Chapter VIII: Mythology

Since all antediluvian traditions meet in Noah, and are transmitted through him, there is an _à priori_ probability that we shall find all the antediluvian traditions confused in Noah. I shall discuss this further when I come to regard him under the aspect of Saturn.

As a consequence, we must not expect to find (the process of corruption having commenced in the race of Ham, almost contemporaneously with Noah) a pure and unadulterated tradition anywhere; and I allege more specifically, that whenever we find a tradition of Noah and the Deluge, we shall find it complicated and confused with previous communications with the Almighty, and also with traditions of Adam and Paradise.

But inasmuch as the tradition is necessarily through Noah, and in any case applies to him at one remove, it does not greatly affect the argument I have in hand. There is a further probability which confronts us on the outset, that in every tradition, with the lapse of time, though the events themselves are likely to be substantially transmitted, they may become transposed in their order of succession. We shall see this in the case of Noah and his posterity. The principal cause being, that the immediate founder of the race is, as a rule, among all the nations of antiquity, deified and placed at the head of every genealogy and history. "Joves omnes reges vocârunt antiqui." Thus Belus, whom modern discovery seems certainly to have identified with Nimrod, in the Chaldean mythology appears as Jupiter, and even as the creator separating light from darkness (Rawlinson, "Ancient Monarchies," i. 181; Gainet, "Hist. de l'Anc. et Nouv. Test.," i. 120). But Nimrod is also mixed up with Jupiter in the god Bel-Merodach. In more natural connection Nimrod--("who may have been worshipped in different parts of Chaldea under different titles," Rawlinson, i. 172)--_Nimrod_ appears as the _father_ of _Hurki_ the moon-god, whose worship he probably introduced; and, what is much more to the point, he appears as the father of Nin (whom I shall presently identify with Noah); whilst in one instance, at least, the genealogy is inverted, and he appears as the _son of Nin_. Thus, too, Hercules and Saturn are confounded, just as we find Adam and Noah confounded ("many classical traditions, we must remember, identified Hercules with Saturn," _vide_ Rawlinson, i. 166). Also in Grecian mythology Prometheus (Adam) figures as the son of Deucalion (Noah), and also of Japetus (Japhet); and so, too, Adam and Noah, in the Mahabharata, are equally in tradition in the person of Manou (_vide_ Gainet, i. 199), and in Mexico in the person of the god Quetzalcoatl (_vide infra_, p. 326).

Before, however, pursuing the special subject of this inquiry further, it appears to me impossible to avoid an argument on a subject long debated, temporarily abandoned through the exhaustion of the combatants, and now again recently brought into prominence through the writings of Mr Gladstone, Dr Dollinger, Mr Max Müller, and others--the source and origin of mythology.[126]

[126] This chapter was written before the publication of Mr Cox's
"Mythology of the Aryan Nations." It will be seen, however,
that I indulge the hope that much that is seductive, and much
even that is systematic, in Mr Cox's view, will be found to be
compatible with the line I have indicated.

Now, here, I am quite ready to adopt, in the first place, the opinion of L'Abbé Gainet, that every exclusive system must come to naught, "que toutes les tentatives qu'on ai faites pour expliquer le polythéisme par un système exclusif tombent à faux et n'expliquent rien."

Yet, whilst fully admitting an early and perhaps concurrent admixture of Sabaism,[127] I consider that the facts and evidence contained in the pages of Rawlinson will enable us to arrive at the history of idolatry by a mode much more direct than conjecture. The pages of Rawlinson prove the identity of Nimrod and Belus, and his worship in the earliest times. On the other hand, there has been a pretty constant tradition[128] that Nimrod first raised the standard of revolt against the Lord; and the erection of the tower of Babel seems to show a state of things ripe for idolatry. Here recent discovery and ancient tradition concur in establishing hero-worship as among the earliest forms of idolatry. But further, the Arab tradition of Nimrod's apotheosis, analogous to the mysterious and miraculous disappearance of Enoch (_vide infra_, p. 192), suggests how hero-worship might become almost identical with the worship of spirits, which L'Abbé Gainet inclines to think the first and most natural mode. If there was a tradition among them that one of their ancestors was raised up to heaven,[129] why may they not have argued, when their minds had become thoroughly corrupted, that their immediate ancestor, the mighty Nimrod, had been so raised? and when one ancestor was deified the rest would have been deified in sequence, or according to their relationship to him. What, again, more likely than that, when through the corruptions of mankind the communications of the Most High ceased, they should turn to those to whom the communications had been made, at first perhaps innocently in intercession, and, as corruption deepened, in worship?[130]

[127] Philo. _apud_ Eusebius, who has transmitted the Phoenician
tradition (_vide_ Bunsen's "Egypt," iv. 281), seems to me to
indicate the mode in which it came about in the following
words--"Now Chronos, whose Phoenician epithet was El,
_a ruler of the land_, and subsequently after his death,
_deified_ in the constellation of Kronos (Saturn)," &c. As to
Saturn, _vide_ ch. x.

