into both Bible and Koran. But they are embedded there mainly as fossils; reminiscent, it is true, of an earlier life, but hardly forming an integral part of later Semitic religious concepts. Many traits in the stories of the patriarchs, such figures as those of Moses, the man of God, of Samson, the man of strength, of Solomon, the king of wisdom, of Daniel, the man of judgment, lie clearly upon the border line of mythology. So does the figure of Alexander the Great in Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic folk-tale. "He of the Two-Horns" is only a later reflection of the ancient Gilgamesh; and the figure of the old Babylonian hero lingers on down to our own day, when it has found its most permanent artistic expression in Michael Angelo's two-horned Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. But no great epic has grown up around the exploits of any of these heroes; and no great influence was there to promote the writing of epic poetry. When the heroic period of Jewish history was finished, the life of the people had already become one of pain and of sorrow. Their thoughts were sad and severe, as their life was hard and often unlovely. Nor were conditions among other Semitic peoples such as to favor the growth of epic poetry. The non-Jewish Semites of Syria and Mesopotamia developed into Christian churches, to whom matters of church government and the minutiae of belief primed all other considerations. Islam was born into a world that had already outgrown the stage of innocent fancy in its outlook upon the universe. It had no childhood days, but was called at once to the serious tasks of man's estate. It had to fight its way and develop in an upward struggle against civilizations that had already passed their zenith. It came too early into contact with city life; and the fresh air of the desert was soon befouled in the atmosphere of the marketplace.
It is from the desert that the Semite has sprung; and every new development, every great effort has had its origin there. Not without reason did the Hebrews imagine that their life
