THE HEIR OF SOLOMON'S GODHEAD.
The anger of Jahveh against Solomon (1 Kings xi.) is, of course, the
outcome of late theological explanations of how the ancient and much
idealised kingdom could have been divided after divine promises of its
protection. The interview with Solomon is a sort of dramatization,
in which the anachronism of making Jahveh a historic contemporary
of the Wise King represents the fact that when the tribal deity was
evolved it was in antagonism to a Solomon who, though his body had long
mouldered, was still "marching on." That Solomon had to contend with
the hard and fanatical elements afterwards consolidated in Jahvism is
pretty clear, and we may see in him a primitive Akbar. A century after
Akbar's death the Rajah of Joudpoor said to the emperor Aurungzebe:
"Your ancestor Akbar, whose throne is now in heaven, conducted the
affairs of his empire in equity and security for the period of fifty
years. He preserved every tribe of men in repose and happiness, whether
they were followers of Jesus or of Moses, of Brahma or Mohammed. Of
whatever sect or creed they might be, they all equally enjoyed his
countenance and favour, insomuch that his people, in gratitude for
the indiscriminate protection which he afforded them, distinguished
him by the appellation of The Guardian of Mankind." Moslem fanaticism
could not tolerate such toleration, and Akbar's reign was followed
by conflicts very similar to those which followed Solomon's reign,
leading to the Mogul empire, but ultimately to the reign of an "Empress
of India," under whom we now see the same toleration of all religions
which prevailed in the fifty years of Akbar.
The Moslem saw in Akbar's liberality and toleration the supreme
offence of putting other gods--Jesus, Brahma, Ahuramazda--beside
Allah. The Jahvist saw retrospectively in Solomon's liberality the
putting of Moloch, Ashera, and other gods beside Jahveh. It was
therefore recorded that Jahveh determined to rend all the tribes
save one from Solomon's son (a vaticinium ex evento). But that one
was enough to preserve the Solomon cult.
Anankê oude Theoi machontai. This Necessity, which the Greeks saw
working above all the gods, is man himself, and worked also above Jah
and Jahvism, nay, by means of them. Gradually they seemed to prevail
over Solomonism. The Proverbs and Solomonic Psalms were transfused with
Jahvism, but by this process the heavenly and the terrestrial kings
were confused, and the idea of a human heir to the throne of Jahveh
was conceived. As when, in our own era, Islam swallowed Zoroaster,
with the result of bringing forth the great literary age of Persia,
with Parsaism rationalized under a transparent veil of Moslem phrase
and fable, so anciently arose the Hebrew Faizis and Saadis and Omar
Khayyáms. Of these was the Isaiah who, with pigments of the Solomonic
sunset, painted the sunrise of a new day, and a new earth-born God.
"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the
government shall rest on his shoulder; and his name shall be
called Counsellor of Wonders, God-hero, Father of Spoil, Prince of
Peace. Enlarged shall be dominion, and without cessation of peace,
on the throne of David, and throughout his kingdom, to establish
it and uphold it by justice and righteousness from henceforth
and forever."
Every title, every tint, in this gorgeous vision is taken from the
nuptial song for Solomon (Ps. xlv.) and Solomon's Psalm (lxxii.) The
"delightsomeness poured over (Solomon's) lips" (Ps. xlv. 2) makes
the Counsellor of Wonders; his deification (verses 6, 7) makes the
God-hero; the tributes of Tarshish, and Sheba make him father of
spoil (Ps. lxxii.); his "mildness" (Ps. xlv. 4) his abundant "peace"
(Ps. lxxii. 3, 7) make the Prince of Peace; and the rest is a general
refrain for both of the Psalms.
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 few and verbal, but
momentous, and were not made without consultation of many critical
authorities and versions. Professor Newman was unable to believe
that the poet really meant to address Solomon as God, and in verse
6 translates "Thy throne divine," in verse 7, "Therefore hath God,
thy God, etc." Others, with similar theistic bias, have shrunk from
what, according to the balance of critical interpretation, is the
clear sense of the original:
"Thy throne, O God, ever and always stands;
A righteous sceptre is thy royal sceptre:
Thou lovest right and hatest evil;
Therefore, O God, hath thy God anointed thee
With oil of joy above thy fellow-kings."
