Chapter XIX: Appendix: Two Essays by H. Steinthal, (2)

All the forces and occurrences of nature show two sides; one beneficial to man, and one hostile to him. So also the myth almost always discovers in the one and the same natural event, a good and a bad god. The bad god is hostile at once to men and gods. The development of a myth frequently takes the course of converting one of the epithets of the god who represents some process of nature, into a good god, and another into a bad god. The course to be followed in such a case is frequently determined by the nature or significance of the epithets themselves. Now it is certain that Hephaestos and Prometheus are identical in their origin, as indeed is shown in the story of the birth of Athene, in which the head of Zeus is cleft by either one or the other of them. But both Hephaestos and Prometheus are Agni in different forms. We have seen what Prometheus signifies. Somewhat of the physical signification must have still clung to this name even when it came upon Greek ground. Hephaestos, on the other hand, possessed from its very origin the finest signification of Agni; for it probably represents Agni as a home-god, guardian of the family, as a god of the hearth. And Hephaestos was still worshiped by the Greeks as a hearth-god. It surely seems natural, then, that the ideas of the beneficent action of fire should fasten themselves to him. But, on the other side, to make Prometheus, the Fire-stealer, an actual enemy of the gods, was impossible, for the very reason that he had been a benefactor of men by giving them fire, and was also the creator of men. Thus, he, as a god, became the champion of mankind against the injustice of the gods. It must be added that, perhaps even in the age of the unity of the Aryan race, the Fire-god, in his capacity as god (creator) of mankind, was also a god of Thought, who among primeval circumstances could scarcely be anything else but a god of Prudence, or foreseeing caution—an idea which gave the Romans their Minerva, but which might very naturally be attached to a god of fire, since prudence is exhibited nowhere more plainly than in the use of fire. At all events, even in the Vedas, Agni has the epithet _pramati_, which would yield something like προμῆτι-ς in Greek. Epic story made Pramati an independent personage, a son of Ćyavana (_supra_, p. 373), the ‘Fallen,’ who is a son of Bhṛgu, the Lightning. Thus in sense, if not in name, the Indian Pramati is equivalent to Prometheus.

Prometheus is Fire-god, Man-god, God of human energy in thought. In this capacity he comes into collision with the supreme god. So he appears in Hesiod, and also in Aeschylus, except that the latter was able to give a far deeper meaning to the guilt of Prometheus, to his entire relation to Zeus, and therefore also to his ultimate reconciliation.

Thus then in Prometheus is comprised the whole essence of heathenism: deification of Man and Nature. He was the most characteristic figure of that mode of conception which created gods in the image of man. But the opposite mode of conception, according to which man was created like one single god, and was expected to make himself like God in life, produced a figure opposed to that of Prometheus—Moses. I speak here not of the historical, but of the mythical Moses; and I hope that the reader will be inclined to distinguish the two as clearly as we distinguish the historical and the legendary Charlemagne. Now the mythical Moses may be compared in meaning with Prometheus. Prometheus ascended to heaven and fetched down fire from the altar of Zeus for men. Moses also went up and brought back the Tables of his God with the fundamental laws of all common human moral life; for this act Moses could not come into conflict with God. But the original heathen myth respecting Moses was different. Moses struck water out of the rock with his staff: the staff is the lightning, the rock the cloud, the water the rain. Kuhn has shown at length what a close connexion subsists between the procuring of water, wine, honey, mead, and soma, and the bringing down of fire,[804] (like the connexion between rain and lightning), and that they are so to speak, mythical synonyms. And this water did cause a difference between Moses and God. Now the reconciliation is brought about by Aeschylus by making both Prometheus and Zeus purify themselves and bind themselves by moral elements. But the monotheistic spirit of the Prophet transfigured the entire myth, and put in the place of the water and the fire the Word of God; and then no reconciliation was needed, for God spoke with Moses as his servant and messenger. Yet alongside of this monotheistic myth of Moses who brings down the Word of God, there remained also the old heathen one, which said that he brought water. It was a correct feeling, or a lingering consciousness which had been retained, that declared that Moses had sinned in the matter of the water, although it was no longer known in what the sin consisted.[805] Therefore I interpret and clear up the obscured remembrance or suspicion of the author of the Book of Numbers, by saying that, forasmuch as Moses strikes water out of the rock with his staff, he is a heathen god, a Mâtariśvan, a Pramantha, and therefore in opposition to the one true God, and must die; but forasmuch as he gives the Word of God to men, he is the Prophet without his equal.

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_THE LEGEND OF SAMSON._

By H. STEINTHAL.

When an author can presume that his readers share his views on things in general, and also accept like principles respecting the special sphere to which his subject belongs, it may be fitting to descend from the general to the particular. But when, as is now more frequently the case, no such assumption can be made, the opposite course, from the particular to the general, is preferable for the sake of both the matter and the manner of the investigation itself. I shall therefore adopt it.

