by
Damien F. Mackey
“Solomon plays the devil’s
advocate for every philosophical theory. He describes it, and sometimes even
seems to indulge in it, but eventually pulls back and points out its fatal flaw”.
Berel Wein
Part One:
One of first
truly great philosophers
….
The first major
assimilatory threat to the Jewish people was Greek culture. For the first time,
the Jews not only encountered a culture that provided an alternative, but, on
the surface at least, provided a superior culture. That is why there grew such
a great and strong Hellenistic movement within the Jewish people.
Greek Philosophy
Probably the most famous aspect of that culture is Greek philosophy.
It is an oversimplification, but the purpose of philosophy is to try to
explain life logically. As such, it is like sleeping in a bed with a blanket
that is a little too short. Something is always sticking out. There has never
been a philosophy that answers all the questions.
In our time, the value of philosophy has declined. We are more
interested in technology; in the how rather than the why. We send our children
to advanced schools of education where they will not be required to think about
the nature of life or the world. They are only required to think, “How do you
build a better computer?” “How do you make more money?” “How do you design a
more obsolete car?”
The idea of sitting for 30 years and contemplating the nature of life is
not very appealing in our time. Yet, for thousands of years in the Western
world that was the ultimate job. A philosopher held an especially high place in
the ancient world.
Where did philosophy begin? Jewish tradition says it began with King
Solomon. Many wise men from Athens came to him to test his wisdom, and it was
he who got them started on these ideas.
Mackey’s comment: There might be
anachronism involved here, with the Greek academic schools likely well
post-dating King Solomon. According to the Greeks, Thales was the first
philosopher, and I would be inclined to accept this within my revised context
of “Thales” being just a ghostly Greek recollection of the Hebrew patriarch
Joseph. See e.g. my article:
Re-Orienting
to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy
Berel Wein continues:
We can perhaps understand this better by studying Solomon’s, Ecclesiastes,
which is the first [sic] book of philosophy. It takes all the other
philosophies at the time – e.g. Hedonism, Fatalism and even what later on would
be called Epicureanism – and draws them out to their ultimate illogical
conclusion. Solomon examines all the possible philosophical answers that exist
in the world and does away with each of them: why this does not work and why
that does not work. In effect, he shows you where the blanket is too short.
Even the best philosophies.
Solomon plays the devil’s advocate for every philosophical theory. He
describes it, and sometimes even seems to indulge in it, but eventually pulls
back and points out its fatal flaw. After all is heard, he concludes, the
attempts to arrive at a unified philosophy to explain all of life logically is
vain and empty.
By extension that naturally leads to the necessity of faith and belief
in an Infinite Being whose ways are ultimately beyond the grasp of mere mortals
possessed of finite minds.
In the Jewish viewpoint, philosophy is really just an adjunct of Torah.
Even though it started its course in Western civilization under Jewish
auspices, the Jewish people never really developed it. …. [End of quote]
What was genuinely Greek anyway?
I have previously written:
“Much has been attributed to
the Greeks that did not belong to them … e.g. [professor] Breasted … made the
point that Hatshepsut’s marvellous temple structure was a witness to the fact
that the Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the later
Greeks would be credited as originators”.
Is Aeschylus, the so-called
“Father of Tragedy”, yet another of such Greek appropriations, in his case of
the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel with whom he is so frequently compared?
Similarly, I strongly suspect that one of the greatest of all the so-called
Greek sages, Solon, was - just like Thales - a westernized version of a Hebrew
(Jew), in Solon’s case, Solomon himself. I wrote about this in:
APPENDIX
B
SOLOMON IN GREEK FOLKLORE
There is a case in Greek ‘history’ of a wise
lawgiver who nonetheless over-organised his country, to the point of his being
unable to satisfy either rich or poor, and who then went off travelling for a
decade (notably in Egypt). This was Solon, who has come down to us as the first
great Athenian statesman. Plutarch … tells that, with people coming to visit
Solon every day, either to praise him or to ask him probing questions about the
meaning of his laws, he left Athens for a time, realising that ‘In great affairs
you cannot please all parties’.
According to Plutarch:
‘[Solon] made his commercial interests as a ship-owner
an excuse to travel and sailed away ... for ten years from the Athenians,
in the hope that during this period they would become accustomed to his laws.
He went first of all to Egypt and stayed for a while, as he mentions himself
‘where the
Nile pours forth
its waters by the shore of Canopus’.’
We recall Solon’s intellectual encounters with the
Egyptian priests at Heliopolis and Saïs (in the Nile Delta), as described in
Plutarch’s ‘Life of Solon’ and Plato's ‘Timaeus’ …. The chronology and
parentage of Solon were disputed even in ancient times …. Since he was a wise
statesman, an intellectual (poet, writer) whose administrative reforms, though
brilliant, eventually led to hardship for the poor and disenchantment for the
wealthy; and since Solon’s name is virtually identical to that of ‘Solomon’;
and since he went to Egypt (also to Cyprus, Sidon and Lydia) for about a decade
at the time when he was involved in the shipping business, then I suggest that
‘Solon’ of the Greeks was their version of Solomon, in the mid-to-late period
of his reign. The Greeks picked up the story and transferred it from Jerusalem
to Athens, just as they (or, at least Herodotus) later confused Sennacherib’s
attack on Jerusalem … by relocating it to Pelusium in Egypt …..
Much has been attributed to the Greeks that did not
belong to them - e.g. Breasted … made the point that Hatshepsut’s marvellous
temple structure was a witness to the fact that the Egyptians had developed
architectural styles for which the later Greeks would be credited as
originators. Given the Greeks' tendency to distort history, or to appropriate
inventions, one would not expect to find in Solon a perfect, mirror-image of
King Solomon.
Thanks to historical revisions … we now know that
the ‘Dark Age’ between the Mycenaean (or Heroic) period of Greek history
(concurrent with the time of Hatshepsut) and the Archaic period (that commences
with Solon), is an artificial construct. This makes it even more plausible that
Hatshepsut and Solomon were contemporaries of ‘Solon’. The tales of Solon’s
travels to Egypt, Sidon and Lydia (land of the Hittites) may well reflect to
some degree Solomon’s desire to appease his foreign women - Egyptian, Sidonian
and Hittite - by building shrines for them (I Kings 11: 1, 7-8).
Both Solomon and Solon are portrayed as being the
wisest amongst the wise. In the pragmatic Greek version Solon prayed for wealth
rather than wisdom - but ‘justly acquired wealth’, since Zeus punishes evil ….
In the Hebrew version, God gave ‘riches and honour’ to Solomon because he had
not asked for them, but had prayed instead for ‘a wise and discerning mind’, to
enable him properly to govern his people (I Kings 3:12-13).
[End of quote]
One
will likely find many traces of the real king Solomon in Greco-Roman folklore
and pseudo-history. The following rather fanciful article connects Solomon and
Salmoneus: https://epdf.tips/jewish-mythology.html
Was Solomon a God? The mythical purpose of “king”
Solomon is to build and dedicate the temple to establish that Jerusalem had
been associated with a temple founded by a great king called Solomon, not with
a god called Solomon. The Solomonic temple to Yehouah did not really exist—the
temple was to the god Solomon (Salem, Shalma)—but, having been destroyed by the
Babylonians, the Persian administrators could pretend it had always been to
Yehouah. No one in Yehud was in a position to deny it because it happened about
a hundred years before. So, the second temple set up by the “returners” is not
the second temple to Yehouah—it is the second temple all right, but the first
to Yehoauh or, at least exclusively to Yehouah. In the bible Solomon has the
powers of a Mesopotamian king—he is a melchizedek, in charge of the priesthood
and the cult. He conducts the consecration of the temple as High Priest and
blesses the qahal—the cultic community or congregation. But Solomon cannot
escape the inevitability of the agreed formula that God does not like kings and
even he is made to succumb to the temptations of apostasy and is punished as
the Deuteronomic Historian makes clear (1 Kg 11). The procedure for building
the temple—decision of the king, confirmation by god, securing materials and
labour, planning the building, inauguration and the king’s prayer, all followed
in 1 Kings 5-8—is that commonly attested in Mesopotamia from Gudea of Lacash
on. Because it was common practice, it says nothing about this particular
temple.
So, the temple to Solomon did
exist, but it was a Pagan temple to a Pagan god!
El-Amarna letters 74 and 290
mention “Bit-NIN.IB”, at first sight a reference to Assyria (House of Nineveh),
but Professor Jules Lewy, an Assyriologist, said it was better read as Bit
Shulman—the House of Solomon! The king of Damascus had commanded his chiefs, in
letter 74, to attack the king of Jerusalem, ordering them to “assemble in Bit
Shulman”. It must be near Jerusalem, or even in it if the plot was an
assassination not a field attack. In letter 290, the king of Jerusalem
complained to the Pharaoh that the Apiru were invading the land, adding: …and
now, in addition, the capital of the country of Jerusalem—its name is Bit
Shulman—the king’s city, has broken away… Towns in the ancient near east were
often called after the ruling god (or vice versa). Lewy concluded that
Jerusalem was also known at that time by the name “Temple of Shulman”—“bit”
(“beth” in Hebrew) in this context meaning temple. The text is ambiguous, but
Jerusalem here seems not to refer to a city but to a country. The capital city
or the king’s city was called Bit Shulman …
Mackey’s comment: For a different
interpretation of Bit Shulman, see
e.g. my article:
House of
Solomon
The Jewish-mythology article continues:
…. It was called Jebus or
Salem before David conquered the Jebusites and made it his capital city. Now
“salem” is taken to mean “peace” but in view of this information, it looks to
be a corruption of Shulman. The biblical story of Solomon begins to look like a
rationalization of the traditional name of a city named after Shulman, a god
found in Mesopotamian sources as Shelmi, Shulmanu or Salamu. The last of these
spellings is “salem!” In the Hebrew Bible, “Solomon” has no terminal “n”, the
“n” being added in the Greek Septuagint. Indeed, it is interesting that the
Greek Solomon, Salmoneus is the father of Tyro, the founding goddess of Tyre,
the Phoenician city—the Phoenicians were Canaanites. More pertinent is that an
important Phoenician god was Salim (Salem), the god of the evening, the evening
star symbolized by Venus, and the setting sun, representing peace, whence
“shalom”. Jerusalem, Absalom and Solomon share this root which appears all over
the near east, and is still a popular Moslem name. Was this a reference to
Solomon’s temple even at such an early date? ….