In the cosmical theory there is analogy as to the process of
deification--"In the Phoenician cosmogonies, the connection
between the highest God and a subordinate male and female
demiurgic principle is of frequent occurrence" (Bunsen, iv.
447). It would seemingly be more in fitness with a cosmical
theory to find direct adoration of the principle, without
evidence of any previous or concurrent process of deification.

Mr W. Palmer ("Egyptian Chronicles," i. 37) says--"But when we
find the rulers of the first two periods in the Chronicle, its
xiii. gods and viii. demigods, answering closely to the two
generations of the antediluvian and post-diluvian patriarchs
in number, and therefore also in the average length of the
reigns and generations; and when we know, besides, as we do,
that the Pantheon of the Egyptians and other nations, which
they said had all borrowed from them, was peopled, in part
at least, _with deified ancestors_--for even the heavenly
luminaries, and the _elements_, and _powers of nature_, and
_notions of the true God still remaining_, or of angels and
demons, so far as they were invested with humanity and sex,
_were identified with human ancestors_; we cannot doubt that
Kronos," &c.

[128] "Venator contra Dominum," St Augustine; "Cité de Dieu," xvi.
ch. iv.; Pastoret, "Hist. de la Legislation."

[129] Gen. v. 24, says only--"And he walked with God, and was
seen no more: because God took him." (_Vide_ also John iii.
13.) There might still have been the belief and tradition
(according to appearances) that he was so raised. (Compare 4
Kings ii. 11, and Ecclesiasticus, xliv. 16.)

[130] I believe, however, that the apostasy in the Hamitic race
generally was much more direct; and I entirely agree with
Bryant that it must have resulted at an early period in a
systematic scheme of mixed solar and ancestral worship.
Therefore, in any Hamitic tradition, we shall not be startled
at finding (even in the commemorative ceremonies of the
Deluge) evidence of solar mythology inextricably blended with
ancestral traditions. We, however, are only concerned with the
ancestral traditions, and in so far as we can discriminate
them, Mr Cox's evidence of solar mythology will form no
barrier to our inquiry.

In the preceding page I have quoted a passage from
Sanchoniathon, which seems to indicate the mode in which the
mixed system arose; but there "Cronos" (Noah) is deified in
the planet Saturn. As a rule, however, we find him deified in
the sun (Bryant, ii. 60, 200, 220). Ham, however, is sometimes
also deified in the sun; and in cases where Ham is so deified,
it is not unlikely that we shall find the patriarch relegated
to Saturn.

L'Abbé Gainet, in another part of his work, draws attention to the worship of ancestors in China, and asks whether the idols of Laban had reference to more than some such secondary objects?

It will be recollected that it was precisely the extent to which this veneration was to be considered culpable which was the subject-matter of the unfortunate disputes between certain religious orders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (_vide_ Huc's "Chinese Empire," and Cretineau Joly's "Hist. de la Com. de Jesus," vol. iii. chap. iii., and vol. v. chap. i.) Indeed, among the Semitic races it may never have degenerated into idolatry. Still it appears to me that weight should be attached to this tendency, more especially in primitive times, when the recollection of ancestors who had been driven out of Paradise, to whom direct revelations had been made, and who were naturally reputed to have been "nearer to the gods" (Plato, Cicero[131]), would have been all in all to their descendants. Then, again, as we have just seen, there was the tradition among them of one man who had been carried up into heaven, and accordingly, when hero-worship culminated in the deification of man, we are not surprised to find it taking the form of this apotheosis as in the identification of Nimrod and Enoch.

[131] "Quoniam antiquitas proxime accedit ad deos."--_De Legibus_,
ii. 11.

This tendency to idolatry through hero-worship seems to me so natural and direct, that I think, apart from the facts _à priori_, I should have been led to the conclusion that it was the actual manner in which it was brought about.[132] It is not denied, on the other hand, that there always has been a tendency to nature-worship also; and, indeed, there is probably a stage during which every mythology will be found to have come under its influence. But the inclination at the present moment is unmistakably to an exclusive astral or solar system. The point of interest which excites me to this inquiry is simply to determine the value of the historical traditions which may lie embedded in these systems; and I shall be content to find them, whether or not they form the primary nucleus, or whether only subsequently imported into, and blended with, solar mythology. It is easy to conceive how a mythology embodying historical traditions could pass into an astral system. In this case incongruity would not startle; but it is difficult to imagine a pure astral system which would not be too harmonious and symmetrical to admit of the grossness, inconsistency, and incongruity to which the process of adaptation would inevitably give rise, and to which hero-worship is inherently prone. As Mr Gladstone says (Homer, ii. 12):--

"There is much in the theo-mythology of Homer which, if it had
been a system founded on fable, could not have appeared there. It
stands before us like one of our old churches, having different
parts of its fabric in the different styles of architecture, each
of which speaks for itself, and which we know to belong to the
several epochs in the history of the art when their characteristic
combinations were respectively in vogue."