I shall, therefore, at the outset leave out of the question what view it is possible to hold respecting the growth of the people of Israel, and especially of their monotheism. I shall not proceed on the assumption that any particular view is proved true, but try whether, after the consideration of our subject in its details, any result affecting general questions is reached. I also for the present leave undetermined the value of the Biblical Books as sources of history, the period of the composition of the separate books, and even their relative age—i.e. the earlier or later compilation of one with reference to others. For all these are still disputed points; and I desire not to build upon any unproved assumption, but to see how much can be contributed to the solution of the questions that arise. Even the question, whether, and how far, we are justified in treating the history of Samson in the Bible as legend,[806] may be left to be answered only from the result of the following enquiry. If, on comparing these stories with other nations’ stories, similarities are discovered alongside of much that is dissimilar, nothing shall, in the first instance, be decided about the cause and significance of such similarities, but new investigation shall be made on the subject.

I. THE ADVENTURE WITH THE LION, AND THE RIDDLE.—
THE FOXES.

I pass over the narrative of the birth of Samson for the present, intending to come to it only after the contemplation of his actions. The reason for this arrangement will then become apparent. I therefore commence with Samson’s first action.

It is narrated (Judges XIV.) that Samson was attacked by a lion when on the way to see his bride, and killed him. When he went by the same road to his wedding, he looked at the carcase of the lion, and found a swarm of bees and honey in it. This occurrence suggested the following riddle, which he put forth at the wedding-feast: ‘Out of the Eater came forth Meat, and out of the Strong [Wild] came forth Sweetness.’ By his bride’s treachery the riddle was solved: ‘What is sweeter than honey? and what stronger than a lion?’

Samson’s riddle is still a riddle even to us now. It has never yet been solved, as far as I know; certainly not in the Bible itself, for the answer there given is a still greater riddle than the riddle itself, which seems not to have been observed. Only look closely at the pretended solution. It looks as if the question had been: ‘What is the sweetest, and what the strongest?’ But the actual problem was: ‘Out of the wild eater comes sweet food;’ how that came to pass, was the question—and still is a question. For even the story of the slain lion and the honey found in his carcase cannot contain the solution, because it involves a physical impossibility. Bees do not build in dead flesh; their wax and honey would be spoiled by putrefaction. In no such wise can honey come out of the lion. Besides, Samson would be very foolish to base a riddle on a mere personal experience known to no one; it would then be absolutely insoluble. We cannot credit the original narrative with so gross an ineptitude. Then what is the position of the affair?

It is certain that a riddle like the one in question was in circulation among the ancient Hebrews, and that Samson was believed to have proposed it. It is equally certain that its solution lay in the words transmitted from antiquity: ‘What is sweeter than honey, what stronger than a lion?’ But it is not only to us at the present day that this solution is as obscure as the riddle itself; it was quite as unintelligible to the latest elaborator of the Book of Judges. So he attempted a solution on his own responsibility. He had two data in his possession: the riddle, and the story of the lion-killing. Well, he concluded, Samson must have found honey in the carcase of this lion. What he had wrongly inferred, he narrated as a fact which ought to yield the solution of the riddle. But we must guess better. If it is certain that Samson cannot have found honey in the lion’s carcase, yet, on the other hand, the pretended solution at least proves that by the strong eater the lion is to be understood, and by the sweet food the honey. And if this was solution sufficient for the legend, it follows that at the time when the riddle arose some connexion between lion and honey was so definitely and clearly present to the consciousness of every individual, because held by the mind of the entire people, that it came into prominence as soon as ever lion and honey were named together: somewhat as among us when we speak of bear and honey together, though with reference to something else.[807] But there must have been some known connexion which made it evident how honey came out of the lion. It is our task now to discover this connexion if we are to attempt the solution of the riddle—one which is more than thirty centuries old, and the unriddling of which has been forgotten for some twenty-five. Can there be any other riddle of equal interest? In the following remarks I endeavour to solve it.

When once we know that the Eater in the riddle is the Lion, of course it is natural to think of the lion killed by Samson; and the compiler of the Book of Judges would not have fancied that the honey was in its carcase, but for an obscure memory that this particular lion had something to do with it. Now to us this lion is not a real but a mythological one, i.e. a symbol. And we know the meaning of the symbol. Herakles also, it is well known, begins his labours by killing a lion. The Assyrians and Lydians, both of them Semitic nations, worshipped a Sun-god named Sandan or Sandon; he also is imagined to be a lion-killer, and frequently figured struggling with the lion or standing upon the slain lion. The lion is found as the animal of Apollon on the Lycian monuments as well as at Patara.[808] Hence, it becomes clear that the lion was accepted by the Semitic nations as a symbol of the summer heat. The reason of the symbol was undoubtedly the light colour, the colour of fire, the mane, which recalled Apollon’s golden locks, and also the power and rage of the wild beast. The hair represents the burning rays. So we have here to do with the sign of the Lion in the zodiac, in which the sun is during the dog-days. At this season the sky is occupied by Orion, the powerful huntsman—of whom I shall presently have a few words to say—and Sirius, who in Arabic is designated ‘the Hairy’ in reference to his rays.

‘Samson, Herakles, or Sandon kills the lion,’ means therefore, ‘He is the beneficent saving power that protects the earth against the burning heat of summer.’ Samson is the kind Aristaeos who delivers the island of Keos from the lion,[809] the protector of bees and hives of honey, which is the most abundant when the sun is in the Lion. Thus sweet food comes out of the strong eater.

