Chapter Seven. Solomon’s Wisdom—From Hermes to Aristotle

Various definitions of “wisdom” appear in the Bible, and the concept continued to accrue new meanings and understandings in post-biblical literature.719 The idea of Solomonic wisdom and knowledge (chokhmah and madda) thus also attracted new interpretations under the influence of Hellenistic culture. The Wisdom of Solomon (WS), a work apparently written in Palestine and Egypt in the second or first century B.C.E., holds that wisdom is “the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness”.720

Wisdom is also the wisdom of jurisprudence and just rule⁷²¹;t he wisdom that Solomon demonstrates in solving the riddles posed by the Queen of Sheba⁷²² and Hiram king of Tyre⁷²³;a nd that contained in the three sapiential biblical booksa ttributed to him, as well as the Book of Solomon.⁷²⁴ In the Septuagint's( henceforth LXX)translation of 2C hronicles 1:11-12,the words sunesis and sophia are used as apairtorender the Hebrew chokhmah and madda;inits translation of 1Kings3:12, LXX speaks of "aheart of understanding and wisdom" (kardian phronimên kais ophiên)".⁷²⁵ In apocryphal and pseudo-epigraphical literature, wisdom (sophia)takes manyforms: adivine summons to man; ameans of revelation; world-reason (logos); an omnipresent cosmic element; aw ay of life; ab odyo fk nowledge;a nd more. Accordingt oWS, "wisdom" teaches Man to understand the secrets and traits of the world.⁷²⁶ Wisdom is "omnipotent,omniscient,a nd puts all the attributes into action"⁷²⁷;i ti sb estowed by God, or by the angels. As abodyofknowledge handed down to an Elected One, wisdom appears, for example, in the First Book of Enoch: "After that he gave me instructions in all the secret things [ found] in the book of my grandfather,E noch, and in the parables which wereg iven to him, and he put them togetherf or me in the words of the book which is with me".⁷²⁸ Aristobulus, apriest from Jerusalem from the second century B.C.E., who later settled in Egypt,wrotei nh is Commentaryonthe Law of Moses that "Solomon said clearlyand better that wisdom existed before heavenand earth".⁷²⁹ BenSira, in contrast,depicts Solomon as ap oet and wise man in the sense of at eacher and educator who formulates rules of behavior in all areas of faith, morals, and justice: "Thysoul covered the whole earth, and thou fillist it with dark parables.Thy name went far unto the islands; and for thyp eace thou was beloved. The countries marveled at thee for thys ongs, and proverbs, and parables,a nd interpretations".⁷³⁰ WS and Josephus' Antiquities expandedo nt he biblical references to Solomon'sg reat wisdom, making use of the new understandings of wisdom itself. They attributedt oS olomon supreme proficiencyi nt he "wisdomo fn ature" (tôn ontôn / rerum natura)a longside with the command of magic (healing and exorcism). In WS the king himself-the reputed possessor of all wisdom-describes his extensive knowledge,i mparted to him by God: "Fori ti sh e( God) whog avem eu nerringk nowledge (gnôsis)o fw hate xists (tôn ontôn), To know the structureo ft he world (sustasis kosmou)a nd the activity of the elements( energeia stoicheiôn), The beginninga nd end and middle of times, The alternations of the solstices (tropôn allagai)a nd the change of the seasons, The cycles of the year and the constellation of the stars, The nature of animals and the temper of wild animals (pneumatôn bias), The powers of spirits (pneumatôn)⁷³¹ and the thoughts of human beings, The varieties of plants and the virtues of roots delet Il earned both what is secreta nd what is manifest, Forw isdom the fashionero fa ll things taught me".⁷³² In WS,Solomon'swisdomissaid to encompass extensive knowledge of ontology, cosmology,p hysics, astronomy, biology, botany, zoology, and esoterica.⁷³³ The  1E noch 68:1.  Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 13.12.11,i nE usebius (1985, p. 841).  TheW isdom of Solomon,4 7:14 -17.  The referenceheremay not be to "evil spirits" but rather,according to some scholars,tothe Egyptian akhu,o rp owers of the soul.  Trans. Grabbe (1997, p. 64). See also the translation by Winston( 1979,p.172), andCharles (1913,Vol. 1, p. 546). Adescription of "wisdom" also appears in 2E noch (the 'Slavonic Enoch'), which recordsthe knowledge giventoSolomonbyGod, as aresult of which he is "all-knowing" (2 Enoch 13).  Picod ella Mirandola, however,s ensed an absenceo fd etail regarding Solomon'so ccult knowledge and wrotet hat the version of TheW isdom of Solomon that had been preserved was different than the original, in which Solomon does explain "the natureo ft hings". philosophical vocabulary of TheW isdom of Solomon was influenced by Greco-Hellenistic-Roman "scientific" and philosophical language-an influencem anifested, for example, in the use of the terms dynamis, energeia,a nd stoicheia⁷³⁴ (which also appeari nH ermetic texts). The origins of WS itself are unknown, as is the nature of its intended audience. At anyr ate, although the book was widelyd isseminated in Greek, Latin, and other languages, it seems to have had scant influencei ns hapingt he imageo fS olomona sawise man-at least until the Renaissance.⁷³⁵ Antiquities of the Jews,written at the end of the first century C.E., also describes Solomona sw ell-versed in rerum natura: Now so great was the prudence and wisdom which God grantedSolomon that he surpassed the ancients,and even the Egyptians,who aresaid to excelall men in understanding,were not only, when compared with him, alittle inferior but fall far short of the kinginsagacity […]There was no form of naturewith which he was not acquainted or which he passed over without examining, but he studied them all philosophicallya nd revealed the most completek nowledgeo ft heir several properties.⁷³⁶ Josephus was apparentlyunacquainted with WS,and unlikeit, does not describe in detail the nature of Solomon'sresearch and discoveries. Despite that,and unlike WS,h ee xplicitlycompares Solomon'sw isdom to that of the Egyptians and highlights Solomon'sd ominion over the supernal world.⁷³⁷ Josephus' purpose, it seems, was to depict Solomon as ar oyal sage. In the ancient Near East,quite afew kingsweredescribed as sagesendowed with wisdom and knowledge,and the topos of Solomon as a "royal sage" could well have been inspired by traditions about who boasted of their profound wisdom (hasisu palku). Assurbanipal (668 -631B.C.E.), for example, braggedabout his skills as a diviner and scholarvarious talents and declaredhimself ascholarlearned in science and booksand well-versed in boththeoretical and practical wisdom.⁷³⁸ It is  Scholars found in WS the influence of Middle-Platonism, "in which manyS toic notions werei ncorporated",A lexander (1986,p p. 579 -586).  The book was translatedi nto Hebrew by Naphtali Herz Wesel (Wessely) in 1780.  Ant. VIII. 42 -44,Josephus (1963, pp. 693 -695).InTargumSheni,Solomon "explained parables, resolved mysteries,a nd made known secrets of infinite nature".T rans.G rossfeld (1994, p. 106).  Josephus attributes to Solomon not onlythe authorship of athousand five hundredb ooks of odes (ōdai)a nd songs (melos)a nd three thousand books of parables (paroimiai), but,a sw e sawinChapter Five, also knowledge of the art used against demons (Ant. . See Chap-terF ive.  "Marduk, the wisest (apkalla)o fg ods,g avem et he wide understanding (uznu)a nd extensive intelligence( hasisu), and Nabu,t he scribe [whok nows] everything, granted me his wise Chapter Seven: Solomon'sW isdom-From Hermes to Aristotle far more likely, however,thatthe topos as it appears in Josephus' Antiquities was influenced more directlyb yt he imageo fs everal kingso fP haraonic Egypt.F or instance, KingT uthmose III (1479 -1425)w as praised for his wisdom: "Behold, His Majesty knew what has come into being. Therew as nothinga ta ll which he did not know. He was Thoth in everything;t here was not anys ubject of which he was not knowledgeable […]a fter the manner of the Majesty Seshat.H ec ould construe (or 'divide')asignaccordingtoits value(or 'use')likethe godwho ordained it and created it".⁷³⁹ The Egyptian king is compared to the godT hoth (mr-rh)-"he-who-loves-knowledge",o r" he-who-wishes to-learn",l aterk nown as Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice-great one")-would be endowed, over the generations, with ap anoply of qualities and functions. Egyptians and Egyptian-Hellenisticl iterature considered him, among other things, the author of numerous books on magic, theology, and philosophy(Manetho ascribed 525books to Thoth, while accordingtoSeleos the number was 20,000). He was regarded as the creator of cosmic order,the lord of knowledge,hew ho knew all that is hiddenunder the heavenlyvault and beneath the earth,⁷⁴⁰ the first measurer of time, and the inventor of hieroglyphic script.E soteric wisdom, however,w as his particular preserve.⁷⁴¹ TheB ooko f Thoth is at itle applied to numerous distinct texts;t hese werep robablyc reated by scribes associated with the "House of Life" (pr-'nh), the library of the temple. In various renditions of this 'book',Thoth emphasizes special branchesofknowledge: "'Whati si ts nature'? 'What is the shape of the papyrus plant'?[ … ] " ⁷⁴² At the sametime, TheBook of Thoth revolvedaround the acquisition of knowledge, mainlythe topographyofheavenand the underworlds;itisprominent in underworld theologya nd "excellent in magic".⁷⁴³ teaching(ihzī nemeqi)[…]Ilearned the art of the SageAdapa [so that now] Iamfamiliar with the secret storehouse of all scribal learning(including)celestial and terrestrial potent".See Na'aman (2019,p .7 9); Sweet( 1990,p .5 5).  In Jasnow and Zauzich (2005,p .6 2),a fter Redford ( 1986,p p. 166 -167). KingS esostris I (1917KingS esostris I ( -1872 is praised by Sinuhe as "the master of knowledge",a nd KingR amses II (1279 -1213) is said to be "wise in knowledge like Thoth, knowingh ow to instruct,s killed in craftsmanship".  P. Graec. Mag. VIII.15 -15,i nF owden (1993, p. 75).  Trans.D uling, in Charlesworth (1983Fowden( 1993, p. 23).  Jasnow and Zauzich (2005,p .64).  It is important to note here that Thoth is not onlyo mniscient but also an "inventor" (for example, of writing), an ability not attributed to Solomon. In TheAdmonition of Ipuwer (the Middle Kingdom c. 2040 -1640 B.C.E.), the writer laments: "Lo,the private chambers, its book are stolen \The secret in it arelaid bare….Lo, magic spells aredivulged". InLichtheim (1975,p.155). On Egyptian magicsee Pinch (1994);Hornung(2001,pp. 55 -66);Ritner (1995b, pp. 3333 -3379).
