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ETO i
OLNOHOL JO ALISHAAINN
wre lan
ESSAY
Age and Antiquity |
OF
THE BOOK
NABATHAVAN AGRICULTURE,
TO WHICH IS ADDED
An Jnaugural Zecture
ON THE
POSITION OF THE SHEMITIC NATIONS
IN THE
HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION.
BY
M. ERNEST RENAN,
MEMERE DE L’INSTITUT,
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES IN THE COLLEGE OF
FRANCE; AND AUTHOR OF L’HISTOIRE DES LANGUES SEMITIQUES 5
ETUDES DE L’ HISTOIRE RELIGIEUSE; ESSAIS DE MORALE ET DE
CRITIQUE } A TRANSLATION OF THE SONG OF SONGS,
AND OF THE BOOK OF JOB, ETC, ETC.
LONDON :
TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
i 1862.
| : SEEN BY
| PRESERVATION
SERVICES
LONDON:
WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER, 87, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR fs
it ——— ee ES eS TS OO ee
.
ee Se ee es
PREFACE.
HE Boox or NapatH#AN AGRICULTURE
was first introduced to the notice of
Europe by St. Thomas Aquinas, towards the
middle of the thirteenth century, though
it had already been cited by Moses Mai-
monides in the JVore Nevochim some hun-
dred years previously, from whence, no
doubt, it had become known to most of the
learned Spanish Jews who, at the period,
shed so great a lustre upon Hebrew Litera-
ture and Biblical Science.
Startling as it is to find in its pages
mention of a literature and civilization so
lV PREFACE.
far beyond the earliest records of the Bible
and other known sources of information, it
has ever since been treated, when not passed
over in utter oblivion, more as one of the
curiosities of literature than as a valuable
record of the past; and though slightly
referred to by Salmasius, about two cen-
turies ago, in a way which might have
opened up a controversy as to the authen-
ticity and date of its supposed antiquity
and authorship, the matter seems to have
been allowed fo fall still-born from the
press. This may in some way be accounted
for by the ignorance of scholars before our
day of the principles of Comparative Gram-
mar, that ingenious art of criticism which
becomes the key by which modern philology
is enabled to enter the deep recesses of the
past, and expose to view records which, for
want of it, were inaccessible to the ancient
>
‘f
PREFACE. Vv
Greeks and Romans and the great scholars -
of the last three centuries; as, ignorant of
it, the former were even unable to decipher
the earliest remains of their own language,
and the latter could only supply its place
by conjectural guesses.
One of the most successful workers in
this new field of criticism is Dr. Daniel
Chwolson, Professor of Hebrew in the Uni-
versity of St. Petersburgh, who first made
himself known to Oriental scholars by the
publication of one of the most able and pro-
found works connected with the history and
literature of the East which has ever ap-
peared. Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus—the
Sabians and Sabian Worship—has for ever
settled many doubtful and long-disputed
points in religion; has thrown new and
irresistible light upon earlier Eastern his-
tory; and placed its author at once in the
b
V1 PREFACE.
highest rank as one of the deepest thinkers
and most painstaking critics of the day.
The real Sabians, the as-Sabitin of the
Koran, were an Aramaic or Syro-Chaldean
race, on the borders of Persia, inhabiting
the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
These heathen had El-Hasaih as the founder
of their religion. He is the "Hayacai of
Hippolytus, the Elkesai of Theodoretus, and
the "Hagéai or ‘Hagasog of Epiphanius, and
taught the doctrine of two principles in the
Creation, a male and a female, active and
passive power, mind and matter. Mani was
brought up in this creed, but, drawing
nearer to the doctrines of Zoroaster or
Parsee-ism, preached a second duality, Good
and Evil, and thus became the founder of
Manicheeism, which still lingers amongst the
Yesides, and is so graphically portrayed by
Mr. Layard. The Sabians derive their name
~ —s
——
PREFACE. Vil
from the Hebrew word yoy, ‘to dip,’ and it
was applied to the followers of El-Hasaih
in reference to their frequent ablutions.
Their present representatives are the Men-
daites, Gnostics, Nazoreans, or, incorrectly,
Christians of St. John, so called from their
frequent lustrations with water, who dwell
in the swamps on the banks of the Tigris
near Bassora.
Besides the Sabians, there were others
who took the name, about the year 830
of our era, to escape the persecutions of
the Chalifs, particularly of El-Ma’min, who
threatened them with extermination; as-
suming at the same time something of the
dress and forms of the persecuting Mussul-
mans. These pseudo-Sabians are repre-
sented by the modern Yesidis and the.
Shemsiya, both of whom are fire-worship-
pers, or perhaps, rather, worshippers of
Vili PREFACE.
the sun and the planets, at heart, though
the first profess a kind of bastard Islamism,
and the latter, since about the year 1762,
a mongrel Christianity. These pseudo-
Sabians dwelt in the land of Harran, and
their descendants have become familiar to
us by the narratives of Layard and South-
gate, and some recent discussions as to the
site of the well of Harran in the Athenceum.
In collecting together and examining his
materials for this important work, Professor
Chwolson necessarily had to dip deeply into
the sources of old Babylonian or Naba-
theean literature, greatly encouraged in the
pursuit by the previous labours of M.
Quatremére ;' and men, who were fully
competent to judge of his high linguistic
attainments, began to look anxiously for-
1 Mémoire sur les Nabatéens, in the Journal Asiatique, 1835;
reprinted in the Mélanges d’ Histoire et de Philologie Orientale.
new ie ;
er ee
PREFACE. 1x
ward to the time when the fruits of this
industry should be placed before them. To
quiet the many enquiries on that head, in
1859 there appeared in the Memoirs des
Savants Etrangers of St. Petersburgh, and
also in a separate form, Ueber die Ueberreste
der Altbabylonischen Literatur in Arabischen
Uebersetzungen, a curious and startling work
“On the Remains of Old Babylonian Litera-
ture, preserved in Arabic translations ;”’ and
it is that work which has given rise to this
essay of M. Ernest Renan, which is now
presented to the English reader, with his
sanction, in its present form.
In his introductory chapter, Dr. Chwolson
puts forth two questions:—1. Could the
Babylonians have possessed an extensive
literature of high order in the time of
Nebuchadnezzar, or of the earlier Nebon-
assar? 2. Was it possible that in Babylon
ee... y i A a) ye a Li aaa. Pe |. ee
re ale i Ele pte as ‘_ fri —— “ys ©
x. PREFACE.
there should have existed an advanced state
of science, at a time when Grecian litera-
ture and science were both in their infancy?
Professor Chwolson answers both questions,
knowingly and advisedly, in the affirmative.
Such a deduction would go far to shake the
faith of Jews and Christians in the Divine
origin of the sacred books of the Old Testa-
ment, and hence the cartel thrown down
by the Professor has brought forth many
replies on the Continent, to which reference
is made in the pages of M. Renan’s unan-~
swerable essay; and also three important
reviews of the work in this country, of
which that in the Christian Remembrancer
of April, 1860, claims precedence as to
date, and that in the Saturday Review of
September, in the same year, as to matter ;
both, however, highly instructive papers to
all who take interest in a subject of such
oe ae eee On, Ve aa ee et
PREFACE. x1
paramount importance. M. Renan’s essay
is contemporary with the latter, and ap-
peared in the Mémoires de 1’ Académie des
_ Inscriptions, et Belles-Lettres, Tome XXIV.,
in 1860. The third review is a notice of
this memoir, which appeared in the Times
on the last day of January in the present
year, under the heading of ‘“ Pre-Adamite
Literature,” which gives a masterly analysis
of the whole subject.’
Husbandry was the first and earliest of
the sciences to which man turned his atten-
tion, and our common father, when he
1 The translator of the Strange Surprising Adventures of the
Venerable Gooro Simple, published in 1860, in reference to the
antiquity of Eastern legends, says: “‘ Dr. Chwolson has recently
issued a very curious and interesting volume on the remains of
ancient Babylonian literature. According to it, a person named
Kiithami compiled a well-planned and ably executed work on
general literature fourteen centuries before the Christian era,
giving us glimpses of a previous civilization of some three thou-
sand years. We are promised the Arabic text accompanied by a ©
translation. When these appear we shall have more certain data
than mere conjectural criticism for fixing dates. Kdathami, it
seems, speaks of ‘the ancients,’ the writers of periods then long
passed away, as we do of the authors of classical antiquity.”
\
Le Te ee en en ne errs seria
= 5 yee | coos f he a 7 at Pax
[ie Roe ates Sel
oT ee
tS he ee eS eee
tei hb, eae
Xll PREFACE.
began to ‘‘eat bread in the sweat of his
face,” the first husbandman. Hence it is
but natural to suppose that the earliest. of |
the sciences should have been handed down
from generation to generation in a religious
form; and, when first reduced to writing,
that it should have retained that form.
So we arrive at the conclusion that the
earliest literature of which we have any
traces, very properly combined in itself the
principles of worship and progress, of reli-
gion and civilization. It is just this form
which gives such an air of high antiquity
to ‘The Book of Nabathzan Agriculture,”
and which has induced Dr. Chwolson to
ask: ‘‘Had Greek literature been completely
lost to the world during the dark ages
which followed the fall of the Roman Em-
pire, and now, for the first time, the works
of Plato and Aristotle, of Hippocrates and
ee
‘
PREFACE. Xili
Galen, of Euclid and others, become known
to us only by Arabic versions in which
they really exist, should we not probably
suspect them to be forgeries, and exclaim
against the possibility of the Greeks having
had so cultivated a literature four centuries
before Christ,when our own forefathers were
in a state of dense darkness, in which they
continued comparatively for some fifteen
centuries afterwards, though their connec-
tion with classical antiquity was by no
means dissolved ?” As this might well have
happened in regard to Greek literature,
he asks us not to look upon as forgeries
authentic documents, brought to light by
similar agency, respecting a pre-existing
ante-Grecian culture.
In M. Ernest Renan, Professor Chwolson —
has met an opponent at all points his equal
in rank and in erudition. The Oriental
X1V | PREFACE.
Professor of the College of France has
raised to himself a name no less celebrated
as the author of the Histoire des Langues
Sémitiques, than his rival did by his pub-
lication of the Ssabier und der Ssabismus.
Born in Brittany in 1823, he was educated
for holy orders, and all his impulses are
essentially the results of that education,
though very early he found that he could
not pursue his studies for the priesthood
with a clear conscience. Since the age of
twenty-four, when in 1847 he gained the
Volney prize for his essay on the Shemitic
languages, he has devoted himself to letters,
and ranks as one of the greatest French
writers now living. Under the present
Emperor of the French he has been em-
ployed to carry out researches in Pheenicia,
and is at this moment engaged in preparing
for press a great work on Phenician An-
os » 4 a me
aoe
PREFACE. XV
tiquities. M. Renan belongs to those reli-
gious thinkers who are known as the
“‘advanced school.” Hence the public,
generally, in France, heard with something
q like astonishment of his appointment to the
chair of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac
Languages in the College of France, as
the successor of M. Quatremére. They
were partly prepared, also, for the result
of his inaugural lecture—the suspension of
further lectures. This proceeding is one of |
eS ee a Ae ser Se
much importance in the literary history of
— #*'
Europe, and that importance has been the
sole inducement to add an English version
of the lecture to the present volume. M.
Renan is compiling a life of Christ, and
the history of the origin of Christianity,
a great portion of which was written amidst .
the scenes to which it has immediate refer-
ence. His peculiar views are as well known
Xvi PREFACE.
to the educated classes of France and
Germany, from his Kiudes d’ Histoire Reli-
gieuse and his Essais de Morale et de Critique,
as are those of Professor Jowett in this
country, from his contribution to the Essays
and Reviews. With these the translator no
way identifies the presentation to the reader,
in an English dress, of M. Renan’s Essay
on ‘The Book of Nabathean Agriculture,”
and of the ‘‘ Inaugural Lecture on the Posi-
tion of the Shemitic Nations in the History
of Civilization.” All the merit claimed is
an earnest endeavour to reproduce both
works in a faithful rendering of the
originals.
June, 1862.
~ AGE AND ANTIQUITY
OF THE BOOK OF -
NABATHAAN AGRICULTURE.
THERE is no longer any doubt in the pre-
sent age, that a Babylonian literature did
exist, composed of: works connected with
the arts and sciences, which are nearly
always written in a religious form. The
age and the character of the intellectual
labours of the Chaldeans are uncertain ; but
there are many evidences, more especially
in the monuments that have descended to
our days, to prove that Babylon was, from
the most remote antiquity, the centre of
civilization for all the East. Indeed, al- ~
3 eS _ though it might appear at the first glance
‘ that the literature of Babylon had disap-
l
2 - BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
peared ; although there is no original text
remaining of writings composed by the dif-
ferent schools of Chaldeea; still, the litera-
ture of neighbouring nations, which met
with a better fate, has preserved to us con-
siderable remains of the culture it replaced.
Without mentioning those Greek authors
who have written ’Acovpiaxa and Baburwyixa
from original sources; or Armenian writers,
especially Moses Chororensis, who frequently
mentions Chaldean writings; or the Syrian
Christians, whom we continually find, during
the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, waging
never ending controversies against the Chal-
deeans; or the Talmud, and kindred writings,
which contain large portions of astronomical,
and possibly of medical principles borrowed
from Babylon; or the Cabbala, of which
both the principles and the most ancient
forms, although under many transformations,
can be traced to Chaldsea; or Gnosticism,
which, in one of its branches, shews the
degree of influence that Babylonian doc-
trines possessed in the midst of that vast
eee
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 3
chaos of ideas into which the East was
plunged during the first centuries of our
era,—we have still, in three or four forms,
writings of Babylonian origin. And first,
Berosus, although of the epoch of the
Seleucides, was not the less a purely Baby-
lonian writer, and the fragments which have
come down to us of his works, although
they require to be treated with the greatest —
caution, are, with the cosmogonies pre-
served by Damascius and by the author
of the Pirccopovpeva, invaluable remains of
Chaldean philosophy. Secondly, a class of
writings—very contemptible certainly if we
only regard the depth of their ideas,—the
writings composed in Greek and Arabic on
astrology, magic, oneirocriticism, such as the
Cyranides, the works of the false Zoroaster,
the books attributed to Seth, and to Noah,
the fragments of Paxamus, of Teucer the
Babylonian, and of Lasbas the Babylonian,’
1 Fabricii Bibl. Gr. Harles IV. p. 148, 166, ete. See hereafter
my conjecture on Teucer, On Lasbas on Méodas, and on the
book, certainly a Babylonian one, called SéAex BiBaAos, see Miller,
“* Journal des Savans,” October 1839, p. 607, note.
4 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
are frequently translations or copies of Chal- —
dean works. Thirdly, the works of the sect
known as Mendaites, Nazoreans, Christians
of St. John, who must be classed generally
under the name Sabians, represent to us,
to a certain degree, in their method of
thought, and possibly in their language, the
remains of Babylonian literature; though —
the flights of imagination from which the
ancient Chaldeans never appear to have
been wholly exempt, assume in them such
a poimt of extravagance, that it would
be with reluctance that we would acknow-
ledge these fanciful wanderings to be the
actual remains of an intellectual cultivation
which has exercised so considerable an in-
fluence on the mind of man.
A source more fertile, however, than any
which we have hitherto pointed out, has
been opened to us in these last few years.
Ingenious criticism has shewn that it is
in the heart of Arabian literature that we
must seek for the most precious collection
of Babylonian writings. Independently of
y x ,
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 5
-
the numerous facts ere e can. be icoed
from Arabian historians and general writers
on ancient Babylon, there exists in Arabic
a series of writings translated from the Ba-
_ bylonian or Nabathzan language. All these
translations were the work of one man. To-
wards the year 900 of our era, a descendant
of those ancient Babylonian families who
had fled to the marshes of Wasith and of
-Bassora, where their posterity still dwell,
was struck with profound admiration for the
works of his ancestors, whose language he
understood, and probably spoke. Ibn Wah-
shiya al-Kasdani, or the Chaldean (such
was the name of this individual), was ‘a
Mussulman, but Islamism only dated in his
family from the time of his great-grand-
- father; he hated the Arabs, and cherished
the same feeling of national jealousy towards
them as the Persians also entertained against
e. thoir conquerors. A piece of good fortune :
4 threw into his hands a large collection of
___ Nabatheean writings, which had been rescued
made between the name of the Copts (L3)
eee is: =~
6 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
deean devoted his life to their translation, and
thus created a Nabatheeo-Arabic library, of
which three complete works—to say nothing
of the fragments of a fourth—have de-
scended to our days. The three complete
works are, first, &bel| cM} obs “ The
Book of Nabathzan Agriculture ;” second,
ayaull CoS “The Book of Poisons ;” third,
coldl Lalor Obs “The Book of Tenkelisha
the Babylonian.” The ineomplete work is_
rill, Gaatll last bs “A work on the Secrets
of the Sun and Moon.”’! Of these four books,
“The Book of Nabathean Agriculture” is
by far the most important and the most
interesting. It is this one which will now
principally occupy our attention. |
1 The first is a cyclopeedia of agriculture, containing also remarks:
and dissertations on subjects incidentally mentioned, and it is these
which give it the pre-eminence, The second, which is older than
the first, treats of poisons and their antidotes. The third is a
genethlialogic work, The fourth treats of plants and metals.—
Translator’ s note.
ay Ore
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 7
CHAPTER I.
“THE Book of Nabatheean Agriculture,” first
referred to in Europe by St. Thomas Aquinas,
was first known among Christian scholars,
thanks to the quotations made from it by
_ Jewish writers of the middle ages, particu-
larly by Moses Maimonides in his ‘ More
Nevochim.” The impression formed of it,
from this source of information, was, how-
ever, very imperfect. Some supposed that
the book treated of the religion of the
Nabathzeans, the word m)\ay, by which the
Hebrew translator of Moses Maimonides
rendered i>\s, permitting the double sense
of cultus, or cultura. Others supposed there
were two distinct works, one on Nabathean
Agriculture, and one on the Religion of the _
Nabathzeans. Moreover, by a confusion easily
made between the name of the Copts (4,3)
4) bea
§ BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
and that of the Nabatheans’ (bj), the title =
of Egyptian Agriculture was frequently sub-
stituted for Nabathean Agriculture, and the
editor of the Greek Geoponica,’ J. N. Niclas,
even supposed, in 1781, that ‘“‘The Book of
Nabathzan Agriculture” was nothing but a
translation of the work of which “he pub-
lished the original text.
A more exact idea was given of ‘ The
Book of Nabathzan Agriculture,” when Don
Josef Antonio Banqueri published at Madrid, =
in 1802, the Treatise on Agriculture of Ibn-
el-Awwam, which is a kind of abridgment
from ‘The Nabathean Agriculture.” But
the historical interest of the original work
entirely disappeared in the abridgment of
; Tbn-el-Awwam. |
It was my learned brother, M. Quatre-
mére, who first’ studied in its original text
1 These ancient errors are collected and discussed in Stanley,
‘Histoire de la Philosophie Orientale,” with notes, by J. Leclerc.
pp. 120-121, and Index, at the word Nabateen.
2 Geoponica, sive Libri de Re Rustica; 4 vols. Lips. 1781.
8 Herbelot had examined the manuscript, but in an extremely
superficial manner. See “ Bibliotheque Orientale,” at the words
Vahashiah, Nabathi, Cothai, Falahat, Democratis.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 9
the work which now engages our attention.!