[132] The adverse decision, in the matter of the ceremonies, did
not, I apprehend, touch the question we are now considering,
albeit the ceremonies had reference to deceased ancestors.
This will be apparent, I think, from consideration of the
grounds upon which the question was debated. The Jesuits
relied upon the sense in which the ceremonies were regarded
by the Mandarins and literary men whom they consulted, whilst
their opponents supported their arguments by reference to the
popular notions and the superstitious practices _introduced_
by the Bonzes. (_Vide_ Cretineau Joly's "Hist. de la Com. de
Jesus," vol. v. chap. i.)

Mr Gladstone (_passim_) victoriously combats the theory of nature-worship as applied to Grecian mythology; but it appears to me that his argument and mode of reasoning would apply with tenfold effect to the Chaldean mythology, where there is a likelihood at least that we shall view idolatry in its early commencements. I consider that this view is borne out by the following passage from Professor Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," i. 139:--

"In the first place, it must be noticed that the religion was
to a certain extent _astral_. The heaven itself, the sun, the
moon, and the five planets, have each their representative in
the Chaldean Pantheon among the chief objects of worship. At the
same time it is to be observed, that the astral element is not
universal, but partial; and that even where it has place, it is
but one aspect of the mythology, not by any means its full and
complete exposition. The Chaldean religion even here is far from
being mere Sabeanism--the simple worship of the 'host of heaven.'
The ether, the sun, the moon, and still more the five planetary
gods, are something above and beyond those parts of nature. Like
the classical Apollo and Diana, Mars and Venus, they are real
persons, with a life and a history, a power and an influence, which
no ingenuity can translate into a metaphorical representation
of phenomena attaching to the air and to the heavenly bodies.
It is doubtful, indeed, whether this class of gods are really
of astronomical origin, and not rather primitive deities, whose
characters and attributes were, to a great extent, fixed and
settled before the notion arose of connecting them with certain
parts of nature. Occasionally they seem to represent heroes rather
than celestial bodies; and they have all attributes quite distinct
from their physical and astronomical character.

"Secondly, the striking resemblance of the Chaldean system to that
of the classical mythology, seems worthy of particular attention.
This resemblance is too general and too close in some respects
to allow of the supposition that mere accident has produced the
coincidence."

The evidence in the "Ancient Monarchies" seems to me to decide the point, not only for perhaps the earliest mythology with which we are acquainted, but also for the Grecian mythology, which has generally been the ground of dispute. It is curiously in illustration, however, of the common origin of mythology, that the mythology of Greece should be equally well traced to Assyria and Egypt. As evidence of the theory according to the Assyrian origin, let us turn, for instance, to Professor Rawlinson's identification of Nergal with Mars. It is true he appears as the planet Mars under the form of "Nerig," and he also figures as the storm-ruler; but can anything well be more human than the rest of his titles?

"His name is evidently compounded of the two Hamitic roots 'nir' =
a man, and 'gula' = great; so that he is 'the great man' or 'the
great hero.' His titles are 'the king of battle,' 'the champion of
the gods,' 'the strong begetter,' 'the tutelar god of Babylonia,'
and 'the god of the _chase_.'... We have no evidence that Nergal
was worshipped in the primitive times. He is just mentioned by some
of the early Assyrian kings, who regard him as _their ancestor_....
It is conjectured that, like Bil-Nipru, he represents the _deified
hero Nimrod_, who may have been worshipped in different parts of
Chaldea under different titles.... It is probable that Nergal's
symbol was the man-lion. Nir is sometimes used in the inscriptions
in the meaning of lion, and the Semitic name for _the god himself_
is 'aria,' the ordinary term for the king of beasts both in Hebrew
and Syriac. Perhaps we have here the true derivation of the Greek
name for the god of war 'Ares' ([Greek: Arês]), which has _long
puzzled classical scholars_. The lion would symbolise both the
hunting and the fighting propensities of the god, for he not only
engages in combats, but often chases his prey and runs it down like
a hunter. Again, if Nergal is the man-lion, his association in the
buildings with the _man-bull_ would be exactly parallel with the
conjunction which _we so constantly find between him and Nin in the
inscriptions_."[133]--_Rawlinson_, i. 172-174.

