ii. 12):--

"There is much in the theo-mythology of Homer which, if it had been a system founded on fable, could not have appeared there. It stands before us like one of our old churches, having different parts of its fabric in the different styles of architecture, each of which speaks for itself, and which we know to belong to the several epochs in the history of the art when their characteristic combinations were respectively in vogue."

[132] The adverse decision, in the matter of the ceremonies, did not, I apprehend, touch the question we are now considering, albeit the ceremonies had reference to deceased ancestors. This will be apparent, I think, from consideration of the grounds upon which the question was debated. The Jesuits relied upon the sense in which the ceremonies were regarded by the Mandarins and literary men whom they consulted, whilst their opponents supported their arguments by reference to the popular notions and the superstitious practices _introduced_ by the Bonzes. (_Vide_ Cretineau Joly's "Hist. de la Com. de Jesus," vol. v. chap. i.)

Mr Gladstone (_passim_) victoriously combats the theory of nature-worship as applied to Grecian mythology; but it appears to me that his argument and mode of reasoning would apply with tenfold effect to the Chaldean mythology, where there is a likelihood at least that we shall view idolatry in its early commencements. I consider that this view is borne out by the following passage from Professor Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," i. 139:--

"In the first place, it must be noticed that the religion was to a certain extent _astral_. The heaven itself, the sun, the moon, and the five planets, have each their representative in the Chaldean Pantheon among the chief objects of worship. At the same time it is to be observed, that the astral element is not universal, but partial; and that even where it has place, it is but one aspect of the mythology, not by any means its full and complete exposition. The Chaldean religion even here is far from being mere Sabeanism--the simple worship of the 'host of heaven.' The ether, the sun, the moon, and still more the five planetary gods, are something above and beyond those parts of nature. Like the classical Apollo and Diana, Mars and Venus, they are real persons, with a life and a history, a power and an influence, which no ingenuity can translate into a metaphorical representation of phenomena attaching to the air and to the heavenly bodies. It is doubtful, indeed, whether this class of gods are really of astronomical origin, and not rather primitive deities, whose characters and attributes were, to a great extent, fixed and settled before the notion arose of connecting them with certain parts of nature. Occasionally they seem to represent heroes rather than celestial bodies; and they have all attributes quite distinct from their physical and astronomical character.

"Secondly, the striking resemblance of the Chaldean system to that of the classical mythology, seems worthy of particular attention. This resemblance is too general and too close in some respects to allow of the supposition that mere accident has produced the coincidence."

The evidence in the "Ancient Monarchies" seems to me to decide the point, not only for perhaps the earliest mythology with which we are acquainted, but also for the Grecian mythology, which has generally been the ground of dispute. It is curiously in illustration, however, of the common origin of mythology, that the mythology of Greece should be equally well traced to Assyria and Egypt. As evidence of the theory according to the Assyrian origin, let us turn, for instance, to Professor Rawlinson's identification of Nergal with Mars. It is true he appears as the planet Mars under the form of "Nerig," and he also figures as the storm-ruler; but can anything well be more human than the rest of his titles?

"His name is evidently compounded of the two Hamitic roots 'nir' = a man, and 'gula' = great; so that he is 'the great man' or 'the great hero.' His titles are 'the king of battle,' 'the champion of the gods,' 'the strong begetter,' 'the tutelar god of Babylonia,' and 'the god of the _chase_.'... We have no evidence that Nergal was worshipped in the primitive times. He is just mentioned by some of the early Assyrian kings, who regard him as _their ancestor_.... It is conjectured that, like Bil-Nipru, he represents the _deified hero Nimrod_, who may have been worshipped in different parts of Chaldea under different titles.... It is probable that Nergal's symbol was the man-lion. Nir is sometimes used in the inscriptions in the meaning of lion, and the Semitic name for _the god himself_ is 'aria,' the ordinary term for the king of beasts both in Hebrew and Syriac. Perhaps we have here the true derivation of the Greek name for the god of war 'Ares' ([Greek: Arês]), which has _long puzzled classical scholars_. The lion would symbolise both the hunting and the fighting propensities of the god, for he not only engages in combats, but often chases his prey and runs it down like a hunter. Again, if Nergal is the man-lion, his association in the buildings with the _man-bull_ would be exactly parallel with the conjunction which _we so constantly find between him and Nin in the inscriptions_."[133]--_Rawlinson_, i. 172-174.

