Solomon

Solomon (Соломон) is the king of Israel in the Bible to whom church tradition ascribes the Book of Ecclesiastes, and who is placed in the 11th–10th centuries BC. The PSS commentary adds that biblical criticism finds no grounds for the ascription and that the real author is unknown.¹

In A Confession

In A Confession (Исповедь, 1879–82) “Solomon” means the speaker of Ecclesiastes. Tolstoy himself keeps the doubt open: “So said Solomon, or whoever wrote those words” (VI.17).² The name comes eighteen times, more than any other, and is usually paired with Arthur Schopenhauer. The plan on the cover of the first draft already has “Solomon, Schopenhauer.”³

• Chapter VI. Solomon is one of the four, with Socrates, Schopenhauer and the Buddha, who give the same answer to the question of life (VI.10). The long quotation in VI.14–16 is taken from chapters 1, 2 and 9 of Ecclesiastes.⁴ VI.24 gives his answer in short: “All that is in the world — folly and wisdom and riches and poverty and mirth and grief — is vanity and emptiness. Man dies and nothing is left of him. And that is stupid.”⁵
• Chapter VII. Solomon gives the words for the second way out, epicureanism (VII.5–7), from chapters 8 and 9 of Ecclesiastes.⁶ Those who take that way forget “that not everyone can have a thousand wives and palaces like Solomon”, and that “the accident that has today made me a Solomon may tomorrow make me a Solomon’s slave” (VII.8).⁷ The fourth way, which Tolstoy took, is “to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer” (VII.11).
• Chapters VIII–IX. “I and Solomon and Schopenhauer had stated the question so truly and exactly that nothing else was possible” (VIII.3); the reply “strictly expressed, as it is by the Brahmins and by Solomon and Schopenhauer” is only “0 equals 0” (IX.7); “my position with Schopenhauer and Solomon … was stupid” (IX.22).
• Chapter X. The faith of his own circle might serve “for some distraction for a repentant Solomon on his deathbed”, but not for the majority, who are called “to create life” (X.8).⁸ It was not that he, Solomon and Schopenhauer had not killed themselves that convinced him faith exists, but that the milliards “have borne Solomon and us on the current of their lives” (X.8).

The translation

Maude notes that Tolstoy’s version of Ecclesiastes differs in places from the English Authorized and Revised versions, and that he followed Tolstoy’s text.⁹

Open questions

• Maude’s note cites a letter to Afanasy Fet for Tolstoy’s view that “The Authorized English version [of Ecclesiastes] is bad”. The letter is not among the dive’s extracts and should be found in the PSS.

Dive provenance

• 1879-1882-a-confession — the text of A Confession (PSS 23:1–59) and its commentary (PSS 23:515–537); Maude’s note 8; Johan’s reader notes of 10 October 2026 asked for this page.