[133] "Notwithstanding his stature, beauty, hand, and voice, which
constitute, taken together, a proud appearance, it seems
as if Mars had stood lower in the mind of Homer than any
Olympian deity who takes part in the Trojan war, except Venus
only."--_Gladstone's "Homer,"_ ii. 225.

I must draw attention also to the remarkable absence here of all the monotheistic epithets we shall find attached to Ana, Enu, and Hoa.[134]

[134] _Vide infra_, next chap. ix.

Let us now turn to the theory which is most in the ascendant, and which professes to see in the old mythological legends only the thoughts and metaphors of a mythic period.

This theory, which was Mr Max Müller's in the first instance, being not only exclusively drawn from the conclusions of philology, but also exclusive in itself, cannot be anywhere stronger than its weakest point.

If it is shown in the instance of one primary myth, that it was the embodiment of an historical legend, or theological belief, the whole ideal structure of a mythic period must collapse; for the rejection of eclecticism in any form, which would embrace a Biblical or euhemeristic interpretation of the myths, is at the foundation of Mr Max Müller's idea, and, indeed, would be incompatible with the theory of a mythic period such as he conceives it.

The connection of Nimrod with Nergal in the Assyrian mythology, of Nergal with their planet Nerig, and of the Semitic name of the god "Aria" with the Greek [Greek: Arês] and the Latin Mars, must, I think, form a chain of evidence destined to embarass Mr Max Müller and Mr Cox: for, apart from the numerous points of contact of the Assyrian and Egyptian with the Greek mythologies, it can hardly be contended that there was a mythic period for the Aryan which was not common to the whole human race.

It would be natural to suppose, that a mythology which was generated in a mythic period--which was the invention of mankind in a peculiar state of the imagination--would have been developed in its fulness and completeness, like Minerva starting from the brain of Jupiter, and would have borne the evidence of its origin in the symmetry of its form. Mr Max Müller, on the contrary, seems to yield the whole position, in what, from his point of view, looks like an inadvertent phrase, that "there were myths before there was a mythology." It is not that the view is not true, or that it is inconsistent with his analysis of the myths, but that it is so perfectly consistent with ours! Incongruity, such as would come from the confusion of separate myths, would be no difficulty for us; but it is hard to understand how mere fragmentary legends--sometimes attractive, but more frequently repulsive and revolting, having no hold on what is nearest the heart of a people, the traditions of its past--should have been so tenaciously preserved for so long a time under such different conditions in various countries.

Solar legends, spun out of confused metaphors, seem an inadequate explanation, unless we also suppose idolatry of the sun. In that case, the mythology, in so far as it was solar, would precede the myths; in other words, the myths would be radiations from a central idea. That in the day when mankind prevaricated after this fashion, and committed the act of idolatry in their hearts, everything, from the phenomena of nature to the remote events of their history, would come under the influence of a new set of ideas may be easily conceived.

At such a period--and the commencement of these things at least was not impossible in the days when, in the spirit of mistrust or defiance, men drew together to build the city and tower in the plain of Sennaar (Shinar)--much of what Mr Cox supposes to have been the common parlance of mankind becomes natural, and a mythic period within these limits conceivable.

But such a theory would not necessarily be exclusive of other forms of idolatry--as, for instance, the worship of ancestors--whilst it might clear up obscure points in the evidence which tends to establish the latter.

The theory, however, must embrace many shades and gradations--from the Hamitic extreme to the protomyths, which in time obscured the monotheism of the Aryan of ancient Greece, and of the Peruvian Incas. (p. 304.)

This would seem, unless they ignore all difficulties, a better standpoint for those who think, through the application of the solar legends, "to unlock almost all the secrets of mythologies;" and any theory connected with the sun and sun-worship has this advantage, that it can be extended to everything under the sun!

It is sufficiently obvious that no system can be held to have settled these questions, which, if there were myths before there was a mythology, does not appropriate these antecedent myths, or exclude counter explanations; and it is equally clear that there can have been no mythology of which the solar legends were the offspring, if the legends embody thoughts which transcend the mythology; and no mythic period if they testify to facts and ideas incompatible with its existence.

Allowing for a certain confusion arising out of "polyonomy," this sort of confusion, if there were nothing else, ought not to baffle the ingenuity of experts like Mr Max Müller and Mr Cox. Such complications should be as easily disentangled as the superadded figures in Egyptian chronology (_vide_ chapter vi.) when the key has been found.

But does Mr Max Müller profess to have brought the various legends into harmony? On the contrary (ii. 142), he frankly admits--"Much, no doubt, remains to be done, and _even_ with the assistance of the Veda, the whole of Greek mythology will never be deciphered and translated."

