Note 785 — Chapter VII · THE DUAL MOTHER RÔLE (continued 2)

This problem has frequently been employed in the ancient sun myths. It is especially striking that the lion-killing heroes, Samson and Hercules, are weaponless in the combat. The lion is the symbol of the most intense summer heat, astrologically he is the Domicilium Solis. Steinthal (Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, Vol. II, p. 133) reasons about this in a most interesting manner, which I quote word for word:

“When the Sun-god fights against the summer heat, he fights against himself; when he kills it, he kills himself. Most certainly! The Phœnician, Assyrian and Lydian ascribes self-destruction to his sun-god, for he can comprehend the lessening of the sun’s heat only as a self-murder. He believed that the sun stood at its highest in the summer and its rays scorched with destroying heat: thus does the god burn himself, but he does not die, only rejuvenates himself.—Also Hercules burns himself, but ascends to Olympus in the flames. This is the contradiction in the pagan gods. They, as forces of nature, are helpful as well as harmful to men. In order to do good and to redeem they must work against themselves. The opposition is dulled, when either of the two sides of the forces of nature is personified in an especial god, or when the power of nature is conceived of as a divine personage; however, each of its two modes of action, the benevolent and the injurious, has an especial symbol. The symbol is always independent, and finally is the god himself; and while originally the god worked against himself, destroyed himself, now symbol fights against symbol, god against god, or the god with the symbol.”

Certainly the god fights with himself, with his other self, which we have conceived of under the symbol of mother. The conflict always appears to be the struggle with the father and the conquering of the mother.