THE STANDARD EDITION OF THE COMPLETE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKS OF Sigmund Freud VOLUME XXIII (1937-1939) MOSES AND MONOTHEISM AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS and OTHER WORKS TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN James Strachey IN COLLABORATION WITH. ‘Anna Freud Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson 1 Vv VINTAGE THE HOGARTH PRESS sillry AF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN. Ix an earlier contribution to this periodical," I attempted to bring up a fesh argument in support ofthe hypothesis thatthe man Moses, the Uberator and law-giver ofthe Jewish people, ‘as not a Jew but an Egyptian. It had long beea observed that his name was derived from the Egyptian vocabulary, though the fact had not been properly appreciated. What I added was thatthe interpretation ofthe myth of exposure which wat linked ‘with Moses necestarlly led to the inference that he was an Egyptian whom the needs of « people sought to make into a Jew. T remarked at the end of my paper that important and Tarteaching implications followed from the hypothesis that Moses was an Egyptian, but that I was not prepared to argue Pblicly in favour of these implications, since they were based oly on ‘probabilities and lacked any objective proof. Thé greater the importance of the views arrived at in this way, the more strongly one feels the need to beware of ‘exposing them without a secure basis tothe critical assaults of the worl around oe bronze aus wh ft of clay [Not even the most tempting trvor even fal the para of problem eem fo ft together ike the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, one must reflect that what is probable is not necessarily the truth and that the truth is not always probable, And lastly, it did not sem attractive to find ings aot eg to haw somes : how me wdny athe dd ber, the buco of conticng "ates deco to produce the preety eae Sramitication. But once again this is not the whole sory nor the most important part of the whole story. * Ema, 28 (1957). (Bay 1 above} vry MOSES AND MONOTHEISM (11) o 1, then, Moses was an Egyptian—our fit yield from this [hypothesis afech enigma and one which its hard to solve. Te people ora ribet set out upon a great tndertaking tf tly to be expected that one ofa members wil take bis Place £5 their leader or wil be chosen for tht post But it not easy to ques what could induce an araiocrae Eeypdan—a prince, Dethape, ora priest or hig atthe head ota crowd of i # of ion and to leave his country with them: The wel- known contempt felt by the Egyptians for foreign nationals ‘makes sich a proceeding parculaly unlikely. Indeed T cold wall believe that thi has been preccly why even those Nistodane who have recognized cat the man's name. wat Egyptian, and who have scribed to him all the wisdom ofthe Egyptians [p. 9], have been unwilling to accept the obvious ost that Mess was an Egyptian "This rt dficulty x promptly fellowed by another, We must not forget that Mores was not cay the plies leader ofthe Jews settled in Egypt but was also their lay gr and educator and forced them into the service of a new Tigion, WIHEH to this very day is known after him at the Mate one. Buti it ‘cary for one single man to create a new religion? And if any- ne wihe to fafluence another person's rigon, would he not nos natarally convert him to his own? The Jewish people in Egypt were certainly not without 2 religion of some frm ot other; and if Mency, who gave them anew one as an Egyptian, ‘he preumption cannot be put aide that thi other new religion was the Egyptian one. “There someshing that stands in the way of his pon the fact of there being the mott valent contrast between the Jewish rligion whichis atbuted to Mes and the religion of Egypt. The former isa sigid monotheism on the grand te there is only one God, he is the sole God, omnipotent, un- approachable; his aspects more than human eyes ean tolerate, 2o image must be made of him, even is name may not be spoken, Inthe Egyptian religion theres an almost innumerable Boat of dies of rrying dignity and origin: «few personifies: + We have no noon of what abe were concerned in the Boda ibe in ttt the IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN... 9 sions of great nataral frees such as heaven and ert, sum and ‘moon, an occasional abstraction such as Ma‘at (truth or justice) rn carcatre ch tthe dwarlite BaD mo Shee Ica gods, dating fom te period when th county was divided Eto tucson fovince, wth te sap of anil at though they had mot yt complced thet evolton from teal tote trina wit no sharp dtintons between them, and sarely an eter Se Frond aod (Deamon ee, lg 8 Or = {ha rod wo drew water ia} IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN... im as jealous, severe and ruthlea—may have bee at bottom derived fom 2 recollection of Money fr infact was nota favisible God but the man Moses who brought them out of “Roother trait tributed to Moet has «special claim to our interest. Mote is said to have been ‘ow of speech’: he must have nufered from an inhibition oc order of speech. Cone sequenly, ia his suppored dealings with Pharaoh, he needed the support of Aaron, who ia called his brother." This again may ‘bea hstorialtrath and would make a weleome contribution 1 presenting a lively picture ofthe great man, But it may also Sete ante and oe inporan! ware tay rel igh distorted, che fact that Mons spoke another language Ad tal sot communist wih is Semie ne Without an interpreter, at all events a the beginning of dhe Felations—a fresh confirmation, then, of the thenis that Moos ‘vas an Egyptian. "Now, however, or so i seems, our work has reached a. pro- visional end. For the moment we can draw no. farther ‘ooclsions from our hypothe that Moses was an Egyptian, ‘whether it hasbeen proved or not. No historian can segerd the Tiblcal account of Moses and the Exodus as anything other than a pious piece of imaginaive fiction, which has recast & emote tradition forthe benefit of lis own tendentious purposes. ‘ia rm tnt wan noma tw we soa to discover what the distorting purposes were, but we ave kept in the dak by our ignorance ofthe historical events ‘The fact that ou reconstruction leaves no room fr a number cf show-pieoes inthe Bible story, such asthe ten plaguey the pasmage of the Red Sea and the solemn law-iving on Mount Sinaiv-his docs nt dsconcert us. But we cannot treat it a2 matter of indifference if we find ourselves in contradiction to {be Sige of the sober ioral romrces of the pret ay. “Thee moder hinorans, of whom we may take Eduard “Meyer (1906) asa representative agree withthe Bible story ‘on ane decisive pot. They too are of opinion thatthe Jew tribes, which later developed Into the people of Trac, took on 4 ew religion ata cera point of de. But i thelr vew this id not tae place in Egypt ora the foot of « moatain i the * indy and 14)” MOSES AND MONOTHEISM (11) Sinai Peninsula, but ia a certain locality known as Meribal Kade," an os disdoguished by it wealth of springs and wells inthe stretch of country south of Palestine, between the astern ext Gom the Sinai Peninsula and the western border of Arabia.* There they took over the worhipof «god Yahweh probably fom che neighbouring Arabian tribe of Midianites escema Ulely that other riba in the vicnity were also followers of thi god. ‘Yahweh wat unquestionably a voleano god. Now, ati well ‘known, Egypt without volcanoes and the mountains ofthe Sinai Peniogula have never been voleani; onthe othe hand, there are voleanoes which may have been acGve tll recent times along the western border of Arabia. So one of thee ‘mountains must have been the Sina-Horeb which was regarded fr the home of Yahweh. In spite of all the revision to which {he Biblical story was subjected, the vigil picture ofthe god's character ean, according to Eduard Meyer, be reconstructed: hhe was an uncanny, bloodthirsty demon who weat about by night and shunned the light of day.* "The mediator between God and the people inthe founding of this religion was named Moves. He was the won-a-law of the Midianite priest Jethro, and was keping his focks wien be received the summons from God. He was also visited by Jethro at Kadeah and given some advice by him* ‘Though Eduard Meyer says its true, that he never doubted that there wat some historical core inthe sory ofthe sojourn in Bgypt and the catastrophe to the Egyptians” he evidently oes not know hw to place and what we to make of this fact oyhie rim erated the ter prof ts ae: Quis We have adopted the "ys pres ptonems uncera, but it was pobably in what i leering mmo rts Ey male farther t the Wert It's not o be caked wit the Beer owe Kade in, Syria, othe north of Palestine, which was the ese “RD aa ing Ho Crp oe abr) . read wes the coreponding lated that Yate came ‘Kade (Eg. Nenbos, xx, 6-3-~Stal and Hore are usually taken a diferent nara of the mame mountain) ‘deer, 1906, 38 and [ind nd vi, 2-27) Meyer, 1906, 49, IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN... = ‘which he recognizes. The only thing he is prepared to derive fom Egypt is the custom of circumcision. He adds two imn- portant indications which go to confirm our previous angu- ‘ments fr, that Joshua ordered the people to be circumcised in order to ‘rll away the reproach (i.e. contemps) of Egypt from off you," and secondly a quotation from Herodotus saying that ‘the Phoenicians (no doubt the Jews) and the Syrians af Palestine themselves admit that they'learnt the custom of the “Egyptiany’.* But he has litde to say in favour of an Egyptian Moses: “The Moses we know is the ancestor of the pricet of Kadesh—that i, a figure from a genealogical legend, standing in relation to a cult, and not a historical personality. Thus rt ffom those who accept tradition root and branch as historical truth) no one who treats him as ahistorical figure has been able to give any content to him, to represent him at a concrete individual orto point out what he may have done and ‘what his historical work may have been.’ * ‘On the other hand, Meyer is never tired of insiting on the relation of Mose to Kadesh and Midian: “The figure of Moses, ‘which is intimately bound up with Midian and the cultcentres| in the desert...“ and: "This igure of Moses, che, is insepar~ ably linked with Kadesh (Massah and Meribah®) and this is supplemented by his being the son-indaw of the Midianite ‘let. His link with che Exodus, on the contrary, and the whole ‘Rory of his youth are entirely secondary and simply the cone sequence of the interpolation of Moses into a connected and ‘continuous legendary story."" Meyer also points out that the themes included in the story of the youth of Moses were one ‘and all dropped later: ‘Moses in Midian is no longer an Egyptian and grandson of Pharaoh, but a shepherd to whom ‘Yahweh revealed himself. In telling ofthe plagues there is no longer any talk of his former connections, though effective use might easily have been made of them, and the command t0 Kell the [new-born] sons of the Israelites” is completely for- gotten. To the Exodus and the destruction of the Egyptians Csi, 9. Meyer, 1906, 49. [Quoted from Herodotus, Hist, Book T, oe Meyer, 1306, 431 (fotote). Meyer, 1206, 48. * [The seem to be the mes of wprings at Kade. CE Bede, xvi Meyer 105,72. * (a1 and 22)= | * MOSES AND MONOTHBISM (11) ‘Moses plays no part whatever: he is not even mentioned. The Iheroic character which the legend of his childhood presupposes is totally absent from the later Moses; he is only the man of (God, a miracleworker equipped by Yahweh with supernatural "We cannot dispute the impresion that this Mov of Kadeth ‘and Midian, to whom tradition could actually attribute the ‘rection ofa brazen serpent asa godo healin,*i someone quite ‘other than the aristocratic Egyptian inferred by us, who pre- tented the people with a religion in which all magic and spells ‘were proscribed in the strictest terms, Our Egyptian Moses is ‘no let diferent, perhaps, from the Midianite Moses than isthe taiversal god Aiea from the demon Yahweh in is home on the Mount of God. And ifwe have any faith at all in the pronounce ‘ments of the recent historians, we shall have to admit thatthe thread which we have tied to spin from our hypothesis that ‘Moves was an Egyptian has broken for the second time, And this ime, as it seems, with no hope of mending. ® “Unexpectedly, here once more a way of escape presents itself [Efforts to sce in'Mosea a fgure that goes beyond the priest of| Kadesh, and to confirm the grandeur with which tradition flores him, have not ceased even since Eduard Meyer. (CE. Gresamann [1913] and others) Then, in 1922, Erast Sellin made a discovery which affected our problem decisively. He found in the Prophet Hosea (in the second half of the eighth ‘century 2.¢) unmistakable sgas of a tradition tothe effect that Moses, the founder of their religion, met with a violent end in a rising of his refractory and stiffnecked people, and that atthe same time the religion he had intoduced was thrown off, ‘This waditio i not, however, restricted to Hosea; it reappears ‘in most of the Inter and indeed, according to Selin, became the bats ofall the later Meaianic expectations. At the end ofthe Babylonian captivity a hope grew up among the ‘Jewish people that the man who had been so shamefully ‘murdered would return from the dead and would lead his remorseful people, and pechaps not them alone, into the king- om of lasting blis. The obvious connection ofthis with the Meyer, 196, 47. * (Minbes,x, 9 IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN... ” destiny of the founder of a later religion docs not concer us here. ‘Once again I am not, of cours, ina portion to judge whether Sellin has interpreted the passages from the Prophets correctly. But it he is right we may attribute historical credibility tothe tradition he has recognized, for such things are not readily invented. There is no tangible motive for doing so; but if they have really happened, it is easy to understand that people will be anxious to forget them. We need not accept all the details ‘of the tradition. In Selin’s opinion Shitim, inthe country east of the Jordan, is to be regarded as the scene of the attack on ‘Moses: But we shall soon se that that region is not acceptable {for our notions. ‘We will borrow fom Sellin his hypothesis that the Egyptian ‘Moses was murdered by the Jews and the religion he had intro- ‘duced abandoned. This allows us to spin our threads Further ‘without contradicting the authentic findings of historical research, But apart ffom this we shall venture to maiatain independence of the authorities and to ‘proceed slong our own track. The Exodus from Egypt remains our starting-point. A ‘considerable number of people must have left the country with Moses; a small