I have no wish to push an admission unfairly, but this appears to me fatal as regards the argument with which I am dealing.[135] If there are myths which never will be deciphered, this must be because they have had some non-astral or non-solar origin, which I consider to be almost equivalent to saying that they must have had some pre-astral origin. What that precise origin was I think I have been able sufficiently to indicate in italicising the subjoined sentences from Mr Max Müller. If these enigmas can be shown to be strictly local and Grecian, _cadit quæstio;_ but if they are common to other mythologies, and these the oldest, I must say they have the look of antecedent existence. At any rate, like those inconvenient boulders in the sand and gravel strata, they require the intervention of some glacial period to account for them.[136]

[135] Mr Cox ("Mythology," p. xiv.) says--"Mythology, as we call
it now, is simply a collection of the sayings by which men,
once upon a time, described whatever they saw or heard in
the countries where they lived. This key, which has unlocked
almost all the secrets of mythology, was placed in our hands
by Professor Max Müller, who has done more than all other
writers to bring out the exquisite and touching poetry which
underlies those ancient legends. He has shown us that in this,
their first shape, these sayings were all perfectly natural,
and marvellously beautiful and true. We see the lovely
evening twilight die out, &c.... They said that the beautiful
Eurydice," &c. (_vide infra_, p. 173). It would appear,
however, from Mr Cox's more extended work, "The Mythology of
the Aryan Nations," that the sayings of mankind in the mythic
period did not extend to speculations as to their origin and
destiny, or embrace the facts of their history, or the deeds
of their ancestors, but that their whole converse was upon the
sun and moon, and the phenomena of the outward world.

[136] Mr Max Müller makes the distinction between "primitive or
organic legends" (and it is to these I wish to limit the
discussion) "and the second, those which were imported in
later times from one literature to another.... The former
_represents one common ancient stratum of language and
thought_ reaching from India to Europe; the latter consist
of boulders of various strata carried along by natural and
artificial means from one country to another" (ii. 245).

It is clear that Mr Max Müller looks for _harmony_ in his
system--"We naturally look back to the scenes on which the
curtain of the past has fallen, _for we believe that there
ought to be one thought pervading the whole drama of mankind_.
And here history steps in, and gives us the thread which
connects the present with the past" (p. 7). Why it was that
harmony was not attained seems to be disclosed, if we read
the passage in our sense and with a certain transposition of
parts, at p. 3--"There were at Athens then, as there have been
at all times and in all countries, men who had no sense for
the miraculous and supernatural, and who, without having the
moral courage to deny altogether what they could not bring
themselves to believe, endeavoured to find some plausible
explanation _by which the sacred legends_ which _tradition_
had _handed down to them_, and which had been _hallowed_ by
_religious observances_, and sanctioned by the authority of
the law, might be brought _into harmony with_ the dictates of
reason and the _laws_ of _nature_." (Compare with _infra_, p.
351, Maine.)

I have already hinted that a further consideration appears to me to incapacitate the theory of nature-worship, in any of its disguises, from being taken as the exclusive, or even the primitive form of idolatry, or of perverted tradition; and it is this,--that all the explanations, even the most ingenious, even those which would be accounted "primitive and organic," have their counter explanations, traceable in the corruptions of truth and the perversions of hero-worship. Take, for instance, the name Zeus, which is in evidence of the primitive monotheism, and which stood in Greece, as Il or Ra in Assyria, for the true Lord and God, and which has its equivalents in Dyaus ("from the Sanscrit word which means 'to shine'"); Dyaus-pater (Zeus-pater), Jupiter; Tiu (Anglo-Saxon, whence Tuesday); and Zia (High German)--_vide_ Cox's "Mythology."

What more natural than to associate the Almighty with the heaven where He dwelt? Mr Max Müller ("Comparative Myth.," "Chips," ii. 72) says--"Thus [Greek: Zeus], being originally a name of the sky, like the Sanscrit Dyaus, became gradually a proper name, which betrayed its appellative meaning only in a few proverbial expressions, such as [Greek: Zeus hyei], or _sub Jove frigido_." Taking this passage in connection with what is said (p. 148, of Welcker)--"When we ascend with him to the most distant heights of Greek history, the idea of God as the Supreme Being stands before us as a simple fact. Next to the adoration of one God, the Father of heaven, the Father of men, we find in Greece a worship of nature." I conclude that Mr Max Müller means, as Mr Cox means, that the names, Zeus or Dyaus, was applied to the one true God, whose existence was otherwise and previously known to them.[137] At starting, therefore, we find that the language borrowed from nature was only called in to give a colouring and expression to a previously known and familiar truth; and here, too, we also see the commencement of incongruity. The simple idea of the heavens might have been harmoniously extended by the imagination; but, complicated with the idea of personality, it gave birth to the awkward and incongruous expression, "[Greek: Zeús huei], or _sub Jove frigido_," a phrase which never could have been originated by the Grecian mind, unless the personality of Jove had been the idea most prominently before the mind. But if the knowledge of the Deity, or even the conception of the personality of Zeus was operative in the mythic period, it must have been operative to the extent of embodying what was known or recollected of his dealings in love and anger with mankind, in the legends which they wove, and also of blending them with the confusions which "polyonomy" occasioned. The introduction of this element would seriously embarass Mr Cox, and would give to Mr Gladstone's explanation an "_à priori_" probability.