Josephus was familiar with legends regardingt he earlyo rigins of human wisdom. In Antiquities he wrote that the sons of Seth had "discovered the science of the heavenlyb odies and the orderlya rray",⁷⁴⁴ and thatA braham had "introduced [the Egyptians] to arithmetic and transmitted to them the laws of astronomy".⁷⁴⁵ In other words, Abraham was the conduit of astronomical knowledge from Mesopotamia to Egypt.⁷⁴⁶ Yet, while Jewish-Hellenistic apologetic literature attributed various "inventions" (de inventis)dating to the dawn of history to the patriarchs of Israel, Josephus himself made no such attributions to Solomon. Instead, he credited to him encyclopedic wisdom, in which "he surpassed the ancients, and even the Egyptians".⁷⁴⁷ In other words, since Solomon'scontribution to humankind could not be expressed in "inventions" from ancientt imes, Josephus attributed to him "wisdom" as it was understood in Hellenistic-Jewish literature and personified in the figures of the Egyptian godThoth and Hermes Trismegistus.⁷⁴⁸ Thus, in asserting that "therew as no form of nature with which he was not acquainted or which he passed over without examining,but he studied them all philosophicallya nd revealed the most completek nowledge of their properties",⁷⁴⁹ Josephus ascribed not onlyb road "scientific" knowledge and philosophical understanding to Solomon but also ac ommand of occultic wisdom.⁷⁵⁰  Ant. I., Josephus (1963, pp. 69 -70). Josephus,however,describesSolomon as a "Hellenistic king".  Ant. I., Josephus (1963p p. 167-168).  See Siker (1987, pp. 188 -208). From the description ascribedtoEupolemus,probablyfrom the first century B.C.E., of Abraham as the inventor of astrology whot aughti tt ot he Egyptians (in Charlesworth 1983, Vol. 2, pp. 861-879),a nd from several other mentions,s ome scholars have leaptt ot he exaggerated conclusion that "the Jews were known in the ancient world not onlya sm iracle workers, magicians,f ortunetellers and the like, but also as astronomers".I n anyevent,they both shared the view that the universe was a "defined structureofdirectlyrelated bodies".S ee Long (1982, pp. 165 -192).  Ant. VIII. 42 -44.J osephus (1963, pp. 42 -44).  The anonymous author of Expositio totius mundi et gentium (which datestothe secondhalf of the fourth century) wrote, as if in response to Josephus: "It is impossible, in whatevermatter youm ay wish, to find such aw ise man as the Egyptian; and so of all philosophers and men versed in the wisdom of letters, the best have been those whoh avea lwaysd welt in this country".Ont he literaturea bout the "first discoverers" (prōtoi heuretaī), see Thräde (1962a); Sarton (1993, pp. 280 -433).  ContraA pionem II.36,p p. 255-261. See Bar-Kochva (2010b).  He could have written about Solomoni nt he same vein that Philo described Moses in De Vita Mosis (I, 5 -21); the claim was that the latter was tutoredi nPharaoh'spalacebyE gyptian, Chaldean, and Greek scholars in subjects as diverse as arithmetic, geometry,the loreo fm eter, Chapter Seven: Solomon'sW isdom-From Hermes to Aristotle Since Thoth-Hermes was among the most popularo ft he Egyptian gods⁷⁵¹ and was regarded in Greek magical papyri as ac osmic power,t he creator of heavena nd earth, and an almighty world-ruler,⁷⁵² it is entirelyl ikelyt hat Josephus was familiar with his mythological image. There is no evidence, however, to affirm whether he had access to anyo ft he versions of TheB ooko fT hoth, which was "restricted knowledge" in the possession of temple scribes (although excerpts werec opied and circulated). Thus, Josephus portrayed Solomon in Antiquities as, in Torijano'swords, an esoteric king: "As seems clear from the above analysis,the lore that is described in the Wisdom of Solomon has little to do with biblical wisdomorpurelyscientific disciplines […]asamatter of fact,each of the points listed is at the coreo fH ermetism, astrology,orm agic in general".⁷⁵³ Torijano also suggests that it is quiteprobable that Josephus knew of atradition that connected Solomon with philosophicala nd Hermetic conceptions of four elements, and it was for that reason that he chose to present the king as ascientist or philosopher.Moreover,Torijano argues that Josephus' depiction of Solomon is an echo of ap opulart radition of Solomon as aH ermetic sage.⁷⁵⁴ Be thata si tm ay,n either WS nor Josephus constitutes sufficient evidence that Solomon was recognized by Jews in Egypt as an occultist,and it is difficult to believethat Josephus would have chosen to compare Solomon to am ythological figure or god. If anything,i ts eems more likelyt hat Josephus' Solomon is akin to Egyptian kings, who in turn werec ompared to Thoth in order to glorify them. However,s ince Josephus and the author(s) of WS were, in all likelihood, unfamiliar with Egyptian, Hellenic, or Greek science, it would probablyb ec orrect to define the form of wisdom they attributed to him as occultism.

Solomon'sW isdom according to the Sages
The Sages positedv arious reflections regardingt he scope of Solomon'sw isdom and the manner in which it was expressed. At timest heira pproach was skeptical, though they also showcased Solomon'swisdom in numerous legendary tales about his prowess as ajudge and searcher of all hearts, even in controversies between animals.⁷⁵⁵ Pesiqtao fR ab Kahana says: "It is written, God gave Solomon wisdomand understanding in large measure […]evenasthe sand that is on the seashore(1Kings 5:9). R. Levi and the Rabbis say, "He gave him as much wisdom as all the rest of Israel had put together".Said R. Levi, "Just as the sand serves as the fence for the sea, so wisdom served as the fence for Solomon".⁷⁵⁶ The Second Targum of Esther has it that "Solomonw as perfect and honest, shining evil; he perceivedthe mysteries of heavenand was knowledgeable […]T ohim was given the great key whereby one can open all gates of wisdom and understanding of the heart"⁷⁵⁷ Other midrashim are seemingly less abstract.A ccordingt oMidrash TanhumaB uber (Qodashim 10), Solomon "was wise and knew the root of the foundation of the world.
[…]N ow Solomon knew which vein went to Cush and planted peppers on it".⁷⁵⁸ Solomon, in other words, had mastered not onlymatters of agriculture but alsot he structure of the world.
Some sagesa rgue that Solomon could be credited with both ap rofound knowledge and understanding of the Toraha nd with guiding others towards such understanding: Song of Songs Rabbah likens the Toraht oadeep well whose waters Solomon learned to draw to the surface: "So proceeding from one thing to another,f rom one parable to another,S olomon penetrated to the  Zer-Kavod (1977,p p. 203-207).  Pes.deR. Kahana 4.3, in Neusner (1997, p. 50). That source also describesSolomon'swisdom as the wisdom of foresight: "Youfind when Solomonp lanned to build the house of the sanctuary,h es ent to Pharaoh Necchos ayingt oh im, Send me craftsmen. for as alary.F or Ia mp lanningtobuild the house of the sanctuary.What did he do?Hegatheredall the astrologers of his court,who lookedinto the matter and picked out those men whoweregoing to die that year,and those he sent to him. And when they came to Solomon, he looked into the matter through the Holy Spirit,r ealizing that they were going to in that year,a nd he gave them shrouds and sent them back to him. He sent and wrotet oh im, "Did youn ot have enough shrouds in Egypt to bury your dead?H erea re they,h ere aret heir shrouds".P esK4 .3;t rans. Neusner (1997).  Trans. Grossfeld (1994).  Trans.J .T.Townsend. In Tales of the Prophets by al-Kisāʾī,Solomon'swisdom is revealed in his youth as ar eadero fb ooks.When he was twelve, David dressed him in the "garb of the prophets from whitew ool" and permitted him to mount the pulpit.A nd the boy Solomon "readt ot hem from the books of Seth, Enoch, Abraham and Moses." al- Kisāʾī (1997, p. 350). innermost meaning of the Torah".⁷⁵⁹ Solomonwas as agew ho instituted regulations: "When Solomon instituted ʿerubin⁷⁶⁰ and the washing of the hands, a HeavenlyE cho came forth and declared, My son, if thine heart be wise; My heart shall be glad, even mine".⁷⁶¹ The Solomon of Ecclesiastes Rabbah (7.23,4) states: "Concerning all these [ordinanceso ft he Torah] Ih aves tood and investigated [their meaning], but the chapter of the Red Heifer Ih aveb een unable to fathom" while in Sanhedrin 21b we read: "R. Isaac also said: Whyw eret he reasons of [some] Biblical laws not revealed?-Because in two verses reasons were revealed, and they caused the greatest in the world [Solomon] to stumble. Thus, it is written: He shall not multiplyw ives to himself, ['That his heart turn not away',D eut.X VII, 17.] whereon Solomon said, 'Iw ill multiplyw ives yetn ot let my heart be perverted.' Yetw er ead, When Solomon was old, his wivest urned away his heart. [ IKingsXI,4] Again it is written: He shallnot multiplytohimself horses; [Deut.X VII, 17]c oncerning which Solomon said, 'Iw illm ultiplyt hem, but will not cause [Israel] to return [to Egypt].' Yetw er ead: And ac hariot came up and went out of Egypt for six [hundred shekels of silver]" [I KingsX , 29] (Soncino transl.). According to Exodus Rabbah,hewas responsible, together with seven other elders, for the addition of the thirteenth month to the Jewish calendar; the seven elders plus Solomon, the prophet Nathan, and the seer Gad were together ten persons, as was the norm for the intercalation of a month.⁷⁶² R. Simeon ben Yoḥai interpreted Ecclesiastes 2:12 ("AndIturned myself to behold wisdom, and madness and folly")asfollows: "Solomon said: 'Because It ried to be wiser thant he Toraha nd persuaded myself that Ik new the intention of the Torah, did this understanding and knowledge turn out to be madness and folly[ … ]W ho is permitted to entertain doubts about the ways and decrees of the King of Kings, the HolyO ne, blessed be He, whose words issue from before Himl ike solid blocks.