When these verses were written--and verse 11, where after Adonai
the Vulgate has Elohim, "He is thy Lord God, worship thou him"--the
rigid Jewish monotheism did not exist; and the apostrophe might have
continued without special notice had not the psalm been included in
the Jewish hymnology and thus given the solemnity and consecration
ascribed by Jahvism to its canonical Book of Psalms. But ultimately
it made a tremendous and even revolutionary impression; and that the
verses were interpreted as bestowing the divine name on Solomon, by
those most jealous of that name, is proved, I think, by the following
considerations:
1. Isaiah, in his vision quoted above (Is. ix.) combines the
phraseology of Ps. xlv. with that of Ps. lxxii. (which bears Solomon's
name as its author), and ascribes to a new-born child the title
"God-hero."
2. The recently discovered original of a fragment of Ecclesiasticus
includes the passage about Solomon in xlvii., and it is said in
verse 18: "Thou (Solomon) wast called by the glorious name which
is called over Israel." This seems to be a plain reference to the
ascriptions in Ps. xlv., where alone the divine name is applied to
any individual mortal. Ecclesiasticus was compiled early in the second
century before our era, and on the basis of much earlier compilations,
as its prologue states.
3. In the "Wisdom of Solomon" the monarch is represented as a mortal
who by the divine gift of supernatural Wisdom had gained immortality;
he had become privy to the mysteries of God, was his Beloved, his
Son. This was written about the first year of our era.
4. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews translates the Psalm
xlv. as it is translated above, interpreting the words of deification
as meant for the Firstborn of God at his ancient appearance on earth
(i. 6), and applicable to his reappearance as Christ; arguing from
such language of deification the superiority of the Son of God over
the angels, who were never so addressed.
A court poet addresses a princely bridegroom as Elohim, as a god--as
it were, an Apollo. Had more songs of like antiquity by poets of his
race been preserved, no doubt other instances of such rhapsody might
be found, but it happens that this is the only instance in Hebrew
literature where an individual man is clearly addressed as God (for
Exod. vii. 1 and 1 Sam. xxviii. 13 are not really exceptions). As in
the Psalm that is the only instance in which an individual man is,
in the Old Testament, addressed as God, so is its application in the
Epistle to the Hebrews the only indisputable instance in which an
individual is addressed as God in the New Testament.
"Thy throne, O God." Fateful words! The word of God, says this Epistle,
is sharper than any two-edged sword, but its writer himself unwittingly
unsheathed from a courtier's compliment just such a sword. One edge
has slaughtered innumerable Jews, Moslems, Arians, Socinians, mingling
their blood with that of the humane Jesus himself on the sacrificial
altar he tried so hard to exchange for mercifulness. The other edge
turned against the moral heart of Jesus himself, lowering the tone of
all narratives and utterances ascribed to him after his connection
with Jahveh, and consequently lowering all Christendom under its
dishonourable burden of accommodating human veracity and kindness to
the bad heavenly manners that were acquired by the deified Christ. For
there was no other God to adopt him but a particularly rude one.
Theological scholars who have compared the Epistle to the Hebrews
with the Epistles of Paul have dwelt on the theological differences,
but the moral differences are greater. In the Epistle to the Hebrews
the emphasis is laid on the service of Jesus to mankind: it is this
that makes him, as it made Solomon, worthy of worship as a God,
and the ancient God with his sacrifices is virtually represented as
transforming himself and his government to the measure of Jesus. Jesus
is complete and perfect man, no part or power of his divine nature
accompanying him on earth. But we see in Philippians ii. 7, and other
passages, the primitive idea fading away, and Jesus pictured as a
divine being in the mere semblance and disguise of a man, no real man
at all; a theory which prevails in the story of the transfiguration,
where the disguise is for a moment thrown aside. The earlier idea of
his genuine humanity was still strong enough to prevent any stories
of miracles wrought by Jesus from arising, the resurrection being a
miracle wrought by God after the work of Jesus was "finished," as he
is said to have proclaimed from the stake. But legends of miracles
became inevitable after the theory of his disguise was diffused,
and also stories of the vituperation, anathemas, and attitudinizings,
which are so offensive in a man, but so characteristic of the whole
history of Jahveh, with whom he was gradually identified. A gentleman
does not call his opponents vipers and consign them to hell, but
Jahveh is not under any such obligations. And, alas, disregard of
the humanities did not, as we have seen, stop there even in Paul's
time. In the further development, that of Jesus the magician, the
personal character of Jesus was sadly sacrificed, and it is only
due to the superstition that prevents the New Testament narratives
from being read in a common sense way that people generally are not
shocked by some of the representations.
