APPENDIX.

TWO ESSAYS BY H. STEINTHAL,

PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN:

I

THE ORIGINAL FORM OF THE LEGEND OF PROMETHEUS.

II

THE LEGEND OF SAMSON.

THE ORIGINAL FORM OF THE LEGEND OF PROMETHEUS:

A REVIEW OF AD. KUHN'S ‘HERABKUNFT DES FEUERS UND DES GÖTTERTRANKS.’

By H. Steinthal.

The soundness of a new discovery is attested in various ways, but especially by the circumstance that the new thought is no sooner uttered in speech than it is seized upon and worked out by others besides its author; for the thought in question is thus proved to be really the subject which the intellect of the time is best prepared to take up, and which will lead on the Past to the Future. This is found to be the case with Comparative Mythology, Kuhn’s new creation. When a large number of Vedic Hymns—text, translation, and commentary—first appeared in Europe through the instrumentality of a German, Rosen (too early lost to science), Kuhn saw at once not only that they were written in a more ancient language than the classical Sanskrit, but, what was more important, that they opened up a source of mythological views which flowed from a more distant and primeval antiquity than is known to us anywhere else, and that this was the common source of the more important myths and figures of gods of the Aryan nations. He then demonstrated this, in successive essays on Erinnys, Despoina and Athenê, the Kentaurs, Minos, Orpheus, Hermes, and on Wuotan (Odin) in the German mythology, by proving the identity of their names and myths with corresponding ones in the Vedas. Kuhn’s acuteness and skilful combinations thus established the fact, of the highest importance to primeval history, that the heathen Aryan nations possessed a belief in gods, the outlines of which dated from the age of their original unity. But Kuhn saw also that two further facts followed from the first, one more important, the other more interesting. By the former I mean the fact, that the Vedic myths still exist in so primitive a form as to point to the ground of their own origin, and thus themselves to furnish their own certain interpretation. The latter is the fact that all Saga-poetry, whether epic or dramatic, artistic or popular, stands in connexion with the oldest myths; and further, that the mythological faith and worship, so far from being extinct even among the civilised Christian nations of Europe, still lives on in the rural classes of the population in spirit and practice, as superstition or sometimes as jest, though of course not without frequent transformations and disfigurements. This last point, however, had already been discovered by the genius of Jacob Grimm, who only wanted the support of the Vedas to become the founder of Comparative Mythology, as he was of Historical Grammar. But this support was necessary to elevate Comparative Mythology into a science based on method, and to give sufficient certainty to the interpretation of myths and gods. The greatest genius—fully entering into the spirit of the ancient Greeks and Germans, and endowed with a lively sympathy with nature—could, without the guarantee of the Vedas, never have produced anything higher than unproved conjectures. It would have remained impossible to demonstrate the original identity of different gods, had not the Vedas given us the connecting terms. And the sense of the myths and gods could only have been vaguely and uncertainly guessed at, had not the language of the Vedas, with a happy transparency both of grammar and of psychology, furnished the means of tracing the development of ideas from the most primitive impressions received by the soul.

Starting from the same fundamental idea as Kuhn, Roth proved, about the same time, that the heroes of the New-Persian epos are only old mythic figures of the religion of Zoroaster, which are equivalent in names and functions to certain Vedic gods. In the Oxford Essays of 1855, Max Müller gave a sketch of Comparative Mythology, drawn in a certain poetical spirit which is quite in harmony with the subject. He endeavoured, very justly, to exhibit the essential connexion between the poetical and the mythic aspect, and to show that all formation of myths was simply poetic invention. Kuhn’s idea was immediately and generally accepted and worked out by all those who were engaged on the Vedas—Benfey, Weber, and others. Mannhardt has frequently elucidated German myths with penetrating thoroughness from Vedic-Indian ones.

Thus Kuhn’s idea has with rare rapidity become a secure common property of science. In the book, the title of which is given at the head of this article, he now gives an unsurpassable model of careful method in this field of investigation. When the weight of every argument is tested with such accuracy and the conscientiousness of a judge, and exhibited so unvarnished and so entirely free from special pleading, and the conclusion is drawn with such cautiousness, as here, not only scientific but also moral recognition is the writer’s due.

We will first attempt to realise the result attained, and then proceed to a psychological analysis of it. I shall, however, here strictly confine myself to the one mythical feature which forms the foundation of Prometheus. Kuhn’s book contains, besides, an extraordinary multitude of mythological facts, grouped together as belonging to the subject mentioned in his title.

