The Agâdâ in many places gives names to persons who are mentioned in the Bible without name; and these names have frequently so antique a stamp, that we cannot suppose them to be due to the capricious invention of the Agadists.[[87]] I believe that when these names appear justified by internal evidence (i.e. when they show themselves quite fitting to the nature of the myth), they may be ancient and important for mythological inquiry. Of course we must not be ruled by excessive optimism, nor ever forget the freedom with which the Agadic fancy rules in its own sphere.[[88]] The same may be said also of the identifications, of which the Agadists are very fond, and of the genealogical statements, which, though deserving little attention from the historical point of view, may have their origin in an old myth. So e.g. the Targûm on I Sam. XVII. 4 calls Samson the father of Goliath.[[89]] Now Goliath is the giant whom ‘the reddish hero with fine face’ overcomes by throwing stones; in other words, the Sun-hero throws stones at the monster of the storm. Thus the myth may very well say that the Sun (Samson) is the father of this hostile giant of the night, just as the Sun in various forms frequently appears in the character of father or mother of the Night.
It is easily intelligible how difficult it must be to determine the mythological value of every such statement; and we have consequently made very scanty use of this source. It might be relatively safer to use them when they speak not merely of names and genealogies, but of actual stories. The Abram-story especially has preserved in its Agadic form much matter from ancient myths, the valuation of which by B. Beer, in a lucid compilation on this very portion of the Agâdâ,[[90]] is easily accessible. So e.g. the battle of Abram against Nimrod, which the myth-investigator must take as the contest between the Nightly heaven and the Sun, is known only from the Agâdâ; the Scripture says not a word of it. For the solar character of Nimrod, which is however independently clear from the Biblical statements, the Agâdâ has again preserved a valuable datum, viz. that 365 kings (equal to the days of the solar year) appear ministering to him.[[91]] This is the same conception of the myth as that Enoch, of whom again the solar event of the Ascension is preserved only in tradition, lived 365 years; or that Helios had herds of 350 cattle (7 herds of 50 each); and that in the Veda the Sun-god is blessed with 720 twin children, i.e. 360 days and nights,[[92]] and that his chariot is drawn by seven horses, i.e. the seven days of the week.[[93]]
The Agâdâ, again, has preserved the following mythical expression, which Professor Schwartz interprets in this sense:[[94]] ‘Abraham was in possession of a precious stone which he wore round his neck all his life; when he died, God took the stone and hung it on the Sun.’[[95]] As has been fully proved with regard to Aryan mythology, especially by Schwartz and Kuhn, the myth calls the sunshine and other luminous bodies stones in general, or more specifically precious stones.[[96]] By night, as long as Abraham (the nightly heaven) lives, he bears the precious stone himself; when the night dies, God takes this stone (the moonlight) and hangs it on the sun.
How cautiously we must proceed in the mythological application of the Agâdâ, is obvious to all who know the nature and origin of the Agâdâ and the Agadic collections. I will adduce one other example to show how easily one might be led astray by yielding too trustingly and unconditionally to the temptation to employ this source in the interpretation of myths.