[133] "Notwithstanding his stature, beauty, hand, and voice, which constitute, taken together, a proud appearance, it seems as if Mars had stood lower in the mind of Homer than any Olympian deity who takes part in the Trojan war, except Venus only."--_Gladstone's "Homer,"_ ii. 225.

I must draw attention also to the remarkable absence here of all the monotheistic epithets we shall find attached to Ana, Enu, and Hoa.[134]

[134] _Vide infra_, next chap. ix.

Let us now turn to the theory which is most in the ascendant, and which professes to see in the old mythological legends only the thoughts and metaphors of a mythic period.

This theory, which was Mr Max Müller's in the first instance, being not only exclusively drawn from the conclusions of philology, but also exclusive in itself, cannot be anywhere stronger than its weakest point.

If it is shown in the instance of one primary myth, that it was the embodiment of an historical legend, or theological belief, the whole ideal structure of a mythic period must collapse; for the rejection of eclecticism in any form, which would embrace a Biblical or euhemeristic interpretation of the myths, is at the foundation of Mr Max Müller's idea, and, indeed, would be incompatible with the theory of a mythic period such as he conceives it.

The connection of Nimrod with Nergal in the Assyrian mythology, of Nergal with their planet Nerig, and of the Semitic name of the god "Aria" with the Greek [Greek: Arês] and the Latin Mars, must, I think, form a chain of evidence destined to embarass Mr Max Müller and Mr Cox: for, apart from the numerous points of contact of the Assyrian and Egyptian with the Greek mythologies, it can hardly be contended that there was a mythic period for the Aryan which was not common to the whole human race.

It would be natural to suppose, that a mythology which was generated in a mythic period--which was the invention of mankind in a peculiar state of the imagination--would have been developed in its fulness and completeness, like Minerva starting from the brain of Jupiter, and would have borne the evidence of its origin in the symmetry of its form. Mr Max Müller, on the contrary, seems to yield the whole position, in what, from his point of view, looks like an inadvertent phrase, that "there were myths before there was a mythology." It is not that the view is not true, or that it is inconsistent with his analysis of the myths, but that it is so perfectly consistent with ours! Incongruity, such as would come from the confusion of separate myths, would be no difficulty for us; but it is hard to understand how mere fragmentary legends--sometimes attractive, but more frequently repulsive and revolting, having no hold on what is nearest the heart of a people, the traditions of its past--should have been so tenaciously preserved for so long a time under such different conditions in various countries.

Solar legends, spun out of confused metaphors, seem an inadequate explanation, unless we also suppose idolatry of the sun. In that case, the mythology, in so far as it was solar, would precede the myths; in other words, the myths would be radiations from a central idea. That in the day when mankind prevaricated after this fashion, and committed the act of idolatry in their hearts, everything, from the phenomena of nature to the remote events of their history, would come under the influence of a new set of ideas may be easily conceived.

At such a period--and the commencement of these things at least was not impossible in the days when, in the spirit of mistrust or defiance, men drew together to build the city and tower in the plain of Sennaar (Shinar)--much of what Mr Cox supposes to have been the common parlance of mankind becomes natural, and a mythic period within these limits conceivable.

But such a theory would not necessarily be exclusive of other forms of idolatry--as, for instance, the worship of ancestors--whilst it might clear up obscure points in the evidence which tends to establish the latter.

The theory, however, must embrace many shades and gradations--from the Hamitic extreme to the protomyths, which in time obscured the monotheism of the Aryan of ancient Greece, and of the Peruvian Incas. (p. 304.)

This would seem, unless they ignore all difficulties, a better standpoint for those who think, through the application of the solar legends, "to unlock almost all the secrets of mythologies;" and any theory connected with the sun and sun-worship has this advantage, that it can be extended to everything under the sun!

It is sufficiently obvious that no system can be held to have settled these questions, which, if there were myths before there was a mythology, does not appropriate these antecedent myths, or exclude counter explanations; and it is equally clear that there can have been no mythology of which the solar legends were the offspring, if the legends embody thoughts which transcend the mythology; and no mythic period if they testify to facts and ideas incompatible with its existence.