[…]b ecause Iq uestioned Hisa ctions, have Is tumbled'".⁷⁶³ In contrast,R .S amuelb en Naḥman read the words of Ecclesiastes-Solomon-"walk in the ways of your heart,a nd in the sight of your eyes" (Eccl. 11:9)-as "words that tend towardsh eresy": "therei sn oj udge,n o laws!" Yetb ecause Solomon continued the verse "know thou, thatf or all these thingsG od will bring thee into judgment," the Sages found that "Solomon spoke well".⁷⁶⁴ As ajudge,Solomonisunlike the judgesofthe gentiles: "Iamnot like all the other judges. Am ortal king sits on his tribune and issues judgmentsf or execution by the sword, by strangulation,b yb urning,o rb ys toning, and it means nothing [to him].Iam not like this. If I(unjustly) find aperson guilty in monetary matters,Iam held to account for it as if it wereacapital case".⁷⁶⁵ Solomon, endowed with an understanding of the natural and the spiritual, was also blessed with the wisdomofsoundgovernment and the ability to discern good from evil, and so with an ability to "imposeo rder and judgment on to the entire world".
While the Sages had different views about 'Greek wisdom" (tes hellenikos Sophias),namelylogic and natural sciences,they did not depict Solomon'swisdom as legitimation aof"Greek wisdom",and find no need to posit aresemblance or ad istinction between the wisdom of Solomona nd that of Greece.⁷⁶⁶

Solomon'sW isdom in the Middle Ages
Celsus wrotet hat the Jews "never did anything of worthyi ts names" (IV:31) and the emperorJ ulian wrote: that the wisdom of Solomoncannot be comparable to the wisdom of Hellens".Infact,God has not granted them to invent anyscience (episteme=knowledge)orany philosophicalstudy (mathema philosophon). "Why is it?F or the theory of the heavenlyb odies wasp erfected among the Hellens, after the first observations had been made among the barbarians in Babylon, and the studyo fg eometry arose in the measurement in the land of Egypt,a nd from this grew to its present importance. Arithmetic began with the Phoenician merchant,a nd among the Hellenes in the course of time acquiredt he aspect of regular science" (178 A-B). Indeed, we don'tk now about anyi nstitutionalized "scientific" activity,o ra ny individual "meno fs cience in Jewishs ociety until the Middle Ages. Onlyw ith the mediation of the Islamic world, the Middle Ages sawthe rise of atwo-way interchangebetween Jewish thoughtand the her-itageofGreek-Hellenist philosophyand science. "Wisdom" came to be seen as a matter of natural philosophy, (i. e., "physics")a nd Solomon was depicted as an occultist,philosopher,and man of "natural philosophy.⁷⁶⁷ As this "wisdom" was divided into divine wisdom, natural wisdom (physics) and scholarlyw isdom  Hammer (1986, §10,3 4).  See Shavit (1999,p p. 79 -95).  In both Islam and Latin Christianity in the Middle Ages, the heritage of the ancient world was not onlyA ristotelian, but also included writings on various spheres including astronomy, medicine, physics, mathematics, and more. On this,s ee two popular works by John Freely (2010,2 015).
(mathematics, logic, etc.), it was Solomon who could become aking-philosopher engaginga lso in "science" and thus servea sp ersonification of the ancient wisdom of the Jews and as legitimation to deal with philosophya nd the sciences.
Accordingt oJ udah Halevi'sa pology,S olomon'sj udicial fame was wellknown throughout the world, but the wisdom he revealed to the Queen of Sheba and otherr ulers remained ac loselyk ept secret and hence was lost with few exceptions.Inother words, much of Solomon'swisdom was "concealed wisdom"-known onlytoselect individuals,never recorded, and eventuallylost. Itss ubstance could be extrapolated from various bookso fw isdom by the gentiles, who translated Solomon'sbooks and so preserved them for the cominggenerations.⁷⁶⁸ In Maimonides' view,S olomon was an esoteric philosopher,h is words intended for an intellectual elite and not for the "common people".S olomon was well-versed in the highestp ossible levels of natural and metaphysical knowledge,b ut he communicated his philosophical teachings and theirm etaphysical contents in an esoteric manner,b ym eanso fp arables⁷⁶⁹-though he was nonetheless also a "practical wise man" who set forth concrete rules of moral and religious behavior.A braham IbnE zra( 1089 -1167) found in Solomon'sb ooks knowledge of the "laws of heaven" (i. e., astronomy): "Ik now that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it,n or anything taken from it".⁷⁷⁰ The statesman, philosopher,a nd biblical commentator Isaac Abrabanel( 1437-1508) wrote, in his commentary on 1K ings 3, thatS olomon had excelled in several types of knowledge: "natural, scholarly, divine, and religious",⁷⁷¹ and that he had acquired this knowledge not graduallyb y wayo fi nduction, but "wondrously," which rendered him superior to Aristotle and all the sages who came before and after him.⁷⁷² Naḥmanides (1194-1270) wrotethatKing Solomon had so mastered the entirety of natural wisdom, history,e vent he strength and qualities of herbs, that he wrote ab ook of medicine. The thirteenth-century physician and scholarS hem Tovb en Isaaco fT ortosa was of the opinion thatSolomon'swisdom encompassed all of the natural scien- Kuzari 3:63.A nd see ChapterE ight.  Irelyhere on Klein-Braslavy (2007). And there areapologetics that explained that since hoi polloi weret oo ignorant to understand Solomon'sw isdom, he conveyedi tt hrough parables. ces and that his medicalk nowledge derived from ad ivine power within him.⁷⁷³ R. David Messer Leon (c. 1470 -c. 1526), alsoa"Renaissance man",held thatSolomon was fluent in every sphere of wisdom and possessed knowledge of all matters included in the natural sciences,among which he numbered physics,astronomy, and astrology.⁷⁷⁴ The Sefer haMesshiv (Book of the Responding Entity), a late fourteenth-century collection of the visions of ag roup of Kabbalists from Spain, and which has been onlypartiallypreserved, relates its authors' discovery of the lost books of Solomon. It notes the names of these books and declares that they contain the original, true theory of nature and science, whose origin layi n diviner evelation rather thanp hilosophyo rs cience, which are the products of human reason.⁷⁷⁵ Spinoza, in contrast,i nterpreted Proverbs 16:22( " Wisdom is af ountain of life to one who has it,b ut follyi st he punishment of fools")t o mean that Solomon'swas a "natural wisdom"-an inner quality-and that Solomon'si dea of God was ap roduct of his wisdom, which is praised in the Holy Scriptures. Yet, this wisdoml ed Solomon to consider himself abovet he lawo f the Toraha nd to disdaint he laws of the king⁷⁷⁶ even to the point of violating them.⁷⁷⁷ In Rabbi Jacob Emden's( Ya'avetz, 1687-1776)v iew,ascholar and posek (arbiter)from Altona, Solomon was the father of alchemybased on apassageinthe Gemara: "When King Solomon built the Sanctuary,heplanted therein all kinds of [treesof] golden delights, which werebringingforth their fruits in their seasonand as the winds blew at them, they would fall off […]and when the foreignerse ntered the temple they withered".⁷⁷⁸ Emdenw rote that "now there are concealeds ecrets regardingt he natureo fp lants and minerals that are known to as elect few,l ike the praises of the alchemists regarding the power of all-purpose healingm edicine […]Ibelievet hey learned this from the Book of HealingofKing Solomon […]when the sages said that Solomon planted aforest of gold, Im aintain they are hinting at the conversion of metal into gold, which increases by means of the seed it contains".⁷⁷⁹ In Sefer haBrit (Book of Convanant)b yt he Kabbalist PinhasE liyahu Hurwitz( 1765 -1821),⁷⁸⁰ Solomon was  Muntner (1958, p. 326). Shem Tovb ased his views on al-Zahrāwī, Kitāba l-Taṣrīf (Sefer ha-Shimmush), at hirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practice composed between 1261-1264, or earlier (around 1000).  Shevah a-Nashim,i nT irosh-Rothschild (1991,p p. 71,280).  Idel( 1994).  Deuteronomy1 7:16 -17.  Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico Politicus (see ChapterT wo). See also Israel (1995).  Yoma 21b.  See Kahana (2013a). Also see Kahana (2013b).  The book first appeared in 1797 in Brin, Moravia, and was translatedi ntoY iddish and Ladino and printed in dozens of editions. described as having anticipated the scientific thinking of the west,and his assertion that "the earth remains forever" (Ecclesiastes 1:4) served to refuteC opernicus.⁷⁸¹ Forthe Haskalah movement in the nineteenth century,Solomon represented the ideal of a maskil and asymbol of the struggle against conservative trends in Jewishsociety.Inhis Te'udah be'Yisrael (ATestimony in Israel)⁷⁸² Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788 -1860), first and foremost among the maskilim of Czarist Russia, depicted Solomona salink in ap rogression of figures in Jewishh istory who granted legitimacy to the acquisition and studyo fa ll forms of secular knowledge.F ollowingi nt he footsteps of Abravanel, Levinsohn declared: "And we shall return to the wise king Solomon son of David who took pride in his wisdom, and more than he receivedf rom his father,h eh imself made an effort to acquirei ta nd greatlye xcelled, until he became the father of all wisdoms and the head of all thoses eeking them among the scholars of his own time and thereafter: 'he spokeo ft rees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springso ut of the wall'".⁷⁸³ The imaginary Solomon was brought into beingt oa rgue that Jews weret he sourceofthe ancientwisdoms(prisca sapientia), but Jewishapologists could not merelyclaim thatSolomon was endowed with wisdom; they had to specify what that wisdom encompassed. At first,when the boundaries between occultism and science weren ot clear-cut,⁷⁸⁴ Solomon would have functioned as the author of books of magic and as am aster of botht he natural and the occult "sciences", and eventuallyasafigure who inspired the "new science."⁷⁸⁵ Because Aristotle, duringthatperiod, was regarded as the philosopher whose wisdomwas "all-embracing",the need arose to claim that Solomon'swisdom was no less universal.