Part Two:
Seeking wisdom from youth
‘Therefore
I prayed, and understanding was given me;
I
called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.
I preferred her to scepters and thrones, and
I
accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her’.
Wisdom 7:7-8
‘You are a man of wisdom’ (I Kings 2:9)
What King Solomon could have
been!
Much of what Solomon was early in
life was thanks to the foresight of his father, King David (I Kings 2:1-4):
When
the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son.
‘I
am about to go the way of all the earth’, he said. ‘So be strong, act like a
man, and observe what the Lord
your God requires: Walk in obedience to him, and keep his decrees and commands,
his laws and regulations, as written in the Law of Moses. Do this so that you
may prosper in all you do and wherever you go and that the Lord may keep his promise to me: ‘If
your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me
with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a successor on the
throne of Israel’.’
Even Solomon’s magnificent Prayer
for Wisdom was likely prompted by King David’s sage advice to him (I Chronicles
22:12): ‘May the Lord give you wisdom
and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep
the law of the Lord your God’.
Solomon was, for his part, painfully aware at that time of his inexperience and
inadequacy for the massive task at hand (I Kings 3:7-9):
‘Now,
Lord my God, you have made your
servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do
not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you
have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your
servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between
right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?’
Though yet a youth, King Solomon
fully recognised where true “wealth” was to be found (Wisdom 7:1-30):
‘I
also am mortal, like everyone else,
a descendant of the first-formed child of earth;
and in the womb of a mother I was molded into flesh,
within the period of ten months, compacted with blood,
from the seed of a man and the pleasure of marriage.
And when I was born, I began to breathe the common air,
and fell upon the kindred earth;
my first sound was a cry, as is true of all.
I was nursed with care in swaddling cloths.
For no king has had a different beginning of existence;
there is for all one entrance into life, and one way out.
Therefore
I prayed, and understanding was given me;
I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.
I preferred her to scepters and thrones,
and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her.
Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem,
because all gold is but a little sand in her sight,
and silver will be accounted as clay before her.
I loved her more than health and beauty,
and I chose to have her rather than light,
because her radiance never ceases.
All
good things came to me along with her,
and in her hands uncounted wealth.
I rejoiced in them all, because wisdom leads them;
but I did not know that she was their mother.
I learned without guile and I impart without grudging;
I do not hide her wealth,
for it is an unfailing treasure for mortals;
those who get it obtain friendship with God,
commended for the gifts that come from instruction.
May
God grant me to speak with judgment,
and to have thoughts worthy of what I have received;
for he is the guide even of wisdom
and the corrector of the wise.
For both we and our words are in his hand,
as are all understanding and skill in crafts.
For it is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists,
to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements;
the beginning and end and middle of times,
the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the seasons,
the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars,
the natures of animals and the tempers of wild animals,
the powers of spirits and the thoughts of human beings,
the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots;
I learned both what is secret and what is manifest,
for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.
There is in her a spirit that is
intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible, beneficent, humane,
steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent, pure, and altogether subtle.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
Although she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.
She is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail’.
The Lord, who loves humility and
God-dependence, rather than self-dependence, praised Solomon for this choice of
his (I Kings 3:10-15):
The
Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, ‘Since
you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have
asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering
justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning
heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever
be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and
honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you
walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father
did, I will give you a long life’. Then Solomon awoke—and he realized it had
been a dream.
Unfortunately Solomon will, later
in his life, revert to self-dependence, thereby admixing his renowned wisdom
with folly. The example of one so great as the wise King Solomon may have been
enough to dissuade souls from pursuing wisdom. But, as St. Louis Grignion de
Montfort has explained in his Secret of Mary and his True Devotion to
Mary, sincere devotion to Her is the means by which we may become, in a
sense, ‘wiser than Solomon’, entrusting all to Her, without giving in to that
fatal self-reliance.
The big thing in the world today
is to “back yourself”, to “believe in yourself”.
All well and good. But,
spiritually speaking, we are no match for the Devil.
Thus St. Louis de Montfort again:
In
adopting this devotion, we put our graces, merits and virtues into safe keeping
by making Mary the depositary of them. It is as if we said to her, "See,
my dear Mother, here is the good that I have done through the grace of your
dear Son. I am not capable of keeping it, because of my weakness and
inconstancy, and also because so many wicked enemies are assailing me day and
night. Alas, every day we see cedars of Lebanon fall into the mire, and eagles
which had soared towards the sun become birds of darkness, a thousand of the
just falling to the left and ten thousand to the right. But, most powerful
Queen, hold me fast lest I fall. Keep a guard on all my possessions lest I be
robbed of them. I entrust all I have to you, for I know well who you are, and
that is why I confide myself entirely to you. You are faithful to God and man,
and you will not suffer anything I entrust to you to perish. You are powerful,
and nothing can harm you or rob you of anything you hold." "When you
follow Mary you will not go astray; when you pray to her, you will not despair;
when your mind is on her, you will not wander; when she holds you up, you will
not fall; when she protects you, you will have no fear; when she guides you,
you will feel no fatigue; when she is on your side, you will arrive safely
home" (Saint Bernard). And again, "She keeps her Son from striking
us; she prevents the devil from harming us; she preserves virtue in us; she
prevents our merits from being lost and our graces from receding." These
words of St Bernard explain in substance all that I have said. Had I but this
one motive to impel me to choose this devotion, namely, that of keeping me in
the grace of God and increasing that grace in me, my heart would burn with
longing for it.
…..
This
devotion makes the soul truly free by imbuing it with the liberty of the
children of God. Since we lower ourselves willingly to a state of slavery out
of love for Mary, our dear Mother, she out of gratitude opens wide our hearts
enabling us to walk with giant strides in the way of God's commandments. She
delivers our souls from weariness, sadness and scruples ….
With this in mind, youth can
begin once again to emulate Solomon, and to pray earnestly for the gift of
gifts: Wisdom - especially now in
this Age of the Divine Mercy, whose earthly agent, Sr. Faustina Kowalska,
prayed for ‘wisdom’ and ‘enlightenment’ (“not attained by one’s own efforts”)
as told in her “Diary”:
In it my soul bathes daily…, she
wrote, There is not a moment in my life when do not experience Your mercy
(Diary 697). It is like the golden thread running through our life,
which maintains in good order the contact of our being with God. … My
senses are transfixed with joy, she admitted sincerely, when God grants
me a deeper awareness of that great attribute of His; namely, His unfathomable
mercy (Diary 1466). Sister Faustina realised very clearly that the
knowledge of the mystery of Divine Mercy is not attained by one’s own efforts
alone but that the work of the human intellect must be strengthened by divine
grace. Thus, she pleaded, O My Jesus, give me wisdom, give me a mind great
and enlightened by Your light, and this only, that I may know You better, O
Lord. For the better I get to know You, the more ardently I will love You
(Diary 1030; cf. Diary 1474).
But what exactly is Wisdom?
It is one of the seven gifts of
the Holy Spirit: namely, Wisdom,
Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord.
(Cf. Isaiah 11:2-3 and I
Corinthians 12:1-11).
Being a gift of God, it is
therefore created:
“Wisdom, God’s gift, is one of
the Lord’s creations; the Bible depicts wisdom in female terms, but also as a
being, even a spiritual being as are God and His angels. God did not create
Wisdom for Himself; He created her to be shared with everyone else who is
willing to receive her”.
“Wisdom empowers a
person "to judge and order all things in accordance with divine norms and
with a connaturality that flows from a loving union with God." So while
knowledge and understanding enable a person to know and to penetrate the divine
truths, wisdom moves us to "fall in love" with them. The Holy Spirit
aids the contemplation of divine things, enabling the person to grow in union
with God”.
St. Louis de Montfort urges, in
his Love of the Eternal Wisdom: “Like Solomon and Daniel we must be men
of desire if we are to acquire this great treasure which is wisdom. (cf Dan
9.23). For by asking for Wisdom we ask for all the virtues possessed by
incarnate Wisdom”.
Our word “Philosophy” comes from
the Greek word for Wisdom, sophia (σοφία).
In the writings of Solomon, in
the Greek, Wisdom is depicted as “She”.
King David had also provided
enormous impetus (‘I have taken great pains’) for the future Jerusalem for
which Solomon would become famous (I Chronicles 22:1-10, 14-19):
Then David said, ‘The House of
the Lord God is to be here, and
also the altar of burnt offering for Israel’.
So David gave orders to
assemble the foreigners residing in Israel, and from among them he appointed
stonecutters to prepare dressed stone for building the house of God. He
provided a large amount of iron to make nails for the doors of the gateways and
for the fittings, and more bronze than could be weighed. He
also provided more cedar logs than could be counted, for the Sidonians and
Tyrians had brought large numbers of them to David.