Allowing for a certain confusion arising out of "polyonomy," this sort of confusion, if there were nothing else, ought not to baffle the ingenuity of experts like Mr Max Müller and Mr Cox. Such complications should be as easily disentangled as the superadded figures in Egyptian chronology (_vide_ chapter vi.) when the key has been found.

But does Mr Max Müller profess to have brought the various legends into harmony? On the contrary (ii. 142), he frankly admits--"Much, no doubt, remains to be done, and _even_ with the assistance of the Veda, the whole of Greek mythology will never be deciphered and translated."

I have no wish to push an admission unfairly, but this appears to me fatal as regards the argument with which I am dealing.[135] If there are myths which never will be deciphered, this must be because they have had some non-astral or non-solar origin, which I consider to be almost equivalent to saying that they must have had some pre-astral origin. What that precise origin was I think I have been able sufficiently to indicate in italicising the subjoined sentences from Mr Max Müller. If these enigmas can be shown to be strictly local and Grecian, _cadit quæstio;_ but if they are common to other mythologies, and these the oldest, I must say they have the look of antecedent existence. At any rate, like those inconvenient boulders in the sand and gravel strata, they require the intervention of some glacial period to account for them.[136]

[135] Mr Cox ("Mythology," p. xiv.) says--"Mythology, as we call it now, is simply a collection of the sayings by which men, once upon a time, described whatever they saw or heard in the countries where they lived. This key, which has unlocked almost all the secrets of mythology, was placed in our hands by Professor Max Müller, who has done more than all other writers to bring out the exquisite and touching poetry which underlies those ancient legends. He has shown us that in this, their first shape, these sayings were all perfectly natural, and marvellously beautiful and true. We see the lovely evening twilight die out, &c.... They said that the beautiful Eurydice," &c. (_vide infra_, p. 173). It would appear, however, from Mr Cox's more extended work, "The Mythology of the Aryan Nations," that the sayings of mankind in the mythic period did not extend to speculations as to their origin and destiny, or embrace the facts of their history, or the deeds of their ancestors, but that their whole converse was upon the sun and moon, and the phenomena of the outward world.

[136] Mr Max Müller makes the distinction between "primitive or organic legends" (and it is to these I wish to limit the discussion) "and the second, those which were imported in later times from one literature to another.... The former _represents one common ancient stratum of language and thought_ reaching from India to Europe; the latter consist of boulders of various strata carried along by natural and artificial means from one country to another" (ii. 245).

It is clear that Mr Max Müller looks for _harmony_ in his system--"We naturally look back to the scenes on which the curtain of the past has fallen, _for we believe that there ought to be one thought pervading the whole drama of mankind_. And here history steps in, and gives us the thread which connects the present with the past" (p. 7). Why it was that harmony was not attained seems to be disclosed, if we read the passage in our sense and with a certain transposition of parts, at p. 3--"There were at Athens then, as there have been at all times and in all countries, men who had no sense for the miraculous and supernatural, and who, without having the moral courage to deny altogether what they could not bring themselves to believe, endeavoured to find some plausible explanation _by which the sacred legends_ which _tradition_ had _handed down to them_, and which had been _hallowed_ by _religious observances_, and sanctioned by the authority of the law, might be brought _into harmony with_ the dictates of reason and the _laws_ of _nature_." (Compare with _infra_, p. 351, Maine.)

I have already hinted that a further consideration appears to me to incapacitate the theory of nature-worship, in any of its disguises, from being taken as the exclusive, or even the primitive form of idolatry, or of perverted tradition; and it is this,--that all the explanations, even the most ingenious, even those which would be accounted "primitive and organic," have their counter explanations, traceable in the corruptions of truth and the perversions of hero-worship. Take, for instance, the name Zeus, which is in evidence of the primitive monotheism, and which stood in Greece, as Il or Ra in Assyria, for the true Lord and God, and which has its equivalents in Dyaus ("from the Sanscrit word which means 'to shine'"); Dyaus-pater (Zeus-pater), Jupiter; Tiu (Anglo-Saxon, whence Tuesday); and Zia (High German)--_vide_ Cox's "Mythology."