 See I. Robinson (1989).  Writteni n1 823,p rintedi n1 828.  At the same time, both Abravanel and Levinsohn noted that wisdom had not vanished after Solomon, and they did not mean to sayt hat no men wiser than him would appear.  These boundaries were also glossed over by famous scientists such as Newton, Robert Boyle, and others.N ewton is known to have been influencedb yt he book TheC ompound of Alchemy or TheT welveS tones,w ritten by the alchemist George Ripley (c. 1415 -1490). In other words,h er egarded the ancient wisdom of Hermes Trismegistusa nd of Solomona so ne and the same.  See Feiner (2002).

Solomon'sW isdom in Christian Literature
"If only Ih ad great wisdom liket hat of Solomon" Francis of Assisi, Testament of the Holy Father St. Francis Emperor Julian, as mentioned, mocked the wisdom of Solomon: "Can Solomon be compared to Phocylides or Theognis or Isocrates?Certainlynot".⁷⁸⁶ The target of his scorn was Christianity, which adopted the biblical description of Solomon'sw isdom and its divines ource.
The resultofChristianity'sambivalent attitude towardSolomon'swisdom resulted in what Hattawayd efines as the "Paradoxeso fS olomon":o nt he one hand the king,i nh is wisdoma nd erudition, represented an advocate of sorts for the studyofphilosophy, while on the other hand the book of Ecclesiastes provided arguments against it.I nt he latter case, Solomon and Aristotle weres een as representing twod iametricallyo pposed conceptions of wisdom and worthwhile study, which not onlyadopted the biblical portrayal of Solomon'swisdom but also embroidered upon it.
Bachiarius described Solomon as "thatw ondrous man who deservest o share in the wisdom thatsits next to God",⁷⁸⁷-and in his treatise On the Governmento fR ulers,Thomas Aquinas extolled Solomon: "Not onlyd id he [Solomon] receive from the Lordthe wisdom thatherequested, but alsobecame praised for his wisdomm oret hana ll the kings",⁷⁸⁸ "How can he be ignorant of anything that is, when he is Wisdom, the maker of the world, who bringsall thingstofulfillment and recreates all things, who is all that has come into being?"⁷⁸⁹ Solomon, like Jesus, wass aid to know all.
Accordingt oO rigen, "Solomon discovered and taught […]b yt he wisdom that he receivedfrom God";that is, his wisdom encompassed both moralphilosophyand natural science,⁷⁹⁰ and in Eusebiusview,Solomon was a "pupil of the heavens";a nd he discerned ar esemblanceb etween Solomon'swisdom and the  Against the Galilieans,1 78b, p. 383.  "Solomon ille mirabilis,q ui meruit assistrici,D eo sapiencia",i nB ehrends (1976,p p. 166 -167).  De regimine principum,Chapter9 .  Eusebius (2002, pp. 560 -561). The Epistle of James distinguishes between the "wisdom that descends from above",which is pure, loves peace, tolerance, is full of mercy, etc., and earthly wisdom, which "stemsf romi nstinct and the demons" and givesr ise to envy,f alsehood,a nd every evil deed (Eusebius2 002).  TheS ong of Songs,Origen (1957,p p. 40 -41); see ChapterT hree. philosophyo fP lato, who divided it into three branches-Physics,E thics, and Logic.⁷⁹¹ Accordingt oh im, Solomon,l ike Plato, drew ad istinction between the contemplation of thingsa bstract and incorporeal on the one hand, and the studyo ft hingso bservable through the senses-the natural sciences-on the other.I nE cclesiastes, Solomon explained the "nature of the fleeting substance of bodies" and arriveda tt he conclusion, saying "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity".This was Solomon'sconclusion concerning corporeal substance.Clement of Alexandria quotes Proverbs 1,2, to reach the conclusion that wisdom is "a communicative and philanthropic thing".Solomon teaches that "the wordthat is sown is hidden in the soul of the learner,a si nt he earth, and this is spiritual planting".G regory of Nazianzus prayed to possess Solomon'ss tate of mind-"not to think or sayanything about God that is simplym yown. Forwhen [Solomon] says, 'Ia mt he most foolish of all people, and human prudence is not in me" [Prov.20:2] it is not,surely, in recognition of his own lack of understanding that he speaksthis way. Forhow could one saythis who asked from God before all else-and who received-wisdom and contemplative vision and wideness of heart […]S olomons aid these thingsb ecause he has no natural wisdom of his own, but is enlivened by more perfect wisdom that comes from God".⁷⁹² It was, therefore, possible to bring verses from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes to arguet hat philosophyi sn onsense and evil on the one hand and claim thati t helped faith on the otherh and.
We have alreadys een that St.A nthonyw on out over the philosopherst o whom he demonstratedt he power of faith in Jesus and the cross,o vercoming all thosewho were "blinded by the fog of secular wisdom and […]m ost learned in all brancheso fp hilosophy"-this was at estament to his faith in the divine scriptures and in Jesus, the true God. "We Christians",h em aintained, "keep the mystery of our life stored up, not in worldlyw isdom, but in the power of faith which God has granted us through Christ".⁷⁹³ Theologians and, later on, counter-Renaissance thinkers found that Ecclesiastes' dictum that "all is vanity", and the author'sr esulting exhortation to "fear God and keep his commands", supported their absolutep reference for faith over wisdom and their conviction that the ability of wisdom and science to provide answers must be evaluated with humility and skepticism. However, "wisdom" is not onlyp hilosophy, but knowledge in manyf ieldsa nd,a sw ew ill see, it was difficult to reject.

Jesus' Wisdom
"Wisdom is therefore queen of philosophy, as philosophyi so fp reparatory of culture" Clement of Alexandria, Stromata,B ook 1 Did Jesus learn from Solomon'sw isdom and does his wisdom resemble Solomon's?
Jesus' wisdom is known onlyfrom the words and deeds attributedtohim in the New Testament.I nh im "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"⁷⁹⁴;h ei s" the power of God and the wisdom of God",⁷⁹⁵ and the apostles reveal the concealedw isdom of God; they expressi tn ot in the words that human wisdom teaches, but in words that the Spirit teaches. It is God, not human wisdom, that trulyu nderstands am an'ss pirit: "ForJ ews demands igns and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified […]C hrist the power of God and the wisdom of God".⁷⁹⁶ In Colossians, Paul warns his listeners: "See to it that no one take youcaptive through philosophyand empty deceit,according to human tradition, accordingt ot he elemental spirit of the universe, and not accordingt oC hrist",⁷⁹⁷ while 2T imothy2 :7 promises that it is "the Lord[who] will give youunderstanding in all things." The sentiment is reflected by Augustine: "Christ is the wisdom of God […]the word, co-eternal with the Father".⁷⁹⁸ Christians do not consulta ny wise man but Wisdom Herself: "Let us then both give ear to Jesus Christ".⁷⁹⁹ Is "wisdom",onlyphilosophyseemingly separated by awide abyss from the wisdomo ft he gospels, Tertullian posed ar hetorical question-"What then has Athens to do with Jerusalem, or the academyand the church?" (Quid ergoAthenis  Colossians2 :3.  Paul adds: "My speech and my proclamation werenot with plausible words of reason, but with ademonstration of the Spirit of power,sothat your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the powerofGod. Yetamong the maturewedospeak wisdom, though it is not wisdom of this ageorofthe rulers of the age, whoare doomedtoperish, but we speak God'swisdom, secret and hidden, which God decree beforet he ages for our glory".1Cor 2:4-7.  1C or 1:22-24.  Colossians2 :8.  City of God XVII:20,A ugustine (1984,p .7 55).  Sermon X, in Schaff and Wace (1995,p p. 290 -294).
