Solomon and Solomonic Literature

by Moncure Daniel Conway

And blessed be His glorious name forever;

And let the whole earth be filled with His glory.

Amen, and Amen.”

Now in this beautiful poem (omitting the doxology) the elation is especially concerning some connexion with Sheba. In verse 10 it is said “The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts”; in verse 15, “To him shall be given of the gold of Sheba.” These lines might have been written on the announcement of a royal visit, or meeting, which had not mentioned a queen. But what country is indicated by Sheba (the Seven)? In India there are seven holy rivers, and seven holy Rishis, represented by the seven stars of the Great Bear. But these correspond with the Seven Rivers of Persia which enter into the Persian Gulf, in the Avesta called Satavæsa, a star-deity. In the Yîr Yast 9 it is said:

“Satavæsa makes those waters flow down to the seven Karshvares of the earth, and when he has arrived down there he stands, beautiful, spreading ease and joy on the fertile countries, thinking in himself, ‘How shall the countries of the Aryas grow fertile?’”

As there are seven heavens, there are seven earths (Karshvares), and these, as already shown (ante II.), are presided over by the “seven infinite ones” (Amesha-Spentas). Of these seven the first is Ahura Mazda himself, and of the others only one is female—Armaîti, genius of the earth. Of this wonderful and beautiful personification more must be said presently, but it may be said here that Armaîti was the spouse of Ahura Mazda, and Queen of the Seven,—the seven Ameshi-Spentas who preside respectively over the seven karshvares of the earth.

The function of Armaîti being to win men from nomadic life and warfare, to foster peace and tillage, she was a type of “the eternal feminine”; and such an ideal could hardly have been developed except in a region where women were held in great honour, nor could it fail to produce women worthy of honor. That such was the fact in Zoroastrian Persia is proved by many passages in the Avesta, wherein we find eminent women among the first disciples of Zoroaster. There is a litany to the Fravashis, or ever living and working spirits, of twenty-seven women, whose names are given in Favardîn Yast (139–142). Among these was the Queen Hutaosa, converted by Zoroaster, the wife of King Vîstâspa, the Constantine of Zoroastrianism. Hutaosa was naturally a visible and royal representative of Armaîti, “Queen of the Seven,” a princess of peace, a patroness of culture, to be imitated by other Persian queens.

That the sanctity of “seven” was impressed on all usages of life in Persia is shown in the story of Esther. King Ahasuerus feasts on the seventh day, has seven chamberlains, and consults the seven princes of Media and Persia (“wise men which knew the times”). When Esther finds favor of the King above all other maidens, as successor to deposed Vashti, she is at once given “the seven maidens, which were meet to be given her, out of the King’s house; and he removed her and her maidens to the best place of the house of the women.” Esther was thus a Queen of the Seven,—of Sheba, in Hebrew,—and although this was some centuries after Solomon’s time, there is every reason to suppose that the Zoroastrian social usages in Persia prevailed in Solomon’s time. At any rate we find in the ancient Psalm lxxii., labeled “Of Solomon,” Kings of Sheba (the Seven) mentioned along with the Euphrates, chief of the Seven Rivers (Zend Haptaheando); and remembering also the “sevens” of Esther, we may safely infer that a “Queen of Sheba” connoted a Persian or Median Queen.

We may also fairly infer, from the emphasis laid on “sevens” in Esther, in connexion with her wit and wisdom, that a Queen of the Seven had come to mean a wise woman, whether of Jewish or Persian origin, a woman instructed among the Magi, and enjoying the freedom allowed by them to women. There is no geographical difficulty in supposing that a Persian queen like Hutaosa, a devotee of Armaîti (Queen of the Seven, genius of Peace and Agriculture), might not have heard of Salem, the City of Peace, of its king whose title was the Peaceful (Solomon), and visited that city,—though of course the location of the meeting may have been only a later tradition.[1]

The object of the Queen’s visit to Solomon was “to test him with hard questions” as to his wisdom. It was not to discover or pay court to his wisdom, though he received from her “of the gold of Sheba” spoken of in the psalm. As a royal missionary of the Magi her ability and title to prove Solomon’s knowledge, and decide on it, are assumed in the narrative (1 Kings x.). Several sentences in her tribute to Solomon’s “wisdom and goodness” recall passages in the Psalm (lxxii.). There is here an intimation of some prevailing belief that Solomon’s wisdom was harmonious with the Zoroastrian wisdom. Whether the visit of the Queen be mythical or not, and even if both she and Solomon are regarded as mythical, the legend would none the less be an expression of a popular perception of elements not Jewish in Solomonic literature.