Sec. 5.  Solomon; or, the Religious Relapse.

We have seen how the religion of Abraham, as the family worship of the Supreme Being, was developed into that of Moses, as the national worship of a just and holy King.  We have seen it going onward from that, ascending in the inspirations of David into trust in an infinite God as a friend, and love to him as a father.  We now come to a period of relapse.  Under Solomon and his successors, this religion became corrupted and degraded.  Its faith was changed into doubt, its lofty courage into the fear of kings and tyrants, its worship of the Most High into adoration of the idols of its neighbors.  The great increase of power and wealth in the hands of Solomon corrupted his own heart and that of his people.  Luxury came in; and, as in Rome the old puritanic virtues were dissolved by the desire for wealth and pleasure, so it happened among the Jews.  Then came the retribution, in the long captivity in Babylon, and the beginning of a new and better life under this hard discipline.  And then comes the age of the Prophets, who gradually became the teachers of a higher and broader faith.  So, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem, they came back purified, and prepared to become once more loyal subjects of Jehovah.

The principle of hereditary succession, but not of primogeniture, had been established by an agreement between David and the people when he proposed erecting a Temple at Jerusalem.  He had appointed his son Solomon as his successor before his own death.  With the entrance of Solomon we have an entirely different personality from any whom we have thus far met.  With him also is inaugurated a new period and a different age.  The age of Moses was distinguished as that of law,—­on the side of God absolute authority, commanding and forbidding; on the side of man the only question was between obedience and disobedience.  Moses was the Law-giver, and his age was the age of law.  In the time of the Judges the question concerned national existence and national independence.  The age of the Judges was the heroic age of the Jewish nation.  The Judges were men combining religious faith with patriotism; they were religious heroes.  Then came the time of David, in which the nation, having become independent, became also powerful and wealthy.  After his time the religion, instead of being a law to be obeyed or an impulse to action, became ceremony and pageant.  Going one step further, it passed into reflection and meditation.  In the age of Solomon the inspiration of the national religion had already gone.  A great intellectual development had taken the place of inspiration.  So that the Jewish nation seems to have passed through a fourfold religious experience.  Religion was first law, then action, next inspiration and sentiment, afterward ceremony, and lastly opinion and intellectual culture.

It is the belief of Herder and other scholars that the age of Solomon gave birth to a copious literature, born of peace, tranquillity, and prosperity, which has all passed away except a few Psalms, the Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.