et Hierosolymis?)⁸⁰⁰-and again: "What therei nc ommon between the philosopher and the Christian, the pupil of Hellas and the pupil of the heavens".⁸⁰¹ HereT ertullian established ad ichotomyb etween Aristotle and Solomon: "Unhappy Aristotle" (miserum Aristotelen)i nvented dialectics-"the art of building up and pulling down; an art so evasive in its propositions, so farfetched in its conjectures, so harsh in its arguments, so productive of contentions-embarrassing even to itself…"-while "our principles come from the Porch of Solomon, who himself taught thatthe Lordistobesoughtinsimplicity of heart".However,useful knowledge is desirable, and Augustine tried to work out ab initio what kinds of knowledge and expertise it might useful for Christian children to acquire", and claimed that rhetoric, history,m edicine,a stronomy, and even philosophy are divinelyi nstituted discipline.⁸⁰² However,a lthough in earlyC hristianityt herew eret hose who believed that philosophyw as the creation of Satan or of demons,⁸⁰³ more thanafew Church Fathers nonetheless conceivedo fp hilosophya sakind of "preparatory training to thosew ho attain to faith through demonstration […]. Philosophy, therefore, was [for those with a 'Hellenic mind']apreparation, paving the wayf or him who is perfected in Christ".⁸⁰⁴ Pelikan cites Gregory of Nazianzus, who was well acquainted with Platonic and neo-Platonic philosophya nd argued that "Christians, manyofthem common people or even monks, werephilosophically superior to PlatoorAristotle" since Christian philosophy "could be accommodated to the faith and understanding of simple believers. Such believers weren ow capable of becoming 'wise' in the fullest and truest sense of the word".⁸⁰⁵ In the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, Gregory of Nyssa found aphilosophyofapophatic restraint.⁸⁰⁶  Tertullian (1956,pp. 35 -36). Away,hewrote, with the attempts to produce amottledChristianity of Stoic, Platonists,a nd dialecticalc ompositions. (See Roberts,( 1924,pp. 63 -78). Hyronimus wrotethat he "made oath and called upon His name, saying, 'Lord, if ever again Ipossess worldlyb ook, or if ever Ir eada gain such, Ih aved enied you' (letter 22, 30;t oEustochium, 383 AD). One should not drink the cup of Christ,a nd at the same time, the cup of devils". In anyevent,what distinguished between pagan and Christian wisdom was that the former was "natural" wisdom and the latter was ap roduct of supernatural (divine) revelation. Quite afew Church Fathers werefamiliar with Hellenist-Roman literature and, with some reservations, permittedi tt ob ecome part of standard Christian education, directing its students to am oral life.⁸⁰⁷ And so both Solomon and Jesus wereg ranted Divinew isdom, but Jesusw as "wisdom itself",w hereas Solomon,d espite his wisdom, erred and sinned. The sin that is perceivedt oc astd oubto nt he value of human wisdom is another matter in which Jesus is "greater than Solomon".H owever,i na nother matter,S olomon is "greater than Jesus" in thatS olomon'sw isdom included subjects considered to be "human wisdom",thus making Solomon much closert oA ristotle than to Jesus.

From Thoth-Hermes to Aristotle
In the Middle Ages, Thoth reemergedinanew garb as Hermes Trismegistus. Her-metism⁸⁰⁸ existed in fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Italysideb ysidew ith various other occulttraditions and theological and philosophic schools⁸⁰⁹ including Neo-Platonism, Pythagoreanism, Stoicism, Aristotelianism, and Thomism.⁸¹⁰ Of all these, Hermetism is the most relevant to our subject.
From Thoth-Hermes to Aristotle aninth-century book by Abū Maʿshar, Kitābal-Ulūf (The Book of Thousands), is one such text,s ummarizing the Hermetic occults cience.⁸¹¹ The Corpus Hermeticum,translatedinto Latin by Marsilio Ficino, and was printed in 1463⁸¹²;parts of the corpus had been known to some Church Fathers,⁸¹³ and wereaccepted as the authentic ancient work of an Egyptian scholarw ho wrotep rimordial words of wisdom,⁸¹⁴ and became an influential school of thought.⁸¹⁵ Thus, the mythical Thoth was resurrected in the shape of Hermes Trismegistus, the Pater philosophorum,asuper-sagea nd ancient prophet who represented prisca theologia and of whom Ficino wrote: "they called him Trismegistus because he was the greatest philosopher and the greatest priest and the greatest king".⁸¹⁶ Hermes' writingswereregarded as presaging esotericChristian wisdom; they both greatly preceded Jesus and foretoldhis coming. No less importantly,their existencewas said to demonstrate that all "wisdoms" were bornofasingle ancient sourceand were, therefore, like Solomon'sw isdom, universal.⁸¹⁷ * Jewisht hinkers were also influenced by the Hermetic corpus,⁸¹⁸ and duringt he Renaissance, Solomon appeared in works by Jewish scholars as ap arallel not onlyo fH ermes Trismegistus but also of Apollonius of Tyana,⁸¹⁹ who was, we will recall, compared to Jesus (Eusebius, Contra Hieroclem)a nd accorded a semi-divine status. These two figures werel inked in the Arabic pseudo-Aristotelian literature,which made its wayi nto the West and wast ranslated into Latin. The connection between the two originated mainlyint he popular treatise Kitāb  (1993, pp. 198 -202).Hermes is mentioned in Cyranides,afourth-century compilation of magico-medical work, as acosmologist and alchemist.A ugustine, who was familiar with some part of the Hermetic literature, wrote that "Hermes says much of God according to the truth".S ee City of God VIII:23 -24,A ugustine (1984,p p. 332 -337).  Najman et al. (2016).  Clement of Alexandria (1995) calls him Hermes, the false prophet (Stromata,x vii).  Copenhaver, Hermetica (1992, xlvii;2003). See also: Yates(1979); Merkeland Debus (1988).  Celsus had also written that "Therei sa na ncient doctrine which has existed from the beginning, which has always been maintained by wisest nations and cities and wise men" (I:14). He did not count the Jews and Solomona mongt hese. See Origen (1965, I:17).  On Hermetic literaturei nt he Geniza, see Eliyahu( 2005). Wasserstrom (2000).

 See Ellen (2014).
Sirr al-Asrār,apseudo-Aristotelian work translated into Latin c. 1120b yJ ohn of Seville, who titled it Secreta Secretorum (the Secret of Secrets).⁸²⁰ It appeared in several versions and wast ranslated into manyl anguages, includingH ebrew⁸²¹ and English (byRoger Bacon).⁸²² The text purports to be aletter sent by Aristotle to his pupil Alexander the Great; in substance, it is an encyclopedia on abroad rangeo fs ubjects includinga strology,a lchemy, and medicine, and it was receiveda sagenuineA ristotelian work.
Mahmoud Manzalaoui claims that the book "is an echo of the traditional notion that Aristotle'sw orks wereo ft wo kinds, esoteric (acroamatic) and exoteric".⁸²³ In the thirteenthcentury,the chapter thatdealt with the occultic sciences began to be circulated separatelya st he book Tabula Smaragdina (The Emerald Tablet). It,t oo, was attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, and was discovered by Apollonius of Tyana, who learned from it "the reasons for all things".The Tabula Smaragdina wasc omposed in Arabic between the sixth to eighth centuries and exists in several versions. Itsa uthor,orrecorder,issupposedlyBalinas/Balinus, the Arabic name of Apollonius of Tyana.⁸²⁴ Accordingt ot he story,A pollonius discovered the book in av ault under as tatue of Hermes Trismegistus, where he found an old man seated on at hrone of gold holding an emerald tablet containing the secrets of transmutation and its primordial substance.The first version of this pseudo-Aristotelian work, aproduct of Arab-Hermeticism that attributed to Apollonius hermetic bookso na strology,a lchemy, and cosmography,⁸²⁵ was KitābS irr al-Khalīqa wa Ṣanʿat al-Ṭabīʿa (Book of the Secret of Creation  Atranslation of its full name is Book of the Science of Government, On the Good Ordering of Statecraft. See ChapterE ight.  The translator fromArabic was IbnChasdai (1180 -1240), ascholar,philosopher poet,and follower of Maimonides. The Hebrew translation (together with at ranslation into English and introduction by M. Gaster)o fSod haSodot asher Katav oto Aristotolo el haMelekh haGadol Alexander was printedi nV enicei n1 519a nd published by Gaster (1907Gaster ( -1908, and reprinted in the third volume of Gaster (1925-1928, pp. 111-162).S ee also:R yana nd Schmitt (1982);S .J . Williams (1994b). The book deals with rhetoric, dialectics,a rithmetic, geometry,a nd more. It was quoted in the fourteen-century Latin text Secretum Philosophorum,which originated in England c.1300 -1359.  S. J. Williams (1994b). See Chapter Eight.  See his detailed monograph, Manzalaoui (1974). On the various versions of the book and its reception in the Christian West,s ee S. J. Williams (2003).  On the literature on this subject,see Ruska(1926); Steinschneider,(1891); Steele and Singer (1928).  Copenhaver ( 1992, xlvi, pp. 112-113).
