Solomon And Solomonic Literature Part 10

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." [23]

There is no historical means of determining what writings of Solomon are preserved in the Bible and even in the apocryphal books. One may feel that Goethe recognised a brother spirit in that far epoch when he selected for his proverb:

"Apples of gold in chased work of silver, A word smoothly spoken."

Koheleth too appreciated this, and also (x. 12) uses almost literally Proverbs xii. 18, "The tongue of the wise is gentleness." (Compare Shakespeare's words, "Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.") The lines previously cited, "Rejoice O young man, etc.," are also probably quoted, as they are given in poetical quatrains. There are many of these quatrains introduced into the book, from the prose context of which they differ in style and sometimes in sense.

In none of these metrical quotations (as I believe them to be) is there any belief in G.o.d, the only instance in which the word "G.o.d"

is mentioned being an ironical maxim about the danger coming from monarchs because of their oaths to their G.o.d, with whom they identify their own ways and wishes. Such seems to me the meaning of the lines (viii. 2, 4) which Dillon translates--

"The wise man harkens to the king's command, By reason of the oath to G.o.d.

Mighty is the word of the monarch: Who dares ask him, 'What dost thou?'"

With this compare Proverbs xxi. 1, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord (Jahveh) as the water-courses; he turneth it whithersoever he will." This proverb is evidently by a Jahvist, and Koheleth quotes another which signifies rather "Jahveh is in the king's caprice." But he adopts the neighbouring proverb, "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to Jahveh than sacrifice." Koheleth says, and this is not quoted--"To draw near to (G.o.d) in order to learn, is better than the offering of sacrifices by fools."

Although the verses quoted by Maurice to Tennyson (xii. 13, 14) are not genuinely in Koheleth they correspond with sentences in the genuine text of very different import. Koheleth, though his quotations are G.o.dless, believes there is a G.o.d, and a formidable one. Sometimes he refers to him as Fate, sometimes as the unknowable, but as without moral quality. "To the just men that happeneth which should befall wrong-doers; and that happeneth for criminals which should be the lot of the upright" (viii. 14), and "neither (G.o.d's) love nor hatred doth a man foresee" (ix. 1). G.o.d has set prosperity and adversity side by side for the express purpose of hiding Himself from human knowledge (vii. 14); not, alas, as the Yalkut Koheleth suggests, in order that one may help the other. G.o.d does benefit those who please him, and punish those who displease him; this is 'good' and 'evil' to Him; but it has no relation with the humanly good and evil (viii. 11-14). As it is evident that G.o.d's favor is not secured by good works nor his disfavor incurred by evil works, a prudent man will consider that it may perhaps be a matter of etiquette, and will be punctilious, especially "in the house of G.o.d"; he will not speak rashly and then hope to escape by saying "it was rashness." His words had better be few, and if he makes any vow (which may well be avoided) he should perform it. But as for practical life and conduct, G.o.d, or fate, is clearly indifferent to it, consequently let a man eat his bread and quaff his wine with joy, love his wife,--the best portion of his lot,--and whatever his hand findeth to do that do with vigor, remembering that "there is no work, nor thought, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the inevitable grave."

Such is Koheleth's conception of life, which, except so far as it is marred by a vague notion of Fate which is fatal to philanthropy, is not very different from the idea growing in our own time. "The All is a never-ceasing whirl" (i. 8), and Koheleth advises that each individual man try to make what little circle of happiness he can around him. "O my heart!" says Omar Khayyam, "thou wilt never penetrate the mysteries of the heavens; thou wilt never reach that culminating point of wisdom which the intrepid omniscients have attained. Resign thyself then to make what little paradise thou canst here below. As for that close-barred seraglio beyond thou shalt arrive there--or thou shalt not!"

It is, however, impossible for any church or priesthood to be maintained on any such principles. Where mankind believe with Koheleth that whatever G.o.d does is forever, that nothing can be superadded to it nor aught be taken away; and that G.o.d has so contrived that man must fear Him; they will have no use for any paraphernalia for softening the irrevocable decrees of a Judgment Day already past. But Koheleth's arrows, feathered with wit and eloquence, were logically shot from the Jahvist arquebus. It was Jahveh himself who proudly claimed that he created good and evil, and that if there were evil in a city it was his work. It was Jahveh's own prophet, Isaiah, who cried (lxiii. 17), "O Lord, why dost Thou make us to err from Thy ways, and hardenest our heart from Thy fear?"

What then could Jahvism say when a time arrived wherein it must defend itself against a Jahveh-created world?

CHAPTER XI

WISDOM (ECCLESIASTICUS).

