Solomon And Solomonic Literature Part 21

[28] Cf. Gospel of Peter: "They behold three men coming out of the tomb, and the two supporting the one, and the cross following them, and the heads of the two reached to the heavens, and that of him who was being led went above the heavens."

[29] Invoke, O Zoroaster, the powerful Spirit (Wind) formed by Mazda (Light) and Spenta Armaiti (earth-mother), the fair daughter of Ahuramazda. Invoke, O Zoroaster, my Fravas.h.i.+ (deathless past), who am Ahuramazda, greatest, fairest, most solid, most intelligent, best shapen, highest in purity, whose soul is the holy Word.

"Invoke Mithra (descending light), the lord of wide pastures, a G.o.d armed with beautiful weapons, with the most glorious of all weapons, with the most fiend-smiting of all weapons.

"Invoke the most holy glorious word."--Zendavesta. (Vend. Farg. xix. 2)

[30] Since this work was sent to the press the world has been enriched by Dr. McGiffert's "History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age." He p.r.o.nounces the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews "without doubt the finest and most cultured literary genius of the primitive church," but believes the Epistle to be somewhat later than those of Paul. He thinks its detailed description of proceedings in the temple might have been written after its destruction, as Clement's account was, and remarks that the writer always calls it the "tabernacle." This peculiarity I attribute to the emphasis in the "Wisdom of Solomon"

on the temple being "a resemblance of the holy tabernacle which thou hast prepared from the beginning" (ix. 8). It seems unlikely that the Epistle could have said "the priests go in continually" etc., had the temple not existed. Dr. McGiffert finds in some expressions indications that there were Gentiles among those to whom the Epistle was addressed, but even admitting this it is natural to suppose that there must have been some fellows.h.i.+p of this kind among educated people before Paul's propaganda. The pa.s.sages referred to by Dr. McGiffert, if they imply what he supposes, render it all the more improbable that if Paul and his mission to the Gentiles preceded this Epistle, there should be no allusion to them in it.

[31] Thus spake Angra Mainyu, the guileful, the evil-doer, the deadly, "Fiend rush down upon him, destroy the holy Zoroaster!" The fiend came rus.h.i.+ng; along, the demon Biti, the unseen death, the h.e.l.l-born. Zoroaster chanted loudly the Ahuna-Vairya: "The will of the Lord is the law of holiness; the riches of Vohu-mano (heavenly wisdom) shall be given to him who works in this world for G.o.d (Mazda), and wields according to the all-knowing (Ahura) the power he gave him to relieve the poor. Profess (O Fiend) the law of G.o.d!" The fiend dismayed rushed away, and said to Angra Mainyu "O baneful Angra Mainyu, I see no way to kill him, so great is the glory of the holy Zoroaster." Zoroaster saw all this from within his soul: "The evil-doing devils and demons take counsel together for my death." Up started Zoroaster, forward went Zoroaster, unshaken by the evil spirit. "O evil-doer, Angra Mainyu. I will smite the creation of the Evil One (Daeva) till the fiend-smiter Saoshyant (Saviour) come up to life out of the lake Kasava, from the region of the dawn."--Vendidad, Farg. xix, 1-5. (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. iv. pp. 204-6.)

The Ahuna-Vairya, recited by Zoroaster, was the prayer by which Ormazd in his first conflict with Ahreinan drove him back to h.e.l.l.

[32] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. xxiii. p. 59.

[33] It is even doubtful whether they were not ordered to offer burnt offerings to Job as a deity.

[34] It is, I think, an indication of the nearness of the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" to the Apostolic Age that a sort of caveat is there recorded against the possible implication that the baptism of Jesus was for remission of sins. "He said to them, Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him?" The whole pa.s.sage is quoted on a farther page, but it may be stated here that the descending dove certifies the sinlessness of Jesus before his baptism. The Synoptics introduce the dove after the baptism. The significance of the scene was thus lost.

[35] It is doubtful whether this can be regarded as historical. The "clear beforehand" (prodelon) renders it more probable that it is a reference to Ps. lxxviii. 67, 68. "He refused the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah," etc.

[36] The King of Sodom came out to Abram at the same time, but no proper name is a.s.signed him.

