Chapter XX: Appendix: Two Essays by H. Steinthal, (3)

We touch here on a characteristic distinction between the Semitic and the Aryan Sun-god. The former kills a lion, the latter a dragon. The Lion is a symbol of solar heat; the Dragon was originally a symbol of winter, rain, mist, marshy vapours. The Semitic god has to combat chiefly with the burning sun, the Aryan with clouds. In India, no doubt, Indra does battle with the ‘Scorcher,’ ‘the Drought’ (_śushṇa_); but this is surely a later, peculiarly Indian, accretion. On the other side, however, as we shall see further on, the Semites were not ignorant of the Cloud-Dragon. The distinction just indicated, therefore, must be understood as meaning only that here the one, there the other, of the two characteristics is the more widely spread and important; or that the one or the other is the more fully developed.

With this may be combined another interesting feature. The Semitic Sun-god represents chiefly the procreative warmth and the scorching heat; the Aryan rather the illuminating light and the fire, which latter however, in connexion with the rain, is no doubt regarded as productive of fertility. The two races also appear in general to be similarly distinguished: the Semite has greater heat, the Aryan more light; the former is more passionate, the latter more sanguine. But this is not a suitable place to follow out this train of thought.

As to the foxes with fire-brands, that feature is probably also borrowed. Among all the Aryan nations, it is only the Latins, as far as I know, with whom this feature assumes any prominence; and with them it appears only in the form of sport, derived from a legend already enfeebled, and scarcely at all in religious rites; for in the latter we find the red dog with the same signification; and the dog also is Semitic. It is possible that the fox is also preserved in the Fox of Teumessos;[843] but the latter belongs to Boeotia, where much Phenician influence is visible.

If the adventure with the gates of Gaza is correctly interpreted above, the corresponding descent of Herakles into the nether-world can still scarcely be regarded as borrowed. The interpretation of the adventure at Gaza, however, is not certain enough to build any further theories upon, any more than the story of the ass’s jawbone, which moreover is very different from the boar’s tusks.

10. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MYTHS AMONG THE ISRAELITES
IN CONNEXION WITH THAT OF MONOTHEISM.

We have convinced ourselves that the mythical mode of looking at things indicates a distinct stage in the development of the intellectual life of nations. The substance, which is looked at in the myth, is very various, and by no means bound to a polytheistic system. Without offending the dignity of Monotheism, it must be affirmed that not only Genesis, but also the narrative portion of the other Books of Moses, of Joshua and Judges, and isolated passages in all other books of the Old and the New Testament, are mythical. The primeval history comprised in the first ten chapters of Genesis, sublime above the cosmogonies and theogonies of all other nations, contains also sublimer myths.

But these Israelite myths, in the form in which we have them now, are framed throughout on a monotheistic principle. This form is for the most part not the original one, but a conversion out of a polytheistic form. My exposition of the legend of Samson might be considered to have sufficed to prove the existence of a primeval heathenism among the Hebrews, which of course rested on a Semitic foundation. But this conclusion may be further confirmed by the following considerations.

I believe myself justified _a priori_, i.e. by reflections of a general nature, in relying on the concession, that the notion of Revelation, in the sense that at a definite point of time and by a special Divine contrivance, Monotheism was taught to a whole nation, and immediately handed down by them in the sharpest, fullest, and most elaborated antagonism to all heathen ideas, is philosophically untenable, since it is in accordance neither with psychology nor with history. This leads directly and necessarily to the assumption, that the Israelites freed themselves gradually from their inherited Semitic heathenism, and passed over to a Monotheism which increased in purity with time.

In opposition to these ideas, some have very recently renewed the attempt to establish Monotheism as the belief of primeval mankind, from which the nations passed into Polytheism, either, as some assume, through a growing dulness of spirit (a Fall), or, as others think, through the very opposite process, a higher development of mind; whilst the Israelites preserved the old original Monotheism, which is reckoned to their credit by the first, and to their blame by the latter, theorists. It suffices here to remark that this primitive Monotheism is absolutely incapable of proof from history, that at the outset it turns history upside down, and especially that it is conjoined to a very loose and mean notion of the nature of Monotheism. Moreover, the Semitic race did not possess Monotheism as an inheritance from its birth.[844]

Now if history is unable to prove Monotheism to have existed from the beginning in the Semitic race, even the monotheistic literature of the Israelites contains evidence on the other side, exhibiting a mythical Polytheism that extended from high antiquity down into those writings. For this Polytheism, as was natural, impressed on the language a stamp so distinct as to be still recognisable in various views and phrases belonging to the Prophets and sacred poets.

I will begin with the Book of Job. We need not here discuss the age of the composition of this wonderful poem. No one will now think of placing it before Solomon’s time; and Schlottmann’s view, that it was produced at the end of Solomon’s reign or under his successor, has probably but few adherents. Now in this poem occur many personifications, which, although mainly based on lively poetical views and forming simply the poet’s language, often also betray the existence of decidedly mythical persons. Although the author was undoubtedly a monotheist and a Jahveist, yet in his ideas of the world heathenism was still not far removed from him. This appears precisely in the passages in which he tries to portray the omnipotence of Jahveh; for there he sometimes slips into expressions which look as if intended to picture the power of Indra and Zeus or Apollon. So e.g. (XXVI. 11–13): ‘The pillars of heaven tremble, and are frightened at his rebuke; by his strength he shakes the sea, and by his wisdom he crushes Rahabh; by his breath he brightens the heaven, his hand pierces the flying Dragon.’ To understand these words in the poet’s own sense, I think we must make very delicate distinctions. He appears to me to occupy a position in the middle between the pure Heathenism of a Vedic bard, and Prophetism, and no doubt nearer to the latter than to the former; yet a position from which the myth still almost looked like a myth, and was not a mere poetic figure. I must explain my meaning more fully.

