CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LAST SOLOMON.

Every race has a pride in its great men which ultimately prevails over any pious taboo imposed on them in life or by tradition. Some years ago it was announced that a German scholar was about to publish proofs that Jesus was not of the Hebrew race, and while Christendom showed little concern, all Israel sat upon that German almost furiously. It is an old story. Banished Buddha becomes an avatar of Vishnu, and his image now appears in India beside Jagenath. For the heresiarch must be adapted before adoption. So Solomon returns as a preacher of orthodox Jahvism, in the "Wisdom of Solomon," but so rigid had been the taboo in his case that the writer did not venture to insert the name of so famous a liberal and secularist.

That was about the first year of our era. But presently we hear about the "Son of David." Was that because of David himself? Interest in David had so receded that in the "Wisdom of Solomon" the resuscitated Wise Man barely alludes (once) to his "father's seat." Was it because of any popular interest in the legendary throne or house of David? That old "covenant" is not alluded to by the resuscitated monarch, and in the apostolic writings nothing is said about it. In the Gospels the title "Son of David" is generally connected with certain alleged miracles of Jesus, which recalled legends of Solomon, and it is only in the account of the entry into Jerusalem that it carries any connotation of royalty corresponding to the genealogies afterwards elaborated. Unless these narratives are accepted as historical they must be regarded as phenomena, and, taken in connection with what may be reasonably regarded as genuine teachings of Jesus, the phenomena point to a probability that he had reawakened interest in the Wise Man's teachings, and that this interest, by a compromise with Jahvist prejudices, coined the expression "Son of David" as an alias of Solomon.

However this may be, it appears certain that there was in the teachings of Jesus some substantial recovery of the ancient and unconverted Solomon, the proverbial philosopher, the man of the world. How much Jesus may have said to revive interest in Solomon, and how many of his secular utterances have been hidden in the grave of his humanity, can only be conjectured; but there are two direct sayings concerning Solomon ascribed to him which may be regarded as the only unreserved tributes to the Wise Man that had ever been uttered since his idealization in Chronicles. And our own Protestant Jahvism has tried so hard to manipulate these tributes into partial disparagements that we may easily imagine early Christian Jahvism destroying similar testimonies altogether.

A. S. V. Luke xi. 31: "The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold a greater than Solomon is here."

True rendering: "The Queen of the South shall stand in the judgment with the men of this [Abrahamic] brood, and condemn them; for she came from the farthest parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold something more than Solomon is here." (pleion Solomônos hôde)

The word mistranslated "greater," pleion, is neuter and cannot be applied to a man. Jesus is not speaking of himself, but of the new Spirit animating a whole movement.

The word "generation" as a translation of genea 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