§ 4. The battle of the Day with the Night is still more frequently represented as a quarrel between brothers. At the very threshold of the earliest Biblical history we meet a brothers’ quarrel of this kind, the source of which is the nature-myth, spread out among all nations of the world without exception. It is not difficult to prove that Cain (Ḳayin) is a solar figure, and that Abel (Hebhel) is connected with the sky dark with night or clouds. Here, as everywhere, investigation must of course be guided by the nature of the personages in question, by the matter of the story, and by the appellative signification of the names. Cain is an agriculturist, Abel a shepherd. We have demonstrated in the preceding chapter that agriculture always has a solar character, whereas the shepherd’s life is connected with the phenomena of the cloudy or nightly sky. Shepherds in mythology are figures belonging to the dark or overclouded sky; whereas huntsmen and agriculturists are solar heroes. The heaven at night is a great tent or a group of tents, with a great piece of pasture close by, where the herds (the clouds) are driven to feed. In German, to be sure, the expression Himmelszelt (heaven’s tent) is also used of the heaven by day, but this is a generalisation of the original limitation to the nocturnal and cloudy sky. This limitation is still acknowledged in the Hungarian language, where sátoros éj is said, ‘the tented (provided with many tents) night;’ e.g. by Vörösmarty at the commencement of the second canto of his national epic ‘Zalán Futása’ (the Flight of Zalán). And in Arabic, ‘Night spread out its tent, and there arose thick darkness,’ is quite a familiar expression.^[311]

The shepherd Abel (Hebhel) is accordingly a figure of the dark sky. This is proved also by the signification of the name. For it denotes neither childlessness, as some try to explain it by the help of Arabic, and on the supposition that the first parents anticipated their son’s future fate on giving his name, nor simply son, being explained from the Assyrian. The Hebrew language itself is adequate to establish the proper signification. The word denotes in Hebrew a ‘breath of wind;’^[312] and the wind stands in connexion with the dark sky. Another modification of the same appellation is known to Hebrew mythology. As in other classes of language h and y may interchange dialectically, so here beside Hebhel (Abel) we have Yâbhâl (Jabal). This latter appellation is etymologically either identical with the former, or if not, at least its mythological identity can scarcely be questioned. Yâbhâl (from whence comes mabbûl, ‘body of water,’ hence of the Deluge) signifies Rain (like Indra). Rain and Wind are both attributes of the dark sky and the night-sky. In Arabic the verb ġasaḳa denotes both the darkness of the sky, and the rain, and (what exactly suits the mythical circle of ideas) the flowing of milk from the udder. The rain is to the men of the myth-creating age a milking of the cloud-cows, which the shepherd leads out to pasture by night on the heavenly meadows. The verb aġḍana, of which Freytag, following al-Jauharî, gives only the meaning perpetuo pluit coelum, is known to the classical lexicographer of Arabic synonyms also in the sense it is dark night. Similarly, aġḍafa denotes both obscura, atra fuit nox and ad pluviam effundendam paratum et dispositum fuit coelum. In poetry also rain is often attached to night: an old poet quoted by Ibn al-Sîkkît says,^[313] ‘A dark night, during which a drenching rain pours down upon the streets.’^[314]

The identity of Abel and Jabal appears conspicuously in another circumstance. Abel is introduced as a Herdsman. In the system of the harmonising genealogy of Genesis, in which Jabal appears some generations later, he is described as the ‘Father of those that dwell in tents and with cattle’ (Gen. IV. 2, 20). Both features or rather this identical feature told of both these Patriarchs, have a foundation and are equally true. But in the method of the critical school of Biblical exegesis these two accounts involve a contradiction which it is attempted to solve, either by the usual supposition of different narrators, or by minutely pressing the literal meaning of words and setting up delicate distinctions. The acute Knobel, for instance, pretends to know that 'Even Abel had kept cattle, but only small cattle, and these only in his own district; Jabal invented the moving about with cattle from one district to another.^[315] It concerns us not to know how far Jabal extended the area of his pasture, and within what narrow limits Abel confined his: our assumption of the mythological identity of the two designations solves the inconsistency without any resort to minute distinctions.

Equally clear is also the Solar character of the name Cain (Ḳayin). This word, which, with other synonymous names of trades, occurs several times on the so-called Nabatean Sinaitic inscriptions,^[316] signifies Smith,^[317] maker of agricultural implements, and has preserved this meaning in the Arabic ḳayn^[318] and the Aramaic ḳinâyâ, whilst in the later Hebrew it was lost altogether, being probably suppressed through the Biblical attempt to derive the proper name Cain etymologically from ḳânâ ‘to gain.’ In Hebrew therefore it appears only as the name of the first fratricide and of his duplicate Tubal-cain (Tûbhal-ḳayin), the brother of Jabal, who is called the founder of the smith’s trade (Gen. IV. 22), and stands to Cain in very much the same relation as Jabal does to Abel.

