If we limit the term Myth to those old sentences which the ancients used in speaking of physical changes and phenomena, then the period with which we have to do in this chapter lies outside the history of the Hebrew Myth; for the latter ceased to have any further growth to chronicle as the influence of Prophetism extended. Now, in place of the free life, organic development and gradual transformation of the myth, we have it in a final and canonical literary form, which we had to use as the only accessible source for discovering the original, and as a handle to guide us in the analytical treatment of its development. But it is not to be supposed that the parts of the Old Testament which we use as sources of knowledge on the Hebrew Myth contain the entire stock of the mythical treasures of the Hebrews, which these very fragments prove to have been very various. It must rather be assumed that in the period separating the final elaboration of these myths from their ultimate reduction to writing, a large portion of the stock was lost; which seems particularly likely, when it is considered how little importance the new religious school attached to this aspect of the Hebrew mind. Some remnants of unwritten stories have been preserved in Tradition; but the Tradition, again, has come down to us in a form which makes it difficult to discriminate the truly traditional from what belongs only to individuals (see supra, pp. 32, 33).
Thus the history of the Hebrew Myth after the rise of the Prophets can only be treated as a portion of the history of literature; i.e. it endeavours to discover the influences to which the stories were subjected during their reduction to writing. And at the outset we excluded all such investigations from the circle of our present studies.
But after the cessation of Hebrew independence the cycle of Hebrew stories received from another quarter an addition, which, though neither touching the domain of Mythology proper, nor working with elements already furnished by the Hebrew Myth, nevertheless is attached so closely to those stories which were formed by transformation of the old myths, that it ought not to be passed over in silence when we are considering the cycle of Hebrew stories.
We have already had occasion to observe the receptive tendency of the Hebrew mind, which was manifested in its contact with Canaanitish civilisation. At the first assault made by a mind superior to itself, it willingly opened its gates, and even when struggling for its national character and individuality it did not spurn the intellectual property of its antagonists. In the formation of the thought of Jahveh, and especially of the central idea of that thought, we discovered a productive genius for the first time aroused in the Hebrew people. But Jahveism came upon a nation too far gone in political impotence and dissension to be kindled even by such a spark to spiritual action. It found the nation at the very threshold of that political division which not long afterwards it had to lament beside the streams of Babylon. There the prophetic idea lived on, and indeed reached its zenith in the Babylonian Isaiah. But hieratic influences also continued to operate; and the best that the people could effect was the compromise between Jahveism and the sacerdotal tendencies represented by Ezekiel. This compromise found expression at the restoration of the State, and gave its tone and colour to the larger portion of the Biblical literature.
The receptive tendency of the Hebrews manifested itself again prominently during the Babylonian Captivity. Here first they gained an opportunity of forming for themselves a complete and harmonious conception of the world. The influence of Canaanitish civilisation could not then be particularly powerful on the Hebrews; for that civilisation, the highest point of which was attained by the Phenicians, was quite dwarfed by the mental activity exhibited in the monuments of the Babylonian and Assyrian Empire, which we are now able to admire in all their grandeur. There the Hebrews found more to receive than some few civil, political, and religious institutions. The extensive and manifold literature which they found there could not but act on a receptive mind as a powerful stimulus; for it is not to be imagined that the nation when dragged into captivity lived so long in the Babylonian-Assyrian Empire without gaining any knowledge of its intellectual treasures. Schrader’s latest publications on Assyrian poetry have enabled us to establish a striking similarity between both the course of ideas and the poetical form of a considerable portion of the Old Testament, especially of the Psalms, and those of this newly-discovered Assyrian poetry.[713] It would be a great mistake to account for this similarity by reference to a common Semitic origin in primeval times; for we can only resort to that in cases which do not go beyond the most primitive elements of intellectual life and ideas of the world, or designations of things of the external world. Conceptions of a higher and more complicated kind, as well as esthetic points, can certainly not be carried off into the mists of a prehistoric age. It is much better to keep to more real and tangible ground, and to suppose those points of contact between Hebrew and Assyrian poetry which are revealed by Schrader’s, Lenormant’s, and George Smith’s publications, to form part of the contributions made by the highly civilised Babylonians and Assyrians to the Hebrews in the course of the important period of the Captivity.
