THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON.
Somewhat more than a century after Jesus Ben Sira's work, came
an answer to his prayer, not from above but from beneath, in the
so-called "Psalter of Solomon." This is no wisdom book, and need not
detain us. It is mainly a hash--one may say a mess--made up out of
the Psalms; and though some of the allusions, apparently to Pompey
and others, may possess value in other connexions, the work need
only be mentioned here as an indication of the fate which Solomon
met at the hands of Jahvism. The name of the Wisest of his race on
this vulgar production is like the doggerel on Shakespeare's tomb,
and the fling at England's greatest poet written on the tomb of his
daughter,--"Wise to salvation was good Mistriss Hall," etc.
Before passing, it may be remarked that the obvious allusions to Christ
in this Psalter seem clearly spurious, and for one I cannot regard
as other than a late interpolation verse 24 of Psalter-Psalm xvii.:
"Behold, O God, and raise up unto them their king, the Son of David,
in the time which thou, O God, knowest, that he may reign over Israel
thy servant." There is nothing in the literature of the time before or
after that would warrant the concession to this ranting Salvationist
(B. C. 70-60) of an idea which would then have been original. The
verse has the accent of a Second Adventist a century later. The title
"Son of David" occurs even in the New Testament but sixteen times.
The Psalter is in spirit thoroughly Jahvist, narrow, hard, without
one ray of Solomonic wisdom or wit. It may fairly be regarded as
the sepulchre of the wise man whose name it bears (though not in its
text). Jahvism has here triumphed over the whole cult of Wisdom.
But Solomon is not to rest there. He is again evoked, though not
yet in his ancient secular greatness, by the next work that claims
our attention.
This last of the Wisdom Books bears the heading "Wisdom of Solomon"
(Sophia Solomontos) and gives unmistakable identifications of the
King, though herein also the name "Solomon" appears only in the
title. Perhaps the writer may have wished to avoid exciting the
ridicule or resentment of the Solomonists by plainly connecting the
name of their founder with a retractation of all the secularism and the
heresies anciently associated with him. The aristocratic Sadducees,
who believed not in immortality, derived their name from Solomon's
famous chaplain, Zadok.
This "Wisdom of Solomon" probably appeared not far from the first
year of our era. It is written in almost classical Greek, is full of
striking and poetic interpretations and spiritualisations of Jewish
legends, and transfused with a piety at once warm and mystical. Solomon
is summoned much in the way that the "Wandering Jew," Ahasuerus, is
called up in Shelley's "Prometheus," yet not quite allegorically,
to testify concerning the Past, and concerning the mysteries of
the invisible world. He has left behind his secularist Proverbs
and his worldly wisdom; but though he now rises as a prophet of
otherworldliness, not a word is uttered inconsistent with his having
been a saint from the beginning, albeit "chastised" and "proved." In
fact he gives his spiritual autobiography, which is that of a Son
of God wise and "undefiled" from childhood. His burden is to warn
the kings and judges of the world of the blessedness that awaits the
righteous,--the misery that awaits the unrighteous,--beyond the grave.
The work impresses me as having been written by one who had long
been an enthusiastic Solomonist, but who had been spiritually
revolutionised by attaining the new belief of immortality. It does
not appear as if the apparition of Solomon was to this writer a
simple imagination. Solomon seems to be alive, or rather as if never
dead. "For thou (God) hast power of life and death: thou leadest to
the gates of Hades, and bringest up again." "The giving heed unto her
(Wisdom's) laws is the assurance of incorruption; and incorruption
maketh us near unto God: therefore the desire of Wisdom bringeth to
a Kingdom."
The Jewish people idealised Solomon's reign long before they idealised
the man himself; and indeed he had to reach his halo under personified
epithets derived from his fame,--as "Melchizedek," and "Prince of
Peace." The nation sighed for the restoration of his splendid empire,
but could not describe their Coming Man as a returning Solomon,
because the priests and prophets,--a gentry little respected by
the Wise Man,--steadily ascribed all the national misfortunes to the
shrines built to other deities than Jahveh by the royal Citizen of the
World. Thus grew such prophetic indirections as "the House of David,"
"Jesse's branch," and finally "Son of David."
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 of such sleepers as Barbarossa and
King Arthur, as well as of the legendary Enoch, Moses, and Elias, who
were to precede or attend the revived Son of David. Solomon, whose
name probably gave Jerusalem the peaceful half of its name (Salem)
would no doubt have been central among the "Undying Ones" had it not
been for the Parliament of Religions he set up in that city. But he
had to wait a thousand years for his honorable fame to awaken.
