chapter I
will again revert to the same region of legend, to show how national animosity can operate in transforming old materials down to the latest times, in which new legends can scarcely be still created. Firdôsî gives the national legends of the contests with Tûrân, formed from the myths. But the lately roused antagonism of the Persians to the Arabs, who had become the dominant power and were extinguishing Iranism, also finds expression in the form which he imparts to the legends. On reading his description of the behaviour of the Arabian ambassadors at the court of Ferîdûn, we observe that the legend here takes a tone of hostility to the Arabs, and criticises the dark side of the Arabian national character; and the sufferings of Irej, the ancestor of the Iranians, are intended to be a type of the subjugation and vicissitudes of the Iranian race. Selm himself (the Shem of the Shâhnâmeh in relation to Îrân and Tûrân) is represented as malicious, passionate, and intriguing.[641]
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Footnote 605:
Palgrave gives an excellent picture of this state, in his _Central and Eastern Arabia_, I. 34: ‘The Bedouin does not fight for his home, he has none; nor for his country, that is anywhere; nor for his honour, he never heard of it; nor for his religion, he owns and cares for none. His only object in war is ... the desire to get such a one’s horse or camel into his own possession, etc.’
Footnote 606:
Josephus, _Contra Apionem_, I. 14.
Footnote 607:
See Duncker, _Geschichte des Alterthums_, 1874, I. 253.
Footnote 608:
In Ezek. XXVII. 17, the wares, the export of which made the Hebrews dependent on the Phenicians, are enumerated in detail.
Footnote 609:
_Die Vorurtheile über das alte und neue Morgenland_, in _Abhandl. der königl. Gesellsch. der Wissensch._, Gottingen 1872, XVII. 98.
Footnote 610:
So _e.g._ Jas. Fergusson, _Rude Stone Monuments_, p. 38; Mommsen, _History of Rome_, 1868, II. 18 _et seq._
Footnote 611:
Lenormant, _Essai sur la propagation de l’Alphabet phénicien dans l’ancien monde_, ed. 2, Paris 1875, I. p. 25.
Footnote 612:
W.D. Whitney, _Language and the Study of Language_, London 1867, p. 169; cf. F. von Hellwald, _Culturgeschichte_, p. 154.
Footnote 613:
Hellwald, _ibid._, p. 482.
Footnote 614:
Movers, _Die Phönizier_, II. 2. 439 _et seq._
Footnote 615:
_Histoire générale des langues sémitiques_, p. 200.
Footnote 616:
See my _Studien über Tanchûm Jeruschalmi_, Leipzig 1870, p. 12.
Footnote 617:
_Die Semiten in ihrem Verhâltniss zu Chamiten und Japheiten_, Basel 1872, p. 134.
Footnote 618:
This question will be found very satisfactorily discussed in Stade’s article ‘_Erneute Prüfung des zwischen dem Phönicischen und Hebräischen bestehenden Verwandtschaftsverhältnisses_,’ in the _Morgenländische Forschungen_, Leipzig 1875, pp. 169–232.
Footnote 619:
See Merx, _Archiv. f. wissensch. Erforsch. d. A. T._ pt. 1. 1867, p. 108.
Footnote 620:
In late Aramaised Hebrew we find the feminine kehantâ (= kôheneth) for a Priest’s Wife, equivalent to êsheth kôhên; see Levy, _Chald. Wörterb._ I. 356 _a_. It comes thence to be used in a general signification, of an honest, irreproachable woman, in opposition to pundâḳîth, properly an innkeeper, in _Mishnâ Yebhâmôth_, XVI. 7.
Footnote 621:
See Ernst Meier’s essay on the former in _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1865, XIX., and Nathan Davis, _Carthage and her remains_, London 1861.
Footnote 622:
_Die geschichtlichen Bücher des A. T._, Leipzig 1866.
Footnote 623:
_Bibelkritisches_, in the _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1873, XXVII. 682–89, especially the theses 22–26. Zunz appears to have laboured independently of Graf, but arrives at almost the same results.
Footnote 624:
Bargés, who has earned great credit for his elucidation of the Marseilles table in several writings, disputes the authenticity of the inscription discovered by Davis (_Examen d’une nouvelle inscription phénicienne découverte récemment dans les ruines de Carthage et analogue à celle de Marseille._ Paris 1868).
Footnote 625:
_History of Israel_, II. 360.
Footnote 626:
_Geschichte der Juden_, Leipzig 1874, I. 407 _et seq._
Footnote 627:
See Stade’s exhaustive exposition in the _Morgenländische Forschungen_, p. 197. But I cannot share the opinion of my respected friend, that the Hebrews could borrow nothing from the Phenicians because the two nations passed through a completely distinct religious and political development.
Footnote 628:
_Shefaṭ-ʿAdad_ in Nabatean, quoted by Ernst Meier in _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._ 1873, XVII. 609, is also problematical.
Footnote 629:
Duncker, _Geschichte des Alterthums_, I. 371.
Footnote 630:
The data belonging to this subject are lucidly brought together in Kuenen’s _Religion of Israel_, I. 182.
Footnote 631:
_Semiten, Chamiten und Japhetiten_, p. 160 _et seq._
Footnote 632:
Equally exaggerated on the other side, however, is Tiele’s view (_Vergelijk. Geschied._, p. 182), treating the story of Samson as borrowed from the Canaanites. See also Duncker, _l.c._ II. 65.
Footnote 633:
This fact, moreover, refutes Buckle’s thesis (assuming the very opposite course of development), which makes history to be the earlier, and to be subsequently degraded to ‘a mythology full of marvels.’ This thesis has been estimated at its true value by Hermann Cohen in an article entitled _Die dichterische Phantasie und der Mechanismus des Bewusstseins_, in the _Zeitsch. für Völkerpsychologie etc._, 1869, VI. 186–193.
Footnote 634:
Mommsen, _l.c._ book III. chap 1.
Footnote 635:
Holtzmann, _Deutsche Mythologie_, p. 28.
Footnote 636:
Paul Gyulai, _Vörösmarty élete_ [Life of Vörösmarty], Pest 1866, p. 49 _et seq._
Footnote 637:
See Excursus N.
Footnote 638:
_Godgeleerde Bijdragen_, 1866, p. 983 _et seq._ With him Kuenen agrees, _The Religion of Israel_, I. 311 _et seq._
Footnote 639:
Like the Hungarian national hero Nicolas Toldi, who overcomes the Czech (Bohemian) hero in single combat.
Footnote 640:
Compare _Genesis rabbâ_, § 48.
Footnote 641:
See _Shâhnâmeh_ (ed. Mohl), p. 124. vv. 121–29 and pp. 139–40, etc.
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