Jesus, and restoration in Christ of the Jahvism whose burden the wise teacher had endeavored to lift from the heart and mind of the people. Vicisti Jahveh!

CHAPTER XIX.

POSTSCRIPTA.

Early in the year 1896 a company of Jews performed at the Novelty Theatre, London, in the Hebrew language, a drama ent.i.tled "King Solomon." It was an humble affair, and only about three score in the audience--I and one very dear to me being apparently the only "Gentiles" present. The drama was mainly the legend of the Judgment of Solomon and that of the visit of the Queen of Sheba, both conventionalized, and performed in an automatic way, no spark of human pa.s.sion or emotion animating either of the women claiming the babe, or the Queen of Sheba. The part of Solomon was acted by a fine-looking man, who went through it in the same perfunctory way that characterized Joseph Meyer, the Oberammergau Christ, as he appears to the undevout critical eye. Such has the biblical Solomon become in Europe.

In the same week I attended a matinee of "Aladdin" in Drury Lane Theatre, which was crowded, mainly with children, who were filled with delight by the fairy play. The leading figures were elaborated from Solomonic lore. A beautiful being in dazzling white raiment and crown appears to Aladdin; she is a combination of the Queen of Sheba and Wisdom; she presents the youth with a ring (symbol of Solomon's espousal with Wisdom, or as the Abyssinians say, with the Queen of Sheba); by means of this ring he obtains the Wonderful Lamp (the reflected or terrestrial wisdom). An Asmodeus, well versed in modern jugglery, charms the audience with his tricks and antics, before proceeding to get hold of the magic ring of Aladdin, and commanding the lamp, which he succeeds in doing, as he succeeded with Solomon. This is what legendary Solomon has become in Europe.

In European Folklore, Solomon and his old adversary, Asmodeus, now better known as Mephistopheles, have long been blended. Solomon's seal was the mediaeval talisman to which the demon eagerly responds. The Wisdom involved is all a matter of magic. It is wonderful that so little recognition has been given in literature to the epical dignity and beauty of the biblical legends of Solomon. In early English literature there was at one time a tendency to ascribe to Solomon various proverbs not in the Bible. In one old ma.n.u.script he is credited with saying:

"Save a thief from the gallows and he'll help to hang thee."

Also,

"Many a one leads a hungry life, And yet must needs wed a wife."

In Chaucer's "Melibaeus" there are ten proverbs ascribed to Solomon which are not in the Bible. But generally it is Solomon the magician who has interested the poets. In the old work, "Salomon and Saturn,"

the wise man informs Saturn that the most potent of all talismans is the Bible:

"Golden is the Word of G.o.d, Stored with gems; It hath silver leaves; Each one can, Through spiritual grace A Gospel relate."

And it is further said, "Each (leaf) will subdue devils." In a profounder vein Solomon says: "All Evil is from Fate; yet a wise-minded man may moderate every fate with self-help, help of friends, and the divine spirit."

In Prospero burying his Book, Shakespeare seems to have followed the rabbinical legend that after Solomon by his written formulas had made the devils serve him, in building the temple and other works, he resolved to practice magic no more, and buried his book. But the devils said to the people, "he only ruled you by his book," and pointed out where it was hidden; so they left the prophets and followed magic.

At what time the notion arose that Solomon had demonic familiars does not appear, but the story in 1 Kings iii. of the gift of wisdom has some appearance of a reclamation for the deity of a credit that was popularly ascribed to a rival power. However this may be, there is a popular habit of tracing unusual human performances to Satan. As I write this paragraph (in Paris) I note a theatrical placard announcing "les sataniques devins" of Williany de Torre, a man who cries out the name and address you secretly select in the Paris Directory. Why not advertise the divinations as "angelic" instead of satanic? The heavenly beings have somehow no great reputation for cleverness. Probably this is due to the long a.s.sociation of intellectuality and science with heresy.

The late Lord Lytton ("Owen Meredith") wrote a brief poem on a version given him by Robert Browning of the story in my Preface, of Solomon leaning on his staff long after he was dead: a worm gnaws the end of the staff and Solomon falls, crumbled to dust, and nothing left visible but his crown. A poem by Leigh Hunt, "The Inevitable"

(in some editions, "The Angel of Death"), tells of a man who, in terror of Death, entreats Solomon to transport him to the remotest mountain of Cathay. Solomon does so.

"Solomon wished and the man vanished straight; Up comes the Terror, with his...o...b.. of fate: 'Solomon,' with a lofty voice said he, 'How came that man here, wasting time with thee?

I was to fetch him ere the close of day, From the remotest mountain of Cathay.'

Solomon said, bowing him to the ground, 'Angel of death, there will the man be found.'"

The story of the Fall of Man, in Genesis, so fascinated Schopenhauer that he was ready to forgive the Bible all its blunders. The whole world, said the great pessimist, looks like a vast acc.u.mulation of evil developed from some absurdly small misstep. And this misstep was precisely in accord with the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who says that the great mistake of the universe is "consciousness."

