155 2 Enoch 12 and 15. The ordinary angels have six wings (Is. 6.2), but these sun-birds are higher beings, and therefore possess twelve wings; comp. PRE 13, where the important place of Sammael in the heavenly hierarchy, before his fall, is characterized by the fact that he possesses twelve wings.
156 This is only found in Rashi on Hullin 127a.
157 Hagigah (end); Sanhedrin 63b; Hullin 127a (comp. Rashi, ad loc., and ‘Aruk, s.v. סלמנדרא), Tan. Wa-Yesheb 3; Sifra 11.29; ShR 15.28. A vast collection of material relating to Salamander in Jewish literature is given by Löw in Krauss’ Griechische und Lateinische Lehnwörter, s.v. סלמנדרא. See also Löw in Florilegium, in honor of De Vogüe’s seventieth birthday 399–406. Comp. further Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, 227–230; Straschun in Ha-Maggid IX, No. 14. It is noteworthy that Philo, Quaestiones, Exod. 28, likewise mentions πυρίγενες, which could move about in fire without suffering any harm. Philo surely had Salamander and similar creatures in mind. Hullin and Sifra, loc. cit., likewise speak of creatures in the plural which live in the fire, that is, Salamander and others. The statement of Aristotle, Historia Animalium, V, 19, and that of Pliny, Historia Naturalis, X, 68 and 87, concerning the Salamander essentially agrees with the view of the rabbinic sources. On the use of the myrtle in the producing of the Salamander (comp. note 156), see Hippolytus, Haereses 4.33. Comp. also the following three notes.
158 Zohar II, 211; Hadassi, Eshkol 24d; Abkat Rokel 2, 1. These assertions concerning the clothes of Salamander, slightly differing from one another, are not found in the talmudic-midrashic literature, but are, however, known, in non-Jewish writings of the Middle Ages; comp. Jellinek, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kabbala, I, 48, and Grässe, Beiträge zur Literatur und Sage des Mittelalters, 81.
159 Sanhedrin 108b, where עליתא (the reading is doubtful) is the Semitic name for Salamander. In Tan. Wa-Yiggash 3 עכבית “spider” is the correct reading, since according to Aristotle, Historia Animalium, V, 19, the size of the Salamander is like that of the house-fly and the difference between the latter and the spider is not very great.
160 Sanhedrin 63b. Comp. Bacher, ZDMG XXVII, 15, and vol. IV, p. 226.
161 Abot 5.6; Sifre D., 355; Midrash Tannaim 219; Pesahim 54a; 2 ARN 37, 95; PRE 19. Comp. further note 99 on vol. I, p. 83.
162 Tosefta Sotah 15.1; Babli 48b; Yerushalmi 9, 20d. It is
52