collection would not have seemed worth while to this ambitious man with his large aims in view. The im- migrants had probably been living in Egypt long enough to Ihave grown into quite a large population, But weshall certainly ‘not be going wrong if we asume, with the majority of the authorities, that only a fraction of what was later to be the Jewish people hid experienced the events in Egypt. In other ‘words, the tribe that returned from Egypt joined up later, in the stretch of country between Egypt and Canaan, with other kindred tribes, which had been setded therefor a considerable time. This union, from which sprang the people of Israel, found ‘expression in the adoption ofa new religion, common to all the taibes, the religion of Yahweh—an event which, according 10 Eduard Meyer (1906, 60 ff], took place under Midianite influence at Kade Thereafter, the people flt strong enough to undertake their invasion of the land of Canaan. Te would not tally with this course of events to suppose thatthe eatastropbe to Moses and his religion occurred in the country east of the Jordan; it must have happened long before the union of the tribes,s MOSES AND MONOTHEISM (11) ‘There can be no doubt that very diferent clement came togees in the consraton of the Jewish peopl; but what smut have made the geste fers among these wibes was ‘thet they had expesenced or not the otra ia ype and at lowed i Having rand to ths pol we ay 20 that Thenaton sree out of ust of two component par and Sin with this tat, aera abort pesiod of plea! unity, {pl into two plese Kingdom of lrcl andthe Bago OF Jadah. History i fod of reetatementa Ike thi, where & Inter fist undooe and an euler separation re-emerges. The ‘not imprenive exatpe of hs wat afforded aswell own, Byteman wich aera eral foe ond brought flight once more the fonder between the Eemany wich had toe tne bea Roman and he Germany Mich tad remained independent Ta he instane ofthe Jewish its ot pomble to paint to such aah reproduction Tithe old sate of things our Knowle of the tes too “hesinn to low us to ssr that the ced tbs were once Inore tobe found together inthe Northern Kingdom and thse tro ad retaraed om Egypt inthe Southern Kingdom; But exe to theaters canna have been unrelated othe eer fobning up. The former Eqypina were probaly fever in amber than the other, but Chowed hemsdve clara the Stronger. They exerened a mare power inunce on the further evolution of the people, because they brought along with them a tradition which the other lacked. erhape they brought something se ith them more ie adi One of te ret ema Jew rbistry i tat of the origin of te Levit. They are tre EIatto one ofthe twelve tbs of lrael that of Lost tradi haa ventured to anywhere that tbe war oigally lected or what porson ofthe conquered land of Canaan was Alle co They filed the mor etportane prea ofes, bat they were dane! fom the prea A Levi not nesarly fpr nor sit the name oa east, Ou hypothesis about the gure of Mons sgget ao explanation, Te nrc that feat lord ke Mote the Egyptian, shoud have joined this ice people unaccompanied. He certainly mst have brought 2° Teloae with himbis close followers hit nibs, is omen servants, Ths who the Levies rgaally were: The ‘raion which alge hat Mone wana Levit ses fo be 8 IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN... 2 clear distortion of the fact: the Levites were the followers of ‘Moses. This solution is supported by the fact which I have already mentioned in my earlier esay that itis only among the ‘Levites that Egyptian names occur later. I eto be presumed that a fair number of these followers of Motes escaped the catastrophe which descended on him himself and the religion he founded. They mulplied in the course of the next generar tions, became fused with the people they lived among, but remained loyal to their master, preserved his memory and ‘earried out the tradition of his doctrines, At the time of the union with the disciples of Yahweh they formed an influential minority, culturally superior to the ret. T put it forward asa provisional hypothesis that between the {all of Moses and the establishment of the new religion at Kadesh two generations, or pechaps even a century, elapsed, T see no means of deciding whether the Neo-Egyptians (as T should like to call them here)—that is, those who returned from {met their tribal Kinsmen aftr the latter had alteady ‘adopted the Yahweh religion or earlier. The second possibility ‘might seem the more probable. But there would be no difference in the outcome. What happened at Kadesh was a compromise, in which the hare taken By the tribes of Moses is unmistakable. Flere we may once again call on the evidence afforded by circumcision, which has repeatedly been of help tous, Hike, as it were, a Key-fosil. This custom became obligatory in the Yahweh religion as well and, since it was indisolubly linked with Egypt, its adoption can only have been a concession tothe fellowers