What more natural than to associate the Almighty with the heaven where He dwelt? Mr Max Müller ("Comparative Myth.," "Chips," ii. 72) says--"Thus [Greek: Zeus], being originally a name of the sky, like the Sanscrit Dyaus, became gradually a proper name, which betrayed its appellative meaning only in a few proverbial expressions, such as [Greek: Zeus hyei], or _sub Jove frigido_." Taking this passage in connection with what is said (p. 148, of Welcker)--"When we ascend with him to the most distant heights of Greek history, the idea of God as the Supreme Being stands before us as a simple fact. Next to the adoration of one God, the Father of heaven, the Father of men, we find in Greece a worship of nature." I conclude that Mr Max Müller means, as Mr Cox means, that the names, Zeus or Dyaus, was applied to the one true God, whose existence was otherwise and previously known to them.[137] At starting, therefore, we find that the language borrowed from nature was only called in to give a colouring and expression to a previously known and familiar truth; and here, too, we also see the commencement of incongruity. The simple idea of the heavens might have been harmoniously extended by the imagination; but, complicated with the idea of personality, it gave birth to the awkward and incongruous expression, "[Greek: Zeús huei], or _sub Jove frigido_," a phrase which never could have been originated by the Grecian mind, unless the personality of Jove had been the idea most prominently before the mind. But if the knowledge of the Deity, or even the conception of the personality of Zeus was operative in the mythic period, it must have been operative to the extent of embodying what was known or recollected of his dealings in love and anger with mankind, in the legends which they wove, and also of blending them with the confusions which "polyonomy" occasioned. The introduction of this element would seriously embarass Mr Cox, and would give to Mr Gladstone's explanation an "_à priori_" probability.

[137] Mr Max Müller, in his essay on "Semitic Monotheism," when opposing M. Renan's view that the monotheism of the Semitic race was instinctive, seems to say this still more explicitly--"He thunders and Dyaus thunders became synonymous expressions; and by the mere habit of speech He became Dyaus and Dyaus became He" ("Chips," i. 358). "At first the names of God, &c., were honest attempts at expressing or representing an idea which could never find adequate expression or representation.... If the Greeks had remembered that Zeus was but a name or symbol of the Deity, there would have been no more harm in calling God by that name than by any other" (359). It must be remembered that after the name of "Zeus," or "Dyaus," = sky, had been adopted, they still retained the conception of the Divine nature and personality, as is evidenced in the words of the oracle of Dodona--"[Greek: Zeùs ên, Zeus éstín, Zeus essetai ô megale Zeu],--He was, He is, He will be, O great Zeus!"

Also (ii. 15) in the Orphic lines--

"Zeus is the beginning, Zeus the middle; Out of Zeus all things have been made."

If we are agreed upon this, then I have no contention with Mr Max Müller; but with Max Müller as an auxiliary, I direct my argument to the attack of Dr Dollinger's position ("The Gentile and the Jew," I. B. ii. p. 64)--"The beginnings of Greek polytheism," viz., "the deification of Nature and her powers, or of particular sensible objects, _lay at the root of all the heathen religions_, as they _existed from old time_, amongst the nations now united under the Roman empire."

According to Mr Lewes ("Hist. of Phil.," i. 44), it was Xenophanes who first confused the sky with the Deity--"Overarching him was the deep blue infinite vault, immovable and unchangeable, embracing him and all things--_that he proclaimed_ to be God." (Contrast the Peruvian tradition, _infra_, p. 304.) St Clement of Alexandria (Strom. v. p. 601, Max Müller, chapter i. p. 366.) says, on the contrary, that Xenophanes maintained that there was but "one God, and that he was not like unto men, either in body or mind."

Take, again, the following passage from Mr Max Müller (p. 107)--"The idea of a young hero, whether he is called _Baldr_, or Sigurd, or Sigrit, or Achilles, or Meleager, or Kephalos, dying in the fulness of youth--a story so frequently told, localised, and individualised--was first suggested by the sun dying in all his youthful vigour, either at the end of a day, conquered by the powers of darkness, or at the end of the sunny season, stung by the thorn of winter."

Here is a myth evidently very widely diffused. Let it be interpreted by what is told us at p. 108--

"_Baldr_, in the Scandinavian Edda, the divine prototype of Sigurd and Sigrit, is beloved by the whole world. Gods and men, the whole of nature, all that grows and lives, had sworn to his mother not to hurt the bright hero. The mistletoe alone, that does not grow on the earth, but on trees, had been forgotten, and with it Baldr was killed at the winter solstice....

