CHAPTER XVII. 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. Ανάγκη οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται. 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 Khayyams. 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; Therefore, O God, hath thy God anointed thee When these verses were written and verse II, 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: I. 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 be come 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 |