We see from this that the intellect of Babylon and Assyria exerted a more than passing influence on that of the Hebrews, not merely touching it, but entering deep into it and leaving its own impress upon it. The Assyrian poetry of the kind just mentioned stands in the same relation to that of the Hebrews as does the plain narrative of King Mesha’s Inscription and of some Phenician votive tablets to the narrative texts of the Hebrews, and as does the sacrificial Tablet of Marseilles to the Hebrews’ beginnings of a sacerdotal constitution. The Babylonian and Assyrian influence is of course much more extensive, pregnant and noteworthy.
The most prominent monument of this important influence is presented to us in the Biblical story of the Deluge. It was attempted long ago to discover points of contact between the respective narratives of the universal flood by the guidance of Berosus; but the only possible result of these endeavours was to encourage the old theory of an idea common to all mankind, which expressed itself in the story of a great general flood. To be sure, no obvious reason appears why this idea should force itself unbidden upon the reflexion of ancient humanity. For, with all that we know of the oldest subjects of the thought of mankind from the unquestioned results of Comparative Mythology, we must ask why the idea of an all-destroying flood, or even of a partial one confined to a limited territory, should necessarily occupy the foreground in the oldest picture of the world? In point of fact, a great number of nations are found destitute of any story of a flood. For instance, the oldest Greek mythology has no such idea; it cannot be proved to have been known to the Greeks earlier than the sixth century B.C. Whether it is indigenous and of high antiquity in India has also been doubted by distinguished scholars.[714]
On the other hand, the Cuneiform original of the Assyrian story of the Deluge, discovered by George Smith, has so much similarity, or we may rather say congruity, with the form of the story preserved in the Bible, even with respect to the raven and the dove,[715] that we are entitled to express an opinion a priori on these two narratives, to the effect that they point to a greater community of formation than would be the case if the community dated from the primeval Semitic age. For in that case, supposing the elements of the Deluge-story to have been so fully developed in the earliest Semitic age as we find them in the Bible and the Cuneiform Inscriptions, we must find something similar in all other Semitic nations also. It would be almost unaccountable why nothing can be traced among the Phenicians that could be placed side by side with this Deluge-story, and would be the more extraordinary if the conception of such a story took place in the age when the North-Semitic tribes were still living together.
The conclusion is accordingly almost irresistible, that the Hebrews borrowed this whole story of the Deluge from the Babylonians, and propagated it in a form resembling the Babylonian original, even in its details and mode of expression. Moreover, Babylon is the district most of all suited to the working-out of a story of Deluge; for it is certain from Von Bohlen’s and Tuch’s demonstrations, that such fully developed stories of floods can only occur in nations which have in their territory rivers liable to great overflows. Consequently the region of the great twin streams of Mesopotamia is the most likely cradle for an elaborate Deluge story.[716] A.H. Sayce, one of the most eminent English Assyriologists, in the Theological Review of July 1873, propounds the view that the Biblical account of the Deluge consists of two narratives: the older being Elohistic and based on a Hebrew Deluge-story, the other being placed by its side by a Jahveistic narrator in the Babylonian Captivity, and being identical with the Babylonian story preserved in the document consulted by George Smith.[717] Now, independently of the doubt as to the existence of an exclusively Hebrew Deluge-story, and of the fact that identity with the Babylonian stories has been proved of the Elohistic account also,[718] even Sayce’s conception of the matter quite suffices to establish the view that the Hebrews in Babylonia at least amplified, if they did not actually construct, the Biblical story of the Deluge. It cannot be true, as Max Duncker[719] lately wrote, ‘that these stories present to us an ancient and common possession of the Semitic tribes of the Euphrates and Tigris country.’ We cannot assume that in those primeval, prehistoric times when the Semitic tribes, or at least the Northern group of that race, lived all together before the separation, it matters not where, they formed in common stories which presuppose a high and advanced view of the world, like the Cosmogonies and the story of the Deluge connected therewith. At that earliest stage of human life, man labours with far simpler apperceptions than those which are requisite to form such stories. The myth in its very earliest mould, in which it is connected with the formation of language, occupies him first. But at all events, the Babylonian story received in its Hebrew transformation a purification in a monotheistic sense; or as Duncker himself appropriately adds, ‘the account of the Deluge lies before us in a purer and more dignified shape in the writings of the Hebrews.’