Very possibly and probably, however, there was a superstition to the effect that bees are generated out of the lion’s carcase, in the same way as they are believed by some nations to spring from an ox’s carcase.[810] But such a superstition must have some basis, and no other basis is easily conceivable but the mythological one which I have mentioned. What was true in symbol, that the Lion produced honey, was taken as true in fact. For I must insist on the fact that, according to the literal meaning of the Hebrew, no mere taking of the honey from outside a lion’s skeleton is meant, but its being actually produced by the lion.

However, when we try to clear up to our own minds what has been said, we stumble upon a difficulty. It is after all the Sun that produces the summer-heat; Apollon sends the destructive shafts. Therefore, if the Sun-god does battle against the summer-heat, he is fighting against himself; if he kills it, he kills himself. No doubt he does. The Phenicians, Assyrians, and Lydians attributed suicide to their Sun-god; for they could only understand the sun’s mitigation of its own heat as suicide. If the Sun stands highest in the summer, and its rays burn with their devouring glow, then, they thought, the god must burn himself; yet does not die, but only gains a new youth in the character of the Phenix, and appears as a gentler autumn-sun. Herakles also burns himself, but rises out of the flames to Olympos.

This is the contradiction usual in the heathen gods. As physical forces they are both salutary and injurious to man. To do good and to save, therefore, they must work against themselves. The contradiction is blunted when each side of the physical force is personified in a separate god; or when, though only one divine person is imagined, the two modes of operation—the beneficent and the pernicious—are distinguished by separate symbols. The symbols then become more and more independent, and are ultimately themselves regarded as gods; and whereas originally the god worked against himself, now the one symbol fights against the other symbol, one god against the other god, or the god with the symbol. So the Lion represents as a symbol the hostile aspect of the Sun-god, and the latter must kill him lest he should be burned himself.

Samson also unites both aspects in himself. The Hebrew story makes him operate even on the pernicious side, but against the foe. To the foe he is the scathing Sun-god. This is the sense of the story of the Foxes, which Samson caught and sent into the Philistines’ fields with firebrands fastened to their tails, to burn the crops. Like the lion, the fox is an animal that indicated the solar heat; being well suited for this both by its colour and by its long-haired tail. At the festival of Ceres at Rome, a fox-hunt through the Circus was held, in which burning torches were bound to the foxes’ tails: ‘a symbolical reminder of the damage done to the fields by mildew, called the “red fox” (_robigo_), which was exorcised in various ways at this momentous season (the last third of April). It is the time of the Dog-star, at which the mildew was most to be feared; if at that time great solar heat follows too close upon the hoar-frost or dew of the cold nights, this mischief rages like a burning fox through the corn-fields. On the twenty-fifth of April were celebrated the Robigalia, at which prayers were addressed to Mars and Robigo together, and to Robigus and Flora together, for protection against devastation. In the grove of Robigus young dogs of red colour were offered in expiation on the same day.’[811] Ovid’s story of the fox which was rolled in straw and hay for punishment, and ran into the corn with the straw burning and set it on fire,[812] is a mere invention to account for the above-mentioned ceremonial fox-hunt; still it has for its basis, though in the disguise of a story, the original mythical conception of the divine Fire-fox that burns up the corn.

The stories of Samson hitherto discussed seem to me so similar to the Eastern and Western ones that I have compared, their interpretation so certain, and their sense so essential to the character of the Sun-god, that I am of opinion that even the coincidence of collateral points cannot be treated as accidental. The Bible says that Samson killed the lion with his bare hands: ‘there was nothing in his hand.’ But Herakles also kills the Nemean lion without his arrows, by strangling him with his arms. This feature, too, is probably significant. The Greek myth says that the reason why Herakles could not use any weapons was because the lion’s hide was invulnerable; but this is pure invention. The truth seems to me to be, that the weapons possessed by the Sun-god are actually his only in so far as his symbol is the lion; for they consist of the force and efficacy of the Sun. Now when the Sun itself is to be killed, that cannot be done with the very weapons which are its strength. The god is forced to catch the burning rays in his own arms; he must extinguish the Sun’s heat by embracing the Sun, i.e. by strangling or rending the lion.

The following point is less clear, but surely not without significance. The Philistines avenge the destruction of their cornfields, vineyards, and olives by Samson, by burning his bride and her father. This causes Samson to inflict a great defeat on his enemies; but after the victory he flies and hides in a cavern.[813] What means this behaviour, for which no motive is assigned? What had Samson to fear in any case, but especially after such a victory? But let it be remembered that Apollon flies after killing the dragon; so also Indra after killing Vṛtra, according to the Indian legend in the Vedas; and that even Êl, the Semitic supreme god, has to fly. Thus Samson’s retreat, mentioned, but not very clearly expressed because not understood, by the Biblical narrator, appears to indicate this often-recurring flight of the Sun-god after victory. In the tempestuous phenomena, in which two powers of nature seemed to be contending together, men felt the presence of the good god; but after his victory, when all was quiet again, he seemed to have I withdrawn and gone to a distance.

But if on the last-mentioned point the story is seen to be shrouded in much obscurity, this is the case in even a higher degree with the two next-following deeds of Ṣamson.