Unfortunately, out of the nine parts or books
into which “The Book of Nabathean Agri-
1: F : = 6 ulture”? 1s divided, the Paris manuscript
(Ancien Fonds Arabe, No. 913), only contains .
two, being about one-third of the entire
work. By examining the portion thus at
his disposal, M. Quatremére ascertained the
various features of the work. He saw that
“The Book of Nabatheean Agriculture” was
a translation from a Chaldean author. He
fixed, with much hesitation however, the
name of the original author as Kithami. He
gathered from the treatise in question much
curious information as to the civilization of
the Nabathzeans. He shewed that “The Agri-
culture” contained much more than its mere
title promised, and threw most valuable light
on the ancient literature of Babylon. Finally,
he promulgated an opinion as to the epoch
of the composition of the work, which ap-_
1 “Memoire sur les Nabateens,’ inserted in the “Journal
Asiatique,” 1835, Since reprinted in the “ Melanges d’ Histoire et
de Philologie Orientale,” edited by M. Barth¢élemcy Saint Hilaire.
’ ) he
10 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
peared at first sight altogether paradoxical.
Surprised at the omission, in the midst of
ample information as to the religions of
Asia, of one word which directly or indi-
rectly bore reference to Christianity ; struck
by the perfection of the agricultural theories
which are developed in every page; and not
being able to find any one period in Baby-
lonian history after Alexander where such
prosperity could correctly be placed,—remark-
ing: Ist, that the author speaks of Babylon
as being, in his own day, a flourishing city,
and the seat of the principal religion of the
East; 2nd, that he speaks of Nineveh as a
city still in existence; 3rd, that among the
cities situated in Babylon and the neigh-
bouring provinces, he makes no mention of
Seleucia, Apamea, Ctesiphon, and other
cities founded by the Seleucides, the Arsa-
cides, the Sassanides; and not recognising
the possibility that, at a time when that
vast cyclopedia of agriculture was written,
Babylon could be under a foreign yoke, M.
Quatremére finds himself compelled to fix
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 11
the composition of ‘‘The Book of Nabatheean
Agriculture” at an extremely early date.
“Tt is,” he says,. “very probable, if I am
- not altogether mistaken, that this book was
written during the period which elapsed be-
tween the emancipation of Babylon from the
Median yoke, by Belesis, and the taking of
Babylon by Cyrus. Perhaps even one might
venture to fix the exact date as in the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar the Second. It is a very
natural hypothesis, that a great prince, who
carried his victorious arms to such remote
lands ; who embellished his capital by im-
mense works; who ordered the construc-
tion of numberless canals, destined to spread
fertility and abundance over the most dis-
tant parts of his hereditary states; should
wish to complete and perpetuate his work
by ordering the composition of a vast library,
which should comprise all that the experi-
ence of many centuries had taught, as to the
productions of Chaldeea, and the means of
developing and increasing its natural re-
sources.”
12 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
Such a deduction was certain to excite
astonishment. It was contradicted first by
the learned historian of botany, Prof. E. H.
F. Meyer, of the University of Kénigsberg.’
Prof. Meyer refused to acknowledge the
remote antiquity of a composition so
scientifically arranged, so diffuse, and
bearing the marks of science rather in
its decay than in its early rise. Various
peculiarities appeared to him to add great
weight to this theory. For instance, one of
the works quoted in ‘‘ The Agriculture” was
written in rhyme; now rhyme is never
found among the Shemitic nations, till from
the end of the fifth to the sixth century
of our era; many names of plants in the
translation of Ibn Wahshfya are taken from
the Greek; the whole theory of the book
bears a strong resemblance to that of the
Greek and Latin agriculturists; the astro-
nomy which it promulgates contains notions
which were not popular till the Roman
1 “Geschichte der Botanik,” t. III. (Kénigsberg, 1856), p. 43
~ and following.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 13
epoch ; and finally, the perpetual boastings
of Kithami, his national vanity, his jealousy
of foreign nations, traits which recall to
mind forcibly the tendency of the spirit |
of the East at the opening of our era,
convince Prof. Meyer that the author had
consulted Greek authors, but that he de-
signedly ignored their names, in order to
secure for the Babylonians the credit of
priority in all scientific and industrial in-
ventions. Prof. Meyer declares that, if he
were obliged to fix a date for ‘The Book of
Nabathzan Agriculture,” he should fix it in —
the first century of our era, consequently
seven or eight centuries after the period
in which M. Quatremére has placed it.
It seems natural, in such a state of things,
to split up the question, and apply to it a
method, generally successful, when the great
works of antiquity are subjected to it. It
might be possible that, in regarding ‘‘ The
Book of Nabathean Agriculture” as a compo-
sition of the materials of different ages—
modern in its latest form, but ancient as re-
14. BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
gards its source, the apparent contradictions
of the work could be reconciled. It was in
pursuance of this idea that I ventured! to
throw some doubt on the antiquity of the
compilation of ‘‘The Book of Nabatheean
Agriculture,” while willingly admitting
that it might contain a certain amount
of very ancient matter, Professor Ewald
agrees with me in thinking that the book
might be considered as the work of suc-
cessive hands and many revisions.’ It is,
he contends, the sole method .of defend-
ing the antiquity of some parts of the book
against the overwhelming objections which
arise from some others where the influence
of Alexandrian Hellenism cannot possibly
be ignored. As to the conjecture of M.
Paul de Lagarde,’ formerly hazarded by M.
J. Niclas, according to which ‘The Nabatheean
Agriculture” was nothing but a translation
1 “Histoire générale des Lanques Semitiques’’ (1855), 1. III. e.
ii. sect. 1; and in the ‘‘ Memoires de |’ Academie des Inscriptions,”
t. XXIII., 2nd part, p. 330 (1858).
2 “Goettingen gel. Anzeigen” (1857, Nos, 9 and 10); 1859, p. ~
1456,
8 **De Geoponica vers. Syriaca” (Lipsiz, 1855), pp. 18,19 and 24.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 1d
of the Greek Geoponica, of which there is a
Syriac version in the British Museum, being
founded on a misunderstanding, it may be
dismissed at once.
A scholar, already known by one of the
most important works which Oriental learn-
ing has produced of late years, Prof. Chwol-
son, of St. Petersburgh, the author of a
work on the Sabian Religion and the School
of Harran, has just taken a decisive step
towards the solution of the question which
occupies us. Having had access to and con-
sulted all the manuscripts of ‘‘The Book of
Nabathean Agriculture” which exist in the
various libraries of Europe, Dr. Chwolson has
made the most perfect copy of it possible,’
and, in order to quiet the impatience of the
literary world till the publication of this
revised text, he has embodied in a memoir
an abstract of the results of his researches.’
1 Dr. Chwolson has informed me by a letter, that the /acwma
which remained in his copy at the time of the publication of his
memoir has been filled up. The existence of four new manuscripts
of ‘The Nabathean Agriculture” at Constantinople has been an-
nounced.
2 “Ueber die Ueberreste der Altbabylonischen Literatur in
16 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
There is reason to regret, however, that
this eminent Oriental scholar, instead of
giving us a treatise on the text, which he
alone has consulted, should not have rather
first published the text itself. The posi-
tion of a critic is extremely painful when —
he is obliged to combat the opinions —
which a conscientious scholar has formed
on a work which he alone has read in its:
entirety, and from which he only gives
extracts which bear out his own theory. —
Until “‘The Book of Nabathean Agricul-
ture” is published in its full integrity,
the judgment brought to bear on the sub-
ject must be received with great allowance.
Nevertheless, so great is the interest of the
question, that thanks are due to Dr. Chwol-
son for having forestalled the tedious delay
inseparable from a publication so volumin-—
ous as that of ‘‘The Book of Nabathzean
Arabischen Uebersetzungen” (1859), extracted from vol. VIII. of
‘‘ Memoires des Savants etrangers,” of the Academy of St. Peters-
burg. Dr. Chwolson has already announced these results in his
“‘ Ssabier” (1856), vol. I., p. 705, and vol. IT., pp. 910 and 911;
and in the “ Zeitschrift der Deutschen be See oo Gesellschaft,”
1857, pp. 583 ff.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 17
Agriculture.” Besides, so strong is the
conviction of Dr. Chwolson; so great the
sincerity with which he lays bare the ob-
jections which may be made to it, that
his work furnishes the means of criticising
his own opinions. It is needless, to add,
that to dissent from him on such a subject
cannot diminish those sentiments of acknow-
ledgment .and esteem which are due to a
scholar who was the first to open up such
_ a series of investigations. Dr. Chwolson,
in turning the attention of critics to facts
and texts too much disregarded before,
fully merits to be called their originator ;
and it would be unjust to forget, that if his
opinions are combatted, it is with weapons
which he himself has furnished, and on
ground which he himself has prepared. And
even if his opinion as to the age of the
Nabathzean books should hereafter be given
up, it will be no more a discredit to him than
is a similar bold opinion a stain on the glory
of the great Indian scholars of Calcutta,
regarding the antiquity of works, which they
18 ‘ BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
had the rare merit of first making known
to Europeans.
The statement of the opinion of Dr.
Chwolson as to the period of the composi-
tion of ‘“‘ The Book of Nabathzan Agricul-
ture” will, no doubt, excite the greatest — 4
astonishment among persons who have
already been startled by the less bold
hypothesis of M. Quatremére. It resolves —
itself into two propositions: firstly, that
Kuthami, the Babylonian, is the sole author
of the work in question; that the work itself
is not the compilation of various hands; and
that it has received from the Arabian trans-
lator only alterations of very little import-
ance ; secondly, that Kithami could not have
written it later than the beginning of the =
thirteenth century before Christ. —
It is not, however, @ priori that such an
opinion can be combatted. In the field
of historical criticism, all should be ad-
mitted as possible. Civilization and litera-
_ ture flourished in Babylon at a very ancient
period. Entire systems of civilization have
al
ie . >
2.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 19
disappeared without leaving any traces;
literatures of high antiquity are only
____- represented by shreds, passed through a
thousand transformations, and are scarcely
recognisable. I willingly admit that Ba-
bylon may have had books and schools
fifteen centuries before Christ. The title
of “The Book of Nabathzan Agriculture”
to the high antiquity which Dr. Chwolson
attributes to it, must be sifted without bias
of any kind.
Dr. Chwolson’s principal argument is
derived from the information furnished by
“The Book of Nabathean Agriculture” as
to the political condition of Babylonia at
the time when the work was composed. He
agrees with M. Quatremére, that it contains
no trace of the existence of Christianity,
or of the existence of Arsacidan, Seleucidan,
and Sassanidan rule. Twenty Babylonian
kings are enumerated in ‘‘The Agriculture,” ~
and of these twenty names, there is not one
which coincides with that of a king of any
known Babylonian dynasty. In the chapter
20 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
on Canals (Canalisation), there is not a
single allusion to Nebuchadnezzar, who did
so much for the irrigation of the country ;
‘not one word of the Jews, who, in the be-
ginning of that monarch’s reign, filled so
important a part in the East. A Canaanite —
dynasty, resulting from some recent con-—
quest, reigned in Babylon in Kuthami’s —
time. Kuthimi frequently alludes to this
main point. The founder of this Canaanite
dynasty was Nimrada, whom Dr. Chwolson ‘
considers identical with the. Nimrod of
the Book-of Genesis. The Canaanites are
represented as ‘a people originally inhabit-—
ing the South of Syria and the country
of Jordan. The author speaks of these con-
querors with marked reserve; at times he
even appears to wish to flatter them, and
to soften the prejudices which his own
countrymen entertain against them. He
gives the names of the Canaanite kings,
Nimrida, Zahmina, Stsikya, Salbama ;_
he quotes Canaanite authors, Antha,
Thamithri, ete. At what epoch, then, must
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 21
this Canaanite dynasty be placed, which,
pretty much as the Hyksos did in Egypt,
te must have interrupted the series of native
dynasties of Chaldea? For various reasons
Dr. Chwolson has concluded to identify it
with the fifth of Berosus, composed of |
nine Arabian kings, of which he fixes the
commencement between the years 1540 and
1488 before Christ. Kuathami appears to
have written one or two hundred years
after the Canaanite invasion; the year
1300 is therefore the latest which can be
___ suggested as that of the composition of the
r if work which bears his name. °
‘= The astonishment excited by this conclu-
sion is heightened by the circumstance that
the author of “The Book of Nabathzean
Agriculture” quotes a great number of
__works, which themselves, again, have quo-
Bk tations from other authors; thus suggesting
whole centuries of culture and civilization _
” pefore the time of Kathami. Professor
~ Chwolson considers that a culture of some
a — 8000 years must be admitted before his
22, BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
author flourished. In separating into their
respective classes the quotations which are
mingled together in the ‘ Agriculture,”
he finds at Babylon a rich and varied
literature, fully equal to that which was
developed among the Greeks one or two
thousand years later; a matured literature,
full of controversies of schools, of sects, and —
of disputes between religion and philosophy.
It is not here a question, in fact, as to
one of those primitive literatures, which
do not discover the identity of an author,
and where an abstract genius seems to
wield the pen for an entire nation. The
writers of Babylon must have been thinkers
with distinct views, discussing step by step,
and in the minutest details, the opinions
of their adversaries. The founders of Baby-
lonian religions must have been philosophers
gifted with clear perceptions, amicably op-
posing each other, and debating one and
all, like academical professors. The work
of Kuthami is, in this wise, not a first
book, but a work of recapitulation and
—_ — es. a
sae baal onl Se ieamacriehiciaat hes ¥ 4 an bot
" oy
eee ae
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 25
eriticism. In the foreground appears the
chief personage of Babylonian literature, a
certain Yanbushadh, founder of natural
sciences and originator of a kind of Mono-
theism. He is separated from Kuthami by
four or five centuries. Some ages before
Yanbushadh, appears Daghrith, founder of
another school, which had some disciples,
even after Yanbuishadh. This Daghrith
lived, according to Dr. Chwolson, two thou-
sand years before Christ; and speaks of
various persons of Babylonian tradition in
a manner which shows that he then con-
sidered them as men of early antiquity. In-
deed, long before Daghrith, there is another
age of literature, of which the representa-
tives are Masi the Suranian, his disciple
Jernana, and the Canaanites, Antha, Tha-
mithri, and Sardana (towards 2500). All
these sages appear at once as_ priests,
founders of religions, moralists, naturalists,
astronomers, agriculturalists (agronomes), and
as universally endeavouring to introduce a
worship freed from idolatrous superstitions.
24 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
A short time before them Ishitha flourished,
the founder of a religion which Kuthami
vehemently opposes, though he acknow-
ledges that it exercised, in his own time,
a salutary influence. Before Ishitha, Adami
appears as the founder of agriculture in Ba-
bylon, acting the part of a civilizer (civil
sateur) and hence named “‘The Father of -
Mankind.” Before him we find Azada, the
founder of a religion which the higher
classes persecuted, but which was cherished
by the lower; Ankebatha, Samai-Nahari,
‘the poet Huthishi, whose attention was
already directed to agricultural science ;
Askilebitha, a benefactor of mankind and
the earliest astronomer; and finally Dewanai,
the most ancient lawgiver of the Shemites,
who had temples, was honoured as a god,
and was called ‘‘Master of Mankind.” The
age of Dewanai is, according to Dr. Chwol-
son, strictly historical, and Babylon was
already, at that time, a completely or-
ganised state. There are indications, before
Dewanai, of great efforts towards civiliza-
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. — 25
‘tion; and it is in that distant period that
Professor Chwolson places Kamash-Nahari,
the author of a work on agriculture; the
saints and favourites of the gods, Adami,
Sulina, Thilini, Resdi, Kermané, ete.; and
finally the martyr Tammizi, the first to
found the religion of the planets, who was
put to death, and afterwards lamented by
his followers. Dr. Chwolson stops here:
he acknowledges that before that period all
fades into the mist of fabulous antiquity.
Certainly, to many persons, the promul-
gation of such a system would be its surest
refutation. Indeed, the assertions of Prof.
Chwolson assume an aspect to which per-.
sons who adopt the usual principles of
-—s criticism. are quite unaccustomed. Such,
-_—scihowever, is the singular chain of evidence
which has led Dr. Chwolson to adopt this
system; so great is the authority which his
opinion seems to derive from that of M.
Quatremére; that it becomes the duty of
criticism to examine his assertions step by
step, without resting on the improbability
2
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.
26 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
which they offer at a first glance. I shall
now proceed to place before you the objec- —
tions which, on a careful perusal of Dr.
Chwolson’s Memoir, I have to urge against
the position which he endeavours to main- in
+
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. yr
CHAPTER. II.
= To begin, one circumstance, foreign to, and
no way conducive to the examination of the
book itself, is of a nature to inspire doubts
as to the legitimacy of the deductions of
M. Quatremére and Dr. Chwolson. Ibn
a _ Wahshiya translated “The Book of Naba-
____ theean Agriculture” into Arabic in the year
904 of our era. The original text is uni-
versally admitted to have been in Aramaic.
Two thousand two hundred years, therefore,
according to Prof. Chwolson’s theory,—
seventeen hundred years according to that
of M. Quatremére,—must have elapsed be-
tween the composition of the work and its _
translation. Such an instance is without
parallel at any period before philology
is organised into a regular science. Only
--
77 4
‘ia
»
a, |
- = - r 4
— u a - q ss Mt
ee eee eee
. 28 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
consider of what an archaical character the
Aramaic text must have appeared to a
Chaldean in the tenth century of our era.
Though it may be urged that the Shemitic
languages varied very little in the course
of their prolonged existence; or to quote,
as a case in point, the Moallakats, as being
still well understood among Arabs, after the
lapse of 1300 years: the political and _ re-
ligious revolutions of Chaldeea have been too
sweeping for the possibility of its language
preserving such an identity. The philolo-
gists of antiquity, and those of the middle
ages, being ignorant of the principles of
comparative grammar, were not able to in- §
terpret the archaical remains of their own A
language. I might add also that the pre-
servation of a work of the nature of ‘The
Book of Nabathzan Agriculture,” during
two or three thousand years, is extremely
improbable. Such a preservation may be
credited, in the case of scriptural writings,
when they have become classical, but not in
that of an ordinary work, written in a care-
: , ' - aay
j : 5 i 7 ' , so it
é : =, aD . 3 ie wi arin, ee 2 tal P A ey nag Be
Tee Se a ee a hee on tee re ee IR Se
SN ae te EM Ve OD et Pa ae ee Sea he: oa. .
a i
dh ek
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 29
less, diffuse, bald style, full of minute dis-
_ cussions and extraneous matter. Books of
a _ this kind do not remain intact during many
generations of copyists. They grow with
the times; or, to speak more correctly, they
have only a limited fame, and are replaced
by other treatises which are found more
suitable, or believed to be more complete.
This is but a prejudicial view of the case ;
it is from the examination of the book it-
self that one must expect more convincing
arguments. It will be confessed, however,
that the opinion which attributes such re-
mote antiquity to ‘‘The Book of Nabathzean
_ Agriculture” must be abandoned, if I suc-
ceed in proving that its author understood
Greek science, the institutions of more ad-
vanced (achimedienne) Persia, and the Jewish
traditions in their apocryphal and legendary
form. Now these three points I trust to be
able to prove.
