Note 18 — Chapter II · ISLANDS OF THE BLEST TRANSLATION

Hasisatra’s Translation: see the translation of the Babylonian account in Paul Haupt’s Der Keilins. Sintfluthber. (Leip. 1881), p. 17, 18. The expressions used by the Greek-writing reporters are exactly like those common in Greek accounts of translation: γενέσθαι ἀφανῆ (τὸν Ξίσουθρον) μετὰ τῶν θεῶν οἰκήσοντα, Beros. ap. Sync., p. 55, 6, 11 Di.; θεοί μιν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἀφανίζουσι, Abydenus ap. Syncell., p. 70, 13. Of Enoch we read, Gen. 524: οὐχ εὑρίσκετο ὅτι μετέθηκεν αὐτὸν ὁ θεός (μετετέθη, Ecclus., 4416; Hebr. 115); ἀνελήφθη ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, Ecclus. 4914; ἀνεχώρησε πρὸς τὸ θεῖον, Jos., AJ. i, 3, 4 (of Moses: ἀφανίζεται, Jos., AJ. iv, 8, 48). On the translation of Enoch and Elijah, see also Schwally, D. Leben. nach d. Tode n. d. Vorst. d. a. Israel (1892), p. 140. Translation of the living into Sheol often in the O.T., see Schwally, p. 62. Even Enoch has not escaped the fate of being regarded by comparative mythologists as the sun. Enoch may be given up to them, if the Orientalists have no objection; but it seems a pity that the theory, in accordance with the favourite argument from analogy, should be applied to Greek Translation-myths too, so that we should see the whole series of such figures, from Menelaos to Apollonios of Tyana, transformed by magic into mythological suns (or dawns, water-meadows, thunder-clouds, etc.).