Solomon And Solomonic Literature Part 18

"Put not new wine into old wine-skins, lest they burst."

"Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

"Wisdom is justified by her children."

"If any man will be great, let him serve."

"The lowly shall be exalted, the proud humbled."

"Blind guides strain out the gnat, and swallow a camel."

"Give and it shall be given you."

"The measure ye mete shall be measured to you."

"Cast the beam from thine eye before noticing the mote in that of thy neighbour."

The following sentences in the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" do not appear to have been very seriously influenced by post-resurrectional ideas.

"He is a great criminal who hath grieved the spirit of his brother."

"No thank to you if you love them that love you, but there is thank if ye love your enemies and them that hate you." (Cf. Prov. xxix. 17, 29.)

"Be ye never joyful save when you have looked upon your brother in charity."

"Be as lambkins in midst of wolves."

"The son and the daughter shall inherit alike."

"It is happy rather to give than to receive."

"No servant can serve two masters."

"Out of entire heart and out of entire mind."

"What is the profit if a man gain the entire world, and lose his life?"

"Seek from little to wax great, and not from greater to become less."

"Become proved bankers."

"If ye have not been faithful in the little who will give you the great?"

These instructions have no connotations of the end of the world. They appear like the words of a man of the world, but not a man of the people. There is a certain unity in them, indicating a mind more developed than the semi-Jahvist Alexandrian philosophers of the later Wisdom cult, as represented by Jesus Ben Sira's "Wisdom," and by the "Wisdom of Solomon"; also a mind more practical.

But these wise sayings do not convey the full idea of a man whose execution the Sanhedrim would require, nor a man whose resurrection from the grave would be looked for by the populace. These two phenomenal facts imply some strong antagonism to the priesthood and their system. Martyrdoms do not occur for ethical generalizations, much less for philosophical affirmations. The faith that strikes deep is that which speaks in great denials.

Trying to follow his advice to "Become proved bankers," we may detect in some probable sayings of Jesus a transitional ring, e. g., "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." The effort at self-emanc.i.p.ation is still more traceable in certain incidents related in the "Gospel according to the Hebrews":

"He saith, 'If thy brother hath offended in anything and hath made thee amends, seven times in a day receive him,' Simon his disciple said unto him, 'Seven times in a day?' The Lord answered and said unto him, 'I tell thee also unto seventy times seven; for in the prophets likewise, after that they were anointed by the Holy Spirit, utterance of sin was found.'"

"The same day, having beheld a man working on the Sabbath, he said to him, 'Man, if thou knowest what thou dost, blessed art thou: but if thou knowest not, thou art under a curse, and a law-breaker.'"

That a man should regard the Holy Spirit as unable to make men infallible; that he should have discovered immoral utterances in the prophets; that he should regard it as a sign of enlightenment to disregard the Sabbath deliberately and intelligently--this is surely all very striking.

Who, in the second century, could have invented these anecdotes about Jesus? They are not harmonious with the Pauline Epistles; their heretical character is proved by the repudiation of the Gospel containing them, while their genuineness is implicitly confessed by the ultimate suppression of that Gospel. For surely it cannot be supposed that such a work, well known in the fifth century, was lost; nor is there much doubt that any learned rationalist, if permitted the free range of all the libraries in Rome, without the presence of polite librarians, could bring to light that first-century Gospel, the only one written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus.

But, when we come to consider the mature and positive teachings of Jesus, there may be placed in the front a sentence preserved from the suppressed Gospel by Epiphanius, who writes (Haer. x.x.x. 16): "And they say that he both came, and (as their so-called Gospel has it) instructed them that he had come to dissolve the Sacrifices: 'and unless ye cease from sacrificing the wrath shall not cease from you.'" Dr. Nicholson is shocked at this threat, and suspects the Ebionites of having altered what Jesus said. But surely it is a true and grand admonition by one superseding a phantasm of heavenly Egoism, demanding gifts from men for pacification, with the idea of a Father. Dr. Nicholson connects it, no doubt rightly, with Luke xiii. 1-3, which should probably read: "There were some present at that very season who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered, Think ye these Galileans were sinners rather than all other Galileans because they suffered these things? I tell you, No! And unless ye cease from sacrificing, the Wrath will not cease from you." That is, they would always be haunted by the delusion of a bloodthirsty G.o.d, a G.o.d of Wrath, and see a judgment, not only in every accident, but in every calamity wrought by fiendish men.

In his quotation from Hosea--"I desire charity, and not sacrifice"--Jesus speaks as if with a transitional accent, as compared with the declaration that sacrifices imply deified Wrath. The contempt of Ecclesiastes for "the sacrifice of fools who know not that they are doing evil" (v. 1), has here become a great and far-reaching affirmation, which must have impressed the orthodox Jews as atheism. For, although there are pa.s.sages in several psalms and in the prophets which disparage sacrifice, they were all interpreted by the Rabbins, as now by Christian theologians, as meaning their purification and spiritualization--by no means their abolition. Indeed, this higher interpretation of sacrifices appears to have given them fresh lease; and in the time of Jesus, when to the priesthood remained only control over their religious ordinances, the sacrifices were apparently preserved with increased rigour. Jesus himself, unless the gospeller (Matt. v. 23, 24) has softened his language, had at one time only demanded that none should offer a gift at the altar until he had done justice to any who had aught against him. But a remarkable pa.s.sage in the Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 5) represents Jesus as going to the world with a quotation from Psalm xl. 6, 7, for a clause of which a parenthesis is given, saying:

"Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not (Thou hast furnished me this body)-- In whole burnt offerings and sin offerings thou delighted not: Then said I (in that chapter of the book it is written for me), 'Lo, I come to do thy will, O G.o.d.'"

The sentence preserved by Eusebius, however, shows that his att.i.tude toward sacrifices was not merely to "lift" from men (Heb. x. 9, anairei) the burden of sacrifice, but to denounce it as an offering to the devil. "Unless ye cease from sacrificing, the Wrath shall not cease from you."

In this sentence "the Wrath" (he orge) is clearly a personification. It does not in the same form occur elsewhere in the Bible. Matthew and Mark report John the Baptist as speaking of "the impending wrath,"

and Paul occasionally gives "Wrath" a quasi-personification (e. g., "children of Wrath," Eph. ii. 1-3). These expressions, and the "destroyer" Abaddon or Apollyon, of Revelations ix. and (xii. 12) the devil "in great temper" (thymon), all show that the Jewish mind had become familiar with the idea of a dark and evil power quite detached from official relation to Jahveh, no longer "the wrath of G.o.d" executing divine judgments, but organized Violence, eager to afflict mankind as the creation of his enemy.

In the "Wisdom of Solomon" (xviii.) there is a complete picture of the two opposing Destroyers. The divine destroyer ("thine Almighty Word") leaps down with his sword and slays the firstborn of Egypt; the antagonist Destroyer begins the same kind of work among the Israelites in Egypt, but Moses by prayer and the "propitiation of incense" sets himself "against the Wrath" and overcomes him,--"not with physical strength, nor force of arms, but with a word." The incense used by Moses to put the demon to flight recalls the "perfume" used by Tobit, on the advice of the angel, to put to flight Asmodeus; and Asmodeus is notoriously the Persian Aeshma, a name meaning "Wrath," who occupies so large s.p.a.ce in the Parsi scriptures. [55] The especial antagonist of Aeshma "of the wounding spear," is Sraosha, "the incarnate Word, a mighty-speared G.o.d." (Farvardin Yast, 85.) As Moses overcomes "the Wrath" "with a word," Zoroaster is given a form of words to conquer Aeshma ("Praise to Armaiti, the propitious!") and the Vendidad says, "The fiend becomes weaker and weaker at every one [repet.i.tion] of those words." The Zamyad Yast says, "The Word of falsehood smites, but the Word of truth shall smite it." Aeshma is the child of Ahriman, the Deceiver of the World, and a Parsi would recognize him in the declaration ascribed to Jesus, "The devil is a liar and so is his father." (John viii. 44.)

That Jesus regarded the whole realm of evil as absolutely antagonistic to the Good is reflected in the epistle "To the Hebrews." There his mission is to abolish the devil (ii. 14), which is very different from abolishing death (2 Tim. i. 10). For a long time the devil was suppressed in the "Lord's Prayer," but in that brief collection of Talmudic e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns the only original thing is, "Deliver us from the evil one." In the Clementine Homilies Jesus is quoted as having said, "The evil one is the tempter," and "Give not a pretext to the evil one." Nay, the single clause preserved in Matthew, that it is an enemy that sows tares,--these being as much parts of nature as corn,--is a sentence that divides the Ahrimanic creation from the Ahuramazdean creation as clearly and profoundly as anything ascribed to Zoroaster.

Theological harmonists have for centuries been at work on the contrarious doctrines of all scriptures, and even among the Parsis some kind of metaphysical alliance has taken place between the Kingdoms of Good and Evil. Devout Christians find it quite consistent that one person of the trinity should say, "I create good and I create evil,"

and another person of the trinity should say of natural evil, "An enemy hath done this." But no such harmony existed in the Jerusalem of Jesus. Under a teaching that symbolized the deity as the Sun, shining alike on the thankful and thankless, individually, desiring no sacrifices, and concentrating human effort against the forces of evil in nature, in society--the evil principle--Jahveh falls like lightning from heaven. Like "the blameless man" of the "Wisdom of Solomon," Jesus "sets himself against the Wrath," however sanctified as the Wrath of G.o.d, and sees all sacrifices as eucharists of the Adversary. He not only repudiates the name "Jahveh," but tells the official agents of Jahvism that their G.o.d is his devil. (John viii. 44).

Of course one can only refer cautiously to anything in the fourth Gospel, for it is a composite book, but it contains, as I believe, pa.s.sages or fragments of the early apostolic theology, wherein dualism, until crushed by Paul, was prominent, and the good G.o.d represented in hard struggle with Satan for the rescue of mankind.

This aspect of the teaching of Jesus cannot be dealt with here as its importance deserves. We live in an age whose clergy deal apologetically with the prominence of the Adversary of Man in the teachings of Jesus. For this fundamental principle of Jesus Jewish monotheism has been subst.i.tuted. But there are many records to attest that the moral perfection and benevolence of the deity, which is certainly inconsistent with his omnipotence, or his "permission" of the tares in nature, was the only new principle of religion affirmed by Jesus; and, also, that it was so subversive of sacrifices, priesthood, and the very foundations of the temple--all dependent on Jahveh's menaces--that the execution of Jesus appears more rationally explicable by this dualistic propaganda than by any other ascribed to him.

It was the birth of a new G.o.d that moved Jerusalem: a unique G.o.d in Judea--and almost unknown in modern Christendom--namely, a GOOD G.o.d. As the Arabian gospel significantly relates, the Eastern Wise Men came to the cradle of Jesus as that of a saviour "prophesied by Zoroaster,"--the one prophet who separated deity from the realm of evil.

It is now even unorthodox to deny that the agonies of nature are part of the providence of G.o.d: but herein orthodoxy is in direct antagonism to what it maintains as the authentic teaching of Jesus. "Then was brought unto him one possessed of a devil, blind and dumb; and he healed him, insomuch that the dumb man spake and saw. And all the mult.i.tudes were amazed and said, Is this the Son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This man doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. And knowing their thoughts he said, Every dominion divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand; and if Satan casteth out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then shall his dominion stand?"

Those therefore who believe these to be the words of Jesus, and yet believe blindness, dumbness, and other physical diseases to be in any sense of divine providence or even permission, are believing in a G.o.d whom Jesus implicitly p.r.o.nounced to be Satan.

And those who do not believe that Jesus healed such diseases, nor believe in a personal Satan, may still regard the above legend as characteristic. The separation of Good and Evil into eternally antagonistic dominions could not have been affirmed by any Jew other than Jesus (or John the Baptist, probably however an Oriental dervish). Though the Jews popularly believed in Beelzebub and other devils, they were all regarded as under the omnipotence and control of Jahveh, who proudly claimed that he was the creator of all evil, and who even had lying spirits in his employ.

Whether Jesus believed in the personality of the evil principle, in any strict sense, may be questioned. He may have meant no more than Emerson, who pictured ill health as a ghoul preying on the heart and life of its victims. Memories of similar teachings may have given rise to the tales of healing afterwards a.s.sociated with Jesus. But the personality of evil is a more philosophical generalization than the personification of a power representing both the good and the evil phenomena of nature. Evil acts in concrete forms, and often in combinations of forces which can not be a.n.a.lysed and distributed into particular causes. History records instances of moral epidemics driving whole peoples as if down a steep place into seas of blood, as if by some pandemoniac possession, impressing the ordinarily humane along with the vindictive, the lawless and destructive. A great deal of crime seems disinterested, and still more is due to the fanatical inspiration of cruel deities, whose names become in other religions the names of devils. Out of manifold experiences in the tragical annals of mankind came the terrible Ahriman.

That Jesus did not adopt the Zoroastrian theology is shown in his hostility to sacrifices which are of vital importance in the Parsi system, though they were not of the cruel kind; nor, as we have seen, were they to propitiate G.o.ds, but to a.s.sist them. Moreover, belief in Ahriman had naturally evoked a militant spirit in the war against evil, and Jesus seems to have for this reason separated himself from the dervish, John the Baptist, whose violence had landed him in prison. The incident (Matt. xi.) is so wrapped in post-resurrectional phraseology that any rational interpretation must be conjectural; but there is a certain accent about it which can hardly be explained as part of the evangelical doctrine that the Baptist was a mere preface to Christ. Jesus seems to regard John the Baptizer as the ablest man of his time (verse 11), but as of a revolutionary spirit, as if the reformation were a siege against some political kingdom or throne. Violent people had been pressing around John, and the cause of spiritual liberation had suffered. There was too much of the old law with its thunders, too much of fiery Elijah, surviving in John. The ideal is not a thing to be clutched at, or taken by force, but all of the conditions--every t.i.ttle--must be fulfilled. (Luke xvi. 17.)

This is in substance a doctrine of evolution as opposed to revolution, and my interpretation may be suspected of rationalistic anachronism; but it must be remembered that the Golden Age behind Israel was an epoch of Peace, which was represented in the ancient name of their city (Salem), and of its greatest monarch, Solomon. The prophets had long been painting the visionary dawn with pigments of that glorious sunset. Solomon, true to his name, had allowed dismemberment of his kingdom rather than go to war against rebellion; and it is noticeable that in the apostolic age there was a principle against carnal weapons, the Epistle to the Hebrews (xii. 3, 4) especially reminding the brethren of the patient endurance of Jesus, and commending their not having "resisted unto blood." This peacefulness of Jesus had indeed become a basis of the doctrine that the triumph of Jesus over Satan was conditioned on his not using any force, or other satanic weapon. Those who took to the sword would perish thereby--i. e., remain in sheol.