Ewald’s view, that Rahabh was originally a name of Egypt, and then became the mythological designation of a sea-monster, is an exact inversion of the fact, and requires no refutation—especially as it has been already answered.[845] _Rahabh_, etymologically denoting the Noisy, Defiant, was originally the name and description of the Storm-Dragon. In the storm it was believed that Jahveh was fighting with a monster that threatened to devour the sun and the light of the sky. I should claim this well-known myth of Indra for the Semitic race, were it supported only by the above verses, and should consequently regard it as a primeval feature of the mythical aspect of nature, common to Semites and Aryans, even if we were not so fortunate as we are, through Tuch’s and Osiander’s investigations, in finding the same myth repeated among the Arabs and Edomites, who have the divine person Ḳuzaḥ, a Cloud-god, who shoots arrows from his bow.[846] Here it is clear at the same time that the Bow is the Rainbow, and the Arrow the Lightning.[847] I see no reason for the supposition that the Storm-monster was fettered to the sky. But I think we may gather from Is. XXVII. 1, that the Semitic Storm-Dragon[848] was imagined in three forms: coiled up (ʿaḳallâthôn), i.e. the Cloud; flying (bârîach), i.e. the Lightning, or the dragon flying from the lightning, and lastly stretching himself, extended (Tannîn), i.e. streaming Rain. By the downpour of the rain the sea in heaven produced a sea on earth, and the tannîn was removed from the sky into the ocean. As a sea-serpent he is called Rahabh, the Noisy.

Of this nothing was known even to Isaiah, and no later Prophet or Psalmist understood this mythical view; these names of mythical beings had been imperceptibly converted into names of hostile nations, having been probably first used to designate great and notorious beasts living in the territories of the nations. Thus in Ps. LXXXVII. 4, Rahabh indisputably stands for Egypt; and two passages in Ezekiel (XXIX. 3, and XXXII. 2), exhibit clearly the supposed transition, since Pharaoh, that is Egypt, is in the latter compared to the Tannîn, that is the Crocodile, and in the former actually addressed as such. Thus the Tannîn or Rahabh became first any kind of sea-monster, then specially the crocodile, and finally Egypt. Similarly it is said in Ps. LXVIII. 31 [30], ‘Rebuke the beast of the sedge,’[849] i.e., the crocodile, meaning Egypt.

But there is a general connexion between this dragging down of mythical beings into the life on earth and the conversion of mythical actions in heaven into terrestrial history. Passages are not wanting in which a wavering between the mythic signification and that of legendary history, or the absorption of the former in the latter, is evident. Thus it is said in Ps. LXXXIX. 10–12 [9–11], ‘Thou rulest the pride (elevation) of the sea; when it raises its waves, thou stillest them; thou treadest under foot Rahabh as one that is slain; with the arm of thy might thou scatterest thy enemies. Thine is the heaven, thine also the earth, etc.’ Here the parallel to Rahabh in the preceding member is gêʾûth ‘elevation, pride, defiance,’ and in the succeeding one ‘thy enemies.’ The writer’s general attention is directed to physical phenomena, which yielded to him the old heathen conception of Rahabh; but Rahabh had already gained a historical signification, and consequently suggested in the following member an historical reference.

This appears still more beautifully, and in a way which lays open to us the origin of the legendary history, in the following passage, Ps. LXXIV. 12–17: ‘But God my king, from the olden time working deliverances in the middle of the earth. Thou cleavest with thy might the sea, breakest the heads of the Tannîns over the water. Thou crushest the heads of Livyâthân, givest him for food to beasts of the desert. Thou splittest open (i.e. makest to burst forth) spring and stream; thou driest mighty rivers. Thine is the day, thine also the night, thou hast appointed light and sun. Thou settest all the borders of the earth; summer and winter, thou formest them.’ Here, again, we have a picture of the natural world, and one taken from the mythical point of view. God cleaves the cloud with the lightning, and by that act kills the upper Dragon above the water, so that the rivers of rain stream down out of cloud-rocks. But this mythical act, which is repeated for ever in every thunderstorm, had been converted first into a single act, performed once in ancient time (miḳḳedem), and subsequently into a cleaving of the sea at the Exodus out of Egypt. It is this which the poet intends to depict in these six verses, which he probably took from an ancient song. Thus he sings of Israel’s passage through the sea and the desert in words which were intended to picture the Semitic Storm-myth; and thus we see how the latter was transformed into the former. This transformation was facilitated on the part of the language by the circumstances that in the verses just quoted the verbs may be understood as well as in a preterite as in a present sense (‘thou cleavest’ or ‘thou cleavedst’), and that ḳedem denotes either ‘past time, antiquity,’ or ‘the beginning of all time.’

The case is exactly the same with the Prophet, Is. LIX. 9, 10: ‘Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jahveh; awake, as in the days of the beginning (ḳedem), in the generations of olden times (ʿôlâmîm)! Is it not thou that dost (or ‘didst’) cut Rahabh, that piercest (or ‘piercedst’) Tannîn? is it not thou that didst dry the sea, the water of the great abyss, that didst make the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?’ Here also it is clear how the Prophet’s consciousness passed imperceptibly from the myth into the legend, or, if you prefer to call it so, history.

