Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development

The Egyptian animal-worship, indeed animal-worship in general, can only be traced back to mythical conceptions, which, when the myth passed into theology and the true understanding of it became rare and then ceased altogether, gained a new meaning quite different from the original. Animal-worship is accordingly one of the sources for the discovery of mythological facts. This is especially the case with the Egyptian animal-worship, which, as Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride, c. VIII.) says of the religion of the Egyptians, is founded par excellence on αἰτία φυσική, since the same impulse which is reflected in the figurative portion of the Hieroglyphic system of writing led the Egyptians to employ animals in mythology with equal profuseness. Thus, e.g. the often discussed Cat-worship of the Egyptians is traced back to one point of their Solar myth. The old Egyptian myth unquestionably called the Sun the Cat; of which a clear trace is left in the XVIIth chapter of the Book of the Dead.[750] Like the Sun, says Horapollo, the pupil of the cat’s eye grows larger with the advance of day, till at noon it is quite round; after which it gradually decreases again. The Egyptian myth imagined a great cat behind the Sun, which is the pupil of the cat’s eye. In the later Edda (I. 96, Gylf. 24) also Freya is said to drive out with two cats to draw her car.

In the above-quoted chapter of the Book of the Dead, which Brugsch, who cites the passage of Horapollo, analyses in an interesting essay,[751] it is frequently said that the cat is frightened by a scorpion which approaches on the vault of heaven, intending to block the way of the cat and cover its body with dirt. Brugsch identifies the scorpion with Sin; but to me it seems more probable that we have here an echo of the old myth of the Cat, i.e. a Solar myth, in which the Sun does battle against the Dragon or serpentine monster that obscures or devours him. Instead of the mythical expression, that Darkness covers up the Sun, it is said here that ‘The Dragon of storms or night covers the Cat’s body with dirt.’

I mention here this important argument affecting the origin of animal-worship, not on account of the Cat, but in order to point to an element of the Egyptian animal-worship which hangs together with the mythical mode of regarding the Sun which has been more fully worked out in the text—that he sinks into the water in the evening, so as to come to land again in the morning. It is well known that in many parts of Egypt the Crocodile enjoyed divine honours. Now this worship appears to be connected with the fact that in the above respect the Crocodile is, so to speak, a mythological hieroglyph of the Sun, and doubtless figured in the Solar myth as a designation of the Sun. The Crocodile passes the greater part of the day on the dry land, and the night in the water. Herodotus (II. 68) says, τὸ πολλὸν τῆς ἡμέρης δίατριβει ἐν τῷ ξηρῷ, τὴν δὲ νύκτα πᾶσαν ἐν τῷ ποταμῷ. Plutarch shows admirable tact, especially in his sober intelligence in relation to the mythical use made of living creatures that abide in the water or grow up out of it, and consequently understands the relation of the Lotus-flower to the Sun in this sense: οὕτως ἀνατολὴν ἡλίου γράφουσι τὴν ἐξ ὑγρῶν ἡλίου γινομένην ἄναψιν αἰνιττόμενοι (De Iside et Osiride, c. XI.). Yet in treating of the Crocodile he strangely heaps hypothesis upon hypothesis (ibid. c.

LXXV.), and exhibits superior insight only in so far as he endeavours to find in the nature of the Crocodile the origin of the worship paid to it, whereas Diodorus is satisfied with the utilitarian explanation that the Crocodile keeps robbers at a distance from the Nile (I. 89). But on this point he does not, as on many others, hit the nail on the head.

The reverse of the Crocodile-worship is that of the Ichneumon in the country now called Fayûm. According to the classical reporters, this animal was sacred to Buto, who was identified with the Leto of the Greeks. Now Max Müller (Chips etc. II. p. 80) has convincingly proved Leto or Latona to be one of the names of the Night. The Ichneumon, accordingly, is likewise a mythical designation of the Night in its relation to the Sun (Cat, Crocodile); for the special characteristic of the Ichneumon, with which the worship paid to it is connected, is its peculiar hostility to cats and crocodiles.

The part played by the Cow also in animal-worship must be traced back to the Solar myth as its primary origin. It is well known that one of the very commonest appellations of the Sun in mythology is this—the Cow. The Sun’s rays are described as the Cow’s milk; especially in the Vedas this is one of the most familiar conceptions. The worship of the Scarabeus among the Egyptians must also be based on a close connexion with the Solar myth, although the point of attachment to that mythological group is not obvious in this case to us, who are so far removed from the mythical mind. However, even Plutarch[752] endeavours to discover some point of similarity which might serve as tertium comparationis, and finds it in the Scarabeus’ mode of generation.

The animal-worship was not based upon any experience of the usefulness or hurtfulness of the animals, but always stands in close connexion with the Solar myth, of which it is only a theological and liturgical development. This is most conspicuously evident from the fact that, besides real existing animals, there were also imaginary ones that received divine honours, and played a very prominent part, as, for example, the Phenix. But this word also is only an ancient mythical designation of the Sun. The Phenix is ‘a winged animal with red and golden feathers;’[753] a description of the Sun from the mythical point of view, as must be sufficiently obvious from what was expounded on p. 116. The Phenix comes every five hundred years—at the end of each great Solar period. When the myth-creating stage had been overpassed, and the name Phenix disappeared from the inventory of names of the Sun, the word, surviving the myth itself, and the remains of a misunderstood mythical conception attached to the word, might produce the superstition of the real existence of the bird Phenix. And it is these very remains that permit and render possible the reconstruction of the mythical significance.[754] Even religious usages may have their source in the ancient mythical circle of ideas. From Herodotus we learn that the Egyptians were forbidden to sacrifice or eat the Cow, but that the Ox was not so protected.[755] This is closely connected with mythical ideas.

To the Cow, whose milk and horns are the mythical representatives of the rays, whether of the Sun or of the Moon, extensive divine veneration could more naturally be paid than to the Ox, who less perfectly exhibits what the myth tells of the Sun, inasmuch as he has not the milk; and the veneration would naturally carry with it the idea, that it was forbidden either to kill or to eat of the sacred animal.