David said, ‘My son Solomon is
young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the Lord should be of great magnificence and
fame and splendor in the sight of all the nations. Therefore I will make
preparations for it’. So David made extensive preparations before his death.
Then he called for his son
Solomon and charged him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel. David said to Solomon: ‘My son, I
had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. But this word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought
many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much
blood on the earth in my sight. But you will have a son who will be a man of
peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side.
His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his
reign. He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and
I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over
Israel forever’.
….
I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold,
a million talents of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be
weighed, and wood and stone. And you may add to them. You have many workers:
stonecutters, masons and carpenters, as well as those skilled in every kind of
work in gold and silver, bronze and iron—craftsmen beyond number. Now begin the
work, and the Lord be with you’.
Then
David ordered all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon. He said to
them, ‘Is not the Lord your God
with you? And has he not granted you rest on every side? For he has given the
inhabitants of the land into my hands, and the land is subject to the Lord and to his people. Now devote your
heart and soul to seeking the Lord
your God. Begin to build the sanctuary of the Lord
God, so that you may bring the Ark of the covenant of the Lord and the sacred articles belonging
to God into the Temple that will be built for the Name of the Lord’.
Less palatable were King David’s
further injunctions to Solomon concerning the treatment of those who had made
themselves odious to David (I Kings 2:5-9):
‘Now
you yourself know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me—what he did to the two
commanders of Israel’s armies, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. He
killed them, shedding their blood in peacetime as if in battle, and with that
blood he stained the belt around his waist and the sandals on his feet. Deal
with him according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to the
grave in peace.
But
show kindness to the sons of Barzillai of Gilead and let them be among those
who eat at your table. They stood by me when I fled from your brother Absalom. And
remember, you have with you Shimei son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, who
called down bitter curses on me the day I went to Mahanaim. When he came down
to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord:
‘I will not put you to death by the sword.’ But now, do not consider him
innocent. You are a man of wisdom; you will know what to do to him. Bring his
gray head down to the grave in blood’.
Joab, who had basically remained
loyal to King David, will now make the wrong move.
He will go over to the side of
David’s rebel son, Adonijah.
Adonijah’s play for the throne
We recall
that Adonijah, David’s “fourth” son (I Chronicles 3:2, “… fourth, Adonijah the son of
Haggith”), but now (with the three brothers dead) his oldest - hence, no doubt,
feeling entitled to rule - had begun to act in a manner most like Absalom
before him.
And, as with Absalom - but, in
Adonijah’s case, far more quickly - it would end very badly.
This time Joab and Abiathar the
priest were involved (I Kings 1:7-10):
Adonijah
conferred with Joab son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they gave
him their support. But Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the
prophet, Shimei and Rei and David’s special guard did not join Adonijah.
Adonijah
then sacrificed sheep, cattle and fattened calves at the Stone of Zoheleth near
En Rogel. He invited all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the royal
officials of Judah, but he did not invite Nathan the prophet or Benaiah or the
special guard or his brother Solomon.
King David, by now old and
unaware, was still being tended to by Abishag.
So the prophet Nathan will
intervene to make sure that David is informed that Adonijah has, against
David’s (and the Lord’s) express wish, declared himself king.
Nathan will approach the aged
king via Bathsheba (vv. 11-14):
Then
Nathan asked Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, ‘Have you not heard that Adonijah,
the son of Haggith, has become king, and our lord David knows nothing about it?
Now then, let me advise you how you can save your own life and the life of your
son Solomon. Go in to King David and say to him, ‘My lord the king, did you not
swear to me your servant: “Surely Solomon your son shall be king after me, and
he will sit on my throne”? Why then has Adonijah become king?’ While you are
still there talking to the king, I will come in and add my word to what you
have said’.
Bathsheba,
in turn, approaches King David with Abishag in attendance. The situation is
serious, because Adonijah’s illicit kingship could mean the death of Bathsheba
and her son, Solomon: ‘I
and my son Solomon will be treated as criminals’ (vv. 15-21):
So
Bathsheba went to see the aged king in his room, where Abishag the Shunammite
was attending him. Bathsheba bowed down, prostrating herself before the king.
‘What
is it you want?’ the king asked.
She
said to him, ‘My lord, you yourself swore to me your servant by the Lord your God: ‘Solomon your son shall
be king after me, and he will sit on my throne.’ But now Adonijah has become
king, and you, my lord the king, do not know about it. He has sacrificed great
numbers of cattle, fattened calves, and sheep, and has invited all the king’s
sons, Abiathar the priest and Joab the commander of the army, but he has not
invited Solomon your servant. My lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on
you, to learn from you who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after
him. Otherwise, as soon as my lord the king is laid to rest with his ancestors,
I and my son Solomon will be treated as criminals’.
This will be
the last, but one more incident, that we read of Abishag (qua Abishag).
Where she
will go after that will become most interesting.
Once King
David has been apprised of the dire situation, his vast regal experience kicks
in, and he orders the coronation of Solomon, so that Israel now has parallel
declarations of kingship (vv. 32-40):
King David said, ‘Call in Zadok
the priest, Nathan the prophet and Benaiah son of Jehoiada’. When they came
before the king, he said to them: ‘Take your lord’s servants with you and have
Solomon my son mount my own mule and take him down to Gihon. There have Zadok
the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet
and shout, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ Then you are to go up with him, and he is
to come and sit on my throne and reign in my place. I have appointed him ruler
over Israel and Judah’.
Benaiah son of Jehoiada
answered the king, ‘Amen! May the Lord,
the God of my lord the king, so declare it. As the Lord was with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon to
make his throne even greater than the throne of my lord King David!’
So
Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Kerethites
and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon mount King David’s mule, and they
escorted him to Gihon. Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred
tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet and all the people
shouted, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ And all the people went up after him, playing
pipes and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound.
The pattern of this regal
ceremony will later be employed by pharaoh Thutmose I, in the case of
Hatshepsut (currently assisting David as his nurse, Abishag – as I see it).
I have written on this:
“Comparing
the tri-partite parallel crowning ceremonies of Solomon, by King David,
and
of Hatshepsut by the 18th dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose (Tuthmosis) I.
The Coronation Ceremonies
The cultural
overflow from the Israel of kings David and Solomon went to the very heart of
the matter: to the coronation ceremony.
The very
ceremonial procedure, in its three phases, that David used for the coronation
of his chosen son, Solomon, was the procedure also used by pharaoh Thutmose I
in the coronation of Hatshepsut, who is thought to have been the pharaoh’s
daughter.
I have
followed J. Baikie for the Egyptian texts below (A History of Egypt, A.
and C. Black Ltd., London, 1929, Vol. 11, p. 63):
“David”,
we are told, “assembled at Jerusalem all the officials of the tribes, the
officers of the divisions that served the king, the commanders of thousands, …
of hundreds, the stewards of all the property … and all the seasoned
warriors” (I Chronicles 28:1).
Likewise
in the case of the young Hatshepsut, Thutmose I: “… caused that there be
brought to him the dignitaries of the king, the nobles, the companions, the
officers of the court, and the chief of the people.
Next,
David presented his son, Solomon, to the assembly as his successor, saying: ‘…
of all my sons … the Lord … has chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of
the kingdom of the Lord, over Israel. He said to me, ‘It is Solomon your
son …. I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his Father’.’ (vv. 5-6).
So
did Pharaoh present Hatshepsut to the august assembly: “Said His Majesty to
them: ‘This my daughter … Hatshepsut …. I have appointed her; she is my
successor, she it is assuredly who will sit on my wonderful seat [throne]. She
shall command the people in every place of the palace; she it is who shall lead
you …’.”
The
assembly of Israel concurred wholeheartedly with David’s decision: “And all the
assembly blessed the Lord … and bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord, and
did obeisance to the king …. And they ate and drank before the Lord on that day
with great gladness” (29:20, 22). Similarly, in the case of the Egyptian
officials: “They kissed the earth at his feet, when the royal word fell among
them …. They went forth, their mouths rejoiced, they published his proclamation
to them”.”
Might
not one have imagined that Egypt, so steeped in ceremony and cultic procedure
over so many dynasties and centuries would by now have had its own inviolable
court system?
How
great, therefore, must have been the Israel of King David’s time that even its
ceremonial procedures had flowed into Egypt?”
[End of quote]
Adonijah, having learned of Solomon’s enthronement, is
now in fear of his life.
But Solomon will spare him for the time being (vv.
49-53):
At this, all Adonijah’s guests rose in alarm and
dispersed. But Adonijah, in fear of Solomon, went and took hold of the horns of
the altar. Then Solomon was told, ‘Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon and is
clinging to the horns of the altar. He says, ‘Let King Solomon swear to me
today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword’.’
Solomon replied, ‘If he shows himself to be
worthy, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground; but if evil is found in
him, he will die’. Then King Solomon sent men, and they brought him down from
the altar. And Adonijah came and bowed down to King Solomon, and Solomon said,
‘Go to your home’.
The
throne now secure, King David finally passes away (I Kings 2:10-12): “Then
David rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. He had
reigned forty years over Israel—seven years in Hebron and thirty-three in
Jerusalem. So Solomon sat on the throne of his father David, and his rule was
firmly established”.
This meant that the desirable Abishag, consort of King
David, was now free to marry.
And Adonijah will make the fatal mistake of asking for
her (vv. 13-17):
Now Adonijah, the son of Haggith, went to
Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. Bathsheba asked him, ‘Do you come peacefully?’