From these passages it appears that the conversion of the legend into history was already so firmly fixed in the minds of men, that, when they began with depicting nature, and in so doing had recourse to the stereotyped expressions that originally had a mythical meaning, they were involuntarily drawn into historical contemplation. This is not the case with the writer of Job: he remains within the mythical contemplation of nature. So full of life are the mythical pictures in his writings that we must suppose them to have been to him more than a mere matter of constructive fancy. The Pillars of Heaven are not to him mere mountains poetically described, but also convey a full-toned echo of the Pillars of Hercules that supported the heaven.[850] The stars and constellations are to him still actually living beings. In his work Rahabh cannot signify Egypt, but is still really the Sea-serpent. It is true that in other passages of the Prophets and Psalms Jahveh walks over the water of the clouds, which is by Habakkuk (III. 15), in a chapter containing many references to mythology, actually called ‘Sea’ (yâm): but only the writer of Job still speaks of the ‘heights of the sea,’[851] which in mythology are the clouds; even Amos, one of the earliest Prophets, substitutes for it ‘the heights of the earth’ (IV. 13). Isaiah mentions the ‘heights of the clouds,’[852] a decidedly mythical phrase; but the Prophet appears in that passage to have intentionally adopted heathen conceptions, as the words are put into a heathen mouth. Amos (V. 8) names the constellations Orion and the Pleiades, but he knows only that Jahveh ‘made’ them; whereas the writer of Job (XXXVIII. 31) speaks of their fetters. From the speech which he puts into the mouth of Jahveh it may probably be inferred that he regarded the mythical acts as acts that took place at the Creation. Thus, as I have already remarked, he takes a middle position between pure myth as such and myth transformed into legendary history. Altogether, he never directs his attention to History and the revelation of God in history: to his mind God is only a wise creator and upholder of Nature, and within this nature lies Man, i.e. the individual whom God created thus, and whose destiny he determines in wisdom and grace. The poet of Job does not possess the world-embracing glance of the Prophet.

Still, though in his mythology he stands nearer to heathenism than the Prophets, and his mind falls short of the breadth and greatness of the prophetic soul, he may yet be a contemporary of theirs, only one who lived in a retired circle, and had, so to speak, a one-sided education. And his whole phraseology possesses a somewhat sensuous and materialistical character, which becomes strikingly obvious on the comparison of certain expressions and certain passages expressing the same thought. Orion is in Job still really the fettered Giant (Kesîl ‘the Strong,’ not ‘the Fool’); but Isaiah (XIII. 10) forms from this word the plural kesîlîm, ‘the bright-shining stars.’ Then the word had ceased to be a proper name, which it was still in Job. Similarly Tannîn is here a proper name; but later it denotes a great sea-animal in general (e.g. in Ps. LXXIV. 13, quoted above), and therefore can have a plural. See also Is. XIX. 13, 14: ‘The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; the heads of her tribes have led Egypt astray. Jahveh pours into their midst a spirit of perverseness, and they lead Egypt astray in all her action, like a drunken man tumbling into his vomit;’ and compare with this Job XII. 24: ‘[God] taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and leads them astray in a pathless waste; they grope in darkness without light, and he leads them astray like a drunken man.’ Here we have not, as in Isaiah, the abstract ‘Spirit (rûach) of perverseness,’ but the concrete ‘Heart’ (lêbh); and the ‘Going astray’ also is depicted more sensuously.[853]

Now that we have thus learnt that the Storm-myth existed among the Hebrews and the Semites in a form similar to that which it had among the Aryans, to such an extent that it indelibly permeated their views of nature and their language, we have not only gained a greatly increased justification for regarding the story of Samson as a myth, but we can now venture also on other mythological combinations and interpretations, which taken singly possess but little security and may pass for mere conjectures, but which almost certainly have a general mythic character. Thus we may find in the Bible a copious source of knowledge of Semitic Mythology. While only calling to memory in general terms the numerous accordances with Semitic mythology contained in the Bible, which Movers has in many cases made quite certain, I will here select a few narratives which seem to have a connexion with the above discussed Storm-myth.

I have before[854] pointed to the fact that myths of a Sun-god are embodied in the life of Moses. Now all of these correspond to wide-spread Aryan myths of the Sun-god or Solar hero. Immediately after his birth Moses is put into a chest and placed on the water. A similar fate befalls nearly all the Solar heroes: e.g. Perseus, and heroes of the German legends. As Moses sees a burning bush which does not burn away, so the grove of Feronia[855] is in flames without burning away. I have already shown[856] that the staff by which Moses performs his miracles is the Pramantha. Like Moses, Dionysos strikes fountains of wine and water out of the rock.[857] Moses, by throwing a piece of wood into bitter water makes it sweet (Ex. XV. 25). This must be the same as the churning of the Amṛta, Soma, Nectar, the divine mead. Moses has no dragon to kill, but he kills an Egyptian, and immediately flies, like all Solar heroes;[858] and like Apollon, Herakles and Siegfried, he becomes a servant. And the sea, over which Moses stretches out his hand with the staff, and which he divides, so that the waters stand up on either side like walls while he passes through, must surely have been originally the Sea of Clouds;[859] and I have consequently little inclination to look for the spot of the earth where, and the conditions under which, the passage might have taken place. A German story presents a perfectly similar feature.[860] The conception of the Cloud as sea, rock and wall, recurs very frequently in mythology. Moses feeds the Israelites with quails. By means of a quail Iolaos wakes the dead Melkart from death. And the quail appears to have had a close connexion with Apollon and Diana; for Ὀρτυγία is an old name of Delos, the island of Apollon; and the nurse of Apollon and Diana, and even Diana herself, are called by the same name. Moses causes manna, sweet as honey, to be rained down with the dew; this again reminds us of the nectar and the mead of the gods.