of Moses, who—or the Levites among them—would not renounce this mark oftheir holines. [P. $0,] So much of ‘her old religion they wished to rescue, and in return for it they were prepared fo accept the new deity and what che priests of ‘Midian told them about it. They may posibly have gained yet ‘other concessions. We have already mentioned that Jewish ‘itual prescribed certain restrictions on the use of God's name. Instead of Yahweh’ the word ‘Adonai [Lord]’ must be spoken. is tempting to bring this preseription into our context, but ne min ie ni otra eset ete et icra een oe ene eaves gar area nts«0 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM (11) that is only a conjecture without any other bais. The prohibie tion upon a god's name sat swell known, a taboo of prmaeval ‘age. We do not understand why it was revived precisely in the Jewish Law; i is not imposible that this happened under the Influence ofa fresh motive. There is no need to suppose that the prohibition was carried through consistently; in the construc- tion of theophorous personal names—that i, in compounds— the name of the God Yahweh might be fteely used (eg. ‘Jochanan, Jehu, Jothua). There were, however, special circum= tances connected with this name. At we know, critical Biblical research supposes that the Hexateuch has two documentary sources." Theseare distinguished as J and E, because one of them tues ‘Jahve [Yahweh]" as the name of God and the other ‘Elohim: ‘Elohim’, to be sure, not ‘Adonai’. But we may bear in mind a remark by one of our authorities: “The diferent ‘names are a clear indication of two originally different gods’ * ‘We brought up the retention of circumcision as evidence for the fact thatthe founding of the religion at Kadesh involved a compromise. We can sce its nature from the concordant accounts given by J and E, which thus go back on this point to ‘ common souree {a documentary or oral tradition) Its leading Purpose was to demonstrate the greatness and power ofthe new ffod Yahweh. Since the followers of Moses attached so much Value to their experience of the Exodus from Egypt, this act of liberation had to be represented as due to Yahweh, and the gqent was provided with embellishment which gave proof of the terrifying ‘of the voleano god—much as the pillar of smoke [loud] which changed at night into a pillar of fire and the storm which aid bare the bed of the sea for a while, 10 ‘that the pursuers were drowned by the returning waters.* This account brought the Exodus and’ the founding of the religion cose together, and disavowed thelonginterval between them. So, ‘too, the law-giving was represented as occurring not at Kadeah ‘bat at the foot of the Mount of God, marked by a voleanic ruption. This account, however, did grave injustice to the ‘memory of the man Motes; it wat he and not the volcano god ‘who had liberated the people ftom Egypt. So a compensation ‘was owing to him, and it consisted im the man Meses being ‘transfered to Kadeah or to Sinal-Horeb and putin the place of isa elaborated p42 below *Gioato, ise iG TF MOSES WAS AN EOYPTIAN... 41 the Midianite priests We shall find later tht this solution tatsfed another imperatively presing purpot. tn ths manner mutual agreement, av it were, was arived at: Yahweh, who lived on a mountain in Midian, was allowed to extend over into Egypt, and, in exchange for this, the existence and activity of “Mones were extended to Kades and a far asthe county east of the Jordan, Thus he was fed wich the Sgure of the late ‘eligious founder, the son inlaw of te Midionte Jethro [p. 33], ft lent him his name of Mose, Of this second Mow, however ‘wean give no personal account—so completely wash eclipsed by theft the Egyptian Monel we pik ot the contra Tn the long run it made no difference that the people rejected the teaching of Motes (probably after a short time) and killed him himeeli. The tradition of it remained and it influence achieved (only gradually, itis true, inthe courte of centuries) ‘what was denied to Moses himecll. The god Yahweh had srrived at undeserved honour when, fom the time of Kadesh ‘onwards, he was credited with the derd of liberation which had been performed by Moses; but he had to pay heavily for thie usurpation. The shadow of the god whose place he had taken. became stronger than himself; by the end of the process of evolution, the nature of the forgotten god of Moses had come to light behind his own. No one can doubt that it was oaly the idea ofthis other god that enabled the people of Israel to 2p, 8) 118m yt ool on the ge iy nd 2 ey no te ay nd ne tnt ao on loving cre forall cena they. Sitar and exon of Bens Desi, 1980-3001)” IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN a survive all the blows of fate and that Kept them alive to our ‘own days. 1t is no longer posible to estimate the share taken by the Levies in the Binal victory of the Mosaic god over Yahweh, ‘They had taken the side of