From Thoth-Hermes to Aristotle and the Art of Nature).⁸²⁶ AccordingtoJacob ben David Provençal, the content of this book was borrowed from TheB ook of the Mysteryo fN ature,which in turn was attributed to Solomon⁸²⁷;H ermetic booksw erea lso attributed to Aristotle. WasH ermes,t hen, ar ival for Solomon, someone "greater than Solomon"? This question leads again to Johanan Alemanno, ascholar, philosopher,Kabbalist,and biblical exegete known mainlyfor having tutored Pico della Mirandola in Hebrew and Kabbalah. Alemanno connected between several legendary traditions about the sourceo fm agic, includingt he apocryphal Book of Enoch and Sefer Raziel,w hose date of composition is unknown. Accordingt ot he latter, Noah receivedf rom his forefathers ab ook of secrets that the angel Raziel had givent oA dam,from which Noah learned how to construct his ark. That book fi-nallyreachedSolomon, "who was very accomplished in all the secrets,sagacity, and parable, includingall the spiritsa nd all the objects and the harmful things roamingthroughout the world, and he prohibited them and permitted them and controlled them, and he built and did well, all from the wisdomi nt his book […]".⁸²⁸ AccordingtoAlemanno, each of the texts he addressed attributed the understandingofthe secrets of creation to aheavenlysource. He further mentioned unknown books of magic including "Melekhet muskelet" (English),a ttributed to Apollonius, whom Alemanno described as a "wise Christian",and from the Arab astronomer and mathematician from Seville, Abū Muḥammad Jābir ibn Aflaḥ (1100 -1150).P rimarily, Alemannol earned from Apollonius of Tyanat hatS olomon had composed twenty-four bookso nt he occults ciences, in which he became, as aresult, more proficient than Platoand Aristotle.⁸²⁹ Alemanno claimed that he has in his possession ac opy of the eleventh-century enigmatic mystical treatise Sefer HaTamar (The Book of the Palm) by aM uslim author from Syracuse, and he also quotesf rom it (see Chapter Eight). In that book,S uliman al-Yahud (Suliman the Jew), or the "ancientS uliman",i sd escribed as having taken an interest in the wisdom of religion when still aboy and having later stud- An excerpt was translated by Newton, whow rote ac ommentary on the subject.F rom line 15: "And because of this they have called me Hermes TrismegistussinceIhave the threeparts of the wisdom and Philosophyo ft he whole universe".S ee Weisser (1979).  The prolific translator from Greek to Arabic Yahya(Yuhanna)Ibn al-Bitriq (ca. 815) relates that while he was seekingphilosophical texts, he arrivedatthe Temple of the Sunthat the philosopher Asklepios had builtand succeeded in convincingthe priest to allow him to see the writingsthat were preserved there. These he then translatedfromGreek to Syriac and from Syriac to Arabic. See S. J. Williams (2003,p p. 8 -9, and notes5and 6). Provençal was born in Mantua, engaged in maritime trade, and resided at the end of his life in Naples, where he served as a rabbi and wroteacommentary on the Song of Songs.S ee Carmoly( 1844,p .125).  Jellinek (1938, pp. 155 -160).  Rosenthal (1977). ied the "scholarlywisdoms",becominggreater in wisdom thanPlatoand Aristotle and proposingf ivef orms of study.⁸³⁰ It was Solomon,then,and not Hermes,who revealed the secrets of the occult (secreta operam undi)t oh umanity.⁸³¹ Solomon "was wiser than anym an and manyp erfect men who performeda ctions by intermingling various thingsa nd comparing qualities in order to create new forms in gold, silver, vegetable, mineral and animal [matter] which had never before existed and in order to create divineforms which tell the futureand the laws and the nomoi,aswell as to create the spirit of angels, stars and devils".⁸³² The lengthyintroduction to the commentary on SongofSongs (mentioned in Chapter Three) was, in fact,Solomon's biographya sapolymath and magus⁸³³ proficient in all spheres of knowledge, both the theoretical and the practical⁸³⁴;Alemanno did find it "incredible, however,t hat King Solomon could have been wiseri nt he Toraht han Moses himself".⁸³⁵ Solomon was born as a "perfect man" with the "power of imagination, of assumption, intelligence, integrity of thought, the wisdom of logic";h ew as accomplished "in the six verbala rts-grammar,h umor,p oetry,l ogic, incantations and combinations" as well as in "astrology,music, politics and the natural sciences".I nacertain sense, he wasw isere vent hanM oses, since Moses knew nothing of the wisdom of the nations, while Solomon did. From Plato, Alemanno learned that "desire" (1 Kings 9:1) was "the preparation of the soul and the way to ascend to human virtue",and Solomon did indeed desire the words of God.⁸³⁶ Hermetism was highlyi nfluential in shapingt he figure of the Renaissance magus as one who dealt in the occultic sciences,and, in so doing,itcontributed to Solomon'simageasan occultist.Thus, an imaginary circle was closed: where Josephus had chosen the mythological godThoth-Hermes as his model for Solomon, with the aim of glorifying the Jewish people (ad maiorem gloriam Iudae- Gershom Scholem,who prepared the manuscript of Sefer haTamar for printing, wrotet hat Solomon is depicted in it as havingopposed or even derided hermetic "even though he is very close to that literature".The Hebrewtranslation was printedinJ erusalem in 1926.Scholem also broughtout atranslation into German titled Sefer Ha-Tamar;Das Buch von der Palme,Scholem From Thoth-Hermes to Aristotle orum)aboveEgypt,⁸³⁷ the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies sawSolomon take the form of an ancient Jewishs uper-sage, greater in occultism than Hermes Trismegistus. Jewishculturecould now boast not onlyanancient magus of its own but one who could take his place among the other ancient magi in universal wisdom. Yet, Solomon, unlikeM oses, was born tool ate to be regarded as the teachero f the legendary Hermes Trismegistus, who was believed to be ac ontemporaryo f Moses. Aristotle, on the other hand, postdated Solomon by centuries, and this made possiblethe inventionofatradition in which the Greek super-sagebecame Solomon'sp upil.  See Conzelmann (1992).

Solomon and Aristotle
The correspondenceb etween Solomon and Hermes is marginalwhen compared to the correspondence drawnthroughout the centuries between Solomon and Aristotle. It began, perhaps,i nafrescoi nt he House of aP hysician in Pompeii, in which Theodore Federr ecognizesad epiction of the famous Judgment of Solomon and identifiesthe figures of two onlookers staring in astonishment at Solomon'sw isdom as representing Socrates and Aristotle.⁸³⁸ As to whence the creator,orcommissioner,ofthe fresco might have drawnthis connection, Federcites ameetingbetween aJ ewishsageand Clearchus of Soli, apupil of Aristotle's, in Asia Minor (a meetingt hatc ould have occurred between 347-345B .C.E.; based on Josephus' Against Apion,⁸³⁹ an echo of the legendary tradition that Greek phi-  Feder (2008).  See BarK ochva (2010a). And see ChapterE ight. losophyoriginated in Jewishwisdom.⁸⁴⁰ However,J osephus and the Jewish-Hellenist writers appear to have been unfamiliar with Aristotle'swritings, and in any event,d id not rely on them.⁸⁴¹ Philo wast he onlyJ ewishH ellenistic writer who referred to Aristotle, whose cosmology he rejected. In the introduction to De Opificio Mundi (Onthe Creation), Philo wrote that "There are some people who, having the world in admiration rather than the Maker of the world, pronouncei tt o be without beginning and everlasting,while with impious falsehood they postulate in God vast inactivity".⁸⁴² There werep robablyJ ewish sages who had heard of Aristotle, but in the tales thatrelatehow Jewish sages (and even children) are wiser than the "sages of Athens",⁸⁴³ Aristotle'sn ame remains unmentioned. * One cannot trulyspeakof"Aristotelianism" in the singular since it constitutes a vast and enormouslydiverse corpus (corpus Aristotelicum); the plural "Aristotelianisms" would be more accurate.⁸⁴⁴ It would be no less incorrect to focus on scholastic Aristotelianism alone, as beginning in the thirteenth century,t he Christian West experienced an infusion of scientific literature via translations of Greek and Arabic texts into Latin.⁸⁴⁵ In Chapter Four we sawthat,inthe fresco Trionfo di san Thommaso d'Aquino,A quinas represented the importance of knowledge in the "various wisdoms" beyond merelythe trivium and quatrivium; recall thatt he figures at the bottomo ft he fresco represent not onlyp hilosophy (Aristotle) but also astronomy, geometry (Euclid), arithmetic (Pythagoras), and so on. At Thomas Aquinas' request,aDominican friar translatedP tolemy,⁸⁴⁶  On the antiquity of this tradition, see BarK ochva (2008).  The Greek Alexander Romance tells about al etterh ew rote to Aristotle on India, but Aristotle is not mentioned in the medieval Hebrewv ersions.S ee Gunderson( 1980). Joseph Dan writes that the image of Alexander in the Hebrew versions as aphilosopherkingwas influenced by his havingbeen tutoredbyAristotle; see Dan (1969, p. 17). But this is merelyahypothesis. See also:Y assif (2006).  1P hilo,T rans.F rancis Henry Colson (1994,I ., LCL, MXMXX,p .9).  Bekhorot 8b; MidrashL amentations 1, 4F; Derekhe retz rabba,5 ,2 .  See Schmitt (1983).  By translators such as William of Moerbeke( c. 1120 -1286).  Around the year 1230,Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1175-c.1256), aFrenchfriar,scholar,and astronomer,p ublished his book Tractatus de Sphaera (Ont he Sphere of the World), based on Claudius Ptloemy'si nfluential Almagestum (second century C.E.), which had been translated into Latin in 1175 and studied for about four hundred years at European universities.That the combination of occultism and astronomyw as not well receivedi sd emonstrated by the case of Cecco d'Ascoli( 1257-1327), ap hysician and encyclopedistw ho wroteacommentary on the Heroo fA lexandria, Galen, and others. Influenced by these translations, Roger Bacon wroteonthe benefit of mathematics to the studyofphysics (Mathematicae in Physicus Utilitas)a nd on the subjecto fe xperimentalk nowledge (De Scientia Experimentali). ⁸⁴⁷ Aristotle was revivedi nt he Christian West hundreds of years after the Church excommunicated thosew ho took an interesti nt he natural sciences.