510 ORIENTAL ELEMENTS OF CULTURE IN THE OCCIDENT. 



antitheses between God and the devil, between this world and the 

 other world, l)etween clean and unclean, which were l)ut g-radually 

 adopted into the monotheistic religions. Old Persian ideas, especially 

 those pertaining- to iinal things, as death, the judgment, and events 

 connected therewith, pervade Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and 

 through the medium of the former reached even the heathen Ice- 

 landers, so that we again meet their ideas point for point in 

 the Edda. We need only think of the world -tree (the tuija of 

 the Mohammedans = Yggdrasil), the well containing the miracle- 

 working water at its foot (called al-Kauthar, often only al-haud, 

 "the cistern" = Urd;s well), the bridge of heaven (Avestan chinvat, 

 Ara))ic as-sirat, old Norse Bifrost), but particularly the Dusk of the 

 gods, w^hich agrees in all points with the last judgment as described by 

 Moslem theologians. Here we have the blowing of the horn, known 

 from the Koran, which in the Edda is performed l)y Heimdall, and 

 the wdde plain (ai'sat al-arasat, or sahra-i-mehscher=Wigrid); the 

 "beast of the earth," which is to come out from a rock lis.sure near 

 Mecca, corresponds to Feni-is, and Daggal to the Antichrist and Loki. 

 I could enumerate a long- list of such parallels." For some of their 

 ideas the Persians may have received the first suggestions from the 

 l^alndonians, though it is at present the fashion to overestimate the 

 Ba])ylonian influences.^' The world view of the Babylonians still sur- 

 vives in our seven da3's' week; in fact, onlj" through this world v'ww 

 can the astrology of previous centuries be rightly understood. 1 have 

 already called attention to it in ni}' initial pul)lication (1S8T). AVinck- 

 ler'' has explained the symbolical numl)er seven and the unlucky luim- 

 ber thirteen from Babylonian conceptions. The latter have to the 

 present day exercised a mighty influence upon our economic life, and 

 thus on human culture in general, through the fact that for the ratio 

 of silver to gold the old norm from the mint regulation of Darius 

 remained in force till the fall of silver. Winckler'' has shown that this 

 relation represents the time of revolution of the planets correspond- 

 ing to the two metals, the moon and sun; that is, 27:360 (=1:13^), 



« Of the literature bearing on this subject maybe mentioned: Kohut, Ueber die 

 ji'idische Angelogie und Diimonologie in ihrer Abhiingigkeit vom Parsismus in 

 A))handlungen der Deutschen Morgenliindischen Gesellschaft 4, LS66, and Was hat 

 die lahimdisehe lOscliatologie aus dem Parsismus aufgenonnnen? in Zeitschrift der 

 Deutsdien ^Morgenliindischen Gesellscliaft 21, 1867; Ernst Boklen, Die Verwantschaft 

 der jiidisch-christlichen mit der persischen Eschatologie, Goettingen, 1902. Com- 

 pare also Elard Hugo Meyer, Voluspa, Berlin, 1899. 



''So, for instance, Hugo Winckler, Die babylonische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen 

 zur unsrigen (Leipzig, 1902), goes too far when he (p. 22) derives our clock face from 

 the F>abylonian double hour. The division in twelve hours rather goes back to the 

 sun clock and is to be explained from the fact that the sun does not shine during the 

 night. So also our bock beer (p. 43) has nothing to do with the signs of the Zodiac, 

 but is due to corruption by popular etymology of Eimbecker Bier. 



c Opus cit. 



<^ Ibidem. 