2. THE ASS’S JAWBONE.

We come to Samson’s heroism displayed with the ass’s jawbone. There is much difficulty here, and it will be impossible to be certain as to the interpretation. But it must be noticed at the outset that the story belongs strictly to a certain locality. Its field of action is a district between the Philistine and the Israelite territories, which was called ‘Jawbone,’ or perhaps in full, ‘Ass’s Jawbone,’ and doubtless received this name from the peculiar conformation of the mountains. Pointed rocks probably formed a curved line, and thus presented the figure of a jawbone with teeth. Between these teeth of rock there may have been a cauldron-shaped depression, which had the appearance of an empty place for a tooth; and just there a spring, no doubt a well-known and perhaps a particularly healing one, must have risen.[814] So, although the story wishes to derive the name from Samson’s feats, the truth is rather that the name and the territorial conditions produced the transformation of the story.

Now I must first remind the reader of the tongue of land in Lakonia close to the promontory of Maleae, which stretches out into the Lakonian gulf opposite the island Kythera: it bears the very same name as the place where Samson performed his feat, Onugnathos (‘Ass’s Jawbone’). The name is certainly only the Greek translation of an original Phenician name. From Strabo[815] we learn little or nothing of this peninsula. Pausanias[816] reports that there had been on it a temple of Athene without image and without roof. Now this Athene was probably identical with a modification of the Astarte of Sidon, Athene Onka, who was worshipped at Thebes also. And it may be significant, that there was in that temple a monument to Menelaos’ steersman, who was called Kinados (‘Fox’). At all events _Onugnathos_ proves a myth, known also to the Phenicians, of which an ass’s jawbone was an essential part.

But the ass, like the fox, was in many nations sacred to the evil Sun-god, Moloch or Typhon, on account of his red colour, from which his name in Hebrew is taken. The Greeks say that in the country of the Hyperboreans, hecatombs of asses were offered to Apollon. But he was also ascribed to Silenos, the demon of springs, on account of his wantonness; and this may perhaps furnish the explanation of the celebrated spring at this place, which has its rise in the Jawbone. Perhaps formerly there was at this spring, which was called ‘Spring of the Crier,’[817] a sanctuary where the priests of the Sun-god gave out oracles, as those of Sandon, the Lydian Sun-god, did at a spring in the neighbourhood of Kolophon. And the ass is a prophetic animal: I need only refer to Balaam’s ass.

To ancient tradition must undoubtedly be ascribed the exclamation which Samson is said to have uttered on this occasion: ‘With an ass’s jawbone a heap, two heaps—with an ass’s jawbone I slew a thousand men.’[818] Now Bertheau conjectures[819] that this short verse had originally ‘_at_ the place called _Ass’s Jawbone_ I slew,’ and that the story of Samson gaining a victory with an ass’s jawbone arose solely from false interpretation of it; and no doubt the Hebrew preposition _be_ can denote ‘in, at’ quite as well as ‘with.’ The same scholar observes further, that according to the story the rocks called ‘Jawbone Hill’[820] are, themselves, the very ass’s jawbone that was thrown away by Samson after his victory; for only so is it intelligible that a spring should gush out of the cast-away jawbone, as the story goes on to relate.[821] To this I must add, that the throwing of the jawbone seems to me the most essential and original feature in the whole story, from which the name and origin of the locality, and the victory with the jawbone also, were developed. For surely the jawbone cannot be anything but the Lightning, just as in Aryan mythology the head of an ass, or still more that of a horse, denotes a storm-cloud, and a tooth, especially the tusk of a boar, signifies the lightning.[822] Here then we have a thunder-bolt thrown down in the lightning—the instrument with which the Sun-god conquered, and at the same time formed the locality.

I have two more observations to make here. We nowhere find Samson armed with the weapons which we see almost everywhere else in the hands both of the Greek and of the Oriental Herakles—the mortar-club (pestle) or the bow and arrows. The club had the appearance of a mortar with the pestle in it, or of a tooth in its cavity; and in Hebrew one word[823] denoted both a mortar and the cavity of a tooth.[824] The second remark relates to the Spring. The Bible tells that Samson, wearied out by the murderous contest, at length sank down, faint with thirst, and prayed to God, saying ‘Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and now I shall die for thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised!’ upon which God made the spring burst forth. This might be a fiction, in which Samson was depicted under human conditions; and the story of the spring given to relieve Hagar and Ishmael might in that case serve as a model for it. But perhaps the following combination will not be found too far-fetched. The Solar hero wages war with the mischief done to nature by an excess of heat. Thus the battle of Herakles with Antaeos is only the form localised in the deserts of Libya, of the story of the contest against the stifling heat, against the simoom which gains its strength from the sandy soil, as Movers, who also sees in the Erymanthean boar only a variant of Antaeos, has ingeniously explained. In Tingis, i.e. Tangier, the grave of Antaeos was shown, _with a spring beside it_. A similar legend among the Hebrews might perhaps assume in time the above strictly Jahveistic form. In that case the national instinct of Israel would have retained only the spirit and sense of the old story, while putting off all the heathen form and substituting a Jahveistic one for it. This would require no reflexion indeed, but undoubtedly much creative power of popular imagination. The fact, that in the Hebrew story the spring is put into combination with the jawbone, would seem to me, connecting it with my conception of the latter as Lightning, to indicate that the spring is the Rain, which breaks forth from the cloud with the lightning.