He answered, ‘Yes, peacefully’. Then he added, ‘I
have something to say to you’.
‘You may say it’, she replied.
‘As
you know’, he said, “the kingdom was mine. All Israel looked to me as their king.
But things changed, and the kingdom has gone to my brother; for it has come to
him from the Lord. Now I have one
request to make of you. Do not refuse me’.
‘You may make it’, she said.
So he continued, ‘Please ask King Solomon—he will
not refuse you—to give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife’.
There
is much debate as to whether the sweetheart of Solomon in the Song of Solomon
(6:13) is a “Shulammite” or a Shunammite”: ‘Come back, come back, O
[Shulammite]; come back, come back, that we may gaze on you! Why would you gaze
on the [Shulammite] …’.
“Shulammite”
is thought to indicate that she belonged to Solomon (e.g. Solom[-on-]ite).
However,
the girl was clearly a Shunammite (I Kings 1:3): “Abishag, a Shunammite”,
hailing from the town of Shunem, where may have been the house of her
‘brother’, Absalom.
Adonijah
specifically asks, ‘… give me Abishag the Shunammite as my wife’.
He
would hardly have called her a Shulammite, as belonging to his rival Solomon.
Bathsheba,
who appears to be quite tentative in the presence of Adonijah, agrees to
approach her son, Solomon, in regard to Adonijah’s request for Abishag.
But
it will be the last request that the rebel ever makes (vv. 18-25):
‘Very well’, Bathsheba replied, ‘I will speak to
the king for you’.
When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to
him for Adonijah, the king stood up to meet her, bowed down to her and sat down
on his throne. He had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat down
at his right hand.
‘I have one small request to make of you’, she
said. ‘Do not refuse me’.
The king replied, ‘Make it, my mother; I will not
refuse you’.
So she said, ‘Let Abishag the Shunammite be given
in marriage to your brother Adonijah’.
King Solomon answered his mother, ‘Why do you
request Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? You might as well request the
kingdom for him—after all, he is my older brother—yes, for him and for Abiathar
the priest and Joab son of Zeruiah!’
Then King Solomon swore by the Lord: ‘May God deal with me, be it ever
so severely, if Adonijah does not pay with his life for this request! And now,
as surely as the Lord lives—he who
has established me securely on the throne of my father David and has founded a
dynasty for me as he promised—Adonijah shall be put to death today!’ So King
Solomon gave orders to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and he struck down Adonijah and
he died.
Bathsheba’s ‘Do not refuse me’, and Solomon’s reply, ‘I will
not refuse you’, may simply be standard court protocol. What this incident
clearly reveals are (i) Solomon’s own feelings for Abishag, and (ii) her
new-found status: for, to have Abishag appears to be synonymous with having the
throne: ‘You might as well request the kingdom for him’.
This was the end, too, of Joab, who had sided with
Adonijah.
And Joab knew it (vv. 28-35):
When the news reached Joab, who had conspired
with Adonijah though not with Absalom, he fled to the tent of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the
altar. King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord and was beside the altar. Then
Solomon ordered Benaiah son of Jehoiada, ‘Go, strike him down!’
So Benaiah entered the tent of the Lord and said to Joab, ‘The king says,
‘Come out!’.’
But he answered, ‘No, I will die here’.
Benaiah reported to the king, ‘This is how Joab
answered me’.
Then the king commanded Benaiah, ‘Do as he says.
Strike him down and bury him, and so clear me and my whole family of the guilt
of the innocent blood that Joab shed. The Lord
will repay him for the blood he shed, because without my father David knowing
it he attacked two men and killed them with the sword. Both of them—Abner son
of Ner, commander of Israel’s army, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of
Judah’s army—were better men and more upright than he. May the guilt of their
blood rest on the head of Joab and his descendants forever. But on David and
his descendants, his house and his throne, may there be the Lord’s peace forever’.
So Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up and struck
down Joab and killed him, and he was buried at his home out in the country. The
king put Benaiah son of Jehoiada over the army in Joab’s position and replaced
Abiathar with Zadok the priest.
Shimei, given a reprieve by Solomon (which lasted for
three years), will ultimately fail to obey the latter’s command with regard to
him (v. 46): “Then the king gave the order to Benaiah son of
Jehoiada, and he went out and struck Shimei down and he died.
The
kingdom was now established in Solomon’s hands”.
King David, his life filled with trials, and ‘hard
roads’, and bloodshed, had laid the seeds for a truly Golden Age of history
that would be fully realised during the peaceful reign of Solomon.
Did these two great Israelite rulers become the model
kings for the Greeks and Romans?
After church one day, I spoke to a friend and I
brought up a thought I had during the service about David and Solomon being the
first Philosopher Kings. Everything I heard about Plato’s Philosopher kings was
that he led by great wisdom. I started to think if Plato used Solomon as the
cornerstone of his work “The Republic”? Solomon, being the wisest man the world
has known, brought great wealth and power to Israel and the people were at
peace. He would have been the perfect person to base a great leader on. Plus
Plato lived in the 4th Century BC. Plus he traveled greatly during the time
including a trip to Judea before writing this Classic. This peaked my interest,
that perhaps the great Philosopher King that the earthly world is clamoring for
is based on Solomon? I had to do more research. I had read many accounts of
“The Republic” but I had never read the Dialogue, so I read the work and here
is what I found.
The Dialogues of Plato are written almost as
plays, that places his old mentor Socrates as the central character. Plato
seems to explain his thoughts through the interaction of Socrates with the
other characters in the story.
The Republic starts as Socrates and a few friends
going to a festival and they start talking about philosophy of a just man, then
move into a story of the best government for the people and who should lead it.
All through this Dialogue he uses Socrates’ questioning style to maneuver the
other characters into his line of thought. He speaks about leaders and being a
just ruler by stating that a just ruler does thing for the weak the same way
that a Doctor does things for the sick and not the healthy, and the same way a
captain does things for the good of the crew not what is good for him.
Then he goes on and describes justice and praises
the just man. Socrates’ friend gives a description of the purely unjust man and
shows how a perfectly unjust man will [seem] like the most just man of all.
They state that the truly unjust man will go about it in the truly right way
and gets away with it. The one that is not perfectly unjust will gets caught
and is considered incompetent and is not the perfectly unjust, since perfect
injustice consists of appearing just when you are not. The perfectly unjust man
will have reputation of being the most just man. Then we need to contrast him
with the “truly” just man. He is a simple and honorable man that does not
appear to be just. We must deprive him of the appearance of justice because the
appearance of justice will bring him recognition and rewards and then it will
not be clear if his motive for justice was a desire for justice or a desire for
the rewards and the recognition. This I disagree with completely, that a
perfectly just man will not care of the view of others. He will do what is just
and leave it at that, not boasting or using this deed. Plato contends that we
must strip him of everything but justice. He must have the worst possible
reputation for injustice but truly being just, and have this reputation until
his death. This description almost makes me think that Plato has a premonition
of the only truly just man. Does not Christ meet every aspect of the truly just
man listed above? Was he not given a criminal’s death when he was completely
just? They then talk of the life that awaits them both here on earth. The
unjust man would ask to rule cities because he has the reputation of justice.
He can marry who he likes and make contract and partnership with who he wants.
He finds it easy to make himself a rich man because he has no compunction about
acting unjustly. And the just man is nothing of the sort. He just receives a
cross to bear (These are my words).
Socrates defends the just man. And he gives the
just man three elements to being just; Courage, Wisdom, Temperance or
Self-discipline. First Socrates changes the subject to a just city but intends
to describe the just man with the description of the just city. They start with
the origin of a city. He starts stating that the origin of a city is because
not one of us is self sufficient and need others. He starts talking about how a
city is formed and what makes a just city and come to conclusion that a just
city is just because of its rulers are just. At this point, he explains that
citizens should be classified into four types, the Gold, the Silver, the Bronze
and Iron. Gold should be the ruling class and would be the best of the people.
They should be trained to be the most just and wise. They should also be
removed from the need for money and therefore not be restrained by greed. They
should learn the needs of the people and learn what is best for the people. The
Silver would be the warrior class and the other lesser important leader roles
like doctors and such. And next would be the Bronze and lower classes. These
are the common people that need leaders.
The guardian class or Gold class would live
communally and would need for nothing except the needs of their people. They
would learn from an early life the philosophy and manager skills to run a city.
Socrates finally states that these leaders should be Philosophy Kings, for only
the Philosopher can have the wisdom to run such a city. He states that these
rulers should do whatever is needed to better the lives of the people. Then a
question on the women and the children come up, and he comes to say that the
families for the ruling class should be in common, that women should be treated
the same as the guardian men, each man with knowledge of each women and not
knowing his children. With children he states, that the best class should
reproduce and have many children and with the lower classes it would only be
best that the embryos never see the light of day. This is also the view of any
deformed children; only the best people should be born, not the lesser people.
After defining the just city he returns to the
just man and states that the just man would be one that does what he is best
suited to do; a hunter being a hunter, a farmer being a farmer, a bronze man
being a bronze man and a ruler being a ruler. A hunter should not be a ruler
because he does not have the skills to be a ruler. Only one trained to rule
should rule.
All in all I came from this book with a greater
understanding of the liberal view of today’s society. The leaders of the
liberal view feel that they are Philosopher Kings in charge of a great just
city, and they are the great defender of this city. These are the same liberals
that called for free love and communal living in the 60‘s. They force abortion
on the lower classes and try to destroy the common people’s society by
degrading the value of marriage. All of this thought came not just from Plato,
but also from Rousseau and Voltaire. Rousseau and Voltaire shouted “let us make
a heaven here on earth and forget about God. Let us rely on reason and human
understanding.” These are the same people that attempted at trying to have
Enlighten Despots in many European nations, that would rule a nation like these
Philosopher Kings of Plato and Socrates, but they all failed with huge amounts
of bloodshed; with the French Revolution the bloodiest of all.