I showed in a previous section that Noah is one of those Solar figures of which the Biblical source has still preserved some mythical features. There is no intrinsic reason why the story of the Deluge should be particularly tacked on to the person of Noah; the Assyrian tablets give Hasisadra as the name of the man saved from the flood. If the connexion of Noah with the Deluge were to be maintained at all hazards, it would be best to argue that ancient mythical traditions called him (as well as Adam) the progenitor of the human race; the other Solar figures generally assume a position hostile to the nation. The harmonising tendency, which I have already had occasion to notice, might then easily make use of Noah as hero for the story of the Deluge learned at Babylon, since here was an excellent opportunity to establish his title as ancestor of the human race. But it may be taken for granted that this use was made of Noah’s name, not only at the later period when the Deluge-story was inserted in the great mass of traditional stories, but as soon as ever the Babylonian story was borrowed by the Hebrews. This is guaranteed by the Prophet of the Captivity, who calls the Deluge mê Nôach ‘the water of Noah.’ ‘For like the water of Noah is this (thy distress) unto me, of which (water) I swore against the water of Noah coming again over the earth [Gen. VIII. 21 et seq.]: so do I swear against being wroth with thee and rebuking thee’ (Is. LIV. 9). In Babylon, also, the Hebrews appear to have received an impulse to work out such a history of Creation, intricate and plastically jointed, as is contained in the opening passages of Genesis. I do not mean that the cosmogony of the Babylonians was the original from which that of the Bible was copied, for in this particular matter of cosmogonies the construction of the Biblical account exhibits great individuality. But the tendency of the mind to inquire after the first beginning of both the physical and the moral order of the world was first fully roused during the residence at Babylon, so far advanced in speculations of this nature. I am confirmed in this assumption by the Babylonian story of Creation, lately discovered and edited by George Smith, which, as presented by that learned pioneer, shows great accordance with the corresponding account in Genesis.[720] It is at all events an element of the subject in hand which cannot be left unnoticed, that the notion of the bôrê and yôṣêr ‘Creator’ (the terms used in the cosmogony in Genesis), as an integral part of the idea of God, are first brought into common usage by the Prophets of the Captivity, especially the Babylonian Isaiah, who is particularly fond of the expression bôrê.[721] The older Prophets also know Jahveh as Creator of the world; but it is self-evident that they do not so strongly emphasise the idea, or refer to it so frequently, as for instance the Isaiah of the Captivity. Amos IV. 13, for example, says, ‘For lo, he that formeth mountains and createth wind, and declareth to man what is his meditation, that maketh the dawn winged and walketh on the high places of the earth—his name is Jahveh the God of Hosts.’ This passage stands in no relation whatever to the cosmogony of Genesis; indeed, in speaking of the dawn as gifted with wings (see supra, p. 116), it refers rather to the mythical conceptions of antiquity, as also the older Isaiah frequently does. The Prophet of the Captivity, on the other hand, refers to the ideas of the cosmogony in Genesis, as is clear in Is. XL. 26, XLV. 7 (where he speaks of the Creator of light and darkness), XLII. 5, XLV. 18, especially this last passage, which refers to the banishment of the tôhû through the act of creation. By the story of creation the celebration of the Sabbath was established on entirely new grounds. Whilst in the older conception (which finds expression in the Decalogue in Deuteronomy V. 15) the Sabbath has a purely theocratic significance, and is intended to remind the Hebrews of their miraculous deliverance from Egyptian slavery after long servitude, the later version of the Decalogue (Ex. XX. 11) justifies it by referring to the history of the Creation, in which after six days of work the Creator took rest.
