Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 1: Essays on the Science of ReligionMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 1: Essays on the Science of Religion
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
'Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the
waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of
the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name, if
thou canst tell?'
It has been shown by ample evidence from the Rig-veda how many mythes
were suggested to the Aryan world by various names of the dawn, the
day-spring of life. The language of the ancient Aryans of India had
thrown out many names for that heavenly apparition, and every name, as
it ceased to be understood, became, like a decaying seed, the germ of
an abundant growth of mythe and legend. Why should not the same have
happened to the Semitic names for the dawn? Simply and solely because
the Semitic words had no tendency to phonetic corruption; simply and
solely because they continued to be felt as appellatives, and would
inevitably have defeated every attempt at mythological phraseology
such as we find in India and Greece. When the dawn is mentioned in the
Book of Job (ix. 11), it is God 'who commandeth the sun and it riseth
not, and sealeth up the stars.' It is His power which causeth the
day-spring to know its place, that it might take hold of the ends of
the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it (Job xxxviii. 12,
13; Renan, 'Livre de Job,' pref. 71). Shahar, the dawn, never becomes
an independent agent; she is never spoken of as Eos rising from the
bed of her husband Tithonos (the setting sun), solely and simply
because the word retained its power as an appellative, and thus could
not enter into any mythological metamorphosis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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