Baldr, whom no weapon pierced or clove, But in his breast stood fix'd the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok, _the accuser, gave To Hoder_, and the unwitting Hoder threw; 'Gainst that alone had Baldr's life no charm."

"Thus Infendiyar, in the Persian epic, cannot be wounded by any weapon.... _All these are fragments of solar myths_." One hardly likes to disturb such illusions. Solar myths! well, allow me at least to repeat the history which seems to me so very like this myth. Many centuries ago, in a beautiful garden which a concurrence of tradition places somewhere in Central Asia, a man, the first man of our race, framed according to the "divine prototype," dwelt beloved by the whole world. God and the angels, and the whole of nature--all that grows and lives, were agreed that nothing should do him harm. One fruit or growth alone--the mistletoe it may have been--something that does not grow on the earth, but on trees, was excepted; and it was told to this man, whose name was--but we will not anticipate--that on the day on which he touched this fruit he should die the death. It so came about that the accuser, whom some call the serpent, had previously handed it to his companion, and his unwitting companion gave it to him. He took it, and he died. Against that fatal bough his life had no charm. No weapon pierced or clove him; for Baldr--I should say Adam--was invulnerable, as was Achilles and Meleager, except in one single respect.

I believe that instances might be indefinitely multiplied. I shall content myself, however, with the following, which I think will be generally considered among the happiest illustrations of nature worship.[138]

[138] Granting the tendency to nature-worship, I conclude that the conspicuous luminaries of the heavens would become primary objects of such worship. In amusing illustration of this I remember a friend of mine telling me that he happened to ask a young lad, the son of one of his tenants, who had just returned from a voyage to the Northern seas, how he liked his captain? He said, "Oh, he was an _awful_ man--he swore by the _sun, moon_, and _stars_." Still less do I deny the tendency to sun-worship. It was, as Gibbon tells us (ii. 438, iii. 150), the last superstition Constantine abandoned before his conversion, and the first to which Julian betook himself after his apostacy.

It may, moreover, be urged, that the sun figures in all these legends. I say, on the other hand, so also does the _serpent_. This serpent may be the serpent "of _darkness_," and still be the serpent of _tradition_, but how darkness or night is aptly personified by a serpent I am at a loss to perceive. Then again the sun _may_ always be only the symbol of what is bright and heavenly. But when (Max Müller, ii. 171) we see this serpent Zohak, called by the Persians "by the name of Dehak, _i.e., ten evils_, because he introduced "_ten evils into the world_," we cannot help recalling the profane expressions attributed to the devil when he saw the ten commandments--proscribing the _ten_ evils in question.

"And as it is with this sad and beautiful tale of Orpheus and Euridike (Euridice). [The story of Euridice was this--'Euridice was bitten by _a serpent_, she dies, and descends into the lower regions. Orpheus follows her, and obtains from the gods that his wife should follow him if he promised not to look back, &c.' It reads to me like a sad reminiscence of Adam and Eve.] Mr Max Müller proceeds--'so it is with all those which may seem to you coarse, or dull, or ugly. They are so only because the real meaning of the names has been half-forgotten or wholly lost. OEdipus and Perseus (_vide_ Appendix), we are told, killed their parents, but it was only because the sun was said to kill the darkness from which it seemed to spring.'"[139]

[139] Mr Max Müller may perhaps lay stress upon the circumstance that Baldr dies at the winter solstice. But this equally bears out the tradition noticed by Lenormant, that immediately after the Fall, there came upon the world a great cold. (_Vide supra_, ch. vii.)

But why is darkness called the parent of the sun, and not rather light the parent of darkness? and why not a contrary legend founded on this surmise? Is it merely accidental that the metaphor is not reversed?

Compare the above speculation of Mr Max Müller's with the following passage from Gainet, "Hist. de l'Ancien. Nouv. Test.," i.; "Les Souvenirs du genre Humain," p. 79:--

"Chaos was placed at the commencement of all things in the Phoenician cosmogony (Euseb. Præp. Evan. l. i.), as in that of Hesiod (Theog., p. 5). The latter calls upon the Muses to tell him what were the beings that appeared first in existence, and he replies--'At the commencement of all things was Chaos, and from Chaos was born Erebus and dark night.'

