Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/162

 SOLOMON

138

SOLSONA

given two ideas of Ode XIX which are most decidedly post-Johannine; others still could be given. The points common to both odes and the Fourth Gospel are striking, — for instance, adopted sonship founded on love of Jesus, — "because I love Him, the Son, I shall be a son" (Ode III, 9). Odes IV and VI have much of Christian thought. An hypothesis, hitherto unsuggested, yet far likeUer than Harnack's wild quarry-dream, is that the odes are a new link, long lost, of the Johannine tradition; that they draw their Christian sentiment from St. John's Gospel. The traditional view in regaril to the Apostolic authority of the Gospel is strengthened by a new witness, — a Judeo-Christian genius, who perhaps works over some pre-existing and baser Jewish metal. Whoever the author is, he very likely tried to combine the ideas of the Sapiential Books with those of the Fourth Gospel.

Harris, The Odes and Psalms o/ Solomori now first published from the Syriac version (Cambridge, 1909); Ein Judisch-christ- liches Psalmbuch aus dem ersten Jahrhundert, tr. from the .Syrian l)y Flemmino, edited and published by Harnack in Texte and Untersuchungen. XXXV (Leipzig, 1910), 4.

W.\LTER Drum.

Solomon Islands, Prefecture .4postolic of the Northern, established on 23 May, 1898, by separa- tion from the Vicariate Apostolic of New Pomerania (q. v.), includes the Islands of Ysabel, Choiseul, Bou- gainville, and aU the islets under German protector- ate (see Solomon Islands, Prefecture Apostolic OP the Southern). In 1897 the islands were put under the jurisdiction of Mgr Broyer, Vicar Apostolic of Samoa, and in 1898 formed into a new prefecture under Mgr Joseph Forestier, who re- sides at Kieta, on Bougainville Island. In 1911 the mission contained: 3 churches; 3 stations; 10 Marist Fathers; 5 lay brothers; 7 Sisters of the Third Order of Mary; 2 Samoan catechists; 5 Catholic schools, with 140 pupils; 2 orphanages; and a few hundred Catho- lics. The Marist missionaries belong to the Province of Oceania, the superior of which resides at Sydney, New South Wales. Fever is very prevalent at the mission, and most of the fathers who went to the islands in 1898 have been carried off by disease.

PiOLET, Les missions franfaiscs, IV (Paris, 1902), 343-68; A-uitralasian Catholic Directory (Sydney, 1911), 165.

Solomon Islands, Prefecture Apostolic of the Southern (Insi^L/VRUm Solomoni.\rum). — The Solo- mon Islands are in the Pacific Ocean, Ij'ing between 154° 40' and 1G2° 30' East long., and 5° and 11° South lat. The Spanish navigator Alvaro Mendana de Xcyra discovered the Islands of Ysabel, Guadalcanar, and San Christoval in 1567. Impressed by the natural riches of the islands, he called that group after King Solomon. Mass was celebrated by the Franciscan chaplain of the expedition, but the soldiers and sailors were not in sufficient number to organize a permanent settlement. Mendana and his expedition returned to Peru, 26 July, 1569. On 5 April, 1595, Mendana, with three hundred and sixty-eight emigrants, men, women, and children, started for the Solomon Islands, and landed at Santa Cruz, a small archipelago between the Solomon Islands and the New Hebritles. He died two months after; his widow Dona Ysabel, and Quiros, the chief pilot, took command of the expedition, and returned to Spain with the remainder of the colony. Thereafter for two centuries, the existence of the Solomon Islands came to be doubted, although .sea- men spoke of them as a rich and marvellous country. In 1781 M. Buachi^, a French geogra))hi'r, presented a paper to the Academic des Sciciiics, sliowiiig that the Solomon Islands discovered by the Spaniards sliould be sought about 12° 30' South latitude, be- tween Santa Cruz and New Guinea, and that those islan<ls discovered by Carteret in 1767, Bougainville in 17t)S, and by Surville in 1769 were the same. D'Entrccasteaux found Iat(^r that the surmises of the French geographer were correct, and many of the

names bestowed by the Spaniards were restored. The group, which is the most important of the Pacific, lies about five hundred miles east of New Guinea and covers an area of 17,000 square miles. The names of the principal islands, jiroceeding from the south-east in a north-westerly direction, are San Christoval, Malaita, Guadalcanar, Florida, New Georgia, Vella Lavella, Ysabel, Choiseul, and Bougainville.