We cannot here enter into the question of the geographical position of the ʿÊden of the Bible, nor even inquire whether the original of the idea of Eden is found in the corresponding feature of Iranian tradition; but it may be assumed that the Biblical account of Eden also arose at Babylon. It may indeed be generally presumed that the Biblical accounts of the Cosmogony and the origin of all things had not, like the matter of the old mythology, lived a long life of perhaps many thousand years in the mouths of successive generations, before the first beginnings of literary record were reached. On the contrary, we find in these parts of the Bible so artistic a perfection of description, such a harmonious roundness of narrative, that we are justified in presuming that they were not preceded by the oral concatenations of a long life of tradition, but are rather sublime imaginations which were written down soon after they were conceived in the educated circles of the nation, so as to become the common property of the whole people. There was in this a double stimulus received from the Babylonians: first, to meditate on the earliest things—the origin of the world, man, and other things of a general nature—and secondly, to produce writings on these things. The Prophets of the Hebrews at Babylon unquestionably exercised a great influence on the production of these narratives, and gladly admitted whatever tended to promote the deepening of the idea of Jahveh, as elements in their religions conception of the world. For the Prophet did not occupy a position towards the masses like the member of a corporation which opposes the people; he grew up out of the people, and raised himself above them by his individual power of thought. Yet it is easily intelligible that the Prophet, while gladly appropriating the idea of Jahveh as bôrê ‘Creator,’ would not set much store by the petty details of the cosmogonic imagination. The second Isaiah, the Prophet of Babylon par excellence, goes so far as to exhort his people, ‘Record ye not beginnings, and antiquities contemplate ye not’ (Is. XLIII. 18); still he does not go into open opposition to this mental tendency, and sees nothing dangerous in it—the less so, as he has himself unconsciously adopted its conclusions and often employed them in his masterly addresses.
Thus also the story of the Garden of Eden, as a supplement to the history of the Creation, was written down at Babylon, and therefore not long after the previous stories. A reference to the passage in Gen. II. 14, where the first three of the four rivers of the garden of Eden have their geographical position accurately defined, but the fourth is only mentioned by the words, ‘And the fourth river is Perâth (Euphrates),’ is of itself sufficient to show that those for whom the story was written must have known the Euphrates as their own river, requiring no further designation, and consequently that this must have been written on its banks. Now, although the expression ‘Garden of Eden’ occurs also before the Captivity (Joel II. 3), yet the Prophets of the Captivity make the first reference to that character and quality of Eden which is conspicuous in Genesis. In Joel’s words only the general idea of a ‘pleasure-garden’ appears to be connected with the name Eden. But in Ezekiel (especially frequently in Chap. XXXI.) we find the appellation ‘Garden of God’ used to designate Eden more fully; and in the parallelism of the members of the verse the Babylonian Isaiah (LI. 3) puts the ‘Garden of Jahveh’ in the succeeding member to correspond to ‘Eden’ in the preceding:
It is also evident from the same Prophet’s words (Is. XLIII. 27), ‘Thy first father sinned,’ that he connected the story of the Fall with Eden, or at least that he knew the story. The mention of the doctrine of the Fall takes us to a domain which has a close connexion with the subject of this chapter. I refer to the ideas of dogmatic religion pervading the stories formed during the Captivity, which subsequently, while the canon of Scripture was being drawn up, were admitted even into those parts of Scripture whose matter dated from an earlier period, came into full life in the second Hebrew commonwealth, and continued to live in the later Jewish Synagogue. Through the growth of Persian power and Persian influence in Western Asia, where there existed many states in a condition of vassalage to Babylon, the Iranian views of religion could not but exert a great influence on the parent-state also, even before Babylon was quite overwhelmed by them through its conquest by Cyrus at the end of the Captivity of the Hebrews. Opportunity was therefore not wanting to the Hebrews to become well acquainted with the main ideas of Iranian theology; and desire was also present, as their minds were then intent upon obtaining clear views on the origin of the physical and moral order of the world, and on the chief questions concerning the ‘Origins.’ This influence of the Iranians on the Hebrews was exhibited not only in relation to matter, but also to forms. For there is great probability in favour of the idea, that the first suggestion to codify the sacerdotal laws of sacrifice, purification and others, came to the Hebrews from the example of the Persians.[722] One portion of these ideas has found a place in the Babylonian sections of Genesis—that which belonged to the cosmogony; others were not expressed in the Canon at all, but lived in tradition, until tradition itself was fixed in writing. This question, which would at last shed light on the details of Iranian influence on the narratives of the Pentateuch, is perversely enough not grappled with at its starting-point by many persons who labour with nervous eagerness to discover in the Iranian writings every letter of the Jewish Agâdâ, even in cases in which such a proceeding is utterly unjustifiable, and borrowing can only be suggested through the wildest guesswork. Equally perverse is the unhistorical assumption, which point-blank denies the very possibility of the Hebrews having borrowed anything from the Persians, ‘among whom they never lived.’[723] Professor Spiegel, by referring to an acquaintance of Abraham with Zarathustra, has spirited the question off into the atmosphere of so distant a time that it is impossible with any regard for critical history to build upon his foundation,[724] and preferable even to adopt Volney’s forgotten theory,[725] which makes the influence of Magism on the Hebrews begin with the destruction of the Northern kingdom. Others, by assuming an influence exerted by the Semites on the Iranians, and by a mistaken reverence for Hebrew antiquity, have cut away the ground from any scientific investigation of the question.[726] It is a mistaken, and anything but the right sort of reverence, when we would rather leave unknown or misunderstood a region of literature which we all love and venerate, and to which we owe most of our moral and religious ideals, than trace its elements and analyse their psychological and literary history, so as to understand the object of our love. Has Homer lost his attractiveness since we have subjected him to critical analysis, or the divine Plato forfeited any of his divinity since we have discovered some of the sources of his ideas? For the fact of Originality is not the only criterion of the admirable. Not only that which is cast in one piece from top to toe, is one whole: an alien substance which becomes a civilising agent to that in which it rests, and a patchwork which has turned out a harmonious whole, are not less admirable or perfect. Julius Braun says very justly,[727] ‘There is another and indeed the highest kind of originality, which is not the beginning but the result of historical growth—the originality of mature age. We have this, when an individual or a nation has gathered up all existing means of culture, and then still possesses power to pass on beyond them and deal freely with all elements received from the past.’
