Page:Mythology Among the Hebrews.djvu/142

102 signified only the same sea-passage, which the sun makes every evening. Of Charon himself, the subterranean ferryman (whose name, Schwartz thinks, indicates his solar significance, ) it has also been proved that his subterranean navigation is only an eschatological development of the solar myth. Indeed, eschatology and conceptions of the things after death and resurrection have their essential origin in the Sun's voyage under the sea and reappearance on the other side. The Roman Sun-god Janus is also brought into connexion with navigation; this idea is unmistakably expressed on coins which bear the image of the two-headed god, and is especially important here because Janus himself, as the etymology of his name declares, likewise belongs to the series of 'Openers.' 'This name was given him,' says Hartung, 'because the door represents in space exactly what formed the basis of his essence with regard to the relations of time and force. For every beginning resembles an entrance.' The most prominent figure of the lately discovered Babylonian epos, Izdubar, and Ûr-Bêl (the Light of Bêl, i.e. the Sun), both of them purely solar figures, are provided with ships. We cannot justly doubt, it is true, the historical character of the Biblical prophet Jonah. But, from what was discussed in the Second Chapter, this does not exclude the possibility that various mythical features may have been fastened on this undoubtedly historical personage, as is the case with many other persons of Hebrew history, for example, most strikingly with David. The most prominent mythical characteristic of the story of Jonah is his celebrated abode in the sea in the belly of the whale. This trait is eminently solar and belongs to the group on which we are now engaged. As on occasion of the storm the storm-dragon or the storm-serpent swallows the sun, so