If Moses was Egyptian

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23885, 12 August 1939, Page 4

If Moses was Egyptian

Dr Freud Analyses Monotheism

“Moses and Monotheism.” By Sigmund Freud (Hogarth Press, for the Institute of Psycho-Analysis), 13s 6d.

To say that Dr Freud’s new work is an attempt .to prove that Moses was an Egyptian would be as inadequate a statement of the significant thesis Of “Moses and Monotheism,” as to declare that psycho-analysis is a method pf finding the meanings of dreams. Dr Freud confesses, indeed, the lack of evidence to support his findings in their direct relation to the written story of Moses, but if it can be left to the reader , to decide what credence is attachable to his theory, the book remains a brilliant and compelling study of the monotheistic, idea, interpreted in the terms of psycho-analysis. So persuasive, indeed, is Dr Freud’s construction on what must, of historical necessity, remain a hypothetical basis, that conviction will be willingly allowed, by students of the Freudian psychology, to rest on the basis of the might have been. By taking what is required from the ethnographers, by assuming what is heeded beyond factual evidence,-and by applying to the precipitate, so to speak, the theory to which the lifetime of a genius has been devoted, he has adduced an acceptable explanation of the peculiar position of the Jew in society. And in so doing, he has presented an explanation of such manifestations against Jewry as ,the Nazi persecutions, more impressive than such generalisations as those commonly accepted, that anti-Semitism derives from jealousy, from fear, or from a mere mass impulse to “ take it out on ” the handiest minority. „ The basis for the theory of the Egyptian origins of Moses is, in its largest sense, historical. In the reign of Ikhnaton monotheism briefly flourished in Egypt. When he died, in a period of anarchy polytheism.was restored. Then, says Freud, Moses, a convinced monotheist, converted the enslaved Israelites and led them forth. Subsequently, the Israelites reverted to a materialistic form of worship and—this assumption is sheerly without concrete support, but essential to the case —killed Moses, Then, out of the Mosaic monotheism and the tribal religion of the followers of Jahve—the god of the nomad Midianites, who had come into association with the followers of Moses —was fused a fresh concept of monotheism Moses was not'recognised—as is not so rare with prophets—after his death, and became the accepted father of his peojile. Monotheism, though subjected to reverses, gradually won to acceptance as the ruling creed. This theory, naturally, is inimical to the belief that the monotheistic ideal triumphed in the world because it represents the only eternal truth. Dr Freud would like to accept that explanation, but he has his doubts. "The human intellect,” he drily observes, “has not shown itself elsewhere to be endowed with a very good scent for truth, nor has the human mind displayed any special readiness to accept truth.” It is his thesis that monotheism has for the human race a compulsion belonging to the past, buried deep in .the primeval mind. Those who have read his “Totem and Taboo ” . will reach familiar ground here. The theory that man originally

lived in a family unit of organisation, with a dominant elder at the head of the group; that the sens ultimately uprose and slew the patriarch, is taken from the ethnologist. And the Freudian belief is that the action of the sons has been preserved in the minds of the race, a memory-trace of the experience of former generations. In the case of the Jews the experience was re-emphasised in the killing of Moses, who more plainly than the tribal father represented the monotheistic idea. The drama of , prehistory, repeated at a higher level in man’s mental development, gave form to monotheism. The sense of guilt of the sons who slew the father, exaggerated by the slaying of the fathersubstitute, Moses, bred in the Jews a strong neurosis. When they also put away another leader, in the person of the Christ, Paul seized on this act as providing expiation of the forgotten sin. “The poor Jewish people, who with its usual stiff-necked obduracy continued to deny the murder of their ‘father’ over and again heard the reproach ‘you killed your God.’ And this reproach is true, if rightly interpreted. It says, in reference to the history of religion: ‘You won’t admit that you murdered God (the archetype of God, the primaeval Father and his reincarnations)Something should be added—namely: ‘lt is true, we did the same thing, but we admitted it. and since then we nave been purified.’ ’’ But it is not this Christian sense of superiority, based on the admission of a sin, that accounts for the anti-Semitic neurosis. The Christian’s resentment is against another monotheistic religion, and against monotheism itself, which was derived from the Jews. The Germans embraced monotheism within historical times, and their resentment of monotheism is thus the deeper, and manifests itself in hatred of the Jews—a hatred which is at bottom of Christianity itself. . Most baldly summarised, this is the argument in “ Moses and Monotheism.” But no summarisation could do justice to the pellucid statement pf Dr Freud, or convey the modest yet assured manner of his exposition. Though his thesis is beyond proof—Dr Freud allows a preliminary question whether Moses was a real person at all. not merely a legendary figure—it is so admirably set down that one tends even to resent the qualifications and questionings with which he himself hedges the case, to feel, when he admits the possibility of error in the creating of a philosophical edifice largely on supposition, that he is being over-cautious'and diffident. For whatever reason we read Freud —whether as a modern gospel, as an interpreter of human behaviour, as a fashion, or for the clear and masterly simplicity of his prose—we can scarcely resist the admirable lucidity of his theories. “Everything new,” he declares in this book, “must have its roots in what was before.” Throughout his life he has devoted himself to the tracing and classification of the most tenuous and deepest-buried of these roots, and his work has the fascinating qualities of a detective story. The Author: Sigmund Freud was born at Freiberg, Moravia, 83 years ago, and educated at Vienna and the Salpetriere, Paris, where he took his medical degree in 1881. He returned to Vienna to practise, and found a city of neurotics. Deriving from Charcot’s experience in releasing neuroses under hypnosis, he gradually evolved a technique in which hypnotism could be discarded, and in developing this treatment formulated his theory of psycho-analysis, which is now accepted, though with various reserves, by the new school of those specialising in the treatment of neuroses. From 1902 to 1938 he was professor of neurology at the University of Vienna. After the Anschluss his house and property were seized, and he became an exile in London. He has suffered from cancer in the jaw during. 16 years, and undergone 15 operations, it is stated, without ever offering a word of camplaint. Most of his writings, including an autobiographical sketch, are available in English.