Cain is accordingly the same mythological figure as Hephaestus and Vulcan with the Greeks and Romans. But there are some other points which determine his Solar character. First, there is the characteristic that after the murder of his brother he built the first city, and called it Enoch (Chanôkh, Gen. IV. 17). We have seen above, and I shall show still more clearly in the treatment of the Myth of Civilisation, that in the myths of all peoples the Solar heroes are regarded as the founders of city-life, and that a fratricide often precedes the building of the city. The agricultural stage, which is connected with the Solar worship, overcomes the stage of nomadic life, which holds to the dark sky of night or clouds; and, after conquering the herdsmen, the surviving agriculturists build the first city. It will not surprise us if the solution of the question raised by F. Lenormant, ‘pour en suivre toutes les formes depuis Cain bâtissant le première ville Hanoch après avoir assassiné Abel, jusqu'à Romulus fondant Rome dans le sang de son frère Remus,’^[319] proves the consistency and universality of the ideas of mankind at the mythic stage in reference to this point. Whether the connexion of the zodiacal figure of the Twins with this feature of the myth is so close as this acute French scholar imagines, is an independent question. The account of Cain as the first builder of a city is accordingly a testimony to his Solar character. But far more important testimony is afforded by the characteristic feature in the story of Cain, that after the commission of the crime that fratricide, laden with the curse of Jahveh, has to be ‘a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth’ (Gen. IV. 11). We will pause a little at this mythic feature, and passing beyond Cain, consider it in connexion with a larger group of myths which exhibit the same.^[320]

§ 5. The word which preeminently denotes the Sun in the Semitic languages, and which, when the abundant synonyms produced by mythology to designate the Sun had vanished, drove all other names of the Sun into the background, viz. the Hebrew shemesh and the corresponding words in the cognate languages, has been proved to descend from the etymological basis of the idea of rapid motion, or busy running about. This original sense gives the point of connexion with the Aramaic terms shammêsh ‘to serve’ and shûmshemânâ ‘an ant.’^[321] The same function which language exhibits in the most prominent name of the Sun is also repeatedly shown in mythology.

The myth views the Sun from the point of view of his rapid course, hastening and continuous motion, or steady march forwards.

Hence fiery, rapid horses are attributed to the Sun both in the classical mythology and in Indian and Persian,^[322] and no less so in the Hebrew. The latter may be inferred from the fact that in the Hebrew worship in Canaan there were horses dedicated to the Sun. King Josiah, the zealot for Jahveh, was the first to abolish this worship (2 Kings XXIII. 11). And Heinrich Heine gives the jesting couplet:—

To the same mythical conception must be referred the Wings assigned to the Sun or the Dawn, which are mentioned very frequently in the classical mythology.^[324] Just as the Egyptians and the Assyrians^[325] in their monuments express this aspect of the sun by the picture of a winged solar disc, so the Hebrews, although they did not give expression to their ideas in monuments and imitations which might have been preserved to the present time, have in the extant fragments of their poetical literature left behind them confirmation of the fact that they conceived of the Sun and the Dawn in the same way. As they called the wind ‘winged,’ so that the monotheistic singer imagines Jahveh as ‘flying on the wings of the wind’ (Ps. XVIII. 11 [10]), so he binds wings also to the rapidly increasing light of the Dawn:—

Jahveh ‘makes the Dawn flying’ (literally for flight), as the prophet Amos (IV. 13) says. The prophet speaks in this verse of the regular phenomena of nature, not of exceptional physical changes, which would allow us to take ʿêphâ as obscuration, as in Job X. 22; it is therefore best to keep to the sense of flying. Joel (II. 2) says, ‘As the Dawn, spreading out her wings over the mountains.’^[327] Accordingly the Dawn or the Sun is a bird, and the Persian expression murġ-i-saḥar ‘Bird of the Dawn’ becomes intelligible. When the sun sets, the runner has stumbled and fallen to the ground; or the bird gliding through the air has lost its power of flight and fallen into the sea. Hence comes the use of ‘to fall’ of the setting sun: cadit sol, and in Homer:^[328]—

And in Arabic they say of the setting of the sun, wajabat al-shams, or habaṭat al-shams,^[329] verbs which are synonymous with waḳaʿa, ‘to fall.’ We then understand (passing again to Hebrew) Isaiah’s exclamation (XIV. 12), ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, Light-bringer, son of the Dawn!’