⁸⁴⁸ He was almostf orgotten from the fourth century C.E.⁸⁴⁹ until his rediscovery in West via the translation of his works into Arabic and his appropriation by the Muslim world.⁸⁵⁰ After 1255,itw as impossible to halt the spread of Aristotelian philosophy, though its reception by the Roman Catholic Church was attended by acute internal controversy and the Pope had forbidden the studyo fA ristotle duringt he earlyt hirteenth-century.⁸⁵¹ When the ban was liftedi nt he middle of the century and the full corpus of Aristotle'sw ritingsw as translated into Latin, his reputation became that of the consummatep hilosopher and sourceo fa uthority;D ante, in his Paradiso,d escribed him as "Maestrod ic olor che sanno" (the Master of Those Who Know) and situated him in Limbo.⁸⁵² Paul and Tertullian'sd eclarations that an abyss separated "Athens" (Greek philosophy) from "Jerusalem" werequenched. The cardinal question that arose was whether it was possiblet oc lose the gapb etween what was perceiveda sA ristotle'smostegregious error-namely his view that the world had always existedand belief in aCreator,inthe theologyofcreation and revelation, in miracles, in book in which addressed the subject of demonology;h ew as subsequentlya ccused of heresy and finallyb urned at the stake in Florence.  See Rossi (1968).  See Sorabji (1990). On Aristotle and magic see Thorndike(1964,Vol. 1, p. 139). In Clement of Alexandria, therea re allusions to the exoteric and esoteric writingso fA ristotle. See Jean Daniélou (1973,Vol. 2, pp. 130 -135). He writes that "the Aristotle of the second century was the Aristotle of exoteric writing".  In his Confessions,A ugustine writes that when he was twenty,h er ead Aristotle's TenC ategories and derivedn ob enefit from it.A ugustine (1961, pp. 87-88).  The main work that introduced Aristotle'sn atural philosophyt ot he West is Kitāba l-Mudkhal al-Kabīrfīʿ Ilm Aḥakāma l-Nujūm (The Book of the Great Introduction to the Science of Judgement of the Stars) by the Persian astronomer al-Balkhi (787-886); it was translated into Latin in 1133byJohn of Seville under the title Introductorium in Astronomiam. See also: Burnet (2001);Dod (1982).  In 1210,the authorities of the University of Paris, instructed by PopeGregory IX, ordered the burningoft ranslations of Aristotle'sworko np hysics and mathematics, but by 1255,i tw as impossible to haltt he spread of Aristotelian philosophy, and all of Aristotle'sw ritings weren ow studied at the university.S ee Copleston (1959, pp. 232-238).  DanteAlighieri, Divine Comedy: Purgatorio,Canto IV:131.InDante's Convitio (The Banquet) III.5, Aristotle is "that glorious philosophert ow homn aturem ost laid open". the ascension of JesustoHeaven, and even in magic and witchcraft.This was no simple tension to resolve;wehaveseen how Marlowe's Faust ultimatelychooses to burnh is books, while Goethe'sF aust recants his belief in occultism,a nd his despair of philosophya nd theology, in ar eturn to "reason".⁸⁵³ * Thomas Aquinas was the major figure in Western Christianity who combined "Aristotelianism" and the Christian conception of the world⁸⁵⁴ to synthesize a Christianizedv ersion of Aristotelianism, or perhaps an Aristotlized Christianity.⁸⁵⁵ In H. Tirosh-Rothschild'sp erceptive formulation, "Aquinas was confident that Aristotle could be shaped to fit Christian perspectivesa nd purposes, and that he, Aquinas,c ould createa nd supplyt he metaphysical teachingt oa ccomplish that transformation. And this, not in order to Christianize the pagan thinker,b ut rather because some of his theories werev alid and true […]u nlikeM aimonides, who reduced faith to reason, Aquinas assertedt hat aq ualitative differenceexistsbetween faith and knowledge with faith supreme".⁸⁵⁶ The reconciliation that he proposed encountered harsh opposition by the Franciscans and he was condemned,⁸⁵⁷ but once he and "scientific" theologyh ad prevailed, the Catholic Church regarded anyc riticism of Aquinas or his interpretationo fA ristotle as heresy.⁸⁵⁸ However,A quinas scarcelyq uotes from the bookso fw isdom  Faust,Goethe (1963, I:354-385). See Ohly( 1992, pp. 103 -121). RogerB acon ("doctor mirabilis")wrote the Epistle on the Marvelous PowerofArt and of Natureand Concerning the Nullity of Magic (c.1270).  Markus (1961).  Elior (2010).  Tirosh-Rothschild (1991,p p. 114-115). See also:D ucosa nd Giacomotto-Charra (2011).The Philosoper Ernst Bloch (1885-1977 writes "As far as Thomas mayhavepushed the substantial harmonization of faith and Knowledge,h ew as still unable to escape the real religious and, abovea ll, genuinelyC hristian paradoxt hat had confrontedP aula st he Wisdom of the World" (1 Corinthians 3:119). See E. Bloch (2019,p .7).  Thomas was not the onlyone. The thirteenth-century Spanish, or Portuguese, scholar Petrus Hispanus (Peter of Spain), whose identity is amatter of controversy,wrote in the book Tractatus (later titled Summulae Logicale)t hat Aristotelian logic was scientia scientiarum,the foundation of all studyand inquiry,adeclaration that led to his condemnation by the bishop of Paris in 1277.Peter Damian (c.1107-1072\3), Benedictine monk, cardinal, and reformer,held that philosophym ust exist in the serviceo ft heology,s incel ogic was concerned onlyw ith the formal validity of arguments.  Abook by the Italian philosopherPietroPomponazzi (1462-1525), De immortalitate animae (Ont he Immortality of the Soul), which criticizedA ristotle and Aquinas'sc ommentary,w as burned in Venice;the author'slife came under threat as well. Pomponazzi addressed the differ-attributed to Solomon. Onlya saliterary protagonist, escortingD ante to the fourth heavenlys phere in the Divine Comedy,d oes he describeS olomon'sw isdom like the wisdom of good governance as well as the wisdom to know that there are questions to which the human intellect has no answers.⁸⁵⁹ * "Aristotle-is the ultimate of humans,s ave Fort hose who received the divine over flow". Maimonides, "Epistle to Samuel IbnT ibbon",1199⁸⁶⁰ The Aristotelian corpus first entered Jewish culturei nt he first half of the thirteenth century,initiallyinthe southofFrance and in Italy, and not onlyvia Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed.⁸⁶¹ This new influenceprovoked aserious controversy between "Aristotelian" and "anti-Aristotelian" thinkers (the former dubbed Aristotle "the philosopher",w hile the latter termed him "the Greek"). The controversy led to aban on his books, which werelabeled "booksofheresy" in the communities of France and Spain.⁸⁶² The Jewisho ppositiont oA ristotelianism was multifaceted.⁸⁶³ Itsm ost radical critics were Kabbalists who regarded the philosophyoft he "Greek sages" in general as the work of Satan and as "forbidden wisdom";t hey viewed Aristotle encebetween Platonism (and Hermetism) and Aristotelianism: "The Platonic method of philosophizingb ym eans of enigmas, metaphors and images, which Platou sed very frequently, was condemned by Aristotle whoc ompletely rejected it".Quoted in Garin (1983, p. 105). Martin Luther described the Catholic church as "Thomist",i.e., Aristotelian. Philosophy, he writes, could not encompass the notion of trans-substantiation; hence, "the divine spirit is stronger than Aristotle".See Luther, De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae praeludium (1520), Weimarer Ausgabe, VI: 497-573. Luther regarded Aquinas as aman leadingChristianity on afalse path, and believed it was no wonder that the Thomist theologians in Paris called him "the enemyofscienceand philosophy".Inthis context,itisquiteironicthat Tommaso Campanella (1568 -1639) defended Galileo by means of the legend that held that Pythagoraswas of Jewish origin, or,alternatively,had studied the Mosaic law. Campanella, in other words, argued that Galileo was followingi nt he footsteps of Moses and Pythagorasr ather than those of Aristotle, and that he was correcti n maintaining that the sun was central in the celestial system. In relyingonAristotle, the Church was in fact deviatingf romt he holys criptures. Campanella (1622 [1994] "We have also seen that the books of Aristotle and his pupils have spread far and wide and that manyo fo ur people are abandoningt he studyo fT orah and hastening to studyt hese theories,though they contain fallacious views and though they whof ollow them have deviated from the ways of faith and though they are contradictory in the main […]And we say raze it,r aze it to its foundation".⁸⁶⁵ The commentator and preacher Gedaliah ben Joseph (c. 1515 -1587) went even further.H er elates the legendary tradition accordingt ow hich Aristotle read Solomon'sb ooks, that Aristotle had ultimatelyd iscovered that philosophyw as a sinister realm, that those who believed in philosophyw ould perish, and that the Torah, in contrast,w as the wellspringo fl ife. If Aristotle could, he would have gathered all of his books and burned them; better to suffocate than to allow his philosophical work to be disseminated.⁸⁶⁶ Judah ben SolomonalḤarizi (c. 1165 -1234\5), who translated the Maxims of Philosophers into Hebrew,wrote that in their first year of study, pupils should learn the moral teachings of Aristotle; onlyi nt he tenth and final year should they be taught his philosophy.⁸⁶⁷ The book claims to impart the rules of moral conduct thatA ristotle advised Alexander the Great to adopt and follow.⁸⁶⁸ Alexander'sm other is said to describe Aristotle not onlya se xceptionallyw ise but as ag uide towards goodness-ateacher of moral values devoid of skepticism. The book Sefer haTapuach (Risālat al-Tuffāḥa; Tractatus de pomo et morte incliti principisp hilosophorum; TheBook of the Apple)isaHebrew-languagetranslation of atext originallywritten in Arabic and attributed to Aristotle; its translator,A braham Ibn Ḥasdai, explains thathechose to bring the words of thatphilosopher-that great sageand master of all sciences-to the Hebrew-languager eader,a st hey would persuade skeptical Jews who did not believeinthe afterlife of the soul. Aristotle, after all,  Idel( 1983a, pp. 185 -266.).  