3. SAMSON AT GAZA.

It is related[825] that to escape out of the Philistine town of Gaza by night, Samson pulled up the city-gates with their posts and bars, and carried them to the top of the hill opposite the city of Hebron; which seems an utterly senseless practical joke, though quite in keeping with Samson’s overweening jovial character. It will probably be difficult to make out with any certainty what is the foundation of this legend. It seems probable to me, however, that we have to do here with a disfigured myth, of the same import as that of the descent of Herakles into the nether-world,[826] which originally declared that Samson broke open the gates of the well-bolted (πυλάρτης) Hades. As in the Greek story of Herakles the fight at the _gate_ of the nether-world, ἐν πύλῳ ἐν νεκύεσσι, was transformed into a fight at Pylos,[827] by a mere play on words; so in the Hebrew story, instead of the gates of the nether-world or of death (shaʿarê mâweth), those of the city called the Strong (Gaza, or properly ʿAzzâ) might be named. The cause for which Samson went down into the nether-world was forgotten, and a new motive was invented by the legend for his visit to Gaza, in keeping with the licentiousness of his character. The fact that he starts at midnight, and does not sleep till morning, is certainly not without significance, but contains a remembrance of the circumstance that the deed took place in the darkness, i.e. in the nether-world. And the feature of the story which tells that Samson carries the gates to the top of a hill, must have been suggested by some local peculiarity in the form of the rock. But very probably the recollection of a myth which made the Solar hero bring something up from the nether-world had also some influence on the story.

4. SAMSON'S AMOURS.

The circumstance that Samson is so addicted to sexual pleasure, has its origin in the remembrance that the Solar god is the god of fruitfulness and procreation. Thus in Lydia Herakles (Sandon) is associated with Omphale the Birth-goddess, and in Assyria the effeminate Ninyas with Semiramis; whilst among the Phenicians, Melkart pursues Dido-Anna.

The beloved of the god is the goddess of parturition and of love. She is, in general terms, Nature, which is fructified by the solar heat, conceives and bears; or is specially identified with the Moon, or even with the Earth, but more frequently with Water—originally rain, and subsequently the sea and rivers also, and finally (the rain being regarded as mead or wine) the vine, caressed by the sun. Thus Venus rises out of the sea; and Semitic goddesses have fish-ponds dedicated to them. Iole, whom Herakles woos, is the daughter of Eurytos, the ‘Copiously Flowing.’ Of the three Philistine women whom Samson approaches, only one—the one who brings about his ruin—is named. Her name, Delîlâ, denotes, according to Gesenius, _infirma_, _desiderio confecta_, i.e. the ‘Longing, Languishing,’ and according to Bertheau the ‘Tender;’ at all events, it refers to love. She lives in the ‘Vine-Valley,’[828] and consequently appears to represent the vine itself, which the Sun-god is so zealous in wooing; indeed, even the name Delîlâ might denote a Branch, a Vine-shoot. Deianeira, also, is the daughter of Oeneus the ‘Wine-man,’ or, as others say, of Dionysos. Orion, who stands so near to the Sun-god, woos the daughter of Oenipion the ‘Vine.’ But even supposing—what is very possible—that Delîlâ originally denoted a Palm-branch, we know that the palm was sacred to Asherah.

But yet another combination appears admissible. Delîlâ may also signify the ‘Relaxed, Vanishing,’ as a Moon-goddess. This goddess is indeed originally a chaste virgin; but in Tyre and Assyria she also assumes the character of Birth-goddess, and is variously served by strict chastity, by sacrifice of children, and by prostitution of virginity.

The coalescence of the chaste and cruel goddess with the luxurious one is exhibited in Semiramis, who is said to have killed her husband and all her numerous lovers. This might have given to the story of Samson its present form, which represents his ruin as brought about by a woman. But this leads to the following point.

5. SAMSON’S END.

Looking back, we find that we may probably regard as certain the proposed interpretation of the killing of the lion, of the foxes carrying firebrands, and of Samson’s sexual passion: while the deeds with the jawbone and the gates must be termed uncertain. Now Samson’s end brings us back into perfect clearness; it refers again to the Solar god. If the hair is the symbol of the growth of nature in summer, then the cutting off of the hair must be the disappearance of the productive power of Nature in winter. Samson is blinded at the same time, like Orion: this again has the same meaning, the cessation of the power of the Sun. Again, Samson and the other Sun-gods are forced to endure being bound: and this too indicates the tied-up power of the Sun in winter.

The final act, Samson’s death, reminds us clearly and decisively of the Phenician Herakles, as Sun-god, who died at the winter solstice in the furthest West, where his two Pillars are set up to mark the end of his wanderings. Samson also dies at the two Pillars, but in his case they are not the Pillars of the World, but are only set up in the middle of a great banqueting-hall. A feast was being held in honour of Dagon, the Fish-god; the sun was in the sign of the Waterman; Samson, the Sun-god, died.[829]

6. SAMSON THE HEBREW SOLAR HERO = HERAKLES,
MELKART.

The above comparison and interpretation of all Samson’s deeds and the manner of his end has yielded so clear and decided a result, that the answer to the question, ‘Who or what was Samson originally?’ has necessarily been already anticipated. I therefore now only combine together what has been discovered, and say: Samson was originally a Sun-god, or his vicegerent a Solar hero—the Sun being conceived as the representative of the force of Heat in nature, whether vivifying and salutary, or scorching and destructive.