[137] Mr Max Müller, in his essay on "Semitic Monotheism,"
when opposing M. Renan's view that the monotheism of the
Semitic race was instinctive, seems to say this still more
explicitly--"He thunders and Dyaus thunders became synonymous
expressions; and by the mere habit of speech He became Dyaus
and Dyaus became He" ("Chips," i. 358). "At first the names of
God, &c., were honest attempts at expressing or representing
an idea which could never find adequate expression or
representation.... If the Greeks had remembered that Zeus
was but a name or symbol of the Deity, there would have been
no more harm in calling God by that name than by any other"
(359). It must be remembered that after the name of "Zeus,"
or "Dyaus," = sky, had been adopted, they still retained
the conception of the Divine nature and personality, as is
evidenced in the words of the oracle of Dodona--"[Greek: Zeùs
ên, Zeus éstín, Zeus essetai ô megale Zeu],--He was, He is, He
will be, O great Zeus!"

Also (ii. 15) in the Orphic lines--

"Zeus is the beginning, Zeus the middle;
Out of Zeus all things have been made."

If we are agreed upon this, then I have no contention with
Mr Max Müller; but with Max Müller as an auxiliary, I direct
my argument to the attack of Dr Dollinger's position ("The
Gentile and the Jew," I. B. ii. p. 64)--"The beginnings of
Greek polytheism," viz., "the deification of Nature and her
powers, or of particular sensible objects, _lay at the root of
all the heathen religions_, as they _existed from old time_,
amongst the nations now united under the Roman empire."

According to Mr Lewes ("Hist. of Phil.," i. 44), it
was Xenophanes who first confused the sky with the
Deity--"Overarching him was the deep blue infinite
vault, immovable and unchangeable, embracing him and all
things--_that he proclaimed_ to be God." (Contrast the
Peruvian tradition, _infra_, p. 304.) St Clement of
Alexandria (Strom. v. p. 601, Max Müller, chapter i. p. 366.)
says, on the contrary, that Xenophanes maintained that there
was but "one God, and that he was not like unto men, either in
body or mind."

Take, again, the following passage from Mr Max Müller (p. 107)--"The idea of a young hero, whether he is called _Baldr_, or Sigurd, or Sigrit, or Achilles, or Meleager, or Kephalos, dying in the fulness of youth--a story so frequently told, localised, and individualised--was first suggested by the sun dying in all his youthful vigour, either at the end of a day, conquered by the powers of darkness, or at the end of the sunny season, stung by the thorn of winter."

Here is a myth evidently very widely diffused. Let it be interpreted by what is told us at p. 108--

"_Baldr_, in the Scandinavian Edda, the divine prototype of Sigurd
and Sigrit, is beloved by the whole world. Gods and men, the whole
of nature, all that grows and lives, had sworn to his mother not to
hurt the bright hero. The mistletoe alone, that does not grow on
the earth, but on trees, had been forgotten, and with it Baldr was
killed at the winter solstice....

Baldr, whom no weapon pierced or clove,
But in his breast stood fix'd the fatal bough
Of mistletoe, which Lok, _the accuser, gave
To Hoder_, and the unwitting Hoder threw;
'Gainst that alone had Baldr's life no charm."

"Thus Infendiyar, in the Persian epic, cannot be wounded by any weapon.... _All these are fragments of solar myths_." One hardly likes to disturb such illusions. Solar myths! well, allow me at least to repeat the history which seems to me so very like this myth. Many centuries ago, in a beautiful garden which a concurrence of tradition places somewhere in Central Asia, a man, the first man of our race, framed according to the "divine prototype," dwelt beloved by the whole world. God and the angels, and the whole of nature--all that grows and lives, were agreed that nothing should do him harm. One fruit or growth alone--the mistletoe it may have been--something that does not grow on the earth, but on trees, was excepted; and it was told to this man, whose name was--but we will not anticipate--that on the day on which he touched this fruit he should die the death. It so came about that the accuser, whom some call the serpent, had previously handed it to his companion, and his unwitting companion gave it to him. He took it, and he died. Against that fatal bough his life had no charm. No weapon pierced or clove him; for Baldr--I should say Adam--was invulnerable, as was Achilles and Meleager, except in one single respect.