In all of these descriptions of the just man I saw
one thing. The just man that they described is the perfectly unjust man of the
first part of the story. “…The truly unjust man goes about it in the truly
right way and gets away with it. The one that gets caught is considered
incompetent since perfect injustice consists of appearing just when you are
not. They will have the reputation of being the most just man…” They gave this
statement when describing the unjust man. Does the Just man in the second part
of the story not sound like he will have the gone about it in the right way?
This just man lies to his people because “The end justifies the means” and ends
up doing what is not just for all the people; only the ruling class. He does
all of this in the guise of making the best choices for the society.
Plato tried to introduce his great leader as a man
that uses his great human reasoning ability. He believed that man’s wisdom
could create a society that was perfectly just, but he did not want to admit
that man could never be perfectly just. That ingrained into him was something
that would always move to the evil inside of his spirit. Since he lived only a
couple hundred years after the greatest part of Israel‘s history, Plato must of
known of the story of how David and Solomon ruled with great wisdom and created
a great and just nation. He must have known that with this great wisdom that
each man ended up doing unjust things after failing to follow God’s guidance. So
in the end even Solomon, whom was considered the wisest man ever to live, that
had great courage, and was very self-disciplined, ended up becoming unjust to
his people and led them astray.
I will say that at the same time of the
Enlightenment and the attempts of Philosopher Kings in Europe, a group of
castaways in the new world created a different republic that was not formed in
the image of Plato’s Republic, but in the theory that each individual is as
great as another and getting representatives from all the people would create a
truly just nation. They based there nation on something different then man’s
wisdom; God’s wisdom. Thomas Jefferson, who admired the French enlightened
leaders as a Deist, still spent many a line on the importance of God in society.
As is written in a Memorial dedicated to this man are these words.
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the
liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these
liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just. That his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between
Master and Slave is Despotism. Nothing is more written in the book of fate then
that these people are to be free. ….
[End of quote]
Part Three:
Solomon a lover,
poet and mystic
‘I
am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
as
the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon’.
Song of Solomon
1:5
Levels of Meaning
The Song of Solomon is also known
as the “Song of Songs”, or the “Canticle of Canticles”, which was a way, at
that time, of expressing the superlative. In grammar, superlative can be
defined as: “The degree of grammatical comparison that denotes an extreme or
unsurpassed level or extent”:
http://mistupid.com/literature/litterms.htm
Thus Hatshepsut will call her
magnificent temple at Deir el-Bahri, Djeser-djeseru, meaning the
“Sacred of Sacreds”, or “Holy of Holiest”.
And her great Steward, Senenmut
(Senmut), will be referred to as “the greatest of the great, noblest of the
nobles” (Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
N.Y., Cat. No. 67).
The Canticle has various layers
of meaning, including the level of sublime mystical theology.
….
The
Allegorical View
The notion that the Song of
Songs should be understood in its plain normal sense has been firmly resisted
throughout most of history. Advocates of the allegorical view have been adamant
that there must be some "spiritual" message to the book that exceeds
the supposed earthly theme of human sexuality. …. As a result, the allegorists
have stressed a spiritual meaning that goes beneath the surface reading. The
outcome of this method, however, has been a host of interpretations as numerous
as those who follow this approach. Jewish interpreters understood the text as
an allegory of the love between God and the nation of Israel, and Christian
interpreters have suggested that the book depicts love between Christ and His
bride, the church. The interpretation of the details, however, became quite
varied and fanciful.
Jewish Allegorical View
Traces of the allegorical
interpretation of the Song of Songs are found as early as the Jewish Mishnah (Ta'anith
4.8)…. This approach was also followed in the Targum, the Midrash Rabbah … and
by the medieval Jewish commentators Saadia, Rashi, and Ibn Ezra. The Targum on
the Song interpreted the book as expressing the gracious love of God toward His
people manifested in periods of Hebrew history from the Exodus until the coming
of the Messiah (these historical periods were supposedly discernible in the
Song of Songs)….
Christian Allegorical View (Primary
Model)
Christian commentators applied
a similar allegorical method in their interpretation of the Song, viewing the
bridegroom as Jesus Christ and the bride as His church. This has been the
dominant Christian view for most of church history …. Exactly when this view
was first embraced by Christians is not known. All one can say is that evidence
of it exists as early as Hippolytus (ca. A.D. 200), though only fragments of
his commentary have survived…. Interpretations of the details of the Song have
been quite varied, but the following examples suffice to give the general sense
of how the text was treated. The one who is brought into the king's chambers
(1:4) is said to be those whom Christ had wedded and brought into His church.
The breasts in 4:5 are taken
to be the Old and New Covenants, and the "hill of frankincense" in
4:6 is said to speak of the eminence to which those who crucify fleshly desires
are exalted.
Not surprisingly, Origen
became the grand champion of the allegorical interpretation of Song of Songs.
In addition to a series of homilies, he produced a ten-volume commentary on the
book…. Origen was influenced by the Jewish interpretation and by his elder
contemporary Hippolytus, but he was also a product of several … philosophical
forces at work in his day, namely, asceticism and Gnostic tendencies that
viewed the material world as evil. "Origen combined the Platonic and
Gnostic attitudes toward sexuality to denature the Canticle and transform it
into a spiritual drama free from all carnality. The reader was admonished to
mortify the flesh and to take nothing predicated of the Song with reference to
bodily functions, but rather to apply everything toward the apprehension of the
divine senses of the inner man.". ….
Deus Caritas Est is a lovely teaching, calm and ordered and readily
accessible with a little close attention. Pope Benedict clearly also has a
number of other agendas in his encyclical. He reports with candour a series of
criticisms and misunderstandings of the Christian position and deals with them
by quiet reaffirmations of the genuine Christian and Catholic faith and
practice. In the second part he is clearly concerned with some issues internal
to the Church, and especially the corruption of her exercise of practical
charity by ideological motives, and by the lack of prayer and connection to
God, leading to mere social activism.
In
the earlier, more ‘theoretical’ part, he is concerned about misunderstandings
of the role of eros in
Christian theology and anthropology. Years ago in a second-hand book shop in
Carlton, I came across and purchased a book, Agape
and Eros, by a Swedish Lutheran theologian who became Lutheran
Bishop of Lund, Anders Nygren (1890-1978). The book had actually belonged to
the former Anglican bishop of Melbourne, David Penman. Nygren’s book created
quite a stir in its time. Nygren set up an all too neat and simple dichotomy: Agape is the name for that
which is alone Christian love, and it is the opposite of Eros, which is the name for
a worldly and pagan concept of love. Agape
is descending, self-sacrificial love, only concerned for the good
of the other, whereas eros is
ascending, self-interested love, possessive of the object of its desire. Plato
gets short shrift in Nygren, and so alas, does St Gregory of Nyssa. He builds
his hypothesis on a linguistic theory that there are neat distinctions in the
various Greek words for love. Let me tell you from long experience in reading
Greek, the semantics of the various verbs for love in Greek, agapao, erao, phileo and storgeo, are
far from so discrete as Nygren thinks. Without a doubt, Protestant ideas of
soteriology affected his thinking, ideas about being saved by faith alone
without works, imputed righteousness, and the rejection of the analogia entis (see CCC
#50), which together with the analogia
fidei is held to be valid and necessary in Catholic life, faith and
theology.
Pope
Benedict gently corrects the misunderstandings of this thesis. He points to the
use of spousal and erotic love used in Scripture as a privileged metaphor for
the relationship of God and man.
He
even mentions a beautiful myth recorded by Plato, according to which man and
woman were originally two halves of a unitary nature, but which was sundered
because of pride, and hence each has a deep-seated need to rejoin the other
half. This actually comes from Plato’s work, the Symposium, which is of capital importance in
the history of the understanding of eros.
If you have any pretensions to Catholic intellectual life, you
should make sure that you make a reading of it part of your feeding of the
mind. Here is the pre-eminent source in classical literature for the concept of
a transcendent eros. Diotima of Mantineia, Socrates’ preceptress, probes the
real nature of eros.{{1}} She argues that it is a mistake to simply … identify eros with sexual passion.
Its essence rather is in yearning for the good and the beautiful. Once this
yearning is emancipated from confusion, once one learns to govern it with
virtue, it is capable of leading the healthfully erotic soul upward to the
ultimately Good and the ultimately Beautiful, what she calls ‘the divine
beauty’ … which is easily assimilated to the Christian concept of God.
Then
Pope Benedict elucidates the scriptural use of eros, identified with spousal love, as a
metaphor for the relationship of God and man. I never tire pointing out in my
lectures that this powerful metaphor can be followed like a thread linking the
entire Scripture, beginning with the creation of man and woman in the image of God, in
Genesis, to the cry of spousal longing on the part of the Bride who is the
Church, in the very last verses of the Apocalypse. Benedict insists that the
Old Testament ‘in no way rejected eros
as such’, but ‘declared war on a warped and destructive form of it’
(p. 10). Debased eros then,
‘needs to be disciplined and purified, if it is to provide not just fleeting
pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that
beatitude from which our whole being yearns.’ In short, he says, ‘Purification
and growth in maturity are called for; and these also pass through the path of
renunciation. Far from rejecting or “poisoning” eros, they heal and restore its true
grandeur.’
