Solomon And Solomonic Literature Part 20

It was amid these ancient conceptions that the various cults arose which attempt to please and conciliate G.o.ds by ceremonial observances, runes, recited formulas of pet.i.tion or adulation, all based on the awful "holiness" that doth hedge about a G.o.d, and concerned with points of heavenly etiquette, without any implication of a moral nature in those distant celestial beings. In Euripides' "Iphigenia"

(line 20) it is said: "Sometimes the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds, not being conducted with exactness, overturns one's life." In the same vein Koheleth (Ecclesiastes, v. 1, 2): "Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of G.o.d; for to draw nigh to him with attention is better than to bring the sacrifices of fools who know not that they are (? may be) doing wrong. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a word before G.o.d; for G.o.d is in heaven, and thou on earth; therefore let thy words be few."

But in every race ethical development reaches a stage in which these majestic beings, concerned only about their wors.h.i.+p according to etiquette, are challenged. Thus in the "Cyclops" of Euripides (x.x.xv. 3-5), Ulysses says: "O Jove, guardian of strangers, behold these things; for if thou regardest them not, thou, Jove, being nought, art vainly esteemed a G.o.d."

From the first Solomon to the last, the whole intellectual development in Judea, which I have called Solomonic, means the subjection of all conceptions of the divine nature and laws to the moral sentiment and the reason of man. It was no denial of invisible beings, or of man's relation to the universe, but a demand that all definitions and conceptions should be approached through science, experience and wisdom.

Solomon, and the Second Solomon, rest in their unknown graves; their wisdom is corrupted; but their genius survives in the earth. Of old it was said G.o.d looked down from heaven on the children of men, and found that there was "none that doeth good, no not one." But it is now man who, with eyes illumined by the brave and cultured Solomons of all lands and ages, looks upon the G.o.ds to see if there be one that doeth good. The best of them are defended only by a plea that evil is the mask of their benevolence. But it is not humanly moral to do evil that good may come.

Our great Omar Khayyam, by Fitzgerald's help, says:

"O Thou, who Man of baser earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: For all the Sin wherewith the face of Man Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!"

The agreement may be fair enough so far as it concerns Sin, in the theological sense, but no Omnipotence, with unlimited choice of means to ends, could be forgiven for the agonies of nature, even did they result in benefits,--as generally they do not, so far as is known to the experience of mankind.

It may be, as the American orator said, "An honest G.o.d's the n.o.blest work of man"; and innumerable hearts enshrine fair personal ideals under uncomprehended names for deity; but each such private ideal is unconsciously antagonistic to every "collectivist" deity to whom the creation or the government of the world is ascribed.

The human heart kneels before its vision, and with Mary Magdalene cries Rabboni, My Master; but Theology recognizes only the perfunctory Rabbi, and carries her beloved off into union with thunder-G.o.d, war-G.o.d, or with a deified predatory Cosmos. Yet will not the heart be bereaved of its vision; it still sees a smile of tenderness in the universe. And philosophy, though it regard that smile as a reflection of the heart's own love, may with all the more certainty itself find a religion in this maternal divinity in the earth, ever aspiring to its own supreme humanity.

Solomon pa.s.ses, Jesus pa.s.ses, but the Wisdom they loved as Bride, as Mother, abides, however veiled in fables. She is still inspiring the unfinished work of creation, and her delight is with the children of men.

NOTES

[1] The name given to him in 2 Sam. xii. 25, Jedidiah ("beloved of Jah"), by the prophet of Jahveh, is, however, an important item in considering the question of an actual monarch behind the allegorical name, especially as the writer of the book, in adding "for Jahveh's sake" seems to strain the sense of the name--somewhat as the name "Jesus" is strained to mean saviour in Matt. i. 21. Jedidiah looks like a Jahvist modification of a real name (see p. 20).

[2] This was continued in rabbinical and Persian superst.i.tions, which attribute to David knowledge of the language of birds. It is said David invented coats of mail, the iron becoming as wax in his hands; he subjected the winds to Solomon, and also a pearl-diving demon.

[3] Sacred Books of the East. Edited by F. Max Muller. Vol. IV. The Zend-Avesta. Part I. The Vendidad. Translated by James Darmesteter. P. lix., et seq.

[4] "Ammon" probably developed the name "Amina," given in the Talmud as the name of a favorite concubine of Solomon, to whom, while he was bathing, he entrusted his signet ring, and from whom the Devil, Sakhar, obtained it by appearing to her in the shape of Solomon. This is the version referred to in the Koran, chapter x.x.xviii. (Sale.)