Prof. Chwolson acknowledges that a great —
number of Greek words occur in the trans-
: 3 F lation of Ibn Wahshtya, especially when
30 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
it treats of the nomenclature of plants ;* but
he meets the difficulties which this peculi-
arity presents, difficulties which Prof. Meyer
has already insisted on, with a general plea
of rejection. He thinks that it is Ibn Wah-
shfya who has substituted the names in use
in his own time for Nabathzean names, and
that he has added to them their various
synonymes. That is certainly by no means
impossible. It must be remembered, how-
ever, that Ibn Wahshtya is neither a
botanist nor an agronomist by profession.
He is a translator, proud of the ancient
literary glory of his race, and who translates
alike every Nabathean work which comes —
to hand. What would be natural, in an-
agronomist, pre-occupied with the practical
utility of his book, cannot be attributed to
him. He never appears to endeavour to
accommodate his translation to the exigency
of his age, as is the usual case in an ordi-
nary work. The Greek names given by Ibn
Wahshiya, moreover, are not the vulgar, but
1 Pp. 81, 82.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 31
scientific names, which those alone could be
acquainted with who were accustomed to
handle those polyglot ‘‘Dioscorides” of which
we possess copies. The Greek names of
plants given by Ibn Wahshiya are found
in the Syriac glossaries of Bar-Ali and of
Bar-Bahlul, who probably had taken them
from books analogous to the one translated
by Ibn Wahshiya.
In all that treats of the names of towns
and cities, M. Quatremére affirms that he
has not found in ‘The Book of Nabathean
Agricuiture” the name of any of the Greek
cities of the East. Dr. Chwolson! confesses
that he has discovered one,—that of Antioch
_(Anthakia); but he thinks, according to his
usual method, that it is only a modern name
which Ibn Wahshtya has substituted for one
more ancient: nothing can be more gratuit-
y ous. The Orientals have never made the
name of Anthakia respond to any city but
that founded by Seleucus Nicator; and we ~
know, in the most precise manner, that
1 Page 36.
Bean BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
when Seleucus founded his capital on the
banks of the Orontes, he only found an
insignificant place there, whose name even
has not descended to us.
Proofs stronger still establish satisfac-
torily, in my opinion, the fact that the
author of “‘The Book of Nabathean Agri-
culture” had acquaintance with the writings -
of the Greeks. In various passages of “ The
Book of Nabathean Agriculture,” which
seem to have escaped the attention of M.
Quatremére, there ‘are allusions to the
Yuananis, and it is well known that it is by
that name that the Arabs designate the
ancient Greeks, in distinction to the Roumis,
or modern Greeks. Dr. Chwolson gives a
very unsatisfactory explanation of this diffi-
culty. Starting from the supposition that
the Hellenic race arrived in Asia Minor at
a very remote period, he deduces from this
supposed fact, that from the year 2500 be-
fore Christ—it will be seen presently that
? See Pausanias Damasus, Mep *Avrioxefas, in Miiller’s “ Frag-
menta Historie Greece,” vol. iv. p. 467 ff.
—
na
ae
" Ay! 4
me
ey
J
i
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 33
M. Chwolson needs that especial date—the
Tonians may have had dealings with the
Babylonians.’ But the passages, where there
is mention of the Yuananis, are quite at
__-yariance with such an explanation. The sub-
ject there is, in fact, that the Greeks were
a learned nation, possessing a cultivated
literature. Such passages do not carry us,
T maintain, to the days of the Heraclituses
and the Thales’, who wrote scarcely any-
= thing, and whose writings had but little
publicity ; but to an epoch when the
-- works of the Greek authors were ‘spread
throughout the East. In the chapter
onthe mallow,’ the author, speaking of
the properties of the plant and its uses
' in medicine, says that it belongs to cold
plants, and adds: ‘“ The Greeks (.,,.jb,) are
of another opinion; they think that this
plant is moderately warm, that it alleviates
‘pain, and that it softens hard tumours.”
Dr. Chwolson makes vain efforts to prove —
: that we should not conclude from this that
a 1 Page 86. 2 Page 88,
ee
- Greeks than of the Chaldeans.
34 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
the Greeks had a scientific system of medi-
cine at the time when ‘‘The Agriculture”
was composed. -Greece, he observes, might
very well have had a popular pharmacopeeia
and such receipts as are found in the heroic
age, 1500 years before Christ. Doubtless ;
but such popular pharmacopeeias are not
precisely such as are quoted in scientific —
books, and form a school. It is evident
that it here treats of a written Botany, and
posterior to Theophrastus. In the chapter
on garlic, the author himself says:' ‘ Con-
cerning this plant, the Chaldeans tell many
tales, in some of which the Greeks agree
with them.” Elsewhere the author exults
in the coincidence which exists between the
opinions of the Greeks and the Chaldeans
as regards the influence of the moon on
plants.? It is not clear that he treats here
of a written, regular science no less of the
But the most striking passage in “The
Book of Nabathzan Agriculture” relating
1 Pp. 88, 89. 2 Pp. 89-91.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 85
to the Greeks is this. Concerning a plant
called dikasid,' the author adds: “ This
plant was brought to the climate of Babylon
from the country of Ephesus, a city of the
Greeks.” It is astonishing that Dr. Chwol-
_ son was not struck by such a passage,
and that he has ventured to maintain that
Ephesus could have been mentioned in a
Babylonian document of the 12th century
before Christ. It is of little importance
whether Ephesus might have existed before
that epoch, and even before the colony of
Androcles, the son of Codrus, to whom its
origin is ordinarily attributed. Criticism
which entrenches itself obstinately in pos-
sibilities, careless of thus accumulating
against itself improbabilities, is undoubtedly
irrefutable ; but it is no longer criticism,
The difficulty which results to Dr. Chwol-
son by these allusions to the Greeks, which
are found in “‘ The Nabathzean Agriculture,”
becomes the more grave, from the fact, -
that the Greeks are mentioned not only
4 1 Page 89.
36 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
by Kithami, but by one of the authors
whom he quotes, Masi the Suranian. Ac-
cording to Dr. Chwolson’s theory, Masi
cannot have lived later than two thousand
years before Christ.’ One is naturally curi-
ous to know at what day the Greeks could
have shewn themselves to the eyes of a
Babylonian at so remote a period. Here is
. the passage : “What I say to thee, Tamithri,?
I say also to thy neighbours, the Jonians
( Yundnis), whom, except for the great aver-
sion that I have to abuse, I should not
hesitate to call mere brutes, although ex-
cellent men have appeared among them;
they outbid one another in vaunting up
themselves as to be preferred to the natives
of Babylon.”* ‘Twenty years ago,” says
' Page 92. Besides, p. 173, Dr. Chwolson speaks of 2,500
years, .
2 The treatise of M4si, from which this passage is extracted, was,
according to Dr. Chwolson, addressed to Tamithri, the Canaanite,
and turns upon the literary precedence of the Canaanites and Chal-
dans. I cannot pass by the improbability which a belief in the
high antiquity of such writings calls forth.
3 Page 91, note. CSI a Joi) Selb bos J aay .
mil Ga Oe ee ol als ty dll erect Vall
P 1
<7
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 37
Dr. Chwolson, ‘when negative criticism was
still at its height, it would no doubt have
been concluded from this passage that
Masi lived after Alexander; but now no
one would do so.” I confess that I am
strongly tempted to draw the conclusion
which Prof. Chwolson rejects so disdain-
fully. How is it possible to place at an
ante-historical date a passage which betrays
so plainly that national rivalry, which was
the characteristic trait of the epoch of the
Seleucides, and which assuredly did not
exist before the Median war; that is, earlier
than the fifth century before Christ ?
The passages where the Yunanis are ex-
pressly mentioned are not the only ones
which prove that Kathimi had felt the
influence of the Greeks. There are other
passages more embarrassing still to scholars
who attribute to ‘The Nabathean Agricul-
ture’? a remote antiquity. In the chapter
# wcce Aolgl dey dal ol lit Lal
de ryt ob Dell ped ot oF OW Oly pills
- os
a 6. Se
i
a
‘38 - BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
which treats of the cultivation of beans,
these words occur: ‘This is why Ar-
misé (lm!) (Hermes) and Aghathadimtin
(nob!) (Ayathodemon') have forbidden
persons of their country the use of fish and
beans, and have strongly insisted on this
prohibition.”* Here Dr. Chwolson admits
the difficulty, and tries various solutions of
it; but all equally unsatisfactory. He who
rebutted so energetically elsewhere, in the
case of the composition of “The Book of
Nabathean Agriculture,” all idea of succes-
sive compilation, has recourse this time to
the hypothesis of an interpolation. Then,
falling back on this concession, he volunteers
a high antiquity to the philosophical and
religious part of Hermes and Agathodeemon,
though it is obvious that these are Neo-
Platonic fictions, adopted, among others, by
the Sabians or Modern Babylonians.* Finally,
1 For the part assigned to Agathodemon in Arabian traditions,
which are but an echo of Sabian fables, see ITbn-Abi-Oceibia, in”
the “ Journal Asiatique,” August-September, 1854, p. 186, in Dr.
Sanguinetti’s translation.
2 Pp. 93, 94.
3 Ibn-Abi-Oceibia says that the Nabathzans looked upon Hermes
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 39
he attempts to deny the identity of Armisa
and Hermes. Armisa was a sage of Ba-
bylon ; and, indeed, Armis4 is represented
in many Sabian traditions as a Chaldean
philosopher. But nothing can be deduced
from that circumstance. The Hermesian
books were accepted by all the East, and at
Babylon as if their second country ; it was
from them that the Arabs derived all their
traditions respecting Hermes; and this ex-
plains the singular transfer by means of
Trismegister as their countrymen (‘Journal Asiatique,” March-
April, 1854, p. 263). Now the works attributed by Ibn-Abi-
_ Oceibia to this Hermes are astrological. Besides, Ibn-Abi-Oceibia
connects Hermes Trismegister with the Babylonians and the Har-
ranians (iid. August-Sept. 1854, pp. 185, 187, 189, 191, 192). I
find in the Kitab thabacat al-iimen of Said (p. 20, 21 of M.
Schefer’s manuscript) the following passage, where Hermes is
represented as a modern Babylonian sage, contemporary with .
Socrates, and devoting his life to revising and correcting the
/suacal of his saaceile
Bini ss Eips begets dligal
ed dull aS oo Js cil pa ah 5h
“This i is in accordance with various legends in which Hermes’ is con-
nected with Babylon. Hermes appears again in the chapter on
Egypt.
en, ee ee
40) BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
which a crowd of the traits of Greek my-
thology are applied to Babylon by Arabian
writers. If the name of Hermes appears
here under a different form from that in
which it is found in other Arabian authors
(Lw-s,>), it should be remembered that-nearly
all the proper names in ‘The Book of Na-
batheean Agriculture” have the emphasised
termination a. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, wishing to
describe the pronunciation. of this word,
writes it thus, (w.,!.? ;
_ I have no doubt that many of the ex-
traordinary names, which ‘The Book of
Nabathean Agriculture” presents to us,
might be traced, in the same manner, to
Greek forms, if we had their true reading.
Tamithri (_s,iel-) who figures also in Tbn-el-
Awwam’s writings, is, in the opinion of —
both Banqueri and Wenrich, identical with
Demetrius.’ I believe, also; that Askolabita
or Asbultbita, to whom is assigned the part of
1 “Journal Asiatique,”’ August-Sept. 1854, p. 95.
2 Wenrich, De Auct. Gree. vers. p. 93. Banqueri, Libro de
Agricultura, t. 1, p. 61 of the introduction, 9, ete. ;
‘BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. Al
founder of a religion and benefactor of man-
kind, is "AcxAymids (Adsculapius),' or rather
*Acxanmadys. The part which is assigned
to Asclepius in the apocryphal Hermesian
legends is well known. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia’ takes
a singular mythology of Aisculapius from a
Syriac work; in another place*® he connects
him expressly with Babylon. It is strange
that Dr. Chwolson attaches any importance
to such chimeras. He even supposes that
his Askolabita* must be considered as the
prototype of the Asklepios of the Greeks,
In the same ephemeral spirit he asks in
another place* whether Asklepios and Hermes
were not, in reality, ancient sages deified
after their death.°
1 The termination lo causes very diverse readings. I think
that here is to be seen a schin, remains of the final os. M. Quatre-
mére reads it Kalousha.
2 “ Journal Asiatique,”’ August-Sept. 1854, p. 181.
3 Tbid. p. 185. 4 Page 19. 5 Page 96.
§ Ibn Wahshfya is often quoted as having translated the Book
on Agriculture of Democrates or Democrites, surnamed ost y)
(Herbelot, Bibl. Orientale, at the word Democratis ; Wenrich, De
Auct. Gree. vers. p. 92, 93; Larsow, De Dialect Syr. reliquiis,
p. 12, note). But the conclusions which are attempted to be drawn
from this fall to the ground, since the ascribing to Ibn Wahshiya
42 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
Kuthami, however, does not only make
allusions to Greece. I find also in “ The
Book of Nabathean Agriculture” evident
traces of Persian influence. The author
speaks of a people of Pehlevis (4,\i'); he
describes the Pehlevian language as a Per-
sian dialect.' Dr. Chwolson gets out of this
difficulty by remarking that nothing posi-—
tive is known as to the Pehlevian. But,
most assuredly, sufficient is known to prove
that this language did not exist fourteen
centuries before Christ. Prof. Chwolson
settles the matter by affecting to believe
that the passage cited is an interpolation.
I have already shown how unsatisfactory
is this style of defence, especially when it
is repeated and applied to every similar
characteristic passage. The progress which
criticism has effected during the last half
century consists precisely in discarding, in’
the majority of cases, those very convenient
of the translation of that work, rests on an error of Herbelot, who
seems to have confounded the work of Kathamf with that of Ibn-
el-Awwam. (See the article Vahashiah.)
1 Page 40.
| onan a Gl
7 4
BAYBLONIAN LITERATURE. 43
solutions, which would explain every puzzling
‘passage in ancient writings by characterising
them as interpolations: it is more willing
to admit of the hypothesis of successive re-
touching and remodelling carried on from
age to age. It is certain that the remains
of early antiquity have been altered much
oftener in this way than by the frauds of
copyists—copyists in all ages have pro-
ceeded more machanically.
But why dwell further on this passage,
when Dr. Chwolson admits that the author
of “The Book of Nabathzean Agriculture”
speaks in many places of the Persians, their
B 4 religion, their philosophy, and their science ;
and always with an expression of the
greatest respect... How is it possible to
doubt that he was acquainted with the
doctrines of the Zend Avesta, when he
speaks of the plant which the ‘‘ Magi term
Hom”” (»,»), calling this plant thus by the
most modern form of its name. Dr. Chwolson
1 Page 41.
2 See Anquetil-Duperron, Livres Sacres de Zoroaster, Index, at
- the word Hom, 2.
44 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
explains away the objection which arises out
of these passages in the same way as he does
those which result from the mention of Ephe-
sus and Hermes. ‘‘ The Iranians,” he says,
‘Cand their institutions, existed full thirteen
centuries before Christ; the Babylonianswere,
therefore, probably acquainted with them.”
In the first place, it is very doubtful
whether the Zend institutions did exist at
so remote a period; but, waiving that ob-—
secure point, I boldly assert that these insti-
tutions, confined for centuries to Bactria,
‘could not have exercised any influence in
Babylonia before Cyrus. Then let us add,
that the Persian priests are called Magi in
“The Nabathean Agriculture ;” and that
it is certain that there is no trace of such
a word in the Zend Avesta, the priests there
being termed athravé, and that the name
of Magi does not appear to have been given
to the Zoroastrian priests till after the esta-
blishment of the Persians at Babylon.’ I
do not insist much on this last point ;
1 T reserve the discussion of this point for a future essay.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 45
for Dr. Chwolson might reply that the term
Uwss* (magi) may have replaced a more an-
cient title, in this version of Ibn Wahshtya.
Nevertheless it must be confessed that, in
general, Magi-ism, or the Magian faith,
as it is found in Kuthami, bears a much
stronger resemblance to apocryphal Parsee-
ism, altered by the Hostanes and the Astram-
psyches, than the old Zoroasterism of the
Zend writings. Besides, there is a word,
given as the title of an agricultural work
composed by one of the most ancient sages
of Babylon, of which it seems to me that
its Pehlevian origin cannot -be mistaken ; it
is the word 4.4. It is well known that
all Persian words ending in h are termi-
nated in Pehlevian by %.’ It is also certain
that the word i&L., “rules, directions,” is
not Arabic.’ It appears, then, very probable
' See “Hist. gen. des Langues Semitic,” 1. ii., chap. 4, sec. 1.
2 Sacy Chrest. Arab. t. ii. p. 160 ff., 184 ff. It is very remarkable
that the word yasa, from which the Arabic philologists derive it,
and which they consider Tartar, an error, I believe, as the word
aol is found in Arabian authors much anterior to the Tartar
influence, had also the form yasak.
46 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
that Gls is only the Pehlevian form of
él. The word dle has been used as a
title to a host of moral treatises, or works
on ordinary and common subjects.
The Greeks and Persians are not the
only foreign nations mentioned by Kuthami.
He speaks also of the Indians and the
Egyptians." I do not lay so much stress
on his allusion to the Egyptians, who may
have had organized sciences at the remote
period® to which Dr. Chwolson refers. But
it may be safely asserted that this was not
the case with the Indians. The Brahman
race were, at that time, scarcely established
in the valley of the. Ganges. In many
widely differmg ways we arrive at the con-
clusion that positive science is of modern
introduction into Brahman India, and that
it has been introduced from abroad.
The Jews are only once named in “The
Book of Nabathean Agriculture,” and I
1 Page 90,
* For the same reason, I do not advert to the mention of |
China, p. 81.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 47
freely admit, with Dr. Chwolson, that the
passage where they are mentioned is an in-
terpolation of Ibn Wahshiya.’ But, if their
~ name does not appear in the work of Kithamt,
it is impossible not to perceive their influ-
ence. Can it be doubted after having read
the passage which is here given:* BG Jub
B gore J Gl dell Ga pall yor ecilaudll I
wrt celal, pal ed ue ud hielo OY Nba
ht iol ten Uys Ud pajlaal, Seal all Ge, alas
Bh Ub desing AB Lined “Lees! ot SO Uae sill el Us
ste pol yl pal Sols Lal Gapilandl Iola ol ol
day ba SN gle genet wlll celesl Seth las
dislyalls SLY spd day bey lyally cially pal
Jy alyac Vy mol ni ym Cody Syl wpa N5 ape
# Las! ay ee
Previous to these words, the text treats of
a puerile contest as to the name of a certain
plant, as to which the Assyrians of the
North and the Chaldeans or Babylonians
were not agreed ; the author, always full of
1 Page 43, note. 2 Page 44, note.
48 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
his ideas of disputed sale Se then pro-
ceeds to say:
‘‘There are persons who believe that the
Chaldeans began the attack on the Assyrians;
but it is not so. The Assyrians, in fact, are
not of the race of Adam, while the Chaldeans _ ; 4
are his descendants. Thus, the language of
the Assyrians, and the names by which they
call different objects, cannot be older than
Adam, who first gave to everything its name,
and was the first who established and or-
ganized language itself. Therefore it is not
the Chaldeans whom the Assyrians oppose,
but Adam; for Adam named this plant
akermai. Now, it is universally acknow-
ledged that what Adam ordained is true
and wise; and what. others have ordained
is without foundation. Then, too, the As-
syrians are the children of Shabrikan the
First, who is neither comparable nor equal
to Adam, and who cannot even come near —
to him.”