I believe that instances might be indefinitely multiplied. I shall content myself, however, with the following, which I think will be generally considered among the happiest illustrations of nature worship.[138]

[138] Granting the tendency to nature-worship, I conclude that the
conspicuous luminaries of the heavens would become primary
objects of such worship. In amusing illustration of this I
remember a friend of mine telling me that he happened to ask
a young lad, the son of one of his tenants, who had just
returned from a voyage to the Northern seas, how he liked his
captain? He said, "Oh, he was an _awful_ man--he swore by the
_sun, moon_, and _stars_." Still less do I deny the tendency
to sun-worship. It was, as Gibbon tells us (ii. 438, iii.
150), the last superstition Constantine abandoned before his
conversion, and the first to which Julian betook himself after
his apostacy.

It may, moreover, be urged, that the sun figures in all these
legends. I say, on the other hand, so also does the _serpent_.
This serpent may be the serpent "of _darkness_," and still
be the serpent of _tradition_, but how darkness or night is
aptly personified by a serpent I am at a loss to perceive.
Then again the sun _may_ always be only the symbol of what
is bright and heavenly. But when (Max Müller, ii. 171) we
see this serpent Zohak, called by the Persians "by the name
of Dehak, _i.e., ten evils_, because he introduced "_ten
evils into the world_," we cannot help recalling the profane
expressions attributed to the devil when he saw the ten
commandments--proscribing the _ten_ evils in question.

"And as it is with this sad and beautiful tale of Orpheus and Euridike (Euridice). [The story of Euridice was this--'Euridice was bitten by _a serpent_, she dies, and descends into the lower regions. Orpheus follows her, and obtains from the gods that his wife should follow him if he promised not to look back, &c.' It reads to me like a sad reminiscence of Adam and Eve.] Mr Max Müller proceeds--'so it is with all those which may seem to you coarse, or dull, or ugly. They are so only because the real meaning of the names has been half-forgotten or wholly lost. OEdipus and Perseus (_vide_ Appendix), we are told, killed their parents, but it was only because the sun was said to kill the darkness from which it seemed to spring.'"[139]

[139] Mr Max Müller may perhaps lay stress upon the circumstance
that Baldr dies at the winter solstice. But this equally bears
out the tradition noticed by Lenormant, that immediately after
the Fall, there came upon the world a great cold. (_Vide
supra_, ch. vii.)

But why is darkness called the parent of the sun, and not rather light the parent of darkness? and why not a contrary legend founded on this surmise? Is it merely accidental that the metaphor is not reversed?

Compare the above speculation of Mr Max Müller's with the following passage from Gainet, "Hist. de l'Ancien. Nouv. Test.," i.; "Les Souvenirs du genre Humain," p. 79:--

"Chaos was placed at the commencement of all things in the
Phoenician cosmogony (Euseb. Præp. Evan. l. i.), as in that of
Hesiod (Theog., p. 5). The latter calls upon the Muses to tell
him what were the beings that appeared first in existence, and he
replies--'At the commencement of all things was Chaos, and from
Chaos was born Erebus and dark night.'

"Thus, in the order of existence, as in the order of time, there is
a concurrence of profane tradition to place night before day. This
is the reason why the Scandinavians, the Gauls, the Germans, the
Kalmucks, the Numidians, the Egyptians, and Athenians, according to
Varro and Macrobius, count their days, commencing with sunset and
not with sunrise."

Curiously enough, in another chapter on a different subject, Mr Max Müller enables me to clinch this argument against himself. In an article on the "Norsemen in Iceland," he says--in proof of the genuineness of the Edda--"There are passages in the Edda which sound like verses from the Veda." But what are these verses from the ends of the earth which are identical? Let us listen--

"'Twas the _morning_ of _time_
When yet _naught was_,
Nor sand nor sea were there,
Nor cooling streams;
Earth was not formed,
Nor _Heaven_ above;
A yawning gap there was,
And grass nowhere."[140]

[140] From the "Elder Edda." (Quoted from Dr Dasent's "Norsemen in
Iceland." Oxford Essays, 1858.)

Under these conditions, I think it will be conceded that there was also darkness--and therefore, that the tradition of the precedence of chaos and darkness is confirmed.

"A hymn," continues Mr Max Müller, "of the Veda begins in a very similar way--

"Nor aught, nor naught existed; yon _bright sky
Was not_, nor Heaven's broad roof outstretch'd above,
What cover'd all? what shelter'd? what conceal'd?
Was it the waters' fathomless abyss?" &c.