As the rising Dawn is said to spread out her wings, so the setting evening sun drops her^[330] pinions, bends her wings downwards. This expression, a relic of the mythic view, is retained in the Arabic language. The Arab says of the setting sun, janaḥat; but although this verb according to the lexicons denotes inclinavit in general, yet there can be no doubt that this inclinatio was originally something special, namely the bending of the wings, from whose name janâḥ, indeed, the above denominative verb is formed. Ḥassân b. Thâbit,^[331] a poet contemporary with Moḥammed, says, ‘The sun of the day bent herself (i.e. bent her wings) that she might set’ (wa-ḳad janaḥat shams-al-nahâri litaġribâ). But when wings are attributed to the Night, the basis of the conception is quite different from that which gives wings to the Sun or the Dawn. In this case the thought is of covering and hiding.^[332] In this sense are to be understood such phrases as kâna-l-leyl nâshiran ajniḥat al-ẓalâm, ‘Night unfolded the wings of darkness,’ or kâna-l-leyl ḳad asbala ʿala-l-châfiḳeyni ajniḥat al-ẓalâm, ‘Night had thrown down over the ends of the earth the wings of darkness.’^[333] The frequent expression fî junḥ or jinḥ al-leyl certainly belongs to this category. Lexicographers who translate the word junḥ pars noctis, even on the authority of native lexicons, e.g. al-Jauharî, who explains it as ṭâʾifâ minhu ‘a portion of it,’^[334] are mistaken. It must rather signify ‘under the wings of Night,’ which is also supported by the fact that, besides junḥ al-leyl, fî junḥ al-ẓalâm is also found,^[335] where wings only can be understood.^[336]

From all this it is easy to perceive that the solar figures of the myth are brought into connexion with the idea of swiftness, flight, and constant marching forwards; for rapid motion is one of the chief attributes of the Sun which naturally present themselves to the eye and the mind. From this mythical view of the rapid running of the Sun may also be explained a feature in the German mythology which Holtzmann^[337] leaves unexplained. ‘The Osterhase [Easter-hare],’ he says, ‘is inexplicable to me; probably the hare is the animal of Ostara [the goddess]; on the picture of Abnoba a hare is present.’ If Ostara, as Holtzmann proves, is the sun or the sunrise, then the hare is easily explained as indicating the quick-footed sun. The connexion of ideas required to bring the hare into connexion with this view is one that needs no proof. In the hieroglyphs also, when there is free choice among various phonetic signs (e.g. with the vowel u), the figure of the hare is generally chosen when the word expresses a rapid motion.^[338] So the Red Indians, in calling their Kadmus a great white hare, may have been influenced (independently of the false popular etymology of the word michabo^[339]) by the conception of the Sun as a swift-footed hare.^[340]

Abraham and his wife Sarah (the princess or queen of heaven—the Moon as we shall see) expel Hagar (Gen. XVI. 6). The Moon is jealous of Hagar. What does Hagar signify in this Hebrew myth? The cognate Arabic language offers the most satisfactory basis of interpretation of this name. Hajara, the root of the name Hâgâr, denotes ‘to fly,’ and yields the word hijrâ, ‘flight,’ especially known from the flight of Moḥammed from Mecca to Medina. The mythic designation Hâgâr is consequently only one of the names of the Sun in a feminine form. The battle of the two figures of the night-sky against Hagar is again that inexhaustible theme of all mythology, the battle of Day with Night. With respect to this particular name the Arabic language gives us still further light. While ġaṭasha denotes both ‘to be dark’ and ‘to move slowly,’ the hot noonday sun is described by the Arabs by the participle of the verb from which we have explained the name Hagar, al-hâjirâ or al-hijîrâ ‘the flying one.’ That this is not mere chance, but is connected with the mythical order of ideas from which we deduced the designation Hâgâr for the Sun, is further confirmed by the word barâḥi or birâḥ, also denoting ‘flight’ (from the Hebrew and Arabic root brḥ ‘to flee’), and yet belonging to the nomenclature of the Sun.

The case is the same with the ‘fugitive and vagabond’ life of Cain; after the conquest of Abel the Sun wanders from place to place, and leads a life of unrest and motion till night comes. A reminiscence of the solar significance of Cain is even found in the Agâdâ, which makes the sign granted for the safety of Cain to consist in the brightening of the sun; or, according to another interpretation, in a horn, which grew up on him from the moment of the promise.^[341] It is well known that the sun’s rays were mythologically called horns,—a meaning which the language preserved.