When the second Solomon was born in Bethlehem, as the Gospel carols
tell, Wise Men came to worship him, but Jahveh had already fixed
his own star above the cradle, and his angels contended for the
great man, as for centuries the wisdom of the first Solomon had been
jahvized. It was, however, the opinion of some ancient commentators
that the cry of the angels, "Glory to God in the highest" meant that
the birth of Jesus was to operate in the heavenly heights, and work
changes there also. One may indeed dream of a deity longing for a human
love,--grieving at being through ages an object of fear, personified as
Wrath,--rejoicing in the birth of any new interpreter who should free
him from the despot glory, "I create evil," and reconcile the human
heart to him as eternal love--love ever burdened with the griefs of
humanity, ever seeking to be born of woman, and to struggle against the
dark and evil forces of nature. So one may dream, and it is a pathetic
fact that the contention between humanity and heaven for the new-born
Saviour is traceable in varying versions of the Angels' song. While
half of Christendom sing "On earth peace, good will toward men," the
other half sing, "On earth peace to men of good will." Our Revisers
find the balance of authorities on the side of authority, and translate
Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased.
Although the "higher criticism" appears to treat with a certain
contempt the birth-legends and carols in Matthew and Luke, and
the genealogies, beyond the letter of these is visible more of the
vanishing Jesus "after the flesh," the real and great man, than of
the risen Christ in whom his humanity was lost. The "shepherd of my
people," he who is to absolve them from their nightmare "sins," make
crooked ways straight, rough places smooth, and free them from fear,
is remembered in these rhapsodies of the Infancy, in the terrors of
Herod, and gifts of the Wise. They have a certain evolution in the
benevolent teachings and healing miracles of the Synoptics, easily
discriminated from the competing Jahveh-Christ. (Think of a teacher
urging his friends to forgive offenders seventy times seven and then
promising them a "Comforter" who will never forgive the slightest
offence, though merely verbal, either in this world or in the next!)
The extent to which the man was lowered and lost in the risen Lord is
especially revealed in the fourth Gospel. Except for the story of the
woman taken in adultery, admittedly interpolated from another Gospel,
the fourth Gospel may be regarded as perhaps the only book in the
Bible without recognition of humanity. "I pray not for the world,
but for those whom thou hast given me," is the keynote. In this work
there is no text for the reformer and the philanthropist, unless
perhaps the retreat of Jesus from a prospect of being made king. What
inferences of benevolence might be made even from the miracles related
have to be strained through the arrogance, self-aggrandizement,
attitudinizing, as of a showman, with which they are wrought. [48] A
rudeness to his mother precedes the turning of water to wine (ii. 4);
the nobleman's son is healed because the aristocrat will not believe
without a miracle (iv. 48); the infirm man at Bethesda is healed only
after a sham question, "Wouldest thou be made whole?" and threatened
afterwards (v. 6, 14); feeding the multitude is attended with another
sham question (vi. 5), and a parade of the fragments (13); the man
born blind is declared to have been so born solely for the sign and
wonder manifested in his cure (ix. 3).
But the supremacy of a new Jahveh over all moral obligations and all
truthfulness is especially displayed in the resurrection of Lazarus
(xi.). Here Jesus is represented as staying away from the sick man, in
order that he may die; he affects to believe Lazarus is only asleep,
but finding his disciples pleased with the prospect of recovery, in
which case there would be no miracle, he becomes frank (parrhêsia)
and assures them Lazarus is dead; he tells his disciples privately he
is glad Lazarus is dead; he tells Martha, when she comes out to him
alone, that her brother shall rise; but when her sister Mary comes out,
accompanied by her Jewish consolers, Jesus breaks out into vehement
groans and lamentations, lashing himself (etaraxen eauton) into this
sham grief over a man at whose death he has connived and who would
presently be alive! Even in his prayer over Lazarus the pretence is
kept up, and his Father is informed, in an aside, "I know that thou
hearest me always, but because of the multitude around I said it,
that they may believe that thou didst send me." Thus does the fourth
Gospel sink Jesus morally into the grave of Lazarus, leaving in his
place an embodiment of the Jahveh who had lying spirits to send out
into his prophets on occasion.
