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drinking wine, and therefore needed nutritious food, and so 
we see in the Book of Judges (14, 9), that he gave his parents 
a honey-comb to eat. Aristaeus was a cultivator and lover of 
olive-trees; but such trees were also common enough in the 
Holy Land, and Samson, being a wrestler, must have often 
rubbed his body with olive-oil. Aristaeus was known as a wise 
man and a good king. Samson, for twenty years, showed great 
wisdom in ,judgine“ Israel. Aristaeus was, for some time, under 
the care of nymphs and other aquatic divinities. I dare say 
this fable was aimed at Samson’s love-affair in the valley of 
the Sorek (Judges 16, 4) with the woman whose name was 
Delilah (deli in hebrew means a pail of water). We may ob- 
serve that, in the story of Aristaeus, a fire broke out on the 
island Cea, during the dog-days, the heat of the sun setting 
fire to the crops; in this case, it seems to me, the dog-star is 
the same as Samson’s foxes, with which he set fire to the fields 
of the Philistines. From a surname of Aristaeus, who was called 
PrErecrpEs, by a slight alteration, we obtain the surname of 
Samson ,fereoikos“, ,domiporta*, from his having carried off 
the gates of Gaza. The tanner’s shop in which Aristaeus is 
said to have perished, may have been the very house of the 
Philistines, the collapse of which was the end of Samson’s 
heroic career.“ 
ysuch is the comparison of Samsen with Aristaeus. In this 
instance, we have neither expected, nor, as we are aware, suc- 
ceeded, in bringing historical credibility up to the level of cer- 
tainty. If we have introduced ill-grounded suppositions, and 
thus deserved blame, we have the excuse of such authorities 
as a Carmer, a Huet, and a Bocrarr, and I do not know how 
many other great scientists, who have done the same before 
us. A precedent, in such cases, may serve as a_ sufficient 
justification !“ 
Printed by J. Hérning, Heidelberg (Baden), 
