THE LEGEND OF SAMSON

NOTES

1 Sage, a saying or legendary story, which may have no historical foundation, but be produced out of mythic matter. Where, as here, it is sharply distinguished from history, I render it legend; elsewhere story, which is generally the best English equivalent, notwithstanding its derivation from historia. TR.

2 The allusion is to the story of Bruin the bear and the honey, in Reynard the Fox: see Reinkart, v. 1533-1562, Reinaert, v. 601-706, in Jacob Grimm's edition, Berlin 1834; and Goethe s modern German version, canto 2. TR.

3 Welcker, Griechische Gotterlehre, I. 478.

4 Welcker, ibid., 490.

5 Studer, Buck der Richter, p. 320: Sachs, Beitrage zur Sprach- und Allerthumsfurschung, II. p. 92.

6 Preller, Romische Mythologie, p. 437-8.

7 Ovid, Fasti, IV. 679 et seqq.

8 Judges XV. 8.

9 Judges XV. 15-19.

10 VIII. 5. I, p. 353.

11 III. 22. 8.

12 Judges XV. 19: En hakkniv.

13 Judges XV. 16.

14 Buck der Richter, p. 185. Judges XV.

15 Rumath Lechi.

16 v. 19.

17 Schwartz, Ur sprung der Mythologie.

18 Makhtesh, v. 19.

19 I formerly saw in the Jawbone the representative of the Harpe (toothed sickle), with which Herakles cuts off the heads of the Hydra, and which Kronos and Perseus also employ the latter when he beheads Medusa. I have changed my view in favour of that here propounded, through consideration of the throwing, which undoubtedly is significant. But complete certainty is unattainable. What meaning can be attached to the circumstance that the jaw bone is called a fresh (new) one (v. 15)?

20 Judges XVI. 1-3.

21 Welcker, Griech. Gotterlehre, II. 776; Preller, Griech. Mythol, II. 154, 167; Movers, Phonizier, I. 442.

22 Welcker, ibid., II. 761.

23 Judges XVI. 4: Nachal Sorek, i.e. Valley of the Vine.

24 I formerly took Delilah, i.e. the Worn out, to be a personification of Nature, worn out and no longer productive in the winter-season. Then the name Delilah might be compared with that of Aphrodite Morpho, supposing Movers (p. 586) to give the right interpretation of the latter, in discovering it to be the Syriac word for Fatigue, Flagging. Then Delilah would be the Winter-goddess, and might be a peculiar phase of Derketo, who was worshiped in conjunction with the barren Sea-god Dagon (see Stark, Gaza, p. 285). Pausanias (III. 15. 8) relates that there was at Sparta an old temple with an image of Aphrodite to whom it belonged i.e. Astarte, Semiramis, etc. This temple (alone of all the temples that Pausanias knew) had an upper story, in which was an image of Aphrodite Morpho. She was represented sitting, veiled, and with her feet bound. Pausanias himself interprets the fetters to indicate women s attachment to their husbands; but this reading is not binding on us. I regard this Morpho as a picture of Nature fettered and mourning in winter. Similarly, and also at Sparta (ibid. 5) the bound Enyalios signifies the restrained solar heat of Mars. However, this interpretation of Delilah as Winter stands in no contradiction to what is said in the text. Moon-goddess, Love-goddess, Chaste goddess, and Winter, are only different aspects of the same mythological figure, to which a name capable of many interpretations is very suitable. Stark (Gaza, p. 292) is right in asserting the hostility of Herakles to the descendants of Poseidon, the gloomy sea-god, who according to Semitic conceptions I believe to have been also the Winter-god (Dagon). But Movers (p. 441) appears to be also right in showing how, besides combating the creatures of Typhon, Melkart-Herakles is also hostile to the evil Moon-goddess. For she is only the female figure corresponding to the male Moloch, Typhon and Mars. In the Greek myth the place of the Semitic Lunar Astarte is occupied by Hera, the adversary of Herakles. She is confounded both with Ashera the goddess of Love, and with Astarte. Thus there was in Sparta an Aphrodite Hera (Paus. III. 13. 6). To her goats were sacrificed at Sparta, and only there, as to the Semitic Birth-goddess; and she was called Goat-eater (ib. 15. 7; Preller, Griech. Myth., p. IlI); but I am of opinion that the goats have not the same meaning in her case as in that of Zeus). In the character of Astarte, as an evil Moon-goddess, a female Moloch or Mars, she appears when she sends the Nemean lion, the Solar heat, into the land, and on other occasions when she is put into connexion with the powers of evil (Preller, p. 109). The conception which unites opposite natural forces in the same divine person, which then appears under a modified form, could not be better expressed in architecture than it is in the above-mentioned temple of Aphrodite. The lower story is a temple of the Armed Aphrodite; the upper a temple of Aphrodite Morpho: thus the whole is a temple of the strict goddess, below of the Summer, above of the Winter. The fact that a deity of the Solar heat and the Fire is regarded as also a deity of the Sea, may be explained not only by the equal barrenness of the Desert a sea of sand, and the Sea a desert of water, but perhaps also by the opinion, attributed by Plutarch (de Is. et Os. c. 7) to the Egyptians, that the sea is not an independent element but only a morbid emanation from fire. To Morpho or Winter corresponds Hera, as one at variance with Zeus, or as a widow (Preller, p. 108). Thus then it will be clear that Delilah may be both the Birth-goddess (Ashera) and the evil Moon-goddess (Astarte), or more accurately the Winter-goddess (Derketo). If Semiramis exhibits a combination of Ashera with Astarte, then Delilah shows a similar combination of Ashera with Derketo, who is only a modification of Astarte.

