Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/314

 282 Pc7'sistence of Primitive Beliefs in Theology.

him, he attends every rite of circumcision, and on Passover Eve he drinks a cup of wine set apart for him at every Jewish table throughout the world. He appears to scholars and tells them divine mysteries in desert places or on lonely roads, and the later Cabbalists profess in great part to derive their secrets from him. He was a familiar and popular figure in Arabia before Mahomet's time and he seems to be referred to in a remarkable theodicy -v'v&iQn (Koran xviii. 64 f). The later exegetes expressly identify the immortal Elijah there named as a ' servant ' with the sea-demon Khidr who was also a deathless being. In Islam the view is generally accepted that the real name of Khidr is llyas : he resembles the Rabbinic figure in an astonishing degree, becomes an eternal prophet (let this be closely marked) who is omnipresent but appears only when his name is called or his help invoked. The Sufis (or Persians who brought mysticism into Islam) claim, like the Cabbalists of Western Judaism, to have found his revelations of the utmost value. The Jews accepted the identification ; those who bore the name Elijah were known to the Muslim as Khidr and the Turks have frankly merged the two words together to form a strange hybrid, Khidrlas.

4. A diliiculty however arose : the Koran mentions Elijah by name in his biblical character of severity and sternness. Therefore there arose a pair of twins — Elijah (as llyas) appears as the inseparable companion of Khidr, who is now explained to be Elisha. Elijah begins to lose the grotesque features of a Glaucus or sea-demon and is only the guardian of wayfarers on land ; while Elisha-Khidr is guardian of the sea {mukallaf fil bahr), patron of sailors, one who traverses the waters [khawad-al-buhur). To him a sacrifice is offered when a new boat is launched,^ and his name is held in honour, according to Cumont, from Northern Syria to the confines of Hindustan. Wherever triumphant

^ Curtiss, Piiui. Sonitic Relig.., Leipzig, 1903.