To this result we are brought, finally, by the name of our hero. For Samson, or more accurately Shimshôn, is an obvious derivative from the Hebrew word for ‘Sun.’[830] As from dâg ‘fish’ Dâg-ôn,[831] the name of the Fish-god of the Philistines, is formed, so from shemesh ‘sun’ we have Shimsh-ôn, the Sun-god.

Now, to recur to Samson’s hair, our thoughts turn most naturally to Apollon’s locks. But this comparison appears to me not quite accurate. For Apollon’s locks are connected with his arrows, and are, like them, a figure of his rays. But Samson is not the shining god, but the warming and productive god. His hair, like the hair and beard of Zeus, Kronos, Aristaeos, and Asklepios, is a figure of increase and luxuriant fulness. In winter, when nature appears to have lost all strength, the god of growing young life has lost his hair. In the spring the hair grows again, and nature returns to life again. Of this original conception the Biblical story still preserves a trace. Samson’s hair, after being cut off, grows again, and his strength comes back with it.[832]

This Sun-god was, moreover, regarded as the beneficent power that destroyed all powers and influences injurious to man and to life in general,—the chivalrous hero, who wandered over the earth from the east to the furthest west, everywhere ready to strike a blow to deliver the earth from the creatures of Typhon, the Hydra, etc., the defender and king of cities, leader of emigrants and protector of colonies—in short, as _Herakles_.

This character of the Herakles-Melkart of the Phenicians appears in Samson in greatly shrunken proportions. The Hebrews sent no colonies to Mount Atlas; the supernatural monsters become a natural lion; and Samson’s strength was required only against the Philistines. It is also seen, moreover, from the above comparison, not only that it is correct, but also how far it is correct, to call Samson the Hebrew Herakles. The one as well as the other is a martial Sun-god. And this makes it clear also that we are equally justified in classing Samson with Perseus and Bellerophon, with Indra and Siegfried,—in short, with all the mythological beings and legendary heroes whose nature is related to sun, light, and especially warmth, like Orion, Seirios, Aristaeos, and Kronos. In mythology, as in language, there are synonyms; e.g. Apollon and Helios, Herakles and Perseus; indeed, the two latter are both synonymous with Apollon. Now two words belonging to different languages, though similar in meaning, still scarcely ever call up absolutely the same conception, but are a little different from one another as synonyms. So also mythological beings and names in two nations, especially where the difference is so great as it is between the Hebrews and the Greeks, and between the Semites and the Aryans in general, are probably never perfectly identical, but never more than synonyms. Therefore we must not indulge the caprice of trying to make Samson as similar as possible to Herakles: for instance, there is not the slightest reason to assign to Samson twelve labours, and the less so as that number even in the case of Herakles is only derived from a late age and forms too contracted a sphere. And, on the other hand, in finding analogies to Samson, we are nowise compelled to rest satisfied with Herakles. But now we must look closer into Samson’s birth and the position ascribed to him in the Biblical narrative.

7. SAMSON'S BIRTH AND NAZIRITISM.

The birth of the hero of a legend is always the last circumstance to be invented concerning him, when his life and character are already settled; just as an author writes his preface only after the completion of his book. This comparison is here particularly apposite, since the narrative of the appearance of the angel who announces to the parents of Samson after a long period of childlessness, the birth of a son who is to be dedicated to God,[833] is not invented by popular imagination, but produced by the writer.

This introduction to the history of Samson is capable of two comparisons. It may be put side by side with the birth of Samuel,[834] or with the law of Naziritism.[835] In either case several differences appear. Samuel is not described by the Biblical narrator as a Nazirite (nâzîr). But from this it does not follow that at the time of the composition of the Book of Samuel this word had not yet come into use, but only that in the signification which it then had, it did not seem appropriate to Samuel as he was then fancied. Samuel was called one Lent to God.[836] In consequence of this, he lived in the Tabernacle, waiting on the High Priest and Judge Eli; he wore a priest’s dress, and, as is stated with great emphasis, no razor came upon his head.[837] The latter is said of Samson also. The expression ‘Lent to God,’ seems not to have been a technical word or fixed designation, but only an etymological interpretation of the name Samuel. The life in the Tabernacle and the priest’s dress were certainly not essential to the position of a Nazirite any more than to that of a Prophet, and are also out of accord with the narrative of Samuel’s later life; they must be only a later invention.

The narrative of Samuel’s dedication is perfectly simple, concerned only with universal human conditions and feelings, deeply and fervently religious. Deeply troubled and vexed at her childlessness, the wife prays God for a son, vowing, if only her prayer be answered, to dedicate the child to God for all the days of his life. With the impulse of true piety, after the fulfilment of her prayer, she performs a voluntary vow, to which she is compelled by no law. This story is older than that of Samson, who becomes a Nazirite, not in fulfilment of a vow, but by reason of a Divine command.

