vow meant nothing more than these commentators suppose, surely his daughter need not have asked for two months in which to bewail her maidenhood, for she might have done that all the rest of her life. Moreover, we should have absolutely no explanation of her father's agony at their meeting, and of that festival at which the people sang of her for four days every year. But the whole question is in fact decided by the vow itself, which admits of no mistake: "I will dedicate to Yahweh, and offer as a burnt sacrifice, the first person1 who comes to meet me." Nothing can be clearer than this. He promises a human sacrifice.

After what we have already learned of Israel's religion, we shall hardly be surprised at this. We need only refer to what was said with reference to Abraham's intention of sacrificing Isaac.2 Indeed, we are quite unable to reverence the ancient Israelites as men of extraordinary piety and goodness. They were rude and uncivilized in the highest degree, and were still at a very low stage of religious development. Even those heroes by whose arm the people were rescued from their foes. and who performed their exploits in the name of Yahweh, were very far indeed from realizing our idea of piety. Besides, Jephthah stands lower than Deborah or even Gideon, for he would not gird himself to battle for his people until they had solemnly promised to make him prince of Gilead.

As for the sacrifice of human beings to Yahweh, the story of Jephthah not only shows us unmistakably that such a thing did from time to time take place, but also indicates the point of view from which we must regard it, if we wish to be fair to the Israelites. It arose from their belief that the deity might be persuaded, by promises, to accomplish the worshipper's desires. A person holding this belief- and in ancient times it was universal- might rise step by step, until at last he promised to offer up the most precious of all things a human life. However horrible it may seem, it was the necessary consequence of a false principle. We can, therefore, understand not only that people admired the daughter- who submitted so courageously to her fate, and was content that her life should be the price paid for the victory — but also that they praised the father for keeping his word. It was not every one who was so scrupulous. A man would often make a vow like Jephthah's, and then, when the time had come for payment, would draw back, and substitute something else for that which he had promised. This was called "redeeming," 2 Chap. xviii. p. 143.

1 After an amended version.

and was practised by some more freely than by others. Finally, when manners had grown gentler, and human sacrifices were banished from the worship of Yahweh, these redemptions were regulated by the Law. But, in the time of the judges, the old rule was still in force, that a human being, dedicated by a vow to Yahweh, must be sacrificed to him, and might not be redeemed. From this point of view, it seemed to argue disobedience and laxity if any one shrank from the strict fulfilment of his vow.

So far, then, we must honor Jephthah, for he would not break the commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh on a lie;" and kept his vow. In that frightful sacrifice that he performed-breaking the holiest domestic ties we do but see the disastrous results of a mistaken faith.

CHAPTER XX.

SAMSON.

JUDGES XIII.-XVI.

AMONG all peoples who have begun to issue from a state

of ignorance and barbarism, and to reach a higher stage of religion than that of the rudest and lowest fetichism,2 we find indications of the worship of Nature and of the various heavenly bodies; first of the moon and then of the sun. And since the ancients were in the habit of throwing their religious thoughts and emotions into the form of stories or myths, we meet almost everywhere with "solar myths," or stories in which the sun appears as a person. His rising and setting, his fostering power in the spring, his consuming heat in the summer, and his failing strength in the autumn are described as the birth, the conflicts, the triumph, the defeat, and the death of a hero. Feasts were held in many countries at various seasons of the year in honor of the sun, or rather of the solar deity or sun-god. After the longest day, for instance, there was a time of lamentation, because the days began to grow shorter, and a day of rejoicing after the shortest, because they then began to lengthen again. Sometimes lamentations for the death of the setting 2 See pp. 175, 176.

1 Leviticus xxvii.

sun were immediately followed by rejoicings over his return to life. As a rule, the women more especially celebrated these feasts with passionate earnestness, and sang dirges such as, "Alas! the lord of the earth, the giver of life, is dead, slain by his enemies!" or cried, "Rejoice! the world receives new life, for her deliverer, the fountain of joy, is born!"

Many ancient solar myths have come down to us, but never in the original forms. This is only natural, for these myths are poetical effusions rather than precise descriptions, and though their main features may long remain unaltered, the details must be constantly changing. Moreover, when they were at last put into writing, it was by men who no longer retained the old simplicity of faith in them, and who, therefore, dissected and endeavored to explain them, and treated them more or less euhemeristically. Thus the sun-god became a king, a priest, a hero, or a hunter, at the pleasure of the writer or to suit the habits of the people.