In the course of our investigations, it will become certain that Jacob belongs to the series of mythical figures which are connected with the nightly heaven. How easily would this conception be disturbed, if we were to accord to all the Agâdâ an absolute voice among the sources of Hebrew mythical investigation! For there it is said in reference to Gen. XXVIII. 11: ‘He (Jacob) reached that place and passed the night there, for the sun was come (kî bhâ hash-shemesh), i.e. had set.’ On this the Agadist Chaggî of Sephoris remarks, 'This sentence indicates that Jacob, when he was in Bethel, heard the welcoming voices of the angels: "The Sun is come, the Sun is come," i.e. Jacob himself. Many years later, when Jacob’s son Joseph told his father the dream in which an allusion is made to Jacob as if he were the Sun (XXXVII. 9, 10), Jacob thought to himself, ‘Who has informed my son that my name is Sun?’[[97]]
I must point out one other peculiarity in this part of the subject. Sometimes the Agadists utilise mythological elements, by supplementing the old mythic tradition with something added by themselves, based on some one of their hermeneutic principles, but which could not possibly be also a portion of the old myth. An example will elucidate this. We will not lay down dogmatically, nor on the other hand dispute the possibility, that the name Bileʿâm Balaam is mythical. It signifies ‘the Devourer,’ and has consequently been identified for centuries with the Arabic Loḳmân, which has the same meaning.[[98]] Accordingly Balaam would originally have been a name of the monster which devours the sun. It is not uncommon in mythology to find wisdom, cunning and prudence attributed to the powers hostile to the sun. Hence the serpent appears in the myth endowed with wisdom. This justifies Balaam’s character as sage and prophet; the serpent delivers oracles, or is οἰωνός.[[99]] Balaam is son of Beʿôr, or ‘the Shining’—a mythical expression which often occurs when the darkness is described as springing from the daylight; and the Agâdâ may be using mythic elements in identifying this Beʿôr with Lâbhân ‘the White.’[[100]] So this myth, like many others, would then have been nationalised by the influence of factors, which will be fully described in the Seventh Chapter. The Devourer of the Sun became a Devourer of the Hebrew people, just as the Sun-hero became the Hebrew national hero. Personations of the storms are often exhibited in mythology as lame and limping.[[101]] This feature, which is not ascribed to Balaam in the Bible, is found in the Agâdâ, which says, Bileʿâm chiggêr beraglô achath hâyâ, ‘Balaam was lame of one foot.’ So far all is regular. But then follows, Shimshôn chiggêr bishtê raglâw hâyâ, ‘Samson was lame of both feet’[[102]]—a feature which does not suit the Sun-hero. We must consider that this latter is an inference drawn by the Agâdâ in virtue of one of its hermeneutic principles, thus: Balaam’s lameness is attached to the word shephî, ‘hill, high place,’ Num. XXIII. 3; the word shephîphôn, ‘serpent,’ Gen. XLIX. 17 (in the declaration concerning Dan, which the Agadists take as referring to Samson the Danite), must according to the Agadists’ hermeneutics express by its form a doubling of the notion conveyed by shephî.[[103]]
Thus only what is said about Balaam could possibly belong to the old myth; what is said about Samson is late Agadic induction, which has no importance whatever for mythology.
CHAPTER III.
THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATING HEBREW MYTHS.
§ 1. The method of investigation is intended to discover—how the original myth is to be reached through the sources described in the preceding chapter, how the primitive germ of the myth is to be freed from the husk which in the course of its growth has been formed around it, and further how the progress and lapse of this growth itself are to be recognised. Then we shall be enabled to determine how stratum upon stratum has fastened itself round the original myth until it reached that configuration which is the concrete material of our investigation. The development of the myth in any nation is mainly determined by two factors, which give to this development the direction actually taken. One group of these factors is psychological, the other belongs to the history of civilisation.[[104]] The psychological factors in the development of all myths are the same, not changing with the special character of the people whose myths form the subject of our consideration. For the same general laws everywhere determine the life of the soul; no difference in them is introduced by the ethnological life and the peculiarity of race of the people in question. There is a psychology of mankind, or as it was called when Lazarus introduced the science, a Psychology of Nations (Völkerpsychologie). This is not a contemplation of the modes in which the intellectual life of various nations exhibits itself as acting in opposite directions, but of the modes in which the same laws find their expression and validity in the intellectual life of the most various nations. But there is no special psychology of races. On the other hand, the factors belonging to the history of civilisation are not everywhere alike, but are as various as the historical fates of the nations among themselves are various. We shall subsequently come back to the subject to show more fully that myths share in the historical vicissitudes of their nation, that they are always transformed in accordance with the stages of civilisation which the nation itself passes through in its historical development, and that accordingly the configuration of the myth is a faithful mirror of the stage of civilisation at which it has taken this particular configuration. Obviously therefore, we can duly estimate the myth through all its stages of development only in connexion with a comprehensive view over the historical development of the civilisation of the nation itself. And to gain this view we must especially attend to those phenomena which might produce an altered direction of the mind, and thus impress a new form on the myth also. But as in the methodical observation of the intellectual development of a nation in the course of its history psychological points of view must again occupy the foreground, we may assert that psychological observation must take up a prominent position in the method of mythological investigation; for the question will always be, What transformation does this or that historical vicissitude produce in that which makes up the sum of the human mind? The answer will however evidently turn out different according to the nature of these historical vicissitudes. But there is one special step of transformation which stands earlier than and in no connexion with the separate history of the nation, and is produced by a purely psychological operation. This transformation is therefore common to all myths—so much so that most inquirers, and especially Max Müller, make the life of the myth to begin only at this stage.