[37] The "Salem" of Gen. xiv. 18, and the "Shalem" of Gen. xxiii. 18, are evidently compet.i.tive. Also Jacob's naming his altar "El-Elohe-Israel" seems an answer to Abraham's "El-Elyon," as if saying that the latter was not the G.o.d of Israel. It is even possible that the name "Luz" (Gen. xxviii. 19) changed to Beth-El, after Jacob's vision of the Ladder and setting up the pillar there, is meant to correspond with the "oaks of Mamre" (Gen. xiv. 13), where Abram dwelt when he was met by the priest of El Elyon. For Abram had also built an altar at some place called Beth-El (Gen. xiii. 3) where he called on the name of the Lord and received a promise that his seed should be "as the dust of the earth," which is verbatim the promise made to Jacob at his Beth-El (Gen. xxviii. 14). Now Abram next moves his tent to the "oak of Mamre" in Hebron (Gen. xiii. 18), and the Hebrew word for oak is Elah, or Eylon. The unusual name for the deity of both Abram and Melchizedek, El-Elyon, was probably selected because of its resemblance to the sacred oak or Elah of that place, and Jacob's El-Elohe-Israel was no doubt meant to invest his deity with the same sanct.i.ty. Now "Luz" also means a tree,--almond-tree,--and was also a name of the a.s.syrian G.o.ddess Ishtar. The oak was a.s.sociated also with Jacob, who buried beneath it the idols of his household (Gen. x.x.xv. 1-9) immediately before setting up his altar at Luz (the almond).

[38] It may be said in pa.s.sing, that the legend in Gen. xiv., as was first pointed out in Calmet, bears some resemblance to the Hindu myth of Soma, a lunar being, who discovered the juice of the sacred Soma plant (Asclepias acida), called "the king of plants." Soma was the most sacred sacrifice to the G.o.ds, as a juice; it had the intoxicating effect of wine; and the lunar being, Soma, was believed to be still alive, though invisible, and is the chief of the sacerdotal tribe to this day. In the Vishnu Purana, Soma is called "the monarch of Brahmans." He was the Hindu Bacchus, and is regarded as the guardian of healing plants and constellations. Melchizedek, offering wine to, and as priest of G.o.d Most High receiving tribute from, the "High Father"

(Abram), thus bears some resemblance to Soma, the sacerdotal moon-G.o.d; and those who care to study the matter further may be reminded that in Babylonian mythology Malkit seems to be a "Queen of Heaven" (moon), and is connected by Goldziher (Heb. Myth.) with Milka (Abram's sister-in-law), whom he supposes to have the same meaning. It is remarkable, by the way, that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in telling the story of Abram and Melchizedek minutely and critically, omits the offering of bread and wine. This is not only an indication that the Epistle was written as already said, before Paul's inst.i.tution of the eucharist (1 Cor. x., xi.), but suggests that the writer may have suspected the offerings as pagan. The Soma juice was sacred also in Persia, and is the Hom of the Avesta. Ewald says of the story in Gen. xiv., "The whole narrative looks like a fragment torn from a more general history of Western Asia, merely on account of the mention of Abraham contained in it." (Hist. of Israel, p. 308. London, 1867.) And finally it may be noted that among the kings Abram smote, just before meeting Melchizedek, was Chedorlaomer, King of Elam. Elam is south of a.s.syria and east of Persia proper; if he fought Abram near Jerusalem, Chedorlaomer was about one thousand miles from his kingdom, Elam. Probably it was not he but a name and legend of his kingdom that drifted into Jewish folklore.

[39] The name Jesus is used in these pages for the man, Christ being used for the supernatural or risen being.

[40] About 1832 the Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson notified his congregation in Boston (Unitarian) that he could no longer administer the "Lord's Supper," and near the same time the Rev. W. J. Fox took the same course at South Place Chapel, London. The Boston congregation clung to the sacrament, and gave up their minister to mankind. The London congregation gave up the sacrament, and there was subst.i.tuted for it the famous South Place Banquet, which was attended by such men as Leigh Hunt, Mill, Thomas Campbell, Jerrold, and such women as Harriet Martineau, Eliza Flower, Sarah Flower Adams (who wrote "Nearer, My G.o.d, To Thee"). The speeches and talk at this banquet were of the highest character, and the festival was no doubt nearer in spirit to the supper of Jesus and his friends than any sacrament.

[41] Dr. Nicholson's "The Gospel According to the Hebrews," p. 60. In all of my references to this Gospel I depend on this learned and very useful work.

[42] It has always been a condition of missionary propagandise that the new religion must adopt in some form the popular festivals, cherished observances and talismans of the folk. It will be seen by 1 Cor. x. 14-22 that Paul's eucharist was only a compet.i.tor with existing eucharist, with their "cup of devils," as he calls it.

[43] Ormazd entrusted Zoroaster for seven days with omniscience, during which time he saw, besides many other things, "a celebrity with much wealth, whose soul, infamous in the body, was hungry and jaundiced and in h.e.l.l ... and I saw a beggar with no wealth and helpless, and his soul was thriving in paradise."--Bahman Yast. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V. p. 197.

[44] Nicholson's "Gospel According to the Hebrews," pp. 36-43.

[45] Sacred Books of the East, Vol. iv, p. 206.