Thus we see that almost all the acts of Moses correspond to those of the Sun-gods. We have here not only similar mythical features, but features which in both cases unite to form one and the same cycle.

The Book of Judges, as well as the Books of Moses, exhibits ancient elements preserved from the heathen times, also in conformity with Aryan myths. So Shamgar (Judges III. 31), who slew six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, is only Samson in another form. And his name points to the Sun-god; for it seems to me to denote ‘He that circles about in the sky.’ We must pay attention to the fact that Barak denotes ‘Lightning,’ even though Barcas is a Carthaginian name. With Barak is associated Deborah, the ‘Bee.’ Now if rain and dew are treated as Honey, then the Bee must stand for the rain-cloud. A third name occurs in this connexion—Jael (Yâʿel), the ‘Wild Goat,’ which is also a symbol of the Cloud. The Melissae (bees) and the goat Amalthea among the Greeks take each others’ places. Lastly, the manner in which Sisera is killed, by a hammer and nail, reminds one of the God of Lightning. The mode in which David kills Goliath reminds us of Thor’s battle with Hrungnir, in which he throws his hammer into Hrungnir’s forehead.

The germ of these various agreements ought in fact probably to be referred to an original identity in the mythical views of the Semites and Aryans, who were not separated till later. The Fire and (connected therewith) the Sun, and then the Storm also, may well have led to the formation of the same myths by the two races while they still lived together. The separation of the races then produced distinct developments out of the common germ, which developments, however, naturally had many points of agreement.

11. ANALOGY WITH OLD HEATHEN ELEMENTS IN THE
POPULAR IDEAS OF THE LATER AGE.

It results from the preceding historical investigation that the oldest Hebrews were heathens, and that elements belonging to heathen mythology are even present in the Bible. To gain a clearer idea of the nature of this fact, I will refer to a precisely similar case—the relation of our age to the old German heathen times.

The Germans had originally gods, worship, myths and legends—in short, a heathen faith, of their own. But for more than a thousand years all the German tribes have been Christian. Nevertheless, heathen practices still survive among them everywhere and in most various forms; and are so closely interwoven with Christian practices as to be almost ineradicable. I will only select a few instances. The old German gods still live in the names of the days of the week.[861] Churches and convents were founded at places which had been heathen sanctuaries; Christian feasts were fixed on days sacred to heathen deities, and thus the heathen name ‘Easter’ has maintained its existence as a designation for the highest Christian feast. Heathenism is preserved chiefly in the popular legends both of the hills and of the lowlands, in popular customs, usages, games and superstitions; all which has been lately collected in special books and periodicals. Kuhn’s collections made in North Germany and Westphalia are of especial scientific value. The gods, however, have been converted into devils and monsters, the goddesses into night-hags and witches. But religious stories, Christian legends, are also often utterly heathen; there are deeds and occurrences belonging to gods and heroes, which are attributed to the Saints and to Christ himself. Thus the killing of the Dragon, which is known as a myth to all the Aryan nations, is ascribed to Saint George. The office of the god Thor, who pursued and bound giants, is filled in Christian Norway by Saint Olave. Christ and Saint Peter wander about unrecognised in human form, to reward virtue and punish vice, as the heathen gods did before them. Mary, especially, had a multitude of lovely and charming features ascribed to her, which under heathenism were attributes of Freyja, Holda, and Bertha. A great number of flowers, plants and insects, the older names of which referred to Freyja and Venus, are called after Mary, e.g. Maiden-hair (i.e. the Virgin Mary’s hair), otherwise Capillus Veneris;[862] and Holda who sends snow becomes Mary: Notre Dame aux neiges, Maria ad nives. In short, ‘now Christian substance appears disguised in a heathen form, now heathen substance in Christian form,’ as Jacob Grimm says, in whose _Deutsche Mythologie_ the reader will find much relating to this mixture of old heathen and Christian ideas in the spirit of the ‘simple folk that have a craving for myths.’

With the Hebrews it must have been much the same as with the Germans. We know that no less time than the entire period from Moses to Ezra—a thousand years of all manner of struggles and of the exercise of the greatest intellectual and moral forces—was requisite to develop the faith in One God, and make it a common and permanent possession of the people, pervading the whole spiritual consciousness.