In the earliest times Fire must have been given to man by nature: there was a burning here or there, and man came to know fire and its effects by experience. At the same time he learned also how to keep it in, and very soon he may also have learned how to produce it. He took certain kinds of wood, bored a stick of the one into a stick or disk of the other, and turned the former round and round in the latter till it produced flame. Kuhn has shown elaborately that the Aryan nations’ oldest fire-instrument was formed in this way, and that the rotation of the boring-stick was effected by a thread or cord wound round it and pulled to and fro.^[786] But man knew also of another sort of fire, that in the sky. Up there burned the fire of the Sun’s disk; from thence the fire of the Lightning darted down. The primitive man, in his simplicity, believed the heavenly fire to be like the earthly; its effects were the same, and it went out from time to time like the earthly fire. Therefore, Must not its origin also have been similar? must it not after every extinction have been kindled again in like manner? There was no want of the necessary wood in the sky. In the sky was seen the great Ash-tree of the world,—in a configuration of clouds which is still in North Germany called the Wetterbaum, the storm-tree.^[787] It was supposed, before men believed in gods of human form, that the lightning fell down from this Ash-tree, against which a branch twined round it had rubbed till the fire was produced, as had been observed in forests on earth. The men thought that the earthly fire had its origin in the sky, and was only heavenly fire that had fallen down. They saw how it fell down in the lightning; they recognised in the lightning a divine eagle, hawk, or woodpecker;^[788] and many a bird which now flies about in the atmosphere of earth is a fallen flash of lightning, proved to be such either by its colour or by some other circumstance. The wood, too, which when rubbed turns to fire, is similarly a transformed lightning-bird. This is seen sometimes in the fiery-red colour of the fruit, e.g. of the mountain-ash (rowan),^[789] sometimes in the thorns or in the pinnate leaves of the plant, in which the claws and feathers of the lightning-bird are still recognisable. The rubbing merely revokes this transformation: the igneous creature is enabled to take up again its original form.

Originally the bird was probably regarded as being itself the lightning, because inversely the lightning was treated as a bird. Afterwards it was thought that the bird which was at first perched upon the heavenly Ash that produced the fire brought the fire down from the tree to the earth.

But further, Is not Life, too, a fire, burning in the body?—and Death the extinction of the flame? And as fire is kindled by boring with a stick in the hole of a plate of wood, so human life is produced in the womb. And what happens now and always here on earth, happened up there in the Ash-tree of the world at the original creation of man. That Ash produced, first Fire, and then Man, who is also fire. Indeed, strictly speaking, this is still going on: the Soul is a lightning-bird that has come down to earth, and the birds that bear down the fire—such as the Stork^[790]—still bring us children too, just as they brought the first man down to earth: in short, the Fire-god is also the Man-god.

Then, at a later stage of the development of ideas, when the divine powers were imagined as personages in human form, the wonderful element of Fire, which drew to itself the attention of men no less by its mysteriousness than by its usefulness, was undoubtedly one of the first divine figures to be personified. Now one of the oldest words for fire was agni-s, Lat. igni-s. According to Benfey it comes from the root ag ‘to shine,’ by means of the suffix ni; s is the sign of the nominative. Therefore Agni is the Shining one, the Fire; but in the earliest times the word designated not the element Fire, but the god Fire. He, the god Agni, had his abode in the wood, and was allured forth by the turning.

Agni was fire and light in general, both the absolute element in general and also every special and separate manifestation of it: such as the brilliant sky, the shining sun, the lightning, fire burning here for us, the first man and progenitor of mankind. But alongside of this, the peculiar conception of the Lightning-Bird still continued. That also was converted into a personal divine or heroic figure, which brought fire and man to the earth in the lightning. Sometimes Agni himself was called a ‘golden-winged bird,’ even in the Vedic Hymns; and sometimes the bird was made into a special god or hero distinct from Agni, bearing a name taken from one of Agni’s various epithets. Thus Picus, originally only the woodpecker, was in the belief of the Latins the Fire-Bird. He was Lightning and Man; and it was said later that the first king of Latium was Picus, for the first man and father of mankind frequently appears in localised stories as the first king of the locality. Picus is shown to be a Lightning-Bird and Lightning-Man, not only by his name and story, but also by the manner of his worship: since he was regarded as the protecting deity of women in childbed and of infants.^[791]

Less obviously, but not less certainly, a Lightning-Bird was preserved at Argos in Phoroneus. He, and not Prometheus, was said in the Peloponnesian story to have given fire to men; and in his honour a holy flame was kept burning on an altar at Argos. He was at the same time regarded as father of the human race. Having been originally a bird sitting on the celestial Ash-tree, he was made a hero, son of the nymph Melia, ‘the Ash.’ Now his name is Grecised from the Sanskrit bhuraṇyu-s, an epithet of the Fire-god Agni, denoting ‘rapid, darting, flying,’ thus picturing Agni as a bird. The name Phoroneus, bhuraṇyu-s, is in root (bhar = φερ) and signification, though not in grammatical form, equivalent to the word φερόμενος.^[792]

It was not possible to stop with the mere conversion of the bird into a person. When the divine beings were once thought of as persons, they were also allowed to appear and act as such. So men no longer imagined the fire in the sky to be self-originated on the World’s Tree, but regarded it as produced by gods, who acted similarly to men on earth, and revived the extinct flame of the sun hidden behind a mountain of clouds in the morning or during a storm, by driving a bolt into the sun’s disk or into the cloud.

These are mythic conceptions of the very earliest age, but they contain in themselves a motive to further development, to give completeness to the relations subsisting among them, or binding them to the natural phenomenon that they represent. Thus true myths arise.