"Thus, in the order of existence, as in the order of time, there is a concurrence of profane tradition to place night before day. This is the reason why the Scandinavians, the Gauls, the Germans, the Kalmucks, the Numidians, the Egyptians, and Athenians, according to Varro and Macrobius, count their days, commencing with sunset and not with sunrise."

Curiously enough, in another chapter on a different subject, Mr Max Müller enables me to clinch this argument against himself. In an article on the "Norsemen in Iceland," he says--in proof of the genuineness of the Edda--"There are passages in the Edda which sound like verses from the Veda." But what are these verses from the ends of the earth which are identical? Let us listen--

"'Twas the _morning_ of _time_ When yet _naught was_, Nor sand nor sea were there, Nor cooling streams; Earth was not formed, Nor _Heaven_ above; A yawning gap there was, And grass nowhere."[140]

[140] From the "Elder Edda." (Quoted from Dr Dasent's "Norsemen in Iceland." Oxford Essays, 1858.)

Under these conditions, I think it will be conceded that there was also darkness--and therefore, that the tradition of the precedence of chaos and darkness is confirmed.

"A hymn," continues Mr Max Müller, "of the Veda begins in a very similar way--

"Nor aught, nor naught existed; yon _bright sky Was not_, nor Heaven's broad roof outstretch'd above, What cover'd all? what shelter'd? what conceal'd? Was it the waters' fathomless abyss?" &c.

Mr Max Müller adds, "There are several mythological expressions common to _the Edda_ and _Homer_. In the Edda, man is said to have been created out of an _ash tree_. In Hesiod, Zeus created the third race of men out of _ash_ trees, and that this tradition was not unknown to Homer we learn from Penelope's address to Ulysses--"Tell me thy family from whence thou art: for thou art not sprung from the olden trees, or from the rocks" (Max Müller, ii. 195).

The tradition about the ash tree in Hesiod, Homer, and the Edda,[141] is curious but inexplicable: the general drift of the tradition may be determined by the recollection of two facts--that man was created, and that a tree was inseparably connected with his history from its earliest commencement. But I have quoted the passage more especially with reference to its confirmation of the extract from Gainet, which attests the wide-spread tradition--so exactly in accordance with the cosmogony of Scripture--that Chaos was at the commencement of all things, and that darkness existed before light.[142] I conclude by asking why this should be? When we are in the midst of solar and astral systems and legends, it seems natural that a theory of cosmogony should commence with light rather than darkness--at least, as well that it should commence with light as with darkness. But no, the universal tradition seems against it. Much more strange is this if we connect the solar and astral legends with any system of Sabaism. These considerations make it plain to me that the solar and astral legends embodied anterior traditions.

[141] What is still more remarkable, the same tradition is found in the "Popol Vul" (Mexican traditions), and as it is there given, fits in still more exactly with the solution I have suggested. It is there said that the _first race_ of men were created "_out the earth_," the third out "_of a tree_ called Tzité."[B] _If_ the "Popol Vul" came under Christian or European influences in the 17th century, it would have been more likely to have been brought into harmony with the Bible, rather than with either Homer, Hesiod, or the Edda. Let us pursue the myth a little further. Mr W. K. Kelly, "Indo-Europ. Tradition and Folklore" (_vide_ Max Müller, ii. 197) says, "This healing virtue, which the mistletoe shares with the _ash_, is a long descended tradition, for the Kushtha ... a healing plant, was one that grew beneath the _heavenly Asvattha_," which is elsewhere called "the imperishable Asvattha or Peepul (_Ficus religiosus_), out of which the immortals shaped the heaven and the earth," which legend Mr Kelly further traces in the German Yggdrasil (although Mr Max Müller from his own point of view dissents); at the foot of which tree (p. 207) "lies the serpent Nidhöggr, and gnaws its roots." Neither Mr Max Müller nor Mr Kelly discuss the point with reference to the view suggested above.

[B] _Tiki_ was the great progenitor among New Zealanders.--_Shortland_, p. 56.

[142] Gen. i. 1, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth. 2. And the earth was void and empty, and _darkness was_ upon the face _of the deep_; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. 5. And He called the light day and the darkness night; and there was _evening_ and morning one day."

In addition to the instances adduced by Gainet, it will be remembered that the Jewish sabbath was from evening to evening, and with us the astronomical day commences at noon, and the commencement and termination of the civil day at mean midnight.