The term Nazirite is first found used by the prophet Amos,[838] who couples together the Nazirite and the Prophet; but he makes no mention of the hair, only of the prohibition of wine. But it does not follow from this fact that in the time of Amos the Nazirite did employ the razor on his head. Samson’s parents received a command to dedicate their son: he was to be a Nazirite from his mother’s womb to the day of his death. But to the prohibition to shave off the hair and to drink wine was added a prohibition to eat anything unclean; this was a later addition. The written law on the subject was the latest and also the severest and most fully developed; for it adds to the previous prohibitions another against defilement by dead bodies. On the other side, however, the Law knows nothing of any life-long Nazirites, who were to live like Samuel all their days in the Temple before God; for, in the later view represented by the Law, only the Priest, the son of Aaron, lived in the Temple; he was then the truly dedicated person, and wine was denied him not absolutely, but at the time of his service in the Temple.[839] And the Law had no need expressly to forbid the Nazirite to touch unclean food, since it was already forbidden to every Israelite. But to defile himself by the touch of a corpse, even of that of his father or mother, brother or sister, was forbidden to the Nazirite.[840]

Thus we discover three or four stages in the development of Naziritism among the Israelites, exhibited, (1) by the passage in the prophet Amos, (2) by the narrative of the birth of Samuel, (3) by that of the birth of Samson, and lastly, (4) by the Law. Before the time of Amos there were Nazirites—that is, as appears from their being classed next to Prophets, people who by a voluntary resolve consecrated their lives to God and the establishment of religion in the nation, and as a symbol of their resolve denied themselves the use of wine and did not cut their hair. There might be many prophets living as Nazirites because such a mode of life seemed to them appropriate to their intercourse with God. At the time of the construction of the narrative of Samuel’s birth the Nazirite’s abstinence was regarded as something intrinsically meritorious, rewarded by the special favour of God. Hence arose the idea that Samuel, a man whom tradition allowed to have possessed extraordinary greatness, had been a Nazirite, not only at a mature age, but from his very birth, although tradition did not call him such, but represented him only as a Prophet and Judge. It was supposed that Naziritism from birth had qualified him for his subsequent greatness. At the time when the narrator of the birth of Samson lived, this idea was probably so firmly established, that God could be imagined to bestow his special favour on an individual only by means of Naziritism, which was demanded at his very birth as a condition of that favour. Naziritism, which to Amos had been only a peculiar mode of working for the cause of the religion and morality of the nation, was degraded by the above process into a personal mode of life which was thought to be especially well-pleasing to God. And then any one could adopt it at any moment, and keep it up for a certain time only, longer or shorter; and the Law then prescribed the conduct of such as took a vow to live as Nazirites for a certain period.

But how does the author of this narrative of Samson’s birth stand in relation to the subsequent popular legends? and what do these legends know of Samson’s Naziritism? Little, not to say Nothing. The contradiction cannot be obliterated, and seems to have been observed by the narrator of the birth himself. He was the first who called Samson a Nazirite. If even his mother was to observe abstinence during her pregnancy, it seemed to follow as a matter of course that Samson himself as a Nazirite ought to pass his life in no less abstinence. But the legends reported the fact to be the reverse. The narrator observed this. So when Samson’s father prayed earnestly that the angel who had appeared to his wife and given her a rule of conduct, might appear to him also and say how they should do unto the child, the angel gave no answer, but only repeated the rule for the mother. Thus the narrator did not venture to allow a degree of abstinence to be prescribed for Samson, which in the legends he never practised.

There is, however, one feature of the Nazirite which is known even to the legends: the uncut hair. The legend knows for certain that Samson’s hair is the seat of his strength. But in the legend the hair is not represented as a mere ideal sign of divine consecration, but as the real source of strength. And therefore Samson, having trifled away his hair and thereby lost his strength, gets his strength back as soon as his hair has begun to grow again. Thus the loss of the hair is not in the legend a symbol of a falling away from God, nor the weakness that attends it produced through being deserted by God; but the hair itself is the strength, and to cut it off is the same thing as to curtail the strength, as we have already seen.

There must, at all events, have been a time in Israel when hair and fulness of physical energy formed one identical idea: it was the heathen time. When the people had gained a knowledge of the true God, the old legend had to be modified. Then the uncut hair was treated as a consecration of its possessor to the service of Jahveh. But the modification was not fully carried out: one heathen feature remained unaltered—the idea that with the growth of Samson’s hair his strength also grew up again.

8. GENERAL CHARACTER OF SAMSON, THE HEBREW HERO.

The very distinctness and clearness with which it has been found possible to invest the conception and interpretation of Samson as a hero of heathen mythology, proves the justice and certainty of such an interpretation. And the justice of the mythical conception of Samson’s deeds may be demonstrated also by another consideration. The difference between Samson’s position and that of the other Judges makes it obvious enough that his history is mere legend through and through. All the other Judges, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, fight at the head either of a large force or of a small and picked company: Samson always appears alone, and beats hundreds and thousands alone, and this too without arms. If the other Judges receive Divine apparitions by which they are impelled to action for the deliverance of their people, yet they act with perfectly human forces and means, in human fashion: Samson acts with supernatural force, and is a miracle from beginning to end. In spite of this, Samson’s action is not only destitute of any proper result, but also—what is more significant and far worse—devoid of even the consciousness of any aim, devoid of plan or idea. He—Samson the Nazirite consecrated to God!—looks for wives and mistresses among his own and his people’s enemies.[841] He teases, irritates, injures his enemies, and kills many of them. But there appears nowhere the consciousness of any mission which he had to fulfil for the good of his native land against his enemies. He is inspired by no idea of Jahveh, driven forward by no impatience of a shameful yoke. He is roused only by pleasures of the senses and the caprice of insolence. Samson is utterly immoral. He is exactly an old heathen god, and therefore immoral, like all idols. Idols must be so, for they are only personifications of the forces and occurrences of nature; now nature as such is indifferent towards morality, and consequently, though not moral, still not immoral either; but when the mechanical force of nature is pictured as a person, and removed into the conditions of ethical life, it cannot but appear absolutely immoral. This is what all heathendom does, that of Greece not excepted.[842]