25 The derivation from the root shmn is impossible, that from the root shmm far-fetched. The simple derivation from shemes sun appears to be rejected by Bertheau (Buck der Richter, p. 169) only because the long narrative concerning Samson presents no reference to a name of any such signification (as the Sunny/ the Solar hero), and because, as he says, we do not expect to find a name of this kind anywhere in Hebrew antiquity. But the matter appears to us now in a very different light, and the connexion with the Sun which Bertheau did not expect to find has now become clear.

26 That Dagon really had the form of a fish, which Movers denies, surely appears certain from I Sam. V. 4 (see Stark, Gaza, p. 249). And it would be an excess of diplomatic accuracy, such as we are not justified in ascribing to the Hebrew writer, to suppose that his only reason for writing dagon was that the Hebrew dagan corn was pronounced Dagon in Phoenician. Moreover, such a word as Corn (dagan) cannot well be a proper name. The formation of proper names of men and places by the termination on is excessively common; and requires no citation of examples.

27 Judges XVI, 22.

28 Judges XIII.

29 I Sam. 1.

30 Num. VI. 1-21.

31 I Sam. 1. 28.

32 I Sam. 2. 11, 18, III. 3, 1.

33 Amos II.11, 12.

34 Lev. X. 9.

35 Num. VI. 6, 7.

36 The circumstance that this was of Jahveh (Judges XIV. 4) is a fiction interpolated into the legend by the systematising author.

37 It will be seen from the above, that I am far from subscribing to the judgment on the heathen religions which has in recent times been widely diffused among philosophers and philologians. I agree essentially with the judgment of the natural mind, which always sees delusion and superstition in heathendom. But it does not follow from this that the heathens were absolutely immoral: they invested with their own morality gods who were intrinsicnlly representations of nature only.

38 See Preller, Griech. Mythol. II. 97; Gerhard, Griech. Mythol. 711.

39 For this assertion I must for the present refer to what I have said in an article, 'Zur Charakteristik der semitischen Volker,' in the Zeitschr. fur Volkerpsychologie. etc. Vol. I. p. 328 et seqq. In Liebner and others, Jahrbilcher fur deutsche Theologie, V. p. 669 et seqq., there is a long article by Diestel, 'Der Monotheismus des altesten Heidenthnms, vorzuglich bei den Semiten.' He also declares himself averse to the assumption of a primitive Monotheism, because it is destitute of all historical proof. He brings many points judiciously into the light, especially the absence of an accurate conception of Monotheism
(p. 684). But when he objects to me, that in the above-quoted article (p. 330), am too hard on the expression Instinct used by Renan, inasmuch as it is to be
understood as implying only an individual disposition of the religious mind, not a momentum of half-animal physical life. I must observe in reply, that I can scarcely imagine how else instinct can be understood but as a half-animal momentum; and even reason, taken as an instinct, is so also degraded to a momentum of animal-physical life. And if Diestel here means by instinct a disposition of the mind, I can see in such dispositions scarcely anything more than momenta of half-animal-physical life. Moreover, I cannot admit any such dispositions of the religious mind, which have the special object of their belief determined beforehand. A disposition to reasonableness in general, or to religiousness in general, does dwell in the human mind; but not a disposition so defined as to its object that a limited idea, such as Monotheism, could be a priori inherent in it.
 