Now, the most striking peculiarity of fire was obviously the necessity of constantly kindling it again afresh, because when lighted it must go out again sooner or later. This aspect was exhibited in the following very simple myth. Agni vanished from the earth; he had hidden himself in a cave. Mâtariśvan brings him back to men. This myth is easily understood. The existence of the god Agni is assumed to be absolute and uninterrupted: but Fire is often not present; consequently the god must have hidden himself. Where, then, can he be? Afar off, it is sometimes said, quite generally; another time it is said, In the sky—which seems to be regarded as his proper home—or with the gods. But sometimes he is not there either, as at night or in a storm. Where is he, then? Why, where he is found; in the hollow of the cloud, from which he soon shines forth: in the hole of the disk in which the stick is turned round and round. Then, who finds him there, and brings him back to men? He who makes the fire appear, or flame up, and thereby restores to men the god who had withdrawn from them: that is, the Borer, or the Lightning which bores into the cloud as the stick into the wooden disk; it is Mâtariśvan, says the myth. This is a divine or semi-divine being, of whom but little is known. He seems to be a figure which has never been fully crystallised;^[793] regarded as a divine person, he fetches back the Fire-God to men.

Then the following terminology was introduced. The boring, by which man kindled fire and the sun when extinguished was lighted up again, was called manthana, from the root math (math-nâ-mi or manth-â-mi, ‘I shake, rub, or produce by rubbing’). In German, the corresponding word is mangeln, ‘to roll,’^[794] Mangelholz, used in North Germany; manth here becomes mang, as hinter is pronounced hinger, and unter unger. The boring-stick was probably originally called matha, from which mathin, ‘a twirling-stick,’ differs only in its suffix. Very soon, however, matha appears to have been restricted to another signification,^[795] and then the fire-generating wooden stick was designated by a term formed from the same root with the preposition pra prefixed, which only gave a shade of difference to the meaning, pramantha. But the fetching of the god Agni by Mâtariśvan (the personified pramantha) is also designated by the same verb mathnâmi, manthâmi, as the proper earthly boring. Now this verb, especially when compounded with the preposition pra, gained the signification ‘to tear off, snatch to oneself, rob.’ Thus the fetching of Agni became a robbery of the fire, and the pramantha a fire-robber. The gods had intended, for some reason or other, to withhold fire from men; a benefactor of mankind stole it from the gods. This robbery was called pramâtha; pramâthyu-s is ‘he who loves boring or robbery,’ a Borer or a Robber. From the latter word, according to the peculiarities of Greek phonology, is formed Προμηθεύ-ς, Prometheus. He is therefore a Fire-God, very like Hephaestos, whose functions he often assumes. Mâtariśvan, who is quite synonymous with him in meaning, derives his name still more directly from the Fire-God; for mâtariśvan is originally a mere epithet of Agni; for the boring-stick itself bursts into flame, and in so doing reveals itself as Agni. Originally a mere epithet, mâtariśvan was subsequently separated from Agni and made into a distinct person; but, as already observed, without clearly-defined characteristics. Prometheus is the fire-generator, and as such the creator of the human race.^[796] This relation to men explains the affection for them which prompts him to give them fire against the will of Zeus. He hid the spark of fire in a stem of Narthex,—one of the kinds of wood which were used for the production of fire, and were regarded as transformed fire.

Fire on earth was the Fire-God descended from heaven; the first man was only the same god in another form; consequently the first men—the representatives and benefactors of the human race—the first kings—the founders of the great sacerdotal families among the priest-ridden Indians—all were designated by attributes of the Fire-God. The family of the Aṅgiras-es acknowledges its descent from Aṅgiras. But Agni himself is often called by this name; and indeed these two names, Agni and Aṅgiras, come from the same root ag or aṅg, and have the same meaning—‘shining.’ Thus, in the mythical view Fire existed in three forms: first, as actual fire, i.e. as the Fire-God; secondly, as generator, rubber, fetcher, and robber, of fire, i.e. as Pramantha, Mâtariśvan, Prometheus; and thirdly, as those for whom it exists, and to whom it is given, i.e. as men. After the Fire-God has come down from heaven as man, he as man or as god fetches himself as god or divine element to earth, and presents himself as element to himself as man.

In the view of primitive man the mediating term between heaven and earth lay in the Lightning. In the lightning he saw the Fire—the god, the man—fall from heaven. Bhṛgu,^[797] originally bhargu, from the root bharg, from which the Latin fulgeo, fulgur, and the Greek φλέγω also come, signifies ‘the Shining,’ ‘the Lightning;’ German blitz, which latter word comes from the identical German root (Old High German plih, Middle High German blic).^[798] Bhṛgu was said to be the ancestor of the Bhṛgu-s, a sacerdotal family. To them, as representatives of the human race born from the lightning, Mâtariśvan is said to have given the fire. But as the Bhṛgu-s are the lightning, and consequently the Fire-God himself, the myth could be so turned round as to make Mâtariśvan fetch the god from the Bhṛgu-s as divine beings, or to make the Bhṛgu-s go after the traces of Agni, find him in the hole, take him among men, and cause him to display his fire.

It is also told of the above-mentioned Aṅgiras that they found Agni hidden in the cave. They are, indeed, only the same god broken into fragments: the fire separated into individual cases of burning, flame flashing at various places.

