22 chapters
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Selected Chapters
22 chapters
Preface.
Preface.
An English lady of my acquaintance, sojourning at Baalbek, was conversing with an humble stonecutter, and pointing to the grand ruins inquired, “Why do you not occupy yourself with magnificent work like that?” “Ah,” he said, “those edifices were built by no mortal, but by genii.” These genii now represent the demons which in ancient legends were enslaved by the potency of Solomon’s ring. Some of these folk-tales suggest the ingenuity of a fabulist. According to one, Solomon outwitted the devils
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Solomonic Literature. Chapter I. Solomon.
Solomonic Literature. Chapter I. Solomon.
But while we have thus only one small scrap of even quasi-historical writing that can be regarded as approaching Solomon’s era, the traditions concerning him preserved in the Book of Kings yield much that is of value when comparatively studied with annals of the chroniclers, who modify, and in some cases omit, not to say suppress, the earlier record. Such modifications and omissions, while interesting indications of Jahvist influences, are also testimonies to the strength of the traditions they
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Chapter II. The Judgment of Solomon.
Chapter II. The Judgment of Solomon.
In comparing this with the famous judgment of Solomon there appear some reasons for believing the Oriental tale to be the earlier. In the Biblical tale there is evidently a missing link. Why should the false mother, who had so desired the child, consent to have it cut in two? What motive could she have? But in the Tibetan tale one of the women is the wife, the other the concubine, of a householder. The wife bore him no child, and was jealous of the concubine on account of her babe. The concubine
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Chapter III. The Wives of Solomon.
Chapter III. The Wives of Solomon.
“Thy throne, O God, ever and always stands; A righteous sceptre is thy royal sceptre. Thou lovest right and hatest evil; Therefore, O God, thy God hath anointed thee With oil of joy above thy fellow-kings. Myrrh, aloes, cassia, all thy raiment is. From ivory palaces the viols gladden thee. King’s daughters count among thy favorites; And at thy right hand stands the Queen In Gold of Ophir. “O daughter, hark! behold and bend thy ear: Forget thy people and thy father’s house. Win thou the King thy
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Chapter IV. Solomon’s Idolatry.
Chapter IV. Solomon’s Idolatry.
There is an unconscious humour in the solemn reading by English clergymen of Jahvist rebukes of Solomon for his tolerance towards idolatry, at a time when the Queen of England and Empress of India is protecting temples and idols throughout her realm, and has just rebuilt the ancient temple of Buddha at Gâya; while the sacred laws of Brahman, Buddhist, Parsee, Moslem, are used in English courts of justice. If any modern Josiah should insult a shrine of Vishnu, or of any Hindu deity, he would have
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Chapter V. Solomon and the Satans.
Chapter V. Solomon and the Satans.
Jahveh, in his personal interview with Solomon (1 Kings xi. 11–13), said, “I will surely rend the kingdom from thee and will give it to thy servant.” That is, as explained by the “prophet” Ahijah, to Jeroboam. As a retribution and check on idolatry the selection, besides violating Jahveh’s promise to David (1 Chron. xxii), was not successful: after the sundering of Israel and Judah into internecine kingdoms, Jeroboam, King of Israel, established idolatry more actively than either Solomon or his
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Chapter VI. Solomon in the Hexateuch.
Chapter VI. Solomon in the Hexateuch.
This suppression of the opening line of the Dedication, at cost of a grand poetic antithesis, reveals the hand of mere bigoted ignorance. How many other fine things have been eliminated, how many reduced to commonplaces, we know not, but the additions and interpolations in the Old Testament have been nearly all traced. Many of these are novelettes more prurient than the tales forbidden in families when found in the pages of Boccaccio and Balzac, and it is a notable evidence of the mere fetish th
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Chapter VII. Solomonic Antijahvism.
Chapter VII. Solomonic Antijahvism.
After the mighty things that “Jah” had done to his enemies have been affirmed an Elohist takes up the burden and a “vision” like that of Eliphaz (Job iv. 13) is appealed to: “Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy ones.” The vision’s revelation (Job v. 17) “Happy is the man whom God correcteth” is also in this psalm (32, 33): “Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes, but my mercy will I not utterly take from him.” And Eliphaz’s assurance “thy seed wil
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Chapter VIII. The Book of Proverbs and the Avesta.
Chapter VIII. The Book of Proverbs and the Avesta.
“His name shall endure forever; His name shall have emanations as long as the sun; Men shall bless themselves in him; All nations shall call him The Happy.” The Jahvist answers: “Blessed be Jahveh Elohim, the Elohim of Israel, Who alone doeth wondrous things, And blessed be His glorious name forever; And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and Amen.” Now in this beautiful poem (omitting the doxology) the elation is especially concerning some connexion with Sheba. In verse 10 it i
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Chapter IX. The Song of Songs.
Chapter IX. The Song of Songs.
These are five chapters apart, yet surely they may be supposed connected without Hineininterpretation . Any single contrast of this kind might be supposed a mere coincidence, but there are two others drawn between the swarthy maiden and the monarch. The tableau of Solomon in his splendor dissolves into another of his Queen Mother crowning him on the day of his espousal: that of Shulamith leaning on her beloved dissolves into another of her mother pledging her to her lover in espousals under an a
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Chapter X. Koheleth (Ecclesiastes).
Chapter X. Koheleth (Ecclesiastes).