In the "Wisdom of Solomon" the Queen of Sheba is also recalled into
life. She is, as Renan pointed out, transfigured in the personified
Wisdom, and her gifts become mystical. "All good things together came
to me with her," and "Wisdom goeth before them: and I knew not that
she was the mother of them." She is amiable, beautiful, and gave him
his knowledge:
"All such things as are secret or manifest, them I knew. For Wisdom,
which is the worker of all things, taught me: for in her is an
understanding spirit, holy, one only, manifold; subtle, lively,
clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that
is good, quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good, kind to
man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing
all things, and pervading all intellectual, pure, and most subtle
spirits. For Wisdom is more moving than motion itself; she passeth
and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness. For she is the
breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory
of the Almighty: therefore can no impure thing fall into her. For she
is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of
the power of God, and the image of his goodness. And alone, she can
do all things; herself unchanged, she maketh all things new; and in
all ages, entering into holy souls, she maketh them intimates of God,
and prophets. For God loveth only him who dwelleth with Wisdom. She
is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars;
compared with the light she is found before it,--for after light
cometh night, but evil shall not prevail against Wisdom." (vii. 21-30.)
In Sophia Solomontos Solomon relates his espousal of Wisdom,
who sat beside the throne of God (ix. 4). But there remains with
God a detective Wisdom called the Holy Spirit. Wisdom and the Holy
Spirit have different functions. "Thy counsel who hath known except
thou give Wisdom, and send thy Holy Spirit from above?" This verse
(ix. 17) is followed by two chapters (x., xi.) relating the work of
Wisdom through past ages as a Saviour. But then comes an account
of the severe chastening functions of the Holy Spirit. "For thine
incorruptible Spirit is in all things (i. e., nothing is concealed
from her), therefore chastenest thou them by little and little that
offend," etc. (xii. 1, 2.)
There is here a slight variation in the historic development of the
Spirit of God, and one so pregnant with results that it may be well
to refer to some of the earlier Hebrew conceptions. The Spirit of
God described in Genesis i. 2, as "brooding" over the waters was
evidently meant to represent a detached agent of the deity. The
legend is obviously related to that of the dove going forth over
the waters of the deluge. The dove probably acquired its symbolical
character as a messenger between earth and heaven from the marvellous
powers of the carrier pigeon--powers well known in ancient Egypt--it
also appears that its cooing was believed to be an echo on earth
of the voice of God. [24] We have already seen (viii.) that Wisdom,
when first personified, was identified with this "brooding" spirit
over the surface of the waters, and also that in a second (Jahvist)
personification she is a severe and reproving agent. But in the
second verse of Genesis there is a darkness on the abyss, and both
darkness and abyss were personified. In the rigid development of
monotheism all of these beings were necessarily regarded as agents
of Jahveh--monopolist of all powers. We thus find such accounts as
that in 1 Samuel 16, where the Spirit of Jahveh departed from Saul
and an evil Spirit from Jahveh troubled him.
Although the Spirit of God was generally supposed to convey miraculous
knowledge, especially of future events, and superior skill, it is
not, I believe, in any book earlier than Sophia Solomontos definitely
ascribed the function of a detective. There is in Ecclesiastes (x. 20)
a passage which suggests the carrier: "Curse not the King, no, not
in thy thought; and curse not the rich even in thy bedchamber; for
a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings
shall tell the matter." [25] This was evidently in the mind of the
writer of Sophia Solomontos in the following verses:
Wisdom is a loving Spirit, and will not (cannot?) acquit a blasphemer
of his words: for God is a witness of his reins, and a true beholder
of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue; for the Spirit of the
Lord filleth the world, and that which containeth all things hath
knowledge of the voice; therefore he that speaketh unrighteous things
cannot be hid, neither shall vengeance when it punisheth, pass by
him. For inquisition shall be made into the counsels of the ungodly;
the sound of his words shall come unto the Lord for the disclosure
of his wickedness, the ear of jealousy heareth all things, and the
sound even of murmurings is not secret."