§ 6. With this group of Solar figures of the Hebrew mythology which are exhibited as wandering or rapidly marching forward,^[342] I also class some others whose names alone lead us to recognise this mythological character. First and foremost we must consider a word which has been retained in the language beyond the mythical stage: the Hebrew shachar, Arabic saḥar, ‘morning, dawn.’ This word is doubtless connected with the verb sâchar, which denotes constant moving, wandering.^[343] The Arabic sâḥir ‘magician’ is the same word as the Hebrew sôchêr ‘merchant,’ both signifying originally those who are always travelling about from place to place. The Hebrew verb shachêr ‘to seek’ relates originally to the movement of one who has lost something and goes about looking for it. Although in the course of this chapter I shall devote a special connected disquisition to Jacob’s sons, yet I must here pick out a few beforehand to incorporate them in the class of solar figures whose characteristic feature is that here discussed. To this class belongs e.g. Âshêr, the name of a son of Jacob by his concubine Zilpah. The name cannot be explained (according to Gen. XXX. 13) as the ‘Happy,’ or ‘Bringer of Happiness,’ since this signification of the root (‘to be happy’) is only secondary to the fundamental meaning—applied, not original. Language does not form originally expressions for ethical notions of this kind, any more than the notion itself rises without contact with something sensual, which may subsequently be transferred to the ethical. The Arabic words for similar ideas spring up in a similar way, e.g. muṣliḥ ‘successful’ denotes properly ‘one who penetrates through something,’ &c. The root of Âshêr, in Hebrew âshar, in Arabic athara (whence athar ‘a trace’), originally denoted to march, go forwards (Prov. IX. 6); intensively ashshêr, to make some one go forward, to lead, and as a noun, ashûr ‘way, path.’ From the same root comes also the relative pronoun asher, which originally signified place, (compare the Aramaic athar ‘place’); but we know that expressions which serve as exponents of the category of relation, both in time and space, generally start from the conception of space, as is clearly seen in the Hebrew shâm, indicating originally the idea of place, ‘there’ but also transferred to the expression of the idea of time, ‘then.’^[344] We see the same quite as clearly in the employment of the Aramaic athar in the combination bâthar (from ba-athar) to denote after, afterwards, properly on the spot.^[345]

To this fundamental meaning of the root âshar ‘to march, go forward’ is added the secondary application ‘to be happy,’ properly ‘to advance prosperously.’ But the old mythical designation Âshêr is connected with the original sense: since at the time when this mythical word was first spoken the verb had not yet obtained its secondary sense, nor could yet obtain it, as ethical ideas were still non-existent. Accordingly Âshêr signifies ‘he who marches on,’ and is simply a solar name. Thus the ancient Hebrew called the Sun, when he noticed the continual change of his place on the horizon, and observed his constant movement. ‘Through Asher,’ it is said, in a fragmentary hymn on Asher in Gen. XLIX. 20, ‘his bread is fat; he gives dainties for a king;’ for the sun is to the agriculturist the beneficent element that hastens the ripening of his crops.

This simple and, I hope, obvious explanation throws light on another expression in Hebrew mythology, which stands in the closest connexion with Asher. I mean the feminine form derived from the masculine sun, the appellation Ashêrâ, on which Biblical interpreters and antiquaries have had so much to say. Ashêrâ, as the feminine form of Âshêr, denotes what the Hebrews regarded as the marriage-consort of the Sun. We know this of the Moon, as I hope to show more fully in speaking of Sarah. Ashêrâ is, therefore, an old Hebrew name of the Moon. In those passages of the Old Testament which speak of the idolatry of the Hebrews in Canaan, Asherah is named with Baal (the Sun-god): ‘The vessels that were made for Baal and for Asherah and for all the host of heaven’ (as though for Sun, Moon, and Stars), 2 Kings XXIII. 4; ‘And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Jahveh, and forgat Jahveh their God, and served Baal and Asherah,’ Judges III. 7. They probably served Asherah too at the altar of Baal (see Judges VI. 25); but this is quite in the spirit of the Canaanitish and Mesopotamian religious practice. One mode of doing homage to the supreme God was to offer sacrifices and build temples to his subordinate deity, just as any honour conferred on the Satraps conduced to the greater excellence of the ‘King of kings.’ This view is very general on the votive tables with cuneiform inscriptions; so e.g. in an inscription in the Temple of Mugheir: ‘In honore Sin domini deorum coeli et terrae, regis deorum ... templum Iz deae magnae condidi et feci.’

Asherah is accordingly the Wandering one, and the moon is here made feminine. A masculine word for the Moon, which, being common to all the Semitic dialects (unlike the later, lebhânâ), must be one of the oldest Semitic names for moon, viz. yârêach, expresses the same idea; for it is derived from the noun ôrach, ‘a path, way,’ and stands for ôrêach with the initial hardened^[346] (like yâchîd ‘only,’ with initial y, yet echâd ‘one;’ and yâshâr ‘straight,’ connected with the root under discussion, âshar ‘to go forwards’). In Job XXXI. 26, the epithet hôlêkh, ‘marching,’ is applied to the moon. Therefore the two plural forms ashêrîm and ashêrôth are not identical (the former denoting objects of worship, and the latter as ‘femininum vilitatis’ declaring them to be in the opinion of the writer objects of abomination);^[347] but the masculine form is derived from the singular Âshêr, and the feminine from the singular Ashêrâ.