But the fact that the Germans’ monotheism was brought to them from outside, while that of the Israelites sprang up among themselves, must surely have been favourable to the preservation of heathen characteristics among the latter. Whilst in Germany a systematised Christianity, fully conscious of the issues involved, contended against Heathendom; among the Hebrews, Monotheism unfolded all its inevitable consequences only by degrees, gradually gaining a knowledge both of itself and of the antagonism in which it was implicated towards all phases of the heathen faith, worship and life. The Germans knew that their ancestors were heathens; they endeavoured as far as possible to break with their heathen past; and yet, knowingly or unknowingly, they retained a great deal of heathenism; and the pride of the Old German popular poetry, the _Nibelungen_, has a primeval myth for its subject. But the contrast between the heathen and the modern age was not at all firmly fixed in the mind of the Israelites, precisely because the transition was gradual. Only exceptionally do we find any reminiscence of the old heathenism, which is put back into the most ancient times. As far as the people were able to trace their history backwards, that is, to their supposed ancestor Abraham, they put back the faith in Jahveh; or indeed still farther, to Adam. The only true God Jahveh was soon treated as the only one worshiped in the beginning, from whom mankind fell away, intentionally defying him. Abraham alone remained faithful, and therefore Jahveh elected Abraham’s descendants to be his people. Thus the Israelite fancied the faith in Jahveh to be the primitive and inalienable possession of his people, which had been only temporarily weakened, but never really lost. Even to other nations the knowledge of Jahveh could never be wanting; for they worshiped false, non-existent, gods from folly and malice, and the Israelite took for granted that they must know all that he knew. Now if even the Christian of the middle ages, although he knew that his ancestors were heathen, nevertheless often described them as acting like Christians, because he had no knowledge of heathendom, and no power of imagining a past age, except in the likeness of his own; how much more would the monotheistic Israelite picture his past ages, in which he acknowledged no heathenism at all, in a Jahveistic light? His whole history was unconsciously transformed. The heathen myths, which must have something in them, else they could not be told at all, were converted into events of the earth, closely coalescing with historical facts, what the heathen gods were said to have done was ascribed to Jahveh himself or one of his human ministers. The old Semitic gods, if not utterly forgotten, were made by the Hebrew into men of the primeval age, powerful heroes, or Patriarchs. I can invoke the authority of Ewald and Bunsen, for the assertion that no Biblical name before Abraham has any historical significance, and that of Movers for saying that Abraham is only the ancient national god of the Semites, El, who was also their first king or their ancestor, and that Israel, Abraham’s grandson, was the Semitic Herakles Palaemon. The Israelite knew no longer how his forerunners had lived and thought in those ages, while they were still heathen; and he flooded his past history with the light which shone for him, but was of recent origin. He unconsciously falsified the facts of the history, because he did not care particularly for facts. Everything heathen received a Jahveistic sense, the heathen form a Jahveistic significance, the heathen substance a Jahveistic form. Only under these conditions could the past history of Israel be made intelligible to the mind of the people.

And then, when priests and prophets came to reduce the popular stories to writing, they could certainly only complete what the populace had already begun. They also were not historians or investigators at all; instead of transporting themselves into a past age, they raised the past age to the light of the present. No doubt they were more consistent and more inventive than the populace; for they wrote with an intelligence which marks and attempts to explain inconsistencies; and even in the interest of a certain political or religious object. The heathenism, which they could not understand, seemed to them impossible; they discovered everywhere at least Jahveistic motives.

Thus, I think, the Biblical narrative of Samson was an old heathen story, transformed by a Jahveistic colouring, given to it first by the Israelitish populace, and subsequently by the author of the narrative. I have endeavoured, by the aid of parallel instances, to trace the mode of this transformation and to recover the original form and meaning of the old story.

12. GENERAL PSYCHOLOGICAL REFLECTION.

We must now attempt to realise the psychological relations and processes upon which is based the preservation and transformation of heathen ideas within the range of Monotheism, the fact of which has been exhibited above.

We require here to see clearly, at least in broad outline, what relations ideas of recent growth, especially on religion and morals, bear to older representations. For from this it will then be easy to make the application to the special case before us, the relation of the monotheistic Jahveistic ideas to the older heathen representations among the Israelites. The story of Samson will then present only a special instance of this relation.

Among the ideas and thoughts, either of a nation or of an individual, a certain harmony prevails, which is in its nature not logical but psychological, not based on the law of Contradiction, but yielding that law as a specially rigorous result; in itself, however, much broader and more delicate, and indeed through its very breadth losing in stringency. The laws of logic have a double basis, a metaphysical one on the objective side, and a psychological on the subjective. That is, the logical law must be observed, because, if it be not, there arises, on the one hand, a disturbance of the metaphysical relation under which things in their reality have to come into thought, and on the other, an insoluble problem for our psychological function of Consciousness. Of course, in logical error or offence against logical law, so far as it actually occurs, there is nothing psychologically impossible. For example, a logically improper association of two ideas in the mind is possible—but only through the absence from the mind of the third factor, which logically makes it an error: if it were present, it would infallibly have prevented the improper association. That which is logically wrong is thus incapable of being thought. No one can think that 7 + 4 = 12. We may certainly make such a false reckoning, if we happen not completely to spread before us the contents of the numbers in this succession: then such an association of ideas, such a summation of the series, may be formed. But as soon as the set of numbers is fully counted out, our passage from 7 + 4 to 12 is stopped, and no effort would avail to connect them as equals. That which in the logical sphere is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ takes, in the psychological, the form of ‘complete’ or ‘incomplete.’ Accordingly, if without knowing logic men can think right, and tell right thinking from wrong, it is because, when once the elements of a case are all clearly present to the mind, wrong thinking is psychologically impossible. This impossibility in the first instance only forces us to drop the wrong combination; but this is the first inducement to search for the right one. But, supposing no free movement of search and a total absence of reflection, then we shall simply have such range of combination as may be compatible with the psychological conditions; and, provided the necessary factors are all clear in the mind, this can be no other than the right one, viz., that which accords with the aggregate view of things.

