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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 


oa eee om eo ae eee Co, es eee “~~ 5 
wa a > r = ‘ oS i lene i he ( 
—itae ier tre 4 Arie * sa ee ag a ® ; = wed ioe [ar wt 


ae 
7" > 


A 


I il lS 


a 


ee aa ee 


a + 4s. 
aed Lites Sie ae 


: 
? 


ra 


We 


sy = 
uv Ns - 
s ” 


- 


ae ¥ 


at ea 


See ye 
oe ~ c 
x 


fat 
he 


sr? 


. 


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 
De niet: i al 4 
. 


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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