§ 7. To the same series belong also the names Dân and Dînâ, which latter is only a feminine to the first, and occurs again as a proper name in Arabic.^[348] It would be erroneous to regard the verb dîn ‘to judge’ as the etymon: for this would give no solution of the question concerning the nature and signification of the designations under review. Then, as the Hebrew language itself offers no satisfactory points d’appui, we are fully entitled to look for information to the cognate idioms. I believe that the fundamental idea contained in the group of consonants Dn is extant in the Assyrian, where it expresses the idea of going;^[349] whence the Arabic dâna ‘to approach,’ the secondary dana, and the adjective dunya, which denotes the near and visible world, in opposition to al-âchirâ, the life beyond.^[350] Consequently, Dân and Dînâ must denote ‘he or she who marches on, or comes nearer,’ or ‘goes’ in general, synonymous with Âshêr, i.e. the Sun. In Arabic also al-jâriyâ ‘who goes’ is one of the many names of the Sun which are enumerated by Ibn al-Sikkît in his Synonymical Dictionary of the Arabic Language.^[351] Whilst of Dan no actual myth has reached us, and etymology alone gives us any help in discovering his mythical character, of Dinah on the other hand the chief source of our knowledge of Hebrew antiquity has preserved a more material statement, telling of the love of Shechem for Dinah and their ultimate union, and of the immediately following murder of Shechem by Jacob’s sons. These are the features which come under our view when we draw out the mythical kernel from the mass of epical description surrounding it (Gen. XXXIV). From the arguments of the Second Chapter the connexion of the noun shekhem with the verb hishkîm may surely be treated as removed beyond all doubt, as well as the fact that this word is a designation of the Morning-dawn. I will add at this place, to complete what was discussed at p. 26, that the Hebrew word shekhem seems to be etymologically connected with the Arabic thakam, which signifies ‘way.’ Like most Hebrew words denoting a way, this word shekhem must stand in connexion with the verbal idea of ‘marching forwards’—either by the verb being a denominative (like the German bewegen from Weg), or inversely by the noun being a deverbal. The changes of consonants which we find here are in accordance with the law of the Semitic languages, namely:

Therefore also:

The longing love of the Dawn for the Sun and her union with him—the same theme which Max Müller in his essay on ‘Comparative Mythology’ has so ingeniously traced in Indian and Hellenic myths—was told also by the Hebrews; only that the Hebrew inverted the relation. When the Dawn vanished and the Sun began to shine bright in the sky, the Hebrew said of the union between the Dawn and the Sun that the Dawn snatched up the Sun to himself and was united with her. Not long afterwards followed the vengeance taken by the sons of Jacob (the night-sky), who, enraged at the abduction of their sister, murder the ravisher and deliver her. This is only the disappearance of the Sun, while the evening glow comes forward, again independent, to inaugurate the dominion of the Night.^[352] The myth makes no distinction between the morning and the evening glow, but treats them as identical phenomena. Therefore Shekhem is made a son of the Ass (Chamôr); and there is no doubt that chamôr (ass) has here the mythic significance which accompanies that animal whenever it appears in the Aryan mythology.^[353]

Zilpah also, the mother of Asher, is to be classed in the same group. Any one who has cast even a superficial glance on the real meaning of the myths of the Aryan nations, as now discovered and recognised, must have noticed the peculiarity that the mythical relation of child to parent does not always indicate a succession of what should precede and what follow, but that the child is not unfrequently only a repetition of the father or the mother, and is therefore to be considered identical with them.^[354] The present is a case of this kind. Âshêr is only a repetition of his mother. The designation Zilpâ, the explanation of which has been sought in vain in Hebrew—for the meaning ‘a drop’ can hardly be maintained—finds a smooth and ready interpretation in Arabic, where zalafa, as well as zlp, zlb in Assyrian,^[355] denotes ‘to march on.’ So that Zilpâ also is ‘she that marches forward.’ Another ‘marcher forward’ is preserved by Arabian tradition, viz. Zalîchâ. She is unmistakably a solar figure, and her name (zlch has the same signification ‘to march forward’) is perhaps even formally connected^[356] with that of Zilpâ, with whom she is identical. The battle of the Sunshine with the Rainy Sky is the amorous contest of the beautiful Zalîchâ (or, as the name is commonly but erroneously pronounced, Zuleychâ) with Yôsêph ‘the Multiplier.’ Now, having been led into the above digressions by the explanation of Cain’s flight, we return to Cain again.

§ 8. We have just alluded to the fact that in the Hebrew mythology the figures presented as children are frequently only repetitions of one of their parents.^[357] This observation is found to be confirmed in the case of the posterity which the Biblical genealogy in Gen. IV. derives from Cain. Some of the descendants of Cain are quite as much solar figures as their ancestor himself; and in an age which had advanced beyond the stage of the formation of myths, and even beyond the after-sentiment of mythology, this identity occasioned the idea that these figures must stand in a genealogical connexion with the ancestor. The same psychological process which in the employment of language produces a specialisation or limitation in the sense of words originally synonymous, is at work here also, forming from the numerous synonyms of mythology genealogies, in which identical designations, after their substratum has been personified, become his sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons. Thus among Cain’s descendants none but solar figures are to be found. In the demonstration of this fact, I limit myself to those names which can be interpreted without at all forcing their meaning. The very first, Enoch (Chanôkh), the son of Cain, from whom he names the first city he built, is of pure solar significance. We have above already, with Ewald, put his name in the class in which the Sun is presented as the ‘Opener.’ The solar character of Enoch admits of no doubt. He is brought into connexion with the building of towns—a solar feature. He lives exactly three hundred and sixty-five years, the number of days of the solar year; which cannot be accidental.^[358] And even then he did not die, but ‘Enoch, walked with Elôhîm, and was no more [to be seen], for Elôhîm took him away.’ In the old times when the figure of Enoch was imagined, this was doubtless called Enoch’s Ascension to heaven, as in the late traditional legend. Ascensions to heaven are generally acknowledged to be solar features. Herakles among the Greeks, Romulus the city-founder among the Latins, and several heroes of American mythology,^[359] agree in this. The same feature also often attaches itself even to historical persons—e.g. to the legend of the Prophet Elijah, the ‘hairy man’ who ascends to heaven on ‘a chariot of fire and horses of fire,’^[360] indeed this as well as other mythical features has been better preserved in the case of this favourite hero of Israelitish prophecy than in that of the former purely mythical personage.

