[47] I. Samuel, xvii., 4; Josephus and some MSS. of the Septuagint read four cubits and a span.
[48] As in so much of their speculation, the members of the astral school have here mixed valuable suggestions with pure theorizing. Certain numbers were specially sacred among the Babylonians and were employed as divine names. Sin, the Moon-god, for example, was the god "Thirty," from the conventional length of the lunar month; and the gods "Four" and "Seven" may have represented different aspects of the Moon-god, the former the four phases of the moon, the latter the seven-day week as a lunar quarter. If the idea travelled westward, we obtain a satisfactory explanation of such Palestinian names as Kiriath-arba and Be'er-sheba'. For this subject, see especially Prof. Burney's forthcoming work on "Judges" (see above, [p. 290] n. 3), p. 43 f. Discussions are there given of other points illustrated by the Babylonian texts, of which special mention may be made of the exhaustive notes on Yahwe (pp. 243 ff.) and the Ashera (pp. 196 ff.), and the valuable section> on early Hebrew poetry.
[49] Ovid, Fasti, IV., 679 ff.; and cf. Frazer, "Spirits of the Corn," I., p. 297 f.
[50] See Burney, op. cit., additional note on "The mythical element in the story of Samson."
[51] See "Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur" (Strassburg, 1906).
[52] "Studien zur Odyssée" in the "Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft," 1910, Hefte 2-4; 1911, Heft 4.
[53] The fifty-two noble youths, for example, whom Alcinous entrusts with the task of preparing the ship and escorting Odysseus homewards may correspond to the fifty-two weeks of the year, sun-heroes who accompany the sun on his voyage through the year. In the challenge of Euryalus to Odysseus and the latter's triumph in the discus-throwing, we are to see a glimmer of the old light-myth. The dance of Halius and Laodamas, with the purple ball which Polybus made for them, again symbolizes the battle of light, the colour of the ball being specially significant. Indeed, there are few limits to be placed to this system of astrological interpretation, since, according to Dr. Fries, even lawn-tennis goes back to the same idea: he remarks that "ailes Ballspiel ja bis herab zum Lawn-Tennis auf denselben Gedanken [der Lichtkampf] zurückgeht" ("Studien zur Odyssée," i., p. 324).
[54] One point, at which the colouring is said to be peculiarly Babylonian, is the prophecy that death shall come to Odysseus from the sea; for this is traced to the Babylonian legend of Oannes, the benefactor of mankind, who ever returns to the sea from which he rose, but here, too, Odysseus is the god of heaven who sinks at the approach of night.
[55] With regard to its application to the Hebrew narratives, the "Church Quarterly" reviewer of Dr. Jeremias' work (see above, [p. 304], n. 1**) points out the resemblance between this procedure and Philo's method of interpretation.
[56] In 1870 the same plan was adopted to discredit Professor Max Müller's theory of the Solar Myth. The demonstration, though humorous (since its subject was the professor himself), constituted a legitimate form of criticism, and it has been borrowed by Dr. Kugler, the Dutch astronomer, and applied to the astral theory. For the astral theory is in essence the old Solar Myth revived and grafted on to a Babylonian stem. In his book "Im Bannkreis Babels" (1910), Dr. Kugler selects at random the historical figure of Louis IX. of France, and has no difficulty in demonstrating by astral methods that the extant records of his life and reign are full of solar and astral motifs.