This congruity among the ideas of particular nations or individuals is no doubt tantamount in the end to an avoidance of logical contradiction; and into this we might in all cases resolve such concord, could we exactly trace all the threads or intermediate members. But where the most we can do is to _feel_ such threads of connexion, the congruity takes the shape of some Characteristic pervading the circles of ideas—some common stamp.

According to this, we ought to be able to discover in the mind of every nation a system of ideas intrinsically bound together and never self-contradictory. And this will so far prove to be the fact, that a certain national type will be everywhere present. But it is possible for contradictions to occur in the national life; for, if only they do not clash against one another in the consciousness, the contradictory ideas do not operate with their force of contradiction. Even every individual doubtless bears about with him unconsciously many ideas in harshest contradiction; contradictions, however, they are, in virtue not of any objective force proper to the ideas in themselves, but of an act of judgment which sets them forth as mutually contradictory. The contradictions are often hidden very deep, and only brought to light by a methodical search. When, however, new ideas, proclaimed everywhere in the streets, conflict with the old ones, the contradiction is at once brought to the light of day. What will be the result?

A conflict will arise, without doubt: will it be one with physical weapons? Such a conflict, though it may be inevitable, and though it has often given occasion for the exhibition of high and noble virtue, is nevertheless of no value to the real cause, the true victory, the victory of truth; and the chief point gained by the physical victory has generally been only the conviction of its worthlessness.

The conflict within the mind, where Ideas _en masse_ confront Ideas in rank and file,—this forms the substance of the History of Mankind: a Conflict of Souls.

Mind rules and moulds, Matter is ruled and moulded: this relation repeats itself within the consciousness. Whatever consciousness owes to impressions of sense, serves as material to be moulded by mental activity. For the purpose of this moulding, the mind, impelled partly by this material itself and partly by its own nature, forms representations, notions, forms i.e. modes of apprehension, and ideas, namely, the general conceptions of genera and species, the metaphysical categories, and the moral ideas. In accordance with the moral ideas are formed principles of action, judgments on the acts of others, even of God, insofar as man believes himself acquainted with the acts of God. Conversely, acts are declared to be or not to be God’s, insofar as they do or do not accord with the moral standard and the conception of God. In accordance with the general class-conceptions the world of things divides itself before the view: and while by certain esthetic and moral ideas these things are brought under a rule of valuation, in metaphysical aspects they are put into a causal relation. Finally, religious ideas form the foundation and the summit of all these curious constructions of a world and judgments passed on a world.

Accordingly, the conflict shows itself in two forms. Sometimes a certain domain of materials, in which new relations and connexions have become prominent, requires a new form of thought to dominate it; sometimes a new form of thought strives to supplant the old one, and to reshape, in accordance with its new laws, the matter which had been shaped by the former one. An example will make this clear. The thought ‘God’ forms the apex of the pyramid of ideas; it possesses the highest and widest dominion—for this very reason unfortunately often the weakest—and therefore shapes every province of consciousness in accordance with what it contains. Now, let an altered character come over the contents of one of these domains, say of the ideas concerning our relation to our fellow-men, or concerning causality in nature; then that domain can no longer tolerate to be ruled and moulded by the thought previously connoted in the word ‘God,’ standing as it now does in contradiction to that thought. It sets up the sway of a new form of thought, which fits its new contents, because growing out of them; there arises a new conception of God, a new Theology. But the old Theology has still its seat in all the other provinces of consciousness; so that, before any further advance, the new Idea has still to bring all these other provinces under its sway, to dissolve the shape given them by the old principle, and replace it by one which is congenial with itself. This may, nay must, produce a long conflict, which demands much labour. Of many a concept the intension will have to be entirely cancelled,—of all to be at least remodelled. Yet with many ideas the association has through long habit become quite fixed. Severed they must be, the new God requires it; but it can only be done very gradually. A thousand forbidden combinations find lurking-places and remain; they maintain themselves in contradiction to the new order of things, and perhaps half accommodate themselves to it in order to avoid a shock.

Imperfectly as I have expounded the point in question, I hope, nevertheless, that what I have said will suffice for the present purpose. What it wants in transparency and clearness may yet be added by the application of the general remarks to the particular case.

There existed for a long time, as I have remarked, monotheistic and heathen ideas in the national mind of the Israelites side by side—the former being the newer, the latter the older. But yet the former were the ruling ideas, and always gaining strength and clearness and coming to the brightest foreground of the consciousness, whereas the latter were constantly losing ground and clearness. Thus the nation lost the true consciousness of its heathen past history and the understanding of its former condition and experiences. For no nation as such possesses that true sense for history, by which it would conceive of itself and its present existence in conscious contrast to the past, and strive to gain an objective view of the mind and nature of past ages. The consciousness of a nation is only the active present age, and knows nothing of history. Therefore, whenever a radical revolution, extending over many important domains of ideas, has come over the nation, it no longer understands its own past history which lies on the other side of the revolution. Yet the old words, sayings and stories are transmitted all the same, and they contain accounts of bygone events and conditions, ancient ideas and ancient faith. But the stories which refer to obsolete and forgotten states of things are unintelligible; the names and sayings of forgotten gods, things and ideas are empty; typical figures and phrases based on those legends and gods, though still living on the lips, have become senseless. The nation always thinks that the word must have an idea behind it. So what it does not understand, it converts into what it does; it transforms the word until it can understand it. Thus words and names have their forms altered: e.g. the French _écrevisse_ becomes in English _crawfish_, and the heathen god _Svantevit_ was changed by the Christian Slavs into _Saint Vitus_, and the Parisians converted _Mons Martis_ into _Montmartre_. And what was reported of persons or beings represented like persons, that are no longer known, is now told of persons whose acquaintance has been newly made. In Germany it was told of the god Wuotan, that he was called Long-beard, and as such fell asleep inside a mountain; now when Wuotan was utterly forgotten, a new subject had to be found; and the legend was transferred to the heroic kings Charles [the Great] and Frederick [Barbarossa]. Moreover, the myth that forms the groundwork of the poem of the _Nibelungen_, which was originally told without mention of any definite time or place, was assigned to a well-known locality, and its heroes received the names of historical kings.