Now, is it possible not to see the allusion
made here to what is related in Genesis,
«
>
rw
CPs.
cate shed ial
ae Fe a
ae |
aid i
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 49
chap. ll. v. 19: ‘God formed every beast
_of the field, and every fowl of the air, and
brought them unto Adam, to see what he
would call them, and whatsoever Adam called
every living creature, that was the name
thereof.” Now Dr. Chwolson, who has not
failed to perceive this coincidence,’ does not
accept the conclusion, but contents himself
with saying that he shall afterwards explain
what is here said of Adam, by quoting
another more elaborate (ausfithrlichere) pas-
sage on the subject. Certainly such a pas-
sage ought to have been given. I am no
less surprised to see that Prof. Chwolson
quotes, without the slightest hesitation,
without perceiving that it furnishes a seri-
ous objection to his own theory, another pas-
sage :” Ba lls, eo) nf we St cand ure Lads
HS be He pol I slay pal clash ee Farts (il
Hl ws oe) ay ‘syle dx. | aVp Kemal “UL
has ba ie 98 ON ure REL $9 Coersly reels
# MM gb pd Ge? SUI, Lal
1 Pp, 44, 45, note. 2 Pp. 49, 50.
3
i | BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
‘‘These two nations (the Canaanites and
the Chaldeans) are descended from two
brothers, both sons of Adam, and of the
same mother, one of the wives of Adam;
for Adam, according to those skilled in
genealogy, had sixty-four children, of whom
twenty-two were daughters and forty-two
sons. These forty-two sons left eighty heirs.
The others had no posterity which has de-
scended to our times.” In a third passage!
the question is again as to the nations which
were the posterity of the children of Adam
and as to those which were not descended
from them.’
This direct form is not the only one under
which the Biblical or apocryphal traditions
of the Hebrews seem to have found their
1 Page 61. See Ewald, Jahrbiicher der Biblischen Wiss. 1857,
p. 153. The name of Adam appears to have been known among the
Babylonians and the Phoenicians (See Mem. de I’Acad. t. xxiii.
2nd part, pp. 267, 268 ; Hippolyti (ut aiunt) Refutationes Heresium,
Duncker et Schneidewin), p. 136; But the particulars cited here
are evidently Biblical.
2 In the book of Tenkeltish4 which Dr, Chwolson believes much
more modern than the Agriculture, but which, in my opinion, is
of the same school, Cain, son of Adam, is also made to figure
(pp. 142, 143). In the same book, there is mention of the
Cherubins (77d).
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 51
way into Babylon. The same influence is
met with in a more indirect, but not less
unmistakeable form, in other passages of
“The Book of Nabathean Agriculture.” I
have not the least doubt, in fact, that
most of the personages, adduced as ancient
sages of Babylon, and whose names are
strikingly like those of the Hebrew patri-
archs, are those very patriarchs themselves.
Dr. Chwolson denies it; but his efforts ap-
pear to me quite inadequate to disprove this
identity, which has so forcibly struck both
M. Quatremére' and Prof. Ewald.? Let me
endeavour to prove that Adam, Seth,
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, are to be found in
“The Book of Nabathean Agriculture,”
with legends analogous to those which they
have in the apocryphal writings of Jews
and Christians, and subsequently in those
of the Mussulmans.
One of the ancient sages who fills the
1 “Mémoire sur les Nabatéens,” p. 109ff. ‘Journal des
Savants,” Mars, 1857, p. 147.
2 Jahrbiicher der Biblischen Wissenchaften, 1857, pp. 153,
290, 291.
——-
52 - BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
most important part in “‘The Book of Na-
bathean Agriculture” is Adami. Adami
was considered as the founder of agricul-
ture in Chaldeea ;' to him are attributed cer-
tain books of which Kuthami doubts the
authenticity, and which he found altered or
interpolated. Kuthami, a zealous monotheist,
quotes him among his authorities. We
know that many apocryphal writings were
attributed to Adam,’ that the Mendaites
ascribed their chief book to him, and that
the ancient Sabians had books under his
name. Our Adami is thus most undoubtedly
the Adamas or apocryphal Adam of the
Babylonian sects.? Can there remain any
doubt about this identity, when it is seen
that Adam bears, in ‘‘ The Agriculture,”
the title of 2)! .! Father of Mankind,* a
title which all the Moslem East gives to
Adam.’
tP, 27.
2 See Herbelot Bibliothéque Orientale, art. Adam; Fabricii
Codex Pseudopigraphus Vet. Test. t. i. p, 1 ff. ; t. ii. p. 1 ff.
3 See Hippolyti Refutationes Heresium, ind. p. 557.
* Page 174.
5 Dr. Chwolson himself seems to confound, at times, what relates
1
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 53
Ishitha,’ the son of Adami, described as a
religious legislator, as the founder of astro-
logy and of astrolatria, is undeniably Seth.
We know that among all the apocryphal
legends of the antediluvian patriarchs, that
of Seth is the most ancient, and appears
already in Josephus.? Ishitha, according to
“The Agriculture,” had followers called
_ Ishithians ; an organised sect are descended
from him, having a sort of high-priest ; and
numerous writings were circulated under
his name. These Ishithians are very pro-
bably the sect of the Sethians, which played
an important part in the first centuries of
our era.’ All the fables which the Mussul-
mans connect with Seth, in looking upon
him as the prophet of an age of mankind
which they call the age of Seth, come
doubtless from the same source. Ibn-Abi-
to Adami and Adam (pp. 44, 45, note; 49, 50, note; 190). See
1 Page 27. 2 Antiquitates, I. ii. 3.
3 The theology of the Sethians appears to have been of true
Babylonian doctrine, which they sought to blend with Biblical
teaching. (See Hippolyti Refutationes Heresium, edit. Duncker
et Schneidewin, p. 198 ff.)
as ad
, rv ort
~F sake Ld \
54 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
Oceibia ascribes expressly to the Sabians
the notion that Seth taught the art of
medicine, and that he had received it as
an heritage from Adam.’
Akhniakha (+1) or Hanakhé (3)? is
Enoch. Ibn-Abi-Oceibia, drawing from
Sabian sources, calls Enoch (2,1). We
know the part of ‘inventor’ which this
patriarch filled of old. The Arabs, also
following these Sabian traditions, identify
him with Hermes.° No doubt the Baby-
lonian Akhnikha, often quoted in the same
line with Armisa, is the legendary Enoch,
who rises into such high favour towards
the commencement of our era.
Antha, the Canaanite (\+,)\),° another of
1 See Herbelot Bibl. Orient. art. Sheith. We find traces of the
Sethians even lower; see Chwolson’s Ssabier, Ii. p. 269.
2 Page 99, note.
3 Banqueri has noticed, I. p. 9, that Adam, Enoch, etc., are
mentioned in every page of Ibn-el-Awwam.
4 “ Journal Asiatique,” August-Sept., 1854, pp. 185, 187.
5 Tbn-Abi-Oceibia, ‘Journal Asiatique,” spaces 1854,
pp. 185, 189.
6 Akhnakha must not be confounded with Andhs. The or-
thography of the two words is different, and in one passage, the
two names are quoted as distinct, following one another (p. 62,
95, note).
—— ee Ore, ao a oe
’ Mas . 9 es ‘ wim
-
= << ee.
ee ee eae
: r Pye)
— ee =
‘
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 55
the founders, represented as the apostle of
monotheism, is undoubtedly Noah. Indeed,
a great deluge happened in his time. More-
over, Antiha planted the vine, and he is
always cited as an authority 1 in speaking of
the making of wine.’
Finally, Ibrahim, the Canaanite (that is
to say of Palestine), is certainly, in spite
of what Dr. Chwolson? says about it, the
patriarch Abraham, He is represented in
“The Agriculture” as an apostle of mono-
theism, and as having denied the divinity
of the sun. Who can fail to recognise in
this the rabbinical fable, where Abraham,
filling the part of confessor of the faith,
holds victorious controversies against Nim-
rod and the idolatrous Chaldeans? Be-
sides,’ Ibrahim, the Canaanite, is an Imam
who undertakes long journies to avoid the
famine which occurred in the days of the
1 Page 62, note. See Ewald, Jahrbiicher, 1857, p. 291. Sama, —
another Babylonian sage, classed with Hanikh&, Adami, ete., in
the book of Tenkeldsh&, appears to me identical with Shem,
2 Page 43.
3 See especially Koran, xxxvii. 83 ff ; lx, 4 ff.
+ . ae a s ae
56 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
Canaanite king Salbama.' Then,’ too, he is
brought into connection with Namrida, and
represented as an emigrant from the land
of Canaan. Generally speaking, the stories
founded on his life correspond perfectly
with his legend, as received among the
Jews a little before our era. Josephus? of
old, somewhat in an arbitrary manner, iden-—
tifies Abraham with an ancient Babylonian
sage mentioned by Berosus; the reputation
of Abraham as a Chaldean sage was esta-
blished at that period no less than in that
of Philo.‘ ;
As to the part which Nuimrida plays in
‘‘The Book of Nabathean Agriculture,” as
a Canaanite priest,’ and as founder of the
Canaanite dynasty at Babylon, it would be
presumptuous to say that this idea only has
its origin in a plagiarism from the Bible.
It is very possible that there might be some
1 Page 45 ff. 2 Page 49. 3 Antiquities, I. vii. 2.
4 Philonis Judi Opera, edit. Mangey, ii. 13. See Ewald,
Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i. 436, 437 (2nd edition) ; Winer,
Biblisthes Realwcerterbuch, i. p. 12 (8rd edition).
5 Page 49,
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 57
national tradition respecting him. Nimrod,
as we shall presently see, was a popular
personage in Chaldeea in the first centuries
of our era. It is difficult to unravel, amidst
the confusion of ideas which then prevailed
in the East, the origin of legends so de-
nuded of true character, and over which
is thrown that general level of mere plati-
tude which gives such a singular air of
monotony and conventionalism to all the
traditions transmitted to us by Arabian
writers.
Certainly, if either of these facts were an
isolated one, one might hesitate to draw
from it any deduction. But they form alto-
gether a mass of evidence which appears to
me most solid. One subtle reply may be
true, but ten subtle replies cannot be so.
I must therefore consider it as an esta-
blished fact, that each one of the personages
I have enumerated, all of whom are given
in “The Agriculture” as ancient Babylo- -
nian- sages, is the representative of one of
those classes of apocryphal writings of Ba-
3*
58 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
bylonian or Syrian origin, which bear the
name of a patriarch, and round which are
grouped a greater or less number of fol-
lowers. ‘The Book of Nabathean Agri-
culture” is of a period when these writings
possessed full authority, and this explains
why the Jews, who furnished the originals
of all these fictions, are not mentioned in
the work of Kithami. The apocryphal tra-
ditions of which I am speaking were, in
fact, in such general circulation, that they
passed at Babylon for Babylonian, in the
same manner as the Arabs, who, when re-
lating their fables of Edris and Lokman,
never acknowledge that they owe them to
the Jews, but always seem to forget or ig-
nore the fact.’ .
If we look at the general character of
“The Book of Nabathean Agriculture,” in-
1 It is Dr. Chwolson himself (‘Die Ssabier,” t. i., 1. i. ¢. 18)
who has most clearly shown how the Jewish patriarchs were adopted
by the Sabians, the Harranians, and other sects of the East. Dr.
Chwolson describes, elsewhere (pp. 186, 187 of his new memoir),
a very curious passage of a Jewish apocryphal tale, fathered on
Noah, which has the most complete affinity to those of the Na-
bathzan text.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 59
dependently of the peculiarities which have
still to be adduced, as much, at least, as it
is possible to do, from the extracts of M.
Quatremére and Dr. Chwolson,! we shall
find in it all the evidences of lower an-
tiquity:—no grandeur of expression; a
flimsy method of reasoning, bordering on
puerility, in a word, strikingly analogous
to that of Arabian authors; and, above all,
that flat and prolix style of those periods of
much writing consequent upon an influx
of paper or other writing materials; whilst
throughout the whole work the style is
essentially personal and reflective, so con-
trary to that of works of high antiquity.
There the author keeps ever in the back-
ground, to render more prominent the doc-
1 The Paris Manuscript, which had been sent to the Russian
minister for Dr. Chwolson’s use, was only returned to the Biblio-
théque Impériale when the present memoir was nearly finished. I
have not thought it necessary to devote further time to the perusal
of this manuscript, already examined by M. Quatremére, and which
only could furnish me an imperfect text of one third of the work,
of which Dr. Chwolson possesses a complete and collated copy.
We must wait for the promised edition of Prof. Chwolson in
order to make a consecutive and comparative examination of the
work.
Vige = ai as “ee a Soto ee . eae ? i ie BiG hah ee Fs pees
* hoes” a tale Le oa TR eo De ae ,
60 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
trmes which he enunciates, and the facts
which he relates; here, on the contrary,
throughout the whole composition we find
pitiful squabbles, polemics, a class of
writings belonging to those forms of litera-
ture which mark the decay of human intel-
lect. A great number of controversial books
are mentioned in ‘‘ The Book of Nabathean
Agriculture :”’ Masi, the Suranian, at least
two thousand years before Christ, according
to Dr. Chwolson, addresses an epistle in
verse to his son Kenked:' Tamithri, the
Canaanite, writes a book against Anthd,
the Canaanite: Dewanai, three thousand
years before Christ, wrote against the
Syrian Mardaiad, who gave Syria the
preference over Babylonia; and threatened
hint with a speedy death if he did not
retract this impious heresy:* Masi and
Tamithri are in scientific correspondence
with one another; and in another place are
made to write against each other.’ Kuthami,
1 Pp. 60, 90. -
2 Page 91, note. The Syrian name Mardaiad(... waeSo) ap-
pears less ancient. 8 Pp. 60, 90.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 61
in the name of the Chaldeans, disputes their
literary priority with the Canaanites on the
most futile subjects ; thorough and engross-
ing national vanity throws an insipid air
over the whole work. I am willing to
it that this disease is a very old one in
he world; but it betrays itself, with art-
lessness, in truly ancient works ; while here
it is absurdly paraded, as in Sanchoniathon
and other writings of this intermediate age,
when the East was brought into contact
- with Greece. ‘The Book of Nabathean
Agriculture” thus appears to me to be im-
bued with all the blemishes which afflicted
the human intellect towards the third and
fourth centuries: charlatanism, astrology,
sorcery, and a taste for the apocryphal.
It is very far removed from Greek science
of the period of Alexander, so free from
all superstition, so fixed in method, so
infinitely beyond all those idle chimeras
which afterwards led astray and retarded.
the scientific progress of the mind for
_ nearly sixteen centuries.
weed a ak el 7. Fe ee ee ee ee eee “* been? ¥. pales al se
5 1 - a ¥. ¢ , * vi ; 4 J a q =
: —
:
4
;
a
7
bY
g
2
b=
q
.
3
|
:
~
62 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
I leave the examination of the scientific
theories of ‘‘ The Book of Nabathean Agri-
culture” to those who are familiar with the
history of the natural sciences. Such an
examination will not be possible till the
work of Kuthami is published in its en-
tirety. I shall only make one observation
on this head: the classification of plants
into cold and warm occurs incessantly in
“The Book of Nabathzan Agriculture.”!
It is known that this classification is later
than Theophrastus, who, in that general
theory, lays bare one basis of Greek Botany.’
I shall only point out to astronomical
scholars two passages*® where there are allu-
sions to the division of the zodiac into
twelve signs, and to the seven planets. The
philosophy of Kuthami, indeed, is not of a
character to bespeak great antiquity for the
work in which it is found. This philosophy
is a kind of monotheism, which induces the
_ author to repudiate the established creeds of
1 Page 88. 2 Theophrasti Historia Plantarum, I. ii.
* Pp. 51, 53, note. .
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 63
his time, and vigorously to attack idolatry.
I am perfectly aware that professions of a
more theistic tendency were common among
the Shemetic nations ; but it would certainly
not be at Babylon where Shemetism, so to
say, was of so mingled a character, that one
would most expect to find it. But whenever
these professions of faith occur in remote
antiquity, it is never in the polemical, re-
flective, and systematic forms which they
assume in ‘The Book of Nabathean Agri-
culture.” Prof. Ewald is right in believing
that such passages bespeak the full develop-
ment of a monotheistical religion.’ The kind
of incredulity towards the received religion
which peeps out in Kithamf and several of
his countrymen, and the atheism of which
some traces are perceptible in his writings,
point to the works of Berosus and San-
choniathon, and belong to the epoch of the
Seleucides. It is well known that the re-
ligious creeds in Babylon were much shaken~
at that period, and that many persons
1 Page 100.
4 ao a ;
eh | oe .,
a aly - z * Fe ae
‘ oa i ute say PE
E ‘5
oP:
64 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
affected a sort of materialism and impiety,
in the belief that by so doing they, were —
following Grecian style and manner.'
1 | think that the Arabian legend of Empedocles, and the mate-—
rialist writings which are ascribed to him are of Babylonian oe %
and belong to this movement, .
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 65
CHAPTER III.
THE author of ‘‘The Book of Nabathzan
Agriculture” was acquainted with Greek
science; an echo of the Bible, or at the
very least, of Jewish belief, is found in his
writings; he allows full authority to the
_ apocryphal writings ascribed to Hebrew
patriarchs ; he believes in those half-trickish
writings which pretended to represent the
science of the Indians, Egyptians, and Per-
sians, in the first centuries of our era; and
he admits Hermes and Agathedeemon
amongst Babylonian sages. The date of
the “‘Nabathean Agriculture,” at least a
parte ante is from these facts sufficiently
determined. It remains now to be seen -
whether we do not possess other works, the
bringing of which into juxtaposition may
> . ¢ j
eo __ ue / an 7
hay Char ee ee
66... . BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
assist us in fixing yet more precisely the
character of the singular work which en-
gages our attention.
It is Dr. Chwolson himself who shall fur-
nish the means of our doing so. One of
Dr. Chwolson’s merits indeed is to have
drawn attention to the fact that ‘‘ The Book
of Nabathean Agriculture” is not the only
work of its kind,’ and that we possess three
other works of the same nature, all trans-
lated by Ibn Wahshiya. -The first of these
books, the pyau!l C&S or “ Book of Poisons ;”
is composed of three works, which accord-
ing to Dr. Chwolson, have been blended
together by Ibn Wahshiya. The authors
of the three works are Sthab-Sath, Yar-
baka, and Rewatha; Sthab-Sath is more
ancient than Yarbika, and Yarbika is
quoted in “‘The Book of Nabathzan Agri-
culture.” All the peculiarities, therefore,
which denote Yarbaka to be an author of
1M. Weyers had previously given this bibliographical infor-
mation most fully. (‘‘Specimen criticum exhibens locos Ibn
Khacanis,” Lugd. Bat., 1831, pp. 100, 101, note.
a
sy
»
:
shila tie
2 4
ee a ae
a oS Dylan Sint aera, SS ee ee
—
eS Se! eo
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 67
very moderate antiquity, must also destroy
the pretensions which are raised with regard
to the name of Kithami. Now numberless
traits prove that Yarbika is a Chaldean of
comparatively modern times. He speaks of
the city of Kazvin, which appears to have
been founded in the time of the Sassinides ;'
1 M. Barbier de Meynard has kindly communicated to me the
following information on this subject: ‘‘ The accounts furnished by
Mahometan chroniclers as to the origin of Kazvin, will not allow
our assigning a date to this city anterior to the Christian era.
