Solomon and Solomonic Literature

by Moncure Daniel Conway

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, passages or fragments of the early apostolic theology, wherein dualism, until crushed by Paul, was prominent, and the good God 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 substituted. 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 God that moved Jerusalem: a unique God in Judea—and almost unknown in modern Christendom—namely, a Good God. 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 God: 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 multitudes 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 God whom Jesus implicitly pronounced 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 associated 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 analysed 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 Parsî system, though they were not of the cruel kind; nor, as we have seen, were they to propitiate gods, but to assist 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 tittle—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.

But in a realm of practically oppressive and cruel superstitions, established and consecrated, an absolute appeal to the moral sentiment cannot escape being revolutionary. The American Anti-Slavery Society were non-resistants; their great leader, William Lloyd Garrison, thus apostrophised his “elder brother” of Jerusalem: