Sigmund Freud

May 6th was the 158th anniversary of the birth of Sigmund Freud.


In commemoration thereof, here is a lengthy and fascinating quotation from Freud's Moses, a book written by a professor of Jewish History, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, and published in 1993.


The bit I'm about to quote is simply Yerushalmi's summary of Freud's views on Moses, without at this point any editorial comment by Yerushalmi (or by me). It is, I think, a remarkable example of a commentator who did a better job of describing Freud's views on this point than Freud himself ever managed.


Monotheism is not of Jewish origin but an Egyptian discovery.  The pharaoh Amenhotep IV established it as his state religion in the form of an exclusive worship of the sun-power, or Aton, thereafter calling himself Ikhnaton.  The Aton religion ... was characterized by the exclusive belief in one God, the rejection of anthropomorphism, magic, and sorcery, and the absolute denial of an afterlife.  Upon Ikhnaton's death, however, his great heresy was rapidly undone, and the Egyptians reverted to their old gods.  Moses was not a Hebrew but an Egyptian priest or noble, and a fervent monotheist.  In order to save the Aton religion from extinction he placed himself at the head of an oppressed Semitic tribe living in Egypt, brought them forth from bondage, and created a new nation.  He gave them an even more spiritualized, imageless form of monotheistic religion and, in order to set them apart, introduced the Egyptian custom of circumcision.  But the crude mass of former slaves could not bear the severe demands of the new faith.  In a mob revolt, Moses was killed and the memory of the murder repressed.  The Israelites went on to form an alliance of compromise with kindred Semitic tribes in Midian whose fierce volcanic deity, named Yahweh, now became their national God.  As a result, the God of Moses was fused with Yahweh and the deeds of Moses ascribed to a Midianite priest also called Moses.  However, over a period of centuries the submerged tradition of the true faith and its founder gathered  sufficient force to reassert itself and emerge victorious.  Yahweh was henceforth endowed with the universal and spiritual qualities of Moses' god, though the memory of Moses' murder remained repressed, reemerging only in a very disguised form with the rise of Christianity.


So, happy birthday, Sigmund. It would be time to blow out the candles, were the phallic symbolism of a candle not a bit too obvious.