[5] The marriage of Hadad with Pharaoh's sister and that of Solomon shortly after with Pharaoh's daughter might naturally, Colenso says, lead to some amicable arrangement between these two young princes, representing respectively the ancient domains of Jacob and Esau, and the Bishop adds the pregnant suggestion: "Thus also would be explained another phenomenon in connexion with this matter, which we observe in the Jehovistic portions of Genesis--viz., the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob" (Gen. x.x.xiii). That Solomon was on good terms with Edom appears by the fact that his naval station was in that land (1 K. ix. 26).

[6] The Bible, the Church, and the Reason, p. 137, n. Dr. Briggs points out citations from the book of Jasher in Num. xxi., Jos. x., and 2 Sam. 1, where a dirge of David is given, and adds: "The book of Jasher containing poems of David and Solomon could not have been written before Solomon." The bearing of this on the age of the Hexateuch, in its present form, is obvious.

[7] Ursprung der Sagen von Abraham, Isaak und Jakob. Kritische Untersuchung von A. Bernstein. Berlin. 1871.

[8] The marriage is doubtful: "He took her and went in to her"

(Gen. x.x.xviii. 2).

[9] The Sceptics of the Old Testament, pp. 149, 155.

[10] It may be mentioned that the Moslem name for the Queen of Sheba is Balkis, which points to the great Zoroastrian city of Balkh, near which are the Seven Rivers (Saba' Sin), whose confluence makes the Balkh (Oxus), with whose sands gold is mingled. (Cf. Psalm lxxii. 15.)

[11] In many places in the Avesta (e. g., Sirozah i. 2) a distinction is drawn between "the heavenly wisdom made by Mazda, and the acquired wisdom through the ear made by Mazda." Darmesteter says: "Asnya khratu, the inborn intellect, intuition, contrasted with gaosho-srta khratu, the knowledge acquired by hearing and learning. There is between the two nearly the same relation as between the paravidya and aparavidya in Brahmanism, the former reaching Brahma in se (parabrahma), the latter sabdabrahma, the word-brahma (Brahma as taught and revealed)." (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXIII., p. 4.)

[12] Sacred Books of the East. Vol. XVIII. Pahlavi Texts tr. by West. The text quoted above (from p. 415) is of uncertain age, but it is harmonious with the more ancient scriptures, and no doubt compiled from them.

[13] Among the cultured Jews, just before our era, there was a recognition of the equality of men, as is seen in the Wisdom of Solomon vii. 1, "I myself am a mortal man, like to all, and the offspring of him that was first made of the earth." Solomon ascribes his superiority only to the divine gift of wisdom. This idea of human equality was in the preaching of John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 9)--probably a Parsi heretic, at any rate an apostle of purifying water and fire--and it underlay the t.i.tle of Jesus, "Son of Man." That in Armaiti there was a conception of a humanity not represented by race but by character and culture will appear by a comparison with the Vedic Aramati, a bride of Agni (Fire) to whom she is mythologically related, on the one hand, and on the other to the spirit of the earth who came to the a.s.sistance of Buddha. This story, related in many forms, is that when the evil Mara, having tempted Buddha in vain, brought his hosts to terrify him, all friends forsook him, and no angel came to help him, but the spirit of the earth, which he had watered, arose as a fair woman, who from her long hair wrung out the water Buddha had bestowed which became a flood and swept away the evil host. Watering the Earth is especially mentioned in the Avesta as that which makes her rejoice, and marks the holy man.

[14] Even in the legend in Genesis ii. the "rib" is a misunderstanding. Eve (Chavah) was the female side of Adam, which was the name of both male and female (Gen. v. 2). The "rib" story arose no doubt from the supposition that Adam's allusion to "bone of my bone"

had something to do with it. But Adam's phrase is an idiom meaning only "Thou art the same as I am." (Max Muller's Science of Religion, p. 47.)

[15] These two, darkness and the brooding spirit, may seem to be related to the raven and the dove sent out of the ark by Noah, but this account only indicates the origin of the story of the Deluge; for the raven was in Persia an emblem of victory, and in the Biblical legend it was the only living creature that defied the Deluge and was able to do without the ark. In the corresponding legend in the Avesta, where King Yima makes an enclosure (Vara) for the shelter of the seeds of all living creatures, the heavenly bird Kars.h.i.+pta brings into that refuge the law of Ahura Mazda, and as the song of this bird was the voice of Ahura Mazda, it may have been an idealised dove

("For lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone....

The voice of the turtle is heard in the land.")