Thus, then, it was quite possible for many Iranian elements to be received into the system of the literature and cosmic conceptions of the Hebrews; and we do nothing towards saving the honour of the Hebrew nationality by using force to make the Iranians pupils of the Hebrews. Karl Twesten saw the truth as to their mutual relation; and I quote his words, to show the impression made by the coincidences of Iranian and Hebrew antiquity on a sober-minded historian who considers the question free from any previous pledges to either side. ‘It cannot be pleaded that the Iranians may have borrowed from the Hebrews or drawn from the same source. For, on the one hand, these things are there an essential part of a system, whereas the Pentateuch makes no further use of them; and, on the other, they existed in times and places where, even if the possibility of a very early formation of these stories be conceded, the Hebrew theology could not possibly have any influence. The Israelites were so little known, and so rarely in contact with other nations, and the priesthoods of antiquity so exclusive, and oriental Îrân so distant, that no early influence of Mosaic doctrines on the theories of the Zend books is even conceivable. But Iranian influences on the nations of Western Asia are probable and inevitable, from the time when the Medes and Persians became the dominant powers.’[728]
Such, in general terms, were the causes which yielded an increase of matter to the Hebrew store of legends during the Captivity. Through the revision and literary elaboration of the old legends in the period of the Captivity also, many Babylonian features naturally entered into the picture. I may mention Nöldeke’s plausible idea (in his Untersuchungen), that the years and cycles of years in the Patriarchal history point to Babylon and are connected with astronomical systems. The last systematic revision of the Table of Nations (Gen. X.) may also be referred to the same time and influence. The preparation of such a survey of all known nations of the earth seems to have been possible in that ancient time only in an empire which through its wide-spread dominion had an extensive circle of view open to it in relation to geography and ethnology, and would be almost impossible within the limits of the kingdom of Judah. Although we have at the present day good reasons for treating as a mere fable the more extravagant ideas that were long current, and gave rise to many lamentable prejudices, of the utter seclusion of the Hebrews in Canaan, yet their view can hardly have reached to such a distance, and, if it did, cannot have taken in such special points, as are met with in the Table of Nations. But we should exaggerate the possible influence of the connexion with the Phenicians, if with Tuch[729] we were to derive from it the ethnographical information requisite to produce that Table. And we should be applying the measure of modern expeditions to David’s and Solomon’s navigation—to which Mauch attributes a colonisation of Africa by Jews in connexion with the discovery of Ophir—if we were to suppose that navigation to have yielded this same geographical and ethnographical knowledge as its scientific result.
The attention of the Hebrews could not be directed to ethnographical problems on so large a scale before their residence among the confusion of nationalities in the empire of Babylon and Assyria. That period is also the first at which interest could be felt in another problem—Biblical answer to which is avowedly given at Babylon. I mean the story of the Confusion of Tongues at Babel (Babylon) in Genesis XI. 4–9.