Thus there is a mythical identity, on the one hand, between Prometheus and Mâtariśvan as fire-god and fire-fetcher, and on the other, between Prometheus and the Bhṛgu-s in the same capacities, except that the latter are also representatives of mankind. And their relation to Prometheus can be authenticated in Greek myths as well. Bhṛgu is Lightning in his very name. His son Ćyavana ‘the Fallen’ (from ćyu ‘to fall’^[799]) is the Lightning again. Hephaestos, also, is well known to have fallen down. The name Iapetos appears most likely to express the notion of ‘the Fallen’; only he is not the son, but the father, of Prometheus. Prometheus created men of clay, and the earth which he used for the purpose was shown near Panopeus in Phokis, the seat of the Phlegyans; the Phlegyans, therefore, considered themselves the first men: they are the Bhṛgu-s, Grecised regularly. The Indians had, moreover, other ideas connected with the Bhṛgu-s which closely coincide with those held by the Greeks concerning the Phlegyans; especially the conception that Bhṛgu, the ancestor of the Bhṛgu-s, like Phlegyas that of the Phlegyans, was hurled into Tartaros for pride and insurrection against the gods. The same characteristics, pride and opposition to Zeus, as well as the punishment, are also found in Prometheus, who is identical with the other two.

The identity of the Indian Mâtariśvan with the Greek Prometheus, and the explanation of the latter thereby gained, are accordingly based on such a coincidence of several mythical features and so similar a combination of these features, as cannot possibly be the work of chance; as well as on several interpretations of names, which are intrinsically more or less certain. If we knew more of the Indian Mâtariśvan, or if the word pramâthyu-s, corresponding to the Greek Prometheus, could be authenticated in the Vedas, then the certainty of all that has been said above of the Greek Titan would force itself upon us. In compensation for what has not yet been found, and is perhaps lost for ever, it may be serviceable to learn about a host of divine beings described in the epic poems of the Indians, who have some connexion with the Fire-God and are called Pramatha-s or Pramâtha-s; they appear to be only the one original Pramâtha or Pramâthyu-s broken up into fragments.

This is, in Kuhn’s profound exposition, the simplest and the pure form of the Story of Prometheus. Later, in Greece, it was brought into relation to other stories in Hesiod’s poetry; and again, with peculiar profundity, into new combinations by Aeschylos. Prometheus received his higher mental signification mainly through the fact that the Greek verb μανθάν-ω, with which the name of the Titan was correctly assumed to be connected, had taken a more mental meaning than the Sanskrit mathnâ-mi or manthâ-mi. The two verbs are obviously originally absolutely identical; only the nasalisation of the root math is effected differently in each language. We might suppose that the meaning ‘to learn,’ which the root μαθ has in Greek, had grown out of the fundamental sense ‘to shake’; for learning is a shaking up, a movement, of the mind to and fro. Yet such a mode of conception might be scarcely possible to the mind of the primeval age in which that signification must have grown up; the primitive act of learning was not such violent exertion as ours in modern times, but rather a simple hearing, a mental reception. Now as the Sanskrit word mathnâmi grew into the meaning ‘to take’ (as has been observed), it is more probable that the notion of learning was formed by the Greeks from this (‘snatching to oneself, taking’^[800]), as Kuhn supposes. Then the physical sense of μαθ was lost altogether to the Greeks; it was, indeed, still known that Prometheus was a fire-taker, but not that the name indicated this. So they attempted to understand his name in a strictly mental sense, and remodelled the nature of the Titan accordingly.

Accordingly, the answer to the question of the nature of the etymology of the name Prometheus must be this: Prometheus comes from a root pra + math, which had the same meaning as the simple verb μανθάνω. But the formation of the name from the verb is older than the appearance of any specific Hellenism; for Prometheus was not formed by the Greeks. With the verb mathnâ-mi the name pramâthyu-s, without any verb pramathnâ-mi, was also delivered to them; and so there were in Greek μανθάνω and Προμηθεύς, but not προμανθάνω. The knowledge of the mutual connexion of the two former words continued vivid in the language; and when the sense of μανθάνω was spiritualised, the same change came over that of Prometheus also. Besides this, the preposition προ was understood, according to the usual Greek analogy, as ‘beforehand’; and the verb προμανθάνω was then formed on Greek ground. Thus Prometheus came finally to denote to the Greeks ‘the Fore-learner, the Provident.’ I shall have more to say presently on this development. Let us pause for a while here, and attempt the psychological analysis of the simpler form of the myth exhibited above.

The following definitions must be given in advance:

Every simple act of the soul and every simple occurrence in the soul shall be termed a Motion, that we may have a general word to embrace all psychological data and designate, so to speak, a psychical atom.

Simple Motions combine together for very various reasons and in various ways, which I need not enumerate here; e.g. a colour, a form, and a matter. Thus they form a Combination of motions, e.g. ‘a black round disk.’

Simple Motions, or single Combinations of them, in case they are not distinct or distinguished from other simple motions or single combinations on account of the similarity or equality of their contents, coalesce with the latter into one motion or combination of motions, as the case may be. For instance, to one who has not a clear sight, or has no sense of colour, or is looking at too great a distance, two colours that are but little different will appear one and the same. If one sees a ribbon today, and tomorrow sees at the same place another scarcely differing from it in colour, length, and breadth, one will suppose it to be the same. Thus, Coalescence produces a loss of contents (for in the place of two or more motions only one remains, whereas distinction brings an enrichment of contents), but the loss is compensated by the force of the motion.