Wachsmuth^[361] expressed a conjecture that the old Greek god Helios, who drives round the vault of heaven on a fiery chariot, has a share in the phenomenon, so frequent in modern Greece, that the prophet Ilias (Elias or Elijah) is especially venerated on mountain-tops. The temples and altars of Helios in ancient times were similarly situated on high hills; and the casual similarity of sound between Ilios and Ilias, together with the identity of the myths concerning each, in this case caused the old heathen worship to be preserved and transferred to the name of the Biblical prophet. But this certainly cannot have taken place, as Otto Keller lately flippantly declared in a lecture on the ‘Discovery of Troy by Henry Schliemann,’ 'from a sort of childish attention to the wants of great Prophet, inasmuch as the people wished to make the fiery journey as easy as possible for him, and therefore made him mount the chariot at the nearest point to heaven.^[362]

Enoch (Chanôkh) is introduced in another version of the genealogy (Gen. V. 18), as son not of Cain but of Jered, who is separated by five generations from Seth, Adam’s third son. But this genealogy has but little importance for mythological investigation; indeed its two chief original creations (Seth and Enos), do not belong to mythology at all. The feeling of a later time rebelled against deriving all mankind from the hated fratricide who bore the curse of God, and thus gave rise to the two interpolated patriarchs and the Seth-genealogy, which runs parallel with that of Cain: moreover, in proof of the honourable origin of mankind, the son of Seth was made the author of the worship of Jahveh, which is said to have begun in his time. The Seth-genealogy, which answered better to the feeling and the ethical need of mankind, then utterly expelled the Cain-genealogy. The author of the Book of Chronicles, who knows only Adam, Seth, Enos, &c. as first-fathers, seems either not to have known or intentionally to have ignored the other genealogy, and keeps strictly to that in Gen. V. It is remarkable that even in the Seth-genealogy among the ancestors of Enoch a Cainan (קֵינָןqênān Ḳênân) is named—a word which will be recognised by everyone who knows the laws of the Semitic formation of words as a so-called nunnated form of the word קַיִןqayin Ḳayin, so that the two are really perfectly identical.^[363]

Let us continue the consideration of Cain’s descendants. One prominent figure is Lemech.^[364] An obscure song, which he declaims before his two wives, has given the interpreters much trouble with regard both to its language and to its subject; and legend has made free with this song, as it has with anything problematical. For us here this only is important, that the song contains a self-accusation on the part of Lemech before his wives, of having killed his own child. As Jephthah killed his daughter, so the myth spoke of Lemech as a similar solar hero who killed his child. The Sun today kills her child, the Night, whom she bore yesterday evening. Among the children of Lemech we actually find Jabal (Yâbhâl), of whom we have already spoken at length as denoting the Rainy Sky. No doubt the ancient myth spoke of Jabal as the son who was murdered by his solar father Lemech. Accordingly, the genealogy does not continue the line of Jabal. Next to him his brother Jubal (Yûbhâl), inventor of musical instruments, the Hebrew Apollo, is mentioned. It is to solar gods such as Apollo, and heroes, that the invention of music, a product of the settled mode of civilised life, was everywhere attributed. But his name seems to have been chosen only on account of its assonance to Jabal (a favourite practice with the Semites), and not to belong to the ancient myth, but to owe its origin to the later legend of civilisation.

That the brothers Tubal-cain and Jabal are only a repetition of Cain and Abel I think I have already made evident. It must here be added that the mother of Tubal-cain, the solar man, is named Zillah (Ṣillâ), ‘she who covers, overshadows’—the Night, mother of the Sun or of the Day. The Seth-genealogy concludes with one who is called son of Lemech—Noah (Nôach), the founder of improved agriculture, who ‘gave men rest from their work and the toil of their hands proceeding from the earth which Jahveh cursed’ (V. 29). What else can this mean, but that Noah invented agricultural implements? The Seth-genealogy accordingly disputes the invention of these by Cain or Tubal-cain, and gives to the etymology of the name Nôach, which really does denote ‘rest,’ an application which makes it as impossible for it to belong to the ancient myth as for the names Shêth and Enôsh. Noah is a regular hero of the legend of civilisation; and the larger part of what the myth tells of him is a product of the victory of Solarism, i.e. of agricultural life. He is the first vine-grower, and a new ancestor of the human race, since all mankind is derived from his three sons. The regular operation of the laws of nature (Gen. VIII. 22), and social order and legality, are also brought into connexion with him. The protection and forbearance, secured to the beasts by the Nomad, ceases; the Agriculturist subdues the beasts. But, on the other hand, with him begins the protection and security of human life (Gen. IX. 2–5). Yet side by side with this legend of civilisation we have in connexion with Noah a true old solar myth, which well deserves attention. After the introduction of vine-cultivation Noah once makes overfree use of his discovery and gets drunk; and in that condition ‘uncovers himself—takes off his clothes (Gen. IX. 21). Only this last feature has any mythological interest; for the previous one, which was attached to this germ, belongs to another and later stage of formation of legends, since nothing could be told of intoxication till the free use of wine was known and practised. The word Nôach denotes 'him who rests.’ While the Sun of Day is called ‘he who goes, runs, wanders,’ the Evening Sun, preparing to set, is ‘he who rests.’ ‘Noah uncovers himself:’ after setting, the Sun is shrouded in a covering which darkens his light, but in the morning he throws off the clothes and becomes visible, spreading light and brightness abroad. In a hymn to Ushas, the Dawn, the ancient Indian poet says that she ‘uncovers her bosom’ (Rigveda, VI. 64. 2, 10). If the intoxication is also to be accounted for, then this prominent circumstance must describe the reeling motion with which the Sun, exhausted by his long course, staggers towards his repose. The Agadic tradition has preserved another element of the Noah-myth. The wicked black son Ham (Châm), emasculates his father (Sanhedrîn, 70 a). The emasculation of the Sun, when the Sun is male, is an expression of Aryan mythology denoting the weakening of his rays before and at sunset.^[365] The black son, the Night, overcomes and emasculates his father, takes all power from his rays and drives him to ruin.

§ 9. Thus we find Cain’s posterity to be repetitions of their ancestor, mere solar figures of the old myth, brought by an unmythological age into a genealogical connexion with the wandering and fratricidal solar hero. It is the genealogy of the solar figures to which the data of the legend of civilisation are attached; for the agriculturist always puts civilisation into conjunction with the sun.^[366] But besides this solar pedigree, we possess also a nomadic one, starting from the myth of the dark Night-sky—the genealogy of Abram (Gen. XI 10 sq.), which begins with his ancestor Shem. But the name Shêm has the same signification as Abhrâm itself, according to the lexicon. As Abhrâm is the ‘High Father,’ so also the name Shêm denotes the ‘High;’ and from this name the Semitic appellation of heaven, Hebrew shâmayim, Arabic samâ, is derived. Like Abram, Abel, Jabal, Jacob, Lot &c., Shem too possesses tents. ‘Elôhîm opens out (room) for Jepheth;^[367] he (Jepheth) dwells in the tents of Shem’ (Gen. XI. 27), is said in the extant fragment of an ancient hymn. Jepheth (Yepheth) signifies the ‘Beautiful, Brilliant,’ if it is connected with yâpheh; or ‘who spreads himself out,’ if the root pâthâh is its origin; or ‘who opens,’ if with Gesenius and some later writers we lay stress on the connexion of the sounds of pâthâh with pâthach; but in any case it is a solar name. As the sun of the daytime is observed wandering from place to place, it is not an unnatural idea that the sun takes up his abode in the tents of high heaven. ‘For the sun he made a tent in them (the heavens).’^[368]

It cannot be denied that in Abraham’s genealogy, as given in the Book of Genesis, there occur some ethnographical appellations which have no mythological meaning (e.g. Arpachshad). Still, the majority of names are of a mythical character. Unfortunately, they must remain mere names to us, as no material myth connected with these names is extant. Although they seem to invite etymological attempts, as e.g. the names Shelach and ʿÊbher, yet I shall resist the temptation, as it is not my business here to indulge in vague speculations. But I may be allowed to remark that there is one sentence in this genealogy which reflects the nomad’s life again. ‘Peleg begat Reʿû:’ that is, taking these words, as they were originally understood, appellatively and translating them literally, ‘The stream produces the pasture-land;’ the nomad owes his meadow-land to the stream that meanders through the pasture and keeps the grass fresh and green. So instead of ‘to lead the cattle to pasture,’ he says also, ‘to lead them to the waters of rest.’ The psalmist of Ps. XXIII. 1, 2, says ‘Jahveh is my shepherd, I want nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me to waters of rest.’

§ 10. We will now continue our contemplation of the contests which the myth tells of the sky at night, in which we have already seen the dark sky either conquering or conquered by his brilliant father or brother. One of the most conspicuous names of the dark sky of night or clouds in the Hebrew mythology, and containing a rich fund of mythical matter, is Jacob. Etymologically we have already done justice to him. Now let us see what the myth has to say of him. He endures hard struggles. His father, ‘the laughing sunny sky,’ loves him not. The hatred of his brother Esau drives him from house and home; and at the place where he takes refuge, he has to struggle against ‘the white one’ (Lâbhân), who, if not his brother, is at least his near relative, and in the original form of the myth was perhaps presented as his brother (see Gen. XXIX. 15). We must examine more closely the mythical character of these two hostile brothers of Jacob. To make short work of it—both Esau and Laban are solar figures. What we learn of them in the epic treatment of the old myth found in the Old Testament, presents a multitude of solar characteristics. We especially note this in Esau, whose heel Jacob grasps at their birth (Gen. XXV. 26). This mythical expression is in itself clear enough: ‘Night comes into the world with Day’s heel in his hand,’ or, as we should say, Night follows close upon Day, driving him from his place. Nevertheless, we can further confirm this signification of the mythical expression for the benefit of hesitating doubters by showing that the same conception is found even in the later Arabic poetry, where it is doubtless a residuum of an old mythical idea. For Thaʿlabâ b. Ṣuʿeyr al-Mâzinî^[369] says of the breaking of the dawn: ‘The shining one stretches his right hand towards him who covers up;’ the Sun puts out his hand towards the Night, grasps him, and pulls him forward, whilst he himself retires; here therefore it is the same relation, only inverted. Similarly, the poet al-ʿAjjâj says: ‘till I see the shoulder of the brilliant dawn, when he springs upon the back of the black night.’^[370] This is spoken in quite a mythical tone, and expresses the same idea as the Hebrew when he said ‘Jacob holds the heel of his red brother in his hand,’ only that the Arabic words quoted speak of day following after night.

‘Esau is a hunter, Jacob a herdsman, dwelling in tents.’ The Sun is a hunter: he discharges his arrows, i.e. his rays, and does battle with them against darkness, wind and clouds. Why should I adduce examples from Aryan mythology, where this view occurs in manifold variations and is one of the commonest?^[371] The Sun’s arrows are golden, wherefore Apollo is called χρυσότοξος Πύθιος (Pindar, Ol. XIV. 15). This mythical idea is frequently reflected in the composition of language. In Egyptian, the combination st denotes ‘flame, ray, and arrow,’ all at once; and the Slavonic strêla, with which the German Strahl ‘ray’ is connected, means ‘arrow.’^[372]

‘The Sun can no longer bend his bow’ = he has lost his power, is therefore an expression for the setting of the sun. When Herakles finds himself too weak to bend his bow and shoot his arrows, he feels that his end is approaching. When the Sun regains his powers at the outburst of spring, after a long winter in which his arrows had been at rest, Odysseus (Ulysses), a solar wanderer like Cain, seizes his bow to shoot off his shafts again.^[373] We see the same in the myths of the Semites. An epithet of the Sun-god Bêl is Nipru, which, according to Sir Henry Rawlinson, signifies ‘hunter;’^[374] and the city Resen, the building of which is attributed in the Bible to Nimrod, is called in the historical cuneiform inscriptions the ‘City of the Hunter.’^[375] This Nimrod himself, against whom Abraham the Nomad contends in the same sense in which Jacob the Nomad against Esau the Hunter, is a hunter (Gen. X. 9). The etymological explanation of the name Nimrôd cannot be established until the really primary signification of the root mârad has been satisfactorily traced; for it may be considered certain, that at the myth-creating stage mankind had no sense of the idea of ‘insurrection,’ which could only be formed after some advance in social life, and could not therefore endow a word with that special meaning. This signification can consequently only be secondary and metaphorical.^[376] As to the grammatical form of the name Nimrôd, it is not impossible that, like Yiṣchâk ‘Isaac,’ Yiphtâch ‘Jephthah,’ &c., it is a verbal form. If so, it would be the third person of the imperfect, formed by prefixing n, as in Aramaic. Schrader^[377] regards this prefixed n in Nimrôd as a sound used for the formation of nouns. I will also call to mind incidentally that on Babylonian ground we meet also with the name of a god Merôd.^[378] The wars of Nimrod with Abraham are not preserved in the Old Testament, but are in Agadic tradition, which has also retained from the Nimrod-myth an expression of a truly solar character; that three hundred and fifty kings sit before Nimrod, to serve him.^[379] Similarly against Joseph, the giver of increase, the rainy sky, fight ‘the men with arrows’^[380] (baʿalê chiṣṣîm, Gen. XLIX. 23), ‘who exasperate him and shoot and persecute him.’ So again Jacob fights against Esau the hunter. It is always the battle of the sky of Night and Clouds against the Sun, who sends his arrows to repel the invader. One somewhat more complicated mythological conception having reference to the arrows of the sun is found on Hebrew ground. The sun and the moon stand still, and then go in the direction of the arrows which were sent off before them. This view is known to poetry, except that there it is Jahveh who shoots the arrows, so that the sun and moon