It was necessary that Koheleth should be answered, but who was competent for this? A fable had been invented of a Solomonic serpent who had tempted Eve to taste the fruit of knowledge which, when the man shared it, brought a curse on the earth, but the canonical prophets do not appear to have heard of it, and at any rate it was too late in the day to meet fact with fable. Nor had Jahveh's whirlwind-answer to Job proved effectual. However, some sort of answer did come, and significantly enough it had to come from Koheleth's own quarter, the Wisdom school. Pure Jahvism had not brains enough for the task.

The apocryphal book "Ecclesiasticus" is the antidote to Ecclesiastes. (These are the Christian names given to the two books.) This book, bearing the simple t.i.tle "Wisdom," compiled and partly written by Jesus Ben Sira early in the second century B. C., is as a whole much more than an offset to Koheleth. It is a great though unintentional literary monument to Solomon, and it is the book of reconciliation, or so intended, between Solomonism and Jahvism,--or, as we should now say, between philosophy and theology.

The newly discovered original Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus x.x.xix. 15, xlix. 11, published by the Clarendon Press in 1897, enables us to read correctly for the first time the portraiture of Solomon in xlvii., with the a.s.sistance of Wace and other scholars:

12. After him [David] rose up a wise son, and for his [David's]

sake he dwelt in quiet.

13. Solomon reigned in days of prosperity, and was honoured, and G.o.d gave rest to him round about that he might build an house in his name, and prepare his sanctuary for ever.

14. How wast thou wise in thy youth, and didst overflow with instruction like the Nile!

15. The earth (was covered by thy soul) and thou didst celebrate song in the height.

16. Thy name went far unto the islands, and for thy peace thou wast beloved.

17. The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs, and proverbs, and parables, and interpretations.

18. Thou wast called by the glorious name which is called over Israel.

18a. Thou didst gather gold as tin, and didst gather silver as lead.

19. But thou gavest thy loins unto women, and lettest them have dominion over thy body.

20. Thou didst stain thy honour and pollute thy seed; so that thou broughtest wrath upon thy children, that they should groan in their beds.

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 understanding, who by his council let loose the people.

In the last sentence I have inserted in crochets an alternative reading of Fritzsche for the three words that follow. (Rehoboam's Ammonite mother was Naamah.)

It will be noticed that early in the second century B. C. there remained no trace of the anathemas on Solomon for his foreign or his idolatrous wives. He is now simply accused of being too fond of women,--a charge not known to the canonical books.

The verse 18 attests the correctness of the view taken of the forty-fifth Psalm in chapter III., written before this Clarendon Press volume appeared. It thus becomes certain that the Psalm was recognised as written in Solomon's time, and that it was he who was there addressed as "G.o.d" ("the glorious name").

The mention of this fact in "Wisdom," and the enthusiasm pervading every sentence of the tribute to Solomon, despite his alleged sensuality, supply conclusive evidence that the cult of Solomon had for more than eight centuries been continuous, that it was at length prevailing, and that it had become necessary for a broad wing of Jahvism to include the Solomonic worldly wisdom and ethics.

Jesus Ben Sira states that he found a book written by his learned grandfather, whose name was also Jesus, who had studied many works of "our fathers," and added to them writings of his own. The anonymous preface states that Sira, son of the first Jesus, left it to his son, and that "this Jesus did imitate Solomon."

It is not said that Sira contributed anything to this composite work, yet there appear to be three minds in it. There is a fine and free philosophy which savors of the earliest traditions of the Solomonic School; there is an exceptionally morose Jahvism; and there is also mysticism, an attempt to rationalise and soften the Jahvism, and to solemnise the philosophy, so as to blend them in a kind of harmonious religion. I cannot help feeling that Sira or some friend of his must have inserted the Jahvism between the grandfather and the grandson.

However this may be, it is evident that Jesus Ben Sira was too reverent to seriously alter anything in the volume before him, for the contrast is startling between the hard Jahvism and the philosophy of life. Their inclusion in one work is like the union of oil and vinegar. The Jahvism is curiously bald: fear Jahveh, keep his commandments, pay your t.i.thes, say your prayers, be severe with your children (especially daughters), never play with them, guard your wife vigilantly, flog your servants. The philosophy is quite incongruous with this formalism and rigidity, most of the maxims being elaborated with care, and only proverbs in form. Some of them are almost Shakespearian in artistic expression:

"Pipe and harp make sweet the song, but a sincere tongue is above them both."

"Wisdom hid, and treasure h.o.a.rded, what value is in either?"

"The fool's heart is in his mouth, the wise man's mouth is in his heart."

"There is no riches above a sound body, and no joy above that of the heart."

"Whoso regardeth dreams is as one who grasps at his shadow."