A Brief dated 19 July, 1844, anil signed by Gregory XVI, entrusted the Society of Mary with the evan- gelization of the country which extends from New Guinea to the Gilbert group. Towards the end of October, 1845, Mgr Epalle, S.M., sailed from Sydney with eighteen missionaries. The ship sighted San Christoval on 1 December at the southern extremity of the Solomon group. Thanks to the kindness of the captain, the bishop was able to survey the coast for a few days, but on discovering that the position was not a central one, the party decided to steer for Y'sabel. On 12 December they were lying at anchor in the Bay of Astrolabe. The vicar Apostolic, three priests, and a handful of sailors went ashore, to be met by the aborigines, who, at a signal from their chief, mortally struck Bishop Epalle and dangerously wounded a Marist Father and a seaman. "The rest of the party escaped and interred the remains of Bishop Epalle in a lonely islet, where fifty-six years after P'ather Rouillac, S.M. was fortunate enough to recover and identify them. Mgr CoUomb, S.M., embarked on the "Arche d'Alliance", a barque which had been specially fitted out for Catholic propaganda work by a French naval officer. Commander Marceau, and joined the missionaries at San Cristoval. Three Fathers had been killed and eaten by the cannibals, another succumbed to malarial fever. Determined not to uselessly court massacre any longer on that spot, they set out for Woodlark and Rook Islands, where the new bishop and some of his followers died. Of the eighteen who had left Port Jackson, ten years before, five only now survived. On the representations of Propaganda, the Society of Mary gave up the Sol- omons temporarily. In 1852 Propaganda committed the care of these unhappy islands to the Fathers of the Foreign Missions of ^iilan; but they also were obliged to leave. In 1897 Rome asked the Marist authorites to make a new effort towards the civilization of the Solomon tribes. Mgr Vidal, S.M. (Vicar Apostolic of Fiji), on 21 May, 1898, landed with three Fathers at Rua-Sura, near Guadalcanar. On 22 August, 1903, the mission was made a prefecture Apostolic, comprising the Islands of New Georgia, Florida, Guadalcanar, Malaita, San Christoval, the Santa Cruz archipelago, and all the islets under British protectorate. Rev. E. M. Bert reux, S.M. , was appointetl prefect .Vpostohc, and at the iire.sent time (1912) seventeen priests, ten sisters, and a lay brother labour with him in that portion of the Solomon group. They attend to nine principal churches, forty-eight chapels, nine schools, numbering each from twenty to seventy pupils. Several hun- dred natives have been baptized, and a fair proportion are sufficiently prepared to be admitted to the sacra- ments every month. The nuns teach eighty girls in three schools. About three hundred women are regular catechumens, and assemble every Sunday for instruction in Christian doctrine. There are about tliree thousand neophytes.

GcppY, The Solomon Islands and their Natives (London, 1887); Woodford, A Naturalist among the Head-hunters (Melbourne and Sydney, 1890) : Monf.vt, Dix annies en Milan^sie (Lyons, 1891); The Disconery of the Solomon Islands, tr, Amher.st and Thomson, from original Spanish manuscripts (London, 1901); Les Missions Catholiques Fran^aises au XIX' siicle (Paris, 1900).

E, M. Bertreux.

Solsona, Diocese of (Celsonensis), in Lerida, Spain, suffragan of Tarragona, erected by Clement VIII, 19 July, 1593, from Uie Dioceses of Urgel and Vich, suppressed in 1851, by virtue of the Concordat, after a vacaiury of eleven years (the last bishop being