Here we have the origin of the "unpardonable sin." The Holy Spirit
detects and informs, Jahveh avenges, and if the offence is blasphemy,
Wisdom, the Saviour, cannot acquit (as the "Loving Spirit" of God
it is for her ultra vires). This detective Holy Spirit appears to
be an evolution from both Wisdom and Satan the Accuser, in Job a Son
of God. By associating with Solomon on earth, Wisdom was without the
severe holiness essential to Jahvist conceptions of divine government;
in other words, personified Wisdom, whose "delight was with the sons
of men" (Prov. viii. 31) was too humanized to fulfil the conditions
necessary for upholding the temple at a time when penal sanctions
were withdrawn from the priesthood. A celestial spy was needed, and
also an uncomfortable Sheol, if the ancient ordinances and sacrifices
were to be preserved at all under the rule of Roman liberty, and amid
the cosmopolitan conditions prevailing at Jerusalem, and still more
at Alexandria. [26]
With regard to Wisdom herself, there is a sentence which requires
notice, especially as no unweighed word is written in the work
under notice. It is said, "In that she is conversant with God,
she magnifieth her nobility; yea, the Lord of all things himself
loved her." (viii. 3). [27] This seems to be the germ of Philo's
idea of Wisdom as the Mother: "And she, receiving the seed of God,
with beautiful birth-pangs brought forth this world, His visible Son,
only and well-beloved." The writer of Sophia Solomontos is very careful
to be vague in speculations of this kind, while suggesting inferences
with regard to them. Thus, alluding to Moses before Pharaoh, he says,
"She (Wisdom) entered into the servant of the Lord, and withstood
dreadful kings in wonders and signs" (x. 16), but leaves us to mere
conjecture as to whether he (the writer) still had Wisdom in mind
when writing (xvii. 13) of the failure of these enchantments and the
descent of the Almighty Word, for the destruction of the first-born:
"For while all things are quiet silence, and that night was in the
midst of her swift course, thine Almighty Word leaped down from Heaven
out of thy Royal throne, as a fierce man of war into the midst of
a land of destruction; and brought thine unfeigned commandment as
a sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death; and it
touched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth." [28]
The Word in this place (ho pantodynamos sou logos) is clearly
reproduced in the Epistle to the Hebrews (iv. 12). "The Word of God
is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword;" and
the same military metaphor accompanies this "Word" into Revelation
xix. 13. This continuity of metaphor has apparently been overlooked
by Alford (Greek Testament, vol. iv., p. 226) who regards the use of
the phrase "Word of God" (ho logos tou theou) as linking Revelation
to the author of the fourth Gospel, whereas in this Gospel Logos is
never followed by "of God," while it is so followed in Hebrews iv. 12.
This evolution of the "Word" is clear. In the "Wisdom of Solomon"
Wisdom is the creative Word and the Saviour. The Word leaping down from
the divine throne and bearing the sword of vengeance is more like the
son of the celestial counterpart of Wisdom, namely, the detective Holy
Spirit (called in i. 5 "the Holy Spirit of Discipline"). But in the
era we are studying, all words by able writers were living things,
and were two-edged swords, and long after they who wrote them were
dead went on with active and sundering work undreamed of by those
who first uttered them.
The Zoroastrian elements which we remarked in Jesus Ben Sira's
"Wisdom" are even more pronounced in the "Wisdom of Solomon." The
Persian worshippers are so mildly rebuked (xiii.) for not passing
beyond fire and star to the "origin of beauty," that one may suppose
the author, probably an Alexandrian, must have had friends among
them. At any rate his conception of a resplendent God is Mazdean,
his all-seeing Holy Spirit is the Parsî "Anahita," and his Wisdom
is Armaîti, the "loving spirit" on earth, the saviour of men. [29]
The opposing kingdoms of Ahuramazda and Angromainyu, and especially
Zoroaster's original division of the universe into "the living and
the not-living," are reflected in the "Wisdom of Solomon," i. 13-16:
"God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of
the living. He created all things that they might have their being;
and the generations of the world were healthful; and there (was)
no poison of destruction in them, nor (any) kingdom of death on the
earth: (for righteousness is immortal): but ungodly men with their
deeds and words evoked Death to them: when they thought to have it
their friend they consumed to naught, and made a covenant with Death,
being fit to take sides with it."
In the moral and religious evolution which we have been tracing it
has been seen that the utter indifference of the Cosmos to human good
and evil, right and wrong, was the theme of Job; that in Ecclesiastes
the same was again declared, and the suggestion made that if God
helped or afflicted men it must depend on some point of etiquette or
observance unconnected with moral considerations, so that man need
not omit pleasure but only be punctilious when in the temple; that
in Jesus Ben Sira's contribution to his fathers' "Wisdom," the moral
character of God was maintained, moral evil regarded as hostile to God,
and imaginary sanctions invented, accompanied by pleadings with God
to indorse them by new signs and wonders. Such signs not appearing,
and no rewards and punishments being manifested in human life, the
next step was to assign them to a future existence, and this step was
taken in "Wisdom of Solomon." There remained but one more necessity,
namely, that there should be some actual evidence of that future
existence. Agur's question had remained unanswered--
"Who has ascended into heaven and come down again?
Such an one would I question about God."
To this the reply was to be the resurrection from death claimed for
the greatest of the spiritual race of Solomon.