The national vanity of the Persians, we know, neglects no occasion
of placing the founding of their old capital cities in the obscurity
of primitive ages. Their historians have adopted a naive form on
this point, which constitutes at once the disorder and the vitality
of their memorials. They attribute the foundation of such towns
as Balkh, Rhages, Susa, etc., to the mythical kings Taomurs and
Houchgen of the fabulous dynasty of the Pichdadiens. The
silence which they preserve as to Kazvin has, therefore, a sig-
nificance which criticism cannot ignore. A very popular cos-
mographer in the East, Hamd-Allah, of Kazvin, has compiled a
sketch of his native city, for which he has consulted local legends
no less than the writings of his predecessors. Among the records
that he brings forward, one only quotes Shahpiir, son of Ardéchir
(Sapor I.), as the founder of a little town named Shadptr, which
was the cradle of Kazyin. Hamza of Ispahan names Behram L.,
without resting his assertion on any proof. On the contrary,
Shahpar Zal-Aktaf (Sapor II.) is almost universally considered as
the founder of this city. That prince, wishing to subdue his
warlike neighbours, before attacking the Roman empire, con- ~
structed a fortified town, about A.D. 330, a sort of outpost des-
tined to hold the hordes of Deilem in awe. The ruins, of which
(Hamd-Allah) Kazvini has not ventured to fix the date, have
ome
-
.
mee oP Ae a b if rs Tiel rr = ‘a ie
Vital Sp icles Sina le SMM aS
- ' eos 4 i al ete
) ’ ™ if Sad) , =~ oN ees elt eae
way : FT one Ne Sk es: : oN) oe? ie
; ; Ty
68 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
he quotes a certain Babekai as an ancient
Babylonian sage. The science of ‘The
Book of Poisons” is imbued with charla-
tanism ; sorcery abounds in its pages ;—we
feel that these are the fruits of an art in its
decay, which, no longer sustained by the
traditions of true science, degenerates into
superstition. Verbiage, trivial personalities,
so unlike the style of ancient writers, are
here even more rife than in the work of
Kuthami. |
We have, then, a work, anterior to ‘‘ The
Book of Nabathean Agriculture,” which
throughout presents evident marks of
modern origin. But another Nabathean
work, also translated by Ibn Wahshtiya,
gives rise to yet more important deductions.
This work is entitled GU,a! LUI aes Obs
“The Book of Tenkelisha, the Babylonian, —
the Kukanian.” It is a genethlialogical
doubtless no other origin. In a word, from such scanty evidence of
the Oriental traditions, as well as the absolute silence of the Greek
historians, one is justified in coming to the conclusion that the opinion
which would assign a remote antiquity to Kazvin only rests on
doubtful documents or on merely gratuitous conjectures.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 69
work, one of those books which, on going
out into the world towards the close of the
age of the Seleucides, made the word
Chaldean synonymous with charlatan.
Here there can be no doubt. Dr. Chwol-
son gives up all idea of putting ‘‘ The Book
of Tenkelisha in the same rank with those
of Yarbika and Kuthami. He places it in
the period of the Arsacides, at the latest
towards the first century after Christ.’
Greek influence betrays itself here indeed
in an unmistakeable manner; a certain
Uwvy\b,! is cited in this work, a name in
which one may trace Aristobulus, and which
in any case, is certainly that of a Greek.
I shall prove, presently, that the work
of Tenkelishé is not alone known to us
through the translation of Ibn Wahshtya,
and that the Greeks have often quoted it.
Let it suffice for the present, that Dr.
Chwolson recognizes that Tenkelisha is a
Chaldean of the lower period. How is it .
that Prof. Chwolson has not perceived
1 P. 136
70 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
the important deductions which follow this
admission? The work of Tenkelisha, by Dr.
Chwolson’s own confession, must be posterior -
by fifteen centuries to the ‘‘ Agriculture,”
and ‘‘'The Book of Poisons.” There should,
therefore, be a marked difference between,
the book of Kuathami (? Tenkelisha) and
these two works; but there is scarcely
any. The work of Tenkelishé is exactly
of the same physiognomy as those of Ku-
thami and Yarbika. There is similar
science; a similar state of religion; the
same celebrities; the same authorities ;'
similar apocryphal traditions; and, in one
word, it is of the same school. Tenke-
lisha, like the ancient sages of ‘‘ The Book
of Nabathean Agriculture,” is surrounded
by fabulous legends, mingled with the old
mythology of the country. The state of
prosperity and political independence, that
flourishing cultivation,’ that rich and varied
literature, that art so fully developed,
which induces M. Quatremére to fix the
1 Pp. 99, 136, 156 ff. 2 P. 132, 3 Pp. 150, 150 ff.
BABYLONIAN LITBRATURE. 71
publication of “The Nabathean Agricul-
ture’’ in the times of Nebuchadnezzar, is
met again feature for feature in the Arsa-
cidan or Sassinidan book of Tenkelisha.
Can it be admitted that in fifteen, or even
in eight centuries (to confine ourselves to
the calculation adopted by our deceased
brother, M. Quatremére, nothing should
have been altered in Babylon, and that
two works composed at such a long interval
should evince so striking a resemblance ?
A deduction of the same kind, and decisive,
may be drawn from the very title of the
work. ~The author, after the epithet UU,
puts that of GG,3!. Dr. Chwolson considers
that this epithet designates a School ;' and
I will not argue the point with him. But
Kathami too assumes the title of GU,wI.
Yarbuka, much more ancient, according to
Prof. Chwolson, also bears the same epithet
of GG,i!. Can any one conceive it probable
that the same school should have continued
for two thousand years, and that, by some
1 P, 31 ff.
72 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
extraordinary accident, the only three Ba-
bylonian writers, whose works have come
down to us, should, at such immense inter-
vals, have been attached to the same insti-
tution ? |
The fourth Nabathezan work, entitled Ls
rill, Qnotdl plc) which sets forth the opinions
of the pretended Babylonian sages, Adami,
Ankebitha, and Askolabita, on the artificial
production of living beings, appears anterior,
at least in point of ideas, to ‘The Book of
Nabathean Agriculture,” since Kuthami
constantly appeals to the principles which
are there developed.’ Now it is very diffi-
cult to allow that this novel composition
belongs to high antiquity. The science
which it contains, is that which we find in
Berosus and Sanchoniathon ; a sort of athe-
ism, professing to explain the formation of
beings after a materialist fashion, and with-
out the intervention of the Godhead. This
idea appears to have been one of the funda-
mental principles of Babylonian science.
1 Pp. 166 ff.
PSs ee
LS -
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 73
Can one see in it anything but a plagiarism
from the atomist theories of the Greeks?
Or, must it be admitted that the materialist
cosmogonies of the East and of Greece had
their rise in Babylon? Surely here, we
are permitted to hesitate. But I do not
think, that any enlightened reader would
entertain any doubts as to the age and
character of the scholars referred to, after
perusing pages 265 to 268 of Dr. Chwol-
son’s memoir. In seeing them boldly give
rules for the formation at will of plants and
animals, affirm manifest impossibilities ; in
following the relation of one of them, An-
kebitha, of the manner by which he had
succeeded in forming a man, and kept him
alive for a year; in reading the story of
another who maintains that he, too, had
succeeded in the same experiment, but that
the king, for political reasons, had forbid-
den him to repeat it;—one is tempted, I
imagine, to class them, not among the
ancient founders of real science, but among
those more modern charlatans, who under
4
74 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
cover of the formularies of a worn out
science, inundate the world with idle fancies, —
and contribute, in a deplorable manner, to
the abasement and perversion of the human
intellect.’ :
One deduction appears to me to arise
from the analysis to which we have sub-
jected “The Book of Nabathean Agricul-
ture,” and the other Nabathean writings,
and that is that the School to which they
belong, taken altogether, cannot be anterior —
to the third or fourth century of our era;
and that the literary movement which they
suggest as earlier, does not allow us to
place it before Alexander. I am far from
insisting that the work of Kuthami could
not have preserved to us many most ancient
fragments, remodelled in the course of time
in all sorts of way. It may be that the art
which it teaches in its procedure can be
traced back to the most ancient epochs of
' In the Sanscrit Pantchatantra is allusion to similar pseudo-
science. See Benfey’s Pantschatantra, fuenf Buecher Indischer
Fabelu, vol. If. p. 382 ff. Translator’s Note.
a
“~e
-
ke
*
,
a
ae
a
)
—
*
y
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 75
Assyria,’ in the same way that the Cyrimen-
sores Latini, recently published for the first
time, have preserved to us usages and rites,
which can only be explained by reference
to the Bralimanas of India; and which be-
long, therefore, to the most. ancient periods
_ of the Arian race. The question now under
discussion is a question of literary history ;
such questions, it is well known, are quite
apart from historical criticism. In con-
fining the problem, within these limits, I
venture to believe that the proofs adduced
above are conclusive. Peculiarities which
mark a modern age, are found in the very
heart of “The Book of Nabathean Agri-
culture ;” the theories of the book, taken
altogether, are those of the Hellenic period ;
the authors cited by Kuthami, themselves
quote the Greeks; the point to which the
book carries us, is that of the Sabiasm of
the first centuries of our era. Before draw-
ing this statement to a close, however, I
ought, Ist, to endeavour to account for some
1 See Berosi Fragmenta, 1. inif,
76 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
of the singularities which have led Dr.
Chwolson to adopt his theory; and, 2nd, to
explain how the composition of such writings
was possible in Babylon, at the period which
I have assigned to them.
Two strange peculiarities give an un-
doubted appearance of solidity to Dr.
Chwolson’s hypothesis: the first is the
term Canaanite, applied to the reigning
dynasty of Babylon at the period of the
composition of ‘The Book of Nabathean
Agriculture ;” and the second, that there
are names of Babylonian kings mentioned
in the ‘‘ Agriculture”? which are not found
in any known dynasty. The assertion of
Kuthami as to what concerns the Canaanite
dynasty, is not so isolated as it appears at
first sight. Many Arabian historians and
geographers, some of whom are anterior to
the Arabic translation of ‘‘ The Book of Na-
bathean Agriculture,” speak of Canaanite
kings reigning at Babylon, and Nemrod is
expressly mentioned as the founder of this
dynasty, which they connect by the most
i | a ee ee
mi " : U :
hia % “ mi he ®
ae eee ee eee ee a eee ee
Nath i biel elie oe
ra > an
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 77
- contradictory and absurd genealogies to
Canaan, son of Ham. Nemrod, is, accord-
ing to them, a title common to all the
sovereigns of the Nabathezans, on which
account they have made a plural to it
so,le)|' An Arabian geography, which M.
Quatremére believes to be anonymous, but
which M. Reinaud’ has shown to be the
work of Dimeshki, enumerating the nations
comprised under the name of Nabathzans,
places among them the Chaldeans, Cas-
deans, Jenbans, Garmeans, Kiutaris, and
Canaanites.? M. Quatremére* quotes at the
same time a passage from the “ Agricul-
ture” where the Canaanites and the inhabi-
tants of Syria are comprehended among the
Nabatheans. The total want of judgment
and accuracy which characterises Arabian
historians, when treating of ancient history,
does not however admit of any saft conclu-
sions being drawn from these passages.
1 Chwolson, pp. 67-68; Quatremére, pp. 57-58, 62,
2 Introd. 4 la Géographie d’ Aboulféda, p. 150 ff.
3 Quatremére, pp. 62-63. ¢ Pp. 61.
78 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
Besides which, one fact is sure to spoil
every hypothesis which might be formed
from them; and that is, that the Hebrew
patriarchs Antha and Ibrahim are called
Canaanites, which would seem to make that
word synonymous with Israelites. We must
wait for the solution of this enquiry till the
entire publication of the ‘ Agriculture.”
Two things, however, appear certain. The
first, that the name of Canaanites with the
Babylonians did not always refer to the
ancient inhabitants of Phoenicia; and the
second, that this theory of a Canaanite dy-
nasty of which Nimrod was the founder, is
of Biblical origin. ‘After the deluge,”
says Masoudi, ‘“‘ mankind established them-
selves in different countries; such were the ~
Nabatheans, who founded the city of Ba-
bylon, and those of the descendants of Ham,
who settled in the same province, under the
guidance of Nimrod, son of Kanaan, son of
Sinkharib, son of Ham, and grandson of
Noah.” “The Nabatheans,” says Di-
meshki, ‘‘descended from Nabit, son of
: BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 79 -
Kanaan, son of Kush, son of Ham. They
inhabited the province of Babylon, and
had for their king Nimrod the great.' The
same thing is found in the Kitab tabacath al-
umem, the Said of Toledo: ‘‘ The Chaldeans
are a nation illustrious from the antiquity
of their empire, and the celebrity of their
kings, who were descended from the Nim-
rods the giants, of whom the first was
Nimrod, son of Cish, son of Ham.”? M.
Chwolson himself thinks that Masoudi has
borrowed what he says of his Nimrodian
dynasty, from Christian sources.. Who
knows, that the name of Canaanites is
not in this instance one of those con-
! Quatremére, pp. 56, 57, 62.
2 Here is the entire passage, according to the MS. of M.
Fsleall, Fala! ore yS CGLall ded daly! Sagas Ea
GD) Spsel GL ple cy CoS cy Syell mals! Sl
SiS jp 8! PaCS ef als 5$s usa, ete. According to the
passage in the Koran, xvi. 28. The plurals Fle and ¥.) dai
formed, after the same analogy, from 733 and m=») (Gen. x. 8-9),
betray i in themselves a biblical origin. Some lines below there is,
in the Said, the identical genealogies given by Masondi.
80 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
ventional words, by which, in the Kast,
it was often sought to escape from getting
embroiled with suspected powers ; something
in the way in which the Jews successively
designated the nations which persecuted
them by the name of Ldomites or Ama-
lekites, and the capitals of nations which
were hostile to them by that of Babylon.
The reserve with which Kithami speaks of —
the Canaanites, confirms this hypothesis.
The histories of the Jews, Samaritans, Men-
daites, Harranians, Nosairis, and Yezidis,
offer examples of this kind of falsification.
Possibly, too, many of the singular names
which surprise us in ‘‘The Book of Naba-
thean Agriculture,” proceed from some
form of the cabbala or secret writing.
The use of these forms is very ancient in
the East; since we find at least two very
probable examples in the text of Jeremiah.’
1 Since the completion of this memoir, I have received some
communications from M. Kunik, Member of the Academy at St.
Petersburgh, which confirm me in this hypothesis. M. Kunik is
tempted to believe that the Mussulmans appear in the “ Agricul-_
ture” under some pseudonyme. He has taken up some extremely
ingenious views as to the part which must there be assigned to
re
aaitl
+ |
iu
~ I
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 81
_ The names of the Babylonian kings fur-
nished by Nabathean writings cause at first
the greatest astonishment. Here are the seven-
teen names of kings which I have gathered
from Dr. Chwolson: Abéd-Fergil4, Bédina,
Salbama, Harmati, Hindfa, Kamash, Mari-
-nata, Namrida; Kerasini, Kijama, Riccdna,
Saha, Shamaja, Shémita, Sisikya, Thiba-
tana, Zahmuna. Only one of these names
positively corresponds with those known to
us elsewhere, and that is Numrida, which,
as we have seen, carries us back to a fabu-
lous antiquity. Another name, that of Ke-
-risani, may possibly, I think, correspond
with pre-historical traditions. A _ hero,
common to the literature of the Vedas,
and in the Zend-Avesta, and who there-
fore may be carried back to ancient Arian
mythology, is Kertisani, who, like Nimrod,
Gnosticism. He thinks (and a similar idea had already occurred to
me) that Jesus Christ is concealed under the name of Azada; that
Saturn arrayed in black (Chwolson, pp. 115, 135) is the God of the
Jews, the Sathaneal of the Anti-Christian gnostics ; that the pre-_
tended Babylonian anchorites (Chwolson, p. 159) are Christian
monks; so that the antipathy of the Gnostics to the Christians.
betrays itself in many places.
4*
oe a re |
82 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
fills the part of an archer and a hunter.! -
It is even very possible, that Kerdsani, like
Zohak (the Persian Ajdahak), and like
Zoroaster himself, may be a personage of
the Iranian mythology, adopted by Baby-
lonia. As to the other names, they are
too obscure to allow either of objections
or proofs to invalidate the authority of
Kuthami.
Hebrew look; Abed-Fergfla (y...44y), Sal-
bama, Kijama, and Riccana,’ appear She-
mitic. With the exception of these, it
would be difficult to find a series of names
which are so obscure to the philologist and
the historian. | 5
It is doubtful whether all these singula-
rities will be explained even by an acquaint-
ance with the entire ‘‘ Book of Nabathsean
Agriculture.” It is well known that one fatal
circumstance throws a grievous uncertainty
1 Weber, Indische Studien, II. pp. 313-314; Kuhn, Die Herab-
kunft des Feuers, pp. 131, 138 ff., 146, 147, 171 ff.
2 Compare the name of the Babylonian sage NaBovpiavds
(7733) in Strabo, (XVI. i. 6). But this name of Riccdna, ac-
cording to Prof. Chwolson, must be much more modern than the
others, and of the period of the Arsacides.
Shamaja and Stsikya have an
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. —
on particulars with respect to foreign na-
tions which have adopted the Arabic alpha-
bet. I allude to the indecisive form of
certain letters ; the absence of any diacritic
_-~—~—s points in proper names, or the inaccurate
way in which the points are placed. All
Shemitic alphabets are bad channels of
transcription, owing to the absence of
vowels. How then is this difficulty to be
overcome, when to this source of inaccu-
racy, we have to add another, even more
serious, that of the uncertainty as to the
letters themselves; the same =s goa for
example, being, perchance, either 3, n, t, y.'
1 The name of dle ga , for instance, which previously was read :
Yanbashadh, at the time when “The Book of Nabathwan Agri-
eulture’’ came to the knowledge of the Jews in the 12th century
(v. ante, p. 7), and which would give the key to the problem, if it
could be clearly ascertained—this Yanbishdh, in fact, should be a
personage whom we know under some other name,—is susceptible
of such a variety of renderings, that we may say that the forms or
letters of which it consists are of no value. The first three forms may
be taken each for four different letters ; the § which follows them is
easily confounded with the ); the three forms of the _» may be
like the strokes at the beginning, three different letters, each read~
ing in four ways; the | is often confounded with the J and the y
with the ).
- —~
, irate iy 2 By Ek
Pate + <a el Soe
84 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
The perplexity which one experiences in
certain chapters of Masoudi or Ibn-Abi-
_ Oceibia, whenever the subject relates to
Greece and Assyria, is scarcely less than
that which “The Book of Nabathean Agri-
culture’? occasions. There are the same
difficulties in seeking to establish the list
of forty-two Babylonian kings, beginning
with Nimrod, and ending with Darius,
which is given by the first of these
authors, as in finding the key to the his-
tory contained in the work of Kuthami.
The geography of ‘The Book of Naba-
thean Agriculture,’ which one would
imagine must be more easy to settle, is
not a bit less obscure. It is impossible to
form equally sound deductions from such
faulty records, as from ‘faithful docu-
ments. Besides which, nearly the same
effect is produced on historical facts by
the poverty and scantiness of Arabic prose,
as by their alphabet or proper names. Not
one of the circumstances which they have
handed down to us respecting Greece is
Jy
a »)) a P
P Gere et!
; ‘ion © ae ea Le
> ee i =e... oe SAT
oo = Te Sh wee ey
$07 AE ets il | eS eee en a
— Lae
‘tori lye oe ar
no ois aie ea ~_
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 85
recognisable. Their translations themselves
are nothing more than free reproductions,
accommodated to their habits of writing, and
we are told expressly that all the transla-
tions of Ibn Wahshiya were dictated by
him to one of his disciples, who subse-
quently adapted them to the taste of his
times.’
_ I would ask permission to hazard, if only
under the form of a mere conjecture, a sup-
position which, however, it is very difficult
‘not to entertain—I mean the possibility of a
literary fraud, or some degree of bad faith, ©
on the part of the author. Most un-
doubtedly the book is of an epoch which
always gives rise to suspicions, and not
without cause. The instance of the Desatir
occurs to me, as a case in point, whether
we like it or not, to confuse the mind
of a critic. The hypothesis of the Desatir
being apocryphal is surrounded by as many
difficulties as that which declares the history
fabricated upon which “The Book of Naba-
1 Pp. 15-16.
86 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
-
thean Agriculture’ is founded, rendering it
necessary to find at some point in history,
the reality of that series of sects, of pro-
phets, and founders of religion, which the
book of the Parsee enumerates. To recon-
cile other portions, gives rise to equal
doubts. Kuthami, like Berosus or San-
choniathon, like Josephus, or Mar Abas Ca-
tina, or Moses Choronensis, appears to have
been afflicted to the greatest degree with
the faults of all Oriental writers from the
time of Alexander to about our fifth cen-
tury,-a total want of judgment, unmeasured
syncretism, silly deductions (évhémérisme ),
and exaggerated national vanity.’ Un-
truths, apocryphal fabrications, all sorts
of confusion ;—sticking at nothing, in order
to establish their favourite position, proof of
the high antiquity of their doctrines, and
superiority of those doctrines over those of
the Greeks. That position was sometimes
true, at least so far as the antiquity of
1 See, for fuller details, my Mémoire sur Sanchoniathon, in the
Mémoires de I’ Acad. tome XXIII. 2nd part, p. 317 ff.
>
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 87
the doctrines is concerned ; but the argu-
ments brought forward to prove it, were
almost always detestable. An imaginary
history, formed by artful contrivances, ob-
tained credit, and after some centuries,
became an authority. From this air of
' folly and extravagance, which pervades
ancient Babylonian histories in Arabian
writers of the school of Bagdad, often
led away themselves by the false method ~
of their predecessors, ‘‘The Book of Na-
bathean Agriculture” appears to have been -
written at the date of this apocryphal and
5 3 trickish literature. The author is not a
forger himself, but he appears to be misled
by forgers. The true descendants of the
Nabatheans, the Mendaites, . continued
until the Mussulman epoch, and almost up
to our own times, to practise similar frauds,
from which small communities free them-
selves with such difficulty. Many of their
mythological personages have thus become
Hebrew patriarchs.' The Yezidis have
1 Chwolson, Die Ssabier, I. p. 651.
a ds ie
88 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
fallen into the same errors.' The Par- :
sees, likewise, in order to elude the pursuit
of Mussulman fanaticism, have more or
less Shemiticised their entire mythology.
The treatise of Hyde’ on the religion of
the ancient Persians, so imperfect as a pic-
ture of the true Zoroastrian institutions,
unknown at the time when Hyde wrote in
1700, but so curious as a picture of old
Persian traditions disfigured by Islamism,
presents at every step, names of Hebrew
patriarchs, substituted for those of the
heroes of Persia. Finally, the Ardai Viraf
Nameh, of the period of the Sassanides,
presents the extraordinary phenomenon of
a Jewish book, “‘The Ascension of Isaiah,”
changed bodily into full-blown Mazdeism,
and applied to a pretended sage, contem-
porary with Ardishir Babikan, Ardai Viraf.
The habit of fraud and untruth which in-
fested the Kast towards the close of the
1 Chwolson, Die Ssabier, I. p. 648 ff.
2 Hist. Religionis Vett. Persarum, eorumque Magorum, ete.
Lond. 1760.
>
ae ee ee ee
~4
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 89
period of the Seleucides, has furnished
criticism with enigmas which cannot be
explained; for those natural deductions,
which are so sure a guide, in considering
honest productions of the mind, are entirely
at fault, when dealing with these equivocal
and artificial compositions, the fruit of en-
feebled reason and sordid passions.
To the best of my belief, then, a very
limited range must be assigned to the Naba-
theean school. This school presents to us the
last phase of Babylonian literature, that which
extends from the first centuries of our era,
or, if you will, from the period of the Seleu-
cides or Arsacides, to the Mussulman inva-
sion. This literature, stricken to death by
Islamism, dragged out a miserable existence
during the Middle Ages, among the poor
sect of the Sabians, Nazoreans,*or Christians
of St. John, and sank to an unheard-of
degree of degradation and extravagance in
their writings. The works translated by
Ibn Wahshtiya, and the books of the Men- —
daites, are to us productions of one and
90 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
the same literature, with this difference,
that the books preserved and probably re-
written or re-modelled by the Mendaites
have suffered from the influence of Parseeism,
and followed that fatal growth of imbecility
which the East was not able to resist. As a
to the Nabathzean language, it is no longer
doubtful that it was identical with that of
the Mendaites;' and it was probably from > a
manuscripts, analogous to those which are
termed Sabian in our libraries, that Ibn
Wahshiya made his translations.
Who can assert that we have here an
intellectual group of which it is impossible
to prove its origin and unity? Take away,
to avoid the appearance of begging the
question, the four Nabatheean works which
have come down to us, still what Arabian
writers inform us concerning the Sabians ;
what we know of the School of Harran,.
which perpetuated the traditions of the
Syro-Babylonian school, improved by hard
1 See Histoire Générale des Langues Sémitiques, 1, III., ¢. ii,
sect. 82.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 91
study, to the twelfth century of our era;!
what we read of science and philosophy in
Arabian historians,—Said of Tolédo,’? Mo-
hammed Ibn Ishak, Jémal-eddin Ibn al-
Kofti, Ibn Abi-Oceibia, Abil Pharagius—
on the origin of various branches of know-
ledge, and concerning the lives of certain
philosophers who have become subjects of
fiction, together with the Mussulman legends
of Kdris, identified with Enoch, Hermes,
Otarid ; a sort of scientific mythology re-
ceived by all learned Arabs, and which
is not of Moslem origin; all proceed, I
maintain, evidently from the same homoge-
neous school, sui generis, the writings of
which were composed in an Aramaic dia-
lect. A host of facts prove that Babylon
was the theatre of a great upheaving of ideas
1 See the learned work of M. Chwolson: Die Ssabier und der
Ssabismus, St. Petersburgh, 1856.
2 This source, less known than the others, will appear one of the
most important, when M. Schefer has published the Kitdb tabacath
ul-timem, of which he possesses a manuscript, the only complete
one, I believe, in Europe.
% Journal Asiatique, March-April, 1854, p. 263; August-Sept.,
1854, pp. 181, 187-188 ; Bar Hebrai Chron. Syriacum, pp. 176-177
of the text ; pp. 180-181 of the translation.
92 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
-
in the first centuries of our era.|. The Jews
displayed a literary activity which, beyond
doubt, did not remain shut up in the bosom
of their communities. The Gnostic sects,
Pérates, Elchasaites, etc., developed them-
selves with a boldness and liberty which
mark at least an awakened intellect. The
wrestling of the Syrian Christians —St.
Ephraim, the Syrian,’ for instance—against
the Chaldeans, presumes that Christianity —
found there the most formidable resistance
which it had yet encountered. Finally, I
do not doubt that an attentive analysis of .
Greek manuscripts on astrology, on geneth-
lacs, etc., made with a preoccupation of
ideas awakened by the labours of Dr.
Chwolson, may show this result, that our
' On the various Schools of Babylonia, and on the Babylonian
sages, Cidénas, Naburiaénus, Sudfnus, Séleucus, see Strabo (XVI.
i, 6); Pliny (VI. xxx. 6); the Kitdd el-fihrist (Zeitschrift der —
Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1859, p. 628); the work before cited of
Said (pp. 21-22 of the MS. of M. Schefer). See also Stanley,
Histoire de la Philosophie Orient., p. 14 ff. Brucker, Historia’
Critica Philosophie, I. p. 130 ff. Unfortunately the dates put us
completely at fault here. ©
2 Bp. Jeremy Taylor hence calls Ephraim, the Syrian, the De-
struction of Heresies.—Zranslator’ s note.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 93
libraries, in Greek no less ‘ha in Arabic
_ manuscripts, contain considerable fragments
of Nabatheean literature. I will only offer
one example, because it presents the sin-
gular instance of a discovery made with 3
4
’
extraordinary penetration, by a scholar of
the great French school of the early part of
the seventeenth century, and which, buried
in oblivion for nearly two hundred years, | a
has acquired an unexpected. importance
- from the researches of modern criticism.
In the preface! to his treatise, De Annis
Olimactericis et Antiqua Astrologia (Leyde,
1648), Salmasius, after having quoted Ten- .
kelish4 according to Nasireddin Tousi, adds: a
“*\s,)05 autem sive Tenkelus ille Babylonius ;
quem memorat Nasirodinus, is omnino est
qui Tetxpog Bafuawvog Greecis vocatur, et
fortasse in scriptis Greecorum perperam
hodie legitur Tedxpog pro Tévxpos, idque
deflexum ex illo nomine Babylonio Tenclus.
Nisi sit verius Grecos ad nomen sibi
familiare propter adfinitatem soni yocabulum—-
_ 1 This preface is not paged; the catch word of the leaf is ¢. 3.
et
ad
4
'
= “i - a. ae 2 a Ye
“as cw ee oe ee rs SD : > :
94 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
Chaldeorum deflexisse, ut mos est illis. —
Nam Tetxpog Greecum nomen est, non Tévxpog
nec Tévxacs.” One is struck with admira-
tion at the quick perception of a scholar, a ¥
who deduced from the aspect alone of this z Be
singular name of the author, what Dr. :
Chwolson, with all his tact, has failed to—
do from the work itself, after having read 7
the whole of it. There is, indeed, no room —
to doubt that this Tenkelisha al-Babéli of
Arabic and Persian manuscripts’ is the 4
Tstxpog Bafurawyos, called also Tedxypos, : |
Teucer, Zeuchrus, Zeuchus, author of an
liacs, quoted by Psellus, by Antiochus the —
Apotelesmatist, and by many others,? and
1 The work of Tenkeldsh4 is often represented as a book of
paintings by the Arabs and Persians (See Chwolson, p. 140 ff.
Hyde, de Vett. Pers. Rel., pp. 282-283). This is easily under-—
stood, on looking at the manuscripts on genethliacs still in vogue —
in the East (our Paris manuscript, Supplément Ture, No. 93, for
instance). The numerous illustrations with which they are deco- __
rated make them resemble albums at the first glance.
2 See Salmasii Opera Critica, preef. leaf, ¢ ; and his Exercitationes —
Pliniane in Solinum (Paris, 1629), pp. 654- 655 ; Brucker, His- — a
toria Crit, Philos, t. I. p. 130; Fabricii Biblioth. Greca, Harles,
tom. IV. pp. 148, 166; Paradoxographi Westermanni, pref. p.
47 ff.; Miller, Journal des Savants, Oct., 1839, p. 607, note. fe
M. Miller has pointed out to me other auebatioae from the same
author in the great astronomical compilation contained in the MSS.
‘
c
ae: /
4 7
,
J
“ee
~~
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 95
of whom, at least, extracts exist in our
collections of Greek manuscripts.’ The con-
tents of these extracts tally precisely with
what we know, from Dr. Chwolson, of the
work of Tenkélishé. All tends to the be-
2420, 2424 of the Bibliothique Imperiale (fel. 82 of the 2nd part
of the first manuscript, and fo. 31 of the second), and in the
abridgement of the Thesaurus Talism. of Antiochus, abridged by
Rhétorius (No. 1991 of the Bibl. Imp., fol. 118). The quotation
from Porphyry, mentioned by Salmasius and Westermann, is erro-
neous: the work which they had in view is by this Antiochus.
(See Fabricii Bibl. Greca, Harles, tom. IV. pp. 151, 166; tom.
V. p. 741). I do not know why Fabricius proposes to identify
Teucer with Lasbas.
1 Tn particular one fragment entitled Tedxpov Mep) ray wapava-
TtedAbyrwy, in the grand astrological collection of manuscripts
2420, 2424 of the Bibl. Imp. fol. 89 of the 3rd part of the first,
fol. 134 of the 5th part of the second. This second reference cor-
responds with that of Labbe, Nova Bibl. MSS. Libror. (Paris,
1653), p. 278. The same fragment is mentioned by Bandini
(Catal. Codd. Gr. Bibl. Laurent. II. col. 60, No. xiii.), under this
title: Hep) ray mwapavarecdAdvrwy rots 18’ (pdlois Kara Tedxpor.
It appears more fully in the manuscript of Florence. M. Miller, to
whom I addressed myself to discover the manuscript cited by
‘Labbe, and to whom I owe the preceding information, adds the
following note: “According to the passage of Michel Psellus,
quoted by Salmasius (Exerc. Plin. p. 654), without saying from
whence he took it, and which I have also found in the Greek
manuscript 1630, fol. 228, Teucer must have written many works
- (BiBAtwy), among others: Ist, Mep) trav év odpayG (wdlwy ; 2nd,
Tlep) trav wapavaredAAdvrey (this is the work already mentioned) ;
3rd, TMep) tay Acyoudvwy SexavGv.” We should also examine
-Philosophumena, cura Duncker and Schneidewin, p. 84, etc., and ~
Bardesanus, in Cureton’s Spicil. Syriac, p. 24 ff.
7
P ah, | Near
= _ Pal 4 “ ca
96 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
lief fhat the true name of this Helleno-
Babylonian was Tedxgos, and that Tenklish
is an alteration.!. What proves this, and
gives, at the same time, a remarkable con-
firmation to the preceding opinion, is, that
in the Kitéb el-fhrist, by the side of
Tenklus, figures a (ws i.b—Tincrus, whose
legend has a wonderful resemblance to that :
of Tenklus, and to whom a work is ascribed
identical ‘in title with that of Tenklus. It
is evident that these two authors are but
one and the same, and that their names re-
present two forms of the primitive Tetxpog.’
There is nothing surprising in such a name,
when borne by a Babylonian sage, since in
' In fact, the termination ush is that of all the Greek names
which have passed into the Arabic and Persian. It is known that — ae
Z and r are confounded in Babylonian, and that these two letters
only make one in Pehlevi. The termination a is the Aramaic” a :
emphasis. The Kitdb el-fihrist gives the form Tenkélash. af
2 Look to the analysis of Kitdd el-fihrist given by M. Fluegel, __
in the Zeitschrift der Morgenl. Gesellschaft, 1859, p. 628. M —
Fluegel reads erroneously Tinacrius. The titles given in the Kitdd
el-fihrist ave: 1st, for Tenklus, doo'l, Sym sl cols; 2nd,
for Tincrus, dd=l, 9-9 ea dell gall cols; both o
which correspond sufficiently with the Greek titles referred to
above.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 97
the work of Said, entitled A7i/aéb tabacath al-
wmen, we find a Babylonian scholar figuring
as Istéfan al-Babéli,) whom the Arabian
author places confidently in the times of
Jethro, in spite of his Greek name and
Christian prefix of Stephanus. If some
Hellenistic scholar were to take the trouble
of carefully examining the Greek manu-
scripts on astrology and magic which have
come down to us, I have no doubt that he
would find there a host of texts, really Baby-
lonian, kindred to those to which Dr. Chwol-
son has drawn our attention.
From all this we may deduce, I imagine,
a complete idea of the intellectual state of
Babylonia, in the first centuries of our era ;
but it will not, as Dr. Chwolson believes,
furnish us with science at all equal to that
of the Greeks. What was deficient in this
movement was neither activity nor extent;
it lacked earnestness and method. If we seck
to appreciate, as a whole, the part which
Babylon took in the grand work of civili-
! Pp. 21-22 of the manuscript of M. Schefer,
" 5
98 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
zation, we are astonished to find all the pro-
ductions of the Babylonian mind tainted by
one radical vice. Judicial astrology, sorcery,
a branch of gnosticism, and the first germs
of the Cabbala—such are the wretched
gifts which Babylon has presented to the
world. There is no doubt that Babylon
is gravely responsible for the enfeeblement
of the mind in the first centuries of our era,
and that the epidemic of superstition and
chimerical science, which prevailed at that
epoch, must, in a great measure, be set
down to Chaldzan influence. It is cer-
tainly possible that Babylon may have pos-
sessed real science, before the time at which
she devoted herself to this unhappy propa-
gation of error. Judicial astrology leads to
the belief of an earlier regular astronomy ;
magic, which pretends to direct the secret
forces of Nature, presupposes a certain de-
velopment of the physical sciences.’ But we —
'! Similar results have happened to alchemy. The alchemy of
the middle ages, judged according to the extravagance of the six-
teenth century, was universally in the West, since the thirteenth
century, a chemical labour firmly established, but which at present
is allowed to lie all but forgotten in manuscripts.
BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 99
cannot allow ourselves to doubt that Baby-
lonian studies had greatly degenerated at the
time of the Seleucides; one cannot, in fact,
conceive that Babylonia should have spread.
abroad nothing but chimerical science,’ had
she possessed a sound philosophy. We can-
not, then, shut our eyes to the exaggeration
of the part which Dr. Chwolson ascribes to.
Babylonia in the history of the human mind.
Rectitude of thought, surety of judgment,
exclusive love of truth—without which
science cannot keep itself from degenerating
into routine, and interested self-complacency
—are the essential qualities of philosophical
creation. It is because she possessed these
qualities, to a degree of originality which
constitutes genius, that Greece holds a place
in the education of the mind, of which it is
not probable that she will ever be dispossessed.
1 The same may be said of Egypt. Egyptian and Babylonian
science appear to have had analogous destinies. Lacking that
purely analytical, experimental, and rational principle which gave
force to the Greek, as it still does to the modern mind, they
have not been able to defend themselves from the charge of
charlatanism, a term fatal to all culture which rests on anything
but purely scientific researches,
THE
POSITION
- SHEMITIC NATIONS
HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION.
’
Gn Fnangural Kecture,
B? ‘DELIVERED IN THE, COLLEGE OF FRANCE,
ON ASSUMING THE CHAIR OF THE
+
HEBREW, CHALDAIC, & SYRIAC PROFESSORSHIP,
BY
' mx
ie -
re :
As
ars” ,
M. ERNEST RENAN,
MEMBRE DE L’INSTITUT, ETC. ETC.
ADVERTISEMENT.
“A YEAR or two ago,” says a writer in the
London Review of the 8th of March last, “a lady
who was an intimate friend of Queen Hortense,
and who had known Louis Napoleon from his
boyhood, drew his attention to the great literary
merit of Monsieur Ernest Renan. The Emperor,
ever anxious to attract to his side the leading
minds of France, listened with interest, and lost
no time in casting about for some means to get
Monsieur Renan into his service. This, however,
was not so easy, for Monsieur Renan was a
member of what we may call the party of the
Institut, and was utterly opposed to the existing
state of things. At length, however, an interview
was arranged, and a series of negotiations com-
menced, which ended in Monsieur Renan’s agree-
ing to go to Syria, with a view to carrying out,
under the auspices of the French Government,
explorations and excavations amongst the old
Pheenician cities. He went thither, and he re-
turned thence, unpledged to the Government.
His journey was saddened by a most melancholy
event in his family, but he accomplished his
104 ADVERTISEMENT.
object,-and has come back to prepare for the
press a great work on Pheenician antiquities, and
to put into shape the numerous new idene which
he had gained in the Hast.
“A month or two after his return, the Imperial
Government appointed him to the chair of Hebrew.
His fitness for the post is beyond dispute. He is
incomparably the first Shemitic scholar in France,
and is one of the very few Frenchmen whom the
proudest of German /iterati allow to be on a level
with themselves in learning, while they speak with —
the highest admiration of his immeasurably greater
skill in clothing his ideas in simple and eloquent
Janguage. On this point we may speak with some
certainty, because it is only a few weeks since we
had the pleasure of conveying to Monsieur Renan
the cordial congratulations pf the greatest German
scholar whose line of study has coincided with
his labours. Some symptoms of disapprobation
having reached the ears of Government, when
Monsieur Renan’s appointment was first talked of, — a
it was proposed that the title of the chair to which
he was nominated should be the ‘Professorship of the -
Shemitic Languages as compared with each other,’
and not the old title of ‘ Professorship of Hebrew.’ ”
“Tt was understood,’ adds a writer in «the
Jiterary Gazette of the same date, “when the
t
ADVERTISEMENT. 105
-
chair was offered him, that he was to be careful
of entering on the arena of religious discussion.
It would seem that in the broad generalizations
which he has made on the distinctive characters
of the Indo-Germanic and Shemitic races, he has
handled a very delicate topic with great freedom.
The delivery of the lecture gained for him a most
gratifying and unexpected exhibition of feeling on
the part of the Paris students, so prompt and
decided, and sometimes so despotic in their ver-
dicts on public characters, whose manifestations,
however, are delightful even to professors, and
whose opinions have to be considered, no less by
journalists, as a power in the country.
“M. Renan’s friends were not without some
apprehensions about his reception, as the student-
population of the present time is passionately
sensitive on all topics of a religious nature, owing
to the interest which is felt on the Italo-Roman
question. ‘The lecturer, however, though he came
out triumphantly from this ordeal, met with less
favour from the authorities of the Collége de
France and the Government, for his lectures have
been suspended.”?
1 Since this was written M. Renan has been allowed to resume.
his lectures. Thursdays are to be devoted to Philological Lectures,
without political or religious discussion, and Saturdays to Ilustra-
tions of the Book of Job.
5*
106 ADVERTISEMENT.
The translator does not enter the arena either
in defence of M. Renan or of the French Govern-
ment. In England his appointment would either
never have been made, or never have been re-
scinded upon the mere pressure of any set of men
of extreme opinions, whatever their rank or profes-
sion. As it is, the London Review is not far wrong
in saying, “It is difficult to say how much harm
may be done to the Imperial Government by too
frequently yielding to the noisy protests of ene-
mies who vent their spite by interrupting plays”
and lectures. Not to have appointed Professor
- Renan, would have been but a small matter.
“Here is another instance,’ people would have
said, ‘of an able man passed over on account of
his political opinions.’ First, however, to appoint
him, and then to suspend him in deference to the
clamour of the Ultramontane faction, is to give
the bitterest enemies of the present régime a most
unnecessary triumph.”
The lecture is here presented to the reader as
sent forth by the author in print, being simply a
faithful translation of the French original. Truth
has nothing to fear from error; constant friction
does but improve its polish, even as it removes
the rust from steel.
| May, 1862.
‘
a
=
3
—
—
:
‘
4
q
_
3
fs
PREFACE.
In reproducing this discourse, it is a
pleasing duty to me to express my thanks
to the kind and enlightened audience,
which, perceiving with much tact that it
involyed a question of liberty, upheld me
during its delivery. To interrupt an in-
tellectual exercise at which one is not
compelled to be present, appears to me,
at all times, to be an illiberal action;
it is to oppose oneself with violence to
the opinion of another; to confound two
things, totally distinct: the admitted right
of fault-finding, according to liking or con-
science ; and the pretended right of stifling,
by one’s own authority, notions which are
looked upon as objectionable. Who does.
not see that this last pretension is the
source of all violence and all oppression ?
108 PREFACE.
In the teachings of the College of France,
surrounded by so many safeguards, this
suppression of speech seems to me par-
ticularly out of place. The nomination of
the Professors to that institution is made
on the presentation of the Professors of
the College, met together for the purpose, 4
and on that of the requisite class of the
Institute. This double presentation is not
an indisputable authority ; but it suffices, at
least, to show that he who is honoured with
it cannot be accused of presumptuous inten-
tions, when he ascends a chair to which he has
been appointed by suffrages so empowered.
I was desirous that the form of this first
lecture should not mislead the public as —
to the nature of my teaching. Downwards,
from Vatable and Mercier to M. Quatre-
mére, the chair to which I have had the
honour to be presented and named, has
borne a scientific (technique) and special
character. Without fettering in any way
my liberty or that of my successor, I should
PREFACE. 109
feel that I was doing an injury to science by
an appearance of disregard to this honoured
tradition. What would become of our
graver studies, if they had not an in-
violable sanctuary in the College of France ?
What of high cultivation of the intellect,
if mere general expositions, well enough,
perhaps, when delivered in the presence
- of a numerous audience, are to stifle in-
struction in a more severe form in an insti-
tution which, above all others, is destined
to endure as the School of deep scientific
research? I should be most culpable, if
the future could charge me with having
contributed to such a change. The pro-
gress of science is compromised, if we do
‘not profit by deep thought and reflection; .
if any one thinks he fulfils the duties of
life in holding blindly the opinions of any
party on all things; if fickleness, exclusive
opinions, abrupt and peremptory forms, sup-
press problems, instead of solving them.
Oh, that the fathers of modern intellect
110 ) PREFACE.
comprehended better the holiness of thought I
Noble and venerable shades of Reuchlin, .
of Henry Stephens, of Casaubon, of Des-
cartes, rise up and teach us what price you
put upon truth; by what toil you attained
it; what you suffered for it! It was the
comprehensive speculations of twenty per-
sons in the seventeenth century which en- —
tirely changed the notions of civilized nations —
throughout the world; it was the obscure
labours of some poor scholars of the six-
teenth century which founded historical
criticism, and opened up a total revolution
in ideas on the past history of man.
I have had too sensible an’ experience
of the intellectual discernment of the
public, not to feel certain that all those
who supported me yesterday will approve
of my following a like course, the most
profitable assuredly for science and the
wholesome discipline of the mind. |
)
Paris, February 28rd, 1862.
AN
INAUGURAL LECTURE,
ETC. ETC.
GENTLEMEN,
I am proud to ascend into this chair,
the most ancient in the College of France,
conspicuous for eminent men in the six-
teenth century, and occupied in our own
day by a scholar of such merit as M.
Quatremére. In founding the College of
France as a sanctuary for free science and
learning, King Francis the First laid down
as a constitutive law of this great establish-
ment, complete independence of criticism,
unbiased search after truth and impartial
discussion, bounded by no rules but those
of good taste and sincerity. Such, gentle-
men, is precisely the spirit which I would
112 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
bring into my teaching. I know the diffi-
culties which are inseparable from the chair
which I have the honour to occupy. It is
the privilege and the danger of Shemitic
studies to touch on the most important
problems in the history of the human race. |
Freedom of thought knows no limit; but
it necessitates that mankind should have
reached that degree of calm contemplation, .
where it is not required to recognise God in
each particular order of facts, simply because
He is seen in all things. Liberty, gentle-
men, when thoroughly understood, allows
these opposing claims to exist side by side.
I hope, by your aid, that this course will
be a proof of it. As I shall not introduce
any dogmatism into my teaching ; as I shall
always confine myself to appealing to your
reason, while proposing to you, what I
believe to be the most probable, leaving
you always the most perfect freedom of
judgment, who can complain? Only those
who believe they have a monopoly of truth.
But such persons must renounce now their
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 113
claims to the mastery of the world. The
Galileo of our day will not retract what he
knows to be the truth, on bended knee.
You will permit me, in the performance
of my task, to descend to the smallest
details, and to be habitually technical; and
Science, gentlemen, only attains its sacred
object, the discovery of truth, on condition
of being special and rigorous. Everyone
is not intended to be a chemist, physician, ~
philologist; to shut himself up in his
laboratory, to follow up for years an ex-
periment, or a calculation; everyone, how-
ever, participates in the great philosophical
results of chemistry, medicine, and philology.
To present these results, divested of the pro-
cesses which have served to discover them,
is a useful thing which Science should not
forbid. But such is not the mission of the
College of France: all the most special and
most minute processes of Science ‘should be
here laid bare.. Laborious demonstrations,
patient analysis, excluding it is true no
general development, no legitimate digres-
114 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION,
sion: such is the programme of our course.
It is, so to speak, the laboratory of philo-
logical science thrown open to the public,
that it may call into being special voca-
tions, and that the world may form an idea
of the means employed to arrive at Truth.
To-day, gentlemen, I should depart from
what is customary, and disappoint your ex-
pectations, were I to inaugurate this course
by mere technical developments. I would
fain recall to youthe memory of that eminent
scholar whom I have the honour to succeed _
—M. Stephen Quatremére. But this duty
having been already fulfilled in a manner
which does not allow me to repeat it, I
shall dedicate this first lecture to conversing
with you on the general character of the
nations whose language and literature we
shall study together; on the part they have
filled in history ; and on the portion which
they have contributed to the common work — a
of civilization. |
The most important results to which his-
torical and philological science has arrived
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 115
during the last half century, have been to
shew, in the general development of our
races, two elements of such a nature which,
mixing in unequal proportions, have made
the woof of the tissue of history. From the
seventeenth century—and, indeed, almost
from the middle ages—it has been acknow-
ledged that the Hebrews, the Pheenicians,
the Carthagenians, the Syrians, the Baby-
lonians (at least from a certain period), the
Arabs, and the Abyssinians, have spoken
languages most intimately connected. ich-
horn, in the last century, proposed to call
these. languages Shemitic, and this name,
most inexact as it is, may still be used.
A most important and gratifying dis-
covery was made in the beginning of our
century. Thanks to the knowledge of Sans-
crit, due to English scholars at Calcutta,
German philologists, especially M. Bopp,
have laid down sure principles, by means
of which it is shown that the ancient
idioms of Brahmanic India, the different —
dialects of Persia, the Armenian, many dia-
116 _ SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
lects of the Caucasus, the Greek and Latin
languages, with their derivatives, the Sla-
vonic, German, and Celtic, form one vast -
family entirely distinct from the Shemitic
eroup, under the name of Indo-Germanic,
or Indo-European.
The line of demarcation, revealed by the
comparative study of languages, was soon
strengthened by the study of literatures,
institutions, manners, and religions. If we
know how to assume the right point of
view in such a careful comparison, it is seen
that the ancient literatures of India, Greece,
Persia, and the German or Teutonic nations,
are of a common stock, and exhibit deeply —
rooted similarity of mind. The literature of
the Hebrews and that of the Arabs, have
much in common ; while on the contrary they
have as little as possible with those which
I have just named. We should search in - a
vain for an epic or a tragedy among the
Shemitic nations; as vainly should we
search among the Indo-European nations
_ for anything analogous to the Kasida of
eo. aie
i Sree ae ee oe
eer 6 PS ee
~ ra
. e 2 6.
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 117
the Arabs, and that species of eloquence
which distinguishes the Jewish prophets
and the Koran. The same must be said
of their institutions. The Indo-European
nations had, from their beginning, an old
code, of which the remains are found in.
the Brahmanas of India, in the forms of
the Romans, and in the laws of the Celts,
the Germans, and the Slaves; the patri-
archal life of the Hebrews and Arabs was
governed, beyond contradiction, by laws
totally different. Finally, the comparison
of religions has thrown decisive light on
_ this question. By the side of comparative
philology in Germany there has of late
years arisen the science of comparative
mythology, which has shown that all the
Indo-European nations had, in their be-
ginning, with the same language also the
same religion, of which each carried away
scattered fragments on leaving their common.
eradle; this religion, the worship of the
powers and phenomena of Nature leading ©
by philosophical development to a sort of
118 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
Pantheism. The religious development of
the Shemitic nations obeyed laws totally
different. Judaism, Christianity, Islamism,
possess a character of dogmatism, absolutism,
and severe monotheism which distinguishes
them radically from the Indo-Kuropean,—
or, as we term them, the Pagan religions.
Thus we see two individualities, perfectly
recognizable, which occupy between them, in
some manner, nearly the whole field of
history, and which are, as it were, the two
poles of the axis of civilization. I say
nearly the whole field of history ; for be-
sides these two great individualities, there
are still two or three, which are yet suffi-
ciently palpable for the purposes of science,
and of which the action has been consider-
able. Putting China aside, as a world by
itself, and the Tartar races, which have
only acted as inherent scourges to destroy
the works of others, Egypt has had a con-
siderable part in the history of the world;
yet Egypt is neither Shemitic nor Indo-
European ; nor is Babylon a purely Shemitic
ites
ee: Fe ee eee re ee
al et ee oe ee
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 119
creation. ‘There was there, it seems to me,
a first type of civilization analogous to that
of Egypt. It may be said even, generally,
that before the entrance of the Indo-Euro-
pean and Shemitic nations on the field of
history, the world had already very ancient
civilizations, to which we are indebted, if
not for moral, at any rate for the elements
of industry, and a long experience of mate-
rial life. But all this is yet but dimly
shadowed by history ; all this fades before
such facts as the mission of Moses, the
invention of alphabetical writing, and the
conquests of Cyrus and Alexander; the rule
of the world by the genius of the Greeks,
Christianity, and the Roman Empire; Islam-
ism, the Germanic conquest, Charlemagne,
and the Revival of letters; the Reformation,
Philosophy, the French Revolution, and the
conquest of the world by modern Europe.
Here, then, is the great current of history ;
this great current is formed by the mingling |
of two streams, in comparison with which
all its other confluents are but rivulets.
120 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
Let us try to trace in this complex whole a %
the part played by each of the two great
races, which, by their combined action, and a
more often by their antagonism, have con- a
ducted the course of the world to the point
on which we stand. fo
Let me explain. When I speak of the =
blending of the two races, it is simply in
respect to the blending of ideas, and, if I
may venture to express myself, to fellow eo .
labour historically considered, that I would s
use the term. The Indo-European and the
Shemitic nations are in our day still per-
fectly distinct. I say nothing of the Jews,
whose singular and wonderful historical des- a
tiny, has given them an exceptional position =
among mankind, and who, except in France, .
which has set the world an example in —
upholding the principle of a purely ideal’
civilization, disregarding all difference of
races, form everywhere a distinct and sepa- <a 3
rate society. The Arab, and, in a more
general sense, the Mussulman, are sepa- ae
Rc:
rated from us in the present day more than
Ws
as
“i
ae”
SAA) al EE na bee ae
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 121
they have ever been. The Mussulman (the
Shemitic mind is everywhere represented in
our times by Islamism) and the European,
in the presence of one another, are like
beings of a different species, having no one
habit of thought and feeling in common.
But the progress of mankind is accomplished
‘by the contest of contrary tendencies ; by a
sort of polarisation, in consequence of which
each idea has its exclusive representatives
in this world. It is as a whole, then, that
these contradictions harmonise, and that
profound peace results from the shock of
apparently inimical elements.
This admitted, if we seek out what the
Shemitic nations have contributed to that
organic and living whole, which we call
civilization, we shall find, first, that in
Political Economy we owe them nothing.
Political life is, perhaps, that which is
most innate and peculiar to Indo-European
nations ; for these nations alone have known |
liberty, and comprehended, in fact, the con-
stitution of the State and the liberty of the
6
122 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
Subject. It is true they have by no means
at all times reconciled these two opposite
necessities equally well. But we never find
amongst them those great single despotisms,
destroying all individuality, and reducing
man to a sort of abstract state and name-
less function, as we see him in Egypt,
Babylonia, China, and in Mussulman and
Tartar despotisms. Take, one after another
the little municipal republics of Greece and
Italy, the Germanic feudality, the grand
centralized organizations of which Rome
gave the first model, and of which the
French Revolution reproduced the ideal,
and you will always find a vigorous moral
element, a strong sense of the public weal,
and sacrifice to one general end. Indi-
viduality was but little secured in Sparta ;
the petty democracies of Athens, and of “a
Italy in the middle ages, were nearly as fero-
cious as the most venal tyrant; the Roman
Empire reached (partly, it is true, through
the influence of the East) to an intolerable
despotism ; German feudality bordered upon
—a
F
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 123
brigandage; the French monarchy, under
Louis XIV., almost emulated the excesses
of the Sassanidan or Mongol dynasties; the
French Revolution, while calling into being
with incomparable vigour the principle of
unity in the State, frequently compromised
liberty in no trifling degree. But prompt
reactions have always saved these nations
from the consequences of their errors.
Not so in the East. The East, especially
the Shemitic East, has never known any
medium between the complete anarchy of
the wandering Arabs and sanguinary and
unmitigated despotism. The idea of public
weal, of public good, is completely wanting
among these nations. True and complete
liberty, such as the Anglo-Saxon race has
realized, and grand State organizations,
such as the Roman Empire and France
have engendered, have been equally un-
known to them. The ancient Hebrews and
the Arabs have been, and are at short in-
tervals, the most free of men; but condi-
tionally subject to the chance of having on
124 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
the morrow a chief who takes off their
heads at pleasure. And when that happens,
no one complains of violated rights. David
attained his kingdom by means of a sort
of energetic brigandage (condottiere), which —
was not inconsistent with his being a very ~
religious man, and a king after God’s own
own heart; Solomon succeeded to and main-
tained the throne by the same means as ‘ 4
are used by Sultans in every age, which
did not prevent his passing for the wisest —
of kings. When the Prophets attacked
- royalty, it was not in the name of a political
right ; it was in the name of the Theocracy.
Theocracy, anarchy, despotism—such, gen-
tlemen, is, in few words, the epitome of
Shemitic political economy; happily it is
not ours. Political economy deduced from
Holy Scripture (very imperfectly deduced, it
is true) by Bossuet, is a° detestable system. °
In politics as in poetry, in religion, and
in philosophy, the duty of the Indo-Euro-
pean nations is to search out subtleties, to
reconcile anjagonistic claims, and that com-
+
Hee
Qe eee Pe ck
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 125
plexity of ideas, so utterly unknown to
Shemitic nations, whose organizations have
always been of distressing and fatal sim-
plicity.
In Art and Poetry, what do we owe to
them? Nothing in Art. These nations
have but little of Art in them; our Art
comes entirely from Greece. In Poetry,
however, without being their dependents,
we hold in common with them more than
one point of resemblance. The Psalms have
become, in some respects, one of our sources
of poetry. Hebrew poetry has taken its
place among us, by the side of Greek
poetry, not as furnishing any positive school,
but as constituting a poetical ideality, a sort
of Olympus, where, by dint of an aecepted
prestige, everything is tinted by a lam-
bent glory. Milton, Lamartine, Lamennais,
would not have existed at all, or certainly
not as they are, without the Psalms.