Mr Max Müller adds, "There are several mythological expressions common to _the Edda_ and _Homer_. In the Edda, man is said to have been created out of an _ash tree_. In Hesiod, Zeus created the third race of men out of _ash_ trees, and that this tradition was not unknown to Homer we learn from Penelope's address to Ulysses--"Tell me thy family from whence thou art: for thou art not sprung from the olden trees, or from the rocks" (Max Müller, ii. 195).

The tradition about the ash tree in Hesiod, Homer, and the Edda,[141] is curious but inexplicable: the general drift of the tradition may be determined by the recollection of two facts--that man was created, and that a tree was inseparably connected with his history from its earliest commencement. But I have quoted the passage more especially with reference to its confirmation of the extract from Gainet, which attests the wide-spread tradition--so exactly in accordance with the cosmogony of Scripture--that Chaos was at the commencement of all things, and that darkness existed before light.[142] I conclude by asking why this should be? When we are in the midst of solar and astral systems and legends, it seems natural that a theory of cosmogony should commence with light rather than darkness--at least, as well that it should commence with light as with darkness. But no, the universal tradition seems against it. Much more strange is this if we connect the solar and astral legends with any system of Sabaism. These considerations make it plain to me that the solar and astral legends embodied anterior traditions.

[141] What is still more remarkable, the same tradition is found
in the "Popol Vul" (Mexican traditions), and as it is there
given, fits in still more exactly with the solution I have
suggested. It is there said that the _first race_ of men
were created "_out the earth_," the third out "_of a tree_
called Tzité."[B] _If_ the "Popol Vul" came under Christian
or European influences in the 17th century, it would have
been more likely to have been brought into harmony with the
Bible, rather than with either Homer, Hesiod, or the Edda.
Let us pursue the myth a little further. Mr W. K. Kelly,
"Indo-Europ. Tradition and Folklore" (_vide_ Max Müller, ii.
197) says, "This healing virtue, which the mistletoe shares
with the _ash_, is a long descended tradition, for the Kushtha
... a healing plant, was one that grew beneath the _heavenly
Asvattha_," which is elsewhere called "the imperishable
Asvattha or Peepul (_Ficus religiosus_), out of which the
immortals shaped the heaven and the earth," which legend Mr
Kelly further traces in the German Yggdrasil (although Mr Max
Müller from his own point of view dissents); at the foot of
which tree (p. 207) "lies the serpent Nidhöggr, and gnaws its
roots." Neither Mr Max Müller nor Mr Kelly discuss the point
with reference to the view suggested above.

[B] _Tiki_ was the great progenitor among New
Zealanders.--_Shortland_, p. 56.

[142] Gen. i. 1, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
2. And the earth was void and empty, and _darkness was_ upon
the face _of the deep_; and the spirit of God moved over the
waters. 5. And He called the light day and the darkness night;
and there was _evening_ and morning one day."

In addition to the instances adduced by Gainet, it will
be remembered that the Jewish sabbath was from evening to
evening, and with us the astronomical day commences at noon,
and the commencement and termination of the civil day at mean
midnight.

In the _second_ [Chinese] dynasty the day commenced at
mid-day. Wei-Wang, the founder of the _third_ dynasty, fixed
it at midnight." (Bunsen's "Egypt," vol. iii. p. 390.)

In the Phoenician cosmogony "the beginning of all was a dark
and stormy atmosphere," "thick, unfathomable black chaos."
(_Vide_ Bunsen's "Egypt," iv. 176.)

The New Zealanders have preserved the tradition with still
greater distinctness. "In the _beginning of time_ was Te Po
(the night or darkness). In the generations that followed
Te Po came Te Ao (the light)" &c., &c. (_Vide_ Shortland's
"Traditions of the New Zealanders," p. 55.)

_Vide_ Gladstone, "Homer," ii. 155; Cox, "Mythology of Aryan
Nations," i. 15, on the relation of Phoibos to Leto. "This is
precisely the relation in which the _mythical night_ stood to
the day which was to be born of _her_."

_Vide_ on this point Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians" (I.
chap. xiii.) "The Mygale," says Champollion, "received
divine honours by the Egyptians, because it is blind, and
_darkness is more ancient than light_." The Arabs have the
expression "_night and day_" (_vide_ Wilkinson). Aristotle
says "The theologians consider all things to have been born of
night." The Orphean fragments call "night the Genesis of all
things.... The Anglo-Saxons also, like the Eastern nations,
began their computations of time from night, and the years
from that day corresponding with our Christmas, which they
called "Mother Night," and the Otaheitans refer the existence
of their principal deities to a state of darkness, which they
consider the origin of all things." (_Vide_ Gen. i. 2, 3;
_id._ p. 273-4.)

I think Mr Max Müller will at least recognise them as spots on the disk of his solar theory, and which must ever remain obscure to those who refuse the light of Scripture and tradition.