If, on the one hand, Samson wants all the qualities necessary to an historical hero, he is on the other, viewed from the esthetic point, a most admirable phenomenon, quite unique in Hebrew literature. It is really wonderful with what tact, and what firm and delicate esthetic feeling, the gigantic, Herculean, Samson is delineated in the Hebrew legend. His behaviour evinces nothing uncouth or vulgar, a fault from which even the Greek Herakles is not free. Herakles, though adored as a god, has to put up with being scorned and derided for his greediness; he is a standing character in the Greek comedy, and a butt against which all jests are levelled. Samson, on the contrary, is himself the jester and scoffer, who adds the jest of insult to the injury he does his enemies. A native merriness encircles him; and in the very hour of death, at his self-prepared destruction, he maintains his humour, which here assumes a sarcastic tone.

* * * * *

We have now to take in hand two more considerations of a general character, which will determine the true import of the preceding detached ones and set them on a firm basis. We must first enquire: What means the above demonstrated accordance of the Hebrew legend with the legends of other nations?—what is to be inferred from it? The answer to this will assign the cause of the accordance. And then the field for the development of the legend of Samson in the popular mind, and the connexion of the legend with the progress of religions life in the course of centuries, must be more fully discussed.

9. THE MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP OF THE COMPARED LEGENDS.

In the preceding comparisons, I have in the first instance proved Samson’s relationship to the Semitic Sun-gods. The Hebrews being Semites themselves, and living in the midst of Semitic nations, there can be no doubt that the similarity of the Story of Samson to those of the Semitic Sun-god is founded on original identity. But, on the other hand, the Hebrew form of the story exhibits sufficient peculiarity to negative the idea of its being simply borrowed from other Semitic nations. Samson is not exactly the Tyrian Melkart, nor the Assyrian and Lydian Sandon, but a peculiar modification of the conception which lies at the base of both of them. It is, moreover, quite inconceivable that myths and stories heard from strangers could yield materials for tales about a national hero such as Samson. If we knew the Semitic myths and stories more completely, there would probably be not a single feature in the story of Samson left without some mythical conception of the Semites corresponding to it; yet every feature would have undergone a peculiar Hebrew modification. In the absence of such knowledge, we were obliged to proceed to a comparison with Greek and Roman legends. Now how are we to understand the similarities discovered there?

In the abstract, three cases may be assumed as possible. First, there may have been borrowing; and if so, we should probably be inclined without hesitation to assume that the Greeks borrowed from the Phenicians and the Semitic nations of Asia Minor. Secondly, there may have existed an original similarity in certain mythical conceptions between Semites and Aryans, whether by reason of original historical unity, or because both races had, independently of one another, hit upon the same conception. Then thirdly, a combination of borrowing and unity is conceivable, by which the Greeks regained by borrowing some element which had been lost out of their memory, or obtained by borrowing from strangers an idea synonymous with a preexisting native one. Which of these possibilities is the reality, cannot be decided all at once with reference to Herakles in general; but even after some result has been reached respecting that hero’s personality, the above enquiry must be instituted afresh concerning every one of his acts.

Now as to the general aspect of Herakles, I think we have at the present day advanced far enough to be able summarily to reject as absurd the idea that the Greeks had borrowed him from the Phenicians. The hero exhibits so decidedly the character of the Aryan Sun-god and Solar hero, and moreover appears in so specifically Greek a form, that there can be no doubt but that in him we see the peculiar Greek modification of a possession held in common by all the Aryans.

The fact, however, of Herakles being originally Greek, does not exclude the possibility that the Greeks, if they heard of a Semitic god whom they believed to be their Herakles, might claim the deeds of the foreign god as belonging to their own hero. This was a perfectly natural and simple process in the mind, such as may occur now to any one of us. Suppose that some one tells us news of a certain person whom we think we know, because we know a person of the same name and position living at the same place; then we shall immediately attribute what is told us of the stranger to the one known to us. Thus the Greeks could, and could not but, ascribe unconsciously to their Herakles what were really Semitic stories of Solar heroes.

Accordingly, it seems to me beyond doubt, that the Greeks borrowed the killing of the lion from the Semitic god. For the Lion is a mythical symbol that recurs among all Semitic nations, whereas he is scarcely ever, if ever, found in the original Aryan mythology. In the original seats of the Aryan races there can scarcely have been any lions. Moreover, it is only after the seventh century B.C. that Herakles was figured with the lion’s hide. His original arms were those of Apollon, the bow and arrows.