In the _second_ [Chinese] dynasty the day commenced at mid-day. Wei-Wang, the founder of the _third_ dynasty, fixed it at midnight." (Bunsen's "Egypt," vol. iii. p. 390.)

In the Phoenician cosmogony "the beginning of all was a dark and stormy atmosphere," "thick, unfathomable black chaos." (_Vide_ Bunsen's "Egypt," iv. 176.)

The New Zealanders have preserved the tradition with still greater distinctness. "In the _beginning of time_ was Te Po (the night or darkness). In the generations that followed Te Po came Te Ao (the light)" &c., &c. (_Vide_ Shortland's "Traditions of the New Zealanders," p. 55.)

_Vide_ Gladstone, "Homer," ii. 155; Cox, "Mythology of Aryan Nations," i. 15, on the relation of Phoibos to Leto. "This is precisely the relation in which the _mythical night_ stood to the day which was to be born of _her_."

_Vide_ on this point Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians" (I. chap. xiii.) "The Mygale," says Champollion, "received divine honours by the Egyptians, because it is blind, and _darkness is more ancient than light_." The Arabs have the expression "_night and day_" (_vide_ Wilkinson). Aristotle says "The theologians consider all things to have been born of night." The Orphean fragments call "night the Genesis of all things.... The Anglo-Saxons also, like the Eastern nations, began their computations of time from night, and the years from that day corresponding with our Christmas, which they called "Mother Night," and the Otaheitans refer the existence of their principal deities to a state of darkness, which they consider the origin of all things." (_Vide_ Gen. i. 2, 3; _id._ p. 273-4.)

I think Mr Max Müller will at least recognise them as spots on the disk of his solar theory, and which must ever remain obscure to those who refuse the light of Scripture and tradition.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII.

"OEDIPUS, PERSEUS."

Here again, the explanation of Mr Max Müller, "si non vrai est vraisemblable," and yet I cannot help seeing that the legends of Perseus and [OE]dipus may just as well be supposed to embody primitive tradition. Let us read the histories of OEdipus and Perseus in the light of the tradition concerning Lamech (Gen. iv. 23, 24). "And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah ... I have slain a man to the wounding of myself, and a stripling to my own bruising. Sevenfold vengeance shall be taken for Cain, but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold." The note to the Douay edition says--"It is the tradition of the Hebrews that Lamech, in hunting, slew Cain, mistaking him for a wild beast, and that having discovered what he had done, he beat so unmercifully the youth by whom he was led into that mistake that he died of the blows." OEdipus was the son of Laius, who had supplanted his brother. OEdipus was exposed to destruction as soon as born, because his father had been warned that he must perish by the hand of his son,--but was rescued and brought up by shepherds. Hearing from the oracle of Delphi (the tradition is of course localised), that if he returned home he must necessarily be the murderer of his father, he avoided the house of Polybus, the only home he knew of, and travelled towards Phocis (from west to east by the by). (Comp. with _infra_, p. 194.) He met Laius, his father, in a narrow road. Laius haughtily ordered OEdipus to make way for him, which provoked an encounter, in which Laius and his armour-bearer were slain. Other circumstances, either separate traditions of the same event, or distinct legends, are no doubt mixed up in the narration, but still four facts remain as a residuum available for the comparison.

OEdipus was the son, as Lamech was the grandson, of one who supplanted his brother, both kill their respective progenitors, and in the _casual_ encounter in which in both instances the tragedy occurred, _two_ persons were slain. In this there is a fair outline of resemblance.

In the legend of Perseus, certainly the legend is more indistinct, et, in one point, that he inadvertently killed his _grandfather_, the coincidence is perfect. And it must be borne in mind that it is not a question of absolute but of comparative resemblance--in fact, a choice between a mythical or an historical, an astral or a scriptural solution, and when you come to degrees of relationship, the astral or solar explanation becomes more attenuated at each remove,--"the father of the sun" may be metaphorically intelligible, but the grandfather of the sun!