Seeking
to understand this path of ascent and purification, Pope Benedict turns to the Song of Songs, ‘an Old
Testament book’ he says, ‘well known to the mystics’. This book, a series of
passionate appeals between bride and groom, glowing with sensuousness and
ardour, was nevertheless given a place in the canon. No doubt its inspired
redactor and/or those who canonised it, read it as a metaphor of the
relationship between God and Israel, a symbolic tradition initiated by the
eighth century prophet Hosea. Perhaps the Song is best understood religiously as
the presentation of a hoped-for consummation in the future when Israel will no
longer be unfaithful to the Lord. Her faithfulness will be proved even when the
Lord seems to have vanished and she cannot find him. Her dispositions will have
become so purified and steadfast, that she will no more turn aside to another.
The experience of absence does not ruin her aspiration, but leads to a
redoubling of her fidelity. As Pope Benedict characterises it: ‘Love now
becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it a sinking in the
intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes
renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice’ (p. 13). Without
doubt these mysterious passages about the Bridegroom’s absence that have so
inspired the apophatic theologians, virgins and mystics over the centuries, are
the key to the religious meaning
of the Song of Songs, through
which we pass from earthly marriage to metaphor to the mystical heights.
In
presenting eros and
agape as two
dimensions of the single reality of love: ‘at different times, one or other
dimension may emerge more clearly’ (p. 17), Pope Benedict shows himself in
complete accord with those Church Fathers who knew how to use the best of
Plato’s hints about a spiritual eros
in service of the Christian life and faith rooted in the revealed
word of God. Such are Origen, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Pseudo-Dionysius
and Gregory of Nyssa (some, but not all of them acknowledged in the footnotes
of the Pope’s encyclical). You know that wonderful Latin hymn for Holy
Thursday, popularised by the Taize chant: Ubi
Caritas et Amor, Deus ibi est. If we use the exact Greek
equivalents it means: Where
there is agape and eros, God is there. There is some scholarly
dispute these days as to whether the original words were Ubi Caritas est vera. At
any rate, Pope Benedict alludes to another, much earlier source for this saying
(p. 18, p. 70 n. 7), namely, Pseudo-Dionysius, a late fifth century Syrian
writer, whose books, especially On
the Divine Names and Mystical Theology, had huge influence in the
development of Christian sacramental and mystical theology. ….
J. Paul Tanner
continues:
Undoubtedly this diminished
view of human sexuality, so prevalent in that day, fanned the flames of the
allegorical interpretation of the Song. There were few dissenting voices over
the years … and even the greatest Christian leaders succumbed to this approach.
As Glickman points out, "No less a theologian than Augustine fell into
this error, genuinely espousing the view that the only purpose for intercourse
is the bearing of children and that before the fall of Adam it was not
necessary even for that."….
Jerome (331-420), who produced
the Latin Vulgate, praised Origen and embraced most of his views. As a result,
he was instrumental in introducing the allegorical interpretation into the
Western churches. Bernard of Clairvaux (1909-1153) preached eighty-six sermons
on the Song of Songs, covering only the first two chapters. He was given to
obsessive allegorical interpretation in an attempt to purge it of any
suggestion of "carnal lust." Many others throughout church history
approached the book allegorically, including John Wesley, Matthew Henry, E. W.
Hengstenberg, C. F. Keil, and H. A. Ironside….
Alternative Christian Allegorical
Views
Other types of allegorical
interpretations over the years differ from the predominant view in which the
main characters represent Christ and the church.
The bride as Mary, the
mother of Jesus. Within the Mariology movement of Roman Catholicism, the
bride of the Song of Songs has sometimes been allegorically interpreted as
Mary, the mother of Jesus. For instance, "you are altogether beautiful, my
darling, and there is no blemish in you" (4:7), is used to support the
doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary. While this is an ancient view,
it has been given fresh impetus in recent years through the studies of Rivera,
who seems to have linked the allegorical view of the church with Mary. He says
that what is true of the church is true in a very special way of her who had
such a privileged relationship to the church….
The bride as the state
under Solomon's rule. While rejecting the normal allegorical
interpretation, Martin Luther was still not able to embrace the literal erotic
sense of the book. So he "propounded the theory that the bride of the Song
is the happy and peaceful State under Solomon's rule and that the Song is a
hymn in which Solomon thanks God for the divine gift of obedience."….
The prophetic narrative of
church history. Johannes Cocceius (1603-1609), who originally expounded
the "federal view" of the imputation of sin for Reformed theology,
held a rather novel interpretation of the Song of Songs. He presented the Song
as a prophetical narrative of the transactions and events that are to happen in
the Church. The divisions of the book correspond to the periods of the history
of the Church and to the seven trumpets and the seven seals of the Apocalypse
of John…. The exposition becomes particularly full and detailed with the
Reformation and culminates with the future triumph of Protestantism….
The mystical marriage view.
In addition to the Mariology treatment, another view surfaced within Roman
Catholic mystical theology. In this view the Song teaches the "mystical
marriage" of the union of the soul with God when the loving awareness of
God becomes most transcendent and permanent…. Supposedly, as the Christian soul
passes through a series of mystical states in comprehending this "loving
awareness of God," it eventually culminates in a "mystical
marriage" in which one is dissolved into the love of God and purified of
any self-love.
The eucharistic view.
A variation of the preceding view is that the Song refers to the mystical union
that takes place between the soul and Christ during Holy Communion.
…”.
[End of quotes]
It is not
surprising that the Holy Spirit could inspire multiple levels of meaning, from
the literal-historical level, the sublime love between the historical
Solomon and the “Shunammite”, all the way through to the highest mystical levels,
of which St. John of the Cross was a master: the spousal love of Jesus Christ
for the soul, as well as for His bride, the Church.
Songs of the Soul
by St. John of the Cross
1. On a dark night,
kindled in love with yearnings
-- oh, happy chance! --
I went forth without being observed,
my house being now at rest.
2. In darkness and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised
-- oh, happy chance! --
in darkness and in concealment,
my house being now at rest.
3. In the happy night,
in secret, when none saw me,
nor I beheld aught,
without light or guide,
save that which burned in my heart.
4. This light guided me
more surely than the light of noonday
to the place where he was awaiting me
-- well I knew who! --
a place where none appeared.
5. Oh, night that guided me,
oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
oh, night that joined
beloved with lover,
lover transformed in the Beloved!
6. Upon my flowery breast,
kept wholly for himself alone,
there he stayed sleeping,
and I caressed him,
and the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
7. The breeze blew from the turret
as I parted his locks;
with his gentle hand
he wounded my neck
and caused all my senses to be suspended.
8. I remained, lost in oblivion;
my face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten
among the lilies.
Mystics invariably
tend to be poets.
If
you want to speak of the ineffable and the essential, there is no better medium
than poetry. Poetry is the language of the spirit and the soul, not of the
discursive mind. It compresses the lived truth of the poet’s experience into a
beauty and wisdom that can slip under the skin of the reader and enter their bloodstream.
When you don’t know what to say you cry out, and those cries are the beginning
of poetry. They are the language informed not only by the mind but by the body
and heart as well. Poetry is the language of choice for mystics in all
traditions who have tried to communicate their insights and experiences for the
benefit of those who will listen.
The youthful King Solomon loved God
and was loved by God (2 Samuel 12:25): “… because the Lord loved him, he sent word through
Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah [meaning “Loved by the Lord”]”
The love poetry of Davidic
(Solomonic) Israel began to permeate Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt:
Ancient Egyptian Love
Poems Reveal a Lust for Life
Cameron Walker
for National Geographic News
April 20, 2004
Pyramids,
mummies, tombs, and other icons of aristocracy and the afterlife dominate our
images of ancient Egypt. But love poems composed thousands of years ago may
provide a more intimate glimpse of the lives of everyday ancient Egyptians.
"Poetry
is perhaps the greatest forgotten treasure of ancient Egypt," said Richard
Parkinson, an expert on ancient Egyptian poetry at London's British Museum,
home to the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts outside of Cairo.
While
historical accounts and biographies inscribed on the insides of tombs often
give idealized accounts of ancient Egyptian life, poetry gives real insight
into human nature and its imperfections, he said.
A
group of love poems have been found in an excavated workers' village on the
outskirts of the Valley of Kings, where many pharaohs are entombed.
The
verses allow poetry lovers and Egyptophiles alike to tap into the emotional
side of Egyptian daily life. "People tend to assume all ancient Egyptian
writing is religious, so the secular nature of these songs and of much other
poetry continue to surprise readers," Parkinson said.
Written
during Egypt's New Kingdom (1539-1075 B.C.) [sic] … these songs are
surprisingly direct about love and romance in ancient Egypt, using metaphors,
repetition, and other poetic techniques familiar to poetry readers today.
The Flower Song (Excerpt)
To hear your voice is pomegranate wine to me:
I draw life from hearing
it.
Could I see you with every
glance,
It would be better for me
Than to eat or to drink.
(Translated by M.V. Fox)”
Compare Song of
Solomon (4:3, 7; 6:13):
Your lips are like a
scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your
veil
are like the halves of a
pomegranate.
You are altogether
beautiful, my darling;
there is no flaw in you.
…
Come back, come back,
O Shunammite; come back,
come back,
that we may gaze on you.
