12. The foregoing observations raise the ques- tion, Wluit really wrnt the wisdom which lite liihliral historians attributed to Sidomon ? Cer- tainly it was not wisdom in the higher significa- tions in which the term is useil either in the OT or the NT. There is teaching in .lob, Proverbp, Ecdesiastes, and a few of the Pualms w to a
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SOLOMON
' wisdom ' which is nowhere in Scriptme attributed to Solomon. The wLsdura of Solomon as described either in Kings or Chron. has very little in common with the wisdom inculcated by St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. James. Further, in what the Biblical writers say of the wisdom of Solomon there is nothing which implies that it included any of the supernatural attainments attributed to him in Jewish, Arabian, and Persian traditions, or even of any scieutilic or pliilosophic knowledge properly so called.* And it must be added, that although they ascribe his ' wisdom ' to God, a gift in answer to prayer, they do not represent piety — the fear and love of God — as a prominent feature in his ' wisdom.' While declaring him to be tlie wisest of all men, they do not represent him as an especially devout or righteous man. In that respect David, notwithstanding his many defects and crimes, was regarded by them as far superior to him. So much, then, as to what the wisdom of Solomon was not. As to what it was, it compre- hended at least the following elements : — (a) Pos- session of the qualities of mind — the quickness and accuracy of dLscernraent and the practical sagacity — which are most indispensable to one who constantly rei] uires to decide readily and correctly on which side truth and justice lie in disputed cases. Those quali- ties were of the utmost importance to a Hebrew king. Judicial functions had been the chief function of the ' judges,' and continued to be so of the kings. The king was the chief justice of the realm. Da\ad in his later years had been blamed for neglecting his judicial duties. The prayer of his son, on his accession to the throne, was for the knowledge and wisdom which would qualify him for the fulHlment of those duties. The judgment which he pronounced on the dispute between the two liarlots was regarded by the people as evidence that his prayer had been wanted. Seeking justice was by the Hebrews held to be sacred, inasmuch as it involved 'inquiry of God.' Almost all the Oriental legends regarding Solomon's wisdom which are not utterly extravagant are those which give the same kind of instances. An excellent and able judge, however, may not be an eminently good and wise man. He may be sadly lacking in true wisdom. (6) Possession of comparatively exten- sive knowledge and varied culture for a man of the time in which he lived. That Solomon was widely observant and inquisitive, interested in all that came under his notice and was likely to add to his knowledge, and that he could talk instruc- tively on a great variety of subjects, — on trees and plants, beasts and fowls, creeping things and fishes, etc., — must be admitted. ' The largeness of heart (rohabh lebh), even as the sand that is on the seashore,' ascribed to him in 1 K 4^ [Heb. 5*], means merely, if properly understood, a compre- hensiveness of mind, a many-sidedness of intelli- gence, of gieat and indehnite extent. There is nothing exaggerated or incredible in the phrase, which may perhaps have suggested what has been so finely said of Plato : ' His piiant genius sits close
• The knowledfje of the lan|]ruage of birda attributed to Solouion in Jewish, Arabic, and l^t-r^ian traditions was in Greek iDj'thology ascribed to Tiresios. The Itabbis represented Solo- mon as tiie originator of the science and pliilosophy of the Greeks, Romans, and their successors. Aristotle was supposed to have gained his knowledge of natural history by appro- priating Solomon's MSS when Alexander entered" Alexandria. The Spanish theologian J. de Pineda, in hb. iii. pp. 111-203 of his Dc Rebut Saiomonii^ attributes to him mathematical, physical, astronomical, botanical, economic, ethical, and politi- cal writings, as well as many scientific discoveries. Theophilus Gale, Phil. Gener. § 8, maintains that Pythagoras and Plato got their symbolical and the Stoics their ethical philosophy, Hippo- crates'his knowledge of medicine. Aristotle of animals, and TheophrostUB of plants — ex Solomonic tchota. How greatly ex- aggerated, down even to recent times, bos been his knowledge of theology may be learned from many of the commentaries published on the 'Snitg of Solomon,' and eveo from the 'bead- mga ' of our AV of that book.
to universal reality, like the sea which fits into all the sinuosities of the land. Not a shore of thought was left untouched by his murmuring lip' (Ferrier, In^t. Met. p. 165). The wisdom of Solomon waa wisdom at a very different stage from the wisdom of Socrates or Plato ; but they may have been alike in implying ' largeness of heart,' universality of intellectual interests and activity, (c) There have also to be included in the wisdom of Solomon skill in propounding and solving riddles, in put- ting and answering hard and abstruse questions, and the faculty of expressing himself in mCs/ullun, similitudes and parables, and proverbial or gnomic sentences which sum up in a pithy and memorable form the findings of prudential sagacity and moral refiexion. 1 K 4^* states that he ' spake three thousand proverbs.' One reason given for the visit of the queen of Sheba to his court was her desire to test the report ^\ hieh she hatl heard of him by ' proving him with hard questions.' The Phoeni- cian historians quoted by Josephus(.^n<. VIII. v. 3) relate that the Hebrew and the Tyrian king entered into a contest to determine which of them could solve riddles best, and that the former waa at first successful, and won largely from his oppo- nent, until the latter got the assistance of a very acute youth called Abdemon, when Solomon was always defeated, and had to pay much money back to Hiram (see art. RIDDLE). In the time of Solo- mon, Israel passed from its heroic and imaginative age into a positive and practical one, resembling the stage in Hellenic history in which originated the practical maxims of the Greek ' sages ' and the verses of the Greek 'gnomic' poets. The result in Israel was the rise of a new way of thinking and the beginnings of a new kind of literature, the whole development of which must have been greatly intluonced by the character and reign of Solomon. How much, if anything, he personally contributed by speech or writing to the ' Wisdom literature ' we do not know, and yet perhaps the whole of it. Biblical and Apocryphal, may be not inappropriately termed Solomonic. At the same time no one has probably been so overpraised for ' wisdom ' as he, and that alike by Mohammedans, Jews, and Christians.* See, further, art. Wisdom. 13. Solomon is represented as excelling all con- temporary kings in wealth as well as in wisdum. His father is said to have left him for buildiu" the temple ' one hundred thousand talents of gold and a thousand thousand talents of silver' (1 C'h '22"), a sum calculated to be equivalent to £1,025,000,000 sterling, t His annual revenue in money is stated (1 K 10'^ '2 Ch 9'=) to have amounted to GUO talents of gold, equal to i:4, 095,900 (see art. MoXEV, vol. iii. p. 420*") ; and besides payments in money he received large paj'ments in kind, both from his own subjects and from foreigners. Hence he was able to spend vast sums in luxury and display. His great ivory throne, w hich came to figure so largely in Oriental tradition, was overlaid with pure gold ; the shields of his bodyguard and the uten^Us of his jialace