The resurrection of Lazarus is a transparent fabrication out of
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Abraham's words to the rich
man,--"neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead,"--were
not adapted to a faith built on a resurrection, so that parable is
suppressed in the fourth Gospel. The resurrection of a supernatural
man is not quite sufficient for people not supernatural. Those who
had been looking for a returning Christ had died, just like the
unbelievers. There was a tremendous necessity for an example of the
resurrection of an ordinary man. Shocking as are the immoral details
of the story, there is audible in it the pathetic cry of the suffering
human heart, and the demand that must be met by any Gospel claiming
the faith of humanity. "Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had
not died!" Through what ages has that declaration, not to be denied,
ascended to cold and cruel skies? It is found in the Vedas, in Job,
in the Psalms. If there is a Heart up there why are we tortured? To the
many apologies and explanations and pretences which imperilled systems
had given, Christianity had to support itself by something more than
Egyptian dreams and Platonic speculations. A dead man must arise;
it must be done dramatically, amid domestic grief and neighbourly
sympathy; it must be done doctrinally, with funeral sermon turned to
rejoicings. And this was all done in the story of Lazarus in such a way
that it might surround every grave with illusions for centuries. For
who, while tears are falling, will pause to handle the wreaths, and
find whether they are genuine? Who, while the service is proceeding,
will analyze the details, and ask whether it is possible that the good
Jesus could have practiced such deception and assumed such theatrical
attitudes? [49]
The indifference of the fourth Gospel to such moral considerations as
those found in the Synoptics is so apostolic that I am inclined
to place much of it nearer to the first century than I once
supposed. Paul's rage against the "wisdom of this world," and his
fulminations against the learned because they are not "called,"
are fully adopted by the Johannine Christ, who says to the blind man
whose eyes he had opened, and who was worshipping him: "For judgment
came I into this world, that they that see not may see, and they that
see may become blind." And these ideas are represented in a legend
related in the book of Acts which is really allegorical, though our
translators have manipulated it into serious history.
A persecutor of Christians, on whom the spirit "came mightily," as
on King Saul, so that he was a new "Saul among the prophets," sought
to convert to his new faith a Roman Proconsul, Sergius Paul. But
with this Consul was a learned man of the Jewish Wisdom School,
Bar-Jesus Elymas,--i. e., Dr. Anti-Jesus Wise Man. Like Michael and
Satan contending for the body of Moses, Prophet Saul and Anti-Jesus
Wise Man contended for the Roman Paul's soul. Prophet Saul prevailed
by calling Anti-Jesus Wise Man a child of the devil, and striking
him blind. Thereupon Consul Paul believed, being "astonished at the
teaching of the Lord." Whereupon Prophet Saul triumphantly carries
off the Roman's name as a trophy. [50]
Beginning in this conclusive way, by striking human Wisdom sightless
("that they that see may become blind," John ix. 39), the Anti-Wisdom
propaganda, which began with identifying Wisdom with the serpent
in Eden, passed on to inspire the Church Fathers who gloated over
the eternal tortures of the poets and philosophers of Greece and
Rome. Alas for the philosophers not in their graves, but in their
cradles, or in the womb of the future! For torments are nearest
"eternal" when they begin at once on earth.
One may readily understand how it was that personal traditions of Jesus
and his teachings remained unwritten until his contemporaries were
dead (although this may not have been the case with the suppressed
"Gospel according to the Hebrews"); the hourly expected return of
Christ rendered such memoirs unimportant until it became clear that
the expectation was erroneous. The age of John, of whom Jesus was
rumoured to have predicted survival till his return (John xxi. 22),
was stretched out to a mythical extent; he became an undying sleeper
at Ephesus, and finally a pious "Wandering Jew"; but when at length
such fables lost their strength, some imaginative impersonator brought
forth an apocalyptic bequest of John postponing the second advent
a thousand years. The conventicles had thus no resource but to turn
into orthodoxy the heresy of Hymenoeus and Alexander, for which Paul
delivered them over to Satan, that the resurrection occurs at death;
to collect the traditional sayings of Jesus; and to adapt these to the
new situation. A thousand years later, when the expected catastrophe
did not occur, the substantial churches and cathedrals were built,
as the Gospels had been built after the first-century disappointment.
These Gospels contain things from which some of the real teachings
of the wise man of Nazareth may be fairly conjectured. That the
synoptical records are palimpsests, though denied by the prudent, is
a truth felt by the unsophisticated who, in their use of such words
as "Christian" and "a Christian spirit," quite ignore the fearful
anathemas and damnatory language ascribed to Jesus.