The book was printed in Mantua, and cited in Bar-Levav( 2011,p .3 16).  Gedaliah ibn Yahya, Sefer Shalshelet ha-Kabbala (1578). By 1962the book had been printed six times,m ost recentlyi nJ erusalem in 1961. The wordsq uoted appear in an appendix on the genealogy of the Jewish people that deals with the history of the nations among which the Jews have dwelled.  Sefer Shalshelet ha-Kabbala,P art I, Chapter1 1. On Maxims see ChapterE ight.  The Book, ascribed to Aristotle, was edited in Persian and English by David Samuel Margoliouth, 1892. confessed on his deathbed that he believed in the afterlife and the Creation ex nihilo.⁸⁶⁹ The influenceofthe "Aristotelian sciences" constitutes an importantchapter in Jewish intellectual history due to its place in the chronicles of Jewishp hilos-ophy⁸⁷⁰ and science.⁸⁷¹ The sciences were introduced into the Jewish intellectual milieu not onlythrough Maimonides but also via translations of Aristotle to Arabic and Hebrew and through the corpus of Hebrew-languagebookswrittenunder the influenceo ft he Aristotelian and anti-Aristotelian corpora.⁸⁷² Thisl atter group includes,among others, Ruah Hen,abasic book for the study of Aristotelian sciences that appeared anonymouslyi nt he second half of the thirteenth century,a pparentlyi nt he southo fF rance, and was read for [several] generations thereafter.⁸⁷³ ForRabbi David Messer Leon (c. 1470 -1526), Thomas Aquinas modeled the successful mergeroffaith and studia humanitatis,orasecular curriculum (he was not alone in his interest: in 1490,the Talmudist Jacob ben David ProvençalwrotetoR.David about the importance of secular studies, particularly medicine). Johanan Alemanno suggested af our-stagecurriculum of study-with each stagel asting seven years-in which Aristotle playedam ajor role. Students  Maimonides wrote in his epistle that the Book of Apple belongs to "the spurious works ascribed to Aristotle and it is a "drivel, inane and vapid".S ee Kraemer (2008, p. 443).  The entry on Aristotelianism in the Otzar Israel encyclopedia writes about "Aristotle'sa ggressive government towards the Jews of that time" and remarks that "from the time that Aristotle'sviews became known to the sagesofIsrael, aterrible revolution occurredintheir ways of thinkinga nd modes of study, and even in our own time we sometimes find signs of that influencei nt he books of rabbis and the 'researchers' whou nthinkinglyu se their true source", Kraemer (2008, p. 213). The historian Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891) wrote: "Oncet he supremacy of Aristotelian philosophywas finallybroken by English naturalism and by the boost which philosophygot from the Cartesian principle of 'Ithink, thereforeIam ' ,J udaism also had to search around for another principle. The Aristotelian-Maimonidean systemc ould no longer satisfy". Graetz (1975,p .119).  Their influence on Jewish culture in general was minimal. This is demonstrated by,among other things, acomparison between the disseminationofphilosophicliterature and that of various types of religious literatureatthe beginningofthe ageofprint via the reading culture of the Jews in the duchies of Mantua. See Baruchson (1993). Esti Eisenmann points out that even those whoo pposed rationalism in the Middle Ages used Aristotelian philosophyt oe xplain natural phenomena, or to prove its limitations in arrivinga ta nu nderstandingoft he world. See Eisenmann (2015).  On the corpus see Zonta (2011). Some of the literatureo nt his subjecti sa ddressed in Sela (2003); Glasner (2011).  The historyo ft he book, its contents, and its readers aret he subject of ac omprehensive doctoral thesis: Elior (2010). Elior suggests that the author maybeY aacov Anatoli, wholived during the thirteenth century and was the first to translateIbn Rushd'sc ommentaries on the Aristotelian corpus. tance of wisdom and learning,t hrough which one might gain release from the dictatorship of the Aristotelians and advanceb eyond the Greek philosopher.
Francis Bacon, in his revolutionary essay TheA dvancement of Learning (1804) presents Solomon as am odel of ak ing who encourages and establishes free science: "By virtue of which grant or donative of God Solomon became enabled not onlyt ow rite those excellent parables or aphorisms concerning divine and moralp hilosophyb ut alsot oc ompile an atural history of all verdure […] Nay, the same Salomon the king,a lthough he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping,a nd navigation […], yeth em aketh no claim to anyo ft hose glories,b ut onlyt ot he glory of inquisition of truth".⁸⁷⁹ In his NovaA tlantis,B acon described an academyc alled "Salomon'sH ouse" which contained ap ortion of his writings. Bacon mentions onlyo ne such book by name: Natural History,w hich Solomonc omposed on the subject of floraa nd fauna, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall and all that livesa nd creeps upon the earth-ab ook, in other words, about zoology and botany, which fields belonged under Bacon'sc lassification scheme to the sphere of "natural philosophy."⁸⁸⁰ Bacon's "Salomon'sH ouse" was a "research institute" engaged in empirical research in all spheres,a nd did not represent its activity as miraculous or supernatural.⁸⁸¹ It is not my intent here to detail the controversy regarding occultism,Hermetism, and empirical science, nor the differences between them. Thorndikef inds the differencein, among other things, the fact thatoccultism has nothing new to say, while science advances and innovates constantlywithoutneed to relyonancient authorities. To reinforce this view,h ec ites Roger Bacon'so bservation that manythingsknown in his time werenot yetknown to Plato or Aristotle, to Hippocrateso rG alen. Another sourceo fs upport is Peter of Spain, who wrotet hat while the ancients werep hilosophers, he and his contemporaries were experimenters.⁸⁸² One must add thati ti si mportantt od istinguish between occultism and speculative science, or science basedo nf alse assumptions. That'ss tille mpirical science though. In anyevent,ingeneral, ascientistisnot obliged to seek ac orrelation between as cientifict heory and as acred or authoritative text.
Jewishscholars faced the dilemma of deciding whether to changethe strategyof their claims and assert that the "new science" was alreadyknown to Solomonbut they preferred to attribute that knowledge to the Sages, or to denyits validity. Fore xample, aJ ewish physician from Mantua, Abraham Portaleone (d. 1612), claimed in his book Shiltei hagibborim (Shields of the Heroes)t hat manyo f the new scientifict heories had alreadyb een known in the time of Solomon. The paradoxu nderlying this kind of claim is that onlyo nce the new science had formulatedt hese theories and invented these inventions was it possible to "discover" thatS olomon had gotten theref irst.C laims such as Portaleone's served primarilyt oj ustify the contemporary engagement in scientific activity, rather than to arguet hat the sciencesw erek nown in ancient times.

Wisdom versus Wit
"But, one thing comforts me, when that Ic onsider and see there is so great ac ompany, me to sustain in my folly of folkst hat to fore haveb e of wonder great authority as was King Solomon, and Virgil of great renown, Cyprian, and Abelard, And many another in this art" Guillaume de Deguileville, Pilgrimage of the Life of Man,18729 -18738 During the 16 th century,numerous "Solomonplays" in which Solomon serves as amodel of aperfect ruler were written in Germany. Amongthem are Baumgart's Juditium Solomonis (1561), and Sixtus Birck's(1501-1554) tragicomic play Sapientia Solomonis (The WisdomofSolomon, Basel, 1547)⁸⁸³ in which the eponymous king is described as "righteous,wise, knowledgeable, rich, and powerful ("pius, sapiens, cortatus, dives est potensque"), his wisdom unsurpassed by anyo ther ("quo nullus est sapientior"). He earned his fame because of his reputation for wisdom. God sent Wisdom to be his life companion and to guide him, and she brought with her two companions: "Justice,J oined in sure alliance with Peace".The playw as performed (in English) by the boys of WestminsterS chool  Adapted to the stage by Hermann Kirscher of Marburgi n1 591. See Beam (1920). before Queen Elizabeth in January 1565/6.⁸⁸⁴ The "lesson" the Queen was supposed to learn from Solomon'se xample was how ak ing should act: "HeavenlyKing,who rules magnificentlybyThy virtue, whowieldestthe scepters of justice, give sovereignty to the King; give him the government of the statea ni nviolable justice so that he mayr ule the people with fair laws;t hat he, as protector,m ay set free the good by justice and restrain the guilty by rigid law; that he maygivec haritable aid to those miserably effected [….] The king, just judge of the wretched, the distressed, judgeo ft he poor, righteous judge of the needy, the King,S olomon, will give laws for the pious.T he King will resolve anyquarrel amongf ierce adversaries.Thereshall be no room from oppression in this King".⁸⁸⁵ Solomon'swisdomwas afrequent subject in popular literaryworks.The Dialogus Solomonis et Marcolfi,t he first version of which appeared in the tenth century, exemplifies the trend: it is aparodic work⁸⁸⁶ in which King Solomon and apeasant called Marcolfus (Marcolf),⁸⁸⁷ who is no fool, engagei nacomedic battle of in life, /d evoid of wisdom, /l ike the neat he wandereth /t hat move over the plain, /t he witless cattle,\ who through the canticle cannot /h onour Christ." Later Saturn asks: "But how manys hapes will the devil and Pater Noster taken when they are counted together?"" Thirty shapes," Solomon replies,a nd describes them at length.⁸⁹²  The quotations arefromthe translation by Kemble (1848). He writes that "it can hardly excite our surprise,whenw ef ind at time am ost solemn and serious pieceo fm ystical theosophy reappearingi na nother form of ac oarse but humorous parody" (3). See also Anlezark (2009);Powell (2005).