“Influence-research” is not a field to itself. Itboasts no experts. Where cultures are sources ofnational or professional prestige theEinflussforsche's task can bethankless. Cultures are admired as self-consistent,and if possible original. Where indebtedness isnotorious – e.g. East Asian artefacts’ effects onEuropean taste – research into it may be conductedwithout grief. But since unacknowledged indebtednessaffronts the increasing specialization of our timestentative disclosures may be accused ofimplausibility. One is asked “How could such a thinghappen?rdquo;, and “What does it add up to?” Learnedjournals have published many strange “parallels”.Effects are cumulative: quum singula nonprosunt multa iuvant. News, for example,that famous stories have migratedover great distances causes no apprehension. Butwhere anomalies bring distant, even antagonisticcultures into confrontation, without a provedcontact, one may become impatient.“Influence-research” remains the Cinderella of thesciences, and she has plenty of Ugly Sisters. Onemay take a trivial example. Judaism has forcenturies presented rabbinism as its normativemodel; and then news accumulated that Yahweh wasonce seen as a manifestation of Apollo, with anaccompanying osmosis from pagan towards Jewishsymbols and fashions. This flouting of the standardset by the sensational Maccabeesbooks put the results, such as they were, under acloud.