iv. 2), this holiness is not to be interpreted as moral, or in any

human sense. It relates to ancient philosophical ideas concerning the spiritual and the material worlds. The supreme head of the spiritual world is so far above the material world in majesty that he cannot come in contact with matter, though this august "holiness" has nothing to do with his moral character. Indeed deities were in all countries considered quite above the moral obligations of men. Jahveh's "holiness" required the employment of mediators in creation--the Spirit of God brooding over the waters, Wisdom the "undefiled" master-builder, the Word--in each of whom is some image of his quasi-physiological "holiness," his transcendent immateriality.

It was amid these ancient conceptions that the various cults arose which attempt to please and conciliate gods by ceremonial observances, runes, recited formulas of petition or adulation, all based on the awful "holiness" that doth hedge about a god, and concerned with points of heavenly etiquette, without any implication of a moral nature in those distant celestial beings. In Euripides' "Iphigenia" (line 20) it is said: "Sometimes the worship of the gods, not being conducted with exactness, overturns one's life." In the same vein Koheleth (Ecclesiastes, v. 1, 2): "Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of God; for to draw nigh to him with attention is better than to bring the sacrifices of fools who know not that they are (? may be) doing wrong. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a word before God; for God is in heaven, and thou on earth; therefore let thy words be few."

But in every race ethical development reaches a stage in which these majestic beings, concerned only about their worship according to etiquette, are challenged. Thus in the "Cyclops" of Euripides (xxxv. 3-5), Ulysses says: "O Jove, guardian of strangers, behold these things; for if thou regardest them not, thou, Jove, being nought, art vainly esteemed a god."

From the first Solomon to the last, the whole intellectual development in Judea, which I have called Solomonic, means the subjection of all conceptions of the divine nature and laws to the moral sentiment and the reason of man. It was no denial of invisible beings, or of man's relation to the universe, but a demand that all definitions and conceptions should be approached through science, experience and wisdom.

Solomon, and the Second Solomon, rest in their unknown graves; their wisdom is corrupted; but their genius survives in the earth. Of old it was said God looked down from heaven on the children of men, and found that there was "none that doeth good, no not one." But it is now man who, with eyes illumined by the brave and cultured Solomons of all lands and ages, looks upon the gods to see if there be one that doeth good. The best of them are defended only by a plea that evil is the mask of their benevolence. But it is not humanly moral to do evil that good may come.

Our great Omar Khayyám, by Fitzgerald's help, says:

"O Thou, who Man of baser earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: For all the Sin wherewith the face of Man Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!"

The agreement may be fair enough so far as it concerns Sin, in the theological sense, but no Omnipotence, with unlimited choice of means to ends, could be forgiven for the agonies of nature, even did they result in benefits,--as generally they do not, so far as is known to the experience of mankind.

It may be, as the American orator said, "An honest god's the noblest work of man"; and innumerable hearts enshrine fair personal ideals under uncomprehended names for deity; but each such private ideal is unconsciously antagonistic to every "collectivist" deity to whom the creation or the government of the world is ascribed.

The human heart kneels before its vision, and with Mary Magdalene cries Rabboni, My Master; but Theology recognizes only the perfunctory Rabbi, and carries her beloved off into union with thunder-god, war-god, or with a deified predatory Cosmos. Yet will not the heart be bereaved of its vision; it still sees a smile of tenderness in the universe. And philosophy, though it regard that smile as a reflection of the heart's own love, may with all the more certainty itself find a religion in this maternal divinity in the earth, ever aspiring to its own supreme humanity.

Solomon passes, Jesus passes, but the Wisdom they loved as Bride, as Mother, abides, however veiled in fables. She is still inspiring the unfinished work of creation, and her delight is with the children of men.

NOTES

[1] The name given to him in 2 Sam. xii. 25, Jedidiah ("beloved of Jah"), by the prophet of Jahveh, is, however, an important item in considering the question of an actual monarch behind the allegorical name, especially as the writer of the book, in adding "for Jahveh's sake" seems to strain the sense of the name--somewhat as the name "Jesus" is strained to mean saviour in Matt. i. 21. Jedidiah looks like a Jahvist modification of a real name (see p. 20).

[2] This was continued in rabbinical and Persian superstitions, which attribute to David knowledge of the language of birds. It is said David invented coats of mail, the iron becoming as wax in his hands; he subjected the winds to Solomon, and also a pearl-diving demon.

[3] Sacred Books of the East. Edited by F. Max Müller. Vol. IV. The Zend-Avesta. Part I. The Vendîdâd. Translated by James Darmesteter. P. lix., et seq.

[4] "Ammon" probably developed the name "Amîna," given in the Talmud as the name of a favorite concubine of Solomon, to whom, while he was bathing, he entrusted his signet ring, and from whom the Devil, Sakhar, obtained it by appearing to her in the shape of Solomon. This is the version referred to in the Koran, chapter xxxviii. (Sale.)

[5] The marriage of Hadad with Pharaoh's sister and that of Solomon shortly after with Pharaoh's daughter might naturally, Colenso says, lead to some amicable arrangement between these two young princes, representing respectively the ancient domains of Jacob and Esau, and the Bishop adds the pregnant suggestion: "Thus also would be explained another phenomenon in connexion with this matter, which we observe in the Jehovistic portions of Genesis--viz., the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob" (Gen. xxxiii). That Solomon was on good terms with Edom appears by the fact that his naval station was in that land (1 K. ix. 26).

[6] The Bible, the Church, and the Reason, p. 137, n. Dr. Briggs points out citations from the book of Jasher in Num. xxi., Jos. x., and 2 Sam. 1, where a dirge of David is given, and adds: "The book of Jasher containing poems of David and Solomon could not have been written before Solomon." The bearing of this on the age of the Hexateuch, in its present form, is obvious.

[7] Ursprung der Sagen von Abraham, Isaak und Jakob. Kritische Untersuchung von A. Bernstein. Berlin. 1871.

[8] The marriage is doubtful: "He took her and went in to her" (Gen. xxxviii. 2).

[9] The Sceptics of the Old Testament, pp. 149, 155.

[10] It may be mentioned that the Moslem name for the Queen of Sheba is Balkis, which points to the great Zoroastrian city of Balkh, near which are the Seven Rivers (Saba' Sin), whose confluence makes the Balkh (Oxus), with whose sands gold is mingled. (Cf. Psalm lxxii. 15.)

[11] In many places in the Avesta (e. g., Sîrôzah i. 2) a distinction is drawn between "the heavenly wisdom made by Mazda, and the acquired wisdom through the ear made by Mazda." Darmesteter says: "Asnya khratu, the inborn intellect, intuition, contrasted with gaoshô-srûta khratu, the knowledge acquired by hearing and learning. There is between the two nearly the same relation as between the parâvidyâ and aparâvidyâ in Brahmanism, the former reaching Brahma in se (parabrahma), the latter sabdabrahma, the word-brahma (Brahma as taught and revealed)." (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXIII., p. 4.)

[12] Sacred Books of the East. Vol. XVIII. Pahlavi Texts tr. by West. The text quoted above (from p. 415) is of uncertain age, but it is harmonious with the more ancient scriptures, and no doubt compiled from them.

[13] Among the cultured Jews, just before our era, there was a recognition of the equality of men, as is seen in the Wisdom of Solomon