“Make a good day, O holy fathers! Let odors and oils stand before thy nostril; Wreaths and lotus are on the arms and bosom of thy sister Dwelling in thy heart, sitting beside thee. Let song and music be before thy face, And leave behind thee all evil dirges! Mind thee of joy, till cometh the day of pilgrimage, When we draw near the land that loveth silence.” 1 There is no historical means of determining what writings of Solomon are preserved in the Bible and even in the apocryphal books. One may
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Chapter XI Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus).
Chapter XI Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus).
21. That the kingdom should be divided: and out of Ephraim ruled a rebel kingdom. 22. But the Lord will never leave off his mercy, neither shall any of his words perish, neither will he abolish the posterity of his elect, and the seed of him that loveth him he will not take away: wherefore he gave a remnant unto Jacob, and out of him a root unto David. 23. Thus rested Solomon with his fathers, and of his seed he left behind him Rehoboam [of the lineage of Ammon], ample in foolishness and lacking
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Chapter XII. The Wisdom of Solomon.
Chapter XII. The Wisdom of Solomon.
But this idea of the returning hero does not appear to have been original with any Semitic people; it is first found among them in the Oriental book of Job, who longs to sleep in some cavern for ages, then reappear, and, even if his flesh were shrivelled, find that his good name was vindicated (xiv.). This idea of the Sleeping Hero (which is traced in many examples in my work on The Wandering Jew ) appears to have gained its earliest expression in the legend of King Yima, in Persia,—the original
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Chapter XIII. Epistle to the Hebrews (A Sequel to Sophia Solomontos).
Chapter XIII. Epistle to the Hebrews (A Sequel to Sophia Solomontos).
Bunyan, in depicting Christian’s burden, has, with a felicity perhaps unconscious, made it a pack strapped on. It is not a hunch, not any part of the pilgrim, and had he possessed the courage to examine it there must have been found many spiritual nightmares of the race, and many robust English virtues turned to sins when the merry and honest tinker turned retrospective Rip Van Winkle, and dreamed himself back into the year One. The burden of sins on the poor Israelites had been gradually gettin
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Chapter XIV. Solomon Melchizedek.
Chapter XIV. Solomon Melchizedek.
In both of these Gospels the incident is evidently, in Mark clumsily, interpolated, and it would appear to have belonged to some legend of the Infancy, such as that of the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, where it occurs naturally: “And when he was twelve years old they took him to Jerusalem to the feast. But when the feast was over they indeed returned, but the Lord Jesus remained in the temple among the doctors and elders and learned men of Jerusalem, and he asked them sundry questions about the
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Chapter XV. The Pauline Dehumanization of Jesus.
Chapter XV. The Pauline Dehumanization of Jesus.
The most serious complication arises from the extent to which the pretended revelations of Paul have been built into the Gospels. The so-called “conversion of Paul” was really the conversion of Jesus. The facts can only be gathered from Paul’s letters, the book of “Acts” being hardly more historical than “Robinson Crusoe.” The account in “Acts” of Paul’s “conversion” is, however, of interest as indicating a purpose in its writers to raise Paul into a supernatural authority equivalent to that asc
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Chapter XVI. The Mythological Mantle of Solomon Fallen on Jesus.
Chapter XVI. The Mythological Mantle of Solomon Fallen on Jesus.
The Vulgate translates: “ Et obviabit illi quasi mater honorificata, et quasi mulier a virginitate suscipiet illum. ” Wycliffe translates the Vulgate: “ And it as a modir onourid schal meete hym, and as a womman fro virgynyte schal take him. ” The Authorised Version has: “And as a mother shall she meet him, and receive him as a wife married of a virgin.” In the Variorum Teacher’s Bible the reading “maiden wife” is suggested, and reference is made to Leviticus xxi. 13, “And he shall take a wife i
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Chapter XVII. The Heir of Solomon’s Godhead.
Chapter XVII. The Heir of Solomon’s Godhead.
Psalm xlv. opens with the words, “My verse concerns the King,” and there is a fair consensus of the learned that the king is Solomon. It has been found impossible to fix upon any other monarch to whom the eulogia would be applicable, and the resemblance of the theme to the Song of Solomon proves that at an early period writers connected the Psalm with Solomon and one of his espousals. In quoting Professor Newman’s translation of this Psalm ( ante II) I alluded to my slight alterations. These are
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Chapter XVIII. The Last Solomon.
Chapter XVIII. The Last Solomon.
The word “generation” as a translation of γενέα is, in this connection, misleading. No one English word can convey the satire on people who regarded themselves as holy by generation from Abraham (cf. Luke iii. 8), which is in the vein of Carlyle’s ridicule of English “Paper Nobility.” Above these self-satisfied claimants of inherited wisdom Jesus sets the Gentile Queen journeying to sit at the feet of Solomon. At the feet of Solomon Jesus also was sitting, and he certainly did not call himself p
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Chapter XIX. Postscripta.
Chapter XIX. Postscripta.
In Chaucer’s “Melibæus” 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 God, 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 say
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ORIENTAL WORKS.
ORIENTAL WORKS.
The Gospel of Buddha. By Dr. Paul Carus . Sixth edition. Cloth, $1.00 (5s.). The Redemption of the Brahman. A Novel of Indian Life. By Richard Garbe . Pages, 96. Laid paper. Veg. parch. binding, gilt top, 75c (3s. 6d.). The Philosophy of Ancient India. By Prof. Richard Garbe . Second Edition. Pages, 89. Cloth, 50c (2s. 7d.). Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China , of the Jesuit Missionaries MM. Huc and Gabet (1844–1846). Translated from the French by W. Hazlitt. Two Vols. Illustrated. Pages, 688
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Corrections
Corrections
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