Will Groben, has
noted the similarity between the Song of Solomon and Egyptian love poetry. “The
Song of Songs and Ancient Near East Love Poetry”, he, though, drawing the
typical conclusion that the biblical Song “follows the genre of Egyptian love
songs”:
The Song of Songs does have
similarities with Egyptian love songs which were popular at the time of
Solomon. The Egyptian love songs have a similar look and feel to the Song of
Songs, with similar imagery [e.g. love being better than alcohol], themes [love
sickness], structure [interchange of dialogue between lovers], and metaphors
[royal]. Egyptian love songs were secular and literal, not religious and
allegorical.
Since the Song of Songs apparently
follows the genre of Egyptian love songs, we should interpret the Song of Songs
to speak of love between a man and a woman. Its canonicity suggests the
sanctification [setting out for God’s purposes] of marital erotic love.
Egyptian
love songs were for entertainment and sometimes were gathered together into
larger collections, which might have a common theme. As the Song of Songs
apparently follows the genre of Egyptian love songs, it could be one long song
with a narrative or a collection of songs which would have thematic unity but
not an ongoing narrative. If the latter is the case, imposing a narrative on
the Song of Songs would create false connections between the songs and lead to
erroneous inferences. If the former is the case, denying the narrative would
obscure some of what the Song is teaching.
There
is cohesiveness to the Song of Songs, along with homogeneity of style,
consistent refrains, and a consistent setting of spring in the country, all of
which suggests this is an integrated unit, not a mere collection of individual
parts.
The
“Shunammite”
I have multi-identified her:
Abishag: “… a beautiful young woman … a Shunammite” (I
Kings 1:3).
Tamar: “Now David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister
named Tamar” (2 Samuel 13:1).
Shunammite: “… fairest among women” (Song of Solomon 1:8).
Queen of Sheba: “King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all
she desired and asked for …” (I Kings 10:13).
Pharaoh’s Daughter: “Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh
king of Egypt and married his daughter” (I Kings 3:1).
Hatshepsut: Whose name means “foremost of noble
women”.
This can make for some really tricky geography and
ethnicity, however.
How can she be, at once, a girl from Shunem in
northern Israel; a Queen of exotic “Sheba”; and an Egyptian royal?
And now we read in Song of Solomon 1:5 that she
may have been “black”.
But, whilst that appears to be the literal meaning
of the Hebrew word here: shechorah שְׁחוֹרָה
according to
1:6, she became dark from working under the sun
“The word
translated looked upon occurs only twice besides (
Job 20:9;
Job 28:7). The “all-seeing sun”
is a commonplace of poetry; but here with sense of scorching. The heroine goes
on to explain the cause of her exposure to the sun. Her dark complexion is
accidental, and cannot therefore be used as an argument that she was an
Egyptian princess, whose nuptials with Solomon are celebrated in the poem”.
Little wonder that Solomon will ask: ‘Who is she
…?’ (Song of Solomon 6:10).
Here is my tentative reconstruction of her amazing
life:
Our
“she” began as a beautiful foreign captive girl, daughter of Maacah (Maakah),
possibly an Egyptian (Maat-ka-re), who had become the property, maid-servant,
of King Talmai of Geshur, a southern kingdom fronting Egypt.
King
David acquired Maacah perhaps during his raids on the “Geshurites” (I Samuel
27:8) - or he may have made a treaty with King Talmai - and subsequently
Maacah, now David’s wife, would give birth to Absalom at Hebron (I Chronicles
3:2).
Now,
Absalom had a “beautiful sister” called Tamar, according to 2 Samuel 13:1,
though some Jewish traditions suggest that Tamar was not Absalom’s actual
sister, but, perhaps, a captive girl. She may possibly have been “black”, or,
at least, “dark” - an Egyptian, Nubian (or Ethiopian)?
Or
just sun-burnt.
She
is contrasted with the (presumably fairer skinned) “daughters of Jerusalem”,
who may not, though, have had to work out in the sun.
Hebrew-named in 2
Samuel as “Tamar” (“date palm”), the name she is given in I Kings is “Abishag”,
an awkward name, that may be a Hebraïsed version of Hatshepsut, which has been
given many variations. Sir Alan Gardiner, for instance, in Egypt of the
Pharaohs (1960), will name her: Ḥashepsowe.
She
lived in the house of Absalom, which I have suggested was situated at Shunem,
in the approximate vicinity of Baal-hamon where Solomon had a vineyard (Song of
Solomon 8:11).
Joab
had a field adjoining Absalom’s (2 Samuel 14:30).
It
may actually have been her “mother’s house” (Song of Solomon 6:9).
Her
close associations with the royal throne occurred when she was selected to be
the nurse-consort of King David after a search had been made “throughout Israel for a
beautiful young woman” (I Kings 1:3). This search would have been confined only
to noble women.
And perhaps only to noble
women who had inherited a special knowledge of nursing-healing (8:2): “I would
lead you and bring you to my mother's house-- she who has taught me. I would
give you spiced wine to drink, the nectar of my pomegranates”.
They “found Abishag, a
Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The woman was very beautiful; she took
care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no sexual relations with
her”.
(Later in the time of the
prophet Elisha, we read about a Great Woman of Shunem, 2
Kings 4:8-37; 8:1-6, who was - according to
Rabbinic tradition - Abishag the Shunammite herself, a chronological
impossibility, though the two may have been related).
We next meet her in 2
Samuel 13 as the beautiful virgin Tamar, for whom, dwelling “at the palace”,
King David will send (v. 7) in response to his oldest son Amnon’s lovesick
request.
Thereupon she is raped by
Amnon, treated coldly by her ‘brother’, Absalom - who may actually have
conspired with the shrewd adviser, Jonadab (= Achitophel), to bring about this
tragic situation. She dwelt “a desolate woman” in the house of Absalom, now
back in Shunem.
Her appalling treatment,
which even King David may have condoned by his apparent silence, could have
been exacerbated by the fact that she was originally a captive girl, or
daughter of one (and perhaps even also because of her dark complexion).
When Absalom had murdered
Amnon, and fled to the kingdom of Geshur, to his maternal ‘grand-father’, King
Talmai, he may have dragged Tamar there with him.
She would later become the
queen of Geshur, dwelling at the capital, Beersheba (or Sheba).
Whether she was in
Beersheba during Absalom’s revolt, or still at Shunem, or had been re-instated
with King David “at the palace”, we do not know.
But she was ministering to
King David afterwards, when Adonijah made a play for the throne.
One speculative
writer is adamant that Abishag was actually the wife-concubine of King David (“Bible Evidence That David Married 12 Year
Old Abishag”):
“After the demise of King David, Solomon took over
his father’s place and became the King. Adonijah attempted to seize power once
more, this time, went around and asked Solomon’s mother to take Abishag as his
wife. Adonijah asked her to tell Solomon if he would give him the green light
to go ahead and marry Abishag.
Solomon got furious and seen the scheme of
Adonijah. In ancient times, to marry one of your father’s wives was seen as you
claiming the Throne i.e., become the King. Solomon seeing this, executed his
brother, Adonijah:
“The Death of David
10 David died and was buried in David’s City. 11
He had been king of Israel for forty years, ruling seven years in Hebron and
thirty-three years in Jerusalem. 12 Solomon succeeded his father David as king,
and his royal power was firmly established.
The Death of Adonijah
13 Then Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, went
to Bathsheba, who was Solomon’s mother. “Is this a friendly visit?” she asked.
“It is,” he answered,
14 and then he added, “I have something to ask of you.” “What is it?” she
asked.
15 He answered, “You know that I should have
become king and that everyone in Israel expected it. But it happened
differently, and my brother became king because it was the Lord’s will.
16 And now I have one request to make; please do not refuse me.” “What is it?”
Bathsheba asked.
17 He answered, “PLEASE ASK KING SOLOMON—I KNOW HE WON’T REFUSE YOU—TO
LET ME HAVE ABISHAG, THE YOUNG WOMAN FROM SHUNEM, AS MY WIFE.”
18 “Very well,” she answered. “I will speak to the
king for you.”
19 So Bathsheba went to the king to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah. The
king stood up to greet his mother and bowed to her. Then he sat on his throne
and had another one brought in on which she sat at his right.
20 She said, “I have a small favor to ask of you;
please do not refuse me.”
“What is it, mother?” he asked. “I will not refuse
you.”
21 She answered, “LET YOUR BROTHER
ADONIJAH HAVE ABISHAG AS HIS WIFE.”
22 “WHY DO YOU ASK ME TO GIVE ABISHAG TO HIM?” the king asked.
“YOU MIGHT AS WELL ASK ME TO GIVE HIM THE THRONE TOO. After
all, he is my older brother, and Abiathar the priest and Joab are on his
side!”[c] 23 Then Solomon made a solemn promise in the Lord’s name, “May God
strike me dead if I don’t make Adonijah pay with his life for asking this! 24 THE
LORD HAS FIRMLY ESTABLISHED ME ON THE THRONE OF MY FATHER DAVID; HE HAS KEPT
HIS PROMISE AND GIVEN THE KINGDOM TO ME AND MY DESCENDANTS. I swear by
the living Lord that Adonijah will die this very day!”
25 So King Solomon gave orders to Benaiah, who
went out and killed Adonijah.” 1
Kings 2:10-25 Good
News Translation (GNT)
These verses clearly tell us that Abishag was
married to King David and was his wife, otherwise, Solomon would not have put
his brother to death for merely asking her hand in marriage.
For Adonijah to attempt to take his father’s
wife for marriage, was a declaration of him to take the right to the throne of
Solomon. As such, Solomon killed Adonijah (his brother) as the verses reveal.
Biblical scholars have also concluded reading 1
Kings 2:10-25 that Abishag was King David’s wife (or concubine)”.