Here, again, all the shadows that are deli-
eate, all that are profound, are our own
work. The subject which is essentially
126 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
poetic is the destiny of man; his melan-
choly vicissitudes, his uneasy search into
causes, his just complaint against Heaven.
We have no need to learn this from any
one. The eternal school for this is the soul
of each individual.
In Science and Philosophy we are ex-
clusively Greek The search into causes,
knowledge for the sake of knowledge, is
a thing of which there is no trace pre-
vious to Greece; a process we have learnt
from her alone. Babylon had Science, but
not the real element of science, an absolute
fixidity of the laws of Nature. Egypt had
knowledge of geometry, but she did not
produce the Elements of Euclid. As to the
old Shemitic mind, it was in its nature anti-
philosophical and anti-scientific: In Job,
the search into causes is almost represented
as impiety. In Ecclesiastes, science is de-
clared a vanity. The author, prematurely
disgusted, vaunts his having learnt all that
is under the sun, and of having found no-
thing but weariness. Aristotle, nearly his
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 127
contemporary, and who had more right to
say that he had exhausted the universe,
never speaks of weariness. The wisdom of
Shemitic nations never rises above parables
and proverbs. Arabian science and Arabian
philosophy are often alluded to, and, in fact,
during one or two centuries in the middle
ages, the Arabs were our teachers; but it
was only until we were acquainted with the
Greek originals. This Arabian science and
philosophy was only a puerile rendering
of Greek science and philosophy. From
the time when Greece herself reappeared,
these pitiful versions became valueless ;
and it was not without cause that all
scholars at the revival of letters com-
menced a real crusade against them. When
closely examined, moreover, this Arabian
science has nothing Arabian in it. Its
foundation is purely Greek ; among its ori-
ginators there is not a single true Shemite ;
they were all Spaniards and Persians who
wrote in Arabic. The philosophical part
filled by the Jews in the middle ages was
128 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
that of simple interpreters. The Jewish
philosophy of that period is Arabian philo-
sophy, without modification. One page of
Roger Bacon contains more of the true
spirit of Science than all this second hand
knowledge, devoid of true originality, and-
respectable only as a link in the chain of
tradition.
If we examine the quoi in a moral
and social point of view, we shall find
that Shemitic morality is, at times, very
high and very pure. The code attributed
to Moses contains exalted ideas of | right.
The prophets are sometimes most eloquent
tribunes. The moralists, Jesus the son of
Sirach, and Hillel, rise to a surprising
loftmess. Nor must we forget that the
morality of the Gospel was first preached
in a Shemitic tongue. On the other hand
the Shemitic character is generally hard,
narrow, egotistical. In this race we find
strong passions, perfect devotion, and in-
comparable qualities. It rarely possesses
that delicacy of moral feeling which seems
ee eee ee
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 129
to be the peculiar inheritance of the Ger-
manic and Celtic races. The tender, deep,
melancholy emotions, those dreams of the
Infinite in which all the powers of the soul
are mingled, that great consciousness of
duty, which alone gives a solid basis to
our faith and our hopes, are the work of
our race and our climate. Here, then, the
labour is mingled. The moral education of
mankind is not the exclusive merit of any
race. The reason of this is perfectly simple.
Morality does not teach more than Poetry ;
beautiful aphorisms do not make an honest
man. Everyone finds good in the loftiness
of his nature, and in the immediate revela-
tion of his own heart. |
As regards industry, invention, material
civilization, we owe, beyond contradiction,
much to the Shemitic nations. Our race,
gentlemen, did not begin with a taste for
comfort and for business. It was a moral,
brave, and warlike race, jealous of liberty
and honour, loving’ Nature, capable of self-
devotion, preferring many things to life.
6*
130 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
Commerce and the industrial arts were first
carried on on a grand scale by a Shemitic
people, or at least by a people speaking a
Shemitic tongue,—the Pheenicians. In the
middle ages, the Arabs and the Jews were
also our masters in point of commerce. All
European luxuries, from ancient times to
the seventeenth century, came from the
East. I speak of luxury, not of Art; there
is a vast difference between the two.
Greece, which, as regards taste, had an
immense superiority over the rest of man-
kind, was not a land of luxury; there
the vain magnificence of the palace of the
great king was spoken of with contempt ;
and if we could be allowed to see the house
of Pericles, we should probably scarcely
think it habitable. I do not insist on this
point; for then we should have to examine
whether this Asiatic luxury, that of Ba-
bylon, for instance, were really the work
of the Shemites? I, for one, doubt it.
' But one indisputable gift they made us,
a gift of the highest order, and which
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 131
ought to place the Phcenicians nearly on a
par with their brothers, the Hebrews and
Arabs, in the history of progress,—our
alphabet. You know that the characters
which we now use are, through a thousand
transformations, the same with which the
Shemites first expressed the sounds of their |
language. The Greek and Latin alphabets,
from which our European alphabets are all
derived, are no other than the Phenician
alphabet. Phonetic writing, that luminous
idea of expressing each articulation by a
sign, and reducing these articulations to a
small number—twenty-two,—was an inven-
tion of the Shemites. But for them, we
should, perhaps, still be draggling on pain-
fully with hieroglyphics. It may, therefore,
be said, in one sense, that the Phcenicians,
whose literature has so unhappily entirely
disappeared, have thus fixed the_ essential
condition to all firm and precise exercise of
thought. |
But I hasten to pass on, gentlemen, to
the chief service which the Shemitice race
132. SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
has’ rendered to the world, to its especial
work, and, if one may be allowed the ex-
pression, its Providential mission. We ‘do
not owe to the Shemitic race our political
existence, our Art, our Poetry, our Philo-
sophy, nor our Science. For what, then,
are we indebted to it? We owe to them
Religion. The whole world, with the ex-
ception of India, China, Japan, and na-
tions yet altogether savage, has adopted
Shemitic religions. The civilized world
numbers only Jews, Christians, and Mussul-
mans. The Indo-European race, in par-
ticular, except the Brahmanic family and
the feeble remnants of the Parsees, has
passed entirely over to Shemitic creeds.
What has been the cause of this remark- =
able phenomenon ? How is it that nations,
which hold the guidance of the world, have
abdicated their own creed to adopt that of .
those whom they have overcome ?
The primitive worship of the Indo Mens
pean race, gentlemen, was as beautiful and —
full of depth as the imagination of the
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 133
people themselves. It was like an echo of
Nature—a sort of Nature’s hymn,—in which
the idea of a single Cause appeared but
fleetingly and with great indistinctness. It
was a religion of childhood, full of simplicity
and poetry, but which was sure to crumble
away as thought became more active. Persia
first effected its reform, which is connected
with the name of Zoroaster, under infiu--
ences, and at a period, of which we know
nothing. Greece, in the time of Pisistratus,
was even then dissatisfied with her religion,
and cast her look towards the East. In
the Roman epoch, the old Pagan worship
had become altogether insufficient. It no
longer appealed to the imagination ; it ad-
dressed itself but feebly to the moral senti-
ment. The early embodiments of the powers
of Nature had become but legends, at times
amusing and pointed, but destitute of all
religious value. It was exactly at this
_ epoch that the civilised world found itself
face to face with the Jewish religion.
1 M, Renan’s views of Judaism and Christianity are peculiar,
134 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
Founded on the clear and simple dogma of
Divine Unity, scattering naturalism and
pantheism to the winds, by this phrase of
marvellous precision: ‘In the beginning
God created the Heaven and the Karth;”’
possessing a Law, a Book, the repository
of elevated moral teachings and lofty reli-
gious poetry, Judaism had an incontestible
superiority, and at that time it might have
seemed possible to predict that some day
the world would worship as the Jews; that
is, leave its ancient mythology for mono-
theism. An extraordinary movement which
took place at that moment, in the bosom of
Judaism itself, decided the victory. Side
by side with these grand and’ incomparable
portions, Judaism contained the principle
of a narrow formalism and fanaticism, both
exclusive and disdainful of the foreigner.
This was the Pharisaical spirit} in later
times it engendered the Talmudical spirit.
belonging to the extreme advanced school of theology; and the
expression of these views in the following passages led to the sup-
pression of his course of lectures at the College of France, for
a time.—Translator's Note.
~
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 135
If Judaism had been nothing but Phari-
Saism, it would have had no future. But
this race possessed in itself a religious ac-
tivity truly extraordinary. Moreover, like
all great races, it nurtured opposite tenden-
cies: it knew how to re-act against itself,
and to acquire, where needed, qualities the
most opposed to its defects. In the very
midst of the tumultuous fermentation in
which the Jewish nation was plunged,
under the last Aramean princes, the most
extraordinary moral event recorded in his-
tory came to pass in Galilee.
A man, to be compared with none other—
so great indeed that, although every thing
in these studies and in this place, should
be viewed only by the light of Positive
Science, I should be unwilling to contra-
dict those who, struck by the exceptional
character of his work, call him God—
worked out ja reform of Judaism, a reform
of such depth, so individualized (s¢ indi-
viduelle), that it was in truth a new crea-
tion in all its parts. Having attained a
136 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
higher degree of religious eminence than
man had ever reached before, having come
to look upon God in the relation of a son
to a father, devoted to his work, with an
oblivion of all beside, and an abnegation
never before so loftily carried out, the
victim at last of his idea, and deified by
his death, Jesus founded the eternal reli-
gion of mankind,—the religion of the soul
set free from all priesthood, all worship,
all observances; accessible to all races, su-
perior to the distinctions of caste—in one
word—absolute, ‘‘ Woman, the time is
come when they will not worship any
more in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem,
but when the true worshippers will wor-
ship in spirit and in truth.”’ The genial
centre to which man, for centuries to come,
should trace back his joy, his hopes, his
consolation, and his motives for well-doing,
1 Our version :—‘ Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when
ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at J erusalem, worship
the Father ........ But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth”
(John iv, 21 and 23).—TZranslator’s Note.
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 137
was established. The most abundant source
of virtue which the sympathetic contact of
a sublime perception has made to well up
in the heart of man, was opened. The
lofty conception of Jesus, scarcely compre-
hended by his disciples, sustained consider-
able diminution.
Nevertheless, Christianity prevailed from
the first, and prevailed without limit
above all other existing forms of faith.
‘Those forms which did not aspire to any
absolute worth, which had no solid or-
ganization, and which responded to no-
thing moral, made but feeble resistance.
Some efforts made to reform them, in ac-
cordance with the new requirements of
mankind, and to introduce into them an
element of earnestness and morality,—the
attempt of Julian, for instance,—-completely
failed. The Empire, which believed, not
without reason, that its very element was
threatened by the growth of a new power—.
the Church—resisted at first most energeti-
cally: it finished by adopting the faith
eae ee ee
138 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
which it had battled against. All the
people influenced by the culture of Greece
and Rome, became Christians; the Ger-
manic nations and the Slaves’ followed some-
what later. Persia and India alone, of the
Indo-European race, preserved, much altered
it is true, the old faith of their ancestors,
owing to their religious institutions being ©
strongly and closely allied to the State.
The Brahmanic race, above all, rendered to
the world a scientific service of the highest
order, by the preservation, with an exuber-
ance of minute and touching precaution, —
of the most ancient hymns of that worship,
the Vedas.
The religious fertility of the Shemitie
race was not yet exhausted. After this un-
equalled victory, Christianity, taken up by
Greek and Latin civilization, had become the
property of the West; the East, its birth-
place, was just the place where it encoun-
tered the greatest obstacles. Arabia espe-
cially, towards the seventh century, could
1 The Slaves or the Slavonic race.
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 139
not make up its mind to become Christian.
Wavering between Judaism and Christianity,
between native superstition and memories of
the old patriarchal worship, disgusted by
the mythological elements which the Indo-
European race had introduced into the heart
of Christianity, she would return to the re-
ligion of Abraham. She founded Islamism.
Islamism rose up in its turn with an im-
mense superiority in the midst of the debased
religions of Asia. With a single blow it
overturned -Parsee-ism, which had been
strong enough to triumph over Christianity
under the Sassanides, and reduced it to the
position of a petty sect. India also saw,
in turn, but without being converted, the
Divine Unity proclaimed victoriously in the
midst of her ancient Pantheon. Islamism,
in a word, brought over to Monotheism,
nearly all those pagan lands which Chris-
tianity had not yet converted. It is finish-
ing its mission in our times by the conquest.
of Africa, which is now becoming almost
entirely Mahometan. Thus with a few
140 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
exceptions of minor importance, the world
in a manner has been entirely subdued by
the spreading of Shemitic Monotheism. |
Are we to admit, then, that the Indo-
European nations have completely renounced
their individuality in adopting the Shemitic
creed? By no means. While adopting the
Shemitic religion, we have greatly modified =
it. Christianity, in its usual acceptation, is —
in reality our own work; Primitive Chris- _
tianity, consisting essentially, in the apoca-
lyptic belief, of a kingdom of God yet to —
come, Christianity such.as it appeared to
the mind of a St. James, a Papias, was
very different from our Christianity, overlaid
with metaphysics by the Greek Fathers,
and the Scholastic teaching of the middle
ages, reduced to a system of morality and
charity by the enlightenment of modern —
times. The victory of Christianity was
only secured when it completely cast aside
its Jewish clothing; when it became again
what it had been in the lofty conception
of its Founder, a creation divested of
gE Te LOK FA
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stem
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 1 4]
the firm trammels of the Shemitic spirit.
This is so true that Jews and Mahometans
have nothing but aversion for this religion,
the sister of their own; but which, in the
hands of another race, has clothed itself with
exquisite poetry, the enchanting adornment
of romantic legends. Beings, gentle, sensi-
tive, and imaginative, such as the author of
The Imitation of Christ, such as the mystics of
the middle ages, such as the saints in general,
have professed a religion proceeding in truth
from the Shemitic mind, but transformed in —
all its parts, by the genius of modern na-
tions, especially by the Celtic and Germanic
races. That depth of sentiment, that tender
melancholy, found in the religion of a
Francis of Assisi, of a Fra Angelico, were
every way opposed to Shemitic genius,
essentially hard and dry.
As for the future, gentlemen, I foresee,
more and more, the triumph of Indo-Euro-
pean genius. From the sixteenth century,
one great fact, till then doubtful, continues
to manifest itself with striking energy ; it
142 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
is the decided victory of Europe, it is the
accomplishment of the old Shemitic saying’
‘¢God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall
dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall
be his servant.’
Until that period, Shemitism was master _ 3
on its own ground. The Mussulman East
surpassed the West, had better armies, and
a better policy, and supplied the latter with
wealth, learning, and_ civilization. Now
their respective parts are changed. Euro-
pean genius has been developing itself with
incomparable grandeur; Islamism, on the
contrary, has been as slowly crumbling
away ; in our times it is falling with a crash. —
In the present day, the one essential con-
dition for the expansion of European civili-
zation is the destruction of the principle
of Shemitic action (chose)—the destruction
of the theocratic power of Islamism, and
consequently the destruction of Islamism it- —
self; for Islamism can only exist as an
official religion: reduce it to the position of
1 Genesis ix. 27.
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 143
a religion, free and individual, and it will
perish. Islamism is not a merely State re-
ligion, like Catholicism was in France under
Louis XIV, and still is in Spain; it is a re-
ligion which excludes the State, an organi-
zation of which the Papal States offer the
only type in Europe. War unceasing is
there,—war which will only cease when the
last son of Ismael shall have died with
misery, or been driven by terror to the
depths of the desert. Islamism is the perfect
negative of Europe; Islamism is fanaticism,
such as Spain in the time of Philip II., and
Italy in the time of Pius V., scarcely knew.
Islamism is contempt of science, suppression
of civil society ; it is the frightful weakness
of the Shemitic spirit, narrowing the mind of
man; closing it against every delicate con-
ception, every fine feeling, every rational.
research, to place it immovably in front of
one unceasing tautology: God is God.
The future, gentlemen, then belongs to
Europe, and to Europe alone. Europe will
subdue the world, and will spread over it its
144 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
religion, which is individual right, liberty,
respect,—that belief which breathes a
something divine into the heart of man. In
the course of events, the progress of Indo-
European nations will consist in separating
itself more and more from the Shemitic
mind. Our religion will retain less and
less of Judaism; more and more will it
resist all political organization in matters
concerning the soul. It will become the re-
ligion of the heart,—the inmost poetry of
each human being. In morality we shall at-
tain to a delicate nicety unknown to the
beings of the Old Alliance; we shall become
more and more Christians. In politics we
shall reconcile two things always ignored
by Shemitic nations,—liberty, and a strong
political organization. In poetry, we shall
require an expression of that instinct of
infinity which is at once our delight and
our dread: in either case, our true no-
bility. In philosophy, instead of scholastic
dogmatism, we shall open up vistas of the
general system of the world., In short,
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SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 145
we must study every delicacy of shade,
require subtilty instead of dogmatism, the
relative instead of the absolute. This is, in
my opinion, our future, if the future mean
progress. Shall we attain to a more certain
knowledge of the destiny of Man and his
connection with the Infinite? Shall we un-
derstand more clearly the law of the origin
of being, the nature of perception, what life
is, and what personality? Will the world,
without returning to credulity, and while
persisting in the path of positive philosophy,
find again true joy, ardour, hope, calm con-
templation ? Will it some day be worth
while to live; and will the man who believes
in duty, find in that duty his reward? Will
that science to which we devote our lives
repay us for what we sacrifice to her? I
know not. All that is certain is this: in
seeking for Truth in a scientific way we
shall have performed our duty. If Truth
is sad, we shall at least have the consolation
of having found it by recognized rules; it
may be said that we deserved to find it
7
146 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION.
more consoling; we shall bear this testi-
mony, that we have been true and sincere
at heart.
Truth to say, I may not linger on such
thoughts. History proves this truth, that
there is a transcendent instinct in human
nature, which urges it to a nobler goal.
The development of mankind is not to be
explained by the hypothesis that man is
only a finite being; virtue but a refinement
of egoism ; religion but a cheat. Our toil is
notin vain, gentlemen. Whatever the author
of The Book of Ecclesiastes may have said, in
a moment of depression, science is not the
worst pursuit which God has given to
the sons of men. It is the best. If all is —
vanity, he who devotes his life to Truth will
not be more deceived than others. If Truth
and well-being are real, and of that we are
assured beyond all contradiction, they who
search for them and love them, are they
who will have lived best.
Gentlemen, we shall not meet again: in
my next lecture I shall go into the depths
SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 147
of Hebrew Philology, where the greater part
of you will not accompany me. But you
who are young, to whom I may allow my-
self to offer counsel and advice, will be here
to listen tome. ‘The active zeal which ani-
mates you, and which has shewn itself more
than once during this lecture in a manner so
flattering to me, is praiseworthy in principle,
and of good omen ; but do not let it degene-
_rate into frivolous agitation. Turn to solid
studies ; believe that true science is, above
all, the result of cultivation of the mind, no-
bility of heart, independence of judgment.
Prepare for our country generations ripe in
all things which constitute the glory and
ornament of life. Guard against unreflect-
ing impulses, and remember that liberty can
only be achieved by seriousness, respect for
yourselves and for others, devotion to the
public weal, and to that special work which
each of us is sent into the world to com-
mence or to continue.
THE END.
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