1

To take an example: The Egyptian Osiris was represented as a king of primeval times who not only fought against barbarism within his own domains, but journeyed through the world to spread the blessings of civilization everywhere. During his absence his wife and sister Isis carried on the government in the spirit of her absent lord. But Set or Typhon, the brother of Osiris, longed to restore the former state of lawless violence; so he conspired with a number of the nobles to murder king Osiris. To accomplish his design he had recourse to stratagem. He made a splendid chest, exactly fitting his brother's body, and then invited him, together with the conspirators, to a banquet, and offered to make a present of the chest to the man whom it should be found to fit. Hardly had Osiris got into it when the lid was clapped upon it, and the chest securely fastened and thrown into the Nile. It was carried away by the stream and across the sea to the Phoenician city of Byblus, where it was caught in the branches of a tree; and there it remained until at last the bark grew over it. Meanwhile Isis was wandering about the world, with her sister Nephtis, seeking her lost husband and lamenting him. At last she found the chest that contained his body, in front of the palace of the king of Byblus, inside the tree, which the king had felled, intending to make a column out of it. Then she returned, rejoicing, with her treasure. But in the joy of meeting her son Horos, she 1 See pp. 105, 106.

neglected for a moment to keep watch over the chest, and Typhon found it, opened it, took out the body, cut it into fourteen pieces, and scattered them over the land. But Isis succeeded in finding every one of the pieces, and she buried each where she found it. Then Horos fell upon Typhon, to avenge his father, took him prisoner, and gave him over to his mother's care. But she allowed him to escape, and Horos, after severely reproving her, attacked his enemy twice and completely defeated him. Thenceforth Horos reigned over Egypt, while Osiris became ruler of the world of the dead.

The significance of the actors in this story is for the most part obvious. Osiris is the beneficent and fructifying sun, Isis the earth, and Typhon or Set the scorching heat, the cause of all material ill. This destructive sun-god conquers his beneficent brother and compels him to conceal himself; but Horos, the beaming sun, the successor and representative of Osiris, conquers Set, in his turn, and blesses the earth. Many traits in the story, however, are difficult to explain, the passage, for instance, of the body of Osiris to Byblus. On the other hand we can easily guess the origin of the fourteen pieces into which the dead Osiris was cut. His worship was celebrated in many parts of Egypt, and was essentially the same everywhere. There were many places, therefore, in which his death was celebrated with lamentations and the grave of the good god pointed out. It was to explain this fact that the body was divided in the legend into so many parts. This example will suffice to show what a mistake it would be to suppose that the story as we have it is the original myth itself. It is only a legend founded upon it.

The same remark applies to all the solar myths that have come down to us. Thus we find a legend in Syria of Adonis, the beautiful youth that was slain by a wild boar when hunting, and thenceforth spent four months of the year in the lower world and eight upon the earth; a legend in Greece, of Herakles (Hercules), who performed twelve great labors, and then died on a funeral pyre and rose to heaven; in Phoenicia, of Baal, the ancient king, whose tomb was pointed out in so many places; in Babylonia, of Thammuz, the prophet, put to death by the king for trying to induce him to worship the stars. On his death, we are told, the image of the sun in the temple of Bel told the images of the gods which had gathered there from all the ends of the earth what had happened. Among the Norse-men we find the legend of Balder the good god, who was murdered by Loki, — but all these stories, and

many more, though originally solar myths, have been more or less transformed by those who put them into writing.

Sun-worship was by no means unknown to the Israelites, and was still more prevalent among the Canaanites. There were two places in the country, one in Dan1 and the other in Naphtali, called Beth-shemesh or Ir-shemesh, that is "house of the sun 66 or city of the sun," and the deity worshipped under the names of Baal and Molech was really no other than the sun. We do not know whether the name of the Danite city Beth-shemesh was of Canaanite or Israelite origin. The question is of no great consequence, however, for in this neighborhood the old and the new inhabitants soon became very friendly with each other, and before long all distinction between them was lost, though the population was still mainly composed of Danite and Judæan Israelites. The myths that were circulated amongst these people show that they were zealous worshippers of the sun. These myths are still preserved, but, as in all other cases, they are so much altered as to be hardly recognizable. The writer who has preserved them for us lived at a time when the worship of the sun had long ago died out. He transforms the sun-god into an Israelite hero who chastises the hereditary enemies of his nation terribly, but at last is conquered by them and dies, though not unavenged.

66

The legends to which I refer are those of Samson, for a solar myth doubtless lies at the bottom of them, as we may see by the very name of the hero himself, which signifies 'sun-god." In some of the features of the story the original meaning may still be traced quite clearly, but in others the myth can no longer be recognized. The exploits of some Danite hero, such as Shamgar (who "slew six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad "4) have been woven into it; the whole has been remodelled after the ideas of the prophets of later ages, and finally it has been fitted into the framework of the period of the judges, as conceived by the writer of the book called after them.

It would delay us far too long were we to attempt to explain, point by point, the origin of all the stories about Samson. We must content ourselves with giving the legends themselves, only adding here and there a hint as to their meaning.

When the Israelites had given themselves up to all manner

1 Joshua xv. 10.
2 Joshua xix. 38.
4 Judges iii. 31.

1 Samuel vi. 9 ff.
Judges i. 33.

1 Kings iv. 9.
8 Compare p. 318.