Not simple motions, but certainly combinations, can be interlaced (sich verflechten) with one another. Interlacing of combinations occurs when certain motions belonging to two or more combinations coalesce, whilst the other motions belonging to them remain apart. The interlacing of the combinations approximates more or less to a coalescence of them in proportion to the number and value of the motions that coalesce. On this more accurate definitions may be given presently. Here I will only allude to a frequently occurring instance: two words of similar sound in a foreign language are easily interlaced, even to the point of perfect coalescence, i.e. they are confounded with each other. So also two persons closely resembling each other. The coalescing members of the combinations here so greatly exceed in number and force those that remain separated, that there is no consciousness of the latter.

When something presents itself to the mind to be perceived, estimated, or in the most general sense received, a certain procedure or negotiation takes place between this something on the one side, and certain older ideas, through the instrumentality of which the reception is to be effected, on the other. This procedure is Apperception: it is obviously far from a primary occurrence in the consciousness; it depends upon Coalescences, Interlacings, and Combinations of all sorts.^[801]

The primitive man saw fire on the earth and in the sky; or, to express it more precisely, he saw something burning, shining. From the conception of burning things the idea of Burning or Shining was extracted. The difference between Conception (Anschauung) and Idea (Vorstellung) must now be carefully noted.^[802] The former is an undivided sum-total of many elements, corresponding to the object or occurrence presented to the senses. The thought of it is expressed in language by a plurality of ideas, every one of which corresponds to one single element of the conception; so that the ideas are equal in number to the separate elements which are recognised and distinguished in the conception. Thus, to a single conception corresponds a combination of many separate ideas. The two combinations of ideas concerning the heavenly fire and concerning the earthly, contained elements (ideas) which coalesced together; and thus they became interlaced with one another. The conceptions of the two fires (as aggregate unities, in opposition to the ideas, into which they are broken up by the analysis of their elements) would not, indeed, easily coalesce; for as such aggregates they appear to the observer too different from each other. But when the conceptions are converted into combinations of ideas, which conversion is effected by language, then the related elements in the two combinations come into prominence and coalesce, and thus produce an interlacing of the combinations. But it must not be imagined that in this interlacing only those elements are affected which coalesce, and those which do not remain entirely unaffected by them; on the contrary, while the one set of elements press on towards coalescence, they are held back by their connexion with the others. The coalescence is therefore not quite perfect. Now, when on the one side even the not-distinguished elements are protected against the coalescence to which they incline, on the other the distinct elements which keep the two combinations asunder are themselves drawn in to the inclination towards coalescence. Thus the mutual relations of the combinations as aggregates are disturbed by their interlacing; they do not become identical, and yet are not severed: they become analogous.

The one is analogous to the other, the one gives the measure by which the other is measured: the one is the more powerful, the ruling, that which gives the means of apperception; the other the weaker, the ruled, the apperceived. How is this relation divided between the combinations of ideas of the earthly and the heavenly fire?

No doubt the heavenly fire is by far the greater and more effective, and therefore also the more penetrating into the soul of man. Man soon recognises the Sun as the source of the daylight and the origin of growth, and consequently as the giver of all wealth and all joy; and learning, on the one hand, what the sun procures him, he also experiences, on the other, by night and in winter, what it is to be deprived of it. At its rising and setting, but most impressively in the thunderstorm, the sun surprises him by the grandest sights. Thus it might be thought that the heavenly fire must give the measure for the apprehension of the earthly, and therefore for that of fire in general. But the matter demands more careful consideration.

Only the more powerful combination of ideas can give the measure and be the organ of apperception. Now a physical occurrence which works more powerfully, i.e. with greater force, upon our senses, will indeed arouse stronger feelings; but we cannot speak of stronger sensations. For instance, the vibrations of the air produce in the organ of hearing both the sensation of a tone and a feeling of pleasure or pain. Stronger commotions of air produce stronger and more painful feelings in the ear, but not stronger sensations, only sensations of louder, stronger tones. In memory we distinguish louder and softer tones merely in defining their contents, without meaning that the memory of the one is stronger than that of the other. The sensation of a louder tone is not a louder sensation. Therefore, from the mere fact that the sun is brighter and speaks louder to men in the thunder than the earthly fire, no greater power in human consciousness accrues to men’s ideas of the heavenly fire.

The more important and impressive idea, too, is not necessarily also the more powerful; for this quality also, importance and force of impression, works in the first instance only on the feeling, not on the course of ideas also at the same time. A number or a name may be very important to us, and yet we forget it very soon.

Therefore the power which an idea can exert on the consciousness, e.g. in an apperception, essentially depends on conditions which flow simply from the nature of our consciousness. I hope that the following exposition will meet with assent. Power, or influence on the consciousness, is obtained by a combination of ideas through the number of its elements, through familiarity with it as an aggregate, and yet more through accurate acquaintance with its separate elements by themselves and in their relations both to one another and to elements belonging to other combinations, and through the number and variety of such relations. Greater clearness in our consciousness of something is only another mode of expression for more manifold distinction of the elements contained in it; and this implies increase of knowledge, but also sharp definiteness and thoroughness.

There is a curious contrast between feeling and theory. In the latter clearness, careful assortment, delicate distinction, and reference, give preponderance; whereas it is the masses of unclearness that work most powerfully on the former.