It is not difficult to understand that the Hebrews, who in Canaan, a country of such linguistic uniformity, had no occasion to pay attention to the fact of the variety of tongues, on entering the Babylonian empire with its varying languages were naturally led to ask the question to which the eleventh chapter of Genesis offers a reply. Why, even earlier than this the Northern empire was a nation whose tongue they did not understand (Deut. XXVIII. 49),[730] ‘a nation from afar, an ancient nation, a nation from of old, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say’ (Jer. V. 15). Whilst even in Hesiod’s time men were already called by the Greeks μέροπες ‘speaking variously’ (Works and Days, 109, 142), to the ancient Hebrew ‘the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.’ Now, as the impulse to ask this question arose in Babylon, the place where such a problem must force itself most irresistibly on the attention, so Babylon was found to be also the scene of the solution of the problem. It is so natural to place the origin of an event or a phenomenon at the place where it has first occurred to us or we have first perceived it. But, in fact, we find the story of the building of the Tower taking its place among the latest Cuneiform discoveries.[731] That the origin of the Table of Nations hangs together with the story of the origin of the diversity of languages is evident, not only from the inner connexion between the respective problems, but also from the fact that the Table of Nations always distinguishes the various races ‘after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, in their nations’ (Gen. X. 5, 20, 31).
The attempted etymology of Bâbhel from bâlal ‘to mix,’ which is tacked on to the story, is quite secondary; it is impossible to approve the notion that this etymology was itself the cause of the invention of the story that languages had their origin at Babylon. On the contrary, the essential part of the story is the origin at Babylon; the etymology is a secondary point, by which it was attempted to leave no part unexplained. People in antiquity, and even in modern times those who are more affected by a word than a thought, were fond of finding in the word a sort of reflexion of the corresponding thing. Indeed, many component parts of ancient stories owe their existence only to such false etymologies. Dido’s ox-hides and their connexion with the founding of Carthage are only based on the Greek byrsa, a misunderstood modified pronunciation of the Semitic bîrethâ ‘fortress, citadel.’ The shining Apollo, born of light, is said to be born in Delos or Lycia, because the terms Apollon Dêlios and Lykêgenês were not understood. The Phenician origin of the Irish, asserted in clerical chronicles of the middle ages, only rests on a false derivation of the Irish word fena, pl. fion, ‘beautiful, agreeable.’ Even the savage tribes of America are misled by a false etymology to call the Michabo, the Kadmos of the Red Indians (from michi ‘great’ and wabos ‘white’), a White Hare.[732] Falsely interpreted names of towns most frequently cause the invention of fables. How fanciful the operation of popular etymology is in the case of local names is observable in many such names when translated into another language. By the lake of Gennesereth lies Hippos, the district surrounding which was called Hippene. This word in Phenician denoted a harbour, and is found not only in Carthaginian territory as the name of the See of St. Jerome, but also as the name of places in Spain. The Hebrew chôph ‘shore,’ and the local names Yâphô (Jaffa) and Ḥaifâ, are unquestionably related to it. But the Greeks regarded it from a Grecian point of view, and thought it meant Horse-town. Did not they call ships sea-horses, and attribute horses to the Sea-god? Then, the Arabs directly translated this ἵππος Hippos into ḳalʿat al-Ḥuṣân: ḥuṣân being horse in modern Arabic.[733] The Persian town Rey was made the subject of a fable, which I mention here partly because it exhibits some similarity with the subject of the ‘Tower of Babel.’ The Persian chroniclers relate,[734] that the old king Keykâvûs had a chariot constructed, by which, after various preparations, he intended to ascend to heaven. But God commanded the wind to carry the king into the clouds. Arrived there, he was dashed down again, and fell into the sea of Gurgân. Keychosrau, son of Shâwush, coming to that coast, employed the same chariot to convey him to Babylon. When he came to the locality of the modern Rey, people said, bireyy âmed Keychosrau, ‘on a chariot came Keychosrau.’ He caused a city to be built at this place, which was called Rey, because a chariot is so called in Persian.[735]