I see further trace of the tradition of Lamech in the Phrygian legend of Adrastus, somewhat confused in the tradition of Cain, and in some points reversed. Adrastus, the son of the Phrygian king, had _inadvertently killed_ his brother, and was in consequence expelled by his father and deprived of everything. Whilst an exile at the court of Croesus, he was sent out with Prince Atys as guardian to deliver the country from a wild boar. Adrastus had the misfortune to kill Prince Atys while aiming at the wild beast. Croesus pardoned the unfortunate man, as he saw in this accident the will of the gods, and _the fulfilment of a prophecy_, but Adrastus killed himself on the tomb of Atys (Herod. i. 35; Smith, "Myth. Dict.")

Now let us take up the proof at another point. Will any one refuse to see in the following tale from the "Gesta Romanorum,"[143] at least a mediæval corruption of the legend of OEdipus:--"A certain soldier, called Julian, unwittingly killed his parents. For being of noble blood, and addicted as a youth frequently is to the sports of the field, a stag which he hotly pursued suddenly turned round and addressed him--'Thou who pursuest me thus fiercely shall be the destruction of thy parents.' These words greatly alarmed Julian.... Leaving, therefore, his amusement, he went privately into a distant country ... where he marries. It chances that his parents come into that country, and in his absence were received kindly by his wife, who, 'in consideration of the love she bore her husband, put them into her own bed, and commanded another to be prepared elsewhere for herself.' In the meantime, Julian returning abruptly home and discovering strangers in his bed, in a fit of passion slays them. When he discovers the parricidal crime he exclaims--'This accursed hand has murdered my parents and fulfilled the horrible prediction which I have struggled to avoid.'"

[143] "Gesta Romanorum," tale xviii. Swan. Rivingtons 1824.

Now, I submit that this is not a greater distortion of the classical stories of OEdipus, Adrastus, &c., than are the classical legends of the biblical traditions of Cain and Lamech.

For further trace read Bunsen, iv. 235, also, 253, 254. Mr Cox ("Mythology of Aryan Nations") says:--"_The names Theseus_, _Perseus_, _Oidipous, had all been mere epithets_ of one and the same being; but when they ceased to be mere appellatives, these creations of mythical speech were regarded not only as different persons, but as beings in no way connected with each other.... Nay, the legends inter-change the method by which the parents seek the death of their children; for there were tales which narrated that Oidipous was shut up in an ark which was washed ashore at Sikyon," p. 80. Sicyon was the oldest Greek city. Compare p. 157 of this ch., and ch. on Deluge. This was merely the traditional record that the tradition was preserved in the Ark, and subsequently emanated from Sicyon.

II. PROMETHEUS AND HERCULES OR HERAKLES.

I have elsewhere (p. 202) alluded to the confusion of Prometheus, as the creator of man, with Prometheus, the first man created. But the most curious instance of reduplication is the further confusion of what I may call the human Prometheus, with his deliverer Hercules,--Hercules and Prometheus both in different ways embodying traditions of Adam! Prometheus is the Adam[144] of Paradise and the Fall, Hercules is Adam the outcast from Paradise, with his skin and club sent forth on his long labours and marches through the world. But how can Hercules, who frees Prometheus from the rock, be the same as Prometheus who is bound to the rock? If, however, we are entitled to hope that Adam in the labour of his long exile worked off the sentence and expiated the guilt on account of which Adam, the culprit, was sentenced, may we not accept this as an adequate explanation? Is it a forced figure that he should be said to unbind him from the rock, to drive off the vulture which preys upon him, and thus finally liberate him?

[144] On this point, that Prometheus is Adam, _vide_ M. Nicolas' "Etudes Philos. sur le Christ.," 1. ii. ch. v. 30 (19th edit.)

This disjunction of Adam and separate personification in the two periods of his life, _before_ and _after_ the Fall, will accord well enough with the addition in some legends of a brother Epimetheus, and I submit that this explanation is as good as that (_vide_ Smith's "Myth. Dict.") which regards the legend as purely allegorical, and _Pro_metheus and _Epi_metheus as signifying "forethought" and "afterthought."

The travels of Hercules, it must be confessed, as traditionally recorded, are somewhat eccentric. But are they explicable on any solar theory? He begins by travelling from _west_ to east; he then proceeds _south_, and although he traverses Africa westward, he diverges abruptly to the _north_, from which he proceeds south, and ends as he began by travelling from _west_ to east. All this, however, is perfectly explicable if we are prepared to admit Bryant's ("Mythology,"