[46] In the apocryphal book, "Bel and the Dragon" (verse 36), the angel thus bore by the hair Habakkuk to Babylon, and set him over the lion's den where Daniel was confined. Habakkuk means the "embrace of love."

[47] I observed in the play at Oberammergau that while the disciples were barefoot, Jesus wore fine white silk stockings, and was otherwise in richer costume.

[48] On a very ancient sarcophagus in the Museo Gregoriano, Rome, is represented in bas-relief the raising of Lazarus. Christ appears beardless and equipped with a wand in the received guise of a necromancer, while the corpse of Lazarus is swathed in bandages exactly as an Egyptian mummy.--King's Gnostics, p. 145.

[49] Renan suggested that Jesus and his friends at Bethany arranged a pretended death and resurrection of Lazarus. This seems inconsistent with the absence of any allusion to it or to Lazarus in the Epistles, and also with the evident relation of the narrative to the parable. It looks more as if the parable of Lazarus and the rich man had been dramatized and the return of Lazarus from "Abraham's bosom" added. At every step in the narrative (John xi.) there is a suggestion of some old "mystery-play" fossilized into prosaic literalism.

[50] This is the genuine sense of the story in Acts xiii. There is no evidence in Paul's writings that he ever bore the name of Saul. Bar-Jesus has a double meaning,--"Son of Jesus" and "Obstruction of Jesus." The ant.i.thesis may have been suggested by the words of Pilate, in many ancient versions of Matt, xxvii. 16, 17: "Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? Jesus Bar Abbas, or Jesus that is called the Christ?" Elymas, commonly used as a proper name, means Wise Man. The word magoi denotes Wise Men in Matt. ii. 1, where they bring gifts to the infant Christ, but the same word is made by translators to denote a "sorcerer" when the wise man is opposing Paul! n.o.body named Sergius Paulus was known before the Consul of A.D. 94, who must have been long enough dead for this legend to form before it was written.

[51] "Boast not of thy clothing and raiment, and exalt not thyself in the day of honor: for the works of the Lord (in nature) are wonderful, and his works among (wise) men are hidden."--Ecclus. xi. 4; cf., in same, xvi. 26-27, where it is said the beautiful things in nature "neither labor, nor are weary nor cease from their works."

[52] Ewald compares the omission of the name of Moses for so many centuries with the omission of Solomon's name. (Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Bk. ii.). Such omissions do not, he says, cast doubt on the historic character of either. The descriptive references to Solomon during the time when his name is suppressed are more continuous, and more historical. The utterance of Solomon's name was probably at first avoided through Jahvist horror of his supposed idolatry and worldliness, but as he was addressed in a psalm as "G.o.d," and as superst.i.tions about his demon-commanding power grew, it seems not improbable that there was some fear of using his name, akin to the fear of uttering the proper name of G.o.d or of any evil power.

[53] It is shocking to find this woman named as Mary Magdalene in the "Harmony of the Gospels," appended to the Revised Bible. This deliberate falsehood is carefully elaborated by separating the story as told in Matthew and Mark as another incident, under the heading, "Mary anoints Jesus."

[54] In the newly-found tablet to which English editors give the t.i.tle "Logia Jesou," the 5th "Logion," so far as it can be made out, reads: "... saith where there are ... and there is one alone ... I am with him. Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me, cleave the wood and there am I." The last sentence seems to be based on Eccles. x. 9: "Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby." The first sentence may be an allusion to the poor man who alone saved the city (Eccles. ix.). There is no such word as "Jesus" in this "Logion," and perhaps it is Wisdom who speaks.

[55] Asmodeus (identified as Aeshma by West, Bundahis xxv. 15, n. 10) has (Tobit vi. 13) slain seven men who successively married Sara, whom he (and Tobit) loved, and in Bundahis Aeshma has seven powers with which he will slay seven Kayan heroes. But one is preserved, as Tobit is. (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V, p. 108.) Darmesteter says: "One of the foremost amongst the Drvants (storm-fiends), their leader in their onsets, is Aeshma, 'the raving,' 'a fiend with the wounding spear.' Originally a mere epithet of the storm fiend, Aeshma was afterwards converted into an abstract, the demon of rage and anger, and became an expression for all moral wickedness, a mere name of Ahriman."

[56] The word translated "cross" is stauros, a stake. The christian cross began its development by the carving of a figure of Jesus on the stake, which required a support for the arms. Protestantism, by removing the figure, has left the wooden fetish, which, however, has been invested with Symbolical meanings, some derived from the various crosses held sacred in many countries long before Christ.

[57] Paul (1 Tim. ii. 14), supposing him to have written the pa.s.sage, uses the story simply to justify the subordination of woman to man, but a witty lady remarked to me that according to the story in Genesis no harm came to the world by Eve's eating the fruit of knowledge. It was only by the man's eating it that the thorns sprang up.