_Persians_, and the idea that there
were _two_ tables of stone with the Law written thereon was evidently
taken from the story of Bacchus, the Law-giver, who had _his_ laws
written on _two tables of stone_.[104:2]

The next legend treated was that of "_Samson and his Exploits_."

Those who, _like the learned of the last century_, maintain that the
Pagans copied from the Hebrews, may say that Samson was the model of all
their similar stories, but now that our ideas concerning antiquity are
enlarged, and when we know that Hercules is well known to have been the
God _Sol_, whose _allegorical history_ was spread among many nations
long before the Hebrews were ever heard of, we are authorized to believe
and to say that some Jewish _mythologist_--for what else are their
so-called historians--composed the anecdote of Samson, by partly
disfiguring the popular traditions of the Greeks, Phenicians and
Chaldeans, and claiming that hero for his own nation.[104:3]

The Babylonian story of Izdubar, the lion-killer, who wandered to _the
regions of the blessed_ (the Grecian Elysium), who crossed _a great
waste of land_ (the desert of _Lybia_, according to the Grecian mythos),
and arrived at a region _where splendid trees were laden with jewels_
(the Grecian Garden of the Hesperides), is probably the foundation for
the Hercules and other corresponding myths. This conclusion is drawn
from the fact that, although the story of Hercules was known in the
island of Thasus, by the _Phenician_ colony settled there, _five
centuries before he was known in Greece_,[105:1] yet _its antiquity
among the Babylonians antedates that_.

The age of the legends of Izdubar among the Babylonians cannot be placed
with certainty, yet, the cuneiform inscriptions relating to this hero,
which have been found, may be placed at about 2000 years B. C.[105:2]
"As these stories were _traditions_," says Mr. Smith, the discoverer of
the cylinders, "before they were committed to writing, their antiquity
as tradition is probably much greater than that."[105:3]

With these legends before them, the Jewish priests in Babylon had no
difficulty in arranging the story of Samson, and adding it to their
already fabulous history.

As the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise remarks, in speaking of the ancient
Hebrews: "They adopted forms, terms, ideas and myths of all nations with
whom they came in contact, and, like the Greeks, in their way, _cast
them all in a peculiar Jewish religious