Every nation must of necessity act similarly; for the legends which it tells must be its own legends, and reflect its own life and present circumstances; if they have ceased to do so because its life has changed, then they are changed in accordance with the change in the life. Even the future beyond the grave is to the popular mind only the present life somewhat gilded; then how is it likely that the past shall be thought of as different from the present?

And precisely because these transformations and transferences are necessary, they take place unconsciously and unintentionally. The mind of the nation does not make them; they are an occurrence in that mind, which makes itself by itself. The nation has subjects and predicates, sounds and meanings, given to it in the legend. Now if the stream of time carries off the subjects and meanings into the ocean of oblivion, then by the psychological law the unattached predicates and sounds must fasten themselves on to any other subjects and meanings by which they can be supported. This takes place without any one intending it, and without any one observing it.

The words, names and phrases which a nation uses have to be apperceived in the moment when they are employed. This is true both of the hearer and of the speaker. But the apperceptions are dependent on the previously formed associations of ideas. Now if a German heard ‘Sinfluth,’ or if, when speaking, this word known to him by tradition presented itself to his consciousness in the course of speech, then the second part of the word, _Fluth_ ‘flood,’ found the idea with which it was associated, and which was reproduced by being brought into consciousness by the word; but the first part, _Sin_, stood in no association and roused no idea. But by material relationship and partial identity of sound, _Sin_ is associated with _Sünde_ ‘sin,’ and the latter idea (that of sin or guilt) was at the same time associated with the word _Sinfluth_ as a whole; thus then this idea of sinfulness was strongly lifted into prominence on two sides, much more strongly and quickly than the German _Sin_ itself. This latter was ultimately raised into prominence only through its traditional combination with _Fluth_ ‘flood,’ and this only as a sound; consequently in its advance it was overtaken by _Sünde_ ‘sin,’ which was lifted into prominence partly through it (_Sin_), and partly also through _Fluth_, and therefore with double force. Consequently people spoke and thought _Sünd_, instead of saying without thinking _Sin_; and this was the direct result of a simple psychological process.[863] Similarly in all analogous cases. Among the Ossetes of the Caucasus the Dies Martis, Tuesday, is unconsciously converted into George’s Day; and the Dies Veneris, Friday, into Mary’s Day. In many nations the gods form a circle limited to twelve immortals; the thirteenth in a society was then a mortal, one destined to die. Similarly, even at the present day, Christians fear that out of thirteen one will die, referring it however to the company of thirteen formed by Jesus and the twelve Apostles. Again, there was a legend widely spread among Teutonic nations, of an Archer, who shot an apple from his own little boy’s head, and answered the despot at whose command he had done it, when asked about his other two arrows, that they were intended for him, in case the first had killed the child. Who was the Archer? Who was the Despot? where and what was the motive? All this was forgotten; there only remained a dim echo of the legend of the shot. But when Switzerland, a nation of archers, had shaken off the yoke of a despot, all the features of the story recovered definite names, places, time, and motive. As the stone flying through the air falls to the earth by the law of attraction, so the old legend fell into the Liberation-time.

Sometimes we forget something, but yet retain a small part of it in the memory, as when we say, I have really forgotten his name; but I am sure it begins with B. The same thing happens to nations. The name of Venus, or Holda, was forgotten; but people were sure that she was a divine woman. Now to the Christians of the middle ages ‘Divine Woman’ and ‘Mary’ were one single idea; consequently, the name Mary, unobserved, took the place of the heathen goddesses in the numerous appellations and legends which are now connected with Mary. Of Mars it was only remembered that he was a warrior; so Tuesday, which was sacred to him, could only become Saint George’s Day.

Similar was the history of the Israelites when they became monotheistic. The heathen cosmogony, and the heathen idea of the activity of the gods in physical occurrences, contradicted the new idea of the One Almighty God, before whom Nature is nothing. But even though the idea that this God alone created the world, had been long accepted and established, yet there were still, preserved in stereotyped expressions of language, many ideas which preserved from oblivion and ruin features of the old modes of thought alongside of the new. They remain, so long as attention is not drawn to the contradiction in which these separate words stand to the new general system. When the clouds were no longer regarded as a sea, as they once were, people ceased to understand the meaning of ‘the heights of the sea;’ this expression no longer finds any organ of apperception, because ‘Sea’ is no longer associated with the idea of the clouds. Therefore, the expression is sustained only by its traditional connexion with ‘heights.’ But ‘heights’ are very closely associated with earth and with the idea of mountains; and thus with the Prophet Amos[864] this association supplanted the older one—the living took the place of the dead. We will now, in conclusion, return to Samson.