We will measure by this principle the force of the ideas concerning the heavenly and of those concerning the earthly fire. The latter must be much more numerous, clear, definite, and certain, as man has the earthly fire nearer, and works in company with it, and work is a copious source of knowledge. The earthly fire is the only one that he knows; a heavenly fire he only infers. The earthly fire enlightens the darkness of his night, which surrounds him as soon as ever it goes out; by it he learns the operation of warmth: this first leads him to seek the cause of the brightness and warmth of the day in the place where he sees something similar to his fire—in the sun; especially as, when he sees no sun, darkness and cold prevail just as when there is no fire. It is then the knowledge of the earthly fire that helps him to apprehend the kosmic fire; from the former he transfers his ideas to the latter. He experiences the former only; he constructs or images to himself the latter. Therefore, in the theoretical consciousness the ideas of the earthly fire are the more powerful and creative, and they give the measure; those of the heavenly are formed in conformity to them. The feeling, on the contrary, is more powerfully affected by the heavenly than by the earthly fire, because that is grander in its activity, mysterious in its appearance and disappearance, and independent of man. It surprises, stirs, and troubles the mind in a higher degree, and excites a more lively attention.

Now the power exerted by ideas upon the feeling is certainly not without influence even on their theoretical connexion and distinction, on their prominence and their formation. Further, much as man may have to do with fire, often as he may kindle it and put it out, variously as he may employ it, still he never fully understands it as to its appearance, mode of working, and essence. Now it always seems that the great must be the generator of the small, the strong the point of departure for the weak, the worthy and impressive more original than the mean and ineffective. If therefore, on the one hand, the ideas of the celestial fire are formed by analogy with those of the terrestrial, on the other hand, the latter are complemented by being put into connexion with the former. First of all the question is asked, What is there above?—and the answer is, The same as here below. But then comes the question, Whence comes this that is here below, and what is it?—and the answer is, It comes from above, and is the same as what is above. There above is the great, the self-subsisting, the adorable; it has descended to earth to do us good. Thus the idea of the heavenly is attained through the earthly; but the origin of the latter removed to the upper regions.

Thus it comes to pass that, although the ideas of the earthly fire are prior in psychological perception and give rise to those of the heavenly, still man holds the heavenly fire to be the original and creative one, from which the other is derived. He is so overpowered by the grandeur, wonder, and unapproachableness of the celestial element, that he regards the fire which he kindles for himself as fallen down from on high and given to him.

Man receives certain visual sensations of the Sun; and he converts these into a conception, or an object, by apperceiving them with the ideas that he has of fire. Thus he makes of them a fiery wheel. The ideas of this wheel are partly the same as those of the earthly fire, partly different; for they are distinct in the elements of place, size, effect, and dependence or independence. Thus arises an interlacing of the two combinations of ideas, as has been already observed. The disturbance produced among the ideas by this relation impels to a double apperception of the two combinations, first on the part of what is alike in them, and next on the part of what is different. The first apperception results in the comprehension of the two combinations as fire; the other in the separate conceptions of a divine and an earthly fire. This latter separation contradicts the first comprehension; and this contradiction is composed by a new process of apperception, in which both the likeness and the difference are regarded as the consequence of the relation of originality or derivation, in which the earthly fire stands to the divine. They are both really the same, namely, the god Agni, who lives above and descends to men.

For the separation of the combination of ideas of the celestial fire from that of the terrestrial, is not sufficiently supported to offer an effectual opposition to the coalescence to which the most essential elements tend. All the difference that declares itself here resolves itself ultimately into one point only; for the differences of nearness and distance, of greatness and smallness, and whatever else may be added to these, all unite in the one point of the independence of the celestial fire and the dependence of the terrestrial. But this point is very weak. For even the terrestrial fire is observed by man to be not dependent on him, and seems to him to be even less so than it is in fact. The primitive man does not think he actually generates the fire by boring: he regards his action as scarcely more than a petition to the fire to appear. And if the fire then does appear, it does so as a free and kindly being that has an independent existence. Where, then, could it live in its own character, if not on high? It lives there for itself and for ever; here it comes down out of kindness.

Having thus discovered the psychological foundation for the fact that the primitive man regarded the fire as a god, we will endeavour to make clear to ourselves also the first forms of mythical conceptions.

We must imagine the primitive man placed as he was freely in the midst of nature. He saw the sky, the sun, clouds, and in the storm the lightning, and likewise heard thunder. He saw, he heard:—this means only ‘he received sense-impressions.’ These may no doubt have formed themselves into an image; still the image was not yet an object placed before his mind,—not yet a conception. When we see something strange to us, we ask, What is it? Yet we see clear, and have a definite image of the thing; then what more can we have to ask about it? We want to know also the purpose, origin, and regulation of what we have seen, so as to be able to find a place for it in the series of things previously known, or, if there is no suitable place, at least to find out its relation to that series. Nothing less will satisfy us; then it is no longer an isolated image, but a conception, an object; then we have apperceived it. It remains therefore for the mind to convert the image into an object through apperception. But certain means are demanded by the mind for all its creations, i.e. for everything that it makes its own by thought. The sensations—all that is presented by the senses: tones, colours, touch—are merely matter which the mind appropriates to itself. The means whereby this appropriation is rendered possible are not delivered to it by the organs, nor yet innate in it and ready for use. On the contrary, as in trade and commerce possession is multiplied by possession, so also the mind enriches itself every time by means of that which has been already gained; every acquisition is made a means towards its own enlargement. Thus then the primitive man apperceived the descent of the lightning and the sun’s rays by means of that which his mind already possessed. But I must insist on the necessity of caution. In speaking here of the ‘descent of the lightning and the sun’s rays,’ I have presented and apperceived a certain physical occurrence in the way in which we are now wont to do in conversation. But that is not the way in which the primitive man spoke; and we have still to enquire how he did speak. For him there was as yet no sun, no lightning, no ray; of all these he knew nothing. He saw at first only something shining, in various forms and movements. But he had not set himself the task of working further with his mind at this presentment of the senses: his consciousness passively received motions, out of which mythical ideas grew up. He apperceived unconsciously, and of course with the ideas that he already had; his mind built with the materials that it possessed. What, then, was likely to be the result of his building?

Which, of all the creatures known to man, passed through the sky like the sun, darted down and cut through the air like the lightning and the ray of light? Only the Bird. This comparison of the bird with the manifestations of light, was made immediately and unconsciously. Among the ideas about the bird, motion through the air was the most prominent; so when this motion was perceived, the aggregate of ideas about the bird was instantly ready to operate as a means towards the apperception that ‘What moves in the air is a bird.’ It comes down from the heavenly tree. Thus then the Fire-god Agni, as god of the lightning, is invoked as a fiery, golden-winged bird. The bird in general is next individualised into an eagle or falcon—a strong, swift bird, that darts down with might and majesty.

This apperception was one of the simplest, and was made unconsciously, as has been said. The idea of motion through the air presented by the lightning, and the same idea derived from the combination of ideas of the bird, coalesced and became one. The mere smallness of man’s knowledge of the lightning caused the entire combination of ideas of the lightning to be drawn into that of the bird, whereby the latter combination was enriched so far as to admit the existence of a most wonderful divine bird beside the earthly ones. Thus no conscious comparison between lightning and bird took place; but immediate coalescence of the two was effected by the single conception of the lightning-bird, in which men were not conscious of any dualism. What we call lightning, was to the primitive man a bird, not lightning at all.

But also conversely, what we call a bird of this or that kind—eagle, vulture, or woodpecker—was to him lightning. The original meaning of the name φλεγύας, given by the Greeks to a kind of eagle or vulture—which, as has been noticed, has a connexion with Blitz, the Phlegyans and the Bhṛgu-s—was not ‘a bird as swift as lightning,’ but ‘lightning’ itself.

Thus, then, a multitude of mythical conceptions exhibit the lightning as some kind of bird, or a bird in general. So Phoroneus, ‘the quickly descending’ (p. 368), is in origin only an epithet of the powerful bird, and the Sabine goddess Feronia presents the corresponding feminine form; and numerous superstitions are founded on the recognition of lightning in a bird.

Still there is a difference between lightning and a bird flying; and this did not escape the notice of the primitive man. Nevertheless, so far from this difference having power to cancel, when once accomplished, the coalescence of the ideas of lightning and bird, and the unconscious apperception of the former through the latter; the difference itself was rather apperceived only in conformity with this coalescence. The difference was without any reflexion explained thus: when the bird has once descended flashing with lightning, it flashes no more; it is now only a lightning that has become weakened and earthly. Or it may also be said: the bird is not itself the lightning, it has brought the lightning down.

But where, then, has the lightning gone? It has shone for a moment, and vanished. It shone as if it were fire (fulgeo = φλέγω). Or perhaps it hit and fired something—then, whether it be bird or no, it is clearly fire. We must figure it to ourselves thus. In the sky, at the farthest limits of the space which the eye can reach, the primitive man saw light, radiance, brightness, in an overpowering degree; there he saw the sun and stars. He knew only the things on earth; only ideas of earthly things formed the possessions of his mind; and on the dark earth he knew nothing similar to those things of the upper world, except fire; only by his idea of this could he apperceive those. Now fire darts down from above before his very eyes. Now all is explained: the earthly fire comes from above, and the upper fire, having descended, conceals itself at once, by a transformation, in the body from which he extracts fire—in wood.

But now the relations are becoming more complicated; and already they are so far complicated that the original idea of the Lightning-Bird cannot be retained in its simplicity. Alongside of it the idea of the deity, or of the divine essence, has been everywhere developed; and the fire, the lightning, the golden-winged bird, has become the god Agni. Now the ideas of fire also take a new and less simple form.

The flame breaks forth from the wood: consequently, it must have been in it for a long time. The boring and rubbing in a certain way move Agni to appear: such action is therefore loved by the god, he allows himself to be drawn forth by it. If he loves it, it cannot be indifferent to the man who yields himself to the god in fear and thankfulness. It is a holy action. The pieces of wood which he stirs hold the god concealed. All appears divine to him, and his consciousness tarries in a world of gods. For the slight separation which he can make between the fire on high and that below, consists merely in the distinction between essence and manifestation. But wherever the god manifests himself, why there he is for certain. Consequently, during the holy act of kindling fire the two combinations of ideas of the God-Fire and of the earthly fire coalesce completely; there only remain ideas of one fire. But it was the ideas of the divine fire that completely absorbed those of the earthly. Unresisted, they exert an exclusive power over the consciousness and entirely fill it. Man is removed in spirit from the earth into the world of gods. He has forgotten everything sensuous and earthly, and sees and touches only gods and divine things. And every perception received from his senses is directly laid hold of by the ideas respecting the world of gods of which his consciousness is full, and has a place and significance assigned to it among them. The pieces of wood are no longer wood; the borer, the really active piece that draws the god forth, is a divine being that fetches the god. The god is concealed in the hole of the disk, but this is transformed in conception into a locality in the country of the gods—a hollow, in which the god is found. It is an occurrence that took place among the gods: the divine Pramantha fetches Agni out of the hollow.

The flaring of the flame, however, brings the consciousness back to the earth: Pramantha has brought the god to earth. We must realise the revolution effected in the consciousness by the fire breaking out. The combination of ideas concerning the earthly fire, which had coalesced with the other combination concerning the divine fire, is, by the present perception, again introduced into the consciousness as a special power, and its coalescence with the other conception is thereby cancelled. Against the sensuous impression of the present actual fire the circle of ideas of the divine one cannot maintain its supremacy. It retires and leaves the foreground of the consciousness to the circle of ideas of the earthly fire. But all this appeared to the primitive man not a psychological, but a real procedure; not a shifting of ideas, but an actual shifting of the imagined reality. When attention was shifted from the one circle of ideas to the other, guided by the idea of fire, which bound the two together, then it appeared to the primitive man as if the actual fire had removed from the one into the other, and had come from heaven to earth; and the already-begun fancy that the god Pramantha had fetched Agni, is accordingly carried on to the further point of saying that he put him among men.

Man soon observed in the sky on an enlarged, divine scale, the identical process which he had learned when producing fire by rotation. Agni dwells in the bright, clear, light sky. But the sky is overcast and darkened by a thunder-cloud: Agni has concealed himself; he has hidden himself in the hollow of the cloud. He breaks forth from it, being fetched by a divine Pramantha, Mâtariśvan, the Lightning. The lightning bores into the cloud as the earthly borer into the wooden disk: Prometheus, or Bhṛgu and his descendants the Bhṛgu-s, fetch the god from his hiding-place. They go down to the earth with him and take him to men.

The primitive man does not ask, Where does the fire come from? what becomes of the fire that has fallen from heaven? Before he asks this, and without his asking, he sees, and the lightning tells him, that the fire comes from heaven, and the wood tells him that the lightning (Agni) is concealed in the wood. Neither does the primitive man ask, Where does man come from? He sees it, and practises it.^[803] The birth of man is a generating of fire. When the primitive man sees a tree, he does not ask, What is it? but by the sight of the tree present before him the combination of ideas respecting trees which is already formed in his mind is without his observation recalled into his consciousness; and this combination appropriates to itself the present sight, the perception coalescing with the combination of ideas through the similarity of their contents: and thereby what is seen is apperceived as a tree. Similarly, when the primitive man figures to himself the act of copulation, it is the combination of ideas of producing fire by rubbing that enters into his consciousness on account of the similarity of the movement, and gives him an apperception of that act. The similarity of the two acts seems to the primitive man greater than to us. On the one hand, the production of fire is to him a religion and a divine energy; on the other, man is already regarded by him as a fire-creature, lightning-born quite as much as a bird. The two combinations of ideas do not, indeed, coalesce; but yet are greatly interlaced with each other in some of their essential elements. The opposition between the partial difference which separates the combinations and the partial similarity which unites them, leads to a solution in a double and reciprocal apperception: first, that the divine rubber, Pramantha or Prometheus, created man, or that lightning, Bhṛgu, Yama, or the lightning-bird Picus, was the first man; secondly and conversely, that the production of the flame by rubbing is the production of the Fire-God Agni, and that the wood is the cradle of the new-born god. Thus Agni remains always the ‘new-born’ and the ‘youngest,’ as he is called in the Vedas; and Dionysos, also a fire-god, appears as λικνίτης, a god in a cradle.

The primitive man was convinced that man was fire. Indeed, his wonder at his own lightning-nature was aroused every time that he produced the god; and when sacerdotal families had gained the exclusive privilege of kindling fire, these families traced their origin to Bhṛgu or Agni, and called themselves Bhṛgu-s, Aṅgiras-es, etc. For they continued to do just what their ancestor, the Lightning, had done before them.

This is, as far as I can give it, the psychological explanation of the original forms of the stories of the Descent of the Fire. The superstition attached to these stories, in ancient as well as in modern times, would be more fittingly considered separately. The peculiar formation of the character of Prometheus among the Greeks however, may still engage our attention a little longer.

Prometheus is a god and yet a Titan also. He is the greatest benefactor of the human race. Yet in all other cases the mythical idea is that whoever does good to man is also friendly to God, and that only those who do harm to man rebel also against God. For the elucidation of this most peculiar and contradictory position, the following points seem to me worth pondering.

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

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

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

THE LEGEND OF SAMSON.

By H. Steinthal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. THE ASS’S JAWBONE.

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

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

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

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

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

3. SAMSON AT GAZA.

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

4. SAMSON'S AMOURS.

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

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

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

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

5. SAMSON’S END.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. SAMSON'S BIRTH AND NAZIRITISM.

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

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

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

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

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