Granting all this, it is generally only accessory features added to the main stem of the story that owe their origin to a mistaken attempt at etymologising. The existence and first origin of an entire story can scarcely be produced by an unsatisfactory etymology. With regard to the Hebrew stories, in which etymologising plays a considerable part, the same rule is, generally speaking, to be observed. There also the story is enriched in details by etymological attempts suggested later. But it is not brought into life in the first instance by this factor. On the contrary, as a connexion must be discovered between the name and the circumstances of its bearer, and the original mythical relation between them has been long lost to memory, features quite foreign to the name itself, but characteristic of the story, are sometimes brought into etymological connexion with the name and fitted on to the story. From this source emanates the striking insufficiency of many of these etymological explanations, e.g. of the interpretation of Abhrâhâm by Abh hâmôn ‘Father of a multitude,’ and Nôach (Noah) by nicham ‘to comfort.’ In the Hebrew Myth of Civilisation, Noah is the most prominent founder of agriculture and inventor of agricultural implements; consequently it is he that procures comfort for men against the curse imposed on the soil. This feature is not etymologically expressed in the name Noah; but the later formation of the story about him invented a false etymology, in order to connect it with the name. The case is the same with the story of the Languages, in which Bâbhel is derived from bâlal ‘to mix.’ The etymology relates quite as frequently to a very subordinate feature in the story, as for instance in the interpretation of most of the names of Jacob’s sons in Gen. XXIX, XXX, or in the derivation of the name Ḳayin (Cain) from ḳânâ ‘to gain.’ Sometimes, lastly, the etymon is given correctly, while its original relation to the person bearing the name is lost with the loss of the mythical consciousness. In such cases there frequently arises a new feature of the story. Thus, for instance, it is quite correctly affirmed that Yiṣchâḳ (Isaac) comes from ṣâchaḳ ‘to laugh:’ but it is no longer understood that the word designates the ‘Laughing one’ (the Sun), and so the laughter of the aged mother to whom the birth of a son is announced beforehand, or the laughter of other people on hearing the announcement, is introduced. In the etymology of the name Yaʿaḳôbh (Jacob) both the etymon and that to which it refers (ʿâḳêbh ‘heel’) are correctly preserved, not however without the introduction of a foreign etymological element (ʿiḳḳêbh ‘to cheat’), which became prominent in the subsequent development of the story. The same phenomenon also appears on the domain of the Arabian stories, a region of Semitism which has still to be explored for mythological questions. I have no doubt that the genealogical tables of the Arabs contain names which will be discovered by sound etymology to be Solar designations. This seems to me, for example, to be the case with Hâshim. The story that he and his twin-brother ʿAbd Shams were born with their foreheads joined together, or with the forehead of one joined to the hand of the other,[736] resembles the myths of the birth of Jacob and Esau, and of that of Perez and Zerah.[737] It was worked out with an object during the later dynastic rivalry between the Hâshimites and Ummayads (descendants of ʿAbd Shams). But Hâshim is ‘the Breaker,’ thus answering perfectly to Pereṣ (Perez) or Gideʿôn. When the mythical consciousness was lost, a story bearing an obviously apocryphal character was fabricated to give it an etymology. It is this. On occasion of a famine resulting from a bad harvest, Hâshim went to Syria, where he had a quantity of bread baked. This he put into large sacks, loaded his camels with it, and took it to Mekka. There hashama, i.e. he broke up the bread into bits, sent for butchers, and distributed it among the people of Mekka. Therefore, it is said, he was called Hâshim, ‘the Breaker.’[738] We have here the very same process in the history of etymology which we had occasion to observe in the etymological explanation of Biblical names. Thus, as is obvious in the above-quoted Hebrew examples, it must be admitted that the later etymological conception frequently forced itself into the foreground so much as to obtain recognition as a portion of the narrative.[739] But no entire story, such as that of the Confusion of Tongues at Babel, can be proved to have been formed upon no other basis than an indifferent etymology. So we may with confidence hold to the above-suggested occasion for the origin of this story of the variety of languages. There is good ground for hoping that before very long the recently discovered mythical texts of the Assyrian and Babylonian literature will pour an increasing flood of light on the question discussed in this chapter. The richness of the stores contained in the two latest works of the meritorious scholar George Smith—‘Assyrian Discoveries: an account of exploration and discoveries’ (1876), and ‘The Chaldean Account of Genesis’ (1876)—allow us to entertain the best hopes of this result. It is greatly to be desired that an unprejudiced conception of the matter of Hebrew mythic stories may be promoted by these discoveries. But to attain to the result of true freedom from old errors, it is essential to put away all fears, and to be guided solely and simply by the interests of the Holiest of Holies, namely, scientific truth, in forming a judgment on the priority or simultaneous origin of such stories in different nations.