13. HISTORY OF THE MYTH OF THE SUN-GOD.

We will now review the entire history of the old Semitic God of the Sun or of Heat, as he was present to the national consciousness of Israel.

I wonder whether I am mistaken? I flatter myself that I know the particle by which was expressed the greatest revolution ever experienced in the development of the human mind, or rather by which the mind itself was brought into existence. It is the particle ‘as’ in the verse[865] ‘And he [the Sun] is _as_ a bridegroom, coming out of his chamber; he rejoices _as_ a hero to run his course.’ Nature appears to us _as_ a man, _as_ mind, but is not man or mind. This is the birth of Mind, the generation of Poetry. This ‘as’ is unknown not only to the Vedas, but even to the Greeks. This does not mean that the Greeks had no poetry at all, but only that there is an inherent defect in their poetry, which is connected with the deepest foundation of their national mind. Helios, driving along the celestial road with fiery steeds, is not poetry, but only becomes poetical when we tacitly insert the ‘as’ of the Psalmist. He to whom Helios is a conscious being is childlike, if not childish: the Psalmist is poetical.

Now when such psalms were being spread abroad increasingly in Israel; when Jahveh was acknowledged as the being that brings up the sun, the stars and the rain-clouds, that builds the house and guards the city; then the old Sun-god or Herakles was forgotten; that is, his divinity, and that only, was forgotten. His deeds were still recounted; but deeds demand an agent. And thus out of the god, who could exist no longer in the presence of Jahveh, a man was made, who with Jahveh’s force to aid him performed superhuman things, but in other respects lived among men and within human conditions, worked quite as a man, and even enjoyed his superhuman power only on human terms, namely the terms of Naziritism.

Deeds were reported of some one who had long hair. But who wore his hair long, but the Nazirite consecrated to Jahveh? Deeds were told, which no one could accomplish unless exceptionally endowed with strength by Jahveh; and Jahveh would give such privilege only to the Nazirite consecrated to him. Consequently, when Samson was no longer a god, he must be a Nazirite. Nevertheless, he was distinguished beyond all other Nazirites: he was so from his very birth, like Samuel, to whom with Naziritism was granted Prophecy, a gift vouchsafed to others only later in life and occasionally. The strictly mythical character, the allusion to a religion of nature, was entirely lost from the stories about Samson. Whatever happened to him took a purely human character.

There was also a dim memory of the same forgotten god, that he was Melkart, i.e. ‘king or guardian of the city.’ Samson, now reduced to humanity, could have been such a guardian only in a human sense, though perhaps in an extraordinary degree. Now Israel preserved from the first half of its political existence the memory of no other enemy so dangerous, so difficult to withstand, and again in its subsequent weakness so hateful, as the Philistines: against them Samson must have fought. No other foe had laid on Israel so hard a yoke or such bitter degradation as the Philistines: but Samson must have avenged this on them. He must not only have conquered them, but likewise have given them a taste of his great physical and intellectual superiority: the Nazirite consecrated to Jahveh could scoff at the Philistines. Thus Samson was in the end a Judge, Shôphêṭ; for in the age of the Judges, the wars with the Philistines had begun, and after Eli and Samuel, Saul and David, or even beside any of them, Samson could not have lived. These were not deliberations, but unconscious impulses, which shaped the legend of Samson in the national mind of Israel.

No feature of the Solar hero has suffered a more characteristic conversion than his end, as is seen by a comparison with the corresponding polytheistic legends. Orion is blinded by the father of his lady-love, and Samson had his eyes put out. But Orion kindled the light of his eyes again at the rays of Helios, whereas Samson remains blind, and only prays to be endowed with strength to avenge the loss of one of his two eyes.[866] It is true, his hair grows again and brings back his strength: after the winter comes a new spring. But all in vain—Samson dies, notwithstanding. He dies like Herakles: but there is no Iolaos to wake him to a new life, no Athene and Apollon to lead him to Olympos, no Zeus and Here to present to him Hebe, the personification of the enjoyment of perpetual youth. Samson dies and remains dead; he dies, and tears down with him his own pillars—the pillars on which he had built the world—to find a grave beneath them. The heathen god is dead, and draws his own world down with him into his own nothingness; his battles were a play of shadows. Jahveh lives, ‘he hath established the world by his wisdom,’ ‘he giveth rain, the autumn and the spring showers, each in its season, and keepeth to us the prescribed weeks of harvest,’ ‘cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night;’[867] he lives, the Lord of the world, the King of the earth, and his hero is Israel.

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Footnote 786:

See W.K. Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and
Folk-lore_, London 1863, chap. II.—TR.

Footnote 787:

See Kelly, _ibid._, p. 74.—TR.

Footnote 788:

See Kelly, _ibid._, p. 83.—TR.

Footnote 789:

See Kelly, _ibid._, 163–5—TR.

Footnote 790:

See Kelly, _Curiosities etc._, p. 89.—TR.

Footnote 791:

See Kelly, _Curiosities etc._, p. 83–85, 151.—TR.

Footnote 792:

See Kelly, _ibid._, p. 83, 141–3.—TR.

Footnote 793:

See Kelly, _Curiosities etc._, pp. 37, 43.—TR. The literal meaning of
his name is _qui in matre tumescit vel praevalet_, i.e. a boring-stick
like the lightning.

Footnote 794: