Page:Mythology Among the Hebrews.djvu/111

Rh corresponds perfectly with the successive stages of civilisation, nomadism and agriculture, and all that Hesiod did was to clothe an historical, natural and true tradition of the Hellenic people in the form of a theogonic story. With this, other points of the Theogony seem to be clearly and unmistakably connected, namely those in which, we perceive the idea of the priority of the Night. Among the powers preceding the rule of Zeus in Hesiods Theogony, Chaos is named—a word signifying according to its original sense 'darkness'—and Tartarus. We well know the theological meaning of the latter word—the subterranean place to which the souls of the dead go; but there is no doubt that it originally denoted 'a gloomy pit, never lighted by the sun,' or 'darkness' in general. Therefore Tartarus figures in Mythology as father of Typhon and Echidna, and therefore Nyx is his daughter. Then it agrees well with nomadic ideas that Tartarus is called 'father of waters and springs,' and that he bears the epithet 'the first born'. On Hebrew ground also we meet a similar transition. In Job XXXVI. 20, the word laylâ 'night' is used quite in the sense of 'nether world;' which is true also of ṣalmâweth, denoting 'darkness' in general, and used only secondarily with special reference to Orcus.

§4. We have above just touched the confines of religious history, though it was strictly speaking, only a border territory of Mythology, which ought not to be confounded with religious history. But we must here allow ourselves an excursion into the neighbouring territory. For it ought not to pass unnoticed that, as the myth which has the night-sky in its foreground always precedes that which has the bright sky of day in its centre, the former corresponding to the nomadic, the latter to the settled agricultural life, the same sequence can also be observed in the history of religion. There are nations, which, when already standing at the nomadic stage, work