180 THE GREAT SECRET
would be no price to pay for a share of love.’?
Alas! now read this in ‘Ecciesiastes’; ‘I have found a man in a thousand, but not one outstanding woman. I have studied all the errors of men and have discovered that woman is more bitter than death. Her charms are the hunter’s snare and her gentle arms are chains.’ Solomon, you have grown old!
This prince surpassed in magnificence all the monarchs of the East. I-Ic built the Temple which was one of the wonders of the world, the destined centre of Asiatic civilization according to Jewish belief. His ships plied to and fro with those of Hiram, king of Tyre. The wealth of all nations flowed into Jerusalem. He was known as the wisest of men and held sway as the most powerful of kings. He was initiated into the science of the sanctuaries and gathered all this knowledge together in a vast encyclopaedia. His numerous marriages allied him with all the Eastern powers. He then thought himself to be the absolute master of the world and imagined that the time had come to effect a synthesis of all faiths. He wanted to surround the inaccessible centre where the abstract unity of Jehovah was worshipped with brilliant incarnations of the deity in many numbers and forms. He wanted to open up Israel to the arts and to make it permissible to create gods with the sculptor’s chisel.
Jehovah s Temple was as unique as the sun and Solomon thought he would complete his universe by giving this sun a court of planets and satellites; so he had other temples erected on the mountains round about Jerusalem. God, manifested in the phenomenon of time, was worshipped there under the name of Saturn or Moloch. Solomon retained all the symbolism of this great image. merely suppressing the sacrifices of children and human victims. He inaugurated festivals of beauty around the al(ar of Venus or Astarte — festivals of beauty. youth and love, that triple smile of God which heartcns and comforts the earth.
If he had succeeded, the glory and power of Jerusalem would have frustrated that of Rome and there would have been no reason for Christianity. Solomon would have become the Messiah promised to the Hebrews. But rabbinical fanaticism took alarm. The ancient sages who attended Bathsheba’s son came under suspicion of apostasy. The young scribes and the rabble who were stirred up by the Levites managed to outwit the inexperienced Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, and the old king
Copyrighted material