But when Yima lent himself to the lies of the Evil One his (Yima's) "glory" left him in the form of a raven (Zambad Yast, 36). But both the raven and the dove were tribal ensigns, and it is not safe to build too much on what is said of them in Eastern and Oriental books.

[16] See my Sacred Anthology, p. 240.

[17] Gaya and ajyaiti, translated by Haug "reality and unreality"

(Parsis, p. 303). The translation "living and not living" was sent me by Prof. Max Muller in answer to a request for a careful rendering.

[18] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V., pp. 16, 53-54. Text and notes.

[19] American Journal of Philology. Vol. III.

[20] In 1 Chron. iii. 19 Shelomith is a descendant of Solomon. In these studies "Abis.h.a.g the Shunamith," 1 Kings i. 2, has been conjecturally connected with Psalm xlv., and the ident.i.ty of her name with Shulamith has also been mentioned. This ident.i.ty of the names was suggested by Gesenius and accepted by Furst, Renan, and others. Abis.h.a.g is thus also a sort of "Solomona." In 1 Kings i. there is some indication of a lacuna between verses 4 and 5. "And the damsel (Abis.h.a.g) was very fair; and she cherished the King and ministered to him; but the King knew her not. Then"--what? why, all about Adonijah's effort to become king! David did not marry Abis.h.a.g; she remained a maiden after his death and free to wed either of the brothers. The care with which this is certified was probably followed by some story either of her cleverness or of her relations with Solomon which gave her the name Shunamith--Shulamith--Solomona. Of the Shunamith it is said they found her far away and "brought her to the King," and in the beginning of the Song Shulamith says "The King hath brought me into his chambers." This suggests a probability of legends having arisen concerning Abis.h.a.g, and concerning the lady entreated in Psalm xlv., which, had they been preserved, might perhaps account for the coincidence of names, as well as the parallelism of the situations at court of the lady of the psalm, of Abis.h.a.g the Shunamith, and of Shulamith in the "song."

The "great woman" called Shunamith in 2 Kings 4 was probably so called because of her "wisdom" in discerning the prophet Elisha, and the reference to the town of Shunem (verse 8) inserted by a writer who misunderstood the meaning of Shunamith. This story is unknown to Josephus, though he tells the story of the widow's pot of oil immediately preceding, in the same chapter, and a.s.serts that he has gone over the acts of Elisha "particularly," "as we have them set down in the sacred books." (Antiquities. Book ix. ch. 4.) The chapter (2 Kings iv.) is mainly a mere travesty of the stories told in 1 Kings xvii., transparently meant to certify that the miraculous power of Elijah had pa.s.sed with his mantle to Elisha. There is no mention of Shunem in the original legend. (1 Kings xvii.)

[21] Compare Psalm xlv. 12-15.

[22] 1. "Why will ye look upon Shulamith as upon the dance of Mahanaim?" The sense is obscure. Cf. Gen. x.x.xii. 2, where Jacob names a place Mahanaim, literally two armies or camps; but it was in honor of the angels that met him there, and it is possible that Shulamith is here compared to an angel. If the verse means any blush at the dancer's display of her person it is the only trace of prudery in the book, and betrays the Alexandrian.

[23] Job and Solomon, or the Wisdom of the Old Testament. By T. K. Cheyne. (1887.) Those who wish to study the Solomonic literature should read this excellent work. It is very probable, although Professor Cheyne does not suggest this, that a dramatic "Morality"

from which Job was evolved, was imported by Solomon along with the gold of Ophir from some Oriental land.

[24] Bath Kol,--"daughter of a voice."

[25] This may, however, have been flotsam from the Orient. Mahanshadha, a sort of Solomon in Buddhist tales (see ante chap. ii), had a wonderful parrot, Charaka, which he employed as a spy. It revealed to him the plot to poison King Janaka, whose chief Minister he was. (Tibetan Tales, p. 168.)

[26] M. Didron (Christian Iconography, Bohn's ed., i., p. 464) mentions a picture of the thirteenth century in which the dove moving over the face of the waters (Gen. 1) is black, G.o.d not having yet created light. It may be, however, that the mediaeval idea was that the Holy Ghost, as a heavenly spy, was supposed to a.s.sume the color of the night in order to detect the deeds done in darkness without itself being seen. In later centuries this dark dove was shown at the ear of magicians and idols, the inspirer of prophets and saints being the white dove.

[27] The amorous relations between Ahuramazda, the deity, and Armaiti, genius of the earth, are referred to ante Chap. VIII., in a pa.s.sage from West's Palahvi Texts. In the Vendidad she is sometimes called his daughter.