ship been scattered through many holy places, instead of being confined to one particular spot, and that the capital of the nation. "The living stones," "the spiritual house," "the whole building fitly framed to'gether, growing into a holy Temple," on its "chief corner-stone," "the pillars in the Temple of God," the reiterated expression of "edification," in the first instance derived almost literally from the stones, silently fitted together, and rising stage above stage, in the sacred edifice, these images, so full of meaning, could never, humanly speaking, have occurred to the Christian Apostles, had the waving curtains of the nomadic Tent not been replaced by the solid structure of the Temple. They spring directly from those great buildings and those substructions, which still "remain for all time "2 in a yet higher sense, through this application of them, than Solomon or his successors could possibly have anticipated. There is yet another point in which Solomon impressed on his design a scope and meaning of lasting importance. He had the perception, so rare in those who undertake works of this magnitude, to see it in its due proportions to the higher truth which it represented. The first public recognition of Prayer as distinct from sacrifice of the spiritual as distinct from the ceremonial mode of approaching God-is the Prayer of Solomon at the Dedication of the Temple. And further, in this moment of the extremest triumph of ritual and material worship, was uttered one of the most spiritual truths that the Old Testament contains. Behold the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens can"not contain Thee; how much less this house that I 1 1 Pet. ii. 5; Eph. ii. 20, 21; iv. 2 Joseph. Ant. xv. 11, 3. 16; Rev. iii. 12. "have builded."1 The combination of the two ideas in this remarkable instance has to some extent held them together since. The very magnificence of the occasion which then set them forth is a guarantee that they need never be divided. And therefore, when the first voice arose in the Christian. Church to proclaim the annihilation of the local sanctity even of the Temple itself, this absolute assertion of spiritual freedom was based on the recognition of Solomon's place in the long succession of the founders of the Holy Places of Israel. "Solomon built Him an house," says St. Stephen. "Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made "with hands. . . . Heaven is My throne, and earth My "footstool; what house will ye build Me? saith the "Lord: or what is the place of My rest? Hath not My "hand made all these things?" 2 "Pull down the nests, and the rooks will fly away," is the well-known maxim which is said to have shattered to the ground the cathedral of St. Andrew's, and the abbeys and churches of Scotland. But Solomon saw that even the splendor of the Temple might be a safeguard, not a destruction, of the highest ideas of spiritual worship. There is a superstition in denouncing religious art, as well as in clinging to it. There is no inherent connection between ugliness and godliness. There was a danger of superstition in the rough planks and black hair-cloth of the Tabernacle, closer at hand than in the gilded walls and marble towers of the Temple. There is a wisdom in the policy of John Knox; but there is a still higher wisdom in the Prayer of Solomon. 1 1 Kings viii. 27; 2 Chr. vi. 18. 2. Acts vii. 47-50. LECTURE XXVIII. THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON. THE reign of Solomon has sometimes been called the Augustan age of the Jewish nation. But there was this peculiarity, that Solomon was not only its Augustus, but its Aristotle. Fabulous as is the Rabbinical tradition, it has curiously caught hold of a truth in describing how, when Alexander took Jerusalem, he captured the works of Solomon, and sent them to Aristotle, who thence derived all that was good in his philosophy.1 Jewish literature had already began to unfold itself in a systematic form at the first beginning of the monarchy. Music and poetry were specially developed and concentred in the Prophetic schools of Samuel; and to the earlier warlike bursts of the poetic spirit of the nation, had been now added David, the first founder of the Sacred Poetry of Judea and of the world. The Book of Judges, at least, had been composed in its present form, and the first distinct notices of historical narrative appear in the record of the lost works of Samuel, Gad, and Nathan. But, with the accession of Solomon, a new world of thought was opened to the Israelites. The curtain which divided them from the surrounding nations was, as we have seen, suddenly rent asunder. The wonders of Egypt, the commerce of Tyre, the romance of Arabia, 1 Fabricius, Cod. Pseud. ii. 1019. nay, it is even possible, the Homeric age of Greece, became visible. Of this, the first and most obvious result was the growth of architecture. But the general effects on the whole mind of the people must have been greater still. A new direction seems to have been given to Israelite thought. Prophets and Psalmists retire into the background, and their place is taken by the new power called by the name of "Wisdom." Its two conspicuous examples are the wisdom of Egypt and the wisdom of the Children of the East, that is, of the Idumæan1 Arabs. Four renowned sages appear as its exponents. Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and, Darda, the sons of Mahol.2 It would almost seem as if a kind of college had been founded for this special purpose, -a "house of wisdom on "seven pillars."3 A class of men sprang up, distinct both from Priest and Prophet, under the name of "the Wise." Their teaching, their manner of life was unlike that of either of those two powerful orders. The thing and the name had been almost unknown before. In a restricted sense, the word had been used of the Danite architects of the Tabernacle, and in a somewhat larger sense of two or three remarkable persons in David's reign. But from this time forward, the word occurs in the sacred writings at least three hundred times. What it was will best be perceived by seeing it in its greatest representative. A change must have come over the nation any way through the new world which he opened. But it was fixed and mag 6 1 1 Kings iv. 30; comp. Jer. xlix. 7; Obad. 8. 2 1 Kings iv. 30. 3 Proverbs ix. 1. 4 Hacâmim; Prov. i. 6; xiii. 20; xv. 12; xxii. 17; Isa. xxix. 14; Jer. xviii. 18; (comp. Ezek. vii. 26.) See 5 Exod. xxxi. 3, 6. nified by finding such a mind to receive it. His wisdom excelled the "wisdom" of any one of his time From his early years its germs had been recognized. It may be that there was something hereditary in the gift. "Prudence" was one of the conspicuous qualities of his father, and of his two cousins, the sons of Shimeah. The almost supernatural sagacity of Ahithophel may have been in his mother's family, and (if we may apply to Solomon the advice given to King Lemuel2 by his mother) Bathsheba herself must have been worthy of her husband and her son. "Do accord"ing to thy wisdom. . . . Thou art a wise man and "knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him," 3 amongst his father's charges to him in his youth. "The "Lord hath given unto David a wise son," is Hiram's congratulation. If we may take as literal the description in the Book of Proverbs, David had foreseen the importance of this gift for his son, and repeatedly urged it upon him: "Get wisdom, get understanding; "wisdom is the principal thing; get wisdom; with all "thy getting, get understanding. She shall be to thy "head an ornament of praise; a crown of glory shall "she deliver to thee." 5 are I. The first characteristic of this wisdom was carefully defined by Solomon himself in the dream His justice. at Gibeon: "An understanding heart, to judge "the people, to discern judgment." This was the original meaning of the word. It was the calm, judicial discretion, which was intended to supersede the passionate, chivalrous, irregular impulses of the former age. The tified with Solomon by the Jewish in terpreters. 1 The word translated "wisely " in 1 Sam. xviii. 5, 14, 15, 30, is not that which is so rendered in the case of Solomon. 2 Prov. xxxi. 1. Lemuel is iden 3 1 Kings ii. 6, 9. 4 Ibid. v. 7. 5 Prov. iv. 5-9. |