40 By J. Olshausen in Hirzel's Hiob, p. 60 note. But Ewald says expressly (Hiob, 1854, p. 126) that Rahab is everywhere a mythological name for a sea-monster, even where it stands for Egypt. TR.

41 See pp. 73, 169.

42 See Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., 1849, HI. p. 200 et seq.

43 Hebrew livyathan, nachas: Sanskrit Vrtra, Ahi.

44 The literal and only possible translation of the first three words of the verse, ge'ar chayyath kaneh, rendered correctly in the Septuagint and Vulgate; for which the English AV unaccountably substitutes 'Rebuke the company of spearmen,' while the Prayer-book version goes even further astray. TR.

45 Ba'al kun, see Movers, I. 292.

46 Job IX. 8; bamothe yam. TR.

47 Is. XIV. 14; bamothe abh. TR.

48 It will be inferred from the above reasoning, that I should be inclined to assign an early age to the writer of the Book of Job. But I can find no reason for making him older than Amos; indeed, he may have lived into the lifetime of Isaiah. I must further remark that Schlottmann (Das Buck Hiob verdeutscht und erldutert, pp. 69-105, especially 101 et seqq.) has expressed ideas similar to those propounded by me, though starting from assumptions utterly different in principle. To the passages of Job which he places side by side with corresponding ones of Amos (p. 109), the following may be added: Amos V. 8 and IX. 6, who calleth to the water of the (Cloud-) Sea, and Job XXXVIII. 34, wilt thou lift up thy voice to the Cloud?

49 Prometheus, p. 391.

50 Kuhn, Herabkunft des Fetters; etc., p. 30.

51 P. 392.

52 Preller. ib. I. 438; Kuhn, ib. p. 24, 243.

53 See p. 399.

54 See p. 425.

55 Schwartz. Urtprmiff tier Mhnfoqie. p. 251.

56 In English Tues-day, Wednes-day, Thurs-day, Fri-day, Satur-day, from Anglo-Saxon names of gods, Tiu or Teow, Woden, Thunor, Frige, Ssetern. TR.

57 E.g. the Lady-bird, in German Marienkafer; its Danish name, Marihone, was, according to Grimm, anciently Freyjuhona Freyja's hen. So Venus Looking-glass (Speculum Veneris) is also called Lady's Glass; Pecten Veneris is Lady's Comb. There are very numerous plants named after Our Lady, which were probably originally dedicated to Freyja or Venus, as Lady's Mantle; Lady s Thistle or Lady's Milk (Carduus Marianus: distinguished at once by the white veins on its leaves. ... A drop of the Virgin Mary's milk was conceived to have produced these veins, as that of Juno was fabled to be the origin of the Milky Way. Hooker and Arnott, British Flora, (p. 231); Lady's Smock (Cardamine); Lady's Bower or Virgin's Bower (Clematis); Lady's Fingers (Anthyllis); Lady's Tresses (Spiranthes or Neottia); Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium). TR.

58 As this German example will not be familiar to all English readers, it is necessary to give a few words of explanation. The great Deluge (Gen. VI-VIII.) is called in modern German Sund-flutk, which seems to be Sin-flood = Flood on account of sin. But in Old High German it is written Sin-vluot and Sint-vluot, which cannot be identical with the assumed meaning of the modern word, since sin (peccatum) is in Old High German sunta. Moreover, sin is a pretix well known to most of the Teutonic languages, denoting (1) always, (2) great. In the former sense we have it in the Old English singrene evergreen; in the latter in the Anglo-Saxon sinhere great army. Hence it is assumed that the word in German altered its pronunciation when the prefix sin became obsolete, being then supposed to be intended for Sund-fluth, as is shown in the text. See Grimm, Deut. Gram. II. 554, Graff, Althochd. Sprachschatz, VI. 25, Eumuller, Lex. Anglotax. p. 638, Vigfusson, Icelandic English-Dict. s. v. Si. Prof. Steinthal appears now (in a letter to the translator) to doubt whether this history of the word is tenable; but the assumption that it is so may at least be allowed, in order to retain this excellent example of the psychological progress. TR.

59 See supra, p. 426.

60 Ps. XIX. 6 [5].

61 Judges XVI. 28: Give me strength only this once, God, and I will avenge myself with the vengeance of one of my two eyes on the Philistines. This is the only possible meaning of the very simple Hebrew words nekam achath mishshethe enay, which were misunderstood by the LXX and Vulg.; and the German and English versions have merely followed the latter. TR.

62 Jer. X. 12, V. 24; Gen. VIII. 22.