Moses in the past, when the com- promise was reached at Kades, in a ll ive memory of the ‘master whose retinue and compatriots they had been. During ‘the centuries since then they had become merged with the people or with the priethood, and it had become the rain function ofthe priests to develop and supervise the ritual, and Desides this to preserve the holy writ and revise it in accordance with their aims. But was not all sacrifice and all ceremonial at Bottom only magic and sorcery, such as had been uncondition- ally rejected by the old Mosaic teaching? Thereupon there arose ffom among the midst of the people an unending succesion of men who were not linked to Moses in their origin but were ‘enthralled by the great and mighty tadition which had growa up litde by lite in obscurity: and it was these men, the Prophets who tirelesly preached the old. Moraie doctrine— thatthe deity disdained sacrifice and ceremonial and asked only for faith and a life in truth and justice (Maat). The efforts of the Prophetshad a lasting succes; the doctrines with which they re-established the old faith became the permanent content of the Jewish religion. It is honour enough to the Jewish people that they could preserve such a tradition and produce men who gave it'a voice—even though the initiative to it came from ‘outside, from a great fore T should not feel secure in giving this account, if could not appeal to the judgement of other enquirers with a specialist knowledge who see the significance of Moses for the Jewish religion in the same light at T do, even though they do not ‘recognize his Egyptian origin. Thus, fr instance, Sell (1922, 15) writes: “Consequently we must picture the tue religion of Moses his beliein the one moral God whom he preaches—as ‘thenceforward necesarily the property of a mall cicle of the people. We must necesarly not expect to meet with tin the ‘official cult, in the religion of the priests or in the belief ofthe people. We can necessarily only reckon to find an occasional Spark emerging, now here and now there, from the spiritual torch which he once kindled, to find that his ideas have. not ‘entirely perthed but have been silently at work here and there52 MOSES AND MONOTHEISM (In ‘pon bei and customs, til soner o later, through the eect of special experiences or of persons specially moved by his spirit, {thas broten ott more serongy once more and gained infact fn wider mates ofthe popelason, Tra fom this point of view {hat the Hiory ofthe anetent religion of laracl is ecesry 0 be regarded. Anyone who sought to contruct the Mowe religion onthe ine ofthe religion we mect with, according fhe chronic, in the life ofthe people during the int five handed year ia Canaan, would be commiting the gravest cal error.’ Volz (1907, 64) speaks even more clearly: Sr hs bebe thatthe exalted work of Mose was understood tnd cari through to begin with only ebly and want, el in the cours of enturicy it penetrated more and more, and at length inthe great Prophets i met with like spits who ome tinued the lonely man's work? ‘And here, it seems, I have reached the conclusion of my study, which was directed to the single aim of introducing the figure of an Bgyptian Moses into the nexus of Jewish history. ‘Our ndings may be thus expressed inthe mest concise formula. Jewish history is familiar to us for its dualites: two groups of ‘people who came together to form the nation, fo kingdoms {nto which ths nation fll apart, to gods’ names in the docu- mentary sources of the Bible. To these we add two fresh ones: the foundation of to religions—the fist repressed by the second ‘but nevertheless later emerging vitoriosly behind it, and fo religious founders, who are both called by the same name of ‘Moves and whose personalities we have to distinguish from each ‘other, All of these dualities are the neceaary consequences of the frst one: the fact that one portion of the people had an ‘experience which must be regarded as traumatic and which ‘the other portion excaped. Beyond this there would be a very great deal to discus, to explain and to assert. Only thus would ‘an interest in our purely historical study find its true justifica- ‘don, What the real nature ofa tradition esdes in, and what it special power rests on, how imposible itis to dispute the pe sonal influence upon world-history of individual great men, ‘what sacrilege one commits against the splendid divenity of ‘human life if one recognizes only thote motives which arise from- raterial needs, from what sources some ideas (and particularly religious ones) derive their power to subject both men and IF MOSES WAS AN EGYPTIAN ‘peoples to their yoke—to study all this in the special case of| ‘Jewish history would be an alluring task. To continue my work ‘onstch lines as these would be to finda link with the statements T put forward twenty-five years ago in Totem and Taboo (1912- 1915}, But I no longer fel that Thave the strength to do 10.