We do not actually know
the girl’s age at any stage.
King Talmai of Geshur, I
have suggested, had become pharaoh of neighbouring Egypt due to a marital
alliance with pharaoh Amenhotep I.
He then succeeded
Amenhotep I as Thutmose I.
This occurred right at the
end of King David’s rule.
The “Shunammite”, now as Hatshepsut - an
apparent great favourite of Thutmose I, and supposedly his daughter - may have
been summoned to Egypt, or may have arranged with Solomon, now king of Israel,
to go there for political purposes. The ultimate intention was for marriage
between King Solomon and the “Shunammite”, but only after Solomon had finished
building the Temple of Yahweh (his Year 11).
The new Pharaoh gave her Gezer, which I
have tentatively connected with Beersheba, as a dowry for her marriage to King
Solomon.
Israel and Egypt were now united as one,
with vast cultural exchanges occurring between the two.
Some time after (chronology is debated)
King Solomon had completed the Temple of Yahweh (Year 11), the wide-eyed Queen
of Beersheba came to Jerusalem laden with the most exotic gifts, and she
marvelled at everything that she saw.
King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba were
thereupon married, and she lived there until Solomon completed his own palace
and a separate one for her (1 Kings 9:24; 2 Chron. 8:11).
The Temple of Yahweh (the site of which
needs to be properly located – see below) was an awesome sight to behold:
“He [Solomon] made that Temple
which was beyond this a wonderful one indeed, and such as exceeds all
description in words; nay, if I may so say, is hardly believed upon sight; for
when he had filled up great valleys with earth, which, on account of their
immense depth, could not be looked on when you bent down to see them without
pain, and had elevated the ground four hundred cubits [600 feet], he made it to
be on a level with the top of the mountain on which the Temple was built…This
wall was itself the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by man” (Antiquities
of the Jews, VIII, 3, 9; XV, 11, 3 -- Temples, p. 441)…
Thus Roger Waite quotes from
Jewish historian Josephus’s Antiquities in his fine compilation, “The
Lost History of Jerusalem”, much of which is, in turn, based on the research of
the biblical historian, Dr. Ernest L. Martin (RIP), from his book, The
Temples That Jerusalem Forgot.
Waite goes on to write of the
Great Eastern Wall of the Temple built by King Solomon, the SE corner of which
in later times was the pinnacle of the Temple, to where Satan took the Messiah.
The Great Eastern
Wall of Solomon‟s Temple
According to Waite (beginning p.
63):
"Solomon built a great wall
on the eastern side from the very base of the Kidron Valley. It rose 300 cubits
which is the equivalent of 40 to 45 story modern skyscraper. This can hardly be
said about the eastern wall of the Haram [esh-Sharif, or “Temple Mount”] which at its highest point in the SE
corner is only several stories high.
"Solomon built this great
eastern wall straight up from the very base of the Kidron Valley which brought
the Gihon spring within the city walls and then he had the area between the top
of the SE spur known as the City of David and this eastern wall filled in.
"A huge amount of fill was
dumped and compacted on the eastern slope between the top of the hill and the
eastern wall that shot straight up from the base of the valley.
"All this fill went directly
over the Gihon spring and then Solomon built the Temple in an east -- west
direction from the top of the Ophel summit where Ornan‘s threshing floor was
and over this artificial extension that was directly above the Gihon spring.
"Speaking in amazement of
Solomon‘s original work that was added to by others Josephus writes:
"He [Solomon] also built a
wall below, beginning at the bottom [of the Kidron ravine] which was
encompassed by a deep valley. At the south side he laid stones together, and
bound them one to another with lead, and included some of the inner
parts till it proceeded to a great height, and till both the largeness of the
square edifice and its altitude were immense. The vastness of the stones in the
front were plainly visible on the outside yet so that the inward parts were
fastened together with iron, and preserved the joints immovable for future
times.
"When this work was done in
this manner, and joined together as part of the hill itself to the very top
of it, he wrought it all into one outward surface. He filled up the hollow
places that were about the wall, and made it a level on the external upper
surface, and a smooth level also.
"[Later in Herod‟s day],
this hill was walled all round, and in compass four stades [a stade was 600
feet], each angle [of the square] containing in length a stade [it was a square
of 600 feet on each side]. But
within this wall and on the very top of all, there ran another wall of stone
also having on the east quarter a double cloister [colonnade] of the same
length with the wall; in the midst of which was the Temple itself" (Antiquities
of the Jews XV, 11, 3 -- Temples p. 451).
About this description by
Josephus Ernest Martin writes:
"Notice two points in
Josephus' description that I emphasized. He said the stones that made up the
wall on the east side of the Temple were "bound together with lead"
and on the inside they had "iron clamps" that fused them together with
such a bond that Josephus reckoned they would be permanently united together.
These bonding features in the east wall that used iron and lead would have been
a unique aspect associated with the binding of those stones. But note this:
Much of the eastern wall of the Haram (that some attribute to Solomon because
they think it is the Temple Mount) DO NOT have any of these features. The
stones of the Haram are all placed one on another without any type of cement
between them (either of lead, iron or whatever). This fact is, again, a clear
indication the walls surrounding the Haram are NOT those that encompassed the
Temple of Herod as described by Josephus, our eyewitness historian" (Temples,
p. 466).
Notice carefully what Josephus
said about the position of this eastern wall. He said that it was begun at the
very bottom of the valley.
The eastern wall was built at the
very bottom of the valley NOT half-way up! The eastern wall of the Haram does
not start from the very bottom of the valley. It starts half-way up and is not
anywhere near 300 cubits (450 feet) high!
This eastern wall gave the
appearance of great height and impressiveness to the completed structure.
Josephus, in the account of the Roman general Pompey‘s attack against the
Temple in 63 B.C. before Herod‘s extensions to the Temple complex, says the
following:
"At this treatment Pompey
was very angry, and took Aristobulus into custody. And when he was come to the
city [Jerusalem], he looked about where he might make his attack. He saw the
walls were so firm, that it would be hard to overcome them. The valley before
the walls was terrible [for depth]; and that the temple, which was within
that valley, was itself encompassed with a very strong wall, insomuch that
if the city were taken, that temple would be a second place of refuge for the
enemy to retire to" (Wars of the Jews, I.7, 1 -- Temples
p. 439).
Speaking of the incredible height
of the eastern wall of the city which was also the eastern wall of the Temple
Josephus also writes:
"He [Solomon] made that
Temple which was beyond this a wonderful one indeed, and such as exceeds all
description in words; nay, if I may so say, is hardly believed upon sight; for
when he had filled up great valleys with earth, which, on account of their
immense depth, could not be looked on when you bent down to see them without
pain, and had elevated the ground four hundred cubits [600 feet], he made it
to be on a level with the top of the mountain on which the Temple was
built…This wall was itself the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by
man" (Antiquities of the Jews, VIII, 3, 9; XV, 11, 3 -- Temples,
p. 441)…
"The Romans also burnt the
whole northern portico [colonnade] right up to that on the east, where the
angle [northeastern angle of the Temple wall] connecting the two was built over
the ravine called the Kidron, the depth at that point being consequently
terrific" (War of the Jews, VI, 3, 2 -- Temples, p.
442).
Notice Josephus says Solomon
artificially “elevated the ground 400 cubits (600 feet).” Then he made
it level at the top of this artificial extension “on which the Temple was
built.”
Josephus‘ figure of 600 feet, if
true, would put this work, “the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by
man”, 120 feet higher than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The highest point was at
the SE corner and was called the pinnacle of the Temple which was built at the
top of this extended mountain.
The pinnacle of the Temple, which
had a sheer drop between 300 and 600 feet, was the place that Satan took Jesus
to and tempted him to jump off and see if angels would catch his fall as
promised in the Bible.
Notice further what Josephus said
about its great height:
"This cloister [that is, the
southeast comer of the southern colonnade] deserves to be mentioned better than
any other under the sun. For while the valley was very deep, and its bottom
could not be seen, if you looked from above into the depth, this farther vastly
high elevation of the colonnade stood upon that height, insomuch that if
anyone looked down from the top of the battlements, or down both these
altitudes, he would be giddy, while his sight could not reach to such a great
depth" (Antiquities of the Jews XV, 11, 5 -- Temples
p. 443).
This incredible height from which
someone would be giddy looking down from could certainly not be true of the SE
corner of the Haram. Ernest Martin has these things to say about Josephus’
descriptions of the Temple:
"While Josephus said in Wars
of the Jews V.5, 1 that the top of the eastern wall of Herod's Temple
was 300 cubits' above the Kidron Valley (or higher in places), he said in Antiquities
of the Jews VIII.3, 9 the height was 400 cubits (that is 100 cubits
higher). Reading the texts carefully means that the extra 100 cubits (of the
400 cubits' measurement) remained below ground because "the whole depth of
the foundations was not evident; for they filled up a considerable part of the
ravines" (Wars of the Jews V.5, 1). And in Antiquities
of the Jews VIII.3, 9 Josephus said Solomon "filled up great
valleys with earth." This means Solomon actually filled in with earth the
original Kidron Valley (to the height of 100 cubits) and then on top of this
foundational "fill-in," his east wall ascended another 300 cubits
exposed to the air up to the top of the Temple wall…"
Matthew 4:5-7
“Then the devil took [the Messiah]
to the holy city [Jerusalem] and had him stand on the highest point of the
temple. ‘If you are the Son of God’, he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is
written: “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up
in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone”.’
Jesus answered him, ‘It is also
written: “Do not put the LORD your God to the test’.”