That there were Schopenhaueresque ideas among some of the Solomonic school may be seen in Koheleth (Ecclesiastes), who says, "Be not overwise; why commit suicide?" (vii. 16.) I have remarked elsewhere that the story of the serpent in Eden may have been put there as a fling at Solomon and the scientific people, but on the other hand it may be argued that it was a fable devised by the Solomonic school to show how Jahveh was outwitted in his attempt to breed a race of idiots, for fear mankind might become as clever as himself. For it was not the serpent that deceived Adam and Eve, but Jahveh, in saying the forbidden fruit was fatal; the serpent told them the truth.

The folk-tale that Solomon's staff was gnawed by a worm, and his crowned body reduced to dust, suggests the idea of grandeur laid low by some insignificant form, and in the same way Jahveh's creation was overthrown by a worm. This humiliation of Jahveh has been now somewhat lessened by the theory that Satan took the form of the serpent, which Dante calls the worm, but nowhere in the Bible is there any confusion of the reptile in Eden with any devil. "If," says Kalisch, "the serpent represented Satan it would be extremely surprising that the former only was cursed, and that the latter is not even alluded to." In Genesis the extreme cleverness of the serpent is recognized, and the truth of his statement to Eve admitted, while Jahveh is shown in the ridiculous light of having his deception about the fruit exposed by a worm, and betaking himself to curses all round. These be thy G.o.ds, O Christians--for the Jews absolutely ignored the tale in all their scriptures, and in the New Testament Paul alone alludes to it. [57]

The serpent in Eden is evidently the symbol of wisdom, of medical art--Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek--lifted in the wilderness by Moses, and recognised by Jesus ("Be wise as serpents"), with whom as an uplifted healer of mankind the serpent-symbol was a.s.sociated. But all of this is in contradiction to the curses of Jahveh on the serpent, and on those to whom the serpent brought wisdom. The fable, therefore, seems to be composed of two antagonistic parts; it is a Solomonic anti-Jahvist fable with an anti-Solomonic moral.

In the Parsi religion the fall of man was due to the first man having been deceived by the Evil One into ascribing the good things in creation to him--the Evil One.

In the same way the Christian ascribes to the Evil One man's first taste of wisdom--the knowledge of good and evil--and believes his first step above the brute to be a fall.

In the Parsi religion that fall of man, by a lie, was recovered from by the creation of a new man. But in Christendom man has not recovered from his fall, nor can he ever recover from it so long as he disregards the new man's word, "Be wise as serpents," and continues to confuse his wisdom with diabolism.

Only through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and of the eternal antagonism between them, can the tree of Life be reached.

In a Gnostic legend Solomon was summoned from his tomb and asked, "Who first named the name of G.o.d?" He answered, "The Devil."

Did reason permit belief in a personal devil, one might recognise his supreme artifice in thus sheltering all the desolating cruelties of men, all the discords and wars that have degraded mankind into nations glorying in their ensigns of inhumanity, under a divine order. Thenceforth the enemy of man became G.o.d's Devil, and whoso accuses the scourges of man accuses the scourges of G.o.d.

Under the teaching of the Second Solomon his personal friends could see in his tragical death a blow of the Devil aimed at G.o.d, who was trying to subdue that lawless one, for whose existence or actions G.o.d was in no sense responsible. But this was a transient glimpse. The Devil's G.o.d was soon seen on his throne above the murderers of the great man; the stake set up by the lynchers was shaped into a symbolical cross; and all the cowardly, treacherous, murderous leaders, and the vile lynchers, are raised into agents and priests of G.o.d, presiding at a solemn rite and sacrifice for the salvation of mankind.

Instead of salvation a curse fell on mankind with that lie, and there are no signs of recovery from it. By the combination of Church and State there has been evolved a new man--a Christian restoration of deceived Yima--and no theological development touches that misbeliever in every believer. The Unitarian, the Theist, in their doctrine of a divine cosmos, the optimist, the pantheist, do but rehabilitate and philosophically reinvest the lie that the diseases and agonies in nature and in history are parts of a divinely ordered universe. They, too, must see Judas and the lynchers carrying out the plans of G.o.d. What then can they say of our contemporary betrayers of justice, the national lynchers, who are crucifying humanity throughout the world? These, too, carrying along their missionaries, are projecting G.o.d into history! But it is the G.o.d who was first named by the Devil, as the risen Solomon said, not the "Eloi," the source only of good, whom the great friend of man saw not in all that wild chaos of violence amid which he perished, and his sublime religion with him.

When Jahveh swears "by his holiness" (as in Ps. lx.x.xix. 35, Amos iv. 2), this holiness is not to be interpreted as moral, or in any human sense. It relates to ancient philosophical ideas concerning the spiritual and the material worlds. The supreme head of the spiritual world is so far above the material world in majesty that he cannot come in contact with matter, though this august "holiness"

has nothing to do with his moral character. Indeed deities were in all countries considered quite above the moral obligations of men. Jahveh's "holiness" required the employment of mediators in creation--the Spirit of G.o.d brooding over the waters, Wisdom the "undefiled" master-builder, the Word--in each of whom is some image of his quasi-physiological "holiness," his transcendent immateriality.